xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Thursday morning (Reply)

Another training session, in the Danger Room this time, as Haroun gets Nathan to push a little farther and use his powers in a new way beneficial to both of them. Nathan perhaps takes it a little too far, but no one gets set on fire this time.

"You're grinning like a maniac again," Nathan said a bit darkly, following Haroun into the Danger Room. "I'm learning not to trust that grin." Especially since Haroun was difficult enough to scan that he couldn't just take a peek and find out what the other man had in store for himself. "You said something about this being intended to stop me from spraining my brain next time? We're already assuming that more students will be blowing up on us?"

"I figure it's a safe assumption." Haroun said. "And you should never trust a grinning man - you never know what he's grinning about. But I've got a training idea for you - you still cleared for some heavy lifting?"

Nathan nodded as the doors slid shut behind them. "Moira ran another set of tests the day after I lifted the jet. No sign of any problems, so as long as I'm not stupid - her words, not mine - I can pretty much do whatever I want again."

Haroun grinned like a maniac again. "Oh good. Ready to go do something really stupid?" he laughed. "I have a very simple idea. It helps you, and it helps me. You even get to try something that I'm not sure you can do. Tell me, can you use that big brain of yours to detect changes in temperature?"

Nathan thought about it. "Agitation of the air molecules, yes. I've been experimenting with what I did out over the lake the other day - I think I understand how it works."

"Good. We're going to play a game. It's called Hold The Black Man Down." Haroun said with a grin. "It's very simple. You grab a hold of me telekinetically. I push up, you hold me to the ground. We'll stick with strict up-and-down for now. You also get to monitor my temperature - if I get too hot, you have to tell me so I don't burn. Sound interesting?"

Nathan raised an eyebrow, feeling a flicker of anxiety at the thought. It had been resisting the blast wave that had messed him up so badly at Shiro's little nuclear detonation - this wouldn't be anywhere near as much force, but still. "So you're trusting the man who set you on fire to keep you from setting yourself on fire? Interesting is one word..."

Haroun grinned. "You also mentioned having some trust issues. Figure you've got to give if you're going to get. I trust you not to let me burn myself."

Nathan grumbled, taking a number of steps back so that he'd be out of range of Haroun's backwash. Shielding at the same time he was doing this was something he wanted to avoid if at all possible. "You had to put it that way, didn't you? All right. Whenever you're ready."

Haroun kept his maniacal grin on. "Sure did." He rolled his neck, producing an interesting cascade of popping sounds, then looked at the ceiling of the Danger Room. With a mental command, his backpack folded out of his torso and ignited. "Ready." he said, not quite ready to start pushing until he got the go-ahead from Nathan.

Nathan reached out and took a careful grip on Haroun. "Ready here, too," he said, bracing himself both physically and mentally.

Haroun grinned and kicked his power on as hard as he could - at this burn rate, he could only sustain for a minute or so, but that should be a good solid test.

He felt the strain immediately, and stumbled backwards, the tension behind his eyes turning painful almost instantly. Haroun was five--no, ten feet off the ground, and Nathan gritted his teeth, pulling him back down.

Haroun watched Nathan fumble the grab, and then finally start to force him back Earthwards. "Come on, old man! You can grab a jet at full burn, but little ol' me can give you a workout?" he taunted. "You're tougher than this. I know you are."

"I could really... do without the taunting," Nathan hissed, getting Haroun's feet back on the ground. He was still not too steady on his - this was an odd feeling, reminding him far too much of being in the jet above the Atlantic that day.

"I'm sure you would. I'll send a memo to all the Bad Guys that they're not to taunt you or even speak above a whisper when you are trying to do something difficult. I'm sure they'll cooperate." he said, pushing hard against the invisible telekinetic force holding him earthbound. A line of sweat popped out on his brow as he talked.

Pay attention to his temperature, Nathan told himself, letting his perception slide downwards a few levels until he could see that lattice of energy again. It was shifting a little, but not too seriously. "Well... could shift my grip a little and hold your jaw shut..." Nathan gritted.

"You think you can do that, plus hold me down, plus keep an eye on the temperature?" Haroun said. "If you think you can, you're welcome to try. Now, let's see how you do this..." he said, then cut his power completely.

Nathan reeled backwards, the sudden lack of pressure every bit as jarring as Haroun's blast had been in the first place. His concentration splintered, his telekinesis shivering through the air around him and making the floor beneath his feet tremble for a moment. "Fuck," he wheezed, unable to focus on anything for a moment as different layers of dancing colors fuzzed in and out in his vision.

Haroun grinned. "Catch me!" he said, then kicked the power back on, full-bore, as hard as he could. His internal temperature spiked, but he could handle it. For now.

Nathan swore again and decided that he could get creative, too. Instead of yanking Haroun right out of the air, he tracked him as much as he could with his vision still kaleidscopic and slapped at him instead, just hard enough to knock him off course. Then he pulled him downwards again, before he could recover.

Haroun's eyes swam as he got smacked telekinetically - Nathan wasn't exactly pulling his punches. When the stars and tweety-birds cleared from his vision, he was back to standing on the floor of the Danger Room with his power roaring full-blast. "Nice." grunted Haroun.

He still couldn't see Haroun properly. Just dancing light, and a barely identifiable form within it. Not that he was about to let that on. "I use that tactic when I want to get something out of the air as quickly as possible," Nathan said, and his voice sounded odd even to himself. "Of course, I usually hit a lot harder - and don't bother catching it." The lattice was back, shimmering in and out of his vision, and he could see the disruption around Haroun gradually increasing.

Haroun blinked to clear the last of the cobwebs out of his head. "Since we're getting creative.." he grinned, and then changed his vector from straight up to more like a 45 degree angle. Just for fun, he changed his angle with each thrust of his power, making his course and his aim even more difficult to anticipate.

Nathan's hands clenched into fists at his sides and he held on doggedly. Starting to hurt, to do so. Not a lot, but enough. His eyes narrowed, and he divided some of his attention to the lattice of energy itself, struggling to hold it steady around Haroun.

Haroun wasn't going much of anywhere, but he did figure that he was giving Nathan a decent workout - which was the point of the exercise, after all. "You doing OK, old man?" Haroun asked with a grin. Just got kicks, he changed his axis of flight to the horizontal and not the vertical - maybe he could move around the cap instead of breaking through it.

Nathan hung on, to Haroun and the lattice both. "Fine," he rasped, trying to keep the shivers on the lattice from moving outwards, beyond his grip. Strange, this felt so strange... every time Haroun moved, it shifted.

"I don't know, you look a little winded. You sure you're OK?" Haroun taunted, changing direction again and kicking his power _hard_.

Nathan's head jerked backwards as if Haroun had punched him, but sheer bloody stubbornness made him hold on. The vibrations of the lattice were slipping his grasp, though, and here and there around the Danger Room were appearing the same shimmering patches that had appeared out over the lake during their obstacle course.

Haroun wasn't getting off the ground much, and it was really starting to irritate him. So he changed directions _again_, back to straight up, and did something he'd never dared let himself do since he manifested - he kicked his power on full-bore. The roar was almost deafening.

No. You. Don't! Nathan didn't lose his grip on Haroun, despite the sudden jump in the level of the force being exerted against him, but the lattice started to shiver and fray. WIthout thinking, Nathan visualized it, overlaid it with an identical web of telekinesis to hold it steady for metres around Haroun in every direction.

Beyond that, though, the air started to glow, ghostly light flashing outwards... right at him, and Nathan flung up a shield instinctively. The impact threw him to the ground and this time, he did lose his grip on Haroun.

Haroun rocketed into the air, and the only reason he didn't go splat against the ceiling was that the computer controls shut the power down completely. Which meant that Haroun started to fall, but by that point he had realized what was going on and could stabilize his fall. "NATHAN! Are you OK?" he called down.

The air around him was still hot; he could feel it, even through his shield, and Nathan winced, his eyes blurring and watering as he tried to focus. The lattice was starting to settle back down again, but it was still shivering and sparking erratically, and he couldn't quite focus. "Fine," he managed to call back, his voice sounding a bit ragged. "You?"

"I'm good." Haroun said, settling back down to the ground and wiping his face of all the sweat that had appeared there. His leathers were covered in sweat, and the smell was best described as indescribably bad. "I think that's enough for one day. What happened? Was that you or me?"

Nathan sat up slowly, peering at Haroun. Who had a sort of a halo, on the same level as the energy-lattice. Odd mental image, that one. "Me," he confessed, still trying to focus. "I was... well, I could see the air around you starting to burn, so I stopped it. Except that last blast threw me. I kept it stable around you, but, well..." He waved a hand around at the Danger Room. "Are the walls singed?" He honestly couldn't see. "Scott would never let me live that down."

Haroun walked over to the nearest wall and peered at it. "No, it doesn't seem to be. Couldn't hurt to scrub it down anyway - the old-fashioned way. No more strain on the brain, or Moira's going to have her pound of flesh out of me, and I don't have too many more pounds to give!"

"I'm fine," Nathan protested, getting up. "Not even really a headache." Well, that much was true, at least. If his vision would just behave... He tried shaking his head, but the colors and patterns just rippled. "How long were we at that?" he asked a bit absently. "Felt like a few minutes, at least..."

Haroun glanced down at the watch on his wrist. "Not bad. I've got seven minutes all in. Where did the time go?" he mused. "Still - a good run, and I think you've got some things to think about, yes?" he said pointedly.

Nathan laughed a little, and tried shaking his head again. Nope, still there. "What, 'don't fuck around with stuff on the molecular level quite so liberally'?" He tried rubbing his eyes, then blinking at Haroun. Different levels now, shimmering in and out. "You'll note you didn't catch on fire."

Haroun nodded. "Also true, and deeply appreciated. I go through more uniforms that way..." he joked, then let the humor die.

"Damn it," Nathan muttered when his vision still stubbornly refused to clear. "You know, I suppose that could be useful, at some point. If you needed speed and needed to make sure you got to your objective unsinged... I'm not sure how much of a distance I could do that at. Maybe worth experimenting, another time..."

Haroun nodded. "Another day." he said with a nod. "For now I think I will go take a shower and contemplate the ten thousand things I need to do to prepare myself to show Alison a truly marvelous time at the HeliX Formal."

Nathan nodded, following him out of the Danger Room somewhat carefully. His depth perception really did get odd when he did this. "Pity Dom's not in town," he said with a brief smirk. "I think she'd get a kick out of this party. She does like playing dress-up."

"Dom?" Haroun asked with a quirk of his eyebrow. "Domino?" he said, now startled. "Isn't she insane or something?"

Nathan actually laughed aloud. "Who have you been talking to? Dom's just a little crazy." He grinned at the younger man, wishing he could clearly see the look on his face. "Which means that she and you would get along just fine."

"I'm not crazy, I'm just intense." Haroun protested with a laugh. "And I remember hearing something about Domino from ... God, somebody on one of the Merc sites out there. You know the type - heavily-encrypted, lots of macho bullshit?"

"Dom is..." Nathan paused, his grin turning into something very close to a proud smile. "Very hard on male egos."

"Try not to be so proud of her when you say that." Haroun grinned. "But I take your point - although I'm only technically male. Anyway - I'm gonna go hit the showers. Catch up with you later? May want to review the tape of this ltitle session, see if there's anything we can learn."

"Sure thing," Nathan said with another smile. "Thanks, Haroun."