2nd Transformation . spam :: gym

[permutates]

[ Instead of asking the network, she goes to the gym herself, wanting to see if there's any likely teachers, or people who are worth watching. (Raven can learn a lot from watching, she's found.)

So she ventures into the gym, blue-skinned, dressed in a tank top and loose sweatpants, and she sees the balance beam.

She part-remembers being a child, stepping out into a playground and playing along one. She always had the best balance. And she thinks of what Azazel has been teaching her, and she wonders...

She hops up onto it, a smooth movement, and extends her arms, testing her balance one way or another. She seems steady, so she dashes from one end to the other, every footstep sure. She tips backwards, then, folds until she's standing on her hands. It's hard to keep her grip, exactly; she shifts her fingers and stretches her legs out, a split, one forward, one backward. Rolls onto the forward one, moving herself back to her feet. And she does the whole movement again, quicker this time.

It's easy.

Part of her wants to laugh with the thrill of it, with realizing how innate her own physical abilities are. How graceful she is when she's not pretending to be someone else.

She balances on the end, debating attempting some sort of flip off of it. ]

Comments

[unmakeme]

[Natasha hasn't left Sokolov's side for long. He's vulnerable, she's guarding him. It's common sense, to her. Of course, this also means that she's stuck inside her 'apartment' all day and all night without even the bustle of the city outside her window to distract her.

So she takes a couple of hours each day. Just a couple of hours out of twenty four. Today, she's heading for the gym, still on her level, with her earpiece in and a call to Sokolov's communicator, a poor man's baby monitor.

A little quality time with a punching bag is just what she needs. She tightens the fingerless gloves on her hands, bounces on the balls of he feet a couple of times, and then begins beating the crap out of the bag of sand.]

[permutates]

[ And so she perches on the edge of the balance beam instead, legs dangling, watching. Natasha is about her size, and Natasha moves... really well. Better than Azazel, whose actions tend to be short and sharp, like he's drawing knives in the air. ]

[unmakeme]

[She moves like she has something to work out of her system, because she does. Too much inactivity, too little peace of mind. Sokolov's coma threw her for a loop. The situation with Touko and Zane has only put her more on edge. This place is fucked. All there is to it.

She notices Raven watching her, but she doesn't think much on it past that initial observation. She just puts it out of her mind, classifying her as a non-threat as long as she's that far away.

After a couple of minutes, with no one to brace her bag, it begins to come barreling back at her, almost as though it's fighting back. It's a predictable attack, of course, but it still adds a little something.]

[permutates]

[ She approaches carefully, making noise on the mat, stopping just out of easy attack range (a handful of meters away) if Natasha doesn't stop at the sound of her. ]

Do you need someone to hold that?

[unmakeme]

[Natasha notices, but doesn't stop moving until Raven speaks. Even then, she doesn't actually stop moving. She just slows.]

Depends. Are you strong?

[Her size and build wouldn't suggest it - but Natasha knows, better than anyone, that size and build can be deceiving.]

[permutates]

[ She considers her answer, for a moment. ]

Isn't more about how you brace yourself?

I bet you could knock over a strong guy without any problem.

[unmakeme]

[The very corner of Natasha's mouth twitches up.]

Sure.

[Two quick jabs, an uppercut, a lunge, then back, and a roundhouse kick.]

If I just wanted you to hold it still.

[Her voice clearly says that this is the most boring of all possible options.]

[permutates]

Is there something else?

[ Because she hadn't honestly considered anything else, but she's game, energetic, balanced on the balls of her feet. ]

[unmakeme]

Yeah. Right now, I know how it's coming at me, because I know how I'm pushing it away. Harder to predict with someone else forcing it to move. But it's not light.

[She can do it, if she's strong. Natasha can do it, so Raven probably can.]

[permutates]

[ Raven laughs. ]

I'll try. No guarantees.

[unmakeme]

Life almost always defies any attempts to give guarantees.

[But she waits obligingly for Raven to take up a place behind the bag before she starts hitting it again.]

So...

Why so blue?

[permutates]

[ She'll steady it, at first, getting a feel for its weight and the strength of Natasha's blows. ]

Very funny.

I'm what in my world is called a mutant.

[unmakeme]

Hey, you want to hold my bag, these are the jokes.

[Natasha's almost dancing around it, light and quick. Her feet aren't planted like a fighter's - her stance is springy, like a gymnast. Agility over power, she knows where her strengths lie. Her blows come with surprising force for a woman her size, but they're still not valuing raw strength. That's not where she excels.]

Blue scales are a hell of a long way from heterochromia.

[tolaywaste]

[Alex spends a hell of a lot of the time in the gym. It's less vanity and more a way to burn off anger. Which is why he's been in here more, lately.]

[Today, he walks in absorbed in thought, gets halfway to the treadmill, sees Raven, and stops.]

[Oh.]

[He hedges, trying to figure out whether he should stay or leave or maybe vanish into the floor a little.]

[permutates]

[ She senses that he's there. Sees out of the corner of her eye that he's stopped in the middle of the gym floor, and she takes a breath, deciding to ignore him and let him decide if he wants to leave or not.

She takes four steps back, and gives herself a running start, pushing off of the end to flip in midair. She doesn't quite land on her feet, though, stumbling to one knee. ]

[tolaywaste]

[Well. If all else fails, give him an opportunity to mock.]

[Or at least grin and attempt not to mock but then kind of go there anyway.]

Going for the Olympics or what?

[permutates]

[ She moves back to her feet, stretching. ] Let's see you give it a try.

[ Her tone is kind of cautious; she's a little too sensitive to be entirely cavalier, but won't let herself be angry or sharp. ]

[tolaywaste]

[This pulls him up short. He almost hadn't expected her to engage.]

Not really my thing. You want anything blown up, though. Let me know.

Too bad that's not an Olympic sport.

[permutates]

Do you think they'd let mutants compete?

[ It doesn't really seem fair, does it?

She hops back up on the balance beam, though she's not really sure what to do next. Maybe try a roundoff or a cartwheel, see how far her instinctive grasp of the beam goes. ]

[tolaywaste]

[He shrugs, his bag half-on half-off his shoulder. He realizes he must look ridiculous, caught between coming and going, but he still doesn't understand what's happening.]

[Maybe he should stop distracting her. Or something.]

I think maybe. I don't know. I wouldn't really want to be an Olympic anything, though.

[permutates]

I would.

[ She doesn't either. But she'll let the conversation... go. ]

I wouldn't mind the work.

And people would have a reason not to mind what you look like.

[tolaywaste]

Just not really into that many people looking at me.

[Which is more honest than he means, so he turns abruptly away from the treadmill and heads to the weight machines. The downside is this brings him closer to her. Upside is at least now he's moving.]

[permutates]

[ She is. Though sometimes she wonders if she wants that just because it would be... different.

She frowns, and thinks through a cartwheel, and then figures, the hell with it, and tries it. Her palms land a little too hard, and it turns out more like a roundoff - she's not really sure what the difference is, though - but it's square on the balance beam. She instinctively knows where it is. ]

I think if people looked at you, you wouldn't have anything to be ashamed of.

[ She means that more than just in appearance. She means everything. She means she thinks Alex is good. ]

[tolaywaste]

[He gets settled quickly. He knows these machines. This is his place, in a small way. And while what he's doing on the machines isn't flashy, like Raven's movements, it calms him.]

Maybe.

[Not quite willing to say definitively, one way or the other. She sounds like Snow, kind of, except Snow doesn't speak in roundabout statements. Not like this.]

[permutates]

[ She's not really working on anything - she's just playing around. And she'll keep doing so while he's there. There's not much she can do without a teacher, anyway.

Sometimes the way she moves is almost like dancing. (Maybe a little bit of what Angel showed her works its way in.) ]