WHERE: Hologym WHEN: Tuesday; 3rd April WHAT: Dove trains with her powers, with Mason, while the handlers watch. STATUS: Complete VIEW WARNINGS: Slight discussion of backstory; minor. Cuteness; major
To say she was apprehensive was an understatement. She was always a little hesitant about her powers, at least since the latest development. The sessions with Marshall made her somewhat more confident about her attempts to learn control though. And with Mason telling her he’d help her, it was a little better too.
She could learn how to defend herself without powers, but until she learned how to use them properly, she wouldn’t really be any use to anyone. She didn’t like that feeling at all. So there she was, in her work out clothes, ponytail high, waiting in the hologym for Mason.
Her powers had already been triggered on, she had two hours of power access before Marshall would shut them down again, letting her leave the hologym, since it was the only place she was allowed to use them. She’d gotten there a little early, stretched out as a habit. If she were honest, she was a little interested in seeing what Mason could do just as much as she was hoping his control over his power could help her learn to control her own.
To say Mason was excited was an understatement. His conversations with Scott had been mostly positive; he still wasn’t sure that the guy wasn’t just a secret arsehole underneath it all but he was letting Mason have his powers turned on for training and he was letting Mason train with Dove so he wasn't going to kick a gift-horse in the mouth. He’d had to promise he wouldn’t go wandering in anyone’s heads, wouldn’t go and take a nap somewhere and even though it was tempting he wasn’t about to screw up this opportunity. This could eventually lead to his powers being turned on permanently, and he’d be able to find out more about this place, work on getting the fuck out and taking a few people with him.
He chewed his lower lip and let himself into the hologym, seeing Dove mid stretch, he cleared his throat so she knew that he was there and averted his eyes, shrugging his backpack off and slinging it to the floor, dropping the plastic bag of goods that he had bought from the shoppette before arriving. Dragging a bottle of radioactive-yellow Mountain Dew from the bag, he twisted the cap off and wandered over with a small smile on his face.
“Alright?” he asked by way of greeting. She was dressed appropriately, he was in jeans and a hoodie, a baggy one at that. Most of the clothes he wore concealed the fact that he was actually toned underneath it all, that he had - if he said so himself - a lithe form. If he was going to describe himself, which he didn’t very often because that was bollocks and this wasn’t some internet dating page where he had to pick his body type. He took a long drink of Mountain Dew, thought about offering the bottle to Dove and then changed his mind.
Even if she didn’t like working out in a typical way, even if she wasn’t the best at sport related activities, she made a point in dressing in a way to aide the practice at least. She was athletic enough for cheerleading, and as such she had clothes suitable enough for doing cheers that weren’t her uniform. Her uniform that was folded in a bag under her bed, unlikely to see the light of day ever again, because she wasn’t on the cheer squad and she wasn’t in high school anymore. “Hey!”
The apprehension didn’t stop her wide grin at Mason, although she made a point to keep her movements slow and understated so that she didn’t blast off with the concussive shove before either of them were even ready for things. Minimising movements really seemed to help her work out where the force built up from.
“You ready for this?” It was nice to be able to train with another super too. Marshall was trying to work with her, but she was constantly worried that she’d do something wrong and wind up hurting him -or worse, and that was in no way going to be good for her. “I feel the need to encourage you to always keep your forcefield up.”
Mason knew that this was an exercise in trust. Somewhere in a viewing box, he knew his handler was there waiting and watching to see just what it was that he did with his powers. He glanced around, trying to work out where the cameras were and saluted his bottle up before taking another drink, attention then returning to Dove who looked radiant in her excitement. It made him smile a little.
He screwed the cap back onto his bottle and held it loosely between two fingers as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Eeh, what’s a little bruising between friends?” he asked, though he did raise his shield, and then, with a glance behind him and a step to the left, he seemed to disappear from view. “But, in order to hit me, love,” he said, projecting an illusion of the wall behind him over his forcefield to effectively cloak himself, “you gotta find me first.”
A little bruising between friends, he said. Dove didn’t mention that it would more likely be a lot of internal hemorrhaging between friends if one of her blasts hit him straight on and full force, she was trying to keep the force down to a minimal, but she wasn’t so good at controlling that as she was her energy daggers.
But as the illusion hid Mason from sight, Dove let the light energy build in her fingertips, spreading a bit of an ethereal glow around her while the light force seeped out, “Marco polo huh? I can do that.”
It was nice to be able to laugh while training, to just shake off a little worry and feel and enjoy it a little. Being a Super was supposedly a bad thing, so bad that people were locked up, but honestly, Dove kind of liked her powers, she liked that she was special like that. Even if most people thought she was weird instead of special. She couldn’t twirl, or jump, not without potentially destroying half the side of the building (which she was told wouldn’t happen, because this place was built to withstand it, but she wasn’t sure) and she wanted to find Mason without just blasting away, narrowing her focus to see if she could spot where the illusion started. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a tiny shift in where the wall would be, using her index finger and keeping the setting to stun (Star Trek joke), Dove released a light bolt in the general direction she though Mason was in.
In all honesty, Mason had no idea if his forcefield would stop Dove’s energy, though he had worked out that it stopped gas, so he was hoping that light energy was similar. He focused his energy on making sure that the front of the field was utterly impermeable, trying to also make sure the illusion was up and running. Illusions, he had found, were much trickier than he’d thought they were. And they weren’t his strongest ability as it was one that he’d discovered just before his forcefield. So he hadn’t had as much practise with them as he would have liked.
Powers being off, and all.
“Never played Marco Polo,” he admitted, voice appearing from seemingly nowhere, though when she fired off a bolt of light, Mason dove out of the way just as she did, the illusion dropping momentarily to reveal him diving out of the way. “Shit, woman,” he said, clearly impressed as he grinned at her, “gonna have to try harder to hide from you.”
He winked and looked around himself once more, shimmering out of view again with another wink and a blown kiss in her direction, feet carefully and quietly moving to try and prevent himself from being heard as he moved around.
“So… do you say Marco, or do I say Marco?” he asked, carefully crouching down so that even if she fired at him, it might be over his head.
It was fun. There was training in it too, but it was mostly fun. And Dove missed that, missed being able to enjoy herself, free of too much concern, if she’d do something terrible to someone by accident, if she’d break something or worse, someone. Almost hitting Mason on her first try had Dove grinning; his casual response made her feel a lot better about it, his grin and cheeky expression helping her know that it wasn’t a big deal.
She managed not to blush scarlet from the wink and blown kiss, wiggling her fingers to pull more light to the tips while Mason blinked away from her vision again, on the off chance, she bounced two bolts towards where he’d been, watching them bounce off the floor and away, dimming out when she let her control on them fade. “Well, since I’m looking for you, I say Marco, you’re the polo.”
His question gave her a clue as to whereabouts he’d moved to, Dove flicking another bolt from her fingers out, slicing through the air at chest height to spear into the wall and vanishing. “Didn’t you ever play it at school?” Were British school’s that different?
Mason looked up as the spear sliced through the air over his head just to the left of him. She was good. Was this a game that people played all the time? He felt like he was at a bit of a disadvantage, considering she’d obviously had a lot of practise at finding people who were… invisible? He supposed it was played with closed eyes, like a weird game of hide and seek?
He wet his lower lip and, on his hands and knees, moved back the way he’d come from, speaking as he moved. “Nope, we played British bulldogs until it was banned from playgrounds cause people kept breaking legs and shit.”
He stopped, not getting up from where he was crouched on the floor. He was actually having a good time- chatting with someone and using his powers was fun, helping someone else with theirs was more rewarding than he was expecting it to be. And this was infinitely less frustrating than trying to help Beau learn to spell properly. Christ.
“So… uh- polo? Wait- you gotta say Marco first. Shit. I will get the hang of this, promise.”
It was probably part of her advantage, in life at least given her societal advantages. Dove had a nice life growing up, involved parents who had wealth behind them. It meant she went to nice schools, joined nice groups and got involved in activities with nice people in a nice community where everyone was so very nice. She'd become aware that Mason didn't have anything like that, and even if his mum wanted to give him those things, she struggled by. She was sure that Mason made the most of what he had though.
"What is British Bulldog?" It sounded violent, especially if people were breaking things. The echo in the hologym created a little bit of a feedback, and Dove wasn't entirely sure where Mason was right then, but the fact that they could just talk and train, that they could both just be themselves with their powers? She was already enjoying herself just from a little game -with powers.
Tossing a few bolts, mostly aimlessly and with little focus on them, just to see if she was getting close, Dove giggled a little, the smile really easy to keep on her face. "Because obviously, breaking the rules of Marco Polo is a punishable offence." It wasn't like they were playing it properly anyway, it usually was in a pool, but still. "Besides, we're talking anyway, that works as the Marco polo bit." Because the point was finding out where someone was. She could cheat, but she didn't really want to, not yet. Maybe later when they'd had a little more fun.
“Punishable by death,” he responded, “that’s what I heard about the oh-so sacred institution of Marco Polo… What a stupid name for a game anyway.”
The daggers flew overhead, at least until he stood up and moved when a lucky shot had one bouncing off his forcefield and fracturing his illusion where his shoulder was. He chuckled and waved a hand, dispelling it completely for a moment to grin at Dove.
“British Bulldogs was the greatest game ever fucking invented,” he told her, “the more people the better. Once played a game that had over half my school playing, like, almost a hundred and fifty people.”
He hoped she wouldn’t just shoot something at him as he talked, but kept the field up because she’d asked him to keep himself protected just in case. He figured she wouldn’t actually hurt him, definitely not on purpose but if it made her feel better he’d do as he was asked.
“It’s like a huge game of tag, sorta.”
He paused, stretching his right hand out and an illusion shimmered in the air off to one side, showing a bunch of kids standing on one side of a field and one solitary child in the middle. The illusion wasn’t smooth, or particularly accurate, but it worked as a demonstration, updating in fits and starts as he spoke.
“The bloke in the middle starts alone. Everyone else has to run from one side of the field to the other without getting caught. If they get caught, they gotta join the guy in the middle and catch others. Game ends if someone gets seriously hurt, if there’s one person left, if a fight breaks out or if y’know, a teacher comes out.”
He tilted his head at Dove and smiled, not a grin and not a smirk, just a soft smile before he cleared his throat and dropped the illusion.
“No holds barred on how you stop someone either. So. Gets a bit brutal.”
Her focus definitely wasn’t on the game as Mason started to show her what British Bulldog was, the illusion depicting a game. She was a little used to illusions, Raven had hers, although there a clear difference in their styles. She really liked how it showed off Mason’s skill though, even if he would say it was shaky, Dove was so impressed with his powers and skill with them.
It seemed like a rough game, like when the older and meaner kids enjoyed rough housing with dodgeball, but it did look like a lot of fun. “You mean there’s some football tackles in there? Or, it’s rugby, right? In England, they play rugby like we play football?” It didn’t seem like the type of game Dove would play.
She tried to keep out of heavy contact sports, she’d never really been great at staying coordinated, or not ending up on her butt. That definitely looked like the sort of game she’d end up bruised and battered in.
Mason moved away to grab the open bottle of mountain dew, finishing it in a few long swallows and cracking into a second one. He wandered back over and held out his hand again, bringing up the rough illusion from before. It really was rough, he needed extra practise for sure with his illusions.
“You think of a way of stopping someone and it’s probably been tried,” he told her with a shrug, waving his hand again and then dismissing the illusion. He’d dropped his forcefield for now; there was little need for it while they were talking. “That’s why it was banned.”
He pushed the sleeve of his hoodie up to reveal his elbow. There was a lattice of scars there, but he indicated one in particular with his index finger. “Fell on a metal grate playing it when I was like, nine. Fucker got me with a combined shove and foot trip.”
Tugging the sleeve back down, he tilted his head at her and grinned. “We carrying on?” he asked, rolling his shoulders and lifting his forcefield again. It felt strange to do it; almost like he could hear a buzzing in his ears. “Figure we can kinda work like this for now and then next time we can play hide and seek in an actual environment.” Plus he’d get a chance to exercise his parkour skills; he thought he might be getting a little rusty.
She tried not to show it, but she was a little horrified at the scarring he had, even if he was just pointing out a particular one. A game shouldn’t do that, not to a nine year old. Her face was drawn in a small frown, she half wanted to know where the other marks came from and half didn’t want to think about it -she knew that Mason’s life was apparently a little more complicated than he liked to present, and she got the impression that his friends were a rough crowd.
But the scars were a little worrying.
“Maybe not something to play with the others here.” Although she didn’t think anyone around here would actively try to hurt each other, there was always the chance. Shifting the focus back to their practise, since Scott and Marshall were probably watching anyway, Dove just nodded.
“Next time we can run a simulation,” she hadn’t let out a concussive sweep of power yet, she felt a little more comfortable about next time because of that, “and try and find each other.” Because it was meant to be about getting better, and doing different things was good. And maybe eventually, Dove would actually feel comfortable about training sessions with her whole team.
Mason laughed, “I dunno, I’d happily play it against some of the blokes here. There’s a few here that could do with being knocked down a peg or two.” He winked at her and then shrugged his shoulders, tipping his head back and finishing the second mountain dew.
He rubbed the back of his head and smothered a yawn before he backed up again. “Simulation next time and you can show me that super destructive thing you do. I’ll stay away from any fake buildings.” he winked and shimmered out of view again.
“But for now,” he drawled, moving to the side and chuckling. “Marco…”