anissa pierce / thunder (tonare) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2019-01-02 20:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | !open, *diana, *laura, anissa pierce, shamara andor |
2 january
characters. anissa pierce & shamara andor
time. 2 january | location. the gym @ the body clubhouse
rating. pg | status.complete
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Whenever Anissa struggled with something - be it school or work or her personal life - her parents were often the first people she turned to for advice. Uncle Gambi had been there for the things she didn’t want to tell her parents about yet. Her sister was good for relationship nonsense, or fashion advice, or for a distraction from what was bothering her. She went to her parents when she wanted a solution to the problem, but what was she supposed to do when her parents weren’t there? Or if there was no solution to her problem? Taking her frustration out on a punching bag had gotten her nowhere. She’d worked up a sweat, but there was no satisfaction in what she was doing, which she suspected was due to the fact that the punching bag wasn’t in shreds on the floor in front of her. She wasn’t surprised -- the gyms here had to accommodate people of a variety of strengths and abilities, and it’d be wildly expensive to continuously replace everything if they broke it with regularity -- but it was frustrating to not see her grit and her power in action. She wanted to put a dent into something. She wanted to rip something apart like she had in the junkyard all those weeks ago. Her father’s voice echoed in her head as she stepped onto a treadmill, telling her to be grateful for the time she’d had with both her sister and her son. She could hear him telling her that every moment was a treasure, and that what mattered more than her grief (which was what she was feeling, she now recognized) was that she’d gotten any time at all, and that she’d made memories that she hadn’t ever thought possible. It didn’t help nearly as much as she hoped it would. She heard a creak and looked down to see that the handlebars had bent in her fists. She jumped back, startled by her inattention. She hadn’t gotten so lost in her own mind since she’d broken the sink in her bathroom, the night her powers first showed up. This was why she wasn’t supposed to keep her feelings in. Wasn’t that what she kept on trying to tell her sister? Eventually, they had to come out. She backed up against a nearby wall and slid down until her knees were tucked in against her chest. “Shit.” Saying goodbye wasn’t supposed to be this hard. It was now settled that Shamara needed to expand her training beyond the Force and up the daily dose of it. In an effort to do so, she had decided to stop by the gym and see what there was to be done beyond running. It was enough that Rose Belikova had asked her and Shania to go running as a bonding experience, for a non-fan of that kind of cardio. When she walked into the gym, however, her eyes caught the sight of a woman who didn’t look to be having a good exercise routine, but rather some kind of emotional moment. Nearby, there was a treadmill with bent (perhaps broken) handlebars, which Shamara attributed to some kind of extraordinary strength. She approached the woman slowly, pushing her practical braids behind her shoulder as she knelt down near the woman. “Hey… What’s wrong?” Anissa had tried very hard to keep a tight lid on any power mishaps, so the fact that she’d messed up and someone was there to notice was extra embarrassing. Even if the person was being kind about it, it wasn’t the sort of thing Anissa wanted to face just yet. She sighed heavily and lifted her head to look at the woman who’d found her. “Forgot my own strength,” she grumbled, not at all happy about the flush that had risen to her cheeks in shame. “It doesn’t happen often, don’t worry.” A kind smile appeared on Shamara’s face as she tilted her head. “I’m not worried about the damage. And as you said, this doesn’t happen often else I would have heard of the freakishly strong woman who keeps breaking things. So something must be wrong.” Shamara didn’t know whether to stay put and offer her shoulder for the woman to cry on, or leave her to her sadness, but she was sure the other woman would tell her how to proceed soon enough. A laugh bubbled up to Anissa’s lips. “Well, I am freakishly strong and I do enjoy breaking things,” she said, “but usually that’s on purpose, and it’s like, someone’s face instead.” It would have been easy to just brush the other woman aside and walk away, but Anissa didn’t really want to do that. What had her ex-girlfriend wanted her to do? Talk to someone, right? And what was it she kept on trying to convince Jennifer about? Not shut everyone out. She tipped her head back until it rested against the wall. “My sister went back home. I knew she would, she’s got a life there, but… it’s the pits, to say the least.” Gently, Shamara touched the woman’s shoulder in a compassionate gesture. She sort of knew how it felt, and half didn’t. Having left Jeron behind wasn’t as bad as if Shania had left, but still pretty saddening. “I’m so sorry. I know it’s hard, my sister and I stayed here but our brother didn’t even come and I… well, that’s not the point. I guess all you can do is wait for the hurt to lessen with time, right? Is she happy there? That should make things easier, if you know she’ll be okay.” “She’s…” Anissa couldn’t honestly say Jennifer was happy. She’d been struggling so much with her powers, and with what had happened to Khalil. Their lives had been turned upside down very quickly, and that would take time to figure out. “She’s tough. She’ll be okay. So will my future kid who went back, too.” Anissa smiled mostly because she was trying to convince herself that it would be fine, and it was easier when she wasn’t scowling. The other girl had a point, and Anissa knew that. The only thing that would really help was time. “I’m Anissa, by the way,” she added, holding out a hand. “Thanks, for checking in. Lotta people wouldn’t have bothered.” The hesitation in Anissa’s voice was concerning, but there was nothing Shamara could do about that, only about Anissa’s state. She perked up a little as Anissa mentioned a son from the future. Maybe her future! “Oh, maybe I knew him? I’m from the future too.” Taking Anissa’s hand, Shamara shook it with a smile. “Shamara. And it’s no problem, I couldn’t just get started on my routine while you were off on the side having a hard time!” Somehow, Anissa was already starting to feel better. She had expected to wallow for a bit longer -- had wanted to wallow for a bit longer -- but it was impossible to mope around someone with a spirit like Shamara’s. “I mean, you could have…” Her smile was brighter now, and Anissa pushed herself up to her feet. “I gave the kid a mouthful of a name,” she started as a warning. “Michael Jefferson King Pierce. Jefferson, after my father. King, Michael, probably after Martin Luther King, although his dad was a king, too, so who knows. He was from the one where, uh.” Anissa’s voice dropped a little, unsure if anyone was listening. “We lost. What was yours like?” Shamara stood up after Anissa and tried to remember the name. Surely she would know someone with such a unique or long name. The realization came when Anissa clarified which future he’d come from. She wouldn’t know him. “Oh, I’m sorry, no. I’m from the one where we didn’t.” It was a little hard to know whatever they did, there would always be that future. Trapped in amber, like she usually thought of it. And it was confusing as all get-out, but Shamara tried not to let herself bogged down by that. “We won, we’re happy, some of us stick around and start families… I guess it makes sense to want to enjoy the future you worked for instead of going home to pick up where you left off. Especially since a lot of people traded one war for another in some way.” “Oh.” Anissa couldn’t help her disappointment, but she hoped Shamara didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t her fault that there were, apparently, multiple potential outcomes. Did that mean she never asked Thor in the other timeline, though? Or had that just not happened? Did she go home when they won? It was enough to make her head swim. She shook her head to try to toss it from her mind, and cleared her throat. “Yeah, no, that makes sense. After everything we’re going to do, all the sacrifices we’re gonna make, the people we’re gonna get close to…” It brought a faint smile to Anissa’s face to think about what that future might look like for her. There was an entire world of possibility out there for her. “It’d be hard to leave after all of that. Even if it means a chance to fix your own world, you’d be losing so much. It’s a lot to give up.” “I might just never have met him in my version! He could still be around!” Shamara offered, noticing the disappointment in Anissa’s voice and face. “There’s a lot of us.” Nodding, she smiled as Anissa understood out loud what she had meant. Staying couldn’t be an easy decision for some, and yet it was the only decision for others. For some others still, going home made more sense. No one knew until they were faced with the real possibility. “That’s right. Some people die in their worlds not soon after when they were pulled here, so staying is their only option. My dad, for example. My mom much later, but still. And then some find safety and meaning here they didn’t have over there, fall in love, find family, make friends…” Shamara shrugged. “I think I have it easier. I don’t have a decision like that to make. I guess now it’s between going back to my time or staying here, but it’s not such a trade-off.” Anissa wasn’t sure it was ever that simple, even if there wasn’t a war going on in Shamara’s time. She’d still left an entire life behind - friends, family, and everything else. Unless there wasn’t anything left there for her, Anissa reminded herself. Or maybe she just wanted to be able to brighten someone else’s life for a little while. The smile on her face grew a little. Maybe it was that simple. “I almost didn’t stay,” Anissa admitted. She hadn’t told anyone that yet. “We’ve got our battles to fight at home. A community who needs us. But I guess I figured it’ll still be there if I change my mind, so why not see what I can do here instead. Plus,” Anissa’s nose wrinkled, “I kept picturing my dad’s disappointed face. I didn’t raise a quitter.” “Right! That’s a lot of people’s reasoning, I think. And this war affects all the other worlds, so I would even say it takes precedence.” Shamara reasoned with a little shrug. She chuckled in amusement at Anissa’s imitation of her own dad. Her own dad might have a similar reaction, since he had grown up in a Resistance. It was almost a personal offense to him seeing someone quit a fight like this one. “I think my dad would say something similar too. We didn’t have to fight but now that we’re here if we were to quit he would probably be pretty mad.” For a moment, Shamara admired Anissa’s musculature, wondering what it was that she fought back home, how committed she was. But these weren’t things you just asked. “Yeah, exactly. And if it’s for everyone? The world my parents live in, too?” At the end of the day, there really hadn’t been a question as to what she should do. “I mean, there’s not gonna be anything left to fight in mine if we don’t get it done here.” Anissa had stayed to save them. It was that straightforward. “I should probably go tell someone what I did,” Anissa said, feeling flush with shame again she looked back at the busted treadmill. “And I shouldn’t take up any more of your time. You didn’t come here to deal with someone else’s neuroses.” Shamara nodded, smiling widely when Anissa showed to understand how important this fight was for every other world and everyone in it. She put a comforting hand on Anissa’s arm and nodded. “That’s right. It’s a fight for quite literally everything. That’s why we stayed, my sister and I, my best friend, so many of us. We want to do our part to make sure our future comes true and every home is preserved.” Glancing back at the treadmill, Shamara chuckled. “You have impressive strength. But it’s okay, I’m not that big a fan of cardio anyway, so you spared me a couple minutes. And I like to help. I don’t think I can just walk away if I see someone struggling.” “It’s not that…” Anissa started, but she stopped herself short of saying it wasn’t that impressive. She’d thought it was, once, but getting to Atlantis had made her doubt that at first. She didn’t want to be that girl, one who second-guessed her own abilities. She’d been trying to push herself instead, trying to extend her own limits -- or even just find out what her limits were at all. “Cardio’s part of my training regimen,” she explained instead. “Trying to optimize my lung capacity. My power’s triggered by holding my breath, so I gotta make sure I can hold it. I must’ve done that without even realizing. What about you? If you’re here to fight too, you’ve gotta have some skills. What’s your thing?” Shamara’s brow was already raised as if to call Anissa on how wrong she was before she stopped herself. When she did, the redhead snickered, crossing her arms. She listened to Anissa explain why she needed cardio; it made a lot of sense. “I need to include cardio in mine too, now. I wasn’t an agent before, so it didn’t matter so much. I’m okay on flexibility and stuff, but somehow dancing isn’t as heavy as combat on the lungs and blood flow.” It would have been simple to just say she was a Jedi and bank on the fact that most people knew what that meant. But Shamara wasn’t here to brag. “I am sensitive to this power called the Force, I feel it and manipulate it to a degree; it allows me to fight with precision, and I use a melee weapon we call a lightsaber. Up until now, my ways to use the Force were more of the mind, like feeling people, their emotional states, but I’m working on expanding to a more combat oriented set of skills.” Anissa’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.” She knew exactly what that meant. Star Wars hadn’t been a huge obsession of hers, but that didn’t mean she’d lived under a rock. She’d known that a few Force-users were around, too, although she hadn’t talked to them. Until now, she reminded herself. “That is…” Really hot. “Okay, forgive me if this is really creepy or whatever, and we can forget all about it, but that is really cool. Would you show me sometime?” She didn’t want to be pushy, but … “If you want. No pressure or anything. I just think it’s badass, and I’ve never seen it in action. We could, y’know, you show me, I show you?” It wasn’t creepy at all, and part of Shamara enjoyed the reaction her powers got from people. She wasn’t in the stories, but the legacy coursing through her veins had reached countless universes, so it was almost like she was. “It’s not creepy! I’d love to show you, and I’d love to see what you can really do!” Tugging her headband off of her head, Shamara stepped away some and pulled it down again around her eyes. “Here, I can’t see,” she pulled her hair over her head with a giggle. “I really can’t see now. Throw something at me.” “Okay.” Shamara might not have been able to see it, but there was a smile on Anissa’s face now, too. When she couldn’t find anything within reach that wouldn’t cause a lot of damage if it was thrown, Anissa bent over to pull off one of her sneakers. “I’m not going to say when I’m going to throw it, okay? I’m just --” Anissa tossed it at Shamara’s head, “going to throw it.” The pause in Anissa’s voice was a bit of a giveaway for when she was going to throw whatever it was, but Shamara still didn’t know what size it was, where she had thrown it and how fast it was coming at her. By traditional means, anyway. With the Force, though, Shamara knew to slam it out of the way with her forearm before it hit her head. She heard it fall over to the left of her position before she took off the blindfold. She shot Anissa a bright smile. “And that’s not all!” It might not have been all Shamara could do, but Anissa was still impressed. “I believe you. Honestly, I really wanted to throw the treadmill, but I don’t want to bust up any walls.” She stepped over to where her shoe had fallen to pick it up. “If we find somewhere with more space, then we could really show off. You in?” If she wanted to show off some more, Shamara could do it here. Raising her hand, she seemed to zone out for a moment, using her weak illusion to make it look like dawn outside to anyone who didn’t look too closely. She was still not looking when she told Anissa, “look at the window.” Shamara then dropped the illusion, all thoughts of cardio vanished from her mind. “I want to see you in action! What about the Quidditch pitch? It’s pretty big and we’re unlikely to destroy the goal posts.” “I don’t know about that,” Anissa answered with a sly grin, “but I’ll try not to.” There were some people who’d probably have her head for that. Then again, she had no idea what it was made out of. Maybe it was something stronger than she was. “And you,” she nudged Shamara gently on the shoulder, “can tell me how the hell you made that sunrise. I think if I could do that, I’d be doing it every day.” “Oh I meant because they’re really high and the pitch is really large. I don’t mean to sound like I doubt you could take down the entire Hogwarts Castle if you really wanted to.” Shamara grinned right back, maybe a little flirtatiously. But could you blame her? This woman probably could take down Hogwarts; maybe not all at once, but eventually. As for how she had made it sunrise, Shamara shrugged. “Mild illusion. One of my many mind tricks, as they’re known. But I don’t use them without permission.” “That’s a good way to tackle it.” Although she couldn’t pinpoint the reason why, Anissa took Shamara at her word. She trusted her -- there was just something about her that felt genuine and honest, someone who wouldn’t take advantage of people using her gifts. She could’ve been wrong, but Anissa highly doubted it. “Gotta say, though, it’d be useful. I pulled off a trick using a hologram to get my dad released from the police, but it would’ve been way more convincing as an illusion.” “If I had been there, I would have helped.” Shamara replied, smiling. She offered Anissa a hand. “Shall we go to the Quidditch pitch and you can show me exactly how many treadmills you can throw, and I can offer to influence your emotional state for the better?” Stopping herself short of saying it was a date, Anissa took the hand that was offered to her. “You’re doing that already,” she insisted. Between the perspective she’d been given and the chance to show off instead of hide, she felt grounded again, and more prepared to face what was coming their way. “Let’s get outta here.” |