Laura (retractable) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2017-05-01 00:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, *hannah, *maxi, bella hartley, laura howlett |
Laura Howlett & Bella Hartley
After the species swap is over
Gym/Training facility
Laura does people watching
Low -
Ongoing |
If it had been up to Laura, she wouldn't ever go to school. Traditional learning had never been something that she or the other X-23s had been exposed to during their early years. Her reading and math levels were low, and her social skills were even worse. To help her adjust, she was only going to school on a part-time basis, but even then there had already been multiple phone calls to Cat and Dyson voicing frustration with Laura's more aggressive nature with the other students. She knew she was going to eventually be expected to go to school every day soon, and it wasn't something she was looking forward to. In their talks to her after getting the phone calls, Dyson and Cat had tried to explain the importance of learning, but as with many things, Laura didn't really believe them. On the days she attended school, Laura was assigned to an after school assignment at the zoo. For as much as she hated going to school, she equally loved spending time with the animals even if it meant she was taking instructions from their keepers. Her responsibilities were minor, mostly observing and small tasks while someone else was close by. For some reason, being around the animals made her feel a little closer to her father. It made no sense, but she decided not to question the whys or hows. There was a lion named Augustus that she had especially taken a liking to. He was the king of all the big cats, and he obviously knew his privileged status. He stood tall among the younger lions and lioness with his long mane and bellowing roar. Deciding one day to say hello in her own way, the keepers nearly had heart attacks the day Laura broke the cardinal rule and jumped into the habitat, crouching down low and approaching the big cat cautiously. They'd stared each other down, showed an array of intimidating tactics, and after an exchange of roars, they seemed to come to an understanding. After it was all said and done, that had been another phone call to Dyson and Cat. Today was a day that she didn't have school or time scheduled at the zoo, so Laura decided to visit the gym and training facilities. She'd been there a few times in the past mostly as an observer, but hadn't ever actually stepped onto the mats. She watched people work out and spar with one another, all the while making mental notes of their strengths and weaknesses. Some were stronger than others and some had special abilities like she and her brothers and sisters did. She was sitting on the bleachers watching the sparring partners when someone walked in and seemed to take notice of her. Hardly anyone knew what she could do, and she hadn't given anyone a demonstration since showing up, not even Cat or Dyson. So far she was just Laura, but the instinct to fight was still prominent inside her. There were so many things in Bella’s life lately that didn’t makes sense and on the suggestion of a classmate, she should take up land based training as well as her normal water training. She wasn’t really sure what that would mean and she wasn’t really that aggressive of a person as it was. Still, she’d found herself at the gym feeling awkward. After doing a few of the ‘suggested’ things she decided to wander. Eventually she found a room where people apparently took pleasure in beating the crap out of people. Not exactly her thing and she was about to turn away when her eye caught someone she’d seen that was new to school and if she wasn’t mistaken was living with Dyson and Cat. Taking a breath she looked down at her feet before climbing up towards her and sitting down right next to her. “So, who do you think will win?” She asked turning her head as a strand of her hair fell out of her braid. Laura stared at the other girl from the moment she spotted her until she sat down right beside her and started asking questions. Even after the question was asked, she still stared for a few seconds. While she’d spoken to people online and met a handful of people in person, casual conversation wasn’t something that Laura had gotten very good at with people she didn’t spend a lot of time with regularly. Even with Cat and Dyson, sometimes their conversations were relatively short and to the point. She’d gotten over her trust issues with them mostly, but she still tried to keep herself closed off from forming any attachments. It would be easier that way when they would either leave her one way or another whether it be by choice or not. The adults in her life had either hurt her or left her. She didn’t expect anything different from any of these people. This girl, though, she was older than she was but younger than a lot of people here, and Laura was pretty sure she had seen her at the school sometimes. Finally, after determining that there wasn’t anything dangerous about her in that particular moment, she shrugged and turned back to the fight. One was a guy with a metal arm and the other a guy with a stupid-looking shield with a star on it. “Nobody,” she said. “Neither one of them are trying to win.” At least not in the way that Laura had been taught to win. To win a fight meant that her opponent was dead or on the ground unable to get back up on their own. “They’re both holding back,” she said then looked back up at the girl curiously. “That’s stupid.” Watching the two fight, she frowned slightly. Bella didn't know anything about fighting at least not this kind of fighting. Bella wasn't the fighting kind, at least not the physical kind. She was more of the fight for the right thing, go up against massive water monsters or try and save the world by using mermaid magic... Fighting like the two guys were fighting in front of them was far from her list of knowledge. "How can you tell that they're both holding back?" Bella asked glancing over at her. "I'm not really that big of a fighter, I did get into it once with a really grumpy sting ray, but it was just scared and needed help more than anything else." Bella shrugged. "But land fighting? Kinda clueless on it." She admitted without too much worry too it. "I'm Bella by the way," she introduced herself with a friendly smile. Laura didn't give her name to the girl right when Bella introduced herself. She stared a bit longer and then looked back out to the fight waiting for a moment when she could show how they weren't doing everything they could to take the other down. It wasn't completely obvious to someone who didn't know exactly what they were looking at since both men were actually fighting pretty hard and skillfully, but Laura knew how she might move or react when in the same kind of fight. Just then the shield guy bounced the shield off of a wall so that it came flying around towards metal arm guy. Metal arm guy stood waiting for the shield to come around only to deflect it away. “He waited,” she said. “He could have charged the guy instead of waiting or taken the shield for himself and used it against him.” It wasn't the first time either of them had missed opportunities to get the advantage in a cutthroat situation. Apparently this wasn't that kind of fight. “I'm Laura.” She was mostly watching the fight, but she did glance over at Bella briefly again. “You fought a sting ray?” Watching she nodded her head slightly as she tried really hard not to flinch at the clash of metal against each other. Oh yeah, Bella was so not the kind of girl that had a clue about this kind of fighting. It actually made her really nervous, but she didn't make any movement to leave or even look away. "Yup!" Bella said with a small smile. "So much more annoying than your average sharks, most sharks just want to leave you alone, I mean sometimes they like to chase, and their teeth are rather terrifying up close, but they aren't so bad." She told Laura. "You've only been here a month or so now yeah? Are you finding it okay?" She asked. Bella knew that Laura lived with Cat and Dyson, but that was because it was just one of those things people know. Sharks and sting rays? Those were what Bella fought in her home? There wasn’t any judgement in Laura’s features, just mostly a little confusion. Fighting animals in the ocean didn’t sound like something that was real. Laura hadn’t ever even seen the ocean until she came to Atlantis. Then again, being manufactured and raised to be a killer for hire based on superpowers probably didn’t sound very real to the average person either. Laura nodded at her first question, but paid attention to the fight as she thought about the second one. Was she finding it okay? For the most part, but it was still taking a lot of getting used to. Some days she liked it better here than home and other days she thought about asking to be sent back. A lot of times it was confusing or overwhelming so she just ignored it instead. She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess.” Laura looked down and tugged at the sleeves on her shirt before looking back up at the fight again as it seemed to start to wind down. There was an exchange of words between the two men, some sort of known joke between them, and then they stopped. Just like that. “I miss my friends from home,” she said. “Somebody said they could show up, but I think it would have happened by now.” If there was one thing that Bella understood was missing people from home. She gave Laura a small, sad understanding smile as her mind thought of Cleo and Ricki the most. "It can happen, I got here and was here for a bit, and my friend Cleo showed up, she left though so probably not the best example, but it does seem like people turn up from other places and there a lot of people from some places. Like Enzo, he's got loads of people from his world! Not that he likes all of them, but they are there at least." Bella said trying to be encouraging. "Besides, there are some good people here, and nothing says we can't make new friends even if we aren't so sure about this place." She offered. "With all the weird stuff around here and all of us, well I guess most of us not being strictly human, bound to be interesting people to talk to." She felt like she was repeating herself but didn't over think it either. Laura frowned, thinking of all of the people she might want to show up. The ones that she missed the most and wondered if she should go back for even if they didn't even know she was gone. Then she thought about the people who could show up that she wouldn't see even if she did go home. “Dead people come here, don't they?” she asked. The question itself was probably a giveaway of what she was feeling, but for some reason she didn't mind Bella knowing. “People who died in their worlds. They can come here?” There were multiple people she would like to see again who she'd seen die. Some who died because she entered their lives. Of all the things Bella expected or thought Laura would say that was not one of them. Asking her about dead people made her feel, well sad. She gave a soft small nodding before she even tried to find her voice. "Yeah, some people have shown up from points in their history from before they died, so it is possible for people to come here that we know as dead." Bella didn't know if she should say anything else about it, but she knew if she were asking the question she'd want the honest answer. "I guess it's kinda weird with us being here but people from our homes not actually knowing we are gone. One of the teachers talked about time and place something or other, but I kinda got distracted during that lesson." Bella admitted sheepishly. "Whoever it is you lost, they might show up. " Bella said. "And I hope they do." Laura mulled over Bella’s response. She thought of all the people she missed and would like to see again. People who were dead, people who were still living. She briefly even thought about her enemies showing up only for her to be able to kill them again, but those dark thoughts were pushed aside quickly. She'd hardly waste a chance to see people again on enemies. Satisfied with the answer, Laura nodded but decided to change the subject. She thought about those kind of things a lot, but she didn't like talking about them. “Have you ever been to the zoo? I help out there sometimes.” Bella was a little surprised to hear Laura change the subject, mostly because she thought she'd have to be driving the conversation more, but it appeared the young girl didn't want to talk about the what if's and Bella was perfectly okay with that. It wasn't easy thinking about what could happen. Hell, she'd met a brother she didn't know she'd had, and he vanished rather quickly, there was a lot she wasn't sure she wanted to know. Smiling she nodded, "A couple of times," Bella answered. "Mostly when I'm there I go spend time with the dolphins and probably not too surprising, the other Marine life." Ever since it became clear that she didn't have to hide that she was a mermaid and having Cleo gone, she'd been asked to hang out with the dolphins sometimes. They missed Cleo. "What do you do at the zoo?" “They let me feed some of the animals,” Laura replied. “Sometimes watch them fix them when they’re hurt.” She had weird feelings about some of the tests and procedures she saw the doctors and zookeepers do on the animals, but so far they hadn’t seemed too extreme to Laura. Most of the time she actually did see the animal hurting before they helped it, or the doctors did a good enough explanation of why they were doing what they were to satisfy Laura’s questioning. She knew from first hand experience how awful certain “tests” could go at the hands of doctors doing their jobs. “I met one of the lions, but the people there didn’t like how I did it. Something about him being a wild animal. His name’s Augustus.” It wasn’t that Laura didn’t know he was a wild animal, as much as any caged animal could be, but his claws didn’t scare her when she had some of those of her own. "Do you think you'd want to do that too? Help fix them up when they are hurt?" Bella asked curiously. She herself was someone who always wanted to help but doing something like that probably wouldn't work very well for Bella given when she touched anything wet she turned into a mermaid. Not the best thing for a lot of careers she thought to herself but didn't show any of her inner thoughts other than a slight sadness to her eyes. "Oh yeah? Augustus? I haven't met him yet. Good lion?" She asked with another smile. "Sometimes you just have to do things your own way, and if this Augustus is your friend, then I say that's all that matters in the long run." Bella meant it too, but she probably wasn't the right person to ask she pretty found of an octopus and got along with a few other dangerous animals in the sea. Laura shrugged. Maybe she did? She wasn't sure. She was fascinated by watching the doctors work sometimes even if she was also in some kind of protective mode to make sure they didn't do anything to hurt the animals more. She would ask a lot of pointed questions when she didn't know what they were doing too. “I don't know. I just make sure the doctors are doing what they're supposed to.” All doctors weren't good doctors. She used to think that most of them weren't, but she'd seen some pretty cool things over the last few weeks and how they’d helped the animals. She nodded. ‘“He's a good lion.” She liked going down to see him, but she hadn't been able to do it again. Yet. Maybe she could figure out a way to see him again when the trainers weren't watching closely. Or sneak out of her room and got see him at night. Lions came out at night to hunt. Bella seemed to think it was okay, though, even if she didn't know all the details. “I could show him to you sometime,” Laura said, her voice a little more hesitant this time. She didn't make friends easily if any indication by how school had been going for her, and the rest of her friends were either back home, a lot older, or dead. "Maybe you could ask them to teach you some basics? Stitching up and stuff?" Bella offered a suggestion. She really didn't know enough about that kind of stuff, but she got a feeling that Laura wasn't someone who would like being bored. She did raise an eyebrow at her comment about the doctors but didn't comment on it. She decided that could be something she could bring up at some other time. It seemed like something that wasn't exactly comfortable. "Yeah?" She grinned at the offer. "I'd love that!" She said quickly. She did notice that Laura wasn't as sure in her words about it, but Bella was confident in hers, and she was very interested in meeting the lion. Land animals weren't usually her thing, but she got along with sea lions right? "When do you usually head down there?" Bella asked without hesitation. “You mean I could help them too?” Laura hadn’t thought about that yet, but the idea suddenly interested her. She wasn’t sure if they would let her a lot of stuff, but maybe a little. She probably would have to make sure not to get in trouble with the trainers though. She guessed she could do her best to follow the rules even if she thought they were stupid. “In the afternoons on the days they make me go to school.” She didn’t hide her lack of interest in going to school at all. She put up with it, mostly, but she would have preferred to just help out at the zoo all day instead. It wasn’t like she needed schooling for that. Or so she thought. "Yeah, why not! Maybe you could work it out, so it counted towards some of your credits for school, practical learning is just as important as the boring classes, if not more." She said shrugging. "If you want, I could help you put together a proposal for just that if it's something that you are interested in that is." Bella offered out of habit of wanting to help people, and she kind of figured the happier people were, the better that they do. "It might even cut down on the hours that you have to be at school," Bella added noticing her less than thrilled tone about school. "But you know, school isn't all bad, some of the classes might as well be called, 'how to try and stay awake, ' but some of them are interesting." Bella liked parts of the school and hated other parts of it. She was supposed to be nearly done when she'd showed up and had to go back a few months, so she got the feeling of not liking it. Laura thought about Bella’s suggestion for a minute. She hadn’t ever thought about anything like that. Using the zoo as a part of her school to actually get out of going to school. It was actually kind of genius. She smiled a little and nodded at the other girl. She really liked that idea. “I never went to school before I got here. I… trained, but it was different. Most of the other kids don’t like me.” She shrugged. Sometimes it bothered her and sometimes it just was the way things were. Laura had trouble connecting with most people, not just the other kids in her classes. “They won’t let me go on any of the missions, so I go to school instead.” "Then, we'll work on it!" She said taking her smile meaning she liked the idea. Her expression softened as she listened to Laura tell her about training. Part of her wanted to ask her what kind of training but decided that she shouldn't do that. If Laura wanted to tell her about it, Bella would be there to listen. "I like you just fine," She said smiling nudging her softly with her shoulder. She was pretty sure Laura wasn't used to friendly gestures like that, so she kept it small. "Besides school here is a bit weird, don't get me wrong, I like some of it, but it's still sort of weird." She shrugged. "Do you want to go on missions?" There was something about Bella that was easy to talk to for Laura even though she was so different than most people she’d ever been around that she actually liked. As a testament to feeling at ease, she started to swing her short legs while they sat on the bleachers. “Sometimes. Maybe. I don’t know. I thought that might be why I came here. To go on the missions, but they don’t want me to.” She looked up at Bella curiously. “Do you go on them or do you want to go?” "If a mission comes up where your skills are needed, they might ask you to join," Bella offered not really sure. "Uh, not really, I have done some little stuff, like camp work, but that's about it. I guess if my skills were needed.. There haven't been a lot of underwater missions, and I'm not sure I'd be much of an asset above ground." Bella answered honestly. "I'm not always the most coordinated." After a short pause, she spoke again, "I was going to go get a juice, do you want to come?" Laura didn’t think that they’d ever ask her, but there was always the possibility of it happening at some point. She had a specific set of skills that no one else here could say that they had. Plus, she was small. Nobody ever thought she had the power and lethal capabilities that she actually did have. Underwater missions, though, that was something she probably wouldn’t be good at but sounded kind of cool. She’d been to Atlantis Lake once or twice but had never been to an actual beach in her life. At the mention of juice, Laura nodded with a smile. She was starting to get a little thirsty. And hungry. “Okay.” They were both soon on their feet and heading down the bleachers. Once they were on their way, she smiled a little up at Bella again as she led the way. It felt nice to have a friend. |