Puddle of Training

Title: Puddle of Training
Emitter: -
Characters: Mari, Wil
NPCS: -
Place: Thunderdome - Steranko Institute
Time: Sept 29, 2010 - Afternoon
Summary: Wilberforce starts training some of his more disturbing powers… and asks his girlfriend out on a date.

_( Thunderdome - Steranko Institute )

The Thunderdome is set up right now like a classic gymnastics rotation series, men's style. The training right now isn't so much extreme activity, but precision activity under distraction. The outer rim of the thunderdome has been turned into noisy, moving crowd scenes. There is at least three different pieces of music playing in the background, and the lighting involves moving and shifting spotlights. And then there is the trainee, Wil is out there in a white leggings and shirt, with a slight band of blue around his waist to break up the lack of color. For the moment he's on the floor, doing a few tumbling runs and pausing to look at a piece of paper over near the corner, right near the entrance door.

From the ramp walks out a young woman dressed in gypsy attire. She stops as she walks out, seeing the lights, hearing the noises, then peering at Wilberforce as he is out on the floor. Tilting her head to the side, Mariscka, dressed as 'Tarot'. Glancing around, Mariscka steps back against the wall, watching Wil quietly, so she doesn't intrude.

After one more review of the paper Wil takes off on his training 'run' which is actually a quick loop through all of the different apparatus, starting with a tumbling run across the floor, then to a series of loops across the parallel bars, then a series of twists and a reverse on the pommel horse, a series of three hold positions on the rings, then a single rotation double twist vault to end it. Then the music, noise and lights stop as a panel slides up to review and show the deviations from the plan, but also the eye tracking metrics that showed where he glanced away from his focus points, letting himself be distracted by the crowds and the noise. He shakes his head and walks away over to the ramp, "Hey! I thought I was focusing well, but the thing says I somehow managed to look over at you five times while I was doing that."

Mariscka blinks, looks around, then to the panel, before looking at Wil. "I tried not to intrude," she says, smiling shyly. "What … what are you doing?" she asks curiously. Mariscka reaches up and twists some of her hair around a finger. "I didn't mean to be a distraction. Or did I say that already."

Wil chuckles a bit as he reaches onto a rail and swings himself up onto the ramp. "I don't mind being distracted by you Mari." He half turns and gives a gesture, "I've been doing this as a way to work on some focus assignments. Basically we had to take a complex and physically taxing task, but one we were proficient with, and then perform them under distracting circumstances. I think later on I'm supposed to add in lasers or something else, to make it more dangerous forms of distraction."

Still twirling her hair, Mariscka looks down then smiles up at Wilberforce. "Well, then, I guess I'll count that as a compliment. And that … sounds interesting, actually. Is this in Power Training?" she asks, before glancing around. "No, I couldn't do any of that, really. Huh. So you did gymnastics? Hey… I know we haven't talked about this," she offers, suddenly curious as she looks around for a place to sit. "Um… you never really mentioned how you got your powers."

Wil calls out since he's still set up to run the simulator, "Observation chairs, two please." And two chairs form against the wall nearby. "Yeah, it's part of sophomore powers training, focus under fire and stuff like that. This is just warming up to what I think we'll have to do in the spring though." He moves over and takes a seat and grins at Mariscka, "Yeah, I did gymnastics pretty seriously, national training camps and junior olympic team stuff." He looks down at his hands for a moment, "That's really the root of how I got my powers. Turns out I have, or well had, a degenerative ligament syndrome. So my joints and tendons were getting stiff, a lot stiffer than normal. I wasn't going to be able to keep competing. I was pretty upset about it, probably too upset really, but that's why my dad finagled an experimental treatment… that went really, really wrong."

Moving over, Mariscka watches Wil with wide-eyes as she sits down - hands absently smoothing her skirt. "That… would be … disturbing," notes Mariscka, considering. "To have something you enjoy, be taken away from you, through no fault of your own… No, I am certain you were reasonably upset," she offers with a motion for Wil to join her.
Mariscka then hesitates before shyly trying to reach for the young man's hand. "And well… obviously the treatment worked… perhaps too well."

Wil takes the seat next to Mari and then takes the offered hand. "Yeah, it worked really, really too well. I think I told you a bit about how I spent two years out of school recovering from it all." He relaxes back a bit into his seat, still holding her hand with a smile. "I've not shown you just how I spent those first few months, till I learned out to move myself around again, probably because it's a bit disturbing even to me so no telling what it looks like to someone else really. I'm just now getting back to being able to do all the same things."

A gentle squeeze is given of Wil's hand as Mariscka nods. "I would imagine something like … silly putty left to ooze over a Barbie chair?" she asks with a tilt of her head to the side. "You don't have to show me, unless it's something you feel like you need to do. And that's not because I think I'll freak out. If it's still disturbing for you, after all…"

"Well, it's one of the powers I'm supposed to practice. I've just been doing it in my dorm room. I guess if I ever have to do it in the field with other people around… might be a good thing if they've seen it before and don't think Dr. Gattling melted me with some kind of particle beam." Wil grins a bit and gives Mari's hand a squeeze back. "I think I'm almost comfortable with it being who I am now. But, you know, it's still weird." And then he adds with a wider grin, "And I don't think you'll freak out, you're way too with it to freak out over it I bet."

Mariscka shrugs her shoulders and smiles. "I can have conversations with Ghosts and Spirits," notes Mariscka. "What's a little 'Melting Boyfriend' action, mmm?" she asks, with a wide impish grin.

The grin turns into a wide smile, probably right after the word 'boyfriend' wanders into his ears. "Well, yeah, you're right. I bet you see things that really has turned people's hair white already." He grins and gives her hand one more squeeze then stands up. "Alright, if I'm going to have to do this in front of class at some point, might as well let my girlfriend see first, right?"

Pondering for a moment, there is an impish gleam in the young woman's hazel eyes as she slowly smiles even more widely. "Can I poke you like a bowl full of jelly?" she teases with a wink, before clearing her throat. "Okay, okay! I'm serious now. Honest!"

Wil grins, "If you want to, you can. I'll even wiggle and wobble I bet." Then he turns and uses that 'hey computer I'm talking to you' voice. "Change training program to Wilberforce Four." And just like that the thunderdome reconfigures, all the gymnastics, lights and crowd gone. Instead, just a sturdy oak door in a frame sits out in the middle of the floor. There is a tiny sliver of a gap underneath the door. "When I… well melt, I'll look an awful lot like I did for the first few months after the accident. Except that now I've figured out how to keep breathing sorta." One more squeeze of Mari's hand then he lets go and hops back down and starts walking towards the door. Then when he gets about three feet away he just dissolves into a big puddle of sorts, though it doesn't look like it's a wet puddle.

Mariscka turns to watch Wilberforce walk away, smiling absently to herself. She has a boyfriend! Why … why does she want to giggle about it? But then, that distantly happy expression melts away as Wil does. Jumping up, Mariscka runs forward, only to stop herself after a few steps. She does look … worried, though not disturbed. Blinking her hazel eyes at Wil, she walks forward with her bare feet, before she kneels next to the puddle, and brushes her fingers across the surface - a caress, not a poke.
"That … was suddenly worrisome," she notes to the puddle softly.

The surface of the puddle actually does feel like skin, perhaps a little slicker and more resiliant, but still skin. The puddle shivers and moves a bit, a flattened version of Wil's face moving around to the front near where Mari's kneeling. "But I'm perfectly okay. And like this I can…" The puddle slides, rather quickly actually, and slips underneath the tiny crack in the training door. The only snag is that the clothes go too, and he has to stop and adjust when a leg of the pants gets stuck before it gets free and he can finish going through the door.

An eyebrow arches upwards and Mariscka hmmmms. "That could end up being … embarrassing," she drolls playfully. "Useful but … we need to find someone to either make you clothing or a costume that stays with you … or I can research a way to spirtually adhere your clothing to you," she notes.

Once Wil is to the other side he 'snaps' up, standing there, the flowing into his normal shape rather quick. Though he does have to reach down and tug his pants up the inch they get pulled down. "Yeah, that's the biggest issue is clothes. I can do a lot of useful things I think, but keeping the clothes on while doing them gets pretty hard sometimes. I need Captain Wonder Tailor, or Super Seamstress to come up with something nifty in the way of a costume. Otherwise I'll end up being the hero that streaks home, and that just would suck."

"Well … Gran made Ade's … and I sorta enchanted a ring so he doesn't have to wear it under his clothing," notes the kneeling Magician, trying to be humble and not smile in her pride. "And … I attuned this outfit to this glove," she notes, wrinkling her nose. "I'm sure Gran can help me research the right formula."

Wil walks over and offers his hand out to Mari to help her back to her feet. "That would be super great, and you could help me pick out what it looks like too. That's one of those hero and ethics tasks I have this semester, something that makes me look distinctive and heroic in public, so that people don't panic when they see someone doing weird stuff."

Bare feet pad softly on the ground as Mariscka is helped up, and she smiles, looking at Wil for a moment. "Blue, definitely blue. But the white … so impractical," she notes with a wink. "Dark blue, and charchol grey, perhaps," she notes with a wink. "Do you want sleeves?"

Wil thinks about it a moment, letting one hand drop after helping Mariscka to her feet, but the other keeps a hold on one of her hands. "Not sure. I'm used to not having sleeves though, they're not practical normally. Might be just the right kind of feel to keep up with no sleeves." He looks over at Mari with a smile then, "Hey, want to go into town and catch a movie Friday?"

Mariscka blinks outright, staring at Wil. "Like… a date-date?" she asks. Mari doesn't let go of Wil's hand, at least. "Hey… well… okay. On one condition. It's a double-date," she notes. "And Adrian gets to bring his 'Significant Other'," she grins wickedly.

Wilbeforce just smiles widely, "Sure, that's fine with me. One condition, those two have to get their own bag of popcorn to share." He grins a bit more, a slight little bounce, "Great, thanks Mari. You're the greatest, you know?"

That causes Mariscka to blush greatly, smiling up at Wilberforce. "Oh, probably not. Wait 'til you meet Ade's boyfriend," she jokes, before standing up on the tips of her toes and trying to place a quick kiss on Wil's cheek. Then it's trying to run away before Wil can go 'Wait … boyfriend?'

Wil was far, far too distracted by the kiss on his cheek to even register the fact that she said boyfriend till she's out the door. Then he stops and his eyes get wider, "Boyfriend? What in the world?" Then he just shrugs a bit and starts heading to pick up his bookbag, that same dazed look and smile returning as he reaches up to where he just got kissed.

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