station72 | [week of the 46th]

CHARACTERS: Angel & You!
WHERE: Bearings, Around Concordia
WHEN: From 45 until whenever really.
SUMMARY: Just doing things around the Bearings, tech stuff, lion stuff, angry video gaming. If you want to do something different, just drop me a message, or just go ahead with whatever takes your fancy.
WARNINGS: None to be thought of yet, apart from Borderlands as normal, copious attempts at swearing but failing miserably at them.

360 no scope heatshot

[ She's plugged in yet again. Which is probably done better sitting up? But she doesn't exactly have to use her hands, and nor is she. There's two sets of cords that are snaking around the common room floor, looping discreetly to dodge the coffee table, and follow them from the screen long enough and they reach her head. Plugged in directly to her skull where the metal grates are flipped open to expose the internal ports. The black wire settled that little bit into it seems, her skull. Sure, she's got one hell of a wifi signal, but why bother when she can just plug it straight? Better response time between her brain and her very serious work she is totally doing - ]

Come on, come on, there's like five minutes left in the level.

[ - or not. Where her legs are hooked over the back of the couch and her heads tilted up and backwards to look at the screen. She's playing video games, something with lots of running and shooting and heavy amounts of simulated violence. With her brain, because why the hell not? That's totally a legitimate use of her brain powers, clearly. Well, she seems to be enthralled in it, anyway. Short and shirts and bare feet fiddling over the back of the couch where she's hooked in, she's definitely comfortable right now. Aw how sweet, she's playing with other people too, isn't that nice - ]

6U4RD14N4N631 LOSES.

VICTORY TO YOURMAMA11115.

[ Yeah, never mind. ]

That's bullsh- bull - something!

[ Her upside down face scrunches up in concentration, she doesn't like losing, well, she can handle it, but not at the one thing she's supposed to be the best at, at least. ]

YOURMAMA11115> @6U4RD14N4N631 srry u sukk
YOURMAMA11115> Guess I am just beetar
YOURMAMA11115> come bak wwhen ur up 2 my lvl

[ The words flash up brightly on the screen, flashing big and bold and her face scrunches up, head turning back to the screen to face it properly like she can't quite believe it. Frowning still, letters start typing back in reply without her even moving off the couch. Well maybe that's over with. ]

6U4RD14N4N631> @YOURMAMA11115 rematch or stfu

[ Or not. ]

how to train your lion

[ Up on the roof, Angel takes her lion out to really move around for the first time. After spend whenever she could first - learning how to pull it apart and then put it together just to make sure she knew how it worked, then changing the original wiring to something she preferred, then again to remove oh - certain things, like kill switches, uses of force, and then making sure that absolutely no one could activate it but herself. Then there'd been the pointless customising if only to do nothing but making it look pretty where her fiddling had ruined its paint job.

But it does have a name, now, written in black block printed letters on its side: ᴀɴᴅʀᴏᴄʟᴇs.

But it's done for now. Making sure the lion answers to her, and wordlessly. It's AI as is perfectly serviceable, adjusted bit by bit so her mind didn't destroy it just from a brush, rather, it's weaved with her own. The same bright glow in its eyes as in hers when she's up on the roof. Bright blue and white, shining brightly. Her markings as ever, glowing down her exposed arm. ]

Well, you did alright walking up here with me. [ Good start? Good start. ] Okay, let's see how you go with the basics first...

[ It's big enough beside her, easily come up to her chest height. Her fingers wave, calculated expression as she watches it move. Knitted together brows as it walks where she bids it. There's a strength to its movements. Timed right. Good, she hadn't messed up those calibrations either, the next breath comes easier.

Soundless, just a thought and intention, her fingers curl to gesture it forward as she steps back. Letting it walk one step, then another. It's metallic tail flicking back and forth around its legs. Not quite as smooth as a real one, the little metal plates sliding perfectly as they were designed to. She keeps walking back. Fingers still held up, but she keeps her normal sphere of white light out of it - didn't know who was watching, didn't want to risk anything.

It gets faster until she's moving in a long stride, backwards jog and Androcles is keeping up with her easily at a steady trot. It's long steps are easily keeping up with her shorter ones.

Riiiight up until she forgets that running backwards is a stupid idea, and she drips over an uneven crack in the floor and falls flat on her butt. The lion stops, and nervously, it begins to press in close with its nose into her hair, checking if she's alright. ]

smol tries to be somewhat less smol

[ After that, however, and at any point, she is attempting her best with her training outside of just Lexa and Ren's encouragement. Because if Parker's hitting had taught her anything, it was that she didn't like being caught off guard like that. She refused to just sulk over it, either.

Instead, she forced herself through the motions. The same repetitions: strikes, blocks, staff in hand and her lion sitting nearby, - she's growing attached to it - but just with its head in its pause in an idle pose for now. She just keeps pushing herself - clumsily, but still, consistently, through it. Inevitable that she messes up, of course, cursing to herself in a cut off kind of way. Motherducking skag sucking son of a - witch.

If she finds company however, she'd rather it be participating than just being watched be - not very good at it. So she smiles, waving hello: ] Hey, did you want to join? Promise it's impossible for me to hit you, trust me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ It's the exactness of it that makes it tricky. Her fingers curling up as she catches her breath. Feeling the thud of blood where it moves her limbs, the force of exercise is sometimes not even just to get stronger, it's to reaffirm her presence in her own body. The dead thing she is used to it being. A place she inhabits, rather than lives in, and it's the daily fight to make it latter rather than former. ]

I've been doing it as often as I can. Not sure if I am getting better or worse, really.

If you keep pushing yourself, you'll improve. One way or another. Sometimes being your own toughest critic can work to your advantage.

[Heavens knows that Bruce is, to every extreme imaginable. To be at a physical plateau that most normal people cannot reach is not good enough -- he can always be better, for the sake of everyone else around him. Anything less is unacceptable.

And it's true that he's liable to extend this criticism to others, to hold them to the same standards as he would his own. Because of this, he can be an unforgiving instructor, but it's strangely tempered by his recognition of the effort others put in, and their will to improve.

So naturally, he offers:]

Still willing to entertain a sparring partner for now?

I hope so. I don't want to be the one letting the team down.

[ She craves those high standards and maybe that's the left over of Jack, the drive to be the best and always be that one step above, or maybe that's just how she knows survival work. She tries to keep arrogance out of it, think about what is best for all of them. But she wants to be as good as she can be, to finally get to take what was given to her with both hands and wield it for herself.

So his offer is met with a wide smile. ] Definitely.

Edited 2016-10-26 06:44 (UTC)

[Bruce just nods, his own expression a stark contrast to Angel's; difficult to read, focused, serious. Considering. From their mental connection alone, he can feel the threads of wishing to improve, and Bruce's perpetual desire to make the Nest better than what it is makes him eager to oblige.

He steps closer, then, leaving a few feet of space between them before he speaks again.]

Has anyone been training you prior to this?

[ She nods. ] With Lord Ren, and Commander Lexa.

[ Like he told her, too, she moved to watch his feet, his hands, tracking his movements to get herself ready for them. Then she looks up, absent thought crossing her mind - ] Oh, I'm Angel, by the way. I don't think we've spoken before properly.

[ There's the absent buzz of the hive, of course there is, but she knows it means a lot to a great deal of them to not lean on that. ]

[Both are names he's familiar with (though it's the first he's heard anyone refer to Ren with the title "Lord" coupled with it), and Bruce nods in recognition. It's good to have fellow hosts learning from a variety of individuals; an expansion of experience is what they all desperately needed, and the irony of this thought doesn't escape him. As much as he hates being so closely integrated with those around him, there were times when it proved advantageous. Vital, even.

It made training, at least, more efficient.]

My name is Bruce. I've heard your name mentioned to me on more than one occasion when I first arrived.

[An enticing comment that perhaps would incite further questioning, but Bruce doesn't expand further. He readies himself defensively, willing to let her make the first strike. If she wants halve her focus between fighting and conversation, he'll not stop her. But he'll not be the one to instigate it either.]

[ That could be - well anything. She's used to being talked about so much as well, the vault hunters talked about their Guardian Angel, the voices from on high that said she believed in them, was guiding them towards the vault, and then later, of her betrayals. Marcus's myth stories where she's an unnecessarily unknowable.

But here - it's something else that always settles a little oddly. It feels so touchable when she hears herself mentioned in the second hand. Somewhere between giggling, in love with the thought, and wide-eyed fear of the notion. ]

Well - I guess it's the kind of name that sticks? [ Sure that there was others talked about and she opts for the easier option that is to move herself forward to do just that and - strike, where she's shorter, she has learned to not over stretch herself aiming up. It just left her open for a knee straight into her stomach. Instead, she aims centre of mass. A fist that at least knows the basics, not to curl her thumb into her hand, trying to keep her wrist straight as she aims in and hard, - but still throws her shoulder too much, over-compensating for her small height. ]

[Built the way that he is, Bruce's center of mass is probably the simplest aim zone for an opponent; a large target, easily within striking distance of most. But even in his relatively short experience of gallivanting at night as a certain vigilante, he's fought far too many who go straight for the middle. It's almost out of pure habit how quickly he blocks with his forearms, tucking himself in reminiscent to a boxer on defense.]

You were recommended to me, concerning keeping everyone else's thoughts out.

[He keeps conversation concise and critique more prevalent, as it should be.]

You're overreaching. Even if you hit me, it loses its impact.

[ She rolls with the movement as expected, almost losing her balance with it as she tries to - catch herself, readjust as he says. ]

I know, - [ a sharp little, crossed line on her face, irritated with herself. ] I suppose I know where I want to be, and I'm used to it just being there that it's... hard. [ Swift to chastise herself on it, it seems, always correcting, forcing herself to be better. ]

[It's an expression that Bruce knows well, the same one he wears when he's not living up to his insanely high expectations for himself. He doesn't relax his stance, even as he finds her wording a bit strange.

Naturally, he asks. He isn't the sort to be worried about being too forward between fellow hosts.]

What do you mean, you're "used to it just being there"?

[ She sighs, shifting her stance back again, and this time she tries again, and she restrains the roll of her shoulder, testing the movement once through without striking him, just trying to get it where she wants it. ]

Sorry, strange wording I guess. [ Right, again this time. ] I can, in a select area, control the perception of reality to be... whatever I want it to be. Sort of like... the most intense illusion you've ever seen. [ But lacking, a little, sometimes, because it is only of late that she has touch and taste to go with it. ]

It definitely makes you lazy, sometimes.

[Bruce considers this for a moment, filing the information away in the back of his head. Knowing who is capable of what is a perk of training the rest of the Nest; a convenient way to keep track of whose abilities may be useful for the future, and who might be dangerous enough to keep an eye on.

He'll not say that much, though. No point in inspiring uncertainty in others, or broadcasting his own ~~paranoid~~ cautious nature without reason.]

Visualizing in an important step, just as long as you don't over-rely on it. [Though what Angel is describing seems to be a bit more on the extreme side.] Is this something you've always been able to do, or can you thank the symbiote for it?

[His forearms back up in a defensive manner, he'll let her get a strike or two in. He makes sure to keep watch of her footwork, to check and see if she overreaches.]

[week of the 46th]

.... I thought that was an explosion behind his head until I realized it was leaves....

CRYING well considering his canon that actually isn't too farfetched

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