Let's Get Physical! (Just not like that.) [Open to X-Students and X-Faculty!]

[marvel_boy]

“Alright, Animus. It’s just you and me,” Christopher Philip Summers said to his evil psionic demon twin-thing. (He really wasn’t sure how to describe it – just that it tended to explode out of his body whenever he had overloaded on negative energy and hadn’t released any of it.)

The shadowy blue-black figure leered back at Christopher, its stark white teeth bright against the bruised colouring of its lips.

Topher narrowed his eyes. He took up a fighting stance that he’d learned from Wolverine, and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, making it easier for him to move in case Animus tried to do anything bad. Which he already had, considering all of the unconscious bodies of his teammates around him.

Animus rushed him. Topher moved to intercept the psionic being, suck in all of that negative energy back into himself. He outstretched his hands and...everything went black.

Topher blinked and looked up at the ceiling. The lights flickered once, and then twice, and then he heard an odd whirring sound. “Great,” he said to no one but himself. “The Danger Room’s on the fritz.” This, normally, would be a bad thing, but technically, Topher wasn't supposed to be down here, unsupervised. He'd used his father's passcodes to access the Danger Room while everyone else was at lunch.

Topher turned around and walked towards the exit doors, which had slid open on their own. As soon as he was outside of the Danger Room, he ripped off his hoodie and walked up the steps towards the control room, his sneakers padding softly on the ground. He was no tech genius, but maybe he could call someone to help him figure out what was going on.

Or, y’know, not.

One of the consoles was smoking. Topher groaned. Not only was he most definitely in trouble now, but it looked like he was going to have to do expend his energy the old-fashioned way. With a punching bag.

He turned on his heel to go towards the gym, grumbling to himself. As he stepped into the elevator to take him onto another level of the lower levels of the compound, he caught his reflection in one of the mirrors that lined the walls. A sad, grumbly face stared back at him. His eyes widened for a moment before he forced a smile onto his face. No sadness, no negativity for him. That way led to trouble. That way possibly led to Animus. He didn’t want that.

The doors gently swooshed open and Topher stepped out onto the next level of the underground compound. Eight steps to the left and he was in the gym, ready to take some energy out on a punching bag.

Comments

[wild_child]

Rose, too, was generally a fan of the Danger Room. She could unleash the beast there, give in to her more violent impulses, if only for a brief time. It probably wasn't healthy, and she needed as much restraint as she could get. The same berserker rages that sometimes powered her dad were alive and well with her. She was far more like him than either of her brothers or Em, by a long shot.

The gym, however, was a reasonable alternative. And with the Danger Room scheduled for one of her dad's "Art of Fighting With Fighting" classes in less than an hour, the gym it was.

"You been on fire or somethin', Summers?" she asked. "I smell smoke."

[marvel_boy]

Topher wasn't aware that Logan had the Danger Room soon. He prayed that someone would fix the machine before then, so that Logan didn't stalk Topher down and claw him - verbally or physically.

He smiled awkwardly at Rose as he threw his hoodie on a bench. "I, ah, may have caused one of the Danger Room consoles to malfunction?" He slipped on a pair of fingerless gloves and rolled his shoulders back and forth. "Although, I'm not sure how, exactly, that happened."

[wild_child]

That got a snicker out of the short girl. "Pops is gonna murderize ya," she said. "Too bad. Yer almost tolerable fer a Summers."

[marvel_boy]

Topher blanched at that. His eyes widened, and his smile went from warm to slightly stupid. "Tell me he didn't have the room next?" He was going to need to find a place to hide.

Was Asteroid M still an option?

[wild_child]

More snickering. "Art of Fighting With Fighting. In... about forty-five minutes."

[marvel_boy]

"Maybe his class would rather listen to him wax poetic about World War Two?" Topher smiled hopefully. "Because, really, isn't that more interesting than fighting?" It wasn't, and they both knew it, but man. Topher did not want the trouble this was going to put him in.

[wild_child]

More smirking.

"Well... Lemme think about this one."

She gave it a moment. "Nope. Yer doomed."

[marvel_boy]

Topher closed his eyes and shook his head. "You, lady, are enjoying this far too much."

[wild_child]

Rose put on her best "who, me?" expression.

"I am appalled by this slander, Summers."

[marvel_boy]

Topher quirked up an eyebrow. "And I'm appalled by the potential slaughter!"

[wild_child]

"Relax," Rose assured him. "Comin' back from th' dead is what X-Men do."

[marvel_boy]

This made him laugh. Topher knew that well enough, considering that Jean Grey was his aunt by marriage. "I'll get reprimanded, but even I know well enough that Wolverine won't get all snikety-stabbity with me," he said. "Besides. I'll just dive behind you, Logan."

[wild_child]

Rose laughed out loud at that. Topher was a good foot taller than her, after all.

"Gonna have ta duck pretty deep there, Summers."

[marvel_boy]

Topher just grinned. "So what brings you in here today?" Not that he really had to guess. Rose was more like Wolverine than any of the other Logan kids. She was probably here for a good workout as much as he was.

[wild_child]

"Th' usual," Rose told him. "Felt like hittin' something and Dork Number Two's not as easy ta sneak up on as he used ta be."

[marvel_boy]

"Yeah, same here. Needs to get some of this out of my system before my darker half rears his ugly head and runs amock."

[wild_child]

Rose gave a small, knowing nod. She knew too well about letting your dark side out to play.

"Could hold the bag fer ya," she offered. "Or..." a head tilt toward the boxing ring. "Less yer afraid to hit a girl."

[marvel_boy]

Topher grinned at that last suggestion. "Like I could get a hit in against you," he replied. Yes, Topher was gifted with superstrength and superspeed as a side effect of his powers - that was how he expended his energy - but he was no Logan-child. "But I wouldn't mind trying."

[wild_child]

She grinned, just a little wildly.

"Yer gonna have ta try pretty hard."

[marvel_boy]

He matched her grin. The fact of the matter, though, was that Topher was at a bit of a disadvantage here. His mother had mastery over magnetism, his father could shoot...energy blasts of some kind. Actually, he wasn't sure exactly what Alex Summers did, just that he did what he did. Regardless, though, he wasn't from a family of fighters, and Topher himself...well, his powers made it so that he couldn't exactly fire off blasts of energy to fight with.

Not that something like that stopped him from trying to be the best possible X-Kid he could.

"Weapons, or hand to hand, my dear wild child?"

[wild_child]

"Hand ta hand works fer me," Rose said. "We'll take it easy on ya."

She snagged a pair of boxing gloves and tossed them to him.

[marvel_boy]

Topher caught the gloves and slipped them on. "Go ahead," he winked. "Do your worst."

And then he prepared to get the snot beaten out of him.

[wild_child]

Rose slipped her own gloves on and smirked. "Well, just remember, ya asked fer it..."

She started moving already, feinting left and throwing out a right.

[marvel_boy]

Topher expected that move and blocked it easily, employing his speed more than he did his strength. But he knew that this would only last for a few more moves. Rose was good at what she did. He took a step back and threw out a punch himself.

[wild_child]

Rose got her own gloves up and blocked it, shifting her weight so that she could put more power into the follow-up blow.