strangetrip | [GP] training day

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[GP] training day

There was a trope that in prison there wasn't much to do except work out or read. As colorful as Madonna Inn might be, it was still a prison. And look, somebody had put together a library.

Put fifty some people, many of them military, adventurers, vigilantes, or superheroes of one stripe or another, in a prison with none of the urgent missions or near-death experiences they were used to, the fitness center was going to be a popular place. Maybe almost as popular as the bar.

... Probably not quite that popular.

There were free weights and weight machines, treadmills and ellipticals, yoga mats and exercise balls. A room set aside for classes, if someone decided to lead. A large square had been taped over an area of the floor off to one side as a make-shift sparring space. Sports equipment had been brought back from Bonesville for those who preferred more organized games. And those who had been stuck here longest remembered there hadn't always been a salmon ladder.

In other words, something for just about everybody. And you could usually find someone in there if you were looking for a spotter, workout buddy, sparring partner, friendly competition too.

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When Nina had started training Emma, it had been about self-defense, and even now Emma was more comfortable on the defensive in a fight. But as her control over her projections had grown, she'd had to practice forms of attack to be able to manipulate them better. And she had worked on tactics with Scott, when she didn't feel like she was imposing too much on his time. Kitty had chosen a good challenge, pushing Emma out of her comfort zone and drawing on skills she needed to practice, while Emma had to multi-task by fighting and projecting five fighters, in concert. Getting rid of their weapons had been one thing, but with this card it was all five fighters or none.

With a thought, she spread the five out around the mat. Pilot and Checked Hat, for now, she kept between herself and Kitty, focused on defense, to give herself time to observe and plan. Eyepatch and the brunette attacked simultaneously, one high, the other a leg sweep low and from behind, testing as much as expecting to land hits, and the blonde circled, waiting for an opening.

It had been awhile since Kitty had faced a disadvantage in numbers, but not nearly long enough for her to forget that the key was to keep moving, feint and rush into the gap that responses left, take a blow if it meant she could disable a different opponent. Unlike sparring with a well-matched opponent, there was nothing beautiful about it, except the grace of her movements and of Emma's mind. Instead, she scrambled and scrabbled and fought for every inch of mat she retained.

As promised, she held off using her powers for most of the spar and when she did, she used them only defensively. Dodge, strike, phase to avoid a kick instead of somersaulting to stay in bounds. Strike, counterstrike, phase to let the attacker at her back fall through to the one in front. And so on, until she tired and Emma had taken enough blows to start losing her grip on her projections.

She bent over at the waist, hands on her knees and breathing hard. "That's going to hurt tomorrow," she said wryly, glancing over at Emma.

If Emma stopped moving, she was going to lock up, so while she dropped her projection, she made herself keep going, walking a slow circle along the edge of the mat. "Yeah," she agreed, although she was rubbing her temples as she said it. She was going to be bruised tomorrow too. Nina hadn't believed in taking it so easy on her she wouldn't know what she was doing in a real fight, and today with Kitty was the same.

"Too bad we don't have any skylilies here." Her head was throbbing worse than her body. Sure she'd had a physical workout, but the mental/psionic one had been more intense.

"Skylilies?" Kitty had never heard of them and she didn't know if they were related to the soreness they were bound to suffer tomorrow or something else.

She did, however, peer at Emma who was rubbing her temples the way Jean used to when she overexerted herself psionically. "You might want to talk Kash or Pike if that headache keeps up. Jean always said that aspirin didn't do shit for psi-strain, but magic might."

"Aspirin doesn't." Stronger painkillers could take the edge off, but Emma didn't think this would need that, or talking to one of the healers. "Skylily tea, on the other hand, does. But since skylilies won't exist for another thousand years or so, and I don't think the Askani sisters have any reason to send us a care package... If I need to, I'll see if magic helps.

"It doesn't feel like it's going to be that bad. I just haven't pushed myself practicing the way I should've. The more what I want the projections to do differs from what the cards are meant to do, the more effort it takes."

You didn't grow up X-man and not learn to hear resistance before it formed, and whatever authority she'd asserted in their practice, it didn't extend to anything else. Kitty didn't want it to.

But she was curious. "The Askani sisters sent you a care package in your timeline? Was Ray there?"

Ray didn't mean anything to Emma right away, but she thought about it before shaking her head. She didn't even know if that was a mutant name or a given one. "They sent it for Nathan. Cable. He planted a grove with the different seeds they sent, along with T-O, and writings and other stuff." She wasn't sure what all had been sent, only that Nathan had been dying, and Sage had somehow contacted Mother Askani, and they had sent what they could.

"Cable." Kitty suppressed a sigh. "Ray, Rachel, is Cable's sister. Jean and Scott's daughter. Also the Mother Askani." It didn't occur to her not to share that information, because it was known in her world.

"Ray's one of my best friends. I guess I'm not surprised that she wasn't around if the Askani were sending Cable gifts. She was probably in the future somewhere still."

Emma stopped walking as her mind drew connections with what Kitty said. "Wait. Nathan... is Jean and Scott's..." That was... Time travel was so confusing, and she was used to future, present, and past not being linear. "I guess that explains the similarity in powers. And that would mean Nate is too."

She shook her head. "What will be, is."

Kitty gave Emma a wry smile. "Yeah. Welcome to the four-dimensional Summers' family tree." She hadn't missed the reference to Jean and she couldn't resist asking, "So Jean's alive in your reality?"

"Yeah. She wasn't for a while, I think," or something like that. Her bond with Scott had been broken, that Emma remembered. "But that was before we got there. To the castle. I don't know her all that well. My cousin and Scott are close, though. He's been training her, and he helped me when I was studying tactics." Close was true, but vague enough. Sabine's feelings were her own, and Scott would never betray Jean.

Kitty smiled but swallowed hard. She missed Jean. It had been a long time since she'd felt the touch of Jean's mind on hers or hugged her oldest friend. "I'm glad she's with Scott in at least one world."

"I'm sorry," Emma said quietly, recognizing loss in Kitty's reaction. She'd heard enough stories of what things had been like back at the school, and from TJ and Mariko and the school and X-Men in their worlds. Jean had been at the center of so much, and it seemed like it had always been Jean and Scott together. Emma had mostly been too intimidated by Jean to get to know her, and of the telepaths, Nate – who was apparently an alt-relation – had been the most comfortable for her.

"Not your fault," Kitty replied with a tight but genuine smile and one arm around her waist as though she could protect herself from the pain of memory. "It's just been a long time, is all."

Responsibility and sympathy weren't the same, but that wasn't the point. "Loss is still loss. Time may make missing people we care about easier, but we still miss them."

She shook her head. "Now I sound like Sabine."

And who do you miss? Kitty wanted to ask, but Emma was a private person and she didn't want to pry. Besides, she obviously missed her cousin.

Instead, she said, "I've been missing Jean so long that it feels almost comfortable and familiar. It's the people I was with just before I left and the people who've left here that I miss the most."

Emma got that too. The difference between missing Mémé or Sister Thérèse compared to missing Dani and Sabine, or Pyro. She nodded.

"Being used to death is part of that too, I think. There's a sort of closure, and just the lives we've led, death is something we have to accept. Being cut off like this, people showing up or being taken away, it's different. Or maybe that's just me."

"It's not just you." Kitty picked up her water bottle and took a swig. When she lowered the bottle, she'd also swallowed the lump in her throat. "Wyatt leaving was hard, but I think he's where he belongs. Lara..." Nope, that lump was right back. "When she got here, she was fleeing for her life. Worrying that she went back to that, that she was killed, or worse, and not knowing...it's the worst."

"I could try to find out sometime." What was the use of having powers if you couldn't use them to help people? Sabine wasn't the only one with a vocation; Emma's just worked differently, and the results weren't always as easy to see.

"The tarot doesn't lie. To me. I mean, I can't promise how much I'll be able to see. I don't think my gifts were meant with pocket realities in mind, but I have been able to read for other people about things that haven't happened here."

"Normally, I'd say no, but..." Kitty frowned and thought about it. She didn't want to find out that Lara hadn't survived, but if she knew, at least she could grieve and make some kind of memorial. And probably Lara was fine. She had as many lives as Kitty.

"Let me think about it for a few days and get back to you? I really appreciate you offering. I just want to make sure I know why I'm asking before I say yes."

"Take as much time as you need. The offer isn't going anywhere." Unless Emma or Kitty disappeared, but that was understood.

"I try to recommend people only ask something if they're really prepared for whatever answer they might get. You can't put the cat back in the bag."

Kitty nodded, recalling precisely how uncomfortable it had been when she'd let Jean into her mind to find answers to questions she'd forgotten after Ogun. "Thanks," she said, and let it stand for the offer, the advice, and the workout.

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[GP] training day

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