legionworld | Let's Get Back To Work

Grif wasn't really one for group training. He didn't like people watching him try to do things. Mostly this was because he was really, really bad at them, but he also just preferred not to be seen as a person who put forth effort at all. It was bad for his image.

That meant that if he was actually going to get better at anything (and theoretically improve his odds of not dying when he did have to do things) he was going to have to work by himself. It was a pain in the ass and he hated it, but the not-dying bit really was important.

He was trying to slink into the gym at a time it was usually unoccupied, but there was the kid with the fire powers hovering over the pool. There went that.

But it did give him another idea of something to do.

Grif crept up to the poolside behind him and then-

"HEY TADASHI!"

Tadashi, having been thoroughly distracted by his narrow range of focus, yelped like a startled dog, and a gout of flame suddenly consumed the floating target and was immediately extinguished by the water in the pool. There wasn't even any debris left from the target.

"Grif!" he shouted back, furiously dialing his power dampeners back up as his pulse jack hammered in his ears. "Don't do that!"

Grif bent double laughing, dropping his gym bag.

"Oh my god dude you should see your face!" he managed to choke out as he caught his breath.

That could have gone very, very badly, but Grif didn't think about it. "Grif didn't think" covered a lot of situations in his life up to this point.

"I could have seriously hurt you, Grif!" Tadashi retorted, running his now-harmless hand back through his hair. Between the dampness and his lack of a hat, it stuck up like the spines of a particularly aggravated hedgehog. "Seriously, don't do that, did you see what happened to my target? I'd feel really bad if I lit you on fire, but not as bad as you'd feel!"

Grif straightened, catching his breath but still grinning.

"It was so worth it," he insisted. "And hey, I'm fast, I'm pretty sure I would've been fine." He shrugged in a gesture that was pure humblebrag.

"How's the whole fire powers thing going? You know, without me scaring the crap out of you."

"Do you know how to run fast enough to put out a fire yet?" Tadashi huffed, but his aggravation was fading into a more low-key frustration.

"It's going, I guess. Not anywhere fast, but progress takes time and experimentation. And, unfortunately, 'fire powers' isn't something that can be helped by talking to a rubber duck."

"If it's a speed thing, I can totally do it," Grif replied with firm confidence. In fact, he had something he'd been coming in to try out just now. He supposed it would have to wait if Tadashi was here, though.

Grif was absolutely sure he could figure out the vibrating-your-molecules-so-fast-you-can-run-through-a-wall trick.
He was also absolutely sure that, on the off chance he was wrong, he would rather die than have anyone see the attempt.

"What's got you so nervous about the fire thing, anyway?" he asked. It seemed like Tadashi was having a bit more trouble than most of the rest. Why?

Tadashi scrubbed a hand over his face, taking a moment to take a deep breath and let it out so that he could center himself for this conversation.

"Before I showed up in this universe -- literally right before, last-thing-I-remember right before -- I was inside a burning building," he explained, trying to keep his voice steady. He looked away to the side, not really wanting to see Grif's reaction. "I wasn't going to be getting out of there."

Oh jeeze.

Grif was all for giving people shit. It was one of his more important talents. But Tadashi hadn't actually done anything to him and so far it seemed unlikely that he was going to. He also wasn't trying to be cool about this.

Somehow, Grif couldn't quite kick him while he was down.

This place and all its surprisingly decent people was really, really starting to get to him.

"That's rough, buddy," he managed.

Tadashi laughed, but his heart clearly wasn't in it.

"Yeah, it kind of is," he agreed wryly. "It was pretty stupid, too. I should have thought the whole thing through better, but..."

Well, he'd ended up trapped in a burning building. Obviously there hadn't been a lot of "thinking it through" going on.

"Stupid seems to be par of the course for the super hero gig," Grif noted, finding a new grip on the conversation. This one was more familiar and less awkward. "Obviously you're a natural for the job. I don't know what this team would do without someone with sense like me to remind you guys about the whole staying alive part."

Tadashi laughed a little, allowing Grif to steer them away from the darker corners of this conversation. "Heart's in the right place, but the skill? Still working on that." He gestured. "Hence the unorthodox usage of the pool, because I rolled poorly on the power generator chart."

"Could do what I do," Grif offered. "Which is nothing. It's much easier."

...Not that he was coming in here for any reason when he thought the training room was empty, no not at all.

"I don't know, I'm a pretty driven kind of guy," Tadashi said dryly. "It might be easier just keep hammering away at this. Besides, I'd hate to horn in on your schtick."

Even nerds had to work out sometimes.

It was awfully easy to get lost in the distractions of more amazing scientific and technological discoveries than he could shake a stick at, but no ninja worth his training would let things slide by only doing what was easy. And anyway, the longer Donatello put off getting in some daily training, the more he could almost hear Leo's voice in the back of his head, nagging at him to keep his conditioning up and be ready for anything.

(That actually made putting it off a little tempting, because he missed hearing any of his brothers' voices, but Leo was a lot more fun when he was being a brother and not being a mother hen.)

He didn't really expect the gym to be empty - it was a fairly reasonable hour, after all. On the other hand, he didn't see many workouts that entailed getting in the pool without changing to a swimsuit first. So he paused for a moment on his way to find a corner to stake out for himself, leaning on his staff to watch. "You sure you're dressed for the occasion?"

"My uniform provides more coverage than my wetsuit," Tadashi answered distractedly, still mostly focused on his target. "And it's a little more absorbent. So while my sartorial choices are unusual, this is pretty much exactly what I should be wearing."

He lowered his hand and dialed the power back up on his suppressor, before turning to the other Legionnaire. "But if you need to use the pool, I can clear out."

"Well, I'm probably the last person with qualified opinions about clothing."

You tended not to pay much attention when you didn't actually wear any.

To the question, he shook his head. "Nah, I'm just here to stake out a corner and work on my forms. And even I weren't, I get the feeling you probably need the pool more anyway." People generally didn't get wet for the hell of it; it wasn't hard to guess that there was something more specific Tadashi was trying to get out of this than a few laps of freestyle.

"I did that earlier." Tadashi jerked his chin in the direction of a corner with mirrors on both walls. "That's usually where I hang out when I'm practicing forms, so that I can see myself to tell if I'm doing it right or not. Though if you're not a visual learner, it might not be as much help."

He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's not technically how the pool's meant to be used, but it seems like it's probably the best way to work on controlling my powers without tearing up part of the habitat deck."

"I'm used to doing it without mirrors, but I'm also used to having my father breathing down my neck if my posture slips, so the mirrors might be good after all." It was a different kind of experience, running through things alone without input from Splinter or good-natured needling from his brothers.

As for the rest - well. "Lots of things are good for more than what they're meant for. If it works, I'd say go for it."

"I usually did it with mirrors and an instructor, so I'm hoping Karate Kid will correct me before I get too used to doing something wrong," Tadashi said with a little smile.

He chuckled at Donnie's response to the rest of it. "Yeah, I've always been a big fan of solving problems by looking at it from another angle. Though I've gotten a little spoiled since I started college being able to build my solutions from the ground up."

"College isn't really an option for me," Donnie said, a hint of envy in his voice. "I have a friend with a pretty good lab, at least - before I met him I was building from...well, anything that looked vaguely fixable from dumpster diving. But it does force you to get pretty good at improvising and jury-rigging."

"What are you doing?" said Rich, floating over. He'd stopped his workout to gawk because the sight was pretty ludicrous. "Aww. Awwww, I know what this is."

He knew what this was.

He'd been there himself, terrified of his own powers. Mind you, his powers were the type that could crush planets, but he still understood what this was.

"Dipping your toes in doesn't usually work, you know. Baby steps sure, but you can't control powers unless you commit." He tapped his temple. "There's something that has to go on here and it's not the kind of thing that can go on while you're being all timid over a swimming pool. That's not the way to go."

Edited 2016-05-06 07:18 (UTC)

Dialing the power back up on his suppressor gave Tadashi an opportunity to take a deep breath and let it out before he responded. The other guy was clearly just trying to help; and by the look of him, he had plenty of experience to speak from.

That didn't make the interruption easier to handle, though.

"I appreciate the input," he answered. "But I'm already working with Dr. Ry'kerr to effect that change. In the meantime, I feel a more secure using my powers when, unless something goes spectacularly wrong, the fire will put itself out if it gets too big."

"You know that the Simroom can do that, too, right? Aside from the sims themselves not being flammable, there's fire suppression systems."

A pause.

"I could give you some pointers, too, if you'd like," said Rich. "There was a time I was terrified of my powers. For years and years, I had only a sliver of the Nova Force, the source of my power. But then, during the war I fought in, I wound up with all of it. Every single bit of the Nova Force. I felt like a walking atom bomb -- like doing the tiniest thing wrong could cause a disaster. There was just that much of it to control."

He gave Tadashi a thoughtful look.

"I know what it feels like to be afraid of yourself and of going out of control. I also know what it takes to learn to control it. My power burns like pyrokinesis, even if it's got some gravimetrics to it, too."

"The Simroom felt weird," Tadashi said. "And I don't think I'm going to get a good idea of what my powers can do, controlled or otherwise, in a place full of things that aren't actually flammable."

He ran a hand back through his hair and then smoothed it back down.

"I'd appreciate any tips you can give me," he said, picking his words carefully, "but it's not the...the size of the power-pool available to me that's the problem. It's the power itself." He took a deep breath through his nose, pressing his lips together and his tongue to the roof of his mouth. "I'm really just not all that good of friends with fire at this point in my life."

"Are you afraid of losing control and hurting yourself or someone else?" he asked.

He wanted to see if it was the same core problem.

"Obviously," Tadashi answered. Who wouldn't be? "But right now, that's secondary to the overwhelming panic I feel when I see fire." He huffed a breath, running his fingers through his hair, leaving it standing up every which way. "I wasn't even sure I could control it for awhile there, because I couldn't focus enough to even try, because panicking isn't conducive to control."

"This is possibly one of the more unconventional pool workouts I've seen. What are you even doing, kid?"

At least Nick thought he was a kid. As in a college age one. Not a kid kid.

He was still trying to figure out how these people's faces worked and what they meant as far as age went. He could figure out gender because some of the features and clothing styles were similar, but he didn't really know the full scale these humans grew at. What was their max height? He assumed it was pretty tall, judging from a few of the people he'd seen, but he didn't know how tall. Did they all get Chief Bogo tall, for instance? Rhino tall? Elephant tall? If they got elephant tall, was this one just a young teenager and not a twenty-something?

He still had no clue.

Nick floated there at the edge of the pool, looking over at Tadashi through eyes that were covered by sunglasses.

Tadashi wasn't the only one having trouble controlling his powers.

"I am trying to light only specific things on fire, instead of going for a more general approach and lighting everything on fire," Tadashi answered, dialing the juice back up on his suppressor before turning to face the...bipedal fox guy. He'd seen him on the comms, but they hadn't really talked yet.

And Tadashi was kind of regretting all the anatomy knowledge he'd picked up building Baymax because now he was wondering things about fox-guy's skeletal structure that would be weird to bring up during their first conversation. Why couldn't he have gotten Baymax powers instead of this mess?

"Hi, I don't think we've really met. Tadashi Hamada, reluctant pyrokinetic."

"Nick Wilde, reluctant everything."

He seriously didn't want to be here. At all. He didn't want to be a superhero. He didn't want his stupid powers. He didn't want any of this.

But he was here and Judy was dead set on helping these people, and if he was honest with himself, he'd feel wrong turning them down, too.

Seeing that some of them were like this only added to that. Here was this poor guy trying to learn to control powers he didn't know how to use to try to help out. It felt wrong to leave people like this to the saving the universe thing without helping.

"You're not the only one having trouble with the powers, kid," he said, trying to show some solidarity. He tapped his sunglasses. "That's why I have to wear these."

Unsurprisingly, the gym had become one of Videl's usual haunts on the Legion World. She didn't usually hang around the pool (although she had gone for a nice, long swim after her impromptu firefighting on Naltor), but the figure floating above the water's surface drew her attention.

Rather than head for one of the sandbags or harassing one of the other gym-goers to join her in the boxing ring, Videl wandered over to the poolside. She placed her hands on her hips, watching for a minute to see what this guy would do.

"If you're not trying to get wet, there are much better places to float than above the pool," she offered unhelpfully, though Tadashi clearly hadn't addressed her.

Tadashi sighed and dialed the power back up on his suppressor.

"True," he agreed, "but there aren't very many other places that I can think of where, if the fire I generate gets out of my control, it will immediately put itself out."

Hence the pool, and why his uniform was soaked through.

"Did you need to use the pool? I can cut this short if you do."

Videl shook her head in answer. "I wasn't planning to swim. It's just not everyday you see someone floating above the pool instead of in it."

She shifted her weight from one leg to the other. "I get what you're going for here, but wouldn't all the water make it a little hard to make any fire in the first place?" She quirked an eyebrow. "If you have a lighter in your pocket, it's not going to be making any fire if its as drenched as you are."

"I wish I needed a lighter," Tadashi said, running a hand through his hair. "I generate it just fine on my own. That's why I'm wearing this."

He tapped the wide cuff on his right forearm with the index finger of his left hand.

"Brainiac 5 made me a power suppressor because I kept accidentally lighting things on fire. I'm still figuring out how to control it. So: experimentation in the pool."

Perfectly respectable logic.

The other eyebrow jumped up. "You can create fire? That's amazing!"

Awestruck by the idea of creating fire from nothing, Videl only half-heard what Tadashi said about the power suppressor and his lack of control.

"How does it work? Show me."

"It'd be amazing if I was doing it on purpose," Tadashi said with a shake of his head. "But right now, it's more "Oops, I'm mildly distressed and now the bed is on fire". And I'm not immune to fire either, unless I'm using my power to push it away from me, and that just increases the amount of distress going on."

He sighed. "If you really want a demonstration, I'm going to have to ask you to step back and be quiet. I really don't want to accidentally hurt you."

Those expressive eyebrows went back down, furrowing as she took a step back to scrutinize the demonstration Tadashi was about to give her. "Whenever you're ready," she said, the playful edge dropping from her voice.

It was clear by his explanation that his power was heavily influenced by his mental state. While this was true of most any ability to some extent or another, it sounded more like the fire and his emotions were directly connected in a way that Videl's powers were not. Videl's ability to dodge effectively required concentration, but emotional distress didn't make her suddenly run up a building.

Tadashi rolled his shoulders back, taking a deep breath and letting it out again to center himself. Then he raised his arm again to turn down the power suppression on his gauntlet.

He could do this. The fire wasn't going to hurt him. He could control it. He could--

FWOOMP!

--He could completely destroy the target by engulfing it in flame. Sarcastic yay.

"Not exactly what I was going for," he muttered under his breath.

Videl's eyes went wide at the sudden burst of flame. (She was admittedly grateful that Tadashi had told her to back up, even though the fire didn't come close enough to be threatening.) She put her hands together and applauded as the fire devoured the target.

"That's amazing!"

"It's impressive, yes," Tadashi agreed, after taking and releasing another deep breath. He might not be able to control the fire very well, but he could control how he responded to people who weren't the ones struggling with it. "Not what I'm going for, but impressive."

Gwen is just casually hanging around, and sticking to the ceiling above the pool. Maybe she'd been spotted before, or maybe not. The point was, she was there now, upside down and as though there was nothing unusual about it.

She looking the show that was going on in the pool. Something about fire and... That was about as much as she'd learned from her spot up there.

"So... what exactly is this supposed to do?" Gwen said.

Tadashi jumped in surprise, clapping his other hand down on his extended arm to keep it steady and looking up at the girl on the ceiling.

"Prevent me from lighting anything besides the target on fire, mostly," he said, looking back down and dialing the power back up until he was sure he wasn't dangerous to talk to for the moment. "Because I think everyone would prefer that I get better at that before I go out in the field."

"Hey, that's pretty alright." Wanting to learn what is was he could do before finding out the hard way. Gwen could roll with that, especially if... he hadn't exactly had those powers before. Even more if we were dealing with actual fire. Yeah, solid plan all around.

"Go for it, dude." Don't mind her, she's just going to keep on watching from her spot on the ceiling.

"All right," Tadashi agreed awkwardly. "Just...say back a bit. I'm not really good at this yet."

He took a deep breath, resisting the urge to close his eyes as he centered himself. With his power dampener dialed down, he felt way too much like he was holding a gun. Or, more realistically, a flame thrower. It wasn't something he really trusted himself to do yet without keeping his eyes on the target.

Gwen gave him a wave and nodded, ready to bail out if things got a bit too crazy. But really, she didn't expect that to happen. So she just sort of, kept on hanging around and wishing how she had some food.

Yeah, food sounded good. Maybe after this!

FWOOMP

went the floating target as it was completely engulfed in flame and almost immediately extinguished himself in the pool. Tadashi flinched back but, this time, not so hard than he tumbled into the pool.

"O-kay," he said, dialing the suppression back up. "That was not what I was going for. I was going for...not immediate-annihilation."

At this point, Gwen just fell from her spot in the ceiling and landed on the floor, close to the pool's edge.

"Yeah that... definitely looks pretty annihilated to me. Uh... give it another try?"

Tadashi winced when she hit the deck, though she landed with more grace than he'd have expected most people to. It still kind of reminded him of his and Hiro's early experiments making the whole apartment-above-the-cafe shake when they went rather spectacularly wrong.

"I don't think it's a matter of my powers only having two settings, 'off' and 'on'," he said, retrieving another target and tossing it out into the pool. "Otherwise I'd have already immolated myself. It's purely psychological and a pain in my butt."

Let's Get Back To Work

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