Participants:
| Scene Title | Dodgeball |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Veronica finds Magnes playing dodgeball all by his lonesome. |
| Date | June 15, 2009 |
The Company gym, a familiar place to see Magnes by now, but very unsafe for anyone else who may have been working out in there. He has training orders, and many people are standing outside the door to avoid getting pelted. He's floating in the middle of the air, kicking dodgeballs in all directions, some of them slamming him directly in the face, while others hit either the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and sometimes the corners. The way they float away from him upon a punch or a kick is unnatural, so it's quite obvious he's doing some crazy gravity stuff. He is sweaty, wearing a white tanktop, some black cargo pants, and black sneakers.
Veronica growls at people. She needs her five mile run, and she's not running out on the streets of Manhattan with a gun tucked in her run shorts. "Why are you just standing there," she grumbles, opening the door to the gym and getting smacked in the face with a ball. She already has slight lavender bruises beneath her eye from her "training lesson" with Curt, so the knock on the head gets a healthy string of swear words from her. "Magnes, what the hell are you doing?" she demands.
Magnes, in the air with about twenty dodgeballs both hitting him and getting hit by him at the same time, was doing somewhat well for himself without distractions. But then Veronica's voice comes, he stops, and balls just start smacking into him like a ragdoll until he decides to slowly fly down and sit on a bench. He has his share of bruises now too, though they're not too bad. "I was trying to suppress my vertical horizon even with distractions, while learning to change gravity's direction on the balls, and their weight at the same time. It's really hard, but I'm making a lot of progress. I was also trying to use some of the fighting techniques I've been learning…"
She rubs her head irritably. "I don't see that getting yourself beaten to a pulp is very useful. I mean, they're distractions, but they're distractions you're expecting, to a degree, right? The problem will always be the distraction you're not expecting. No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition, right?" She glances at her treadmill dubiously. She can't run if he's going to be throwing balls all over the gym.
Then, just like that, about twenty balls start falling, one after the other, some at the same time, some as heavy as a weight, others light like a feather, but they all fall. "I was working really hard." he notes, then stands up and moves to touch her shoulder, then pulls his hand back. "If I did it right, you should be lighter for about thirty seconds. Try to walk a little."
"I know you were working hard, but … you shouldn't beat the crap out of yourself…" Veronica says with a bit of a smirk. She glances at his hand on her shoulder, eyebrows rising until he explains. She moves, tentatively, unsure of herself, if she's going to go bounding up into the air. "So… finding out all this stuff you can do — does it make it a little worthwhile, make up for the things you lost a bit?" she says quietly.
"Maybe." Magnes says as he watches her do little moon bounces. They're nothing too special, he was sure not to make her go bounding into the air, they're just little one foot hops. "Abby called me, I couldn't help but answer, and well, I feel more motivated now, a lot more motivated. We're, well, finally friends again, she wasn't angry at me at all, I just misunderstood." He smiles, possibly the most genuine smile he's had since he's met her. "I know I can't go falling in love right now or anything, hell, I'll probably never end up with Abby, but, I like that she'll at least be my friend, if nothing else, and I plan to get a date one day, or at least try."
Veronica stands still and listens - it's hard to seem like you're listening if you're bouncing around, plus she feels a bit silly. "I… she didn't say anything about hating me, did she?" she asks. Of course, Abby doesn't know Vee was the one who actually recruited Magnes. "You might want to keep my name out of the loop when you talk to her. And did Minea clear it for you to talk with her?" She reaches down to pick up one of the dodge balls, juggling it back and forth idly.
"I can talk to her, as long as I keep my cover, but uh, she kinda knows, and I think she knew about the Company before I even told her." Magnes points out as he walks over to the weights, putting a few hundred pounds on it so it looks 'impressive'. Yes, he's going to attempt to impress Veronica, getting under the weights, then starting to bench five hundred pounds. Of course, in reality, he's only benching about one fifty, but, still. It looks like five hundred! "I know for a fact that I never mentioned your name, but she asked how you are. I never responded, so, I didn't confirm or deny that I know you, I just kept the subject going and she never asked again."
She smiles. "Good job, Mag, you're learning. Do I need to spot you?" she asks, moving over to behind his head. "So did they put you up to using these balls to pound you senseless, or was this your brilliant idea? I think there's probably better ways to do this. Without leaving you black and blue. That's like… junior high gym class nightmare revisited." Not that she was every anything but athletic and graceful in PE, but she can imagine the poor saps who weren't.
"I never went to high school, I was taught by my parents. They say school with public children is the root of all delinquency." Magnes explains as if directly quoting, then stares up at her with a questioning look. "Um, stupid question, but, what exactly is spotting me?"
Veronica raises a brow. "Wow. Your parents were snobs, huh? That explains… a lot, actually," she says with a shake of her head. Never mind she was raised to be one of the special people, she was raised at least to be a publicly-educated special person. "Spotting is making sure that you don't drop the weights on your neck and die or something."
"Oh, that makes sense. Sure. Uh, maybe it'd be safer if I lifted my actual weight." Magnes decides, placing the weights back on the bars. "Can you change them to something you can lift, so I don't accidentally die? And yeah, I guess they were kinda snobby, and strict. I was learning college level stuff by my last two years of home schooling."
Veronica pulls off some of the weights so that it's a much more modest amount of actual weight. "Accidental death is the leading cause of death I hear," she says with a smirk. "My parents were pretty brilliant, but they still thought public school was a good thing. But then, I didn't grow up in New York. The schools where I'm from aren't so rough." She thinks for a moment. "I guess I shouldn't call your parents snobs. That was rude. Sorry, Mag."
"It's alright, I mean, it's not like we got along or anything. I don't know where they are right now, but after being on TV, I'm guessing they'll be looking for me or something. I haven't seen them since whole Peter exploding thing, they were out of town, supposed to be at my grandmom's house, but no one's there." Magnes explains the situation as he finally starts to bench the weights, showing a big of a struggle when he finally stops cheating. "Is lifting weights even good? I mean, does it really make you stronger for fighting and stuff?"
"Wow, sorry, Magnes," Veronica says quietly. "My dad died, when I was 17… so I understand. Kind of. I mean, at least I knew what happened." Sort of. "Yeah, lifting weights builds muscle… muscle helps in fights and stuff. You don't need to get huge or anything, but obviously the more muscle, the more oomph. But… I guess you can add your own oomph so maybe it's pointless for you."
"One day I might not have powers." Magnes points out, beginning to build his sweat again with each push. "Sure, I'll be able to go on the field without being able to naturally hit as hard as you guys can, but one day I'll be able to. I wanna be a legit fighter, just like you and Minea and Len, even though he's a cowboy. Why is Len a cowboy?"
"Because he's from Texas, as far as anyone can gather," Veronica says with a laugh. "The fighting stuff, you learn. I mean, I had basic self defense since I was going to be a cop, that was my major in school and all. But once I came to the Company, I trained in actual martial arts. I have two black belts. You can do it. You're about the same age I was when I started."
"You got a black belt in, uh, two years?" Magnes forgot her age, so he went with his best guess. Usually a very unwise thing to do. "And, I'm sorry about your dad, I'm not sure where my parents are, but I'm sure it's not that bad."
"I've been with the company for about five years now," she says. "I finished the first black belt in about three years, and the second one since, but I'm only on the first level for that," she says modestly. "It's not that unheard of, if all you do is train and work, you know? Most people peg away at it with once a week classes. You know you work a lot harder than that here, clearly." She nods to the balls all over the room.
"You're kinda scary, y'know? Almost like Miss Minea-" Magnes suddenly stops, redness rushing to his cheeks. "O-oh god, I saw, I, uh, the tattoo shop, half her butt…"
Veronica snorts. "The tattoo shop?" she echoes, giving him an amused look.
"I went there to talk to Xiulan, and she was getting a tattoo, they were behind the curtain. She told me it was alright to go behind, and," Magnes sits up on the bench, staring at the floor as the image burned into his head rises to the surface. "Her butt…"
"Minea was getting her butt tattooed at Xiulan's?" Veronica tries to decipher what Magnes is saying. "What did she get tattooed there?" Vee says curiously, looking amused at hearing this gossip about their fellow agent.
"I didn't see, I sorta made Xiulan angry, so she made me leave while she fixed it or something." Magnes explains, but he raises his shirt and points to the tramp stamp area of the back. "It was around there."
Veronica smirks and shakes her head. "Dude, you need to get a Playboy or something so you don't freak out any time you see a woman's underwear bits," she says with a smirk. "Come on. I'll show you some Hapkido moves," she says, offering a hand and nodding over to the "sparring area" of the gym.
Magnes stands and quickly follows, holding his hand up to his mouth as he yawns. "I try not to look at that stuff, ruins a lot of the surprise when you finally get a girl, or something." he sounds like he's repeating what soemoen else said.
