ArchivedLogs:Conspiracies in D Minor

Conspiracies in D Minor
Dramatis Personae Anette Teague
In Absentia	2015-05-28 '
Location <BOM> Training Center - Main Lodge - Ascension Island
Down a short flight of stairs off of the common room, this room is a departure from the homier stone and wood upstairs. Its bare concrete walls are clearly basementy in feel, though its floor has been refurbished in gleaming synthetic flooring marked out like a basketball court. This spacious gymnasium includes a variety of punching bags -- of several compositions (for normal strength mutants or mutants on the high end of the spectrum) -- a boxing ring, a wall for climbing, several lengths of rope, and many, many training dummies for people to practice their powers on. Someone's dressed up one of the training dummies as a police officer, and scrawled a dopey smiley face on it; the sign on his chest declares him to be 'OFFICER SHITS-HIS-PANTS'. Officer Shits-His-Pants has seen better days; by the look of him, he's been set on fire and lost at least one of his limbs. In the back room is more training equipment -- everything from boxing gloves, medical tape, sports equipment, and even some unusual customized equipment for the more 'physical' mutants. The infirmary door stands near the stairway leading back up. A huge, muscular man dressed for combat training pushes his way out the training center as he fights back a sudden rush of tears. Judging by the mood on the faces of those around him, he's not alone. Tchiakovsky's Nocturne in D Minor plays from somewhere. The cello's powerful, dark notes move with great weight through the room. The song begins in tragedy, but grows gradually more gentle as it progresses before ending very sadly, again. A few figures drift along the corners of the room with their arms folded, and more clot in the entryway. Even though he doesn't take up even a great deal of space, Teague has managed to command the attention of its occupants. At some point, someone took the liberty of turning his music all the way up. Teague pirouettes and leaps across his space. The dancer sinks to the ground before rising up, placing his weight on the tips of two fully extended feet. His pointe shoes are worn and grey. The rest of his attire is black. A loose fitting, black bowl-cut tee drifts with his movements and is softened with sweat. Tight black bike shorts don't restrict his movements, and accentuate the young man's powerful, boxy thigh muscles. The routine is roughly five minutes in length, at the end of which Teague relinquishes the space he'd been using without looking up. Duck-footed with his long, ridiculous shoes, he makes his way to his towel to dab off his face and stretch. Gradually, life starts to sink back to the training center and people start going back to what they were doing. The interruption to the flow of the training center goes unnoticed by one individual who continues to pound on the one of the training dummies. Anette is dressed in a sports bra and workout shorts, her wings spread as she, without break, punches and kicks and gashes with her talons at this poor defenseless dummy. Her eyes are bright yellow with concentration and, if her face is any indication, a touch of rage. Not long after Teague's routine finishes, Anette delivers one last spinning kick to the head before finishing with a gasp. She grabs a towel sitting off to the side and buries her face in it for a moment, beating her wings slowly to circulate some air about her. "Mmm," Teague closes his eyes and holds his chin up into the breeze. Brushing away a few damp strands of hair that cling to his cheek, he purrs out a laugh over to Anette, "You're a lovely dancer." His own muddy hazel eyes are neither concentrating or concerns as he brings the plush, white towel up to his neck. "Hmph, that's a way to put it," Anette says, dropping the towel and grabbing her water bottle. She takes several good long swigs from it before setting it down and picking up a flask which she only takes one quick sip from before setting that aside also "Just haven't been in the mood for much else besides beating things up. Exercise, stress relief, better sleep, you name it, it does it." Teague hums in agreement. Sliding onto the ground, he kneads his way down his calf muscle until he reaches his foot. The pointe shoe doesn't appear to want to be removed at first, but he grits and bears his teeth a little and pulls. "I know what you mean," he says not darkly, but in an airy, disconnected tone. Anette grins slightly down at Teague as he removes his dance shoes. "You ever take breaks from ballet to throw some punches?" she asks mildly curious as she throws her towel over her shoulders and continues to pat away sweat from her face with it. Digging his thumb into the inner arch of his foot, Teague winces, "I have combat training in the mornings. It's mostly kicking, but I like it." He offers a subdued little smirk, "How's /your/ high kick?" He extends his leg out in front of him and folds his body over it, stretching it out. "Not that good, unfortunately," Anette responds, raising an eyebrow as Teague shows off his stretching. "I tend to cheat when it comes to heights," she adds, giving her wings a slight flutter. "Well, any combat training is good. Never know when you'll really need it." "That's not cheating," Teague reaches to remove his other shoe, replacing it with a flip-flop, "If I could fly, I'd always kick people's little bobble heads right off their stupid bodies." He cocks his chin up, "So what do you have to be stressed out about?" Anette shakes her head with a slight chuckle. "Nothing yet. Well...nothing that's happened yet. Or possibly even at all. It's that stupid future stuff that was happening and I can't...can't quite shake it off." Anette shrugs slightly. "But hey, they were just dreams, right?" Teague rises with little effort. "Just dreams," he reassures. He hangs his towel over the back of his shoulders as he hefts up his gym bag, "And besides that, it's all a dice roll, even when you see some things coming. Best worry about things that /are/ in your control. ...like not punching your knuckles down to the bone, eh?" He shuffles around in his things, shoving away his pointe shoes somewhere. Anette nods slowly though she smirks slightly. "Well...not sure that's much of an issue anymore," Anette says, waving the bird talons that have replaced her hands since the last time Teague saw her. "Not even sure I have knuckles. And I need to work away from punching and focus more on gouging." She sits down on a bench and leans up against a wall, straightening her back. "And I've heard whispers that I've become a...concern of some people here. Just because I...may have threatened someone who was related to the dream thing. They ruined Future Me's life but apparently we're all supposed to just laugh it off." Teague follows her with his eyes, "People here?" He points downward with his index finger, eyebrows shooting up, "Do you consider the person to still be a viable threat to ...your future?" He can't bring himself to say, 'future you.' "Barring the specifics, if you do, I'd say the only logical thing to do would be to pursue it." "Now see, that's just it. I barely know them. Future Me seemed to have some background with them but apparently that meant nothing when Future Me and Child were attacked by sentinels. So I have no idea if I can trust them but I'm inclined not to." Anette sighs and carefully rubs her eyes. "And it's...not just that. I was just frustrated and apparently dying makes me a bit irritable. And if it hadn't of been for them, these last few months would've been so much easier, for future and present me." Teague tries to follow, and to his credit he avoids achieving an /entirely/ pained expression, "So, you're telling me that someone here, on this island, is against you killing this person?" He brings both hands up to rub his temples, "I apologize. Am I correct in saying that you've never actually met this person, yet? In real life." Anette sighs softly. "Sorry, it is weird. We've met in present times and they're part of the Brotherhood and apparently well-loved by everyone else here. More so than me at least. And apparently my wanting to...at the very least seriously maim this person is wrong because they're not the same person they will be in the future, if they even become that person at all, and that there's nothing to punish them for because they technically haven't done anything wrong yet." She lets out a soft gasp as collects her breath. "I've met them a couple times now and they did help out in the raid in the future so I suppose they can't be all bad. But still..." Anette reaches over for that flask and pops another quick swig. Teague moves closer, holding out his hand for the flask. If he's going to play the part of coconspirator, he's going to get a drink. "Who is it?" He shifts his eyes, as if to check to see if anyone might be listening. As it stands, no one has the least interest in either of them. Anette hands off her flask, pure rum. "I don't want to say, in case I am just crazy. Which is honestly possible." She shakes her head, "You're new here, I shouldn't be dragging you into this." Teague throws back a shot of rum. He wrinkles his nose and hisses some as he comes back from it, but shakes it off quickly enough. "Oh, you sound like you're lost it, mate. But that doesn't mean I don't want to help." He hands back the flask, saddling up the strap of his bag, "I'm around if you need anything." As the teen moves to step away, he turns back to jab a finger in Anette's direction, "It wasn't me, as was it?" He smirks, sauntering out of the training center.