ArchivedLogs:Clash of the Titans
| Clash of the Titans | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | 2013-05-06 Logan finally meets Walters. Punches ensue. |
| Location
<XS> Gymnasium - B1 | |
For a mutant school, this is a pretty standard gym, even if its sturdy construction to handle mutant powers is less standard. Still, it is designed along normal lines; setup for a basketball court, standard equipment -- punching bags, rubber mats, standard assortment of balls, weight training equipment, the usual fare. It is large, and as well-appointed as the rest of Xavier's tends to be. The last student flings himself off a fairly high bar, landing on the mat before rolling forth, rising up and running forward. The obstacle course run is complete. Jennifer's beloved watch beeps one final time. "Perfect", she exclaims. "You guys are amazing." Intermediate Fitness is finished. Next up, Challenge Fitness. That particular class is something Jennifer has avoided taking, and not just because of overlap with one known as Wolverine. They had shared a few passing words when she first joined the school over a year ago, but those were almost all innuendos. At least on Jennifer's part. Wearing her most valued stretchy attire of white and purple - a leotard that extends into short sleeves and shorts - along with a pair of running shoes and fingerless gloves, she starts walking towards the barbells. Time to make the gym a bit neater for Logan's class. Scowling. That is what 'The Wolverine' is doing when he walks - no, STALKS - into the gym; he is SCOWLING. The man with the claws and the wicked hair has a muscle-shirt on, some trackpants and carries a pair of boxing gloves around his neck as he heads straight for the practice ring in the gym. He really doesn't want to be here. "Okay, okay, let's do this and be done with it. I got places to be that ain't 'here'. Who's--?" and then he catches sight of Jennifer. "Oh. You. Heard o' you. You're the one with the... what's yer name?" The powerfully built redhead walks up to one of the barbells. She crouches down in front of it and begins to remove the weights from one side. She seems to be able to get by just fine without resorting to her mutation. "Jennifer Walters." Once one side is bare, she looks over to Logan with a quirked brow. "The one with the /what/?" With that question posed, her attention is still fixated on the other teacher. Jennifer moves over to the other side of the barbell and begins to remove weights from that side, as well. She's diligent, but rather quick nonetheless. "Are you going to start your class immediately, then, or can you wait until I tidy things up a bit?" "The one with the--never mind," Logan replies - not very helpful of him. To Jen's other question, he glances around the gym and shrugs his shoulder. Then without saying a word he goes back to setting up the ring for a lesson. He repeatedly grunts, mutters and curses under his breath, occasionally mentioning things like 'getting out', 'doin' something', 'answers' and 'finding' something. "Hey, 'Red'," he calls over to Jen. "Yer supposed to be... real strong, an' fit - or what? Aren't you meant to be in my classes 'ere by now?" Just as Jennifer dedicates her full attention to the task of putting away weights, being referred to as 'red' instantly causes her to look back up to Logan. A grin carves itself onto her visage. "As your student, or as a colleague?" The quip is most likely rhetorical, since she continues, "I'm not too keen on teaching the stronger PE. I'll leave that to guys like you. I am more interested in breaking the students in softly, so that they don't get PTSD when they take one of your classes." Done with the weights, Jennifer starts walking towards the obstacle course. That needs to be put away, as well, though one has to wonder how she is going to accomplish that. Then again, both the news and rumours among kids might have already answered that question. Logan puts down his gloves (using the string to drape them over the edge of the practice ring) and raises his hands in a placating gesture whilst taking a step backward and shaking his head. "Alright, alright - 'sorry' about the 'thing' I heard; I'm sure yer more 'n fine with yer--hey! Whaddya mean, guys like me??? Down go the hands, and up comes the chin in a defiant and curious gesture. "You've been takin' to the Professor. Or Slim--the Boyscout: Cyclops. You know the one with the beams in the eyes and the head in his ass. Look--I just teach what I know, an' what I know isn't very nice, but it could save a kid's life." He folds his arms across his chest - a challenge to Jennifer, if ever there was one. "You think your 'colleague' material, Red?" As if someone pressed the 'Stop' button on a remote, Jennifer freezes right before the obstacle course. The question that causes this is the very last one; the one about colleague material. She flashes Logan a meaningful stare, accompanied by a steadily growing grin. "Colleague material? Boy, if you kept claws in your gloves", she starts, the words purposefully carrying double meaning, "you'd be a kitten scratching at a door." The redhead turns swiftly around, heading towards the ring. She extends a hand, then, wriggling her fingers inwards. "Boxing gloves. /Give/." Logan's nostrils flare. He knows that scent. THAT, is the scent of predator - not prey, unlike most of the students here. A slow, wolfish smirk spreads across his bearded features and he slowly lifts one hand to point a thumb behind him at the cabinet containing the training equipment (in this case - boxing gloves). "Suit up, Lovely-Locks; let's see whatcha got." He raises an eyebrow at the woman, then reaches for his gloves and starts putting them on. Standing with his back to Jen, he rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck from side to side and steps into the ring. He makes a few practiced swings, shadow-boxing for the fun of it, smirking to himself all the while. "Kitten..." he mutters. "Well, so much for manners", she scoffs, wandering off to the cabinet that's been pointed out. She wastes no time in bandaging up her hands and putting on the gloves, planting obvious evidence that this is by far not the first time she's donned these lovelies. She doesn't forget the headgear, too - safety first, after all, especially when you're going up against someone whose skeleton is laced with a metal rumoured to be the hardest substance in the world. "Since you're not going to use /your/ claws, I'm not going to use /mine/." Once finished, she turns around to face the ring. The gloved fingers are mashed together with a resounding clap, and the redhead starts marching towards the rings, her lovely auburn pony-tail trailing behind like a blaze of fire. Grabbing the ropes at the edge of the ring, the limber redhead tosses herself up, nimbly flying over the edge to land firmly atop the ring's mat. "Aww," Logan replies with feigned disappointment as he puts on his helmet (rules, you know). "And just when I thought we were going to need a 'safe-word'." He grins, but his eyes study; they study every move the red-haired woman makes. What IS it with this guy and red-heads??? Despite the innuendo in his comments, his attention toward Jennifer is of one lion circling another before the inevitable territorial dispute that will make one of them 'king - or queen - of the jungle', and send the other home to the litterbox to lick his/her wounds. Up come the gloves close to his face, and Logan makes a feral grin over them at Jennifer - and the dance begins. Boxing is not an alien sport to Jennifer. Feet dance across the floor at a rapid pace as she nears closer to the Wolverine. The ritualistic circling does not last very long, and indeed the meat of the encounter begins shortly after. The first hit flung is by the redhead; it is a feeble jab that just about anyone will be able to read a prod into Logan's defences. Whether or not it hits, another two jabs will follow. She does not put a lot of stake into them, all three attempts aggressively examining Logan's stance. Whereas he might be observing her, she prefers the more hands-on approach, it looks like. "Just scream like a little girl, that'll be your safe word", she huffs. A small crowd begins to gather, then. After all, class is supposed to start. Class starting late is a delight of its own, but watching Logan spar with the so-called She-Hulk, well, it's understandable why the gathered students effectively become an enthusiastic audience. Logan is... not taking this very seriously. Sure the girl has some moves, adequate footwork - well, okay, it's pretty masterful footwork - but still, he is toying with her. Some might think him a chauvinist - and they may not be far from wrong - but the truth is, he's feeling agitated and has decided to take it out on someone else. Who just happens to be She-Hulk. What could possibly go wrong? The first few jabs are all neatly blocked or batted aside. After the 'girly-scream' remark, Logan hisses through his teeth and retorts with a pair of jabs followed by the first 'real' punch he's thrown in this bout. He dances to the side, and spares the students a millisecond of a glance... but when he catches a young boy FILMING him - filming The Wolverine - with his iPhone, Logan becomes distracted enough to bare his teeth and snarl at the poor kid. Kid drops the phone. Logan drops the ball. One good thing about Jennifer's wiry build is that it provides her with oodles of agility. Despite the prominent muscles that adorn her arms and her torso, the jabs are easily dodged. The heavy punch takes more work, but the slippery redhead manages to avoid it being landed. Her pony-tail spins around as she twirls and twists to avoid Logan's feral retaliation. When the poor kid is growled at, leaving Logan sorely open. Jennifer wrinkles her nose in disapproval. Seriously? You're not paying attention to /me/? A heavy right hook flies forward, seizing the opportunity nonetheless. In her human state, Jen does not possess super-strength, but the hit would hurt nonetheless. "You're not sparring with /them/, you're sparring with /me/! Pay attention!" Oooooh! Aaaaah! "Shit!" Amid the awe and excitement of the students gathered in the gym, Logan takes the punch to the side of his face and staggers a little. Half-bent over, as if he were about to drop into an animalistic crouch and then pounce on the She-Hulk, he spits with with an upward glare of his eyes, and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. "Oookay. Had that comin'. Don't get yer... knickers in a twist." One of the younger students giggles. "He said shit!" only to be shushed by the next instructor... who has stopped to watch as well. Logan bares his teeth at Jennifer, and is up - dancing the dance again. His next few attacks are faster, harder and more precise: a jab - just to make sure JEN is paying attention, a feint, then another feint, and finally he steps in with a blow aimed at her midriff. Suspecting that a successful hit and a side-dash of goading might provoke one such as Logan, Jennifer begins her retreat. She creates some distance between herself and her opponent after the successful hit, taking that moment to flick and waggle the gloved hand that connected the punch. There's a bit of an echoing throb that she has to shake off, and if it weren't for the glove, no doubt the force with which she punched would have resulted in a broken hand. A very quick glance is given towards the students before her attention is back on Logan. She came here to spar, and damn spar she /will/. Jennifer is hellishly determined to set the record straight. When Logan comes at Jennifer again, she shuffles back, following a half-circular route. She is aware of her surroundings, thus avoiding being pressured against the edge of the ring for the time being. She attempts to bob and weave below each potential jab, seemingly falling for the feint each time. Safer that way. For juggernauts like these two, jabs are foreplay. Both of them know it. For Jen, it was inspecting her opponent's defence. For Logan, it's diversion. The punch that arrives is hardly a surprise - it's handling that's the problem. The adamantium is an unknown constant. Is he utilising his super-strength? Should she parry, or should she fade and ride the punch? Ultimately, Jen decides to take the risk and low parry it. The half-circle parry hits the incoming punch from the side, knocking it aside yet feeling the weight of the adamantium. A chill runs up her spine, yet as she wonders what would happen if that would hit her full-on with greater strength-- Well, that fires up her adrenaline, although she remains in a defensive stance. Logan grunts. Games, just games. That's what this is. "Either you bring the fight ta me, Sweetheart, or I bring it to you..." he mutters in a half-teasing, half-warning tone of voice. The instructor there with the students watching snaps his fingers at his class to get their attention. "OK, kids - what Professor Logan here is doing, is an example of what NOT to do in a sparring match. Goading your opponent into making a mistake is a cheap trick they use on the street for a quick and easy win. That's not what we teach here." He looks a bit proud of himself at that. Logan snarls. "They have padded rings and safety protocols on the streets too, bub?" he challenges the instructor. "Rules are for pussies." And with that he presses his attack. Each and every jab, hook, punch is deliberate, measured and precise. With metal backing every blow, he knows to pace himself; nevertheless he attacks Jen with a string of combos, each one just that little bit harder than the one before. "C'mon..." he mutters through his teeth, eyes on Jen. "Show me somethin'..." Preciously holding onto her defensive stance, Jennifer does not seem to budge - emotionally or physically, barring subtle shifts in her positioning. Even when the instructor helpfully points out Logan's strategy, Jennifer merely grins wider; that smirk is teasing and inviting on its own. In a way, her own silence is every bit as inflammatory as Logan's words. Her response to incoming jabs and punches, however, is downright insulting. Nearly every jab is fled from, and those that have sufficient reach are slipped away from or even ducked under. Straight punches are either slipped away from or parried. At one point, however, Logan scores an actual hit, causing her to momentarily stumble before regaining her footing and continuing her annoyingly silent and stalwart defence, as the punch is mitigated by the tension of muscles and a backwards lean. What Jennifer does is a more official form of goading, at the same time draining the opponent's stamina. This may not work on Logan, at least not the latter half, but Jennifer decides to bet on the former - and so one of the most recent punches, the kind she deems fit to parry /and/ counter, are retaliated with a swift uppercut to the chest. "Oh, you're one bad, bad little girl, aren' ya?" Logan murmurs to his boxing partner. He licks his lips - he actually licks his lips! at Jennifer. The problem with goading Logan in combat is... he usually responds. It helps him 'unleash the beast' (and that's NOT a euphemism - well, not in this context), and then there's hell to pay, and usually a lot of blood and screaming. The other tutor frowns - and grins, but tries to hide it. "Ooookay kids, I think that's enough of a display for you..." "AWWWWWW!" cries a number of the children in the room. "We wanna see the WOLVERINE fight the HULK! - the SHE-HULK!" The tutor GLARES at Logan with a Gee, thanks for that! expression on his face. "No. You don't. You really don't." And so he begins the impossible task of herding kids away from the Clash of the Titans in the boxing ring. Logan, meanwhile, is starting to get angry. In his case, this is a strength - not a weakness... not unless he's fighting a friend. His next combo is ferocious, aggressive, primal. He attempts to close the gap between himself and Jennifer by darting foward quickly, feints and toys with her until he thinks he has an opening to land a real punch. Sans claws, just for the record. The problem with primal and feral attacks in boxing is that, well, they simply don't belong in the sport. Any defence relies on the fact that attacks used follow certain guidelines. That is where Jennifer's plans fall through entirely-- The amount of ferociousness Logan starts to exhibit slowly begins to erode her defence. For a short while, she actually shows the same level of tower-like defence, except she keeps showing an increasingly lesser resolve. The opening is spooted sooner rather than later, and that is when the man scores a proper hit. Two to nil becomes two to one. The strength of the punch doesn't just stumble her, it sends her straight for one of the corners. The foot that lands on the mat right in front of the corner, however, is different. For one, the shapely and strongly built leg is green. Secondly, it lands with so much force it shakes the entire ring and dents the mat quite deeply. The average height woman now towers above Logan, and the boxing gloves have torn at their seams. "This-- is-- /boxing/!" The clarification follows the She-Hulk lunging forward. A punch accompanies that scary sight. A punch swift and strong, a punch that, should it connect, will slam into Logan with the strength of a small speeding car, likely sending him flying outside the ring. Have you ever seen a Wolverine fly?? You have now. There are no words to describe the look of sheer, undiluted SURPRISE (and an expression that can only be summed up as: WHAT THE FUCK???) that overtakes Logan's grizzled features as the She-Hulk's right-cross sends the man (adamantium-enforced skeleton and all) through the ropes of the boxing ring - snapping them like party bunting - and across the room several feet... ...Straight into the un-even bars (that mercifully have no one using them). Mere instants before impact, there is a tell-tale snikt! as six-claws spring from the Wolverine's fists (THROUGH his gloves), and slash the two bars in half, allowing him to sail through and land on a nearby crash-mat. OOOOOOH!!! AAAAAAH!!! "PROFESSOR LOGAN!!!" The other instructor bellows at the Wolverine, his face displaying awe and horror in equal measure. Then he resorts to splutttering incoherently before marching off (no doubt to tell the Professor). "Cool it, bub," Logan murmurs as he picks himself up. He cracks his neck from side to side, flexes his shoulders and raises his ruined gloves (claws retracting) to applaud She-Hulk. "Now that's what I'm talkin' about!" Then he sees the damage done and instantly grimaces. "I'm fucked." The stance that She-Hulk assumes is one that could only be translated to 'You're welcome to seconds'. It is by no means a stance that is known to the boxing world - legs spread and planted firmly on the ring, arms slightly bent at elbows yet placed far apart. The green amazon marches forward, hopping down from the side of the ring that Logan flew through. As she walks forward, she slowly shifts down to her normal size, noting that the fight is very likely over. Continuing onwards, she starts undoing her gloves, starting to do so with her pearly teeth. "/We/ are fucked", she helpfully points out once her teeth are no longer occupied. "So /we/ will cover the damages. Three-to-one, so you're paying two thirds." The determined tone suggests that is not up to discussion. She eyes the students that are actually quite giddy about the whole ordeal. Whereas one kid might have dropped a phone, another stepped in; this footage will likely be the highlight of the school for a week. Or a few. Logan snatches her attention soon, however. "You'll find a way to turn this into a moral story, I hope?"
Then he blinks. "Moral lesson... You wanna?--okay, okay! Don't... let the green go to yer head, or... break a nail." He turns to face the crowd of students staring in awe at both him and the She-Hulk and takes a deep breath. Then he takes another. "Kids!--" he says with his voice raised. "Don't... do shit like that--" he tells them with a glove pointed at the ruined boxing ring, and the uneven bars. "--Don't say things like 'shit' either, an'...aw fuck this is stupid..." That last line is murmured. "An'... don't quit school. Don't do drugs. There. Class... can piss off, or... whatever." He gives Jen a, There, you happy now? look and rips off his gloves as he stalks toward the door. "How come you can do it, and we can't?" asks one of the taller boys in the crowd watching." Logan glances back at him and snorts. "Coz I'm me, an' you're you, bub." Jennifer rolls her eyes and grits her teeth as she listens in on Logan desperately trying to turn this mess into a lesson. Not helping, Logan. She squeezes the boxing gloves under her arm, likely to be discarded at the nearest rubbish bin. "What Professor Logan meant to say was-- Boxing is a fair game. That means no powers, no breaking the rules, and there should always be a referee at the ready to make sure that goading remains a /technique/, instead of evolving into a pissing contest." There, so she cursed, too. She is less unabashed about it. "And class is /not/ dismissed", she notes sternly, looking to Logan, now. "Class is /late/, but definitely not dismissed. You have Challenge Fitness to teach, and teach you will. I'll go catch that instructor. Are you going to be fine on your own, kitten?" It's hard to say whether it's derogatory or flirtatious, especially with that ambivalent grin she flashes. Regardless of his response, she strides towards the exit. Logan, bless his little feral heart, bursts out laughing at the mention of pissing contest. His class is indeed next and he does have a contract to uphold... so he walks toward the exit to head Jen off before she reaches it, and raises a hand. "You were right, Red--or Green, or whatever. Still... I'm free after this class. If you wanna enjoy a beer with me, just say so. If not, I'll just drink it myself. Next time..." and he starts walking back to his awaiting students (who are still begging for more 'Wolverine' antics - antics which get ignored). "Next time, we do this in the Danger Room, huh? Nice meetin' ya... Hulk." Then he disappears amid the swarm of kids he has to teach. | |
