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Street Fighter: Psychic Edition; Dani
Topic Started: May 7 2014, 09:13 AM (169 Views)
Martha Johansson
Unregistered

May 4th
3:30 pm



Yellow blocks scrolled over a starry background as a distinguishable tune accompanied it, loud and almost suitable for a formal proclamation or organized gathering concerning an important topic, but large and special nonetheless. A floor below played the same music, though it soon faded as the ensuing adventure was set to begin. Here, in the second floor lounge, sat a lone individual nestled lazily on a sofa directly in front of the television with a generous bowl of popcorn supported on her stomach as greedy hands flung buttery kernels into an equally greedy mouth.

The entire Star Wars series was admittedly lost on Martha; there were guns and spaceships and, of course, space, but that was where her comprehension ended. Science-fiction never interested the telepath, what with the Institute itself being a playground for the genre, but try as she might nothing involving aliens or robots provided any sort of entertainment. She vaguely remembered trying to feign interest for a boy she liked in the eighth grade, though considering that was also when she still lived at home, an inability to recall the moment wasn't too shocking. Still, she assumed a dangerous blood-alcohol level was required to sit through even one movie. It just all seemed very, very strange. Especially the weird, gangly, fish-headed creature with an obvious speech impediment.

But with no other prospects Martha decided on watching as much as she could until the popcorn finished, which gradually approached sooner and sooner, though she had no intention of slowing down. "I wonder," she mused, savoring the taste of a particularly buttery kernel, "how giddy they'd be to see some of their creations right here." Several faces popped into mind, each resembling something potentially related to Star Wars, these faces included. Physical mutations were difficult but fellow mutants watched them in awe, many excited about seeing such amazing alterations. Martha herself remembered the degree of wonderment experienced immediately after walking into the Institute: fur, wings, tails, multiple eyes and appendages, the possibilities were literally infinite. Better than anything Star Wars could cook up.

The sound of nearing footsteps provided a desired distraction and she whipped her head to the side, smiling as Danielle Moonstar walked into the lounge; she scooted over to the next seat, spending several unnecessary seconds searching for the remote before digging under the cushion and smashing the mute button. Martha offered the popcorn bowl and added, "Happy May the fourth, Ms. Moonstar. Or what was it the kids said?" She stared at the screen momentarily before turning back toward the visitor. "Oh! May the fourth be with you. Hey! There's even a 'may' in there. That's pretty good, actually."

She left the bowl on the sofa to throw another bag in the microwave, standing several feet away from the woman. "So, are you a big Star Wars fan?"
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Mirage
Unregistered

It was one of those rare rest days for Dani and while she would have jumped up for joy, too many things bothered her as of late- nothing she could discuss at the moment. That was Dani- always open, but the timing all depended on whether she understood how she felt about particular situations. As her mind couldn’t wrap around the events in her life as of late, she was looking for a healthy distraction and finding one in the form of Martha in the second floor lounge with a bowl full of popcorn seemed to do the trick. She instantly felt her spirits raise up and any gloomy countenance was erased.

Dani smiled at the puns Martha made, knowing Doug would have appreciated them and probably added some nerdy Star Wars fact afterwards. She seemed like such a nice fun person to talk too. It was a shame she hadn’t really done so before, so might as well capitalize on this moment and bond over Star Wars of all things.

“Am I big Star Wars fan? Hmm...yes and no. I’ve seen them with Doug. And all of Firefly. Stargate. Buffy. So I know my way around Star Wars, but am I a hard core fan? Nah. That’s Ramsey’s territory. I’m simply there for the moral support.” Moving towards the couch she sat comfortably munching happily on the left over popcorn, while Martha went up to make some more for the two to share, or so she hoped. Who was she kidding? She was going to steal more of the popcorn. “You know, I think sci-fi is kinda of a weird interest for us, because we can do that stuff,” she said pointing to the television.

Adjusting herself to get a tad bit too comfy on the couch, she smiled at Martha’s direction and pulled her legs close to her, while she looked on at the muted screen. She tried to come up with the inner dialogue that Doug worked so hard to teach her over the years. She couldn’t think of anything particularly funny or sassy to say then, which let her know she let Doug and Star Wars fan everywhere down after so many years of training about the force.

“If you think about it, we’re cooler than the force, you and I. I could technically beat the force with my power and you could stop the force with a jedi mind trick a la telepathy. I don’t know about you, but I think we’d make pretty cool villains. Ooh, popcorn time!” The smell of buttery goodness soon wafted through the room causing her to rub her hands together in anticipation. Instead of munching at the popcorn like a ravenous hyena she waited for Martha to return to the couch and either take off mute, change the channel, or continue talking about The Force, but with a sparknotes or wikipedia entry somewhere to help guide the discussion.

“Bet George Lucas would have a field day with your powers. I wonder what it would look like if a Dani Sith and a Martha Ninja or Jedi or whatever got into a fighter. Because I definitely don’t want to fight you. Our powers are not the friendly fighting type. Though watching characters act it out on television. I could definitely do that.”
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Martha Johansson
Unregistered

"At the risk of joining the surprisingly popular and growing nerd culture, I'll admit to enjoying Firefly, even if it was short lived. Buffy, too. Joss Whedon is about the only sci-fi mogul I tolerate and that's primarily because of Buffy. Though, she was included in horror, I suppose. Was it horror? Or, like, horror-fantasy? I mean, there were vampires and demons but then that one robot guy created by a secret organization, which, really, screams science-fiction." Martha paused, realizing the tangent. "So apparently I don't dislike everything make believe." She chuckled softly, gesturing towards the silenced dialogue exchanged between characters whose names she unabashedly could not recall. "Did he make you watch all of them? What are there, like six movies? Or 'episodes.' And why are there so many in the first place? Wasn't the objective to off Darth Vader?"

Personally, Martha convicted the entire genre of false advertising; very few films and programs included legitimate science, with an unfortunately large collection employing techniques too radical for classification as science. Perhaps that was the goal, to present something far more extreme than reality, but it failed to connect with the brunette -- thankfully other styles didn't disappoint. That much.

She crossed her arms, moving closer to the sofa with an expression of intrigue slowly growing. Danielle wasn't incorrect. Several of the Force's achievements centered around mental dominance and psychokinetic interactions, the bulk of which were external. "That's true. Never thought of that, actually. But we could do more. Take that psychic grip, for example," she began, outstretching a fist before clenching it. "They provide the physical component. But we, we can revamp it as something psychosomatic, have the target feel not only pressure but intensify their suffocation, expand on that circumstantial fear." The thought was dark, yes, but emphasized the true nature of their gifts: they weren't just mind readers.

And the illusionist reiterated her point; Martha grabbed the bag, grinning as she poured it into the nearly empty bowl before resuming the conversation. "I know you manifest deepest fears but I'd hate to be the person who got between you and dinner."

She settled into her spot, clicking the mute button but lowering the volume several levels until the fictional conversations served as background noise yet also reference points, her gaze occasionally shifting towards the screen when flashes of colors indicated an elaborate sequence or scene change. "We'd give the old robed dude a run for his money." Once again she searched for a canonical reference, snapping her fingers upon discovering it. "Lord Palpitation! No, wait... anyway, we'd also give him palpitations." Martha scooped up some of the popcorn, savoring the unhealthiness and digging in again without any traces of guilt. "There is one thing, though. So you have the Force, okay, cool. But what is it? Something spiritual? Psionic? Natural? Magical? Us, we wield psychic badassery -- is it the same for the Force?"

"I'd think he would be a little upset I wasn't also a telekinetic. But Rachel and her mother, he'd love them. Not that you and I are mere dolls. Hell, you'd be evoking horrific memories while commanding dangerous, alien beasts." She'd never thought of that before, Mirage connecting with a variety of animals. They wouldn't necessarily answer to every call but assuming there existed a mutual trust, it wouldn't be wrong to assume a pack of wolves or herd of wildebeests was ready to provide some help. "It's too bad some of us joined the dark side," she commented, a grimmer inflection seeping into her words. "The Hellfire Club has some pretty nasty hitters." Several names came to mind, each equally dangerous. The Institute boasted some exceptionally powerful alumni and students but so did everything opposing supporting the opposition. And many of these threats exploited the common psychic weakness among a majority of the residents; other psionic mutants and a handful of individuals trained to erect mental blocks were safe, but the rest would find themselves at the mercy -- or rather, lack thereof -- of opponents.

"How do you think we'd fare in terms of defense?"
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Mirage
Unregistered

Listening to Martha, it made Dani happy as the other woman relished in her memories of favorite television shows from the past. There was a certain glint in her eye, no it was simply the way her words hummed with excitement. It could have simply been Martha’s friendly nature, but Dani liked to think she bubbled with the same type of reverie when discussing sports and things of an athletic nature. It was why she didn’t have to be a fan of the nerd and geek culture, but she loved its members and their enthusiasm so much, as it was pretty much identical to the passion she had for playing sports.

"Did he make you watch all of them? What are there, like six movies? Or 'episodes.' And why are there so many in the first place? Wasn't the objective to off Darth Vader?"

“Yes, and I’m not sure why there are six. There might be seven. Soon. You would think people are afraid with each sequel they get worse, but no instead people are excited. I mean, really seven movies? This isn’t Harry Potter.”

The topic switched naturally to their powers in relation to the movies and then what they could achieve on their own. While others may have been disturbed by Martha’s pondering over psychosomatic scenarios and victims, Dani paid attention as discussing field experience where her power was concerned always captured her interest. It was possibly worse than her love of play by plays of sports moves and her strategizing over combat moves. She couldn’t be so certain, but she was halfway convinced some of the X-Men rolled their eyes when Dani was lost in a battle scenario theorizing different scenarios to ad nauseum.

“The odd thing about psychosomatic symptoms is that you never really know how someone will react,” she said in a clinical voice. (Though in the back of her head she swore the kids at the school heard the voice of a coach and nothing more.) “It’s not simply pain, but how they react to it and humans react to pain so differently from one another.”

"I know you manifest deepest fears but I'd hate to be the person who got between you and dinner."

“Oh trust me, Piotr has learned the hard way that one must sacrifice food to me in order to appease the hangry gods. Not sure if the force can overcome hanger. Mine can be pretty epic. Like him,” she pointed to a random character, “what could he do against us...really?”

"We'd give the old robed dude a run for his money." Once again she searched for a canonical reference, snapping her fingers upon discovering it. "Lord Palpitation! No, wait... anyway, we'd also give him palpitations. There is one thing, though. So you have the Force, okay, cool. But what is it? Something spiritual? Psionic? Natural? Magical? Us, we wield psychic badassery -- is it the same for the Force?"

Munching on popcorn she gazed at the television screen and tried to remember everything Doug had taught her over the years. There were just too many Star Wars rules in her opinions. Like the whole Luke or Skywalker or someone who didn’t shoot first. That was so weird. Why did they even get worked up about that? And the jo-jo bar binky thing? What was its name? She thought about what she knew of the force. It was magical right? Wait no...didn’t the newer movies that were supposed to be older in the Star Wars timeline say it was science? How exactly do you start with a culture that believes in the scientific properties of the Force and then by the time Darth Vader is an adult its a magical thing? Hello, Skywalker, wouldn’t you have remembered it’s not magical. Maybe it was just Harry Potter style magic, with no explanation really necessary.

That actually would make so much more sense to her.

“The force is probably spiritual/magical, but I also think its power based, because otherwise why did Darth Vader have so much of it? He should be Force-less. Or maybe it’s all in their heads and anyone can access it, you just have to believe in yourself. Vader really believed in himself and that makes more sense than whatever the movies claimed. Still, like I said, we’re the more interesting one.”

When Martha brought up Rachel and the Summers clan and what the director would have preferred, Dani made an audible, “Pfft,” sound. Granted the Summers were badass in their own right, but sometimes you needed to know exactly what you could do and how to best work with what you got. She was proof of that. Plus wasn’t that more compelling storytelling? The whole underdog thing? If people assumed Martha was just this big ol’ brain with no fight in her, it’d made her more deadly.

"It's too bad some of us joined the dark side," she commented, a grimmer inflection seeping into her words. "The Hellfire Club has some pretty nasty hitters."

“Yeah, the Hellfire Club does, though the worst ones are probably not the heavy hitters, but the guys with the brains.” She immediately thought of Forge. They had a very complicated friendship as culture and identity bonded them, but their choices were so drastically different from one another. Dani still had yet to confront him about his club’s part in the Illuminati business. Even though she returned and reconnected with all of her old friends that was one meeting she was in no mood to have as she saw a potentially ugly fight. With her doing most of the yelling.

"How do you think we'd fare in terms of defense?"

“Ah, that’s where we’d shine. My powers tend to be more on the defensive side, well except the whole neural arrows business, but it can calm folks down and stop them from attacking you, without forcing me to attack them. You are like part brain ninja. Depending on how you use your powers, I would say you could do the same and subdue people. I think the bad guys would know that in terms of defense, we’re pretty bad ass. They’d want to get us to attack to look for an opening.”

Dani looked at the screen and nodded her head as one of the many dramatic moments occurred. She actually wanted to know why two of the characters who were brother and sister almost hooked up. There was something quite awful about that. It would be like...Pietro and Wanda in a different universe getting together. Very vile and very unnecessary. That wasn’t a clever storyline at all. At least the whole “Luke, I am your father,” business caught Dani off guard. Like no way! Made her wonder if Martha knew that was coming, but she rather watch her expression just in case Martha didn’t know.

“Now against each other it would be different, because I would argue maybe timing, reflexes, and strategy would come into play. I could knock you out cold or you could possess me before I had a chance to react, so we both have the means to play hard, but depends who is quicker in the end. I think we’re both pretty even with speed. I might be better at strategy, but I overthink it sometimes, which could give you an opening.”

Popping a kernel one at a time into her mouth, so she could savor the buttery goodness, she looked at the screen unable to think of anymore Star Wars related questions at the moment. She at least was able to navigate this conversation. She should put this on Facebook or Twitter and force Doug to like or retweet her comment, due to its epic nature. Thinking about their powers and how to use it against each other, actually brightened her day, as she was one of the more enthusiastic members when it came to Danger Room training. She sometimes was convinced Logan would do everything to make her training more difficult than necessary when she was younger.

Tough love. She absolutely loved him for it.

“Thankfully we’re at the stage where we have enough control over our powers to know how to control them. It’s more about finesse and practicing the more volatile sides of our nature. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love the kids here, but I’m so thankful I don’t have to go through those learning pains again. Well, except for Daniel. His situation sucks,” she mused. “I would not want to be an adult trying to figure out how my powers worked for the first time, unless my powers somehow naturally evolved into something else, but still that would suck too, because by then you’d have a set fighting style and there’s muscle memory so to relearn all of that...but Daniel is holding up well, considering. Think of all the potential he has,” she said a little too mischievously.

“He is Darth Vader, but nicer.”
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