Interlude [Impact, Aurora]

[Aurora]

Lucas lifted the bar over his face, watching the way the light moved along the chrome as he moved it up and down. It felt good to lift weights again, his muscles responding with some odd mixture of complaint and relief at the exercise. Lucas wasn’t accustomed to idleness, in spite of never working an honest job. It took a lot of hard work to survive on the streets as long as he had.

Dressed in jeans, a dark grey tanktop and his customary black army-issue boots, Luke cut a rather typical figure in the weight room of the Genosha compound. He wondered if Magneto had set these weights up for himself, or if they had been requested by Juggernaut. Did the big guy have need to lift at all? Lucas knew he’d never wither to much less than his current bulk, but he felt a lot better when his muscles had regular training. Something about deftness or muscle memory, he supposed.

Aurora didn’t see Lucas at first when she walked into the weight room. As she entered, her head was tilted back, her eyes momentarily closed as she took a long drink of her bottled water. She’d just been running laps around the compound, and the water was much-needed.

When she’d settled in at Genosha, she’d come to realize how weak her body was, and had been dissatisfied enough with her lack of muscles (which weren’t surprising – nuns didn’t have much need for brawn) to start working out. Her legs became toned in a short period of time, forced to with her implementation of morning and evening runs around the compound. With her speed, she could lap the compound in half a minute at a jogging pace. Her muscles were still used in the same way anyone’s would be, but they were worked in such a shorter period of time that her runs never lasted more than three minutes before she had to stop or her legs would give out.

Her arms and the rest of her body, however, had been slower to tone, because she was having to do that the hard way: by going to the weight room. She didn’t always use the machines there; sometimes she did push-ups and crunches. The only thing she didn’t do was the likes of yoga. She had no patience for sitting in the ‘bended monkey’ or ‘one-legged chicken’ position for hours on end. Meditation was a ridiculous concept to Aurora.

When she tipped her head forward and opened her eyes, it only took a few moments for her to catch sight of Lucas. ’Ah,’ she thought. At the least, it would be opportunity to get to know him a bit better. “Hey,” she said to him, screwing the cap back on her water bottle and setting it down on a ledge.

Lucas didn’t recognize the voice at first, holding his breath as he pushed the bar upward again. There was a good amount of weight in his hands, and it took a second to get it back on the supports. He slid down the bench a bit and sat up, rolling the shoulder that had been nagging him a little ever since he punched a hole in the hallway support wall outside Angie’s medical room.

He looked at Aurora, a not entirely interested look on his face. “Hey.” It wasn’t that she wasn’t hot- god, was she ever- but Lucas just didn’t do the super friendly routine. It took a bit to get past his walls. Unless you were Gracie, who beat and sneered her way past them in record time.

That being said, he’d had his fill of women in the past few weeks. What he didn’t need was a runway model fucking up his life by shaking her tits in his face. But man the thought was nice.

He smirked to himself, and picked up a towel, pulling sweat off his face.

“How’s it going.”

Aurora shrugged, tilting her head to the side and back up again. “Alright,” she answered. “About as good as it ever is around here.” Clearly the woman didn’t think highly of the lack of excitement around the place.

She made her way to the machine beside his, sitting in its seat. Feeling that a strap was twisted out of place on her shoulder, she reached up to fix it. She rarely fussed with her clothes, not the type to rearrange every piece of fabric for five minutes after sitting down or to subconsciously smooth their clothes while eyeing an attractive man. It wasn’t that she was of the attitude that she was always perfect in appearance, but she knew that nothing was so out of place as to need to be obsessed over. And she also knew that girls who primped themselves so much looked insecure and vain – and Aurora was neither of those things.

She’d worn black athletic pants and a purple tanktops, which was now spotted with sweat in the back. Her skin was moist with sweat as well, along her hairline and on the back of her neck. “I’ll be relieved when we get another mission – something, anything to do. I’ve been back all of a day and its still the same here.” She batted at a handle hanging to her side, and it spun lazily. “Boring as hell sometimes."

[Aurora]

Lucas watched her with narrowed eyes, catching every movement. Women could be so fucking obvious at times. And it seemed for everything he hated about them, he loved them for being exactly that. So different from him in so many ways. Beautiful and subtle, long slender fingers and gentle curves, the things women would do to make themselves more attractive. Shaved legs, long hair, lipstick. He thought of Gracie’s blood red lipstick and felt a tingle shoot up the length of his spine.

Then he realized he’d been staring at Aurora- not necessarily her eyes, either. Clearing his throat, he got up and walked over to the free weights, returning to the bench with a rather large barbell. “Good to hear someone else say that. I grew up in New York. Can’t get much different from there than here. It’s boring as hell.”

Setting his elbow on his leg, Lucas leaned over a bit and began to do bicep curls, frowning down at himself as he worked.

Aurora smirked just faintly at Lucas’ statement that Genosha was about as far from NYC as one could get. She was tempted to tell him that: no, a nunnery was about as far as one could get from New York. Or, try living a big empty void for most of your life. Not that she remembered it; it was kind of like being asleep. Each time she’d ‘wake up’, she’d had no idea how much time had passed since the last time she’d surfaced.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, moving from the seat to the ground, where she lay on her back with her legs bent. She put her hands underneath her head. “It’s better than where I was at before. But I’d give anything to go back to Baltimore for a visit.”

She sat up, bringing her chest toward her knees. One. “I just hope some other dumbass company comes out with some leftover Cure.” Though with what she and Mystique had found at Sombra, there were things to be done there, things which she hadn’t gotten the final plan on from Mystique as of yet. But those were things that didn’t need to be spread freely, not yet anyway.

Lucas watched her, eyes unfocusing just a bit as he paused to concentrate on the weights, then coming back to her. She was a pleasant distraction from the effort.

“Really? Looking for more action hmm. I heard about Baltimore. A real clusterfuck. Didn’t Pyro end up blowing up a building? S’why he’s wanted man numero uno now.”

The split second between blinks made it hard to determine whether Aurora rolled her eyes at the mention of Pyro’s actions in Baltimore or not. The way her lips pursed, though, leaned toward that she did. “Yeah,” she confirmed with a nod, “’clusterfuck’ is a good word for it.

“Some people got their asses beat pretty thoroughly,” she continued, as she laid back on the ground, only to rise again. She thought of how awful Mystique had looked in the truck. Then again, thinking that she probably hadn’t looked too great herself, and picturing her two-story fall onto the concrete…it hadn’t exactly been a clean win for her, either. “But we sure as Hell made a statement, which was half the point.”

Aurora laid back on the ground again, her eyes on the ceiling as she thought something that made the edges of her lips curl into a smirk. “And it had its fun points,” she mused, thinking of the exhilarating rush of her game of human catch, tormenting the pretty boy X-Man.

[Aurora]

Lucas tried to imagine what the fun points would be. The rampant chaos, maybe getting into a fight. He didn’t really think Aurora was that kind of girl though. Imagining her in any kind of genuine fistfight was like imagining Paris Hilton in a boxing match. It just didn’t add up.

“Not something I’d expect to hear out of a girl like you. What part did you play in all of it?”

’A girl like me?’ Aurora echoed in her head, intrigued, wondering exactly what kind of girl she struck him as. Hopefully not a soft one. Not that it really mattered – he hadn’t seen her in any kind of combat, so it was reasonable that he’d come to other conclusions.

She was silent for a moment, sitting up and resting her elbows on her knees as she pondered how to put it. “Clusterfucking,” she decided finally, with a smile that had a wicked turn to it. “Just adding to the chaos. Tried to see how many of the people I threw one of the X-Men could catch before he started missing some.” Her smile widened at the memory.

Lucas paused, letting the weight clink to the ground between his boots. He grinned at her, chuckling. “Ruthless.” It was one of those expressions people rarely saw- mostly women, and few could resist it. He didn’t do it intentionally, but it had the effect nonetheless.

This time without trying for a second to conceal it, he looked her over. “Guess it makes you Brotherhood material.” Standing, he rolled his shoulder and walked the weight back over to the rack.

Of course Aurora saw him check her out. He made no bones about the action. As he walked back to the weight rack, Aurora’s eyes followed him. ’Maybe he’s not so much with Recluse. Or, if he is, its not very solid…’ And while Aurora wasn’t looking to come between any happy couples, if a man wasn’t happy where he was, the common sense thing for that man to do was to put himself somewhere else. Or, in this case, with someone else.

She couldn’t deny that that grin he’d flashed her had been just about the sexiest grin she’d seen grace a man’s face. “It wasn’t until Baltimore that I really knew that this was where I belonged,” she said, resuming her crunches. “Before that, I was here because it was a place to turn to.” She didn’t want to launch into her life story – explaining it was difficult, only out-weighed by the topic of Jeanne-Marie’s existence (though Aurora hoped that she was a thing of the past – she hadn’t had any problems with her for some time).

As she sat up during one of her crunches, she looked to Lucas where he stood. “So why are you here, then?”

He nodded to her explanation, having heard the story a hundred times from kids in the street- most notably with one gang or another. Everyone wanted to belong. Lucas had no particular interest in belonging, it wasn’t really his style. But he understood why a person might want to be a part of something. And something bigger than themselves, something that might make a change all over the world… that he definitely had an interest in.

Lucas wasn’t a do-gooder. He just believed in the mutant and might-makes-right. Fortunately for him, he was ‘might’ nine times out of ten.

“Got tired of seeing mutant kids getting gunned down by the cops. That and I’ve been doin’ the same thing on the streets since I was a kid myself. Seemed time for a change.”

Leaning back against the wall, he looked down at Aurora and crossed his arm. A woman as pretty as her couldn’t possibly be doing crunches in front of a guy she’d been making eyes at just because she wanted the exercise. But that was okay; he didn’t mind the view one bit.

[Aurora]

The streets, huh? Aurora wasn’t surprised. He didn’t seem like an upper-class, Ivy League kind of guy. Which was good. She couldn’t picture an Ivy League kind of guy she’d have any interest in at all. People had to have substance to be interesting – and substance came from trials. Obstacles. Low times.

“I’ve lived on the streets a couple times,” she remembered aloud as she sat up from her final crunch, deciding to join Lucas in taking a break.

He was still watching her. She liked that he didn’t try to hide it. She wasn’t going to go giving him an easy view, but she acknowledged it with the slight raise of one eyebrow and the amused purse of her lips – barely a change to her expression, but something she doubted his watchful eyes would miss. “Never for very long,” she continued, “but it had its good points. Freedom.”

His talk of kids made her think for a moment. She wondered what it must have been like, being a kid. The concept was foreign to her – she’d seen kids, of course, and also on TV…but having never been one, it was like wondering what it would be like to be the opposite sex. One could imagine things about it, but it was impossible to know of a surety. Having a family was that was as well.

“So, if you don’t mind my asking; what are your powers? ‘Impact’ brings a lot of things to mind…” Aurora’s eyes sparkled with the many ways that statement could be taken, incinuating that she realized each and every one.

Lucas arched an eyebrow, not smiling in return. Instead he just looked at her intently, leaving all the expression to his eyes, which caught the light and gleamed at her almost predatorily. He rubbed the vague stubble along his jaw, considering how to answer.

“I kinda… change force. It’s hard to explain. I’m not really a science guy. But when I swing my arm,” he made a motion as if uppercutting someone in the jaw- so conveniently displaying the beautifully muscled contours of his bicep and forearm. “The impact is a lot stronger than it would be for a human of the same size. But it’s not strength. I can’t like… lift a car, say, but if a car was thrown at me, I could lean towards it and likely break through the sucker.”

“From what I hear my power’s a lot like Juggernaut’s, only he can lift a lot of weight along with it.”

He looked her over again. “So what’s yours.”

‘Mm. Nice. Arms.’ The rippling of his muscles as he swung at an imaginary foe during his demonstration momentarily distracted Aurora from what he was saying. She was interested in it, though, so she tuned back in as he lowered his arm. Focusing on his face wasn’t any less enjoyable, anyway.

“Impressive,” she commented with a raise of her eyebrows. Simply leaning toward a car and he could break it in half? Very impressive, indeed. Even the Juggernaut had to get a running start.

“The one that’s of the most use is my speed,” she said as she pushed herself up off the ground to stand. “I can potentially move at the speed of light. But doing so would cause tears in – I don’t know, to be honest, I’m not into science shit either – but its not safe to go near that fast. Still, at my best I’m basically a blur.”

She started to wander to where she’d put her water bottle down when she’d walked into the weight room. “And then I can throw you back – I have to touch you, though, and the force isn’t anywhere near yours, I’d say.” She unscrewed the cap of her water and took a drink. After swallowing, she continued. “And I’ve got some kind of ability to manipulate emotions…Though I haven’t gotten to explore this one much. Nobody really wants to volunteer to be a test subject for any kind of mental voodoo, you know?”

Lucas smirked. “I’d be game,” he volunteered. “You’ve got to try it out on someone, right. Just as long as you, heh- don’t hold me responsible for the outcome.”

He really was curious about her power. Throw a man his size back with a touch, huh? He’d like to see that. He’d ask her to try it out right then, but with his mutation he figured his fall would damage the wall behind him. Lucas had done enough damage to the compound in the last few days, he didn’t want do any more.

“What say we head out to the training area outside. I want to see what you can do.” He watched her take a drink from her water bottle, nudging his room key into his pocket.

Aurora only had to consider for a second before agreeing that his suggestion sounded like a good idea. The corners of her lips had tugged upwards as she’d heard his comment, suggesting what might come of her exploration of her emotion-control powers, and she’d smirked at him over her water bottle. To say that it hadn’t crossed her mind would be a lie. After all, ‘lustful’ was an emotion, was it not?

“Sounds good,” she said, setting the bottle down and wiping her fingers across her lips to catch any drops of water that may have settled there. “I haven’t had the chance to train with anyone yet – I’ve been wanting to,” she said as she eyed a window nearby. A thought occurred to her, and she walked toward the window instead of the door.

She turned the lock on the window and pushed it up, then turned and pulled herself up onto the windowsill. “I’ll meet you there?” she suggested, as though going through the window were as ordinary as them taking two different doors. Continuing, her voice held a note of what might have been playful challenge. “Or…do you want a ride?”

Lucas smirked. “I’ll be there in a few,” he said dismissively, and stepped out of the doorway.

[cont. in Genosha board, 'Thrown']