fandomtownies | Fight Club, Atlas Gym, Sunday Evening

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Fight Club, Atlas Gym, Sunday Evening

"Well, most of you are looking refreshingly back to your original shapes," Ghanima said crisply. "I hope many of you enjoyed your second or third childhoods, and many congratulations on not managing to kill each other with the nerf toys last week."

"Being back to normal means no ball pit this week," Tyler added. "I know. I'm crushed, too. Welcome to Fight Club. Rules are posted over there, and if this is your first week sign in and let us know what your level is."

"Like last time, we'll both be around keeping an eye on things, and I'll be over by the beginner mats for the first bit," Ghanima stated. "Now, you and you. You two. And you two too." She turned to Tyler, smiling brightly. "Care to pick the last victims?"

"You know the way to my heart, Ghanima," Tyler joshed, and looked over the group for a long moment. "You, hiding in the back, and you by the padding. And both of you. And that makes five sets. Go forth and punch."

[Preplayed with

atreideslioness. Up early for SP~~, wait a sec for OCD~~.]

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"The enthusiasm of youth. Give it a few rounds."

Not that Cable would reject a good fight or two, either. Wouldn't help to lose his edge again, as he'd done in the past.

"But going by the clinic reports, you have everything well in hand. And as I don't see you setting up any cages... it's a good outlet."

"Cages?" Ghanima's expression twisted in distaste.

"I am trying to break the habits they have caged themselves in," she replied crisply. "If I wanted to make money on betting, I would go to the mainland and clean out a casino or three."

"I was kidding," he said, dryly. "It's a good idea."

Making jokes? Still not really his best skill.

"Although I was going to ask if there's any way to make the playpen a regular feature."

"It isn't nice to try and regulate your fellow fighters to the playpen," Ghanima replied dryly with her own sense of humor. "May I ask why?"

"Only if it's needed," Cable deadpanned. "Some of us do have children, Ghanima... there are only so many babysitters on the island."

For super-powered children destined to save the world, anyway.

"Babysitter?" Ghanima actually had to consult with her Other Memory for a fraction of a moment before she laughed. "Forgive me, I often forget that other children aren't as uniquely suited to care for themselves as Leto and I were."

"I don't know what we can do about a pen, but bring it along next weekend. I'm sure some of the children wouldn't mind playing with it while you fight, and I'll make sure none of them damage it irreparably."

"I even promise not to put it in any cage matches."

"I was hoping to keep her out of those until she's at least five," he said; could've easily been mistaken for a joke by most, but he trusted Ghanima - by reputation - to pick up on the undercurrent.

Don't mess with that baby. One day, she's going to know how to shoot a gun very well.

"Sounds like you had an interesting childhood."

Considering that Ghanima had been dealing with assassination plots since she was hours old and slitting throats since she was four, the smile she shot him was decidedly impish, bypassing any attempt at faux-innocence.

"Leto and I had a childhood that many would deem atypical," she said cheerily. "My mother's people promote self-sufficiency from the time you can walk; the tribe carries no dead weight. Add that to being the heirs to House Atreides, and you had two children that tended to 'freak out' unwary visitors by acting like adult politicians rather than your average seven-year-old."

She was not mentioning being Pre-Born out of respect for Leto's wishes, as he had asked her not to speak of it.

"Strangely, or perhaps not-so-strangely, I find my unique upbringing is perhaps more helpful in dealing with my students than a 'normal' teacher could manage."

"On an island full of child-soldiers and would-be saviors?" He shot her an amused look. "They've earned their share of understanding and guidance," he said, glancing at the students present. "To a point. You've assumed quite a responsibility in that regard. Shaping them to survive their own lives..."

Ghanima muttered something barely-audible about minors with messiah complexes. "Child-nothing. Many of them are soldiers," she replied, thinking of her Jedi students, Alice, Reno, and the others. "Age has little to do with it."

"If I were to simply stand back and allow them to carry on, knowing I had the means to assist them and not acting on that knowledge, I would not deserve my position as a teacher," Ghanima said simply. "Waiting for the future when you could instead be shaping it... that is perhaps one of the greatest sins of omission possible."

Well, if anything, Cable was living proof that you could be a minor with a messiah complex and still live to a ripe old age.

Give or take a few spells being dead. "Of course, then I've got to ask," he said, "What would you shape?" The lines of an amused, knowing smirk were pulling on his mouth. "The island has access to every corner of the multiverse. Alternate places, alternate futures. Which pebbles are you throwing into what river to what end?"

"Just by talking with them at any moment, I'm already casting pebbles, aren't I?" Ghanima asked whimsically. "Muliverses themselves don't actually concern me; my care is for my individual students. Perhaps I'm selfish in that manner, but I prefer to work with what I have at hand."

"If we are talking about an overall goal... A universe of surprises, that is what I wish for," she said. "My father once said that to know the future is to be trapped by it."

"I want a world free of the oracle of prescience, where humans can chose their own future moment-by-moment." Ghanima looked at the fighters on the mats, a smile lingering on her mouth. "They deserve more than to be locked into one person's vision of the future, or the perversion of an oracle's words."

"And you, what stones would you cast into time's river?"

"I traded in my stones for a baby carrier."

Another quirk of a smirk.

"Otherwise... simple world domination'll cut it." He tilted his head at the same fighters she was granting so much of her attention. "My people believe that anyone can change the future," he said, "Even if you know it, the right shove - pebble, if we're using this metaphor - can put it on some other course."

"Some would say that guardianship of a child is the largest 'pebble' of all," Ghanima replied sweetly. Only one world? "Too many oracles shoving at the future is nothing but trouble. I would rather eliminate 'knowing' and simply allow everyone experience it for themselves."

"I've seen the future without meddling," he said, dropping the smirk. Gradually. "It's a lot less constructive than you'd think... a lot of people 'experiencing it' over someone else's back."

He'd been one of those kids currently wrestling around in the gym.

"I've seen it with meddling, and it ends with the extinction of humanity in my universe," she said simply. "Mindless sheep following the oracle, eventual stagnation, and death. I would rather have the unending conflict that forces change and evolution, rather than let humanity die without a whimper."

"It doesn't have to be one or the other," he replied, mildly. "Under the right leadership, there's the possibility for a middle ground. Progress without cruelty, if we're going to think in these terms. Humanity has always done well at reading things in terms of black and white, without acknowledging the advantages of both. An army of men pushing at history might do as much damage as none at all, and we could be arguing about which kind of damage was best for the next few centuries. It won't help solve the problem."

"'Under the right leadership.'" Ghanima couldn't help the bitter tone that colored her words. "Who chooses that? Me? You? Then we're no better than the oppressors you seem to dislike so much. If humanity is ever to realize their own potential, they have to outgrow their messiahs."

Including her father. Even turning their backs on Leto, the ungrateful creatures. Tyrant. Her-Leto had shared that part of his vision with her and laughed, but Ghanima could see how much it hurt him.

"My family has a gift," she explained, lacing her fingers together. "Should we dare to use it, that is. We can stand at the center and see all possible futures."

"I think you can see why I would rather put the future in the hands of all humans, rather than a select few." The possibility for abuse, for humans to become too dependent on being told what to do rather than self-choice, for worse suffering was too high. "They must learn to act, not react, or absolute future becomes absolute death."

"The people," he said, easily, in an answer to her first question. "They're all perfectly capable of working together, given a good incentive. A good leader just gives the push... and then falls to the background to let them work it out on their own."

Like the Rumeki.

"I grew up in my world's future," he offered, "A madman took control using simple principles: cast conflict upon the world, and whoever comes out strongest lives. The result wasn't pretty. We survived, but barely."

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Fight Club, Atlas Gym, Sunday Evening

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