fandomtownies | Atlas Gym, Monday (11/19)

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Atlas Gym, Monday (11/19)

If Beau was being honest -- and depending on who was asking that was a really, really huge if -- she was relieved that the weekend's weirdness had skipped her; that was a time in her life she never wanted to relive.

Though she couldn't help wondering, and she was pissed at herself for wondering it, if it might have been fun to get to be a kid again for a couple of days here, entire worlds away from Kamordah and from her father. And wasn't that just a whole cartload of what-ifs to torture herself with?

Not that any of that had a thing to do with how hard she was going at a practice dummy with her staff during her down time today. Nope. Not a damn thing.

[[The OCD is still busy freaking out over last week's episode, but the post is definitely open!]]

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Vette had her blasters on her hips and maybe a faintly strained look on her face as she made her way to the gym after class today.

"You have a shooting range here, right? Because today seems like a great day for shooting things. A lot."

She had not enjoyed her weekend. She was not looking forward to the fallout of her weekend. The more she could throw herself into something that was nothing like how her weekend had gone, the happier she'd be.

Kaidan had gone for a run and done the stairs but the cold bite to the air was hurting his lungs. A quick stop at home and he had his duffle, off to the gym he went.

He nodded to Beau on the way in. Stopped at his locker and dropped off his stuff, changing into indoor gym clothes. Taped his knuckles and strapped on some gloves and shin pads.

The heavy bags were calling him. He didn't have to hold back against a canvas bag full of sand, so here he was, on the offensive and throwing punches and kicks at full speed and force.

"Huh?" Beau took one look at Vette's expression and nodded. "Oh, yeah yeah yeah, dude, it's downstairs."

She was kind of apprehensive about it herself, but nobody needed to know that; she just gestured for Vette to follow her.

"You, uh, know how to use stuff down there and everything, right? 'cause I kind of don't."

"Not sure yet," Vette replied gamely as she followed along after. "I've never been to a shooting range on this world before."

She tilted her head thoughtfully as she regarded Beau.

"Not much for guns, huh?"

"'sup, man," Beau called to him, and let him go about his business for a bit while she focused on making a few adjustments to her parkour course. Once she was satisfied that yeah, that wall scramble bit was challenging enough, she went over and leaned against a stack of mats to watch him, assessing.

"That kinda weekend, huh?" she asked after a while.

"Yeah, that kind of weekend," Kaidan agreed. His voice was calm enough but his eyes were cold and he was hitting that bag like he wanted to punch a hole straight through it.

"The island thought half the residents needed to be thrown back to childhood for the weekend. Doesn't seem to care that maybe that wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for everyone."

"Eh." Beau unlocked the door to the range and gestured for her to head on in. "Yeah, that's not really a thing where I come from? No, more like a brand new thing? Yeah. You pretty much don't really see them around, they're like super rare."

They were more of a thing in criminal circles, really. Which she might know a thing or two about.

"Huh," Vette said, looking thoughtful as she stepped into the range. "It's weird to end up somewhere without them, back where I'm from. Wouldn't mind finding myself somewhere that I could feel safe in without carrying a pair of blasters around."

She reached for her hips and drew both guns, glancing toward the targets.

"I wonder how those things will hold up."

"Right?" Beau asked with a short, sharp laugh, and if anyone got a close enough look her eyes had gone flat and cold. "There's some pretty fucked up stories behind there that people might not want to have to get asked about now."

"Exactly," Kaidan nodded, because she got it. "I did a thing at the arcade to make sure they had somewhere to go, out of the cold, and y'know.. food available. The number of them who had that look.. "

A solid, angry triple right there and then he hit the bag hard with his shin for good measure.

"That was bad. What was worse was seeing the bright, happy kids. You'd think that'd be a good thing, right? Except I know them as adults. I know most of their history. I know how little time there was before they were in. the. shit." He punctuated those last words with more angry hits. "It hurt to look at them."

His voice went icy. "Nobody'd better get asked. Not one of them. Anyone does any asking deserves what they get, and if there's anything left afterward, they're going to have to deal with me."

"It's mostly like, axes and bows and shit everywhere you go back home," Beau said, shrugging and taking a look around the range; she hadn't spent more than a few minutes in the range, and most of those had been on her introductory tour of her new workplace. "But it'd be weird not seeing those around all the time either. I mean, that's not really gonna happen with the fuckin' Crownsguard eveywhere, but yeah."

Belatedly, as if she'd just remembered, she added, "Right, there's supposed to be like safety rules and shit for this place?" She nodded toward the sign. "I dunno, man, I just work here."

"Hey, I'm not complaining yet," Vette replied with a shrug, and then looked over toward the sign.

And just kind of kept staring at it for a little while, quietly puzzling out the words in her head.

"Eye and ear protection? I mean, sure, if I have to."

It wasn't like her blasters were terribly noisy, but okay, Earth.

"If they want to share?" Beau shrugged. "That's fine, whatever, but that's their choice. And people who ran into them when it happened are going to be curious, and they might ask. I figure they're entitled to that. Can't help curiosity, right? Pushing for an answer, though, that's a whole different story. They get fucking punched for that, they deserve it. Shit, I'll help you with the punching."

She tilted her head and looked at him quizzically.

"You're taking it kind of to heart a lot, aren't you?"

"Yep," Kaidan said, popping that 'p', and punching the bag again, "Today, a bunch of people I care about are going to be the walking wounded. There's sweet fuck-all I can do about any of it. I hate that feeling like poison."

Feeling helpless. Knowing that the best thing he could do for most of them was to ignore it and keep on keepin' on. That there was nothing he could take his anger and anguish and frustration out on except a body bag.

Beau shrugged broadly, a clear "don't look at me."

""It makes sense, I guess?" She found a set of throwing knives on a rack and went for them immediately. "Just so my boss isn't responsible for anyone getting hurt on the premises?"

She was the type of person to say "Hit me!" to someone curious about a new sword's properties. What was weapon safety?

Vette gave the throwing knives a curious look, and then shrugged and scrounged around to see if she could find ear protection that would play nicely with a pair of non-human ears.

"I guess," she replied. "But if my blaster misfires or something, I know I'm the one holding it. Why would I hold your boss responsible for something that happens with my own weapon?"

The 'sue the pants off of anybody' culture of modern Earth was an enigma to someone who spent most of her time these days on the Smuggler's Moon.

"Kaidan. Dude." Beau watched him with an expression that was partly bewildered, partly pitying in the way that only a kid barely out of her teens who thought she knew better could manage. "Like . . . none of that's your fault, you know? Yeah, it fucking sucks, but not like you can go back and fix it or anything."

It was incredibly hypocritical of her to tell anyone else not to beat themselves up over something. She didn't care that it was.

". . . but that's why you're here. Right. Hitting things a whole hell of a lot always makes me feel better too. Or people, if you want more of a challenge than that bag?"

"We live on an interdimensional nexus of realities," Kaidan pointed out, "If I wasn't worried about that whole space/time causality thing, I'd be tempted to see if there were portals into the past and go land on some of the bad like a fiery comet." He hit the bag again, "But I'm too responsible for that. Mostly I meant there's nothing I can do today. Except be here for the ones who might need me, or at least a friendly shoulder, and pretend the weekend didn't happen for the ones who need that instead."

He paused and caught the bag. "You have suggestions?"

"Because people can be dicks," was Beau's succinct reply. She twirled one of the knives between her fingers, testing the balance, then hurled it down the shooting lane at a target; it stuck, maybe five inches to the left of center. "So I'm guessing the rules and shit are just so if something does happen, some asshole tries to get the gym to pay for damages, we can say 'Look, man, you're the one who wasn't paying attention in class. That's on you.'l

Really, Beau? It couldn't have even a little bit to do with ensuring people's safety?

Eh, Vette was cynical enough that she'd roll with it anyway.

"Okay, so your butts are covered," she replied, perking a little as she found the eye protection, but... not so much with the ear pro that would sit comfortably over female Twi'lek ears. She pulled on the eye protection anyway. "You going to throw me out if I start shooting at targets without something over these?"

She was gesturing with one hand toward one of her ear cones.

"My blasters don't even make much noise."

"Yeah, I'm from a world that doesn't even really have electricity yet," Beau pointed out, "so all the space and time stuff mostly just gives me a headache. Like I didn't even think about that ~~and Caleb Widogast was never, ever going to know about it if she could help it~~. But I am always down for a spar, so, y'know, that's probably more satisfying than being mad about other people's shitty childhoods."

That could have been phrased so much more delicately, if she cared about niceties.

"Do we even have anything designed for those?" Beau asked . . . well, the air as much as anyone. "I mean, look, if we don't, that's not your fault, right? Right."

She tossed a second knife at the target and landed a hit just barely off the center this time.

"So I'm just gonna assume you're gonna take all the appropriate precautions, and if if I leave, y'know." SHE SAW NOTHING.

Kaidan considered it. Considered Beau. "What do you usually fight?"

"Hey, would I do something stupid like fire off blasters in here without proper ear protection? I'm totally trustworthy," Vette said, smiling crookedly.

She... was not. But really. Blasters. The only way to get deafened by 'pew pew pew' was if someone shot you in the ear.

A little more seriously, she added, "I know someone who might have something I can borrow for next time. I'll check with her before coming back. Today I just need..." She waved a hand around, vaguely. "Something. This. Something."

Beau waved a hand. "Nah, man, I get that. Fuck shit up all you want, that's like half of what this place is for, far as I'm concerned. I'm gonna --" She winked, which still managed to look like some kind of bizarre, cranky grimace. "Check on stuff upstairs for a bit. Y'know. Away from all the noise."

Not much of anything, because she was a tiny little fledgling adventurer who hadn't even properly embarked on her campaign yet. But shh.

"Drunk assholes most of the time, but I've had a lot of practice against . . ." Still not mentioning the Cobalt Soul by name, no matter if almost nobody here would have heard of them. "Some really skilled unarmed fighters. I'm like super quick, I swear."

And also far too convinced of her own immortality as of yet.

Vette had no idea what to make of that wink, but the sentiment behind it, she appreciated. She nodded, winked back - it was mostly obscured by the lights glinting off the eye protection anyway, and then turned back toward the targets.

"I appreciate it," she replied, and then threw a, "Thanks," over her shoulder before aiming her blasters and firing.

A lot.

Kaidan smiled a little, "I meant what kind of fighting to do you do. Unarmed and..? Weapons at all?"

What did pre-electronic civilizations have, anyway? Right.

"Sword, spear? Knives?"

"My fists, mostly." Beau wondered, just for a second, if a younger her would have been going around trying to get people to teach her to swordfight all weekend; one corner of her mouth twitched briefly, then tightened back into a mirthless expression. She picked up her staff from where it had been propped against one of her parkour obstacles and spun it. "Pretty good with this thing though, too."

Kaidan nodded to himself. "I'm a soldier and one of my specializations is unarmed," he disclosed in the name of fairness, "So.. your choice. Unarmed or whatever weapon you want to use."

He glanced around the gym, "What safety equipment do you have on hand?"

". . . safety equipment?" Don't mind Beau just staring at you in utter confusion, Kaidan.

"Seriously, people do that? I mean, nah, we do have pads and gloves and stuff, but like I kind of thought it was for kids?"

Sigh.

"You're on an island with people who are, for the most part, far stronger than human-average," Kaidan pointed out, "Case in point?" He popped a thumb at his chest, "The padding's to keep pesky little things like broken bones from ruining a good spar."

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Atlas Gym, Monday (11/19)

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