Aberrant: Mutant High - Homework...?[Complete]

[Stargaizer]

Josh watched as Sonja threw the hoops in position, noting how they fell and how heavy they appeared to be (of course, Sonja's not the best specimen for judging weights, but he can get some idea from how they fall, how fast and how deep they go into the snow, etc.). "Great job, that's pretty much perfect..." There was more than a slight hint of amazement in his voice. For someone, in a wheelchair, who stayed in a science lab most of the time, Sonja's display of physical prodigy was simply astonishing.

Then, Alex flew up a little ways. Not too far, but a decent distance above them. "Yeah, that should be fine." Then he briefly turned to Sonja. He was about to ask to hold a hoop when he realized that this would be practice for him too; practice at judging the mass of objects.

So, Josh did a simple countdown. "Ok, ready in, 3... 2... 1..." and then, without a 'GO!' he pointed at the hoop right in front of him and it sprang into the air. It wasn't entirely vertical, but it was close enough that Alex could get through it. Then, as Sonja turned his chair a little, he pointed at the next one. It sprang up a little higher than the last one, and a little more vertical as well.

This continued for several rounds with Josh simply varying the heights of the rings. It was really fun to watch once they started moving fast and high enough that the rings didn't touch the ground between rounds.

"Ready!?" Josh called up in a loud breach of Alex's concentration. And with that, Josh started adding left and right movements to the up and down that he had been doing. It took Josh a little longer to master this second dimension, but once he did, the motion of the hoops flying through the air looked something akin to a giant display from a master juggler.

In a softer voice to Sonja, without breaking his concentration, Josh said, "Wow... this is cooler than I had thought..."

[GDP_ST]

Alex was enjoying himself immensely. Flight was relatively effortless, his body impelling itself through the air through some process he didn't fully understand, but knew was something to do with the abundance of electromagnetic and nuclear energies in his mutated cellular structure, like each cell was a tiny Sun. That was where Professor Jensen had lost him, smiling at his somewhat glazed expression and telling him that he was bright enough (no pun intended) to get a better handle on it after some brushing up on his physics. Quite a lot of brushing up, was Alex's personal thoughts on the matter. He got by in Science classes, usually getting B-averages. But this stuff was college-level at least.

Flying, though hard to fully explain, was easy to do for him. His athletic form spun, tumbled, rose and dove through the air above Sonja and Josh like a fish through water. He missed a few of the rings at first, then got used to the shifting heights enough that he could make first one full circuit, then another, without missing a ring. Third time around, he actually made the circuit so smoothly that he didn't so much as clip the rising and falling hoops as he went through them.

Then Josh switched up to adding a side-to-side motion as well. That was harder, the glowing young mutant having to slow down and concentrate harder on making a full circuit. It took five tries before he managed to adjust enough to not miss a single ring, but he still clipped a few.

"How's it looking down there?!" He called out exuberantly, immensely pleased as he twisted and dipped to soar through a falling, leftwards-moving ring.

[Sonja Bahaar]

Originally Posted By: Josh

"Wow... this is cooler than I had thought..."

"It's pretty awesome, Josh," Sonja said, wonder in her voice.

Originally Posted By: Alex

"How's it looking down there?!"

"Looking very good, Alex," Sonja replied cheerfully, giving him a thumbs up. He really did look like a fish swimming through water. A good-looking, glowy fish.

Though she hid it behind a high spirited demeanor, and would deny it vehemently, Sonja was actually envious of the others, at least a little, just for a moment. Sure, she was stronger, faster, and healthier than anything purely human, more attractive than most too, though she would never have said it out loud or rubbed it in anyone's face (at least not intentionally).

But all that was something that everybody had or could do, to varying degrees, it was just that her limits were jacked way up. In truth, she really had no reason for complaint or for feeling envious, 'Neca would have given her such a look if she had. But flying, shooting laser beams from your eyes, moving stuff with your mind (yes, yes, she knew that wasn't exactly what Josh did, but the effect was the same), that was truly extraordinary, superhuman. For this moment, just for a little while, she wished she was able to do something like that. Then the moment passed, and she grinned - she was capable of extraordinary things herself.

"Ready to up the fun guys? This is for both of you. Be ready." From what she understood of Josh's abilities, which admittedly wasn't entirely clear - physics wasn't her strongest class - she was sure her idea would work. The remarkably figured athlete reached into her bag, then withdrew a puck. With astonishing accuracy, she flicked the small disk underhanded, hitting a hoop squarely on edge.

What she hoped was that Josh could transfer the momentum to the hoop, granted it even more varying movement, which would in turn give Alex an even more difficult course to navigate. If Josh was able to manage it, Sonja was ready to impart some added motion - second-hand, as it were - to the rest of the hoops.

[Stargaizer]

Josh tried not to loose his concentration too much when Sonja started talking, and saying that what she was doing was for both Alex and himself. Of course, he diverted a little attention away just to see what she was doing, and... "What the...?" His voice showed that this wasn't, at least at first, a pleasant surprise to Josh.

The fact that she was knocking 'his' hoops out of the order that he had them going in took Josh by such surprise that he actually let one of the hoops fall to the ground, and didn't bother to raise it back up into the sky. But, he quickly regained his composure, as well as his rhythm of manipulating the hoops still in the air. The next time that he spoke, a little less surprised/upset and a little more humorous. "Warn a guy..." Then he was back to good ol' Josh. "Ok, this'll work. Just try not to hit the rings so hard that they go too far away from Alex's flight path. We want it to be difficult, not impossible. I'll try and keep up with them, after you hit them, so we don't loose anymore. K?"

See, when the puck had hit the hoop, plain old physics said that the puck would impart some of its' energy into the hoop, in the direction that the puck was traveling. So, even without Josh's action, when the puck hit the hoop, the hoop started moving off in the direction that the puck had been traveling (it had already been headed in that general direction anyways).

So, when Sonja hit a hoop that was coming towards them, she stopped most of it's motion towards them, and when she hit one that was moving away from them, she sped up how fast it was moving away. And the ones that Josh was still just moving up and down, once she hit them, started moving away from them. And so, Sonja discovered that she had about as much control over their left/right motion as Josh did... or at least as much as he was displaying.

[GDP_ST]

The random element introduced by Sonja altered the exercise yet again, throwing Alex off his course as the circle of hoops took on a character that could only be described as... puckish. He ended up actually collecting five of the rings about his person before calling a halt, shooting the pair of troublemakers on the ground a reproachful grin as he disentangled himself.

"Thank you. Thank you very much." He called down with chuckle as he drifted back around the course, dropping the hoops back where they should be. "Once more from the top?" He paused then, catching sight of someone and giving them a short wave. "Professor." he called out, and Josh and Sonja turned to see Myrna Jensen walking towards them across the playing field, dressed up warmly, breath misting in the cold air as her flame-red hair stood out starkly against the grey and white background of the day.

"Afternoon, you three." The professor said by way of greeting as she arrived next to Josh's chair, looking around at the ring of scattered hoops then down at Josh. "I was observing your work, Josh. I'm impressed. A most useful application of your talents, for all that it appears to be a game." The beautiful academic looked up at Alex, then at Sonja, a smile curving her lips. "A training exercise, perhaps? I hope you three are being properly careful regarding the use of your gifts."

"Oh absolutely." Alex said as he drifted down to hover a foot above the ground. "Safety first, especially when we have muscle, momentum and solar radiation all present in dangerous quantities. Right guys?" He glanced at them with a grin.

[Stargaizer]

Josh jumped a bit (as did the hoop he was facing) when Prof. Jensen walked up and started talking. He'd been so concentrated on the rings, that nothing else had mattered, and he had only slowly been coming out of that 'trance'. That is, until Ms. Jensen spoke.

Josh reveled in his mentor's praise. The part about it just being a game stung a bit, until she admitted that it was a training exercise. Then she had to go into safety. They hadn't really even discussed safety... except for Sonja not knocking a hole through their head with a hockey puck, and Alex not burning holes through the ice they were standing on. In fact, they'd discussed issues of safety with all of their powers, except Josh's. If Josh had deflected one of Sonja's pucks right at Alex, and he hadn't seen it, been able to move out of the way, or vaporize it... it could've killed him. They'd all seen what a puck had done to that tree.

Alex's casual, almost comedic response to Prof. Jensen buoyed Josh's spirits a little... but not much. And it was evident in his reply. "Yes ma'am. We've been careful with this exercise. I was careful to keep the rings a safe distance from the ground," though that was more for keeping the hoops off of the ground until I got back to them "Alex was only flying, not using any of his other abilities," So there's no accidentally charring us to a crisp "and Sonja is very precise with her accuracy... it's almost..." inhuman?... actually it is... "unbelievable. You should see her in action Ms. Jensen. She's got some amazing..." abilities, talents, aim, speed, accuracy, strength, poise, dexterity, balance... "abilities. And she's really good at them too."

And then Josh shut up. He usually wasn't one to ramble, especially to his mentor, but this had been fun. And he'd gotten in both social and power practice. If it wasn't for the slight (humongous) overlooking of safety protocol down by the lake, this would've been a great example for Prof. Jensen of what his training should look like... but she didn't know about that... yet...

[Sonja Bahaar]

"What they said Ms. Jensen. I know full well what can happen when we don't what we can do or how to control it." She flashed Josh an inherently devastatingly perfect smile at his praise, but it fade slightly as her thoughts drifted back to what did happen when she had used her strength and speed recklessly, even if it had been unintentional. Unconsciously, she scratched at her left arm, feeling a stab of phantom pain from New Year's Eve.

"I'm sure you do, Ms. Bahaar," Ms. Jensen said in her clipped accent, a graceful curve still to her lips. She glanced at the hoops on the ground, then eyed the tall, impressively figured student with a slight hardening to her gaze. "Having just caught the tail end of your activities, Sonja, I must reiterate, that if you applied yourself as rigorously in class as you do to your athletic endeavors, I'm sure you could achieve the grades that I believe you can."

"I'll try harder, Ms. Jensen, I swear." Stupid physics. If I hear one more whispered crack about jiggle physics, I'm gonna lose it.

Prof. Jensen nodded as if her advice would naturally be taken, while Sonja tried to avoid looking sheepish as she dug at the snow with the toe of her boot.

"The human body is a marvelous piece of machinery, a sublime example of physics in action. And you, Sonja, take it to a remarkable level, every bit as spectacular in your own fashion, as what Josh and Alex can do. It would behoove you to learn and appreciate the nuances of what you are truly doing. I'm sure either or both of these fine gentlemen would be more than willing to tutor you."

She turned to face Alex and Josh, and they couldn't be sure if her smile got a trifle more amused, or if it was just a trick of the light. "Wouldn't you, boys?"

[Stargaizer]

Josh looked back and forth between Ms. Jensen and Sonja, wondering why she was harping on Sonja so much. He finally decided that he'd get his own discussion with Ms. Jensen once they got back to the lab.

Then she asked both Alex and him a direct question; one that she already knew his answer to. But, he answered anyways. "It seems like I'm always in the lab anyways. Plus I've been through the classes you're in; so sure, I'd love to help. Whenever you need, free of charge." Little did he know, but this last could make him an even more popular science tutor than their resident super-genius.

[GDP_ST]

"Well, Josh is definitely the go-to man when it comes to matters of physics." Alex said by way of reply to Professor Jensen. His expression was one of youthful earnest sincerity, but his eyes sparkled impishly as he continued "I'm more of a chemistry man myself, Professor. In fact, Sonja was remarking on that earlier."

He flicked his deep blue eyes over to the poor young woman, smiling brightly. "It was quite the compliment, in fact." He looked back at the professor as though something had occured to him, give her a smile as the solar nimbus around him swirled lazily. "You've seen my particulars, Professor. What would you say?"

[Sonja Bahaar]

"Thanks, Josh, I'll take you up on that offer," Sonja said, giving Josh a pat on the shoulder, trying to avoid rolling her eyes at Ms. Jensen's accented promotion of physics.

Sonja scowled at Alex's mischievous flirting, but a grin kept breaking through. There was a subtle change to her posture, threatening that she could silence him whenever she wanted with a deep breath and a bit of flexing. For a moment, the solar powered blond thought the preternaturally physically enhanced blonde was going to stick her tongue out at him.

Originally Posted By: Alex

"You've seen my particulars, Professor. What would you say?"

"Have you now, Ms. Jensen?" Sonja said, turning to the gorgeous professor, with a feminine arch to her pale brows and an arch little smile.

[GDP_ST]

"I have indeed. Alex's academic record is quite impressive." The Professor won major points for her calm demeanour, only a faint blush giving away any reaction to the verbal sally. "Though he overstates his affinity with Chemistry." She did her best to give the warmly-glowing Adonis a cool look, not altogether able to keep from smiling slightly. "He seems to be better at the 'softer' subjects. History and literature rather than science and math." Her look turned faintly challenging.

"Arts and sciences are branches of the same tree, directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom." Alex replied with a disarming smile, his blue eyes dancing.

"Einstein." Myrna Jensen said with a throaty laugh. "Point to you, Mister Andrews." She looked at them all then. "Do take care, all of you. I don't need to remind you of the dangers involved in overexerting your abilities whilst you are at this developmental stage."

Alex looked around, noting the growing gloom as the short span of daylight drew nearer to its end. "I think we're pretty much done here, Professor." He glanced at the others. "What do you two think?"

[Stargaizer]

Josh flashed Sonja a smile as way of acknowledging her pat on his shoulder and what she said. He then listened to Alex and his mentor go back and forth. There was only a slight hint of jealousy... there's no way that Ms. Jensen could be more interested in Alex than in me... she said it herself, he's more of a history and English person...

Then Alex announced that they were finished. Josh hadn't thought of it, but he'd been outside most of the day. "Yeah, I think it might be time to turn in for today... maybe after some dinner though?" he asked hopefully, looking back and forth between Alex and Sonja. Then he added, "maybe we could get together tomorrow, after class, and do some practice and study?"

Josh might've been pushing their new friendship a bit far, a bit fast, but he didn't realize it. He wasn't used to all this socializing.

[Sonja Bahaar]

Sonja gave Alex a glance of surprise as he quoted Einstein, then shook her head in wonder, her long silvery pony-tail dancing. You never know, huh? Ms. Jensen's caution about overexerting themselves earned her a soft snort - I almost never get the chance to really cut loose - but she held her hands up in mollification at the gorgeous professor's sharp look.

"Dangers of overexerting - got it, Ms. Jensen, just like lifting weights." Ms. Jensen gave the tall, over developed sophomore an approving nod then took her leave. Sonja stuck her tongue out at her retreating back. "As if! We were being careful, right boys?"

Sonja hadn't noticed the encroaching shadows until Alex mentioned it, though his luminous presence might have had something to do with that. "I think you're right, Alex, hadn't realized how late it was getting. And yeah, I definitely want to stop for dinner, Josh."

Sonja gave Josh a restrained smile, suppressing a sigh. She saw that eagerness on nearly every male face that spent any amount of time with her, though surprisingly, Josh at least seemed more interested in the practice and study, rather than drooling at her. She actually felt a little bad about not being able to indulge him tomorrow.

"Sorry Josh, but I actually have some other plans tomorrow. Put I'll call you guys up later this week and we'll set something up. That sound good? Now, dinner!"

Sonja quickly gathered up the scattered hoops, flowing over the snow with inhuman speed and grace, then the trio headed back to the warmth of the cafeteria to restore the calories they had burned during the day.