2113/Too Many Cooks

Too Many Cooks
Date of Scene:	15 June 2020
Location:	Brighton Beach
Synopsis:	Picnic at the beach! Gar gets sappy, Terry gets advice, and Colette avoids explaining anything at all again.
Cast of Characters:	Colette O'Connail, Terry O'Neil, Gar Logan

---

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    The weather is nice, so why not a change from Giorgios? This was undoubtedly Colette's plan when she suggested a meeting on Brighton Beach. A picnic! Just south of the station, near the car park, by the volleyball courts. It's not hard to find.

    As usual, Colette is early. She sits on the sand, not far from the water's edge, in a quieter part of the beach. She is dressed unusually casually in shorts and a pink t-shirt which bears a slogan that would only offend morons, at least according to the slogan. It's a long story. You had to be there.

    She has come well prepared. She has a large cooler bag filled with drinks and snacks, including a large supply of rather good sushi, and a couple of pizzas, just in case. Because that's tradition.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal is definitely one to celebrate tradition- especially the culinary types. If there was one good way to end the weekend and prepare for the perils of the week ahead, it was with a picnic.

The Cheshire Cat would simply open a rabbit hole to the location and thus save himself a couple of bucks worth of gas... but one should really drive to a picnic. Anticipation was part of the thing. Terry's beat-up, rather worn car pulls up to the parking lot and the redhead walks the rest of the way to the beach, bringing a small satchel with his own contribution to the picnic, namely an assortment of cheeses, artisanal bread, and some lunch meats the likes of prosciutto, soppressata and other things with multiple consonants piled together in pairs.

"Hey there, stranger!" he calls out as he approaches. There is a decided spring in his step that is more noticeable than usual, and he is grinning in his human form almost as wide as he does in his Cheshire form.

Gar Logan has posed:
"Think fast!"

Hopefully one of Colette or Terry looks up in time to see a large bag falling their way, one with a certain Big Belly Burger logo plastered on one side. Otherwise, things could get messy fast.

The delivery..person, or rather bird, is a green albatross.

"I picked these up on the way from an appearance at the public course a couple miles away. I never knew golf was so fun, and they love birds!" Gar calls down, circling overhead before angling downward for a light landing. Upon doing so, wings and the rest of the body morphs into the more familiar Beast Boy, who is in costume. Yes, it was one of those appearances.

What sort of charitable appearance a Titan could have to do with golf may be a mystery.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "Heya Terry!" Grinning nearly as wide, Colette hops to her feet and greets Terry with an almost kind of hug. It's not full on, but for Colette it's a remarkably friendly gesture. She follows it up with a shoulder punch, because she's Colette and it wouldn't do to be seen to be too friendly. "Like my t-shirt?" she tugs the bottom down for ease of reading the NSFW slogan. "Harley and I got them while you and Gar were arresting a circus. She's fun. Drink?"

    She drops back down onto the sand and fishes around inside the bag, bringing out a bottle of Coke for herself, and a pair of sunglasses which she puts on her head. "I've got Coke, Sprite or water. Gar not with you? I was half expecting you to walk through a tear in..."

    Colette thinks fast. She dives backwards from her seated position to get a hand under the falling Big Belly Burger bag. Fortunately she hadn't opened the bottle of Coke yet, or it would have gone everywhere. "Hey Greenstuff," she says, one eyebrow raising a little. "Are you sure it's birds they said they love, not birdies? There's a difference."

    She rights herself, and puts the burger bag down, shaking her head. "Well, when I saw that Terry didn't walk out of a hole in reality I thought this was going to be one of those quiet occasions where nobody would notice anything unusual except for maybe a hint of green skin, but I can see I forgot who I was dealing with." She flashes Gar a grin. "Drinks? I've got sushi too. And pizzas. How's life in the big leagues for you two these days now? You seem to be making the news almost daily."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I didn't think you'd want the attention from hanging out with a Cheshire Cat... but I, too, forgot who we were dealing with." The redhead returns the semi-hug from Colette, and congratulates her on the catch, "That was good. You sure you don't want to join the team?" he winks.

Gar gets a greeting, because of course he does. It's not a huge demonstration, though, but Terry does give him a hug and a quick peck on the cheek before joining collette on the sand.

"I'll have a Sprite. I'm not in the big leagues, I'm more or less the secretary taking the calls, these guys," he gestures to Gar with his thumb, "are the thing. I'm not going to consider myself an actual Titan until I've passed a trial by fire and done something to truly /merit/ that title. Until then, I'm more or less a Prospective."

He looks at Colette's shirt, and smirks, "You and Harl hit it off, I take it? Isn't she the best? She makes Gar nervous, though..."

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan checks them off on his fingers. "Nice catch. Birdies, eagles, then the albatross, and they even say there's something named for a condor but I don't think anyone's made one of those before," he explains. "But playing poorly sounds like you're talking about picking your nose in a Harry Potter book."

This is interrupted by Terry coming over for a bit of attention, the hug returned before he looks mildly embarrassed at the public display of affection, tapping at Terry's nose. "That's not how it works, dude. If you're a Titan, you're a Titan. I mean, you're not like on some probationary period where we're trying to decide if you can stay or not. And you already helped save my own life, so..yeah."

Colette's shirt gets a squinting at, then the teen clad in purple and black just shakes his head. "I heard sushi and I am ready. Harley? I just don't know." Becoming a leopard, he says, "You know we can't change our spots, but I guess that means we still don't know exactly what hers are. Being around her, I feel like things could go upside down at any second, and I get enough of that from this guy." The tail slides against Terry's legs as he passes by.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "She's fun. And insane. I mean yeah, properly, genuinely insane. And she knows it." Colette hands out sprites and starts opening boxes of sushi. "I don't think she's a bad person, though. More... " she gives a hand-wobble. "More like easily lead. Put her in the right company and she'll be okay."

    There's a mischievous smirk. "I mean you cooould invite her to join the Titans," Colette says. "But maybe she's a little too morally ambiguous to 'join the team.'" This may be Colette's current excuse for showing no interest in joining herself.

    "Gar, you didn't have spots a moment ago. I mean you just literally proved yourself wrong. People can change their spots. People change. They come under new influences, get new ideas. Don't knock it. She's turned from a mass-murderer into someone who takes great satisfaction in punching people in a bar, but doesn't even need to be told that she shouldn't kill them once their dwon. That's a good thing. "

    Colette holds a box of sashimi out to Gar. "Do leopards eat raw fish?" she asks curiously. "If you'd warned me in advance, I'd have asked the pizza place if they do gazelle as a topping."

    "How's Sam settling in with you guys? No funny little episodes since his first one? And did he bring his little friend along?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I... wouldn't really know about Sam. I... let's jus say that he puzzles me. I've been busy with the Planet over the last two weeks or so so I've only been able to join in for some of the patrols, and we haven't been in one together yet so... I'll let you know?" Terry says, grabbing a Sprite and taking a sip. "And Gar. I saved your life /after/ I put it in danger in the first place- or are you forgetting that the ill-fated photo shoot was /my/ idea?"

The redhead reaches over to scratch the feline between the ears- role reversal- and then adds "Maybe you and Harl should hang out together more. Bring me along. I may not be legal to drink, but I've never been in a bar fight- I'd love to try one." It's hard to tell if he is joking or not.

Gar Logan has posed:
"Stop making sense," the cat getting his ears ruffled by the sometimes-cat mutters, distractedly. "And no, I really don't think she's anywhere close to being Titans material, Colette. Maybe she just needs good influences around her instead of bad ones, but..sorry, I just can't."

The question of leopards eating sushi or having gazelle pizzas gets just a mildly put-off look out of Gar, then he returns to normal. "Haven't seen much of him," he says of Sam, then he looks over toward Terry. "You mean the thing with the ocean PSA? I wasn't really talking about that. I meant the thing with the mechs." Where Vorpal made his first real appearance. "And what do you mean, 'I'd love to try a bar fight?' Who even /does/ that?"

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "Sam's life appears to have been one long lesson in paranoia," Colette says. "He's trying though. He needs to learn to trust and rely on other people more. And that he jumps to conclusions far to readily. Is that a 'no' on his little ninja buddy then? 'Cos I was hoping that might do both of them a lot of good. Keep a close eye on him. He's got some big steps to make. If he takes them, he'll be good for you. If not..."

    Colette removes the top from her bottle with an enthusiastic >PSSSHHT< after its bag-catching related shake, but she manages to contain any froth over. She takes a swig, then lowers her sunglasses over her eyes. "Harley and I did that, Gar. It was fun. We also drank enough alcohol to kill an elephant, ate some really good steaks, and there was something with some kittens and a cowboy, but the details are hazy. And no, she really isn't Titans material." She grins at Gar. "Sam is borderline. Harley would be... no."

    "I'm not sure I should encourage you to get into bar fights with Harley, Terry." Colette grabs a maki and finishes it in two bites. "You might learn bad habits. Honestly the fact that she's teaching you how to fight probably isn't a great idea. She certainly knows how to cause damage, but her sense of self-preservation is next to zero. You need to be learning how to read a fight first."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Oh, the thing with the mechs. What, were you expecting me to let the most gorgeous guy on the block get stomped by a spider? Get real." Terry nudges Gar as he spreads out his selection of food for others to partake.

"See, that sounds like fun," he says to Gar, referring to the girls' bar experience, "You should take me to something like that for my birthday," he says, making it evident that it is a joke by adding a wink.

When he turns to Colette, he nods a little. "... don't think I haven't thought of it. I asked Harley to teach me to fight because of her experience... and yeah, she's got the self-preservation of a ferret. But I also asked her to teach me to fight in the hopes that I can help her focus on the non-lethal side of things, by having to teach me how to fight on the non-lethal side of things. It's a thing- friends don't let friends commit accidental murder and all."

He flashes a grin, "Okay... so how do I learn that? Troia suggested I come by the Embassy but I do not want to run into Wonder Woman... I don't want to embarrass myself..." sip.

Gar Logan has posed:
"I--" That's when a buzzing leads to Gar fumbling around for his phone, thumbing through a few messages. "Aw, crap. I totally forgot the time because I hung out at the golf course too long! I'm supposed to be at the hospital for a Make-A-Wish thing. There's, um, someone there who just wants to spend some time with me and...yeah."

He gets very quiet and solemn all of a sudden, and there's nothing more he has to add to talk of other Titans, or spider mechs, or Harley, or bar fights, or even Terry learning how to fight better.

"Sorry. I don't get a lot of these things and it's just kinda hitting me right now that.." He shakes his head. There's a reason for the Make-A-Wish program, after all. "But don't worry about me. You do your stuff, and I'll get some food later. It'll be okay." He waves to Colette then gives Terry a quick hug, and he's racing off in cheetah form again.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette gives a bemused wave back to Gar and watches him cheetah off into the distance. "That's uh... that must be hard," she concludes after a few moments. "I hadn't... Huh. I mean when you're fighting criminals or whatever, that's a fight you can win, you know?" She sits thoughtfully for a while.

    "Fuck."

    Colette shuffles uneasily through the boxes of sushi and finds herself a few tuna nigiri. For some reason they don't taste as nice as she was expecting.

    Finally she shakes it off. "Maybe you should send Harley along to the Embassy instead? I dunno. I get where you're coming from, but bad habits in a fight can get you killed. You need to be careful about what you're learning when you're giving Harley surreptitious lessons. You might wanna ask Sam about giving you a bit of training, actually. At least he won't make you faint. Hmm."

    "Okay. Illustration time." Colette puts her bottle down carefully, dusts off her hands, and gets to her feet. She stands and takes up something rather like a boxer's stance, fists up to protect her face, legs well spaced for solidity, body angled with her right shoulder forwards. "Where's my target, and what should your eyes be focusing on?" she asks.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry watches Gar dash off into the sunset and partakes of the sane long silence with Coette. Then he exhales.

"... I'll bring some food back with me. I'm sure he'll stop by my place later tonight." He pauses and takes a sip of his soda. "I'll get a blanket and queue up a movie... something animated, like All Dogs G---maybe Moana," he amends.

"He's really something, you know..." he blinks and looks up, when Colette shakes the cloud off.

He stands up, shaking the sand off his legs as Colette enters fighting stance, and he pauses.

"Uh... I'm not sure. I've read that my eyes should be focused on your eyes so I know where the attack is coming from. Is thise one of those occasions where everything I've read turns out to be wrong?"

Colette O'Connail has posed:
"A lot of people will telegraph their moves by looking where they are going to try to punch," Colette says. "But nobody who's good will. So the eye thing? Kind of bad advice. I mean it's not the worst advice, but there's better."

    "There are rules," Colette says. "Because physics and biomechanics says so. Look at the position I'm standing. If I kick with my leading leg, I'd put myself off balance, so I need to lean my shoulders back, though I'd be an idiot to try.. If I kick with my trailing leg, my right shoulder is going to drop to retain my center of gravity. If I punch with my leading arm, the motion will start with my shoulder and pass through the elbow. If I punch with my left, I have to pull my right shoulder back. So, in this case, you'd watch the right shoulder. So the first place you look is everywhere. Figure out the mechanics of your opponent's position, how they are balanced, and how their body has to move for them to do anything. From that, you work out where to look."

    "As for target, I'm protecting my face, so you go low. Gut, leading side. I have to drop my shoulder to guard that, which means my counter punch is going to be high. You're limiting my range of motion by doing that, see? So you target there, and raise your off-hand to protect from the counter. Move immediately in close and low, raise your forearm inside the swing and you're blocking and lining up a second shot at the same time, keeping your options open and limiting mine. Getting the idea now?"

    Colette relaxes her arms and comes out of the fighting stance. "There's not a set of rules here. Too many variables. You need to develop an instincitive sense for it. My suggestion, spend a lot of your training time watching the others fight, rather than fighting yourself. Try and imagine like... a plumb line. From each fighter's head, dropping straight down. To give an indication of gravity. Try to figure out in what ways they are limiting their motion by the shape they make of their body. Think about the mechanics of their movement, how the limited range of motions a human body is capable of limits their options."

    Colette raises a finger. "But... get a sense for it. Study, and think as you study. When you're actually fighting for real? Ignore it. Don't think about it. As you get better, it'll become instinct. Before it's instinct, you don't want to be slowing yourself down by thinking too hard."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"So watch, don't do, think, but don't think..." Terry summarizes, and then grins "Clear as mud. How /do/ you know so much about fighting, by the way?"

He watches Colette's stance, and then says "See, Gar is wrong. I am /not/ a Titan yet. All of the others have.a lot more fighting training than I do. I must be the greenest. If I didn't have that magic punch back when Gar was in danger..."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "I'm a fucking ninja, remember? You said it yourself. Also, you're talking bull. Look, the fact is, you /do/ have that magic punch. " Colette sits down again and picks up her bottle to take another swig. "Way I see it, either you've got powers or you are a brilliant fighter, or you have no business in... the business. If you want to be really good at it, ideal to have both. Who on your team has that? A couple of the old guys now they're back, maybe."

    Colette gestures towards Terry with her bottle. "That magic punch fight, honestly... Gar, Kate, Kian... and then you. None of you knew how to fight. Gar's got a ton of instinct to fall back on, but that comes down to his powers. He has about as much sense of tactics as a tiger, too. Kate has plenty of raw talent, but she keeps putting herself into dangerous positions and is inefficient because she's spending so much time trying to get out of them again. Kian has no idea what was going on. When you jumped in, you were going on anger and instinct too. None of you had any sense of the flow of the battle, of how to prioritize your targets and so on. So if you're not a Titan, nor are they."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Stop making sense" is the reply, echoing Gar's own reply earlier as the redhead reaches for food, once he has sat down again. "Fine, fine. You clearly want to rain on my self-pity parade, so... yeah. I don't want to be the one trick pony, I want to be the guy who's good at both things."

He ponders for a bit, and then says ,with an expression that is rather hard to read, "It's Robin, isn't it? The logical conclusion is Robin because he has no powers. I should ask him to teach me..." he stops, with a slice of cheese halfway to his mouth and a very hopeful expression in his eyes, "Unless you're volunteering..."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "I don't know about Robin," Colette says with a shrug. "There's a new one, right? I haven't seen him fight. I assume he knows how to because of the whole Batman thing, but... eh. Think he'd make a good teacher?"

    He probably would not. Maybe in a while.

    "I'm not sure I'd make a great teacher. I'm kinda... rusty." Colette helps herself to some more nigiri. They taste better this time. "I know a lot of things, but I don't necessary... well. I haven't been training myself, so I'm not sure I'd be great at training you. Being really good needs really good fitness. I can make up a lot of my lack of speed just by being able to anticipate things well, but..."

    Colette looks down, sighs, and looks up again. "Okay, I'll give you a bit of training. Just some technique pointers. For some stupid reason I don't want you to get hurt. I mean I kind of urged you into this whole thing, I'd feel guilty if you get yourself killed."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"It could hardly be said that you urged me," Terry says, leaning back a little and raising an eyebrow, "I sort of set myself on this course the day I bumped into Gar and didn't walk away after an apology. However, I will gladly take your well-intentioned sense of guilt if it gets me some good training and keeps me safe in the long term." He grins.

"I'll make it up to you. I'll make tiramisu. Now... do you want to start this week? I get out of the Planet at five..."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette sighs. She flips the lid of a pizza box open, and takes out a couple of slices. "I'm going to have to get fit. This is your fault, Terry. I'm going to have to get fit to be able to train you properly, and I hate you for it. I am going to eat all the pizza to make up for it."

    "And tiramisu. All the tiramisu. That's how you can pay me." Colette nods her head decisively. "I will make you pay in tiramisu and in sweat. Separately, tiramisu should not contain sweat. I'm going to make you work hard for this, Terry. I can't give you the decades of experience you'll need before you'll actually be any /good/, but I can give you the basics."

    Colette chomps pizza with the determination of someone who feels their future has earned it.