3171/For Me

For Me
Date of Scene:	30 August 2020
Location:	Taskmaster Central
Synopsis:	Taskmaster and Livewire get in some basic training.
Cast of Characters:	Tony Masters, Leslie Willis

---

Tony Masters has posed:
It's been some time since Tony agreed to Leslie on for what amounts to an internship. Teaching her skills, helping her look for some work. Preparing the fresh young villain in the ways of the underworld. He has a lot of other work so they can't meet up every day, but it's fairly regular. Right now they're in the main building in New York he uses for his various enterprises. Currently entering into one of the training rooms.

Tony is out of his armor and other gear, instead just wearing comfortable training clothes. Waiting for the teen metahuman to join him while doing some stretches as warmup. Once the pale-skinned, blue haired living lightnng bolt enters the room he turns towards her. "Hey kid. You ready? Alright." He motions at her to come stand across from him on one of the mats. "You've learned how to throw a deent punch and kick. You still need to get better at blocking. Especially with the sorts you're likely to deal with, you won't cut it right now." He settles into a particular stands and adds, "This is a nice, basic sort of style. Good for building on once you have it down. Take your usual stance." He doesn't mention that she's basically still at the Nameless Minion level of training. We all have to start somewhere.

Leslie Willis has posed:
Leslie shows up, on time even! Which probably means she started getting ready first thing in the morning, and had seventeen different phone alarms set. But training's important, and hell, she's gotta do it if she wants to become a legit badass. And so she arrives, with a ballcap pulled down over her head, trying to hide out a bit until she's inside, dressed down in sneakers, leggings, and a clinging black t-shirt after she slips her windbreaker off. Sure, her b right blue hair and ghostly pale skin were a dead giveaway the entire time, but she's -trying- to be subtle.

And so she bounces out into the training area, from foot to foot, just sort of working her legs as she huffs out, "Yeah, well, I mean, like, I'm -pretty- sure most of the supers I face are going to like... laser at me and stuff, but yeah, I guess knowing how to block is good." She grins crookedly and chirps, "I mean, hey, I still take the bus sometimes, and those people are -crazy-." She strikes up the basic stance she's been learning, a surprising amount of enthusiasm from the usually surly grump of lightning.

Tony Masters has posed:
The brown-haired, comparatively very normal looking man smiles thinly. "Well. There's plenty of law and order types that use hand to hand even when they have super powers. So it can't hurt. And you might run into situations where you can't use your powers. Or where using them would be a bad idea. Or, you know. When you're trying to be subtle and electrocuting somebody would draw attention." He moves in closer to the blue-haired teen, movements as fluid and precise as ever. His own stance is perfect, no wasted movements. He's technically not super powered... sort of... but he still holds his own in the world. That says somethinmg. Then when he's just barely out of striking range, there's a sudden burst of speed and he's coming at her, a blow aimed at her belly, quickly followed by a strike to the side of the neck. Neither is actually all that hard, but it is enough to at least get a reaction.

The neck strike stopped before it actually did more than touch her. "Now, I want you to try and do the same. Copy me as closely as you can." He steps back, taking the same stance as her, and waits for her to come at him. Though as soon as she throws the punch of the simple two-blow combo, his left hand ends up deflecting it to the side, and he lets loose a counter at her chin. Again, he doesn't actually touch her other than the lightest grazing of knuckles. "See? Try it again." This will repeat numerous times to give her a better understanding of what he's doing, demonstration then imitation. He slows it down after the first time to make it easier to grasp. Once she seems to have a fairly firm grasp on one manuver, he'll move onto the next. Occasionally mixing in techniques they'd already covered to make sure she was actually retaining them. Making her body respond and start instilling the training into her muscles. Assuming her body actually works that way. He doesn't always hold back, a more full powered strike at times slipped in to keep her on her toes. The time passing with the sounds of physical exertion in the room.

Leslie Willis has posed:
Leslie makes a thoughtful little noise, "Well, I mean... I guess you might be right. You were right about the stance thing and all, and I guess I -can't- just zap everyone... I mean, I can, but like, boy do the cops get mad about it."

She nods solemnly and gives a few more little limber bounces, dodging on instinct at those blows, it almost works... although it really looks like she's flailing wildly. Mostly because she is.

Still, she squares up, lifts her hands, and tries her own go at it. It's... not terrible? It's not -good-, but she's got her wrists straight, knuckles lined up. If it -did- land, it wouldn't break her wrist. She seems to handle the harder strikes pretty well, even if she reacts like she's... well, a 90 pound teenage girl. She yells out nonsense noises, recoils, but she springs back none the worse for wear. She might actually be pretty resistant to punches, even if she doesn't seem to realize it.

Her school teachers would be shocked, as she actually keeps up her efforts for the entire training lesson, at least until she raises her hands in a little time-out signal, huffing, running the back of her hand over her forehead like she expects to be drenched in sweat. "Phew! Jeeze, no -wonder- people do weird stuff to get powers. This... whole... like... physical training thing is -tough-!"

Tony Masters has posed:
As the training goes on, Tony steps up the roughness as it becomes clearer that she's tougher than she looks. The blows connecting a little more solidly, to where they could actually hurt her if she was a normal person. Naturally not as hard as he can, but still. More than before. He makes corrections to her form whenever needed, drilling her over and over and over again. That's how it works. When she finally stops, he considers just continueing to attack her, since it wasn't like he'd given her permission to stop. But in the end he decides to let it pass this time. His lips twitch a bit. "Yeah. Exercise is rough. Learning can take a long time for some people too." He of course is a filthy, filthy cheater in that regard with those photographic reflexes he has. But, being able to throw a perfect punch doesn't help if the body behind it isn't trained well enough. "You're holding up alright so far. And not using your powers. Some people have to have that lesson beaten into them a lot more before they get it. Combining your abilities with it will come AFTER you learn the basics properly." He walks over to a small mini-fridge in one corner of the room, opening it and pulling out a sports drink. He tosses it to her.

Leslie Willis has posed:
Leslie huffs, catching the sports drink and unscrewing it, sipping at the drink and nodding her head with a bright grin, "Well, I mean, I don't really have my full powers right now. Didn't charge up today 'cause I figured we'd be doing the basics, and, y'know, it's kinda hard to focus when I'm all ramped up."

She frowns thoughtfully for a moment, eyebrows lifting. "Oh... jeeze, yeah I'm gonna have to figure that out. I mean, being able to learn all this now is great, but if I get all juiced up to really rock 'n roll and I forget everything 'cause I'm so wired, that's not gonna be real helpful."

She huffs and grumbles, "Jeeze, and I thought powers were gonna be cool easy street. Man... they don't tell you about this ahead of time!"

Tony Masters has posed:
Taskmaster nods his head. "That's the thing. The more impressive their powers are, the more people tend to neglect other things. Plenty of people out there that can throw around energy bombs or teleport across the country, but could be taken out by a street thug if their powers were neutralized. You need to be prepared for anything." Taking his own drink, he twists the lid and then takes a long pull. "You need to give me a detailed rundown of your powers eventually, so I can plan your advanced training appropriately." He makes his way over to the blue haired teen, raising a hand and absently flicking her nose with a thumb. "Now that I think about it, I don't think you've said how you ended up like..." He gestures at her. "This."

Leslie Willis has posed:
Leslie gulps down her sports drink as she sighs out and shrugs lightly, "Uhhh, I'll let y'know when I figure 'em all out? Thinking 'I can do lightning stuff' probably isn't detailed enough." She scowls and grumbles, "Oh, I climbed a cell tower in a thunder storm. Was chasin' this real big story about how they're actually full of secret surveillance stuff and whatnot, 'cause like, look how tiny cell phones are, why're their towers so big? Anyhow, one zap of lightning and bam, here I am! ...Which just proves all those PSA's about not climbing metal in thunder storms are to keep people down, so they don't get powers, right?"

Tony Masters has posed:
Tony tilts his head a little. "So you got them pretty recently then? What did you do before that?" He pauses, considering the age of the mutate. "Right. I suppose you probably just went to school or something." His lips twitch as she describes the way she gained her powers. "They're that big because a cell phone by itself isn't big enough to actually broadcast the signals properly, other than maybe in a very short distance like a walkie talkie. And no. Most people would have just died. You're only lucky that you had a latent meta gene of some sort that gave you powers instead."

Leslie Willis has posed:
Leslie looks skeptical, even as she's nodding, "Yeah, not that long ago at all, I mean, I... guess I went to school? I skipped a lot." She clicks her tongue sharply and shrugs helplessly, "Pff, yeah, but that's what they -want- us to think! And... nah, I'm -pretty- sure it was the tower, like, shouldn't they have tested me for genes or whatever growing up?" She frowns and looks at the time, "Oh... crap! I gotta like, make my community service appointment! Or they're gonna make me get another fast food job!"

Tony Masters has posed:
Tony raises a brow. "Community service...? Strange thing to be doing in your line of... future work." He shrugs though. "Alright. Come back later though. I haven't worked you nearly hard enough for today." He gives his protege a pat, and then gestures at the door."Get going then." He's not done in there himself. He has to do some personal exercises of his own. You don't maintain a physique like that by just lazing around all day. Unless you have bullshit cheat superpowers of some sort.