Xaviers!

Nailah's in the Danger Room, scrolling through the list of obstacle courses. She finally seems to settle on one. The room turns into the courtyard of a dojo with all kinds of weapons lining the walls and a whole gauntlet of martial arts dummies occupying most of the open area, spinning and jabbing out on their own accord. Nailah watches them for a moment, almost looking a bit hesitant but seems to shake it off, grabbing a piece of fabric to tie over her eyes as a blindfold.

Her entire posture seems to change as she steps forward, losing any hesitance as she moves with almost mechanical precision, following the step-by-step instructions of her power as she dodges and weaves her way past the whirling dummies. Ducking out of the way, spinning past another, even grabbing into one of the attacks to let herself be pulled out of the path of another before flipping herself into the air and across a third. She makes it about halfway through when it becomes obvious that she has to keep pushing herself more and more to pull off what her power is asking her to do. There's only so fast she can drop, only so much height she can gain by assisting her jumps with a beat of her wings, only so many strikes she can block before her muscles protest agianst what she's asking them to do and she slips out of a stance from sheer fatigue, right into one of the blows, which sends her tumbling blindly into the next and so on until the program finally decides she's had enough and shuts the dummies down, letting her stumble to the ground.


((open))

"Nice moves. Well, up until that last part," said a slightly amused voice from the observation deck.

"Ha ha." Nailah says dryly, more annoyed with her own failing than the fact that someone was watching her. She pulls off the blindfold and looks around.

"Seriously though, kudos on getting that far blindfolded."

"Coulda done the whole thing." she grumbles a bit. "I knew how to..."

After a moment he appeared in the entryway.

"Do you mean training or a power thing?"

"Both?" she says with a slight shrug. "My power tells me what to do. I just... couldn't do it."

"Tells you what to do?" he asked curiously.

"Yeah. It's like a path. To where I want to go. Well... kinda. It's hard to explain."

"So... mental instructions?"

"Yeah, kinda like that, I guess."

He was almost jealous before he really thought about it.

"Are you sure they're... from you?"

"What do you mean? They're in my own head." Apparently she's never really considered the possibility that they could be coming from somewhere else.

"You wouldn't be the first person to be wrong about that."

"Wait, you mean, like, a telepath or something?"

"That or... other methods."

"Now you lost me. How would someone else even care about what I do?" she asks, but she's not exactly dropping the topic either. She's never considered it but now that she's thinking about where these steps are coming from it's kind of unsettling, especially with how much she has to trust each one will take her towards her stated goal.

"That I couldn't tell you," he answered, shrugging.

"What do you mean by 'other methods' anyway?"

He appeared briefly uncomfortable. "I mean... brainwashing."

"That's crazy. I'd remember if someone brainwashed me, right?"

"Yeah, probably," he lied, starting to worry he was freaking her out.

"Exactly. I mean... I still don't know where this stuff is coming from but I'm, like, 99% sure it's not some kinda programming." she nods, grinning and trying to shake off the strange feeling by making light of it.

"So... why the dojo routine? Training for the teams?"

"I guess, kinda, yeah. But I'm also trying to make sure I can do what my head wants me to do. Because... well it'd be bad. Probably. I dunno."

"Yeah," he chuckled, "It probably would. I mostly knew what I was doing and still got hurt."

"Right, yeah, that too. Although I don't think my power cares very much about me getting hurt..."

"So long as your goal is achieved?"

"Yeah. I guess sometimes that's just the only way?"

"Sometimes..." he said distantly.

"Well, that's just something that happens when you're a superhero, right?" she grins.

"Better us getting hurt than civilians," he agreed.

"Right, yeah, exactly."

"Better still if nobody gets hurt," he said, smirking "Well except bad guys' feelings."

"Or bad guys period, really. I mean... not seriously but, you know. A little. From getting punched."

"Or maybe tasered," he smirked.

"Right, exactly. Is that what you do? Electricity?"

"Nope, I'm just super agile and good with my hands. I'm also really good at archery. As for the tasering... I'm learning how to use trick arrows."

"Oh cool, like with grappling hooks on them and stuff?"

"Only the stun ones so far, but yeah," he nodded.