2013.07.12 - Healing and Training

Ben Reilly wakes up and rolls out of bed. The previous night had been a rough one on him. An injured teammate still recovering in the Baxter Building, one busted up high tech suit, a throbbing headache from the lightning strike that destroyed said suit, and various bruising from the lightning's creator a big monolithic person, the term used loosely, that looked like some kind of mutant with purple arms, three giant fingers instead of five and a brain hidden under glass. Yeah to say the night had been bad is an understatement. 
Still the teen stretches trying to get limber. He has the feeling it is going to be one of those days today. Typically when it rains it pours. The kind of pouring is a true mystery though, a sudden dimensional rift opening up in the home unleashing only the gods of the nine realms knew what, unexpected guest wanting to be physical, a girl friend that could throw herself at him literally, She-Hulk and Ben Grimm deciding to make a new race that would make the Spartan Races look like a first grader's gym class and they want Ben to be the first guenia pig. Who knows? All seem rather possible in Ben's mind. Slipping into some workout pants and a white tanktop he slips on socks, shoes and heads to the elevator. Before long he's down in the Fantastic Four caf with a bottle of water, Emergen-C, and a five-hour energy. All would be needed today at some point. 
His brown eyes look over the black and white tiled floor of the display case that holds an assortment of goodies, he lets the familiar smell of coffee and espresso mix up his nose. Some days he thanked every God that could have existed for the caf that is off to the side of the main entry room of the Baxter Building. It makes so many mornings a little more bearable. And as if on cue his phone vibrates. Grabbing it he prays again that the text is unimportant or Jubilee with some message of hanging out in a hot tub. His eyes look a little crestfallen as it's his friend Jocelyn talking about swinging by for another lesson. 
On any other day he would welcome the visit because Jocelyn is great people but today his body aches too much. He's still going to do it because there's a lot she could teach him. Plus she's a good friend that's easy on the eyes. However, he expects his body to promptly go on strike the second she leaves. "You can do this Ben," he says to himself and sends her a message back, "Meet me in the Caf." Then he lets the phone rest on the black table and starts to open up the five-hour energy.
Jocelyn is one of Those People. Those people who are bright eyed and bushy-tailed at whatever time in the morning it was. Really, it was maddening to some of her classmates, teammates, friends, and really whoever she ran into. Jocelyn is dressed in a light workout jacket and a pair of blue gym shorts with a pair of sneakers on her feet. Nothing fancy, really, but Jocelyn never dressed fancy. She notes the next that is received and nods as she makes her way through the building to the cafeteria. She's pretty good at navigation, and it does take her a few minutes to find her way over.
"Hey Ben. You ready for...the hell happened to you?" Jocelyn asks, walking over and taking a seat across from him. "You look like you got on the losing end of one hell of a bar fight," the teen observes, just taking note of how the man's general demeanor and mood seemed to be. There was this thing Jocelyn had about being observant, especially around her friends. She sets her workout bag down next to her seat as she awaits the man's answer. She doesn't speak yet about actually training or anything like that. Shockingly, Jocelyn had some actual empathy in there somewhere.
"There were eight of us working last night if I did the numbers right. Chris, Terrance, Xav and myself with if I read the reports right those people that think this is the past," he speaks low trying to speak of the Legion of Superheroes. Apparently they are some future heroes. Or heroes that think they are from the future. Brown eyes look at his bushy tailed friend, "You know my suit? The expensive one, it got fried. Like five lightning bolts mixed into one just collided into it," he smiled at his friend, "So yeah I am a little worse for wear. But I'm willing to train. Terrance is still in observation here. He cut himself last night when we were on shift," hopefully Jocelyn would trust that Trauma didn't cut himself but it would go as a suitable excuse.
"Ben. I can heal. I can heal other people. Let me see these injuries," Jocelyn says with the same firmness that she uses when she's telling him to do just fifty more kicks or whatever torture she had devised for him. However, there is certainly concern in her voice. "If I can't see him now, at least let me give you a fix," the woman says. Unless Ben didn't like getting healed. She wouldn't force it, but she felt she had to offer. "I'm sorry about the suit. Lightning strikes suck. And the ones from the past? Legion of Super Heroes, aren't they?" Jocelyn has met some of them.
If Ben gives her the go-ahead, Jocelyn will put her hand on his shoulder and he'll feel his injuries start to heal at a rapid rate, and they should disappear, unless something prevents it.
He eyes the public caf then gets up, "Follow me," the teen says. At least he's dressed for training. Walking to an elevator brown eyes watch Jocelyn. When she gets in he presses a button and waits for the doors to close. "Trauma's stable. May have a scar due to the area and deepness of the cut." Since his brain isn't exactly focused he looks at his friend and gives a warning, "Get ready to see some serious s**t." Usually when people would see some of the wonders of the Baxter Building they would get overwhelmed one way or another. He didn't want Jocelyn to freak out. "We've got a moment before the doors open if you want to do your thing to me. Just don't let Reed see it he may study you for an hour wondering how your power works."
"I've been to Asgard and I've seen stranger than that place, so don't worry about me," Jocelyn tells Ben easily enough. She smiles a little and puts her hand on Ben's shoulder. He'll feel life energy enter his body and mix with his own, accelerating his own healing like he's got a far stronger healing factor, and his wounds should all heal within a minute or so. Jocelyn had made it a point to hone this ability, simply because she knew having it ready on-demand could be more life-saving than any of her others.
She shrugs a little at the mention of Reed. "He's one of the good guys, so I'm not so concerned he'd lock me up in a lab or anything like that. Besides, the answer of 'I'm a mutant' covers quite a bit of ground," Jocelyn offers with a grin.
"It's the scientist in him. He would want to see how it works on a cellular level," he says feeling the aches of last night melt away. Looking at her, "I'd pay you so much if you did that after every team battle. You're better than the hot tub," Ben says smiling. The compliment sounds odd but hopefully she would see some sweetness in it. 
When the elevator doors open, something small barges in, "S'cuse me. Coming through," the thing says in a young British male voice. There's a white floating robot with a black face and yellow eyes. A bow-tie magnet, a dark and dull red in color, clings to its neck and the voice sounds like Matt Smith. "Come along Ponds!" it yells. And shortly there are two more of these floating robots making their way to the elevator one is even talking, "Why does he always do this," and it has a female Scottish accent. Ben moves out of the elevator and yanks Jocelyn out. 
"If you were a Television Buff you'd get the reference. It's a Doctor Who thing," and yes Reed has many H.E.R.B.I.E. units all with the personality and details of The Doctors and a few companions. "I'll introduce you to the H.E.R.B.I.E.s and the show sometime. The robots were and are Trauma's physicians until you get a look at him." Leading her through a bunch of hallways Ben stops at a door and opens it up. 
As the door creeps up something yells, "FANTASTIC!" and it sounds a lot like Christopher Eccleston. Moving in Ben asks, "How is the patient doing?" 
The H.E.R.B.I.E. turns to look at the two of them, "Vitals are good. All in all, tip-top shape I'd say. 'Cept the scar though. He's still got a few day's worth o' healing but he'll be fine," the little face even smiles like Eccleston's Doctor does. 
Holding up a hand Ben gestures to Jocelyn then looks at the H.E.R.B.I.E., "She's going to heal up Trauma a bit. Make the process faster. She's a mutant healer, okay?" 
Looking back at Jocelyn Ben says, "Do your thing." Trauma is out cold, sedated and hooked up to a state of the art hospital bed with monitors and devices decades ahead of the things used today. There's a nasty cut over his chest that's been covered by bandages. Judging by the amount of bandages used it's easy to see that the cut is deep.
The robots and such don't seem phase Jocelyn one bit. She just kind of takes note of them. They weren't sentinels trying to kill her, so the mutant is fine with their presence. One thing some of the security cameras will take note of is that they can't get a clear lock on her. Something about her messing with infared energy and just showing up as a blur. One of those tricks Jocelyn has learned as a member of the X-Men.
"Alright, Trauma. Quite the appropriate name right now," Jocelyn jokes weakly. She reaches over to put a hand on Trauma's chest and focuses her healing energy. It'll take a little bit longer for her to complete the work, but it should help. "There. Give him some time to rest. The computers likely won't register the changes right away," Jocelyn says easily. "And I don't mind it. Get hurt, give me a text and let me know if I'm not around," Jocelyn tells Ben. "If I can make it over, I will". Jocelyn didn't mind doing the healing thing. Really. "Though I will admit, this is quite the collection of robots. At least these ones are friendly," the woman points out.
Ben just watches Jocelyn work her magic. If the situation were different he would laugh at the codename joke. When she's done he says, "I'm sure Reed will want to know what happened. I'll keep your name out of it if you want." Leaving Trauma to rest Ben looks at his friend, "The robots are why I tell Reed he needs to take Sue out on a night and maybe get a hotel room. These robots are clearly the cry for him from a man that clearly has too much time on his hands," Ben says in a matter of fact tone. Then is quick to add, "But I love Cel though," Cel is the name given to Five, the Peter Davison model, who found an owner in Ben. 
They go back to the elevator and Ben hits another button. This time when the elevators open up there are no robots. Instead there is white tiled that leads to a glass wall with a matching door built within. He opens it up and it looks like one of those chain gyms. All of the best equipment strung about in places with like equipment around it then free weights toward another area. There's a bunch of cross-cuircut training machines in an area. Upon a closer look Jocelyn can see their weight goes by Tons and not pounds. "That's the really heavy stuff," Ben says nonchalauntly like that equipment is just like everything else here. 
He walks past all the weights heading further back. Another door is opened and there are several punching bags and speed bags surrounding a boxing ring. "The ring is capable of holding Ben Grimm no problem. We can train in there if you want. Or wherever you want to go teach," he says sounding a little chipper as his body is becoming more alert thanks to the healing from a bit ago.
Oh, it makes sense, given that Ben Grimm trained here. And apparently She-Hulk. There weren't that many with such huge strength at the manor, and most got it without having to train, so Jocelyn wasn't that surprised to see it. "You can feel free to mention that a teammate with mutant healing abilities visited and helped," Jocelyn tells Ben casually. She'd prefer the name be left off until she gets a chance to actually meet Reed Richards for herself. It was a mutant thing. She does smirk at the joke about the robots, however.
The teenager nods as she looks around the area. "Alright," Jocelyn says. "Go ahead and get stretched out a little bit before we start". Jocelyn heads over to a chair and takes the jacket off, revealing a blue tank top. The girl then starts going through a pre-practice stretching routine.
Richoeting off of the ring ropes Ben gets the blood going. He stretches out with the basic hands touching the ground while keeping the legs straight, lunge stretches, one hand reaching to the opposite leg, those sort of stretches. Then he starts to fly off the ropes doing a series of cartwheels and tumbles just to get limber. After a bit he looks at Jocelyn, "Ready Master," and his voice is completely serious.
"Alright," Jocelyn says as she stands up from doing the splits. "First, we're going to go through combos some more". There was still work to be done there. "Why don't you show me what you've got so far? I'll block you when I need to," Jocelyn tells Ben. She does bring her physical capabilities up to where she's approximately Ben's equal, simply so she can withstand the blows herself. Because if Ben did hit at full strength while she was unpowered, Jocelyn would be in a world of hurt.
Brown eyes stare a little then Ben shakes his head. He's never seen anyone do the splits in person before and he is still a teenager. Hearing that she wants to work on combs does a left jab, right cross, then two knee strikes. After that combo is blocked he tries a flurry of jabs, first left left right, then left right left, then right left right, left left right left follows, right right left left, it's simple stuff with the jabs but he does try to vary them up. Clearly someone has been practicing with the jabs at least trying to make them faster.
Blocking and dodging neatly, Jocelyn takes note. "Okay. Mix in something other than jabs," Jocelyn says after a few rounds of Ben's jabs. She was determining how well he'd gotten the lessons that she'd grilled into him from the previous training she had done with him. Jocelyn isn't countering yet, and she did notice the staring that Ben did. She doesn't react to it though, and instead waits to see what else Ben decides to throw at her.
A few haymakers are tossed at her between the jabs and he even tries to do more knee strikes. Future combinations go jab, haymaker, keen strike then body blow, knee strike, jab followed by knee, knee, jab, body shot. He is trying to create a variety avoiding patterns. Nothing about his combinations are fancy either. Hopefully Jocelyn would be pleased.
A few rounds of this, Jocelyn nods and steps back. "Good. You're getting better with that," Jocelyn says. "So now that you know about that, we're going to shift gears a little bit and talk about range. When you punch, you want to fight comfortably within the range of your arm, rather than at full extension. It keeps your opponents unsure of how much range you actually have, and by training strike all the way through with your punches, you're going to have more impact both within the shorter range and at full extension," Jocelyn explains to Ben.
What Jocelyn is saying sounds just like basic biology and physics. Extending oneself too far would create off-balance of the person taking the strike then they would be in a world of hurt. Stronger punches would come from more kinetic force from firmer positions, "It makes sense."
"Good. It applies to kicks, too," Jocelyn explains. She suspected that one with the abilities Ben had might be prone to fighting at a longer range due to agility. "So, what we're going to do is a little bit of practice. I want you to try and keep in close enough range to use the shortened strikes. I'm going to be trying to drive you out of that range. I have a superior range because of my height, so I'm going to try and use that to my advantage. You need to work to keep in that range. It helps to develop your reflexes as well, because you have less time to react".
Moving in close Ben tries to do a series of jobs, knee strikes and kicks to the knee to try and throw off her reach. He's trying not to over extend himself with any kicks be it straight, side, roundhouse, crescent or otherwise. A woman with Jocelyn's experience would probably counter it quickly then push him away creating a reach more favorable to her than him. Hopefully his blows would connect.
A few of the jabs are taken, but Jocelyn does block the kicks and knee strikes neatly. With one of the kicks, Jocelyn does block it and neatly push Ben away in order to create a little bit of space, where she throws a few quick punches at him. Nothing that is unblockable, but enough to give him a little bit of a challenge to get back into his optimal fighting range. "Not a bad start," Jocelyn tells the man.
Seeing what she has done Ben tries to dodge and weave the blows. He's relying on instincts rather than training so the blows are avoiding, he does get in close, but his guard is dropped in the fray. Ben is extremely prone and open at the moment.
An opening is something Jocelyn is going to exploit, and so she attempts to strike Ben hard in the chest before following up with a knee strike and an elbow slam to the shoulder. Jocelyn is just trying to knock Ben to the ground now, simply because there was an opening. Instict was good, but training was...well, this was the point of training. To prevent things like that.
Feeling the first blow causes shock to run through Ben's face seconds before the pain crashes into him. Then the knee strike causes him to groan as the air leaves his lungs. With the spider-sense going off he just leaps to the side tumbling along the way missing the elbow strike but not by much. More distance is between them but at least Ben hasn't exposed his back. Putting his hands up Ben remembers that age old lesson, "Keep your guard up."
Keeping the guard up was important, and Jocelyn was going to drill Ben for a couple hours on fighting up close and well within his maximum extension. By the end of it, Jocelyn might have him close to as sore as he was when she arrived, but at least he won't actually be injured in the sparring and training!
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