Pulling a Tiger's Tail(Planned/Calley)

((ooc: Apologies for the length! In the future, I shall endeavor to be shorter. )

Useless. Useless useless useless useless useless--

He'd been training for the better part of a year, in his own way. It might not look like a training regimen to anyone else, but it had been to him.

Shifting multiple times a day, so that it looked like it was normal, not endurance training. During that long ago first mission to the Mansion, eight shifts had caused total exhaustion. Now he felt a little sleepy after fifteen.

Living in the library at Mondragon Labs, and reading every book he could get his hands on--math, fantasy, chemistry, children's books, how-to books on plumbing and carpentry and pop-up books and mythology from Greece, China, Germany, America; the most eclectic collection possible. Different books everyday, and usually two or three at a time. Four, once. He wasn't sure how many he could handle--that wasn't something to test. That'd just draw attention. The point of his reading wasn't to draw attention; it was to hide the books on biology, the field guides to every sort of animal imaginable, and the guides to anatomy. He devoured those with no more or less attention than anything else. He'd taken a few field trips to aviaries, aquariums, and zoos, too. Those were hard to hide, but he could always play the 'I'm trying to become a better spy! All for the glory of Antonescu!' card.

Chimeraing--stupid things. Human vocal chords in every form you could name. Rich orange tiger stripes on a house cat. A rabbit the size of a lion. Things that were visible, things that he diagramed on paper for hours and occasionally muttered to himself about when no one was around--things that were enough to suggest to anyone watching that he needed the paper, the mutterings, and the hours. The hours and the mutterings he did need. But he could do those in his head, just like the diagrams. Paper was for the weak. He'd tested those silently constructed diagrams as well as he could without giving himself away. He had no safe place to practice: it was safe to assume his apartment was bugged. Mondragon Labs was so blatantly bugged that it wasn't even worth mentioning. So was the Sanctuary, and the Mansion, to lesser degrees. He was bugged--the chain link necklace around his throat was a combination cloak-and-dagger camera/microphone and a high-power compact explosive, thank you Doctor Ingram.

And above all else, he'd been making sure not to show even a hint of spine or a glimmer of intelligent thought. He'd slipped up a little--the time he'd stood up to Kaz's bullying, the things he said to random people sometimes that let it slip that he'd been thinking. Thinking was dangerous. Very dangerous. The Boss Man had a little something of everything on his payroll--it was safe to assume he had a telepath on there, as well. Calley had spent the better part of the year splitting, rerouting, branching, and shifting his thoughts through a hundred different routes in his brain. The clutter was useful like that. They were a multitude of little baby Slates, still willing to take orders from him, still just autonomous enough from his own self that he sincerely hoped he'd hidden his plans from anyone who'd been looking. He was still alive. That said something.

Too bad it was all useless. Useless useless useless useless--!

Calley rolled onto his stomach on the bed. Dropped his head onto his pillow, face-first. Opened his mouth, and screamed. ...Quietly.

He'd been preparing to fight Hunter Antonescu since the first day he met the man, at that ill-advised apartment break in. The day he became a founding member of the man's little Kabal. The day he got collared, and his life had been threatened so often he'd actually lost count. It was all useless, now, because he'd woken up a few nights ago to a very real lesson: when it came down to it, he was just going to freeze.

The Pain Guy had gone Haywire on them. Calley hadn't heard the full details, but he knew enough to figure out that the Order was having fun with its dart guns again, a la Iris. The collateral damage hadn't been so bad this time, but most people who'd been sleeping here that night were still harboring slightly ill thoughts against the man: the Pain Guy had gone Haywire, and he'd sent them all a most unpleasant midnight wake-up.

For Calley, the pain--even the level of the pain--had been familiar. Too familiar. His first thought was that he was back in Mondragon Labs in that darn chair; that he'd done something wrong, and Hunter had taken him down to get punished again. Even when he'd realized that he was on the ground of his Mansion room in his usual nighttime tiger form, even when the pain had ended, this is what Calley had done: he'd just lay there. Frozen. It was all useless. Useless useless useless, because the first hit that Hunter Antonescu landed on him was going to be the last: he was going to freeze, just like he always did. He'd frozen that first time in the man's apartment. He'd frozen in Mondragon Labs when the man had flipped the jeep, he'd frozen the times he'd gotten picked up by his neck, and he'd sure as heck frozen when his tail had gotten ripped off. The torture chair had just been the final layer of icing on his cake: he always froze. Always. What kind of idiot goes into a fight to the death afraid of getting a little beat up?

Calley rolled to his back, and raised his hand. The elbow bent with alarming speed: FACE PALM!

He was useless. He was the man's patsy little spy boy and punching bag, and that's all he was ever going to be. Maybe it was time to take Abyss and his self-contained army up on that offer to do his dirty business for him. And what then? Become the patsy little spy boy and punching bag to a psychotic red and black haired woman who'd almost brained him over touching her hairbrush? Yeah. Pass. He could tell the X-Men about his lovely situation: he'd been living in the Mansion long enough to semi-trust that they'd maybe try to help. He could tell the X-Men, and then he could time how long it took for someone back at the Labs to push that button that'd make his collar explode. Yeah. No thanks. He'd decided long ago that if he was going to go the suicidal route, he'd do it in the place this long nightmare had started: Hunter's apartment. The idea of painting the place red using the man's own bomb made his heart vindictively happy. It wouldn't be such a bad way to go.

His hand slid down his face, and flopped onto the bed next to him. Rare that he was using the bed; most of the time, he just used the floor. Even in human form, it was comfortable.

We could--

Shut up, Slate. He snapped. ...I know. You really won't interfere?

I wish to be free of the man as much as you. Unfortunately, healing rarely inflicts fatal wounds upon an enemy. I require your shifting abilities. Therefore, I require you. We are both dead if you freeze as you did during the X-Men trails, or as you did when Mister Garret launched his attack.

...Thanks, Slate. Thanks. Lately, talking to his split personality had left him feeling even more loved than usual. Yeah...

Calley rolled off of the bed. His bare feet hit the carpeted floor. He was upright. Hurray. Upright, and ready to walk himself into the stupidest decision of his life. Granted that at eighteen he'd had a fairly short life, but that was still saying a lot. Calley left the room after taking two deep breaths and letting himself hyperventilate over a third.

Finding the guy wasn't hard. He just had to follow the corner-of-the-eye glares and the whispered path of pointing fingers. 'Garret' was the name on everyone's lips, and had been since the Order had paid their lovely late night visit. Calley was still barefoot as he approached. He was wearing a generic pair of blue jeans that were neither faded nor new, and a nondescript white T-shirt that was neither dirty nor sparkly clean. His shoulders were rounded, his head was ducked, and his hands were hiding safely in his pockets just like his baby blue eyes were trying their hardest to hide behind his brown hair. It was time for a haircut: he couldn't afford to let his hair grow long enough that it became something memorable about him. In a crowd, he always aimed to be Generic Italian Boy #2. Just another easily forgotten face in the New York mixing pot.

The guy had been doing some martial artsy stuff; it looked less aggressive than the Judo that Hunter had tried and failed to teach him. He stopped when Calley walked up. Good. Bare feet aside, Calley had been intentionally walking heavier than his usual ghosting gait: he had very few survival instincts, but several of them had screamed at him that sneaking up on a guy practicing martial arts wouldn't make this meeting any easier. Another deep breath. Time to make himself memorable.

"Hello, Sir." He greeted his fellow teenager. "Umm," another bonus about killing Hunter: he could stop intentionally cultivating these stupid umms, errs, and ahs that were clogging up his speech. "You're the one that did that thing the other night, right? The thing with the pain?" He could also stop dancing around every topic like he didn't know how to just come out and say what he was really getting at. "Ah, yeah. So. Do you think you can do that again? Err... to me, that is. I'd, ah, kind of like you to practice on me. If that's okay." He shuffled his feet on the grass uncomfortably, somehow managing to tuck his shoulders enough to make himself look even smaller.

Honestly, he was getting reeeeeally sick of himself. Not that it showed. Oh no. Just a nervous teenage boy fidgeting as he made a very strange request--that was him. That was all he was.

>> "Now, why would you want me to do that?"

The man, if anything, relaxed his stance further. His voice remained even. His first question was expected. Calley straightened up his spine and squared his shoulders, and made a valiant effort at looking the bald teen straight in the eye.

"Sir, have you heard of the X-Men?" Rhetorical question. "I'm one of their trainees. I haven't been on any missions yet--Registration got in the way. But--"

His gaze fell to the right; with a visible effort, he brought it back to the man. Straightened himself up a little more. "But missions are going to start again soon, Sir, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get someone killed. I... During the team try-outs, I got hurt a little, Sir. Nothing bad--I can self-heal, so it doesn't matter, anyway. But I froze. I couldn't really fight anymore. The other night, the same thing happened. When you attacked--umm, not that you meant too, Sir--I froze again. I could hear everything that was going on outside through my window, but I just lay there. I didn't go out to help."

His eyes were drifting again: this time, to something interesting above the man's head. He gave himself a shake, clasped his arms rigidly behind his back, and dragged his gaze back to front and center. "I'm a healer who can't help others and a tiger shifter who's worthless in a fight. If I can't work past this thing I have with pain, Sir, then I'm going to have to take myself off the team. But I was thinking that maybe you could help. If it's not too much trouble."

There his eyes went again: somewhere to the left, this time. His shoulders caved. "Sorry. I know it's probably a lot to ask. I'm just being selfish."

>> "No Sirs here. My name is Garrett. As far as the X-Men, anyone with a pulse in the tri-state area has. Congratulations on being accepted, even as a trainee. I am sure it took some amount of discipline to do even that."

Calley might have found that first bit funny, in another situation. He always defaulted to politeness, and timed how long it took people to tell him to can it. Garret's reaction speed wasn't the fastest--Kaz still held that record, in addition to the award for Most Violent Reaction to Politeness--but it was coming in a close second. As far as the X-Men, anyone who'd taken stock of the team could tell that 'discipline' wasn't a prerequisite. But yeah, considering that half of that try-out had been Slate's doing, he probably had shown a fair bit of discipline.

Calley noted the disappearing smile. He didn't know what it meant--it could mean a lot of things. It could be a result of the guy's recent traumatic experience, or his genuine and complete insincerity over those congratulations; it could be a carefully planned action, or an alarmingly bright facial twitch. Every action meant something, just like every word. They cultivated an image. It didn't matter much if that image was the truth or not--truth or not, it was still just an image. Calley had never really found the distinction between lying and truth. Which was a good thing, given his profession--he could fool every test of truth on the books by default that everything he did was both equally true and equally false. He was who he was. An image.

>> "Sounds reasonable enough. So, you want to do that here? It's fine with me. Where would you like the pain? Would you like it severe, all at once? Or a slow rise in severity?"

Was it just him, or was that nonchalance starting to border on sarcasm, with a fine sprinkling of what-a-load-of-BS? Honestly, it didn't matter. Everything in his story would check out: it had all actually happened, after all. The fact that he could tell a pretty lengthy historical truth and conveniently leave out the greater part of the story said one thing above all else: Calley had been getting into far, far too much. Heck, he could have told an equally true story geared towards any of the factions: to a Kabal member, he could have whipped out how his little pain phobia had caused some very bad hesitations in the mission to Syn's room. To an Order member, he could have played the 'I was hours away from joining your group when that wicked evil man--!' card. Here at the Mansion, it was all about becoming the best little X-Goodie he could be. Whatever the reason. Whatever this guy thought of it. Whatever, period. If the guy was agreeing, that was enough for Calley.

He rocked back on his heels; to the tips of his toes; heels again. His hands stayed in his pockets. His empty pockets--he'd left the lime green squeaky hedgehog in another pair of pants, and suspected strongly that it was going through the washer again. Oops.

He gave his reply a few seconds after the man had given his. His bare feet settled easily against the grass. "Hit anywhere, at any severity. I can take it." He could. That was sort of the problem: when it came to pain, he just sat there and took it. "Just one rule--if you can do migraines or anything else to screw with my head, I'd just as soon you didn't. Since the whole point of this is for me to try and get past my charming little phobia, and all. Head aside... surprise me." Seriously. He didn't want to see it coming--the worst part of pain was when you saw it coming. Point in fact, he was trying very hard right now to not think about what he was actually asking for. Inside of his pockets, his palms were starting to get awfully sweaty.

"One question before you start, though: why are you agreeing to this?" For someone who'd recently earned himself many a not-a-friend at the Mansion by completely losing control, the guy really was being quick to accept using his powers on another human being again. Calley had come out here expecting some hesitation on the guy's part. He wasn't complaining, but he was curious, and he was a cat a heart.

Pain was a very interesting occurrence. A rusted knife and one sharpened to flashing perfect; a pan indelicately smashed over the head or the briefest touch to a hot one; a migraine or a stubbed toe. The pain varied by degree and location but not by nature: pain was pain. It was beyond curious as to how such different stimuli--

You know that 'commentary' thing, Slate? Not helping.

...Ah. Apologies. His technique is very--

...

...You may proceed.

Thanks. A lot. Really.

The Italian teenager had stopped his little foot rocking. He'd stopped all of his usual twitches, actually: he was standing perfectly still, like a deer on the roadside. His blue eyes were evenly locked on Garret's hazels. He didn't know why he did that. It was probably the only time he steadily met someone's gaze: when he was in pain.

He'd been on the tips of his toes when it happened. One second the grass was a forgotten texture, taken for granted in its familiarity. The next second, it was soft: indescribably soft, and rough, and deep. He could just about make out the edges of the blades under his toes; they overlapped--too many layers too count, at least through something as thick as the skin of his feet. He rocked back, and felt the paper thin slips whisper over his soles; they folded under his heels like dominoes. Calley had blinked in surprise. Huh. That was interesti--

Nnnnng.

Suddenly, his pleasantly little grassy friends were giving him the finger. It was a lot like the pins and needles sensation of a foot waking back up. Except replace pins with switch knives, and needles with... actually, needles worked fine. Calley's body jerked as every muscle tensed. He flopped back to standing flatfooted. Which, for the record, did not help. Under his blue jeans, his skin was going its best to jump away from the ground.

The rest of him stilled. Slowly relaxed, with occasionally tattletale twitches from the muscles of his legs. His habitual smile claimed its usual place on his lips.

That's where he was now. Just standing quietly, and smiling as he met his fellow teen's eyes. His breath was slightly faster than usual: that was one of his few tells.

"Huh," Calley quipped with supreme cheerfulness, "That sort of tickles." Another thing he did when he was in pain: he managed to get stupider. It was really quite amazing.

His arms hung limply at his side. Move. The order never made it there; it was intercepted by another: Stay still. Staying still was always for the best. Fighting back could get a scrawny teenager killed. Or worse. There were a very many things worse than death, and having Slate around to heal him just guaranteed they could go on for much longer than they ever should. He's doing this because I asked him too. That's all. Raising an arm isn't going to set him off like a psychopath. He didn't know that though, did he? The guy had agreed to this awfully dang fast, and Calley had just given him an open invitation to do his worst. We're standing on the Mansion grounds in broad daylight--nothing's going to really happen. But it could. Easily. Calley wouldn't do anything to stop it; the other residents probably wouldn't even be able to tell what was going on, given the inconspicuous nature of the guy's power. I asked for this. Which was a bad idea. Just move an inch. A centimeter. Move! It was safer not to.

Calley simply stood there, smiling. He really hated that smile.

>> " I am glad you are enjoying yourself. Perhaps i can give you an ever funnier sensation to chuckle over."

The theatrics couldn't be a good sign.

>> "Gitchy goo goo!"

No. No, definitely not a good sign. The guy had stepped back; usually a larger distance was a good thing but then, usually, Calley was dealing with people who dealt their pain physically. He suspected that the distance was just showmanship. Showmanship meant that the guy was starting to warm up to this, in the same sort of way that Slate was watching all this from the back of their mind: as if it were some enjoyable game.

The man flourished his hands like he was going to be practicing his trick throwing. He was smiling. It really wasn't a surprise when the pain shot through his knees. Really, it was rather droll, like a hot poker twining up under the patella, into that stringy hollow where the only ligaments and cartilage lived. Ligaments, cartilage, and apparently more nerve endings than he'd ever suspected. Calley's knees locked. His smile broadened. Really, quite droll--

The second attack hit. Calley let out an abrupt laugh, like others would scream: "Heh."

Okay. Well, on an interesting note of comparative anatomy, thighs seemed to have an even higher concentration of nerve endings. Or at least, they had a greater depth for an attack to sink in. It was really quite fascinating how localized the pain was; the precision was such that-- ... ...Apologies.

...As the jolts of pain faded, Calley loosened back up again. He unlocked his kneecaps. He wiggled his toes. He--

--He'd moved. I just moved, right? He'd definitely moved. Intentionally. Granted that he hadn't been thinking hard about it, but... Booya!

He grinned. A real grin. "Hey, Mister Garrett. You better be careful not to work up a sweat over there; wouldn't want to have to shower after this, and end up like your mother. I heard your mother's so bald, she took a shower and ended up brain-washed."

He'd moved. Ha! Now, if he could move with a little more purpose, that'd be spiffin'. Keep it coming.

((ooc: I'm not quite sure how your power works, as far as sustaining attacks/having them going simultaneously, so right now I'm working under the assumption that the attack on his feet ended when you moved to throw the daggers, and the daggers were just brief bursts. Please, clue me in if I'm wrong!))

People always said Calley was immature. He couldn't see why. In fact, he passed all of his own tests of maturity with flying colors. Test number seven went like this: 'How well do they react to a yo momma joke?'

Garrett flunked.

Calley realized something as Garret flunked: that may have been a poor choice of tests.

>> " Yuck it up."

A funny sounding retort if ever there was one, but it was practically dripping acid on the grass. Hoooo boy. The man's eyes shut; his head bowed. Calley was reminded of a character in a video game, charging for an attack. In a video game, this would be the time to attack: in a video game, you wanted to interrupt that attack before the charge was complete, because you really didn't want to see what it was. The same principle held true in real life. Unfortunately, Calley had quite literally asked for this. He tried to console himself that he was holding his ground, not freezing. He was a pretty good liar.

The look on the guy's face when he opened his eyes again was a pretty good polygraph test. Calley's shoulders jerked up and back like someone had starting banging around downstairs at two in the morning, and he didn't quite know if it was friend or foe. Then the guy started in with his hands, fast pitch style

Then the pains. 'S'. Plural. They started at the soles of his feet and rapidly boiled upward with the man's orchestrating hands, locations indiscriminant of whether the man should technically be able to see them or not--these weren't physical attacks, and they could care less about things like that. Calley realized that. He straightened as the pain worked its way upwards, like he was trying to keep himself from drowning in the rising tide. Abdomen, ribs, back, collarbone--down through his arms, hands. He slowly eased himself back down. He didn't know when he'd gotten to the tips of his toes, but it was about time to end that. Especially given the crippling pain in his soles. His return to being flat-footed wasn't graceful: he stumbled a step to the side, trying to find his balance again with a near overload of stimuli. Stimuli: a good, clinical term that really helped your mind try and back off from the pain. Stay above it. Think through it. Calley was having a hard time doing that. Each individual point of pain was adding itself to the others; another screaming voice in the chorus.

The man's lips moved, but he wasn't sure if he could hear what the guy was saying. He wasn't sure if he couldn't. There were words and he was pretty sure his brain was processing them, but there was a damp gray buzzing building at the back of his head. Calley knew he was supposed to be doing something. I need to move. That's the whole point of this.

I need to get out of here! What's going on?

What's wrong with this guy?

It hurts it hurts it hurts--

Interesting. He is respecting your request about our head, I see, though I am not sure what good it will do you.

His hands are moving. He kinda looks like Moses parting the waves, don't you think? Heh.

Scream. Scream and someone will help scream before--

Screaming just encourages them. Moving just encourages them. Stay still and don't react and they'll get bored or at least end it quickly and maybe cleanly though cleanly is too much to hope--

Pain. 'N'. Singular.

Calley's lungs contracted as the first wave of connected pain hit: he coughed like he'd been hit in the gut. That would have been better. He took another breath--another wave of pain hit. His eyes weren't tracking the man's movements anymore. He didn't associate the opening and closing of the man's fists with the rising and falling pain. Another breath, another wave. That was the clear connection, in his mind. It was all he could think about. His next step was logical: he stopped breathing.

It didn't help.

His brain searched frantically for other triggers. Like in Doctor Ingram's lab, his mind was starting to fragment: the gray was pressing in, snuffing his thoughts out one by one. From the outside, he was still meeting his fellow teenager's eyes: he was standing more rigidly than he had been--his shoulders were locked, his neck was slightly arched back, his hands had rolled into hedgehog fists and turned white. He was still smiling. No one else on the lawn gave the pair more than a cursory glance.

Inside, the gray was darker than he'd remembered. He wasn't feeling pain anymore--he didn't know what he was feeling. It was white and almost soothing, like the roar of a good fire. The white pressed in from his temples and the gray blackened up from the base of his spine; the voices of the clutter died out one by one. He could still see Garret in front of him, but in the half-light of his mind, it took a long moment to process what the image meant; to separate background from foreground, to categorize the lighter shape on the predominately green image to be a human male, to place a name and a purpose to the male: Garrett. And Calley had asked for this, because he was trying to learn.

He didn't know what he learned. But what was left of his mind lazily, almost gracefully directed his arm to move; the elbow pivoted to bring raise the forearm and hand up to a level with his face; his hand convulsed, then relaxed enough from its fist to allow a very simple movement: Calley gave Garrett the finger. White met gray, and the colors mixed, somehow, to black.

He passed out on the grass. The smile on his lips relaxed away as he started breathing again.

Calley woke up slowly. He felt the coolness of the grass on his back, and the pleasant searing of the sun on his front; he felt a cooler spot, where a shadow overlapped his form. His flat-on-his-back form. That... wasn't quite right. If he'd been napping, he wouldn't be in human form: he still had trouble controlling his shifts if he went to bed as a human, and the last thing he wanted to do at the Mansion was wake up in a form that wasn't on his paperwork. He cracked open his eyes. There was the source of the shadow: a guy with no eyebrows. Or any other hair, for that matter, but the eyebrows struck him as the oddest just then. Huh. The guy seemed vaguely familia--

--aah. Right. His genius idea, about tracking down the pain guy and gettin' him to do what he did best. Slowly but surely, like a badly shuffled deck of cards, the details of their little exercise came back to him. Huh. Did flicking someone off count as anti-phobia progress? ...It definitely didn't count under the 'good taste' column. With a winch more to his own idiocy than for any lingering pain--there didn't seem to be any, surprisingly--Calley started pushing himself back up. Sure, he saw the guy's hand there. But he didn't register what it meant for a long moment. When it finally hit him, it left him blinking mutely: the guy was offering him a hand up. Calley stared at it for one supremely fascinated moment. Then he clasped his own hand around the guy's arm, and accepted it sheepishly late.

"I think that's the first time someone's offered me a hand up," Calley frankly stated, by way of explanation. "...Thanks. And, ah, sorry about the whole flip-off thing just then. I'd like to claim that that was the impending darkness talking. I didn't mean... that you should actually... err, f-off."

No hard feelings on his end: he had asked for it. Honestly, he didn't even consider it an issue. He just hoped he hadn't caused any on the other teen's end, either. Garrett: not someone he'd like to live on the bad side of. Assuming he was still alive next week, he'd very much like to be on the guy's good side, in fact.