Aiden set to his task. Combos were a good starting point. Cafas wasn't sure he was up to training with a mobile target, but they really were just getting started. "Melee dummy, expert. Target Cafas."

A faceless crash test dummy appeared holding an improvised club of some sort. Cafas didn't get much of a chance to figure out what it was. The dummy went on the offensive straight away. Cafas danced out of the way of three successive shots then swung back. Hard plastic struck wood as the dummy parried the shot. Cafas swung low and the dummy dodged. It didn't predict the roundhouse kick Cafas followed through with. Still, it did its best to move out of the way.

Cafas' foot glanced off the dummy, which in turn stumbled back a step. That was enough opening for Cafas. He squared himself and charged directly into the simulation. It lifted off the ground and promptly slammed back down with Cafas on top of it. He flipped it over and pulled its arms behind it. "You have the right to blah blah terminate last command."

The dummy faded out. Cafas got up and turned to check on Aiden. "I know you've got more in you than up. Pick up the power and the pace." With any luck Aiden was young enough that the movements would turn instinctive. That was what it was, and would happen by itself if at all. Cafas wanted him sporting all the power his body could output.

"Strive to be the best version of you possible."

Cafas moved out of the chill zone and thought a moment. He knew the computer would have filed that combo away. It would be expecting it. With any luck that meant the next fight would be a bit more fun. "Melee dummy, expert, target Cafas."

Aiden was only peripherally aware of Cafas doing his own thing; he only paid him enough attention to make sure he wasn't trying to get his attention or about to get in the way. The snow was starting to be annoying, drifting in front of his face repeatedly. Shifting into different strike patterns didn't affect the air currents enough to matter, unfortunately, so he just had to dedicate more concentration to not being distracted by the extra movement.

He could still hear, though, even if it was hard to see far without faltering, and his cheek may have twitched slightly at Cafas' words. Apparently beating a dummy into a pulp wasn't entertaining enough. The man said harder and faster, though, so Aiden did his best to cut out everything but the white-hazed dummy in front of him, himself, and the baton that was gradually starting to feel as it should.

Snow muffled sound well, once it started to get thick. By the time Aiden was hitting the dummy from memory more than sight there wasn't much sound at all coming from Cafas to distract him. That was good; he didn't have time to waste attention. Even with whatever it was that being white did while he was working, it was starting to take a bit more force to get enough air through his lungs. He was curious now, though, about just how fast he could hit the dummy without losing form. The baton's momentum was starting to tug at his hand on the reversals and curves, never mind the vibration that ran up his arm whenever he made contact more squarely than he intended, but if he tightened his grip to keep it from flying off he lost the manoeuvrability he needed to keep flowing through the techniques.

Cafas was fighting on his back, struggling to get the simulated assailant off of him. The problem was that where humans got nice and punch drunk, sims did not. So Cafas was doing his very best to stop the baton impacting into his skull. "Damn, cancel sim, I concede." The weight was gone almost instantly. He almost felt like the danger room was laughing at him.

I'll show it...

Cafas took a moment to pay attention to Aiden and noticed that there wasn't much to pay attention to. An area of white out thick snow where he and the dummy had once been. For a moment Cafas considered stopping him. He didn't want Aiden going too far. Or did he? He wanted to know exactly how far Aiden could go, so did that mean he wanted him pushing to failure? He supposed it did.

I guess I'll just have to assume this means he's going hard.

"Keep the floor clear of snow."

He had no idea how the danger room would pull it off, but he had confidence that it would. Couldn't have Aiden tripping. "REMEMBER YOUR FOOTWORK! YOUR STRENGTH IS SPEED AND AGILITY, MAKE SURE YOU TRAIN FOR THEM!"

Breathing.

Remembering which motion he was supposed to move into next.

Not slipping on the -

Aiden did falter when there was abruptly no snow underfoot. He'd adjusted for the lack of footing already, so the sudden return of traction overbalanced him and nearly got him to do something somewhere between hugging the dummy and just faceplanting into it. He pushed himself backwards, but the snow was definitely refusing to stay on the ground now. Tch. He stepped back and set into the dummy again, what strain he had started to feel already faded to memory by the break.

The calm had been enough for him to notice some external noise, though. Something about feet? Oh, footwork. Definitely easier to work on that properly when he could trust his soles against the floor. There was definitely something nice about setting his own rhythm, moving precisely as fast as he thought he could make himself go, and then eyeing himself and kicking a little more fuel to it. For a few strokes he shifted to trying to batter the dummy hard enough to shift his balance off. That was boring, though, so he went back to speed and fluidity again.

And then his hand was abruptly empty. Evidently he'd tried to change direction too quickly. He came to a halt and stared in the direction the baton had probably gone. That was such a pain. He stalked after it and emerged from the miniblizzard shaking his head at the sudden rush of colour and sound.

Cafas had been innocently watching a tiny snowstorm. He had expected Aiden to wear himself down faster. Either there was something going on with his power, or Aiden was much fitter than Cafas had given him credit for.

Where was I? Oh yes, innocently watching the snowstorm. He took a step closer to try and find Aiden in the snow. The a black streak appeared out of the white. The plastic baton collided square with Cafas' eyebrow.

Ouch.

That kid was so dead if he'd done that on purpose. Blood was casually running down his face from the cut when Aiden emerged from his storm. "I'm going to assume that was an accident. Otherwise you're going to be enjoying an extra hour of training where you practise full speed defence." A drip ran off his chin. The red would look so bad next to his hair too...

"I'm going to assume that was an accident. Otherwise you're going to be enjoying an extra hour of training where you practise full speed defence."

Oh, there was Cafas.

...What? Aiden turned to look at Cafas specifically, and if he hadn't already literally been white, he would have been a moment later. To be helpful, despite the snowstorm's sneaky attempts to edge closer, holes were already starting to melt through the white. He was legitimately snow-white underneath too, it turned out.

He hit Cafas.

He.

Hit.

Cafas.

He meant to declare his absolute and total innocence and sincerest apologies, he really did. Unfortunately for that eloquence, his sheer horror at what he'd done kind of strangled any sound he was about to make into a barely audible squeak. Plus there was the part where he had no clue what to say. But mostly it was the horror.

The squeak said it all. Cafas let it go. It wasn't the worst he'd received that week, not even worth retaliation. He wiped the blood off his face.

Ah well.

He picked up the baton from the floor and tossed it to Aiden. "It's fine, really, now back to it. I kind of wish I could see it, but I'll just have to assume your form is good. Remember to hit with that sweet spot though. Bout a hands width from the tip, otherwise you'll be hitting soft." Also potentially injuring himself, but no need to worry the kid.

"Mobile target, purely defensive, beginner." Cafas indicated the newly formed moving dummy. It was dancing on the balls of its feet. "Try hitting that." He should be able, the baton wasn't a hard weapon to get the hang of. Mass weapons rarely were. Flails an obvious exception.

Cafas just set into a routine of push ups. He wasn't really getting any better with his fighting when he was constantly watching Aiden.

Aiden caught the baton out of reflex, still staring at Cafas in horror. He... he just shrugged it off (okay, it wasn't a terrible injury or anything, but still! HE HIT CAFAS)? It wasn't that Ai was scared of retaliation - even if he completely and totally deserved it - it was just that, well, he had caused pain and bloodshed. He had. How could he have done such a thing, even by accident? And to Cafas of all people?

He turned towards the new dummy hesitantly, still staring at Cafas with wide eyes. He swallowed. Just like that? Cafas was just going on with things? He certainly seemed to be, just going and starting on a series of push-ups like nothing at all had happened.

His grip tightened on the baton and he tried not to stare at it like it was evil incarnate. He glanced at Cafas again. Was that really all? How was that all? Cafas had said to keep going, though, so he stepped towards the dummy.

His eyes were dark - figuratively and literally, as it happened - before his foot touched the floor again and he dropped like a torn bag of groceries, only with less warning.

Aiden turned to the dummy, all the while glaring at his baton. Cafas watched him. He didn't have much else to do, and looking ahead made push up posture better anyway.

Oh damn.

In one motion Cafas collected his feet under him and was up and moving. A few strides took him to where Aiden had collapsed. He knelt down and inspected him. He was breathing, so that was good. "Milk crate" it appeared next to him. Cafas rolled Aiden onto his back and propped his legs up on the crate.

Well, other than the fainting he seems fine...

Breathing, pulse, unobstructed airway, everything in order, now just to wait for him to wake up.

"Cancel training sims, keep crate, spawn pillow." It was going to mighty uncomfortable laying there for a few minutes without one once Aiden woke up.

Nrg.

Aiden felt horrible. There was simply no other way to put it. Except maybe heavy. He tried to find something that didn't feel off and eventually had to admit that at least he wasn't particularly nauseous, though with the way his head was spinning that might be about to change.

He forced his eyes open to the calm white of a blank danger room and tried to ignore the pitiful trembling in essentially every muscle that had done anything that session. What... what was he doing on the floor? He tried to push himself up, but his arms kind of screamed at him as soon as they heard what he wanted.

Okay. Nope. Not doing that. Just going to be miserable on the floor. Urgh. Oh... was that Cafas there? "What happened?" he muttered, a little hoarse but otherwise not sounding like he felt. Figured that the only part of him that wasn't on strike would be his vocal cords.

Aiden came too. It didn't take too long, which was a good sign. "You fainted. Don't get up, just stay laying down for a little. Here, have a pillow." Hard light could be surprisingly soft when it wanted to.

He wasn't working at the time, I'd have thought he'd have fainted before if he was going to... Maybe it just caught up to him

Cafas looked around. The sim had cancelled everything, that was good, it sometimes didn't. "Vitals read out, Aiden." A screen popped up in front of him, hovering in mid air.

Weird.

All signs were of a major and sudden shock after a period of being fine. It looked like Aidan had been hit by a very slight heart attack simultaneously with draining a whole heap of energy. "This doesn't read like you were just doing cardio work... Weird, wonder if it's malfunctioning? Maybe my time scale is all wrong? No, that doesn't seem to be it... You feeling okay?"

He fainted?

Okay, maybe it was valid for it to be considered as unpleasant as common knowledge suggested. He wasn't going to argue about staying where he was, and just closed his eyes again as the pillow settled under his head. The elastic in his hair was digging into his neck but he really couldn't be bothered to try to move it.

He let Cafas do whatever it was he was doing and tried to figure out if he was still feeling quite as he had a moment ago. It was hard to tell; even thinking at his muscles seemed to get a renewed wave of signs and torches.

Was.. was Cafas seriously asking if he felt okay? If he had the energy he would have formed more of an expression than just opening his eyes again for a few moments. "If hit by a car again is okay," he muttered. What had he been doing? Last thing he remembered was just training, and then - er, splitting Cafas' face open, yeah just going to not think about that - going back to work? That seemed right, but...

"If hit by a car again is okay."

Touché

"Well it doesn't look all that bad. Nothing seems to be broken. It just looks like your body went into shock for a moment. Don't know why, it hardly looks like you were working that much."

Cafas stood and scratched his head thoughtfully. He had no idea what was going on. He'd treat it as exhaustion for now. That was the problem with mutants, it was hard to tell side effects from genuine issues. "When you're feeling up to it, get up slowly, go to the kitchen, drink something with sugar in it. If you can get gatorade, get it. Then in half an hour or so get something to eat. Carbs and protein, minimal fat, it's just a bad time to be metabolising fats."

Stupid bodies. Pizza always seemed like a great after workout food, but it was SO bad. All the fat getting squirreled away. At least, that's what he'd been told.

"End vitals screen."

Nothing broken. Shock. Cafas didn't know.

Hopefully there was some nice, simple explanation for this, something that would allow him to avoid it and never do it again.

He'd think about it later. For now, he worked on convincing more than his fingertips to be willing to move. His left arm was definitely more willing to move, and his right wrist and shoulder seemed quite happy to be considered lost causes. His legs didn't seem to be too bad. Yeah, the big giant achy tired was definitely starting to feel more localized to his right arm and back.

At first thought, food didn't sound like a very good idea at all, but after a moment's consideration his stomach began voicing its agreement by way of twisting in on itself excitedly. Apparently 'up to it' was going to be the point where his stomach managed to kick his energy level and general muscle displeasure into second place. When it started getting close, Aiden dropped his legs off the crate they'd been propped on. That wasn't too bad. He started to shift to push himself upright but pulled the force from his right arm more or less immediately. Yeah, it wasn't a fan of habit right now. He managed it, though, and gave himself a minute to get the faint dizziness to subside again. "Does it have to be half an hour?"