Maya had the DR room booked for the whole afternoon.
She had not been there more than half an hour, and her knuckles were already raw.
It was a simple training program; throws custom made opponents at you, first one after another, then in groups that get larger as you go. Right now, there were five of them, attacking in all kinds of ways with all kinds of things they could have picked up on the street or in a bar. Maya spun, kicked, rolled, punched and elbowed as she danced between them, hair pulled into two messy pigtails.
It was just a basic training program. Except, all the guys looked very, very handsome. It made it much more satisfying to punch them. They were handsome, and probably rich, and strong, and most of them taller than Maya, and they were guys, dammit, 24/7.
This had nothing to do with Twyla. Nope. None at all.
Maya just needed to blow off some steam.

Why was he headed to the Danger Room? That was easy. Drew needed to work off some energy. Ever since he and Jorge had tangled with that weredog he'd been entirely too cheerful. His mutation was actually going to be useful. He was going to be able to hold other people to their promises darn it. It was enough to make him grin. After having spent so long being afraid now they'd learn to fear. They'd learn what it was like to fear a pair of words. Once again his cheerfulness was annoying people so instead of wasting it in the heat outdoors, Drew had thought to put it toward something useful. Training.

After all, Sam had invited him to join the X's a while back. That meant, despite everything else, he really needed to step up the workouts and training. Drew needed to impress when he finally had that tryout, whenever that would be. So it was off to the Danger Room. He wanted a challenge in his training and without any partners to spar with at the moment DR drones would have to do. The room in question loomed and Drew entered only to find it occupied. He didn't recognize the girl in the center of the room that was beating the tar out of a bunch of opponents that were all handsome rich looking men. Issues maybe?

In either case she was easily trashing them. Drew couldn't help it, he was impressed. He clapped in appreciation of the show.

Someone clapped. Maya elbowed one drone in the stomach, then turned to knee him in the face, before kicking the last one in the balls.
There was a momentary pause in the program, designed for her to catch her breath or pick up a new position. The drones she had defeated faded into nothingness. No pile of bodies.
She turned to look at whoever clapped.
He looked vaguely familiar. Mansion resident? Probably. Wasn't this hanging around Sam all the time?...
She really did not want to meet Sam right now.

"What are you lookin' at?" she folded her arms "Join in or leave, room's mine for the afternoon. No mutations, no timeouts. Take it or leave. I'm tried of beatin' up stupid drones."

Let's hope he does better than a drone.

She finished off the remaining drones quickly, though the last blow made him wince. Drone or not Drew just hoped she didn't decide to pull that one on him if they sparred. After the drones faded she turned to look at him. The non-recognition seemed to be mutual since she didn't immediately greet him by name. The fieriness in her tone caught him off guard. Someone was feeling pretty feisty today. Drew just flashed her a smile. The bad mood of a stranger wasn't about to get him down. Not today.

"Just admiring your fight is all."

Drew nodded as she laid out the rules. He began to stretch out some while he answered.

"Well if you want to spar that's fine by me. I need the workout." He smirked a bit, "Don't have to worry about my mutation. Utterly useless for combat anyway. Just do me a favor and avoid saying 'I promise'."

Once he was stretched out Drew walked over to join her in the center of the room.

"I'm Andrew by the way."

If he was going to fight her she ought to at least know his name.

>>"Just admiring your fight is all. Well if you want to spar that's fine by me. I need the workout. Don't have to worry about my mutation. Utterly useless for combat anyway. Just do me a favor and avoid saying 'I promise'."

"Sure thing. Join the club." she knew a thing of two about useless mutations, although she wondered what he had to do with promises. She decided not to test it. This training session had nothing to do with mutations anyway. if it did, the room would be full of mirrors. And she'd have a bow. And the guy would have an apple on his head.

>>"I'm Andrew by the way."

He joined him at the center of the room. Now it was just the two of them.

"You don't mind some music, do you." it was not a question "Name's Maya, by the way."

She clapped; the DR put on the soundtrack.

"Bring it."

Drew didn't question how she knew about useless mutations. It seemed to be an unspoken rule right now that that topic was off limits. That was fine by him. If Maya got him talking about his mutation right now he'd be too excited to fight. He took all of a second to note the music and then dismiss it as unimportant. Then she was telling him to bring it. Well if she wanted him to start he'd be happy to oblige. Drew immediately shifted from standing normally into a fighting stance. His arms came up in a loose guard.

"With pleasure." was his response to her command.

He was moving before he finished speaking. A leg was flung forward in a kick aimed at her side. He was testing. Drew needed to know exactly how good she was before he could decide what to do with this fight. With Sam he'd played a mostly defensive game. Maya was an unknown factor so he needed to figure that out before he could plan. Drew only hoped that, since she seemed to be angry, she'd make some mistakes and generally fight sloppy.

He did not need to be told twice to attack. Apparently he was eager to fight. Maya liked that. She would have hated to keep holding back for a rookie's sake. If he was an X-pup, h should know better.
Mr. Andrew was going to get his pretty ass handed to him.

The kick was aimed at her side; Maya moved back just barely out of reach and grabbed on to his leg, giving it a push to throw him off balance. With a kick to make sure he did, she danced back and grinned.

"So, you a new trainee?"

This was going to be fun.

Oh lord she was one of those. Drew had barely kept his balance when Sam had tested him on it in their bout. Maya it seemed had either realized that balance was one of his issues or just liked screwing with people like that. By the grin on her face he guessed it was a bit of both. The maneuver reminded him far too much of Sam so Andrew had to guess that she had trained with him. He once again barely avoided landing on his butt, though it was a very near thing and he probably looked pretty comical as he struggled to maintain his upright position. He replied to her question once he'd gotten back into stance.

"Sort of. Sam asked me to join but we're still working on training and I haven't had my try out yet." Drew darted in and delivered a few punches, hiding the real strike amidst a few fakes, "You've worked with Sam before haven't you? He nearly knocked me on my butt with something like that too."

It was kind of exciting to be working with one of the X's, even if she was a trainee that he'd never met before. He sort of assumed she was a trainee. Who knew, maybe she was a full blown X-man? It didn't matter to him, he was enjoying the chance to improve against a new opponent.

He was thrown off balance, but did not fall. That was good. Maya was going to beat him up real bad, no matter how green he was, but it was better if he actually proved to be a worthy opponent. Much more fun.

>>"Sort of. Sam asked me to join but we're still working on training and I haven't had my try out yet. You've worked with Sam before haven't you? He nearly knocked me on my butt with something like that too."

"Welcome to the team" she grinned; the fake punches were easy to avoid, but the real one almost got her, not bad at all "Yeah, been trainin' with him for... almost two years I guess."

Had it really been so long? Whoa.

Maya advanced on him, throwing punches and kicks. It was not really any of the recognized martial arts; it was just plain old brawl. She was trying to throw him off balance again, since that seemed like one of his weaknesses, so she danced around him, and aimed the kicks at his legs.

"Here to save the world huh."

He smirked at Maya. Welcome to the team huh? Drew wasn't even technically a member. Oh well, if Sam had his way he would be at some point. It still felt like someone was trying to play a massive prank on him though. Drew was a little shocked to hear how long Maya had been training with Sam. Shocked and dismayed because two years of training with Sam meant that there was probably no chance Drew could actually win this fight. He just wasn't that good yet.

Maya advanced into her own offensive before Drew could come up with a verbal response. He dodged what he could and blocked most of what he couldn't. A punch and a couple of kicks made it through, though he'd have bruises from what he'd had to block. The best defense after all was to just not get hit. But it was pretty apparent that if she hadn't known about his balance weakness before, she did now. Most of the kicks were aimed at his legs.

"Ouch," he said as another of those kicks landed, "If ya want me on my back there's other ways to do it."

Wow, he was in a good mood to joke like that. Oh well, right now he was having the most fun he'd had in ages. Well aside from that thing with Allison. Her changes to his tattoos were still untouched so he still had a mess of flowering vines growing up his left arm. He'd not been precisely sane when that had happened. Not insane either but definitely not sane. Her comment about saving the world brought him back into the fight and conversation.

"Nah. I just want to help out and protect the folks that I care about. If I save the world in the process then that's just icing on the cake."

>>"Ouch. If ya want me on my back there's other ways to do it."

He had. No idea.

"I know. One of them's bound to work." she grinned, aiming another kick.

>>"Nah. I just want to help out and protect the folks that I care about. If I save the world in the process then that's just icing on the cake."

"Sure it is." fighting had done a world of good to her mood. Seriously. There is no better way for dealing with stress than punching another person. Repeatedly. Hard.

A few punches of his landed none the less. She could feel one on her jaw, and a few on her ribs, even a kick in her side. It did not matter. Pain was real. Pain made things real. Pain was good. She probably will not be able ot get out of bed tomorrow, but right now, she wanted to get utterly and totally beaten up. As well as doing the same to this Andrew guy. It was the DR version of getting sh*tfaced. Which, naturally, did not exclude actually getting sh*tfaced after the sesison was done.

"How about this?" she spun around, as Sam had taught her, and swept Andrew's legs from under him with one kick. It was a nice move, but not quite perfect; she got caught in the fall.

It was time to swap the punches and kicks for rolling around on the ground. Fun.

Drew chuckled at Maya's come back. Training with Sam for as long as she had had probably made her pretty good at them if she hadn't been to start. Drew couldn't tell precisely whether she was being sarcastic or not when she responded to his assertion that saving the world didn't matter to him. It didn't but there was no point arguing it and ruining a perfectly good sparring match. Besides, he was giving as good as he got and Maya was taking it all in stride.

It was good to be able to cut loose like this. Not only would he be totally worn out and beaten to a pulp afterward but he was learning from each punch, kick, block, dodge, and what have you. Like, for instance, that sweep kick that he really should have seen coming that had taken him right off his feet. Drew landed on his back on the DR floor with a thud. Well he had essentially dared her to put him on his back so...oops? There was some satisfaction to be had though. She fell with him. Time to wrestle, Drew guessed. Not that he knew a thing about it so it was time to wing it and get his butt handed to him! Drew made a grab for Maya, intent on pinning her. This was going to go so well.

Of course he made a grab for her. It was obvious from the moment they fell that he was going to try to pin her like some crappy boy meets girl romance movie.
No sir.

Maya twisted, and rolled, and tried to crawl out of reach, no use. Being smaller was an advantage when throwing punches, but right now, it did not work so well.

"Get off me!" she yelled, enjoying the fact that she could actually yell as loud as she wanted, it was a fight after all. She kicked out blindly, trying to break free "F*ck off, ya're not a chick. Not" another kick "interested."

The best she managed to do was roll them around till she was above him, with hiw face in a much more punchable position. He still had a hold of her, but at least now she was not looking up at him. Better.

Her reaction to being pinned amused him. Mind you it resulted in him being kicked twice but still amusing. Apparently guys weren't her thing. Not that he'd been particularly interested. Cute she was but girls had been nothing but trouble for him of late anyway. Mind you he hadn't seen Tasean since that night either. Bleh, relationships were complicated. Once she'd rolled him and he was one the defensive he managed a chuckle or two while trying to once again pin her instead of him.

"That's fine. I'm not interested either."

Releasing the grip with one of his hands he tried to punch her in the stomach. With luck it would land and distract her enough for him to gain the advantage again.

>>"That's fine. I'm not interested either."

He was actually chuckling. That just made Maya want to wail on his face ever worse, but also it was kind of amusing to brawl with someone who enjoyed the fight.

"Glad..." punch "we're on the same..." punch "...page... UMPH."

His fist collided with her stomach and knocked the air out of her lungs. Maya doubled over, one hand clutching her side, and the next thing she knew she was on her back again, getting all the punches. It had been a while she had been sincerely beaten up (and last time she was, it was done by a friggin' bear), but this fight was getting close to real life-and-death situations.

"All right that's it" she gasped, grabbing at his arms. The claws were coming out. This guy was going to get torn up.