Aikido. It was an option. She'd been wanting to learn some sort of self defense. One of her favorite book characters of all time was a master in Aikido. That made it an even better option.

Having lost to the martial Arts God emperor in the danger room session... she really wanted to bone up on her self defense moves. Struggling against Gawain in the danger room was one thing, but it was not enough. And so many sessions ended early...

Ahem. She shook that thought.

Amelia idly wondered if Gawain was in her room right now. Or it it was a Maya day. A few minutes later, she was at his door.

She didn't have a key, so she knocked.

Note to self: Get key.

"Anyone home?"

No socks on door. Meant no Megans in there with other people. Not that she'd ever witnessed such a feat. And was glad she hadn't yet.

The blankets piled on her bed shifted, and a tired looking, frumpy Megan poked her head out.

She was about to bark out a complaint about people banging on doors too early in the morning... when she caught sight of her alarm clock. Oh... never mind, then. No yelling today. Instead, she rubbed at her eyes, for once free of makeup.

Unfortunately, that also meant that the unsightly bruises and scrapes that littered her body were clearly visible with nothing covering them up. Not that Megan cared.. but it was an odd occurrence to anyone who knew her well. Of where there weren't many..

Crawling from her pile of warmth, she staggered toward the door in pajama shorts and a tank top. With a look set on her face to scare away any potential pesky friends of her roommates, she yanked the door open...

And blinked at Ami. "Oh... Ami?" The scowl dropped from her lips, her expression softened, and she stepped aside to let the girl in. For some reason she couldn't really put her finger on... Ami was OK. She was cool, and she lacked the annoying qualities most girls her act exuded.

"Gawain's not here, if your looking for 'im."

Gawain wasn't in, but Megan was. And... the smile faded on Amelia's face slightly at the sight of her. She was pretty beat up. Amelia followed the invite on into the room, frowning.

As she walked in, her hands linked behind her and her eyes strained around for clues as to what had happened, or what the lady was dealing with. Messed bedsheets, no makeup, jammie shorts and tank top, and she had bruises... but no clues other than that (that she could see).

"I was," she said, as she sat down on Gawain's bed. Her hands rested on either side of her as she looked at Megan. "But you work, too... I was looking for someone to go to Aikido classes with me and learn some self defense. You interested?" She gave Megan a searching look. For now, she wasn't gonna dig at injury origins. But probably soon.

Scratching at one cheek, she blinked at the girl, remaining standing after she shut the door. "Ai..kido?" What was that... like judo, or karate? No... wait! It was the sword thing, right?

Blue eyes blinked, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Her bed was right over there... but she had been tossing and turning for quiet a while now. Sleep just didn't want to stick around. Maybe getting out, having some fresh air, and hanging around with one of the few people she could actually stand would make her feel better?

"No idea what Aikido is, but sure! I'm always up for trying new things." She turned on her heel, kneeling by the side of her bed where her backpack was, and fished out a clean t-shirt and a pair of stretchy skinny jeans. They probably weren't the best choices for an activity, but they were all she had.

Excusing herself for a moment, she shut herself in the bathroom to change, and pull her hair back into little spiky pigtails. She slapped a little cover up on, and then headed back out, slipping her shoes on by the door.

"So... where is this thing being held?" The smile on her lips was genuine, because she was too tired to slip into any kind of character in the moment.

"Not too far," Amelia was vague. She rolled up off the bed and to her feet. "Shouldn't take long to get there at all."

And with only a few moments on Gawain's bed, they were out the door again. No reason to say 'follow me', as the action implied it. Off they went.

Now, what had the dojo she'd seen a flyer for been called again, Amelia pondered as she sat down on the bus. It rattled along. Her eyebrows were knitted in thought. Hm. She dug in a jacket pocket and found a flyer, all folded up. There it was.

"This is it," she pointed, offering the flyer to Megan. "Should be in that area in a couple of stops."

The flyer was colorful and descriptive, with a pair of clip art fat pinkish stick figure people grappling, one flipping the other over its back. The reason she'd picked this particular dojo was simple; not only was the flyer descriptive, it was also enchanted.

"I think some sort of ink mutant messed with that thing so the little people fight back and forth on the paper like something out of Harry Potter. If Harry Potter flipped people over his shoulder with applications of physics." She said.

Ink mutant?

Megan eyed the flyer suspiciously, one mutant in particular springing to mind. It didn't look like something the girl she had met would be into, but, meh... you could never know these days.

The 'Aikidonchumesswitme School of self Defense' (or maybe she was reading it humorously wrong) seemed to offer a lot of different things, according to the paper. Blue eyes skimmed the text, before she finished and looked at the curious moving pictures again.

"..I've always wanted to get my hands on one of those wizard pictures... and shake it, just to see if the little people inside bounce around.

With a half grin, she handed the paper back and turned her eyes out the window. Cars and people rolled on by, and she relaxed back into her seat a little.

"So... How did you find this school thing? Do you take classes like this regularly?" She had to... if she was dating Gawainya. How else was she supposed to wallop him good when he acted up? Well... she knew there were other ways of winning arguments and dealing with troublesome menfolk. But she was hardly about to assume such a thing of the girl she had only begun to get to know.

Ami seemed smart, and wise for her age. She Megan had no doubt that she knew how to handle herself, and situations. In a way, it was just another thing she was ever so slightly jealous of. When she had been the girls age, she had been a brainless rock in comparison... and she had most definitely paid for it in the long run.

Yeah... maybe self defense classes wouldn't be such a bad idea, especially if she intended to continue trying to stop hoodlums and vandals in the middle of the night.

Amelia laughed at Megan's joke, but a hardcore Potterhead behind them could have burned holes in the woman's neck with her glaring. Luckily, neither of them noticed the curly brown hair or the gold and red scarf.

Amelia took the paper back and folded it into her pocket.

"This is actually my first one," Amelia said. "I train with Mirror in the Danger room all the time. Self Defense and all that. But he's my boyfriend, and God knows we aren't the best sparring partners when we're distracted." She grinned. "I tried out for the X-men and messed up. So I figured I'd take some classes." Her voice dropped a little. The next line she said mainly to herself. "Shame I didn't take any FBI ones when Miri was handing out classes like candy... could have learned lots."

Maybe she needed to get a gun...

"Danger room..?" That was a new word. She'd wandered around the inside of the mansion quite a bit, sure... but most of that time had been spent bothering a mirror shifter and lounging around by the pool. Whatever that room was, though, became unimportant the moment after Ami revealed that she'd attempted to join the X's.

"...Messed up? How?" Maybe whatever tryout thing was, was complicated... Ami seemed pretty smart to her, so paperwork and tests just didn't strike her as a challenge. Megan on the other hand, knew for a fact that tests were her downfall.

And then she mentioned something about FBI, and Megan was drawn from reminiscing about all of the times she had dozed off in classes, and doodled terrible things in the corners of her test papers. "Jesus... FBI classes? ...Bet you'd have been able to snap necks like pretzels, and vanish in plain sight..."

She stretched her back, sore shoulders protesting in the process. Man... doing anything was going to hurt like hell, but she knew she needed it. Not only would it help her get the knots out of her muscles, but on the off chance that she actually learned anything, she'd have new moves for the next time she felt like being a terrible hero.

"Probably." Amelia replied to that last one. She chuckled and muttered to herself. "Maxine wouldn't stand a chance..." To Megan, she said. "The Danger Room is this big holographic training super room the X-men use to beat themselves up in, by the way. And I messed up because Gawain's insane and thought I could handle the emperor from a martial arts movie in hand-to-hand combat. I couldn't."

There. That was all neatly summarized in a single sentence.

The bus rattled along.

She blinked. "You're kidding..."

A giant holographic room where you could make things happen and fight them? Now... that was awesome. Beyond awesome, even. Megan was going to have to get in there at some point and poke around. After adding it to her mental list of things to do in the near future, she turned back to what Ami had said about her training session... thing, with Gawainya.

"Want me to beat him up? Or, better yet... i'll hold him down and you can beat him up." A hoard of things that they could do to him popped to mind, many of which involved spiders, tar, and feathers... but after her short joke, she let it drop.

"So they don't test you guys on real people then... but on computery ones first? Smart... I guess." Kinda seemed... odd, but it was probably much safer than just throwing the recruits out into the street to face down drug dealers and hoodlums.

Yeah, much safer. Better than what she had been doing on her own, too. Practicing on virtual bad guys probably wouldn't end with her fighting her way out of some creepers basement, with a tag along.

... then again, she wouldn't have met Allison either, so... meh. "So... could you like program in anything? Like... King Kong, or Godzilla... and fight them?"

>>"You're kidding."

Nope. She shook her head.

"He can live." She replied, when Megan suggested all the things they could do if they held Gawain down.

... She didn't think on that.

"Yeah. It is pretty smart, I guess." Testing on computers. She agreed, happy for distractions. "Also, pretty neat."

Program anything? Again, she nodded. "Yup. Like martial arts movies, or...well. Simpler things. I guess the limit is one's imagination. And powers work on the fake things like they would on real life. I think.... hm." She thought about it for a second. "Although I don't think I actually got a chance to use my powers on the emperor himself. Just used them against him. So who knows?"

While all sorts of fun sounding battles were running through her imagination, she took a gander out the window. They were rolling through a part of the city that she had never really bothered to pay attention to. It was kind of pretty, and there were random pieces of art scattered about as they passes some type of square outside a large building.

"I sure hope they do, because aside from my kids and the occasional streak of good like I'm pretty bad at hand to hand... or sword to hand, or whatever it is you X's fight with.."

Still, she knew she had a few tricks up her sleeve. Hopefully virtual enemies would be just as easy to trick as most people were.

"...What are your powers anyway, Ami?"

She knew what Mirror could do, which was pretty cool mutation wise, and Ami knew what Megan herself could do. Well, mostly, anyway... But she hadn't so much as seen, or heard of what kind of quirky mutation the girl had. The more she thought about it, the more her curiosity grew.

>>"I sure hope they do, because aside from my kids and the occasional streak of good like I'm pretty bad at hand to hand... or sword to hand, or whatever it is you X's fight with.."

Amelia nodded. Hand-to-hand. Sword-to-hand. "Gun to face." She added to the list. Another nod.

What was her power?

Amelia smirked. "Panty-mancer." Was her reply.

She... stared, for lack of better words.

Megan stared at the girl, blank face, like she had just sprouted wings or announced her herself as the president of Florida.

And then she laughed. More of a cackle really, and slapped a knee. "Oh.. my... god. You're.. you're not kidding, are you?" The images that popped to mine could have been basically stolen from very bad, very cheesy anime shows, and it only made her giggling tenfold. "So... you, like... give people atomic wedgies in the heat of battle? Pleasesayyoudo."

There had to be more to it.. she wanted to believe that with all of her being, but at the same time it was just too perfect. "Good lord, no wonder Gawainya likes you, your smart as a whip and funny as hell to boot!"

Wiping away little gathered tears from the corners of her eyes, she calmed herself with a deep breath and flopped back into her seat. Panty-mancer... Ha! Over the loud speaker on the bus, the driver announced what the next stop would be. Megan glanced back out the window, peered around the bus itself as people gathered their things and prepared to leave, and then pinned her eyes on Ami.

She couldn't get the smirk off her face. "That's our stop, yeah?"

Amelia grinned.

"I make these ghostly hands and they can grab things and pull. So yeah. Psychic atomic wedgies," she confirmed, loving the approval. "Works on other types of clothing, too."

Good times.

The announcement came, and Amelia glanced out the window. Yup. Pretty much nearly there.

"It is," she said. "Oh yeah. I can also feel with my powers, if you were wondering. Aren't I cool?"

Rattle rattle rattle, on went the bus~