Recent Posts

A mineshaft? Very cool. Locke loved subways. It felt right to be surrounded on all sides by the earth. The mineshaft was going to be actual earth, not blocked off by cement and steel girders, with, hopefully, a healthy vein of some unknown mineral that he could have fun with. The usually stoic Locke felt unnaturally giddy. He wondered if he was getting to be hyper because of those stones that had the energy inside of them.

Locke remained still, though Fluffy turned towards the movement as Sam approached it. His attention was too much on keeping it from crumbling to pay attention on what was being said to him. The words were heard, but just barely. For the Californian it was just unnecessary information. What he was aware of was how Sam's weight shifted, away from Fluffy and towards himself. It was so sudden that Locke's instincts kicked in and Fluffy moved to defend him. The earth golem had a surprising speed given that it was made of dirt. Nobody thinks of dirt or stones as having any sort of speed to them, and the grainier the material, the easier it was to move. Fluffy had moved to defend Locke, but the teen didn't even flinch.

As the room changed Locke let out a low whistle. Lovecraft had been an interesting program, but it didn't have this scenery. Had he not witnessed the change Locke would have believed that he was actually outside. It certainly looked real enough, and, closing his eyes, it felt real. "I don't know what half this is," Locke confessed, a little awed. The Danger Room had given him a virtual playground of different materials to work with. Some of the rocks had such energy inside of them, still remembering what had formed them. A grin split his face. Hell yeah! This was going to be good. "There's a hole," Locke started, paused, then corrected himself, "An empty space.. a tunnel or something?" Sam had wanted to know what he could feel. He didn't need to know that Locke felt like a kid who had been given a hundred dollar bill and sent into a candy store.

Sam made his golem, and Locke shivered, the cold waves bothering him even with the distance between the two of them. Now he also felt cold. That was going to be a major challenge for Locke to try to get over. Not only was the cold going to distract him, but if the ground was frozen it wasn't going to want to respond as quickly. Locke took a deep breath and began making his own golem. It was just slightly taller than him, and thanks to using a softer material, much more solid in the chest area. Fluffy's hands were massive things, two fingers, but no thumbs. Stray dirt tumbled as the mouth gap widened. Locke's eye glossed over.

It occurred to Locke that his earth sense was so much more sharp if he was looking at the world through the golem, and he got a better sense of what that tunnel he had felt was. The different rocks did not reveal their name, but he knew instantly what was going to work, and what was going to be stubborn with him. Sam and his golem did not have any height in Locke/Fluffy's eyes, simply contact with the ground, pressure points on the vibes that gave him sight.

Count me in

"Thanks. I guess it's because of the bass or maybe my powers?" Briefly Locke considered dragging out the argument that a Disney movie couldn't teach you proper posture. They were cartoons after all, and there was a certain level of noodle to the skeleton. In the older ones like Cinderella, perhaps, but even the Fairy Godmother had an exaggerated figure. It would have been a stupid argument though, and in the end Elise was the one who knew how to dance. She probably used the same example for the little kids she taught.

But more than likely not that bit about teenage boys. Her comment that he was doing a good job had been a nice surprise. Hightops weren't meant for doing the cha-cha and Locke felt clumsy. To hear that he was doing the motions right was pleasing. To hear what she believed was on his mind threw him off balance. "Oh really? That's how we like it? I'm gonna guess your brother told you that. Probably to keep you safe from guys like me, who's going to say the exact same thing when his little sister gets a little older. I'll have to warn Chris with girls too if this dance thing works."

He followed her examples and held his hands up, then had to pause and correct his stance yet again. "I feel like I'm a crab," he said. Probably was because he had been holding his arms so tight. Learning to dance would be a good thing. Locke had wanted to do something more physical that had absolutely nothing to do with Fluffy anyways.

C is for cookie, and cha-cha and that's good enough for...[/i] Locke's train of thought was derailed on the bridge, went flying into the canyon below, and exploded in a fire display that could only be matched by the Mythbusters with a cannon full of coffee creamer. Instantly his head snapped down to his feet and he wanted to fix his hair. He should have known that this was going to happen, but Locke just couldn't help himself. "Uh... right." Locke fought with his head and managed to get it at the proper level. Once again he attempted the steps, but he was concerned that he'd step on Elise's foot and the movements weren't as big as before.

Locke’s stomach sank. He didn’t know what compelled him to ask the question in the first place, but with the knowledge that she was there came a terror that he had hurt her. The fountain had hurt him when he made it explode, and he knew that he wasn’t the only one. A person dressed as a zombie had gotten gravel shot as well, and they hadn’t been much farther than Locke was to the fountain. It had been him who caused the fountain’s destruction, he knew that, even if he couldn’t really remember doing it. Locke had made enough failed golems to know what it looked like. “I think I might have run into you there. I was the one with the pig head.”. He didn’t want to ask the question that was on his mind. Did she get hit by the fountain?

“I don’t really remember what happened, but something went wrong, and some people got hurt because of me,” Locke’s eyebrows knitted together with worry once again. “Did you get hurt there?” Locke had no idea why he had chosen to defend himself with such a hard material. It wasn’t like he had been trapped inside a building where concrete was the softest material he had to work with. His feet had been on simple, soft dirt.

With the brilliant flash of light the Jigsaw part of Locke stopped existing, at least the part that knew his life was literally out of order and had been plotting something sinister. Instead he was just a boy who found himself frozen to the ground, body shaking. This was it. He had finally gone totally blind and now was lost in Central Park. Then common sense shook off the snow and kicked him in the rear with its boots. He had gotten blinded for a minute by the flash of light, his eye needing to adjust. Half of the world was still visible, though the sight wasn't a pleasant one. It was just the tiny vibrations that made up the entire other half that had gone away.

And this was really gone. He'd overworked himself before so much that he passed out and the earth vibrations were small enough to be almost unnoticeable, but they still were there. Locke reached out, trying to sense something... but there was nothing. When he had destroyed the fountain it had just been in his range. Now he was in Gemma's. The sensation was terrible. Almost as bad was the sudden realization that there was something painful, large, and sharp embedded in his knee. Without his powers Locke couldn't tell that he had stone in him. Next time you come into the city you're going to end up dead. he warned himself, biting back another noise of pain. Jigsaw had been aware of the stone. Locke hadn't until just now.

"Ballroom dancing huh?" he asked. The words brought to his mind women in dresses that had skirts that were big enough to be a small tent gliding across a dance floor while the same sort of sappy music that he had mocked at the last dance. Locke had no problem with slow music. He loved Exhibit Thirteen by Blue Man Group. The romance wasn't an issue either. Eight Days A Week was one of his most frequently played songs, and he sang it to Mai as a lullabye. But why oh why did it always have to be something all schmaltzy and cheese at dances? Although... Locke had to admit even those dances that required the tent dresses and tuxes would be an improvement of his current dance repertoire, which consisted of "Move like an Emu",the "Romp-omp-a-stomp" and the most humiliating moves that one only does behind a closed door when a good song comes on, and stops faster than the speed of sound when someone enters. "You could be teaching me how to do ballet and call it tap and I wouldn't be able to say you're wrong." he pointed out. If anyone should be concerned about looking stupid it should be him.

The tango went flying out the window like the ex's clothes after a bad break up. He'd seen Rent and Moulin Rouge and knew that a tango was something very.. close and personal. Just the slightest suggestion of dancing like that made his ears burn and he knew that they had gained a red hue. No way was he doing that, especially not if this was his birthday present. Waltz got tossed out as well because well, he didn't want to have to try doing all that glitz and glam stuff. Besides he could always have Kendra show him how to do that if he ever was going to have to slow dance with a girl. "Oh, by the way, Kendra mailed me my bass for my birthday. If you want maybe I could teach you the basics for your present? I don't have an amp, so it won't sound as good but still..." he let his voice trail off as he made sure that his laptop was safe and secure in the center of the desk.

That out of the way he took a step back, his face echoing Elise's smile. The expression came easily, but it felt strange after so much brow furrowing and clenched jaws from his struggles with school. Right now he could have been enduring a torture more painful than ever spoken at the World Summit, physics, but he had chosen to take Elise up on her offer rather than being his usual responsible self. New York and the Institute were doing so much more for him then all those head-shrinks that Kendra had made him see back in San Francisco combined. "Swing sounds good," Locke decided at last. Unknowingly he had dodged a bullet as potentially as dangerous as the tango. Locke put his left hand on his right shoulder, fingers wrapping down to rest on the shoulder blade and gave it a small roll. As per usual he felt a slight click-pop that made his arm feel loose. Then he repeated the action for the left side. "That's got energy right?"

Clearly Elise was going to be teaching the clueless.