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 Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 2:41 am
It was their fifth week of training. The only thing that Raleigh had managed to do was start a few on going jokes with Ace and get his fan broken when he witnessed the rare anger resulting from frustration of the happy-go-lucky teenager. Each session Ace would always START making something work, and it had seemed longer two sessions ago, but..well, his storming out fifteen minutes into the last one had meant it was the least productive one.
Ace had zipped into the hologram room for his next so-called training session with Raleigh a good ten minutes early. That gave him time to play with the hologram program and when Raleigh entered, Ace had already put in what was his favorite scene - that of sitting on a mountain cliff around sunset - but had distorted many of the colors so that it was... like they were in a painting of an extremely color-challenged artist.
"Sushi Raleigh! Hey! Question for you! Do you wanna take on another student? Her name's Ms. Perfection. She's just like Dad. Except without all the work to do. But her powers are opposite mine, so they'd probably cancel out. So...I guess instead of seeing me twice a week, you'd have to see us separate and once a week, huh?" He grinned.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 2:52 am
Raleigh didn’t know whether he looked forward to Ace’s training sessions or dreaded it with every fiber of his being. On one side Ace could be so amusing that Raleigh would have to fight himself just to keep the laughter buried, and the kid was someone to spend time with now that Ruri and Ai weren’t around. On the bad side, he was just so damn difficult and confusing, and Ra was fairly sure he hadn’t learnt ANYTHING during training… except maybe a few interesting swear words from when Raleigh lamented his woes aloud.
Today Raleigh walked into a mountain scene that made his eyes hurt and his brain complain. Not a good start. Ace was looking just as annoying as always; grinning like a madman. Bad, bad start. Though Ra was a bit surprised to see him there so early. Usually it took ten minutes before the boy finally dragged himself in and then, if it was a good day, another five before he actually took his place on the floor.
Ra did not grin back at Ace. “Apparently I don’t have the ability to train one person, let alone your sister. If she’s anything like you I think I’ll pass.” He considered the option of just curling up on the floor and going to sleep… just for the hell of it, but then scratched the idea. He would probably wake up with a moustache and swirls draw all over his face. "Tell Ms. Perfection that if she signs a contract saying she'll actually listen, I'll consider training her."
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:00 am
Ace rolled his eyes, hitting the mountain scene so it went to Raleigh's favorite -- he wouldn't argue the point today, he wanted Raleigh on his side. "Joy's nothing like me. She's Ms. Perfection, I told you. Straight A's, always clean, always near and dear to what the rules say. Politically correct. You'd get along great with her, she's worse than the adults! BIGGEST headache in the wooorld!! She already bought some meditation tapes when I said what they're doing with me." He rolled his eyes. "She's every adult's utopia in a kid." Ace sounded decidedly unhappy about it. "And you're getting paid anyway, and she's a better test-rat than I am, you should go for it."
As he spoke, Ace paced-paced-paced and waved his hands around to demonstrate what he was saying. Always a fountain of barely contained energy.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:11 am
“She sounds wonderful.” Not even Ace could miss the sarcasm that positively dripped from that sentence. Raleigh settled himself down on the ground, on his knees, and watched his student pace around as he talked. It was exhausting just watching it. “Don’t think I do this just because I’m getting money for it.” Okay, so he’d only learnt about that part a few weeks ago, when he had wondered aloud over where that odd $100 had come from.
“Alright, if you really want me to, I’ll give training her a shot.” Ra caved in, giving a shrug of his shoulders and nod of his head in acquiescence. “Now, are we going to get started or am I going to have to wrestle you to the ground?” The fan was missing from the scene. Ra hadn’t found time to buy a new one after the last one had been shredded to pieces.
As his mind kicked in he mulled over the girls abilities. Ace increased powers, and so she must decrease them. Well, that would be interesting. “Ace, bring Ms. Perfection with you to our next training session. We can work out separate training schedules after that.”
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:16 am
"Great! She'll like that. You will like her too. Everyone does," Ace nodded and bounded to the ground, doing his usual collapse from upright to indian-legged, to half-lying down, to dragging his legs up under him, "What's a good food that has lots of garlic in it? Garlic cloves are best."
Of all the inane questions he tended to ask, this one actually seemed to hold a sort of somberness to it.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:21 am
“I – what?” Apparently Raleigh hadn’t yet come to terms with Ace’s ability to change subjects and jump onto weird tangents at the drop of a hat just yet. He stared at the boy across from him and then, despite his more intelligent brain sides advice, decided to answer the question. “Italian food always has a lot of garlic in it. You can usually find third rate restaurants that put a truckload of garlic in to over up the fact that their food and ingredients are crap.”
Raleigh didn't really want to ask 'why?' and so he didn't just watched his student with a vaguely puzzled expression.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:27 am
"Italian? Like...pizza? Garlic pizza might be a good idea." He nodded, "Cool! Thanks! And maybe I'll add some too... and maybe I could decorate some cloves and give it to them. That'd be neat! People decorate pumpkins and other things, I bet they never decorated garlic cloves before...Joy might even want to do that! I bet if we found a market stop they'd be more garlic-y too.. Do you know how to pick out good cloves?"
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:33 am
“Ugh.” Raleigh had no idea where this was going but he was beginning to wish he hadn’t woken up that morning. But he surprised himself when he answered, without even thinking about it. “Some people use garlic as decorations anyway, stringing them up in the kitchen. As for picking them, go for the ones with a purplish tint. If they are pure white it means they’ve been bleached. Oh, and the firmer they are the better as well… Okay, there’s a vampire in your closet, right?” Raleigh closed his eyes and sighed.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:37 am
Ace listened with perhaps the most attention he'd ever voluntarily paid to Raleigh, and then definitely got the most somber look he'd ever had with him without first being bullied into it somehow. He shrugged and settled himself more correctly in the meditating position, "Maybe we should start," He mumbled, eyebrows creased in a worried expression now.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:42 am
If Raleigh hadn’t been kneeling, he would have fallen over. After weeks of what felt hitting a brick wall, here Ace was, looking deadly serious and ready to be instructed. Ra reached out a pressed the back of his hand to Ace’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay?” Looking genuinely worried, Ra mentally likened this to a case of the body snatchers.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:46 am
Ace winced back from Raleigh, but couldn't move much from his position, "I'M fine! It's my Dad and Uncle Charles I'm worried about! I'm afraid Uncle Charles is already in it too deeply, and Dad might be too, and it's AWFUL, and I hate it, and it worries me, and they're gonna die and be undead if it's not already too late, and---and THEN what's gonna happen to the world??"
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:52 am
For a time Raleigh was speechless. He might have pronounced Ace’s words ridiculous if he had not seen the earnest worry in the younger boys face. Dropping his hands back to his lap he considered his next words carefully before speaking them. “What exactly is wrong with them? What are they getting too deeply into?” While he was fairly sure Charles wasn’t a vampire, or a zombie for that matter, he wanted to know what could this sort of change in his ‘star’ pupil. It was probably nothing, but he figured it was good to ask.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:55 am
"Dad is having his life sucked out of him, and I'm pretty sure it's a vampire, and I think it must be Uncle Charles...maybe Uncle Charles is too OBVIOUS, but maybe that's what he wants us to think too, or maybe he wasn't at one time, but he was the first target, and now he's changed, and it's Uncle Charles' turn...Uncle Charles has had his life sucked out TOO...and I don't want to be the NEXT one, and I don't want Joy to be either or anyone else and I HATE it and---" He took a breath for the first time, "---and it's been going on too long and it's time to do something about it and fight back, or the whole WORLD will be doomed like me---I mean, like them!"
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 4:02 am
How does a person reply to rhat exactly? Ace was deadly serious as he proclaimed that the life was being sucked out the head of the NSA and that he was possibly some sort of vampire that also sucking the life out of Ace's dad and that the world would soon be doomed. Okay, that was obviously ridiculous. Wasn’t it? Well, Ace was certain there was some problem, so maybe he wasn't all wrong. “What can we do about it?”
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 8:32 am
"Well, we start by making them aware of the problem. I think garlic cloves can do that, and if it's a traditional type of problem, then that'll make them aware of it AND...and...well, I don't wanna kill them, that's the whole point...or not the point, the whole opposite idea, I guess...and then...then we FIX it." Ace frowned with concern. He leaned back on the palms of his hands now, shifting his legs to a more comfortable position so he could. "It's evil-awful stuff! I'm not sure what to do. They'll expect ME, so I gotta find a dif---Hey! Do you think you could help? Would you?" He looked hopefully at the other teenager.
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