fandomhigh | Creative Problem Solving, Tuesday, period 3

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Creative Problem Solving, Tuesday, period 3

The Danger Shop today was programmed to look like the courtyard in front of a large, swanky mansion, with four sets of elegant French doors closed on what looked like quite the elegant gala going on inside. Eliot stood with his arms crossed next to a fountain in the middle of the courtyard, nodding to the students as they came in.

Parker was wearing a cocktail dress. That was her only apparent concession to the venue; her hair wasn’t done, she wasn’t wearing jewelry. Or make-up. Or shoes.

“Today instead of busting out? You’re busting in. Although, you know, if you want to be subtle, you can do that too.”

"Behind us is the party of the year. Full of rich, influential people, good music, and some of the finest damn fondue you're gonna get outside of southern Europe." If Eliot did say so himself. "To get in, you gotta get past one of these four people." He hit a button and a simulated doorman appeared in front of each of the french doors. Two looked just like him, only in different outfits. Two looked just like Parker.

"How you do that is up to you. You could dress up and try to look all fancy and talk your way in. You could dress down an' tell 'em you're staff and talk your way in. You could distract 'em and sneak your way in. You could try fighting 'em." He smiled. "That's usually my favorite, but not usually for gettin' in."

Parker rolled her eyes at that. “Anyway, there are security guys around. I won’t say how many. So if you do decide to start a fight, it probably won’t finish up one-on-one. Have an exit plan!” She shook a finger at them. “Remember! Only people who can’t run go to jail for assault with a deadly weapon!”

Eliot frowned. "That is not a saying." Just so the kids understood that. "Parker just made that up."

Which wasn't saying it wasn't true.

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"Well aincha just as sweet as mint julep." The sim stepped aside. "Get that sweet ass in there, then, honey!"

Kathy paused a moment more, eye twitching and fist clenching. She could totally take this guy out, she really could. She could have him down on his ass before he even saw her move...

But that wasn't the point. Nope, she was supposed to get into the party. Which she could do. By not hauling off and punching this guy in the chin. Yup. Gonna just swallow down that temper and feminism and walk into the party.

"Oh, wait," she cooed. "Give me your cellphone, handsome? I want to give you my number in case I have trouble finding you later."

She was gonna text-to-donate something like a hundred bucks to different charities.

"An' aincha clever just as well as smaht!" The sim patted down his jacket pockets. "Where'n tarnation did ah put that phone? Hang on now justa tic, ah got it heah somewheah. . . ."

"Yep," Kathy said, her smile more like a grimace now. "Clever and smart, that's me."

When the sim couldn't find his phone after thirty seconds of searching, Kathy just waved it away. "Look, my dad's expecting me. I'll just make sure to look for you extra hard or something. Okay? See ya."

It was more a stiff-legged march rather than a seductive stroll as Kathy made her way past the sim towards the party.

"You betcha."

What?

The sim saluted with his corncob pipe, reaching out to give Kathy a little goose as she went by.

Yeah, see, Kathy had kinda expected this. She hadn't grown up in LA her whole life and somehow miss out on the different flavors of asshole who populated it. So as soon as she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, she was whirling around to stop him.

Her own hand darted out to snatch his wrist in mid-air before he had a chance to touch her and she yanked on it, hard, pulling him forward and off-balance. That was followed by a knee to his gut as he stumbled forward, and then she was spinning back out of the way to deliver an elbow to the back of his head as he fell.

She was a blur of motion, easily three times faster than most people could dream of moving. The tiny heels she wore never so much as wavered beneath her, the insane agility her weird mutation (or whatever) had granted her making them as sturdy as regular sneakers. They did, however, make for an excellent point--ha ha--when she pressed one against the back of his neck.

"Let me give you a few pointers," she said. "Mind your manners and treat women with respect, honey. Because the next time you go to grab someone's ass, they might not be as ladylike as I am and really beat your ass. Got it?"

She was tempted to kick him once more, but she felt she'd made her point. And Banzai didn't go for gratuitous violence when she could help it. "Call your mother and tell her how you talk to women. See what she thinks about it. Now you stay as you are and think about this, you hear me?"

And with that, Kathy stepped over the sim's prone and groaning form and swept into the party, head high.

Damn, that felt good.

It was very, very strange watching a clone of himself get his ass kicked by a tiny teenager.

Eliot kind of hoped the Danger Shop had recorded that, anyway.

"Nicely done," he said, as the sim glitched out and vanished before resetting.

Hey now! Kathy was a perfectly respectable 5'7! That was pretty tall for a girl!

...But, yeah, okay, the rest of her was pretty tiny, true.

"I made it into the party," Kathy challenged, as if Eliot had just accused her, rather than complimenting her. "Twice."

Beat.

"I mean, thank you."

Yeah, well, Eliot was 5'8" and probably weighed twice what Kathy did. So: tiny.

He raised his hands in surrender. "You won't get any guff from me," he said. "Where'd you learn to take a guy out like that?"

She was so fast!

Easily twice what she did. Which people would be hard-pressed to believe if they saw her eating.

"I've taken a few fighting classes here and I had my roommates show me a few tricks," Kathy hedged. Because there was all the fighting in Baltimore and those powers of hers. Neither were exactly secret? But it seemed like a good time to play things a little close to the chest. "I usually end up using a lot of gymnastics moves, though. You'd be surprised at how useful a routine can be when you focus the moves on bringing someone down."

Eliot snorted softly. "I've been teachin' Parker moves for years," he said. "She's basically gymnast herself. Ain't that surprisin'."

Kathy knew there was a reason Parker was one of her favorite teachers!

"Okay, well, maybe you don't be surprised but lots of other people would be." The corners of her mouth turned ever-so-slightly downwards. "I catch a lot of flack for that. Using gymnastic moves and equipment in fights instead of, like, real weapons or whatever. But I'm not all that strong and I don't like guns, so I figure it's better for me to work with what I know."

Which, funnily enough, involved using her body's weight and momentum as...leverage.~~I COULDN'T NOT IT WAS A MORAL IMPERATIVE I REGRET NOTHING.~~

"Guns are terrible weapons," Eliot said. "They have one function and a very limited range of efficacy." Oh sure, Kathy, get him started. "And who the hell cares how you get it done so long as you're gettin' it done without injurin' yourself?"

What was it with these students and thinking using everything they had at their disposal was somehow not the right way to do things?

Oh, Eliot. You did not want to hear about where Kathy's self-esteem issues came from. There wasn't even anyone around for you to hit!

Kathy gave a diffident shrug and dropped her eyes. "You know. People." Very helpful, Kathy. Good job. "I'm just a kid after all and who's gonna take a tiny girl in rainbows waving weighted gymnastic ribbons around seriously."

Another beat.

"Hypothetically, I mean."

Good save!

. . . Okay, gymnastic ribbons were a little weird. But then again, he'd just been thinking last week about the ninja rope tricks the girl with the hair could get up to, and so long as the ribbons were strong enough. . . .

"If they ain't takin' you seriously, you can catch 'em by surprise," Eliot said. "That right there is an advantage, not a drawback."

Not when it was your potential partners that discounted you.

Kathy was going to keep that little bit of self-pity to, well, herself, instead reaching for her backpack and pulling out one of her ribbons to give to Eliot to examine. The handle was made of hollow plastic that Kathy had drilled a hole into and then filled with metal. She couldn't tell you what kind of metal it was, since she'd done all the melting, drilling, and filling in the high school's metal shop, but it was heavy and that was all she worried about. The handle was then wrapped with duct tape, and the ribbons were reinforced by thin strips of wire she'd painstakingly sewed into the fabric following the weft.

In short, they looked pretty ridiculous. Kathy was neither a seamstress nor a metal-worker and the end result was fairly crude.

"I know it doesn't look like much," she mumbled, studying her feet. "The duct tape keeps the plastic from cracking and gives me a better grip. And it took me a couple of attempts to find a way to strengthen the ribbons while keeping them flexible."

Eliot gave it a good, long look, checking the heft of the handle and wiggling the ribbons a little to see how they moved. "Low-tech, but it looks effective enough." It wasn't as though every fighter out there could get their hands on fancy toys. He handed the ribbon back to her. "Mind showin' me what you can do with 'em?"

That had Kathy looking back up and giving him a small smile. "Okay," she said. "Mind if I use that sim again?"

She didn't wait for an answer, making a slipknot in her ribbon and sliding her hand into it. She tightened the knot around her palm to get a decent grip and then whipped the handle forward to slam into the sim's temple. "I'm a rhythm gymnast," she explained. "Or, well, I guess I used to be, back when I was still taking lessons and competing and stuff." She yanked on the ribbon again and the handle came sailing back to her. "So I learned how to do a lot of ribbon and rope tricks. If you give me a target, I can hit it."

Shaking her hand free, she grabbed onto the handle and widened the knot, then flung the ribbon end back at the sim. It settled over his shoulders and Kathy yanked again. This time, however, it acted as a lasso, the knot tightening around the sim's shoulders and holding fast.

Then she peeked back at Eliot to see what he thought. "I do more stuff, but that's the gist. At least when I'm standing still."

Which was all she was going to do until she was certain he wouldn't think that she was, like, bragging or something. Sure, he'd asked for a demonstration, but that didn't mean he'd actually wanted one.

Which, again, probably told Eliot more about her than Kathy really intended him to know.

She could beat that sim into the floor all she wanted, and all Eliot would do was maybe critique her form.

Eliot was nodding, eyebrows raised approvingly. His arms were crossed, but that was more his default standing position than any body language to be read into. "Not bad." He stepped forward, unfolding his arms. "If you adjust your stance a little, though. . . ." He demonstrated next to her, not sure if she'd be open to him shifting her directly. "Get a little more grounded and move through the hip, you'll have more power on the extension, and a more stable ground to pull back from."

Oh, pfft, the sim. Yeah, Kathy had no problems making that guy hurt.

"You mean, like this?" Kathy asked, trying to mimic his movements and..mostly?...succeeding. "Before I throw or take a swing, you mean?"

Pretty much all of her training had been in gymnastics, which didn't really focus on the power so much.

"Bend your knees a little more. Really settle your weight into the balls of your feet," Eliot suggested. "Before, during, and after. You wanna make sure you can move, but no one can move you. And when you're throwin', the movement should come from your whole body. Let the energy start in your grounded legs and extend up through your torso, then your arm sends it out with the ribbon."

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Creative Problem Solving, Tuesday, period 3

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