Playing Strengths (Miles.)

[Morgan Paige]

Ever since that encounter with the older boy in the training rooms, Morgan had gone to head of staff and requested a new trainer. It wasn't that she didn't like her old trainer, but that she didn't appreciate being used as a pawn about to approach a ticking time bomb of a student. If she ever had to work with another telekinetic again it would be too soon.

Since she was graduating next year, Morgan had been taking her studies seriously, especially when it came to perfecting her powers. And she was happy to be meeting her new trainer today, apparently they would have a lot in common. Hard work ethic, blunt, and not taking crap from anyone.

Walking into the training room with her backpack over her shoulder, Morgan found the right room and double checked the schedule to make sure her name was on it before she entered. When she was sure, she opened the door slowly and stepped inside.

Her new trainer (assuming it was this middle aged man in the room), didn't seem all that intimidating, but she knew that looks could be deceiving. So, throwing on a smile, she approached him and set her things down. It took her another moment to straighten herself out and introduce herself and by now, things felt a little awkward.

"Uh, I hope you're my new trainer. I'm Morgan?" Life could be so awkward when you were so unsure of yourself.

[Miles Degrasse Jones]

    Miles raised an eyebrow as she walked in the room, set down her backpack, and introduced herself. Pretty quickly, Miles could tell she was nervous. Or was it uncomfortable?  Anxious?

    Miles crossed his arms.  "Yes, Morgan Paige.  I'm Mr. Jones, nice to meet you."  Miles turned and walked over to his desk in the corner, and quickly began tapping away at the keyboard.  "Morgan Paige..17.  Visions and future walking."  He looked up at her.  "Spooky stuff.  I've never encountered a skillset such as this."  Miles walked around to the other side of the desk, crossed his arms, and leaned against it.  "So, Morgan, if you were to rate your abilities on a scale of one to ten, one being a brain dead rat, ten being Jesus Christ with a chip on his shoulder, what number would you give me?"

[Morgan Paige]

Being the people pleaser that she was, Morgan was always worried that she came off as an idiot. In reality, she was probably her own worst critic. Her introduction didn't seem to be ill received, so she was already feeling at ease with her new trainer.

"Nice to meet you too," she said, smiling slightly. He was shuffling through something on his computer and Morgan swallowed despite herself. She was quite the model student, was the representative of one of the student clubs, and had good grades. Whatever her file said, it was all positive. She nodded along as he read some information about her out loud. "Should be interesting for both of us then…" Was this guy even trained for this sort of thing? Mr. Jones… It sounded like a fake name.

Morgan stifled a laugh and shifted from foot to foot. "My power? Maybe a four, five on a really bad day. It mostly just affects me, headaches and what not…" But she quickly shut up, because he had probably already read all of these things and was testing her.

"And what's your power?"

[Miles Degrasse Jones]

    "My powers are irrelevant, Ms. Paige." Miles stood. "They don't pay me to make conversation."  Miles stood straight and bit the tip of his thumb.

    Morgan Paige was a tiny thing, but sweet enough. Smiling just enough to defuse any tension in the air. There was a certain judgment in her eyes.  Americans.  Miles spoke to her as he picked up a chair from the corner and brought it to where she was standing.

    "You're going to look at my future, Ms. Paige.  Please, if you see any great tragedies, lie and tell me you see roses and cupcakes."  He sat the chair down next to her.  "If you can't turn it on, well, don't fret because we have an hour and a half  today.  Starting five minutes ago."  He stood back from her and crossed his arms.  

    "In my experience, it helps to close your eyes."  He smirked at himself.  "But I've had a somewhat unique experience, then again."  Miles's opinion of his accent confounded him.  At times, he was embarrassed of it.  These were the times it made him sound brutish.  Other times, he was proud of it.  These were the times he thought it made him sound intimidating and powerful.  His time at Odarennyi had made power a very foreign object to Miles, leaving him plenty of glaring weaknesses to compensate.  As he had been taught, so too did he plan to teach.  He hoped for her sake that she didn't fail too majorly at this first attempt.

    Of course, he expected her to fail.  At least in some capacity.  This first exercise was really just a way for him to gauge where she stood with her powers.  

    "Please, begin." 

    

[Morgan Paige]

"Alright," Morgan said, feeling her face flush red. She was just trying to be polite. But there was probably a reason why Mr. Jones was a trainer, and not a teacher. That job would actually require a personality, and a willingness to try new things over how things have always been done.

She watched as her trainer brought a chair over and smirked at his comment. So was he funny or not? And who was supposed to use the chair? "I'll try," she said, wondering what he was expecting exactly.

Deciding to sit in the chair, Morgan closed her eyes and waited. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do, so she let her thoughts wander. Like why he couldn't share his power, but started talking about his experiences. But nothing about Mr. Jones future was coming to mind. And even if it did, it would probably be insanely boring, and she didn't need to use her power to know that in the next hour or so, they would still be here training.

Opening her eyes, Morgan looked around for her trainer. "I didn't see anything…" She looked at him imploringly. What was she supposed to do exactly?

[Miles Degrasse Jones]

    Miles nodded. "I expected as much." She seemed a little lost. Was this the best Hammel could do? This girl was a senior, and she stared at him like a wandering puppy. He had expected her to be further along then this. Oh well.  This is why I'm here, he figured.

    "The key to controlling your symptoms is controlling your mind."  He tapped the side of his head.  "A runner runs.  A writer writes.  A meta with mental abnormalities trains his or her head.  Control is more than closing your eyes for a few seconds and hoping something happens.  It requires more than a brief moment of effort."

    "Maybe in classes like English you can get your A with minimal effort.  Maybe your former trainer would allow you to blink and then resign yourself to failure."  He shrugged.  "I will not.  Again.  Focus.  Your mind should feel mine.  You should be aware of my presence in this room, even with your eyes closed, if you have been taught anything at all before you walked into my class today.  We all have certain energies, and someone with manifestations like yours ought to be able to find and grasp on to these energies.  Do not wait for my energy to come to you.  Find me, get a hold on me, and make me show you the future.  If you see anything at all, tell me. At this point I will be impressed if you can even get a hold on to my metaphysical form."

    "Now, again."  Miles waited.

[Morgan Paige]

In Morgan's defence, she was only graduating next year, and it was damn near impossible to know when her power decided to her show her anything from someone's future. She looked around and then stared at the floor, trying not to feel disappointed in herself. If she knew what to do, she wouldn't be here.

"Well then you should've told me that instead of just close your eyes…" She muttered, crossing her arms in front of her chest. This guy was going to end up being worse than her old trainer, wasn't he? Her eyebrows furrowed, how did he know what kind of effort she put forth when he wasn't even bothering to ask? Ass.

Not closing her eyes this time, Morgan watched her trainer, everything from the way he stood there arrogantly, to the way his mouth shaped every word. He was saying a lot of words and not being very helpful. But she felt the world twitch before her and the not so distant future came into view.

Morgan took a deep breath as things returned to normal and she blinked, quickly rising from her chair. "You don't want to sit on that," she said, glancing at the chair and then back to Mr. Jones, warning in her eyes.

[Miles Degrasse Jones]

    Miles smirked. "Thank you for the warning.  Was it so, so hard? Don't tell me I'm going to have to piss you off every single time I want you to use your power."  Miles walked behind her and picked up the chair, moving it back to the corner. "I can manipulate electricity and take on an electric form," he said as he walked back towards her. "As you might can guess, I am in somewhat new territory with your powers. So you will forgive me if I am not always the godsend you must've expected."

    "That mental energy I mentioned is the foundation for your control. Once you learn to recognize and take advantage of these energies, you can move on to controlling your visions." Miles walked back over to the desk. "Luckily, you can practice this outside of this room. That's your homework assignment, if you were wondering." He smirked.

    "Don't worry about the future quite so much this time. Just locate my presence. I won't know that you're doing it-telepaths and other metas with powers similar to yours can, but I cannot. If you lie about your results-which, to be fair to you, I don't expect you to do-you will only be hurting your own progress."

    "Try again, with less griping this time."

[Morgan Paige]

Morgan's eyebrow twitched. How did he know she wasn't lying unless he actually sat on the chair to test the theory? But it was for the best that he didn't. Still, wasn't it unchecked emotions that got metas into trouble? He probably shouldn't be testing that theory with students. And then he was ranting about his power? Honestly, why couldn't he have said that before? You know, when he decided sharing his power wasn't necessary. Obviously he was on a power trip... In the regular sense.

Listening as he explained the homework assignment, Morgan was still confused as to what he wanted her to do. Get emotional and somehow harness that energy into working her power? And what was he talking about presence for? This is what she got for requesting a new trainer...

Morgan looked at him and attempted to repeat what she had done before, but she wasn't angry anymore. She was over his macho attitude, and if he thought what she was doing was griping, well, he obviously hadn't met the majority of the student population. But still, she wasn't able to see anything in his near future.

The only future she wanted to see, was one without him in it.

[Miles Degrasse Jones]

    Miles pinched his nose. This wasn't going so well so far.  He had expected more..focus, or cooperation, or..something, from these kids. He couldn't see what he was doing wrong.

    "Alright alright alright." Miles ran a hand through the small amount of hair he still had. "You tried, so, there's that."  He tried to remember everything Connor had explained to him about the energy, the "presence" that everyone had but few could see and interact with.  Because of the nature of her powers, Miles figured that Morgan must be one of those people.

    "It has been a long day for me, Ms. Paige.  I am new, after all."  He frowned and sat on his desk. "You are going to have to work with me. I don't expect you to like me and I couldn't care less whether you do or not."  Miles had taken note of her eyebrow twitching and the incessant look on her face.  He wasn't sure how he was going to get to her, to make her understand what he was trying to do, but he knew no other way than what he was doing.  He wasn't a friendly man, nor would he ever be. 

    He shrugged.  "I am not sure how else I can explain it to you.  It is very complicated, I know."  He scratched his temple.  He wasn't really sure where to go from here.  He wasn't sure how to reconcile the situation with his pupil, nor would he care to if the circumstances were any different.

    "Maybe..maybe I confused you?  With the 'piss you off' thing earlier?  You don't have to be emotional to access peoples' energies, I just meant that pissing you off seemed to get you in the right mindset.  It requires focus is all I mean."

    "I am trying to work with you, and that happens rarely.  Work with me.  Ask questions.  I can't help you if I don't know what you're thinking.  What's not getting through?"

    

[Morgan Paige]

This man seemed to be living in a totally different century. If he thought he was going to get by with such a shitty attitude, then he was going to have a hard time meeting all the needs of the very diverse student population. But that wasn’t Morgan’s problem, and it was probably going to be more annoying to him if she didn’t say much of anything.

“Mmm,” Morgan said, showing little to no sympathy for his first day. It was his job. Her eyes narrowed and she shrugged. “I’m glad we’re on the same page then,” she crossed her arms in front of her, “I’m giving you my best, just like you’re giving me yours.” She was working with him – she hadn’t left yet.

“I don’t need it explained to me, I’ll figure it out as we go,” she said, giving half a smile and pushing her hair out of her face. She was determined to learn, even from the most oafish of teachers.

“You yourself said it would take some time Mr. Jones, you’ll have to be patient with me.” And their future probably wasn’t that exciting. “I can only see the near future, something that will or can happen during the day, so I’ll try and see what else I can… see…” She flushed and stared past him rather than directly at him.

But her mind wandered. Maybe she should just go into reading palms or something, become rich… But that wouldn’t challenge her. And neither was this.

“I think I just need to take a short break right now?” She said, forming the statement into a question.