New Trainee (Leo)

[Karina M. Robertson]

✥

The ride from New Hampshire had been a long one last night, and after all the "welcome back"s and the unpacking and the catching up with old friends, the telepathic wanted nothing more than to rest her mind, to find a place where her mind could rest as she escaped the noise of everyone's thoughts.
Where better than the library, right?

Karina knows these's shelves better than Ella might, for this place has been like an oasis for her since she first came here all those years ago. Sometimes, when she walks among the towering shelves, and feels like it was only yesterday her 11 year old self found this place, finally relieved that she found a place where she could hide for a few hours when she needed to. Now she walks among the vast amount of book, a black bag in one hand as she head over to one of the desks by the Tall and narrow windows, setting her bag on the table and getting out her laptop, preparing for an afternoon of writing goodness.

Besides, there was no better place to write than in here.

[Leo Rhodes]

Leo wasn’t one to be confined in a building. He was normally outside, driving his Impala, or outside in general, or even at the Churchkey shooting pool and drinking. Leo just wasn’t one to be in an office, no matter that he was relatively new and now with more students, all the trainers were becoming busier with students. They were crawling all over the school now, seniors and freshmen, and if Leo was the pervy type, he’d be checking out all the pretty girls.

Scratch that, he did it anyway.

Walking around in his jeans and leather jacket, a white v neck showing off his collarbone, and his boots, he’d warranted more than a few stares from some of the female body, and it made him feel like a king. Thoughts filtered to and from his brain as he picked up on uncontrolled trains of thought, most about school and the opposite sex and food, and above all sleep. And to think he’d been one of those people before.

Walking inside, Leo picked on more thoughts from the students inside, and from a young telepath in the library. Intriguing. Might as well say hello, hmm? He strolled into the library and spotted her. Hmm, favorite color was blue, and she liked to write, he surmised as he approached her. Pretty, brunette, too young for his tastes. Ah well, he could just watch and admire.

Stopping by a bookcase, he picked a book up and flipped it open, but didn’t read it, instead projecting his thoughts into the young girl. ”What are you writing about, hmm?” he asked in a teasing, provocative tone, his voice smooth and dark like chocolate. Oh, Rhodes, don’t tease the poor girl, but teasing was part of the fun to see what she was like, hmm?

[Karina M. Robertson]

The voice caught her off-guard, and she nearly dropped her bag in the process before putting it one the floor gently. As soon she heard the "suave and smooth" voice, her happy mood almost instantly dropped. She was looking for some alone time, not flirt time-- trust me, she had enough of that on her trip out in Scotland. If Nous were here, which is was shocking that she wasn't, she would've said something ridiculously sarcastic but say it in a way that sounds like she might actually do it. The brunette continues to power her little laptop, and suddenly, her drown eyes lit up with an idea.
Why not copy Nous' example, Karina?

With that being decided, the young telepathic shifted her position slightly, looking casual as she began typing something for her dream-journal while replying to the older man not actually reading a book" Oh, you know, just how to kill a minor with nothing but barbwire and nail polish remover-- nothing much really." Her smile was very casual, as was her tone, and she swears she could hear Nous' unmistakable chuckle in the backgrounds of her mind.

[Leo Rhodes]

Oh, he’d caught her by surprise. It was lovely, really, to see them when their guard was down. But in all seriousness, if she didn’t learn how to keep her shields up, someone a lot more devious and evil than Leo was gonna come along and mess her up, and no matter how messed up Leo was in the personality department, he didn’t like the thought of his students being messed with when they had the power, no pun intended, to protect themselves.

She shifted, and her voice in his head was actually amusing. Sure, she was sarcastic, he could hear it under the casual tone, but the way that she said it, with a smile on her face, made him like her. She knew how to have fun. Closing the book, he slowly approached her and sat in the chair opposite her, leaning forward on his elbows while looking her over. She had potential; why not snag her when he had the chance?

“I like you, you’re spunky,” he said casually, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up. He linked his fingers over his abdomen and looked at her, piercing blue eyes falling under his dark hair. “And you know how to make me chuckle, which is good. Telepath too, right up my alley. Tell me, you got a trainer for your abilities yet, or are you gonna let some crazy man like myself run amok in your head?” he said smoothly, smiling crookedly at her.

[Karina M. Robertson]

She raised an eyebrow at his first spoken line, looking over her screen with her eyes and feeling a bit ticked off when he propped his feet on the table."Oh, you think so?" Karina replied, eyes wandering back to the screen as she types, still listening though her eyes were somewhere else. She had been called many things: rude, sarcastic, smart-mouthed, smart-ass, but spunky was a rare on in her case. Guess many people didn't really think "spunky" when it came to her, but apparently he did.

"It's funny you mentioned that, my Old trainer Retired last year, leaving me with nobody to help keep my mind under control. But i have you know that a friend of mine has warned me not to let just anybody roam around in my mind, and i plan to keep on listening to her." That said friend was actually sitting next to her right now, Deciding to match her own outfit today and go with a TARDIS blue and black theme. Nous sported off a Bobcut with straight bangs with a raised eyebrow and sported off somewhat of a condescending look. Now that you think about it, She looked alot like the actress who played Mako Mori in pacific Rim-- you just cant remember her name.
Oh well.

[Leo Rhodes]

Ouch, a dismissal. Leo should have felt wounded by her lack of eye contact, but it was how teenagers coped, right? She mentioned her trainer retiring and that gave Leo an opportunity to step in and help the younger telepath. However, as she continued, it became clear that she knew what she was supposed to do, she just wasn’t exercising it.

“I do, actually. Spunk is nice,” he continued, twiddling his thumbs. “And for the trainer part…hmm, you’ll need someone older, more experienced. Someone who knows exactly what you need to do, how to do it, and help you execute it perfectly. Someone like…say, me?” He pursed his lips before he smiled. When she mentioned a friend, there was an acute awareness that shot into his brain, and he could almost feel the other personality in their conversation in that moment.

“My name’s Leo…Leo Rhodes,” he offered politely, gesturing with his hand. “I’m also a telepath, if you couldn’t tell, and I’d like to help. You. Help you. Yes,” he said with a nod.

[Karina M. Robertson]

She raised her eyes to him when he brought back his proposal, and looked over to nous sitting at the windowsil. Her last trainer was a great one, he truly understood how she could enter people's mind and how they work, but she new she'd need a new one eventually. Nous looked a bit skeptical about it, but she meerly shrugged. 'If he's up for it, give him a shot.'
But, there was one thing she needed to ask.

"You know, out of all the cute little telepathic, why me? I've been known for being a rather hard one to teach, so i must ask." She asked him, closing her laptop and propping her elbows on the table, fixing her glasses before putting her head in her hands. It was true, her mind-entering ability was a bit of a tricky one, and she barely understood it herself-- so she couldn't possibly teach it so somebody else.

[Leo Rhodes]

She looked away and he followed her gaze, and it reaffirmed his suspicions that she was one of those telepaths that coped with the voices by creating an alternate personality, or imaginary friend. Granted, Leo had had his fair share of such voice-related coping mechanisms, but he knew what was real and what wasn’t.

“Out of all the cute little telepaths…hmm…I only see one here, now don’t I?” he said, looking at her full on with the intensity of his piercing eyes. “Besides, a trainer can have more than one student, but in the here and now, I’m having a conversation slash offer with the telepath sitting in front of me.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I also like a challenge, it’s what my trainer told me when I was going to this…school, rather.

“Right now you’re thinking that I can’t teach you how to be a telepath, and it would be true. But, I can teach you how to block your mind from invading telepaths, how to project your thoughts into other people’s heads, and how to do a very specific line of eavesdropping, where you can hear what you want to hear from a person and not just a whole bunch of white noise.” He blew out a breath. “It’s why you come to the library, right? To escape the voices?”

[Karina M. Robertson]

She took that all in, and mulled over it. The 4-3 year Hammel student knew how to do a lot of that already, though they could do with a bit out touching up, and learning those things wasn't the problem. The offer was enticing though, and if he insisted on taking a challenge, who is she to not let him try.
Might as well give him a warning though.

"That's true, it is alot quiter in here than it is most places. But I already know how to do a lot of that, you know. It's no too hard for me to do any of those things you listed-- but if you're looking for a challenge, I can give you one. A learning experience for both of us, maybe." she looked him dead in the eye, quite serious as she continued. Entering people's mind was a serious thing, or so she had been told, and if you weren't careful-- well, lets say that person might not come back from the experience.

"Tell me Mr. Rhodes, have you ever heard of actually entering one's mind?"

[Leo Rhodes]

It was serious talks like these that made Leo’s eyes narrow, showing the world just how perceptive the telepath could be. Sure, he loved women and he loved sleeping with them, but underneath the rakish personality and bad attitude was actually an outstanding mind that comprehended far more than he let on to others around him. The manner of which this girl spoke sparked that interest, and he kicked his feet off the table to lean forward and look at her in depth.

Girl such as her, must have some training from the previous trainer. Knew what she was doing but didn’t use precautions, score one for her enemies. Dared the world to take her on and still come out unscathed, score two. Score three would be what she decided to do with this offer that had magically come between them, and while Leo didn’t care about the rest of the world, he cared about his students, for he never wanted them to be what he had been when he was their age.

“I have and it’s something that you never want to deal with,” he said in a soft, deadly tone, his eyes completely void of playful banter. They were serious and guarded, hiding secrets that he put strong blocks against should she want to probe deeper. “There are two different kinds of telepaths; the passive and the aggressive kind. The passive might seem boring, but it’s safer. I advise you against bringing up mind control again, Miss Robertson, or else we’ll have problems.”

[Karina M. Robertson]

"Oh no, no no no, Mr Rhodes i'm not necessarily talking about mind control." Her eyes widened a little as she clarified. Karina never was one for mind control, and while she knew it was possible, she wouldn't think of it. She'd never go there.

"When i say entering one's mind, i mean quite literally entering one's mind. To see all of their memories, to know see their past and current secrets, to-- putting it simply-- access every piece of information they've ever known. This was the first "sub ability" i received when my powers manifested, and it's the thing most of my teachers have trouble with." The telepathic continues, he voice now emphasizing how serious this is. "When i enter a persons mind, i have heir brain, their knowledge, essentially everything they are at my fingertips-- and while i don't want to use it for any evil purposes, i want to be able to control it. It's a dangerous skill if not taught, and i wanna know that if i ever needed to use it, that i would know how with out possibly... you know" Karina didn't say it out loud, but she was sure he knew what she was implying.

[Leo Rhodes]

Good, she was scared from the idea. While part of his mind knew he had taken it a bit too far, the other part was satisfied that she wouldn’t ever try to take over someone’s mind. He leaned back and crossed his arms, listening to her. She meant seeing from the other person’s point of view, quite literally, and while it was an inherent ability of telepaths, it wasn’t something widely practiced.

“It’s like entering a computer’s hard drive as a file and somehow becoming the operating system,” he clarified in a technical term. “The more you use that ability, the more the desire to control it, to have it completely in your hands, becomes out of control. Yes, it’s dangerous, but I don’t advise doing it again,” Leo said harshly. “I know how that desire is.”

Truly he did, for he’d done the whole entering someone’s mind before, and the longer he’d been inside that person’s head, the more he’d wanted to take control and bend the person to his will. He had never done the gift again, but he knew how…and he wanted this girl to block it so that she would never go that dark.