Stonewalled (IC)

[Aoiroo]

Wednesday, January 2nd 3:30pm

The Felix was one of the larger gyms in Freedom, in fact it was one of the only ones with three stories. It was a squat building that overlooked the park with large glass windows and was for lack of better options the rainy day destination for runners, sport teams, and swimming competitions. It also filled it's walls with mix martial arts, biking classes, yoga, polattis and tons of other fad exercises, but that wasn't one of it's biggest attraction. No, the literatal biggest one was the three story climbing wall that took up the entire side wall of the entrance. It large enough to hold three different climbing classes at different levels of skill as well as free climbers, at the same time without them having to compensate for space. As such, the times for such classes were very flexible and easy to switch and change at ones leisure. If someone could not make one, they could more or less attend another with little to know hiccups in their regiments. It was this that attracted Jasmine to this particular spot.

Time had been tight lately, she got a quick reprieve during the holidays that she used mostly for repairs, restocking of supplies and spending time with her family. Her cousins had come down with their kids to stay with her parents during the holidays and she had several days of just going around switching shifts of spoiling and doting on the younger cousins. Her mother in particular, though rather subtle about it left a few hints about wanting something like that close to home. She sighed a little about the demand of grandchildren, it really wasn't something she could pencil into her life even if she eventually saw the need for it, but it was nice all the same to play with the younger children when her work gave her several days off to work around the expected holiday schedule. Now that they were gone, she saw this opportunity to get started on this particular activity as a blessing. Really she should of started sooner, with how much she'd been going up large buildings, she may at some point need to cling to the side or know how to get a good hand hold. You never know when these things will come up.

Pushing inside, she stretched a little. She had some soft old yoga pants, sneakers and a t-shirt on that went halfway down her arm and waited on the side for the instructor for beginners level course. Taking a bottled water, she took a gradual sip and glanced out sideways to the long windows that looked out towards the park before she spotted a somewhat familiar figure walking down the way.

[Scuffles]

Kristin wandered into the gym chatting with Mali and paused to look around at the various classes and training sessions in progress. "This place is awesome," she said with a happy smile, then turned to regard the enormous climbing wall. She hadn't had the opportunity to climb at all since her move to Freedom City, and was greatly looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. "Thanks for letting me tag along."

The Australian teen was dressed ready for the class - comfortable black cargo pants and a white tank top with her familiar red hoodie over the top - and carried a giant sports bag on her shoulder that made her look tiny. Or perhaps it was just standing next to Mali that made her look tiny.

"Come on, let's see if we can find the ... oh, hey that's Jasmine!" Distracted from her original intention to find the instructor for the class she headed over to say hi. "Hey Jasmine! how's it going?" she asked. "This is Mali, my friend from school. She kicks me around the gym there worse than you do at Erik's." She flashed a grin at Mali. "Jasmine takes the same self-defence classes I've been going to sometimes."

[Thunder King]

Mali smiled and nodded to Jasmine. "Hi. Kristin's been getting better, I was wondering where she got it from." She adjusted the gym bag on her shoulder and looked around. "This place is really cool. Lots of stuff to try out, especially the wall climbing. That looks really fun."

Of course she'd let Kristin tag along, these sort of things were fun, but far more fun when you had a friend along. That, and it helped Mali feel less self conscious, as she was bound to feel surrounded by other people. Having someone to talk to made things a lot easier overall.

[Aoiroo]

"Certainly not from me, our instructor just happens to be really talented."

Jasmine pulled herself up stretching her arms out as she did before giving the young woman with Kristin a once over. She certainly didn't look like she needed classes, in fact she could probably teach a few the way she was built. Absently she wiped her held her hand out to the girl for a shake,

"Jasmine Benoitt, though I hardly kick her around, usually I'm paired with Baxter, I think he's a bit scared of pairing with Tona personally."

And a bit shy to talk to the girls around his age, probably awkward that he's essentually outnumbered by the the girls in the class.

"So are you here for the class or to do some freeclimbing? I'm waiting on the beginners course myself, never been much of a climber before since all my gyms in college were taken by the track teams."

[Scuffles]

"Everybody is scared of pairing with Tona," Kristin quipped. "But she's not so bad once she relaxes a bit."

"I'm just tagging along because Mali was coming to do the class," she said in answer to the question. "But I'm out of practice enough that I'll probably learn something too. You're going to love it, really, it's a total blast once you get the basics down."

She turned and looked up at the climbing wall. "This is like three times bigger than the one back home. So awesome!"

[Thunder King]

"Tona's awesome to spar with. She's good and knows her way around a spar. I've never really been on a climbing wall like this one, actually. I've done most of my climbing on ropes in gym class and such. This will be a blast."

Mali was excited to work out, and loved being active. She knew Kristin shared the same love, so inviting her was easy. She had adapted quickly to most of the other athletic activities she'd engaged in, and this shouldn't be an exception. She was ready to have fun.

"It's nice in here, I may come back again."

[Aoiroo]

"That's cause she doesn't hold back,"

And Baxter's probably afraid of going all out on a smallish girl, as fierce as she is,

"This is certainly the largest climbing wall I've ever been too, given, it is the only one so it wins by default. But yeah, this is a lot of space, and a lot of automated lines, which is good, I don't think they'd be able to get enough people to act as counterweights otherwise."

Standing up she watched the instructor, a woman maybe a few years older or younger then herself, it was hard to tell some time with badge and the gym's logo clipped onto her belt. She asked for the beginners class to gather and started to talk about standard safety procedures for climbing.

[Aoiroo]

GM

The instructor went through the basics, she eventually got to the climbing. She called up groups of four in no real order to try and climb up to the first green line on the wall. Really it was just whoever was sitting by each other at the time. About three groups completed the task with various speeds before Jasmine, Mali and Kristin were up with one other. The instructor helped each one clip up before starting the timer and letting the go. For those who had experience or in Mali's case a heck of a lot of upper body strength it didn't take long. Jasmine brought up the rear of the group with some difficulty, so by the time she was halfway the others were at or close to the top. It was around this time that things went wrong.

About ten feet up from the green line the wall exploded as something flew right through it and two other walls before stopping. The explosion set about screaming and a lot of dust that fell from the drywall that had been on the other side. Jasmine outright fell from her perch but was slowed quickly via the automatically counter weighted cord attached to her harness.

[Scuffles]

Prior training helped Kristin avoid the natural mistake of looking up to see what happened - which was good, because she was liberally showered with chips and chunks of the climbing wall as they scattered away from the impact site. "You alright?" she called to Mali as the pair disappeared into the rapidly spreading cloud of drywall-dust. "I guess that's our cue," she muttered in quieter tones as she glanced downwards and then grabbed at her harness. "Down would be good.."

 

She wasn't that high up. Not for someone with her abilities. With the dust for cover she unhooked herself from the safety line and scrambled down the wall for a few handholds before dropping off completely with just a hint of telekinetic lift to cushion the impact as she landed in a crouch and looked around. Predictably the gym was a mess, with people screaming and others running, but there didn't seem to be an immediate threat, so Kristin dashed for her bag and scooped it up at a run as she headed for a quiet place to suit up.