They had tried one experiment where basically something that was to hit her would just miss. They decided on tennis balls from one of those practice machines. Greer had suggested it because she was certain things couldn’t get too bad during the attempt, and she knew she could handle the hits. Satoshi was just glad he could do an experiment that was a bit more interesting than flipping coins.
Sato stood there, behind the fence, with the control. “Alright we have everything set, are you sure you want to do this one?”
“It’ll be fine. Even if it goes crazy, I should be able to get out no problems.”
Sato nodded. “It’s set to random, so I won’t know when it’ll shoot. So just focus your thoughts on the balls missing you.” She started focusing, her eyes glowing. The machine turned on. It took almost a minute but the ball came and she dodged it easily. Minor issues occurred, like her tripping. But nothing to bad for the first 5 or 6 volleys.
Greer looked. “Got enough data?”
Sato nodded. “Phase two then. Don’t move.”
Greer nodded and let the first one hit her, to be certain it was on track. Then focused on the ball somehow missing her. She didn’t focus on how as that would be the next phase. Just not getting hit.
The ball fired and… never got near her. Instead she saw a big chocolate brown lab run in and grab the ball midair. Greer looks to see where it had come from, oh right she forgot to close that gate. Sato shouted something, but she missed it. Had to be about the dog because it suddenly knocked her over. It stood on her, growling a bit.
If she had to describe the feelings that came next, it would be like realizing you were going down a hill of ice on a sled. You realized there were things you were going to hit and you just keep leaning hard one way and then another, losing control as you go. The dog was going to bite her, she needed it to be distracted she needed-
The machine suddenly made an odd sound and a ball hit the dog square in its side. The dog jumped off and ran. Greer slowly got up and reflexively tried to block the next ball so it didn’t hit her head. It hit HARD. “Oh sh-“ She need the balls to miss they were coming in too hard!
The dog got angry and jumped on the machine changing the settings and angle. Now the balls were coming faster in more random directions. The dog ran off. She needed the balls to not her! Don’t hit Don’t hit! Now Sato couldn’t get to the power switch, something had happened and the remote was now dead. Nononono. Don’t don’t don’t don’t…
Some of the balls were somehow managing to bounce back INTO the basket. Providing more ammo as she tried to get to the fence. It was too late Greer realized she hadn’t been thinking about escaping. As evidenced by someone who had left their bike against the gate in such a way it was now locked into place. “GAH!”
Now she was speeding down towards a frozen lake, as far as the feeling of her powers went. One chance to not end up on thin ice.
She looked around and found a branch. Don’t-hit-don’t-hit…. She grabbed it. Turn off. She ran towards it. Shut it off shut it off… she smacked the machine as hard as she could so it’d break. A few good slams and it sputtered and died. She stood three breathing heavily as she looked at it. “….stupid… thing….”
To continue the analogy, both the sled and the ice were insulted at this point and wanted to get back, but she thought she was safe- not noticing the cracks in the ice.
She kicked the machine and started to head off, when she got hit in the back of the head, stepped on a ball, and fell forward getting knocked out and her nose broken in the same go.
***
Greer leaned back she had ended up with one black eye from landing on another ball, she had a lovely knot of her forehead, and her nose had gotten straightened up again. The doctors had determined she was fine but told her to avoid some things for a few days. She was taking a quick look, thanks to Dew, in a hand mirror. “I don’t think that broken nose will help the gender confusion...”
Luce walked in as Greer sat up and started putting on fresh bandages from where she hit the ground hard. “Sato! He’s back and I’m not getting yelled at alone over here!” Sato came in looking nervous. He cleared his throat
“Ah, hello”
Luce took one look at Greer and then back to Sato. “What happend?!? You said you were doing experiments today!”
Greer looked. “We were. This one just got... out of hand... a little...”
“None of the other experiments got her a broken nose!”
Sato spoke up. “Those involved coins and finding things. This involved dodging tennis balls. We took safety precautions...”
Luce was now glaring at them both. “Greer why did you agree to this?”
“It was my idea. We never did make it to phase 3 though....”
Greer was already back to leaning her head back. It felt better that way. “Wanna see the video? We were about to cue it up. It’s kinda funny when you ignore the injuries.”
Luce just stared at her for a moment in disbelief. “Are your trying to get yourself killed?!”
Sato looked defensive. “We were fine until Greer started to panic. The pendulum-“
“Sato you should have known better!”
Sato looked a bit hurt. “There was no way for me to predict that the gate the dog came in would get locked by a poorly placed bike.”
Greer held up her hand “I was focusing on the wrong thing though... I was trying to make the ball’s miss. They were hitting really hard after the malfunction. Should have been focused on getting out.... and really how were the balls bouncing back in anyway?”
Luce looked at them both. “Both of you can’t do this! One of you will end up dead!”
Greer was still making a point not to look at Luce and keep her eyes closed. Her head hurt anyway. “Right Papa Bear I just wanna understand my abilities better so I can control them.”
Sato looked to Luce. “She swears the meds make her feel off”
“They do! I don’t like it. “
Luce rubbing his eyes, Greer was not the only one getting a headache. “Tell me she is at least on something NOW”
Greer spoke up. “Nope. We think I used up my juice for a bit and we wanna see with pennies how long before I can do it again.”
“It was quite a few volleys…” Sato added before getting quiet again
Luce took a deep breath as Dewi came back in with some popcorn. “.... Bad time?”
Greer shook her head. “Come on. We're going to watch a statistical improbability”
Luce sat down “I’m going to see how mad I should get at you both.”
After watching the whole thing Dewi went to rewind the video. “Hold on, I want to watch that last part in slow mo.”
Luce looked at them. “No we aren’t! That was insane! No! No more experiments!”
Greer moaned. “It’s my fault. Sato checked first this time.”
“No, you want to do experiments, you will run them by me first then! Honestly...”
Greer sighed. “Right, Papa Bear.”
“That’s- Wait, what did you call me?”
Greer looked to Luce. “Papa Bear? Sounds better than mama bear. I always wanted brothers to nickname...”
Luce looked at Greer and sighed. “Meds tomorrow... got it?”
Dewi and Greer both saluted and Sato nodded.
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