Tabitha danced her way around the tables of the cafeteria, the music on her MP3 player loud enough for those around her to hear. She normally never sat in the same place twice in one week, but today she decided to sit with her X-friends, her private play-on-words name for them. What made them interesting was they were all more or less staring at something that they found interesting.
“Yo! Fellas! What’s up?” She announced herself in her louder than necessary kind of way.
“Hey, Boom Boom.” Most said sounding very depressed, if they answered her at all.
“Yo, what gives? You guys look terrible.” She picked up Kurt’s head by his chin but he flinched away from her quickly.
“Be careful, I’m still tender.” He complained.
It took a moment for her to realize the image inducer would have covered up anything that might be wrong with Kurt, such as a black eye or busted lip. “Did you guys get beat in a fight?” Again, most flinched, but no one answered. “With who?” Everyone turned to look across the cafeteria to the table in the corner, though some were more glaring than looking. “Woah, the Brotherhood got a new hottie. What’s he do?”
“He kicks some serious butt is what he does.” Kitty said. Everyone turned glare at her now, “What? Besides, Boom-Boom’s right. He is hot.”
“He is not hot!” Rouge growled.
“So, what? The new guys just walked through all of ya?” Boom-Boom asked still incredulous.
“Half of us.” Scott corrected sternly.
“Half plus Mr. Logan.” Evan supplied and received his own glare for it.
“Aw man, I have GOT to find out who this guy is.” Tabitha bounced herself over to the Brotherhood table.
“Ah hope they’re happy together,” Rouge said though it was clear she severely hoped Boom-Boom would blow Ranma up, or at least part of him up... the painful parts.
As she walked up to the Brotherhood table, as they sat there staring forlornly at their food. Lance is talking with the new guy who seemed more interested in his shallow box full of rice shoveling great gobs of it into his mouth with chopsticks. “I ain't sayin' you gotta slack off and be lazy. But you really need to relax sometimes, you hear what I'm sayin'?"
“That's fer sure. I can’t believe I’m too tired to eat,” Fred said as took another slow bite of a pizza slice. His serving tray loaded with food was barely touched.
“You?! I can’t even lift my arms.” Lance complained as he stared at his sack lunch trying to will it open by itself.
Todd, who had his chin resting on the table seemed to make attempts to open his mouth and aim it at Fred’s overfull serving tray, but gave up. “Even my tongue hurts, yo. Yer a slave driver, Ranma. Fer real.”
“You guys got off easy,” said Ranma barely slowing down his steady grind on the rice.
“Hey, you gonna eat that?” A skinny girl with short blond hair and headphones listening to an MP3 player grabbed Lance’s lunch and danced around Fred out of Lance’s reach before depositing herself into a chair. “Whoa, what happened to you guys? You look like something the cat decided to ignore.”
“Ranma,” the three Brotherhood members intoned.
“Yo!” Ranma lowered his bento box raised his chopsticks in salute before disappearing behind the box again to continue his meal.
Tabitha could only raise her eyebrows at the hottie though he couldn’t see her then she looked at the bedraggled group around her. “Where’s Pietro?”
“Gone,” Toad said, “Long gone. Ranma kicked him out.”
Tabitha let out a shocked whistle, trying to re-evaluate the new student across from her. “So how do you rate?”
Ranma set down his empty box and was contemplating Fred’s pile of untouched food, “I’m the best.”
Lance answered for him, “He’s supposed to be some kind of martial arts genius and we were stupid enough to agree to be trained by him.” Lance took in Ranma's hungry look, not at Tabitha's cleavage, but Fred's food tray, not sure which he should be more annoyed with, "And how the hell can you have so much energy?”
“Y’see?” Ranma said with smirk, “that is what good conditioning does for you.”
"So, what?" Tabitha asked, "He made you guys work yourselves to death?"
"Yeah, we had to fix up the house. Didn't have to make it easy though. Everything we did was done the hard way fer 'training.' Like I said, 'Slave Driver'." Todd complained.
"I'd say so too if he didn't put in more work than the rest of us." Fred put in.
"That brings me back to my point." Lance tried again. "You need to take time and relax and not push yourself so much."
"...And us." Toad put in.
"Not everything needs to be about training," Lance continued.
Ranma tore his stare away from Fred's pile of untouched food and looked at Lance as though he had grown a second head, "Yes, it does."
"No, it doesn't. Work is work, training is training, relaxing is relaxing. You shouldn't have to combine them." Lance may have once believed in burning the candle at both ends but in his view, Ranma lit the candle with a flame thrower.
"Yes, you do." Ranma said. The idea of separating training from, well... anything that you do was a truly alien concept to him.
"I've gotta agree with Lance." Blob put in, "At least eating is not training."
"Yes, it is."
"Oh, please, no," Fred breathed.
Seeing every other boy at the table becoming more and more uncomfortable, Tabitha could only do one thing, add fuel to the fire. "O.K. Now this I gotta see. How can eating become martial arts training?"
"All right, I'll show you." Ranma pulled Blob's tray of food over earning only a small protest, and picked up the only available utensil. "This..." Ranma looked twice at the offending plastic spork in his hand before tossing it away and taking out his chopsticks. "This secret technique of Martial Arts Fine Dining from France; banned by it's own school for killing it's creator. Behold, the Parley du Foe Gras."
Tabitha's eyes widened as Ranma's chopstick hand disappeared in a blur. *S-spapapapapap* A clear third of the food on the tray was missing.
"H-how did...?" Tabitha stuttered.
"The key to truly elegant dining is to never let anyone see you eat." Ranma explained, sure he had the girl's full attention. *S-spapapapapapapap* Another half of the remaining food disappeared. True to his word, not a single morsel could be seen entering his mouth.
"Mmm... Finally." Toad said as he chewed and swallowed. "I was sure I'd go hungry today. Hit me again, Ranma."
"Yeah, what he said." Blob added.
*S-spap* *S-spap* *S-spap* The remaining food was gone as Freddy, Lance and Todd chewed and swallowed their portions just in time for the bell to ring.
"Now wait. I don't get it. You didn't eat anything but you were force-feeding them the whole time? What's the point?" Boom-Boom exclaimed.
"Speed, accuracy and control. Not everything about martial arts is about hitting people." Ranma told her.
"Yeah, just the good stuff." Fred put in before the group separated to their classes.
After seeing an incredible display of martial arts, Boom-Boom sat stunned for a moment thinking as the other students filed out of the cafeteria. She moved to follow automatically with really only one thing on her mind, *Nice Butt.*
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(Posted Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:08)
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