ic Paige-ing Dr. Steel [IC]

[RobRX]

"Whew, okay!" The Claremont student wiped off some sweat off her brow with her jacket's sleeve. "That's...still a lot. A bit spooky, actually. Well, I'm glad you at least won't think this was a complete waste of your time! And no, look I'm not doing those tests to brag, just to know better what to expect and to be less of a danger to people around me. Oh and maybe to get my family off my back." She then inhaled and exhaled once more as that was one hell of a heavy load. 'Easily a tank, I'd guess, if my estimates are right.' mentally noted Cho, so at least now she know what to lift and what not to in order to avoid biting more than she can chew.

 

"So doc! What's the trick to not breaking everything; special exercises? Meditation? Yoga? Tai-chi? Self-hypnosis? I mean, there has to be something I can do."

[Geez3r]

Maxima couldn't help but enjoy the youth's energy.  "Not breaking stuff huh?  Let me tell you, I got a whole lot to teach on that subject, which I learned the hard way." said Maxima while mentally reliving some of her flubs earlier on in her career.  "I might not look it right now, but part of my mutation is that my cell structure is significantly more dense.  I can't go in the water because I outright sink.  I clock in at about 4 tons when I'm like this." stated Maxima as she positioned herself in the center of the lab. 

 

"A lot of what I used to do, and something you're probably going to have to do, are just exercises to get your mind to adapt to your body's new size.  It's a bit similar to Tai-Chi, only instead of redirecting your opponents movements, you're just trying not to get tangled up in your own.  For bruisers like us, it's often times not a matter of how strong you are, but of how well you can apply your strength.  And for me, it was about not putting footprints in the sidewalk every time I went down the street.  Now, see if you can follow me." said Maxima as she began to lead Cho through a few different forms and stances.  It wasn't anything fancy, and was probably pretty lousy as a fighting style, but you felt kind of centered doing it. 

[RobRX]

"Well it's not just size, it's pressure too." explained Cho as she (somewhat clumsily) tried to replicate Maxima's moves. "And then there's...well I can't really explain it to someone who doesn't sweat entropy from their palms in the form of lasers." She laughed a bit at this, while also taking note that they probably weren't lasers because that isn't how lasers work. But then again, as she also mentally noted, trying to apply some (normal?) scientific terms to what she could do wasn't exactly going to work out.

 

"It's like when you get pissed and your whole body gets all tense, sweaty and your heart is racing and and pounding. It just...builds up and release. Painfully." she continued as she got a better understanding of the movements.

[Geez3r]

Maxima mulled over what Cho was saying for a moment.  "Well this exercise is more for your positioning, and keeping your coordination in the face of any growth spurts or mutations you may have.  For precisely applying pressure, I've got something else in mind."  Maxima made her way back the desk and pulled out a small little canister, about the size of a soda can.  She opened it up, and poured a red goo into her hand. She then bats it between her hands where it forms into a quasi-solid ball. 

 

"You ever have a science class where they have you mess with cornstarch?  It's a non-Newtonian fluid, the harder you press on it, the harder it resists.  Well this is the super-science version of that.  It may not look like it, but I'm batting and kneading this with enough force to bend steel.  If it stays goo, I know I'm not squeezing hard enough.  And I've got a whole range of these things, each calibrated to a certain strength threshold, that way you can get used to applying different levels of strength." elaborated Maxima as she demonstated the properties of the goo. 

 

"And for your Terminus emissions, in a normal human, those symptoms you're describing are consistent with the activation of the fight or flight response.  There may be some correlation to your adrenal gland.  I'll have to review the scans to get a proper answer for you though."

[RobRX]

"There's something else I needed to ask; powers that come from your body, your genes; they're always passed down from parent to child, aren't they?" Cho asked while squeezing the...thing. Actually, she found it pretty fun! It was a bit like a stress ball, but without exploding from her pressure or accidentally getting wiped off from existence. Squeeze. Squeeze. She found it soothing.

 

"I know the other reason why I'm here, passing those tests. They worry about my sister; they worry that whatever hapenned to me come from my maternal side." More squeezing. More soothing. Cho took mental note to ask if she could get a few of these things as stress balls, it would really help. "They worry my sister my develop powers too. I hate to say this, but they're right. It actually make a lot of sense, assuming it really came from my mother's side."

[Geez3r]

"Genetics can be a very tricky thing under the best of circumstances.  Super-human genetics are an entire other ball of wax." replied Maxima, feeling quite relieved that there was some ray of sunshine on this discussion.  "In genetics, there are dominant traits and recessive traits, also hybrid traits, but we'll ignore those for this discussion.  You also have 2 sets of chromosomes, one from each parent.  On each set of chromosomes, is a trait you inherited from your parents, who, like you, also has two sets of the same chromosome.  If just one of the sets have the dominant trait, that trait is the one that it expressed.  Both copies of the trait need to be recessive for that trait to be expressed." 

 

Maxima paused for a moment to make sure Cho was still with her up to that point.  "Now, scientists speculate that somewhere within the human DNA is a supposed "meta-gene" that allows for super-powers to be expressed.  If you get struck by lightning when you have the meta-gene, you get super-powers, if not, you get a hospital bed.  As and fyi, much of what I'm talking about right now is basically on the cutting edge of science so there's an excessive amount of speculation here.  Scientists believe this trait to be recessive.  So called families of super-heroes generally only pop up if both parents have powers themselves. 

 

What complicates the matters further, is that the meta-gene may not always be expressed.  Some traits don't trigger until their is an environmental catalyst for their activation.  In the previous example, being struck by lighting.  Or, perhaps in your case, being exposed to the Terminus.  Furthermore, there's also the chance that the Terminus altered your DNA, rather than catalyzing a mutation that was already there.  In which case, the powers you received would be encoded on your DNA, but not your mother's."

[RobRX]

"Yeah, sorry I'm not going to lie; that stuff is pretty complicated for me." Cho shook her head once again. To her, the evidence added up. Of course, no way to prove if she was correct, however. It was pointless to argue with an expert on the matter, anyway, she figured since she didn't know any better on the subject.

 

"Thing is, my mom was there when it hapenned. So, it's not much of a stretch to imagine she's the reason why I'm like that. I don't know where my father was on that day. Still, if that's not the case how do you explain the Terminus exposure? My mother wasn't anywhere near anything related to that after that horrible day, which was years before she got pregnant."  However, she soon realized she was worring for nothing. It's not like she could anything. If it had to happen, it would happen.

[Geez3r]

"Well there is also the chance that the mutation was localized in your mother.  Women don't continually generate sex cells as they age, as men do.  It could potentially be the case that only certain egg cells inherited the mutation due to the external stimulus that was the Terminus.  One such cell would later become you." replied Maxima, still firmly in scientist mode, seeking for explore all of the different possibilities before commiting to a single answer. 

 

"Of course, there's still much we don't know about the Terminus itself.  I'm just making educated guesses here, I could be completely off base.  Part of the reason I wanted to meet with you is because there is so much we don't understand about the Terminus.  So, I just wanted to thank you for coming here.  It took a lot of courage to do it." said Maxima thinking in terms of people rather than puzzles again. 

[Geez3r]

It quickly became apparent that the pair had far more questions than they had answers, at least for today.  An awkward silence fell over the two of them as the rest of the tests were performed.  Most of it was pretty standard fare, testing reflexes, reactivity to light, cheek swab, and so on.  Maxima reverted back to her normal Cassandra self to conduct these tests; super-strength was excellent for punching gorillas, not so much for delicate lab work.  Cassandra seemed to be working off of some sort of checklist, and after a while they finally seemed to tick every item off the list. 

 

"That should just about cover everything.  I have.... a lot of data to crunch.  I probably won't have anything really concrete for you for quite a while; this is firmly in uncharted territory." said Cassandra as she absently ran her hand through her hair, eyes wide as she surveyed the desk and her notes.  Snapping her focus back to Cho, she pulled open a drawer and pulled out a little card.  "But, if you ever need to talk, here's my card.  I'll write my home phone and address on the back.  I don't care what time it is, or what day it is, if you need my help, all you need to do is ask." she added firmly, handing the card to Cho. 

 

"I can walk you back down to your family whenever you're ready." she said quietly, knowing that the family issues would take just as long to resolve as the science ones. 

[RobRX]

Indeed, it seemed that there were many questions left and no answer in sight. Not yet, anyway. It would certainly take Doctor Steel quite some time to analyze and compile, then investigate everything she might have found while examining Cho. "Well, I guess we're just about done here! T-thanks...I mean, thank you so much. Even if those results probably don't mean anything yet or aren't of any use for now. I hope you'll find that research material useful!"

 

Cho was somewhat worried, expecting to get into some trouble despite how it wouldn't be her fault if results weren't instantaneous. "Thanks for everything. I should probably go back, now."