ya_assemble | Level grinding.

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Level grinding.

There was still danger, even in this world.

As much as Sandy hated to admit it, she'd gotten swept up in the magic and wonder of Santa's workshop. Even if she was still having nightmares and found herself uncomfortable in large crowds things were so much better here that she'd gotten soft. And it had almost gotten them in trouble.

It's not as though it was a disaster, but it could have been and that was enough for Sandy to jump back into her habit of daily work outs and training. She had to be ready for the inevitable. Someday soon the Fearlings would attack and she didn't want to die again if she could help it.

She didn't even know if she could die now, the rules were still a little hazy to her.

For now she would make due with what she had. Some training dummies were set up in one of the rooms off the main workshop and she was working with a training dagger moving as quickly as she could between them jabbing at the vital points of each mark before moving to the next.

One, two, three, four, five. A circuit of enemies that she was trying to dart between. She expected to feel weaker like she always did after dying in the arena but she didn't. She felt powerful, fast. Like a bullet.

But would it be enough? It had never been enough before. With a look of grim determination she resumed her practice, maybe she'd have to start pressing the others to learn some of their techniques like she had been doing back in Panem.

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"Wow." Peter had to admit it, she was pretty good. Sure, he'd kinda seen her skill already before - but it had been something he'd only seen peripherally, being much too distracted by how much he was completely sucking in the fight against the fearlings to really notice at the time. But here, when he didn't have to worry about a demented horse biting off his head, he could clearly see that she was scarily good for a little couldn't. She couldn't be more than...what, ten?

And now he was remembering that right now a ten year old was more use than him in a fight. Goodbye, last remaining vestiges of self-esteem. You will be missed.

"So what did all those dummies do to you? Whatever it was, I'm sure they don't deserve it, really."

Sandy betrayed herself by letting out a yelp when Peter spoke up and she fumbled her attempt at a stab instead hitting the dummy with her knuckles. That caused her to drop the knife and wave her hand in pain for a moment while the tingling passed.

When he made his joke she felt her cheeks burn and shrugged picking up the knife. "Yeah they um...yeah I guess not but it's their job right?" Should she feel bad about stabbing the hell out of these dummies.

Plus it probably wouldn't do to tell him she was imagining the faces of various people she knew not too long ago.

"Crap, I'm sorry," Peter said, stepping forward in mild alarm. "Are you alright? I'm sorry, I didn't meant to throw off your groove."

He eyed her hand. She hadn't really injured it, had she? God, he hoped not. He didn't know a thing about first aid, unless you counted his own pathetic attempts to patch himself up. And even then his own advanced healing did most of the work anyway.

"It's fine, I'm...fine." She glanced at her hand and flexed the fingers. It already felt normal as if the awkward hit hadn't happened. She knew from experience that a hit like that should still be stinging but her fingers weren't even bruised.

Was this a benefit of being a guardian? Or...guardian in training? Whatever.

"I've had worse trust me." She showed him her hand to let him know it was fine. "About half a year ago someone ripped this arm clean off while I was in stone form."

"What?!" Peter said, staring in incomprehension and horror. "Someone ripped off your arm? But you still have an arm! And why was anyone ripping of your arm?!"

She winced at the horror in his voice and her hand rose up to rub her shoulder unconsciously. She forgot that normal people don't talk so frankly about this sort of stuff.

"It's...kind of a long, horrible, violent story. But yeah my arm's fine." She looked up to him and tried to imagine that this guy was the same old man that had almost been killed in front of her very eyes. The building tension in her gut had her skin turning a shade of grey similar to when she had turned to stone back during the fearlings attack.

Okay, she didn't want to talk about it. Peter could respect that. Could understand it, even. God knows he wasn't all that fond of talking about all the times he got his ass handed to him, and he'd never even lost any limps.

"So...you're like Wolverine then, yeah? Or does the whole turning to stone thing help?" he asked, trying to not look too curious about her recovery process from horrible mutilating injuries. "Wait, are you doing it now?"

OK, as much as she was uncomfortable the comparison was enough to make her laugh. It was a short burst proceeded by a snort and her skin faded back to it's normal fleshy tones with some blush in the cheeks.

"No way, me? I'm nothing like Wolverine." She laughed just trying to imagine the half man half monster her dad had told her about.

"The stone thing helped yeah, because I mean...OK so what happened was..." She hesitated again looking unsure of where to start. She fiddled with the knife in her hands while she considered it.

"OK the short version was, I got kidnapped from my world to this place called Panem. They forced me to compete in these death match arenas and I lost...a lot. Like ten times. And every time I died they'd bring me back good as new. I mean it still hurt and stuff but...I was alive again." It was really disconcerting to try and explain and she was feeling a cold creep up her spine like trying to explain it all might wake her from this dream she'd been living in where she was safe again.

"So in one of the arenas they gave us back our powers if we wore these masks that hurt our faces. I was trying to protect my friend with my stone skin and this girl just...ripped the arm off. But because I was stone no bleeding right? At least not till the mask wore off. Then once I actually died and came back, good as new."

In a manner of speaking. She stopped here realizing that all of that had just come out in a vomit of words and was laying between them in a pile. She awkwardly braced herself waiting for Peter's reaction and praying she didn't sound as pathetic as she felt.

"Oh god, that...that's awful," Peter said, turning a little pale at the thought. "You're just a kid! I mean, not that it'd be good for them to go throwing adults into death matches like that, but still! Kids! They weren't happy being regular old evil, they had to go and add in some extra helpings of evil on top?"

There were several feelings mixing in Sandy's gut right now that made for an uncomfortable sort of toxicity. On the one hand there was a weird feeling of satisfaction in someone else reacting with horror at what she'd lived through. Was it validation? Maybe. But in Panem since everyone else was in the same mess the only people who ever seem truly horrified by the situation were the new arrivals.

There was also a sort of disappointment, her father had told her stories of the great Spider-man since she was too young to remember. Stories to emphasize virtue, having a sense of humor and most important? Responsibility. Then when she'd found out that the legendary Spider-man was just an old man in her world who she watched get run through with a knife...well the legend seemed so much less impressive.

And now here he was, a kid like her. A few years older sure but he looked ready to throw up. She'd already known that under the mask and behind the stories was a mortal man but right now she wasn't sure if this Peter was even close to the same status as the Peter her father had known.

"Uh...that's not even some of the worst stuff. Serious." She shrugged her shoulders awkwardly "You probably don't wanna hear about that. But on the upside there were adults too? I mean...OK it doesn't make it much better but I guess before they started kidnapping people from other universes they always used kids. Then they changed the game so it was kids and adults from other worlds instead of their own."

And it's not like the kids in the districts were that much safer. They still led crappy lives from what Sandy had seen.

Peter opened his mouth, about to ask - was someone doing anything about it? They were killing people, killing children, and then bringing them back to life before killing them again. Peter wanted to know that someone, somewhere, wasn't going to just sit by and let it happen.

Expect - 'you probably don't wanna hear about that', she'd said. He could read what that might mean. "I...sorry, you probably don't want to talk about this, do you? Not that you can't talk about it if you want to. I'll listen, if you do. And you know, declare that they are complete bastards at all the right points. Because they are, you know. And I'm sorry it happened to you. It shouldn't have, not in any universe."

And if he'd been there...well, he didn't know if he could have stopped it. But he'd have tried to.

She listened and watched him closer. An unintentional skill she'd developed in the last two years was trying to see through peoples lies and half truths. She wasn't very good at it but she liked to think she was. Or maybe she just liked to think that there was still hope Peter could live up to the reputation her father had built for him.

"Thanks...I'm still not really sure how much to say...or what to say. I mean...I got out didn't I? I'm here now instead of back there. Most of my friends back there were either dead or gone anyway." Her voice betrays her there cracking but she keeps moving hoping to leave those stray feelings in her dust.

"They were total bastards. And I guess I still feel kind of bad...like I should be back there with the others. Instead I lucked out and I'm here safe and sound."

As if any place was truly safe. Sandy still found it almost impossible to sleep without nightmares unless she was drugged by a special kind of tea they'd had back in The Capitol. Thankfully the elves knew a thing or two about making soothing drinks.

"I'm sorry." He seemed to be saying that a lot. But he didn't really know what else to say; What are you supposed to tell a kid whose been through all of that?

"And hey, you didn't choose to leave, did you? You didn't abandon anybody. And I'll bet all your friends would be happy to know you're safe now."

She shrugged her shoulders, not entirely willing to accept that the people she'd left behind were happy for her. If anything she felt like some of them like Tony Stark resented her. While people like Shepard and Phil deserved to be here more then she did.

"Maybe...there's nothing we can do about it though. We're here now and people need us I guess...or something." Sure they had rescued Peter but they'd effectively run away. How could they fight those shadowy monsters?

Sandy had only just months ago barely survived battle with a flock of particularly irritated geese.

"I'm a survivor, but I haven't really saved anybody before." She confessed, what she didn't say however was how many people had died to protect her.

"Hey, you helped save my butt back in that town with all the freaky horses. I was pretty useless there. If it weren't for you and Red, I'd probably be horse chow by now," Peter said, with a reassuring grin that he hoped helped to hide just how much he was beating himself up over that fact. He didn't have a problem with being saved - but he did have a problem with not being able to help.

"Maybe you should teach me some of your knife-fighting moves. If I don't want to get totally owned again, I might need them."

Her face bloomed several shades of red at the praise and the proposition. Her teaching Spider-man a thing or two? Wait...they'd never actually had a moment to talk about that had they?

"If you're sure you want to...I mean it's not a very pretty thing usually." She was hesitant because that meant showing him even more of how brutal she'd learned to be. "Then again we're fighting monsters so it's not like we have to hold back I guess. I don't know much about magic either." She was used to being self depreciating. It was easier to accept failure when she expected less of herself.

"Well...I don't really want to," he admitted. "I can't say I'm all that keen on knives. I'd always be worried that I'd hurt someone too bad, you know? Or, much more likely, hurt myself." Especially right now, when his senses were telling him where and how to move but his body wasn't able to keep up. His ability to be a complete clutz was now off the charts. "But I might still need to. You know?"

"Yeah I guess..." Should she just get it out of the way? Just...spill it out to him right now? What is she was wrong?

"Have you ever done any fighting before this?" Maybe just ease into the topic. That was she wouldn't look like an idiot if she was wrong.

"Um, no one's ever taught me to fight," Peter said. Which wasn't actually the answer to the question she asked. But he wasn't at all keen to say, 'Yes, in fact I spend my days trapezing across New York and fighting petty criminals in bad outfits', which would be the real answer.

Hopefully she wouldn't realise that. He didn't want to tell the truth, but he always felt like crap when he had to actually lie.

Sorry Peter, but Sandy is much too paranoid to let something like that slip by.

"But you have fought before?" She pressed fixing him with a stare that would rival many birds of prey.

Peter would like to say that he was never one to lie. Unfortunately, saying so would most definitely count as one. When the choice was between 'lying' and 'having his secrets revealed'...he picks lying.

"Seriously? You saw me out there. If I had fought before, I wouldn't have sucked so bad."

She gave him another long hard look and then sighed and turned her attention back to the test dummies.

"Yeah I guess not...I Just thought you might be someone I knew. He was really old, like a grandpa. But he fought a handful of big armored jerks in just his underpants and a mask."

Taking her practice knife she threw it and it found it's mark in the dummies chest.

"I can't imagine you doing any of that even if you have the same name. Sorry for being weird." Clearly she'd been driven a little crazy by how much better her life had gotten recently. She may not be in Panem anymore but that didn't mean all her dreams were gonna come true.

"I..." Peter stood there, with his jaw open, frozen. He wasn't and old guy, but...underpants and a mask? And he had the same name? What the hell was this? Was that...him? Him from the future? Him from an alternate universe?

But why did it have to be him? Maybe...maybe it really was someone with the same name. It's not like there weren't already thousands of people also putting on their pajamas to go and fright crime. It was possible.

He just had the sinking feeling that even if it was possible, it wasn't likely.

"I...I don't...I'm not an old guy, I don't know...how can I know if I'm some guy from another universe?"

"Well..." Sandy mused thoughtfully. "My dad always told me stories about this hero right? Spider-man protected New York city from bad guys including my dad. He even made my dad become a good guy. Then he went away for a long time till this old man brought him back. The old man told a bunch of us his real name." Another questioning look at him.

"Peter Parker."

Passing him a practice knife she posed the way she had before showing him how to hold the knife and how to take a stance before a throw.

"So I guess the only way of knowing for sure is if you turn out to have a hero inside while we're fighting all these forces of darkness or whatever."

...Crap.

She knew. She knew! Okay, she didn't know know, because she thought he was just some other Peter Parker (oh god, there are other Peter Parkers? Did their lives suck as much as his?). But she was still way closer to knowing all of the secrets he'd tried to keep back home. He wasn't ready. Not for this.

"Right. I guess," he said, laughing weakly. So all he had to do to convince her that he wasn't Spider-man was...to not try to fight, and sit back while everyone in this universe died. Great.

And he was really glad she was starting to show him some knife moves, because god he really needed a subject change about now.

"Aren't knives meant to be really bad for throwing?" he asked, trying to imitate her hold and stance. It felt rather strange trying to do something specific like this, rather than just...doing whatever came naturally like usual.

Level grinding.

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