The test.(Shadow)

Matt walked down the stairs and flicked on the lights, he was still debating with himself if he should test her physical abilities or just beat the crap out of her. After tossing around the possible conversations with Sabretooth he walked into the weight room, it had a treadmill but he ran outside, so this was the weight room to him. He spend some time looking at the equipment while he waited - they were in surprisingly good condition, likely because they we're expected to take care of themselves but no expense should be spared on training. "Hurry up already." He said to the wall as he paced back to the doorway.

Shadow knew he must have been waiting a bit by the time she got down to the basement. She'd purposely made him wait by pretending to be way too lost. Not easy, but maybe she could say she'd been updating Kaitlyn and William. Actually, sje would need to later in the evening, but it wasn't like Matt would snoop enough to question her. Hopefully. "Sorry, I was emailing my brother and sister. They wanted me to tell them as soon as I got here." Total lie, but Shadow doubted he would mind. Most knew how important family is. "So, are you going to see how I am without my powers or target practice with a piece of paper or what?" She'd seen a lot, and William, though not the best, had tried teaching her to defend herself the normal way after his friends had tried taking advantage of her like they did.

Matt stared at the girl, e-mailing her brother and sister? he shook his head. "Alright, I guess. I would have waited until you were sure you're going to be staying." He turned and stepped back into the weight room. "Start with physical abilities, you know how it is eh? Max lift, running - speed and distance, punching and kicking strength, then anything else you feel you might be talented in before we move onto your powers. He walked to the wall with the weights and lifted a hand in a sweeping motion. "You can lift bench or free weight, or move on, if this isn't at least average don't waste my time - so long as you can excel in something you'll be fine."

"They wanted to make sure I at least found the place," she explained, following him in. "Um, I can't really lift much, but I can kick and run pretty well," Shadow admitted, looking at her feet. "You'd probably have to pull the weight off of me for whichever, but I know a few ways of self defense, like the only good reason to wear high heels is that if you're attacked, you can take off the shoe and use the heel to poke the person in the eye." She bit her lip, knowing she must've sounded like a total girly-girl. That probably wouldn't be good. Hell, who was she kidding? It would probably get her kicked out on the spot!

She took a rubber band from her wrist and tied her hair back before heading towards the treadmill. Shadow checked that it was plugged in before turning it on. "Any specific starters?"

Matt was dumbfounded, this wasn't seriously happening. "Considering the only person to test self defense on is me I wouldn't recommend it. If I attacked you you wouldn't get your heels in your hands let alone my eye. He moved over to the punching bag. It was only fair to start with kicking strength and move onto running, otherwise the run might tire her and she wouldn't kick as hard. "Kick it and make it count. Don't ruin power by starting with endurance." he stepped back from the bag and waited.

Shadow looked at Matt, surprised. Was he serious?! "I'm not even wearing heel, you idiot. How unobservant can you get?!" When most say that, a person would be smart enough to look and see if the person was wearing heals in case. Instead, she was wearing a pair of worn black sneakers. Whe he showed her the bag, she smiled. Not exactly the smartest move, but he wanted to see how hard she could kick, right? She moved into the right stance for a round house, taught by her brother and some of his better friends, and aimed a swift kick at his groin. With luck, he'd take that the way he should and figure she could kick pretty well. That, or he would at least figure out that she really didn't like that remark about her brother earlier. One thing never to do with one of the Grey triplets was to insult them. Any of them.

"You didn't carry anything in with you? Who am I to know what you own. I'm only speaking metaphorically." He replied while waiting, he wasn't stupid and she wasn't near fast enough to line up a round house kick, so while she kicked he jumped back. "So you know, if you hit something that would have been good, the bag wouldn't have moved. Now running, impress me." He smirked as he glanced at the treadmill, he couldn't draw a way she could incorporate an attack into it but he had to solve this somehow. "Listen, if you attack me out of the blue again I'll whip you around and toss you out. If this is how you're going to act to your teammates no one is going to miss you. What the hell is wrong with you anyway, your father would have beaten you into the ground himself by now."

"Well, I'm sorry, but you insulted my brother earlier, and I'm still trying to get back at you for it," Shadow said, half-lying. She was normally good, yes, but she'd left out the part about the Wolverette. If that happened, she was in such deep shit. "Here's to hoping that doesn't happen," she muttered to herself, heading back to the treadmill. She stopped herself before starting it up though, turning towards Matt.
"To answer your question, the reason my dad hasn't beaten me yet, is because he doesn't even know I exist. He doesn't know he has triplets. Hell, he probably doesn't even know he has any kid if there's more of his around the country. I don't know if he left my mother because she was pregnant or because she didn't tell him. I left Texas to go find him and either bring him home to meet Kaitlyn and William or to bring them up here some time to meet him. Beneath that tough exterior has to be some kind of parental instinct."

"Unless your brother is a mutant who plans to fight on our side I'm not interested in this crap." He stated as he picked up a couple free weights, he should be paying more attention but this was taking too long and this was starting to bore him. He should have just kicked the crap out of her, would have been faster and tested her usefulness. "I assure you we all have our problems, you're half right with the parental instincts you're going to be disappointed. If you can make something for yourself here he might be proud of you, but I wouldn't expect a loving father." In a sense he could feel for the girl, he never had a father either, but he was never too interested in looking him up and lying to her to make Sabretooth seem like a good man would have been too much.

"He is, but not by much, seeing as he prefers a diplomatic approach, though he's a bit more powerful than me," Shadow admitted sheepishly, looking down at her feet. She bit her lip and turned back to the treadmill, ignoring Matt's comment on her father. "Any starting preference's you'd like me to go at?" She used to run track with her sister, though an unofficial member of the team. Not that she would tell him that. He seemed to be a normal guy, though, and if she was lucky, she might get a bit of an advantage. Shadow wasn't exactly the best at beauty, but she was thin and tended to get a few compliments. Most guys would be drooling over her sister, and they were almost complete copies, save for the blue fleck in Kaitlyn's eyes. Shadow looked back at Matt, still waiting for his reply.

"A diplomatic type?" He shook his head, he always preferred to use his fists as his diplomatic tool. "I'm going to assume you're the go getter in your family? You're looking more and more like the right choice, by comparison at least. Power is only power if you can use it." He sighed as she asked him what she should do, how should he know if she was a sprinter or a marathon runner. "If your going to speed I'd say run as fast as you can and hope for the best if it's distance then about 6 miles or so should be a good distance." He didn't really have a scoring system for this, he just had some vague idea on what a normal person should be able to do then expected better.

"Some have said that," Shadow said to him. "Then they meet my sister." She set it to her usual, which was pretty much a fast pace, but not enough to tire her out before she met the six mile mark if she were actually running. Admittedly, she wasn't a person for speed or endurance runs alone. She tried to get a mixture , or as close to one as she could. In truth though, she didn't specialize in either.

"Well something held her back from taking this trip." He didn't want to pry too much into things, or throw this girl anything close to a compliment unless he was sure she was worth something. "As stupid as it was you stepped up and made your way here with no real information or knowledge to lean on. You're here looking for your father instead of sticking to with the family you've known your entire life, that reeks or a desire to change, am I off?" He dropped the weights when she finished and took a look at her time, clearly she was in practice, a good thing. "That counts, lets see what your powers are like, honestly this is just bonus points, your powers are what really matter." He said and started towards the door.

"Yeah, a track meet against Madison High," Shadow muttered, stopping and unplugging the treadmill. "And if it counts, then that's good. If you need to know my powers before you see them, just ask." She followed him out, and waited to see where he led her.

((Sorry for the short post. Can't think of much. ))

"Counts is good." He reassured her while he opened the only other door in the basement, it was a rather large, yet simple room, a new looking metal encased the room, it could withstand anything Matt was sure of that he'd put time into beating the wall down and barely managed to dent the thing. "We'll give your powers a test, I know fire, so I guess we can stick to seeing just how well you control it and what not. If you have any interest in sparring here is the place and I'll be happy to accept." He stood aside, he sorta wished there was some sort of viewing room since this was the place he'd really need to worry about this girl trying to hurt him again.

"Okay, good," Shadow said, stopping herself when she saw the room. "Damn, this must've cost a hell of a lot!" She was from a normal, middle-class sort of family. She'd never seen a room full of this much metal! She shook her head, clearing her mind a bit, before looking at him. "You'll probably want to see this eventually, so, now or never I guess," she said, holding up a fist and biting her lip as she showed her claws. The pain was something she was still getting used to, but at least the healing was just fast enough not to cause any noticible blood. She lit them on fire, happy to show off her favorite weapon, yet not letting it show.

"Seems useful, you can use them?" He really shouldn't be the person to question someones fighting ability, he had no formal training and relied on is speed and power to do the job, but it worked. "I don't mean some random mugger on the street or something, are you on par with another mutant?" Her abilities were clearly combat related, so he might have to spar her to really gauge it.

"Yep, I can use them," Shadow confirmed, extinguishing and retracting her claws. "But, I've only ever tried sparing with Kaitlyn and Will, so I wouldn't really know about another mutant you would know of. Mostly self-defense against the football team. The entire reason anyone ever learned of them."

"Alright, so minor pyro abilities with bone claws? Not bad." He wasn't sure if he should add anything else, with no real training or instant she might no be all too useful, her powers weren't weak by any means so Magneto might get upset for passing her off. "I not sure I'm the best choice here but I can try sparring with you later, I'm not exactly on the same level as a lot of mutants in a fist fight but I can't think of many of good choices around here."

"Yeah, with a slight healing factor," Shadow added, blushing slightly. She didn't want to seem like some kind of person to gloat or something, but in her mind, she sounded like one then. "Um, I'm sorry if you don't want to tell or show me, but what exactly are your powers?" She bit at her lip, stepping back from Matt and towards the door in case he would get mad at her for asking. "I'm really sorry if you don't want to, and as they say 'curiosity killed the cat'. I kind of don't want to be the cat."

Matt shrugged, he wasn't offended by her question, maybe a bit surprised the girl that spent time kicking him seemed to tread so lightly on the topic. The ability to absorb and channel energy. Basically enhanced speed, agility, and. Well this. He took a step back and built up what should be an impressive amount of energy in his hand, he punched the wall causing a loud crack while the wall barely moved. "This wall is damn near impenetrable, makes my attacks look like crap."

"And I'm sure that that would definitely be easier if the walls weren't metallic," Shadow agreed, stepping forward to take his hand in hers, looking over it. "I'm sorry, but, are you alright? That crack sounded like your damn hand broke." She looked up at him slightly, then bit her lip, stepping back. "Sorry, my brother used to get pretty banged up in practice, so I guess it was just some kind of impulse." Admittedly, she was practically her opposite of any first impression. But if someone insults, hurts, or tries to do either to her or her family, she gets revenge.

Matt laughed. "That wasn't my hand, it was the wall. I'm going to go with equal and opposite reaction or something like that, whatever forces the energy out also does something that protects my hand from what ever it hits, I could be punching a pillow." He never really thought much about it, he might have been luckier then he'd ever realized, how useless would he be if he hurt himself every-time he punched something. "Well that's that for the day, I'm about ready to hit the pillow, I usually wake up early." He started out the room and pointed to the light switch. "Whenever you feel like getting some sleep make sure the lights are all off. You'll likely have to go to school but you might be able to put that off for a week or so"

"Okay, thank whatever the hell up there is good!" Shadow sighed, smiling slightly. Well, at least she probably wouldn't need to worry about him. She nodded, motioning for him to go ahead. "Don't let me keep you up, you need your rest." She yawned quietly, then decided to go unpack. She turned out the light before following Matt out.