trans_9 | Biweekly Warfare Training

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Biweekly Warfare Training - Block One

The turnout ended up being better than expected. Kang stood with his arms crossed over his chest in front of the bar of the tavern, looking over his and Ronon's students; he knew that several of them wouldn't stay, once they realized how brutal this training was going to be. He glanced over at his fellow instructor, and nodded slightly, getting a nod and grin in return.

Sons-of-bitches voice was go.

"Welcome to Warfare Training. For those of you who don't know us, I am Kang, and this"--he pointed at Ronon--"is Ronon Dex. We are going to be your instructors." His wings rustled slightly, and he grinned. "I'm going to tell you right now: this is not going to be easy. You will get hurt. You will be sore in muscles you didn't even know existed. We are going to make you give us everything you have, and more."

He placed his left hand on the hilt of the sword at his waist. "You will be learning hand-to-hand, various melee weapons with an emphasis on swords and knives, firearms, and for those interested, I will be giving private lessons with the axe. You will also be learning strategy and tactics, and will be facing off against many different types of nonhuman foes. Our goal is to make sure you have a chance of surviving, no matter what situation you happen to find yourself in."

Pointing to the door, the bozak's expression turned serious again, "If you feel that you can't handle this training at any point, the door is right there. We only want those who are serious about learning, and we won't put up with whining or half-assing. We also won't put up with any sort of discrimination based on age or sex, so be respectful to your fellow classmates, and to your instructors." He meant it, too.

"Classes will be Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 1600 to 1800, and mostly optional on Saturdays from 0900 to 1200. We'll let you know which Saturdays are required at least a day ahead. Questions?"

[Things to be covered!

Basics of hand-to-hand, proper knife and sword handling, and for those interested in axe, message me and we'll work out the private lessons. :3]

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Somewhat relieved, he grinned and returned her bow. "My friends were training me in the martial arts before I was rescued. I need to continue where they left off---I don't want to watch anyone else get hurt because I'm too weak to help them."

Centering was easy, after all the time Jason had spent drilling that skill into his head. He breathed, crouched, and signaled his readiness with a nod.

Once he started? He tried a left hook, twisting his body into it as he'd been taught.

Katara smiled. "You're a Power Ranger Billy, I wouldn't expect anything less from you. I know that you'll do everything that you can to make sure you can help people on the ship. It's the same reason I'm here too. I'm happy to help you."

Katara waited, watching him gathering his thoughts together. she was happy she didn't have to explain what she meant by centering: it looked as if he had that set. When he nodded, Katara got into stance, waiting to see how he demonstrated his sparring.

She watched. The form was good for a beginner: he stepped properly, but it lacked a bit of punch that would have made the hit a bit more fluid, and she locked his leg, shifting away with her whole body and poked Billy at his forehead which actually would stagger him a bit, and unless he had decent balance, would have hi hit the floor.

"That wasn't bad," Katara said, smiling, "But you might want to keep your balance when you throw the punch: you don't want to throw your weight in right away until you have the opponent in a more stable position where they have to trust in their feet. When you connect and catch your opponent off guard, that's when you go for the more solid hits."

With a tiny yelp, Billy fought to stop from wobbling. Thank goodness Kimberly had forced him to walk around with those books on his head---as she'd said back then, he certainly owned enough of them.

"Yes ma'am," he squeaked sheepishly. He withdrew, bowed his head, and tried to refocus. Obviously, his strategy needed a rehaul. He wasn't fighting clumsy monsters or flailing Putties---they might be able to drive a car, but they couldn't disable a human as efficiently as another human could.

Signaling that he was ready to try again, his advance was faster the next time. A feint might work---could he try slightly lower? He lightly jabbed that way.

Katara smiled. Good-he kept his balance. She had expected him to do that much: he was a Power Ranger after all, even if he was more the brains. She took a breath, then watched him start to get back to a centering place. She was definitely pleased to see that over just jumping into the fight: she would have had to spend time unlearning doing something like that.

She watched as he got back into stance, and his advance was a lot faster, which was good as long as he kept his balance. But a moment later, she saw the flaw in his stance: she could see the slight difference in his feet and leapt in the air, extending her right palm out and pushing him backward again, this time following it up with a hip toss to the floor.

"If you're going to do that, you're going to have to be even faster: don't get me wrong, that was actually really good! Most people would have fallen for the low blow! An experienced person, though, is going to see your shift pretty easily. You have to get the timing even better when you do that again. But good, really good!"

Billy privately disagreed. He didn't consider 'learning what not to do while being tossed around' a display of any sort of competence. But he knew he had to keep up appearances, so he masked his diminishing confidence by curling over to push himself up.

It was probably ill-advised to try his next move, but he would never learn all of his weaknesses unless he tried and failed at everything. The rest of the classes would be spent attempting to catch up with his classmates.

His next advance, he bounded up and tried to kick across the side. It was far from the roundhouse kicks Jason and Tommy had perfected ages ago, but Billy could roll and recover from most positions.

Katara could see from the passing expression on his face that Billy didn't agree with her assessment. There was really nothing she could do about that but wait for him to get back up and try something different, and there was something to be said about that kind of learning when you got right down to it.

She had not, no matter what friendly advice she was giving, let her guard down, and she could see where Billy was going once he regained himself. The kick was not as stable as it could have been since he was moving a little too quickly out of a solid stance. She held the leg up and pushed back immediately: he would have been able to hit the other leg if she'd held it any longer. This time, as he tried to regain balance, Katara foot swept him off his feet and arm tossed him down. She then danced back, awaiting his recovery.

Any advice she held off from: it would only have made Billy feel worse, and Katara was sensitive to that. She didn't want to embarass him.

Another yelp escaped when he hit the ground again. Bar floors weren't exactly sparring mats. This time, the push onto his hands flowed into a roll. His feet needed to land there---okay---and he sprung up, hand going for a quick swipe.

He shut out the judging eyes of the others as best he could. There would be plenty of time for him to join them in criticism.

Although Katara was concerned when she heard the yelp from Billy, she still kept a wary eye on his form: they still were technically opponents in this light, and she wanted to make sure that he got everything out of this that he needed.

The springing up was good, if he had his footing, and she shifted out of her defensive stance into a more offensive one, matching the swipe with a counter that brought her closer to Billy, where she leapt over him and spun him toward her, and she finished off with a sharp finger to the chest, a move that would propel him backward due to her slow mastering of Prana Bindu, one of the first things she'd learned being the redistribution of force to an opponent.

Ouch. What was next? Could he manage a---okay, the angle of momentum and an extra twist put his hands in position. Not perfect enough for a back-handspring, but a quick cartwheel was fine. That move stabilized him, and then he could bring his arms up and try for another hit from the side.

He couldn't have his friends think he was turning into Kimberly, after all. Not that they'd think much of him except Billy, why haven't you made more progress by now?

Katara watched him try to angle himself back into a more offensive position, and saw, at least, that he was fighting to regain balance. The cartwheel was coming toward her, but rather than back away, Katara came at it full force, going low and knocking at Billy with a hard spinning kick to the solar plexus. It wasn't a usual move for Katara since she preferred defensive martial arts that disarmed her opponent, but she had gotten quite skilled with offensive fighting with her other training.

She cracked her fingers and watched Billy now, seeing what his next move would be.

"Argh!" That (and the immediately following fall) really hurt, but he didn't have time to double over in pain now. He could only keep trying, as pathetic as it must look to everyone else.

With that thought in mind, he pushed up---but struck out with a foot before he was all the way up. Though he tried for speed, she'd probably have moved and whacked him into the dirt by now.

He was right about one thing: she was definitely going to be moving out of the way. The moment she saw the foot shifting, she'd leapt out the way and had arm tossed him again. She stopped here though, and pinned him to the floor.

"Don't push yourself more than you have to," Katara whispered to Billy. "Remember, we still have to train with Ronan and Kang...and you heard them. It's going to be intense."

She let him up, dusting herself off, and gave him a bow.

Billy refused to meet her eyes, instead staring stubbornly at the floor. "I'll never be more than a weak link if I don't," he whispered sadly.

He picked himself up in an almost robot-like fashion, suppressing a wince at the new bruises. She was right, he knew, but that didn't make him feel any better.

Katara felt REALLY bad right now, but she also knew that the two of them were fundamentally different. If she'd been trying to learn the things that Billy did, she knew that she would feel just as lost. At the same time, she still didn't like seeing him like this.

"Thank you for sparring with me," Katara said. "There aren't too many guys that would be secure enough to do this without displaying machismo posturing, or would have laughed at the idea of fighting a teenager. But if you want to get better without everybody watching...we can arrange private sessions, okay?"

"I don't know if 'sparring' is precisely the word to use," he tried to joke over his shoulder. "'Wiping the floor with a nerd' would be the preferred terminology of my neighbors at home."

That was part of it. He was painfully reminded of how easy he was to bully before, and how little he'd learned in almost two years of fighting. Well...maybe not almost two years. Engineering duties had cut into his training time, and it was no wonder he was terribly out of shape.

At the same time, though, he wanted her to know he appreciated her offer. "I wouldn't be here if I wasn't prepared to be schooled in public, but I'll consider it---I need all the help I can get, obviously. Thank you."

"Hey, don't of it like that," Katara said. "We all have a lot to learn on this ship. You're probably way smarter than me,and why not? You have a pretty advanced world. Getting stronger like this is the same thing: you're just exercising your muscles instead of your mind."

She helped him up, smiling. "We're all still here to help each other, aren't we? When its things like this, its sparring. In return, maybe you can teach me a few things too?"

Once on his feet, he managed to crack a tiny smile. "I can do that. I know of some scientific concepts that would likely interest you---we'll talk about what's available to learn and where you'd like to focus."

Belatedly, he managed a bow as Jason had taught him once. "I'll look forward to it, even if I may not always appear enthusiastic."

"I'd appreciate it," Katara said. "I still remember being called barbaric by someone once...I was both angered and ashamed by it, since as far as technology goes, my world had really not gotten that far. I'd like to know what more I can find out about what happens in these other worlds."

Katara smiled. "You have a lot of work ahead of you. I know you can bear it all! And don't worry about how the others look at you. They'll have a lot to learn about too."

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Biweekly Warfare Training - Block One

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