trans_9 | Training, in various ways...

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Training, in various ways...

After a few days -- weeks -- however long he'd been here, Morgan had finally settled into what he considered to be an adequate training regimen, for those times when he wasn't needed in Medical.

As a general rule, he began his day in the Sensorium, shaping it in the image of the mountaintop dojo he favored. One lone building atop a peak in the midst of a mountain range, lacking walls so the cool, thin air could drift through as he ran through forms and katas. A path wound its way around the peaks, and the frigid springs that formed small lakes and streams that poured off the edges in grand waterfalls. Next to this path ran a series of poles on which he ran, or jumped, when his regimen called for that sort of exercise.

Training in a simulated environment like this was old hat.

After he finished there, it was off to the river, where he (with some effort) persuaded his plantsuit to retract till it resembled closer to a bathing suit than anything. For what felt, at least, like an hour or two, the Akashic stood motionless in the river, submerged up to his neck. Legs spread, arms out, and hair streaming behind him in the current, he meditated. Harmony and moving in tune with the universe were key to his philosophy, after all. The currents, the flow of water around his fingers and limbs, and the silence were magnificent for that sort of understanding.

Then, off to the W.I.T.C.H. bus! Since Kaya had so kindly allowed him use of its training facilities, he made good use of that offer. This section of his training he devoted to melee weapons -- primarily his sword, of course, but he allotted time for other swords, staffs, daggers and knives, and tonfa as well.

And last, perhaps the oddest of all training exercises if one didn't know that to the mind of an Akashic, all things are martial arts: Morgan returned to the sensorium, not to fight or exercise or run, but to play. Electric guitar in hand, voice lifted in defiance of his one-held belief that he simply sounded terrible, and whatever backing was necessary conjured by environment, he rocked out, mixing up from simple guitar covers to lead guitar and vocals in full songs.

That lasted until he was exhausted, satisfied, or -- admittedly -- hit hard enough by nostalgia that continuing became prohibitive. Then it was time to clean up, relax, and see what else he had to do.

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Anwei's hands writhed nervously at her sides, before she tucked them a little behind herself. She wasn't used to explaining this; in her world everyone knew about the Living People, and about her. Come on, she chided herself; the worst he can do is say you're a horrible monster. So what? Words are not poison, you will not die.

"I was raised in a very hierarchical society, in one of the upper levels of hierarchy. I was taught how to beat servants who would never really fight back, and even if they did, there would always be someone there to step in. I suppose the best I can say for that is I learned how to take a beating as well.

"After that I was on my own for some years. I thought that I was fighting and beating people who attacked me, but I had an AI companion with me at the time. When I look at some of the fights I won, I'm fairly certain that he was helping me, covertly: knocking people off balance with pressor beams, distracting them at critical moments, or even just bribing them to break and run."

And probably plenty of media people interfering as well; but that would be even stranger to explain.

"Then, I was with the Vizsnunishne; space mercenaries. I learned basic hand-to-hand and zero-gee combat, but again, I had favored status. There was always someone who could save me. Horanckk, or another mercenary.

"So the result is," a shrug, "me. A mix of fighting styles, an unconscious belief that I will always win, with far too much tendency to panic and bite if I feel outnumbered. And biting is no good against armored or poisonous opponents." Even if it meant learning another style from scratch, controlling her bite reflex would be worth it.

He nodded at the recitation, not seeming particularly bothered by any of it. "So your main concern is that you have no idea of your actual level of strength, primarily because you haven't ever engaged in direct combat without someone else to rely on for aid."

He folded his hands behind his back, taking a couple of thoughtful paces as he rolled the problem around in his mind. "Well, to start with, let's see a demonstration. I'll be able to read more about what you can do if I can see you in action."

She was certain her ears were flaming red. "All right," she said slowly. She shrugged out of her armored jacket and, sliding down on one knee, put it to one side; she unwound her flashlight-laser from its cord belt and put that down as well. Now she was wearing heavy cloth pants over her plantsuit, feet and hands bare.

A human female would probably have risen to her feet to begin; instead she pulled with her outstretched foot and thrust with her knee and was up, feet pounding once against the floor as she hurtled towards him. Her feet were ready for a kick at knee or ankle; she led with one forearm across her chest, ready to sweep aside a blow, the other hand cocked to strike at face or throat. Her eyes had veered disconcertingly far apart, letting her wider range of vision take in all of her opponent, and just the tip of her tongue showed between her barely-bared teeth.

That last was a reminder to herself: no biting. Or if she did bite - no swallowing.

He'd wondered if she'd just demonstrate a form, conjure an opponent, or go for him; the answer to that question was an answer more generally to a lot of things. As he suspected, a straightforward attack meant to punish or disable. Hard style, unsurprisingly.

So then. To see her level of skill, he needed to see just how she reacted -- how well what she wanted to do meshed with what she actually did. So; seizing initiative.

As she approached, he pivoted just slightly, hands snapping out to seize the collar of her plantsuit. This was a soft technique, a sacrifice throw; it relied entirely on her momentum. He fell back before her, one leg coming up to plant his foot in her stomach as he pulled at her to kick her clean over him.

She had survived ten years being locked in a cage with her larger, faster, hungrier sisters; she had survived Fle and her own madness and the mercenaries by hitting hard, to keep the other down.

She saw his hands reaching for her and did not sacrifice her momentum to slash at them with her teeth - a valid defense move, but not instantly disabling. Instead she let him take the hold and throw, twisting to try and let the kick slip on her or past her rather than knocking the breath from her. She lashed out at his temple in passing - which might or might not work - and then concentrated on getting curled to roll with the fall rather than sprawl. A sprawl would leave her pointed away from him, head and neck vulnerable.

Nicely done, in his mind! Quick but not mindless reactions and good reflexes. He let his head roll with the punch, blunting enough of the force to keep serious damage from occurring, then kipped up as she went over him. He pivoted lightly on his feet the moment they touched the ground to face her.

She rolled once and was up and around on the pivot of one heel. She stood tilted slightly to one side, favoring where he had kicked her a little more than she actually had to.

Her eyes flickered for a moment, taking in his balanced stance. Then she screamed and lashed forward with her body.

The scream was not one of rage or bravado; it was the high-pitched wail of a beaten child, a sound to chill the blood and bring parents running. She kept her feet in constant contact with the ground, shuffling rather than stepping. She had her arms bent and hands raised (leading deliberately with the arm opposite her 'injured' side), ready for another blow to his face if she could - and hoping that he might overestimate her injury and let her get in a strike at his knee or thigh.

No luck fooling him! All his efforts thus far has been purely soft techniques, relying on the manipulation of her own force rather than any exertion of his own, and she had moved too fluidly for him to believe she'd managed to injure herself.

That scream was pretty unnerving, but he wouldn't say it was helping her any. Interesting technique on the stepping, trading speed for stability... actually, he wanted to test that.

Just at the moment she shuffled forward once more, he stepped forward and threw an open-palm thrust at her upper-right chest just below the clavicle. The blow was quick, but he put only the force of his bicep into it -- he wasn't trying to hurt her, after all! -- so it had no real oomph to speak of.

She let his blow pivot her torso slightly, bringing up the arm on that side to try and grab his. This brought her opposite shoulder forward, and she aimed a punch, not for his face but for his lower ribcage, aiming for the diaphragm.

Both of these motions were to try and obscure as she raised her right leg and aimed a solid kick at the thigh of his forward leg. Not the knee, although it was a tempting target; but not all species had knees that could be broken with a kick, and some of them had spiky kneecaps. Old habits.

She was hoping to land the kick and then get her foot back down and pivot; so long as his weight was still on the forward leg, she might manage it. If not, she might end up falling over onto him.

So far, he had a very good idea of her fighting style, and thus far he was fairly impressed. She'd talked it down, but she was fast, aggressive, balanced, and good at moving.

But then, she'd cited her unconscious belief in winning and her conviction that other people had been aiding her as part of those flaws. So he needed to see what happened when he overwhelmed her.

When she grabbed his leading arm, he shot into motion much faster than he'd moved up till now, twisting so her punch hit his obliques, then lifting his leading leg to catch her calf with his shin and nudge that kick aside. Then he extended his leg, catching it under her armpit before turning fully around, so that his foot traveled over her back to force her down.

WHOOMPH and she was falling, faster than she had expected - gravity rots - and she got both her hands down on the ground, stamping down with her diverted foot until she found a three-point balance.

The urge to bite, to turn her head and batten on his calf was strong. She was stronger - for now. Instead she turned on her three points, both hands and right foot, and kicked back and up with her left leg. She was hoping to knock him off balance, but if she hit him anywhere, she'd use that force to move herself out of range.

This was more his element. He caught her foot by the ankle and pulled. If she pulled back, as most people reflexively would in response to that, he would simply step with her so that she came off balance, then drop down to push her heel down into her back and lock her leg.

In free-fall, this would be the time that she would reel Morgan into reach of her teeth, curling like a pangolin, dragging him along by his grip on her ankle to get at him.

Again, though, her training failed her. She did the best she could, critically aware of his hands on her foot and her tongue still between her teeth. She was expecting the twist that would mean a broken knee as she shoved hard against the dojo floor with her hands and free leg, moving sideways rather than up, trying to get slack into the captured leg and hopefully knock her opponent off balance.

No, no, he wasn't breaking her knee in the middle of the assessment!

When he felt her starting to push up, he grabbed the back of her plantsuit at her neck and pulled, both to compensate for her sideways motion and to throw her off-balance. If she reflexively tried to pull herself out of his grip, the pull would become a push to turn that motion into another pin, this time of her upper-body. If she moved sideways or against it, he'd plant a knee in her back and bend her like a U around it.

He had no idea that she was more accustomed to fighting in freefall, so thus far, Morgan thought her self-control and refusal to surrender was quite effective and she had nothing to worry about.

Her childhood training had prominently featured limb-damage; she was accustomed to expecting the worst of even training-opponents.

One of the disadvantages of her thick, muscular neck was that it didn't bend quite as far as a human's; this was good for Morgan at the moment, because it meant she couldn't turn and sever the tendons in his forearm. Instead she reached forward and up, laying as much of her arm along and around the one holding her by the scruff of her neck as she could. She twisted, hard, clawing for a grip with her fingers, torquing her torso, kicking off with the foot still on the ground, aiming a punch at his side; the lower ribs and diaphragm.

He let her get the grip, and when the kick came, he threw himself into the motion as well. He moved as she moved, so she'd roll over him -- and from there it would be a simple matter to shove off with his shoulder, relying on his superior mass to bring her around beneath him again.

It was the smell that broke through her concentration: sweat on clean skin (meat) and her mind suddenly found a fingerhold of panic in her and pulled her down. She had to win, had to bite, had to-

She was sliding over his back and suddenly her whole body convulsed, slithering along his spine like a reptile, grasping with her free hand and knees, her teeth reaching up and around and-

Stop. STOP! she told herself - too late.

'SORRY', she broadcast through the comm ring, letting herself go limp and hoping he wouldn't shake his head and sever an artery. 'Sorry, sorry, rot it all, this is what I was talking about!' She couldn't talk because she had the back of Morgan's neck clamped in her razor-sharp teeth, and at full gape she couldn't let go easily.

And it's rude to talk with your mouth full.

THERE it is. Huh.

When she gripped his neck in her mouth, he had gone perfectly still save for one hand, which he'd left in contact with her body. He'd trusted her not to follow through, but left himself that touch as a safeguard. Just in case.

"I see what you mean," he said quite calmly. "I felt the change. Don't apologize, though, this is what I was trying to get to."

'But it's the wrong bite,' she insisted, still talking through her comm ring. She stretched her jaw until they both heard it crack, and then loosed and let herself slide down his back to the floor.

'I can't bite through your neck, and I risk getting my teeth caught in your vertebrae. It would make more sense to bite the shoulder and cut the muscles, then slide down and attack on the weak side. But I don't do that; I bite whatever's in reach. And if I don't disengage at once, I just keep biting, completely losing track of anything else.'

She frowned. 'And I also go mute, because my tongue retracts.' She waggled her jaw, but her tongue remained stubbornly hidden.

"That was my point. Not that the idea of biting itself is wrong, especially... the way you do it." Yeesh. "But that you lost control. That was very detectable, and you're right, it would have rendered you an easy target for a counterattack or against an opponent in some way armored against the attack. Or at least one with a partner."

He rolled onto his back, then kipped up easily. "I think," he said, crossing his arms, "that you're in excellent shape in terms of combat proficiency. It took some real effort on my part to push you to that, and you didn't lose control until I had you really pinned."

She wiggled her jaw again, and finally felt the wet slither of her tongue coming free. "Losing control was always part of the fun of it, for my initial training. But I'm not fighting to have fun; I'm fighting to win, or at least to make space to run away."

She bowed her head briefly. "I appreciate that, coming from such a skilled opponent. So, do you have an opinion on what I should do for future training? Is learning a new style necessary, or should I just learn how not to panic? Or how to react appropriately when I panic?"

"I don't think a new style would help, personally. The issue is, simply, control... control and harmony between your mind and your body. You do excellent on that right up until instinct takes over." He rubbed the back of his neck, curiously. "And as soon as it did, you managed to stop it, or else I'd probably be bleeding a bit more. It's just that one moment that does it."

She thought of how many single moments were strung together in her memories, each one a wound on another, and in another way on herself (sometimes).

"Well, I did have some time to prepare my mind. I came to see if there were any fighters practicing today, to ask their opinions. And before I came to Stacy, I was stranded on Earth for a year. I had to learn to mimic the humans around me, or else be captured, probably killed. I learned to - break away before the panic-point, when I could." And when she couldn't, well, people got hurt.

It helped that she'd eaten a big breakfast this morning.

"I suppose I could drive myself to panic against virtual opponents, and try to control myself? That way no one would get hurt."

"I prefer a more whole-cloth approach, personally," he said, idly rubbing his chin as he thought. "Are there any other ways or situations in which your instincts give you trouble?"

"Well, I'm obnoxious and self-centered, but that's just bad training, not instinct," she replied, brushing her own chin with the back of her fingers as she thought.

"Blood," she finally decided. "Smells can throw me off. My species is carnivorous until age ten, and after that we're omnivorous, but requiring more protein than humans. In a fight I had time to prepare for, I'd probably wear nose filters. Or have someone who can watch my back when I flip out."

Training, in various ways...

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