trans_9 | I don't know what you're going to do, but I have work to do.

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I don't know what you're going to do, but I have work to do.

People dealt with things in different ways. In Mindy's case, she had continued severing people in the cafe. The hours were rough, her sleep patterns shifted, and she had told herself to take it easy after the ejecting from the Sensoriums by Overlord Zetta. Much like a bartender though, working in the kitchens meant hearing people's conversations, and that led to the topic most people were talking about: the Daligig, the former crew and the inevitable fight for the ship. This wasn't just gossip: it was legit information, and while she could skim over Howard's really long summary, it was Allenby's that hit home. Sure, she had that dumb phobia about tech that was irritating, but she was truthful.

And that meant training time had to happen. NOW.

She didn't waste any time either. Quick to the Sensoriums, Hit Girl costume on and the simulation began ten minutes after intense push ups, stretching and a little running.

She learned something in the past few weeks: the only way to really train yourself was to push, and that push had to keep going and going and make you better. So now she was back again against the Daleks, testing her ability to dodge and run and make things fall on them. Then came that duel with Aqua, where she got much, MUCH better with a blade. Then she was back to attacking SAINTS and the hark robots, making sure there were twice as many.

But the grand finale? Shadow Zetta, unstoppable, merciless, and constantly coming at her. Even in the aftermath of broken robots and a beaten Aqua, she couldn't come close to landing a hit on shadow Zetta that mattered. Yet here she was, going at it again and again, and somehow, the audience were smug looking members of the Daligig, looking like Ceasars at a lion feeding.

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Oh, Hit girl wasn't down yet! The bow was just a way for her to get closer and attempt to land some decent mid ranged hits, using a burst of her inhuma speed to land something home.

He wouldn't claim to be inhuman in any respect, certainly not in speed. Quick, certainly, but in no way reaching even the peak of human ability in agility. Still, he didn't need to; in this case, skill and experience served him just as well. Morgan still didn't move except for his arms, which flowed like water and mercury, swift to intercept blows, redirect them just slightly wide with a gentle touch to the inner arm, or foul her body off itself with a casual shift of force.

He'd promised to teach her without words, and he was sticking to that.

Hit Girl grunted, tripping a little, but beginning to see what he was doing. None of this was about using force, or at least he used as little force as possible. No, he was simply forcing her to shift her axis of attack, and that alone was throwing her off. It would be harder for someone who wanted to hurt her, but he didn't.

She came at him again, this time not using all of her force, but only with shifting her weight slightly to use the bow to go for a mid ranged hit again.

He caught the staff by the end -- then finally moved his whole body by way of turning it, in a moment perfectly timed to put all the muscles from his shoulder down to his legs and all the momentum of his movement behind it. Either she'd let go or she'd come flying into him and bounce off, one or the other.

Nothing fancy or dramatic about it, though. Just perfect timing and total harmony of body, all of it working smoothly and efficiently to the desired end.

Crap. He caught the staff, and she was going to have to think fast. Best idea was to let go of the staff and she did so, opting now for a foot sweep and then leaning on her calves to try and stiff uppercut to the chest.

It was a gamble, but she was determined to land a hit, no matter how long she was going to do this.

No sooner did he have control over the staff then he dropped the end she'd been holding down, slamming it on the ground to intercept her foot, then her inner forearm as she rose to uppercut him.

It was a deliberate challenge. Was she really giving her all? If she thought thus would be easy, something she could just pull off, well... she hadn't even made him move yet.

Hit Girl bit her lip. She was becoming frustrated, and that was bad: it wasn't like she could just overcome him with brute strength, and he was still only taking her down without moving. It was starting to get sad.

She was determined that she wasn't going to need the staff. If he had to take it, she would just have to figure out how to get her hit. So she brought her hands back, adjusting her knees, and came at him again.

Hit girl wasn't going to hold back though: now she was going to use her speed to have him deal with a barrage of hits: two to the abdomen, then changed to his side, then one to his shoulder and then one to the back. If he was going to predict her moves, she was just going to have to be unpredictable.

Predicting her moves wasn't quite accurate -- he hadn't been able to do that properly in the Bleed. The nature of time on the ship when it burrowed through dimensions made that sort of insight nearly impossible. It was just reading, reading and inevitability.

Still, she was making him exert himself more, now, and that was all to the good. Between his free palm and the staff held propped in his hand with just his thumb, parallel to his arm, he struck quick counterblows to her forearms. There was almost no strength behind his motions, just leverage; he fouled her arms off each other or knocked them wide by fractions of inches. He did, at last, take a step backwards to compensate for the way she ducked around to hit his back, but he turned immediately, redefining the battle along a new axis as he faced her.

No strength, not even particular speed. Skill, experience, and knowledge.

There was a look of triumph in her eyes even as she reeled back, more than a little exhausted in what she had been attempting. The key wasn't moving superfast, or specifically trying to out fight him: the key was actually changing the nature of how she fought.

So coming back, she bounded straight at him again, looking for a lunge but at the last moment changing tactics and going for straight shot to the chest, thenm following with a quick attempt to the leg and then changing speed again with an uppercut, changing THAT and then coming at him with a straight hit, palm down, fingers extended.

He couldn't read her future, but he could read her present, and she'd learned at least something he valued. It was, after all, a short hop from realizing that versatility was key, to deciding to learn to be more versatile.

But this wasn't the thrust of Morgan's lesson in its entirety. He fell still again, save for his free hand, which made casual motions in her direction. Aikido was an art of redirection and using an opponent's force against them, and a properly Awakened mind didn't need contact to do that. Morgan simply used his chi to move hers, so with each motion of his hand, another blow went wide by fractions of an inch.

This was balance.

Damn! Every time she tried to attack him he was able to stop her by not DOING anything! What the fuck?! There was no way he was able to stop her all the time, she was using her speed and everything!

Wait. Wait a moment. How did she miss this? Energy. He was focusing his energy to shove her away, at least now. Hadn't she learned this from him AND Negi? She was stupid, to have forgotten what had helped her get stronger in times of trouble, what had allowed her to form magic in the first place.

She retreated back, and drew her hands together. This would require concentration. She was nowhere near Morgan's level of zen, but she was strong, and had seen power in many forms to do this.

She just had to concentrate.

Hmm. This was about to get interesting, wasn't it. Morgan settled slightly, spreading his hands at his side. He was, to the best of his ability, in harmony and balance with the cosmos. In fact, there was not much distinction between the two of them at this point. Poised, he awaited.

Mindy could be patient: there was doing this in a rush, which had proven to definitely not work, and then there was taking her time and being able to get to where she needed to at the right moment.

So she envisioned her attack: she saw Morgan in her mind's eye and how he had virtually run through every offense she'd been able to mount. Rather than be infuriated by that, she forced herself to see what he was: an attack of offense was able to be defeated by simply planting yourself in one spot and letting your opponent do the work. Much like when she'd been with Ruffnut battling those armies, if you sometimes gave the enemy enough rope they could hang themselves.

She got up again, getting into an offensive position, legs apart, studying Morgan's posture. She wasn't going to rush this time: instead, she came at him with soft hits, not even pushing for her speed this time.

Good. She's thinking. That was necessary, the first step into fusing thought and action in combat.

However, he had the advantage still -- in this case, because she'd lost her staff to him. He swung it around in a broad sweep, perfectly at ease with the weapon as he whirled it through the air. This was an aggressive defense, designed to punish her with swift, stinging blows if she tried to break past it.

Yep, she was getting there: in fact, she was getting there enough that his swinging of the staff was not enough to deter her. In fact, as he swung he would find she was not there: she was already altering her speed so she coudl move in tandem to his body movement. Rather than just reacting to what he was doing, she was instead watching how he moved his body, how one foot moving in one direction was likely to dictate what he would do next.

So she moved in closer, closing in the space between them.

Good reading, he couldn't fault that. He let go of the staff, half-stepping, half-hopping backwards to regain distance again. She might seem like she'd gained the advantage to a moment -- till the staff twisted around, seemingly of its own volition, to thrust between her legs and trip her.

But she was beginning to catch a rhythm in all of this. Some of it was concentration, and the rest was up to intuition, and the logical thing to do now, to break her own movement was to use the staff to trip her up. Just as that happened, she had to be quick: she hopped up lightly, taking a moment to stand on the staff and deliver a kick.

He'd considered using that technique himself, but doing so would have made it too easy for her to score a hit when she applied the inevitable counter, just as he did now. He ducked the kick and in the same motion snatched the staff out from beneath her with both hands.

Did he think she was going to stay on the staff? She's only wanted the leverage: once she missed, she was already shifting her stance to hit the floor and rebound, backflipping and leaping toward him again in a flurry of hand and feet attacks now.

Of course he didn't think she was going to stay on it. He had reasons for grabbing it besides depriving her of a stepping stone, after all. As she backflipped, he was already skipping one foot back to shift stances, the staff sliding through his hands like it was greased. When she dove forward for him again...

Well, his stance and his grip were both more like a baseball player than a staff fighter. Morgan swung like he was aiming for the fences -- though the blow that the staff carried seemed rather nonsensical. Rather than concentrating its force on the point of impact like a sensible weapon should, the staff seemed more inclined to treat Hit Girl like one solid object, imparting motion on her whole body. She really WAS getting the baseball treatment.

Better believe that hit Girl had no intention of being hit with her staff like she was a baseball. She knew well enough when it came to working with the staff it was far more useful for its blade at the end (not on now) and its versatility. The way Morgan was using it now was like a bat.

What was more, she would use that miss (and she had to be quick or he WOULD get her with the staff) to dance away and then close the distance, going for a low body kick to knock him off his axis.

When the staff missed, he just kept turning with the motion, spinning his coat up and around to foul her leg as she lashed out at him. As heavy and tough as metal, though it flowed like cloth, it was enough to buy him a moment's time as he spun the staff around behind his back to bull her back.

Now was the time for Hit Girl start using her footwork. While the initial flap of his coat was unexpected and certainly tripped her up, she realized quickly this was just another way for him to knock her off guard. At this point, he would just use this opportunity to hit her with the staff She was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

So she just poured on the speed at this point, looking for an opening to where the coat did not protect him and narrowly missing the staff.

Morgan laughed, in delight and amusement that she was continuing to pressure him, but now she was over-relying on her raw physical ability again -- which was the opposite of the message he was trying to get through here. Which meant he had to be a bit less subtle to demonstrate the point.

So as he dropped into a low, balanced stance, he simply twisted one hand -- and what followed might be best described as one hell of a Force-push, except that the Force wasn't at all involved. Just a seamless interaction of his chi and hers, producing a massive shove backwards.

The laugh, as Mindy took it, was either him enjoying himself or him laughing at her, and likely it was the former even though the latter was what she immediately jumped to. She grit her teeth when she felt the push back, but got the message nonetheless: it wasn't just about her physical fighting.

So she took a breath and this time projected a push back: no aggression, no staff, no weapon on her part, just her energy.

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