115/Getting Better

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Getting Better
Date of Scene: 25 February 2020
Location: A gym somewhere in New York City.
Synopsis: Phobos starts the process of teaching Isabel how to be a better hand-to-hand combatant.
Cast of Characters: Alexander Aaron, Isabel Kane




Alexander Aaron has posed:
    The text had come across the other day after the trip to that bar, just a small message that flitted across the ether and delivered the pixellized text to her from none other than Alexander Aaron.

    << Hey Izzy. Meet me at Urban Fitness down on 34th? About 9pm. Cool? Cool. Bai! >>

    And that was that. No further word was sent, and that left her some time to get herself together if she wanted. Wouldn't be hard to find the place as it was one of the more premiere gyms down off of Midtown. And nine o'clock was the sweet spot for training, at least in Alexander's opinion. When most people are on their way home and before the late night jet set people who travel come by to overrun the treadmills and leave their sweaty towels everywhere, ugh.
    But once she finds it and should she enter she'll see what is truly a modern gym. What with the two story tall interior gymnasium. The cross-fit gear scattered around like a theme park of fitness. The climbing wall with its multi-colored handholds. All of those free weights stacked against one wall next to a bank of some twenty tread mills that surround a boxing ring as well as a mass of pleather sparring mats set down for open use. But this time of night, there are only a half dozen people there?
    And across the way she'll likely see the one she's looking for. Sitting on a bench there, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his fingers interlaced. When she appears he'll grin a little, dressed for working out in grey sweats and a loose black t-shirt. Gym Alex, ready to go.

Isabel Kane has posed:
The awful truth is that Isabel is not very good at getting herself together. Oh, she's always clean and fresh and well-scrubbed and tidy, certainly; she's not a slob! But what you see with Izzy is more or less what you get: blue jeans, flannel shirts over camis or t-shirts, heavy boots, a coat. Probably goggles. Almost certainly goggles, even if they aren't immediately visible. She's never going to show up in stylish clothes like Janet van Dyne, she's never going to have her makeup perfect, she's never going to be all poised and fashion-forward and ready for television.

So when she emerges from the changing room she's pretty much in line with that. Sweats. T-shirt. Sneakers. She has apparently not yet succumbed to the yoga pants mafia. On the other hand, minus some of the extraneous clothes that winter in New York requires, she looks like she's in pretty good shape, just like you'd expect from someone who grew up working on a farm.

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    The blond youth pushes himself to his feet and rises as he takes her measure from afar, the smile still there as he starts to walk across the distance between them. He steps onto the mats, just wearing his socks for the moment, then off of them on the other side as he gets close.
    "Hey you." He offers in greeting and then steps in to give her a gentle hug, just a little more friendly than that first handshake shared. "So yeah. I was thinking." He gestures with a nod toward her neck and likely where the goggles may well be hidden. "If you're going to do this whole uper-say ero-hay gig, you should maybe learn a little more about fighting."
    He steps back and gives her a once over, then meets her eyes again and adds, "You down with that?"

Isabel Kane has posed:
Fortunately for all concerned, the brunette is a friendly sort, and not the type to object to a friendly sort of hug from someone she's faced death, or at least serious injury, with. She keeps it quick, but then, they /are/ here to practice, not to party. Although the goggles came with her, they're looped around her neck rather than being worn -- though they /are/ visible, even to the casual viewer.

"I don't see why not," she says, straightforwardly; "can't see that it'd do any harm, and it might help. My grandpa taught me some things," she says, hedging on the nature of exactly *what* her mildly famous fascist-punching relative may have taught her, "but I never really thought of it as a career or anything. Just a way to discourage boys from getting too fresh."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    A light exhalation of a laugh might meet that last statement as he points at her and says, "Duly noted." But then he spreads his hands as he walks with her. "I figure just go with a few of the tips I know that might best help, then work on the fundamentals and things like that. Cool?" And with that he starts to step back across the gym, leading the mid-Westerner over to the hanging heavy bags. Just a few casual strides until he reaches there and casually 'bops' the bag to send it swaying a little.
    "Ok, square up on the bag and show me what you got. Without, you know. Your superspecs." That said he'll take up a a place next to the bag and holds it with his shoulder, making sure it's braced for her when she starts doing what she does.

Isabel Kane has posed:
"Sure thing," Isabel agrees cheerfully, and follows Alexander across the gym, doing her best (with modest success) not to gawk at anyone else who may be working out here. Gawking, after all, is rude, and while Iz may not be a capital-L Lady by any stretch of the imagination, that's no excuse for being straight up rude.

She can't quite suppress a laugh at his instructions. "That'd be cheating," she says, pretending to be offended. "Wouldn't tell you anything much useful doing it that way." So she does as instructed, and pow! pow! Well, several good signs right away: she knows how to make a fist so she won't hurt herself hitting something. She knows how to throw with her hips and shoulders, not just her hands and arms. And she knows enough to keep her hands up for defense when she's not hitting. Her stance and her technique are both a little old-fashioned -- hey, they were cutting edge during World War II! -- but they'll do the trick reasonably enough.

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    "Egg-zackly." The youth tells her as she gets set up and lines that first punch and then /BAM!/ it slams hard into the bag and sends it rocking, jolting around roughly and swaying with the chain clinking even as he braces to keep it from going too wild.
    "That's good," He says with a nod, hunkering down again behind the bag and laying his shoulder into it. "Not focus and gimme your best haymaker. Imagine this is that guy at the club that knocked over your drink and you totally want payback." Alex's lips twist with amusement, since really that was an accident back then, and so okay he did dare her to pop him one. But the guy was mostly innocent.
    "Just one good harder swing."

Isabel Kane has posed:
It's kind of fun! The superhero business isn't really one you get into if there isn't a part of you that, at some level, enjoys hitting things now and then. And Isabel is happy enough to punch the bag while Alex watches, not, apparently, concerned that he might be a spy or a super-villain in disguise or something less than completely benevolent.

"Haymaker, huh?" she asks, pausing for a moment to consider this request. "All right!" Eyeing the bag like it owes her money -- or spilled her drink -- she cocks a hand back, winding up ...

And then she steps forward and throws a brutal knee into what would be the, er, groin of the bag if it had physiology. *Then* she launches a good hard punch at the jaw area. So apparently grandpa had heard of "fighting fair" and decided that he had no interest in it, or of teaching Izzy to.

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    A small chuckle comes from him as he nods and then he steps away from the bag, "Hey, looks like you know what you're doing. So yay, don't have to go into the fundamentals." He gives her a nod, "Alright, so, for the most part with your stuff right? You should be able to walk over most people and things. It's gonna be rare it comes down to you needing to go all kung fu on a guy, right?"
    He looks her over and nods, "But there are things that translate well to just about any situation." He steps over a few paces and onto the mats, gesturing for her to follow him. He raises his fists and turns his hips a bit to face her, squaring up cleanly and tells her, "Ok get set. Like we're gonna fight. Which we're not going to by the way, I saw that knee. Yer skeery."
    That said he says, "So in some situation, you're set, you're watching your opponent. And you don't know what's going to happen next. Some people say, 'watch the eyes they're the gateway to the soul, etcetera,' right? Well that's kinda not true in a lot of ways. Some people say watch the hands. The body, things like that."
    He says, "More watch this, your opponent's head. Here's me I'm ready for you." He holds his fists up, then he says, "And now I'm thinking about hitting you..." And it might take a second, but she'll likely see his head easing forward just a bit. Just a touch.
    "It's instinctive, everyone has it. You think about going at someone, your head leans forwards just a bit. Now some people have trained themselves out of that. But ninety nine percent of people... that's what they'll do."

Isabel Kane has posed:
"Grandpa always used to say, only fight by the rules when you can afford to lose," Isabel explains, looking slightly embarrassed, but also rather pleased, by her own willingness to live up to that recommendation. She lowers her voice a little, and adds: "Truth is, I'm still sort of getting used to ... you know. I'm just as happy to have more ways to stop people, 'cause -- if I hit somebody too hard, like, as hard as I possibly could, and they weren't as tough as I thought they were --" She leaves the possibilities unspoken, but in the process raises the question of how strong she really /is/ at full strength.

Following Alex away from the bag, she takes up a position a bit away from him and settles into a defensive stance, listening to him talk, but also keeping an eye on what he's doing. "I see it! Sure. Makes sense. Hardly anybody's going to be able to get rid of all their reflexes." She's nodding. "And I don't want to get out of the habit of getting out of the way when someone's trying to hit me, after all."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    Alexander gets a warm smile as she catches on and catches on quick. "Ok get ready, I'm going to throw a few punches. Just gimme a straight block or duck when I do, see if you can get used to reading me. Alright?" And as he says that she'll see him raise his guard and hunker down behind it. Makes it a little harder to see him, to see that tensing in his shoulders as his neck eases forward, but she'll need to get used to it.
    "Alright, ready?" And it's only when she shows a sign of agreement that he nods and watches her. A few seconds he makes ready, his hands lift, steady. Then he throws a punch and if she's quick enough she'll catch the tell-tale hint. But much more training is going to be needed before it is second nature. So he tells her, "Ok, gimme ten minutes sparring with this. It'll be a good warm up."
    And once they're both ready, he's good as his word, forcing her to get used to the rhythm and vibe of reading the young Olympian as he holds and throws a few punches now and then, each one with that telegraph hint, and then encouraging near the end for her to start throwing some back. All in all it's a good way to get started, and hey, the company isn't bad.

Isabel Kane has posed:
She's less effective at blocking than she is at hitting -- although she's got good reflexes, and she can slip a punch pretty well. Still, just as she said, her training has focused more on pure self-defense than on really getting into fights, and so she's certainly going to need /lots/ of practice if she expects to do any of the latter. At least, if she expects to get into any of the latter without using her powers.

For the most part, she works in silence, trying to focus on what she's doing more than on socializing. Toward the end of the ten minutes, as she's starting to feel a little more comfortable, she'll ask: "So how long did it take you to get good at this stuff?" Duck, counter, then back into a guard position; and then repeating. "And did you ever get hurt too bad in the process?"

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    "When I was four, my dad gave me my first sword," Alexander says, huffing softly as he executes another short sharp punch. He's going strong enough so that if she misses it, misses the block, he'll tag her lightly. Not enough to snap her head to the side or feel pain, but those padded knuckles do at times cause a short burst of annoyance. "And I've been training since."
    He leaves it at that, and doesn't mention all of the difficulties he's gone through, nor the tough roads he's traveled. He doesn't mention the times his father has left him with barely any weapons to fend off against some wild beast. It's all in the past, and in truth... it's made him who he is.
    "And yah. Yah I did." He also doesn't elaborate there, but then when she makes a swing at him he smiles a little and says, "Don't worry about tagging me. I heal quick. So hey, if you need to get out your aggressions, I'm yer guy." That last word is accompanied by a sour rise of his eyebrows since hey, pain still hurts.

Isabel Kane has posed:
No doubt she takes a fair number of hits over the course of the process; she's pretty good, but she's certainly not perfect, and this is just the sort of test where anything other than being perfect is going to be a bit painful from time to time. "You got started ahead of me, then," she says, by now running a little short of breath herself. "I didn't really learn much of anything 'til I was about thirteen. Well, how to shoot a rifle, but that's not much help here."

She can't help but smile a little when he makes that offer, though. "Maybe I ought to say the same thing?" she says. "If you need to get your aggression out, I can put on the goggles and you can tag *me*. Me, I don't have much in the way of aggression to get out right at the moment. Everything's going pretty good!"

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    "Yeah." Alexander says, a little ruefully though yet another line of inquiry he doesn't go on down with. Instead he keeps her there going through those movements, at times building up a rhythm, then breaking it to keep her off balance. After five minutes more past the 'ten minute' mark, he finally lowers his hands. "Okay, you set for lesson two?"
    As he says that he stalks away from her to the bench nearby and grabs a pair of towels from the dispensary, offering one to her even as he wipes at his brow as well. His brow is sweaty, and his t-shirt is clinging to the taut lines of him. And perhaps this is the first time she'll get a chance to see that the reason Alexander wears such baggy clothes... is to hide how well built he is. His pecs are strong, shoulders broad, and each time he had thrown a punch his t-shirt jounced revealing those powerfully hard abs, which might go a bit of way toward making it a bit more believable that this youth... might well really be a Greek god.
    Yet he doesn't seem tired, not out of breath, breathing regularly. He waits for her to towel off then offers her a bottle of water from the fridge nearby.
    "Alright, so here's a thing. Chances are with how you are, you'll probably be fighting a bunch of people, right?"

Isabel Kane has posed:
"Sure thing," Isabel says, albeit a little breathlessly. Sure, she's in pretty good shape for an ordinary human -- she can probably outlast most of the folks who show up to a gym in February, even in New York. But Greek deity material she most definitely is not, and she wears out just like any other ordinary mortal does. Or, at least, she does without her magic goggles on.

Taking a towel, she somewhat overenthusiastically rubs perspiration from her hair until it's more or less dry again, and then cracks open the offered bottle of water. "Well ... probably. I think if I fight a bunch of people when I'm just normal, I'm going to get my butt handed to me, though. Grandpa told me, if you have to do that, try to string them out to fight one at a time, 'cause two or three at once will give even someone who's really good a lot of trouble."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    "So one thing I've learned, in a fight with multiple people..." He sets the towel down gently on the edge of the mats, then walks slowly back onto them, turning to face her. He holds his hands up though now they're open and extended toward her, as if urging her to keep away. "No matter how many there are, two, three, fourteen, twenty, right? Main thing you need to do is keep moving."
    He holds that stance and looks at her and says, "Ok now watch these three steps, and see what I'm doing." Once he says that he then takes a step to the right, plants his foot, crosses the other leg behind and turns as he does so. It's all a smooth three steps to move, move, move, turn. He repeats. Doing it again, and then again. Until he's blending them all together into one movement, rotating in a slow circle.
    "You want to stay on the edge of people, and keep moving, and then this puts people in the way of each other as they come toward you. It won't work against a lot of people who are experts, but it'll work against a lot of people who just don't like you a lot. Right?"
    He continues moving that way and then at the next rotation. "Ok now join me for this dance, madame?" He waves her forward.

Isabel Kane has posed:
Isabel watches him intently, her brow furrowed slightly. But she's fairly quick to pick up the idea: "Sure, that makes sense. Long as you keep moving, it's harder for more of them to come at you at once, and that's what you want. One at a time, and even if you don't get to hit the same guy twice in a row ... well, as long as you keep hitting they'll fall down eventually." Hopefully they will. It may be deduced that Izzy has probably never had to fight a whole crowd of people at once.

Also, her dance experience is somewhere between limited and nonexistent. But this is only dance in the vaguest possible sense, and she does at least have a fair number of qualities that're helpful: good balance, for instance. She tries to copy his movements, without success at first, but also without falling onto her butt, which is a start.

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    There are points where he'll stop their movement and he'll adjust her stance, a hand upon her knee and calf and then gently guiding her foot placement. It's all clinical, there's no flirtation in this moment as he takes on this role of teaching, trying to impart to her some of the knowledge he's gained over his limited course of life. "Here, now turn, and move. Now let's try the other way."
    And again they focus, spending a good amount of time moving and turning... until it's almost second nature. Left, or right, slow, or fast.
    He will push her, not letting them relax until he sees marked improvement. But then as she feels she has it he then smiles at her and says. "Ok now, I want you to punch me, okay." And yes he's serious.

Isabel Kane has posed:
She makes a pretty good student, despite her relative inexperience in this particular set of practices. She's certainly not any sort of hand-to-hand combat savant, and it's clear that it'll take long hours of effort and practice for her to get really good at this sort of thing ... and that even then she's never going to be truly great; she's started too late in life and she lacks that certain special something that's necessary to be a master.

All the same, she's certainly learning. And, while a lot of sweat lies in her future, she's at least getting a solid grasp in how she'll need to expend it to get where she wants to go. Which is why his instruction brings her up short. "Okay? Anywhere in particular?"

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    Lightly tapping on his nose, Alexander nods to her, "Pop me in my face, imagine me saying something about Iowa was it? Idaho? Somewhere out there in crazy land." His lip twists as he teases, perhaps trying to get her to put some oomph into it. Then he retakes stance and meets her gaze, nods once and...
    She throws the punch, and almost instantly he makes that step to the side, one hand slapping against her forearm of the fist and the other throwing a punch right toward the side of her head and stopping a half inch. Perfectly timed and he holds it, then draws back. "See what I did there? Took our dance step, used it when you punched and it let me hit clean. So that's what we're gonna work on."
    Then his lip twists, "For the rest of the hour. Cool?"
    And with that... they do.