993/Training Day for the Spider

Training Day for the Spider
Date of Scene:	05 April 2020
Location:	Unknown Warehouse, NYC
Synopsis:	Spider-Man gets his first lesson in ninja-ing.
Cast of Characters:	Chizue Nakamura, Peter Parker

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Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    It had been a cardboard box company once upon a time, now it was a creepy multilevel warehouse without stairs. That meant that the third floor hadn't been touched in god knows how long, It was decorated only with 55 gallon drums full of old zinc printing plates destined for recycling. Owari isn't just ontime to the joint, she's early. Slipping in ahead of time with a duffel over one shoulder, early enough to move a bunch of those drums out of the way and leave a nice broad opening in the middle of the room.

    Then she slips that cloak off, and peels off her chest rig to set them carefully aside. Then comes that helmet, which breaks it's seal with a hiss of pressure before she can slip it off to reveal. Well that sort've bodysuit she's got on covers everything but her eyes, which are perhaps predictably bloodshot. "Eh, Shikata Gai Ni.."

Peter Parker has posed:
He was pretty sure this was the place.
Spider-Man swung low over the warehouse, then checked the nav point on his phone. Yep. Right there.

The second door he tried was unlocked, so he knocks on it twice before stepping inside, looking around. The suit had to be patched again, but the new seam was holding together just fine. He will be glad once he has the new suit. He almost has enough, and was able to save some money by repairing the stove himself.

Spider-Man looked around, not seeing anyone immediately. But then again, considering his teacher...

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    Carefully she leaps up onto of those barrels before peering down at where the staircase up to the third floor ought to be. "You're very noisy, spiderman. Third floor."She yawns, slowly meandering back towards the cleared area whilst she gives a shoulder a slow roll. "I trust you did the reading assigned, like any good student?"
    Casually she drops back down to the floor as silent as can be, pilfering that bag for a simple wooden sword emblazoned with Kanji down near the tip. "I've got a little care package I put together for you on the AR front, but training comes first. So get over here and stretch out."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey looks up. "You know, I can hear it when you don't use the hyphen." He looks up to the staircase, shrugs, walks over...

...and then he simply jumps 35 feet straight up to land on the third-floor landing, looking at Chizue before hopping off of it. "Yes, I did read the book. Not sure when I'll need to learn how to use the naginata, but the house-building stuff will come in handy."

He does chuckle. He'd gotten all the way here from Queens by webslinging alone. "I....think I'm as stretched out as I can get. And I don't really use swords...or any weapons, apart from the webshooters."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "Musashi was the deadliest swordfighter of his era, you should look beyond the sword and recognize that it is the spirit which cuts. You have a sword, but it is immaterial."Casually she taptaptaps that wooden blade against a calf. "The sword, the gun, all of these things are just accessories. You are the weapon, you must refine yourself so that you are a sharper one than you currently are."
    That head cocks off to one side. "You're very strong, and you're very quick. You're also very smart, but you are not yet fully formed. You lean too much on your athleticism, your brain and your body do not fight as a unified whole."Slowly she sets the tip of that blade on the floor, before rolling foreward and in a single smooth motion she rolls herself skyward. Balancing herself upon a sword point, and giving a slowl kick to turn herself round to peer after Peter from upside down.

    "You can not rely upon always having the greatest reaction speed, strength, durability or whatever. All of your advantages are burdens, do you understand me? You must fight smaller, so that you may fight larger."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man takes a deep breath. An old rhyme from when he was a kid came to him. <No more laughing, no more fun, instruction time has begun. If you show your teeth or tongue, you will pay a forfeit.>

"Well...I'm here now. How do we start? I've been doing the breathing exercises you asked me to do. Not much change from how it normally is, but it is better once I'm conscious of it."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "I only know what I've seen on videos, that's a small slice of the story."And slowly she settles back down to her Tabi, before holding that sword off to her side. "No webbing for now, as my counter here would start a fire. "And a slow roll of the shoulders. "So lets see how you move, Spider-man. I want you to disarm me, and avoid a fatal blow in the meantime."

    Slowly she lowers her right hand to hover over the handle of that wooden sword. "You have sixty seconds, student. So get moving."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man shifts into the light-footed stance of the boxer. He does look at her for a moment, then says, "You...might want to draw the sword already." He smiles slightly under the mask. "In order to DISarm you, you have to be ARMED first...and this close to you, it's even money that I can get to that sword as fast as *you* can."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    She grasps that sword and begins her draw, She's -fast- to boot. Opening her left hand and helf turning to get her whole body into a sword draw that is downright blinding, fast enough to crease a little ribbon of condensed air after it's tip as it swings foreward. The timing changes what three, no four times during just that opening draw. It makes it all the more difficult to tell exactly where that blade is going to be at any given time, and it's hardly moving in a straight line. Rather it's semi circular ascending cut, the sort've thing designed to cut a man from hip to shoulder.

Peter Parker has posed:
If tracking it by the eye, or the ear, Spider-Man would be toast.

If that was what he was using.

Spider-Man was duly impressed. He had gotten to the point where he could almost SEE the possible variations as she moved, like points of light in sequence, each branching off into their own respective paths. White for safe, yellow for dangerous, red for lethal.
For most attackers, he would see 15-16 variations. For Owari, there were over 350 possible variations.
So what can he see...?

Spider-Man doesn't move into the second-to-last change, the body moving to the right to evade it. Then the last change happens...and HE ADAPTS to it. As the blade passes him, there is enough time to wonder if he is fast enough to see the changes...or he knows what they are as soon as she does.

Then his fist moves up to tweak Owari's right elbow, hitting her 'funnybone' and sending the shock up and down the sword arm, and then he is back out of range.

One second has elapsed.

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    That blow hits home, and it hits true but the bone feels a little...off. She doesn't drop the sword, instead she lets the blow throw her swing off line.
    Theres no complaint, no surprise there. Instead she immediately presses foreward the moment that hit is struck. Eyes tracking Peter without so much as a blink, as she ratchets up the aggression. Pressing towards the back of the arena as another Slash is delivered, before she slides to a stop to adjust her sword stance. Then come the thrusts, delivered with inhuman speed and precision towards Spiderman's face as she looks for the real opening in his guard.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man jumps back as the sword swipes through the air where he once was, And then the flurry of strikes.

The unsettling part is that he is reacting. Every move she makes, he's already moving to counter it by moving out of range or by deflecting the sword with a flat palm. There are holes in his defenses, but even as she is acting on them, he moves to close those opportunities to hit him.
She is getting closer, though...

And then one sword lunge forward, she feels his hand press against her sword. Only he is not pressing against it. He is HOLDING it, with the flat of his palm.

In the next monent, it is yanked free and tossed to her right, tumbling in the air.

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    Which is what she was waiting for, the sword is surrendered without a moment's struggle. Her right hand instead snapping into an open "claw" and swiping at his face, another distraction from the real strike here. She presses in all the further, closing that range as much as she can.

    Then comes that left hand, a flat palm strike sent directly towards Spiderman's hopefully unprotected kidneys, it's a cheap shot of course. Which is exactly what he should be expecting from a god damned Ninja after all.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man can feel the fingertips passing by his face as he does a Muhammad Ali lean-back, wondering what she was doing...

Uh-Oh!

Body knowledge reacts before head-knowledge, the Spider-Sense alerting him to the kidney strike even as the open palm is homing on on his second-most-favorite kidney. His body moves to the side as his right hand grasps Owari's wrist.

It's supposed to be a throw to the ground, but Owari actually catches a little hang time as Spidey spins around and tosses Owari. It is a good 20 feet before her body hits the pavement.

"Oh! Crud, you okay?"

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    Theres a touch of flailing, before she can get herself turned around the right way mid air. She hits the ground on all fours, just as silent as a shadow. Slowly she draws herself up to her full height, before giving her left shoulder a slow roll. "You've got something special going on, you're seeing or feeling beyond what your eyes can tell you."Nevermind her own supernatural feat of mid air dexterity of course.

    "You've got an exceptional defense, but your offense is garbage. You couldn't even act before I drew my sword, which is obnoxious. There are no start bells here, Spider Man."And a slow roll of her wrist, before she returns to her usual casual slump.

    "We need to work on your head more than your hands I should think, especially if you've already got an extra sensory trick up your sleeve."She inhales softly, and exhales. "You need to take control of the initiative, why did you wait?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man eyed her for a moment, digesting what she is saying. He looks thoughtful.

"Most of what I do is defensive, if only out of habit. If I get into it with someone, they are almost always the ones attacking first. So defensive is habitual. Believe me when I say that I never have to worry about dancing with someone because they almost ALWAYS try to lead."
He walks over to the discarded sword, picking it up carefully.

"I call it my Spider-Sense. A more technical term would be 'hyper-spatial awareness.' In the beginning, it was fairly simplistic. Something/someone is attacking me, I can tell it's going to happen before it happens. As ime goes on, it's gotten more precise. I can tell what direction, how fast it is, and...well, it's still developing. I can see all the possible moves you can make as you are moving."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "A fine cheat, though if this was for real I'd have struck a blow. Grabbing the sword is a wise thought generally speaking however, more correct would have been to attack my hands. You let me keep the fight in my work space for too long."Carefully she draws a box infront of her chest. "This area is known as the workspace, it's where your body has the highest degree of dexterity and general spacial awareness. You need to keep me from being able to fight from here. Do not face a more skilled opponent heads up like that."

    Slowly she traces her sightlines out. "You need to spend as much time outside of my vision cone as you can, Additionally fighting me from behind provides you with the greatest amount of non lethal take downs possible. Kidney shots are effective, as well as dislocations of the hip or shoulder which would cripple even an effective fighter."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "Well, if this was for real, I would have gone about it a number of different ways. First off..." He holds up the web-shooters. "These tend to level a playing field very quickly. Second...I annoy my opponents. A LOT. Angry opponents become opponents who make mistakes. Anger leads to error."

He walks over to Owari, handing the sword back to her hilt-first.

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    She accepts that wooden sword back back with a nod. "And what does Musashi tell us about relying too much on our equipment, or becoming too attached to it one way or the other? If I was to fight you for -real- as it were, there would be much fire involved explicitly because of those webs."Theres a little shrug there. "Annoying is good too, and I concur about anger. However you should not rely on that when you have an opportunity to attack premptively."
    And finally she has herself a seat right there, using that sword to snag the handle of her duffel bag before dragging it over. "Action is always faster than reaction, and you have to presume you may fight somebody faster than you are. The generation of Ninja before mine are certainly as fast as you are, perhaps faster. You are leaning upon your natural ability too much."and from that bag, oh hey she slides Peter a bento box and a canteen. "Use your agility and your clinging, to position yourself for superior stealth. THen take them down, and sort the details out later. You're asking for trouble by inviting the conflict."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man takes the box and the canteen, sitting on the concrete floor as he carefully opens the box. "Sometimes, you don't get that choice. If going in noisy means the killer with the gun is pointing it at you instead of the innocent woman who had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...well, better you than her." He lifts the mask enough to reveal the nose and mouth. Perfectly ordinary. No fangs or mandibles or nothing. As a Spider-Man, there's not much spider in the lower face.

"Maybe I have the wrong mindset for a ninja. If someone is a threat, I want them to threaten me rather than some other victim. Or victims. Because at least I signed up for danger. They certainly didn't."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "Ninjas are not heroes, we're professionals who have a job to do."White rice and Nori, with a little Caviar and tuna laid out to resemble spider-man's logo. Theres also a whole plate full of nothing but carrots, and carefully sliced and peeled apples with a light caramel glazing. The Thermos is some sort of sweet green tea, incidentally. By contrast what is Chizue eating? Well lots of eel rolls, and a pair of green red bean cakes.

    "We all have to be heroes in training, and many go on to be heroes in their spare time. My father still does the hero stuff, mom did for a few years but now she's running a team so theres not enough time."And a pause as Chizue digs in casually. "SO I know how it works, but even back then I was fairly famous for my aggression. I never wanted anyone to die for lack of my bravery, and I had a great partner back then too."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man blinks at the contents. "Well, I have to say, you certainly know how to make a presentation."
He almost doesn't want to eat it. Digging in seems to be like introducing chaos to order. But his stomach tells him with a loud gurgle that a little chaos isn't all bad, and he starts eating.

"I had to do on-the-job training. Learning as I go. Forensics, control of the self...believe me, threatening to knock someone's block off and actually being able to DO it..." He shudders. "I hold back an awful lot. I can dead-lift ten tons. It's weird to think of oneself in those terms."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "I dunno, I always knew what I was. I mean Ninja all come from Ninja families, I knew I wasn't human pretty early on. You go to a Ninja school where that stuff is celebrated, so you never get wierd about it."And well down comes that face mask and, yep pretty normal. She pauses there with a bite of her eel. "Nothing worth doing, should ever be down half way. So I'm happy you liked it, I was going to do a Yankees thing but I didn't know if you were into baseball."

    "I don't ever remember not fighting, or training. Ninja kids all run around with little swords and these little wooden balls which are supposed to be like shuriken, first mask by eight. First live blade by ten, then at twelve you have to figure out a costume and go be a fuckin hero."Theres a little shrug there. "I had my family there and my clan to support me, and then my partner. Now she's got herself a Platinum coin, one of the biggest heavy hitters in Japan."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man smiles. "For me it was always science. My aunt and uncle always felt I should be responsible with the gifts I had. With Great Power Must Come Great Responsibility. My uncle always told me that. He was a jack-of-all-trades. Engineer, plumber, carpenter, building contractor." He smiles warmly. "And he's one of the best teachers a schmuck like me could have had."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "Then you were blessed, truly. Having a good mentor is everything, truly."And a pause as she nomfs, before reaching over to root around in that bag some more and hey goodies! Theres that AR rig she talked about, a bunch of doodads, a pair of trashed laptops ripe for digging parts out of and a fist full of USB sticks rubber banded together. "That should be enough to get you going, Nevermind where the laptops came from. They're coming to you out of my personal stores, so don't make it a huge deal."

    "Oh and if you jack into my net, be advised you may find somebody else there soon enough. If you happen to run into her, please be the gentleman I know you to be? The Foot have apparently been very curious about my clan's genetic engineering, and inflicted it upon her. So she's, distinctive in appearance."And a pause as she ponders. "I told her you were somebody she could go to if she needed help and I wasn't available, I hope you'll forgive me for volunteering you?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man blinks. Yeah, the eye-lenses actually open and close. The Foot? He'd heard a few rumors. Nothing concrete. But he had been able to dig, just a little.

But it's the part about someone needing help. And when could he ever turn down someone in need of help?
Never in his life. The only answer that mattered. "It's no problem, really," he said with a pleasant smile. "I'd never turn anyone needing help away, if I can help. So it's always going to be okay, you know?"

He looks at the treasure trove of tech, unshouldering his backpack and opening it. It seems to expand as he fills it.

"Is there a name I should be looking out for?"

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "Most Ninja aren't human, not really. Haga do Genetic engineering, I mean I look and sound human but I'd never pass a blood test. The girl in question was formed against her will after birth, and with dramatically crueler and less refined methods. She does not look human, and she certainly does not move like it either. There are others with her I believe, who share a similar fate."She inhales sharply for a moment and holds before..."I cannot repeat the name, because it's her true name and not mine to give about freely."

    "Making contact would additionally just attract attention from the foot, and you don't need a Ninja clan making you their personal project. They won't attack you in uniform, they'll discover your identity and go after those close to you."and another nomf of that delicious eel. "So if you see her, be prepared for a unique appearance. She is a Ninja herself, so she may just show up somewhere."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man frowned, but shrugged. The whole world didn't revolve around him, after all. "I'm willing to give a lot of leeway, so that's okay. But i would like to know more about this Foot clan. I am working on a database on the criminal society in New York, and I follow the same philosophy most successful intelligence agencies follow - no one fact is more important than any other fact."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "The Foot and the Hand left from the Iga village, and set up shop in Northern Japan. Ninjas were always somewhat mercenary, if only because there were many feudal lords and picking a side was unhealthy. The Foot and Hand however, were just in it for the money and the power. They fled Japan as outlaws a long time ago for working against the emperor, at which point they seemingly decided they could just break the rest of our rules. So they abduct and indoctrinate, which is also against our rules. It's likewise why arresting them doesn't really work, there is nothing left between their ears to save."

    "The Hand are bigger and dramatically more professional, the Foot seem struggling to find themselves. I'm not an expert on their activities once they left Japan, but the Hand clearly has the advantage."Theres a little pause there as she nomfs another eel roll there. "The Foot seem to be attempting to copy my own clan, so they're my primary focus in the short term. Especially if they're grabbing people and animals, and bending them into soldiers. This is not the true way, it's without harmony. It also poses potential side effects down the road."

    "I'm concerned these individuals may be mistaken for mutants, which could damage mutant rights in America. The victims are also unlikely to ever be able to live amongst humans, yet they're trapped here in New York. Some because they feel they owe the Foot loyalty, others because they have taken up an honorable vow of vengence."And a sigh as she taptaps her brow. "I'm only about ten percent human, and the thought of how I would be treated if people knew I had more genetic material in common with a Raccoon dog than a human? It terrifies me."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man is taking notes on a notepad, writing in shorthand to keep up with Owari. At the mention of her human percentage, he tilts his head. "Only ten percent? I'm genetically altered with spider-DNA, and genetically-altered and irradiated spider to boot. But that's neither here nor there. Any help I can give, you got it. And they got it, too."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "They didn't start as human."She lets that bit hang out there. "Hand are almost always dressed in red, Foot are dark grey and black. Koga are Blue and Black, Iga are Green and black. Haga like me, are black on black. Though there aren't any Koga or Iga Ninja in America as far as I know, and generally I'd just ignore them. You don't need to get tangled up with Ninjas who specialize in Magic, because I'd be honor bound to help them."Theres a little nod there.

    "Right now I'm working around the edges, ripping off their bank accounts. Most of that was going to charity, but I intend to give a fair amount going foreward to the previously mentioned victims. Only right they should have enough funds to have a shot at a comfortable life, after what was done to them."She opens that bag to point to, rolls of cash, stacks of gift cards rubber banded together, another laptop and god knows what else. "I know you do not take cash from your foes, it's our custom. In the next few weeks I will be accelerating my efforts here, I may knock over one of their banks. I would appreciate some flexibility on your behalf there, now that you know why I'm not just burning the cash."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "No one gets seriously hurt if possible. No one gets killed. And I won't take anything, so please don't offer. If that is all right with you...then I feel I can give you some flexibility." He finishes the bento box, looking to Owari. "I...appreciate your efforts. My methods must seem restrictive to you, and I appreciate what you are doing to work within those parameters."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "I can promise you I will make an effort not to kill anyone, but I cannot promise I will succeed. All I can promise is that I will try, and if it goes well nobody should even see me to begin with."And well a little shrug there. "Oh it seems fantastically and illogically restrictive from here for sure. I was taught to always be pragmatic, but that's not your way. It's most honorable of you to stick to your morals in this, even if I cannot for the life of me understand them."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey takes a sip from the canteen. "I could always say it was pragmatic. That my enemies would react differently because they knew I wouldn't kill them. But the real reason is..."

He paused for a moment.

"There is a little girl in Chinatown who lives with her mother in an apartment above the tea shop the mother owns. Her father, frustrated and hitting the beer bottle a little too often, took offense at something his wife said and started beating her with his belt. On the street. People watched and did nothing. I jumped in, took the belt away from him, webbed him to a pole. I picked up the belt, then tossed it in the alley. Then I turned and saw the mother and daughter. They thought I was going to beat the father with it. I told them that he was sick, he needed help, and that he needed to get healthy again. The mother promised to turn him into the police so that they could force him to go to AA and stay away from his wife and daughter until he got his head on straight."

He caps the canteen. "Someone else might have beat him within an inch of his life and threatened him...but that would have made ME the monster. After it was over, I found out a few days later that the little girl, Mei Fen, tells her classmates how I helped her father. She calls me 'Honorable Spider.' Her mother cried when she told me that after I went back to check up on her."

He stretched his legs out in front of him. "They say it is better to be feared than loved. I feel it is better to be respected than feared or loved."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "If I were still a hero, I'd have broken an arm and roughed him up. As I am now, I would not intervene as it may endanger my mission. The man could be an affiliate of the Triads, and I cannot afford to pick up any additional complications."Theres a shrug there. "I miss being a hero, and when this is over I'll become one again if I'm still alive."

    "Hell I left what is now my Ex-girlfriend back in Tokyo, so I might satisfy my duty. It sucks, and I miss my home. I miss my little tiny house, and all the neighborhood cats who come by to say hello every morning. I miss feeding the Raccoon dogs dinner scraps, and being a lazy homebody. I miss my bakery on the corner, and my best friend."Theres another little shrug there as she casually packs up those emptied bento boxes. "America is not bad, but it is not my home. I can't return until my duty is done, and that means I can't go back to being a hero either."

    "So I'll work here in my stupid cubicle, and go home to my stupid apartment. Nobody in my office even knows my name, I'm just "Japanese girl". Fuck me, right? Almost enough to make me wish I never learned English, but then I'd be hoisting this responsibility on somebody else."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man looks at her for a long moment.
"Listen...you ever want some home cooking, even if it's American, call me. I know a place that serves the best food in the city...and the best apple pie in the state. And if you don't come for the food, come for the company. There's this lady who lives there, May Parker, but everyone calls her Aunt May..."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "Thats dangerous Spider-man."She rises slowly, snagging that chest rig and pulling it back on. That wierd little CPU box is secured on her back, followed by some sort of folded up SMG thing maybe? "I'm a killer, and I have no regrets. Even when I'm a hero, the Yellow Scarf Buster has a reputation for being rough."Oh hey, her superheroine alias! "I appreciate that offer more than you know, but you don't want me that close."And she turns away finally to get her suit sorted before she slips that helmet back on and latches it back up. "Do you know what Owari means, incidentally?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey nods. "I did. It means 'the end,' which I suppose is rather apropos. And a pun. Because it is very dangerous when The End comes to you..."

Chizue Nakamura has posed:
    "Well alright, there goes my being spooky about it."She half turns, pulling on her swords and letting the pair of them just magnetically snap to her hip. "I may take you up on it, just remember why I'm here for now alright?"And on comes that cloak with an audible little hum as it powers up. "I'm going to see my new friend, but I'll keep in touch yeah? Oh and let me know if you ever need to head over to Gotham, I have some business over there myself. We could carpool or something. Gotta save the environment, right?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man chuckles. "We'll see."

He reaches up and fires a webline, hitting the roof next to the skylight.

"After all, who drives in New York?"

He snags his backpack, and is launched up to the skylight a second later. "Hasts lasagna, don't get any on ya!"