fandomtownies | Atlas Gym, Wednesday Lunchtime

Anemone didn't see any reason to announce her presence. Either he'd wake up or he wouldn't, and then she could skip this 'punishment'.

She moved to another corner to tie her hair back and stretch out, warming up the same way she would for playing a game of tag with Cassandra. It would probably be pretty close to the same thing.

Either he heard her or he just got bored and restless, but the teacher's eyes snapped open and he was on his feet and walking toward her in one fluid motion. "Anemone," he greeted. "Ready for a fight?"

"I get a choice?" she asked, mouth quirking into an amused smile. "If I get a choice, I might go to JGoB instead. I'm hungry."

"And I would rather be floating in the ocean in Hawaii," Tyler said. "But I will buy you lunch if we get through this with minimal bloodshed."

She was a student, after all.

He walked over to the mats, sizing her up. "You're wearing padding." It wasn't a request.

Anemone wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Am not," she protested, although she did start taping up her wrists. "I'm more durable than a human girl, you aren't going to break me."

"Who said it was to protect you?" he queried. "Maybe I just want to make sure I don't hurt my hand."

He tossed her a chestplate and gloves. He wouldn't make her wear the helmet.

"If you hurt your hand, then you're doing it wrong," Anemone supplied helpfully, making a face at the chestplate. Still, he was the teacher, and her conditioning was still too strong to let her disobey a direct order.

"Better?" she asked, twirling a bit so he could see she had fastened it properly. "And do we have rules?"

"You have gladdened my heart," he said, leaning over to stretch out his hamstring some more. "Rules? Nothing fancy. No shoes" -- he wiggled his toes inside their socks in demonstration -- "no calling in anyone else, we go until one of us says stop, and it lasts as long as it lasts."

He paused. "Also, if you start to fight dirty, I will too."

Anemone cast a longing glance at her discarded shoes and sighed as she moved the rest of the way on to the mats - stomping on people's shins with her heels was one of her favorite tricks. "Okay."

Well, if those were the rules... she didn't wait for him to stand up before throwing a punch aimed right at his temple.

Something flashed through his eyes as the punch connected and: "Fighting dirty," he almost growled as his head rocked backward.

Stumbling to his feet, he kicked hard at her knees.

"Innovative, not dirty!" Anemone caroled gleefully, already skipping backwards. "I am pro-actively asserting myself rather than letting the adult males in my life set the definitions, just like the nice doctors keep saying I should."

No, Dr. Mischa didn't mean it like this, but that was irrelevant.

"You talk a lot for a girl who doesn't hit hard," Tyler stated, though he couldn't hide his amusement. "You should" -- and now he was close enough to close the gap with a blow to her jaw -- "work on that."

There was no way she could dodge that, so Anemone let her entire body turn with the blow, quickly spinning around to kick solidly at the back of his knees.

"I don't have to hit hard," she gasped, eyes glinting slightly. "I just have to hit until the other person stops."

He had to jump away from her legs before answering, and he was off-balance enough from the motion that the best he could manage was a quick shift to defensive posture.

"Ever hit until they're destroyed?" he asked. "Until they can't do anything but ask for mercy?"

He could be just a little spooky.

Anemone shot him an annoyed glare and slashed at his neck with her hand. "No," she said acidly. "If we're hitting them, they're usually too busy dying to talk."

He grabbed at her wrist, tried to use her motion to propel her backward. "Am I supposed to be impressed?"

"No, you asked!" she replied, brow knitting together in confusion. "Why did you ask if you didn't want an answer?"

She staggered off sideways, rubbing at her wrist absently while she circled him warily. "If you don't want answers, quit asking and finish this."

Edited 2008-09-17 17:31 (UTC)

"It's called keeping you off-guard," he said, turning in defensive stance to match her circling. "Besides, I can fight or I can talk right. Can't really do both."

He raised an eyebrow. "You want me to finish this."

She didn't feel like talking anymore. If he this was supposed to be some sort of lesson for the pie, fine, but she wasn't going to let him insult her.

Not again. We won't let another one use us for a game.

Anemone blinked slowly, posture shifting from her normal bird-like motions to something more feline. "I'm bored," she complained, voice turning mocking. "Either quit playing or finish the lesson."

Not that she was going to give him a choice either way, since she was already moving in and swinging for his jaw.

Tyler could do feline, too. He jerked his jaw away just before her hand connected, only slightly softening the blow. He had to grit his teeth through the pain.

"Sorry to" -- and now he'd let himself out, too -- "bore you." He let his fists fly, one at her stomach, the other directly at her nose.

She twisted to the side, dodging the fist aimed her nose and catching the one meant for her stomach on her ribs. It hurt, and she cried out as he connected before she whirled on him to -

Dominic, pinned under her, her hands around his throat as she asked him sweetly to die.

"No." She stepped back and pressed her the heels of her hands to her temples. "Call."

He stepped back, breathing hard, arms clenched at his side warily. "Serious?"

Something inside his head was very disappointed.

Anemone fumbled to strip one glove and drop it on the floor so that he would know she was serious. "Sorry, Mr. Durden. I can't."

"If you want to beat whatever lesson it is into my head with a game of tag or keep-away or a structured training session, I could do that, but not this." She gave him a slightly shaky grin. "Besides, you said I could have lunch if I kept it to minimal bloodshed." Which it wouldn't be if they didn't stop now.

He slumped. "No. No, that's all right, Anemone, I shouldn't ..." Shouldn't fight kids. Possibly shouldn't be allowed around kids. "If you're done, you're done. And I will buy you lunch."

With exaggerated care to sound casual, he added, "Anything broken?"

"You didn't hurt me!" she said quickly, not wanting him to feel badly. "I promise, I'm fine."

Anemone sat at the edge of the mat to tug off the padding. "Besides, I was having a bit too much fun, and I don't want to have to sit through another lecture from my guardian about why I'm not supposed to hit people."

"I was probably about to have too much fun too," he admitted, and settled down to tie his shoes again. "Bad idea when I'm fighting little girls. Thank you for the match, anyhow."

"You have potential, though, I'll say that much. Especially if your guardians let you off the leash. Let me know if you ever want to do real training."

The dirty look she shot him was pure Affronted Teenager. "I am not a little girl," she said primly. "I'm at least seventeen."

"At least?" He shook his head. "And you don't even have any grey hairs."

Anemone paused to consider that. "I don't know if I can get gray hair," she confessed. "The pink is natural, and Coralians don't age like humans do. One of my sisters stayed around fourteen for forty years."

He was even more interested, now. "How long have you been at least 17?"

"For the last year or so?" she mused as she tugged her hair out of the braid. "But seventeen is a guess since I don't have a birthday. For all I know, I'm thirty."

"In which case I could stop feeling bad about hitting a younger woman," Tyler noted. "So all the years run together in your head?"

"I apparently spent awhile catatonic, and woke up nuts," was her cheerful answer. "Anything pre-crazy I don't remember."

"Shouldn't you, I don't know, be proud that you're enlightened enough that you don't have the sexist bias against hitting girls? There's something to be said for equal opportunity."

"I've been in Fandom too long," Tyler answered, deciding not to address the other part of her story. It would just make him sad. "I think this is the first time I fought a girl here and didn't get my ass handed to me."

He raised an eyebrow. "I think I owe you lunch, if you're ready."

"If you had made me show you what I could do in the flight sim, I would have handed you your ass," Anemone sighed, looking despondent. "I don't normally get to hit people that hit back, not like this, and I feel out of practice."

"I don't fly," he said. "One person showed me, once, but she was sitting right beside me and it was all programmed in so it hardly counts." And that made him wonder how River was doing; he hadn't heard from her, and it had been weeks.

He hesitated. "I would let you hit me again, if it would ... I don't know. Help."

"I get twitchy when I'm ground-bound too long," she admitted, standing up and streching her arms over her head. "Being a butterfly for a week was nice."

"If it gets too bad, I usually chase Cassandra all over the island playing tag, or we go dancing." She should bug Cassandra about training more, just to get back in shape. "Or I prank people who I think ought to appreciate it."

"Buuuuuuuut... you mentioned food?"

Atlas Gym, Wednesday Lunchtime

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