| Old School Training | |||||
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| What: Nate and Kendra decide to dust off hand to hand combat training. Cheating is involved. | |||||
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When Nate goes training he never wears anything like a training outfit. His reasoning is that you are not going to fight with a training outfit, are you? Sure, you can wear a tracksuit to run, or boxing gloves if you want to jump into a ring and become a boxer. But he is going to run and punch people in his armored uniform, so he wears it to train. He also insists Kendra to bring her wings.
The war room area includes a complete gym, and even has some robots and holograms (no hard light) for training. Unfortunately the T.E.A.C.H. system Spartan implemented depended on the teleporters to work. They probably need something better. Maybe Xavier would let him borrow the Danger Room schematics? But while he waits for Kendra to arrive, Nate is just punching (and kicking) the regular punching bags. His jacket is off (a concession to his uniform-only rule) but he is not going particularly hard.
Kendra /always/ wears her wings when it comes to practicing for in costume battles. Sure, when it's simply running, or punch, as Nate had mentioned, she often is sans wings, but anything remotely associated with team training, she's in full gear. Including weapons. Weapons add weight and she has to be able to understand how that will affect her fighting ability.
So, in comes Kendra, with gear on. The only concession she's done for this training bout, is no helmet. She's had enough practice with her helm, not to need it for team training. "Hey, Nate." She calls out, as she idly hefts one of her spike-studded maces. "How's it going?" She asks, before clipping the weapon upon her belt. A large bowie-esque knife is likewise clipped to her belt, as well.
Nate stops and gives Kendra a lopsided smile. "There you are. I was starting to think you were avoiding me, Hawk Lady." He glances at her weapons and seems to approve the setup. "You sure you don't want to carry a gun? We have some serious firepower in the armory, and if you prefer non-lethal, I am sure Lunair can build you something. That woman even has a sonic gun that makes people dance."
"Avoiding you?" Kendra says, "Nah, if I were really avoiding you, I'd have never came back." She says lightly enough, though beneath her words there is a core truth to them. As for the mention of a gun? And specifically Lunair's sonic dancing gun? That just causes Hawkgirl to shake her head, "Guns are for sissies." She starts, before she grins, "Don't tell Lunair I said that, but seriously. I'll pass on the guns. I like my other weaponry just fine. It works for me."
"And really, why does that /not/ surprise me that she has a gun that makes you dance." A quick shake of her head is given again, even as she grins at the idea of a dancing ray gun, as it were. "So, what did you want to do? Spar together, separately, with powers and weaponry, with not? I'm good with anything, though if we're going with weapons lets make sure you keep your shields up, okay?"
"Spar, definitely," replies Nate. "I want to see how able you are. In real combat I usually have no time to pay attention. You can use the weapons if you want, although it would be good to see your unarmed skills too." He moves away from the punching bag to an open space, large enough she can use her wings too. Flight would be limited, the ceiling is about 10 feet up.
"Well -" Kendra begins, "- when it comes to unarmed combat, I'm more of a brawler than anything else. None of that fancy stuff for me - " Likely meaning martial arts, "- I prefer the 'take them down as quick as I can' method of fighting." Stepping onto the mats, Hawkgirl will consider what she wants to do. She'll idly tap her weapons, before she lifts the mace off of her belt and gently lays it aside. "Lets go with I lost my weapon. I probably favor my weapons too much when it comes down to it."
Once her weapon is off to the side and at a safe distance, the short-haired woman will take a few steps closer to Nate. Only leaving a couple off feet between them. "Ready?" She asks, and when he gives his agreement, she'll give a quick little grin his way, before she says, "Think fast!" And as soon as she says the word 'think', Hawkgirl will turn just enough, so that one of her feathered wings will quickly lash out towards Nate. Yes, she's trying to knock him over with a wing. Her wings aren't fragile like birds, they have a weight behind them thanks to the Nth Metal.
Nate nods in agreement, "the fancy martial arts are for tournaments. Well, I have seen some people that can make them work, but... takes years to do it for real." He would add something, but Kendra comes too close, and he shifts to a guarding stance.
He expected a punch, Kendra was close enough. The wing is really unexpected, but he reacts quickly, instinctively, and ducks under the lash. Then sweeps with a leg, trying to knock her down. "Good try," he grunts.
She wasn't sure if that attack would work and there's a flash of disappointment from her, but that doesn't stop her from realizing he would likely retaliate with that leg-sweep. Grinning somewhat ferally, Hawkgirl immediately jumps upward to avoid that sweep, but instead of coming back down she hangs there as her wings do their job.
Immediately she lashes out with a double footed kick towards Nate's chest, since the two of them are still fighting in 'close quarters' conditions. "Thanks." She says, when he says good try, "I was really hoping it'd work."
Missed, and... he rolls away. Avoiding the kick and ending crouched on the floor. He doesn't spring to strike immediately, though. "No. It was a good try, but I was expecting an attack of some kind. It would have worked if you had feinted something." He grins, "of course now I know you can do that, a feint won't work." Or maybe it will, but she lost the surprise factor of doing something very few people can do!
Now he springs forward, aiming a punch to her face. She can see him coming, he was some distance away, but still, Nate is pretty quick.
"Yeah, it usually always works once with the unsuspecting." Kendra says with a flash of a grin, before she's dropping to the mats with a soft thud. She'll land in a semi crouch, obviously waiting for Nate to make his next move. "And sometimes the suspecting, but it just depends on the set up." And when he does finally make his attack, she'll simply grin at him, staying in a rather defensive position.
It's only at the very last minute that she moves, or at least, her wings move. Instead of lashing out at him, her wings will instead curl around Kendra in a protective manner. Should his fist hit the wings, again, they won't react like normal winged appendages. Instead he'll find them /quite/ solid and perhaps his fist /quite/ sore depending upon how hard he was striking.
Either way, once his attack is finished, Kendra will quickly drop her wings an aim a punch towards his solar plexus, intending to knock the wind out of him. On a side note, she is careful with the claws at the end of her fists. She's turning her fist slightly away so she doesn't strike him with the sharp points at her knuckles.
Nate winces at punching the metal wings, but he is used at hitting hard surfaces with his fists. He has the calloused hands of a martial artist. Next time he will protect himself with telekinesis. So far he has not used his powers, he has no idea of how tough is Kendra.
He is getting an idea of how quick and skilled she is, though. When she lowers the wings, he steps forward and to her left, and her punch goes too long. Nate smirks and tries to grab her wrist, to use her own momentum to toss Kendra to the floor with a basic judo throw.
With her own momentum used against her, Kendra goes down with a solid sounding *THWUMP* onto the mats, but that doesn't seem to slow her down. It's her wings, they give her an overall boost to her physique and how much punishment she can take, before quitting.
With a flash of teeth, as she smiles, the short haired woman immediately rolls to regain her feet. As she rolls into said crouch, her hand will quickly reach into one of her pouches and from it, she pulls a few smoke pellets. Those tiny smoke bombs will fill the area around the mat with smoke, unless Nate does something with his TK. Kendra, for her part, isn't waiting to see if the pellets explode, she's once again moving, trying to catch Nate off guard.
While Kendra did roll, she didn't necessarily roll /far/ from Nate and because of that, Kendra once more lashes out with her wing and a leg. She's doing a wing/leg sweep to try and topple Nate to the ground.
Wasn't this unarmed fighting? Smoke should be cheating! Also, obviously cover to attack him, so Nate jumps back and puts some distance from Kendra. He knows where she is thanks to his telepathy, but he underestimates the reach of the wings and takes a hit on the lower leg. Ouch.
"That is playing dirty, Hawk Lady. You wouldn't like the tricks I can play to your head with the telepathy." He takes another step back, and checks his leg. There is going to be a bruise, he needs to shield himself better using telekinesis, Kendra hits far harder than a normal woman.
If Nate is keeping tabs on her mind to help him in this fight, he may feel humor tinge her emotions, at his words. "Playing dirty? Nate, you of /all/ people should know that in /war/ - " Yes, she definitely chose that word specifically, " - There is no such thing as cheating. Only surviving."
She doesn't necessarily comment on the part about messing with her head, but there is a spike of unease from her, though she does trust Nate. She just hates anyone messing with her mind, or potentially seeing the craziness in her head. Either way, while her wings strike struck, there's a lag in her follow-up. Perhaps because of that spike of unease ... Because of that unease, her next move might be more telegraphed than she'd like it to be, as she rises to her feet and darts forward, intending to send a sharp jab of her hand towards Nate's solar plexus.
"Sure I do, but I can't use all my powers if we want to learn anything, see?" Nate raises a hand and a transparent wall of shimmering gold telekinesis appears between them. Kendra is likely to crash hard on it unless she reacts very fast. The shield stands there just for a couple seconds, then it vanishes just as Nate strikes back. His own open-palm strike to her abdomen, delivered with a good deal of enhanced strength.
While the smoke screen definitely helped Kendra with that wings strike, the dissipating smoke is now also a slight hindrance for the winged woman. Perhaps, if the smoke wasn't obscuring her vision somewhat, she'd have reacted faster, but with those last wisps of smoking blurring her vision /just/ enough, Hawkgirl totally rams hard into the telekenetic screen.
"OOMPH." Is the sound she makes when she smacks into the shimmering gold wall of TK, "Now who's cheating?" She asks, as she bounces backwards, shaking her hand, which contacted the barrier first.
As for his open-palm strike? It does hit, but she's quick enough with her wings, to partially blunt some of the strength behind it. It doesn't stop her from stumbling back a step or two, but as she moves backwards, she reaches out to try and grab Nate's wrist with both of her hands.
What would be training without some bruises? Lazy training! And Nate doesn't get to train with real opponents much anymore. Even with the X-Men it tends to be the Danger Room all the time. It is not the same.
Now she goes for his wrist. Fine. Nate smirks and anchors himself with telekinesis again. "Remember, your rules..." Then he pulls with the hand and slams at her with his body, his left eye flaring as he uses much of his power. "Or rather, lack of them."
Her plan was to flip Nate to the mats, but like many plans, it failed. And failed spectacularly. While other mutants would expect Nate to do something sneaky like that with telekenetics, Kendra hasn't been around enough powered individuals to think two or three steps ahead of them. She isn't used to their various tricks of the trade, as it were.
And as such, instead of getting Nate down to the mats, she instead is body-slammed by Nate. Again, all Kendra can offer is an, "Oomph!", and for a few seconds she's dazed, but only a handful seconds. "My rules?" She finally manages with a quirk of a grin, "I just used smoke bombs, not powers."
And with that grin still tilting her lips upward, Kendra quickly drops her hand to her large hunting knife and unsheathes it. Quickly, she'll try and bring the edge of the knife to Nate's throat. To note, she's not using the sharp edge, she has the knife flipped around so that should the edge get to Nate's throat, it's the dull side, versus the sharp.
Nate doesn't press on the advantage during those seconds, although he tries to grab one of the arms that Kendra was using to grab his wrist. The wrong one, maybe, as Kendra went for the knife with his other hand.
His body is reinforced with telekinesis, so it is unlikely a normal knife would cut him. But an Nth-metal one probably would. If it was the edged side. "Yea? The wings are all natural?" Now he tries to grab her other wrist. A bit too late.
Kendra doesn't seem too concerned with her other arm being captured, as she says, "Well, they're made of metal, which comes from ore, so I'd say they're 'natural'." As she speaks, Kendra will move to press the knife harder against his throat, TK reinforced or not. Yes, she saw him move to grab the wrist of the hand holding the knife. "How about we call this a draw?" She says, still sounding amused. "I think this was good practice. Next time perhaps we can grab two others and make it a two on two exercise?"
Kendra 'explanation' about what is natural makes Nate snort in fake disbelief. "A draw? Oh well, if you are already tired, alright." He also got a good idea of how capable is the young woman, so that was good. He releases her and steps back.
"So, you can use all your gear and I can't use my powers," he shakes his head. "Whatever. Still, you are pretty good at fighting. Guess you had good tutors. Want to spar with weapons next?"
Stepping back from Nate and sheathing her knife, Kendra grins, "Weapons would be great. You choose the weapon. Come on lets get cleaned up and something to eat. Fighting always makes me hungry."
Finished