Fighting 101

Participants:

anne_icon.gif claude_icon.gif

Scene Title Fighting, 101
Synopsis Anne finds a self defense teacher, gets her ass kicked, nearly kills them both and Claude leaves her crying in a heap on the floor.
Date January 27, 2009

New York Public Library


Anne is good at a lot of things, if you ask her, but with the last few weeks of running around helping Phoenix, she's come to the firm realization that being a terrorist is probably not one of them. Having excelled in sneaky transportation and losing people trying to follow her, she sucks at pretty much everything else. Unfortunately, this includes the whole 'staying alive' thing, which is why she's done some thinking, and decided to try and do something about this part. Being dead really doesn't help anyone, least of all herself.

However. The person she thought to bug about it a little bit is A. Difficult to spot, and B. Doesn't have a cellphone, so after having thought about it for a while she just plain stuck a note on one of the walls of the library. 'Hey mr. I don't have a cellphone cause it cramps my style,' somehow, spreading names around seemed a bad idea, and he was the only one in Phoenix she knew who didn't run around with the standard issue one. 'I heard you were good at knowing how to not die, and it would be awesome if you'd feel like sharing. I'll be around on Wednesday. Hope to see you then!' Plain. simple. Quite possibly a failiure in many ways, but she gave it a good effort.

That said, Anne is sitting crosslegged on the floor in the library with a cup of coffee by her knee and thoughtful frown on her face. Looks like she's trying to solve some kind of problem while she's waiting.

The note was gone not long after it had been put up. If anything, Mr. I don't have a cellphone because it cramps my style, is observant. He's also not one to turn down an opportunity like this! Which explains why suddenly, without warning, the note finds its way back to its owner- crumpled up, and flung directly at Anne's forehead out of seemingly nowhere.

"Phones are obnoxious and a waste of technology."

And, about half a second after Anne is hit by a ball of paper, she's not there anymore. There's a short 'eep' heard, and then.. nothing. Of course, had that been anything dangerous, she'd have been dead already. Still, some kind of reflexes she doesn't quite have down pat just yet. Especially not the day after she went bridge hopping to watch someone curse at bombs that might explode any moment. It's a whole thing. Two seconds later, Anne sticks her had back in from an adjoining room. "Ehum. …hi. Maybe they are! I don't know, I kinda like them myself really." She tilts her head to the side and smiles a bit, if somewhat carefully. "You look like you should be Claude, and appereantly I have a majorly disobservant day."

The smile elicits nothing more but an eyebrow raise from Claude, who turns to look toward Anne as she appears… where she definitely hadn't been just now. "A teleporter." The word comes out lacking enthusiasm in every way. "Fantastic." He rubs at his shoulder, still sore from the scuffle he was in yesterday, and narrows his eyes in thought.

"Um. Yeah, that'd be about right." Anne agrees with a nod, coming back out into the room. Claude doesn't exactly strike her as the chatty type, what with not even having answered the whole part about his own name, so she decides to skip that for now and go right on to the next part. Why she asked for him. "I hear you're good at staying alive, and frankly, I suck at that kind of stuff. So. I was wondering if there's any chance you could help me a bit when it comes to not falling over dead first thing in a fight? You know. One I might have to stick around for." What she'd do in other cases should be perfectly clear already, really. Byebye.

Claude straightens, squares back his shoulders, and simply looks Anne over for a second. Then, after scratching his cheek, he smirks. "You know, there's two of you. Two kinds of teleporters." The Brit answers dryly, suddenly stepping forward to move toward an adjacent room. "The ones that come, and the ones that go. The fighters and the fleers. One hardly ever succeeds in turning into the other."

"Hardly ever isn't never, though." Anne replies, softly, though she's not backing off of trying to be apologetic or the like. "I have no thoughts of suddenly becoming ho-ha-kick-your ass to tiny bits, but. Sticking around here I'm going to /need/ to know at least a little bit." Instead, she starts following Claude when he shifts rooms. "How many kind of you are there, then?" Curious and a bit jesting, at the same time.

Fortunately, Claude starts out with the one thing Anne actually knows how to handle. After the whole thing where her son got killed, and.. well. Other such things, she learned a bit about this stuff. When the broomstick handle comes swinging her way, she /flickers/ in the air and it passes right by her, only to have the young woman reappear an instant later. "ACK!" Also, she takes half a step back and tenses up a bit, biting her lip as she goes. "Now /THAT/ could've hurt!"

"Yeah, it does tend to." Claude answers, holding back a chuckle. "Not as bad as what half the world would like to throw at you if you performed your little trick in public, though. Have you ever?" He straightens again, before taking a step forward to match Anne's, and once more lashing out with his stick. This time, he swings it low in an attempt to floor the woman.

"You try not to blink when someone throws a stone at your eye." Anne replies. And she tries to stay put here, really. Which means she gets a broomstick impacting with her legs, making a nasty whacking sound and soon ending with a teleporter knocked down on the ground. Thud. "FUCKING OW!" So, yeah, maybe not the most stoic woman in the world, no. Getting a bit upset, too. Was she supposed to flail around and take a beating here? He didn't say, so she's assuming differently, grabbing ahold of one of her shoes, that she wasn't wearing, and flings it at his head while trying to get room to stand up.

The hit connecting appears to give Claude some thought. He draws the stick close again, and narrows his eyes. And just when he's about to ask her something, there's a SHOE flying at his head. He only barely manages to dodge it, ducking down just in time. "Oi!" But… whatever joy hitting her may have caused, this is even more fun. Fighting back is definitely a good thing. "You wanted to learn how to defend yourself, right?" He looks back to Anne again, muscles tensed- can't let your guard down around someone who can be anywhere they want to be. "Be glad you could still see those hits coming." His tone almost suggests that won't always be the case.

"Not seeing them would be more problematic, yeah." Anne agrees, pulling herself up on her feet again. Yeah, it hurts, but damnit. She's had two kids. This is not a crippling injury.. even if she does whine upon impact. "Yes, I want to learn how to defend myself, and if we're making this shit up as we go, I'll have to get creative I suppose." Though, for now, she's decided to try and live without her powers. At least as much as she's able to, some things are still wired down to reflex, and those she can't help. At least not yet. "You got any suggestions, or should I grab my other shoe?" She too isn't relaxing, though. As much is clear: Claude doesn't do the 'fight fair' thing.

Claude fights fair! It's just that you're a little bit behind, is all. The man's fingers tighten around his makeshift weapon. "As you said, be creative." He quirks a brow, "Teleporting is running away from things, isn't it?" Rhetorical question. "Running is fine if it's from things you can't handle. But if running is your only option, that's not a choice— that's cowardice." Once again he reaches to let the stick connect with his new pupil. This time, though, for a mere poke in the stomach. Prod.

Well. If nothing else, Claude is succeeding in making Anne a good deal pissed off. She's got a couple of options running through her head, but really. "'s not the /only/ thing you can do." She replies, flickering again. Though this time she appears behind claude with a huge sheet in her hands, tossing it over his head. Might not be so much of a hurty situation, but she's thinking to slow him down a bit, maybe. THEN she can whack him.

What the—. Okay, so Claude could have expected that. But a sheet? Really? "Agh!" The inside of the sheet is grabbed at in an attempt to pull it back off. At least it gives Anne the desired effect of slowing him down, though it also prompts something entirely different. Within two seconds of her having appeared behind him, he and the sheet… simply vanish.

That's just not going to work out so very well, and while her next move can likely be described in all the textbooks as 'very stupid' and 'wtf were you thinking girl', Anne goes in for the glory and the beans, watching how Claude moves just as he vanishes and.. well. She goes for a tackle. Since she was behind him, she tries to go for the knees about the way they bend, to have him fall over. Cause an invisible Claude with a stick? Um. Yeah. At least she wants to know where he is, is the thought. "AAAAH!"

Now, that just won't do. Claude is - experienced with this whole getting away while invisible thing - appropriately one step ahead of Anne. Or one step to the side of where she thinks he is, anyway. By the time she comes rushing past him, she'll find the sheet, popping into visibility. Just not with him under it anymore.

Claude himself appears on the sidelines of it all, looking precisely somewhere in between annoyed and amused. "That was something."

And like an enraged bull, Anne crashes past and through it, entangling herself in the sheet instead and ending up in a slightly disheveled pile on the floor, one bare foot sticking out of the whole mess. A for effort. …let's not talk about the rest, 'kay. There's a long stream of muttered cursewords under the sheet before she manages to find her way out of it, and stares over to Claude, before heaving a sigh. "Did we mention I suck at fighting? I'm starting to think it's unnecessary." To mention, that is. Not to know how. "I haven't the faintest on where to begin, so I'm making up random shit." Which is also obvious, here.

"Don't think I realised how hopeless you were exactly." Claude mutters with a wry smirk, even offering her a hand to help with getting up. "Let's try something else, before you manage to hurt yourself, yeah?" His other hand is reached out. This time to offer his stick to Anne. There you go.

"I am quite skilled in hiding my level of crappitude." Anne replies with a bit of a smile before she accepts the hand up, and soon after, the stick. The stick is eyed somewhat doubtfully before she tries to hold it with two hands. It's not any kind of ideal grip, but at least she's holding it, right? "Okay. You're visible again, I have a stick." And of course, 'hurt herself' was a matter of degrees, she'd figured as much out. She was already aware that she'd get some bruises, but. The less the merrier.

"Defending yourself," Claude starts, still very much in teacher-mode and stepping back to observe Anne's posture. "Defending yourself is something you can only do if you're confident enough. Since you are lacking that confidence," And this is said in utter seriousness, with a side order of mockery, "we'll try attacking instead. Unless you think you can't do that either?" His eyebrows lift slightly. Well?

Anne slowly flexes her fingers around the broomstick, looks down at it first and then at Claude. She knows one of the major reasons to why this is going badly. It's the whole thought, of using herself to hurt someone else. It's not just the part where she doesn't have the confidence to pull this off, it's the fact that she doesn't really /want/ to. Claude hasn't done anything to her, why would she want to break his head? And likewise, she's pretty sure he wouldn't want to hurt -her-. Not seriously. And thus, it's not an all way defense either. She takes a long slow breath, and CLaude might notice how her posture changes. It's not lightning quick, but her eyes darken, narrow, even as she fills in his face with another's. Someone quite different from Claude. Remembers another time, when she had someone else behind her. Her heartbeat quickens and she can hear the rush of blood in her ears. When the first swing comes it's not professional, naturally, but it's aiming for him well and true. And hard. As hard as she can. Whether or not it hits, she's swinging again, and unlike the earlier attempts, she's not making any noise either. No curses or other words. She's just quiet.

Her first swing connects with Claude's arms, raised in front of him through reflex. It may leave a nasty bruise later, but he hadn't expected Anne to get into the swingin' mood that easily. He may have underestimated her yet. Nevertheless, defending comes a bit easier to him than it does to her, and he's quick to think on his feet when the stick comes swinging toward him again. The hit lands, but it stays there— grabbed and held tightly. "Was it something I said?" He asks, patronizingly, and grins despite the inflicted pain.

Normally, Anne would have listened to the question. Even replied. But right now she has kind of just.. lost it. It's the first time she's even tried venting since her child was killed, and her husband left her, and she ended up being all alone with the pain. While she seems rather mellow on the outside, she's just not had a chance to … let go. She hadn't quite expected the fallout when she does, but. Here it is, none the less. She can't even hear Claude, at this point, and as such doesn't even register is words. When the stick is held by him, she just uses it for balance for the shortest of moments as she aims a foot towards his midsection. She's tiny, compared to Claude, but he might feel it anyway. Then one hand lets go of the stick, claws up, and tries to scratch him in the face. WITH NAILS.

She hadn't expected the fallout? What about the guy whose eyes she's trying to scratch out? The kick hits the mark, which is good. This is what he was trying to achieve. Off the safety lock! Out with it. What he had not predicted, however, is the sudden rage coming with all this. He's missing something, he's just not sure what.

"Hey, hey!" He barks out, after she draws a superficial scratch over his cheek. He ducks and reaches out to try and get a firm grip on one of her arms.

Yup. Claude definitely missed something there, but he's really not to blame. There were a whole lot of people who missed this, almost including Anne herself. As for grabbings, her arm is gripped tightly enough, no problem there. And he wont really have any trouble holding on to her, either, but that doesn't change the fact that she's still fighting like a tiger. The whole 'pretend it's the guy that killed your son' scheme worked a little too well is all. So, she just screams right back at him, and uses her free arm to swing at his neck.

Anne screams again when she's held, but it's really less from the pain and more from simple rage. She's really gone at this point, so angry and hurt and raging she can't think. And this, the man she's fighting, is the one that hurt her son. She can't kill him like this, she knows it even now. But. "I wont let you get away with it." She hisses between her teeth. Claude will feel it then, suddenly, a tightness all around his body, and something locking him tightly to Anne, and then they're not in the library anymore. Instead, they're high, high above the ocean, and falling. Falling fast, down. It's icy freezing cold up here, and hard to breathe as they pick up speed, going down. Yeah. This is bad. He's still got Anne in a deadlock, tho'.

'I won't let you get away with it?' That's an odd thing to say completely out of context. Trying to make sense of it brings a frown to Claude's face. "Away with wh—" The frown, then, disappears. Along with the library, as it appears. His grip stays, and tightens, even as they plummett downward. And as soon as he manages a wild look around himself, he growls to himself. "Thank you for reminding me why I hated teleporters!" Thank fuck he can swim. Not that he's letting go, however. Just in case.

Claude hits the floor back first, which promptly knocks the air out of him. The by now white-knuckled grip on Anne's arm loosens completely, and for the moment it seems the visible invisible man decides simply not to move at all. Briefly… he feels relieved. The library floor is, after all, a much better place than the ocean floor. As soon as he manages to catch his breath, however, that relief turns to rage. "Last time I CHECKED," He starts, voice louder with ever word, "a good offense did NOT involve a NEAR SUICIDE! Did you even know what the hell you were DOING?!"

The distress and confusedion Anne might be showing is completely and utterly ignored. Claude coughs, gets to his feet a little slower and more hesitant than he might have liked, and turns to face his new pupil directly. He sneers, his muscles tense and hands clenched to fists. For a moment it looks like he might be thinking of letting one of those fists connect squarely with her face. Yet several seconds of hateful glaring later, he's still standing there. Until, suddenly, he's not.

All that's left is footsteps - a steady gait away from Anne, and two gruffly spoken words. "Class dismissed." For now.

As always when things simply get too much, Claude relies on his ability. While he is now nowhere to be seen, his footsteps can still be heard - a steady gait away from Anne, and two gruffly spoken words. "Class dismissed." For now.

When Claude fades and vanishes, and his steps can be heard moving away from her, Anne hides her face against her knees, wrapping arms around her legs. While it might be interpreted that way, the shaking that starts soon after has nothing to do with Claude's gruffness. It's much deeper than that. The soft shaking is soon followed by a slow rocking back and forth where she sits, sobs and a stream of tears. It's like a dam broke open, and while this wouldn't be the time she'd chose to cry, it's nothing she can hold back. So she holds and rocks herself as if she were a child, and weeps.


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January 27th: Sufferance
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January 28th: Ship Of Death
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