Participants:
| Scene Title | Teaching Pain |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Magnes comes over to show Melissa how to fight. |
| Date | June 18, 2010 |
Though she's had his number, Melissa hasn't really ever had reason to call Magnes before. That's changed now. She gave him a call, asking him to swing by her house. She was in need of a new trainer, it seemed, since it didn't work out with her last one. He only lasted 3 minutes. She told him to come around back when he got there, that she'd be out there already.
When Magnes arrives, she's right where she said she'd be. She's wearing all black of course, though this time it's a pair of loose fitting cotton pants, and a tank top, with black running shoes, her hair pulled back into a neat knot that keeps it off her neck and away from her face. Seems she means business. At the moment she's sitting in the grass, knees drawn up, arms wrapped loosely around them while she watches Jerry and Mr. Muggles chase each other around the yard and fight over a bright blue ball.
Not even bothering to enter the house, Magnes just lands about twenty feet away from her, knees bent slightly. He's wearing a light blue shirt with Captain America's shield covering most of the front, loose black jeans, and old beat up black sneakers. "Hey, Melissa. I needed a break from all the stress lately, especially with work, so, thanks for calling me. When the President's approval ratings drop, being his PR woman's intern is not a fun job."
There's no surprise from Melissa when Magnes lands, though Jerry stops dead in his tracks, head tilting this way, then that, peering at the odd flying man. Then he barks at Magnes, before resuming his game of Tag with Mr. Muggles. Run, little dog, run!
Mel shrugs a little as she pushes herself to her feet and dusts off her backside. "Hey, you're doin' me a favor, so no reason to thank me. If I wanna survive, I gotta be able to do more than pull a trigger or put the hurt on someone. And I fully intend to have a nice, long life, regardless of what I choose to fill it with."
"Well, I should start by saying this is going to hurt, and I plan to teach you the basics to how I've mixed everything I know. We'll start off simple," Magnes raises a hand and motions for her to come over. "Attack me, no ability. I want to see what you can already do so we'll know what needs working on."
Melissa gives him a dry look. "You really think I am afraid of a little pain, Magnes? Please. Even if I wasn't who I am, I'd be expecting this to hurt at least a little. And I'll tell ya right now. I don't know much. I've always relied on my ability or a gun," she adds as she strolls over towards him. But she does as he asked, throwing a punch towards his mid-section. And true enough, the swing is a little wild, a little uncontrolled.
Magnes grips her wrist with one arm, then raises the back of his other fist to her face, though he stops it before it can actually hit her. "Alright, we've definitely got a lot to work on. First, when you attack, you have to be mindful of how vulnerable an attack makes you to your opponent. So when you throw a punch, you're thinking 'What opening am I creating for them'?"
He releases her wrist, then touches his stomach. "In a life or death situation, which is generally any fight, you have to go for the most devastating blows you can think of. While you're punching me in the stomach, I'm already breaking your nose and following that up with taking you to the ground. You following me?"
Melissa doesn't look surprised when he stops the attack. She knows she needs work. That's why she asked. She nods at his explanation. "So where are the most vulnerable areas? Where could I do the most damage?" she asks.
"Assuming you're not fighting someone with super high endurance and pain tolerance, the nose, the throat, eyes, testicles, any joints. You've gotta remember, they're fighting to kill, some people are gonna be able to take as much pain as you can deal, so you have to make that completely irrelevant." Magnes places a fist carefully against her stomach, just to show her. "If you don't already, start doing situps. When someone punches you, you wanna be able to take it without them knocking the air completely out of your lungs, then you can take advantage of any openings they left."
He backs up, the, cracks his knuckles and nods to her. "I guess I should start showing by doing, that's how I learned. Fight me seriously, then when I show you what you did wrong, we'll try again with what you've learned. Come at me again."
Melissa smiles a bit and shakes her head. "You don't want me fighting seriously. If I did, I'd be workin' my ability in there somewhere. But I'll throw punches. That's easy enough." Even for someone as inexperienced as she is. They just might not be good punches. She shakes her hands out a little before curling them into fists once more, and she eyes him for a moment. Then…then she begins to fight. The first punch is quick, aimed towards his throat. It may not have the best technique, but she's definitely got some speed in her.
Magnes takes a punch to the face, trying to roll with it as he turns his head, then reaches out to grab her wrist and upper arm, starting to try and take her body down with his weight. "Better hurry up, or this is really going to hurt!" he urgently warns, not pausing for a second, just wanting to see how she'll defend herself.
Since he's only grabbed one arm, Melissa throws another punch, aiming for his face again while her own shows a grimace, more intense concentration than anything else. And once the punch is thrown, she tries to grab onto whatever she can, in order to bring one knee up sharply towards his side, just below his ribs.
Magnes quickly releases her after taking a punch to the face and the side of his abdomen, rubbing his side slightly. "Alright, alright, good. I wanted to see if you'd take the opening, though it still hurt like hell. If you didn't take the opening, in a serious fight you'd have ended up on the ground with a dislocated arm and a guy trying to kill you. Though most people aren't going to back off from a simple punch and a kick, and you should try to avoid even getting into that situation to begin with. You have to control the flow of the fight. You throw a punch and someone grabs your wrist? Just pull yourself in even closer. Knee crotches, headbutt noses. Don't worry about getting hurt, just be a human storm of pain."
Melissa steps back and looks at him for a moment before she busts out laughing. "Magnes! Remember who you're talkin' to, alright? I'm not worried about causing pain with my fists so much as I am wanting to ensure that the person I'm fighting stops fighting." A pause then a shrug. "Okay, so negation gas could nix that, but still. Less pain, more taking the person out of the fight altogether."
"Alright, let's see. Another key to exploiting weaknesses is momentum, especially when you'll be fighting a lot of taller guys. I'll show by demonstrating on you. Run at me with a punch." Magnes requests, motioning for her to come again. "Once you take someone down, beat the living hell out of their face, especially the nose, eyes, and throat. And while testicles are good to hit on a guy, you might find people like Emile Danko who don't give a damn.
"Why wouldn't any guy give a damn about getting hit in the balls?" Melissa asks curiously. But then she shrugs and moves in towards him, waiting until the last moment to punch.
Magnes crouches down and grabs her wrist again, but this time it's followed by his elbow going into her gut, using the momentum to roll her over his back and on to her's. That was quite a flip. "Using momentum you can do all sorts of things." he explains, standing up straight to offer his hand. "Your size won't matter because you'll be exploiting gravity and using their own power against them. And the testicle thing? It completely beats me, but I've definitely fought guys who can fight through getting kicked in the nuts, like they're not even down there.
A soft grunt escapes Melissa as the elbow hits her stomach, and a gasp comes when she lands on her back. She lays there for a moment, eyeing him as if pondering what sort of payback would work best. "Maybe they're not," she mutters, shaking her head. She sits up slightly and reaches for his hand, but rather than letting him help her up, she tightens her grip and tugs, jerking her body back horizontal while bringing her feet up towards his gut. It's sloppy, but she's clearly trying to throw him over her head and onto his back.
"Wha-" Magnes is definitely not expecting it, going over her head and slamming on to the ground behind her. He stares up at the sky, winded and breathing heavily. "Alright, I guess I don't need to teach you about the element of surprise…"
Melissa relaxes back once he's on the ground and her lips curve, eyes closing for a moment. "Nope," she agrees. "But see? Learned about leverage. Yay me. That was almost fun."
"With another practice, all this stuff will become second nature. I have a new trainer too, so I'll be teaching you things as I learn them. I hear he's a bigger deal than the other people who've trained me so far. I'd introduce you, but he's reclusive and would probably try to kill us both for me even telling you where he is." Magnes sits up, looking down at her with his legs crossed. "We can get up when you're ready. So… what'd you think of Elaine?"
"Well he sounds like a fun guy," Melissa mutters dryly as she sits up. "And I don't know, Magnes. I talked to her for like, what, a minute? Not really long enough to get an impression of her one way or another."
"Oh, didn't know what happened after I got drunk, so I thought you might've spoken or something." Magnes finally stands, then claps his hands. "Alright, that's enough resting. We need to practice counter attacks."
Melissa pushes to her feet, though this time she doesn't bother brushing the grass and dirt from her clothes. "Alright. So what do I do?" she asks, turning to face him, stretching her back a little.
"Well, we already covered momentum for throwing someone, and staying aware of openings, so now we combine the two. Using the momentum of someone's attack, and exploiting that to look for an opening they can't cover because of this momentum. So…" Magnes demonstrates with a slow demonstrative punching movement, holding it to her head so he can instruct her. He has his body stretched forward as if he were putting a lot of weight and power into it. "As you can see from my stance, all of my weight, balance, and everything, have completely gone into this one punch. There's no pulling back or changing position, unless, well, you're a gravity manipulator. But when someone makes a broad powerful attack like this, they're extremely vulnerable. I'm completely open and you could choose to do a number of things to me. Even grab my arm and knee me in the face and crack my skull with your elbow. The take down would be swift and pretty damaging if you did it right."
Melissa studies the stance while Magnes explains, and when he's done talking she nods. "So something like…" She reaches out with one hand, grabbing his wrist then kicking out between his legs. All moving in slow motion and not actually hurting him. This time. "That'd cause someone to double over, right? And then I could bring my knee up to their face or bring my elbow down on the back of their neck, yeah?"
"Yeah, but make sure you don't expose yourself to having all of their weight on top of you, don't lose your balance or they might be able to turn it around on you. You're aiming for taking them down with you on top." Magnes elaborates, then breaks his pose and moves so he's in a spearing position, holding his shoulder against her stomach. "Now, if you're in this sort of position, there's not a whole lot someone your size can do, you have to attack, pull, whatever anything you can find, but this is a good position for kneeing someone in the face. When someone goes at you with some sort of spear, it's best to step away from it instead of taking a chance with throwing them. Approach it as if you were bull fighting."
Melissa nods. "But there's plenty I could see to do like this. Kneeing, yeah, or…" she brings the point of her elbow down as close to his spine as she can manage. "Can't imagine this would feel good to anyone. And if I hit right, couldn't I damage the spine, too?"
"It's possible, but there's plenty of people who could take that sort of hit if they've built up a lot of muscle mass in their back. I could probably take it myself depending on who's delivering the blow. You've gotta play to your strengths, what'll work for some people might not work for you. Me, for example, my legs are stronger than my arms, so I'm better at kicks than punches." Magnes informs her of that little factoid as he stands up straight again. "We should probably talk about if your hair gets grabbed, shouldn't we?"
Melissa shrugs. "Someone grabs my hair, they grab my hair. Don't imagine it would hurt anymore than anything else. You get hair this long and you get used to it being snagged or pulled."
"I don't think you get it." Magnes reaches up and grabs her ponytail, though he doesn't tug it. "Once I have your hair, I can drag you around and do whatever I want. This is a position you want to avoid as much as possible, but if you do get in it, you need a way to get out of it. What will you do?" he asks again, wanting to see her answer.
After considering for a brief moment, Melissa asks. "Want me to tell you, or show you? The latter will hurt," she warns.
"I'll just take telling me, I'm the teacher no need for me to end up with a busted testicle. Plus I think Elaine would want to have words." Magnes laughs and releases her hair, then cracks his knuckles. "Alright, let's spar a bit, and we can go over some basics as well as some basic hand to hand techniques and stuff."
Melissa smirks a little. "I wasn't plannin' on makin' you useless to your girl. Not this time anyway." She nods then. "But yeah, sparring sounds good. Let's go," she says, grinning like she's anticipating the workout. But then, maybe she is.