javert (
policier) wrote in
logsinthenight2019-10-05 08:45 pm
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combat training mingle log
characters: everyone
location: the village gymnasium
date/time: every wednesday & friday throughout october
content: at the town hall last month, javert offered to set up a place for combat training. this is him making good on his promise. as he mentioned in his bulletin ad, these sessions are open to absolutely everyone, not just those who want to learn how to fight. partner up with someone and spar. do whatever you want, just don't hurt each other too badlyβor javert will have words with you.
warnings: violence
location: the village gymnasium
date/time: every wednesday & friday throughout october
content: at the town hall last month, javert offered to set up a place for combat training. this is him making good on his promise. as he mentioned in his bulletin ad, these sessions are open to absolutely everyone, not just those who want to learn how to fight. partner up with someone and spar. do whatever you want, just don't hurt each other too badlyβor javert will have words with you.
warnings: violence
setup
The gym's certainly seen better days, with it's crumbling walls and lost ceiling tiles. Javert doesn't need it to be pretty, though. He only needs it to be functional. In the last week, he's been doing what he can to clean it up, washing the floors and making some minor structural repairs.
Once the first day of combat training begin, the day after the ferry sinks, it's as clean as it possibly can be without any sort of overhaul. There are mats set up along one end of the gym, for people to stretch or otherwise use for sparring, and a collection of swords near the door. Some are blunted and old, perfect for training β though they may still hurt β while others are sharp or unwieldy, and will need to be handled with care. Use them, Javert says, but return them when you are finished.
There's a tiny collection of knives, too, though there aren't any targets to practice throwing them at. It's a work in progress. For light, there's a torch set up along the wall, illuminating the room and allowing combatants to spread themselves out from one another.
meetings
For the sake of not being micromanagey, there isn't going to be any formal structure to these practices. Javert is available to teach hand-to-hand combat and swordsmanship, should anyone wish it. He's also enlisted the aid of Jason Grace, who will teach hand-to-hand and swordsmanship, and Bucky Barnes, who is proficient in knife fighting as well as hand-to-hand combat. Anyone else, of course, may teach others as they please. Just this once, Javert's not going to be a stickler for formalities. He just wants to see everyone making productive use of their time, in some fashion.
Training will run from seven o'clock to nine o'clock in the evening. Arrive promptly, or Javert will berate you for being disruptive. No one is required to come to every single meeting, so come as often or as little as you like. If regular exercise is supposed to help combat the effects of total darkness, why not give it a try?
OTA
The first day, the Soldier is at least an hour early, inspecting everything there, testing the knives, looking very somber and even more subdued than usual. It's in its leather and kevlar vest sans the usual jacket it wears on top, metal arm fully on display.
The second class, after the flowers have started blooming, it's shakier, but still here. And maybe its voice has a slight Brooklyn accent to it, when speaking in English.
As for the classes once the hallucinations start, well, those are gonna be dicey and the Soldier might not always show up. But it'll sure try.
II. Actual Class
The Soldier doesn't give a lot of verbal instruction-- doesn't even introduce itself. Most of what it does is through is demonstration, occasionally directing a student's motions or stance for them with brief, careful touches. But it's slow and careful in those demonstrations, and has sharp eyes for when someone isn't getting something, needs a different kind of instruction, or is getting frustrated and needs a break. For those paying attention, its language (always understandable, translated through whatever magic is in this place) shifts from English and Russian apparently at random.
It prefers to take the most basic students, those with no experience at all. Its primary focus is on teaching people how to fall without hurting themselves, how to avoid being hit, and how to break holds and briefly debilitate in order to escape an attack: feet-stomping, groin-kicking, and eye-gouging are all fair game, albeit only allowed to practice on the Soldier, not the other students. Only people who show they already know that or have particular talent get to move quickly beyond that to actual offense.
Only those who already show some skill get to learn knives, at least for now. Targets for throwing knives at only show up after a full two weeks.
III. Post-Class
If you want to ask the Soldier questions or attempt to be social, you can certainly try now. After each class, it takes a very brisk walk around the inside of the gym, regulating its breathing and working on getting the flesh hand to stop trembling and the plates in the metal arm to stop shifting. It might talk while it does this.
It's actually, surprisingly, good at this. It likes that it's good at this. There is intense satisfaction in seeing someone properly dodge a swing or a kick, fall and roll back to their feet without hurting anything, or grab an opponent's incoming arm and twisting it away. There is even more satisfaction in thinking that this will help these people stay alive if there is trouble.
But it's also fucking hard. It feels familiar in an uncomfortable way, like it's done this before but doesn't remember it. It requires a lot of people looking at it and quite likely judging it. It requires giving a number of people instructions, and touching them, or letting itself be touched. It's hard.
But it's sure as hell not going to fucking stop just because it's hard.
II as discussed
She looks, for all intents and purposes, like a normal child, just a 14 year old girl, shot up a little in height, almost coltish. She still favours one leg, having sprained her ankle on the ferry. But she's quiet, thoughtful, watches.
The truth is, Eleven looks a little intimidated by many of the things going on around her, here, and she keeps her distance to most people. This, clearly, is a girl that has no experience in actual physical combat.
Eleven wants to learn, though. Perhaps if she'd been better prepared on any level, the Mind Flayer wouldn't have...
That's nothing to think about now, though. She wants to learn. Her powers, she knows, can fail here - either through over-use, or just because this place is dark and wicked and cruel.
So she wants to learn how to hurt herself less, how not to be grabbed, how not to be a burden.
Liability isn't a word she knows, and if she knew it, she would want to avoid being it.
It goes well, at first. She has a certain bite to her, a certain determination to get things right. Watchful, attentive eyes. A tendency to repeat instructions, as if that will make them sink better into her mind and her limbs. She's not strong, has never even scuffled with friends her own age. But she tries, and she listens, and she begins to learn.
It's when she's supposed to learn how to break a hold on her that things go sideways, hard.
He doesn't do anything wrong, and she knew what to expect from the instruction before, and from seeing others do the stime. But knowing and feeling are different. It doesn't happen all at once, it's fine at first when he locks her into the hold she's supposed to break out of. She tries, and fails - it's normal, she knows. Not everyone breaks the hold on the first try, and she knows that without using her powers, she's weak. Not to use them when they are such an intrinsic part of her.
He's calm. He doesn't do anything wrong.
Despite that, when she tries again and fails, something tenses along her spine. Her lower lip trembles. This isn't frustration. Eleven's breath hitches, and she...
... she feels the orderly grab her. Papa looks at her in disappointment, and she cries, weak and weakened, and struggles, pleading, as he locks her into a secure hold and drags her like a doll towards the small, dark room, where they will close the door and leave her alone with no company but her half-formed, malnourished monster of a mind...
She makes a small sound like a scared animal at the back of her throat.
Nearby, a rack with training weapons wobbles precariously.
The air feels charged, like the sky before a storm break.
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So it lets go, takes a step back, registers the frightened sound. The rattle of the weapons doesn't register except as background noise. The way the air feels is uncomfortable, but registers more as an unpleasant echo, an almost-memory-malfunction, than something to actively worry about. Because it doesn't know about her other abilities-- not yet, anyway.
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A pulse of force knocks into anyone and anything unlocky enough to be close by, grasp on her power slipping hard when she's this upset, and he will will it knocking into his chest like a hard, physical blow, stronger than a person.
Eleven comes back to the present a moment later, on her knees, panting, wild eyed with tears stinging. A trickle of blood under her nose, and she freezes when she comes back from the memory to find herself elsewhere, in a better and a worse place than Hawkins Lab, and she stares at him, horrified and afraid not because of him, but because of herself.
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If it didn't live with a demon and an angel, if vampires didn't apparently exist, if they weren't all dead, it might not have been able to take that in stride. As it is, girls with the power to knock you over without touching you might as well exist. It waves the other students back, since it doesn't look like any of them were hurt by their fall.
It picks itself up, rights the lantern, then goes down on one knee in front of her. Out of reach, so she can't think it's going to grab her. Shit, she's bleeding. It'd been sure it hadn't actually hurt her, but maybe it was wrong. "I scared you," it says gravely. "I'm sorry. We don't have to practice that one."
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Eleven doesn't know quite why she feels the need to make the distinction. Guilt, perhaps - she looks around, sees the mess she makes, and her shoulders slump a little, as if she shrinks in on herself just like that.
She reaches up and wipes the blood away. The gesture is casual - she knows the blood is there.
A steadying breath, the fear slowly fading and giving way to a clench in her jaw - trying to shore up her grip on herself and her powers.
"I'm sorry."
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The Soldier regards the girl for a moment, working through what she said. She had been afraid, that was obvious. So either she was lying (didn't seem like it), or she was afraid of something not-it (which made very little sense). It glances at the others, waves them off again, says, "Go for a walk. So you don't stiffen up."
Then, once the handful of lookie-looers are gone, it offers Eleven a hand up. "Tell me why you were afraid. If you want to."
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Eleven doesn't quite meet his eyes.
"I remembered... the bad men. And the dark place." Voice hushed. She doesn't quite know why she says it - she doesn't know him. Perhaps that's why. Perhaps it's because she attacked him. "I could never... I'm not strong," she offers. "Until I got so scared and angry. I broke them... I'm sorry... Did I hurt you?"
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(Okay, but I was joking about her reminding me of you. Now I'm kinda thinking I was right.)
"Memory malfunction," the Soldier says with a blink, letting her hand go. "You had a memory malfunction. I didn't to think anyone else got those." Fuck, is she a HYDRA experiment, too? That's just... that's so wrong to think about.
Yeah, it's kind of forgetting to answer her questions. Too surprised.
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She has to sound the term out, and is grateful for it - it gives her mind something to latch onto, pull herself away from the scent of disinfectant and cigarette smoke. Copper still clings under her nose, and she wipes it away.
Then she frowns and looks up at him. Worries her lower lip between her teeth.
"Did bad men have you, too?"
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It shifts its feet a little awkwardly. "And... yeah. This isn't a good place to talk about it." Too many people. Too exposed. But if her bad people were HYDRA... it has to know.
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It's been a while since it's been so bad for her that she lost her surroundings. It's unpleasant to be reminded that Hawkins Lab still hangs onto her so tightly, like claws that have dug into her and won't let go. She thinks of Billy's hand around her throat, and how the phantom feeling of that had lingered, too.
Best not dwell. Eleven shoves it down, ever down, and nods at the man.
"Yes. We can leave?"
Suggestion and almost asking permission. She's still worried about having hurt him, but the slowly forming question whether or not he's a number, too... it lingers further at the front than her concern.
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It has been almost two hours. They were close to finishing when this started. Maybe it can. "Sure," it finally says. "Outside. I'll have to come back to clean up, but." But. This seems important.
And it could really use some space, anyway.
It motions for her to go on, it'll follow.
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She forces herself to take a slow, deep breath, pushes the instinct down, and walks on, outside. Even on the way she keeps reaching for the blue hair tie on her wrist, fingers stroking over it or tugging on it lightly.
The hair tie is the same colour as her lantern, notably.
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So the Soldier comes out maybe three or four minutes after she does, scanning the dark for her blue lantern. (Its own is pale yellow, nothing fancy, looking like an antique army lantern if she'd recognize something like that.) When it spots her, it approaches slowly, expression not quite its typical neutral, but maybe a bit concerned. "Okay," it says. "You okay?"
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At least she hopes so.
Memory malfunction.
She commits the term to memory.
Her eyes don't open until he approaches, and then Eleven just nods. Her eyes are a little wet, but no tears spill. "Yeah. Are you? Okay?"
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"Freak... out?"
She's not sure if he's calling her a name, or if it's an expression she doesn't quite get.
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Eleven takes a breath. Slow, like Hop always tells her too when her chest is too tight and she struggles. Let's the cool night air drag over her tongue like a sip of water, and down her throat and expand her narrow rib cage. Holds it there. Counts Mississipis without know what that even is, and without knowing how it's pronounced correctly either.
Slow breath out.
"Doctors. Soldiers."
The memory is a wound. She doesn't know if it will ever fully heal, just knows that it always bleeds. Sometimes hot with anger, sometimes cold like white tiles and syringes and his eyes.
"Papa."
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But it also doesn't push. It doesn't feel like it knows enough about families to say anything, even if the thought makes it want to punch something.
"I had doctors and soldiers, too. No parents, though." And because it definitely has to know, "Have you heard the word HYDRA?"
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Papa was a bad man. Hop... Hop is good. Safe. Home.
Dad.
"Hy...dra?"
She looks at him then, the lantern illuminating a face that has no clue about the word. Still she shakes her head for emphasis.
"Hawkins Lab."
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"Tests. Needles. Training for..."
The word gets stuck. She bites her lip, clings to what she's learned and gained. There's a tear clinging to her lashes. He might feel a tremble in the ground. The pressure in the air rising a little bit.
"... tele... kinesis. Sen--sory. De-deprivation. Spy. Kill."
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Also, it recognizes that feeling in the air around them, and tries to head it off as gently as it's capable of. Which is kind of gruff and vaguely panicky, but still obviously sympathetic. "Hey, okay, that's. Plenty. You don't have to tell me any more. Just settle for a second."
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