Welcome to Gaia! ::

“Hey! You noticed! Good job.” Parisite said with a grin, sliding out from where he’d been lurking and where he’d powered up to see how long it took the kid to register the change in the air.

“You’ll know if it's one of …ah, Us or them, they feel -awful- when they get close.” He confided.
“Plus, that b*****d smells like he lives in a house made of Cinnamon brooms, in my opinion.” He added, making a face.

“Anyhow, here, let me see what you have to work with.” He held out his hand to see the cutlery.

“I want to see what I can think of for them before we start on like…seeing if you can punch without breaking your thumb. Trust me; you don’t want to break your thumb; it SUCKS.” Somehow, he doubted Gismondine had ever thrown a punch, let alone broken anything trying to do that.

“Also, don’t worry, if that rat b*****d shows up, you’re going to run till you find somewhere to power down, okay? Don’t ******** with him, go.”

“They do give us s**t weapons to start with.” He made a face, his hooks would have snapped their handles and gouged his own hand more easily than they would have done damage to people except for a pinpoint bruise… unless he aimed well.

“Think of places you could aim that would smart like hell if you got something like this jammed there. That’s the start of this…” He took the weapons to turn them over in his hands.

“Like… aim the fork under the chin, aim the knife for an ear… an eye… even if you just make them flinch that can be a huge difference.”

“Not saying poke my eye out, or deafen me, but we can make targets you can aim at or something, I could put some foam on.”

He sighed at the confirmation that he’d never tried to punch anyone.

“Ok… let's start with ‘make a fist’.”

He wanted to know where the kid would put his thumb.

“Nurses are important too.” He said firmly, eyes darting to meet his Lieutenants, still such an odd concept. Trusting him to take care of someone, to teach them so intently.


“Yeah, good, some people put their thumb inside their fingers, bad idea, trust me.” He shook his head and then proceeded to check the angle of the young man’s hand.

“Also don’t worry about it, I’ve taken a lot worse than a punch from someone like you, Besides we’re going to go slow at first, someone told me once that helps muscle memory, learn to do it perfectly slow and you can do it fast the same way, but I want you to know the basics in case there are more like Latte-Topper b*****d.”

He shifted and guided Gismodine’s arm. “Ok…when you punch, you’re gonna put your hip behind it. You’re not a big fella, so this is extra important. It puts more behind your hits. Unless you’re just out to startle someone you want to MEAN it when you hit someone. Don’t start something you don’t have a plan for.”

“Like this.” He said and placed himself close behind the other man, making him follow his movements bracing his feet and nudging the other's foot to match his own before drawing his arm back by holding the wrist, and then turning them both forward.

“Push from the waist, see? Your power comes from the …from the turn.”

He pulled him back and did it again. “Keep your wrist level… that's the other thing you can break. Don’t let it drop when you hit.”

He hesitated and drew back.

“Sorry… that was kinda …” He cleared his throat.

“Don’t do s**t like that without asking.”

He cleared his throat.

“Think you got the idea?” He added, tipping slightly as he slid back.

“… You didn’t bring cash, did you? like… as a civ? I would just about stab someone for a coffee let me tell you.”

“W…NO..nono. I meant what I did not what you did. Grabbing your…coworkers without provocation or invitation. Kinda shitty. Now stop apologizing good lord. I don’t hate you! BREATHE!”

“Also that was…a good start, don’t apologize for hitting me when I was teaching you to hit!”

He exhaled and tipped his head back.

“If I get some like… foam will you feel better? Sometimes you gotta hit someone ok? Like… no one needs to strangle someone they just met but sometimes you do have to punch people who are strangling people they just met, okay? Why are you so nervous? Hell, if someone made you jumpy get mad at them don’t apologize.”

Now he just felt sort of bad, clearly one of the lessons here was going to have to be finding a shred of self-confidence in the kid.

“If you’re hungry sure, you can generally ignore me bitching about coffee ok? It's just the holidays and it’s been…crazy.” He crinkled his nose and sighed.

“Let’s have you throw a few more punches, like, punch my palm ok?” He held up his hands, palms out.

“I want you to try and get the punch form down, if we have to do this in civilian clothes and we just, I don’t know…go to the Y or something.

He moved and leaned against a wall to brace himself just in case the kid found it in him to throw a good punch.

“Tell me what they do to pick on you kid.”

“Age is relative, sometimes it’s how much you’ve seen kid.”

He had to smirk a bit, the kid was now ‘kid’ forever if he knew it or not.
He measured the punches against his palms, feeling the impact before stopping him again.
“Better, you have the right idea, when you hit…focus it through…here.” He tapped the first two knuckles. “And don’t think about hitting the target, think about where you want to hit, then strike like… behind it. Like you’re trying to push it back where it SHOULD be, okay?”

He braced himself again, “Go! If you get good enough at this you might make it to ‘Captain Kid’ He grinned at his own joke.

“if you don’t get better I’m gonna start calling you Jeeves.”