Peace, as someone who was used to not being near people and them avoiding her when she was, became immediately aware when Gil arrived. She couldn't quite pin the reason, whether it was how the crowd parted around them, the awkward glances, the sudden presence of nearby footfalls, or even the boy's scent, but she knew he was there. After wandering for a while, she spotted a burger joint on a corner and waved him toward the establishment. She picked two random items off the menu for herself, then turned to face him expectantly, a small wad of cash in hand. As if by way of explanation, she looked at him, then at the menu, then held up the bills in her hand.
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:07 pm
Ordinarily, Gil likely would have refused the offer to have his meal paid for by someone else (excepting of course circumstances like tribute or surrender offerings), but he'd been having a fairly rough week, so was less resistant than usual. Plus, honestly, it was a lot harder to turn down an offer made without any words in it. Gil selected a single item from the menu for himself, and settled down into the corner booth to await his food. With his boredom alleviated, Gil decided to accomplish his other goal in coming in to the city, and presented Peace with her new white oak rook.
gifts given: 1 whittled white oak rook
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:30 pm
Peace paid the chap at the counter after Gil ordered, then followed him to a table. The wait wouldn't be long, she knew, but she wanted those burgers now. When presented with the rook, her eyes lit up and she dug through her pack for the chess set it contained. She opened it noisily and pulled out the other white rook to compare, and was even more delighted to find their shapes matched extremely well. A smile lit up her face, making her look like a kid with a new toy. She started setting the board up to play but was interrupted by their food arriving, prompting her to put the set away. With no other means at her disposal to thank the boy for his gift, she bowed her head and clasped and raised her hands above it. The action would make the light pink line of flesh on one side of her stomach and the white-ish spot on her shoulder stand out as the remnants of her stitches. Following that gesture, she would pull over her two meals and start to wolf down one of the burgers like a starved animal.
Philipwn
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:37 pm
Gil wasn't used to open displays of emotion, so was fairly taken aback by Peace's response to his gift. He also wasn't used to experiencing intense emotions himself (recent introspection about family aside), and so was thrown for quite a loop in the ensuing seconds. First he felt great pride in his whittling skills upon seeing his friend's initial reaction to the gift, followed shortly by a great deal of happiness and a small bit of embarrassment as she bounced around like a kid on Christmas. Immediately after, he was blindsided by concern and worry upon seeing her injury for the first time. He could also feel the rage building just under his current emotions, waiting for an outlet once he discovered who had dared to hurt his friend. He waited for their server to be out of earshot before asking,
"Are you alright?! What happened to your shoulder and stomach?!"
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:48 pm
Peace didn't stop chewing when Gil asked his question, but did put down her burger. She almost looked embarrassed as she held out her right hand, thumb pointed upward, index and middle fingers extended with ring and pinkie curled inward. After holding the shape for a moment, she relax her hand and held up two fingers. After her brief explanation, she noticed how angry Gil had gotten at the sight, then raised a hand placatingly. She formed her hand into a fist, did a short jab toward the wall, and counted up to ten on her fingers. When she hit ten, she folded her fingers back down and slowly counted upward, ending with some uncertainty at eight or nine. Then as if to elaborate, she pulled out the black king from her chess set, pointed at it, waved her finger in a circle around the top bit, did the same motion around her face, formed a fist, then pointed at the messy cross-section of her burger where she'd taken a bite out of it. After completing that explanation, she took another bite out of the burger and offered Gil some of her waffle fries.
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:03 pm
Hearing that the perpetrators had already been appropriately castigated helped somewhat to calm the storm brewing deep in Gil's chest. He still had a desire to inflict pain upon the idiots himself, but it was at least something if they had already been trounced, and the gesticulations he was witnessing clued him in that they really had been. He couldn't help but smile slightly when seeing the burger analogy made. "Making mincemeat" out of someone was an expression for a reason, after all. It always surprised and impressed him when Peace found a way to wordlessly invoke idioms like that. Gil was certain he wouldn't be able to communicate as effectively if their positions were reversed. He turned down the offered waffle fries in what was likely a surprise to them both; he had too much deer sitting in his makeshift fridge at home to fill up too much here. Having ordered half as much food, he finished significantly earlier than his dining companion, but was in no particular rush to leave. He simply enjoyed the comfortable silence and did a bit of people watching. Overall Gil didn't have much interest in people or what they were doing, but his he was severely limited in the eye-candy department in the wilderness, which accounted for one of only two reasons he tolerated living so close to a transdimensional hub. Food, of course, being the other.
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:14 pm
Peace polished off her first burger easily and chased it with a long drag from her drink before setting to work on the second one. It seemed Gil was enjoying the sights, as it were, but she had a question of her own to ask in the meantime even if it meant distracting the youth from his crowd watching. She knocked lightly on the table to get his attention, and then would point at his shoulder with one eyebrow cocked. She would've expected his shoulder to have healed enough that he didn't need a sling, but she wasn't too certain about those things; the fact that it was still in recovery meant that assumption was wrong. That thought reminded her of her first aid kit, which prompted a darting glance out the window to make sure there weren't any officers or Wards coming to get them. When that worry was alleviated, she looked back at Gil expectantly.
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:24 pm
Gil jumped slightly when Peace rapped on the table for his attention. He was so comfortable sitting in silence around her, he'd almost forgotten that he in fact did have company. Perhaps too comfortable, Gil thought to himself as he felt a light heat rising in his cheeks, realizing that he hadn't exactly been subtle about where his attention had been moments ago. The topic Peace had chosen to bring up helped to relieve him of his embarrassment quickly, replacing it with frustration as he looked down towards the table and answered the question.
"I'm given to understand things like this can take six to eight weeks to heal completely, so I'm looking at at least another week or two. It might be that I could take off the sling before that, but I'll be damned if I hurt it again by trying to use it too quickly."
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:37 pm
Six to eight weeks? No wonder he didn't seem pleased about the situation. Peace nodded when he mentioned he might hurt himself again by taking the sling off too soon, then set about finishing her second burger in the silence that followed. She relished the delicious, salty, starchy goodness of the fries and slurped down her drink with what likely would have been startling speed for anyone who hadn't seen her devour a thousand dollars' worth of burgers in a single sitting. With that done she yawned and stretched, feeling revitalized after the hearty meal. With no conversations she could easily start through gestures and a pretty thorough handicap when it came to smalltalk, she looked inquisitively toward Gil.
Philipwn
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:44 pm
Gil was much more careful about where his eyes wandered for the remainder of the time Peace was eating. Not that it would be a concern for long, she appeared to be tapping into whatever greater power had possessed her the last time they'd been together in a diner, and scarfed her remaining food in a very short period. Gil didn't fail to notice the yawn that escaped her upon finishing her meal, and so suggested that they leave the city and get some rest, promising he'd come by her territory sometime in the coming days to help break in her newly completed chess set.
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:49 pm
Peace nodded, suddenly becoming more aware of the crowds that surged around the outside of the diner. She quietly stood, collected the chess set and her new rook--which she again turned over in her hands to make sure it was real--along with her pack, then made her way out into the streets. She threaded a path first through the crowds, then the alleyways and finally out toward the wilderness the two called home.
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Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2017 7:29 pm
The warm embrace of the city reminded Peace why people still lived in such high-density areas, aside from convenience, indoor plumbing, and the other myriad reasons. She wove her way through alleyways toward the martial arts studio she attended, wondering if it had been restored to operational condition. Sure enough, it had, and when she looked inside she saw one of the older students on the phone at the front desk. Peace knocked on the front door and slipped in quietly when the student waved at her.
It turned out that this student had been placed in charge of the studio while Kimura-sensei was recovering in the hospital. His name was Arval Pryor, was 31 years of age, and stood a full head over Peace. He had the same toughened, fit build that she did along with dirty blond hair and green eyes. Classes had started up again a couple of days ago, though no one had any way of getting into contact with Peace reliably, so she hadn't been informed. He seemed glad that her injuries were healed, but a bit melancholic at Kimura's prospects as an aged woman who'd just suffered a fairly severe injury.
Peace stuck around for a while to wait for a class that was taking place later that day. The schedule would be a bit weird for a while as Pryor worked out the details of his employment, so for the time being classes were going to be light on attendance. Sure enough, only a handful of people showed up.
The class itself wasn't very strenuous, though Peace wasn't sure if that was because of the change in leadership or because of the intensity of her own workout regimen. Either way, she found her attention lapsing while she went through standard drills, her gaze drifting toward the freshly replaced glass at the front of the studio--now emblazoned with its name, or so she assumed--and then over the thin mats on the floor that had been either cleaned or replaced due to the blood stains. The back of the studio and the changing rooms had been much the same, albeit with much of the carpet torn up. The front door, too, had needed to be replaced, though the new one looked like a slightly less scratched up version of the old one, so nothing much had changed there.
Then came the sparring. Peace was kind of excited to get to spar after so long, but found that her fighting experience had taken her to the point where she dominated her partner if she wasn't too careful, even though she was being absolutely certain to deactivate her powers. Pryor had some gripes about her form and things of that nature, but ultimately she still handily outperformed her opponent even while adjusting for her new instructor's pointers.
At the end of the class she was presented with a new belt. They went through the formality of having her break a few boards and had her go through a short spar with one of the other students, but ultimately she got the belt because of her performance when the studio was under attack, and probably would have even if she didn't meet the requirements for it. Of course, she absolutely met the physical and technical requirements, which was probably the only reason she actually accepted the belt. The ceremony was short, she got a couple of claps, and then everyone left. She felt somewhat removed from the excitement of receiving the belt because it had been so long since she'd actively practiced, but she folded it and her uniform neatly and stowed them in her locker before leaving.
Notes for myself:
Blocking: +11 Footwork: +11 Strength: +14 (From Fitness, capped) Speed: +16 (From Fitness, capped) A note on the above: These are the aspects of her fighting style Peace is currently training as a white-yellow belt. 1d20, DC 15 increases the bonus by +1, natural 20 grants +2. Reaching 10 means mastery of a certain area for the current training level. After one reaches +10, its roll is transferred to a reroll for another to signify a shift in focus. After every 5 classes, anything with a +10 can be transferred out for something else. Sparring allows for a second roll for the class and occurs on a roll of 5 or 6 for colored belts below green, 3-6 for green to brown, and 2-6 above that on 1d6. Belt order at this dojo: White, white-yellow, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, brown-red, red, black (1st-10th dan). Nippon Kempo: 14/18 classes attended.
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 8:36 pm
As Peace arrived for her class, she noticed something was off. The street was just a bit more populated than normal, and there was a small crowd inside the martial arts studio she attended. For a few moments she was on edge as she approached the building, but since things inside were proceeding as was normal, she made her way inside. There, Pryor greeted her with a curt head nod, then motioned toward the crowd. Apparently, nearly all of them were the members from a sibling dojo deeper in the city, and the two who weren't were journalists who wanted to get a chance to interact with Peace, take her picture, maybe interview her. To the latter group she pressed a finger over her lips, then pointed at herself; Pryor clarified that she was mute and illiterate, so any questions they asked would probably need to be very simple. The interview wound up being very brief, as the journalists shifted their focus to bouncing the police reports off of her and getting her take on things. That took about ten to fifteen minutes of her time, after which they got a picture of her on the street outside the studio and settled in to watch the class.
As the time of the class approached, Pryor called over Peace and her fellow students, only a couple of whom were missing. He explained that the other studio had come by to both help out with teaching and also to participate in a small tournament the two of them were putting on. He reiterated--most likely for Peace's benefit--that no powers were to be used. After getting a collective affirmative from them, class started.
This was Peace's first class as a yellow belt, and she wasn't sure what to make of it. The visiting instructor was perhaps even stricter than Pryor, demanding nothing short of perfection from her on techniques she was just now learning. The new blocks she was learning weren't particularly difficult to understand, nor were the steps, nor the elbow and knee strikes, but going over them so much under such tight scrutiny made her feel suffocated. The feeling only increased when she was paired off with someone to practice tripping them; with so much going on at once, she wound up getting criticized on parts of her movements that she wasn't fully aware of making. It was as though the visiting instructor had singled her out personally to receive the full brunt of their attention, and while she understood the good sides of the extra attention, that didn't necessarily mean she liked it.
From what Peace could glean from the snippets of conversation she could hear between Pryor and the visiting instructor, the latter had come at Kimura-sensei's personal request. At the same time, the ten students that had come with them were only a small portion of those enrolled at the other studio, which numbered upward of 30 or 40 based on the fledgling martial artist's estimates. There were mentions of multiple classes per day excluding kids' classes and a few offhand comments about this being a smaller studio. The information caused a slight adjustment in how Peace viewed Kimura-sensei's classes, as before she had always assumed dojos had few students.
Following the class proper there was a meeting held to gauge interest in the tournament. Naturally everyone wanted in, including Peace, so they broke apart for some practice spars against students from the other school. Peace got stuck with one of the bulkier students from the other school who had quite a bit more time invested in the art. He read through her simple movements with ease, though her reflexes did a good job of mitigating the damage his counterattacks would have inflicted otherwise. After sparring him for a couple of minutes, someone else rotated in and she found herself facing off against a wiry teenage girl whose movements were much sharper and faster. This time Peace found her defenses didn't benefit her as much and opted to try dodging instead, with minimal success. As the spar came to a close, she worked out a balance of dodging and blocking that worked fairly well for defense, but she couldn't land many hits against such an agile opponent.
By the end of the class and bonus spars, Peace was completely drenched in sweat. She knew it would wash off on her next swim, but it still felt nasty, and she was so sore that she wasn't sure that she would go for a swim the next day. She slipped out while the visiting instructor and Pryor were talking to each other and made her way back out toward her campsite.
Public Image Boost: Complete.
Notes for myself:
Blocking II: +4 Footwork II: +3 Basic Striking I: +2 Trips: +3 A note on the above: These are the aspects of her fighting style Peace is currently training as a yellow belt. 1d20, DC 15 increases the bonus by +1, natural 20 grants +2. Reaching 10 means mastery of a certain area for the current training level. After one reaches +10, its roll is transferred to a reroll for another to signify a shift in focus. After every 5 classes, anything with a +10 can be transferred out for something else. Sparring allows for a second roll for the class and occurs on a roll of 5 or 6 for colored belts below green, 3-6 for green to brown, and 2-6 above that on 1d6. Belt order at this dojo: White, white-yellow, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, brown-red, red, black (1st-10th dan). Nippon Kempo: 15/18 classes attended.
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:22 pm
The second day of the visiting instructor's tutelage was just as grueling as the first, as they somehow managed to make the ever-fascinating topic of footwork a mindless slog toward perfect form. "That's not right" seemed to be their catchphrase, as Peace heard it so many times that it far surpassed the point of semantic satiation. Peace held her stances firmly, though, and resisted the urge to get angry.
The tournament started after class that day, set up in a 4- to 5- round bracket, depending on ongoing participation. There would be two fights a day for two days with a loser's bracket running parallel to it after the first round. After the finals, a post-final round would be held between the winners of the standard and loser's brackets.
For her first match, Peace was paired up against a brutish middle-aged woman who was her height but had the build of someone who just wanted to put on muscle mass without an end goal in mind. Peace was able to dodge around most of the woman's hits, but the few that landed were heavy, and her own blows didn't seem to do much. After exchanging a few punches and kicks, she switched strategies, opting to plant her feet whenever she attacked and let the power flow from the rotation of her body, as she'd been taught. That leveled the playing field, and in the end it came down to a contest of stamina; Peace outlasted her opponent and, huffing and panting, moved on to the next round after rehydrating.
Peace's second opponent seemed to be a much more equal challenge. As far as she could tell, they were both equally set up to take each other down: she had average power and decent reflexes, while her opponent was fast but didn't pack quite as much a wallop. Peace missed her first strike by just a hair's breadth, then took a few hits to the side as her opponent slipped away. She swung and missed again, got nicked by an elbow to the shoulder, then landed a glancing blow. They exchanged two more sets of blows, and on the second one Peace caught her opponent square in the chest and floored them, taking the match.
Again covered in sweat and sore from her matches, Peace changed clothes and headed out toward her territory for some well-deserved rest.
Notes for myself:
Blocking II: +6 Footwork II: +7 Basic Striking I: +4 Trips: +5 A note on the above: These are the aspects of her fighting style Peace is currently training as a yellow belt. 1d20, DC 15 increases the bonus by +1, natural 20 grants +2. Reaching 10 means mastery of a certain area for the current training level. After one reaches +10, its roll is transferred to a reroll for another to signify a shift in focus. After every 5 classes, anything with a +10 can be transferred out for something else. Sparring allows for a second roll for the class and occurs on a roll of 5 or 6 for colored belts below green, 3-6 for green to brown, and 2-6 above that on 1d6. Belt order at this dojo: White, white-yellow, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, brown-red, red, black (1st-10th dan). Nippon Kempo: 16/18 classes attended.
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Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2017 5:45 pm
The structure and discipline of the evening's martial arts class was refreshing even as it wore Peace out. Given the absolute poverty of energy she'd endured over the past couple of days, being forced to move and see how well she did so helped to awaken the young lady's vigor. Throughout the learning of new blocks, the practice of beginner footwork, the use of her elbows and knees and fists to strike in ways she hadn't thought to previously, the thrill of causing an opponent to trip and fall, she felt energy rising from her stomach and flooding throughout her body. It was similar to how she felt when using her powers, but she still felt every hit that her practicing partners landed on her, the impact of the floor, and the weight of her fists against them without the boost her abilities provided her. It was absolutely delicious, and she wanted more.
She must've had quite an intimidating look on her face as she faced her third opponent in the tournament, as they looked incredibly uneasy from the moment they looked at her. At the start of the match they managed to block her hits and send some back her way, but after a few exchanges she landed a solid hit against the padding on their head and sent them sprawling to the floor. For her part, Peace wasn't even winded, fatigue not even hitting her as she helped her opponent back to their feet.
As one of the contestants in the finals of the winner's bracket, Peace couldn't help but feel proud. She bowed to her opponent as instructed before they started, then immediately opened the match with a solid knee to the other person's gut. The wind was knocked out of them, but they managed to trip her and fell on top of her. She guarded as her opponent went for her head, then in a moment when she spotted weakness bucked them off and started to stand. The opponent was quicker, though, and kicked her in the side as she was getting up. After evading her foe's next attack she managed to get to her feet, at which point they started trading blows, each one block the other's strikes. It was a close match, but ultimately Peace hit the mat, both her and her opponent drenched in sweat. They both received a round of applause, and after a few minutes' rest she was shunted into the losers' bracket. That meant another match, so the winner of the losers' bracket could be determined.
Peace was starting to feel tired as she went out for her third match that day, but so was her opponent. She started off aggressively, pushing her opponent back to the edge of the ring with well-timed punches and kicks born from her fighting experience. Right at the edge, though, she lost her footing and was sent stumbling backward after a powerful elbow from her opponent hit the side of her head. Vision blurring from sweat dripping into her eyes, Peace let loose one last punch. That turned out to be all her foe could take, and as she cleared the sweat from her eyes she saw that she was victorious.
That was where the tournament ended for the day. Only one fight remained: the one between her and the person who had beaten her. That fight would come another day. She drank what had to be several gallons of water from the faucet before stumbling exhaustedly out the door and back toward her camp.
Notes for myself:
Blocking II: +10 Footwork II: +10 Basic Striking I: +8 Trips: +8 A note on the above: These are the aspects of her fighting style Peace is currently training as a yellow belt. 1d20, DC 15 increases the bonus by +1, natural 20 grants +2. Reaching 10 means mastery of a certain area for the current training level. After one reaches +10, its roll is transferred to a reroll for another to signify a shift in focus. After every 5 classes, anything with a +10 can be transferred out for something else. Sparring allows for a second roll for the class and occurs on a roll of 5 or 6 for colored belts below green, 3-6 for green to brown, and 2-6 above that on 1d6. Belt order at this dojo: White, white-yellow, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, brown-red, red, black (1st-10th dan). Nippon Kempo: 17/18 classes attended.
