Welcome to Gaia! ::

Leda skimmed through the abysmally small list of contacts in her senshi cellphone. Most of the time, upon meeting one of her own, she completely forgot about the cellphone method of keeping contact. However, she desperately needed training if she wanted to continue assisting her comrades in the fight against the Negaverse, and the only nonlethal means for her to receive that training was through consulting with her fellow senshi. Given that her contact list was so sparse, the task of simply finding someone to train her seemed nearly insurmountable.

Her gaze fell on a familiar name, listed as the highest rank a senshi could typically receive. Leda remembered the girl rather vividly. It was a chance encounter; she was simply out patrolling at the same time as the eternal senshi, and their routes overlapped. The experienced senshi was terribly nice about it, and even introduced herself without prompt. They exchanged numbers in case of an emergency, Leda complimented her gloriously fashionable fuku, and they parted ways without incident. At least, that's how she remembered it.

Judging by her rank, she was certainly the most experienced senshi in her list. Leda hastily began texting, and bit her lip as her thumbs intently clicked across the buttons and rattled the small beaded keychain on her cellphone. She hadn't the most legible texting habits, but she hoped the message would read clearly enough to the other senshi. She proofread her message once she completed it.

The text read: Wuld u b ok with training me 2day? like 1pm @ the abandond lot on 5th?

Leda hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe I'll rewrite it..." Wait, do senshi have character limits in their texts? What if she went over? Would she be charged somehow? Oh, that might not go over so well... She lacked a job, and she didn't know if she could pay for overages. Then again, she if she had to pay for overages, then she'd have to pay for a plan, too, and when would that be coming in the mail? "Ooh... Maybe I should just call her."

She scanned the horizon quickly, ensuring no one else was around to eavesdrop on the call. Ever since she'd gotten a cellphone as a civilian, her mother had been listening into her calls, and she couldn't shake the suspicion that someone else was around. It wasn't a terribly important call, but if a Negaverse agent was around, they would undoubtedly discover the convergence point for two senshi, and putting someone else in danger was the last thing she wanted to do.

Tentatively she pressed the green button on her cellphone and held it to her ear. She heard the familiar ring drone monotonously in the speaker. Once she heard the other senshi's voice, she started speaking. "Hello! This is Leda, we ran into each other on patrol and exchanged numbers, remember? Um, I think that's what happened... Anyway, I was wondering if maybe you wouldn't mind training me? I really need the practice, and you're like, the best choice. Is that okay?" She hoped Maia's answer would be yes, but she held her breath regardless.

Leda suddenly brimmed with excitement. Maia agreed to help her! She couldn't be happier. She even let out an overjoyed squeak into the phone, which she regretted soon afterward. "Ooh, sorry about that... Um," she remembered a handful of sparsely populated locations. "If you can meet me now, how about on the rooftop of that one furniture store? I forget what it's called, but it shuts down at night, and the roof is nice and flat." There were also a handful of industrial-looking fans on the surface that she had the pleasure of tripping over every time she crossed the building.

Perhaps it wasn't the best of locations.

"Anyway, I think it's off 5th street. I'm not sure, though. It's by a gigantic cinema sign, like one of those old-fashioned ones with the arrow pointing in the building and the flashy lights." She loved that cinema, it was so aesthetic and filled with artifacts from the bygone days. Idly she considered stopping in for a movie after training, but she wasn't sure there were any decent movies playing. Then again, did they even run this late at night? But she digressed... again. "I'll meet you there whenever you're ready. I'm going to head out there now. Thanks for agreeing to train with me, though!" It seemed inappropriate for her to say 'kisses' to someone she barely knew, so she settled with hanging up the phone.

Leda didn't have far to travel. She familiarized herself with the area not long ago, thanks to frequent patrols and admittedly cowardly escapes from Negaverse officers. The street lamps lit the area with an unnatural, sickly yellow glow. Even the brightly painted signs dotting the buildings of Destiny City were awash in the almost otherworldly light. The buildings loomed menacingly and their shadows blackened wide areas of the street. In the peripherals of her vision, imaginary youma crept up from the inky darkness, and vanished under her gaze. As she jumped from building to building, she noticed the lamps muting the colors of her fuku.

She had a lot to think about as she approached the training site. How much could she glean from training in a single day? What would Maia think of her inexperience? Would she even improve in the face of battle? All these questions rattled about in her head while she rhythmically jumped from rooftop to rooftop.

Finally she landed atop the target building with a heavy sigh. With all the running she'd been doing lately, her body grew tired more easily. She wasn't used to the heavy exercise that came with being a senshi. Perhaps Maia could turn that around for her... Or she'd end up a bed vegetable for days after hardcore training. The thought of it worried her a little.

She looked about from where she stood and spotted a familiar shape quickly gaining ground. Once the girl landed on her rooftop, she recognized the sickly yellow accents on the fuku as green in the sunlight, and realized the new arrival was the girl she'd talked to not even a half hour ago. "... Maia?" She asked tentatively.

Leda smiled happily when her new sparring partner approached. "Hi!" She greeted, waving enthusiastically. "It's nice to see you again!" The other senshi looked confident and accomplished, as though she'd served in many battles. Leda could learn a thing or two from her, and she'd have to if she wanted to survive in the war.

However, she was somewhat taken aback by Maia's question. She hadn't thought of what training would entail before inviting the other senshi here. She balked at the thought of having a battle against an ally, but the more she thought about it, the more sensible it would be to spar as training. Didn't they say that the best teacher was experience? Or was that some other saying? It made sense to her, anyway.

"Um," she began, her exuberant disposition quickly shrinking away. "Yeah, I think sparring sounds right." What else could she do? Exercises? That sounded just as hard as sparring. At least this way, she could figure out what to do in the heat of battle. "So, um, how do we begin? Do I just, like, attack you?" Not that she'd know how. She thought about throwing a punch, but using one of her attacks seemed more appropriate. After all, her punches couldn't possibly to amount to more than having a bean bag tossed at your face.

That was probably overstating it, too.

"Um, I'm supposed to hit you?" She repeated. Leda didn't think training would involve any real violence, but it made sense. Maybe she should try to just... tap her? Like in touch football? Then again, she'd never played touch football so she didn't know the rules very well, and she wasn't sure if they used five fingers or only two, but two made the most sense since one couldn't really harm someone with two fingers. But then there were those martial arts movies where someone poked someone else's throat with two fingers and they choked to death. Or maybe it was a strike to the heart? She couldn't remember clearly; the fact of the matter was that two fingers could still kill a person.

So how was she supposed to go about this without injuring her teammate?

Leda supposed the only course of action here was to just go for it, and try her best to put up a fight without injuring Maia. "Okay, here goes..." She spaced her feet a shoulder length apart, and readied herself with her fists raised. Though she wasn't sure it was a proper stance, it felt right enough. Once she felt her footing was firm, and she had psyched herself up enough for battle, she attempted to land a hit on the more established senshi.

Complete with the hokey battle noises she'd seen in comics, Leda charged at her mock opponent. With her fist raised high, she telegraphed her attack long ahead of time before she actually tried to connect her fist with Maia's face. Even if it connected, the halfhearted effort would show through with little damage. She wasn't fond of fighting, and it showed.

Leda's fist missed Maia entirely too easily, though she counted herself fortunate that it didn't connect. She didn't know what she would do if she'd actually punched Maia in the face, other than apologize profusely and possibly cry, and that would defeat the point of a training session, wouldn't it? Perhaps she needed more mental training than physical, someone to tell her it was alright to do damage, and that it was a necessity in war. However, she didn't want to be a part of a war. She didn't want to hurt anything that didn't hurt her first.

So perhaps her missing Maia was for the best.

Or perhaps it wasn't, she found, as a quick push to her lower back sent her reeling over the edge of the building. No amount of arm flailing pushed her backward from the precipice, and she balanced precariously in her heels to stay atop the roof. No, she discovered with utter horror that she would indeed tumble off the roof that night, probably hit her head on several windowsills on the way down, and with her luck, land square in the center of a particularly disgusting dumpster. Or a youma.

Even worse, she could land on a civilian. Or maybe even ricochet out of the dumpster, hit the opposite wall, ping pong into a civilian, and turn the alley into a pinball machine from hell, complete with broken bones and negative publicity for the senshi.

All these thoughts were in and out of her head in a fraction of a second before she plummeted off the surface of the building.

Her prediction was partially correct - she hit her head on a windowsill on her way down, and she landed squarely into an overfilled dumpster, breaking open a black trash bag and immediately soaking up the mystery liquid contents therein. "Ow..." She groaned, mostly to herself than to the much more accomplished senshi above her. "Um, was that supposed to happen...?" Maybe it was the dizziness of her head impacting a windowsill, but it seemed to her that falling off a building was supposed to be some kind of tough reality check.

Now she had to figure out how to get back on top of the building, and since there weren't really any climbing surfaces, she'd have to ask Maia for help. "Um, how do I get back up?" She looked skyward from her perch in the dumpster. No, it was definitely too far to jump, even as a senshi.

Leda was much relieved to learn that she didn't have to get back to the rooftop. With Maia's help, she clambered out of the dumpster and dusted the stray flecks of wadded paper towels off of her dress. It was then that she found out she could magically clean herself by powering down and transforming once more. That would've been helpful to know when she first began learning how to fight as a proper senshi. She couldn't count how many times she ended up in a dumpster, whether by choice or by accident. "Oh, um, you can really clean yourself off like that?" She'd never have to take showers again. That saved a whole lot of time in her schedule.

Without a second thought to revealing her identity, Leda powered down to her familiar outfit as Sirsce, then returned to her still unestablished alter-ego Leda. It felt good to finally be clean again, though her head still hurt like it was stuck in a vice. Maybe re-transforming didn't fix everything, but at least she didn't stink anymore.

That was a plus, right?

"Um, it's okay. I'm really good at falling off of things." She rubbed the back of her head and flashed a bashful smile. Really, Maia had no idea how many times she'd fallen into or off of something. It could hardly be construed as her fault. "I guess I should've tried harder, huh? If I did, maybe I wouldn't have hit the dumpster like that..." But at least it was there to break her fall. She didn't want to end up splattered across the ground because she couldn't hold her footing in a fight.

She considered it a very useful lesson to learn. "Um, if anything, it's good that happened, cuz now I'll really have to learn good footing, right?" It made sense in her mind, anyway. "I'm really not good at fighting... Am I?" She knew the truth without the other girl confirming it. She needed to learn that it was acceptable to hit someone, or something, that was attempting to kill her. Fighting one of her own was the best approach to overcoming those feelings of guilt, right? Maia was okay with it, or else she wouldn't agree. Unless she felt pressured into it... Did Leda force her into agreeing to this? Suddenly the guilt returned in spades. "I'm sorry, Maia."

"You're right, I really should um, figure out how to stand when I fight..." She didn't know how else to put it. Leda hadn't experienced combat before her new awakening as a senshi, so the concept of balancing her weight was completely foreign to her. Maia seemed to understand, though, which helped with her sudden embarrassment. "At least we're on the ground now?" She sighed; it seemed that was her only saving grace.

At least she got the descent from a building over and done with.

However, the hug was a highly welcomed gesture, and Leda returned it in kind. Maia was warm, kind, and willing to help - she appreciated that deeply, and only hoped that Maia would receive that in turn. Though Leda was hesitant to let go, as she wanted to simply rest in the arms of her friend for a while, there was still training to do.

Her enemy wouldn't allow pause for a breather, right?

Finally she parted from her friend, though Leda's hands trailed down Maia's arms and gripped her fingers in one last squeeze - one of her many signs of friendship and affection. "I don't know if I'll ever be perfect at this, but... I'll totally give it another try! Just... not on a building, okay? Maybe it'll um, be easier to get slammed into a dumpster instead..." Not that she'd already fallen into one anyway.

"So this time, I should really try to hurt you, right? I mean, you can take the hit since you've been doing this a lot longer..." She sighed. Rationalizing this was hard, and she wasn't sure it was working. Could she really punch an ally?

"Ooh..." Leda muttered softly while Maia shifted her around. It tickled enough to coax a giggle out of her; despite her fall and painful scrapes, she was having fun. Maybe Maia noticed it too, for she didn't seem terribly high-strung over the event. Leda hoped not; even falling off a building clued her into the importance of taking the enemy seriously. It was just embarking on those first steps that held her back...

The stance felt terribly awkward and foreign to her, but she froze for several moments to try to understand the gist of the stance. It was hard, and she desperately wanted to relax into a less formal, battle-oriented position, but she needed to learn this if she wanted to survive on the streets, didn't she? So with a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried to memorize her footing and the torque of her body. It was hard, but she tried her best.

And then she relaxed.

"Okay, so it went like this..." She muttered mostly to herself, mimicking the stance to the best of her ability. While she remembered her footing, she listened to Maia explain the connotations between a battle stance and ballet. "Yeah, it's not like, super comfortable or anything... You're right, it doesn't feel natural at all." Maybe it was because fighting wasn't natural, not to her.

Not to anyone, she would hope.

"So after I get this weird stance thing down, then I just goooo... Like this?" To punctuate her question, she lashed out at Maia with as much force as her spindly little fists would allow. Hopefully Maia didn't frown on her too much for that...