Log: reMeeting Wolvie

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Clarice, Logan, swords. East meets West. They plan to meet and spar again. and again. and again. until Clarice gets it right.




Taking advantage of the nice weather, Clarice was working on some katas and fencing drills outside in front of the school. Her duffel bag of equipment was open under a tree and she was currently working on point-work, that is, making sure she had enough control of her entire sword and not just the grip, before she continued onto something harder.

Logan, out for a walk, slowed down to watch the slip of a purple thing work her foil. She hadn't been at it for too long, he noted, and leaned against a nearby tree to watch. She was one of the trainees, if his admittedly shitty memory served him in this instance. He couldn't bring her name to mind, but he really didn't need it. Girl had some skill, he was pleased to note. And she fancied herself an enthusiast of Eastern styles of swordwork as well, judging by the bokken in her unzipped duffel.

Finishing the point-work, always tedious but always important, she worked some of the circulation back into her back arm before slipping an ipod on an elastic band onto it and fitting the headset over her ears. "What?" she finally asked, noticing Logan watching her. "You never see a sword before?" she was annoyed at having her practice interrupted so soon.

Logan couldn't help but chuckle at that notion. "A time or two before." he admitted. "Nice point-work. Never was much of one for the Western knitting needle." he confessed with a grin. "You working out solo or you up for a bout?"

"A bout?" oh now that held some promise, "What blade and rules?" she asked, taking the ipod off and stepping into her jacket. She was not about to bout with anyone without proper equipment, as dashing as Mr. Summers had looked with his eye patch, she was not about to copy his style.

"Eastern blades, and whatever rules you're most comfortable with." he said with a shrug, peeling off his outer shirt to just reveal a wifebeater. As he waited for her to make up her mind he rolled his neck, the metallic cracking noise plainly audible. "I'd recommend against live blades, however. Could get a little messy for you."

"None of my blades are live," she replied, casually picking up a katana in a gloved hand and her mask in the other. Her protective gear was strickly Western, but it worked just fine against Eastern swords. "This is a school." Duh.

"Mine are." he said, patting his forearm briefly. "Pass me a bokken, then?" he asked, curious as to how she'd go about doing it. This was going to be entertaining, but he internally resolved to watch his strikes. Breaking her would be _really bad_ right now.

Oh. HIM. Clarice vaguely remembered him. Shitfuck. "You're Logan," she hadn't been avoiding him, but she hadn't exactly been rushing out to see him either. Tossing him the bokken, she placed her katana back in its requisite sheath and pulled a second bokken out. Shiro had left his in her bag the last time they had sparred, it was coming in handy now.

Just as he figured. Disgraceful. Snatching the bokken out of the air, he bowed to it and then to her before holding it at his hip as if it were in a full and proper sheath. "That's what they call me." he said by way of agreement with her pronouncement.

Stepping away from the tree Clarice stood ready to bow a few meters from Logan. "Clarice."

Logan returned her bow and settled into a very traditional ready stance - one he was fairly sure she'd seen before. One hand on the blade, one on the sheath. He just stared into her eyes, trying to psych her out. See how she dealt with pressure, of knowing that it was entirely possible he could just kill her where she stood.

He could kill her, she had no doubts about that. Except this was Xavier's and he was an X-Man. Just because he could kill her didn't mean he would kill her. And he had said earlier that he didn't want to 'mess her up'. Meeting his gaze, Clarice mimiced his stance, it was the only one she knew so far, and waited for him to attack. It wasn't a good offensive move, but it allowed her to see what she was up against since she was pretty certain he was light years beyond her training.

Girl didn't scare too easily. That was good. With a sudden kiai scream he pulled his sword from its (imaginary) sheath at the same time as he shuffled forwards, aiming a very, very fast cross-cut for her belly. One of the simplest cuts in Japanese sword-work but executed very, very quickly.

Clarice sidestepped and twisted her torso away into a classic western fencing stance, dropping low and bringing her bokken up across her torso. She liked her innards where they were, thank you. "Full of sound and fury," she muttered, absently quoting MacBeth as she retreated a few steps and did a jumping lunge into Logans armpit. It wasn't easy to incorporate western moves with an eastern blade, but she did it when she thought she could actually succeed.

Two could play that game. Logan avoided her strike by turning sideways, mirroring her own adjustment. He twisted back to his original stance and brought his bokken over his head, gripped it with both hands, and shuffled forward to strike at the crown of her head.

Blocking the blade with another Western fencing move, Clarice moved in closer to try to bridge the height gap to tag Logan on his back. It didn't quite workon him as well as it did with Shiro, but they were almost the same height.

Logan had to fight an urge to pop claw or to take this to hand-to-hand. Instead, he sidestepped and spiralled, aiming a flurry of quick slashes for her torso. Kid had guts and more skill than he originally thought she possessed. Not bad for a rookie.

Retreating again to give herself more space to set up an attack, she feinted several times before attacking again. She really wanted to see how he'd react to her powers but they hadn't declared this a powers bout and it would be rude to use them intentionally when he couldn't help it.

Logan pressed her, and pressed her _hard_. If she stepped back, he stepped up. His thrusts were aimed for her soft areas - breasts, stomach, armpit, and once, her throat. Luckily he managed to pull that one so it had very little chance of accidentally connecting. He wanted to see how she'd react when she was pressed, and pressed _hard_.

Clarice held her guard although blocking his attacks were getting increasingly harder until he almost hit her throat. 'Almost' because he pulled the attack, not because she blocked it. Quickly she teleported behind Logan, signalling the end of the bout.

Logan looked down with amusement. "This your way of saying that you give up?" he asked with a smirk. "Not bad, kid. A little ragged, and those blocks need work, but not bad."

"Gimme a minute," she said, catching her breath. "You gotta teach me that last move."

Logan smirked and drove his bokken into the ground so it would stay put where it was. He then offered her a hand up if she was so inclined to accept it. "Pretty basic, really. Get your blade, I'll show it to you."

"Rock on," Clarice resumed her stance so Logan could show her what to do, "This isn't over. This is halftime."

"And here I thought it was the first commercial break." he said with a chuckle. Picking his bokken out of the ground, he struck a stance and waited for her to copy it. "I don't think I have to tell you that this one's business. Either you kill with it or you miss. Not much middle ground. Here's how it goes..." he said, then demonstrated the thrust in slow motion for her edification.

It was really fairly straight forward when done in slow motion, but in the bout it had seemed to come from nowhere. "I don't want to kill..." she said, carefully practicing the move on Logan slowly. Using her powers offensively would only kill as far as she knew.

Logan didn't say anything, just presented her a target to practice her technique on. He'd never been big on artificial targets or air shields or the like. He liked attacking humanoid targets. "Looks like you've got the idea. Practice it a few thousand times until it becomes second-nature and you'll have it."

"We're gonna have to meet again for practice then," Clarice wiped the sweat off her forehead, "'Cause I don't think Shiro would like me practicing this on him." Or possibly at all, but that was another issue entirely.

"You serious about this?" he asked her dead-seriously. "Because if you want to learn, I'll teach. If you're wasting my time ... well. Don't waste my time."

"Like a heart attack," she didn't even stop to consider if she was or not, there wasn't a doubt in her mind, "I don't want to kill...but I might have to. But more than that, I want to know how NOT to kill and still use my swords effectively. Life is not Candy Land, you gotta be prepared."

Logan thought it over for a second, then nodded brusquely. "All right. But don't piss me off and don't waste my time. You want to work? We'll work. First lesson time - defenses. Yours are sloppy. We're going to fix it."

Nodding, Clarice went back on guard to attack, she was fast, he was faster. That wouldn't work unless she became faster too. His first attack hit in her shoulder and the second in her stomach, that was gonna leave a mark. The third she managed to block almost haphazardly. This was gonna hurt.

Logan was pushing her - he knew she wasn't going to be able to block his stuff when he really came at her. This was her wake-up call, and hopefully she'd take it in the spirit it was intended. "Your wrist is weak. Angle your blade better to let mine roll off. You take too much impact on the steel." he pointed out, then gave her a sharp rap on the forearm with the tip of his (fortunately dull) blade.

She should have looked at prom dresses with more coverage the other day instead of the strappy risque number she was currently favoring. Bruises were not the in thing for prom this year. Squaring her shoulders, Clarice readjusted her grip and let Logan attack again. Her blocking was better, but only in that the form was closer to proper, but he still hit her. This was going to take a while.

Logan kept up his instructional assault for the better part of an hour. When he finally put up his blade, he wasn't even breathing hard, nor had he broken a sweat. "That's enough for now. Go soak out those taps or else you'll feel like shit tomorrow." he pointed out helpfully. "Tomorrow. Here. Be ready."

"Okay, after classes," it was time for a happy soak in the hot tub before her muscles stiffened and she wouldn't be able to move, "Where'd you learn this stuff anyways?"

"Dunno." he said, bowing and handing back the blade for her to put away.