The Art of Self Defence: Angelo, Yvette - Thursday

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Yvette has her first self-defence class and has some concerns to raise with the instructor.



Yvette watched the other students leave the gym in a noisy rush, the same as they always did. School in America was certainly different to back home. They even addressed some of the teachers by their first names! In class! It was all a bit much to grasp sometimes. But she was enjoying classes, for the most part, and was doing her best to adjust and fit in. Difficult, when her mutation meant writing things down was virtually impossible and she had to record all her lessons, but everyone was doing their best to help. And speaking of help...

"Mr. Angelo?" she said, approaching the instructor of the self-defence class. "Can I be asking a question, please?"

It was a rare event that any of them hung around to ask questions after class, and Angelo smiled down at the little girl. "Hey, Yvette. Course you can."

"Is it being the compulsory to be learning the self-defence?" The small Albanian girl looked a little unhappy. "I am not wanting to be hurting anyone. I was fighting Mr. Logan in the woods, and it is making me feel... strange."

Angelo looked at her for a long moment, then hunkered down to her level. "No, it's not compulsory, if you really don't want to. But I've gotta say... I think it's a good thing to know how to do. Just in case."

Yvette sighed and nodded. "In case of the Bad Men, yes," she said reluctantly. Her skin hadn't protected her from being taken. "When I am being fighting to Mr. Logan, I am being very frightened, yes. But..." She hesitated a little. "It is being feeling... natural, also. Like it is being what this body is wanting to do? Mr. Logan is saying it is being having the instinct." She looked troubled. "I am not wanting to be the person who is hurting other people."

Angelo, mid-reassuring answer, paused to consider what she was saying, thoughtfully. "...okay. When you fought with Mr. Logan in the woods, you thought he wanted to hurt you, right? An' you just did what came naturally. That doesn't mean you're the person who hurts other people. It just means you've got an advantage, if anyone does come wantin' to hurt you. An' if you learn to use that, so it's yours, then... you should use every advantage you've got."

She nodded. "He is being speaking Serbian, and I am thinking he is being a soldier, during the war. I am wanting to be escaping, but he is being the faster and stronger." Her voice took on a thoughtful edge. "I am reading, in the journals, that sometimes bad things are being happening to people. If I am learning... I can be helping my friends? To not be hurt?"

"There's that, too", he agreed. "'Cause there's always gonna be someone bigger an' faster an' stronger than you, but if you've got instinct on your side, that's not nothin'. As long as you've got it in your control, not the other way 'round."

Yvette bit her lip a little. The thought of fighting someone on purpose was vaguely terrifying, but she was here to learn about her powers. And if that included making the best use of them, well... Mr. Logan had said something about that during their woodcarving lessons. About learning to use a blade when your entire body was a weapon. "And Mr. Angelo can be teaching me to be fighting like this? With the instinct?"

"That's my job", he said with a wry grin. "I might need to have to call in a bit of help once in a while, but I'll do the best I can. I think you might not need as much teachin' as some of the others, in one way."

"Thank you, Mr. Angelo." She gave him a small smile, although there was something still worrying her. "I am not wanting to be hurting the students, in the practice. I am wearing the gloves and socks, but my hair..." She ran her hand over the still-sharp strands that resembled wire more these days than the sharp spikes of earlier. "Can I be learning with the people I am not hurting? Like Mondo and Angel when she is making the fire?"

"That sounds like a good plan", he said with an approving nod. "I'll make sure you only get paired with the invulnerable ones in practice. It's not like we have a shortage of them - there's Marie, too, an' Logan if you look at it one way."

"Miss Marie is saying it is bad to be touching her skin," Yvette said, face solemn. "I cannot be cutting her, but she is saying her skin would be hurting me?"

"...good point." He almost forgot that, sometimes. "Okay, scratch Marie off the list. But there's still plenty of people you can practise with."

Remembering not to touch people herself made Yvette all the more sensitive to such issues in others. She nodded. "I am... trying to learn to fight, then," she said, although still sounding a little unsure. The whole idea was against everything she'd been taught, but then again, perhaps if she'd known how to fight, she wouldn't have ended up where she had.

"An' you're gonna do it safely", Angelo reminded her. "Best way you could possibly learn, really."

"Yes." She nodded, and then glanced up at the clock on the gym wall. "I must be going to the next class. Thank you for talking to me, Mr. Angelo." A small grin appeared. "Are you to be eating the dinner tonight, or are you needing the tray?"

Angelo pulled a face at her. "Maybe I like gettin' the tray. But we'll see. I might just show up to dinner for once."

"I will be saving you the place. Between Sooraya and me," she told him, almost mischievously.