Logan & Cammie

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

Another fighting lesson with Logan costs Cammie some push-ups and leaves her with an assignment for next time.

Cammie’s mood for the last week had been totally shot. She was still hiding away, at least that’s what it felt like, in Kurt’s suite. And while she appreciated the company she didn’t enjoy having to think back to what she had almost done again. Only this time she couldn’t claim it had been a total accident.

At least Jean-Paul had been lucky and lived. She didn’t want to consider what would have happened if he had died. But right now, she put that all from her mind. It was time for training, again, and she didn’t want her bad mood ruining it. Unwrapping her arm, she walked into the gym, not her usual ray of sunshine.

“Ready to get your ass kicked?” she asked, not cheerfully. She meant the boast, even if she knew she’d be eating those words in the form of mat soon enough.

Logan just laughed around his cigar. "Brave words." he said with a smile. "Today's a defense day, I think." he said, thinking it over. "Yeah. Sounds good. You leave yourself wide-open. Time to start breaking that habit." he said. "Here's how it works. You hit me, I pay you $20. But if I hit you, you owe me ten pushups." he said. "Easy money if you think you've got what it takes."

He didn't plan on having to open his wallet.

“I don’t leave myself wide open,” Cammie returned. “Hit you, get twenty dollars, I think I can handle that,” she said, with a grin. This would be just what she needed. She took a second to look at his stance, the same as always.

Cammie lunged, looking to get a stomach shot in. Not holding back on the ‘spice’ as it were. Even if most of her frustration was at herself, this was a good way to work it out.

Logan trapped her incoming strike, then twisted her arm and applied some English to her elbow joint in ways it really didn't want to bend. Upshot was that it took her to her knees, and she would have been on her belly if he had twisted it a little harder and faster. "Nice speed, shitty control." he commented up, leaving the pressure on for a moment to prove his moint. Then he let go and let her get back to her feet.


That pissed her off, “Yeah, I’ve heard it before,” she said, making her way back to her feet and shaking it off, “’Got all the control you need Right. Here,” she said, before letting another punch fly.

This one he blocked skywards with his forearm and counterpunched - lightly - to her gut. "Heard that one a time or two before as well." he said, blowing smoke in her face. "When are you going to stop reacting and start thinking?" he asked her. As if he had any right when he himself didn't so often, but he could afford to fuck up, take some hits. She couldn't.

She didn’t cough or wince in the face of the smoke. Smoke didn’t bother her at all, “I’ve been thinking,” she returned, when she could breathe again. She was still angry, mostly at herself for fucking up and hitting someone who really didn’t deserve to be hit. And angry that everyone was treating it like it happened every day. And even though it meant she had a place she could logically call home, right now that pissed her off too.

She kicked, wildly, and punched with the same abandon, just looking to hit something. “I hate thinking.”

Logan weathered the storm easily, blocking what needed to be blocked and letting the rest hit nothing but air. "Too hard?" he guessed. "Or just not used to it. Girl like you, one hit and most anyone's down if not dead." he pointed out. "Now you're here with people who can eat what you dish out and I'm thinking you don't like it much." he said.

He may have had her number on the last, but she didn’t care for that much so she simply didn’t listen. “One hit? I don’t even have to hit someone to take them down,” she returned. “Just have to touch ‘em. Hitting just lets ‘em know I’m serious.” And one of these times, she was going to take him down one hit, and then see if he was smiling around that damn cigar. She was getting nothing but air or was being blocked and all the did was get her to press harder. Somewhere, somehow, she’d land a touch. That magic, deadly touch.

That day was not today, though. He started to press attacks through the gaping holes she was leaving open. He wasn't hitting hard, just hard enough to let her know she'd been hit. Belly, floating ribs, head, kidneys - all of them vulnerable spots, all of them tagged through her frenzied onslaught. "You thinking yet, kid, or do you enjoy pain?" he asked her.

“It’d be easier to think if you stopped hitting me,” Cammie returned. It hurt. Outside of here, back in the real world, people didn’t get to hit her. Not without getting lucky. She slowed down, if only to catch her breath and try to see the best place to tag him. She didn’t have any illusions of sending him home crying. She didn’t have to worry about him suddenly stopping breathing, like Jean-Paul had. But her basic technique and the only one she knew. And she couldn’t land a hit.

"Be a lot easier to think if you'd stop swinging wild." he pointed out. But she'd paused and was looking at him, which was a promising sign indeed. "You're wild. You go for broke each and every time, which I like, but you're sloppy. We're going to work on that." he said. "Stop for a second." he ordered her. "Show me your punch."

“Show you my punch….?” Cammie said, she didn’t think she was hitting wild. She shook her head, “Sure, whatever. I’ve been showing it off all week,” she muttered.

“Whatever,” she balled up her left fist aimed and fired, as it were.

Logan batted it out of the way. "Sloppy." he said. "Try it like this." he said, throwing a punch in slow-motion so she could see the movement. "Keep it limber until right before you strike, then tense it up." he said. "Like a whip, but when you hit, it'll be more like a baseball bat. Girl like you should be able to generate respectable force. You're wasting a lot of energy." he commented. "Now try it again."

“Yeah, well, none of this stuff meant jack shit to me before,” she pointed out. She did watch though, and then pulled pack and punched again, the jerking motion automatically released toxin, regardless of whether or not she hit something and it resulted in a green cloud from where her fist ended up.

“How’s that?”

"Cloudy." he said, fanning his hand to dissipate the cloud. Even that sort of incidental exposure made his hand itch for a few seconds. "Do that again, but this time with no toxin." he said. "That'll be your assignment until next time. Good punch technique, no toxin. If you need help, Gar or Lil can help you." he said. "And you owe me about thirty pushups."

“I always let off when I hit something,” she pointed out, staring down at her hand. “But you want it without, okay. Fine. I can do that right now,” she wasn’t totally sure she could, but it wouldn’t hurt anything to try. “And there’s no way in hell I owe you thirty pushups.”

"You a welcher, Cammie?" he asked. "Deal was, you hit me, I pay you $20. You don't hit me, you owe me pushups." he reminded her. "You didn't hit me. So hit the mat, kid." he said in a firm voice.

She swore. A “surprise attack” would just get her thrown into the mat. Experience taught her that. She muttered something that might have been ‘I’ll show you’ as she fell and started push-ups.

“Anyone,” she huffed, “ever tell,” another huff, “you that… you’re a…fucking sadist?” she managed. She hated push ups.

"And they love me for it." he said with a grin as she huffed and puffed through her set.

I can’t believe Lil had a crush on this guy, she thought to herself as she went through thirty pushups her arms burning at the end. At the end she collapsed on the mat for a moment, “Yeah, well I don’t.”