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xp_logs2012-05-31 02:07 pm
x-mandelbrot.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2012-05-31 02:07 pm
Kurt, Kyle, Layla and North
Kurt offers to spar with Kyle to help distract him, though audience participation winds up shifting the focus when Layla wants to learn stuff.
"sixty three... sixty four... sixty five..." At least they were in an area where the trees had sturdy enough branches that Kyle could do pull-ups without worrying about falling. The sheer effort of pulling up his own body weight was not entirely as calming as he might've liked, but it was better than breaking his hands punching trees. Which Paige had essentially told him if he did again she was going to give him The Look. "sixty six... sixty seven..." And besides, arm-shaking effort meant he didn't have to keep thinking about ... stuff. Dori. Ahab. Their missing friends and teammates. "Sixty eight..."
Kurt wandered up under the tree, peering up at him with concerned curiosity. "How long have you been up there?"
"What's seventy-four times three?" Kyle said, grunted out a "seventy-five" after one last pullup, and then dropped the ten feet or so to the ground, landing in a crouch with his fingers touching the ground. "If I don't wear myself out, I don't sleep and I can't go for a six mile run looking like this." He jerked a hand towards the suit.
"No," Kurt agreed, then tilted his head in thought. "We could spar, if you would like something a little more interesting to wear you out."
The expression that broke out on Kyle's face was a little disturbing. He liked fighting - most of his teammates knew just how much - but this was more blessed relief, mixed with a kind of longing, like he'd been waiting for someone to give him permission to throw punches. "Just no tail in the damn eye this time." He said, cracking his knuckles. "Lets find somewhere with a little more room?"
-
There was a small clearing only a few yards away that after they'd kicked some larger sticks out and pushed away a large fallen branch seemed to serve well. It was uneven, but fighting on uneven terrain wasn't really a problem for either man. Kyle scuffed his feet in the dirt and grass a few times, and cracked his neck, waiting for a ready signal.
Kurt did his own stretching rapidly, as he tended to keep in limber condition almost all the time, then caught Kyle's eye and nodded the signal.
The tackle was one smooth motion, from slight crouch to full contact without a break or pause, and was one of Kyle's favorite ways to start a fight, it was hard to avoid, and it usually gave him the chance to put any fight on his own terms, taking it to ground when he wanted, not when the opponent did.
Kurt didn't even try to avoid it by stepping away, instead just bending back and twisting to the side, cat-like, in a way no one with normal human physiology could have duplicated, such that Kyle's tackle slid past his shoulder.
He really hated when Kurt did that. Kyle rolled with it, skidded in the dirt and came back up inside Kurt's guard, nearly right in the man's face, and drove an elbow up towards Kurt's ribs.
The elbow connected, and Kurt huffed out a slightly pained breath and rocked back on his heels. His recovery was short, though, as seconds later he launched a punch towards Kyle's face.
Kyle took the punch on his jaw, but brought his arm up on the inside of Kurt's elbow, trapping the other man's arm in his own and pulling forward to drag him off-balance.
Kurt considered the situation, tugging his arm in Kyle's grip experimentally, without any real effort to get away, then he grinned sharply - and flicked his tail up to smack at Kyle's nose and eyes, forcing a flinch and a slackening of the younger man's grip. Upon which Kurt immediately flipped over backwards from standing and one-two kicked Kyle in the chest.
"Fuck!" A kick from mid-air shouldn't have knocked the wind out of him, except it was Kurt and he hadn't even had time to recover from getting slapped with a tail. Kyle went down on his back, and twisted, catching one of Kurt's legs with both of his own and sweeping them out from under him.
Layla had been wandering around when she had heard the fighting so she'd stopped and watched the men from a few trees back. Until Kyle totally took Herr Sefton's legs out from under him. "You never show me useful shit like that," the teenager complained and came forward to lean back against a tree on the clearing's perimeter. "It's all 'lemme see if you remember how to fall and then you can punch a heavy bag and shit.'" Under other circumstances the blonde girl may have been pouting but this was a genuine complaint given their current situation. She'd been laid out for so much of her time at the mansion she and Kyle hadn't really gotten too far beyond basic punches and kicks and like a hip throw a couple times.
Kyle heard Layla, but before he could answer, got a face full of what should've been blue fuzzy leg, and instead was brightly colored suit, and then craned his neck from where Kurt had just wrapped a leg around it, met the man's eyes and smacked the ground hard a few times, tapping out. He got to his feet and shook out a few muscle cramps. "Stop raising the dead and you get to learn to fight faster." He said, rolling a shoulder until it clicked back into place. "Not that you don't totally have a valid point, and you should know this shit." Kyle looked over at Kurt, and shrugged. "You're smaller than me, you wanna be a fall on your ass buddy for a little bit?"
"All right," Kurt agreed equably. "Layla may well need to learn some of this very soon, in the circumstances."
"Sweet. Hard to teach -and- fall on my ass at the same time." Kyle said, surprisingly agreeably. "Damn, no pads. Layla, don't give Kurt any concussions." He waved his hand towards the cleared area, and stepped back.
"You could totally fall on your ass and teach at the same time," Layla remarked casually as she strolled into the clearing. "I mean, you're Yoda. It's like a jedi trick or something." Sort of like how her talking a lot supposedly magically made her stop remembering that little girl disintegrating to nothing. Her smile didn't look quite as natural as it ought to have. "I make no promises about concussions, but I like Herr Wuschelig so I will try really hard?"
"All I ask is you avoid kicking me in the head", Kurt suggested. "I will be needing my brains. Anywhere else, I can deal with."
"I'm not sure I'm bendy enough to kick you in the head," she told him while stretching out her hamstrings. "Or, like, leapy enough. I can do a backflip but you've got some height on me, dude."
"Kurt, no kicking Layla in the head either." Kyle said, grinning. He waited until Layla was done stretching and then had her sit on the ground, legs in front of her. "Okay, so knees. They're stupid, which I've said before." He bent a few times at the knees, and then pointed to Kurt's. "There's a couple of ways to sweep someone's leg, but right now, if you've gotta, go for the back of the knee. Most people will automatically buckle their knee, and then fall, and if you trap the leg, you can make sure they go backwards, not forwards into you and squishing you flat."
Sitting down beside her, he attempted - only somewhat successfully - to show her where her legs would go in order to accomplish this. "For right now, don't do this unless you're already on the ground, because anyone you'd be trying to fight right now is just gonna pull you down with them. If you're on the ground, bring the fight to you. If you're not, stay off the ground. Ground fighting sucks."
"Rolling in the dirt, not fun. Check." She nodded, trying to mimic the leg motion Kyle was showing her. She wasn't entirely sure he was getting it totally right since he looked not entirely satisfied with his demonstration but like partway to right was better than nowhere to right, right? "Okay, so ground fighting sucks and I totally don't wanna be squished, I like one hundred percent can get behind that."
"It's fun, it's just not something you should aim for." Kyle said. "Okay, so you connect there on Kurt's leg, and uh, here on anyone not Kurt." Kyle tapped the other man's leg, to show Layla where to go. "This leg buckles the knee and throws them off balance, this leg keeps them from falling on you - they go to the side or backwards, depending, and then you've got time to pop up, or jump on them or whatever you like."
"This leg, please, Layla", Kurt told her, standing up and patting his right thigh. "The other knee was damaged years ago, and then the train crashed."
"Ja, Herr Wuschelig." Layla even saluted him from the ground. She did a slow practice sweep with her leg, stopping where her shin connected with Herr Sefton. Her aim was a little off so she repeated it again and then a third time until her shin connected where Kyle had indicated it should. "Okay, I think I maybe have it." The teen's hands anchored onto the ground behind her so she could lean back and use her arms to sort of help stabilize her so her opposite shoulder could come up and then swing back and down, hips following to give her leg more torque so when she connected with Kurt she hopefully had enough speed to actually buckle his leg rather than tapping not hard enough.
She did, and he went down sideways, catching himself with his hands and grinning over at her approvingly. "Very good."
The girl practically beamed at her teacher. "Yoda failed to tell you how awesome I am. Which, you know, you should know by now so shame on you." She rocked over to sit down rather than balancing on her hip and dusted her hands off. "Okay, lemme see if I can get this like, I dunno, ten times in a row without fucking it up?"
Kurt nodded, pushing himself back to his feet with ease. "Of course. And of course I know you are awesome."
"Little busy being a wanted terrorist here." Kyle said. "Once you get this a couple times on Kurt we'll switch. My legs aren't as wacky as his, and switching peeps means you won't be practicing just on one person." He watched Layla do the sweep a few more times, and then switched out with Kurt. "Yo, do me a favor, watch where her left foot's connecting? I don't wanna risk sprained ankles or broke tarsals."
"What's a tarsal?" She didn't actually wait for the reply though. The girl tried to remember where, exactly, it was that Kyle had said to hit someone that wasn't Herr Sefton. She couldn't quite remember. Just as she had with her teacher, she did a few slower practice sweeps but none quite felt right. She decided to take a shot at it anyway. Just as her hips started to twist to propel her leg up and over, Layla instinctively shifted. Her leg swept out quickly and connected exactly where it needed to on Kyle's leg to bring him down cleanly, even though her foot hadn't quite hit that point in any of her preparatory sweeps.
"Foot bones." Kyle said from his newly prone position on the ground.. "Break 'em enough and you learn the names for them, because it's how Doc Voight punishes you." He grinned, and shrugged easily. "Nice recovery, bee-tee-dubs. Kinda thought you were gonna botch it but you pulled through. Wanna try it with me actually trying to work against you?" He jerked a thumb at his leg, and looked up at Kurt. "Yo, watch her lead leg when she does that next time. Wanna see if it's a positioning thing or a girls have hips thing that caused the weird angle from the start and if we need to correct it."
"All right", he agreed, shifting slightly for a better view. "Layla, one more time. Or perhaps another four, for practice."
"I need more than four to like remember it right," Layla declared. She sized Kyle up again, keeping her eye on where she thought she'd connected last time. Her estimation was a little off but it didn't matter. Instinct took over where thinking was flawed. She put Kyle down another three times just as solidly as the first time before she messed up. On her fourth try she went for it, just as sure of herself as she had been before but hit Kyle's leg in the totally wrong place and his knee barely twitched. She had the right technique, her foot was fine, but the totally wrong place. Which was weird. The kid wrinkled her nose, frowned and shook her head. "I'm allowed an off one."
"Pfft." Kyle picked his foot up and shook it. "Dude, the first time I learned this it took me about five tries before I got it right." He set that foot down, brought the other up to his hand and picked something out from under his toe claws. "Three outta four on someone with enhanced agility is like, way better than the average. And Jesus, how am I like, finding the sharpest piece of crap in Genosha halfway through sparring?" He held up a little piece of broken glass, barely a splinter. "Better under my claw than in my heel. Damn healing factor would've healed around it and then I'd be all fuck you world trying to dig it back out."
"Dude, Yoda, you're like my pointy-eared brother from another mother and all...but we all know girls are smarter than almost all dudes. Course I got it way faster than you. I am physical prowess girl, hear me roar!" From her spot on the ground she gave her best, most mightiest...pitiful meow. "And shouldn't your healing factor push shit out that's near the surface? Like rejecting a body piercing?" Even as she asked that she looked around for any more sharp things on the ground. On instinct she put out her hand tentatively and brushed over something with a sharp edge. Layla picked up the glass shard half buried from the kicked up dirt and held it up to Kyle, "Might wanna avoid that, too, dude, or you will be like slice-and-dice foot dude."
“Depends on where it is. Sometimes it overgrows instead." Kyle explained. "Healing factors are kind of retarded sometimes." He took the second little piece of glass and frowned at it. "Seriously, this one time I flew home with a bullet in my leg because it healed over it instead of pushing it out. It sucks eggs." He frowned at the glass, and then shrugged, putting both pieces down on a larger rock to one side. "You should ask North sometime about the dumb shit he's seen. He worked with Logan for a while." He grinned at Layla and then jerked with his head off towards a shaded area. "Also he's totes stalking us. Or watching. Spies do that though."
“There’s not much by way of entertainment around here,” David pointed out practicably from where he was seated in the shade of a tree, sounding completely unfazed at being noticed. His legs were stretched out in front of him and his back was nestled against the tree trunk, the shade conveniently obscuring the light sheen of perspiration across his forehead and the slight tremble of his hands. The precog had, in fact, wandered in several minutes ago. “I believe Logan learned very quickly to remove bullets before he healed over them. They don’t always get stuck, but then I didn’t always shoot him at point blank range.”
The German shifted a little in his seat and cracked a smile at the three younger mutants. “Please, don’t let my spying keep you from Miss Miller’s training.”
Kurt smiled over at the older man. "You are more than welcome to watch, if Layla does not mind. Perhaps even pitch in, the more different approaches she can pick up, the better."
"Why do I feel like an old barn now? Everyone pitch in to clear me out for the hoe down!" She grinned at her teacher, though it was a little bit sarcastic, then shifted her focus over to Kyle. "So if I don't break my foot like another four times or something can you teach me something useful I don't know that doesn't like require me to already be on my ass? 'Cause I'm thinking I'm mostly screwed by this point in the fight and I should totally revert to hair pulling and scratching once I get the other dude on the ground."
"Hair pulling's valid." Kyle said. "Hurts like a bitch and means you can yank someone off-balance." He eyed Layla's hair and then made a hrmf noise. "Should probably work on defending against that, actually. More hair you have, the easier it is for someone to use it against you." His own was getting longish, but nothing he could really do about that here. "But yeah, offense. From the ground's same as from your feet. Go for stuff that's soft or full of nerves and hit it hard. Nose, groin, eyes, throat."
"So, like, just general chick fighting all around useful here? Who knew I was so smart about this shit?" Layla started to braid her hair to sort of condense it now that Kyle had brought her attention to it. She didn't have anything to tie it up with, though. Maybe she could find something later that would, like, be sort of useable. Maybe part of that sleeve Cammie had gotten ripped off her arm or something. "Wouldn't, like, ducking and dodging be the way to defend against hair pullers?"
Without a word, Kyle's arm shot out and he could've sworn that he should've been able to grab Layla's hair. But she moved out of the way, and his fingers closed on just the last half-inch of the loose braid, and it was out of his hands before he could get a good grip. He stared at her for a second, and looked at Kurt with a shrug. "Well, normally no, it's hard to get all your hair out of the way fast enough, but apparently you've got magic avoid Kyle's grabby hands hair."
The thing was, for anyone who had been looking close enough, Layla had obviously started moving before she really could have known what he was going for. She tucked the end of her braid into the collar of her Suit of Evil and finally stood up. After stretching she brushed the dirt off her and shrugged. "I got mad skills honed by years of boys being totally tools in school. Obviously your sneak attack needs help. You can try again if you want." Layla grinned, full of bravado...only half of which was really genuine.
"I'll pass. Your hair's gross." Kyle's hair was gross too, which is why he felt like he could say Layla's was. "Course who the fuck knows what kind of shit we're gonna deal with here." He was going to regret this, he knew it. "Feel like learning how to break my thumbs? Grip defense's good to know and we should cover grabs anyway before we run into some asshole who decides to pick you up and carry you off by the neck."
"Being carried off by my throat is like, so on my list of shit to not accomplish this lifetime." She ran a hand over her hair. Yeah, it was gross. Like a week of not showering would do that to a girl. Then again, her hands were kinda covered in dust and dirt at the moment too. With her eyes still on them she shook her head. "I'm totally racking up street kid qualifications here. Anyone got a dumpster to dive?" A flash of a smile at her own joke was all the further time she dedicated to the topic of her appearance. "Okay, so grip defense and breaking thumbs. That would be awesome. People are sort of useless without thumbs. You know, unless they have like tails they can pick shit up with and stuff. Is there a defense for that, too? Are there gonna be people with tails attacking us? No, probably mostly humans? Right?" There was a not so subtle note of hope in that last word.
"Mostly," Kurt agreed. "Although there is no knowing what their home-grown mutates can do. And yes, there are defences against breaking of tails, which Cheetara, Squirrel Girl and I have trained in. The technique to break a tail would be much the same as breaking a finger - to bend it against the weak point, in the wrong direction, until it snaps."
And cue the confused look. Layla wore it so well, too. "There's a wrong direction? Isn't, uh, maybe this is totally a stupid question, but isn't your tail kinda like a cat tail? I mean like the bones in it or whatever and flexibility? Can't it sort of go in all directions so you just gotta bend far enough in any direction? Or is there seriously like a one way like movement direction or whatever?"
"In my case and Cheetara's, yes, there is no one wrong direction but being bent close enough to double will break it. It happened once when I was thrown against a wall by an explosion. Doreen's tail is different, bending hers back away from the body would be the wrong direction."
Layla had to stop and think about Dori for a second to picture her. "Right. Because she's...part squirrel. Sorta. Okay, so break tails like fingers. Do I break fingers the way I break thumbs? Which I obviously don't know how to do yet. You're gonna teach me to break fingers, too, right? Because what if one of those broken thumbed dudes figures out how to like, I dunno, do something that would hurt a lot even without his thumbs? Then I need to break his fingers. Or his elbows. Can I learn to break elbows?" Her words spilled out in typical rapidfire, eye flicking between her teacher and her trainer all the while.
"Kurt, we created a monster." Kyle said, but with a sort of proud grin. "Joint breaks are joint breaks. As long as you know where the weak part is, that's what you aim for and either snap or twist or both." He was simplifying like crazy, but they didn't really have a ton of time. "Remember my 'knees are stupid' thing? Same basic premise. Elbows are less stupid, you have to twist, but they'll break. Go with your gut, if you think it'd hurt like a mother on you, use it on someone else unless their joints look freaky woo-woo." He gestured towards Layla and then stepped in close to her. "Okay, front grab. I grab your shirt or neck or hell, this'll work if some assclown grabs your boobs too." He put his hands around Layla's throat, and squeezed a very little bit, his claws poking her throat slightly. "Kay, see how my thumbs are? Totes vulnerable. Grab, yank up hard and twist towards you."
The poking claws caused a little bit of a grumpy noise but Layla tried to ignore it. Sorta. Well they were all pokey so it was kinda hard to ignore. Especially when she took a deep breath to sort of ground and center herself and that just made them jab her a little bit harder. "I am so filing your claws when we get home," she complained, voice getting quieter as she spoke because she swore speaking louder drove the claw tips in a bit deeper. "Okay...grab, yank, twist." First she tried to come up from under his hands but that wasn't going to work because it would be a yank down, not a yank up and that would like slit her throat or something. Right, plan two. Layla brought her hands up and over Kyle's arms. Slender fingers slipped in using that small gap at the inside of the base of Kyle's thumbs to get inbetween his hand and her throat. With one finger in another could follow and another until she had her fingers wrapped around his thumbs. The girl paused for a second, then pulled up, twisting her hands so her wrists came up to face one another. His hands released, instantly relieving the pressure on her throat.
She hadn't done it hard enough to break anything, obviously. Hell, she had one pretty slow in general so she could make sure she did it right. "Like, that, right?"
"Yep." Kyle shook his hands free from Layla's loose grip, and rolled his thumbs. "Only with more oomph next time." He uncurled his hands, wiped the sweat off, and the tiny puncture wounds from his claws pressing into his palms healed over almost instantly, and then grabbed at Layla again. "Seriously. I want you to get this, because some asshat who wants to make you his new mutie pet isn't gonna be nice about it."
Her hands were half up when she paused. "Wait, you want me to actually break your thumbs? Like...for real?" Layla's eyes probably couldn't get any wider if they tried right now.
"Layla." Kyle said, the 'isn't this fun' grin totally off his face and replaced with a flat seriousness. "Even if you break them in the worst way, Kurt here's gonna reset them and I'll be fine in about thirty seconds. I've broken my own thumbs before." He wiggled the one he'd dislocated in Vegas years ago, despite her grip. "We don't have time for you to practice this a hundred times in a row. You need to learn it, and you need to learn it right."
"Right." Another deep breath followed. "'Cause step one of fighting is being willing to actually hurt people, right?" Because Kyle had totally nailed that into her head over and over again in training. It was just...knocking him on the ground or punching him wearing pads was totally different from breaking his thumbs. "No, I mean, I know. You're right. I need to learn it right and quick and shit. So why am I learning this from you like standing there waiting? Shouldn't you come at me if I'm gonna break your thumbs? Like, let's go for half-broke at least, right?"
She had a point. Kyle stepped back, cracked his neck a few times, and mid-neck-crack, he stepped forward and his hands shot out for Layla's throat, only looking up as he came forward for her.
He moved a lot quicker than she'd been ready for, but really what did she expect? She told the guy to come at her. Nevertheless, Kyle's hands were settling around her neck before her arms went into reaction mode, hands shooting up to do exactly what she just had moments before but without the hesitation and slowing down. It was like first she felt that pinprick from his claws, then her hands were around his thumbs and the next thing she knew...that awful snapping sound of bone came. Layla's grip vanished the second the sound hit her ears and only then did she realize she had sort of closed her eyes during the whole thing. Opening them, she gave Kyle a rather apologetic cringe. "Um...like that?"
Kyle's thumbs were already swelling a bit, and one was clearly at the wrong angle. He shook his hands a few times, and took a step over to Kurt, holding both hands out. "Left's fine, right needs set." He said, rolling his left thumb around until it made some ugly popping sounds and the swelling started to go down visibly. "Next time don't close your eyes, but otherwise yeah, just like that. You earn the fuck you for getting it right on the first try award, bee-tee-dubs." He grinned, clearly not angry, and actually sort of pleased. "You sure you're not a trained ninja? Because you are getting this -mad crazy- fast."
Kurt nodded and laid hands on Kyle's right thumb, clicking it unceremoniously into place with no warning beyond that and looking entirely unfazed by the burst of loud swearing that provoked. "He is right, Layla. Perhaps you have a natural gift for it."
Personally, David would have used ‘unnatural’ to describe the gift. His forehead was set in a frown, brows furrowed as he tried to play back the scene in his head. The girl had basically fended of Kyle and broken his thumbs with her eyes closed. She had not fumbled and had not hesitated, executing the manoeuvre almost perfectly to result in the clean break. Yet he had clearly seen the panic in her eyes just a second or two before she had screwed them shut.
It could all boil down to luck, the precog supposed, as he closed his eyes to replay the scene again and figure his brain around it. But he was not the firmest believer of luck, seeing that he had the tendency to attract the bad kind of luck.
Layla buffed her nails on her skinsuit. "What can I say, I'm a badass. But I'm a thirsty bad ass. Can I go like get bottles of water while your thumb heals and then I can try to break them with my eyes open?"
Kyle grunted, shaking out his hand and giving Kurt a look that definitely said "How the fuck is she doing this?" He pointed in the direction of the makeshift camp with the less-swollen thumb that was already almost down to normal size. "Bring me one too, otherwise you're gonna learn defense against a guy who wants your damn water bottle."
* * *
Interest having been piqued, North decides to test a developing hypothesis on Layla who does not seem to be what she thinks she is.
David unfurled himself from his seat on the ground, shrugged off his borrowed jacket and dusted off bits of dirt from his wildly-coloured suit. He had discarded his thoughtful frown for a more neutral expression as he made his way towards the younger mutants.
“Miss Miller,” he called when he could be heard without raising his voice. “Spar with me. I want to show you something.”
The blonde's eyebrows went up as blue eyes slid to the side to look at the German while she drank some water. "You know Kyle's only been doing training with me for like six months and I was road kill for like half of them, right? 'Cause I would like you way less if you broke me or something."
“Well, we can’t have that.” David stretched his arms a little, rolling his shoulders to loosen them up. “I’m already handicapped, so you don’t have to worry.” He was, of course, referring to his injured leg and hand, but the slight smirk he was sporting was admittedly not the most reassuring.
"Because you're old?" She knew he wasn't referring to that but that smile was so not, like, comforting. The kid put down the bottle of water, rolled her neck, and stepped back into the "ring" with the man. "But, no, seriously. I'm like half useless in a fight so really don't break me." Her eyes drifted over her shoulder. "Someone will stop him from accidentally breaking me, right?"
Kyle was maybe a few feet away, and had heard the request, and while North was older, the dude worked with Doug and Cammie and Jubes, so he had to be badass. Also he was German. Totally badass. "Yeah, if he totally does something that looks like it might break your delicate sweet little face, we'll jump on him." Kyle said, smirking. "Hrm. What you think she's gonna be all "fuck youuuuuuuuu" for me calling her sweet and delicate?" He said, jostling Kurt 's shoulder as the other man came up to watch.
“You may make the first move,” David spoke up before Layla could continue with her token protests. Then, almost as an afterthought: “Avoid my left knee, especially if you want to try your new trick.” It would probably take a minute for his powers to kick in, depending on how much of a fight the girl put up, but he was not too concerned right then.
"You totally win fights through the power of being really fucking ominous, don't you?" Layla sized him up while she retorted. He had like half a foot on her but that was cool because Kyle was actually taller and she was used to him. The problem was she was never the one who initiated the session. That was okay, she would just figure shit out...while flat on her back. She looked the older man over once more, shifted a little to his injured side and threw a punch aimed at his solar plexus.
The opening punch was easy to block, given that Layla did not know how to not give away her intentions with her eyes and swing backs. He caught the arm and threw it back at her, the other arm coming up towards her torso.
Layla tried to track what the big German was doing, tried to think about things Kyle had taught her in their training sessions, but for an old dude, der Fremde moved pretty fucking quickly. Panic spiked just as she realized she was probably about to be hit and had no idea what to do about it, which wasn't really a problem right now but could get her dead in like an hour or a day or something and she wasn't going to live through all this shit not like it mattered because it wasn't like she had any family and Sarah was probably dead and thinking about all that just made her panic more and her thinking short circuit completely.
And then she took a step backward and shifted just far enough to the side to be out of North's reach. Layla used his momentum from his swing to grab his arm while she twisted and started to actually toss the guy...even though she didn't actually know how to do that.
David went with it, his powers activating just as he untucked himself from the roll he had made to preserve his neck. He bit the inside of his cheek as his heavily contused knee was jarred, but the spy was more interested in the way his powers were shifting from one scene to another in his head, presenting him with possibilities that would stem from actions that were changing every other second. A migraine in the making, he was sure.
But why was Layla changing her mind with every move she made?
Ignoring whatever his powers were trying to tell him he could do – which he suspected would be useless to depend on given that its outcome did not look very reliable – David deflected another of Layla’s thoughtless blows, sneaking one in towards her then-unguarded stomach.
Moving faster than someone untrained as herself ought to have been able to, Layla shifted again, angling so her forearm could easily deflect the blow. Just as quickly, though, she shifted again, this time twisting her body in closer to the German. And just like that her elbow was closing in on his jaw. She moved as naturally as someone who had been fighting for years, who had this stuff down as muscle memory. Layla wasn't thinking about it, she was just glad she hadn't been laid out yet.
Unlike Kyle, her current opponent had no qualms of putting his back into the fight, with no tendency to give in or hold back. He had never seen Layla fight before and was unaware that she was fighting beyond her expected abilities in response to his increasingly quicker attacks and blocks. He shot a lightning-fast jab at the incoming elbow and stepped out of her reach as he did so.
When she twisted to avoid it, again following up with a rapid counter-attack, David began to understand what it was that had been bugging him about her fighting style. Layla was not reacting to his attacks; it was like she was reading him, and he knew for a fact that he had been trained to fight without any obvious tells. Which also meant that she was not changing her mind -- it was more like she simply had not made it up yet.
So when the next scene solidified in his mind’s eye approximately three seconds before it actually happened, David did not ignore it. Where he would have instinctively avoided the incoming blow, the precog grabbed the girl’s forearm, swinging it to the side and delivering a chopped blow to the bundle of sensitive nerves beneath her elbow.
Layla was doing fine, surprisingly so, until her brain totally went blank. She'd just been sort of rolling on instinct and then instinct fled the fucking building on her. She took the chop to her arm full on while she paused too long trying to figure out what the fuck to do next. One second there was that feeling of impact, hard but totally dealable, and then that really awful pins and needles feeling swept down from her elbow to her fingertips like a goddamn mountain lion had slept on it all night being little spoon.
The teenager managed to clue in just quickly enough to step out of Herr North's reach, face squished up in an unhappy expression while she shook her head. "Ow. Damn it, you suck." It was sort of like half admiration and half actual complaint. And yet, she wasn't done trying, though her attempted at a counter-punch with her good arm was decidedly more sloppy than the previous ones had been because she wasn't quite sure it was the right move to make this time.
Now that he had satisfied his curiousity, David didn’t see the need to prolong their fight. The flicking visions in his head had stopped, leaving only a continuous sequence of events he could work with and react to without worry. The precog smiled – almost innocently -- at Layla, ducking under her punch and lashing out with his injured leg to hit the exact spot that she had just been taught to attack. The teenager dropped to the ground with a loud thump.
There was a little bit of a delay between hitting the ground bodily and tapping it with her hand like Kyle had with Kurt. "Ow, you still suck," she grumbled from the dirt. "And I mean that in like the nicest way possible." The teenager unwound her grimace and looked the older man up and down, gaze lingering on the injured leg. "You're totally not that handicapped, are you?"
“I am,” David shrugged dismissively, offering her his hand. Just not enough to matter when it came to an inexperienced fighter. He may have thought twice if his opponent were Kurt or Kyle. “It’s not so much how much force you use when kicking someone to the floor, but how and where you connect your foot. Plus, better my full weight on my uninjured leg, or I risk eating dirt too.”
"Right, valid point." Layla shook her arm again once she was standing. "Is the feeling gonna come back in my arm any time soon? Can you teach me how to do that?" She was a little sore from how hard she'd hit the ground, but Layla figured she was young and she'd recover. She'd had worse wiping out on her board anyway.
“Give it a minute and you’ll be fine,” David half-limped over to where he could snag Layla’s water bottle, contemplating whether he should share his suspicions with the group before deciding firmly against it. Given the current circumstances, it was best if he did not play with the balance of her powers, especially when he knew and could confirm so little about it. They did not need further complications.
He jabbed a thumb in Kyle’s direction, a devious smirk lifting a corner of his lips. “I’m a little too old to be your punching bag, Miss Miller. But if Mr. Wildchild-with-the-healing-powers over there agrees, I’ll be happy to walk you through it.”
"Kay, but if she breaks my damn thumbs again, you're on task for fixing 'em." Kyle stood and dusted himself off. "And nobody give me shit if I go find and cook a rat or something. Healing takes protein."
“You can’t whine about something you taught her how to do,” David pointed out, amusement colouring his tone as he carefully lowered himself onto the ground next to Kurt. “But if it happens, I promise to feed you protein and kiss it better.” The spy leered. “Now show the young lady the back of your elbow.”
"sixty three... sixty four... sixty five..." At least they were in an area where the trees had sturdy enough branches that Kyle could do pull-ups without worrying about falling. The sheer effort of pulling up his own body weight was not entirely as calming as he might've liked, but it was better than breaking his hands punching trees. Which Paige had essentially told him if he did again she was going to give him The Look. "sixty six... sixty seven..." And besides, arm-shaking effort meant he didn't have to keep thinking about ... stuff. Dori. Ahab. Their missing friends and teammates. "Sixty eight..."
Kurt wandered up under the tree, peering up at him with concerned curiosity. "How long have you been up there?"
"What's seventy-four times three?" Kyle said, grunted out a "seventy-five" after one last pullup, and then dropped the ten feet or so to the ground, landing in a crouch with his fingers touching the ground. "If I don't wear myself out, I don't sleep and I can't go for a six mile run looking like this." He jerked a hand towards the suit.
"No," Kurt agreed, then tilted his head in thought. "We could spar, if you would like something a little more interesting to wear you out."
The expression that broke out on Kyle's face was a little disturbing. He liked fighting - most of his teammates knew just how much - but this was more blessed relief, mixed with a kind of longing, like he'd been waiting for someone to give him permission to throw punches. "Just no tail in the damn eye this time." He said, cracking his knuckles. "Lets find somewhere with a little more room?"
-
There was a small clearing only a few yards away that after they'd kicked some larger sticks out and pushed away a large fallen branch seemed to serve well. It was uneven, but fighting on uneven terrain wasn't really a problem for either man. Kyle scuffed his feet in the dirt and grass a few times, and cracked his neck, waiting for a ready signal.
Kurt did his own stretching rapidly, as he tended to keep in limber condition almost all the time, then caught Kyle's eye and nodded the signal.
The tackle was one smooth motion, from slight crouch to full contact without a break or pause, and was one of Kyle's favorite ways to start a fight, it was hard to avoid, and it usually gave him the chance to put any fight on his own terms, taking it to ground when he wanted, not when the opponent did.
Kurt didn't even try to avoid it by stepping away, instead just bending back and twisting to the side, cat-like, in a way no one with normal human physiology could have duplicated, such that Kyle's tackle slid past his shoulder.
He really hated when Kurt did that. Kyle rolled with it, skidded in the dirt and came back up inside Kurt's guard, nearly right in the man's face, and drove an elbow up towards Kurt's ribs.
The elbow connected, and Kurt huffed out a slightly pained breath and rocked back on his heels. His recovery was short, though, as seconds later he launched a punch towards Kyle's face.
Kyle took the punch on his jaw, but brought his arm up on the inside of Kurt's elbow, trapping the other man's arm in his own and pulling forward to drag him off-balance.
Kurt considered the situation, tugging his arm in Kyle's grip experimentally, without any real effort to get away, then he grinned sharply - and flicked his tail up to smack at Kyle's nose and eyes, forcing a flinch and a slackening of the younger man's grip. Upon which Kurt immediately flipped over backwards from standing and one-two kicked Kyle in the chest.
"Fuck!" A kick from mid-air shouldn't have knocked the wind out of him, except it was Kurt and he hadn't even had time to recover from getting slapped with a tail. Kyle went down on his back, and twisted, catching one of Kurt's legs with both of his own and sweeping them out from under him.
Layla had been wandering around when she had heard the fighting so she'd stopped and watched the men from a few trees back. Until Kyle totally took Herr Sefton's legs out from under him. "You never show me useful shit like that," the teenager complained and came forward to lean back against a tree on the clearing's perimeter. "It's all 'lemme see if you remember how to fall and then you can punch a heavy bag and shit.'" Under other circumstances the blonde girl may have been pouting but this was a genuine complaint given their current situation. She'd been laid out for so much of her time at the mansion she and Kyle hadn't really gotten too far beyond basic punches and kicks and like a hip throw a couple times.
Kyle heard Layla, but before he could answer, got a face full of what should've been blue fuzzy leg, and instead was brightly colored suit, and then craned his neck from where Kurt had just wrapped a leg around it, met the man's eyes and smacked the ground hard a few times, tapping out. He got to his feet and shook out a few muscle cramps. "Stop raising the dead and you get to learn to fight faster." He said, rolling a shoulder until it clicked back into place. "Not that you don't totally have a valid point, and you should know this shit." Kyle looked over at Kurt, and shrugged. "You're smaller than me, you wanna be a fall on your ass buddy for a little bit?"
"All right," Kurt agreed equably. "Layla may well need to learn some of this very soon, in the circumstances."
"Sweet. Hard to teach -and- fall on my ass at the same time." Kyle said, surprisingly agreeably. "Damn, no pads. Layla, don't give Kurt any concussions." He waved his hand towards the cleared area, and stepped back.
"You could totally fall on your ass and teach at the same time," Layla remarked casually as she strolled into the clearing. "I mean, you're Yoda. It's like a jedi trick or something." Sort of like how her talking a lot supposedly magically made her stop remembering that little girl disintegrating to nothing. Her smile didn't look quite as natural as it ought to have. "I make no promises about concussions, but I like Herr Wuschelig so I will try really hard?"
"All I ask is you avoid kicking me in the head", Kurt suggested. "I will be needing my brains. Anywhere else, I can deal with."
"I'm not sure I'm bendy enough to kick you in the head," she told him while stretching out her hamstrings. "Or, like, leapy enough. I can do a backflip but you've got some height on me, dude."
"Kurt, no kicking Layla in the head either." Kyle said, grinning. He waited until Layla was done stretching and then had her sit on the ground, legs in front of her. "Okay, so knees. They're stupid, which I've said before." He bent a few times at the knees, and then pointed to Kurt's. "There's a couple of ways to sweep someone's leg, but right now, if you've gotta, go for the back of the knee. Most people will automatically buckle their knee, and then fall, and if you trap the leg, you can make sure they go backwards, not forwards into you and squishing you flat."
Sitting down beside her, he attempted - only somewhat successfully - to show her where her legs would go in order to accomplish this. "For right now, don't do this unless you're already on the ground, because anyone you'd be trying to fight right now is just gonna pull you down with them. If you're on the ground, bring the fight to you. If you're not, stay off the ground. Ground fighting sucks."
"Rolling in the dirt, not fun. Check." She nodded, trying to mimic the leg motion Kyle was showing her. She wasn't entirely sure he was getting it totally right since he looked not entirely satisfied with his demonstration but like partway to right was better than nowhere to right, right? "Okay, so ground fighting sucks and I totally don't wanna be squished, I like one hundred percent can get behind that."
"It's fun, it's just not something you should aim for." Kyle said. "Okay, so you connect there on Kurt's leg, and uh, here on anyone not Kurt." Kyle tapped the other man's leg, to show Layla where to go. "This leg buckles the knee and throws them off balance, this leg keeps them from falling on you - they go to the side or backwards, depending, and then you've got time to pop up, or jump on them or whatever you like."
"This leg, please, Layla", Kurt told her, standing up and patting his right thigh. "The other knee was damaged years ago, and then the train crashed."
"Ja, Herr Wuschelig." Layla even saluted him from the ground. She did a slow practice sweep with her leg, stopping where her shin connected with Herr Sefton. Her aim was a little off so she repeated it again and then a third time until her shin connected where Kyle had indicated it should. "Okay, I think I maybe have it." The teen's hands anchored onto the ground behind her so she could lean back and use her arms to sort of help stabilize her so her opposite shoulder could come up and then swing back and down, hips following to give her leg more torque so when she connected with Kurt she hopefully had enough speed to actually buckle his leg rather than tapping not hard enough.
She did, and he went down sideways, catching himself with his hands and grinning over at her approvingly. "Very good."
The girl practically beamed at her teacher. "Yoda failed to tell you how awesome I am. Which, you know, you should know by now so shame on you." She rocked over to sit down rather than balancing on her hip and dusted her hands off. "Okay, lemme see if I can get this like, I dunno, ten times in a row without fucking it up?"
Kurt nodded, pushing himself back to his feet with ease. "Of course. And of course I know you are awesome."
"Little busy being a wanted terrorist here." Kyle said. "Once you get this a couple times on Kurt we'll switch. My legs aren't as wacky as his, and switching peeps means you won't be practicing just on one person." He watched Layla do the sweep a few more times, and then switched out with Kurt. "Yo, do me a favor, watch where her left foot's connecting? I don't wanna risk sprained ankles or broke tarsals."
"What's a tarsal?" She didn't actually wait for the reply though. The girl tried to remember where, exactly, it was that Kyle had said to hit someone that wasn't Herr Sefton. She couldn't quite remember. Just as she had with her teacher, she did a few slower practice sweeps but none quite felt right. She decided to take a shot at it anyway. Just as her hips started to twist to propel her leg up and over, Layla instinctively shifted. Her leg swept out quickly and connected exactly where it needed to on Kyle's leg to bring him down cleanly, even though her foot hadn't quite hit that point in any of her preparatory sweeps.
"Foot bones." Kyle said from his newly prone position on the ground.. "Break 'em enough and you learn the names for them, because it's how Doc Voight punishes you." He grinned, and shrugged easily. "Nice recovery, bee-tee-dubs. Kinda thought you were gonna botch it but you pulled through. Wanna try it with me actually trying to work against you?" He jerked a thumb at his leg, and looked up at Kurt. "Yo, watch her lead leg when she does that next time. Wanna see if it's a positioning thing or a girls have hips thing that caused the weird angle from the start and if we need to correct it."
"All right", he agreed, shifting slightly for a better view. "Layla, one more time. Or perhaps another four, for practice."
"I need more than four to like remember it right," Layla declared. She sized Kyle up again, keeping her eye on where she thought she'd connected last time. Her estimation was a little off but it didn't matter. Instinct took over where thinking was flawed. She put Kyle down another three times just as solidly as the first time before she messed up. On her fourth try she went for it, just as sure of herself as she had been before but hit Kyle's leg in the totally wrong place and his knee barely twitched. She had the right technique, her foot was fine, but the totally wrong place. Which was weird. The kid wrinkled her nose, frowned and shook her head. "I'm allowed an off one."
"Pfft." Kyle picked his foot up and shook it. "Dude, the first time I learned this it took me about five tries before I got it right." He set that foot down, brought the other up to his hand and picked something out from under his toe claws. "Three outta four on someone with enhanced agility is like, way better than the average. And Jesus, how am I like, finding the sharpest piece of crap in Genosha halfway through sparring?" He held up a little piece of broken glass, barely a splinter. "Better under my claw than in my heel. Damn healing factor would've healed around it and then I'd be all fuck you world trying to dig it back out."
"Dude, Yoda, you're like my pointy-eared brother from another mother and all...but we all know girls are smarter than almost all dudes. Course I got it way faster than you. I am physical prowess girl, hear me roar!" From her spot on the ground she gave her best, most mightiest...pitiful meow. "And shouldn't your healing factor push shit out that's near the surface? Like rejecting a body piercing?" Even as she asked that she looked around for any more sharp things on the ground. On instinct she put out her hand tentatively and brushed over something with a sharp edge. Layla picked up the glass shard half buried from the kicked up dirt and held it up to Kyle, "Might wanna avoid that, too, dude, or you will be like slice-and-dice foot dude."
“Depends on where it is. Sometimes it overgrows instead." Kyle explained. "Healing factors are kind of retarded sometimes." He took the second little piece of glass and frowned at it. "Seriously, this one time I flew home with a bullet in my leg because it healed over it instead of pushing it out. It sucks eggs." He frowned at the glass, and then shrugged, putting both pieces down on a larger rock to one side. "You should ask North sometime about the dumb shit he's seen. He worked with Logan for a while." He grinned at Layla and then jerked with his head off towards a shaded area. "Also he's totes stalking us. Or watching. Spies do that though."
“There’s not much by way of entertainment around here,” David pointed out practicably from where he was seated in the shade of a tree, sounding completely unfazed at being noticed. His legs were stretched out in front of him and his back was nestled against the tree trunk, the shade conveniently obscuring the light sheen of perspiration across his forehead and the slight tremble of his hands. The precog had, in fact, wandered in several minutes ago. “I believe Logan learned very quickly to remove bullets before he healed over them. They don’t always get stuck, but then I didn’t always shoot him at point blank range.”
The German shifted a little in his seat and cracked a smile at the three younger mutants. “Please, don’t let my spying keep you from Miss Miller’s training.”
Kurt smiled over at the older man. "You are more than welcome to watch, if Layla does not mind. Perhaps even pitch in, the more different approaches she can pick up, the better."
"Why do I feel like an old barn now? Everyone pitch in to clear me out for the hoe down!" She grinned at her teacher, though it was a little bit sarcastic, then shifted her focus over to Kyle. "So if I don't break my foot like another four times or something can you teach me something useful I don't know that doesn't like require me to already be on my ass? 'Cause I'm thinking I'm mostly screwed by this point in the fight and I should totally revert to hair pulling and scratching once I get the other dude on the ground."
"Hair pulling's valid." Kyle said. "Hurts like a bitch and means you can yank someone off-balance." He eyed Layla's hair and then made a hrmf noise. "Should probably work on defending against that, actually. More hair you have, the easier it is for someone to use it against you." His own was getting longish, but nothing he could really do about that here. "But yeah, offense. From the ground's same as from your feet. Go for stuff that's soft or full of nerves and hit it hard. Nose, groin, eyes, throat."
"So, like, just general chick fighting all around useful here? Who knew I was so smart about this shit?" Layla started to braid her hair to sort of condense it now that Kyle had brought her attention to it. She didn't have anything to tie it up with, though. Maybe she could find something later that would, like, be sort of useable. Maybe part of that sleeve Cammie had gotten ripped off her arm or something. "Wouldn't, like, ducking and dodging be the way to defend against hair pullers?"
Without a word, Kyle's arm shot out and he could've sworn that he should've been able to grab Layla's hair. But she moved out of the way, and his fingers closed on just the last half-inch of the loose braid, and it was out of his hands before he could get a good grip. He stared at her for a second, and looked at Kurt with a shrug. "Well, normally no, it's hard to get all your hair out of the way fast enough, but apparently you've got magic avoid Kyle's grabby hands hair."
The thing was, for anyone who had been looking close enough, Layla had obviously started moving before she really could have known what he was going for. She tucked the end of her braid into the collar of her Suit of Evil and finally stood up. After stretching she brushed the dirt off her and shrugged. "I got mad skills honed by years of boys being totally tools in school. Obviously your sneak attack needs help. You can try again if you want." Layla grinned, full of bravado...only half of which was really genuine.
"I'll pass. Your hair's gross." Kyle's hair was gross too, which is why he felt like he could say Layla's was. "Course who the fuck knows what kind of shit we're gonna deal with here." He was going to regret this, he knew it. "Feel like learning how to break my thumbs? Grip defense's good to know and we should cover grabs anyway before we run into some asshole who decides to pick you up and carry you off by the neck."
"Being carried off by my throat is like, so on my list of shit to not accomplish this lifetime." She ran a hand over her hair. Yeah, it was gross. Like a week of not showering would do that to a girl. Then again, her hands were kinda covered in dust and dirt at the moment too. With her eyes still on them she shook her head. "I'm totally racking up street kid qualifications here. Anyone got a dumpster to dive?" A flash of a smile at her own joke was all the further time she dedicated to the topic of her appearance. "Okay, so grip defense and breaking thumbs. That would be awesome. People are sort of useless without thumbs. You know, unless they have like tails they can pick shit up with and stuff. Is there a defense for that, too? Are there gonna be people with tails attacking us? No, probably mostly humans? Right?" There was a not so subtle note of hope in that last word.
"Mostly," Kurt agreed. "Although there is no knowing what their home-grown mutates can do. And yes, there are defences against breaking of tails, which Cheetara, Squirrel Girl and I have trained in. The technique to break a tail would be much the same as breaking a finger - to bend it against the weak point, in the wrong direction, until it snaps."
And cue the confused look. Layla wore it so well, too. "There's a wrong direction? Isn't, uh, maybe this is totally a stupid question, but isn't your tail kinda like a cat tail? I mean like the bones in it or whatever and flexibility? Can't it sort of go in all directions so you just gotta bend far enough in any direction? Or is there seriously like a one way like movement direction or whatever?"
"In my case and Cheetara's, yes, there is no one wrong direction but being bent close enough to double will break it. It happened once when I was thrown against a wall by an explosion. Doreen's tail is different, bending hers back away from the body would be the wrong direction."
Layla had to stop and think about Dori for a second to picture her. "Right. Because she's...part squirrel. Sorta. Okay, so break tails like fingers. Do I break fingers the way I break thumbs? Which I obviously don't know how to do yet. You're gonna teach me to break fingers, too, right? Because what if one of those broken thumbed dudes figures out how to like, I dunno, do something that would hurt a lot even without his thumbs? Then I need to break his fingers. Or his elbows. Can I learn to break elbows?" Her words spilled out in typical rapidfire, eye flicking between her teacher and her trainer all the while.
"Kurt, we created a monster." Kyle said, but with a sort of proud grin. "Joint breaks are joint breaks. As long as you know where the weak part is, that's what you aim for and either snap or twist or both." He was simplifying like crazy, but they didn't really have a ton of time. "Remember my 'knees are stupid' thing? Same basic premise. Elbows are less stupid, you have to twist, but they'll break. Go with your gut, if you think it'd hurt like a mother on you, use it on someone else unless their joints look freaky woo-woo." He gestured towards Layla and then stepped in close to her. "Okay, front grab. I grab your shirt or neck or hell, this'll work if some assclown grabs your boobs too." He put his hands around Layla's throat, and squeezed a very little bit, his claws poking her throat slightly. "Kay, see how my thumbs are? Totes vulnerable. Grab, yank up hard and twist towards you."
The poking claws caused a little bit of a grumpy noise but Layla tried to ignore it. Sorta. Well they were all pokey so it was kinda hard to ignore. Especially when she took a deep breath to sort of ground and center herself and that just made them jab her a little bit harder. "I am so filing your claws when we get home," she complained, voice getting quieter as she spoke because she swore speaking louder drove the claw tips in a bit deeper. "Okay...grab, yank, twist." First she tried to come up from under his hands but that wasn't going to work because it would be a yank down, not a yank up and that would like slit her throat or something. Right, plan two. Layla brought her hands up and over Kyle's arms. Slender fingers slipped in using that small gap at the inside of the base of Kyle's thumbs to get inbetween his hand and her throat. With one finger in another could follow and another until she had her fingers wrapped around his thumbs. The girl paused for a second, then pulled up, twisting her hands so her wrists came up to face one another. His hands released, instantly relieving the pressure on her throat.
She hadn't done it hard enough to break anything, obviously. Hell, she had one pretty slow in general so she could make sure she did it right. "Like, that, right?"
"Yep." Kyle shook his hands free from Layla's loose grip, and rolled his thumbs. "Only with more oomph next time." He uncurled his hands, wiped the sweat off, and the tiny puncture wounds from his claws pressing into his palms healed over almost instantly, and then grabbed at Layla again. "Seriously. I want you to get this, because some asshat who wants to make you his new mutie pet isn't gonna be nice about it."
Her hands were half up when she paused. "Wait, you want me to actually break your thumbs? Like...for real?" Layla's eyes probably couldn't get any wider if they tried right now.
"Layla." Kyle said, the 'isn't this fun' grin totally off his face and replaced with a flat seriousness. "Even if you break them in the worst way, Kurt here's gonna reset them and I'll be fine in about thirty seconds. I've broken my own thumbs before." He wiggled the one he'd dislocated in Vegas years ago, despite her grip. "We don't have time for you to practice this a hundred times in a row. You need to learn it, and you need to learn it right."
"Right." Another deep breath followed. "'Cause step one of fighting is being willing to actually hurt people, right?" Because Kyle had totally nailed that into her head over and over again in training. It was just...knocking him on the ground or punching him wearing pads was totally different from breaking his thumbs. "No, I mean, I know. You're right. I need to learn it right and quick and shit. So why am I learning this from you like standing there waiting? Shouldn't you come at me if I'm gonna break your thumbs? Like, let's go for half-broke at least, right?"
She had a point. Kyle stepped back, cracked his neck a few times, and mid-neck-crack, he stepped forward and his hands shot out for Layla's throat, only looking up as he came forward for her.
He moved a lot quicker than she'd been ready for, but really what did she expect? She told the guy to come at her. Nevertheless, Kyle's hands were settling around her neck before her arms went into reaction mode, hands shooting up to do exactly what she just had moments before but without the hesitation and slowing down. It was like first she felt that pinprick from his claws, then her hands were around his thumbs and the next thing she knew...that awful snapping sound of bone came. Layla's grip vanished the second the sound hit her ears and only then did she realize she had sort of closed her eyes during the whole thing. Opening them, she gave Kyle a rather apologetic cringe. "Um...like that?"
Kyle's thumbs were already swelling a bit, and one was clearly at the wrong angle. He shook his hands a few times, and took a step over to Kurt, holding both hands out. "Left's fine, right needs set." He said, rolling his left thumb around until it made some ugly popping sounds and the swelling started to go down visibly. "Next time don't close your eyes, but otherwise yeah, just like that. You earn the fuck you for getting it right on the first try award, bee-tee-dubs." He grinned, clearly not angry, and actually sort of pleased. "You sure you're not a trained ninja? Because you are getting this -mad crazy- fast."
Kurt nodded and laid hands on Kyle's right thumb, clicking it unceremoniously into place with no warning beyond that and looking entirely unfazed by the burst of loud swearing that provoked. "He is right, Layla. Perhaps you have a natural gift for it."
Personally, David would have used ‘unnatural’ to describe the gift. His forehead was set in a frown, brows furrowed as he tried to play back the scene in his head. The girl had basically fended of Kyle and broken his thumbs with her eyes closed. She had not fumbled and had not hesitated, executing the manoeuvre almost perfectly to result in the clean break. Yet he had clearly seen the panic in her eyes just a second or two before she had screwed them shut.
It could all boil down to luck, the precog supposed, as he closed his eyes to replay the scene again and figure his brain around it. But he was not the firmest believer of luck, seeing that he had the tendency to attract the bad kind of luck.
Layla buffed her nails on her skinsuit. "What can I say, I'm a badass. But I'm a thirsty bad ass. Can I go like get bottles of water while your thumb heals and then I can try to break them with my eyes open?"
Kyle grunted, shaking out his hand and giving Kurt a look that definitely said "How the fuck is she doing this?" He pointed in the direction of the makeshift camp with the less-swollen thumb that was already almost down to normal size. "Bring me one too, otherwise you're gonna learn defense against a guy who wants your damn water bottle."
* * *
Interest having been piqued, North decides to test a developing hypothesis on Layla who does not seem to be what she thinks she is.
David unfurled himself from his seat on the ground, shrugged off his borrowed jacket and dusted off bits of dirt from his wildly-coloured suit. He had discarded his thoughtful frown for a more neutral expression as he made his way towards the younger mutants.
“Miss Miller,” he called when he could be heard without raising his voice. “Spar with me. I want to show you something.”
The blonde's eyebrows went up as blue eyes slid to the side to look at the German while she drank some water. "You know Kyle's only been doing training with me for like six months and I was road kill for like half of them, right? 'Cause I would like you way less if you broke me or something."
“Well, we can’t have that.” David stretched his arms a little, rolling his shoulders to loosen them up. “I’m already handicapped, so you don’t have to worry.” He was, of course, referring to his injured leg and hand, but the slight smirk he was sporting was admittedly not the most reassuring.
"Because you're old?" She knew he wasn't referring to that but that smile was so not, like, comforting. The kid put down the bottle of water, rolled her neck, and stepped back into the "ring" with the man. "But, no, seriously. I'm like half useless in a fight so really don't break me." Her eyes drifted over her shoulder. "Someone will stop him from accidentally breaking me, right?"
Kyle was maybe a few feet away, and had heard the request, and while North was older, the dude worked with Doug and Cammie and Jubes, so he had to be badass. Also he was German. Totally badass. "Yeah, if he totally does something that looks like it might break your delicate sweet little face, we'll jump on him." Kyle said, smirking. "Hrm. What you think she's gonna be all "fuck youuuuuuuuu" for me calling her sweet and delicate?" He said, jostling Kurt 's shoulder as the other man came up to watch.
“You may make the first move,” David spoke up before Layla could continue with her token protests. Then, almost as an afterthought: “Avoid my left knee, especially if you want to try your new trick.” It would probably take a minute for his powers to kick in, depending on how much of a fight the girl put up, but he was not too concerned right then.
"You totally win fights through the power of being really fucking ominous, don't you?" Layla sized him up while she retorted. He had like half a foot on her but that was cool because Kyle was actually taller and she was used to him. The problem was she was never the one who initiated the session. That was okay, she would just figure shit out...while flat on her back. She looked the older man over once more, shifted a little to his injured side and threw a punch aimed at his solar plexus.
The opening punch was easy to block, given that Layla did not know how to not give away her intentions with her eyes and swing backs. He caught the arm and threw it back at her, the other arm coming up towards her torso.
Layla tried to track what the big German was doing, tried to think about things Kyle had taught her in their training sessions, but for an old dude, der Fremde moved pretty fucking quickly. Panic spiked just as she realized she was probably about to be hit and had no idea what to do about it, which wasn't really a problem right now but could get her dead in like an hour or a day or something and she wasn't going to live through all this shit not like it mattered because it wasn't like she had any family and Sarah was probably dead and thinking about all that just made her panic more and her thinking short circuit completely.
And then she took a step backward and shifted just far enough to the side to be out of North's reach. Layla used his momentum from his swing to grab his arm while she twisted and started to actually toss the guy...even though she didn't actually know how to do that.
David went with it, his powers activating just as he untucked himself from the roll he had made to preserve his neck. He bit the inside of his cheek as his heavily contused knee was jarred, but the spy was more interested in the way his powers were shifting from one scene to another in his head, presenting him with possibilities that would stem from actions that were changing every other second. A migraine in the making, he was sure.
But why was Layla changing her mind with every move she made?
Ignoring whatever his powers were trying to tell him he could do – which he suspected would be useless to depend on given that its outcome did not look very reliable – David deflected another of Layla’s thoughtless blows, sneaking one in towards her then-unguarded stomach.
Moving faster than someone untrained as herself ought to have been able to, Layla shifted again, angling so her forearm could easily deflect the blow. Just as quickly, though, she shifted again, this time twisting her body in closer to the German. And just like that her elbow was closing in on his jaw. She moved as naturally as someone who had been fighting for years, who had this stuff down as muscle memory. Layla wasn't thinking about it, she was just glad she hadn't been laid out yet.
Unlike Kyle, her current opponent had no qualms of putting his back into the fight, with no tendency to give in or hold back. He had never seen Layla fight before and was unaware that she was fighting beyond her expected abilities in response to his increasingly quicker attacks and blocks. He shot a lightning-fast jab at the incoming elbow and stepped out of her reach as he did so.
When she twisted to avoid it, again following up with a rapid counter-attack, David began to understand what it was that had been bugging him about her fighting style. Layla was not reacting to his attacks; it was like she was reading him, and he knew for a fact that he had been trained to fight without any obvious tells. Which also meant that she was not changing her mind -- it was more like she simply had not made it up yet.
So when the next scene solidified in his mind’s eye approximately three seconds before it actually happened, David did not ignore it. Where he would have instinctively avoided the incoming blow, the precog grabbed the girl’s forearm, swinging it to the side and delivering a chopped blow to the bundle of sensitive nerves beneath her elbow.
Layla was doing fine, surprisingly so, until her brain totally went blank. She'd just been sort of rolling on instinct and then instinct fled the fucking building on her. She took the chop to her arm full on while she paused too long trying to figure out what the fuck to do next. One second there was that feeling of impact, hard but totally dealable, and then that really awful pins and needles feeling swept down from her elbow to her fingertips like a goddamn mountain lion had slept on it all night being little spoon.
The teenager managed to clue in just quickly enough to step out of Herr North's reach, face squished up in an unhappy expression while she shook her head. "Ow. Damn it, you suck." It was sort of like half admiration and half actual complaint. And yet, she wasn't done trying, though her attempted at a counter-punch with her good arm was decidedly more sloppy than the previous ones had been because she wasn't quite sure it was the right move to make this time.
Now that he had satisfied his curiousity, David didn’t see the need to prolong their fight. The flicking visions in his head had stopped, leaving only a continuous sequence of events he could work with and react to without worry. The precog smiled – almost innocently -- at Layla, ducking under her punch and lashing out with his injured leg to hit the exact spot that she had just been taught to attack. The teenager dropped to the ground with a loud thump.
There was a little bit of a delay between hitting the ground bodily and tapping it with her hand like Kyle had with Kurt. "Ow, you still suck," she grumbled from the dirt. "And I mean that in like the nicest way possible." The teenager unwound her grimace and looked the older man up and down, gaze lingering on the injured leg. "You're totally not that handicapped, are you?"
“I am,” David shrugged dismissively, offering her his hand. Just not enough to matter when it came to an inexperienced fighter. He may have thought twice if his opponent were Kurt or Kyle. “It’s not so much how much force you use when kicking someone to the floor, but how and where you connect your foot. Plus, better my full weight on my uninjured leg, or I risk eating dirt too.”
"Right, valid point." Layla shook her arm again once she was standing. "Is the feeling gonna come back in my arm any time soon? Can you teach me how to do that?" She was a little sore from how hard she'd hit the ground, but Layla figured she was young and she'd recover. She'd had worse wiping out on her board anyway.
“Give it a minute and you’ll be fine,” David half-limped over to where he could snag Layla’s water bottle, contemplating whether he should share his suspicions with the group before deciding firmly against it. Given the current circumstances, it was best if he did not play with the balance of her powers, especially when he knew and could confirm so little about it. They did not need further complications.
He jabbed a thumb in Kyle’s direction, a devious smirk lifting a corner of his lips. “I’m a little too old to be your punching bag, Miss Miller. But if Mr. Wildchild-with-the-healing-powers over there agrees, I’ll be happy to walk you through it.”
"Kay, but if she breaks my damn thumbs again, you're on task for fixing 'em." Kyle stood and dusted himself off. "And nobody give me shit if I go find and cook a rat or something. Healing takes protein."
“You can’t whine about something you taught her how to do,” David pointed out, amusement colouring his tone as he carefully lowered himself onto the ground next to Kurt. “But if it happens, I promise to feed you protein and kiss it better.” The spy leered. “Now show the young lady the back of your elbow.”