LOG: Manuel and Domino - Playing With Knives

[x-empath.livejournal.com]

Who: Domino, Manuel de la Rocha
Where: The Gym
When: Tuesday-ish.
What Happens: They spar, they talk - which is sparring by another means. Japanese rope harnesses are discussed.



Domino had borrowed a pair of practice knives - blunt edges, but the right size and weight - and been rather pleased to find that the gym was empty. Forty-five minutes into her workout, she was breathing hard, her muscles just beginning to complain about the exercise. She should have tried this yesterday, she thought. Would've gotten over the jet lag faster.

Manuel, for his part, arrived fifteen minutes ago, fully intending to work out some aggravation with a blade in his hand. But seeing who was in the gym, and watching her move, was _far_ more entertaining, so he merely kept quiet and watched.

This was one of the very few situations in which Domino did lose all awareness of her surroundings. It was the first form of fighting she had learned in the combat pits - they had put a knife in her hand somewhere around her eighth birthday, and she had never looked back. The style they had taught her was brutal, efficient, yet showy. Over the years, she had picked up various knife techniques from willing teachers the world over, and now she could kill in a move or string it out like a dance.

Manuel knew damned well how efficient and brutal her style was - he knew enough about the Way of the Knife to recognize an expert when he saw one. "Nice moves." he called over to her, being careful to pronounce his words clearly. "You're good with a knife."

Domino paused in mid-turn, mastering the passing instinct to throw one of the knives at the interloper. "Didn't see you there," she said dryly, wiping sweat out of her eyes. "No lizard today?"

"Not today, no." he commented cheerfully. "You teach any of that, or save it for killing only?"

"I've taught," she said, eyeing him and deciding to pretend she didn't know anything about what had happened between him and Nate. Amanda probably had the ass-kicking covered, and so long as the kid didn't come knocking on the medlab door again, she was willing to let it go. "A number of my teammates, actually. I like guns, but the knife was my first weapon."

"Got time for a lesson? You think it'd be fun to stab the, what do you call me, ah yes, lizard boy, and I could use a refresher." he smirked, leaning against the wall casually.

Domino let her eyes rake him up and down. "Think you can take me?"

Manuel grinned as he leered at Domino. "Depends. You've got that power that probably means I won't come within a kilometer of cutting you. But if you had something else in mind, then yeah, I could take you all night long."

"Oh, I walked right into that one." Domino reversed one of the practice knives and handed it to him. "Lee wouldn't give me my own back, so these'll have to do," she said.

Manuel took the knife, then flipped it around his knuckles, showing off a little before grabbing in a no-nonsense basic grip. "Nice practice knives. Rather train with these than the real thing - you don't need that big of a happy, and Amanda'd be devastated if you gutted me right here on the gym floor."

Domino batted her eyelashes at him, switching the knife to her left hand. Give him a bit of an edge, she reasoned. "Aw, do I look like the type of woman who'd do that to a nice, inoffensive young man such as yourself?" It was impossible to keep the sarcasm entirely out of her voice.

"Not only do I think that you'd do it, I know that you'd enjoy Every. Single. Second." He watched her knife change hands intently, not knowing for sure if she was right-handed, left-handed, or ambidextrous. He stretched out his neck and shoulders as he talked.

"You make me sound like some kind of homicidal maniac," Domino said sweetly, watching his eyes
instead of his knife, but hanging back to give him a chance to stretch. Let's see if he makes the first move...

Manuel took his sweet old time about his stretching, never taking his eyes off of her knife. Well, almost never - he did sneak a couple of glances at her chest as he stretched.

"Like them?" Domino asked mockingly. "They're all me."

"I noticed." he leered, as he wrapped up the last of his stretching. "Any time you're ready, Domino." he said, suddenly all business.

"The word is uncle, in case you find yourself needing it," Domino said and then lunged, nearly at
full-speed.

Manuel sidestepped out of the way of the lunge, much more quickly and fluidly than he normally let on. His own knife flashed out, looking to score a stab under her ribcage and into her kidneys. "Haven't you heard? Never taunt a Spaniard with a knife in his hand."

"Honey, I taunt drunken Russians holding guns to my head." Domino parried, quickly gliding out of range.

Manuel stepped up to the attack, his moves swift, sure, and no-nonsense. "Russians are frozen louts. Spaniard are hot-blooded macho lovers, so piss us off and we never, ever stop seeking revenge."

Okay, so the kid wasn't bad, even if he looked half-starved. Then again, she probably hadn't looked much better in the combat pits. "Was that just a casual comment," she inquired, "or have I somehow offended your Spanish honor?" He was pushing her quite respectably, she decided, staying on the defensive while she examined his technique.

Manuel kept up his attack, not varying his routines much. "That would be telling." he grinned at her, then shut his mouth to save his breath for fighting.

Not too many openings, really. She took one, scoring what would have been a shallow slice across Manuel's arm if the knives had been sharp. "Oh, but I'd be desolate if I thought you didn't like me," she said, moderately impressed when he pushed back, not demonstrating the usual hesitation.

Manuel swore in Castillian as Domino took her hit. He suddenly changed knife-hands and went on the offensive again, changing his style wildly and also using his free hand and feet to attack along with the knife itself. "There are several places I'd like you." he panted out, clearly running low on breath.

"Yeah? Do tell." Domino switched her knife back to her right hand, deciding that he didn't need that much of an edge. "I might just take you up on that," she went on. "You clearly need to work on your conditioning, and, well, there's not much better exercise..."

Manuel grinned, even through his growing exhaustion, and kept on the attack, trying every trick that his old maestro taught him, plus everything he picked up while he was on the streets of Madrid. "Up ... against the wall ... and spread 'em ... was always ... a favorite." he panted.

"Ah, yes," Domino said sagely, getting in another hit, to the outside of Manuel's upper leg this time, and more solidly. "The good old wall-fuck. Personal favorite of mine, too. Of course, I'm also flexible enough to manage most of the Kama Sutra positions, so I like a little variety, too..."

"Kama ... sutra ... is for ... beginners." he puffed out as he took another stab, this one slower than his normal ones, with his training knife. "There's ... better stuff ... out there."

"Mmm. Japanese rope bondage can be fun. On both sides." Domino rocked back out of reach, grinning at him. "Just imagine me all tied up artistically. Strategic knots getting me more and more... flustered the more I try to free myself." She gave a wicked little laugh. "I bet that would be fun from an empath's point of view."

"Don't need ... to imagine ... how that'd feel. Know ... it well." he grinned, then finally held both hands up to stop the sparring session. "Considering ... I was in the asylum ... five months ago, I'm doing ... pretty good here."

"You are," Domino said easily, lowering the knife. "You've got better than decent technique, although it was breaking down a little as you got tired." She smiled at him, a friendly grin she might have given Garrison or Vasily after a training session. "Just need to get back in shape, Manuel."

"Working on it. No one here will train with me, so I do what I can solo." he said, already getting some of his wind back. "It's just going to take time."

"I have a suggestion for you," Domino said, taking the other knife back with a nod as he handed it over. "You're probably not going to like it, though."

Manuel leaned up against the nearest wall, concentrating on stopping his limbs from trembling.
"Probably not." he agreed. "But I will listen, because you're going to tell me anyway."

"When Nate's back on his feet, ask him to train with you." Domino snorted. "I can't actually believe I'm suggesting the two of you spend any time in each other's company, but he's good with knives. Not as good as I am, but I'm not as good as he is with a gun, so it all evens out."

"You have _got_ to be joking. This is in poor taste, Domino. Even if you'd be fetching in a rope harness." he said with a sneer. "You don't look like the notborn parasites got to you too, so why suggest that he take me over?"

"Oh, whatever," Domino said with a dismissive wave. "Forgive me for making a practical suggestion and forgetting your paranoid delusions." She took a few steps away, going back to her solo exercise. "You should go shower, Manuel," she said, sliding smoothly back into the patterns. "I'd suggest cold water. Might rouse your brain a little."

Manuel shrugged. "Room for two in there, you know. But I don't have any rope handy for that harness." He then began to stretch again, warming his body down to make sure he didn't regret this little sparring session come morning.

Domino gave him a sideways look, wondering just what the fuck was going on in that head. "If he's not 'taken' anyone else over, what makes you think you're in danger?" she asked, unable to keep the edge out of her voice. "He doesn't like you, Manuel, and I doubt the Askani do either."

"I know they don't." he said. "Askani stole his telekinesis and grabbed me with it. It is a good thing Moira came along when she did, or I'd probably be toe-tagged somewhere in Medlab. I should know better by now than to offer to help people with their problems. It always ends badly."

"And what, precisely, could Moira have done to stop her if she'd wanted to kill you?"

"Nothing. But she'd be a witness, and one more person who could get the truth out if anything happened to me." he said, completely seriously.

So yes, then, paranoid was probably a very good word. "Oh, so Moira was there while Askani was threatening to kill you?" Domino said, holding the knives against her forearms and trying a couple of flips.

"More or less." he said, nodding. "And with her link to Nathan, any attempt on her life would reflect very badly in their host's mind. And I don't think she's been taken over yet - I couldn't see any of them in her."

"Either she was there or she wasn't," Domino pointed out dryly. "Don't fudge, dear."

"I'm not fudging. She came in after Askani grabbed me, and before she had the chance to snap my neck like a twig." he said with a shrug.

"So Askani was still there when Moira walked in?" Domino pushed. Moira had been fairly clear about
exactly what she had seen.

Manuel stopped to think. "I think so. I wasn't exactly in a position to take notes."

"You 'think' so? Sort of like how you 'think' she was about to kill you?" Domino snorted, putting a little more energy into her exercise. "You said Askani grabbed you. What made her let you go?"

"I don't know. Maybe she didn't want blood on her telekinetic sandals or something. Maybe it was Moira. All I know is that she was perfectly prepared to kill me - I could see it in her "mind"." he snapped back.

Domino laughed scornfully. "All right, so a psi strong enough to reach back over two thousand years, borrowing the power of one of the strongest telekinetics on the planet, had the chance to kill you and yet restrained herself. You think, either because she's squeamish about blood - which is funny, given that she was apparently a general for the better part of sixty years to hear Nate tell it - or because it would have been so very difficult to remove a few memories from a human woman's mind. Yeah, that's thoroughly plausible."

"Fine. Mock me if you want to. I felt that my life was in danger, for just trying to _help_ somebody. I don't know shit about this Askani, and I don't want to. I just want to make sure that they don't spread past Nathan's mind."

"What I'm trying to point out," Domino said, not particularly gently, "is that you're not a reliable witness if you can't remember details and can't apply logic to a situation." She shot him a hard look, pausing in mid-spin. "You're a sloppy thinker. You don't think Charles would have done something if he thought the Askani were a threat?"

"Not necessarily." Manuel shot back. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Maybe he wanted one of us to solve the problem for him so he could maintain deniability. The Askani scare me, OK? Fine, I said it. Nathan is giving away his Self, his identity, to these creatures who have no right to exist in the here-and-now! Am I wrong to think that's a little disturbing?"

"Well, no," Domino shot back, not even touching the nonsense about Charles. "Personally, they scare the fuck out of me, too."

"Then _why_ are you so irritated with me about my desire to rid us of them?" Manuel asked sharply. "You should be _helping_ me - this way, you'd get your friend back as well!"

"My friend hasn't gone anywhere," Domino snapped. "And before you start babbling that I'm wrong and there's nothing in his head but them, I'm fairly sure Amanda probably told you that's not true. Given how much your little stunt the other night pissed her off."

"Amanda is wrong, I suspect." Manuel said calmly. "There's ... god, nearly an infinite number of
overlapping emotional traces in his head. Any sign of Nathan is long-gone by now."

"And you are just so very good at using your powers," Domino said contemptuously, her eyes flickering to the dampener. "There's not a chance in the world that you could be wrong."

"It's not like that many emotional auras in one place are hard to _miss_." he snapped back peevishly. "Are you just _trying_ to be ignorant here, or are you testing my patience?"

"So they're there," Domino said with a shrug. "Does that mean Nathan isn't? Because he was sounding an awful lot like his usual disagreeable self on Muir, before he got shot. Or wait... no, I know." She smiled thinly at Manuel. "The Askani are really clever. So they can pretend to be him, and do it so well that they fool other telepaths, his oldest friends, and the woman he's linked to."

"With millions of them, some of whom are psions, it is certainly possible. Especially if they have access to his thoughts and memories. It could be quite easily done, come to think of it." he retorted.

Domino gave a scathing laugh, shaking her head at him. "Scared little boy," she said dismissively. "You're a scared child who's run into something he doesn't understand, and instead of making the effort, you're retreating into this fantasy world where you're the only one who knows that all the ghosts in Nate's head are plotting to take over everyone in the house. Like the crier in the wilderness role, do you?"

Manuel sighed. "Believe what you want, I can't stop you. When those _things_ in his head kill you for being heterodoxical in your thinking, I'll make sure to piss on your grave." And with that he walked out of the Gym.

Domino threw back her head and laughed, half-amused, half-angry. "Oh, I bet the psychologists around here are writing whole books on you, kid," she said, and launched herself into another tumbling pass.

Manuel stopped at that, but refused to be sucked into yet another pointless argument.

Landing back on her feet, Domino noticed him standing there in the doorway and snorted. "Oh, terribly sorry. Did I mess up your dramatic exit line? Want to try again? I promise I'll be quiet like a good girl and bask in the wonder of your rapier wit."

"I was thinking something more your speed." And with a grin, he flipped her off and walked back to his room.