Sarah and Nathan have a spar date.
Sep. 26th, 2004 11:17 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsSunday afternoon. Sarah and Nathan meet in the mat room to spar. Sarah uses the bones, he uses the TK, and eventually they're both throwing around the benches. Sarah doesn't get frustrated, and Nathan is pleased. Moira is going to kill them both.
Anyone walking around in the basement Sunday afternoon would have seen quite an amusing scene: Sarah left her room with a towel and water bottle, and nearly sprinted down the hallway to the mat room. It was a good thing they'd scheduled the sparring sessions for the weekend, because Sarah'd been pretty useless all day. Pushing the door open, she tried not to look -too- excited, but failed miserably, even to a non-telepath.
"You're early," Nathan said wryly from where he was stretching. His leg was a little stiff today, and the shoulder wasn't much better - too much dancing the night before, maybe. "Been looking forward to this, have you?"
"Only a little." There was a little bounce in her step, and she dropped the bottle and the towel by the door without much of a second glance. "Reminds me of home."
"The idea of sparring with me reminds you of home," Nathan mused, getting up and rotating his arm experimentally. Better. "Interesting thing to say... should I ask you whether it's still true after we're done?" He gave Sarah a wry, almost conspiratorial grin, something he might have used at Dom.
"Not -just- you... It was like that with Logan too. It's sparring with somebody capable of beating the hell out of me, who isn't going to hold back." She dropped to the floor and started her own stretches. "You aren't, right?"
"Define holding back," Nathan said, rubbing at his shoulder. "I can't really go all-out with you, Sarah, because I don't really think you could survive being turned into glass or having every cell in your body explode, healing factor or no healing factor. But," he went on dryly, "there's a hell of a lot of room between that and pulling my punches. We'll have to explore it together."
Sarah shrugged from her spot on the floor, and went back to her stretching. "How was the thing last night?"
"Oh, not bad," Nathan said, unable to help a slightly sappy smile at the memory of how Moira had looked in her silver dress and moonstones. "A bit stuffy in spots, but hey, you make your own fun at things like that."
"Uh-huh." She didn't sound very convinced, or very interested for that matter. "At least this time I didn't have to go."
"You have an interesting idea of small talk," Nathan said cheerfully. "Questions whose answers don't really concern you one way or the other, delivered in an indifferent fashion... "
"I'll have to work on that for next time," she replied dryly. "Or just remember not to talk in the first place."
"Up to you. Not the biggest small-talk fan in the world anyway," Nathan confessed, blinking and shaking his head as his perceptions shifted in and out of that heightened state. It would be nice if they stopped doing that, he reflected with a sigh, and then focused again on Sarah. "Moira made a crack about having a medical team standing by, just to let you know. We may want to make sure we don't disappoint her."
"Maybe we should sell tickets. You should have seen the crowd that gathered when Kwannon and Logan went at it in here." And then she'd gone running to beg him to spar with her. She finally got to her feet, stretching towards the ceiling. "Let's see how many people we can disturb, yeah?"
Nathan made a noncommittal noise, moving over to the center of the mats. "Anytime you're ready," he said easily, wondering if Angelo had mentioned his habit of never attacking first to her.
He didn't need to. She took a moment to tuck the hair behind her ears, and then grabbed for the bone club from her shoulder. A few quick steps later, she swung it forcefully at his shoulder.
It bounced off an invisible wall, and then Nathan lashed out with his TK, sending her a good ten feet through the air and into the mats. "Okay," he said dryly. "Precisely why did you think that was going to work?"
"Because normally it -does-," she growled, pushing herself back up to her feet again. "Besides, if I'm limited to moves that will work against your TK, I might as well fucking stop now. I have to use what I've got."
"Getting within range in the first place is the central problem, when one person's got the ability to strike at a distance and you don't," Nathan said, circling to the left. "Full frontal assaults? Not generally the way to go." He tilted his head at her. "How well do you see in the dark?"
She shrugged, watching him carefully as he moved. "I lived in the dark for a while. Better than most."
Nathan waved a hand at the light switches on the far wall, and the mat room was plunged into pitch-blackness. "My night vision's nothing special," he said. "I do have a TK trick, sort of a sonar field, but it's still new. Let's see if this evens things up at all."
She closed her eyes momentarily, listening for movement. She knew what direction he'd been moving in before the lights went out, but she couldn't be sure he was still going that way. When she opened her eyes, she could barely make out his form in the darkness closing in on her. Snapping a bone from her forearm, she gave it a sharp throw at the spot where she thought she saw him. Pity the bones were so noisy.
Nathan felt the bone slice through the air and batted it away with a wave, moving in the opposite direction from the noise it made as it hit the mats. Her night vision was better than his, definitely.
He was easier to see when he changed directions, and she wondered vaguely if she kept him moving, if she might just have a chance. Having just given away her plan of attack, she promptly abandoned it and went back to throwing bone shards at the shape moving in the dark.
#So you do listen when people talk to you,# Nathan projected in amusement, rather than speaking to give away his position. He froze the bone shards in the air and then launched himself upwards in a neat arc that took him over her head and down to a soundless landing behind her.
"Depends on what they're saying..." She shot back, and then she lost sight of him as he went up. This was not good. She decided to keep moving, even though it would make it harder for her to lock in on exactly where he'd disappeared to. Hopefully it would do the same to him.
He could feel her passage as her movements disturbed the air molecules. #Well, keeping an open mind is always a start,# he sent and lashed out with his TK again, sending her head over heels and into the mats once more.
"I hope you're enjoying this," she grumbled, pulling herself up off of the floor again. But in all honesty, this was probably the most fun she'd had in a while. It'd be even more fun if she could manage to hit him once, but she was working on it.
#Actually, I'm kind of bored,# Nathan sent, and quite deliberately moved within her range, without trying to mask the sound of his passing.
Yeah, whatever. She pulled a bone from her shoulder, watching his form that she'd managed to spot again. And then in what she considered to be a brilliant and "unbroadcast" move, she dropped to the floor and swung it hard at his ankles. Maybe he wouldn't expect that?
He didn't sense her intention, but he did feel the disturbance in his 'sonar' field and sidestepped, then kicked the bone out of her hand. #See?# he sent. #You can keep your thoughts to yourself when you try.#
"Quit being so patronizing. It's annoying." She crouched where she was for a moment, waiting to see what, or even if he would move next. It was beginning to feel like a very one sided sparring match.
Nathan shifted to the left, very deliberately making noise again. #That was a compliment, believe it or not...#
She listened very closely, watching his form move across the darkness. "Huh. So are you going to come at me ever, or are we just playing 'let's see how many times Sarah will rush in before she gets bored'?"
Bored, rather than frustrated? Interesting. This wasn't going precisely as he'd expected. She had to have a frustration threshold somewhere - he was just coming at it from the wrong direction. #Ask Angelo,# he sent back casually. #I don't attack first. Ever.#
"Or second... or third. Noted." She replied dryly, backing up slowly, but staying low to the ground. She might as well pretend he'd attack sooner or later.
#He's never figured out why. Any ideas?#
"You go running in like me, and you get thrown back on your ass." There was a sharp crack as she snapped a bone from her hip, the jagged edge pointed outwards as she moved.
#It's got nothing to do with me, and everything to do with my opponent,# Nathan sent. #People will always surprise you.# And with that, he finally did move in, full-speed and not only not pulling his punches, but adding more telekinesis to them than he would have dared with anyone who didn't have a healing factor.
It's about fucking time. She hadn't been all that surprised when he finally attacked, but she also wasn't particularly fond of fighting from the floor. Managing to scramble out of the way despite being hammered on, she gripped the bone club from her spine tightly in her hand and swung again. She wasn't much against him, but that had never stopped her before.
Her technique was fairly good, actually. More disciplined and less imaginative than he'd expected. And her speed was good. She would have landed at least a couple of strikes with the bone club if he hadn't shielded.
#You realize,# he sent, sticking to the telepathy - he wasn't precisely winded, but he wouldn't have been able to manage the conversational tone aloud quite as convincingly, #I let you this close.# He caught the club in one hand, shifting it from bone to glass and then shattering it with one quick thought.
Yeah. Let me thank you for that. The shattered bone left glass embedded in between patches of bone, but she didn't have time to sit and pick them out. Instead she shook her outstretched hand in the air beside her once or twice, and hoped that they were loose enough to come out on their own. She lashed out with the sharper bone she still held, careful to keep this one out of his grip.
Nathan leaned away, letting it glance off another shield. #I think, every time you're predictable, I'm going to start doing this,# he sent, and flung her back through the air like a rag doll again. "What did I say about coming right at me?" he asked as she hit the mats.
"I was already -there-..." She growled, and sent the bone in her hand back at him. "I supposed to run the hell away and then hit?"
"Yes," he said frankly, knocking it out of the air with a wave of his hand and a flicker of telekinesis. "Run away, come running back at a different angle, fucking throw something else at me. Anything to break my concentration, make me hesitate. You make me hesitate, I might leave you an opening."
"I'll keep that in mind." It was a little harder to get up after the third time being thrown, and she just stood there for a moment, watching him from across the room. She pulled a bone club from her thigh finally, and started moving again, keeping out of range.
Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Well, you're not going to get anywhere over there," he pointed out and let his mind snatch at all the moveable objects in the room. Spare mats, the benches along the walls, Sarah's water bottle, even the punching bags levitated themselves off their hooks and came flying at her.
Her eyes were adjusted enough by now that she definitely saw a large group of objects flying at her, and she she tried to scramble out of the way. Tried being the operative word. Sarah can dodge one thing at a time, possibly two or three if she's really paying attention, but a whole room of whatever is lying around is not easily dodged. She had to just hope that what she couldn't dodge was softer than what she did.
#There's something else you have to keep in mind when you're fighting someone like me,# Nathan sent, 'watching' her via his sonar field. She did a good job at dodging most of what he was throwing at her, and he wasn't about to let anything that could potentially do real damage connect, anyway. #The longer you let it go on, the more likely you are to wind up dead. Time to think is good for me, bad for you.#
"So I can't come straight at you, but whatever it is I have to do it quick. Huh." She had to pick herself up again, one of the punching bags having caught her shoulder just enough to throw her off balance. She sent the bone club in her hand at him, and then a couple of shards that had popped up on her shoulders.
He missed one of the shards. One of the cons of trying to teach strategy at the same time you were fighting - your focus wasn't always as sharp as it could be. And she had throw her three new projectiles on three different trajectories. He did manage to knock it off-course, but that only meant it buried itself in his leg rather than his gut.
Grimacing, he pulled it out, feeling the blood already trickling down his leg. Ah, well. Let that be a lesson to him. #Strategy, Sarah,# he sent, his mental voice a little tighter. #I'm not much of a strategist myself - I'm better with tactics - but if you were setting out to fight me for real, you'd be going in at a big disadvantage. You need to have come up with a way to bridge the gap before you come at me in the first place.#
"Like putting a bone in your leg?" She offered helpfully. It's probably a good thing it's dark in the mat room. She's positively beaming.
#It'd be a start. Seriously speaking? Go for the head injury. You give me a concussion, my TK is no longer much of a factor.# And it was his bad leg, too. Well, fuck. Moira was going to growl at him.
Sarah considered this, and pulled a bone from her hip. But the clubs were too hard to control if you were throwing them, and shards wouldn't do much by way of concussions. Maybe poke an eye out, but no head trauma. So she snapped the club in her hand in half, and sent one at his head, and one at his knees.
Nathan tried not to roll his eyes, and instead of just deflecting them, sent them right back at Sarah. #I have a very hard head, incidentally.#
"I should have guessed." She dodged the returned bone shards, taking a quick glance around the room. She needed heavy. Maybe with sharp edges too, just for fun. Punching bags would be good, but were too heavy, and then she remembered something that she dodged making one hell of a noise when it hit the wall. One of the benches, maybe? She made her way back over to the wall, and nearly tripped over the overturned bench. Oooh, solid. And not too heavy. She picked it up and gave it a hard throw at him. Unfortunately like the clubs, it was hard to control exactly where something that big went when you threw it.
Oh, very good. He shielded, but the impact was hard enough to send him back a step. #Very good,# he sent to her as the bench hit the floor. #Needs to be faster, though. You need to be able to use whatever's handy without thinking so hard about it. More than just your bones.#
"I know, I know. I broadcast." Sarah did roll her eyes, and kicked around with her foot. There had to be something else in this corner she could throw at him.
Nathan sensed her debating what she could throw at him next and grinned, shifting his weight. His leg was throbbing, and he knew that he really should be calling a pause and turning the lights on to see just how deep the bone had gone, but he would give her a little bit more time.
Her intentions shifted suddenly, and while he was expecting large furniture to come flying at him she sent three shards at him, one to his shoulder, the second to his other leg, and a third to his belly. At least that would keep him busy while she hunted for the other bench.
Nathan shielded this time, instead of trying to catch the shards individually, just on the off chance that they were a diversion. When the bench came flying at his head, he grinned suddenly and deliberately let it get within inches of connecting with his head. A little twist of TK to bounce the bench away as if it had connected, and a very abrupt and dramatic fall to the mats, and presto, he was playing dead. He laid there face-down and waited.
She grinned when the bench "connected", but the bounce in her step was replaced by very suspicious movements as he lay there. She hadn't hit him -that- hard.... "If this were a real fight," she started, still circling suspiciously, "I'd just leave you. Or throw the bench at your head again to be certain you were down." She moved a little closer. "But since this is only sparring, I'm going to poke at you and help you up. Are you listening?"
Oh, very interesting, Nathan thought, rather happy at how this was all turning out. She had certainly given him plenty to think about. And talk to Pete about... He shifted a bit, twitching as if he was coming to. He wanted a conclusive answer as to what she'd do before he turned the lights back on.
She froze when he started to shift, waiting for him to spring up and go after her again. When he didn't, she took another step closer. "I didn't really hit you, did I. You were shielding. It shouldn't have hit you."
Nathan grinned against the mats and reached out with his TK, flipping the lights on. While Sarah's eyes were still adjusting, he sat up, smiling at her. "It didn't, no. But you've got to admire my acting skills, come on..." He glanced down at his leg and grimaced a bit. Okay, so maybe Moira was going to throw something at his head, in addition to growling. A little deeper than he'd thought...
"It probably would have worked if I hadn't had it used against me before. If it's not work, it's probably too good to be true." She shrugged, and stretched out a bit. The cut on her hand had already healed, leaving an irritated pink scar behind. That was going to be fun to deal with later.
"Playing dead isn't something I'd ever do out in the field," Nathan admitted. "Like you said, anyone with any sense would have just taken the opportunity to finish me off." He saw her looking at her hand. "Healed over the glass?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I'll have to see if I can't fish it out later. Not a big deal."
"So," he said, pulling at the leg of his track pants and wincing a bit. Yeah, quick trip to medlab was definitely in order. "Waste of time, or something you want to do again? This, I mean," he said, waving a hand around at the mat room. The things he'd thrown at her floated into the air, returning to their places.
She glanced down at where she'd gotten him, secretly proud that she'd gotten that good of a hit. Secretly, meaning she was attempting not to broadcast it all over the place. Instead, she laughed. "Are you kidding? I haven't gotten to do something like this in months. You're going to be lucky if I can -wait- till next weekend for another one."
"Sadly, I have a very busy week planned," Nathan said with a self-satisfied smirk. "So it'll have to be the weekend." He got up, wincing a little again as he shifted his weight. "I think, actually, I'll let you pick the next place - somewhere other than here, actually. Give you the chance to set up an ambush, see how it goes..."
She gave him an amused snort. "If I really had my choice, we'd go play in the tunnels. I'm guessing that's out."
"For now," Nathan said easily, already thinking several steps ahead. "Anyway. Ought to go get this seen to - " He waved at his leg. " - seeing as though I don't have a healing factor. I'll catch you later."
"You need help getting down the hall?" Her voice left the comment ambivalent, neither overly concerned, nor overly amused. She grabbed her water from where it had ended up, and the towel still laying by the door. "I'm headed that way anyway."
"Wouldn't mind the company," he said with a laugh, heading towards the door, limping only a little. "Don't really need the help. And you might want to make sure you leave me at the medlab door. Let's not tempt Moira to growl at both of us, shall we?"
Anyone walking around in the basement Sunday afternoon would have seen quite an amusing scene: Sarah left her room with a towel and water bottle, and nearly sprinted down the hallway to the mat room. It was a good thing they'd scheduled the sparring sessions for the weekend, because Sarah'd been pretty useless all day. Pushing the door open, she tried not to look -too- excited, but failed miserably, even to a non-telepath.
"You're early," Nathan said wryly from where he was stretching. His leg was a little stiff today, and the shoulder wasn't much better - too much dancing the night before, maybe. "Been looking forward to this, have you?"
"Only a little." There was a little bounce in her step, and she dropped the bottle and the towel by the door without much of a second glance. "Reminds me of home."
"The idea of sparring with me reminds you of home," Nathan mused, getting up and rotating his arm experimentally. Better. "Interesting thing to say... should I ask you whether it's still true after we're done?" He gave Sarah a wry, almost conspiratorial grin, something he might have used at Dom.
"Not -just- you... It was like that with Logan too. It's sparring with somebody capable of beating the hell out of me, who isn't going to hold back." She dropped to the floor and started her own stretches. "You aren't, right?"
"Define holding back," Nathan said, rubbing at his shoulder. "I can't really go all-out with you, Sarah, because I don't really think you could survive being turned into glass or having every cell in your body explode, healing factor or no healing factor. But," he went on dryly, "there's a hell of a lot of room between that and pulling my punches. We'll have to explore it together."
Sarah shrugged from her spot on the floor, and went back to her stretching. "How was the thing last night?"
"Oh, not bad," Nathan said, unable to help a slightly sappy smile at the memory of how Moira had looked in her silver dress and moonstones. "A bit stuffy in spots, but hey, you make your own fun at things like that."
"Uh-huh." She didn't sound very convinced, or very interested for that matter. "At least this time I didn't have to go."
"You have an interesting idea of small talk," Nathan said cheerfully. "Questions whose answers don't really concern you one way or the other, delivered in an indifferent fashion... "
"I'll have to work on that for next time," she replied dryly. "Or just remember not to talk in the first place."
"Up to you. Not the biggest small-talk fan in the world anyway," Nathan confessed, blinking and shaking his head as his perceptions shifted in and out of that heightened state. It would be nice if they stopped doing that, he reflected with a sigh, and then focused again on Sarah. "Moira made a crack about having a medical team standing by, just to let you know. We may want to make sure we don't disappoint her."
"Maybe we should sell tickets. You should have seen the crowd that gathered when Kwannon and Logan went at it in here." And then she'd gone running to beg him to spar with her. She finally got to her feet, stretching towards the ceiling. "Let's see how many people we can disturb, yeah?"
Nathan made a noncommittal noise, moving over to the center of the mats. "Anytime you're ready," he said easily, wondering if Angelo had mentioned his habit of never attacking first to her.
He didn't need to. She took a moment to tuck the hair behind her ears, and then grabbed for the bone club from her shoulder. A few quick steps later, she swung it forcefully at his shoulder.
It bounced off an invisible wall, and then Nathan lashed out with his TK, sending her a good ten feet through the air and into the mats. "Okay," he said dryly. "Precisely why did you think that was going to work?"
"Because normally it -does-," she growled, pushing herself back up to her feet again. "Besides, if I'm limited to moves that will work against your TK, I might as well fucking stop now. I have to use what I've got."
"Getting within range in the first place is the central problem, when one person's got the ability to strike at a distance and you don't," Nathan said, circling to the left. "Full frontal assaults? Not generally the way to go." He tilted his head at her. "How well do you see in the dark?"
She shrugged, watching him carefully as he moved. "I lived in the dark for a while. Better than most."
Nathan waved a hand at the light switches on the far wall, and the mat room was plunged into pitch-blackness. "My night vision's nothing special," he said. "I do have a TK trick, sort of a sonar field, but it's still new. Let's see if this evens things up at all."
She closed her eyes momentarily, listening for movement. She knew what direction he'd been moving in before the lights went out, but she couldn't be sure he was still going that way. When she opened her eyes, she could barely make out his form in the darkness closing in on her. Snapping a bone from her forearm, she gave it a sharp throw at the spot where she thought she saw him. Pity the bones were so noisy.
Nathan felt the bone slice through the air and batted it away with a wave, moving in the opposite direction from the noise it made as it hit the mats. Her night vision was better than his, definitely.
He was easier to see when he changed directions, and she wondered vaguely if she kept him moving, if she might just have a chance. Having just given away her plan of attack, she promptly abandoned it and went back to throwing bone shards at the shape moving in the dark.
#So you do listen when people talk to you,# Nathan projected in amusement, rather than speaking to give away his position. He froze the bone shards in the air and then launched himself upwards in a neat arc that took him over her head and down to a soundless landing behind her.
"Depends on what they're saying..." She shot back, and then she lost sight of him as he went up. This was not good. She decided to keep moving, even though it would make it harder for her to lock in on exactly where he'd disappeared to. Hopefully it would do the same to him.
He could feel her passage as her movements disturbed the air molecules. #Well, keeping an open mind is always a start,# he sent and lashed out with his TK again, sending her head over heels and into the mats once more.
"I hope you're enjoying this," she grumbled, pulling herself up off of the floor again. But in all honesty, this was probably the most fun she'd had in a while. It'd be even more fun if she could manage to hit him once, but she was working on it.
#Actually, I'm kind of bored,# Nathan sent, and quite deliberately moved within her range, without trying to mask the sound of his passing.
Yeah, whatever. She pulled a bone from her shoulder, watching his form that she'd managed to spot again. And then in what she considered to be a brilliant and "unbroadcast" move, she dropped to the floor and swung it hard at his ankles. Maybe he wouldn't expect that?
He didn't sense her intention, but he did feel the disturbance in his 'sonar' field and sidestepped, then kicked the bone out of her hand. #See?# he sent. #You can keep your thoughts to yourself when you try.#
"Quit being so patronizing. It's annoying." She crouched where she was for a moment, waiting to see what, or even if he would move next. It was beginning to feel like a very one sided sparring match.
Nathan shifted to the left, very deliberately making noise again. #That was a compliment, believe it or not...#
She listened very closely, watching his form move across the darkness. "Huh. So are you going to come at me ever, or are we just playing 'let's see how many times Sarah will rush in before she gets bored'?"
Bored, rather than frustrated? Interesting. This wasn't going precisely as he'd expected. She had to have a frustration threshold somewhere - he was just coming at it from the wrong direction. #Ask Angelo,# he sent back casually. #I don't attack first. Ever.#
"Or second... or third. Noted." She replied dryly, backing up slowly, but staying low to the ground. She might as well pretend he'd attack sooner or later.
#He's never figured out why. Any ideas?#
"You go running in like me, and you get thrown back on your ass." There was a sharp crack as she snapped a bone from her hip, the jagged edge pointed outwards as she moved.
#It's got nothing to do with me, and everything to do with my opponent,# Nathan sent. #People will always surprise you.# And with that, he finally did move in, full-speed and not only not pulling his punches, but adding more telekinesis to them than he would have dared with anyone who didn't have a healing factor.
It's about fucking time. She hadn't been all that surprised when he finally attacked, but she also wasn't particularly fond of fighting from the floor. Managing to scramble out of the way despite being hammered on, she gripped the bone club from her spine tightly in her hand and swung again. She wasn't much against him, but that had never stopped her before.
Her technique was fairly good, actually. More disciplined and less imaginative than he'd expected. And her speed was good. She would have landed at least a couple of strikes with the bone club if he hadn't shielded.
#You realize,# he sent, sticking to the telepathy - he wasn't precisely winded, but he wouldn't have been able to manage the conversational tone aloud quite as convincingly, #I let you this close.# He caught the club in one hand, shifting it from bone to glass and then shattering it with one quick thought.
Yeah. Let me thank you for that. The shattered bone left glass embedded in between patches of bone, but she didn't have time to sit and pick them out. Instead she shook her outstretched hand in the air beside her once or twice, and hoped that they were loose enough to come out on their own. She lashed out with the sharper bone she still held, careful to keep this one out of his grip.
Nathan leaned away, letting it glance off another shield. #I think, every time you're predictable, I'm going to start doing this,# he sent, and flung her back through the air like a rag doll again. "What did I say about coming right at me?" he asked as she hit the mats.
"I was already -there-..." She growled, and sent the bone in her hand back at him. "I supposed to run the hell away and then hit?"
"Yes," he said frankly, knocking it out of the air with a wave of his hand and a flicker of telekinesis. "Run away, come running back at a different angle, fucking throw something else at me. Anything to break my concentration, make me hesitate. You make me hesitate, I might leave you an opening."
"I'll keep that in mind." It was a little harder to get up after the third time being thrown, and she just stood there for a moment, watching him from across the room. She pulled a bone club from her thigh finally, and started moving again, keeping out of range.
Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Well, you're not going to get anywhere over there," he pointed out and let his mind snatch at all the moveable objects in the room. Spare mats, the benches along the walls, Sarah's water bottle, even the punching bags levitated themselves off their hooks and came flying at her.
Her eyes were adjusted enough by now that she definitely saw a large group of objects flying at her, and she she tried to scramble out of the way. Tried being the operative word. Sarah can dodge one thing at a time, possibly two or three if she's really paying attention, but a whole room of whatever is lying around is not easily dodged. She had to just hope that what she couldn't dodge was softer than what she did.
#There's something else you have to keep in mind when you're fighting someone like me,# Nathan sent, 'watching' her via his sonar field. She did a good job at dodging most of what he was throwing at her, and he wasn't about to let anything that could potentially do real damage connect, anyway. #The longer you let it go on, the more likely you are to wind up dead. Time to think is good for me, bad for you.#
"So I can't come straight at you, but whatever it is I have to do it quick. Huh." She had to pick herself up again, one of the punching bags having caught her shoulder just enough to throw her off balance. She sent the bone club in her hand at him, and then a couple of shards that had popped up on her shoulders.
He missed one of the shards. One of the cons of trying to teach strategy at the same time you were fighting - your focus wasn't always as sharp as it could be. And she had throw her three new projectiles on three different trajectories. He did manage to knock it off-course, but that only meant it buried itself in his leg rather than his gut.
Grimacing, he pulled it out, feeling the blood already trickling down his leg. Ah, well. Let that be a lesson to him. #Strategy, Sarah,# he sent, his mental voice a little tighter. #I'm not much of a strategist myself - I'm better with tactics - but if you were setting out to fight me for real, you'd be going in at a big disadvantage. You need to have come up with a way to bridge the gap before you come at me in the first place.#
"Like putting a bone in your leg?" She offered helpfully. It's probably a good thing it's dark in the mat room. She's positively beaming.
#It'd be a start. Seriously speaking? Go for the head injury. You give me a concussion, my TK is no longer much of a factor.# And it was his bad leg, too. Well, fuck. Moira was going to growl at him.
Sarah considered this, and pulled a bone from her hip. But the clubs were too hard to control if you were throwing them, and shards wouldn't do much by way of concussions. Maybe poke an eye out, but no head trauma. So she snapped the club in her hand in half, and sent one at his head, and one at his knees.
Nathan tried not to roll his eyes, and instead of just deflecting them, sent them right back at Sarah. #I have a very hard head, incidentally.#
"I should have guessed." She dodged the returned bone shards, taking a quick glance around the room. She needed heavy. Maybe with sharp edges too, just for fun. Punching bags would be good, but were too heavy, and then she remembered something that she dodged making one hell of a noise when it hit the wall. One of the benches, maybe? She made her way back over to the wall, and nearly tripped over the overturned bench. Oooh, solid. And not too heavy. She picked it up and gave it a hard throw at him. Unfortunately like the clubs, it was hard to control exactly where something that big went when you threw it.
Oh, very good. He shielded, but the impact was hard enough to send him back a step. #Very good,# he sent to her as the bench hit the floor. #Needs to be faster, though. You need to be able to use whatever's handy without thinking so hard about it. More than just your bones.#
"I know, I know. I broadcast." Sarah did roll her eyes, and kicked around with her foot. There had to be something else in this corner she could throw at him.
Nathan sensed her debating what she could throw at him next and grinned, shifting his weight. His leg was throbbing, and he knew that he really should be calling a pause and turning the lights on to see just how deep the bone had gone, but he would give her a little bit more time.
Her intentions shifted suddenly, and while he was expecting large furniture to come flying at him she sent three shards at him, one to his shoulder, the second to his other leg, and a third to his belly. At least that would keep him busy while she hunted for the other bench.
Nathan shielded this time, instead of trying to catch the shards individually, just on the off chance that they were a diversion. When the bench came flying at his head, he grinned suddenly and deliberately let it get within inches of connecting with his head. A little twist of TK to bounce the bench away as if it had connected, and a very abrupt and dramatic fall to the mats, and presto, he was playing dead. He laid there face-down and waited.
She grinned when the bench "connected", but the bounce in her step was replaced by very suspicious movements as he lay there. She hadn't hit him -that- hard.... "If this were a real fight," she started, still circling suspiciously, "I'd just leave you. Or throw the bench at your head again to be certain you were down." She moved a little closer. "But since this is only sparring, I'm going to poke at you and help you up. Are you listening?"
Oh, very interesting, Nathan thought, rather happy at how this was all turning out. She had certainly given him plenty to think about. And talk to Pete about... He shifted a bit, twitching as if he was coming to. He wanted a conclusive answer as to what she'd do before he turned the lights back on.
She froze when he started to shift, waiting for him to spring up and go after her again. When he didn't, she took another step closer. "I didn't really hit you, did I. You were shielding. It shouldn't have hit you."
Nathan grinned against the mats and reached out with his TK, flipping the lights on. While Sarah's eyes were still adjusting, he sat up, smiling at her. "It didn't, no. But you've got to admire my acting skills, come on..." He glanced down at his leg and grimaced a bit. Okay, so maybe Moira was going to throw something at his head, in addition to growling. A little deeper than he'd thought...
"It probably would have worked if I hadn't had it used against me before. If it's not work, it's probably too good to be true." She shrugged, and stretched out a bit. The cut on her hand had already healed, leaving an irritated pink scar behind. That was going to be fun to deal with later.
"Playing dead isn't something I'd ever do out in the field," Nathan admitted. "Like you said, anyone with any sense would have just taken the opportunity to finish me off." He saw her looking at her hand. "Healed over the glass?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I'll have to see if I can't fish it out later. Not a big deal."
"So," he said, pulling at the leg of his track pants and wincing a bit. Yeah, quick trip to medlab was definitely in order. "Waste of time, or something you want to do again? This, I mean," he said, waving a hand around at the mat room. The things he'd thrown at her floated into the air, returning to their places.
She glanced down at where she'd gotten him, secretly proud that she'd gotten that good of a hit. Secretly, meaning she was attempting not to broadcast it all over the place. Instead, she laughed. "Are you kidding? I haven't gotten to do something like this in months. You're going to be lucky if I can -wait- till next weekend for another one."
"Sadly, I have a very busy week planned," Nathan said with a self-satisfied smirk. "So it'll have to be the weekend." He got up, wincing a little again as he shifted his weight. "I think, actually, I'll let you pick the next place - somewhere other than here, actually. Give you the chance to set up an ambush, see how it goes..."
She gave him an amused snort. "If I really had my choice, we'd go play in the tunnels. I'm guessing that's out."
"For now," Nathan said easily, already thinking several steps ahead. "Anyway. Ought to go get this seen to - " He waved at his leg. " - seeing as though I don't have a healing factor. I'll catch you later."
"You need help getting down the hall?" Her voice left the comment ambivalent, neither overly concerned, nor overly amused. She grabbed her water from where it had ended up, and the towel still laying by the door. "I'm headed that way anyway."
"Wouldn't mind the company," he said with a laugh, heading towards the door, limping only a little. "Don't really need the help. And you might want to make sure you leave me at the medlab door. Let's not tempt Moira to growl at both of us, shall we?"
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