Unexpected Touch
Chapter 3
The idea had been for both teams to do some light sparring following the match between the captains, but after colliding brutally in the ring, suffice it to say neither captain was in a mood conducive to directing their teams together through cooperative combat drills. Charlie Team had exited the gym, probably to return to their hotel, immediately following the fight while Alpha stayed to get in some weight training and combat practice before calling it a day.
Having watched Captain Bohan limp out out of the gym with the help of one of his subordinates with his arrogant tail tucked firmly between his legs was incredibly satisfying. Piers knew that ego aside, Charlie Team's captain was in no physical condition to run the practice anyway what with having just gotten the snot beaten out of him. He smirked, thoroughly pleased with the state the captain had left in. That smirk soon fell from his face when he noticed his own captain's movements becoming increasingly slow and stiff as the practice went by.
His captain usually spent over 30 minutes on the treadmill, running a brutal pace as a warm up. Today, he ran for only a few minutes before giving a sigh and changing the speed of the machine to something more of a brisk walk. It didn't really raise any alarms in the sniper's mind at first. The captain definitely had already had one hell of a warm up with the no-holds-barred fight just a short while earlier.
Concern only began to niggle away at his mind when Piers noticed his captain start and then immediately end his generally thorough weight lifting routine with a grimace, a quiet pained grunt escaping the man's throat. Instead, the captain decided to return to the mats where he started some slow, careful stretching as the rest of his team continued with their own exercise regiments. Keeping a watchful eye over the captain quietly stretching on the mats, Piers continued his circuit on the weight machines.
Eventually, as the members of Alpha Team finished their individual exercises and weight training, they returned to sit with their captain on the mats, joining their captain in stretching until all members were ready for the next stage of their usual physical training. They patiently waited long minutes, exchanging quiet glances with one another as their captain continued his slow stretches. They pretended to not notice when their captain would wince or close his eyes against stray pangs of pain. Eventually, the captain stood and motioned for the rest of the team to join him.
The team remained quiet as they stood, waiting for instruction.
"Listen, men. I appreciate your good attitude today. It's been a strange day. So we are gonna keep the lesson simple and call it an early day."
Their captain paused a moment as the team hummed and smiled their approval of his plan.
Motioning Piers to stand next to him, Chris asked, "Have any of you ever heard of an exercise called 'Push Hands'?" After a couple silent head shakes, the captain continued, "Push hands is an exercise used in some Chinese martial arts. It requires no strength or fancy moves. It is just requires focus and concentration. Piers, stand across from me, about right here."
Piers moved to the space that his captain pointed to, about 2 to 3 feet in front of his captain. Piers fell naturally into a stance that mirrored his captain, feet shoulder-width apart, and body bent slightly at the hips, allowing his center of gravity to sink.
"Good. Now you're going to put your arms out and meet my hands with yours." Obediently, Piers did so, meeting his captain's hands half way between them. "So in this exercise you are trying to gently take control of the space between us. As your opponent pushes against your arms, you are not going to try to stop them. You are going to redirect them and then seize control by either pushing their own hands out from between you or pushing them down. They will then respond to your movements by redirecting you. Does that make sense? The point isn't to overpower your opponent. It's to use their movement, their force, and turn it to your own advantage."
He stopped and looked at Piers, putting his hands up between his body and Piers. "Now, slowly push my hands out of the way as if you were trying to attack me. Remember, this isn't about speed or force. Go as slow and methodically as you want. I will match your speed. This is a dance. Not a fight."
Piers raised his arms, reaching out in slow, deliberately motions to place his hands between his captain's and push them down as though he were going to attempt to strike his captain. As Piers pushed the man's hands downward, his captain rotated his arms, maintaining contact between himself and Piers at the wrists, and rolling his hands and bringing up so they were now inside Piers' wrists. He then began to gently, slowly move Piers arms apart with the outside of his palms and press forward in a mock attempt to attack Piers through the opening he had just made, allowing his upper body to learn into the movement and give strength to the motion.
"Now, pause." Piers obeyed and allowed his body to freeze. Without changing the positioning of their bodies, the Captain looked over to the three other members of the team. "See, we haven't really moved. Our feet have remained in place, in this strong, balanced stance. We are only moving our arms and our upper bodies. You don't want to step forward or back. Since you are redirecting rather than fighting against each other, all movement can be contained to this space."
Their captain paused, as he thought. "Think of it almost like water. It doesn't break apart. It just rises and falls as it moves around obstacles."
Gesturing with a nod of his head down at their arms, the captain continued, "And you want to remain in constant contact either at the forearms, the wrists, or the hands. That contact will change as you respond to each other's movements, but you don't want to break it. Keeping that contact will help you know what your opponent is doing as they are doing it, even without seeing it, so you can respond quicker. You can see Piers' hands are still connected to mine even though I redirected his attack. Now, because of that contact, it won't take any speed or strength for him to redirect my hands, even though I have a clear opening to strike him."
Piers saw his captain return his blue eyes to him. "Let's keep going."
And so Piers and his captain 'danced', as his captain had put it. Gently weaving back and forth, moving together as they attacked, retreated, and redirected again and again. From his peripheral vision, Piers could see Carl and Andy begin practicing the exercise together as Ben watched Chris and Piers. After a few minutes - or was it an hour? Piers had truly lost his sense of time as he danced with his captain - the captain pulled away, bestowing Piers with a satisfied smile.
"Very good. Now practice with Ben."
Piers returned the smile and turned to Ben. Ben gave Piers and then their captain a long pointed look that Piers ignored before they took their stances and began the exercise.
Occasionally, Piers heard Chris correct someone's stance or movements but their captain seemed pretty well satisfied overall with everyone's performance.
"I think what I like best about this exercise is that it is one of very few combat exercises in which the point is not to hurt your partner. This exercise never has to be painful, even if you mess up. I'd even go so far as to say that if it's painful, you're not understanding the point of it. With this, you never have to worry about getting hurt," the captain mused absently, almost as if he was talking to himself.
Something about his captain's musings roused the sniper from the exercise. He wasn't entirely sure what it was, but he was knew that their normally stoic captain had just given part of himself away. He tucked the words away for later speculation before bringing his attention back to the exercise and his opponent.
Some time passed with Alpha Team practicing, trying different movements to see what was effective and how their partner would respond under their captain's watchful gaze. Piers' concentration was only broken when he heard the distant ring of his captain's BSAA cell phone drifting from a black duffel bag against the back wall some feet away. He watched his captain groan, eyes turned skyward, before walking off to fetch the ringing phone.
"Take a break, guys," he called over his shoulder to his soldiers.
Piers and Ben broke apart, while Carl and Andy did the same. They sat and lounged on the mats at they waited for their captain to finish his phone conversation.
"Well, that didn't take long." Their captain's irritated voice drew the attention of his team as he paced along the back wall, his phone pressed to ear.
The captain paused as he listened to the other person on the line.
"Jill, it was his fucking idea. You think I wanted for him to beat my face in in front my team?"
So Director Jill Valentine knows about the fight, Piers thought. Well, that's not good.
There was a pause.
"No, I don't think it was professional in the slightest."
Another pause.
"Well, then maybe you should be explaining all of this to Dave." Piers eyebrows rose as his captain spat the man's name out.
There was another pause. All of Alpha's eyes were on their captain, watching with morbid interest as the captain attempted to defend his earlier actions. Clearly the man was not getting away with fighting another captain in what can only be described as a bare-knuckle brawl in front of a small crowd of soldiers.
The captain was quiet for a while as Director Jill Valentine lectured him.
Piers saw his captain start to speak, but then hesitate. He watched the man draw in a breath, pausing before continuing in a quieter, slightly remorseful voice, "Okay, maybe, maybe ... I might have ... lost my temper." His captain closed his eyes for a moment as he paused again.
"But he deserved it, Jill!" his captain practically pouted, his expression drawn down in a childish sulk.
Piers' eyes widened and he felt his mouth fall open slightly. He had never seen his captain pout before. So this is what the Legendary Chris Redfield looked like when being scolded by the equally legendary Jill Valentine. Not that Piers could blame his captain. The petite woman scared him. The sniper never wanted to be on the receiving end of her wrath.
"Excuse me? Oh, hell no I'm not apologizing. Fuck him." The anger was back in the captain's voice. "I don't care who he whines to. He can suck a turd from my ass with a garden hose. I'm not apologizing."
The captain let out a barking laugh at whatever was said on the other end of the line.
"Just seven stitches? I must be losing my touch." Piers could make out a smug smile creeping across the captain's lips.
A pause. More talking from the other end of the phone.
"Well, his nose was crooked already. That's hardly my doing. If anything, it looks better now. You'd think he'd be grateful."
The captain's pacing had brought the man closer to where Alpha was watching from the mats. Piers could hear the annoyed voice on the other end of the phone. Piers could even make out the words as the voice raised in irritation - Do you think you're funny?
"I think I'm hysterical," the captain laughed. Piers felt a smile tugging at his lips.
Piers couldn't make out anymore said from the other side of the line as the captain had turned and was pacing away from Alpha Team, back the way he had come.
"Douchebag," a voice stated flatly beside the sniper.
Piers turned in surprise to regard Carl. Carl wasn't one for saying such things. That was more of Andy's forte.
"What?" Carl asked, eyeing Piers' surprised face. "He is! The man goaded Captain into a fight, and when he got his ass handed to him, he ran to the higher ups like a whingeing baby. Can you think of a better description?"
Andy laughed in delight at Carl's description.
"How about 'whiny bitch'?" This time it was Ben who surprised Piers with his comment.
Piers laughed in spite of himself, and he heard the rest of the team join in. He didn't find it funny in the least the trouble his captain was in, but their descriptions were apt.
A long groan of frustration drew their attention back to their captain.
"You know what? Fine!" the man spat. "I'll apologize. You happy? The Board happy? Everybody happy? Because I wouldn't want anyone to be unhappy!" Without waiting for a reply, the captain ended the call and cursed at his phone, looking like he wanted to throw the damn thing against a nearby wall.
While the rest of the team had turned to regard something else - anything else - in the gym to give their captain some semblance of privacy, Piers couldn't drag his eyes of the man.
His captain's hold on his temper was tenuous at best at the moment. His expression was pissed. His body language was pissed. His hands were balled into fists that looked ready to strike anyone that got too close.
Piers' breath caught in his throat when the man snapped around his head to face the team, landing direct eye contact with the sniper. It took more self control than Piers was comfortable admitting not to flinch or avert his eyes.
"Alpha Team! Dismissed!" And with that, the captain angrily turned on his heel to grab his duffel bag before stalking off toward the locker room.
Another chapter posted. I clearly am not one for writing long chapters.
Hopefully the description of the exercise wasn't too confusing.
Anyway, let me know what you think. I'd love to hear any thoughts.
