DISCLAIMER (see, it told you I'd do it!)
Chapter 6: Moral Objectives
Anastasia
oOo
Location: Four Horsemen's Mansion, Crows Landing, Florida, USA
City Population: 251
Current time: 12:27 pm, Eastern
Current date: July 2, 2013
Current alias: None
It had been a month since Black tracked me down, pinned me down, and just about picked me up and brought me to Crows Landing.
My wrist had healed (with the help of a brace) and my black eye had gone away pretty quickly—though I had lost count of how many times I had to ice both during the day. At least through all that, I had learned one thing—I was not going to need to help Atlas with his punching skills.
Dylan and I spend hours catching up with each other, him telling me all about the Four Horsemen's grand acts and the whole FBI scandal, as I had been on the run when all this happened, and hadn't had much time to think about it or hear about it, really. He told me all about Alma, his French girlfriend, which fast became my new favourite thing to tease him about. He had yet to introduce me to her, but he assured me that I would like her.
I found this unlikely. I liked very few people when I first met them. McKinney was an exception.
Though I spent the majority of my time with Dylan, I also spent some time with the Horsemen, though I tried to keep my distance. They still seemed to be tense from everything they had been through, but I also figured they were itching to do some more magic, which they'd apparently been banned from doing in public. It seemed the hardest on Atlas, who obviously had what I liked to call Stage-Time Needies. I hadn't wanted to work with them while they were settling in, so I let them relax for a while and get used to everything.
I must have gone through a phase of pure oversight, however, as it was them who approached me about it one night.
oOo
I was downstairs on the couch in the living room on my iPhone in what some might call an odd position. I was lying with my feet over the back of the couch while my head dangled off over the side so I was upside-down.
All four Horsemen came trampling down the stairs one night after Dylan had just left the house for 'some quality time with Alma'. This, I thought, has got to be a euphemism.
"Umm… Anastasia, what are you doing?" Henley asked me.
Yes, somewhere along the way, I had started calling them by their first names instead of last, though it had been more in my head first than out loud. Much to their surprise, I might add. They had often asked me about why I used surnames with anybody Dylan, and I simply said it was habit. But at some point, I decided that if I was going to be kicking their asses (and apparently this was going to go two ways) then I might as well call them by their first names while I did.
Besides, they seemed perfectly content with using mine. Whenever they tried to shorten it, though, they were quickly corrected.
"Sitting on the couch and surfing the Internet. What's it look like I'm doing?" I said.
"I don't know," she replied.
"Anyways," Merritt interrupted, stretching out the word for an awkwardly long amount of time, "we were sort of wondering… weren't you supposed to be actually teaching us stuff?" I looked up from my phone and stared at him upside-down in slight wonder and confusion as he continued; "Because you haven't really been doing that, and we're supposed to be preparing for this mission that we haven't been told about yet."
I smiled at him and back-flipped into a sitting position in front of the couch before spinning to face them. They had become used to my little gymnastics displays by now, apparently, because none of them looked fazed.
"Ah, yes. We really must prepare for the mission that none of us knows about," I said sarcastically and in a posh British accent, but nobody looked amused. Well, maybe Jack, but only slightly. "Alright, fine." I dropped the accent. "I wanted to give you all a break from everything y'all've done to the FBI, maybe realize a little after a few near- and fake-death experiences before I started your training. And, in case you haven't noticed, I have been doing part of my job."
They all looked very, very confused. "Really?" Daniel asked. "All I've seen you doing so far is lazing around on your phone, watching movies, staying up late and getting up early. And, correct me if I'm wrong, here, but I don't think that's part of your job."
I smirked at him.
"No, all those aren't part of my job, so it's a good thing that I haven't been doing any of them. Well, I have, but not how you think." No change in expression. "Wow, guys, really? You think I've been slacking off? After all the time I spent on my toes, you'd think I would be able to even remotely consider the posibility of relaxing? I'm supposed to be protecting you, am I not?"
"Yeah," Henley stated, in a tone like 'well, duh!' that I wasn't really sure she thought about before she just spat out was on her mind.
"You guys are going on another mission, a pretty dangerous one from what we can all gather, are you not?"
"Yeah," Daniel said, and I was fairly certain he was mocking Henley. I would have laughed had I not just been accused by them.
"Well, I figured out what your mission is going to be, and because I did, you think that I haven't been protecting you?"
They didn't say anything, so I sighed, then pointed up at the banister on the second floor above the piano.
"Video monitor there, above the front doors, by the back doors, and one at the entrances to all the downstairs rooms." My finger pointed out to the general direction the monitors were in as I stated their locations. "Upstairs, I have cameras at all the outside entrances, windows and the balcony doors. Every one is programmed to recognize y'all, myself, Dylan, Alma and anyone from The Eye. If anybody that it doesn't know comes in, it will alert me, and only me, by sending a signal to my phone and to my Band."
They all looked a little shocked… before Daniel shook himself from it and spoke, his tone a little testy.
"So you've been spying on us? And what about watching TV and messing around on your fancy-dancy iPhone 5?"
He really knew how to get on my nerves. But I forced myself to not get up and give him a nice knock-out punch and relish in the crack his nose would make and the thud when he crashed to the floor. Yeah, that's how annoying he got.
"No, I can't actually see anything from the upstairs cameras unless I get a signal. So thank you so much for believing that I'd actually want to look at your face any more than I actually have to."
"Oh." Even his little expression of dumb realization made me agonizingly irritated to no end, but i chose to ignore it. Again. I don't know how long I can keep this up!
"When I'm watching TV, I'm usually checking out the downstairs feed from the last few hours to see if anybody has evaded the sensors, and the same goes for my time spent on my phone. It's easy enough to switch to a movie when I hear someone coming. The Eye didn't want you to know about the monitors yet, but I think you have the right, now." I rolled my eyes. "So, contrary to popular belief, it would seem, I spend most of my time making sure y'all are safe."
Once again, they didn't say anything. That was a really bad habit of theirs I had come to recognize.
"So… are you saying you'll start teaching us?" Jack finally said.
I looked up, going over my words and shrugged. "No, I didn't say that, but whatever your little hearts desire. We can start now, if you want. 'Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.' Henry Ford said that. I've always hated that quote." I stood, clapping my hands together, effectively startling the group. "Let's move the coffee table. We can practice down here."
oOo
It was an hour later and still nobody had come to accompany me downstairs. I had no idea it could take that long for any one person to change into more comfortable clothes. It took me five minutes to throw on a tank top, sweats and pile my hair into a ponytail high up on my head. Nobody was out yet by the time I had finished, so flopped on the couch and found myself watching 2001: A Space Odyssey in no time.
I was already a little less than half of the way through when Jack made his appearance downstairs. "Sheesh, how long does it take to get changed?"
He just rolled his eyes at me, and it seemed to be a habit we shared. "I didn't take long… it was Henley. She wanted my opinion on what she should wear—I believe she's still trying to figure it out."
I laughed at that, and he came to sit down next to me on the couch. I leaned back into his side, turning so that my feet were propped up on the arm of the couch and I crossed my arms over my chest. I felt him stiffen behind me at the same time I realized that this was totally, totally way outside one of those lines I drew.
And… I couldn't for the life of me think why not. It was the most comfortable, relaxed and trustworthy I had been in years. Also totally contradictory to the little speech I had made earlier about being on my toes all the time.
That was how the other three found us exactly thirty-two minutes later, still watching the same movie and still in the exact same position.
"Aww, look at you two," Henley teased when she saw us. "Warming up to each other so quickly-time really does fly! Don't you agree Merritt?"
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana," he responded.
I glared at both of them as they laughed, though it wasn't at all serious. "Does everyone visualize Duct Tape over your mouth this early into a conversation?"
Jack snorted behind me, and Merritt was holding back laughter while Daniel was trying very hard to look stern. Henley was the one who looked the most amused, actually.
I smiled at her, standing up."Come on, let's get started. Who wants to go first?" I looked around, and when nobody volunteered, I rolled my eyes. "They never told me I was teaching Kindergarten! Fine, have it your way. Daniel, you're going first. Don't worry, I don't bite. And we'll start off easy, m'kay?"
Everyone else went to the couch to watch as Daniel and I stood so that we were sideways to them.
"Alright, we'll start simple, but it's the simple stuff that's the most important. Let's start with just a shove and a pull, then some punches and slaps and knee-kicks and different types of pulls. That won't take long, so then we can move from that into a flip. And NO MAGIC for right now, alright?"
"You call flipping people the simple stuff?" Merritt questioned.
I glanced at him.
"You remember what I did to you a month ago when we first met? Well, that to me was simple. Except for the whole getting punched and getting my wrist dislocated. You owe me big time for that, Daniel, although much worse has happened to me."
He nodded a little sheepishly, and I thought this odd. "Yeah, sure."
"Alright. Now, now matter what, you always want to be grounded, and the best stance for that is en garde. So put one foot in front of the other, but spread out a little bit so that you're balanced on both sides. Bend both knees, like this, and have your hands up. Keep on your toes slightly, equal weight on each foot." I showed them the way to do it, and they nodded. "Why do you want to keep on your toes?"
"So you can move to and fro."
"Excellent. Now, the victim (that's you, Daniel) walks in." He did so. "Both hands on the shoulders, keep your elbows bent and shove just about as hard as you can, and send your energy out and up. Tighten the muscles in your upper arms-it'll help you for a lot of other moves, too. Keeps you from breaking a bone if there's too much momentum or your impact comes at the wrong angle."
I demonstrated on Daniel at what I liked to call a ten percent speed, though eventually decided they could take it all the way up to a run. The room was big enough, after all.
They'd perfected the move in maybe three minutes, though it was the simplest thing I knew. "Alright, now onto pulls."
Daniel grumbled something about having to be the assistant and it wasn't his job, and I sent a sly wink to Henley despite myself and slight distaste for her. She winked back and nudged Merritt.
"Hair pull. Hand up, raised high over your shoulder, bring it down hard right to the bone above the ear. Smack that hard and grab as much hair as you can get. Mind you, this works better on girls, 'cause guys in my experience are either bald or greasy. Next up-"
"Wait, aren't you gonna show us?"
"No, because after the wrist fiasco, I don't trust one of you not to smack me in the head. Really, you don't even need to practice." Merritt grumbled at my response and I knew it wasn't a very good one, but it was the hard truth. I showed them some more-ear pulls (I wasn't about to try this one with them, because it takes the same amount of force to rip somebody's ear off their head as peeling a green banana), nose pulls and wrist pulls.
I was right about them being simple, and my 'students' were quick learners, especially Jack, seeing as he already knew a ton of this stuff.
Jabs and knock-outs came next, and how not to hurt yourself when you do a backhand, then some stomach punches, knee to the groin, knee to the face (this accompanies a hair pull), knee to the stomach. And finally came the flip.
"This may seem difficult, but once you learn how, it's quite easy." I thought I heard Merritt scoff. "Same as always, start in en garde. Then the person comes at you and you wanna grab their arms, right down at the wrists, but make it well before they get close to you and keep your arms almost straight out, but not so that you snap 'em in half in something bad happens."
Daniel had by now begun to comply with what I told him to do (though he looked slightly scared at that) A: without any protests and B: before I told him to do anything. My personal guinea pig, and this greatly pleased the other three, I could tell. He was such a control freak, and it was the stranger who finally knocked some sense into him. I hoped maybe it might carry over outside of me demonstrating a stomach punch.
I decided to explain everything before I did a flip, because they're hard to do in slow motion. Gravity tends to catch up with you eventually, and by 'eventually' I mean 'at lightning speed'.
"Once you've got that, bend the knees and lift your back leg up on your toes for leverage, and here's where you bring your head down. And I cannot stress this enough: BE CAREFUL. Your head's gotta be at just the right angle, otherwise you'll shatter your spine."
"You keep saying this is simple as though it will be easy to do and we won't die," Merritt stated. I shook my head and laughed silently, choosing not to respond-I would never admit this was because I didn't have anything to say.
"If you do this fast enough, your opponent will do all the work for you. They should be right up by you now, and your head should be down now so that you head-butt them in the stomach. They'll double over, you roll your head towards your chest and arch your back up. Pull their arms down and then forwards in quick succession, ducking under them and squaring your shoulders. If you do it properly, then you should be able to…"
I trailed off as I flipped Daniel over my back in one smooth motion, where he landed on the ground with a thud, very much similar to the one I had imagined when I mind-punched him earlier. I laughed a little at his apparent pain, then went around to help him up.
"Sorry, Daniel. You wanna try it on me?"
This idea obviously sounded appealing, because he smirked and shrugged a little—I had learned that he wasn't one to show that he liked another person's ideas, so I had to learn to read him. This was not something I couldn't do, but he had proven to be difficult, being the arrogant control freak that he was.
And as the lesson continued, I was fairly certain that some of the bruises I ended up with might have been on purpose.