Disclaimer: I own nothing

:}

Trina woke up to find every muscle in her body hurting. This was not what she'd expected. After they'd sat in the jacuzzi for a while, Jade had offered to train her a bit. The goth instructed her to do some basic kata's to see where she was. All Trina did were basic kata's, basic maneuvers. Jade had her do several, taking about half an hour to cycle through them all. Towards the end, Jade had her do them again, but as if she was fighting for her life. Then came the corrections. Every move had to be held while Jade shifted her stance, or where she held her hands, or body positions, or whatever. Jade was a perfectionist.

The words Jade had spoken came back, sounding a lot less like Jade and more like some other woman. "Power comes from the technique. If you're not true to the technique, you lose power. But at the same time, we have to accept that no two people have the same bodies. Except maybe twins. I hate twins. But anyways. Once we know your body, we can adjust the moves and technique to better serve your frame. That's where your power will come from." Jade had lectured her.

Jade reminded her about what they were doing, and why they were doing it, several more times as she continued to go over the most basic moves, again and again. Trina was amazed how sloppy she seemed under Jade's careful eyes. Jade didn't care about teaching her new stuff. At least not yet. Jade was focused on her doing everything far better than she'd been doing it up until that point.

"You will know the techniques, and teach them. But that's not enough. You need to know your body, how it moves and how it reacts. When your done, you will know your body well enough to know when and how to adjust to the changes it goes through, both in a fight, and due to age." Jade had said. So here she was, the next morning, and she was hurting.

'Now I see why she needs help." Trina thought, as she pulled her aching body from the bed and moved slowly to take her shower. 'I do Yoga, dance, and martial arts, and this is how I felt after three hours of her training. The boy's might not make it.'

One shower later, and Trina was starting to move more naturally. She still ached, but her muscles had relaxed some, so there was less stiffness. Trina felt, if she took it easy, she'd be able to help Stan with his going away classes tonight and Friday night. She hoped Jade would be there, so they could introduce her, and so Stan could give her pointers on not overworking the students.

"Trina, what happened?" Tori asked. Then, with an evilish smirk "Did she break you?"

"I'm not the one she wants to break." Trina said. Then quickly added "It's just hard to keep up with her. She has no idea how much I can do. Three hours felt okay, but once we stopped, it cough up with me quickly. Should have soaked in the jacuzzi after the training session."

"It looked like you were only covering the basics." her father said. Both sisters jumped at the sound of his voice. He was down stairs, having his morning meal. Neither expected him to be there.

"Yea. Apparently, the higher your belt, the less flaws you're allowed in your style. Jade saw things I don't think Stan noticed. She knows her stuff, just not the people she's training." Trina said.

David Vega watched his daughter as she slowly moved to get cereal. With Holly's decision to not cook breakfast for anyone but herself, the reliance on cold cereal had grown. Trina was hurting like cadets after their first real training session. 'How hard was she working Trina last night.' He was amazed.

"My god, I knew Jade was a perfectionist, but doesn't she know how this would affect you?" Tori asked,

"That's her biggest problem. She didn't know how this would affect me. Imagine if I didn't do Yoga? Or the other physical conditioning I do. Jade would have left me too sore to move today." Trina started to rant. "She can't do that with the boys. Their ego wouldn't take it. No, Jade needs to step back and take it a lot easier on them if she's going to be a great Sensi."

"So tell her. Isn't that why you've been paired with her?' David asked.

"Sure, tell Mandy Walker to take it easy." Trina said, and immediately regretted it. She wasn't supposed to be telling people about that.

"Mandy Walker? The same girl who hospitalized three of her MMA opponents? That girl is a killing machine. I couldn't believe she lost to Shelby Marx. I mean, one second, she had her down. It was over. Then she'd in the triangle choke." David was getting worked up. He noticed the looks on his daughters faces, and calmed down. "We follow that stuff down at the station."

"So she lost, and that's why she can't hurt people anymore?" Tori asked, looking hopeful.

"No." Trina said. "I think she couldn't hurt Shelby because she looked like you. She considers you a friend, and has trouble hurting her friends." Tori looked confused for a second, but let it go.

"That makes sense. Otherwise, Robbie might not be walking around right now." Tori said.

"So Jade's Mandy Walker, huh? Wait until Gary hears about this." David said. "Wait, that means she's the one taking over at the youth center, right? And she doesn't know how to hold back in training?" The officer paled just a bit. "How bad is this going to get?'

"Dad, relax. I'll be there to keep her from going overboard. I'll talk to her today, make sure she knows the limits of our boys, and hopefully no one will get hurt." Trina said. "What could go wrong?"

"That's exactingly what I'm afraid of." their father said.

The drive to school was quiet. For a good three minutes Tori seemed lost in thought. Then she looked at her sister and asked "What aren't you telling me?"

"Jade hasn't come to terms with her bisexuality, or the fact that she'd crushing on you hard. It cost her the fight against Shelby Marx." Trina said. "Or maybe you're referring to how I'm going to need you to go along with my plans to keep her under control."

Tori tried valiantly to make some kind of sound, but all words had failed her. She had no idea how she felt about Jade's attraction to her. She knew she didn't want to be a part of Trina's plans, but suspected she was already in deep. Mostly, she didn't know if she could feel that way about the goth. While she was as subject to the instant desires that came from seeing a hot guy as she'd always been, she'd grown past the point of gawking at Beck. Except for the time he washed his car with his shirt from his back. Or the time...

But Jade was her reason for not kissing beck, for never dating him. Even with her blessing, Tori couldn't bring herself to date the boy. Jade had a hold on her that she couldn't deny. She just needed to figure out what it was before this got out of hand. 'Jade AND Trina involved, It's probably already out of hand.'

Jade, for her part, arrived at School a little early. She didn't like rushing through her morning routine, but she felt she needed to do some damage control before too long. Cat knew about Mandy Walker. Cat's roommate was a fan. There was little chance of her being recognized, but that didn't mean that she was out of the woods yet. They knew about Adam. The Goomer he had trained turned out to be some dork named Goomer. Jade had to be careful. Sam wasn't the kind to be fooled easaly. It was a mater of time before she connected the dots. Jade West, sister to the best MMA trainer in the western hemisphere, and Mandy Walker, the mystery girl who almost beat Shelby Marx. It took only one assumption to make the connection. And then Cat would tell the world, probably post it on the slap.

Jade found Cat sitting outside, talking to Robbie. The nerdy boy jumped when he saw her, but Jade ignored him. Whatever he was up to, Jade would deal with it later. Now she needed to talk to Cat. Get her cover story in before the next mass posting.

"Robbie, leave." she commanded. He looked at Cat for a second, then did as he was asked, moving to where he could return if needed, but was out of earshot. "Okay, Cat, Adam was Mandy Walkers trainer. I met her once, and yes, she does kinda resemble me. But you tell your roommate this. I'm not Mandy Walker. Got that?"

"What?" Cat said, with all innocence. The artificial redhead blinked as she stared at Jade, seemingly lost to whatever the goth was saying.

"I said...Forget it. I'll write it down for you." Jade said. She pulled out a sheet of paper and started writing the note. She even addressed it, so Cat would be more likely to deliver it to the right person.

"Is this about that ma person Sam was all up about?" Cat asked.

"It's MMA." Jade said, reflexively. "M. M. A."

"I know how it's spelled." Cat replied. Jade groaned. This was a waist of time. Jade handed Cat the note, and left to find Beck. She needed someone to bitch to.

Robbie returned, a little nervous. "What was that about?' He asked.

"She's still pretending she was never that Mandy chick." Cat said. "Lets finish transferring the pictures."

Robbie looked around nervously. Cat was often as dense as she seemed, but could put evidence together better than anyone he knew, and make astounding deductions from them. She'd told him yesterday that Jade had fought MMA, and that she needed some pictures to confirm a theory.

Cat's voice cut the air. "Yep, Jade's gay." Robbie looked over to see her looking wazzed. She started ranting "You'd think she'd have the decency to look at me like that." She noticed Robbie staring at her, mouth agape. "It's not that I'm interested, but I'd like to think I'm pretty enough for her to look." Cat explained. "She's never once undressed me with her eyes."

Lost in the absurdity of the situation, the puppeteer realized he was now in deep, with no escape in sight. 'I'd better get a hug out of this.'

:}

Poor Robbie. Still being played. Cat is just a bit insecure, and Trina has her work cut out for her.

So should Robbie get that hug?