Pat re0n Pat re0n . c0m / NJMRIV
It's short I know. It took a while I know. My life sucks I know. God help me.
And now we focus on Strike's relationship with a young teen… No, wait! Not like that-!
Strike POV
I dodge the quick jabs aiming for my head, taking note of my opponent's stance.
They favor their right hand, they don't favor kicks all that much, their footwork could use some work, and their highly aggressive style is a quick way to tire themself out while not hitting anything. But I already knew all this, I've taught this person plenty of times already, and while they're getting better, their temper is still a big issue.
Taking advantage of an overextended swing, I immediately duck beneath the arm and close in. I wrap my arms around their torso and use my bigger frame and superior strength to throw them to the mat.
I block a knee that tries to hit my head and I immediately take them in a chokehold.
They struggle, back and forth they try to get out of my hold, but my grip is iron. 30 seconds in, they groan frustratedly and tap out.
I release them and they get up, swearing. "Fuck! God damn it!"
Barely out of breath, I get up too and try to calm them down. "You're still being overaggressive against an opponent that's better than you Sophia, you gotta switch up. You should also stop aiming for the head, it isn't the instant win button that you think it is."
(Wait… What was Strike's civilian name again?)
The young dark-skinned teenager whirls around and snarls at me, breathing heavily while sweat falls from her face. "Shut up Al! You're only winning cause I can't use my powers. If you try that shit again, I can just go shadow and beat the crap out of you."
Heh, 'Al', her nickname for me since Aldrin is too long for her to say.
Aldrin Luis, my civilian name.
For now anyway…
Sophia Hess looks a lot like her mother, with brown eyes, dark hair that's done in a ponytail, and a slender and athletic frame. The only difference other than the age is the expression in their eyes. One is mirthful, adventurous, and carefree, while the other is angry, vengeful, and hates losing at anything.
Guess which is which.
I sigh at her rage. "Sophia, I keep telling you not to-" But she interrupts me.
"Yeah yeah, 'To not be reliant on my power' but how does that make any fucking sense? I got powers, a weapon that I'll never lose."
"You don't know that."
"So why shouldn't I fucking use it in every fight?!"
I massage my forehead to try to stem the indignant anger rising in me.
Here we are, standing on a training mat at a hidden gym/hideout that we frequent, wearing gym clothes, and me training her in hand-to-hand combat. The gym itself looked worn down, the blue wallpaper ripped and falling apart, and the only light sources were the open window from above, showing the small light from noon at 5:00 PM, and two lightbulbs.
At least the gym equipment is in better shape, the punching bag to the West side has no holes in it and the dumbbells and barbells still look new.
She's the one that asked me to train her, she could at least heed my advice.
"It's training Sophia, I wouldn't teach you how to do this if I think it'll never come up."
She scoffs. "Pfft, whatever."
She walks over to the black leather couch on the East side of the gym and reaches into her bag that's on it. She pulls out a water bottle and gulps it down greedily.
Classic Sophia, thinks she can either beat the problem or ignore it. But this is the classic teacher and student relationship, a cocky little pissant with too much anger and not enough common sense and an older teacher who is wise beyond their years but not entirely happy with their life.
(Then something something…)
(Plotlines. Bonding. And Voila! Friendship.)
(Hey, I'm still working on it!)
"You seem more pissed off than usual," I noted, making my way to the couch and sitting down on it, far enough from her since I know she hates any physical contact that's not fighting. "You got an argument with your mom?"
"Why do you care?" She shoots back. "Trying to get in her pants?"
I resist the urge to roll my eyes, even the hint of an idea that another man might be interested in her mother and she get's all testy.
Daddy issues, 1 in every 3 teens in the world has it here.
Most of them have or will have superpowers.
"I told you, she's just my partner in the BBPD, nothing more."
"A likely story."
"It's the only story, and I see what you're trying, don't try to change the subject."
Grumbling, she answers my initial question. "...No, we're doing fine."
I hum in thought. If the problem doesn't lie with her family, and she always comes o me if it's Cape business, then that only leaves-
"School again?"
Judging by the slight twitch in her eye, I'd say I hit the jackpot with that.
"Well," I spread my arms as if waiting for somebody to shoot me. "Lay it on me."
And she does.
Standing up and pacing back and forth with angry steps, she vents her anger out on me.
I only listen with half an ear because I've heard this play a hundred times at this point. She complains about "those bitches" at school, her words not mine. She isn't being bullied per se, she could most likely kick their ass any day of the week. But she's already in hot water after the first time she beat the shit out of some jocks who were sent her way, and despite what she wants you to believe, she's incredibly thin-skinned.
A few well-spoken insults and she flies off into a rage. It pisses her off like no tomorrow that she can't hit them, so instead, I tell her to rant to me about it. It helps her calm down after a good spar too.
So she rants.
And rants.
And rants.
I shouldn't find this amusing, so I don't.
(Snrk.)
"-so I shadowed through her locker and put a paint bomb in there! That'll teach the bitch."
"Wait, what?" I stopped her there, I'm pretty sure my eyebrows shot up past my hairline too. . "You mean to tell me that you used your powers in public?!"
"Tch, nobody saw me."
"I- You-"
I couldn't even articulate how dumb that was!
"What if-!"
She cuts me off though. "No one saw me!"
"That's not the point Sophia!" Of all the irresponsible-. "What if there were cameras?! What if someone in there has powers that could tell when you used yours?! What if-"
She must enjoy cutting me off because she did it again. "Quit your whining! I can take care of myself, hell you taught me how to!"
"I taught you how to be smart! What you just did? That's the opposite of smart."
She didn't like that, not one bit.
But I'm not going to be dragged into an insult match with a teen. (But if I was I would've murdered her then, there are a lot of insults that didn't exist here in 2011.)
So I decided to speak to her in the language that she knows most of all.
I stand up and look her in the eye, I'm not an incredibly tall person but I am bigger than her. That fact is made more apparent when step closer and stare her down, the flash of annoyance inside me coming to the forefront. To her credit she doesn't back down, glaring up at me defiantly (Or maybe it's petulantly?).
"Break's over," I flatly state. "Back on the mat, you can use your powers this time if it makes you feel better."
Determination fills her face, knowing that she can't beat me, but she sure as hell is going to try.
"Fine!" She quickly moves back to the mat and faces toward me, already bouncing on her feet. "I'll kick your ass this time."
"If that's what you want to believe, sure," I replied as I calmly walked until I was standing only 8 feet away. I take a simple left lead stance, my face blank, my breathing steady, and my heart calm.
She's angry and still somewhat tired from our previous spar. I've already won, but she needs the lesson.
(Who doesn't love a good Sophia ass-kicking?)
Predictably, she attacks first.
She leads with the same move as she always does, a strong right hook. I easily block it and she follows up with a kick.
One thing I can say about her is that she's fast, and her aggressiveness has been something that I found good in a fight. She doesn't let up when she's trying to hit you, she'll try and try until one of them connects. If you're not good enough, then she's going to beat the shit out of you faster than you could beg for mercy.
Unfortunately, that also leads to tunnel visioning, if she can't hit someone no matter how fast she strikes, then she plans to just strike faster. She tires herself too quickly against an opponent that's her equal or better than her.
Left, right, up, and down, I block all her attacks easily, I can see her scowl get worse with every failed punch and kick. Growls escape her lips as she attacks with sheer ferocity. The movements were familiar to me, moves that I taught her. Attacks meant to debilitate, bruise, and disable opponents quickly, matching her fast striking fighting style.
I finally attack back, attempting to strike with a palm directly to her diaphragm.
She doesn't dodge, instead, she uses her power. My palm meets nothing but a nigh invisible black gas as she transforms into her Breaker state. The shadowy figure then passes right through me before rematerializing back into Sophia right behind me.
Also a note on her power usage, the ability to transform herself and any objects she has into a translucent shadowy mist that can pass through almost anything is a powerful tool in the right circumstances. She knows how to dodge with it and how to imbue long-range weapons with it as well to penetrate defenses.
But what she doesn't know is how to use it at close range other than dodging.
She could've easily transformed for a split second between strikes to get past my defenses but her control isn't that good yet.
Lesson for another time perhaps.
I don't even turn around to meet her, I just move my foot and back kick her with my left foot on her left knee. I don't break it but it still hurt her enough to drop to one knee. I lash out with the foot again to meet her head, she leans her head back quickly to avoid the strike, but I use the kick's momentum to spin myself around and do a spin kick with my right leg.
She turns gaseous again to dodge it and it moves back, trying to get some distance.
I don't let it.
I follow through with a small opening in my defense, waiting for her to take the bait.
She does.
Exiting her Breaker state, she feigns with a punch with her left arm and I feign a block. She then lashes out low with her leg, attempting to kick me off my feet.
Gotcha.
A small almost unnoticeable grin creeps up my face.
I step in close, too close to defend against, and I hit her right in the gut, her breath being knocked out of her.
I grab her by the arm and drag her to the floor, pinning her down with my knee holding down her arm behind her back, my hand holding her other arm down, and another hand grabbing her by the chin and twisting it to the side, putting her in a very uncomfortable and painful position.
"I win." With no smugness in my tone, no sir. (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)
"I can still go." She growls, her voice slightly slurred from my hold on her jaw.
A pull on her jaw just a bit more to the side eliminates those pesky thoughts of wanting to keep going. "Think you're fast enough to go shadow before I dislocate your jaw?"
A moment of silence passes before she sighs with defeat, the arm pinned down to the side tapping the floor.
I get up and watch as she winces and stretches her arm a bit, feeling sore. I offer her a hand up and after a few seconds of staring at it, she scoffs and takes it.
"Feel better?"
"I'd feel better if it was you on the ground…"
I chuckle. "Don't beat yourself up over it, I'm already doing that."
She punches me in the arm for that, but I do see the small smile on her lips as she does so.
(Progress!)
She's a rough and tough gal, young and impulsive, easy to anger and much easier to enrage.
But somewhere, deep down, she's a good kid.
"Well, I think that's good enough practice for today, you should get home before your mother grills me again to come find you."
Even though she nods, I still heard faint words from her lips. "Not like she'll notice."
Yeah, not a good relationship there yet.
Plenty of things need fixing.
As she packs her things and gets ready to leave, I say, "You know she does care for you right."
Pause.
"If she did then she wouldn't have dated that prick." She says while still packing.
"She made a mistake."
"Heh, you got that right."
"But you shouldn't hold that over her head forever."
She picks her bag up and faces me, an eyebrow raised. "I thought the lesson's over?"
"It is," I nod. "This is just advice from a friend."
She rolls her eyes and starts to walk away, before stopping briefly and saying over her shoulder, "Oh yeah, and you promised that I could go with you tomorrow to hit the Merchants. You looked like you were having too much fun without me."
"I was just glad that I didn't have to babysit anyone, no offense."
"Ha!" She continues to walk away and opens the door to the outside, a final word before she leaves. "Just don't slow me down, old man."
The door closes behind her and I chuckle alone in the near darkness at her brazenness.
(I sure hope that I wrote her likable enough, I'd like to change things up a bit. Move over Queen of Escalation, the Queen of… Uh… Meh, I'll think of something.)
I can't help but wonder what happens tomorrow.
There were some talks about a gun deal happening tomorrow, and while I loathe to bring Sophia straight to danger, I also know that this is the best way to teach her quicker, she might need the training after all...
Still, I guess I'll just have to watch her tomorrow, and hope that nothing bad happens.
(Ominous...)
Really sorry for the long delays but I'm not having fun in life. I like writing stories, but I don't like what happens outside of these. Escapism, it's a fun hobby.