[open] Catch-All for the Remainder of August

[tempredmental]

who: Keith & YOU
what: Various things... training, exploring town, Perimeter Guard stuff, whatever! Open to backdated amnesia stuff if desired, just let me know.
when: Can go all the way back to the beginning of August if desired, but definitely carries through until September 1st.
where: Around town!
warnings: None right now, but will edit and add if needed.

Top levels below for things I already know are coming. Feel free to make your own if you want something specific! Hit me up if you want to plot. I'm open! duches77

I can thread in just about any style. I'll match yours. :)

Comments

[tempredmental]

"Yeah, sure."

It wasn't long at all, and he had moved over to the spot he had taken over for the two of them. Well... he could appreciate her aesthetic. It kind of matched him, oddly enough, but he was wearing pants instead.

"Okay. We should warm up first."

He nodded for her to sit on the mat.

"I'll coach you through some stretches."

[de_evilise]

Red and black was definitely her thing too. As directed, she trotted over to sit down on the map in front of him, "All right, sounds good." She might be a horrible clutz, but she was pretty limber; and she was used to doing warm up exercises, though not necessarily the same ones Keith would show her in, so she won't hurt herself doing stretches at least.

Hopefully.

[tempredmental]

Well, at least the warm up was okay. He went through several of them, not sure of the level of her experience with anything athletic, but each time she showed signs that she seemed to know what she was doing, Keith upped the level a little. They're training as Paladins hadn't gone well the first few times because Hunk and Pidge hadn't really been fighters to start with, so getting tossed into a high level situation had been disastrous. He was attempting to avoid a repeat of that here. Nothing, though, was overly complicated. Warm up stretches tended to be pretty simple by their nature anyway.

"Okay." Now came the interesting part. "Have you done any kind of fighting at all? Even just playing around with friends or siblings?"

[de_evilise]

Marinette rolled her shoulders a bit, stretching- stopping short at Keith's question. Urrgh. This... is definitely the part she hated most about being a 'superhero. Having to lie to friends. "Oh.. no no, nothing like that. I'm an only child, and I've never really roughhoused with my classmates. The most I've done is ..well, I ran track a little."

Yeeeeeeeeah... Sorry Keith, if it helps, she feels bad about lying.

[tempredmental]

Keith shrugged. He had no reason at the moment not to believe what she said at face value, so he didn't push.

"Okay, so we'll start easy," he said. Besides, there were situations where natural talent kicked in, too. "We can pick it up depending on how easy it is for you to learn." He motioned for her to stand next to him. "We'll start on form, then move to targeting. Those are the most important pieces. If you have the right movement and hit the right spot, the amount of strength you have won't matter as much."

[de_evilise]

She was so glad for that too. She was a poor liar on her best day.

"Gotcha," she clambered up to her feet, giving one more stretch and listening carefully. "Form? That's like ..er.. a stance before fighting, right? Or something like that?" she was going to have to be even more careful here, and make sure to 'misstep' more than once. Though she laughed a little at the latter.

"That's good - I'm not exactly particularly strong." At least not as plain squishy Marinette. Still, she jokingly posed to make a muscle and.. well she isn't super buff but she wasn't super wimpy either.

[tempredmental]

Keith chuckled a little, and nodded.

"You'll do fine."

When it came to something like this, Keith was surprisingly bold about touching someone. As he showed her some positions and motions, he was perfectly fine with just reaching over and correcting her form by pushing or pulling or just maneuvering her arm or leg into the right spot.

[de_evilise]

"I'm glad you have faith in me, at least~!" She chuckled.

Yeah, in all seriousness she at least wasn't a hopeless case. And, she should have expected the touching, since any instructor would do the same, but she still jumped in surprise the first time he reached over and adjusted her stance, giving a little embarrassed blush as she corrected herself.

She was taking his instruction very seriously - this would be an actual instruction, after all, and she never had a person officially show her anything. So this would actually help improve herself, and she was all for that, "Like this?" She asked anxiously, standing properly this time, though she was still a tiny big tense.

[tempredmental]

He nodded.

"You're a quick study," he said. "That's good." He noticed the tension, though. "Try not to be nervous. If you tense up like that, you could hurt yourself. Try to stay loose."

After showing her a few basic moves and positions, he wanted to teach her how to aim. So, he grabbed a couple of pads for himself to put on his hands so she could take a few swings without hurting either of them.

Hopefully, she'd pick up on targeting her hits as quickly as getting the right body positions.

[de_evilise]

"Right, sorry." Marinette cleared her throat, doing a few more stretches to shake off the tension and ending with a little bounce on her toes.

Aiming was easy peasy - she couldn't fake that if she tried. Well, unless he asked her to throw a ball or something. She looked thoughtful for a second, and then took one of the stances he taught her - untensed again and tossed the first punch which -barely- connected. The second one had barely any weight behind it.

Turns out she didn't -have- to fake throwing punches - she was concentrating so much on trying not to hit properly, she wasn't really hitting properly anyway.

[tempredmental]

Keith nodded as she worked on staying loose, and then took his own stance to brace himself against the hits... that he didn't really need to brace for... He watched her make a few attempts, trying to see what the issue might be. She seemed to be concentrating really hard, though.

"Okay... hang on." He backed up a bit. "You're thinking too hard. You have to get out of your head."

[de_evilise]

That.. was easier said than done! Though she exhaled, scratching her head, "All right.." Yeah, focusing on trying to fake her punches and swings was definitely not working. "Let me try again." She took a few breaths, trying to loosen up. Get out of her head, huh? It was hard not to think about what she was doing, but she'd make the attempt at least.

[tempredmental]

Keith nodded, and settled in again, ready for her to start.

"It's easier to let go," he said. "Trust me. Follow your instincts, and it won't be as hard as you think." Without knowing, Keith had just basically given Marinette the green light to do what she wanted without him suspecting otherwise about her abilities. He was visibly confident that she could do this if she wasn't thinking so hard. He didn't know she was thinking so hard to avoid revealing a secret that she could actually potentially do this because of some secret identity, but rather he thought she was nervous about making sure she got it right on the first try.

[de_evilise]

Follow her instincts, huh? She had to fight to keep from laughing at that realization. WELL that made things easier at least. And, to be fair, she -hated- to let people down in anything she was participating in so she tended to focus extra on it, even if it was just training for the first time.

"O-okay," it should be fine, right? She closed her eyes briefly, took a deep breath and let it out again. Right, totally fine. This time she opened her eyes again, taking the loose stance Keith showed and brought her hands up, ready to begin training again, giving him a small, nervous nod. "Ready."

It must be a combination of his lessons and natural talent, because there was a visible difference in her performance this time. She was still pulling her swings a little, mostly out of habit, but she was at least on point with her aim and hits.

[tempredmental]

Keith wasn't going to press about her pulling her swings in practice, but he might point out to her later that she shouldn't be afraid to go full force in a real situation. He smirked a little as he noticed the improvement.

"That's it," he said, encouraging her to keep going. It had been a while for him since he'd trained with someone else like this, without some sort of robotic drone fighting against them. It was kind of nice to go 'old school', so to speak. It was like practicing with Shiro again when Keith had first joined the Garrison. It was nice moment of nostalgia for him, and he couldn't help the small smile in response.

[de_evilise]

She couldn't help but smile back - partly because he had a nice smile, and partly because she was pleased she was so far not being a total lame and hopeless case. He was a good instructor.

Even her hardest punches weren't all that though, but she at least felt okay about hitting a little bit harder. "So have you trained others like this before too?" It felt like he was experienced in this kind of thing, though they never really discussed it at length last time they spoke.

[tempredmental]

Keith shook his head.

"I haven't trained someone before, but this was how I learned," he said. "I don't mind sharing what I know, though." He'd learned a lot informally before getting trained officially as part of the Garrison. "Shiro taught me."

A lot of Shiro's base style could be seen in Keith's base style as well, but obviously they both had adapted other moves in based on the experiences, strengths, and weaknesses that varied between them over the years since Shiro had first shown Keith how to fight. It was those base moves, though, that he had started showing Marinette. Anything additional could easily be adapted to fit her own needs and abilities down the road.

Mostly, though, Shiro had started training Keith as a way to get him to focus and expel some extra pent up energy to avoid Keith getting into trouble somewhere else for blowing up at someone.

[de_evilise]

"Especially since you're getting home-cooked meals in return, right?" Marinette teased. Though she slipped up a bit - and not even intentionally this time when he mentioned someone else. Surprise distracted her and she swung a little over-hard, whiffing the pad and over-extending her balance, "Whoops-!" Yea, maybe she should pay more attention when she's chatting during training too.

She has to take a step to recover though, sheepish, "Sorry -- Shiro? Is he a pilot too?" Or family or mentor or -- it could be anything really.

[tempredmental]

Keith saw her over-swing and his instincts made him lean back automatically.

"Woah!"

He blinked at her surprise, wondering why that was so shocking as he nodded in response.

"Yeah, like me. We've known each other for a while now. It's because of him I joined the Garrison."

[de_evilise]

"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" Marinette hastily backed up, looking sheepish. And embarrassed. Mostl embarrassed. Frankly it wasn't really that surprising a statement, but she'd for some reason thought that Keith hadn't gotten trained himself - which was an even sillier thought, now that she considered it. Everyone -- well usually -- got training from SOMEONE. Eventually.

But what really threw her off is the fact that her follow up question would have been if his friend was here as well, and that had potential of being an unpleasant topic.

[tempredmental]

"No, no... it's okay." He chuckled. "You didn't hit me." He settled back into his stance, and nodded for her to keep going if she wanted. "It's fine. We can keep going if you want."

He didn't seem to out of sorts to talk about Shiro if she wanted to, either.

[de_evilise]

She was still a bit embarrassed, but she let out a relieved sigh that she hadn't hit him by accident. Still, at the encouragement she slipped back into her stance again, resuming her punch-swings more carefully.

"So you've known him that long - I guess he's like your mentor or something?" Even more cautiously, "Is he..here?"

[tempredmental]

"Something like that," Keith said. "He's become a good friend, though. He got me out of a tough spot back home." He nodded at her question. "Yeah, he is. He's up on Floor 15 at the apartment complex, though we've been considering getting something a little more private. It's a bit much for both of us to be crowded into those communal units like that." He shrugged a bit. Their reasons were different, but Keith didn't feel right giving Shiro's reasons.

[de_evilise]

She could understand that. She wouldn't press on that matter anyway, they had their reasons after all. "That's pretty lucky, having someone from back home here too. Did he show up after you, or was he here already..?" She asked curiously, refocusing her attention on the punchpads.

She glanced up at him curiously, "Really? Huh, I've been saving up to do the same, actually. My roommates are nice and all but..."

[tempredmental]

"We got here around the same time, actually," he said. "Probably within a few days of each other."

Keith nodded a bit at her comment about her roommates. "Yeah, it's nothing personal, really. Most of the people on my floor are okay. I just need some space, you know?" Keith was something of a loner. It was awkward being so crowded in with that many people so often and not having any real area to close off to himself. "And, well... Shiro and I know each other. And we work together back home. So, it won't be so bad sharing a place with him to cover the costs."