10278/Spa-r Day

Spa-r Day
Date of Scene:	01 December 2019
Location:	Turtle Lair, Williamsburg
Synopsis:	Leonardo and Pippi spar in the Lair's Dojo with Pippi's new gauntlets, 'Trial and Error'. Leonardo tests Pippi's skill, control, and speed but might bite off more than he can chew when an unexpected memory resurfaces. And then they have slurpees.
Cast of Characters:	Pippi, Leonardo

---

Pippi has posed:
    In a hole in the ground lived a family. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing to sit on or to eat; it was The Lair, and that means comfort.

    One such member of the family, extended through various forms of hangers-on and partial unofficial adoptions was hard at work running through her forms. She has earbuds tucked into her ears today, her gauntlets strapped to her arms as she draws her body through the altered kata designed for her. She was smaller than the others, but quick on her feet and agile, and with her super strength, it somewhat made up for her lack of skill.

    Her kata have also picked up in pace in the last few months, eager to please her newfound family with her progress, when Pippi wasn't patrolling or distracted, or asleep, she would try to train.

Leonardo has posed:
Even the turtle family celebrates Thanksgiving. Splinter may have his origins in Japan, and the turtles themselves brought up with a mixture of Japanese and American influences, but they have always celebrated the things they had to be thankful for. This year, the dinner for the family was larger than usual. The family itself is larger than usual.

Of course, it's meant more training on the part of at least some of them in order to balance out the extra calories, Leonardo of course among them. While there appears to be no danger of them putting on any visible weight, best not to imagine a fat ninja turtle.

The blue-banded leader, after a gaming session with Mikey, enters the dojo area where all of the training and practice takes place. He finds he is not alone.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi had a lot to learn, and had quietly commented at the time that she had never seen so much food in one place. And when she got to say what she was thankful for, she had said, with a quiet seriousness, her new family.

    Today she was happily working off the extra gravy and servings of stuffing, and actively at that, ducking beneath imagined blows, slinging punches with ease as she goes.

    If it were down to a no-holds-barred fight, she might just be terrifying.

Leonardo has posed:
Leonardo's mouth moves, but nothing is coming out of it. Or, that might be the case if those earbuds are really playing the music loud in the dog's head. She might spot a green arm waving out of the corner of an eye, however.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi catches the movement, and turns, her arms raised up -- and she spots Leonardo. She feels her ears turn pink, and she gives a huff of breath, pulling the earbuds out embarrassedly. "Leo!" she greets him, her tail giving a wag and she embarrassedly runs the back of her neck. "Sorry, was I being too loud? Taking up too much time?"

Leonardo has posed:
"--PI! HEY!"

She'll catch the tail end of Leonardo calling out her name again, just in time for it to sound like he's shouting at her. The arm lowers and he steps further into the dojo. "Ahh, no. What were you listening to? It can be dangerous to train when you're distracted and alone. If you're swinging a weapon around, what if you accidentally hit someone with it because you didn't know they were there? Nobody should be getting that close in the first place if they aren't sure you're aware of them, but it's up to you to be safe."

At the least, he picks out the gauntlets she's got on. "Anyway, how are those feeling so far?"

Pippi has posed:
    "S-sorry, Leo. Sometimes when I'm training I pump the tunes so that it doesn't feel like I'm training so long." Pippi explains, but she does hit pause on her music, looking sheepish as she exhales, her ears drawing back. It's a sincere apology, something she didn't think of.

    "They're feeling pretty good. Alopex sparred a little with me when I got 'em. I can wear 'em pretty much all day, but the over-mitts were kinda clapping against my knuckles, so I grabbed a glove and slipped it on underneath and hot-glued it into place to see if it would work out. So far, so good." she gives a wry smile.

    "... don't tell Donnie about the hot glue. He'll pitch a fit."

Leonardo has posed:
"Training is a time for focus," Leonardo explains. "We..." He pauses, frowning. "I can't speak for the others, but I do not want distractions keeping me from my training. How long it takes does not matter. What only matters is training properly, until I am satisfied. Or, when Master Splinter is satisfied." He sounds like this is a rigid thing for him, and it is. He may not understand the thought that others may have their own ways of training successfully, and he asks, "Does the music really help you that much?"

The turtle, taller by a few inches, steps closer and reaches for Pippi's left arm so he can make a visual and physical inspection, turning it this way and that, pressing over the knuckles and other areas. "Kevlar, a metal base. What kind? I won't tell him. Wouldn't want to wound his pride." The inspection is more clinical than not, but it puts him close without him thinking much of it.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi turns her arm as Leo inspects the gauntlet. "Ah. Tinnitum Alloy?" she stammers a moment, her ears turning a darker shade of pink as they draw back. "And yeah, With the music going, I found I focus better, kinda like how Donnie blasts his in the lab. I just... don't want to bother anyone, but I don't want to hit someone accidentally, either." she replies to Leonardo, her tail giving a slight wag, swaying behind her and low.

    "Alopex says I've come a long way from when I started training under her, and that it was time to give me something I could fight comfortably with."

Leonardo has posed:
Leonardo relents. Too quickly, or does her reasoning make sense after he's considered it? "If it helps you, then it's probably a good thing. Just remember to be careful. Make sure the others know you train with music sometimes when you're alone. But with others? No music, just to be safe." There may be exceptions, but he isn't getting into them right now. No need to complicate matters.

"And I think you mean titanium. That's good. It's as strong as steel, but about half the weight." Someone remembers his teachings. Maybe Donatello told him about it once. Stepping back, he nods and clasps his hands behind his shell, stance leaving him light on his feet. "All right, then let's see how you plan to use them." There is a training dummy nearby, and there is the turtle.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi looks at the turtle as he relents on the music, and then looks down and shakes her head. "I'll just play it on my phone speaker. That way I can still listen to it, and others can grab my attention better if they need it." Pippi replies with her considerate compromise, and she rubs the back of her head a moment as she looks to Leonardo for approval on that before she eyeballs the turtle, then eyeballs the dummy, and then gives a nod, preferring the dummy as she strikes a boxer's stance. Sh ehas her arms up, gauntlet shell out, protecting her torso. She uses controlled punches on the dummy -- the specialty one made for Pippi and Nemean both -- and she knocks the industrial-spring-loaded dummy back a few inches, tightly controlling her punches.

Leonardo has posed:
"If they are fine with it," Leonardo acknowledges as far as the music goes. It may lead to the thought that he would prefer silence other than the training taking place. If anyone has listened close to his room when he's meditated, they may have heard some peaceful, instrumental music from time to time.

Now as he watches Pippi face the dummy and adopt a stance before throwing some attacks at it, looking like pulled punches, she is given only a few strikes before his voice cuts through. "Yame!" It is a word Splinter has used countless times with all of them. In martial arts, it mainly means one thing: stop.

He motions her to face him and advance. "You can hit a dummy, but can you hit me?" With a brief, expectant look, he adds the other half of the equation, the word to begin: "Hajime!"

Pippi has posed:
    She was slowly learning the new language, and she paused a moment, turning after she's hit something wrong. Her ears draw up at the strict sound from Leonardo.

    She drops her hands, turning to face him like the respectful junior student she is, and her lips purse a moment as she steps up, and then she gives a huff out.

    And with the command to begin, the pound puppy moves forward. Her first strike comes in low, aimed at where the solar plexus would be on a human, knowing she's going to hit shell -- if she can even hit!

Leonardo has posed:
They felt like the right words to use in the dojo, as often as they're heard. It isn't as if the turtles go around having full conversations in Japanese.

Maybe, just maybe, Leonardo was curious to see how Pippi would react to someone other than Splinter using them.

After he offers her a quick bow, he takes a neutral stance, katanas left sheathed in back of him. This is hand-to-hand, which the turtles learned long before any of them picked up a weapon in any serious manner. Before knowing how to use weapons, they were taught how to /be/ weapons.

As Pippi advances, she'll see and feel Leo slide to the outside of her attempt, and as one hand secures about her forearm and the other her bicep, his voice comes back in. "Hold for a moment. Here, I'd have a few options. I could throw you," he explains, giving the slightest pull forward to show how further momentum might send her flying. "I could lock your arm behind you," he goes on, only starting to move it an inch or so in that direction. "I could also trip you." A bare foot is used to rest against the back of one of her legs. "But you might be strong enough to stop any of that, too. Especially against a normal person. Many martial arts are about using what someone does against them, turning it around to your advantage. Understand?"

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi saw that coming, but about three seconds too late. She gives a soft /hrk/ sound as Leo halts her momentumn, and she gives a slight huff of breath, feeling how Leonardo moves her arm, in control of where she could be going. The trip, especially, would be awful -- she's super strong, but doesn't have the weight behind it.

    "Well, yeah, I understand that, 'cause --" and Pippi swings her feet around and down, trying to slide to the side of Leonardo's foot, her arm coming down and trying to catch against his as she drops and tries to throw HIM, using a fair bit of strength behind it to knock the heavier turtle about!

    "The trip would have been the best way to get me. Donnie still hasn't figured out why I'm so strong but so /light/!" -- but using her strength like this can throw her off balance.

Leonardo has posed:
It's a good, sudden move, and to say none of the turtles ever tried to get one over on Splinter would be a lie. Have they succeeded? That is not an answer Leonardo's about to give right now, especially because he's the one sent flying with Pippi's strength coming into play. "Hey!"

The surprise is short-lived, for while he's in midair he turns his body so he can land in a crouch, a hand against the mat along with a foot and knee. "All that did was buy you some space," he points out, hiding whether he approves or disapproves of the play she made. "Again, and try to get through my guard. I'll deflect or block. No throws." Back into position.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi rights herself, popping back up into a boxer's stance as Leo recovers from the throw, but she gives a slight grin behind her mits. She's at least pleased with herself, and he at least sounded surprised by thr throw. "Would have been more space if I'd thrown harder." Pippi points out.

    And so, the pooch presses forward, trying to step into Leonardo's personal space, bringing a ganutleted hand up and trying to land a blow against Leo's chest.

Leonardo has posed:
There is, at least, the assumption on Leonardo's part that he will deflect or block. He has seen some of Pippi's training progress, but she has spent more time with Alopex, and even Splinter, than with him. However, he knows what he's learned.

This time, he uses his quickness as a trained ninja to simply not be quite where she is aiming for, a faint breeze passing by as she punches through air. He taps the back of said gauntlet with a finger before leaping to one side with a full rotation to land back behind her. "Again."

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi, for her part, is keeping her cool.

    She feels the tap, and she's already turning on her feet, squaring up out of instinct, her tail shifting to help her balance with the heavier gauntlets. She gives a puff of air out, her arms still up defensively in a boxer's stance before she throws out a couple more blows, two quick jabs and a hook agianst Leonardo's shoulder, one arm always against her, guarding.

    She's spent plenty of time squaring off against Alopex, a lot of time with Splinter, testing where her strengths and weaknesses lay. Her amber eyes are set on Leonardo, but she most assuredly is pulling her punches to mere 'love-taps'.

Leonardo has posed:
Training brings with it testing. Testing to see where one's skill levels are at, one's speed, quickness, reactions, ability to adapt to changes. "Good. Keep that guard," Leonardo says, while this time using his arms - with wraps of their own today - to fend off the intended paths of the jabs. The hook grazes the shoulder, and he backsteps to reset.

He goes through a few more rounds of this before calling for a stop again. "You're coming along well. That's enough for most threats you'll face, but it won't always be against someone who's unarmed. A gun? You don't have enough protection anywhere else, so the gauntlets won't do much. Something like this?" He walks over and lays his own katanas down, still in their sheathes, reaching instead for a single training sword, blunted but still with a similar heft to it. He holds it two-handed. "Now you will defend. Kevlar and titanium should protect your forearms from a real sword, but you still wouldn't want me connecting, say..here."

He extends the sword to tap above the elbow before taking on more expected spacing apart. Once ready, he begins at half speed, telegraphing moves that follow weapon katas she's seen him perform before. If she remembers them well enough, she might find herself already knowing where he'll be going with it. This is just a warm-up.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi knows he's testing her, and she doesn't want to hurt him. She's pulling her punches as much as she can, though some might be better controlled than others.

    She returns to reset when he does, trying different tactics. Going low, coming in from above, even a very broadcasted feint , and at the stop she draws back, wrigglign her fingers beneath the mits as she gives a wag of her tail.

    She matches Leonardo's speed, drawing her arms into comfortable blocks, deflects, not throwing punches, watching Leonardo's movements, her ears focused on him She keeps her body moving, though her legs give little bounces.

Leonardo has posed:
Again, Leonardo says, "Good." He sees that she has paid attention to the forms enough to know what he'd be leading into, giving her the opportunity to set up her defenses from footwork to weight balance to the positioning and angles of the gauntlets. "Same thing, three-quarter speed."

He repeats the same moves as before, striking at the same places, setting up the chance for her to perform the same defensive maneuvers. It is a test to see how quickly she can follow, and if he spots any openings, any delays in being in the right position.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi's training has beengoing well, she keeps up at three-quarters speed, bringing her arms up, crossing, deflecting, turning herself about, taking a half-step back to catch the blade low on the boken, her tail not wagging, but shifting with her in concentration. Not the better balast of the two canine ninja in residence, but well enough to help offset the gauntlets themselves.

Leonardo has posed:
So far, enough skill shown to leave Leonardo to respond with a simple nod, a grunt. Splinter could have been in his place and done the same. For them, even three-quarter speed might be more than the average person can handle. Now comes more of the true test.

"Full speed," is the only warning he gives before he's moving in with lightning-quick strikes aimed at the same places. There is just enough of a pull back on each one that if they do get in past the gauntlets, or if Pippi's guard isn't where it's meant to be, the force of impact will be kept to a minimum. But, she can see just how fast he truly is.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi knows how fast the brothers are -- and how deadly they could be. She tries her best to keep up with Leonardo, but there are a few times when she's just that little bit too slow. It could have been slashes against her arms, a blow to her shoulder.

    She manages to twist one way particularly odd, and one of Leo's blows taps her side -- where she gives a short 'yarp!' of surprise, and pulls away a step, turning and with the muscle twitching in her bicep and triceps she wildly throws a half-strength punch.

Leonardo has posed:
While Pippi has the benefit of knowing what to expect - Leonardo isn't about to test her yet with moves that come without warning - there are still openings and holes in the pup's defenses that he gets through. They may not be there against someone of a lesser skill level, but he has been trained by one of the best.

It's the twist and sudden reaction that leads to him stopping immediately, though the returned, weakened punch connects with his shoulder and is still felt. Half-strength for her is not the same as it is for others. A grimace, whether in sympathy, momentary pain of his own, or both follows.

The practice sword is laid aside rather than tossed away and he steps over. "What happened?" he asks, a note of concern in the question as a hand extends toward the affected area.

Pippi has posed:
    Half-strength might have sent Leo into the wall. Pippi manages to pull, but not before she's too late to not strike. She has a mixture of horror and expectation of immediate reprisal, drawing back, down, raising her arms to defend herself from what she was expecting to be a blow. "I'm sorry Leo! I didn't mean to hit that hard!" she squeaks out, cowering.

    Instead, nothing comes. A gentle sense of concern, and she parts her gauntlets, peering out, seeing that Leo was unarmed, and she exhales, then grabs at the bottom hem of the shirt at her left side, and pulls it up.

    The problem with fur is that it doesn't grow over scarred-up skin, and where Alopex has the floof to hide hers, Pippi's has a habbit of curling, which requires it being kept short. There's scars there, long, ugly scars from someone else's gauntlets.

    "I'm... still kinda sensitive about my left side." she admits quietly. "It didn't /hurt/. JUst... took me by surprise. I wasn't ready for it." she bows her head,

Leonardo has posed:
Could be Leonardo braced himself just in time for the blow. Could be he's also stronger and tougher than normal. Regardless, he does roll that shoulder a couple times. "It's..fine, Pippi. It's fine." The reaction, to cower and actually shrink and begin to cover up, leads to him freezing for a few seconds.

"I'm..not going to hit you. I'd never do that, even if I was angry for some reason," he says, voice dipping below normal tones, something more hushed. He gives a look at the scars, the tell-tale scars from a very specific wound she took from a very specific enemy of theirs, and he remembers. "It's a bad memory. There's no timetable to get over that," he says, then he does something without asking permission.

"Come here," he says, and he offers something that isn't all that common from him: a hug, arms spreading out enough that she could be drawn into them if she accepts it. "I shouldn't have gone full speed with you yet. I think that's enough training for today. Why don't we go get you a Slurpee and you can relax for a while?"

Pippi has posed:
    "But I hit too hard." Pippi replies quietly, and she slowly unfolds from where she had shrunk back, showing off the scars, and dropping her shirt hem with a shrug. "Pex said it'll take time to work through. It's one of the things I meditat--" she begins, trailing off slightly as Leoardo opens his arms. Her ears draw up, her head canting to the side just a little bit before she gives a 'huff' out her nose, and she, with a little hesitance, lets herself get drawn in to the hug. She notably doesn't hug back, but she does press herself up against Leonardo, her weight resting against him as she lets her shoulders relax, one ear against his shoulder.

    "Okay." the canine replies quietly.

Leonardo has posed:
"It'll be all right," Leonardo replies. He doesn't push the embrace too hard, but she looked like she needed some reassurance. "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, or in a week or even a month, but someday it will be. You've had to deal with some things nobody could be ready for, and you didn't do anything wrong." He'll just bite back the sting in his shoulder. It could take seeing Splinter later for some work on it, and there's even a faint grimace as he pulls back out of the hug.

Not before stealing a quick touch atop her head, giving a brief but firm rub before a hand - from the good side - settles at one of her own shoulders. "And you did well, overall. I saw a lot of things you were doing right. Next time you're ready, we'll go over things again and do it a little more carefully. Now let's go." He puts things back the way they were first, of course, but Slurpees are soon to come, more for her than for him.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi gives another huff of breath against Leonardo's shell, and as he lets go of her, with that reassurence, she looks up at him, and gives a quiet nod. She does notice that grimace though, and her ears flick backwards, those pinks inside reddened as her nose gets warm in embarrassment again, almost clocking herself with one of her gauntlets when she goes to rub the back of her neck, but is headed off by the quick ruffle.

    She quickly helps reassemble things, clearing away her own training materials and setting her gauntlets back in the pretty box that Alopex had arranged for, tucking it to the side to go back to her room.

    "I'm coming!" she calls out, her tail giving a wag as she tails Leo out of the dojo.