Owner	Pose
Brooke Harris	The martial arts studio is tucked away in the back of a run down strip mall, offering a couple of different styles of kung fu, boxing, oh and that judo club that offers a class once a week. The sign is faded by sun and weather and dust, and the windows are covered by paper from the inside with crude drawings of martial artists painted in the inside. Inside there is a small class teaching a kung fu form. The instructor is a middle-aged African-American man from nearby who started as a boxer and moved into other styles later on, and the class is mostly people who look like they are from the neighborhood. Brooke herself is just some unremarkable for here black girl of college age. The one thing you might notice is that the teacher is being a bit deferential to her, and she is moving unusually gracefully.. dancer maybe? But it might take some watching to pick that out.
Luke Cage	Luke lets himself in and bows, slips off his shoes and lowers the hood on his hoodie. He walks around to the bench against the wall and sits down. A few minutes later, after setting the class to work, the teacher comes over. Luke stands, shakes hands and claps him on the back. "Eric, good to see you," Luke says. "Been a while Luke," Eric smiles. "What brings you here? No trouble, I hope." "Nah, I'm just getting rusty. Thought I'd drop by and touch things up a little. If the offer is still open," Luke replies. "You know, it works a lot better if you come, and then keep comin', brother," Eric chides Luke with a smile. "Anyway, you're in luck. There's someone you should meet, might be able to help you out." Eric leads Luke over to Brooke and smiles. "Brooke, this is Luke Cage. Luke, Brooke," he gestures. "Luke dropped by to polish his ugly brawling. Maybe you could show him a few things? I've never had any luck with him," Eric jokes. Luke raises an eyebrow at Eric, seeing the young woman, but holds a hand out and smiles. "Pleased to meet you."
Brooke Harris	Brooke smiles brightly at Eric. "Sure! Always happy to help." She does tilt her head a little in curiosity, then gives you a look over, reading you like a book. Not just a book, like a mathematician would read a book of formulae. She settles herself slightly, very relaxed, and shakes your hand softly. Very soft muscle tone. She adjusts the pressure of her handshake slightly as she seems to note something about your hands. "It's a pleasure. So what brings you here today? You look like you have done some boxing before.." She smiles at you, hmming, "And maybe a bit more than boxing. Where shall we start, hmm?"
Luke Cage	Luke smiles and shrugs slightly. "A bit of boxing, a lot of what I picked up on the street," Luke says. "I'm just looking to clean things up so I don't look like a thug when the fighting starts. Put more... Technique, into it."
Brooke Harris	Brooke nods, subtly taking a half step to make sure she can see anybody walking in the front door. Probably unnoticable for anybody who hasn't picked up a few reflexes of heightened awareness themself, say from prison, or from heroing. "That will be our plan, then. Show me your ready stance. As if I were to suddenly threaten you." Her accent is a bit upper class, yuppie even, with a Northwestern bit to it. Seattle? Starling? She smiles and raises her hands softly into a ready stance, hands lightly steepled together, a bit like a very casual boxing stance variant, and studies you in a relaxed way, eyes drifting behind you and defocusing to take in your entire body.
Luke Cage	Luke gets the feeling there is some edge to the kid, the way she holds herself. The kind of edge you usually only get from getting into trouble a few times, an edge that the dojo kids never pick up. Still, it's not easy to picture her threatening him. He blades his feet just slightly, shoulders settling back. It's a stance that begs to be hit, and does not offer a lot of support against staggering. Eric shakes his head as he takes a step back. "Classic Luke, no style at all," he says. "Pull if you end up hitting him. He's an oak, not a sapling," Eric cautions. At Eric's jibing, Luke lifts his hands with a chuckle and shifts his feet and hunches a bit. A classic boxing stance.
Brooke Harris	Brooke looks the stance change over a bit and tilts her head. "Oh no, really like you are being threatened." She smiles softly, then her stance changes softly as she shifts into attack posture. You can just see the hard power body shot being telegraphed as she drifts suddenly the fraction of an inch into position to throw it, all coldness and murder and death.
Luke Cage	The change in intensity catches Luke by surprise, he clearly did not expect it from Brooke. He surpresses the instinct to go through the attack and pivots sideways to allow only a glancing blow, while using the momentum to throw a tight hook. The big man is quick and to the point, but Luke's hips and shoulders scream out the attack to Brooke. The first hook is slower, Luke obviously holding back. But the ease of Brooke dealing with it brings out a follow up straight punch and another leading hook much faster.
Brooke Harris	Brooke smiles, intensity dissapearing as quickly as it appeared, flowing through a soft parry and evasion, shifting her weight to lightly guide the hook a fraction of an inch from her head. Lots of counters are available from here to turn this more brutal, and she doesn't follow up on any of them - although her body definitely slides into position to throw them. "Oh, much better. And you have the reactions of a fighter, too, I see.." She glances over your structure and hmms. "Too much tension, and you aren't coordinating your body parts enough. It makes you telegraphic. Stances and structures are there so you have the first part of your attack already finished, so that you won't show them off. Among other things." She backs away, again shifting to see who all is in the room and settling her weight, paying attention to something else too, still at peace.
Luke Cage	Eric laughs. "She's got you there, Luke. Told you to keep comin'," he says with another shake of the head. "I guess I shoulda listened," Luke says with an appreciative grunt at Brooke's display. "Think you can show me how to loosen up?" he asks. "Oh no," Eric says, exasperated and nervous. "Excuse me." Eric leaves the two standing together and walks toward the door of the school. Six very athletic Asian men had let themselves in. The students noticed, and clearly recognized the men and had as a group, shifted away towards one wall while their teacher started talking in hushed tones. The shortest of the Asian men, clearly the one in charge, said something back to Eric in clipped tones. "Wonder what that's about," Luke says, jutting his chin toward the discussion. "Doesn't look friendly." And it was not. The short Asian man said something to Eric and one of the others shoved him backward and stepped forward menacingly.
Brooke Harris	Brooke nods. "Ninjutsu, from the push. Hand, maybe? You can tell from the muscle development sometimes. Different stance preference than Foot." She idly looks past the group, studying them. "I'm happy to help with that, but I think I am needed at the moment." She drifts over toward the door silently. "You are not supposed to be here. Do you really think you can earn respect by being disrespectful?" She measures them all up. Leader.. there. Backup.. there. Strong will, weaker will, weapons? Their likely tactics flash through her head in an instant and she positions herself accordingly.
Luke Cage	"Tell your daughter to mind her place," the leader snaps at Eric. Eric steps forward to say something and man that pushed him looks at him. All of these men carry themselves with the arrogance of men who expect to be feared. Eric stops where he is, clearly not wanting to be within arms reach of these men. "Please, Brooke, these men were just leaving." "Leaving? Oh no, I think we are going to stay," the leader declares. "Maybe we make an example of you, so your students are more wise," he says with lightly accented English. "Yo, she's right, we don't like your attitude. It's disrespectful," Luke rumbles, walking up behind Brooke. "None of my students are going to...." Eric is cut off with a sharp knife hand to the face from the man that pushed him. The strike was lightning fast and precise. Eric was no slouch and he had no time to react. His nose explodes with blood and his hands go up to his face. The leader smiles and nods towards Luke. Two of his men start toward Luke, one reaching for Brooke's arm as if he was going to pull her aside.
Brooke Harris	Brooke lightly takes the grabbing hand and steps, twisting the ninja around. Six people is too many to waste time with, so at the end of the twist, her other hand finds its way to his ribs and there is a *pop* as his shoulder dislocates. She continues the twist, pulling him to where she was standing as the ninja behind her attacks that spot, then drops into a solid deep stance as she launches the ninja into each other like a punch from a brick. She turns gracefully like she was in a kung fu movie, smiling peacefully, relaxed, and considers the other ninja. "That was a mistake." She slips in to protect Eric's back, aware of where everyone is without looking.
Luke Cage	Luke watches Brooke disassemble the first of the attackers with no small measure of amusement. "A big mistake," he agrees with her. As the two ninja collide, he steps through and grabs the uninjured one by the belt. Luke lifts him off his feet by his belt and slams him face first into the mat. It is arguable which of them startled the ninja more, Brooke or Luke. But the remaining four recovered admirably quickly. The leader squares off with Brooke. He drops low on his back foot, almost impracticably, bladed sideways to her with hands in shuto. Pure budo-ninjutsu. The attack is expected but still comes fast and with little warning. The man explodes off the back foot, leading hand coming for her face. It's a feeling more than anything else that warns her that the real strike is coming somewhere else. She catches a blur of movement in the bottom of her vision, the man's foot coming in for a crushing knee strike under cover of the attack on her face. Luke wades in towards the nearest of the ninja to him. This time he does not suppress his habits and walks right through the snap kick. The man screams as something gives in his leg when he kicks Luke, and Luke drops him with a reverse hook to the side of the head.
Brooke Harris	Brooke moves her arm to parry the strike to the face and even pull it through her, and almost casually picks her front foot up stepping to the side, crane like, letting the knee kick fly under her thigh. Then she casually steps around to bring her other calf through the side of his knee as she snaps her other hand up in a "splashing hand" palm at his nose in return, following the first arm up and bringing her elbow down on his arm hard as a natural follow through, then pushes away and steps back. "Now the question is how much humiliation these guys feel up to. It's like they don't believe me when I tell them to stay home."
Luke Cage	Their leader is good, but not that good. He manages to twist and bend with the knee strike, leaving his leg at an awkward angle but undamaged. That puts him at the limit of his contortions though and off balance. His warding strike comes too late and slides down Brooke's arm instead of striking the pressure point he was seeking along the brachial nerve. He catches the palm strike full in the nose and realms backward, screaming obscenities in Mandarin. The last two see their leader reeling and backing away toward the door. They turn and run, not even waiting for him. "Looks like they've had enough," Luke says. Luke watches their leader make his way out the door unsteadily, hands on his face and still swearing. "Stop cussing, it's rude." The Asian man hurls one last insult and is gone. Luke picks up the two on the floor, one in each hand, elbows the door open and chucks them out onto the sidewalk. "Who did you say you were again?" he asks Brooke, coming back inside.
Brooke Harris	Brooke rolls her eyes at the ninja and slips into Mandarin, "<Oh, no, darling, that was your mother. I have much higher standards. Maybe next time you can remember your manners.>" She smiles back up at Luke peacefully, "Oh, I didn't. But like your teacher introduced us, you can call me Brooke. I was stopping by to see how things are going." To Eric, "Come here and let me look at that nose." She steps up, half closes her eyes, and starts massaging his face, tilting her head in thought, then carefully starts straightening his nose. "I'm taking the pain away, closing blood vessels.. Let me get this straightened out before I start boosting the healing rate there. I don't want to wait and let things get worse."
Luke Cage	Eric holds still and lets Brooke work. Luke leans up against the door frame, arms crossed, and watches for a moment. "Just stopping by, huh?" Luke repeats. "You realize those guys you took apart were probably Hand. They have long memories. You going to be able to handle that?" he asks, taking her measure.
Brooke Harris	Brooke shrugs faintly. "If they don't already know me, they are incompetent; you don't pick up a lot of skill without people noticing your teachers. I have never gone looking for them. I don't want to find them." She works on Eric a bit more, then steps away. "That's going to feel hot and tingly for awhile. Be careful with it while it finishes healing." At least the swelling and the bleeding is dealt with, and it feels and looks much better. She looks back over, "I promised his sifu that I would check on him and make sure there was nothing going on. The Hand was less than expected, but that was not acceptable behavior for a student to show to another teacher."
Luke Cage	"They're an assassin's guild, they're not big on manners," Luke comments dryly. "They've been a real problem lately. What were they after, recruits?" he asks Eric, who nods. Luke shakes his head. "They'll come back after that, you going to be around for a while?" he asks Brooke.
Brooke Harris	Brooke shrugs, "I bounce around. Unfortunately. But I wouldn't want to leave you in a bad place. Do you know when they might be showing up? Really, I am tempted to find their teacher and complain about their incompetence. That is not a good way to get recruits, what are they even thinking?" She hmphs a bit. "Attacking like that breeds hostility. If they wanted to recruit people, they should be ingratiating themselves into the people, not bullying them." She settles herself softly. Senses spread to feel if anybody else is outside.
Luke Cage	Luke smiles a little. "I'll pass that along to their teacher, but I don't think it'll help. She's a real piece of work." He pushes himself off the door frame. "Eric, you alright?" he asks and at the man's nod he straightens. "I gotta go, but if either of you need anything, just call," he says. "Eric can give you my number," he says to Brooke. "Nice meeting you."
Brooke Harris	Brooke nods and waves, "Well of course. I assume you still wanted some help learning how to get that tension out of your movements, too." She smiles. "Don't think I haven't forgotten about that!" She thinks a moment. "You might want to make fun of her for having a student try to grab my wrist. I really do expect more from their students than that."
Luke Cage	Luke laughs. "I'll tell her that," he says. "And if you're game to help this old dog learn some new tricks, give me a call. We'll make a time." Luke flips up his hood and makes his way out, stepping over the unconscious ninja on the doorstep.