Owner	Pose
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir is in the gym this morning, early. She has been doing that for awhile, though the routine varies a lot. At the moment, she's knocking the heck out of a heavy bag, trying to toughen up so she doesn't hurt herself copying anybody's skills and drilling her small selection of techniques she's been focusing on. After that there's probably going to be some flexibility stuff and.. well, who knows what else. *wham* *wham* Next to her is a couple plain wood quarterstaves that she probably hasn't gotten to. Those are new.
Laura Kinney	Most people might be tired at this hour. X-23 is not subject to the frailties of most people. So the dark-haired girl makes her entrance to the gym. "It's unusual for someone to be training so early. Trouble sleeping?" she asks.
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir wiggles her fingers a bit, then picks up one of the staves and tries to remember how to use it best. It's not a weapon she normally trains, so she's not using the best stance for it. "Kind of, yeah. People are scary." She looks over and smiles. "How are you doing?" She furrows her brow a bit. "Ugh, I should have got some video. Oh well. I wasn't expecting to have to use one of these."
Laura Kinney	"Are you in trouble?" Laura asks at the first, and frowns. "And I'm doing well enough. If you need to learn one of those, I can help. They aren't very practical, though."
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir mms, "Not really, I just watch the news is all. Yeah, a little bit. Gambit wanted to compare my skill, and he had me use his staff. But all I had was cane technique, so I was improvising everything. It's not my first choice, but I should probably be familiar with it in case he wants to try that again."
Laura Kinney	Laura nods, and points to one. "Toss it here." She suggests, holding out a hand to receive it.
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir tosses you a staff and steps over with hers. "I'm still figuring out if I should do much weapon stuff. I'm probably best suited being more of a spy than anything. I can do the high society and blending in better than you probably would, and you're better at sneaking around."
Laura Kinney	Laura plucks it out of the air...looks faintly annoyed with it. "You should. But not this. This is a weapon designed for men. And ancient men. You should be training with knives or guns." Her statement is simple, as she readies her grip. "And you're not wrong. Socializing is not my forte."
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir nods. "Yeah. Gambit likes these, and he's giving me some lessons, so I want to have the basics of actual staff technique so I can follow his stuff, anyway. Andrea's thought was that I can rummage through a trash can and pick up four languages and a bunch of passcodes, so that's probably the best use. Still working on picking padlocks though. It's actually relaxing. What have you been up to?"
Laura Kinney	"Gambit is taller than you. And has better strength. Better leverage." Laura says, and then jabs in sharply with the end of the quarterstaff towards your midsection. "Dating." she answers. "Learning to better socialize."
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir blocks, though as noted - cane technique, not staff. Maybe even police flashlight technique. When she does things like this, it has been with much shorter sticks. "Oh, totally. I figure I should brush up though." She resets to her cane stance, a bit too compact for the staff, which calls for more of a spear technique usually. She's wasting a lot of the potential of the length of the staff. "How do you feel about him?"
Laura Kinney	"Gambit? Most of what I know is from records. I have not met him personally." Laura gives a nod of approval at the block, and shakes her head slightly, at the stance. One end of the staff snaps out low, towards Erika's ankle. That close stance makes it harder to make big moves as quickly.
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir lifts her foot to avoid it, losing mobility, because of course she's not used to having anything to block that with. She frowns, because she knows she's messing this up, but she doesn't totally know how - she starts focusing on just trying to copy you now. "How about your boyfriend?"
Laura Kinney	Erika raising her foot was what she wanted; Laura drops into a sudden low crouch and wide sweep with the staff at knee level, aiming towards the other leg. "Evan is...unusual. But comes from a background with at least some similarities. What about you? I smell someone else on you."
Erika Kristasdottir	*thwack!* "ow." She mimics your stance, limping a little while the numbless fades. "I met her not that long ago investigating some stuff. Mutant. She's Muslim, Pakistani I think, I didn't ask." She goes through a couple of basic attacks in your direction. The form has issues. "We both nerd out over gaming, but she knows all the heroes around and I don't. I'm not sure what to call things yet, I just like being with her."
Laura Kinney	"I don't think you're obligated to call it anything." Laura moves, backing off, staff moving sharply to counter the basic attacks, the blocks aimed to send force down the staff, into Erika's hands. Hard-style blocks, not soft-style. "Widen your grip." she suggests.
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir shifts her grip as advised, maybe a hair too wide, but it's an improvement. Her hands are toughened up enough by now that the blocks are more annoying than effective, at least at this power level. "Yeah, that's what I figure." She ventures a jab - in her sparring match, she kept trying to crowd the holo-Gambit. That seems like it wouldn't work as well with the staff held better. "She met Andrea and Lorna and almost fainted from surprise.Not the people she usually meets.."
Laura Kinney	Laura continues to fall back and give ground; the easiest defense here. "I suppose not. People seem vulnerable to the concept of celebrity. Really, probably something the Facility should have exploited."
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir just keeps doing whatever made you back off, trying to crowd you into a corner. "Sure, but first they'd have to have a celebrity, right?"
Laura Kinney	"Media is easier to manipulate than you'd think. How do you think most celebrities got that way? Some large organization with funding and access wanted them to be." The falling-back was intentional, to lure Erika in, keep her with the jabs; focused on -forward-. She spins sideways, /now/ going to a soft-style redirection block, letting Erika's momentum move her forward, while she whips the staff around at the girl's backside.
Erika Kristasdottir	"Too quick to burn?" *thwack!* "Owww!" She stops and rubs at the bruise, making a face and wincing. "..Okay, that was *awesome*. How did you do that?"
Laura Kinney	Laura moves the staff back to ready position. "Only a piece of any fighting is physical. Another piece is psychological. You want to learn, and you want to succeed. So I went along with what you were doing. You jabbed, I fell back. You did it again, I fell back again. It's natural for people to tunnel-vision at times like that; if what you're doing is working, you keep doing it. And I'd also kept with hard-style, force-on-force blocks before this. Everything to make you less ready when I switched to soft-style. Use your opponent's momentum against them. You were overextended, and it put you in position. If it had been a real fight, I'd have gone four inches higher. Would have hit you between L4 and L5; broken your spine. Those two vertebra practically open up in an extended position like that." There's a reason Jean warned everyone not to get into a fight with Laura when she got to the school; X-23 is quite simply the best-trained killing machine at the school. Bar none. "You're smaller and lighter than most. Soft styles will be more conducive to you in general. Redirection, extension, force amplification. It's very different from how Gambit fights. You need to be water, not earth."
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir winces a little, because that hurt. But she expects that from practicing with Laura. At least she didn't put herself in the medbay this time. "Okay. I've mostly been trying to train to do the hard stuff because that's what the things I pick up like to use. Can you help me pick out some high percentage basics that work best with that for now? I haven't really worked out how *I* should do things yet."
Laura Kinney	"With your build, and your powers, you'll want to work on soft-styles. Pressure points. Vital attacks." Laura explains. "I wouldn't go blunt weapons, at least not unmodified ones. Something that has shock capability, or injection. Neither your powers nor basic weapons give you high damage potential. You need precision, you need to make up technologically what you don't have biologically.
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir mmmms.. "Okay. Can you show me a few techniques that I can build off of for those? I figure I can work on the advanced stuff later, but I'm liable to need basic stuff that works before I think I do." She sets the staff to the side. She thinks she got enough of an idea to be less awful, at least, which is all she really cared about. "Maybe even surprise nonlethal stuff or something. I'm not sure what's best for me, and you know WAY more about all of this than I do."
Laura Kinney	"Start with Aikido. It's the most mainstream redirection. And you'll find tons of training materials. Then you can evolve to Aikijutsu. But I can teach you, yes." She offers. "But save the weapons till after you learn the principles."
Erika Kristasdottir	Souvenir nods. "Okay. Is there anything I can help you with? I'm never sure if there's anything I can do for you."
Laura Kinney	Laura considers that. "Social events. I'm learning, but I still have much to learn."