Training Room

[Deleted]

Ink ducked and dogged, now that batgirl was using boxing moves she felt at home. The moment she felt like it was going to be easy Batgirl caught her with a punch to the jaw followed quickly by a kick to her belly that dropped her with a grunt. "Awight lassie ah give up, ah see ah canae win." she said with a laugh as she sat on her bum rubbing her sure to be bruised jaw. "Twas a braw good combination that wan. anno when ahm beat. 'oh taught ye 'ow to fight like that?"

[Aly]

As Ink backed off, Batgirl lowered her fists, finally showing the fatigue she really felt. She collapsed to the ground and sat cross-legged in front of the Scottish girl, her chest heaving with each breath. "I know my name isn't exactly original, but from that you can probably guess. Though I don't know how much you know about him, being new around here and all." She lay back again on the floor, spreading her arms and legs out in a long stretch. "I was trained by the best. Batman himself. Second after Robin. I had to modify some of them with moves I've studied on my own to fit my own style, but most of it is him." She shrugged her shoulders and sat back up.

[Deleted]

Ink laughed "Ah could guess hwo et was ah was just asken." she said as the girl stretched. She opened and closed her mouth testing out her jaw. she knew it would be swollen but batgirl had earned the hit fair and square. She poked at the places she had been hit and each poke revealed a spot of pain that would mark a bruise. "Would ye mind teachen mea some of those teckle moves?" the artist asked. If she could learn them maybe she could draw something that knew them as well.

[Aly]

Batgirl rubbed her arm where Ink had hit her with quite a good shot. That was going to bruise in the morning. "I'd be happy to show you." She beamed, glad that she could be of service. "I don't know if I have the strength for it now, though. I'm totally beat." As to inforce her point, she lay back on the ground again, closing her eyes momentarily. She still needed to shower and stuff before really laying down and relaxing, though.

[Deleted]

Ink laughed "la'er then when we aren' so tired" she rubbed at her arms and then stood slowly "thank yea kindly for the sparrin round batgirl."Ink hadn't been training as long or as hard as batgirl had, but fatigue and soreness made her feel like she had. Physical training wasn't really her thing except for fun, she didnt rely on it the way that batgirl did, so her endurance was a lot lower. With a grin she looked down at the girl and offered her hand to help her up if she wanted it.

[Aly]

Taking Ink's hand, Batgirl stood and brushed herself off with her hands. "Anytime, Ink." She smiled down at the shorter girl. It was great to have a new friend in the tower. Most of the girls here were still mad at her for the whole Speedy and Raven thing. "I'll see you 'round, then." With a wave, Batgirl exited the training room, heading to her room.

[Deleted]

Ink followed after her but turned in the opposite direction to go to her room, where she could clean up and change clothes into her day clothes.

OOC: Thanks for the rp Aly

[Kenni]

Speedy stretched his knees sideways, balancing on each outstretched heel and opposite bent knee alternating, like one of his favourite anime heroes, Goku off Dragonball Z. That happy-go-lucky fighter-type never lost, at least, not in the final battle, when it counted. Today, though, the archer had put aside his bow and assumed hand-to-hand warm-up stretches not in order to save the world, but to save a particular empath from her lack of hand-to-hand training. Surely, Robin would have been the best for the job, Speedy was well aware of this. However, Speedy had jumped at the chance to show off--er, educate his Alluring Gypsy Princess on the intricacies of weaponless brutality, as soon as he had caught wind of her desire to learn martial ways.
Besides, this was Speedy!
He had the notion that he was superior to Robin in whatever he set his mind to be anyway, so why give the guy any reason to prove any (obvious) superiority?
"Welcome to Dojo Harper, Ms. Roth. Your irrefutable and educational trouncing awaits in any martial style you see fit! Come now, let's have your decision." grinned Roy roguishly, as he watched Raven warm up.

[Bry]

Raven sat on the ground, her hands wrapped around her foot as she stretched a leg. Well. This was new and awkward. She'd wanted a hand-to-hand teacher to save her from embarrassment in the feild, not to mention injury or death, but it would seem now that she was doomed to humiliation no matter what happened. If he beat her, and he most certainly would as Raven relied way too heavily on her powers than on her fists, he'd never let her forget it. And for sure she'd end up black and blue in the morning, regardless of her uniform, which, coincidentally, was black and blue.

Raven made a noncommital sound in her throat as Speedy spoke, more to acknowledge his words than anything else, and then she mulled his question over. She really wasn't that familiar with martial arts of any kind, perferring instead to throw cars at those that offended her, so she picked the first style that came to mind and threw it out there.

"How about karate?" she asked, looking up at him, and then standing and straightening out her exercise shorts. She flicked up the hood of her gray hoodie and blinked at him. "It's as good a place as any to start, right?"

[Kenni]

"As good a choice as any, yes! Let's begin with the basics, then."
The ginger drew his arms into an X in front of his face, exhaled as he let them reverse the action, then swept his limbs through a few beginner's kata forms, nodding to Raven to follow his movements. He kept his knees bent, moving towards her in each kata, ending the first string of about 20 forms with his fist thrust towards the empath's face, just a few millimetres shy of her nose.
"These're called 'kata'. You get tested on stringin' these together at exams, but we'll only run through two or three strings to get you used to moving fluidly. You'll notice they're pretty repetitive, made up of the same sorta stances, just shuffled." He began the string again, sliding his barefeet along the cool gym floor rhythmically.
It was still a tad awkward, yeah, training with Raven, being alone with her, after all the pair had been through with the Babs incident, all that betrayal and all, but as of late he'd felt the two of them were able to get along more comfortably since she'd forgiven him. Maybe they could use this time to not only amp up Raven's threat-levels, but also reach an even more comfortable state of normalcy and bonding.
At least, that's what Speedy told himself as he stopped every now and again, positioning Raven's limbs in the right directions, tweaking her sloppiness here and there.
This constant contact was as awkward as it was going to get.

[Bry]

Raven stood statue still and watched as Speedy moved into the first forms ('kata', he'd called them?). It was a little awkward beginning, but as he continued, her quiet stare was less focused on him and more on memorizing the way he moved, trying to imagine herself pulling off the same stances. She blinked twice as his hand came close to knocking her in the nose, and she pulled her head back a little like a startled cat.

"Wait, I'm being tested?" she asked, in a halfway teasing tone, and one halfway suggesting nervousness, craning her head to look at him past his hand. "I thought that's what the villains were for."

Slowly following his lead, she slid her own feet across the floor, mirroring his movements and holding stock still whenever he paused to readjust her arms. Why he'd jumped at the chance to be her impromtu trainer, she could only guess, but she was glad that he had. Even after everything they'd both been through, she still trusted him as her teacher, and just as much not to broadcast her failure around the Tower, which made all the difference in the world really. It meant she wasn't afraid to try and fail, and try again afterwards. Speedy may poke fun, but he always stopped short of truly mocking, and she appreciated it.

It took her a few tries to make her body agree to what her mind was telling it to do, and a few more tries after that to make it look like she meant it, but Raven was a fast learner, and soon she was able to flow through the movements right alongside her teacher. And what was more, she was enjoying herself.

Who'd have thought.

[Kenni]

"Villains? The real test begins tomorrow when you try to roll out of bed after this, whitebelt." Speedy grinned, as they moved in time through the first three sets of kata.
"If I don't have to carry you to breakfast, you pass with flying-kick-olours."

They not only moved in sync with the natural flow of the movements, but she was even in sync with his own stance shifts. It was as if they were dancing side-by-side. This certainly didn't make up for any missed opportunities from the masquerade ball the team had just been invited to the week prior, but at least he was able to be himself, without scrutiny when the two were alone. Occasionally, Speedy would try to trip her up in a cheap shot at her slowly improving stance, or bump his hip into her's on the right, just messing about. It was great fun, yes, but he was also training her to hold her own in the event she were attacked head-on and couldn't rely on her powers in a pinch. It wouldn't do to only play around here.

The blackbelt ginger suddenly turned on her, face stone, sending an elbow jab that opened up into a chop in a staggered motion at her temple, after yelling,
"Remember the high-block we sequenced through! You always twist the blocking limb and minimize the contact force resulting so that neither of us gets hurt!"

[Bry]

"You'd better ready my flag then," Raven remarked with a quietly amused snort. "Because I'll be dead before you'll be carrying me to breakfast." Though she may've been weaker in her hand-to-hand than the rest of the team, sheer obstinance would be the driving force in getting the empath out of bed in the morning, not necessarily strength. Sheer obstinance and pride.

She was already dreading it.

But the movements they danced through were strangely peaceful, strangely calmly, and Raven wondered if she could incorporate them into her already lengthy meditation routines. She was relaxed, content, and about half of her positive feeling came from the company.

It felt good to be with her friend, to not be overthinking her every action, to not be guarding her words for fear of portraying herself incorrectly in front of Babs, in front of Robin, in front of anyone. To just be, and know that he'd understand what she meant as soon as she said it.

It was refreshing.

And so relaxed was she that she nearly forgot why she was there in the first place. It wasn't just for an alternate meditation technique, it was for self-defense, as she soon remembered when Speedy yelled out and threw an elbow towards her head, lengthening his arm out until it would connect with her temple. She uttered but a small and surprised yelp as she drew in a breath and threw her arm up, more in reflex than anything else, to shield her face, a small force of energy lacing along her arm before she remembered she was supposed to be ditching the powers. Extinquishing them, and hoping they went unnoticed though it was doubtful, Raven stumbled back a step when Speedy's blow struck her arm.

/Better than my head/, she thought, cringing, but it still hurt. She held steady, if a little shakey, getting her foot back underneath her, and then shoved him off, subconsciously shaking out her hand and arm.

Ah, her first bruise. Yay.

[Kenni]

Way to stay conscious, Your Highness; feeling drowsy? You’re sleeping as we stance.”
Speedy smiled back wryly as he rubbed his wrist carpals from the connection with Raven’s forearm, bone against bone, remembering his breakfast-carry quip earlier and her retort.

“And if you don’t pay attention you’ll be dead before breakfast.” He wasn’t pleased, sure, but he in no way expected her to have executed the block correctly on the first try. He had been overestimating her reflexes though; karate sequences could be quite relaxing and it had seemed after a good 30 minutes of low-key movements that the girl’s guard was definitely down. That was the only reason he’d tried the surprise attack in the first place. So, even if there wasn’t a tone of disappointment in his voice, there was certainly that of annoyance at his overestimation. No time for anymore ridicule, constructive as it was not; only his commands seemed to be. She was fine; he’d check on her bruises and bang-ups when Raven had deemed she was done for the day.

He was a gentleman that way.
”Don’t relax; remember, twist and redirect!”Speedy followed her forward, the third installment of a roundhouse kick executed towards her ribcage complete with the preceding hop of his non-kicking foot.

They were going to run continuous frontals until she could block him without hurting either of them.

[Bry]

Raven didn't reply, unless one counted a growl of frustration as a retort. A surge of irritation welled up, but Raven hushed it, or tried to. She'd been expecting the emotions a hand-to-hand fight would stir up, and she'd prepared for them even before she'd asked for instruction. Still though, emotions could be cunning, sneaky when they wanted to, and so her brow still furrowed into a hard glare.

Stumbling made her feel stupid and clumsy and her pride was throbbing worse than her arm. She wasn't ungraceful, not really, but most of the time she didn't have her feet to worry about in a fight. Most of the time she was a bird in the air, a spirit in flight, and being grounded felt strange and unnatural. Raven had just enough time to get her feet back underneath her before Speedy was coming at her again.

The words "Stop, wait!" were poised on her lips, but determination choked the life out of them, and she lowered herself, ready this time for whatever he might throw at her. Or at least more so than the last time. Admittedly, her mind had fallen asleep, and it was shameful. She knew it as much as he obviously did, if the annoyance on his face was anything to go by. She didn't even lose consciousness like that in true meditation; there was always a part of her that was on high alert. Maybe Speedy's presence had frozen that part? Maybe she was looking for excuses.

Enough of that, Raven decided as Speedy hopped forward, deft as a cat, and swung his foot around towards her torso. Once again, Raven threw her arms up in reflex, but instead of taking a blunt hit like a sack of potatoes, she attempted to 'catch' his shin, absorbing the motion into her arms like shocks and skidding backwards with the kinetic energy of his attack. His words echoed in her head, Twist and redirect, and she really wasn't sure if she'd twisted or redirected anything, only that she'd managed to not fall fumbling backwards this time.

"How the heck do I twist and redirect that?" she growled through clenched teeth, pushing away from him once again, settling somewhat sideways to minimize herself as a target, which was something she'd learned even fighting in the air. She kept her eyes locked on his, hoping to anticipate his next move, hoping to read it in his eyes.

She may not have been doing it correctly yet, but one thing was certain. Raven was no longer asleep.