Learning New Tricks

[Zodiac]

Zodiac was, as always, prompt. Not so common, however, was her attire. A loose sweatshirt was atop a comfortably fitted tee, and while they weren't the skin-tight yoga-pants that Asp seemed to favour, a pair of fairly snug sweatpants had settled on her legs, her hair pulled up into a tight bun to keep it out of the way.

There was nothing flashy about Zodiac on that day. Nothing augmented, nothing outstanding, nothing at all. Zodiac could have easily gone unnoticed on the streets, ignored in a bar, or shooed off from some of the classier restaurants she would occasionally frequent. She was entirely mundane as she slipped into the dojo, barefooted, giving a polite bow at the waist to Asp as she entered.

Was she scared? No. Not at all. Scared was much too simple as words went.

Zoey was terrified. And the fact that she was terrified was what left her in a state of utter calm. She had asked the Arrow for her assistance. For training. And she had to know it was going to be painful. She wasn't a fool. The Arrow didn't play around in their training. But the Arrow also fought 'fair' as they deemed it - in some cases, that could lead to predictability.

Asp, however, was predictable in only one way.

She would kick peoples' asses.

She would inflict pain.

Those could be predicted.

"Asp," she greeted.

[Avis]

The last member of the trio appeared, clad in her training garb, the habitual, cut off, patched sweatshirt smelling a bit ripe, but her pants were fresh and her shoes were spotless, as usual.

"Hey Asp. Zoey. Gimme a sec?" Avis inquired, pausing at the threshold of the dojo to kneel down and untie her shoes. Her fingers moved methodically along the shoestrings, carefully loosening them and then guiding them apart, fingertips lingering almost as though savoring the friction. Eventually, she let the strings drop and then her body folded further onto the ground so she could just as reverently pull the shoes off and then neatly set them against the wall, where they would be out of the way.

"Ok, I'm ready," Avis then said, standing and pacing over to Asp and Zoey. She came to rest some feet away from the other Magi, standing so that they each occupied the point of a triangle.

"So what're we doing, sensei? Or is it sifu? Or, uh, what do they call it in stick fighting?"

[Avis]

"I guess it's silly to label, at some point, but if I was gonna label what you do, I'd say you do JKD. Sensei," Avis replied, a soft grin appearing on her lips. She did a quick bow and then stepped backward, extending the triangle so she'd have space to stretch without breaking it.

"For what experience I have," she said, spreading her legs and then folding down into a hang, "it's not much. In Chicago I learned how to punch without breaking my hand or wrist, how to kick without breaking toes, and how to elbow and knee. Also a bit about negative space in clenches, but not a lot. I mean, there was this one time where I had to grapple this scary blonde chick, and she ended up stabbing me with my own weapon, so that should tell you how much I actually know. Then there was this other time when I got KOed from a crotch shot in front of the entire Order," she continued, voice dryly amused as she shifted her torso over so she cold grab her left leg. Really, she was smiling, but it was hard to tell around the fall of hair coming out of her hood.

[Zodiac]

It wasn't as though she wore any shields anyway, currently, but she did begin her stretching as she allowed Avis to answer Asp's question. After a moment, she shook her head lightly. "Minimal," she responded. "As a female working in third world countries you learn basics on how to protect yourself... but even at that I'm out of practice."

Her gaze settled on the mats for a moment as her brows furrowed. "You get too comfortable with the feeling of a gun in hand - and that usually is enough to dissuade people from coming at you physically."

[Avis]

"There's this awesome movie called Ronin. It's about spies, kinda, not samurai, so it's relevant. Just bear with me. The reason why I brought it up is because it shows an awesome amount of collateral damage. It takes place in cities, so every gunfight has all these innocent bystanders getting shot up," Avis said, falling backwards into a sitting position to continue her routine. She bent forward, slowly walking her hands forward to pull her body more into the stretch.

"Problem with guns," she grunted, voice strained from having her lungs compressed by the bend. "Soon as the bullet leaves you really can't control where it goes. Not without magic, I guess. Why knives are better."