ya_assemble | Level grinding.

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Level grinding.

There was still danger, even in this world.

As much as Sandy hated to admit it, she'd gotten swept up in the magic and wonder of Santa's workshop. Even if she was still having nightmares and found herself uncomfortable in large crowds things were so much better here that she'd gotten soft. And it had almost gotten them in trouble.

It's not as though it was a disaster, but it could have been and that was enough for Sandy to jump back into her habit of daily work outs and training. She had to be ready for the inevitable. Someday soon the Fearlings would attack and she didn't want to die again if she could help it.

She didn't even know if she could die now, the rules were still a little hazy to her.

For now she would make due with what she had. Some training dummies were set up in one of the rooms off the main workshop and she was working with a training dagger moving as quickly as she could between them jabbing at the vital points of each mark before moving to the next.

One, two, three, four, five. A circuit of enemies that she was trying to dart between. She expected to feel weaker like she always did after dying in the arena but she didn't. She felt powerful, fast. Like a bullet.

But would it be enough? It had never been enough before. With a look of grim determination she resumed her practice, maybe she'd have to start pressing the others to learn some of their techniques like she had been doing back in Panem.

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Her face bloomed several shades of red at the praise and the proposition. Her teaching Spider-man a thing or two? Wait...they'd never actually had a moment to talk about that had they?

"If you're sure you want to...I mean it's not a very pretty thing usually." She was hesitant because that meant showing him even more of how brutal she'd learned to be. "Then again we're fighting monsters so it's not like we have to hold back I guess. I don't know much about magic either." She was used to being self depreciating. It was easier to accept failure when she expected less of herself.

"Well...I don't really want to," he admitted. "I can't say I'm all that keen on knives. I'd always be worried that I'd hurt someone too bad, you know? Or, much more likely, hurt myself." Especially right now, when his senses were telling him where and how to move but his body wasn't able to keep up. His ability to be a complete clutz was now off the charts. "But I might still need to. You know?"

"Yeah I guess..." Should she just get it out of the way? Just...spill it out to him right now? What is she was wrong?

"Have you ever done any fighting before this?" Maybe just ease into the topic. That was she wouldn't look like an idiot if she was wrong.

"Um, no one's ever taught me to fight," Peter said. Which wasn't actually the answer to the question she asked. But he wasn't at all keen to say, 'Yes, in fact I spend my days trapezing across New York and fighting petty criminals in bad outfits', which would be the real answer.

Hopefully she wouldn't realise that. He didn't want to tell the truth, but he always felt like crap when he had to actually lie.

Sorry Peter, but Sandy is much too paranoid to let something like that slip by.

"But you have fought before?" She pressed fixing him with a stare that would rival many birds of prey.

Peter would like to say that he was never one to lie. Unfortunately, saying so would most definitely count as one. When the choice was between 'lying' and 'having his secrets revealed'...he picks lying.

"Seriously? You saw me out there. If I had fought before, I wouldn't have sucked so bad."

She gave him another long hard look and then sighed and turned her attention back to the test dummies.

"Yeah I guess not...I Just thought you might be someone I knew. He was really old, like a grandpa. But he fought a handful of big armored jerks in just his underpants and a mask."

Taking her practice knife she threw it and it found it's mark in the dummies chest.

"I can't imagine you doing any of that even if you have the same name. Sorry for being weird." Clearly she'd been driven a little crazy by how much better her life had gotten recently. She may not be in Panem anymore but that didn't mean all her dreams were gonna come true.

"I..." Peter stood there, with his jaw open, frozen. He wasn't and old guy, but...underpants and a mask? And he had the same name? What the hell was this? Was that...him? Him from the future? Him from an alternate universe?

But why did it have to be him? Maybe...maybe it really was someone with the same name. It's not like there weren't already thousands of people also putting on their pajamas to go and fright crime. It was possible.

He just had the sinking feeling that even if it was possible, it wasn't likely.

"I...I don't...I'm not an old guy, I don't know...how can I know if I'm some guy from another universe?"

"Well..." Sandy mused thoughtfully. "My dad always told me stories about this hero right? Spider-man protected New York city from bad guys including my dad. He even made my dad become a good guy. Then he went away for a long time till this old man brought him back. The old man told a bunch of us his real name." Another questioning look at him.

"Peter Parker."

Passing him a practice knife she posed the way she had before showing him how to hold the knife and how to take a stance before a throw.

"So I guess the only way of knowing for sure is if you turn out to have a hero inside while we're fighting all these forces of darkness or whatever."

...Crap.

She knew. She knew! Okay, she didn't know know, because she thought he was just some other Peter Parker (oh god, there are other Peter Parkers? Did their lives suck as much as his?). But she was still way closer to knowing all of the secrets he'd tried to keep back home. He wasn't ready. Not for this.

"Right. I guess," he said, laughing weakly. So all he had to do to convince her that he wasn't Spider-man was...to not try to fight, and sit back while everyone in this universe died. Great.

And he was really glad she was starting to show him some knife moves, because god he really needed a subject change about now.

"Aren't knives meant to be really bad for throwing?" he asked, trying to imitate her hold and stance. It felt rather strange trying to do something specific like this, rather than just...doing whatever came naturally like usual.

Sandy didn't notice Peter's mini-freakout either by virtue of his ability to internalize things, or her being too disappointed to pay attention. Instead she addressed his question by showing him the knife.

"Regular knives are. They require more force to throw and they're harder to aim. But a balanced knife made for throwing is great if you know what you're doing." The knives they were using were indeed skinny and weighted at just the right places for the task at hand.

"Normally it won't be an issue because I'm sure we have some ranged fighters on hand but the only reason I'm still alive is because I made sure to cover as wide a spread of skills as possible to survive in the arena."

"Ah, but here's the problem. I don't know what I'm doing," Peter said, although despite his jesting he didn't stop trying to imitate Sandy's movements. "And...that really sucks, but it makes sense. If you've got a lot of different skills, then people won't always know exactly what you can do."

"Well that's why you're here isn't it? To learn what you're doing." She managed to repress the smugness in her voice but the smirk on her face was undeniable. For however disappointed she was in Peter's identity not being what she thought, he was still a friendly face who needed help and she was not so jaded that she couldn't offer that.

"You're right about that." She added when he reasoned the benefits to her wide skill set. "I've gotten out of a few tight spots by being able to do first aid or set a trap or catch some food."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, you can kick my butt and I need to listen to your awesome and superior knowledge so I don't stab myself," Peter said, rolling his eyes - but in a friendly, joking kind of way.

"And if we ever end up somewhere where we need to catch our own food, I am totally coming to you because I am pretty sure I would die otherwise."

Sandy blushed and shook her head "N-no way it's not all like that." Sure she probably could take him in a fight if he was as hopeless as he appeared but she'd died enough times to be incapable of accepting praise of such a high level.

"You're right about the last part at least. Ya gotta be able to take care of yourself in the wild. And things are probably gonna get wild soon knowing my luck."

It had been quiet and peaceful for far too long.

If he'd had all his own powers, Peter could probably wipe the floor with her (although he'd feel like the biggest jerk in the world for doing so), but right now she was definitely the one with the upper hand. Fortunately, they weren't actually trying to kill each other, so at least he'd be spared that particular humiliation.

"I am hoping you don't mean literally wild, as in, jungles and forests and bears. Because in that case I am not kidding when I say I'd probably die."

"You'd be surprised what you can live through...or at least for how long you can hold off death if you have to." She had felt the same way about nature. "Fresh out of New York barely knowing what was going on I somehow survived five weeks in this frozen tundra place. I only died because some mutant lady turned into a big hair guy and took my head off."

Talking casually about her many deaths was a bad habit that came and went depending on the mood she was in.

"And if you're smart enough to pay attention I can teach you the stuff I learned on the way."

Peter winced. Perhaps it was casual for Sandy, but for Peter, hearing a girl years younger than him talking so flippantly about her own death...it wasn't right. At least she wasn't there any more. Small comfort, but maybe the only one.

"I'll pay attention," Peter promised. He hoped he never needed to use a knife, but...he'd learn anyway. Just in case he did.

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Level grinding.

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