[LN] Thank Goodness We're Well-rounded Characters

[matchmadeinhell]

Kon was reading at relative superspeed. It wasn't at his usual brisk pace, because he found that the limitations of his powers meant he couldn't retain the knowledge for more than a few minutes at his usual speeds, so he had to slow it down a little, but he was still thumbing through far faster than some of the others were taking just to go through the study guides they'd quickly procured.

"Is it just the fact I'm reading this as superspeed or does this story make no sense?" Kon said, as he thumbed through page after page.

Another reality shard had fallen away and now that their brands had signaled it, it was time to go dimension-hopping. Fortunately, it was a very small shard in the middle of the wilderness in Siberia and the area of effect was spreading slowly, so they had time to prepare.

With his otherworldly wisdom, Manny had managed to help out on this one, communicating some clues about the world they were about to enter by flashing the image of a cover of a book.

A fairly terrible book. Apparently they were entering the world it was based on.

So they were doing their homework as they geared up to go and trying to make sense of the senseless.

"So what I'm getting from this is this is a world where you're not allowed to have more than one personality trait? I think? Under pain of death, you have to be a one-dimensional character."

Comments

[matchmadeinhell]

He'd been concerned at first as to how Cassie would get out of this without really hurting Tris, but Kon laughed when he realized what Cassie was doing.

"Whooo! You get her, gorgeous!" Kon called out encouragingly, making it sound like very obvious flirting rather than them having any sort of established relationship. "Give that girl an education! In butt whuppin."

Like...an actual education.

[morethanmyth]

Realizing what Cassie was doing now, Tris looked heartened rather than intimidated.

And now, far more sure of herself, she started throwing harder punches, trying to learn more each time she missed or was parried.

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie was parrying more punches than she actually needed to, but she wasn't the focus here -- Tris was. She just had to remember her early training with Diana and Artemis and try to replicate it as much as possible.

"Good!" she said, still grinning. "I'm going to start punching back now, so keep your guard up! Nothing fancy yet, I want to make sure you have the basics, but keep it up and we'll have you doing something fancy before we're done here!"

She started throwing punches back, a little slower than Tris was throwing them so the other girl could adjust, watching her critically all the while.

"Don't step across your own leg when we're circling, you don't want to literally trip yourself up in a fight," she said. "And don't get too comfortable with this pattern, I am going to change it up sometime soon, you'll be really embarrassed if you block my punch into your own face."

...This was actually a lot of fun. Maybe she should tutor more people in fighting skills.

[morethanmyth]

"Initiate, stop playing and fight. You're not getting scored for dancing," shouted Eric, getting annoyed.

Four covered his hand with his mouth, clearly struggling to hide his amusement at Cassie's antics in the ring.

Tris tried her best to block, not doing the best job of it. But drawing from what Four had taught her and what Cassie was teaching her as they went seemed to be helping her learn. She was getting better at it as she went.

But she was also starting to get exhausted.

"You're not supposed to tire out your opponent," called out Eric in annoyance. "You need to go in for the kill."

[othersdestructive]

"Outlasting an opponent's a perfectly valid tactic," Raph corrected loudly. However, unlike Kon, he wasn't being sassy or rude. His tone was just calm. "Usually, you'd use it for a bigger stronger opponent, but practicing it on someone smaller and weaker is still practice."

[morethanmyth]

"True enough," said Four, before Eric could say otherwise. "Using agility and endurance to outlast someone is a perfectly good tactic. Like Raphael said, usually you'd use it on someone bigger and stronger, but clearly Cassie here is using it during this fight just for practice."

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie wasn't looking at the crowd, but she did smirk when Four clearly cut off Eric before he could complain more about her choice of techniques. And speaking of Eric, he was beginning to sound more and more steamed...

"Keep going, Tris, you're already doing better!" she said. "Come on, ten more! One...two...two and a half..."

There was more than a few people tittering in the audience at this point. If she could just draw Tris out a little longer that she thought she could go...

[morethanmyth]

Tris was starting to tire herself out, but she was almost smiling, grateful that even if she was going to win this match, that she'd learned something that would help her later. She looked proud of herself, even as she was parried out of the way yet again and landed hard on one knee, exhausted.

"Sandsmark!" Eric called out. "This isn't practice, you're being scored. Stop playing around and finish her!"

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie looked down at the exhausted-but-happy girl in front of her, then glanced back up at the crowd, eyes seeking Kon.

Then she winked.

"I have finished her," she said, turning to look at Eric. "She's exhausted and she's down; she's out." She lifted her jaw, a challenge in the shape of a smile unrolling across her face. "If you disagree, you can come down here and finish me."

Now she was going to some fun.

[morethanmyth]

The entire crowd went deathly silent.

Four clasped his hand over his mouth, making difficult to tell if he was horrified or trying not to laugh at her daring.

Eric was staring with his jaw hanging open, clearly furious.

[matchmadeinhell]

Kon broke the silence by giggling uncontrollably.

[morethanmyth]

That seemed to spur Eric into action.

"First jumper, out of the ring," he demanded, climbing up into the ring with Cassie. Tris quickly climbed out, staggering back into the crowd to watch, exhausted.

Eric held his fists up, ready to take her down.

"Big mistake, initiate. Now you both go down in the rankings."

Four was still holding that hand over his mouth, but he lifted it away enough to yell, "Start!"

Eric immediately went in for the kill, his initial attack very aggressive, assuming that all of Cassie's dancing around meant she didn't know how to, or have the instinct to, fight back aggressively.

[mark_in_the_sands]

If he hadn't been so caught up in his own petty fury over Cassie not beating the hell out of someone much less skilled than she was, he'd have noticed the change in the way Cassie was holding herself. It wasn't a shift in her body so much as a shift in her mindset. She'd been taking her sparring match with Tris seriously, but sparring with Tris was different than fighting with Eric. Cassie adjusted accordingly.

Eric lunged. Cassie turned her body out of the way of his punch, slapping it down with the hand further away from Eric and used the momentum of her turn to drive the fist of her nearer hand into his face (she kept a reign on her strength, though. Wouldn't do to take off his head).

Eric hit the floor. Cassie prodded him with her foot. He was still breathing, good.

She sucked air in through her teeth and looked up at Four, expression just this side of too smug to be genuinely sheepish.

"He's out."

[morethanmyth]

The entire group was completely silent. This time the silence wasn't broken by Kon laughing.

Four hadn't laughed once when training them, had never smiled, had never been anything but intense and dour.

But now? He laughed. He laughed an abrupt little laugh he couldn't keep in, one that made it clear exactly how out of practice he was at laughing. It wasn't more than just that laugh but he was still holding his hand over his mouth, clearly having trouble hiding his amusement.

"Well," he said. "I guess that's full marks, initiate."

[matchmadeinhell]

Now Kon, who had been grinning a giant grin, threw his head back and started laughing uncontrollably. He knew she was capable of cleaning his clock but that didn't mean he'd expected her to go in for the K-O right away. That she'd had the daring to rather than at least faking that it was difficult was what amused the crap out of him.

God, he loved his girlfriend.

There was only one thing to say during a time like this, a phrase that got passed from hero to hero (along with the absolute legend it was attached to).

"One punch!" he crowed. "One punch!"

At that, the rest of the crowd of initiates erupted into laughter.

[othersdestructive]

Raph actually bowed over forward, he was laughing so hard. Which was no small feat for him when he didn't technically have a waist.

"For once in my life, I'm actually glad I didn't punch someone out because it meant I had a better view to watch it."

[staff_and_wielder]

Nico was using Raph's shoulder to hold herself upright through her own attack of mirth.

"He's going to be so pissed when he wakes up," she said, shaking her head back and forth and wiping the tears out of her eyes. Anyone else, she might have worried for their safety in the the face of Eric's vindictiveness, but she was pretty sure at this point that he couldn't throw anything at Cassie that she couldn't either take or take out.

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie bounced in place and clapped her hands, like a teenage girl who'd just gotten an 'A' in gym class.

"Yay!"

She bent over and prodded Eric again. "I'll just drag him out of the way so that the next people can use the ring..."

[morethanmyth]

Hand still over his mouth, Four nodded to some nearby mats. "You can put him right over here."

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie dragged Eric over to the mats and returned to the crowd, thumping Tris in the shoulder as she passed her and wriggling back into the spot beside Kon.

"One punch." she repeated in a stage whisper. "One punch!"

[morethanmyth]

Tris smiled at Cassie, clearly grateful.

"Thank you," she breathed out. She really hadn't wanted to be punched in the face and even though she'd been doomed to lose, she was clearly grateful to have had a chance to learn.

[matchmadeinhell]

As soon as Cassie came close he had to resist the urge to kiss her. They were pretending that they'd been strangers before this and while it made sense for them to maybe start hooking up by now, they couldn't act too familiar, like people who'd been together for quite some time and known each other for years.

So what he did instead was lean in close to her ear, since adorable flirty whispering was something that made a lot of sense at the stage they were pretending to be at.

It was a lot more than flirty, though. In fact, it got straight to the point.

"I want you," he whispered longingly.

They hadn't... it had been a while. He just hadn't been in the right mindset. They'd slept in the same bed and cuddled a lot, which was nice. She was always there, holding him, after the nightmares. Wiping the tears off his face.

But it had gotten better. It was getting better all the time. All the feelings he'd locked up were starting to come out again. The numbness was going away.

"Let's get away for a little while. Tonight."

[mark_in_the_sands]

His whisper poured into her ear like honey, trickling down to meet the answering warmth that rose in her chest. He hadn't been the first boy she'd had a crush on, hadn't even been the first boy she had a crush on when puberty hit, but he'd always been good at making her heart go pitter-pat at surprising moments. Like now, apparently.

She hadn't want to put pressure on him -- goodness knew he'd been through enough stuff that she'd have felt horrible bringing it up herself -- but she'd be lying if she'd said she didn't miss that part of their relationship too.

She smiled as she fell in to stand next to him, pressing her palm to his outer thigh.

"Let's find out if we can take off the masks," she whispered back, voice pitched at a low purr. "Sixteen's cute, but it's not really my thing anymore."

[matchmadeinhell]

Oh yes. Hands. Hands on places. He wanted more of that. More hands. Yes, the tingly feelings were back. Finally. Finally.

Kon suddenly closed his eyes, his throat making a whining sound as he held in a laugh.

It took him a moment before he could actually stop laughing enough to whisper it.

"Trying to figure out how to word that one to ask Nico."

She could barely stand the two of them being silly and saccharine with each other.

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie snickered herself, curling her fingers to rasp her nails across the cloth of his pants.

"She might just turn us into fluffy bunnies," she agreed. "But probably not for too long -- we've still got a job to do, after all."