 |
|---|
Action
|
| Players |
|
|
Factions |
|
|
Music |
|
|
Elena shows the Gilbert family supplies to Angel and Faith, who suspect a Slayer in her family tree. They begin training Elena in the ways of combat.
6/9/2016 7:00 PM
Hyperion Hotel San Francisco
The Hyperion Hotel[]
The lights are on, illuminating the area.
The California-Spanish building known as the Hyperion Hotel was built in the 20s. Through the cast iron gates from the sidewalk is a small front courtyard with a rectangular fountain and a mythological figure holding a bowl from which water flows. Greenery frames the walls and a large set of glass double doors open into a high ceilinged lobby. Dark red carpet descends the four steps to the lobby floor and climb the two sets of stairways that lead to the second floor. The green marble floors are accented with wavy red inserts, as are the walls have a complimentary red border running their length. A set of doors identical to those of the entrance lead to a small enclosed garden.
Cream-colored pillars line two sides of the room, holding up the second-floor balconies that look out onto the lobby and creating arches. Underneath one of them is a large plate glass window that looks into the hotel office - now used as the office and nerve center of Angel Investigations. Nearby, there's a wraparound counter with dark wood paneling and a top the same color as the floor. Behind it are filing cabinets and a pair of desks pushed together. A navy blue circular couch harkening back to a 50s design sits near the back of the lobby. A large wooden, glass-doored cabinet pushed up against the wall holds a large assortment of weapons.
Outside, it's raining hard, with thunder and flashes of lightning.
Elena Gilbert called ahead to be sure Angel didn't have a case and that he and Faith would be there today. She also made sure to show up early in the afternoon, pulling up in her car in front of the hotel. She's got on some of her old cheer work out clothes, so yoga pants and a tank top with a shirt over the later to give more coverage til she is inside. She also has what looks to be a big heavy gym bag on her shoulder. Stepping into the hotel she calls out. "Faith? Angel? It's me!" Not realizing that may no be clear with her voice. But habits are habitual by definition.
Angel was expecting a guest, of a certain friend of his from Beacon Hills. Elena. Hopefully, Stefan actually DID what Angel told him to do and spent some time with this girl. But, he's gonna do whatever he's gonna do, and Angel ultimately can't make him do anything. "Hey, Elena. Glad you could stop by." He's pleased to see it looks like she's taking the whole training idea seriously, what with the big gym bag and all.
Faith Lehane comes downstairs, also dressed for working out. No doubt, Angel warned her a friend was coming around. She waves brightly to Elena as she heads over to join the two.
Elena Gilbert offers a bright smile to the pair, "Good to see you both! I brought some stuff to show you guys as well. I am guessing you got a training area we'll be using?" She hitches her shoulder to keep the bag from slipping. She doesn't have superhero stregth after all. Just a 'normal' girl.
"Yeah, our dojo's downstairs." Angel leads the way...and downstairs is a dojo that he'd set up to train all the friends he has...it's capable of handling Slayers, himself, other vampires, weres, immortals, and virtually any other friend Angel has. Of which there are many! "Do you want me to carry the bag?" Always the gentleman. Probably some wrong century hospitality or something.
Faith Lehane follows downstairs. Angel is being gallant again...of course, he knows better than to do that with Faith. "That *does* look heavy," she adds, though.
Elena Gilbert follows the vampire and Slayer toward the dojo. "I am here to train. If I let you carry a bag cuz it is heavy then I'm just cheating myself. But thanks for offering you two." When she gets to the dojo she smiles nad looks around. Seeing a table she'll pt the bag down with a soft thud of metal and wood on wood. "But I found this in a family cabin I inherited, and thought I see what you two thought." Yeah she's trying to build it up some.
Angel will certainly look at the bag, but he nods at the point about training. Carrying a heavy bag is decent for both strength and stamina, come to think of it. Of course, he'll wait for the explanation of what's inside and what it does. Not polite to ruin someone's story, after all.
Faith Lehane peeks at the bag. "Found in a family cabin." There's something intriguing, but she's not sure WHAT yet.
Elena Gilbert says, "Well you both know I like to write a journal and that's a thing my family has been doing for like two hundred years. And when you get into reading those you can find some interesting things. Whil in cabin my family has had for a long time I found a hidden wall. Behind it found this." She opens the bag and starts to set out stakes, and improvised weapons and a lot of other things. Covering MOST of the table as she starts to set it out. "There was other stuff, but I didn't feel comfortable moving them."
Angel is fairly impressed with a cache like that. "I don't suppose you had any female relatives doing the hunting? Cause that looks a whole lot like..." He eyes Faith for a minute. "It would've been when the Line was still around, but it's possible. We'll have to ask Giles to look it up."
"It looks like a Slayer's cache, yeah. Doesn't mean it is...but we can look into it. Or get Giles to, as he's good at that." Faith grins.
Elena Gilbert shakes her head as she starts to gather her hair up into a pony tail with a hair tie. "Not that I know of. Mostly just guys doing the archaic 'father to son' sort of thing handing down the family line. I know there were a few minor magical things in the collection. Such as a compass that would point to a vampire when near one." She doesn't want to mention everything however. "I got a friend who also been a hunter of sorts and has made a few things himself." Curious she asks, "Who's Giles?"
"He's something called a Watcher. Basically, their job is to catalog all knowledge of everything supernatural, and then inform those that fight how to deal with their enemies. This used to mean just Slayers, but they've expanded a little since." Just a little. Not too much, though. A compass that points to vampires? "...that sounds REALLY useful. Useless to me, cause it'd just point at me all the time, but I can think of a few times Buffy could've used that."
"Since the really hide bound ones got blown up." Not that Faith actually feels any schadenfreude - because a lot of not hide bound ones did too. "Slayers can usually sense vampires. It might be more useful to somebody who can't."
Elena Gilbert says, "The compass was made by an ancestor of mine, but in truth his 'invention' was a failure and it was witch that made it all work. There were some other inventions as well as I said. I figure I have to get at least okay with a stake and maybe a small edged weapon for the non vampire things that go growl and snap in the night."
Angel nods at Faith. "True, but if it's enchanted by a witch, it probably has greater range then a Slayer's natural ability. Your natural powers let you pick out the vampire in a croweded room, that compass will tell you, starting from your house, where the nearest vampire is. With any luck, it even picks out the highest concentration of them, which takes you straight to the nest. Probably some kind of locator spell on it." He can see the tactical use of such a thing, even for a Slayer with natural abilities to back it up. As for the actual training..."Well, so we know where to begin, has Stefan or Damon been teaching you anything? Or Kat for that matter? Or do you have any training of your own from family or dojos or that kind of thing?"
Faith Lehane nods. "Good point." She looks over the array of weapons again. Some of them look usable. Some of them belong in a museum.
Elena Gilbert has to laugh at the idea of her family teaching her. "My aunt has no idea bout this world and I try to keep things that way. My parents kept all this hunting stuff secret. Damon and Stefan haven't taught me anything like this. I got like a lesson on throwing a punch once from my history teacher." In otherwords she's a total rookie. Motioning to the tables, "Help yourself Faith."
Angel was okay with that. "It's fine. Being completely untrained means we can train you the right way from the start. A lot of the stuff you get in karate dojos would help relatively little in a fight with somebody trying to kill you. The styles we've developed come from being on the front line against this sort of thing all the time."
Faith Lehane picks up one of the knives, testing its weight. "Yeah. I get girls come in who have black belts and think that means they're ready."
Elena Gilbert admits, "I'm a pretty blanke slate and figure I got at least a month to do this if not more." She will start to stretch a bit like she would in the old cheerleading days. "I at least know to put my thumb outside the fist," trying to rassure Faith and Angel both. "Just... remember I don't heal without vampire blood or something else." She snaps her fingers and goes to get a small squirt bottle and some towels out. "Bleach and towels for in case I do bleed on the equipment." She seems overly worried about leaving any blood around.
"We understand. And don't worry about bleeding. I have MUCH better control then that, I promise." Angel's the sort of guy who can snuggle Buffy all night long, despite the fact she has the best tasting blood ever, and yet she'll wake up without holes in her neck every time. He decides to let Faith start this lesson off, and gestures accordingly.
Faith Lehane nods. "Don't worry. I've trained normals before. Okay. I want to see you move." She's NOT a Slayer. So there's more assessment that needs to be done, more variance in strength and native skill.
Elena Gilbert would like to think she is up ther on the tasty factor, but that's not something to talk about most times. "I just have to be careful. It's for me, not because of you guys." Hoping her friends won't pry past that. She turns to give Faith her full attention, "I trust you Faith." She was on cheer so she has SOME basic acrobatic know how but that is about it. She'll still do what is asked of her without fuss.
Angel watches, with his usual critical eye. Training humans, or often as not, witches in the basics of physical combat was always interesting. They had so much more to learn, and it was slower...but in many ways, more rewarding then watching those with talent. Because the harder you work, the more you've earned. "Well. Cordelia was a cheerleader too, once. I see a little of that."
She'll run Elena through some moves. "Yeah. You've done cheer. Which actually helps. You have body control, and you have enough awareness to isolate muscles."
Elena Gilbert does her best to not complain but she admits, "That feels like a life time ago and I'm out of practice. But it does feel good to do this. Thanks!" She makes sure to drink water as she continues with the basics of 'how not to hurt yourself'
"It might've been a lifetime ago, but the foundations you were taught are still there. The flexibility you were taught doesn't hurt either. And the sense of balance...you look small enough you might've been the one the other girls throw in the air a couple times." Quite a contrast to Eva, who very much needs to work on her balance.
Faith Lehane nods. "Right. All we have to do is get you back up there." And Eva does...but Eva also has slayer strength and instincts. Elena has to manage without that.
Elena Gilbert nods her head. "I always was one of the thinner and lighter girls." She feels warmed up though and honestly hasn't done physical outside of jogging in a while. "I'm not above doing some hard work and if you give me a routine to do on my own, I can do that. It's summer. I got the time."
Angel agreed. "We usually have our friends who need to work on it do a specific series of excercise. Some of them, like situps, will be obvious to anyone. Some of them, though, not so much."
Faith Lehane nods. "And you have no self defense training at all?" Faith grins. "We'll work on that too. And yeah, there's an exercise program."
Elena Gilbert says, "Long as I can do it in a condo, my home, or a back yard and not have a sherif try to put me away." Trying to be funny and stretching a leg behind her. "No defense at all, sorry Faith. Mostly when stuff like that has happened I just run and call for help."
"I won't tell you you'll never need help again. Simply because Faith and I need help to this day. It's a reason why we do what we do as a team. What I can tell you is that you won't be someone that needs to be constantly watched over anymore. Both in Sunnydale and Los Angeles, the normals around us got good enough that they could hold their own pretty well. And there's confidence, and peace, to be found in being able to take care of yourself." That, hopefully, will be a relief.
"Or here. You can always come here. But yeah, the basic stuff you can do at home. You'll definitely need a yoga mat if you don't already have one." Faith grins. "But yeah. If you can at least protect yourself, that's one less back we need to watch."
Elena Gilbert promises, "I'm sure Katherine will still worry about me, and want me safe. But this is for when bad guys kick in my door." She gets needing help and support. "I will probably be by often o practice here and make sure I don't learn any bad habits. Ad I got a mat at home." She motions to the pair, "I'd like to know I won't be a stumbling stone if we're ever out together."
Considering what Angel remembers, Kat worrying about anyone but herself is a step in the right direction. "From what you just said, you come from a long line of hunters. Well, you might consider this another way to show the menfolk of your family it's not all about them." Hanging around Slayers all the time gives one an interesting opinion of such things. "Because we can at least make you the equal or better of any of the menfolk of your family."
Elena Gilbert looks down a bit after Angel speaks, "My brother is more from that 'line' then I am. That gets into my very messed up family 'Tree'." Holding up her hands to make the quotes at the end of that. She wants Jeremy out of this. "I just want to make the bad guy's think twice about going after me. "I figure I'm going to get more out of the Judo like stuff where I redirect what comes out of me instead of out power it." She follows Faith through any motions she's shown.
"A long line of prejudiced hunters." Faith rolls her eyes. "And before you say anything, *I* didn't choose for Slayers to only be female."
Elena Gilbert laughs, "Youhave NO ideahow prejudice that family is. There are a LOT of skeletons in Mystic Falls history. And I was meaning to ask about this Slayer thing. Eva and I talked on it a little but not a lot. Sounds like a mixed blessing."
Angel...nods. "It is. Originally, it was 'one girl in all the world fighting all the vampires and demons and whatever with nothing but one old British guy to guide her. Fortunately, a young lady I know decided that was a terrible idea, and kept her family and friends, and me, around. And her Watcher had affection enough to go with it. She's now the longest living Slayer in history, and redefined the role. But...the old ways? It was basically a death sentence in a year, two at most."
Faith Lehane nods. "And I have always suspected whoever did the original ritual tied it to gender because they thought women would be easier to control."
Elena Gilbert rolls her eyes. "Men are dumb like that, Faith." Agreeing about the 'men of the past' and some of the dumb commonly held beliefs. "Good for this girl on changing things up. AS someone who's met some of that 'it has always been this way' stuff I know how it feels to get in that situation."
Angel quirks one of his halfsmiles. "Speaking as a man who likes hanging around with super powerful women all day, we're not all bad." Though even Angel gets gallant in his old fashioned way, as noted by offering the carry the bag. "But I believe the general concept is right. The people who created the Slayer line probably had the same general line of thought as the worst of the Watcher's Council. Make a girl into a weapon, then control that weapon. And...then Buffy and Willow got together one day and threw that whole line of thinking out the window by making sure that every girl who can stand up will. And now we have people like Eva learning how to guard the world along with all the rest."
Faith Lehane nods. "You don't *have* to be a Slayer. It helps. But..." She considers it for a long moment. "Everyone can stand up. And should."
Elena Gilbert perks at a name. "You know Willow? Met her once or twice." Info to file away for later. "Quite the shake up they did. Sounds like a good thing though. Can't imagine that the bad guys like that." She opens her mouth to say something to Faith but catches herself and shakes her head some. "I'll do my best and I'm big on helping when I can."
Angel nodded, "Yes. Willow is among the strongest witches that ever lived, and she's Buffy's best friend. She's also the one that restored my soul when I lost it. Twice." Because nobody likes the no soul version of Angel.
Faith Lehane nods. "Don't *ever* piss Willow off." A bit of a sidelong grin. "I need to get going. But we'll continue soon."