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Fiore drops by for training, Angel and Faith help out.
4/11/2017 8:00 PM
Hyperion Hotel San Francisco
The Hyperion Hotel - Basement Dojo[]
The lights are on, illuminating the area.
The dojo of Angel Investigations is an impressive training arena. There's quite famously a punching bag that weighs a ton made for people with superhuman strength to practice with, a normal punching bag for normal people to practice on, in addition to a large sparring area in the middle. There's also a circle drawn in the middle of the sparring arena to help with swordsmanship and other melee weapon use.
Off to the side, there are also weights to be lifted, bench pressed, squatted, and more. Once again, they come in two size categories, those meant for normal people, and those meant for superhumans. There are two 'dartboards', one made for throwing knives, another made for throwing stakes. Lastly, there's also an archery target meant for bow and crossbow practice. There is a large, thick, reinforced table off to one side that holds equipment. There's also a water dispenser for those that drink water to keep themselves hydrated.
Outside, it's foggy and cool.
Angel has been busy, between Slayers running around and paperwork and running a business...it's actually that paperwork that frustrates him now. He's convinced an evil gypsy that couldn't find anything better to do Cursed him with paperwork as revenge for getting around the original curse...
Sadly Fiore cannot come in through the window or the roof. The hotel's a bit too big for her to climb up that far. That would be kind of dangerous, and she's not a thrill junkie for no reason. So she'll have to settle for coming in through the front door. She sees Angel and grins, heading over to him. "Yo!" she says, leaning on his desk. "You look like you're so bored you're dead." Yes, she is being a smartass.
Angel deadpans, "And here I thought I was just fun impaired." He was, for most of his endless existence. Until a certain Slayer decided to fix that. And certain other Slayers and Seers all joined in. And then a bunch of other friends hopped in, and...well. Things change. "Nice to see you stop by again."
"Hehe!" Fiore giggles at the deadpan comment. Though she does sober a bit at the note that she's been missing for a while. "Courier business gets weird around the change of seasons. Especially in Chinatown -- rituals and crap, people wanting to make sure their furies are in balance, stuff like that." She waves a hand dismissively. "Sorry I've been so scarce of late."
"There's always a place for you here. While it's safe here, you don't ever have to be here if you don't want to be. We're just...very good at helping you use the gifts you've been given." Welcoming aside, Angel's glad to see her. Slayer or not, there's always a nagging worry that Wolfram and Hart might've kidnapped one for nefarious purposes or something like that...
Fiore smiles. "Thanks. It's good to see you too; your brilliant smile lights up any room!" She's not flirting, not at all. She's teasing him again, a little bit about that broody air he's got going. Oh she knows that it's probably incredibly well-earned -- being a vampire probably SUCKS, no pun intended -- but that doesn't mean she won't tease him a little about it!
Being a vampire is terrible. Being an ensouled vampire is a little better. Being a vampire with a ton of extras is...tolerable. But his friends are what makes unlife worth living. "They tell me my smile cures cancer." Unfortunately, Angel never smiles, and half smiles don't count. Well, maybe not NEVER these days. Certain 5'3" Blondes have been known to make it happen.
"That would explain why they're so rare!" Fiore replies, giggling again. But then she gets a little more serious. "OK, really. What've I missed?" she asks, snagging a chair and plopping down in it. Probably backwards, if the chair allows it. She IS about as ladylike as a bodybuilder.
Ladylike and Slayer rarely go in the same sentence, and Angel knows it. On the other hand, Slayer and ridiculous metabolism also go in every sentence and, "Well, why don't you have something to eat first?" After getting her whatever, he says, "Well, Willow cloned herself. It was bad idea. We're sorting that out. There's also disturbances up in Beacon Hills, and some vampires started a turf war."
"Ooh! Good idea," Fiore replies, standing up from the seat. "Be right back, sweets." Zoom! She'll come back with, surprisingly, something relatively healthy. She has a particular fondness for raw celery, lightly salted, and raw carrots. So if she can find either of these, that'll be what she comes back with. She'll munch on these as Angel describes the recent crises. Fiore wrinkles her nose. "Oh bleh. Vampire turf war sounds like the easiest thing to sort out -- a typical 'just stake the lot' kind? Or are there some that need to NOT re-die?"
Which is the point at which Faith enters. "We really need to deal with the vampire turf war. It's getting distinctly annoying," she says, heading over to the two. She assumes Fiore's somebody potentially useful...
Angel gives a half smile when Faith comes in. "Faith, this is Fiore. She was sent to us by business card, and she's felt strong ever since May of 2015." That is, she's one of theirs. "We'll have to see where she's starting from when we have a chance."
Fiore looks up as Faith enters, blinking, a stick of celery hanging out of her mouth. Yeah. Real ladylike there, sitting backwards in a chair, eyes wide, celery sticking out of her mouth. "Hi!" she offers as Angel introduces her, waving. She's not sure what Angel means by 'where she's starting from', so instead she asks Faith, "Is this a thing we need to go into with a pitching machine loaded with stakes instead of baseballs and set them up all over town?"
Faith Lehane nods. "So, we're filling her in." Faith isn't a lady, far from it. She snags a piece of celery and starts to munch on it like a dark haired Bugs Bunny.
"Yeah." As for pitching machines..."Not quite. Come downstairs. We have a facility here...and we'd like to encourage you to make as much use of it as you like..." And to that end, Angel will get up from the desk...and lead the way downstairs. Downstairs, of course, is Angel's training faciltiies, designed with training enhanced beings in mind...
Playfully Fiore picks up a second celery stick and makes swordfight motions at Faith. "Haa!" A fake battle cry, and she wrinkles her nose. It's all in good fun, though. She pauses, though, as Angel is talking about the downstairs. She pauses mid-bite into the celery, and blinks. "Whoa. This is some serious Fight Club stuff you guys got goin' on here."
"We train here, and you won't be alone." Faith grins. "Meaning, plenty of opportunities to get those bruises that keep you alive later."
Fiore nods. "Gotcha. I admit, most of my training amounts to 'run away really fast'," she notes. "Though it's kept me alive. But that's not going to do much good in killing things, is it?" She smirks. "Though..." She lifts a foot. "These boots probably don't feel great to get hit with."
"Those are good boots, if you can move well in them. Which isn't hard with practice." She stretches a little bit.
"Very solid. Provides a good striking surface. But the technique you use is more important than what kind of shoes you wear. Some of the shoes Buffy wears while fighting are..." He manages to restrain himself from looking worriedly around... "not so practical. She's still saved the world more than any Slayer on record, though."
Faith covers her mouth with her hand for a moment, then lowers it. "He's right. You should be able to fight in whatever you want to wear or need to wear."
"Sure," Fiore notes. "But stilettos are awful hard to run in, and since my job insists that I be able to run good, you probably won't see me in shoes like that." There's a smirk. "Though yeah, you do have a point. That said, I'd just use the stilettos as throwing weapons."
"It helps if you throw them with a spin. It takes practice to make sure they land on your opponent pointy end first. Bonus points if the stiletto part is made of wood." Cause then hey, stake! "Well, when you begin training, we'll teach you how to use your speed to hunt vampires down instead of running away from them. You'll be surprised how many of them run away from you once they figure out you're a Slayer."
"She has that down. And speed is good...but we need to also teach you how to move tactically." Running away is, of course, the start of self defense.
Fiore nods. "I've kicked one or two off of things, but I hardly think that killed 'em," she admits. "They're tough little bastards." The mention of throwing a stiletto with a spin gets a moment of thought. "Huh. Now that I think about it, yeah. Have to take hold of them at the toe, with the heel pointed forwards, and kind of... flick the whole thing like you're snapping your fingers, right?" As for speed? Fiore nods. "Speed and momentum are good to add to a strike."
"Generally, yeah. It's difficult to get the trick of...but it looks so easy once you have it down." Like most combat really. It feels impossible till you get good, then it looks so very easy." Angel adds, "It's basic physics. That's why a bullet is so lethal. Thrown by hand, it'll bounce off a person. Shot from a gun...well, the only difference is how much faster the bullet's moving."
Faith Lehane nods, "And our strength helps. Most people can't kill a vampire by *throwing* a stake, they have to get close. It's still a risky move, though."
Fiore nods, considering both statements. "Momentum and force together in a strike would be a lethal combination." Pause, giggle. "I wonder if I could make a thing that could house a stake against my leg and then pop it down if I jumped on or kicked at a vampire?" She is completely kidding, yes.
Angel...halfsmiles mysteriously. "Watch." With a flick of his wrist, a stake appears in his hand. "It's been invented already, although mine are wristmounted. Handy if you were trenchcoats all the time."
"Hold on." Faith's cell phone is making an interesting noise. "I need to take this. We'll talk soon, Fiore." She grins at the younger Slayer and vanishes back upstairs.
"Oh sweet. Hidden stake." Yes, Fiore is referencing THAT game. She grins, knowing full well what she's referring to. Though Faith is heading out for a phone call, and Fiore nods. "Seeya later!" she offers.
"I actually have two." He flips his left hand, and a second one appears. "Sometimes bad guys come from the left. This makes me prepared." Due to the sheer quantity of those bad things being none too fond of stakes, well, measures must be taken.
Once more Fiore nods. "So did the Italian guy," she notes, with a grin. "More seriously. Yeah, that makes sense. Some will try to get your off-side, thinking you can't defend as well from that side."
"We'll try to set you up with something like this when we get a chance...in the meantime, would you like to do a workout? Running around builds great Cardio, but you'll find even Slayers can improve with effort.
Fiore nods. "Sure, why not?" she agrees. "Treadmill? Or am I going to be parkouring over eighty-story buildings?" She may or may not be kidding.
Angel shakes his head. "Oh no. See that punching bag over there? it's custom for Slayers like you. Punch it. Fair warning, it weighs a ton. Literally." Let's see what she's got.
Fiore looks at the punching bag. Then as Angel tells her more about it, she eyes it, rather like she's trying to decide if it insulted her mother or something of that nature. She heads over to the bag, not immediately punching at it, though. First she pokes at it with a finger. Not hard enough to hurt herself, no. She's testing it. Then she thumps it a few times, testing the hardness of the bag. Only then does she punch it, and not at full strength. More testing! Test test test!
Angel actually approves. "Good. Know your opponent before you lash out. The weight and hardness of the bag is designed to simulate the tough skin and scales of some of the demons you'll find yourself punching."
"Though I doubt a vampire's gonna let me poke it," Fiore notes, amused. "But yeah." This time she does give it a full-strength punch! And immediately winces. "Ow." She shakes her hand a little. Nothing broke, she's just not used to using her hands to attack with.
"To be fair, poking a vampire is the name of the game." Angel says, perfectly aware he is one. "And you do have to be able to shove that stake through a ribcage to finish him off, don't you?"
Fiore snickers. "True. But poking like 'hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey'--" As she says each 'hey', rapidfire, she pokes the bag once. That would be really annoying if someone did that for real. "--That's not really the best way of poking." And a second punch. Wince. A third. Wince. All with the same hand. But she does seem to get the idea. Have to learn how to take a punch on her knuckles before she can deliver one with any force.
"Good. But it's not just toughening your knuckles. You have to hit the bag hard enough to move it. Like this." Angel steps over to the bag..and when he hits it, that thing swings, a lot. Like a Heavyweight Champion hitting a normal bag. "You have to know how to hit it to get the kind of force you need."
Fiore will move back, out of the way, when Angel takes a swing at the bag. And then she'll make to steady the bag once it starts swinging after his strike. "Oh yeah, eventually," she notes. "I'd just rather toughen my hands up first before I go swinging my full strength at it. I can afford to take it easy on the bag. A vampire wouldn't be nice enough to let me take practice swings."
"Alright. Go ahead. But your goal is what I showed you. Move the bag, and you'll be hitting even demons hard enough they'll feel it." Which is the important part.
Fiore nods, and eyes the bag again, as if she's trying to determine if it committed a grave insult against her as she also considers Angel's words. "Let's see if I can do that, anyway. Hopefully without breaking my hand." And after a moment's consideration, she DOES swing a full-strength punch at the bag, complete with one of those effort sounds! Now, strength is not her... well, strength, but she IS a Slayer. Even an unpracticed, wild swing, if done with all the force she can muster, like that one was, should move it a little.
...And of course she immediately pulls a 'holy fuck that hurt why does that hurt so much' face, pulling her hand back. "OK! More practice needed. Shit, that hurt."
"You're just using your arm, that's why. You've gotta put your whole body into every swing. Here, watch what I did in slow motion..." And than Angel demonstrates, again, how to hit the bag.
Fiore watches Angel swing at the bag, tilting her head. "Oh, I see. That whole 'up from the earth' theory of hitting things?" She's referring to the comparison some martial artists give to 'drawing strength from the earth' for their punches. "Does look like it'd give the arm more support. Let me try that." And she does too. Still using all her strength, like before. But her body's more stable as she's trying to emulate Angel's posture. She still winces though. "Ow. Hurt less that time, though." She flexes her hand.
"Technique is half of it, practice is the other half. Master both sides, and then the bag goes flying...and so will the things that go bump in the night." Angel steps back again, to look for other things he can improve
"See, I can do that with my feet," Fiore replies, flexing her abused hand a few more times. The movement doesn't look like an injured one, and Angel's not hearing any cracking or grinding from her fingers, so she didn't break anything. Though she does have to ask, "Do kicks to the junk work? That's usually my go-to 'back the hell up off me' move."
That brings back a memory...of when his alterego broke Buffy's heart with cruel words, and then taunted her by saying 'you can't do it...' And Buffy's response? Just that. "...Yeah. It works. You may or may not be surprised to know it works on women too. You just have to be more accurate."
At this, Fiore nods. "Yeah. You just have to kick them in the 'vee'." She draws an upside-down 'V' shape in the air with her index fingers. "Like, actually BETWEEN the legs, instead of just 'boot vaguely in the front'."
"That won't typically work against an experienced female, cause it's easier for them to defend against with trivally easy footwork. However, many of the vampires you fight aren't trained at all, and you can catch them that way. Still, it's not a good idea to rely on something that only works against weaker opponents." Because they probably weren't challenging to begin with.
Fiore nods once more. "Yeah, that makes sense," she agrees. "If I can kick it in the tenders and run it probably wasn't much of a threat anyway. More experienced enemies will know to grab my foot and pull or push me off-balance, too."
"Ideally, if you can kick a vampire in the tenders to begin with, just stake it and finish it off. No reason to let it dine on some poor soul who isn't fast or strong enough to do what you just did. It's the 'and then run' part of your thinking you'll want to get rid of." Encouraging her to defend the world, and people in it.
Fiore tilts her head, her brows raising, the expression of 'you have a point there'. "True, true," she notes. "Running is just a big part of what I do, so that's always going to be the first thing I think to do, even if it's getting something to chase me and lead it into a trap. But, I'm not all 'oh shit run'." Remember how she was talking about being a better combatant with her legs? She demonstrates this by delivering a near textbook side-kick to the bag, with all the force she can muster in her leg. Which is a fair bit more than she's currently able to put into a punch, so that's liable to make the bag move. It's a super-basic technique, but the basics are the foundation of everything, right? "See?"
The bag does move, a little. "Your kick technique could use some work too, but it's definitely more developed than your punches. I can see the difference."
"I'm better with my legs, yeah," Fiore explains. "They have more reach than my arms, so I always reasoned that keeping things at legs' length was a better idea than just keeping them at arms' length." She smirks. "But I can see the imbalance, yeah. That didn't even hurt." She raises the abused hand. "This, on the other hand? Is probably gonna bruise."
"All of your limbs are weapons. So we're going to be doing a lot of punching technique till you balance out." Pause. "You need to be a whole warrior, or your enemy will notice your weakness and exploit it."
"Yeah," Fiore agrees. "That's what I mean by the imbalance. I need to try and equal that out, bring my upper body strength up to where my lower-body strength is. 'Cause that's a pretty glaring weakness as-is."
Angel considers, and nods. "Alright then. Keep practicing your punches on the bag. You'll instinctively know when to stop...your body'll tell you when you've had enough."
"I'm hoping the clue isn't a loud SNAP as something breaks that's supposed to remain unbroken," Fiore replies. The grin shows that she's teasing, though. But yes. She'll lay into the bag with some force. Probably not her full force, since it's technique that she's working on, not brute force.
Angel notices that, and, "Good. Technique controls force anyway. Hitting things as hard as you can often hurts your fist more than your opponent."
Between punches, Fiore agrees, "And it's hard to hit anything when your wrist doesn't work. Except maybe the floor. It's always easy to hit the floor."
"Sometimes. You may not be alive to hit the floor by the time you get there." For, example, if you get bit, by the time the vamp lets go, you're exsanguinated...
"Oh, you'll still hit the floor, eventually," Fiore notes. "It still counts even if you're dead when you hit the floor. But either way, that's not a thing I want happening to me or the people around me."
"Not really. Buffy always said the first rule of Slaying is don't die. There is a reason for that." Angel continues to watch the workout, offering advice as needed.