InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "but i want an oompa loompa now"

Keith (tempredmental) wrote in marinanova,
@ 2017-02-13 15:42:00

Entry tags:

keith, kitty pryde (aoa), nico di angelo, trowa barton

Day 415 - action & video - open
Action

[He hadn't been in the dome long, but Keith discovered the athletic center.

It really hadn't been hard. Having spent the last couple of years of his life attempting to learn alien technology that didn't have the luxury of instructions in his own language, learning Marina's technology had been a breeze. So finding anything in the dome that was marked on the network map was simple.

Of course, the whole reason he was there in the first place was because using physical exertion to deal with his issues was something familiar. He didn't have his Bayard. He didn't have his mother's knife. He just had him. He could work with that in this type of gym setting, as it didn't look like there were any battle drones to work against, but it was the lack of those items which gave him one of his many reasons to be down here.

Also, after using drone gladiators to practice against in a training simulator, a punching bag, he found, just wasn't as satisfying.

He did it anyway, though, the rhythmic sounds of his strikes against the punching bag allowing him to let his mind wander. It kept circling back to a few main points. He wanted his mother's knife- his knife. He missed Red's presence in his mind. He needed to get out. And every time his thoughts came back to those points, he got angrier, hitting the bag harder and faster, blindly striking out as he tried to expel and exhaust the rage out of himself.

That was fine until he heard someone enter behind him. He took a second to look, but it was just long enough for the bag to swing back fast from one of his harder hits and knock him flat on his ass.]

Oof-

[Okay, he could take a hint. It was probably time to try something else.]

=====

Video

[Keith wasn't a great conversationalist, so poking around on the network was sort of more for gathering information than actually initiating a chat with someone. He didn't know any of these people. But, still, the fatalistic attitude of "we've accepted our lives here" that a good number of them seemed to be showing sort of bothered him a little. That made his line of questions seem almost pointless. This place was on Day 400+. Surely someone had tried getting out, right?

He frowned a bit. Pidge was the hacker. She'd have better luck at seeing if hacking their way out of this simulation was even possible. Keith was definitely not a hacker. He decided to ask anyway, but he had a bad feeling on what the answers were going to be.]

Uh, hi. I'm Keith. I'm a Paladin of Voltron. [Still getting used to that, even after this long...]

I was just wondering... has anyone tried getting out, yet? I mean, I would think someone probably has, but I was wondering what happened when it was tried. Consider it research.

[If someone looked close enough, they might see the beginnings of what looked like one of those boards used by criminal investigators to source crime patterns.]

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tempredmental
2017-02-21 07:27 am UTC (link)

[Keith's own fighting tended to be a bit mixed, too, between his Garrison training and what he had learned from Shiro. Add to it the fact that he tended to fight more on instinct than strategy, and it really didn't have a set discipline to what he did.

His smirk grew a bit at Nico's remark and he nodded once before bringing his own blade up in a block. It connected to Nico's with a loud crack, and the fight was on.

Keith's hits and blocks were firm. He certainly wasn't lacking in confidence, either, as his moves didn't hesitate. He could be aggressive when it worked for him, though, and, while he didn't often switch hands in a fight, if he found himself needing to, he had no trouble with that, either. His moves were athletic, and he didn't hesitate to throw a kick or a punch in or to roll, lunge or spin with an attack or a dodge.]

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nico_di_angelo
2017-02-22 05:05 am UTC (link)

[Monsters don't fight fair, but people during practice sessions usually do. So he's a little surprised when his partner meets him with more aggression than he was expecting. But he's not complaining. He can't remember the last time he had a real challenge. It's refreshing.

He meets Keith with everything he's got, save the shadow powers. That doesn't seem fair, and he's not sure if Keith has any special powers.

Unfortunately, he has a habit of relying on his powers, and his stamina in prolonged combat has been waning without constant threats. It isn't long before he falls back on defense, and only striking back when he has clear openings.]

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tempredmental
2017-02-22 06:32 am UTC (link)

[Keith picked up on the change. He pulled back for a moment, putting some distance between them before raising his hand in front of himself to signal a pause.]

You okay?

[He was new to the prison, fresh from his own lifestyle of fighting, so his stamina was still pretty strong. He also didn't have special powers to fall back on, but he didn't know that Nico did. Not that he hadn't fought someone with strange powers before... teleporting and shooting out purple lightening weren't exactly the hand-to-hand skills he grew up with.]

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nico_di_angelo
2017-02-22 07:23 pm UTC (link)

[Nico lowered his sword once he saw no attack would be coming. With his free hand he pushed sweat-matted hair away from his eyes and nodded.]

Yeah. Fine. I guess ... I'm a little rusty.

[Which didn't sit well with him. The Wardens had a habit of throwing strange things at them, but not often anything that would require physical fighting. It bothered him that if a real threat did surface, he might not be as prepared for it as he thought.

[He had people to protect.]

I just need to work harder.

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	tempredmental 2017-02-22 08:27 pm UTC (link)
	[Keith considered the statement for a moment, and then nodded a little.] How long have you been here? [The idea of being stuck here long enough to "get rusty" sort of bothered Keith a little. He honestly hoped it wasn't going to be that long.] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nico_di_angelo 2017-02-22 09:04 pm UTC (link)
	I'm not really sure. Over a hundred days. [He tries to piece the math together in his head.] Five months, give or take. [A long five months. It didn't seem like enough time for all the things that have happened since he arrived.] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

tempredmental
2017-02-22 09:38 pm UTC (link)

Do they mark anything other than days?

[He could see why that could be a little hard to think about if all they had was a daily number to go by. Though, Keith's on concept of time was pretty confused thanks to having to switch over from Earth time to Altea time once he joined the team on the Castleship. He had gotten used to it, and could rattle off how long things had been in tics, quintants, and doboshes, but hours? Days? Months? He wasn't sure anymore. Pidge had been the only one with a clock when they left Earth.]

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nico_di_angelo
2017-02-22 10:12 pm UTC (link)

No, not really. Sometimes, they celebrate certain milestones, like a festival every one hundred days.

[He knows the day he arrived, and he knows what today is. He gets his months by dividing the difference by 30. He's even calculated what day it should be back in his world, and thinks that by now, everything there should be okay. He knows how the war ends, after all.]

There are patterns, like how new arrivals tend to show up every four days.

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	tempredmental 2017-02-24 01:59 am UTC (link)
	[He nodded.] But, mostly just days. [That also meant that there was the chance of another group of arrivals in about four days. He nodded to the swords.] You want to continue or call it quits? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nico_di_angelo 2017-02-25 06:17 am UTC (link)
	Right. Mostly days. [He should probably accept the offer to quit before his ass gets handed to him. But the wording rankles. So he lifts his sword.] I can go another round if you can. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	tempredmental 2017-02-26 09:19 pm UTC (link)
	[Keith nodded and then lifted his own sword again.] Okay. When you're ready. [He took on his fight stance.] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nico_di_angelo 2017-03-09 05:23 pm UTC (link)
	[Nico grips his sword with both hands and readies himself. He tells himself that this is nothing. He's fought monsters three times Keith's size, with mouths lined with teeth. He's fought with injuries, with his muscles screaming, through exhaustion. Even so, his swings are slower and his reaction time sluggish.] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	tempredmental 2017-03-10 12:07 am UTC (link)
	[There was a difference. Keith wasn't a monster with massive teeth trying to kill him. This was a spar, with practice weapons, completely and totally not life threatening. The motivation was different. Even Keith had slowed down a bit himself, focusing more on his forms and actual strategy than just trying to win.] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nico_di_angelo 2017-03-13 03:06 pm UTC (link)
	[It's easy to fall into a kind of rhythm, despite the differences in their technique. Even so, his breathing is uneven and there's a click at the back of his throat that means he needs water. Reminding himself this isn't a battle and sparring is just practice, he withdraws.] Hold up. I think ... Let's take a break. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

tempredmental
2017-03-13 03:33 pm UTC (link)

[Keith pulled back, also breathing a bit harder than before, and hunched over his knees for a moment. He generally wasn't good at keeping his practice as just practice, but that was usually against virtual drones that could handle it, not another person. He was used to fighting with his partners against the drones in a cooperative set up, so he admittedly was okay with backing down this time.

He nodded.]

Sounds good.

[He bent the rest of the way over to stretch his legs out a bit, and then straightened back up to stretch his arms and legs before putting the practice sword back in the storage rack for now.]

Are there a lot of other people here who fight like that?

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	nico_di_angelo 2017-03-13 06:21 pm UTC (link)
	[Nico puts the practice weapon away and retrieves the black iron sword he'd set aside, strapping it into place.] Not a lot, no. Some. No one I've sparred with personally. [All of his former partners have disappeared.] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	tempredmental 2017-03-13 11:55 pm UTC (link)
	Well, if you ever want to, I dunno how long I'll be here, but I'm willing. [Keith offered him a small smile.] It'll be more challenging than fighting against a punching bag. [Though, he'd still managed to take a hit from that, hadn't he?] From what I hear, people aren't very steady here, huh? Coming and going? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nico_di_angelo 2017-03-14 12:15 am UTC (link)
	[That was the problem, wasn't it? Some people just didn't stick around. Even those who seemed like permanent fixtures weren't a guarantee.] Uh, sure. That'd be ... I'd like that. [Whatever bit of smile he manages quickly fades.] Yeah. Some people have been here a while, but ... There's a high turn around. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	tempredmental 2017-03-14 01:05 am UTC (link)
	Must make it hard to really connect with anyone here. [Keith frowned a little in thought. He'd spent a lot of his life being a loner, but recent events had forced him to learn how to get along with people and form meaningful connections with them, and the idea of not being able to do that was actually a little disappointing now.] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nico_di_angelo 2017-03-14 12:48 pm UTC (link)
	It can be. But it's not impossible. [He thinks of Yuuri, and Yuuki, and others who drifted in and flickered out. Despite that, he has Chuck and Ton, Spike, Jack, Kanji, Hazel... He can't bear the thought of any one of them suddenly not being there.] If you do make any connections here, you should cherish them. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	tempredmental 2017-03-14 02:34 pm UTC (link)
	[Keith looked down for a bit. He knew the feeling, oddly enough. But he nodded a bit.] I'll remember that. [He rubbed his arm across his forehead.] Thanks for the exercise. It helped. [He definitely looked less tense and wound up than when Nico had first gotten there. All the punching bag had been doing was making him angrier anyway.] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nico_di_angelo 2017-03-14 03:00 pm UTC (link)
	[With that, his sentimentality quota is filled for the day. Maybe the week. He simply nods.] No problem. [He hesitates some, glancing away, then back.] I, um. I'm usually here around this time every day. If you want to do this again sometime. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	tempredmental 2017-03-14 04:11 pm UTC (link)
	[Keith nodded, actually managing a small smile.] Yeah, sure. That sounds good. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	nico_di_angelo 2017-03-14 04:52 pm UTC (link)
	Good. Okay. I guess I'll see you around then. [He backs away toward the exit with a short wave. Goodbyes are awkward.] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	tempredmental 2017-03-14 10:56 pm UTC (link)
	[Keith gave a nod and a small wave in return, also kind of quiet and awkward about that kind of thing.] See ya. [He then headed over to grab his own stuff before heading out.] (Reply to this) (Parent)

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