InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I am known by many names."

Riley Harlow (punchout) wrote in paxletalelogs,
@ 2010-08-03 16:18:00

Entry tags:

ares, morrigan

Who: Samuel and Riley
What: A good old-fashioned spar
Where: A local gym
When: Early afternoon
Warnings: Snark, egos clashing, and discussion of fighting techniques.

To Riley, laziness was a strange thing. When she was being lazy, she would skip out on one workout with another. So instead of performing a bench press, she would curl. Or instead of push-ups, she would do sit-ups. And today, she decided that she was far too exhausted to walk all the way to her preferred gym; so instead, she walked to another gym that was just two blocks closer. It didn't occur to her that this was a ridiculous compromise until she entered the unfamiliar territory, realizing that all gyms were not created equal.

The manager of the gym recognized her, allowing her passage inside. But that didn't change the fact that everything was different. The weights were somewhere else, the punching bags were hard to find, and all the machines were wrong. She could have just left and sucked up the extra two blocks to her home base, but that would mean admitting defeat. And Riley did not admit defeat.

If she were thinking about this clearly, she might have found an amusing "we're not in Kansas anymore" message in all of this given that her fire engine red hair was arranged in two French-braided pigtails. And really, she did feel a bit like Dorothy in Oz. The other patrons looked at her with a mixture of annoyance and amusement as she stumbled around, awkwardly craning her neck to try and read labels and find things. Finally, she had found the wall of dumbbells and was looking at them, squinting to try and read the numbers. They were faded, which automatically made them annoying. Resting her hands on her hips, she leaned forward to squint at them. This was going to be a long work-out.

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punchout
2010-08-03 09:13 pm UTC (link)

Being called Pippi should have annoyed her more, but really she was focused more on everything else. Instead, she was mildly relieved that he took her up on her challenge. Setting her dumbbells down, she cracked her shoulders, looking over to him. As he mentioned an apology, she scoffed. Her expression was haughty as she looked down at him, a hand resting on her hip. "That's fine," she said. "If I know a guy's holding back on me, I put him in the hospital." Not really true, but she didn't care at this point. She was mad, she had an excuse.

After putting her dumbbells back, she went to her locker to pick up her training gloves. Strapping them on, she glanced to him. "Is there a ring or anything in here? Or just an empty room?"

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miaiphonos
2010-08-03 11:37 pm UTC (link)

He positively beamed at her assertion, nodding as if he fully believed and understood the threat. In truth he did not know, yet, precisely what to make of his still-nameless opponent. Were he a bigger person, someone more mature or less egotistical, he might have taken this precise moment to step back and recognize the foolishness of this thinly veiled ritual. Whatever purpose it might serve seemed obscured by the equally unsavory options of beating up a girl or being beaten up by one. But these were things Samuel, in his enthusiasm, did not take into account. So once she'd retrieved her gloves, he merely rose from his seat, giving his knuckles a loud crack of his own, and gestured for her to follow.

"Back here, then," he said, leading her to a clear space at the back of the room. The foam mats were stacked four deep here, dark stains marring their deep blue surfaces, marking it off as the makeshift ring the gym's patrons had once hastily erected. He paused at the edge of the mats, pulling on a battered pair of training gloves from the gym's communal shelves. "Hopefully this is good enough to suit you, princess. This won't take long, anyway, so if it's not up to your standard at least you won't have to deal with it but for a while."

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punchout
2010-08-03 11:54 pm UTC (link)

"You're right," she said, cracking her shoulders and then her neck. As they slid into their ready positions, prepared to begin, she raised her right glove to her lips to give it a quick kiss. "I'll make this quick."

The fight was indeed quite brief. It began fairly one-sided, with Riley throwing the majority of punches while Samuel remained on the defensive. This fueled her anger more, inciting a fury of punches that wore away at Samuel's defenses. The turning point came when he began to retaliate with greater force, something that made her grin with glee.

He knew that he would lose.

The second half of the fight was furious, with Samuel moving offensively and Riley doing the same. She wasn't about to change her strategy, taking his punches as best she could while doling out her own. Before long, both were winded. One strong, well-placed punch to the gut dropped Samuel to his knees, and the fight was over.

Grinning, Riley bounced on the balls of her feet, backing up to give him air. "You okay?" she asked. Like in any fight, she had begun to shut out the outside world. But she was still present, and not too far gone to hope that she hadn't injured someone. After a moment, she stopped bouncing, standing solidly and taking a large breath. The blows he had landed over the course of the fight seemed to hit her at once as she paused, leaning over with her gloves on her knees.

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