Who: Izzy and Katou When: Early June Where: Gym What: Katou gets to play with whips. Rating/Warnings: Low/None Status: Complete
Izzy had been going through some moves with her swords and other weaponry while waiting for Katou to arrive. She had decided it was well past time for her to show him the whip and let him have a go with it. And now that he had started dreaming properly he may be able to handle it a little better. Or at least without too much damage to himself.
Feeling eyes on her she turned and smiled, he was stood in the doorway to the gym room she practiced in. “Hey you, how are ya?”
Katou hadn’t been watching her for long, but going through the motions seemed pretty cool even if there wasn’t someone to practice with. In his dreams, he had never really done the whole ‘practicing your form’ thing. He hadn’t really had much time to get in more practice than immediately killing ghouls and sparring with the Archangel Uriel.
“Pretty good,” Katou said once she noticed him, and bounced on the balls of his feet. “Excited to be breaking away from all the goddamn studying I’ve been doing lately. How’ve you been?”
In the dreams Izzy had always been taught that ‘practicing your form’ was just as important as actually sparring, she wasn’t sure it was but she did it anyway. “You studying? Surely not?” she teased with a wink, “I’m good. I got some great marks in my last baker apprenticeship exam and we’ve got some exciting new ideas for the bakery too”
“It’s like the fucking apocalypse or something,” Katou said, grinning. “But I figured doing my junior year a third time was probably too embarrassing even for me, so I might as well buckle down and at least attempt to pass.” There were still the classes he had failed in his first semester, but that’s what summer school was for. “Congratu-fucking-lations on the baking apprenticeship thingy. I didn’t even realize you had to write tests for that.”
Izzy laughed, “Yeah three times is probably a little much. I’m not sure I could be much help but I could try if you need any help” She was sure he had better people than her to assist him but she figured it was worth offering. He was her friend after all. “Thanks, you’d be surprised. I have to do cooking demonstrations too, it takes a lot to be officially qualified”
“I’ve got a couplea people who already offered to help,” Katou said. “But I probably need all the help I can get.” He was actually starting to grasp some of it, which, if he was totally honest, kind of surprised him a bit. “I had no idea cooking was such a thing,” he admitted. “But I guess that kinda makes sense.”
He shot her a grin then. “But man, that’s enough about schools and tests and shit. Ya gonna show me that whip of yours?” He’d never actually seen someone fight with a whip, except in Soul Calibur, and he was pretty sure that didn’t really count.
“Anytime just give me a call” Izzy said chuckling a bit at his surprise. In all honesty she hadn’t expected there to be as much written work as there was either.
“Very true. And you know I can’t wait to show off” Izzy told him with a grin, letting her ‘bracelet’ unravel from her arm to become her whip.
There was a time, probably not long ago, where Katou would have been shocked to see a bracelet turning into a whip, but between vampire attacks and his really bizarre dreams, it kind of lost it’s magic. “That seems useful,” he said. It definitely seemed handier than needing to carry around a whip all the time - probably less suspicious as well. “Do your other dream weapons fold up into handy household objects too?”
Izzy laughed, “It’s very helpful but to me it always looks like a whip, it’s only to non-shadowhunters it appears as a bracelet” she told him, “And no just my whip, though I can go unseen as well. At least in the dreams, I’ve not tried it here” she admitted.
“Unseen? Like, invisible? That’s cool. I can change my face in my dreams.” That he knew he couldn’t do here - for one, if he could, he would be needing to work on maintaining his usual face at all times. It was actually a bit of a relief now when he woke up and found he didn’t need to focus on looking like himself, though the last couple of days he had decided that maybe he should start constantly keeping an image of himself in the back of his mind for if that particular talent did carry over. He was pretty sure he’d disturb the hell out of Wendy if she woke up one day and he didn’t have a face.
“Yep exactly” Izzy said, “That would be handy sometimes” she added before moving into a stance. “Okay so just stand back and don’t get in the way” she told him with a grin. She’d set up a few water bottles around the room that she could knock over and she did so now as she moved around, the whip almost an extension of her arm as she demonstrated her ability.
Katou stood back, because getting caught unaware by a whip was not on his to-do list today, and watched the bottles as they went down. He was a little impressed when he caught a bit of Izzy’s aura in the corner of his eye. It wasn’t like one he had really seen before - not in this life at least, though it was different than the ones he had seen in his dreams, too. Still, it looked a little angelic. Which… didn’t seem right at all. He rubbed his eyes, half-convinced that he was seeing things, and when she knocked down the last of the bottles, he gave an impressed whistle.
“You ain’t too bad with that,” he said. “What else can you do?”
“Thanks” Izzy said taking a little bow, “All kinds of things. What would you like to see? My skills are best shown against demons sadly” she checked the runes she’d applied that morning, “Speed and strength, how best to show that” she mused almost to herself but loud enough for him to hear.
“We could race,” Katou said, grinning. “Like, with powers.” He had raced against the girl who was tutoring him not long ago, and she beat him to an embarrassing degree. But he had also promised not to use his powers in that race. His powers were still pretty weak, but they’d at least make him faster than the average normal person.
“Now that is a good idea” she nodded, alright so from one end of the room and back again?” she suggested, luckily it was a reasonably sized room and it would be pretty good for them.
“Fucking A,” Katou said, and went to take his place at one end of the room. “I’m totally going to kick your ass, by the way,” he said with a wink.
“You wish” Izzy replied with a grin, “You’ll be eating my dust slow boy” as she took her own place against the wall.
“Alright,” Katou said. “On ‘go,’ I guess,” Katou said. He got into prime ‘running full speed off the hop’ position, and began to allocate his astral powers to help with his speed. “Ready. Set,” and Katou was off, because he was a dirty rotten cheater. “Go!”
“Cheat” Izzy called with a laugh but didn’t mind too much as she knew she could win. Her speed rune was nice and fresh and she raced across the room and back again. “And done” she called out happily.
Katou’s first thought when she ran past him was that he really needed to stop picking races with chicks who could beat him. His second was that isn’t right, and almost lost his footing when he managed to catch sight of her aura. There really wasn’t any mistaking it, or playing it off as a trick of his eyes. There was definitely something angelic about her aura, but it really wasn’t the same the same as all the angels he had fought, and not even the same as Setsuna’s aura, who was a human who had an angel reincarnated into him.
“The fuck?” he asked once he made it back to the other side of the room next to her. “What are you? Some sorta angel?”
Izzy smiled, “Technically I’m nephilim, a human born with angelic blood. It’s what makes me a shadowhunter. These marks” she pointed to her ‘tattoos’, “are angelic runes and they give me heightened skills. Like this one is strength and this one speed” she pointed out the different ones. “How did you know?” she asked curiously.
“And here I thought you just really liked tattoos,” Katou said, grinning a bit. “I can see auras. Or sense ‘em. Kinda a mix of both. In the dreams I’m better at it, but I’m starting to pick it up here too. And yours ain’t human.” He stopped and thought, because that wasn’t necessarily true. “I mean, it’s human. But also angelic.”
Izzy laughed, “That’s what most people assume” she told him, before listening with interest as he explained. “That sounds pretty handy” she said nodding, before grinning, “I’m an angelic kind of girl” she teased.
“In the dreams it’s real handy. I know who’s in a room before I even go into it.” He grinned. He hoped that someday he’d be able to do the same thing. “I’m pretty angelic myself. Got my wings and everything. Wanna see?”
“That’s great, be helpful at a party in case it’s rubbish too” she chuckled before her mouth fell open, “You have wings? Of course I wanna see” she said excitedly.
Katou couldn’t help but laugh. “It would definitely make avoiding people easier.”
He flashed his most charming smile at her, before he removed his shirt, revealing the rather large scar across his chest, courtesy of his first carried-through dream death. “Nothing up my sleeves,” he said, waving the t-shirt in some sort of mockery of a magician, before three very large, very white wings sprouted from his back.
Izzy’s eyes took in the scar, knowing it was from the dreams, it did look bad though and must have hurt a lot. “Wow” she said in honest awe as the wings appeared from his back, “They are incredible” she whispered.
“They’re pretty cool, ain’t they?” Katou asked, giving them a flap. “I think a bit too white though. In the sun they practically hurt the eyes.” He looked at them, and gave them a contemplative frown. “I wonder if I can like, dye ‘em or something.”
“They’re amazing” Izzy agreed, moving closer, “I kind of like how white they are. Pure” she added, “Can I touch them?” she asked, it felt kind of rude to just do it.
“Go for it,” Katou said, spreading them a little wider. “They’re pretty sensitive, so like, be gentle and shit.” Not that he thought that she wouldn’t be, but better to be safe than sorry.
“Of course” Izzy nodded before reaching out her hand and slowly stroking along the edge of one, it felt soft yet strong. A strange combination but she couldn’t describe it any other way. “Okay” she admitted, hands still playing over the wings, “You might actually be a little bit more awesome than me”
Katou suppressed a shiver - it kind of felt like getting tickled, though in more of a pleasant way. “Well, I’m not going to go with the whole false modesty thing,” Katou said. “I am pretty awesome.”
Izzy laughed, “I didn’t expect you to deny it” she told him with a grin, “And you shouldn’t because wings are very impressive and only add to your natural awesomeness”
Katou flashed her one of his sunniest grins. “As cool as they are, they tend to get in the way a bunch. I’m so glad that I can put ‘em away.” Because if he had to walk around with three wings sticking out of his back all the time, he’d probably break all the knickknacks in Wendy’s house. “But now that we’ve established that I’m way cooler than you are, you should let me play with your whip.”
"A little bit more awesome not way cooler" Izzy told him smacking his arm lightly as she stopped touching the wings. "But I did promise you a go so maybe put those away first" she didn't want him accidentally hitting them when they were sensitive.
Katou let out a laugh when she punched him on the arm, but did as she said. He pulled the astral energy from his wings back into his body, as he folded them back into himself. They disappeared, not leaving so much as a mark where they came out of on his back, and then he put back on his shirt. He had no idea what shirts were made of in his dream world, but they didn’t rip when he unfurled his wings. He had tried it here, and then he had been down one shirt and his wings had been a little sore through forcing themselves through it.
“‘Kay, so, how does it work?” he asked. Blades were pretty easy, all in all, though he’d also had some training under Uriel once he had been given his own body. Other than Izzy and Indiana Jones, he had never actually seen anyone use a whip.
“Okay” Izzy said, handing him to whip and shaping his hand around it, “So it’s all in the wrist, think of it as an extension of your arm” she stood behind him wrapping her fingers around his as she guided him through the movements slowly. “And now you try at a faster speed and aim for...” she ran over to stand up a bottle before coming back, “aim for that” she told him.
Alright, Katou totally had this. “Prepare to be dazzled,” he said, before cracking the whip and having it go absolutely no where near the can. He really, really had to stop announcing his awesomeness before he actually did anything cool, since it ended up being embarrassing more often than not. He gave a bit of an uneasy cough. “Well, okay, probably less than dazzled. But I felt like fucking Indiana Jones and that was cool.”
Izzy laughed, “Yeah, it’s not quite as easy as old Indy makes it look huh?” she teased, “But you do feel instantly more cooler when you’re holding it. Apart from having a natural ability with it I also have to admit I think my dad in the dreams picked it as a gift because he knew it would look amazing”
Katou had to laugh at that. “No shit? I guess that’s fair though, since that’s half the reason I like swords.” Everyone looked cool with a sword. He tried again with the whip, and though he managed to get a little closer to the target, and then he tried one last time, still missing, before shrugging his shoulders. “Whelp, I give up.”
“You give up too easily” she told him with a wink, stepping forward she stood close and wrapped her hand around his, “Ready? You have to hit it at least once right?” then she lifted their combined hands around the whip and it hit the target. Not as smoothly but it hit it.
So, maybe it wasn't as cool as the image he often tried to project, but when they hit the bottle he threw a fist into the air and whooped. He really hadn't expected to feel so excited about hitting some stupid bottle. "That was awesome!"
“Believe me it always feels pretty damn good” Izzy told him, “We should keep practising together, as you get more skills you can teach me tricks with swords and things” she suggested. It was always worth learning new ways to fight, and keep her skills fresh.
“That’d be fun,” Katou said. “Maybe we could spar together or something.” Katou had always enjoyed fighting, as could have been obvious from the sheer amount of fights he either started or goaded people into starting in his life, but it had never been something he had taken particularly seriously. He was actually a little surprised at how much he missed fighting against more skilled opponents when he was awake now. “I dunno if my fighting skills are something I can really teach though. Maybe they’ll turn into something the more I do it,” he said. His fighting style so far involved charging at enemies and hacking into them. If they were quicker or stronger than him (which, he was proud to admit, not a lot of people were), it involved letting them give what they thought was a debilitating blow in before surprising them with a blow even deadlier. Perhaps not the most practical way of fighting, but Katou hadn’t really had time to learn anything fancy before he was thrust into this war.
“I’d like that” Izzy said, she always liked sparring and with someone whose skills she didn’t know as well as her brothers or Clary. It made her think and work more, which was mostly the point. “It’s okay, I’m sure we’ll find a good balance” she smiled, already looking forward to it.
"Fucking sweet," Katou said. "It'll be awesome. In the meantime though, maybe I can figure out how to do this whole whip thing by myself." Because hitting that bottle with Izzy's help had been awesome, and he was sure it'd be even better if he could do it for himself.