logsinthenight | combat training mingle log

Entry tags:

combat training mingle log

characters: everyone
location: the village gymnasium
date/time: every wednesday & friday throughout october
content: at the town hall last month, javert offered to set up a place for combat training. this is him making good on his promise. as he mentioned in his bulletin ad, these sessions are open to absolutely everyone, not just those who want to learn how to fight. partner up with someone and spar. do whatever you want, just don't hurt each other too badly—or javert will have words with you.
warnings: violence

setup

The gym's certainly seen better days, with it's crumbling walls and lost ceiling tiles. Javert doesn't need it to be pretty, though. He only needs it to be functional. In the last week, he's been doing what he can to clean it up, washing the floors and making some minor structural repairs.

Once the first day of combat training begin, the day after the ferry sinks, it's as clean as it possibly can be without any sort of overhaul. There are mats set up along one end of the gym, for people to stretch or otherwise use for sparring, and a collection of swords near the door. Some are blunted and old, perfect for training — though they may still hurt — while others are sharp or unwieldy, and will need to be handled with care. Use them, Javert says, but return them when you are finished.

There's a tiny collection of knives, too, though there aren't any targets to practice throwing them at. It's a work in progress. For light, there's a torch set up along the wall, illuminating the room and allowing combatants to spread themselves out from one another.

meetings

For the sake of not being micromanagey, there isn't going to be any formal structure to these practices. Javert is available to teach hand-to-hand combat and swordsmanship, should anyone wish it. He's also enlisted the aid of Jason Grace, who will teach hand-to-hand and swordsmanship, and Bucky Barnes, who is proficient in knife fighting as well as hand-to-hand combat. Anyone else, of course, may teach others as they please. Just this once, Javert's not going to be a stickler for formalities. He just wants to see everyone making productive use of their time, in some fashion.

Training will run from seven o'clock to nine o'clock in the evening. Arrive promptly, or Javert will berate you for being disruptive. No one is required to come to every single meeting, so come as often or as little as you like. If regular exercise is supposed to help combat the effects of total darkness, why not give it a try?

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She wants to withdraw, then, and her expression becomes a little guarded. She looks, for a moment, as if she wants to stand up on her own merit without taking his hand, just on principle, just for her own sake. But Eleven is exhausted by her own outburst, and still feels bad for it, so she places her hand in his. When nothing happens, when she remembers with a rush of hot shame that there is no reason to suspect punishment here, she rises to her feet with his help.

Eleven doesn't quite meet his eyes.

"I remembered... the bad men. And the dark place." Voice hushed. She doesn't quite know why she says it - she doesn't know him. Perhaps that's why. Perhaps it's because she attacked him. "I could never... I'm not strong," she offers. "Until I got so scared and angry. I broke them... I'm sorry... Did I hurt you?"

The lack of eye contact is actually something of a relief, as the Soldier is not very good at eye contact, mostly focusing on faces in general or, in a bad moment, on a chest or shoulder. So it is patient with her looking away and taking a moment to gather her thoughts, glad for the moment itself to do the same-- especially once she does speak. Because that... wait. That sounds uncomfortably familiar. She remembered something bad and then lashed out. Because the memory frightened her. And now she's embarrassed.

(Okay, but I was joking about her reminding me of you. Now I'm kinda thinking I was right.)

"Memory malfunction," the Soldier says with a blink, letting her hand go. "You had a memory malfunction. I didn't to think anyone else got those." Fuck, is she a HYDRA experiment, too? That's just... that's so wrong to think about.

Yeah, it's kind of forgetting to answer her questions. Too surprised.

"Memory mal... function...?"

She has to sound the term out, and is grateful for it - it gives her mind something to latch onto, pull herself away from the scent of disinfectant and cigarette smoke. Copper still clings under her nose, and she wipes it away.

Then she frowns and looks up at him. Worries her lower lip between her teeth.

"Did bad men have you, too?"

The Soldier pauses, looks around... Javert is far enough away that he can't overhear. "When a memory comes back and it's not supposed to. And it takes over. And you come back and find out you did something," it explains once it's sure it's safe enough. "Memory malfunction."

It shifts its feet a little awkwardly. "And... yeah. This isn't a good place to talk about it." Too many people. Too exposed. But if her bad people were HYDRA... it has to know.

Eleven nods. His explanation makes sense.

It's been a while since it's been so bad for her that she lost her surroundings. It's unpleasant to be reminded that Hawkins Lab still hangs onto her so tightly, like claws that have dug into her and won't let go. She thinks of Billy's hand around her throat, and how the phantom feeling of that had lingered, too.

Best not dwell. Eleven shoves it down, ever down, and nods at the man.

"Yes. We can leave?"

Suggestion and almost asking permission. She's still worried about having hurt him, but the slowly forming question whether or not he's a number, too... it lingers further at the front than her concern.

That's the hundred dollar question, isn't it. The Soldier frowns-- though not at her-- and looks around the room again, this time less furtively. There are fewer people, and most of the ones left are doing cool-down activities. Even its own students are starting to wander off, without direction.

It has been almost two hours. They were close to finishing when this started. Maybe it can. "Sure," it finally says. "Outside. I'll have to come back to clean up, but." But. This seems important.

And it could really use some space, anyway.

It motions for her to go on, it'll follow.

She hesitates visibly at the suggestion to walk ahead, and leave him at her back, and Eleven hates the instinct. Hates that part of her is so on edge, she has that animal instinct of not showing weakness, of not putting someone who could pose a threat at her back.

She forces herself to take a slow, deep breath, pushes the instinct down, and walks on, outside. Even on the way she keeps reaching for the blue hair tie on her wrist, fingers stroking over it or tugging on it lightly.

The hair tie is the same colour as her lantern, notably.

If it helps her nerves, the Soldier actually doesn't follow immediately. It collects its lantern, tells the last lingering student or two that they might as well head out sonce everyone's concentration is gone and no it doesn't want to talk about it, and then waits a moment just inside to make sure it's arm plates aren't shifting and it's not going to walk out looking stressed out. Between its own anxiety about pretty much everything, its memories of its own malfunctions and the moments after, and the understanding that she'd been afraid too, a little breathing space for both of them seemed like a good idea.

So the Soldier comes out maybe three or four minutes after she does, scanning the dark for her blue lantern. (Its own is pale yellow, nothing fancy, looking like an antique army lantern if she'd recognize something like that.) When it spots her, it approaches slowly, expression not quite its typical neutral, but maybe a bit concerned. "Okay," it says. "You okay?"

Eleven is glad for the momentary reprieve to just close her eyes and breathe, take in the scent of the constant night air around her, feel the chill in the air. She's not at the lab. She's... not free, either, but while everything is dark, she can move, she can breathe, she's not alone. Things... can't hurt her the way they used to.

At least she hopes so.

Memory malfunction.

She commits the term to memory.

Her eyes don't open until he approaches, and then Eleven just nods. Her eyes are a little wet, but no tears spill. "Yeah. Are you? Okay?"

The Soldier manages a small, slightly wry smile. "Trying not to freak out, maybe. But otherwise, yeah. Walk while we talk?" Because walking might help keep things calmer. Focus on the steps at the same time as the words. It tilts its head at the space between the gym and the woods, plenty of room for two people to walk side by side without even being in touching range.

Eleven nods and walks with him. She has her arms loosely wrapped around herself - less a protective gesture despite how defensive it looks, more comfort. She's trying to solidify herself in the here and now, where the past is a shadow, and can't hurt her.

"Freak... out?"

She's not sure if he's calling her a name, or if it's an expression she doesn't quite get.

How do you even explain "freak out"? It's a slang term that, really, the Soldier's not entirely sure where it picked up. "Panic," it goes with finally, after a few steps. "Trying not to panic. Never thought about anyone else having memory malfunctions. Isn't easy to think about." Because it can understand that posture and sympathizes. It's like how the arm plates recalibrate when it's nervous or it has to walk around the gym to calm down after lessons. "Who were your bad men?"

Edited 2019-10-13 22:38 (UTC)

Panic. Freak out. Memory malfunction. She puts the thoughts away. Words gained.

Eleven takes a breath. Slow, like Hop always tells her too when her chest is too tight and she struggles. Let's the cool night air drag over her tongue like a sip of water, and down her throat and expand her narrow rib cage. Holds it there. Counts Mississipis without know what that even is, and without knowing how it's pronounced correctly either.

Slow breath out.

"Doctors. Soldiers."

The memory is a wound. She doesn't know if it will ever fully heal, just knows that it always bleeds. Sometimes hot with anger, sometimes cold like white tiles and syringes and his eyes.

"Papa."

The Soldier (wow, not going to share that designation with her, now) is patient while she works on the words, but frowns at the last one. Family is something it... doesn't remember, anymore. There's only a vague feeling that, for other people, it should be a good thing. Then that vague feeling, though, says that family shouldn't be torturing their children. So it frowns.

But it also doesn't push. It doesn't feel like it knows enough about families to say anything, even if the thought makes it want to punch something.

"I had doctors and soldiers, too. No parents, though." And because it definitely has to know, "Have you heard the word HYDRA?"

She reaches a hand over, fingers of the right hand tangling in the blue hair tie. It's a tick, a nervoushabit. Comfort in the memories.

Papa was a bad man. Hop... Hop is good. Safe. Home.

Dad.

"Hy...dra?"

She looks at him then, the lantern illuminating a face that has no clue about the word. Still she shakes her head for emphasis.

"Hawkins Lab."

It sighs. Never heard of it, not even in the distant "know but don't remember" way. "Probably not my bad men, then." Which makes it both easier and harder to think about her: easier, because it probably never knew her or knew of her, and so it's not its fault she had to go through that; harder, because now it doesn't have a baseline for what she went through. Poor kid. "They were pretty hung up on their name. Can I ask what they did? Or is that too hard to answer?"

Eleven closes her eyes for a moment. THe darkness behind her lids isn't a reprieve of any sort. She can feel her words slipping away, as the scent of disinfectant hits her nose.

"Tests. Needles. Training for..."

The word gets stuck. She bites her lip, clings to what she's learned and gained. There's a tear clinging to her lashes. He might feel a tremble in the ground. The pressure in the air rising a little bit.

"... tele... kinesis. Sen--sory. De-deprivation. Spy. Kill."

Okay, nope, that's enough of that. Tests and needles and training to kill people is way more than any poor kid should deal with, and also absolutely close enough to shit the Soldier has dealt with for it to get the picture. Sensory deprivation even has an uncomfortable feel to it, like there is some of that in there somewhere that it hasn't remembered yet, too.

Also, it recognizes that feeling in the air around them, and tries to head it off as gently as it's capable of. Which is kind of gruff and vaguely panicky, but still obviously sympathetic. "Hey, okay, that's. Plenty. You don't have to tell me any more. Just settle for a second."

Eleven takes a stuttering breath, just lets it sit in her lungs for a moment. Hopper always tells her to breathe when she wakes up at night, something in her room broken and everything smelling like sterile labs, the weight of Papa's hand still on her too thin shoulder.

Those nights come less and less often. They never quite go away.

She keeps staring at the ground under her feet. Her lantern trembles a little, because so does her hand.

"Sorry. I'm... okay."

"No apologizing. I asked. Knew the answer would be shitty. My own fault." The Soldier gives itself a little shake, plates in the left arm rippling with a mechanical purring noise. Recalibrating, making a soothing noise and sensation at its shoulder jerves. It helps, sometimes. If it were feeling remotely steady, it might try to pat her shoulder for a little comfort-- sadly, it is not. Sorry, El.

Because she shared what was hard for her, it offers back, "Mine might not have been the same. But did a lot of the same things. I was their science experiment, and then pet assasasin." Still is, in a lot of ways, even if it hates them and never wants to go back. "Did you get out? Before. All this?" A head-jerk in the direction of the gym beside them, meaning Beacon as a whole.

It's likely for the better - touch, right now... Eleven has gotten a lot better about it lately. But she likely would not find much comfort in a stranger's touch when this riled up and jittery still.

"Yes. Two years ago."

Out, but in hiding.

"You?"

Out but in hiding is still worlds better than still in. This little girl managed to escape two whole years ago. That's just... brave. And really impressive, as far as its concerned. The Soldier has to take a moment before it can admit, "No. Didn't even occur to me that I could."

Which isn't quite true, but the moment of mission reset came seconds before actually dying, so it's all kind of... muddled, and there hadn't really been a chance for it to consider its options before oops, in a tiny cabin on the Beacon ferry panicked out of its mind.

"Me neither. 12 years."

Twelve years of not realizing there was much beyond the confines of the lab, that she had the capacity to fight back, that she didn't have to be at the mercy of bad men. And an uphill battle from there. Every word learned, every day outside, every centimeter of literal growth a victory she earned with her own blood and tears.

Eleven looks up at him then, something firm settling in her face. Too grown for a child her age.

"You are. Not a monster."

Because he has to know that, too.

The Soldier can just be stupidly proud of her for getting out and getting better-- in a distant sort of way, since it's not like it knows her and has the right to really feel that way-- because yeah, it knows about that. Even if it's still not a person with a name (and doesn't want to be, okay; it doesn't), it's still gotten better at interacting with them. Marginally. It has two whole friends, that is progress.

The statement makes it blink, then give her a baffled look. "No. I'm a weapon."

The Soldier may not have self-esteem as such, but at least it doesn't think quite that badly of itself. A weapon is at least harmless until it's pointed at someone.

Eleven frowns and considers the reponse for a moment.

She has to conclude with some thought that she can't protest the notion. Eleven doesn't believe in lying, so she won't do it. Instead, she thinks of herself. She's Experiment 011. She's a Number. She's a tool, a weapon. It's just that she can wield herself now instead of letting others point her sharp, deadly end where they want to.

She's also more though. She's Eleven, not just 011, she's El. Part of her is Jane. She's a number, and an experiment, and a weapon. But also a girl, and almost a person.

Carefully, keeping calm brown eyes on his face, she reaches out and puts a hand on his arm.

"Yes. And that's... okay. You're more than that, too."

combat training mingle log

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