2013.08.27 - Training in the park

It is early morning in New York City and somewhere in Central Park someone is in trouble. It is not the kind of trouble that normally happens in the park though, there are no knives or guns involved and the police probably will not be called. The trouble is a decidedly different type.
The person behind the trouble is a certain auburn haired Super Soldier clone named Patrick. The man he loves asked him for help and training to be a better hero and more likely to survive fights, which was his first mistake. The second mistake was leaving exactly what the training will be and when it will happen up to the clone. Which is why, as dawn breaks, Patrick has yet to even break into a full jog while running the feline hero around the reservoir.
"Come on, come on, pick up the pace! We have only done three laps so far! Just a little farther and we can do some cool down stretches and then move on to the real training."
Yes, leave it up to Patrick. It seemed like such a good idea- and it still was. However, Patrick's fiance has never been nor shall ever truly be a morning person. He gets up early, he goes through the motions, but his internal motor doesn't really get out of first gear until at least nine.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" the cat says, trying to muster the energy to keep himself going at a good pace. It's not that he's out of shape... it's simply that right now he'd rather be in bed, cuddled up to something warm and enjoy at least an hour or so more of warmth.
But he had to stick with it. After all... he asked for it!
Patrick knows, or at least a small part of him fears and expects, that by the end of this a little bit of Keith is going to hate him utterly. The thing that keeps him pushing though, is the fact that he knows that little part of Keith that will hate him for working him till he is ready to drop, and then well past that, will be outweighed by the part that is going to appreciate the work put into making him a more fit and better trained hero. Probably.
Patrick knows that Keith would rather be curled up in bed at this hour, in fact he probably would still be curled up in bed around Patrick if it were not for the added strength that comes with being a Super Soldier. After a few more yards he leads the cat off of the jogging path that they had been on that goes around the reservoir and into a different part of the park keeping the pace up till he reaches an area he had picked out ahead of time for the next part of their training.
"A little later than would be perfect, but still good timing. He says with a small grin as he leaps up wards and grabs something hidden up inside of a tree. There is a small second where he hangs in air and then a ripping sound and he drops to the ground holding a couple of mats he left webbed up there just long enough ago that the webbing is starting to disintegrate now.
It only takes a few seconds for Pat to lay out the mats for him and Keith. "Alright, now for the cool down stretches and some water. Then we can either go for combat training and sparing or the isometric stretches."
Keith pants, slowly winding down and stretching slightly. He smirks "Next time I'll just teleport, how's that?" he says with a wink, and walks over to the mats, stretching agaig, grabbing his foot and holding it behind him. Some people find it strange that he walks around barefoot most of the time, but one of the benefits of the bizarre genetic cocktail that he has become is the tough soles which, very much like those of a cat, allow him to walk without much need of protection. Of course, he does put on shoes for formal events and for eating out (no shoes, no service, after all), but he has grown to find most footwear rather restrictive. It's strange how the little things change when your shape changes as well.
"I t-think I'll go for combat training. I need to learn to not rely on my powers too much..." he is panting a little. Normally a jog wouldn't make him pant this much, but this early in the morning he does have less energy than normal.
Patrick gives Keith his little smirk and shakes his head. "And relying on your ability to teleport is why you are panting at the end of a short little jog." A short little jog that is maybe three times the length that any normal sane person does in the mornings and about a third of what Pat normally does.
The clone honestly wishes he had he feet that Keith has, ability to g out without shoes of any kind in most weather and conditions would make sneaking up on people so much easier. Alas, despite his not quite but close to superhuman toughness he still needs shoes to be effective outdoors not including the fact that the ones he wears as part of his super suit allow him to stick to walls.
"Good." He says while working on his stretches making sure he stays limber and won't cramp up later. "We can get the bruising and real training down first, and then an hour of strength training stretches and then home."
The cat chuckles as he stretches, "And after all that, I expect you to make lunch. I'll probably be too dead to cook myself, at least for a few hours." He sticks out his tongue. "...thank you for helping me. I know I need a good shaking-up."
Patrick grins at the tongue sticking out at him and shrugs. "Only a few hours? Then tomorrow I may need to push the wake up time an hour or two earlier and we can do double the laps." The clone grins at his fianc' waiting for the inevitable groan while he finishes up his stretching and waits for him.
He has yet to get into the Drill Instructor mode, but has managed much the same effect with the occasional bit of gentle teasing and at one point literally running in circles around Keith instead of yelling and berating him.
"Don't worry at all about lunch, or breakfast for that matter. Already have both planned out and everything prepped and ready to start them as soon as we get back home." His normal smirk drops in favor of a real smile, one of those few moments where he lets real emotions show through to Keith when they are not some place private or alone before he shrugs. "No need to thank me, I am doing this as much for me as for you. Now, as soon as you are ready we can start with the basics of a real fight."
Keith crouches for a second, finishing his stretches, and then stands up again, "Heh, figures you'd have everything planned. I am a total and complete mess compared to you, you know... and I'm not that disorganized." He grins.
"I'm ready when you are, coach."
Patrick laughs a little and then just shakes his head at Keith. "You, are a creature of complete and total chaos. I am still surprised my over prepared and organized nature has not driven you into insanity yet. Well, further into it." He teases a little while they get into position facing each other.
"Right, first thing to always remember in a fight. There is no such thing as a fair fight, and even if you are the hero fighting dirty is not a bad thing. They are going to be doing their level best to kill you so use any and every attack you can to stop the fast as fast and as decisively as possible."
He speaks while watching Keith and then suddenly taking a swing at him with a wide right hook. The attack is decidedly not his normal skilled tight affair, more something that one might expect from an armature than the well trained Soldier he was programmed to be. It is not till he has completed the swing, hit or miss, that he says, "Begin!"
Keith could have told Patrick that, two steps forward, two steps back, they come together 'cause opposites attract... but he wouldn't get the reference. Just yet. He was working on that.
The swing catches him by surprise and sends him sprawling, but he quickly gets back up to his feet with a grin. "Naughty... I like." he says. Of course Patrick wouldn't start a lecture on unfair fighting without driving the point home. Now it was Keith's turn to return the favor and so he jumps forward, to dive and roll and to try to knock Patrick's legs out from under him.
Patrick grins, "Of course you do." He says to Keith as he waits for the other man to get up and then go on the offensive. There is no point in starting a lesson on how to fight dirty if you don't actually fight dirty during the sparring part of the lesson, otherwise nobody learns.
When Keith goes for a dive and roll to try and knock pat's legs out from under him he finds that those legs are no longer there. Instead they are hooked up in the branches of the tree that he had hidden the mats in earlier while looking down at Keith.
"Lesson two, know your enemy. If they are a known quantity or you have watched long enough to be able to guess the kinds of moves they make then choose attacks that do not play into their strengths. Like aiming for the legs of someone known for high flying acrobatics." He says this all before smirking a little and dropping from the tree aimed right for Keith as if trying to land on his back.
The cat smirks, "Showoff" he says, and takes a good leap back as Patrick falls and crouches low, adopting a defensive stance almost as a tease to see how Patrick will attack him next.
Patrick grins at Keith and shrugs. "Of course I am." He keeps to a low to the ground defensive stance as he watches Keith once he is on the ground. After a second he starts to circle a bit to the left moving around the cat watching for his reactions.
Once he has waited long enough he suddenly kicks out, but not in an attack aimed at Keith. Instead he has kicked in the wall crawling abilities built into his clothes and used that to pick up one of the mats that they had used to stretch out on so that he could release it while kicking outwards tossing it in Keith's face as a distraction.
Why the distraction, because he does not want Keith to see him as he does a sudden jump and flip over the cat's head with the intent to land behind him. One of Pat's favorite moves to use when he is head on against a foe he would rather be attacking from behind.
Crafty Patrick- that's what Keith thinks as soon as he is hit by the mat. Well, he was going to surprise him! As soon as his sight was obscured, Keith leapt forward with a mighty jump, trying to impact his fiance's body with his own and the mat and hopefully stopping whatever crafty attack he was about to do---
Except Patrick wasn't there anymore when he got there! Not finding something solid to hit, he dives with the mat and rolls on the ground, coming around and still grasping the mat with one hand.
"Damn, you're a sneaky one!"
Either Keith is lucky or getting used to Patrick's style of fighting. As he comes around with that mat still in hand a quick kick impacts the mat instead of the cat's solar plexus.
"Of course I am. I have told you about the point where my brothers and I spent a half dozen hours following and observing the Spider-Man of our world right? You have to be sneaky to be able to do that with anyone that has a precognitive sense."
The clone grins again and then starts circling around Keith once more, this time headed in a way that will not take him long to end up directly over the other mat. "Lesson three, pay attention to your surroundings. Anything can be a weapon, a tree an exorcise mat, even a wall if you know how and you should always watch for anyone you fight moving to do just that."
"Anything, I know..."
What's that? The cat grabs a handful of dirt and throws it towards the auburn-haired young man, at the same time that he dashes forard, the exercise mat now held as an impact shield to attempt to bowl him over.
Patrick ducks out of the way of the dirt having to pushihimself away from the direction he was headed to avoid getting a face full. There is a light grin that comes and goes quickly at Keith starting to get the hang of dirty fighitng.
As Keith coems at him Patrick's hands go out to meet the exercise mat as he moves to the side and turns in an atempt to rebuff the attack and stay on his feet. unfortunetly for him, some times even those with the best skills and good eyes for what is around them miss something. A tree root hidden by grass manages to catch the clone's heel as he moves causing him to go from a simple side step and turn to end up landing on his ass.
The turn in fortunes is not missed, and Keith quickly readjusts his footing to leap towards the falling Patrick and attempt to subdue him by grabbing his wrists with his hands, and entwining his legs with his-- of course, it all depends on how quickly he can recover from that bad landing.
There is no such thing as a bad landing as long as you can walk away from it. Patrick is already rolling to the side before he can even finish his fall only to get pounced on by a purple Cat.
Patrick fights against it but his wrists and ankles are quickly caught and held to the ground by the cat, leaving him with a pround sort of look on his face. "Point one, goes to Keith. Of course there are a couple of problems with you catching someone this way. Can you point out three of them?"
"One, I could get headbutted. Two, you could manage to free a leg and knee me in the jewels, and three if you've got a better center of gravity you can turn the tables. But I also have my secret weapon!" the Cheshire says, grinning.
Patrick nods as three of the big problems with the way he is being held get listed. "Right on all three, also if I am strong as or stronger than you I could try this..."
With no more than what he said as a warning the clone suddenly makes his whole body twist to one side bringing in his advanced strength which he had purposely not been using at all so far in the fight to try and make them both roll so that he would end up on top of Keith.
The cat pants, struggling for a moment, before grinning.
"That's true... of course... there's always fighting dirty..."
The cat's tail snakes across Patrick's back-- he does not have as fine motor control of it as, say, Nightcrawler, but all he's hoping to do is flick the tip of the tail against the back of Patrick's neck. It's a bit of a stretch, because of the position-- his tail is not *that* long.
Patrick grins into the struggle leaning so that his lips are just barely touching Keith's ear lobe to whisper. "That is what I am trying to teach..YEAOW!"
The unfortunate thing about his armor, even in civilian disguise mode, is that it dulls most sensations along him making the tail snaking across Pat's back a complete surprise, especially when it hit the uncovered place at the back of his neck that is his one ticklish spot.
"Ok, ok, uncle!" He flails a little trying to get his hands out from where Keith his holding them still to get the tail away from his neck. "Round goes to Vorpal, but you know this means tomorrow I am not holding back right?"
The cat laughs, letting go and sitting up, brushing dirt from his fur and giving Patrick an enormous grin. "Oh, I know... I'm counting on it." on all fours, he moves over to Patrick with a cocky grin. "Hey, you were the one who said 'know your enemy', right?"
Patrick nods laughing a little still form the soft furry tail to the back of the neck attack. "I did, and that was an excilent use of the lesson. A few more on how to think and react in fights and we can move on towards specific moves. None of that meditation, oneness with the universe, or spirituals tuff either. Good old fasioned put someoen down and out fast and break an arm before they can shoot you moves too."
"Good!" Keith nods, sitting down next to Patrick and leaning on him. "... you know I still want to go back to bed, right?" he says mischievously, stifling a yawn.
Patrick leans back against Keith grinning a little and letting himself relax intot he moment of rest. After a second when Keith ends up yawning he laughs and ends up bouncing up to his feet again grabbing the mats to set them up again.
"We shall see about that, but first thing is first. We need to get to the next set of exercises before you fall asleep. Then we jog all the way back home. If you can stay awake for breakfast then you can go back to bed."
Keith groans and stands up "Alright, alright, geez, you'll be the death of me." Keith winks and slowly gets up, looking at his fur. "I'm going to have to wash all the dirt off, too!"
Patrick nods and just grins again. "You feel like that now, but by the time I am done you are going to be happy that this is all about being the opposite for you."
Pat quickly makes sure that Keith has his stance right before starting to lead him in the exercises that over a life time made the original he was cloned from into the near Super Soldier he was.
"Tell you what, you manage to keep up with me on the jog home and after breakfast I will get you a nice long hot shower and massage every single one of your aching pained muscles." He offers watching Keith.
After a second he adds in, "And if not it is a cold shower and the hair dryer for you."
Keith starts following in on the exercises, and lets out a very audible purr at the thought of a hot shower and a massage... and then he nearly falls over at the mention of the alternative. "... you'd better make sure you've got your running shoes on... I intend to earn that massage!"
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