goneawaycomms | Brand Saint John

Brand's resting bitch face cracks temporarily into a grin.

"Well," he says dryly. "That's what's important. Being able to kick your brother's ass. I suppose that you slacking off is all right in that case."

He shakes his head. "So am I supposed to play nice with you, or is your hand back up to par?"

"See, you get it," she retorts, flashing a grin of her own.

She flexes her dominant hand.

"You think I'd want you 'playing nice' even if it wasn't?" she says, brow raised, then just shakes her head. What do you take her for, huh Brand? "But nah, it's fine now. Woulda been fine sooner and probably healed even better if their medical tech wasn't a fuckin' mockery, but whatever."

She's back to full functionality now and that's what matters. Won't stop her grumbling, but at least it wasn't even longer.

"Point is, I can still hit just as hard as before, no problem."

"I'd have made fun of you even more if you did," Brand retorts. He rolls his eyes in agreement of Jorgmund's shoddy medical care.

"If they'd just let Rune have his sigils, he could have had it fixed in a couple hours, max."

She snickers a little, "Wouldn't expect less. The day I ask someone to go fuckin' easy on me? Someone needs to get my head checked."

She cocks her head slightly, tightening her wraps and falling into an easy stance.

"Magic stuff, right?" She's been here long enough now, seen and heard enough, to get from a word like 'sigil' to 'universe with supernatural bullshit'. "You're telling me that partner of yours has healing magic and they won't let him have the shit he needs for it? God their bullshit makes less sense every day."

She knows Rune's face by now, vaguely at least; from the network the night the babadon't shit went down, to catching sight of him around the training floor today, between rounds with North. The guy Brand's been protecting his whole life.

If he has magic, she almost wonders why he needs protecting so fiercely, but she knows that someone's ability to defend themself doesn't make a difference when someone cares that deeply. God knows it's never stopped North taking bullets for her.

"Yep," Brand says, popping the 'P' sound, rolling his shoulders and falling into his own stance. "He can light stuff on fire without 'em, but everything else needs a sigil to hold it. And they can't possibly fucking have that."

He doesn't know if they know about Rune's Exodus spell. That would be a good reason to keep Rune's sigils from him, except they're supposedly giving them back when Rune goes on a mission, and Rune could stash Exodus then and use it when he came back -- if he were suicidal, which he isn't.

"Ugh, they really think we're all idiots with death wishes or some shit. Like, they could drop us all in a second if we tried something stupid, but we still have to get through shit like demon cupids without even salt pellet guns."

It's ridiculous. Much as she wants out of here, even South knows that blasting their way out wouldn't work so long as they have these damn shock collars in. It's not like she expects them to hand them a free arsenal, but things attack the rig, people get injured, and they won't even give them the basics to handle it.

"It's fucking insulting, honestly. I've done a lot of shit to survive, sure the same can be said of the lot of us; we have basic fucking self-preservation instincts."

"They're either stupid or malicious to the point of self-sabotage, and I don't fucking know which yet," Brand agrees. Possibly some combination of the two. It doesn't chance the pain-in-the-ass results, but it does change their approach to getting out of here.

"So, we gonna spar or just keep complaning?"

"Could be both. Incompetence and maliciousness is one hell of a fucking combo," South says, and if it sounds like it comes from experience, well, maybe it does. Ugh, Project Freelancer was a shitshow...

She shakes her head and the thought away with it, stance tightening to something more ready to actually get into action, beckoning with one hand. Time to get to it. She really does have time to make up for.

"Yeah, alright, c'mon."

True to his word, Brand does not play nice; he picks up exactly where they'd left off. His sole concession is that he doesn't actively target her injured side, waiting for her to make a mistake within the sparring match itself rather than using information from outside of it.

It's nice to get back to this. He's not going to admit he kind of missed it though, that would be telling.

South doesn't hold back an inch, either; despite signs, obvious to someone like Brand who's trained for this, that she needs to work back up the strength in her dominant hand, she puts as much power behind her hits as she ever did.

There's a fresh energy to her, too. There's less bitter rage behind her than there was before and she's thinking clearer, for it. She still sometimes sets up an attack intended for someone to follow, but she knows that's an issue, and she doesn't seem as annoyed at herself every time she does it, now, she just corrects for it.

It does feel good to do this again. To go toe-to-toe with someone who can match her without worrying about anything else but the fight.

Once they really get going, Brand starts taking advantage of the relative weakness of her dominant hand. Not because he's trying to win the sparring match, but because it's what people who are fighting her for real will do. Sparring isn't about winning, sparring is for learning how someone could hurt you in a situation where a mistake won't mean your life.

It's nice to see the change in South though. She's more present, less up in her own head. He doesn't have anything to do with it, it was something she worked through on her own (with her brother, certainly), but he knows how hard it is to drag yourself out of that mindset. Maybe he'll say something about it after they're done.

South catches the switch in tactics and there's actually a flash of a satisfied smirk. That's something he brother would never do, even in a fight with no consequences. He's always been a little too soft on her. It made training herself back up to use her fucked up knee—a much older injury now only noticeable in rare moments where she over-extends—a nightmare. That big dumbass, she thinks with all affection.

Brand has no such issue and that's a damn nice change of pace.

Within a couple of rounds of the change, she's starting to figure out ways around the weakness. By the time they start to ease their way back down, she's compensating enough that exploiting it isn't as easy as it was at the start.

See, Rune? See? This is why Brand keeps punching you in the face when you spar, and he's going to keep at it until you learn to not get punched in the face.

"Feeling less rusty yet?" Brand asks as the two of them move into the cool-down portion of their match. "Thinking hand still working for you?"

Oh yeah, that's a thing now, South.

Edited 2021-05-04 20:53 (UTC)

South rolls her eyes dramatically. Of course that's a thing now, goddammit. She'd absolutely do the same thing if she was Brand, though, so she can't even say shit about it.

"It's working fine, asshole," she retorts with absolutely no venom, shaking her head. "Or, well, now it is. Sure keeping your fuckin' word about not pulling your punches."

At which she obviously doesn't sound at all annoyed, it's actually closer to grateful.

"What would the point of that be? The people trying to beat the shit out of you aren't gonna pull their punches," Brand says with a shrug. "Everyone's got to learn to fight injured sooner or later. Probably ought to break out some blindfolds again soon, for good fucking measure."

...That could be fun, actually.

"Tell that to my brother," she says with a snort, shaking her head. He really is a good fighter, but he really has always been too damn soft on her, too, even when she tells him not to be. "Blindfolds, that'd be in case of losing vision or visibility, yeah? Man, I haven't done situational training like that in a long time."

Spending time on the run sure cuts down your training opportunities beyond the basics.

"You want me to?" Brand volley's back, part-joke, part-genuine offer. "I've got a couple variations on it, depending on how much the other person's fucking whining about me kicking their ass."

He shrugs, rolling his shoulders. "Losing vision or visibility, another angle on situational awareness, things like that. Sometimes my sparring partner is being sulky and needs an extra challenge to fucking focus. Sometimes it's just fun."

Brand's got a weird idea of 'fun', but South probably knew that already.

"The day he listens to anyone telling him not to be soft on me would probably be a sign of the fuckin' end times. He's a dumbass."

Though the mental image of Brand trying is actually kind of hilarious. North's used to waving her off, but she's not sure if he'd be able to use the same tactics of dad-level patronisation as a method of avoidance against Brand, who seems like he'd have no patience for that shit off anyone let alone a stranger.

"Let me guess, you have a whole fuckin' list of special training shit just like that to keep people on their toes and just for fun."

Brand raises his eyebrows and heads for the edge of the mat.

"Of course I've got a fucking list. Do you have any idea how fucking annoying teenagers are when you don't give them something to do with all that energy?"

He grabs his comm and waggles it at her.

"And I'm gonna do it," he warns her with a flash of a grin. "I'll call your brother and tell him he needs to get fucking serious about kicking your ass. Last chance to stop me."

Her brow raises and she's half way to asking 'teenagers?', her mouth open and everything, when he waggles his comm and her brief confusion about if the guy somehow has teenagers himself or if he's just training a class of them or something is completely forgotten.

"...fuck, I feel like I should fuckin' stop you, but also, this could be hilarious."

Someone besides her calling North on literally any of his shit, big or small, isn't exactly a thing that happens often, either.

Brand flicks open the private messaging part of their secret communication app.

"Hey, South's brother," he says into the microphone, maintaining eye contact with South the entire time. "Quit fucking around and beat the shit out of your sister properly when you spar. Just because you won't take dirty shots at her doesn't mean that bad guys will play nice."

Edited 2021-05-19 16:36 (UTC)

North's immediately amused, though a bit nonplussed, when he receives this message.

"And you would be one to know, I assume?"

South would steadfastly deny the way her face lights up when Brand calls North 'South's brother', instead of just his name. She honestly can't remember the last time she ever heard that, if she ever did; it's always been 'North's sister', 'Andrew's sister', whatever. She's always been the afterthought.

She won't deny the grin, though, at the way he just calls North on his shit instantly. No pretense. Snickers, too, not bothering to muffle it; if it gets caught in the background when Brand responds, so be it, it's not like North's never heard her laugh at him before.

It was North, South's brother, or Drunk bathroom guy; Brand had just gone with the middle-of-the-road option. It's not because he and South are friends or anything. Nobody read anything into it.

"Yeah, I would," Brand answers North. "I'm the one responsible for most of Rune's injuries over the years, even though he's fought monsters older than sentience and bus-sized spiders made of ghosts and rebar. Because every time I kick his ass, he learns a little more about how not to get his ass kicked. And that means the monsters and the people who want him dead can't kill him even when I'm not there to watch his back."

Edited 2021-05-19 20:47 (UTC)

North shakes his head to himself. Certainly, he believes South is better for the exercises they do when they spar, but he doesn't believe that means he needs to make it a goal to injure her or anything.

"I'll keep it in mind," he says. "Honestly, though, the things that make South a weaker fighter have nothing to do with anything that would be corrected by her receiving injuries by my hand."

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