ten_fwd | DECK 12; THE GYMNASIUM

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DECK 12; THE GYMNASIUM

She's not very social.
It's not that she hasn't ever been.

She had good compatriots in her regiments on the Command Carriers. It wasn't the same on Moya. It was a small ship, but there were spaces she could not ignore nor avoid. Not remove the knowledge it was populated with only a handful of escaped criminals. (That she's just as much one of them now.)

The Enterprise is different than both. Larger than Moya, but much smaller than a Command Carrier. More than the small crew of prisoners, but crawling with civilians. On a mission of 'peace,' yet laden with weapons. But it does have some things in common with Moya.

The first. They each have a good training room.
The second. Aeryn Sun spends a lot of time there.
The third. There is only so much time you can do that.

Even if "time" is a weeken or a quarter cycle. Half a cycle. Which is why she's sitting on the floor now, looking at the empty room, every still, waiting apparatus. (The hum of the ship, beneath her, under it all, is different, too. She can tell, because the sound she's looking for, that something in her is feeling for, isn't there.)

(She knows that makes her more different than those three now, too.)

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Yuna found the gym to be a soothing place to work out. She didn't draw on any magic or otherworldly skills. Instead she choose to push her body and her limits while going through basic martial art forms. She stopped when she saw Aeryn sitting in the middle of the floor.

Her footsteps were early light as walked over towards the woman sitting in the room. Yuna didn't know her but that never stopped her from saying hello in the past. She moved in front of the woman to make sure she wasn't interrupting when she spoke.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." It's a simple answer.

She's in one piece. She isn't wounded. She isn't suffering.

Given her focus during this 'time,' is in closer to peak performance than she's been in months.

Than, she's been since she was classified as Irreversible Contaminated and was stripped of being a Peacekeeper. Losing all the rights and responsibilities of that life. Without losing the stigma and assumption of being one, being what mattered most to her in the world, just based on her opinions and carriage and dress. But she was still here.

Here. Where no one, except John, even knew what the Peacekeepers were. Which was nothing like anything here.

Yuna hummed softly at the answer. It was curious that she wasn't upset considering that Yuna sort of disrupted her thoughts. She watched the woman for a few seconds longer before moving to place some of her things against the wall. There were some things that she never went without like her bag or sphere grid.

She dropped the things to the side keeping her gaze trained along the stark walls.

"Sorry if I disrupted you." Yuna smiled over at Aeryn. "I don't think we've met." At least not formally.

"I'm Yuna." Yuna knew what it was like to not be known for what you are. She was both grateful and saddened that no one could truly understand her world or Yuna's place in it. She's talked to some but it wasn't the same as having someone from there.

After the beat of a second, Aeryn finally moved again. Without moving anything below a small shift of her shoulder, her head turning to find where the younger girl was and take her in. What she'd said was true. Aeryn didn't go out of her way, and she'd known she was bound to run into more of them, sooner or later.

"We haven't." Beat. "Aeryn." Even if her minds complains, even near a cycle later. It should be Aeryn Sun. It should be said to her as Officer. Both hard, forthright, ready. The name is still right, but the years of association she has with what it means and where it belongs is distorted.

Aeryn was still a pretty name and Yuna found herself smiling as she fussed with her things. Her mismatched gaze looked over to her. "Nice to meet you. Do you work out in here often?"

Yuna was used to talking with others and while her question felt a little awkward she looked at ease in the situation. Yuna liked meeting new people. She was sure she had seen Aeryn around but when the ship was so big it was no wonder she hadn't run into everyone just yet.

"I guess, what I mean to ask, is it alright if I join you?" She'd come back later if she was interrupting. It's not like Yuna didn't have an abundance of time on the ship. "I've been practicing forms a friend showed me." She wasn't very good just yet.

"It's a big room," Aeryn keyed off right from the girl's words.

Though there was nothing pointed or annoyed about it. If anything, it got close to dismissive, about the space as well as the reasons. It wasn't her gym, and it wasn't her ship, and it wasn't even her time or universe, if John's all too pepped up, too excited still, rambling had any truth to it. Not that she was ever going to let him figure out she was listening to him.

There was a pause, before she added. "I can move if you need this part."

Yuna shook her head with a smile. "Nope. I just wanted to make sure it was okay." She didn't really take much stock in who owned what. Everyone had their own air, their own space around them and that should be respected.

"I'd also love company if you'd like to join me though, I admit, I'm still learning hand to hand combat." Yuna really liked using her guns or her blades.

She stepped away from Aeryn close enough to speak with the woman but far enough away that Yuna felt like she was outside of the sphere of personal space. She started by bringing her palms together and they began work shift her weight through the movements that she had been taught.

Aeryn stared at her without commenting. The offer, and near subtle request, hovering in the air between them. Not requiring an answer, as the girl started going through her forms, but floating there in the still air of the gym all the same.

She was small, young, but a Peacekeeper began learning how to fight before they were even half her age. Early enough the instict for defense, for fight over flight, was fast as a breath. Sat in the hold of their shoulders. The straight line of their posture. The accuteness to examine every situation with readiness to act. A cloak closer than skin, that could never be stripped away the way cloth could be.

She wasn't bad, persay. But if Aeryn or any soldier in any of her regiments, even by half her age, had looked like this, even for a day, they would have been assigned several extra hours everyday to raise from what, for them, would have been a near travesty of forgetting their training.

There wasn't anything better Aeryn was doing and watching cleared out anything else she was or wasn't thinking about. Was doing her level best to ignore or not ignore. Reject or not reject. Which is why her eyes narrow, and she says, "Your shoulders should be tighter."

Beat. "You will have force more, and be able to direct more weight, if your offensive movements aren't coming from your feet and the over-balance of your own."

Balance was not the most important thing in a small person being able to fight.

Yuna wasn't skilled in hand to hand and it was obvious that she was slightly off balanced without something in her hands. She was however good at taking instruction. She had spent her life training in different skills and from that she learned how to take instruction.

Her shoulders tightened instantly and her footing quickly became more stable as she shifted her weight into the next form. It wasn't so hard for Yuna to tell that Aeryn would be good at this sort of thing and she was happy for any instruction.

She turned slightly moving one arm up with the other close to her body in a defensive move. "Better?" Yuna didn't lose her focus as she spoke nor did she look towards Aeryn, keeping her eyes on some invisible target.

She reached too far, beyond her natural center of gravity, and Aeryn had to wonder what that was. The constant need to correct from some other midway balance point that was higher up on her body, pushed outward, no doubt in the hold of something else.

She was small and not overly muscles, though, so it wasn't any large blade.
Maybe a staff or a pole. Something thin but long, medium weight.

Or, if she was just learning all of this, maybe it wasn't a weapon at all. Maybe it was something she used to wherever she came from, doing whatever job she used to do instead. She didn't strike Aeryn as much of a psychical aggressor or a natural fighter.

Aeryn doesn't answer the question. The point of training is not to belabor what is right while so much else is still wrong. She wasn't terrible, and she was at least physically fit. Instead she answers a question with another question, like the other hadn't happened.

"What made you decide to take it up?"

Yuna kept moving trying her best to keep her form perfect and her breathing even. It was harder than she thought though she was able to keeping talking anyway. Her heel pressed against the ground as she moved bringing her arms close to her center.

"I've found training to be relaxing. I've been studying all sorts of things since I was young but never hand to hand skills. They aren't as useful on my world and in most cases it could be dangerous. You know?" Punching an Ochu was a good way to get killed unless you had an antidote on hand.

"It's strange being on this ship and it's the only time I can steady my thoughts." She used to be connected to the flow and ebb of life. On this ship everything was topsy turvy and it was hard for her to get used to the silence.

She wobbles in and out of balance, but she keeps correcting herself so Aeryn doesn't comment on that either. She does take note of the fact he girl doesn't get embarrassed, apologetic or deprecating when she messes up and has to do so. She just works, instead of taking the time to insert something between it and the next step.

It's a good thing and not one she expected after watching others here.

"Why would it be dangerous on your world?" Were they not allowed to fight?

She was silent for a moment considering what to say next. It wasn't a long story but it was a little complicated. There had to be a short way to explain it.

Yuna continued her motions, her gaze flicking over towards Aeryn ever so often to gauge her reaction as she speaks. "My world is named Spira. It's unlike most worlds from what I've found. There aren't that many people there and those who live there are connected in many ways to the planet. One way we are connected is through death. When someone dies, unless their souls were sent, they are stuck to wander around the world aimlessly."

She explained like these were facts that she had lived with her whole life. There was no extra emotion or remorse, death was difficult but it was something Yuna felt comfortable talking about. "They envy the living and that envy quickly turns to anger and hate. Those emotions manifest and become monsters that we call fiends. They are everywhere and so if you can't protect yourself you will ultimately fall prey to one."

She hoped the explanation was alright. She had left the reason that there were so many dead out because that's another long story.

"That doesn't make sense." None of it. But setting aside dead people becoming monster.

Which Aeryn was going to faces at the idea of for a long time.

It still hadn't actually made sense of the question she'd asked at the beginning, and it was the first time Aeryn seemed sharply annoyed and actually to be doing more than just paying attention to the girl's form. "Wouldn't your people have wanted you trained to fight and defend yourself in the best manner possible to defeat the others before now, then?"

Yuna smiled. Her world didn't really make sense though it was what she was used too. She lowered her stance and looked over at Aeryn with a weary smile.

"I've been trained to fight just not with hand to hand. There is magic in my world, it grows from the plant and you can feel it in the air. If you don't use it you will be fighting creatures that will have the upper hand."

She glanced over at her bag before her eyes flicked towards Aeryn. "I can show you if you wanted. It isn't something that is easy to explain." Yuna didn't seemed to concerned about the sharp tone to the woman's voice.

Magic was not a thing Aeryn had much experience with before her separation from The Peacekeepers. It existed, but it was not something to think about much, and for the most part it belonged to subjugated races, without causing too many even greater problems. But she could appreciate it in the most gruesome sense without any emotional reaction in it or to it.

If your monster was stronger than you, and it's strength was in magic, you found a way to fight it.

You found a way to be stronger. You found a way to be more magical. If it was possible. The way she said it was.

Aeryn raised her eyebrows, watching her straight on, save the once following her eyes back to her bag. Wary, but willing.

Yuna could stop at any moment should Aeryn ask. She hadn't gotten defensive at the mention of magic so they were at least off to a good start.

Yuna reached down and then tied her back to her side. That's all it took to tap into the items she had with her. She could use magic without them but being so far away from a plant made it more strenuous. Yuna could tap into the magic around her but that would be stealing peoples life force which she didn't want to do. She could use her own but she knew the effects of it having lived on Spira.

"I can use a lot of different types of magic. I've learned all sorts of different things." If only to survive. She had yet to use her new skills at home though she wondered what people would think of her. She was stronger now.

With her eyes on Aeryn she began, her clothing glowed and shifted over her body reforming into her usual gunner attire. "I can pull most weapons from my spheres. Which is what I'm more used to using." She held out her palm and in it's center a bright orb appeared stretching until it formed something that looked like a hand gun. "This doesn't use regular bullets but magic." She tossed held out the weapon towards Aeryn. If she takes it she will find it to be almost solid and not constructed like a regular gun. There was no place for ammo and it looked more like a blunt object than something that could shoot.

Aeryn watched, still as a wall, eyes hard with darkness and a complete, unwavering, emotionless, tactical shrewdness most could not be taught except in the earliest of years before anything else might have been formed in that space by a different kind of upbringing. The materialization of the orb makes her spine stiffen slightly.

A quantity that is not known and automatically in her knowledge of how to fight.

But it forms a gun, and guns she does know. The reflex to catch as much as deflect in her response. She kept it, rolled back, in a more defensive stance, one knee up, as thought the half-second away from springing to attack. The gun does not explode and she turns it over in her hands, eyebrows narrowing, eyes harder as she finds the defect. "It doesn't look right."

And only a moment later, a little disdainful. "Or is this what guns look like where you come from?"

It wasn't as thought the Starfleet phasers looked right either. But they still worked.

"Nope. It's one of a kind." Yuna paused. "Well two of a set."

She smiled, she could tell that Aeryn was tense. It was expected and Yuna tried to remain as relaxed as possible as to not alarm her further. "It's different and anyone can use it but you have to know how." Or you could hurt yourself.

Yuna gently took the gun back glancing around before spotting a wall that would do the trick. "Let me show you." She raised her free hand, ice crystals formed around her palm as her hand moved towards the far wall. Thick ice appeared over the metal surface. It was dense, so much so that you couldn't see through the white frozen crystals.

She turned to face the large sheet of ice bringing her second gun into her palm. She placed them side by side as she gathered power. A bright blue blasted from the guns heading towards the crystallized target. It happens in a matter of milliseconds and the ice is completely gone.

Aeryn watched the whole display. From the creation of the ice, to the blue pulsing light that came out of the guns, and then the way it shot away the ice to nothing, without leaving even the barest scorch behind on the wall itself. It was impressive, in a way she hadn't been expecting.

Even a bit weighing. But she wasn't made to feel uneven long, or unprepared.

She looked from the wall, back to the girl. "How long can you do it for?"

Yuna thought for a brief moment glancing at the wall that once held ice. "Nowadays, a very long time though if I wanted to make the blast stronger it would take more energy." She looked over at Aeryn curiously. She wasn't sure what reaction she was expecting, it was always different when she finally felt up to showing someone what she could do.

Magic had endless possibilities open to it and while Yuna's training let her do many things she found that there was still much to learn.

"It's actually easier to shoot than it is to make the ice."

Aeryn considered her, and the gun in her hand. The ideas of her world, and her choice style of fighting. How it worked and where it came from. Entirely different from most of everything from back where she and John had come from far too long ago now.

"Why?"

"Well, these guns help me channel energy. It's easier to shoot. I have weapons that help me channel elemental spells too. They were on made on my planet and have the magic from there imbued in them. It pulls less from the user that way." It wasn't the easiest thing to explain but Yuna's magic used her soul as energy. She'd have to rest after using it to gain it back and if she used to much she'd pass out.

"The energy from the guns is also just pure energy. It takes more effort to turn it into something else." She gestures towards the wall. "Like Ice."

Aeryn nodded, pulling it in and turning it over and over. The magic wasn't only a weapon in her words, it was a weakness. A depletion of the self in some sort. Those were not the sort of things she would choose to give away to a stranger, but she wasn't the one talking, was she?

"You said you have other weapons, too?"

Yuna smiled. She wasn't really telling Aeryn all that much. It was far more complicated but she didn't know if this woman could feel the magic that was in everyone.

"Yeah. Blades mostly. Some of my skills are hard to explain. I've mastered white..um.. healing magic. It's what I first studied."

DECK 12; THE GYMNASIUM

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