Electra

Erin was quiet for a long moment, studying the drawing. Even with Phantom's description, she couldn't see the place in her head, but she could hear it, the screaming of the dying and the wails of the damned. She tried to conceal the shiver it sent down her spine, for all she had a feeling that Phantom didn't miss much. "If he can't be touched in the city, someone would have to get him out," she murmured thoughtfully, still staring at the picture. "He must leave sometimes, to start new experiments, or to look at ones that are finished. It would mean finding a way to know where he was going... or to lay a trap, with some kind of bait. Either way, you'd have to know exactly what he wants."

"Dodging's at least as important in a close-up fight as punching," Erin told him. "If you can't get out of the way, you might get taken out before you have a chance to do any damage. Even if it heals up fast, you take enough, and you're still down for the count." She thought for a minute. "Okay, I want you to try and hit me, then I'm going to try and hit you. I want you to show me how you dodge. Okay?"

Erin stepped forward, raising her bat. "We don't want to hurt you," she told the giant dog, in case it spoke English. "We're just trying to get through. We think someone we're looking for came this way, and we have to find him. Now you can let us pass, or we will make you let us pass. Which would you rather do?" She locked eyes with the creature, waggling the bat a little.

Erin stayed in the pool longer than most of her friends, but eventually got out to explore the food offerings as well. Parties weren't something she was very good at, but she was obviously making a game effort, stopping to say hello to people she knew, bantering with the pyrokinetic grilling the hot dogs, even joining, very gingerly, in the volleyball game. Eventually she managed to relax a little more, falling in with a group talking about the latest exploits of the Freedom League as they ate junk food and sat around the pool. That wasn't too bad at all.

Posting for Alderwitch: Phantom Gazing into the Abyss We Rise Together Growing Up Vampire When the Cat's Away White Wedding One of These Things is Not Like the Other Crossroads And Blackjack Darkness Rising The Good, the Bad, and the Extra-Dimensional Web of Lies Friday Outing Con Games Holy Meeting Psyche Beach Party in Winter Groundhog's Day From the Shore to the Water It's a Jungle Out There Title of Show Battle of the Sexes Back to School Non-Canon (Bombshell) Thule me Once

Erin pointed towards the cave. "Something went that way," she told James, "probably several somethings. One with really, really big feet. It could be a trap, but if we don't risk it, we'll lose the trail. This way." She headed for the cave, following the tracks directly and staying on the same narrow path. She kept her bat at the ready, just in case. That little creature wasn't going to get away again, even if she had to knock him silly to keep him still.

Erin opened out her bat and sniffed the air, looking around for trouble. "Weird," she said, looking towards the castle in the distance. "Guess Freedom City doesn't carry over very well on every world. I wonder what that thing is over there." She bent down and began studying the ground, looking for any tracks of the odd creature's passage, or any sign that he'd been dragging something large, like a body.

"You said you can bench seven hundred," Erin pointed out. "You can do that, you can crush a windpipe." She spoke with great confidence on that, as someone who had been thoroughly educated in ways that strength could kill. "You've got to be careful so you don't do it on accident. What you're going to want to do is practice in here a lot, against simulated opponents. It's really the only way to get good at any kind of fighting. And if they hurt you, you'll heal it up." She let him give the dummy a few more jabs, setting it rocking each time. "Now how good are you at dodging in combat? Not like when you're standing far enough away to find cover, but when someone's coming at you to hit you?"

"No pain, no gain," Erin said with a shrug. "But there's no reason you have to try to punch someone in the jaw." She stepped over to another practice dummy. "Straight punch to the gut is a good tactic that probably won't hurt your hand," she told him, demonstrating but only tapping the dummy with her fist. "Punching or chopping the neck works too, but you have to be careful if you don't want to kill somebody. If you want to go for the face without risking any damage to yourself, try slamming the heel of your hand into their nose." She demonstrated that as well, sending the dummy rocking backwards on its frame. "It doesn't do a lot of damage, but it hurts like hell and will make their eyes water and their nose bleed. It's very distracting and doesn't take as much brute strength. You can always go for the groin, too, but you'd better do plenty of practice first so you aren't leaving yourself open when you do." She stepped away from the dummy to let Chris have a shot at it.

Erin knocked his foot away with the outside of one forearm, then made a halfhearted attempt to grab his leg. "You did better the first time," she told him. "Getting your opponent to drop their guard is the right idea, especially when you're facing one powerful opponent. But you're better off working on your follow-through, instead of trying to be so fast that you leave yourself open." She walked over to the row of steel practice dummies. "You have to be able to analyze your opponent, and decide if you're fast enough to trick him into dropping his guard. If you're not, you shouldn't get into a fight with him. You have to find another way. But if you're fast enough, you have to trust yourself to hit him," she instructed. "Instead of thinking about where you want to hit, concentrate on hitting him harder. You might be a little less accurate, but you make up for it in power. Like this." She drew back and drove her fist into the dummy's head, cleanly and with plenty of follow-through. The metal neck snapped, the dummy's head flying off to land on the floor with a clatter. Erin sighed. "Or something like that, anyway."

He slipped easily past Erin's defenses with the sudden strike, which connected as though he'd tried to punch a warm brick wall. She didn't so much as flinch, but she did look a little surprised at the feint. "That's good," she told him approvingly. "You're very fast. Is that as hard as you can hit? It's pretty good too," she assured him. "But you might want to practice a little more. Speed and tricks isn't always enough, especially with a lot of opponents to fight." She brought up her own arm, tapping him in the center of the chest with two fingers. "And tricks or no, if you and I had been in a fight, you'd have punched me, sure, but you're wide open and off balance. I might have punched you clear across the room. Unless you're pretty sure that your attack is going to put your opponent down for the count, you can't open yourself up like that. It's dangerous."

Yeah, that ain't happening. ;-) But it bounces off anyway.

The OOC thread for Erin teaching Chris to fight. For this first punch, Erin will do a total defense move, just in case he surprises them both.

Erin shrugged and let it go at that, since they were at the doom room already anyway. It was empty at this hour, so she keyed in her training program, opening the doors onto a modified dojo-style room she'd modeled after Thunderstanding's gym. Most of the main floor was taken up by a sparring ring, though there were hanging bags and practice dummies here and there to work with as well. "All right," Erin said, stepping into the middle of the floor. "I guess we might as well figure out where we're starting from." She raised her hands in a loose defensive posture. "Show me how you punch."

"That's too bad," Erin said with a frown, keying into the secured elevator and setting it for the subbasement. "You should think about calling for backup next time. Anybody would've come and helped you out if you asked. It's why we've got the communicators, right? Still, you might be able to get the back. Alex might be able to track them down, and we could go and get them back. We wouldn't necessarily have to tell Archer or anyone, so you wouldn't get in any trouble." She wasn't sure how he could get in trouble for losing part of his own equipment on patrol, but he seemed kind of worried about it.

Erin didn't take long, rejoining him in a few minutes with her blue and gold training uniform on. She hadn't bothered with the bat for this session, she trusted herself enough by now to know she could pull her barehanded punches in practice sessions, at least. "What happened with the Fearmaster?" she asked as they walked through the corridor to the elevator. "I didn't hear anything about him acting up lately."

"Oh, you want to start today?" Erin glanced once at the book she'd been enjoying, then shrugged to herself and stood up to have a stretch. "No time like the present, I guess. We can hit the Doom Room if nobody else is in there, otherwise we'll have to go outside. I'm not certified to spar in the regular training room, even if I promise to pull my punches. Just let me get my uniform on."

Oliver showed his opinion of Chris' display by plopping down to wash his bottom, but Erin was more sympathetic. "I'll try and show you a few things," she told him. "Just basic stuff, how to punch, how to block a punch. You're already good at evasion, you probably don't need much help with that. I don't know that I'll be a very good teacher, but I'll do my best to help you out. When do you want to start?"

Erin gave him a look that was quite frankly skeptical, but tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Um, I'm not sure you and I would have the same sort of fighting style," she began, looking like she was trying not to hurt his feelings. "Knocking someone unconscious with your fists means you have to get right into the fight, and be strong enough to actually take someone down. You might be better off staying with the zappers. You're really good with them," she offered. "You might be able to get the school to pay for batteries, or get one of the resident geniuses to fix something up for you."

Oliver raised his head and stretched as he was petted, obligingly butting his head against Chris's hand and purring. Petting the cat was a very mellowing experience, perhaps it was true what they said about pets helping your blood pressure. Erin sat up, setting aside her book and ducking slightly to avoid hitting her head on Alex's bunk. "You already know how to fight," she pointed out. "We do it every weekend in training."

"Come in," Erin called from inside the room. For once she seemed to be relaxing instead of doing homework, stretched out on her bed with a paperback novel, the cat an orange ball at her feet. She looked rather surprised to see Chris at her door. For all they were on the same team, they didn't exactly do a lot of socializing. "Hey Chris," she said, a little cautiously. "You looking for Alex?"

"You saw him?" Erin asked, sitting straighter in her chair. "Did the Centurion actually fight him? What sort of defenses did he have?" It was a long time ago, she knew, and the information would be very dated, but any scrap of knowledge might be what provided the key. Of course, given Phantom's reaction, it might be unwise to let on that she had any intention of actually trying to stop Friendly herself. "I mean, it must have been a terrible scene, if it made the Centurion react that way."

"It wasn't much of a fight," Erin replied without false modesty, petting Oliver as he hopped back into her lap and started purring. "I snuck up on him from behind and laid him out while he was sputtering at me. But he knew who I was." She hesitated, not really wanting to get into the details with Mark's generally very cheerful dad. "Omega destroyed my world by seeding it with a disease. When Steelegrave saw me, he somehow recognized where I came from, and he seemed kind of interested. Then when I had him pinned, he said he could tell me what happened there." Erin jerked one shoulder in a shrug. "You know how it is in fights, say anything to throw your opponent off."

Erin nodded. "I distracted him long enough that my teammates could get Mark out of the prison they had him in, and destroy the weapon that they'd been setting up there." She wasn't sure where Mr. Lucas was going with this, but as far as she knew, none of this stuff was top secret. Maybe he just wanted to know what had happened to his kid. She could understand that. "I subdued him, but he distracted us and then teleported away before we could secure him." And that was a failure that still rankled. "Mark was conscious when Psyche got him out, he seemed kind of woozy, but mostly okay."

"Oh, hi Mr. Lucas," Erin said, startled by the unusual nature of the evening visitor. She took a quick peek around the room to make sure things were mostly in order, a reflex that a visit from anyone's parents could trigger. The formal greeting and the sober expression clued her in that this might not be a happy talk, but she wasn't quite sure what he might want from her. "Sure," she replied, "you can sit down if you want." She gestured to Alex's desk chair. "How's Mark doing?"