(no subject)

[gluteus]

Who| Maximus and YOU, OPEN for Mingling - All District 3 will be 'Asked' to attend, but everyone else is welcome
What| Come get Combat Training from the Cyborg Gladiator
Where| The Training Center
When| Two days after the Motorcycle Races
Warnings/Notes| Nothing so far! Maybe violence, but nothing with gore since it's just training weapons.

Maximus was a regular in the training center, but today was different. Today he had set up a good portion of the hall exactly as he wanted it - a large training mat (one of the better inventions in the last few millenia),  a large rack of swords, shields, and spears. He couldn't find pilla, but spears would do well enough. The day before, he'd gone around to each of the rooms in district 3 and told them to report to the training center the next day, or face consequences. He also, however, asked Wyatt to attend, and mentioned it to anyone else he thought could use some training.

It didn't really matter who showed up, he would treat them all the same.

It took more than a day to make a soldier, but perhaps at least he could begin to get some of the tributes thinking like one.

Or maybe they would start seeing the benefit of working together.

His Sabertooth Tiger, Ferox, prowled around the edge of the training mat, watching the tributes as if one of them might make a good dinner, and occasionally coming up to rub its large head against Maximus' prosthetic leg.


[OOC note: Each tribute will be greeted, have a rough assessment of their skills taken, and then given a series of instructions for training. Trainees of a similar level will be grouped together, for team activities. Feel free to either tag in for the greeting/assessment, or create an open post for other people to tag you for mutual training.]

Comments

[gluteus]

"Maximus Decimus Meridius," He replies, giving a stiff nod to introduce himself. It's disconcerting, the lack of pupils - makes Maximus think of corpses, strewn across the battlefield.

He pushed the thought from his mind.

"You're here for the training," He assumed. He motioned at the racks. "Chose a weapon, show me what you're capable of."

[silberfuchs]

"I was given to understand it was mandatory," there's not hint of sarcasm in his tone, but something about how he says that is a little off. Restrained yet humble irritation might be the best way to describe it, and it's not directed at Maximus so much as the situation that makes this necessary.

With a nod, Albert glances over the weapons and picks up a spear, testing its weight in one hand before returning to a military posture. "I am less than familiar with the weapons at hand. Where I come from, we are past the use of swords and spears for anything beside sport. I am here to learn, Herr Meridius, but I confess my knowledge of these ends with which end faces the enemy."

Shame is nowhere in his voice as he explains, just a humble patience. He knows his strengths, he knows his weaknesses, and he'll work to improve both with guidance.

[gluteus]

"Heavily suggested," Maximus said, offering a slight smile. "You'd be surprised how many attempt to refuse something to their benefit."

He nods as Albert tells him his military history, and he isn't surprised. "I first saw a gun in use here, and I've no doubt modern war uses them past all other weapons. Something that powerful would be hard to resist."

"As long as you are willing to learn, you will not find your inexperience to be a burden to you."

He grabbed a spear as well. "Show me as much as you know, no matter how little that is." Even if it was just a grip, or a stance, it would show him what he had to work with.

[silberfuchs]

"Mmm..." Albert regards the spear in his hand, then holds it with the head outward, aimed purposely a little away from Max. His arms start rigid but he realizes his mistake after a moment and loosens his elbows. His feet are apart and very solid, knees likewise to his elbows in their tension.

"This is all I know." He could likely withstand a charge, but mounting any sort of attack on his own is nigh impossible from how he's standing.

[gluteus]

Maximus watches him, then lets out a long exhale and nods, stepping over. "A defensive position, but it isn't enough." Without asking for permission, he reaches out to pull Ablert's limbs and shoulders into a much more utilitarian stance - something strong and steady but still easily able to be offensive or defensive.

"Weight on your back foot, here. Try, now, to thrust outward."

[silberfuchs]

Maximus' sudden touch causes Albert to tense considerably. Generally he prefers some warning before anyone lays their hands on him with very few exceptions, but in this case he forces himself to relax. It's a common teaching technique, one he'd used with his own recruits on the firing range when he'd done a brief stint training enlisted before being given his post in the GSG-9.

Well, not post. Desk.

It's a much simpler way to make sure someone's body is in the right position than to have to articulate what they're doing wrong and hope they mimic you or can follow the verbal direction. So, as uncomfortable as he is being touched by a virtual stranger, he'll live.

Weight distributed to his back foot as directed, Albert stabs forward from the hip with his spear, the end bobbing a bit from the force behind the movement. He doesn't quite shift his weight correctly and his back foot remains flat instead of his heel coming up off the floor as it should, but it's already better than he was doing before. "It feels awkward. Am I doing something wrong?"

[gluteus]

He notices the tension but doesn't pull back. He's not from a world where consent is a very in depth issue, after all, and he's been training men to fight for most of his life. Albert seems to cope well enough, so Maximus simply decides he can manage.

"Lift your heel," He grunts, before grabbing a spear and showing Ablert the correct motion, slamming the spear forward with impeccable precision and force.

[silberfuchs]

It's jarring to have himself tugged in such a way as when Maximus yanks the spear, but the direction is obeyed and it does feel stronger to Albert as he lunges forward with the thrust, no twisting going on from the lack of his foot movement.

With a nod he pulls back again and tries a few more times once Maximus steps clear, making sure to pick his heel up from the floor. "Much better, thank you."

skipping ahead a bit, if that's okay!

[gluteus]

"Good. Again," He says, stepping back to watch. Once it looks like Albert is getting the gist of it, Maximus wanders away to go check on the rest of the tributes. He returns after a little while to check on Albert again, smiling.

"You're making good progress. If you keep up a regimen, you'll have acclimatized yourself to melee weapons easily."

a-okay

[silberfuchs]

"Thank you." He still feels stiff, but there's something about the mechanics of thrusting forward with the spear that works well with how Albert's body naturally wants to move, once he learns to let it. He feels a little more confident that this is something he can do, not to mention keeping a foe at longer than an arm's length is in his benefit.

He stops in his exercise and lifts the spear to examine its construction. "A spear should be fairly easy to makeshift as well, assuming there isn't a proper one to find in an arena."

Not that he means to actually kill anyone with the damn thing. He'd prefer not to kill at all, but he doesn't have the full measure of Maximus quite yet and isn't sure how that news would be taken should he announce it. Albert glances at his mentor to try and gauge when a glint of metal from the Roman's knee catches his eye and the German's eyebrows shoot up into his hair. Usually so composed, it's somewhat awkward for all parties when he can't stop from blurting out "You're a cyborg!"

[gluteus]

Maximus nodded. "It is a simple enough weapon to make," He agreed. "If the arena offers the proper environment."

When Albert blurted that out, however, Maximus' own eyebrows shot up. He'd never heard the word 'cyborg', and had absolutely no idea what it meant, trying to calculate whether or not it was an insult.

"No, I'm a Spaniard," He said instead, hoping that would clear things up.

[silberfuchs]

"No, I mean- Yes, of course. I'm sorry, that was rude." He regains is composure quickly, mostly. There's a bit of embarrassed red staining his cheeks for an extra minute or so.

"What I meant was... a cyborg is a person with mechanical parts." He gestures vaguely to Max's leg.

lol that icon is adorable

[gluteus]

"Ah," Maximus said, nodding as he finally understood. "I had not heard the term... but yes." He pulled his tunic up to better bare the leg - cut off somewhere just above the knee, the rest sleek metal.

"It was granted to me after I lost it defending the capitol," He said, somehow not sounding bitter.

I rarely get to use it! You're special~

[silberfuchs]

"I see." It doesn't seem to bother Max and the gladiator isn't even the first person Albert's come across with a cybernetic part that they don't resent, even are grateful for, but it's still a jarring reaction. He'd hated his own, hated them so passionately that for awhile when he'd first got them he'd been reckless to the point of a deathwish out of spite and distress. He'd been so thankful when granted his new life on Mocawa free from mechanics.

But he'd missed them when he had to fight again. He finds himself missing them a bit here, too, at least in the arena. He isn't sure how he feels about that.

Albert lets out a slow breath. "I used to have parts like that. More extensively. Pardon if this is too personal, but may I ask how you've coped with the loss of your natural limb?"

[gluteus]

Maximus frowned, but took the question seriously, thinking it over for several long minutes before he replied.

"By all natural rights, I am meant to be dead," He said eventually, stiffly, not looking Albert in the eye. "No man would have survived the wounds I had taken. Or, if he had, he would have been a cripple the rest of his life - if he did not take his own, first, for his honour. Yet I am alive, and my leg is made of metal, and moves as I think and breathe."

He paused again, twisting his metal ankle as he looked down at it.

"I did not cope well, when it was first given to me."

[silberfuchs]

It's strange, but somehow Albert is guiltily happy to hear that. It makes him feel validated after how jarring it was to see Miss Dean strut about with her cybernetics on display. It obviously improved her quality of life, but for someone like Albert, who had been augmented against his will even though the technology had saved his life, it was uncomfortable. To know Maximus had a hard time as well, when he'd come from a similar situation to Albert's, gives him some peace of mind.

"I was much the same." It's all he says, no judgement other than a small sense of camaraderie there. They're not here to talk about their feelings or simper, they're here to train, but it's nice all the same to know there's at least one kindred spirit in this strange an overbearing place and he will continue on the subject if Max wants to pursue it.

[gluteus]

He nods, taking the camaraderie for what it was. It didn't offend him. He shifted his weight, his leg creaking under him, and shrugged.

"In the end, we carry on, as we must." He offered a slight roguish smile. "And those who underestimate us for it will quickly learn their mistake."

He tilted his head.

"What did they do with yours?"

[silberfuchs]

"They made me a weapon." He shrugs, trying as ever to convince himself that he's over it. He is, mainly, given his fully human body now and that it was seventy years ago. "Knife in one arm, a gun in the other. Both of my legs housed missiles. My body was metal from the neck downward; all they'd used of me was my brain and nerves."

Albert shakes his head. "All without asking, of course, though I suppose I was near dead already. Actually I'm fairly certain I died during the operations at least twice. Both times I was resuscitated. I don't remember much but pain." He shrugs again and shuffles the spear from one hand to the other, a rakish grin of his own flitting across his lips.

"It would have been useful here, though. That arsenal."

[gluteus]

Maximus' face grows more stoney as the story continues. He couldn't possible imagine a hell worse - his leg had been hard enough. To lose a hand? His whole self?

He didn't really know how much of him was kept in the brain. Or what nerves were. He wondered what a man could possibly be without his liver, without his heart.

"Probably why they did not allow you to retain it," He murmured. "Though I would give anything for my leg, so I imagine it isn't too great a loss."

[silberfuchs]

"Oh I have no doubt. Couldn't give me an unfair advantage, now could they?" He doesn't sound nearly as bitter as he could.

"I am glad though. To be able to actually feel with my own hands again... it's a gift. No offense meant, but I fear losing that should I emerge from the arena injured badly enough. I'm not sure I could face it again." Or perhaps he could, but it doesn't mean he's eager to go losing another arm or anything.