thecapitol | (no subject)

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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.]

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That was probably for the best. It was not the sort of thing Joly would have trotted out, if he had been thinking clearly, in the way of introductions. Later on, well, probably, but for now? It was a good thing that that went unnoticed because otherwise? Well, he did not like to think about what may have happened there.

"I was, yes." He answered. "Well, a year away from it. It does seem there are quite a few of us around here, does it not? Odd." He'd seen several through watching pieces of the arena, and heard a bit more news as well. Was this all part of the plot somehow? Who knew just now?

"Perhaps they prefer those accustomed to blood," Maximus mused, but that was as far as his musings went. The relative motives of the Capitol were far beyond him, often enough - they seemed little more than random cruelty.

He'd heard of fencing before - Enjolras had mentioned it to him - but the word meant absolutely nothing, out of context. It didn't matter. If Joly came to train, then trained he would be.

"Chose a sword," He said, nodding toward the rack of available weapons, "And we shall see just how little training you've had." It was just teasing. Maybe. It was hard to tell, with that solemn face.

"If so, they've badly chosen in that case." Joly allowed, shrugging. "Blood, I can stand but the disease that goes along with it does pose somewhat of a problem. Psychological manipulation, perhaps?" He offered up as a potential solution.

"Well, I suppose it hardly matters now, that I am here." He added, moving toward the rack and selecting what looked like something he could handle. And he only hoped he managed not to do too badly at this as he moved into a stance.

Edited 2014-03-20 23:29 (UTC)

'Psychological manipulation' meant little to this particular soldier, so he could only really shrug. When Joly moved in position, however, he moved forward.

"Here. Shoulder back," He said, reaching out and moving it into place unceremoniously. Foot forward. Good. Now begin."

That was fine with Joly. He had no really sophisticated understanding of the concept, only that it was something that could be used to control others and that he had the feeling he ought to learn more about it here, if he could do so. It would probably be smart of him to invest that time, to better understand what was going on here, though not as immediately useful as the moment, he decided, shifting into the position carefully.

"Ah that does feel better." He was surprised to note, before stepping forward and sweeping the blade forward, in what he hoped may be something of a surprise move.

Well, it was surprising, at least.

He grunted lowly. "This blade is not really a slashing weapon - you must thrust, pierce the flesh, withdraw and thrust again. Keep your elbow into your side - if you swing wide, it become easier to unbalance you."

"Pierce the flesh." Joly repeated, looking, well, not thrilled with the idea, entirely, but taking the direction to heart. "I do forget that...things are different here." He added, a little frown crossing his face as he shifted to begin again. After all, better someone else than him, wasn't it?

"Not as different as everywhere else," Maximus murmured, watching him.

"Under everything, there is still war. Still death. If you can offer me a world that death does not tough, you would have my amazement."

"Different, then, from what I have known, I suppose." Joly amended, now moving to strike, pausing to frown a little as he felt his hand slipping around the grip there. "Death IS more of a constant but I usually am trying to stave it off against a different sort of enemy at that. It is a bit to grow used to."

"The Arena is more a dream than a real place," Maximus tried to reassure him. "Though sometimes men fall and do not return-", his mind flashed to Javert, Morrigan, "- most of us wake from our deaths."

His prosthetic leg shifted under him as he moved, observing Joly's movements, a constant reminder that inside of the arena and out of it were two very different places.

"You can still fight your old enemies, to make new allies. A man's strength is not only in his arm."

"Indeed." Joly shuddered a bit at the thought that someday someone would not return. "Much as I was glad to be alive, something of waking there was...disconcerting, I suppose?" He mused. "I must admit that medicine has changed much. And some of the new things I woke to were a little...unnatural."

Very different places indeed. Here, Joly felt safe enough to speak of these things, to acknowledge some of what he would not dare when he was certain cameras were focused on him now.

"Some of those enemies, yes. It seems that they survive here, and in any world." Ignorance, Want, the abuses of those in power, were enemies he had striven against, as much as he had hoped to hold back pneumonia, sepsis from injuries and the dreaded cholera that had seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"That IS something of a relief. I've never...we do this for fashion at home, most of the time. Here, fighting with weapons is suddenly much more than a thing rich young men play at. That has been hard to adjust to."

"There are several doctors that treat wounds in the arenas themselves," Maximus continued. Joly talking about rich men fighting with weapons reminded him of Commodus. He wondered if it was the same - where the rich could play at war, and the poor gave their lives for it, but he did not speak those thoughts aloud.

"Regardless, it is best to learn to defend yourself, and to learn to put every talent available to you to use."

"Then that sounds well enough as something to be done." Joly mused, pausing a bit. "Though, are the cameras...is that considered acceptable by the audience?" There is no doubt it is the right thing to do, but there is a part of Joly that wants to know what he is getting into when he does this?

"At least, I wonder what I should be prepared for if I follow that example. Are there things I would need to depend on myself for because I've made myself vulnerable by helping?" And he shuddered a little at the thought of that, hating the idea that he must weigh these things.

"I AM quite willing for that to happen, if it means saving someone, but I would rather be prepared than not. And yes, defending myself becomes rather more essential in that case."

He may have to kill someone he'd helped,or be killed by them at some point. So far, Joly had held back on killing anyone, and wished that he might keep it that way forever, but he could not count on never being attacked, of course. A grim thought, but there, nonetheless.

Maximus rolled his shoulder in a long shrug.

"The crowd is fickle. If all they cared about was war, the games would be different. They seem more obsessed with the relationships between tributes than with our swords themselves. I do not think it will do you a disservice, unless you attempt to help someone who has no intention of letting you survive the attempt."

"That explains, well, rather a good deal," Joly muses. "There are so many from some worlds, and the broadcasts from the last games did focus rather more on how everyone was interacting, as opposed to only the amazing kills."

If it had been like that, then Joly would have likely been more out and out disgusted as opposed to disturbed. The manipulation of emotions seemed to feel far worse though, somehow.

"Good then. That is easily managed, I should think. It will become easier too, to find out who those people are as time goes on."

Maximus didn't really care either way. A slave was a slave, whether the mob wanted them to kill each other or lay with each other, the end result was the same. And really, even in ancient Rome, it has always been both.

"Good." He offered a smile. "Then I'll leave you to train. If you should have need of my services, do not hesitate, but as it stands I think you have a basis with which to move forward."

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