(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 smiled warmly, and pressed the hilt into Wyatt's palm.

"Better now than never," He murmured. "It is a one handed weapon, meant to be carried with a shield. Drawn with the right hand, from the right, and used with precision."

[the_marshal]

He took it, grip ginger at first, then firmer as he adjusted to the weight, to the feel of the strange weapon in his hand. Before tying on his first gunbelt, there had been a time where he and his brothers, a few fast friends, had warred upon the other the schoolboys with sticks for weapons. Imagining themselves knights, slaying dragons, fighting wars, saving lovely young maidens.

The lessons learned on the long ago playground likely didn't translate, but he found himself falling into the old stance just the same. Instinct, his long experience with (much smaller) blades in the years after, filling in where it could.

Tip up, arm steady, elbow lightly bent, feet apart.

[gluteus]

He stepped up behind Wyatt, leaning in against him to take his arms, shift him into a slightly better stance, but mostly for the excuse of being close.

"Good," He murmured lowly before he backed up again. "The main advance is a thrust - straight out. Thrust the blade forward, then pull your elbow tightly back into your side."

[the_marshal]

His heart thumped, oh so nice in his chest, but Wyatt was a consummate professional were it counted. He let himself be coached into the stance, arms lowering, heels shifting just so.

He gave himself a moment just to feel it, to memorize it, then gave Max's instruction a whirl. Spearing forward, shoulder behind it - as if he were throwing a hard right hook, and then pulling back, arm back in to defend his side.

It felt strange, and he shot Max a quizzical look. Game, but uncertain.

[gluteus]

Maximus smiled warmly. "Good," he encouraged, grasping Wyatt's wrist, pressing up closely behind him as he led him through an echoing motion again.

"There is nothing about fighting with a gladius that is meant to entertain, in itself. It is entirely about balance, and keeping any damage another might do to you as minimal as possible. Usually you would fight with all your brothers at your side - keeping your flanks and rear protected."

[the_marshal]

Reaching up, Wyatt swept off his hat and tossed it aside, brim ringing on the grip of a sword left on the rack, so he could shift easily into the embrace - purely for better footing, the little thump of his pulse was nothing.

"An' here?" he asked, watching the tip of the blade as it cut through the air, slow and steady. Knowing, as the solid weight traveled up his arm, that he was increasingly alone in the arena.

[gluteus]

Maximus watched the arch of Wyatt's hat, before feeling Wyatt press back against him, sending a warm pleasant thrum through his blood.

"You keep the spirit, if not the action. Economy of movement. If you swing wildly, you'll only tire yourself out. Quick thrusts, back to your elbow. Move to meet them, don't unbalance yourself just to attempt to slash at an opponent."

[the_marshal]

With Max's breath tickling against his ear, beard scraping gently against his jaw, Wyatt's eyes narrowed on the sword, focusing hard.

(He felt like a teen. Like a rabbit. A damned teenaged rabbit.)

He thrust forward again, and pulled back. Then again, his elbow bumping Max's belt.

"Defense?" he rumbled. "When somebody comes swingin' at me?"

[gluteus]

"There are four guard positions," Maximus murmured.

"Above-" he moved Wyatt's arm to block his face, "Below," which blocked his guts and groin, "and to either side. If you drill between those positions, ingrain them into yourself as instinct rather than thought, then you can block nearly every blow."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt aped after him, a slow, smooth cycling through the movements. He caught his reflection in the blade as he guarded his face, a flash of blue over his shoulder as his mouth opened.

"...I 'spose this where I'm 'sposed to ask ya to pick one up yerself," he muttered, after a beat, nearly having to force the words out. "Give me a demonstration like..."

Damned if he didn't want to tie his own tongue into knots for it though.

[gluteus]

A smile flickered over Maximus' lips as he reluctantly stepped back.

"Of course. I am happy to," He murmured, taking a sword for himself before taking his place at Wyatt's side. He met the man's eye for the briefest of moments before focusing on a wall across the room, and then he began to drill.

The motions were so engrained in him that he may as well have been breathing, or sleeping. He shifted from attack to block to parry and back again with hardly a second thought, every movement fluid but extremely efficient. This was his second nature.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt rolled his shoulders as Max fetched a blade, trying to return his focus where it belonged. (On anything other than the lingering warmth of Max's skin on his, the strange hollow where the man's weight had been.)

Then he watched. Taking a silent step back in appreciation as if admiring a piece of art.

All power and grace, it was like watching wild horses as they ran.

[gluteus]

A few minutes later he came to the end of his drill - not even having broken a sweat in the meantime. He turned to offer Wyatt a lopsided smile.

"Was that an effective enough demonstration?" He asked.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's mustache twitched, mouth pulling into a smirk as he shifted and leaned on the sword stand, palm cupped over a hilt.

"Ya remember that beast in the jungle?" he asked. "The one that chased us over the cliff?"

His grin deepened. "That's about how out-matched I feel jus' now."

[gluteus]

Maximus chuckled, deep and low.

"I seem to recall you holding your own in the desert," He teased. "But then, I had no sword, so maybe you're right."

He could be a smug bastard when he wanted to.

[the_marshal]

"Good thing too," Wyatt rumbled, shoulders shaking gently as he laughed. "Er I'd'a been dead an' you'd'a felt terrible."

To be fair, he was fairly certain they'd both felt pretty awful at the time even without any blood shed, but he could laugh about it now. An old argument, long settled.

[gluteus]

"I would have been absolutely crushed," Maximus said, grinning at him. He'd had many dreams about that day since, but now most of them ended in heated kisses and groping in the sand.

"Do you need another demonstration? Or shall we start from the beginning?"

[the_marshal]

Max might still have swung first, and Wyatt might still have asked when he should have stabbed, but that, he figured, was what they had each other for.

Partners, all senses of the word.

Happily - a warm, easy contentment full in his chest - he pushed off the rack and took up the stance again.

"Ready when you are."

wrap up?

[gluteus]

Maximus took a place beside him, settling into the first stance, ready to run the drills again together.

"Begin."