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Johnnie's in the courtyard of the Freehold's Hollow, looking over a few things. After having some chats about some of the exciting things Sturm's been getting up to, one thing led to another, and a match was agreed upon to let them get a bead on each other's skills. At the moment, Johnnie is checking the fit on a holster under her longcoat, its fit necessitating some strap adjustments seeing as how the, ah. Landscaping isn't quite the same these days. It's fitting just fine, now, and she's waiting patiently for Sturm to show. It's plenty early- she's not late. Johnnie just didn't have anything better to do tonight!
Sturm arrives about fifteen minutes later - though still early enough for their match to take place at the time it was agreed upon. She's wearing ripped up jeans and workboots, along with a white DIY tank top with the name and logo of some local music act splashed across the chest, and her usual leather jacket - both hands stuffed into the pockets. She notices Johnnie from some distance away, and offers a nod when she's at an appropriate distance to speak comfortably from.
"Hey. You already warm?"
Laura wanders onto the scene, her Shanzi t-shirt and jeans in place. Safe for this in the Freehold, she's gone barefoot, rough pads on her feet more then enough to handle the terrain. Seeing the two very hawt people talking she grins toothily, beginning to amble their way.
Ianthe, meanwhile, has just returned to the Freehold Hollow after doing a Hedge patrol. Just on the main routes; she's not foolhardy to go off onto the side paths without anyone watching her back. Laura gets a nod, before she glances curiously at the Jotun and Johnnie.
And then Teagan is simply there in a way which is pretty typical of Teagans. They loop both arms around Johnnie's shoulders, smooch her on the shoulder, and murmur something to her, before grabbing her butt and wandering over toward Laura. "Hey, C," they call in Sturm's direction.
Johnnie, for whatever reason, seems completely undisturbed by Teagan's arrival, but still surprised into squealing when goosed! "You don't need to tell me that, you already arranged for just such an occasion," she calls after Teagan's retreating booty, huffing faintly in mock aggravation, before grinning at Laura and waving at Ianthe, her one-time patrol partner. Then it's time to turn to Sturm. "I am, at that. Wanted to revisit your idea for guidelines, though. You said you wanted me to use anything I'd bring to bear on a mortal, right? Just wanna be sure I don't overstep or underprep."
By now Sturm doesn't even flinch at Teagan's sudden arrivals - and she offers an awkward little half-smile, and a nod in response to the greeting. Her hands leave her pockets, and then she takes off her jacket before slinging it over her right shoulder. "Don't really want us trying to kill the other either," she shrugs. "... but that sounds about right. What I really want is to get a feel for how you move, fight, what all you can do - that type of shit - but I don't think it'd be safe for either of us to just... go all out doing that, yeah?"
"Ianthe." She smiles toothily, waving at the archer. "Good to be seeing you again." And then Teagan is there and she grins, waving at them and cackling as Jackie gets goosed. The hyena pads their way, arms raised before she catches them up in a tight hug. "Hey you! I think we're both just in time."
"How've you been, Laura?" The archer waves right back, before blinking slightly at Teagan. "Didn't know there was a fight planned, or I'd have been back earlier."
"Mmm hmm," Teagan agrees back to Johnnie, flashing a brief bright grin back at her. They settle into hugging Laura, kissing her at the corner of her mouth. "I'm okay. I knew there was gonna be a fight, because I heard Johnnie mentioning it to Sig before she left the house, so I followed her like a benevolent stalker. You?"
"LIKE a benevolent stalker. HA! Has ever a more accurate moniker been born? I think not," Johnnie crows, overhearing that exchange. "No, all out won't really do either of us any good. I've set up a few tricks but nothing that'll result in permanent harm or that I wouldn't use if I was back real-side. Should give you a pretty good idea of what you're dealing with. Also- and you can seal this if you want, I mean this- I'm gonna have my knife out, but I won't use it in any way that'll cause serious harm. Give you my word."
She pauses, then grins. "Also, got a REALLY neat trick I wanna show you after. It's- super cool. Sound like a plan?"
Sturm squints at Johnnie for a few seconds - it's probably the closest she's come to looking like the sullen-eyed, scowling Sturm of Old that came to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth she met a few weeks back. Ultimately, she shrugs. "Don't need to. I trust you that you won't do anything that'd seriously hurt me with it - and I can probably take just about anything short of burrying the fuckin' thing in my chest." Beat. "Alright. That sounds good - I'm looking forward to it. What're we doing for rules beyond that? First to three hits? KO?"
"Same." She nods keenly at Ianthe. "And doing well. Got here just in time to witness this." Teagan gets a kiss back, and a pat of their own butt. "I'm just here through sheer luck, at the right time. Gonna be good to see how Sturm fights."
A slow nod. "True." She glances at Sturm, grinning slightly. "Always good to meet more fighters." Especially ones that stand a chance against Johnnie; she'd sparred with her two-on-one and still not been able to land a hit.
"Hmph." Called out as a benevolent stalker, Teagan settles down on the ground far enough away from the fight so that they're not in the way, and pats the ground next to themself for Laura.
Johnnie nods and pulls her knife from its sheath. She spins it before sliding her fingers into the knuckleduster handle, holding it reversed to keep the blade away from Sturm. As she does, the wrappings on her hand come into focus- she's got strips of leather for handwrappings, but the material is unmistakable, even to the uninitiated- they're strips of tanned dragonhide. Almost certainly hedgespun!
And then Johnnie sinks into a defensive, brawler's stance- and her shadows follow suit, rising up behind her in a number of martial stances. It's- utterly for show, in truth, but it looks cool!
She hopes!
"Ready when you are."
Sturm's fight preparation isn't nearly as showy as Johnnie's. She cleans out her pants' pockets - removing a phone, keys, brass knuckles, a worry stone - and changes them over to the pockets of her jacket. "Someone hold this for me, please? Gonna be bad enough to fight in fuckin' skinny jeans." Thankfully, Ianthe volunteers to hold it for her, and she passes it off before returning to place. She shakes her hands, rolls her shoulders, makes a few test movements, and then adopts a boxer's stance with her hands up and ready to defend.
"Let's do this."
"I've sparred with Jackie myself. She's.. well, I barely landed one hit before I was down." Laura winces, then grins at Ianthe. "But more fighters are good, mm." She sprawls down next to Teagan, leaning in and resting her head on their shoulder to observe.
The fight starts, and Johnnie moves, interposing Signknifr's blade between them as one of her shadows lunges forward and throws a wicked cross that... does... about half of what Johnnie honestly expected it to do. Not only was Sturm startlingly fast on her feet, but even after the blow landed, she proved tough enough to just... shake off what would have been a staggering blow for nearly anyone else. Blinking, Johnnie's grin spreads rapidly.
This is gonna be a good fight.
Sturm shrugs off Johnnie's punch - now, that's not to say it didn't fuckin' hurt, but Sturm's not a fast woman. Every single ounce of experience she's got in fights like these didn't come from dodging punches, it came from taking them on the chin. She's seen Johnnie fight. She knows there's no fair way she's getting through her opponent's guard, so... she tries to fake her out. She's a winter for a reason. She leans in with an aggressive stance, rolling against Johnnie's punch, and coming in strong with an over-extended right cross. Of course, that's not what she's actually trying to hit Johnnie with... that's the bait. The real attack is an underhanded jab - aimed at Johnnie's gut.
As it happens, that particular trick is an old favorite of Johnnie's, though not one she uses these days, and it almost- almost works. It's only her supernaturally sharp senses that catch the minute shifts in Sturm's footing and weight distribution that lets her realizes that the initial blow is not what she's winding up for. As is, she barely manages to keep the real blow from landing, whipping back and retaliating with a lashing blow from another shadow, crisscrossing back the other way from the initial strike.
"O-HO! You've more tricks than I thought! I used to love that one. Come, then! A proper duel, you and I! To first blood!" Which... was exactly what it was before, come to think of it but. That's beside the point! The Wyrd must have its due!
This punch is much faster, and hurts a fuck of a lot more than the last - but Sturm doesn't stop moving. In spite of her incredibly thick skin - which Johnnie can no-doubt feel exactly how dense her musculature and callouses are - there's already a deep redness beginning to blossom in the place where that shadow-y blow connected. It's going to be a helluva bruise tomorrow. Hell, maybe even before this fight ends. She can't block Johnnie's shots - and that trick she tried to pull isn't going to work again so why the fuck wouldn't she just swing for the goddamned fences.
Her fist is like a fuckin' truck rounding a corner as it leaves her guarded, barreling for Johnnie's head...
Johnnie bobs and weaves with the best of them, and the hammerblow of a punch swings wide. Sturm's focused offense is doing its job, though- where Johnnie would normally have a comfortable margin to play in, she's being forced to keep on her toes, and- in this moment- damn near misses her next blow entirely. It's only her own steely focus that keeps the blow on target, and even then, the shadowy slug doesn't even phase Sturm this time!
By now, the Jotun is so fucking into this fight, that she'd probably be embarrassed with her behavior if she saw a video of it later. Come to think of it, maybe two people have seen her this animated. Ever. The punch connects, but Sturm just moves straight past it as if it were nothing - and come on, after the last punch that landed, it basically was nothing. "Fuck you Johnnie, I could feel the difference! Don't pull your goddamned punches against me," she cackles - it's a boisterous, energetic, and (quite frankly) ridiculous sound coming from the normally placid Giant. "I want you to hit me!"
... then another one of those fuckin' F250's come barreling at Johnnie's face again - this time actually managing to connect... and in the space she creates as her fist meets Johnnie's head, she comes in with another barrage of hits. Most are just wild swings in the hopes that something further will connect to the slippery shadow, but a second blow does manage to land...
The blows come not just with the force but the technique to ring Johnnie's bell something fierce. It takes D E T E R M I N A T I O N to keep on her feet, and even then, she can hardly think straight. Sturm knows exactly what she's doing. It's exciting to get hit- that's a rare occurrence, and marks Sturm already as one of the most talented fighters she knows- but then, through the haze, Sturm's taunts drill into Johnnie's ego.
"Fuck you Johnnie, I could feel that! Don't pull your goddamned punches against me," she cackles - it's a boisterous, energetic, and (quite frankly) ridiculous sound coming from the normally placid Giant. "I want you to hit me!"
There is a limit to how much restraint Johnnie is capable of while half-knocked out of her gourd, and that's a step or two past the grasp of her self control. She forgets one of the rules. She forgets a lot of things in the moment, except for one, the one thing her carefully tended humanity is screeching in the back of her mind. It's JUST to first blood! the little voice howls, shaking at the furious, offended Story in sheer disbelief that she's being taken so lightly. It's not much, but it's enough, and the turmoil is visible as her shadows roil and seethe behind her, held in check by precisely... one of their number. Just one.
"You want me to hit you?" Johnnie's words are flattened by the haze of the blow to her head. "You want me to stop holding back?" It takes all of a second for her to burst backwards and put distance between her and those horribly effective fists (how dare they strike her? Do those fists even know who she is?!), leaping back into the heart of her shadows- and casting them forward in a crushing torrent of violence.
It's not even fully aimed at Sturm. It rushes almost entirely past her, dissipating into thin air, but just the bit that clips her side feels like being struck over and over by those fists. Dust kicks up in its wake as the force dissipates.
"I can't afford that luxury."
Now that was what Sturm had been waiting for. The wave of force would've almost assuredly sent a lesser fighter reeling. Thankfully, Sturm isn't a lesser fighter. She's a fucking mountain - and even when the harshest of winds howl past it's icy peak, the mountain remains. Sure, it takes every ounce of her conditioning and training to keep her feet under her - and her vision blurs dangerously as the darkness threatens to take her... but she remains upright. There's an odd sound - like a skater cutting across a thin, frozen pond, and a small, jagged crack begins to form in Sturm's icy skin at the impact site of Johnnie's last blow. Slowly, the crack begins to spread - branching off at a couple points - traveling up her neck, across her jawline, and then finally to her lip where it ends.
The Giant sways dangerously as she struggles to keep her footing, and her massive fists droop the slightest bit before she stabalizes fully. She works her jaw, which produces an audible crack (thankfully just her joints, not more breaking ice) and she drops her guard - reaching up to brush away the slow blossom of thick, icy slurry that's begun bubbling up from the deepest section of her shorn skin. When the hand comes away, her lip is bleeding freely... but she's breathing heavily and grinning like she just had the best sex of her fuckin' life.
The Mirrorskin long ago slowly swooned across Laura's lap and is laying dramatically over her legs, looking like they've turned into a liquid.
Ianthe is visibly impressed with Sturm. She's sparred with Johnnie, even if the other Changeling was being a guy at the time. She knows how hard it is to land a hit on the Autumn, let alone make her actually feel it.
Johnnie reaches up to rub at the side of her head, where Sturm caught her, groaning. "Fuuuuuck. I really am gonna have to get used to getting hit, aren't I. Gawd dammit. This shit was so much easier when I felt okay just dancing around, making everyone else look stupid swinging at thin air and beating their asses for it. But nooooo, I need to be "a good teacher" and "empathetic" and "not a massive douchebag every time I spar."" Heaaavy breath out the nose. "... you okay?" To Sturm, obviously. "I can't tell if I beat you down or got you off, my head's still swimming from that fucking one-two combo. I never. Wanna feel that again."
"Told you I'm fuckin' sturdy, Johnnie." Sturm rolls her shoulder, groaning (though, honestly it comes out sounding more like another laugh) with pain as the deep stretch reaches the crack in her chest. She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, prodding her cracked and rapidly swelling lip with her tongue. "... and yeah, I'm okay. You didn't technically beat me down - and no, you did you get me off, either." There's a hint of something in her voice as she says that last phrase, but it could just be that her swolen lip is now starting to effect her speech. "Yeah, sorry about that. Got a little bit too into it."
She reaches up to feel the crack - following it with her fingers from her collar bone up to her jaw. "Fuck, that hurt."
An liquid Mirrorskin swoon.
"Nuh-uh! I could TOTALLY have just stayed an asshole forever! Only gotta face that shit if, like. You wanna be good to your family and shit.
Which I do.
But THE POINT IS." Johnnie's rambling. Her head's still spinning a little.
"Okay, granted. Officially sturdy as fuck. I don't even know how you took that much punishment and stayed on your feet but it's fucking impressive. Most people would be in the fetal position at half that. Sorry about the, uh." She gestures vaguely collarbone to jaw. "You weren't giving up, and I wasn't really sure how else to make you. And it's cool. I did, too. I apparently have very poor judgment once I'm on the verge of TKO. Learned something today." beat. "Besides the fact that you know how to rattle the ol' skull case."
"It's a good thing you jumped back like that too, 'cause I was going to suckerpunch the fuck outta ya' if you'd stayed within arm's reach - and I dunno if you'd have stayed up if I managed to land a second one of those hits on you." Sturm's tone is all playful banter as she closes the distance between herself and Johnnie - hand outstretched, because when you have a fight like that you shake your opponent's damn hand. "Well. If you haven't noticed, I am not fast. It takes a lot to knock me down because I've been hit a lot." Beat. "Sorry about your head, though. Figured that was my only shot to win."
"No, yeah, it's totally fine, I'd have done the same thing. And the suckerpunch? I guessed that," she explains. "The fake-out, the follow-up? They're techniques I used to lean on before I shifted focus to knife fighting. I figured if you'd learned that much, you probably knew how to strike through a blow and I wasn't sure if I could take another one, either." Beat. "Plus I was really fucking pissed that you told me to stop holding back, I don't think super great when my head's fuzzy. I've got a-" she gestures towards her head. "Mask thing I usually wear to protect against stuff like that. Deeefinitely gonna pick that habit back up."
She takes the outstretched hand and shakes it. "No, not fast, but clever as hell. You're almost as good at ducking a blow as I am. Most people probably couldn't dream of landing a hit, much less one that'd matter on you."
"Nope," the giant's smile grows into a broad grin as she takes Johnnie's hand. "You're one of the few." Sturm's not satisfied with just a handshake, though. Now that Johnnie is within her grasp, Sturm yanks her into a tight embrace - bodily lifting Johnnie up off her feet, and giving her a hearty squeeze - plus an accompanying little jostle from side-to-side like one might hug a teddybear. Holy shit what happened to Sturm? Isn't she supposed to be grumpy?!
"WHOA." That was not what Johnnie was expecting, and she gets jostled around this way and that for a few moments. Does she not remember she can just blep outta that? Or does she feel bad and stick around out of a sense of obligation? It's hard to say, but whichever reason, she does stick it out. "Hkyy. Lmmm gh nww."
They sit up, leaning back on one hand, and Teagan laughs aloud, that sharp glass-shattering sound.
"Sorry. It was fun. Just wanted to express that there are no hard feelings. That felt like the best way to do it." The little shadow-lass is placed safely back on her feet, and - as the realization of her embarrassing behavior sinks in - Sturm's frown is back in place before Johnnie even has a real chance to notice. She shoves her hands into her pockets. "My bad."
Ianthe snickers slightly at Johnnie's mangled words. "Hey, nothing wrong with wanting to express that." She shrugs. "We've all come into conflict with others before, we likely will again. Part of being People, and all."
Johnnie coughs lightly as she's set back down, straightening her coat and tucking Sigknifr back in her sheath. "What she said. Seriously, it's fine, Sturm, I just- y'know. Was expecting a little more breathing for a few seconds there. It's nothing you need to apologize for." She holds her hand out, knuckles forward. Don't leave a girl hangin'.
Her hand reappears for a moment to return the fist bump. Her hands utterly dwarf Johnnie's, and her knuckles are calloused and beginning to show signs of bruising. She inhales sharply. "Alright. I should probably go lay down, but does anyone wanna grab a bite to eat first? Fuckin' starving over here."
Johnnie grins when Sturm pounds her fist, nodding at the offer. "I won't order anything but I'll go with, for sure." She glances over at the others, brows arching. "Anyone else coming?"
"Yeah, sure." Ianthe shrugs again. "Any preferences for where?"
"Nope. I just want some fuckin' french fries. Let's get the fuck outta here."
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