smash_logs | Talk Shit, Get Fit

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Talk Shit, Get Fit

Who: Wave and Knuckles
What: Knuckles teaches Wave fighting techniques
Where: The gym
When: August 17, early morning
Warnings: E for EXERCISE

Wave was exceptionally confident in her skills and abilities. That fact was undeniable. She knew she was an exceptional rider, an exceptional mechanic, and a genius to boot. She could take on anything on her Gear.

Off her Gear, though...

A fateful trip to the floating island taught Wave that her close quarters combat skills were lacking. Knuckles had offered to train her, although at the time her wounded pride prevented her from accepting. Time and reflection had a way of changing one's mind about things. It may have been against her ego, but she took him up on the offer.

The weight room was sparsely occupied at 6 in the morning. Either the meatheads hadn't arrived, or they were about to. Either way, she felt so out of place there, waiting for Knuckles to arrive.

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Knuckles, despite himself, was kind of psyched to be able to pass along some knowledge and skill.

Well. Depending on how willing his pupil was to actually put in the work. He was pretty sure there were going to be clashes of personality ahead. But he'd stick it out as long as she did.

"Mornin'." He said, walking into the room and dropping a bag to the side. "Want a bottle of water before we start?"

"Yeah, sure," Wave said with a small nod of acknowledgement.

"So how are we gonna do this?" she asked, hands on her hips.

Knuckles tossed a bottle of water in her direction.

"We're gonna do this by working on both your strength AND your fighting skills. So, we start with drills - you run laps, do push ups and sit ups and pull ups. Then, we're gonna work on your form. This is gonna be shadow boxing at first and I'll be critiquing you as we go. Once I'm satisfied that you don't have any weakness in your stance and moves, we'll start sparring. It's gonna take some time before you're at that kinda level though so don't get impatient!"

"Oh yeah, because I'm ALL ABOUT patience," Shantae sarcastically remarked. She caught the water bottle, opening it and taking a deep drink. "Have you ever trained anyone before?" she asked, hoping to hear something that indicated her faith in him as a teacher was well founded.

"I have. An ancient robot called Emerl."

His face darkened for a moment.

"...I taught him a lot. But he was built for fighting and learning techniques quickly. You're going to be way harder to bring up to speed. But I can do it."

He drained his water bottle and dropped to all fours.

"Pushups. I want to see how many you got in you. I'll be doing them alongside you."

"So you trained a robot, that could easily just be programmed, and can't build up muscle mass," Wave said. "Great..."

She shrugged, getting down to the ground. "You think I can't even do push-ups? Easy... No count? Just till I get tired?" she asked, dropping down into position.

"Emerl wasn't like that." Knuckles corrected her. "Her was a livin' machine. He had a personality that you had to TEACH. Not just program. He didn't gain muscle like an organic person, but he DID build strength over time."

The first time he'd faced Emerl, the guy had hit like a kitten. The last battle he saw with the robot.....

"That was mostly because of Chaos emerald shards, I think. Uh, anyway, no. I'm gonna count your pushups while I do mine."

And then he started doing them. One handed.

"I hate to break it to you, but machines aren't alive by their very nature. They may act like it, but it's the result of heuristic software and subroutines. Your buddy may have had an advanced learning AI, but he was still artificial," Wave retorted.

She got into position and got started, but even as she got to her push-ups, she still managed to keep talking. "And anything would get more powerful if you overclocked it with Chaos Emeralds."

"Heh. Shows what you know." Knuckles replied. "Emerl was alive, and I've met other living robots, too. Just because they aren't organic, that doesn't mean anything!"

For better or for (Usually.) worse, there were lots of living robots.

"I'm not training you by giving you Chaos Energy, though - this is going to be the old fashioned kind of training! So save your breath for pushups! You're doing them slowly, so, try and pick up the pace!"

"Robots can never be alive," Wave told him. "They're artificial. Doesn't mean they can be nice, or really advanced, or insightful, but they're still machines. End of story."

"Will you just let me do this?" she grumbled, shutting up so she could go back to her workout.

"I'm just trying to help you do it better." he replied, still doing one armed pushups and talking as easily as you please.

"Anyway, you never met him so you couldn't know. I think there are a lot of alive machines. And other weird things too. Like water monsters and stuff. You wouldn't figure water could ever be alive, right? But it can."

"I assume you're referring to Chaos," she said, picking up her pace just in hopes of shutting him up. "The destruction of Station Square was all over the news, you think I didn't hear about it? I know all about it. And the big difference here is that Chaos wasn't man-made. It's a natural force."

"Doesn't matter- he's still alive and he ain't an animal or human or anything like that. Different things can be alive."

Not that he really had anything to gain by trying to convince her - he knew he was right, but he doubted she would understand.

"Nice pace. Keep it up! Feel that burning sensation in your biceps, yet?"

He sure didn't, but she was new to this.

"You believe whatever you want," Wave said, grunting a bit in her exertion. "I feel it, I feel it," she grumbled in irritation. When the heck was he gonna let her stop...?

"Good. Keep going until that pain gets too bad to let you go any further." he instructed. "Until it feels like your muscles are screaming for you to stop. Then you tell 'em No, and you keep goin'! That's how to build hard muscle. Remember that pain is just a mindset - and bein' as you're so proud of that brain of yours, you should be used to makin' sure it's in charge, right?"

"Yes, and I'm used to letting my brain stop me from doing things that are obviously stupid," Wave replied, grunting a bit as she nevertheless forced herself to keep going. She hated it, she would be a wreck tomorrow, and she would rue his name forever for this.

"Then you think too much." Knuckles replied. "Sometimes, stupid is what you need." Stupid... or MURDER. "You're not gonna be able to think about every single little thing in a fight. You can't do it. But if your body can think for itself and give you a moment or two to look at stuff, you can find the advantage even in a losing situation! That's called muscle memory and it can buy you valuable time, but your body's gotta be trained for it."

He was still going with his one armed pushups. He hadn't even broken a sweat, yet.

"You're trembling... Your arms are probably startin' to feel like rubber. Rubber on fire. Your abdominal muscles too. that's a good start. Keep going."

Wave started to drown out most of what Knuckles was saying, so focused on her own exhaustion setting in. When he finally brought attention to it, she grunted directly at him. "Gee, you think?! I'm not gonna be able to do anything else after this!"

"You will." Knuckles replied, switching arms. "We can move on to the next step whenever you're ready."

Look at that smile. That CAN'T mean anything good, Wave.

It didn't take long after that for Wave to finally collapse on her exhausted arms, panting hard.

"You suck, you know that?" she grumbled.

"You're gonna think that for a while." he said, walking over and standing next to her. "Just so you know? You did about twice as many push ups as I thought you would."

He'd been pleasantly surprised.

"Now, get up on your feet and try to punch me in the face. You should be good and mad at me right now, so, use that. You tag me on the jaw or the side of my head, you get an apple. You tag me on the nose, you get a bottle of water because I KNOW you gotta be thirsty again by now.""

"I can be just as stubborn as you, Knucklehead," she said in response, slowly getting herself to her feet, feeling her arms limp and sore as she tried to use them to help.

She raised her eyebrow at his request. "You're kidding me," she said angrily. "I can barely move my arms, now you want me to punch you?! Believe me, if I could, I would sock you unconscious."

"You can be just as stubborn as me, huh? Then you're gonna try and knock my block off starting Now."

He stepped closer to her and tapped his chin with a mittened finger.

"C'mon. You're mad at me, right? Clock me one. Right here. If you can do it when your arms feel like this, imagine how much easier it would be to do if you were feeling just fine."

And try she did. Her arms felt like lead weights, and she could barely lift them, but she raised a fist and took a swing for Knuckles. If it even collided, it was like a gentle pat more than a punch. "Nngh! Damn it..."

Knuckles stood there and took it, smirking just a little as he felt how weak her hit was.

"You get that one for free. You win at least one apple. Now, throw twenty more and I'm gonna dodge."

He stuck his arms behind his back.

"You're gonna be usin' your legs to track me down. Only thing you need to worry about is smackin' me in the face. A couple weeks working with me, this is gonna seem like child's play. Now, go! Twenty of your best!"

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There, I called Wave Shantae, so the balance is restored.

Phew!

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