Square Up, Thot

Saeta sat quietly with her legs crossed in the lotus position. Her hands were in her lap, holding a well maintained pistol and a set of dog tags. Abi's things, now hers. She let in a long, slow breath and held it for a moment. Trying to have no thought.
I wish you were still here.

Her eyebrows furrowed and she readjusted herself in her seat. Alright. Different tactic. No more thoughtless meditation. She would meditate on the gun itself now. It was Abi's favorite weapon. And it was hers now. But was it really? The weapons in her vault. They were hers. They had always been hers and not one else's.

She hadn't summoned her weapons in a while. Mostly hand to hand, mostly in Eden. But if she needed to, she had Abi's pistol on a holster. She was unused to the weight. She was unused to the lightness of not having her wings. Unused to the heaviness in her heart.

It made her sick, feeling so helpless. She wanted to scream and cry but her head wouldn't let her. All her training beaten into her over thousands of years. It made it hard to cry now. Why was it hard to cry now? It hadn't been hard then, in the heat of it. No that hadn't been hard at all.

A sudden weight pressed down on Saeta's lap. She cracked her eyes open, looking down. Her bow...
She hadn't summoned it. Why was it here? And where was Abi's gun? Her beeper announced itself to her and she checked it. Her new employee was arriving now. She didn't have time to worry about this.

Standing up, Saeta tried to dismiss her bow, but it didn't move from her hand. She tried again, and still it didn't move. She frowned and carefully place it against the wall. She would deal with that later.

Adjusting her tie and cuff links on her suit, she stood at attention, waiting. Her office wasn't large, but she did all of her paperwork on a tablet so she had the space open for training. She waited patiently for Ciara to arrive.

Saeta let out a small sigh. Late. She hated people being late. Why was it so hard to get places on time? "Put down your bag. We have no time to waste."

Saeta's jacket was already off, set on the back of a chair in the corner of the room. She rolled her sleeves up to her elbows and tied her hair back into a ponytail. She stood straight and gave Ciara an elegant bow.

"Your first lesson is punctuality."

In less than a second Saeta had closed the distance between the two of them, aiming a solid punch right at Ciara's solar plexus. Hard enough to knock the wind out of her, not hard enough to break the bone.

Saeta backed off a bit and took a stance she had practiced well since she had arrived and started incorporating Earth martial arts into her workout routine.
"Your stance is too narrow. You'll get knocked over every single time like that."

Her own stance was wide, knees bent slightly. She faced Ciara at an angle, and low to the ground. Giving her as little of a target as possible. Her forward facing arm up as a block.

"I want you to try and hit me. Go as hard as you want, I promise you won't hurt me. I will critique your technique as I see you work."

Saeta ducked under the jab and shifted her weight, falling into a roll that landed her at Ciara's right side. She tapped the taller woman on the hip before leaping backwards again.

"You're too reckless. You go in without thinking about your opponent and that makes it easy to outmaneuver you. Again."

Saeta reached into her Vault, feeling the presence of her weapons. She wanted something small, but weighty.
It materialized in her hand, but was thoroughly confused. It was... Abi's gun. In her moment of confusion, Saeta left herself wide open to attack.

The impact, hard as it should have been, barely moved Saeta. She let out a small grunt and slid back a foot or so, digging her heels in to keep from falling over. Her eyes were still on the pistol, but she couldn't worry about that right now. Disengaging the magazine and pulling back the slide so the bullet in the chamber fell out, she let both clatter to the floor and advanced.

Saeta turned the gun around and jabbed forward with it, using it more like a sap than a firearm.
"You have a strong kick, but you can't rely on your strength to save you. Your opponent might be able to regenerate or be immune to pain or breathe fire."
After her jab, Saeta made another wide swing at Ciara, intending to force her to back up. This was followed by another and another, slowly corralling her into a corner.