Black and Blue (Sarah)

Sarah had been making a point to work out more. It was like a personal resolution to survive the school she had been brought into. After all she couldn't count on red haired cuties or sweethearts like Kenji to be around whenever she needed a hand. She needed to actually train up and get strong. Besides, it beat the hell out of going home to an empty apartment with no food in it. Honestly it felt like since coming to New York her mom had just consistently been out getting drunk and fooling around with new people.

Sara was in a pair of sweats that were a little ill fitting for her, a tank top that hung loose and quite frankly was more like clothing scraps, and a sports bra that was, thank god, pretty effective and held together for working out and jogging. Sarah entered and it seemed that it was pretty empty again. Maybe people felt that they got enough work out from running around fighting, or maybe they went to the Y like Sarah had done at her old school. Either way there were only a few bodies around, and one over by the punching bags.

Sarah walked over and was really transfixed, wondering if she'd see the first girl who had run into her at the gym, but this one was a bit different and seemed to be about a foot shorter than Sarah. Still, Sarah watched her punching and kicking the bag and overall kicking its ass in ways Sarah couldn't.

"Wow," She accidentally said, and rather loud. "Sorry just, I mean you hit really hard from the looks of it for... uh. I mean you're just kinda... short. Not making fun just, you could kick my ass...."

"Oh I... I don't think of it that way. I guess it's easy for me to say that though," She referenced the vertically challenged thing. She got a lot of negative attention for being tall but knew that there was a lot of perceived positive attention and a whole list of things that came with being tall that society seemed to put on a pedestal. Though, she would much rather be shorter and be seen as cute rather than getting sexualized or having people comment on her appearance all the time.

"I could probably kick some ass, that's fair. My center of balance is a little shifted though I suppose, which makes it a little awkward. What has you angry? What's giving you that extra oomph, if you don't mind my asking?" The girl had some pretty fast hits from the looks of it, and her form definitely seemed way more confident than Sarah's own. Sarah thought that this might be a cool person to have as a work out buddy from time to time, or even just someone to pick up a few pointers from as she was trying to soak up everyone's fighting knowledge.

She went to the punching bag and grabbed it to give it some resistance for Vivi's hits, supporting the bag so that it wouldn't move around as much on her and the hits might feel a little more solid and satisfying. It was mostly an excuse to keep talking, because she liked meeting people and getting the possibility of friends or people to help her out since she was a bit new.

"I'm kind of new, sorry." She said to answer the bit about Riot. She went on to explain them anyway, talking about how they had murdered a number of students. She showed a bruise on her arm and talked about fighting their leader. Sarah was happy to know that she didn't just let it lie after all of that. "He would have killed you?"

Sarah thought about everything that she had experienced and all she had gone through. She had fought someone much stronger much fiercer than her. She had lucked out, and it wasn't about strength it was about circumstances and the tools available to her. It was about catching him off guard, it was about playing up the role of the victim and not quite finding herself in a position to be used and hurt.

"Nice to meet you Vivi, I'm Sarah. And I actually have someone who has agreed to teach me. I think I just want to fight people from time to time, spar and such. See if I can get used to getting hit you know? I can't really take a hit and the best solution for that apparently is to get hit and stuff, toughen up a little. In a weird way I kinda just need someone to kick my ass, I need to be a punching bag."

She slapped the bag in her hand, "Maybe without the chain to hang by though."

Her eyes lit up a little, "Tell me more about this leader of theirs. What do you know about them? What are they like?"

“Well yeah, I’d imagine if you got wailed on enough you’d become a little more resistant to damage. If your ever up for a spar, I’m down for that. Just lemee know.”

She thought about this for a moment as she heard about the guy named Mikey. So he was sadistic and very clearly liked to play with his food. He sounded very abusive and controlling, something Sarah was very accustomed to from her past and her history of growing up. Her fingers gripped hard against the bag as she thought about it more and more. What did it take for her to stand up to someone like that? Her dark curiosity? The blade, the flesh, the neck, all of it.

"I have a trainer. I don't know who the first pillar is, I don't really keep up with politics in schools. My last school I didn't care too much to pay any mind to the sytem. All I know is I need to toughen up." She looked at the girl, "You seem to want to toughen up more too from the sounds of it. It wasn't you that he punished though was it?"

She let go of the bag and walked between it and Vivi, crossing her arms. "I need to get wailed on to become more resistant. Maybe you could use a little bit more desensitizing, if nothing else it might make it where he can't hurt you that way again. So why not?"

She held her arms out and open. "Keep going. Hit me."

She needed to toughen herself up now, if kids were dying she needed to do whatever it took. She didn't come this far, she didn't fight for her surival this much only to get taken out because she wasn't tough enough. She would give a smile and lower her face ever so slightly.

"Oh, Macht.... that's the name of the guy training me!" She thought aloud before thinking carefully about the way the girl hit the bags. Did she want her to pull her punches? That might make it easier on Sarah now but in the end that wouldn't help either of them. "No. If you hold back, it'll do neither of us any good. Those fuckers won't pull their punches on me and I'll be lucky if its just their fists in the first place. Unless I get so pulverized that my skin is practically leather from welts, I don't imagine I'll be able to handle the beatings they can dish out."

She would lean over and put her hand on the girl's shoulder with a smile on her face, "Besides, you gotta be ready for this kind of stuff. If you can, try to turn something off inside of yourself. Distance yourself from the act and you might be able to do what has to be done even if it means some people getting hurt. One kid with a broken leg is a much better scenario than a bunch of kids getting killed, yeah? Just make sure afterwards you can go back to feeling and caring. But for now?"

She would hold her fists tight to her side, "For now I want you to beat me up as badly as you can. If you'd like I can fight back but to be honest, I don't think I'd be much of a fight right now anyway."

"You don't have to make anything up to me, this helps us both." She was prepared for the fists to come flying but didn't actually have a gauge on the girl's strength until two hits collided with her stomach. She had been strong, strong like Macht had been, strong like a couple people in her life had been. Her eyes went wide for a moment but she quickly regathered herself, her stomach tensing up from the hits and a weird feeling sitting in the back of her throat.

Sarah coughed a little and smiled, "Keep going, it's okay I can handle more." She didn't know if the girl was holding back, but if she was she didn't want her to. If it took getting beaten bloody then that's what it took. What didn't kill you only made you stronger and she needed this girl to be able to not hold back. She didn't want to be treated with kid gloves by anyone sure, but this wasn't about that. She didn't want this girl to back down from what she needed to feel better.

"Look at my face, alter it's features in your mind. Make me him. Make me Mikey, and then release."

It was always the ribs. It was always always the ribs with this girl. Every time she got hit in the torso her lungs had a heart attack for fear of being punctured. And yet, she was cool with it. The hit came in and she was forced to plant her foot as hard as possible to not get knocked over which completely set her up for getting hit in the chest, hitting a little bit of her solar plexus and causing her to lose her breath. She put on a brave face the whole time even though her body screamed of pain.

The two hits that followed up caused her to stumble back against the punching bag which thankfully kept her up, one hand reaching back to keep her up. Sarah had her other hand over her chest as she caught her breath, slowly taking deep breaths to check her ribs out. It seemed she could breathe deeply, so she was toughening up a little bit thankfully, but that wasn't necessarily the case as it could have been that the girl wasn't hitting as hard as possible.

"The face." She said, as she would towards the girl, "I just broke that poor boys leg because you. It's all your fault. I've killed, I'm going to kill again. Unless you hit me as hard as you can, unless you beat my face in." She would throw a right punch, her side pulling at her and her stomach tensed up from the hits it took, her body slightly winded from the chest hit. She wanted the girl to absolutely lose it. She needed to know if she could actually take a real beating. How far away was she?