perspective . open/val

[zaire]

[style=float: left; margin-right: 8px; border: 3px solid #aeaeae; margin-bottom: 4px][/style]Boxing-- no, fighting wasn't a familiar activity with her. Mindlessly beating something that resemembled a human torso was not appealing, but the desire to come up with creative stress relief was enough to pull her towards the training facility. Her bisharp was elsewhere, lurking, but elsewhere. She trusted it to stay close, along with the kecleon that she was finding more and more useful.

If she had allowed herself to think about it, Anna would have scolded herself for being similar to her boss. If it was any true concern she would have put a stop to it; she would never be his equal, there was nothing to worry about.

A silent puff of air left her lungs as she drove a fist into the faux body. She had wasted two hours here already, her knuckles telling. It hurt to continue. She didn't care.

The resilience of the dummy was infuriating though. She had come for the satisfaction of seeing something fall, instead she was only tiring herself out. In a moment of obvious frustration the woman reached for her waist, retrieving one of the switch blades that would comfortably reside there for eternity. Driving the blade into the spot where the rubber torso's heart should have been proved successful in releasing some of the tension she had been building for weeks.

Without a moment of hesitation her free hand would reach back as well, retrieving a smaller, sharper, but curved knife. Anna would slash it across the dummy's throat, twisting the other blade with a sigh that was an ounce too heavy.

There was too much satisfaction here. She didn't like it. Yet she loved it all the same.

Anna would stay that way, catching her heavy breath, taking a quick glance to her side as if she expected someone to be watching.

Being completely alone was not a luxury she could afford.

[ I have no excuse. ]

[valerie]

Did she really need to be here? She didn't have any rage issues that couldn't be handled on their own. She didn't need to be walking into any sort of sport facility simply because someone else had told her to.

She really hated going to the shrink.

She liked to call him a shrink because he clearly had a small penis which was why he sat around all day and told rangers what was wrong with them. It might have been childish to think so, but anyone who made a living out of diagnosing people and changing their routines was a pretty bad person, at least in Valerie's book.

It was the rage talking.

After spending thirty minutes of one-word answers to deep, probing questions, she had went off on him. Screaming, yelling, throwing things. Basically a blind rage attack, something that she was familiar with and had complete control over. His inability to see her control was probably because he'd been hit in the eye with a paper weight and, thankfully, only burst a retina instead of sustaining any major damage.

After promising to pay medical bills (under the threat of her boss) she was put on paid administrative leave and forced to attend anger management class, something she hated. As she was informed in the little pow-wow, she could log hours at the gym in the boxing area to get time taken away from her hours owed to society for her "acting out".

Once she got that in writing, she set out for the gym.

It really was an ugly place, somewhere people went if they felt bad about themselves or thought that exercise would make them better people. Valerie hated it. But once she was in front of a dummy and her Slowking was standing by, encouraging her to hit something, she took a swing at the dummy. When it came flying back at her, she reacted on instinct. And so it went for another thirty minutes, smack, smack, smack with relentless force each hit.

When she couldn't breathe anymore, she took a step back and backed away from the dummy, rubbing one of her sleeves across her sweaty forehead. She frowned deeply. It wasn't enough. She turned to see if anyone else had been in the area, only to see another woman fighting a similar dummy, but armed with a knife. Taking a sip of water from the bottle that Mortimer had brought along without telling her. She didn't say anything, just watched. When the woman looked over, Valerie didn't look away. She made direct eye contact and something clicked, something weirdly familiar. But Valerie knew she didn't know this woman...but maybe she did.

[zaire]

[style=float: left; margin-right: 8px; border: 3px solid #aeaeae; margin-bottom: 4px][/style]Already feeling out of place, the brief moment of eye contact she shared with the stranger was enough to prick under her skin-- Anna was uncomfortable. Her face would remain straight and her body relaxed, but the brief moment between the two had set off a strange tick in her head. Things like that didn't happen, not with her. I shouldn't be here. The thought rang like a bell at midday; after years of following commands, the lick of freedom sent an unpleasant sensation down her spine.

She was never one to create conversation though, and Anna only diverted her vision back to her target, pulling the knife to slide out of the rubber flesh with ease.

"It's not polite to stare."

The words had slipped out of her mouth before she had even recognized them in her head; they had been loud enough to hear. Anna suppressed the frown that threatened to tug at her mouth, instead pulling the second curved blade away from the faux throat of the target, slipping it back into its proper place.

She had no reason to speak with a stranger. A stranger had no reason to speak with her.

[ I have no excuse. ]

[valerie]

Normally Valerie didn't give a Vaporean's ass about other women she encountered - it was the men that often made her life different. Women were nothing but trouble. In fact, Valerie had a lot of assumptions about the "more feminine" gender. Mostly because she didn't allow herself to become intertwined with them and therefore put distance between them, creating enough space for assumptions to be made, and enemies to slash down.

Not that this one was an enemy. At least, not yet. Valerie let her eyes wander over the stranger's body without shame, comparing her own body to the woman's and coming to the conclusion that, although different, she definitely had her own appeals. "And it's not polite to put knives into public property." She paused and glanced around and then offered a small smirk. "Unless you let me join you."

[zaire]

[style=float: left; margin-right: 8px; border: 3px solid #aeaeae; margin-bottom: 4px][/style]There wasn't much to argue with there; Anna knew she was being reckless when she presented the first knife to the dummy. It was better than attacking a street person, not that she would ever consider the idea. The woman would remain tense around the stranger, ignoring the feeling of the camouflaged kecleon scrabbling up her arm, taking a place on her shoulder as if it anticipated some sort of offensive front from the other. Anna took a step back from the torso.

"It's not polite to put knives in public property."

Her tone would remain flat and her face indifferent. Throwing Valerie's answer back at her was just another stalling technique, with hopes the ranger would simply tire of talking with her and take her leave. Anna did not come for the conversation.

[ You have to work the words out of her, ufu. ALSO I HAD EN EPIPHANY WOULD THEY SOMEWHAT KNOW EACH OTHER THROUGH RANGER SCHOOL BECAUSE REFER TO ANNAHISTORY ]

[valerie]

Hmm, a rejection of her offer of friendship. Not that she had directly offered herself, but Valerie had her own way of operating things. She looked down at her feet for a moment and then put her hands on her hips, at least three different ways to respond crossing her mind. She really had no reason to be rude to this woman, besides her civic Ranger duty to cease damaging public property at once. But she had just offered to join her, so that lofty option was out of the picture.

"If it's part of your training, I'm sure they wouldn't mind." She said, taking another sip of her water as Mortimer looked on the encounter, uneasy with the tension that was beginning to radiate from his trainer. "I'm sure many Rangers come here to train their skills with a knife and dagger and just choose not to tell the owners. Because who wants to bother them?" She asked hypothetically, giving a little shrug.

[zaire]

[style=float: left; margin-right: 8px; border: 3px solid #aeaeae; margin-bottom: 4px][/style]Anna? A ranger? The thought would make her smirk inwardly, an expression containing more bitter resentment than anything. She would have been embarrassed to admit to her childhood dreams of ever serving in the Academy. She offered the other woman no telling expression though, keeping her face as cold and hardened as the man who had taught her to do so did.

The woman's words felt like a test-- would she fail, or pass? Anna regretted starting any conversation whatsoever, it had been her first mistake.

A slow decent to failure.

"They would be under the impression that rangers would keep to their own devices."

The resentment was gone from her voice, but she kept her tone flat. Anything to appear uninteresting. She felt like she was playing dead in front of a bear. "Who's to say the owners are not aware what I'm doing? Communication is a possible means of exemption for the population, not just those who think they belong to a class of power."

Of course it was an insult. Whether Valerie took it as such or not was up to her.

[ -- ]

[valerie]

Valerie gave a little frown and then tilted her head. A smart girl, that was certainly interesting. But the barrier she was putting up seemed a bit more defensive than normal. Had Valerie hit a hard spot with the Ranger comment? Maybe the other girl had failed the academy? Valerie pushed her tongue across her lips in a display of dominance. Prey, just waiting to be snapped up.

Taking someone down was not on Valerie's to-do list. But sometimes it needed to be done, especially when someone looked like they were overstepping the preset boundaries that society had laid out for them. Sure, Valerie had done just that, simply by going to any sort of school, but that didn't grant her any sort of sympathy for anyone in a similar situation. Well, any sympathy for anyone, really. "Surely you aren't implying that rangers don't deserve the bit of power they have? They put their lives on the line so that people like you can take out frustrations of failure on dummies who can't fight back." She frowned. Though Valerie felt no sense of attachment to the Rangers as a whole,when confronted with defending it or putting it down, defending it seemed to be the best option, especially with a stranger.

[zaire]

[style=float: left; margin-right: 8px; border: 3px solid #aeaeae; margin-bottom: 4px][/style]It took a good portion of her willpower to keep Anna from allowing a grin to show, let alone keep her scoff to herself. Fortunately for her, she had experience with it. She couldn't keep everything hidden, but she did have a strict definition of self control to uphold.

"They deserve as much as they can make for themselves. Which isn't much. Power cannot be expected. Patrol and clean-up cannot win you the world."

She blinked at the opposing woman, quite aware of the challenge she was posing. Anna was being stupid, reckless; she was overstepping the boundaries she had spent years setting up for herself, and she hadn't yet realized what the consequences would wholly be.

"They put their lives next to the line and fail miserably to end themselves."

Surely that quip had gone too far-- Anna shut her mouth after that, yet the temptation to continue was too great to resist.

"I didn't fail." While the quick insult had struck a chord, she would subdue the twinge of pain with distraction until she could reflect upon it later. "Do tell me though, what is the difference between fists and knives? I'm not the only one here for a reason."

The implication would be too direct to go over the other's head, hopefully.

[ -- ]

[valerie]

Valerie grinned widely, putting her hands on her hips. There it was, the quick rebuttal and the even quicker subject change. So her hypothesis had been right! She had been one of the girls in Ranger school, one of the ones who didn't finish. Even if Valerie felt no sense of approval of the Rangers, she did have a swell of pride for being able to finish Ranger school while the woman in front of her did not. Smugness settled over her like a nicely fitting hat and she adjusted in slightly, giving herself an air of sass as she swung her arm to the side. She held it in the air and then swung it around, pointing a long, thin finger at the woman.

"The difference is that you are practicing with toys you have no business to be messing with because, without the protection of the Rangers, you needed another hobby that you protect yourself with. Besides getting yourself a high-ranking man somewhere," She paused and looked her over, eyebrows raised. "Or woman." She lowered her hand and then ran a hand over Mortimer's head, scratching behind his Shellder hat. "I may not be a Ranger, but I certainly know that they wouldn't appreciate your blatant disregard for their sacrifice to keep people like you on the streets." That dig was more a dig toward Rangers, really. Valerie's double-barbed response surely wasn't hidden and she made no attempt to rectify herself.

[zaire]

[style=float: left; margin-right: 8px; border: 3px solid #aeaeae; margin-bottom: 4px][/style]"I wouldn't necessarily call it a hobby."

She was quick to answer as ever, ignoring the stranger's smirk. It was obvious Valerie felt superior. Anna was fine with that-- as long as it wasn't asserted directly. "The rangers are hardly protecting me. They hardly protected me. Giving me board and meal isn't protection, it's nurture. Being coddled makes you weak. I chose not to be weak."

Yet you're still so inferior.

She could almost hear Fernando's counter in her head; it would be ignored. Her boss wasn't around. "Man."

"It doesn't matter if I appreciate it or not. I'm not alone in my beliefs, and you can't hold them against me. It's a matter of differing opinion."

[ -- ]

[valerie]

"Meal and board?" Valerie suddenly snapped, pointing her finger at her. "So you did go to Ranger school, I thought I recognized you." She said, tilting her head to the side. "So I guess the question remains: Did you really decide that you were being "coddled" in Ranger school and left of your own accord? Or were there some outside influences?" She gave her a knowing glance. Although she couldn't remember the girl's name to save her life, Valerie did remember that she had been part of the group who had teased the girl right out of Ranger school.

Not her proudest moment, but Valerie regretted nothing. Without experiences like that, she wouldn't be the woman she was today. The woman who stood before her past, proud and strong even if some would be quivering in the face of shameful memories. Valerie felt no shame. She felt no regret. She felt nothing. "Being coddled does not make you weak." She shook her head, putting her hands in her pockets. "When someone attempts to coddle you, you have two choices. Accept the free money and make something out of it. Or reject the free money and do it your own way. Being coddled just gives you a leg up on your enemies, so long as you know how to think."

[zaire]

[style=float: left; margin-right: 8px; border: 3px solid #aeaeae; margin-bottom: 4px][/style]"Which means you're a ranger."

While she was satisfied with the small bit of information she did manage to gather, Anna wasn't at all content with how everything was going. She had already given too much. "I left on my own accord." It wasn't a lie, but she would fail to mention that she had been horrible while enrolled. Technology was never her strong suit, and the Rangers relied on it. She became too frustrated to pick it up, and her mentor at the time provided no encouragement.

"Being coddled makes you expect treatment that will never exist."

The ranger did have a point. "Unless you're the majority of the population. If you were raised by maids who constantly brought you things you desired, would you expect them in the real world? The academy fails to teach what to do in a critical scenario, when all plans are foiled. When any attempt is futile. They want you to run. Giving in should never be an option."

[ -- ]

[valerie]

Valerie tilted her head to the side, refusing to confirm or deny the fact that she was a Ranger. You could deduce that, but it's possible that Valerie had also dropped out or had been one of the working girls at the Academy, the ones who were recruited to be rescued from fake missions and the like. It was a possibility, but it was also a long shot. Valerie felt no reason to argue something that was false but she also didn't feel like giving away actual facts to the woman before her. She was bothered, that much was clear.


Either you hold some sort of grudge against the Rangers or you didn't get far enough in training. Or -" She mused over a third option, putting her finger to her chin. "You didn't have the out-of-school experience to teach you. I agree, the Rangers prepare you by coddling you and giving you ideal situations. But when you leave the Academy, they're supposed to place you with an experienced person who'll show you the ropes, especially when things are off the book. The Academy is not meant to show you every single itty bitty thing you face, it's meant to prepare you for the big leagues. You don't practice shooting a gun to disable a suspect just so that you can run later."

She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Any Ranger who runs from a fight when all hope is exausted is a menace to the cause and should be removed immediately. Every day is your dying day, that's how I live." She cursed herself inwardly. This woman had convinced Valerie to get up on her pedastal and reveal more about herself than she meant to. She turned her head to the side and cracked her knuckles. "Want to spar? I've got some excess energy."

[zaire]

[style=float: left; margin-right: 8px; border: 3px solid #aeaeae; margin-bottom: 4px][/style]She would let the topic go; Anna didn't care to know the woman's social status, she was simply speaking off instinct. Her social skills were lacking, and the typical conversation would have ended within two minutes, had the other woman not argued against what Anna had been offering. It was clear enough that a small lick of confidence had dissipated from the stranger, she had learned enough now to know that, in the least. She was never one to take advantage of it though, so she let it be.

A thin smile was the only response Valerie received. As someone who had already spoken too much, Anna was slow to give out more than she had to. How, or why she left ranger school was irrelevant, even if it was a mix of the three options Valerie had thrown out. "Not everyone carries your mindset." Guns were never her forte, anyway. Range was something she could never master easily. Instead she worked with the blade, practicing speed, close combat, dodges. Fernando helped her with that more than she believed the rangers ever could have.

"You do if the prey," she hadn't meant to sound like a predator, it was hardly her position, "Is stronger than you, bigger, better. You do when you become the prey, and what you hunt becomes the predator. Did they teach you how to save yourself, when everyone is against you?"

While she didn't catch the importance of knowing the woman's lifestyle, Anna would keep it in her memory. It could serve as helpful later.

The offer caused her to raise a brow, obviously caught off guard by the proposal. The shock died down soon enough. "Don't you have an unfair advantage?"

She would step around it; a flat out 'no' would surely elicit some sort of tease, and while her response had held a tone of mockery, Anna wouldn't allow herself to go home to Fernando covered in bruises and bullet holes. She didn't doubt her own fighting style, she doubted the other's.

"I'm simply here 'practicing with toys I have no business to be messing with'," the thin smile grew into a shallow grin, demeaning at most as she quoted the woman's previous acknowledgment.

"Because only rangers are allowed to play with sharp objects."

[ -- ]

[valerie]

Valerie rolled her eyes. This was beginning to turn into a game of cat and mouse where the two women switched roles with witty dialogue. The more she prodded her, the more the other woman prodded back. It wasn't hard to keep throwing back lines to argue with her, but it really was getting them nowhere. Was there somewhere that the conversation needed to go? Was this purely for enjoyment? Or was Valerie trying to get something from the woman here?

She drummed her fingers against her chin, eyes looking over the other, seemingly bored. "The prey is never bigger, stronger, or better than you. You don't go on suicide missions for the strict reasoning of self-preservation. You go in with backup if you think it's going to be stronger than you. That's why you're a part of something bigger - to have other back you up in times of stress so you never have to be the prey." Why was she standing here, defending the Rangers? What kind of affection did she hold for the job that she'd joined out of guilt?

Valerie rose her eyebrows, pushing her hands into her pockets. "You think I have an advantage because I'm a Ranger? Now, weren't you just saying that I've been coddled and therefore I am weak?" She asked, poking her lips out. "Besides, you've got that knife there and I haven't got anything." Well, that wasn't true. She had a rail-gun stashed in her bag, but that wasn't something she planned to use right now. At least, not inside.

She decided to ignore the dig as the woman tried to use Valerie's words against her. "If you don't want to spar with me, fine. But I have work to do." In reality, Valerie had to blow off some steam that she didn't want to deal with and sparring with someone else would have felt less pointless. But if the woman was going to subtly refuse combat, it was no skin off of Valerie's back.

[zaire]

[style=float: left; margin-right: 8px; border: 3px solid #aeaeae; margin-bottom: 4px][/style]Her problem was that she was thinking too independently. Quick reflection allowed Anna to realize that she had not been thinking how she was trained to; she was thinking how she wanted to. It was unacceptable, and something she made a note to work on. She had said too much, she had challenged the woman's words more than she should have. As amusing as it was to force the stranger into revealing a hidden hand, Anna knew that every good thing came to an end.

"Prey is an unknown."

Her flurry of thoughts and responses would have to be wrapped up in four words, for now. For good. It wasn't too painful to let it go-- part of her still refused to give Valerie the satisfaction of winning an argument, but that was the stupid part, who didn't function of a time schedule.

"You just admitted to being a Ranger."

She would hold back the small smirk of satisfaction; another card revealed. She wouldn't have to elaborate. Anna trusted that Valerie could place things together on her own.

"Work should be your priority."

It was a refusal to fight. Anna's shift in attention from Val to her knife would show that; she flipped the thing closed, replacing at her waist. The other would soon follow. She had been here long enough, it was time to progress in the day.

[ -- ]

[valerie]

For any other person, holding their tongue would have been difficult. Yet Valerie was used to remaining cool and composed, even in the face of not having the last word. In most situations, she closed out conversation and was the first to leave, thereby giving off an important air of having other things to do. In this case, though she felt some heat of conflict seeping down her shoulders, she refused to ignite it - she would simply ignore it.

Admitting to being a Ranger was something she hadn't meant to do, but she could certainly play it off as if she had. "What of it? Was I supposed to hide my occupation from you?" She flipped her hair over her shoulder, taking her bag from Mortimer and starting to push through it. "Last time I checked, it's not illegal to be a Ranger, no matter how much you might condemn me for it." She shrugged, finally finding a cigarette.

As she slipped the thin device between her lips and tucked her lighter into her palm, Mortimer calmly took the bag and Valerie gave a little wave. "As much as I appreciate your opinion on what my priorities should be..." She paused and looked around. "Well, I might not actually appreciate your opinion, but nonetheless I'm off to work. Men to schmooze, wine to sip and citizens to save from themselves." She gave the woman a pointed look and then turned away, her hand tucked in her pocket as she juggled the cigarette on her lip.

"You have a nice day, ma'am." She waved over her shoulder.