Fateful Opportunities

Ma soeur, she repeated mentally, noting that she would need to determine what the word meant when she returned to her room this night... if she could determine it's spelling. Lynette seemed strong, but it was impossible to determine strength on words alone. Lu Zhou Yi wanted to see this woman fight. The French woman spoke as though she had come from an ancient, almost imperial France. "Perhaps, but forcing one's whim upon others requires not only strength and determination, but wit and a well guided hand."

There were many... a hundred and twelve, to be precise... questions that Lady Lu would have loved to ask her new acquaintance, but she restrained herself. Many were personal, many more were questions Lady de Villiers likely did not know the answer to herself, and most could be answered by a few person searches later. The woman acted as though she was important... accomplished even... which would suggest that such accomplishments would have been published somewhere by someone.

Manners soon reminded Strategy of their current situation in a propensity beyond acquiring allies, standing beside a punching bag in the middle of a gym. Lady de Villiers had certainly come to this place to accomplish physical training... not to have Historian Yi stare at her from across the room and interrupt said training. Finally, a smile cracked through the otherwise emotionless mask that was her face as she motioned to the bag with an open palm. "Would you care to join me on the bag?" she inquired evenly. Lu Yi would do many things, but waste resources (especially time) was not one of them. She could, after all, learn about the woman while training with her.

Yi's response incited a small smile to unravel gingerly across Lynette's lips, as the European shifted her weight as her eyes took a closer look at the bag Yi had been brutalizing so precisely. Lu Zhou Yi definitely struck her as bookish and likely more of a thinker than a doer, but her demeanor hinted that they were likely on the same wavelength when it came to conquering one's aspirations.

"How true." Lynette purred, her accent drifting from her lips like a gentle hum. Depending on who you were, one might find it impressively sophisticated and exotic...or simply subtly, maddeningly pretentious.

Just when Lynette was losing interest in this small-talk and (albeit) pleasant introduction and she began to calculate a polite reason to continue her own exercises, her new acquaintance invited her to join her on the bag. Perfect browlines lifted once more, and that proud smile returned, this time wreathed with a curious amiability. "Ooh la la." She said thoughtfully, somehow making the cliche french saying self-aware with a charming irony, before she'd nod.

"What can it hurt? I am touched by your hospitality." Lu Yi seemed sincere enough, but Lynette would be careful not to ruin her air of mystery too soon.

The haught behind the accent was somewhat lost on Yi. It was not an accent she had been familiar with, so when spoken she could not determine the nuances that might have otherwise been expected of her. She could read facial expressions and understand the diction that accompanied it. She detected no sarcasm, which meant that the woman was taking the offer seriously.

Pleased that Lady de Villiers had decided to join her on the bag, she choose a different training, one that would suit two people working on the same swinging bag. Turning her attention from Lynette, she looked at the bag, running her left hand along the nylon flesh of it. It was soft enough to take a fist, though too many repeated blows would likely wear away the knuckles. "Very well, make certain you are not hit by it," she spoke more to the bag, than to the French woman.

Without explanation, she seized the opportunity and forced her whims upon Lynette without giving the noble a shot at defining the rules of the game. The right knee was brought from the floor and slammed into the bag, giving it momentum and an outward swing. She stepped forward with her right leg, and for a moment was between Lynette and where the bag had gone before she spun on her right foot to an overly elaborate spinning back kick that would catch the bag and give it more momentum in its swing towards Lynette. The whole maneuver would have given a decent fighter plenty of time to get out of the way, but would have challenged a poor fighter... and would have been impossible for the inattentive.

Well! After nodding to Lu Yi's only instruction, Lynette waited a moment for any more, and discovering that the chinese woman had nothing else to say and had moved on to hitting the bag, tensed and indeed prepared to "not be hit by it."

And in the nick of time, too. Thankfully, Lynette wasn't the sort of person to wait until all rules had been spelled out; she'd always preferred filling in the blanks with her own rules when they were lacking, and that quality gave her a definitive edge of tenacity that may have been questionable, but propelled her to achieve success more often than not. The world was cut-throat; Lynette found every reason to be so as well.

As the bag swung her way with an extra boost from Lu Yi's strike, the french woman moved with a fluid grace that almost seemed to not belong in a fight; her posturing was ever deceptive, however. As she leaned left, letting the bag bristle just centimeters past her, she countered it with a sudden harshness, spinning perfectly on her heels and rushing the back of her fist into a half-spinning backhanded strike. The blow beat the poor bag at an angle, sending it back towards Lu Yi in an aggressive checkmate. "Alors!"

If the diminuitive Yi was watching, she'd see an excitable smirk play over the debutante's lips.

Her eyes had never left the bag, and thus didn't miss the stunning performance by the French Noble woman. Her ability to move with a refined grace was unlike the grace with which Yi moved. There was a fluidity to Lynette's motions that was artful rather than the practiced and precise science that was behind Yi's motions. As such, she was prepared for the bag as it returned to her, bringing her right hand around with an open palm strike. It was spinning fiercely, but she still managed to hit one of the white dots that had been painted upon it.

The strike was not enough to immediately return it to Lynette, but it knocked it just enough to the side to keep it from hitting her body proper. The bag itself took a more orbital pattern of swing around them, but the duration until it hit Lynette was almost an age, assuming that Lynette was still standing where she was when it reached her. Yi took this particular moment to slip into her normal stance, it was high to the point of almost standing rather than fighting. Her right arm went to the small of her back as magma eyes kept both Lady de Villiers and the bag within view.

The game of bag tennis continued. After Lu Yi's previous strike, Lynette found that she had ample time before it swung back around to her side, and actually took the time to feather a lock of her hair against her cheek before tucking it neatly back behind her ear. Just as the bag was close enough to collide with her, Lynette pivotted so her back was to the swinging target, and dropped her elbow back with a sudden and harsh blow direct to center, on another one of those white dots.

The elbow hit stopped the bag almost to a standstill, to which Lynette whirled around once more, with the controlled grace of a gymnast, and stepped forward with a little spring, lifting off her feet for a moment while her knee slammed into the side of the bag as if she were trying to knock the breath out of it. The punching bag careened back towards Lu Yi, and the display went on, while Lynette, dark blue eyes wide and alert, looked rather pleased with herself, and how this gym visit had turned.

The French woman certainly had an understanding of powerful techniques. Her grappling ability was still questionable, but one wouldn't expect to discover that from this particular interrogation. Yi's own hand rose the dropped onto the bag in an open palm strike, the heel of her hand providing the striking surface to a little white dot. Had the bag been human, her strike would have certainly shattered a shoulder. The collision sent Yi's arm backwards and had reduced the momentum of the bag without stopping it. Her left hand came in low as a second part of the assault; a horizontal palm heel strike that fully arrested the bag just before it caught her body. Very slowly it began to swing back towards Lynette, and Yi seemed to be retreating from it. The fragile historian weakened already by this effort?

No, she simply needed enough room to fully extend a thrust kick into it, one that collided on one side of the bag, but the force and target was the opposite side. She turned her hip over as she fully extended the thrust, and sending what appeared to be a slow return into a rapid barrage. Since the bag was between the strategist and the noble, Lady Lu did not expect the later to realize the attack until just after the bag shook from the thrust kick.

Had Lynette been staunchly planted where she stood to recieve the swinging bag on its next round her way, she wouldn't have had the time to react properly to avoid the bag, much less attack and return it. But firmly planted feet and unmoving positions were for girls who expected to get hit; this long-legged madamoiselle did not.

As it were, she remained poised on the balls of her feet, ready to slip away from harm's way at a moment's notice with nothing more than a spry step laced with a dancer's grace. And, coincidently, that happened to be precisely what unravelled as that bag spun towards her. Smirking as it rolled her way with a sudden determination, Lynette sidestepped the bag, having the corners of Yi's movements and the smaller woman's telltale shadow 'pon the ground serve as more than enough of a warning to illicit her counterattack. Yi had a subtle knack for deception, the debutante could gather from these first movements alone, and she'd build her understanding of the woman with each additional one.

Even though the punching bag actually came within a breath of tagging Lynette's shoulder, her effortless step and halfspin seeming to occur without any sense of urgency, as if Lynette had offered one glance to the bag and forced it to slow down with her force of personality alone. Lady de Villiers certainly knew showmanship, that was certain.

Once safely out of the barrelling pathway of the punching bag, another flourishing strike neatly lined up, and her palm crashed decisively into the bag.

And the game went on.

* * * * * * *

And so it went on for a stunningly solid 20 minutes, without China nor France giving any quarter to the other. Lynette, for her part, glistened with a light sprinkling of perspiration, which was somehow still flattering on her. "This...is becoming redundant, no?" She exhaled breathily, her own attacks become more direct and less flashy, but still as effective as when they had begun. Another harsh kick ravaged the bag, and sent it once more towards Lu Yi.

She silently trained with the new woman, working hard to keep her focus divided between the bag and her opponent's ability. There was silence between them for that twenty minutes of training, except for the occasional huff or shout to dodge or deliver a particularly powerful attack, respectfully. Sweat began to coat her hair as the training rolled on, matting the thick twin tails as her opponent was given rebuttal after rebuttal. Her technique was growing weaker as perspiration began to make her body body more slippery. Each precise strike slid from the targeted location along the bag's exterior after most of the force was given to it.

Whereas, her French opponent looked more and more flattering as exhaustion set in, the historian only appeared more and more exhausted. Her responses were more and more sluggish, though they were no less acute. When she asked to stop, Lu Yi dropped her guard, but then a final kick was given. Both arms raised suddenly to close around the bag and stop it's momentum. But it wasn't enough, momentum arrested between her forearms, but the bottom of the bag swung a bit further and caught the commoner sailor on the top of her thigh. "A break would be good," she said graciously as her cheeks flushed from the recognition that she had been touched by the bag where she had not meant it to touch her.

Taxed but unwavering, Lynette watched as it seemed her words, after so many minutes, would be enough to break little Yi's concentration enough to strike an unguarded point on the chinese girl's leg. A smile crept over Lynette's face; she hadn't offered to stop the contest quite yet, had she?

Relaxing at last as Yi clung to the bag, Lynette stepped towards it and peered around at the chinadoll from the other side of the halted punching bag, that calculating smile resting jovially on her lips. Then, from where Yi could in no way see it, Lynette gave the bag a playful shove, driving it mildly against Yi's body once more for measure. "Vic-tor-y~" she enunciated slowly and pleasantly, each syllable dripping with that alluring accent.

Stepping back and wrapping around the bag, Lynette gave a long exhale of relief, their competitive exercise at last finished (in her favor, of course, she mentally noted), and extended a hand to her new workout partner. "Though color me impressed, Miss Yi. If everyone in the AFW is as accomplished as you, the rest of my victories will be uncomfortably narrow." Another smile, this one pure and genuine, accompanied these words. It was official; Lynette liked Yi. She seemed a good first friend to make in a strange and wide federation.