I could see it was a rough cut Tuesday

[shotup]

WHO: Roy, Troy, and Abed aka the Three Amigos!
WHERE: Laura's Dojo
WHEN: Right now!
WARNINGS: N/A
SUMMARY: Roy shows his new buddies how to be actual real super heroes by teaching them some rad fighting moves.
FORMAT: Quick!

[Today's adventure combines two things Roy enjoys: fighting and friendship! Finding someone he can spar with has been a bit of a challenge, but once this idea to teach Troy and Abed how to fight came to mind, he ran with it. What could possibly be more amazing than male bonding and fist fights?! Nothing!

Plus, there was the added bonus that sparring meant Roy wouldn't have to think about the mess in his head, or that weirdo Green Arrow guy that seems to think they're somehow related. What's up with that? Pfft.

Anyways, Roy has arranged for some private time in the School of Thunder Dojo for the boys to hang out and engage in fisticuffs. And while he's resolved to go easy on these beginners, he's quite an intimidating sight, all tall and full of muscles. But don't mind him, gang! He's only dangerous when you piss him off!]

Comments

[coolcubed]

[ This is totally awesome.

You know what's totally awesome? This.

Superhero fighting lessons from an actual superhero, in order to help them on the path to becoming. Well, superheroes. Obviously. It may not be all over his face, but Abed is highly pleased with this turn in events. Cool factor and a very logical decision for anybody planning to take up effective crime fighting. That's a double win. Whether or not he turns out less noodly is very secondary in the grand scheme of things here. It's about justice. And potentially having a friend whose name rhymes with Troy's. The sitcom practically writes itself.

He takes his obligatory scan of the room on the way in, and follows it up with an obligatory foot-to-head scan of mister instructor himself, in all his tall, intimidating glory. Yeah. One more in the long list of life experiences that would probably be easier for a montage, but which will ultimately benefit his appreciation of hard work and perseverance. That's cool. ]

Hey, Roy.

[kegflipped]

[ Yeah, he's in agreement. This is pretty awesome. Also: elaborate. This is a whole dojo with nobody else in it right now, dedicated to an afternoon of bettering their skills. Legit.

Troy's mostly super-excited, because, again, awesome. But then there's also worry in the back of his mind, about things like Roy being an actual big, muscle-y superhero and Abed being a really thin guy with a history probably-not-physically-hurting-anybody. Well, he was in the not-Christmas fight. As far as Troy knew, that was it.

So, yeah. SUPER EXCITED AND TOTALLY READY, with a small side of his impulse to protect Abed from ouchy-stuff kicking in. He knew Roy was a good guy, though. They'd talked Battle-Cats. ]

How's it going, man?

[shotup]

[Roy gives them an appraising nod, grinning as they approached. They were a lot scrawnier than the people he was used to fighting, but he knew better than to write someone off just because they looked short and puny. After all, he was friends with Dick Grayson. Insert rimshot here.]

Hey, guys. I'm fine. How's it going? You ready to get started?

[coolcubed]

[ Abed throws out a quick thumbs-up, pretty much cool to let Troy do his catching-up and pleasantries and whatnot while he's working on getting a read on Roy. Not that he's the kind of guy to pass up the chance to pull a Burt Reynolds really quick. Some cliches demand a vessel. ]

Yep. We were born ready.

[kegflipped]

What he said.

[ Because, sure. Born ready. Why not?

Troy claps and rubs his hands together, the universal gesture for 'Let's Do This Thing.' ] Where do we start?

[shotup]

Let's start with something easy. A warm up.

[He demonstrates by kinda shaking himself out.]

You want to get loose so you don't get any cramps.

[coolcubed]

[ He doesn't tend to do loose much. Footloose, Bustin' Loose, and Every Which Way But Loose, totally. None of them really apply, though. They don't even have a chimpanzee in the dojo. On the other hand, this move makes good sense. So he's thinking a relaxed octopus is good inspiration to draw on.

aka Abed doesn't do what could be called the best job getting loose, so much as he looks at each of his compatriots, rolls his neck and then sort of rolls his shoulders. In the spirit of relaxed octopi he also lets his arms continue hanging at his sides and shakes them from the shoulders. Muppet situations: they can turn up anywhere. Totally feeling it. ]

[kegflipped]

[ Troy's done enough with sports to understand the basics of warming up, at least. He can only be serious about it for a moment or two, though, before he's in on Abed's puppet act. He's soon doing more of a purposeful wiggling than an actual pre-workout stretch.

But, hey, if it gets you to the same-ish place, what's the harm? ] Is this loose? Are we loose enough?

[shotup]

[Watching Abed, it was clear Roy was going to have his work cut out for him. At least Troy seems like he's a bit more in tune with his body. For all of a second, anyway, before things have gone horribly wrong and Roy is starting to get worried again.]

Yeah, yeah. That's good. You can stop now.

[For the love of Benji, guys, please stop.]

So. Now that you're loose, let's work on posture and how you carry yourself. You don't want to hunch over or else you'll screw up your back when you get hit.

[Roy adopts a neutral looking stance. Kind of like the resting pose of some dude from an arcade fighting game.]

Try and match me.

[coolcubed]

[ This is why Troy's his favorite. Never alone in something fun and possibly ridiculous. There is a look of full approval for you while it's ongoing, buddy. Because that's some nice puppet form.

Abed stops as he's bidden without complaint and keeps a sharp watchful eye on this form of Roy's. It does look pretty arcadey. ]

Cool. Chuck Norris, eat your heart out. [ The stance, at least, he copies without complication. A gift of much studied roleplaying. ] Somebody's heart, anyway.

[kegflipped]

[ Troy copies the stance, too. At least standing isn't so hard. He bounces a little, because yeah again... Arcade guys. ] I bet he could eat out his own heart.

... Where'd that expression come from, anyway? It sounds horrible.

[shotup]

I think we can all agree that it's anyone's guess.

[Which is to say FOCUS GUYS. Roy narrows his eyes, moving over to make some slight adjustments to each of them. He'll want to fix Abed's legs and Troy's arms. Or something like that. After he's satisfied, he returns to the stance himself.]

We're gonna start off real easy. You're gonna make a fist. And then, you're gonna punch the air. Pretend like there's some obnoxious dick in front of you and let him have it. Like this.

[And then Roy demonstrates how he earned the nickname Speedy by rapidly punching the air in front of him several times.]

Okay, now you guys.

[coolcubed]

We can google it. [ It's almost as exciting as learning to fight like superheroes. Googling is pretty much the precursor to many a fun-filled afternoon. He bets they can set up a movie where Chuck Norris's heart eats itself. Definitely saving that one for later.

Which is to say that the hint to focus flutters right over his head, and then Abed just kind of stares at Roy with his eyebrows furrowed while he's making adjustments. Physical contact: not usually his schtick. But he sort of knew to expect it in this scenario. He contemplates the air-punching, too, and opts to seek clarification. ]

Can we pretend we're punching a concept or property, and are we allowed to pretend to be somebody else?

[kegflipped]

[ Troy does fine with the adjusting segment, and follows through on the punches easily enough. He's doesn't have the force or speed of Roy, but maybe that just takes practice. He tries again.

He doesn't have a lot to offer in the way of answers to Abed's questions. Troy's just punching air. He doesn't know a lot of obnoxious dicks that he actually wants to punch. There's super villains, he guesses, but he hasn't met most of them in person. ]

But you gotta learn to fight as yourself, don't you? Be your own thing?

[shotup]

That's right, Troy. Pretending you're Bruce Lee is all well and good, but you're not Bruce Lee. You're you. You gotta stay in your right head space when you're fighting, otherwise you could get confused.

[He demonstrates a few more punches, then walks around to watch his pupil's and their techniques.]

Good, Abed. But I gotta know, who're you pretending to punch?

[coolcubed]

[ Noted, then. Clarification, as they say, is key. His mouth pulls a bit to one side for hearing it, but he asked for a reason. He has a better picture of the boundaries this way, he guesses. ]

It's an amalgamation. A Frankenstein's monster of irks and undesirables based around my own personal preferences and distastes, that me being myself might believably be able to pretend to punch. [ Because these are always things to take into account. ] Ten percent Firefly's cancellation, fifteen percent Cougar Town's move to mid-season, twenty percent M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Last Airbender,' ten percent AC repair annex before Troy became their messiah, five percent analog clocks, five percent Evil Abed, five percent Professor Duncan as an evil claymation Christmas warlock, five percent the manager at Señor Kevin's who said Die Hard was bad, and... twenty-five percent left over for bad prequels and-or sequels. [ Perfect in a pinch. He dislikes all of those things. He'd believe in his ability to fake punch them. ]

I'll fine-tune it more when I have more time.

[kegflipped]

[ As somebody who gets all of the references, Troy nods. He's gotta hand it to Abed, that's a pretty mean amalgawhatever of things, even given the fact that clocks don't trip him up and the Señor Kevin's manager is ignorable, and... He's still not totally sure what an Evil Abed is. Abed isn't evil. ]

Sounds punchable.

[shotup]

[Well okay then.]

Sounds like you've got the right idea there, buddy,

[There's a friendly slap on Abed's back as Roy turns to Troy.]

How about you, man? What's getting you in the zone?

[coolcubed]

[ Wait, whoa, hey- oh. A back-slapper. He's filing Roy away as an Affectionate Physical Contact guy until further notice.

Possibly a "thought you were choking" guy, but his sources are usually reliable in these diagnostic processes.

And yes, do go on, Troy. Abed has air to focus on. Which is to say he's mostly leaning over to catch that answer, too. ]

[kegflipped]

I didn't put that much thought into it.

[ Welcome to the World of Troy Barnes. ]

Guess I'm trying to figure how hard I'd have to hit if I got into a fight with an actual super-villain or something. Or Chang as a super-villain. Or a dinosaur. Maybe like a really smart raptor.

[shotup]

Smart raptors. Yeah. Imagine if it somehow evolved a brain big enough to do complex calculations so it could invent weapons or something. That'd suck.

[Roy's not really thinking about it. He's already on to something else.]

You're punching looks pretty good. But you won't always be on the attack. So we've got to work on your defense.

[coolcubed]

They opened doors and set traps in Jurassic Park. Most raptors are smart. At least they probably wouldn't let Chang ride them. [ Chang riding a super smart raptor is the last thing any universe needs. ] And Roy's right. Defense is an integral part of the superhero system.

[kegflipped]

Right. How not to get punched. Might be good to know.

[ Take it away, Roy. ]

[shotup]

The most important thing is to keep your balance. [He takes a good stance, arms up.] You're going to work on blocking, slipping, bobbing and weaving, and we're gonna learn how to parry.

First, let's do some blocking. Punch me, Abed. Come at me with your best shot.

[coolcubed]

[ Man. It's always such a pleasant surprise to come by a competent teacher anymore. This guy actually has a plan in mind and knows what he's doing. ]

Okay. [ Cue Abed immediately stepping forward as prompted and doing his best to comply, free of attitude change. He goes for more of a jab than a shoulder back, wide-swinging kind of punch.

Not the most climactic way to go about it, but he doesn't think this is a particularly climactic moment. Nobody is in old-timey high-waisted shorts, America's pride in the face of the Soviet threat isn't at stake, and he and Roy don't have an established rivalry creating a tense chemistry. Besides, it's safe to assume Roy will be blocking it if the plan is to do some blocking. Why waste a dramatic punch on demonstration when you're not being someone else and nobody's got a camera? ]