What's Under the Armor, a boy or a Mandalorian? (Trog)

Barely a week after the harrowing incident, Oyuki and Diana get in touch with the nerds to help them prepare for the promised Ninja Attack. They had no idea of course when it would come, not even Oyuki, as  the mere psychological threat of an attack by murderous, I-feel-no-pain ninjas was another aspect of the tactics they used. A foe that would become gripped by paranoia would be worn down and vulnerable to exploitation, and the ninja girl explained thus to put Erwin and Caleb at ease. Moving wouldn't help, since Erwin's status with the university meant he could always be tracked.

ERWIN SENIOR'S BOXING GYM.

And so, one fine Sunday afternoon at Erwin's father's old boxing gym, the girls came by to school them. Erwin decided to study the girls' fighting styles by, what else, building a full fledged learning robot, based on Winbot, size reduced to human scale. He was pleasantly surprised to see the girls finally unmasked, Oyuki really going all punk with lip and brow piercings, still wearing those shorts and biker boots, wearing a white tank top. Diana came in jeans and a black top, with some sneakers and a baseball cap. Both girls changed into traditional karate gi, Oyuki losing the face jewelry.

Caleb was also to be trained, But Diana had other plans. While Erwin was pragmatic enough in her eyes to build expendable fighting machines, if Caleb was going to insist on wearing the armor, wield weapons and personally participate in combat, he would have to train personally.

The training would begin with a warm up, the girls climbing into the dusty old ring doing splits, stretch kicks, calisthenics and so forth, Erwin calibrating his learning robot. The robot awkwardly tries to copy their moves.

"Uh... I should definitely calibrate the pelvis to do splits..." Erwin said, the scrawny boy having changed into a boxing outfit. Yes, Erwin did box, if only to make his dad happy his son wasn't "some wimp", and his one career win in amateur boxing was on display on the wall, a picture of a younger, even skinnier Erwin posing with his once idol, Mike Tyson.

Caleb had helped Erwin calibrate his new robot. apparantly the death of his decoy had given the young man even more enthusiasm for robot-building than he had earlier possessed Caleb had made a joke about how these events may lead him to become some manner of Dr.Wily or something, building robot-masters to take over the world with. Caleb had not been idle either. He had perfected a series of robots of his own, although nowhere close to as advanced or dangerous as Erwin's variety, his were made for recognizance and espionage-work. The size of a tennis-ball and equipped with anti-grav unit and the same laser he had built into his gauntlet, they had made them sleep earlier at night. He had programmed them to  keep an eye on unauthorized people entering his house. His parents had been somewhat alarmed by this initially, but he had simply claimed that it was an experimental alarm-system. It had calmed them down somewhat. . . Of course, he had neglected to tell them about the lasers and the ninjas. It would only serve to worry them.

It had been rather odd seeing the girls again, especially in such a relaxed fashion without anybody trying to kill somebody or steal anything, but he expected he would have to get used to it. After all, after the battle last week hey had been forced into an alliance to survive their feud against the evil ninjas. A part of him thought it was pretty sad that it took death-threats from a clan of fanatically devoted, evil, super-powered, magical ninja-assassins to get girls to spend time with him.

As the girls arrived he smiled and waved. It felt rather odd seeing them without his armor. He was dressed plainly in a pair of baggy jeans, baggy T-shirt and a slightly-too large button-up shirt. He had always been a bit shamed about his scrawny physique and thus hoped that his clothes would hide it, but unfortunately they did nothing but accentuate it. He looked like a greasy, spotty scarecrow.

Caleb's athletic-gear looked somewhat shoddy compared to the others. It was basically a pair of black sweatpants and a baggy green T-shirts, almost identical to the one he had worn before changing. Both the girls had their karate-gi's and Erwin was wearing boxing-shorts. This daunted him somewhat, as he had at least expected to be better than Erwin. After all, he was quite a bit taller than his geeky companion, so he figure he'd at least have some edge on his friend.

"Like, woah man. You do boxing?" Caleb said, honestly surprised. He had always figured that the only exercise his friend got was when he traveled from the dorms to the robotic-slab. There was more to his geeky companion than met the eye apparently. He shuffled awkwardly as the others were warming off, finally settling on stretching as good as he could. He had never been a sports-type person so he really had little idea how to behave around these surroundings. The high kicks of the girls made him feel even more awkward. They obviously had years of experience when it came to these things, but the only experience he had from physical activity was the P.E sessions in school. They had barely even started and he was already considering chickening out somehow.

"Yeah man, like, my dad's always on my case about the 'sweet science' or something yo. Guess he means well though, helps with the asthma." Erwin said, helping Caleb put on some hand wraps and some heavy boxing gloves.

"Okay yeah, since you wear that armor it's good to get used to wearing some extra weight yo." Erwin explained, showing some good grasp of basic physical training. "Before you even realize it, you'll feel tired and wanna take the thing off."

"Okay, you're good." Erwin said, typing the old fashioned weighted gloves. WHACK. BOOM. The sound of the heavy bags being pummeled by Diana's punches and kicks catches Erwin's attention, seeing the 100kg bag swinging around wildly with each of Diana's blows. "Uh, on second thought..." Erwin goes to the locker and gets Caleb some old padded armor which smelled of years of sweat and effort, tightening the knots for him.

WHAM. "Sorry." Diana apologized, having snapped off the rusty chain and sending the 100kg bag sprawling. She lifts it up and puts it on her shoulder, then puts it back in place with a newer, thicker spare chain.

Erwin made the worried sound again, then slaps on a big padded helmet on Caleb, as well as a hockey mask, approximating his helmet's visibility. He also gets a new mouthpiece, a codpiece, and leg guards for him. Caleb looked like a big red marshmallow, but it was for the best. "So yeah, if you get used to this, wearing your armor will be a piece of cake yo."

"Okeeeei! No wa, torēningu o hajimemashou!" Oyuki said cheerfully, occupying the ring with Erwin's robots, while Diana finished her warm up and headed for the other ring.

"Good luck yo." Erwin climbed into the ring with Oyuki, showing some boxing moves to his robots before having the ninja girl spar with the foam-armed machines. They did... adequately enough.

Diana climbed up the large ring, and waited for Caleb to climb in. She wore handwraps in addition to her gi, and already had a light sweat going. "Well then. This is how it works. You'll attack me with all you've got, try and put me to the ground. Anything goes." Diana assumed a Karate ready stance, showing she was ready.

Caleb nodded at his friends explanation. It made sense he supposed. Erwin had mentioned that his dad owned a gym, but never that he had trained in it, but his friend was over a decade older than our youthful protagonist, so it was only natural that he had more time to pursue things other than science. As he started to weigh Caleb down with appropriate gear, Right now the weight of the gloves did not bother him, but he could easily calculate that he would pretty soon, and when he did it would feel like he had lead weight tied to the end of his arms.

"Yeah, actually I kinda solved the weight-thing. I built this like, uh anti-grav engine, y'know. 'Bit better for flying than that ol' jetpack I used at the warehouse too. But the point is, It like, compensates for the, uh,  weight of the armor and. . ." The sentence had started off rather fine, but at the end he had been interrupted by a loud noise.

As he realized what the source of the noise was, he grew visibly paler. The thing must have weighed over 220 pounds, and the chain was not exactly fragile either, yet Diana had managed to punch it with such force that it had broken. Caleb did some quick mathematics in his head, and he did not like the results at all. He could visualize those fists pummeling his pasty, soft, spotty, defenseless flesh, turning him from a fully functioning boy to a greasy, wet spot on the ground without even working up a sweat. The only positive thing was that his imminent death would be so quick and sudden that he would not have very much time to feel how excruciatingly painful it would be.

Erwin must have thought something similar, as he brought in various items of padding, and strapping them on. Even though he had not even started yet, our hero was sweating. It was very hot underneath all of the padding, and even though he could move far better than he thought he would be able to, he still felt like a man trapped inside a living pool-toy.

"At least my armour's got a cooling-system." Caleb said, trying to raise his spirits by joking a bit as he hesitantly walked towards Diana. He was happy to once again have a mask in front of his face. This way she couldn't see how utterly terrified he was.

He walked up to Diana, rolling his shoulders, trying to limber up. However, as he said anything goes.

Anything?

Well, he had brought something along to show Erwin, but there hadn't been time, due to him being more enthusiastic when it came to his friends humanoid fighting-robots, he had plain decided to save it for another day, and it had been left in the bag containing his training-clothes

He cleared his throat behind the hockey-mask, and quickly started reciting the commands to activate his mechanical minion
"Unit 221, manouver ten, blaster set to stun!!" he rambled as quickly as possible
and soon enough a small, tennis-ball sized shape shot out of the changing-room and headed straight for the woman, firing concussive laser blasts, although these were set on stun, and would result in little more than bruises if they hit. Not only that, but without contact with the central computer (which was currently downloading season 2 of the old version of Battlestar Galactica) it would be rather uncoordinated and useless

Whilst the new arrival would hopefully be enough to distract her Caleb moved with unexpected speed and tried to execute a clumsy but efficient push-kick to knock her off her feet.

Diana's provided commentary mid-spar, seeing a tennis ball sized object coming to the ring. She may as well have seen it coming a mile away. "Calling your attacks will give your opponent a chance to react. In any battle, hide all weaknesses!" She timed her movements with the blaster shots, dodging them with wide rolls at first, then the following shots within a hair's breadth.

Using Aikido techniques, Diana caught Caleb's kick, flowing with the force of it rather than use brute force. Rather than throw him though, She held him in an uncomfortable arm lock, using him to shield herself from the blaster drone.

The afternoon would continue, Diana teaching Caleb not any technique but trying to draw out some raw courage with verbal encouragement. Diana however, subverts the cruel master convention, having been surrounded by caring masters when she was young. She only utilizes locks, throws, and point-blank techniques that push around more than do damage, but never letting Caleb relent. Each training round lasted a grueling MMA 5 minute round - and only till Caleb gave up or was deemed to tired by Diana to continue.

Over in the other ring, the shadow mode of Erwin's robots were making remarkable progress, and Oyuki brought out the practice weapons already. The robots were still no match one on one, but ganging up on Oyuki made the ninja lady really sweat and work for it.

For about a microsecond Caleb thought he was actually hoping he would manage to land a kick, but his teacher grabbed his foot and spun around, and by some quick manouvering his teacher had spun him around and got his arm in a vice-like grip, and even though it was extremely uncomfortable, it was not painful, but only sort of painful. What was rather scary was the fact that she had positioned him as a shield between him,self and his robotic servant. "Abort! Abort! Resume patrol!" Caleb shouted frantically as the robot was about to take another shot at Diana. He did not trust it's accuracy or it's programming when it was left to his own devices.

"Ow! Yeah, I totally get that, but like, without my armor or the master-computer the only way I can control 'em is through voice-control" he whined before his teacher let him go. He was rubbing his aching shoulder and glumly looking back at her. However in a way this little display showed him why he needed this training. Even though his weapons were strong he was not. He was just a boy behind all that armor of his and even though his natural talent for dodging and ducking and weaving had taken him this far it was no guarantee that he could keep relying on it forever, especially given the might of the evil ninja-clan they had after them. No matter what he thought of it he needed to be able to defend himself even at close range.

As the afternoon progressed Caleb was surprised to find himself actually feeling up to the task, even enjoying himself in a weird kind of way. And it was not that he was allowed to lay his hands upon an attractive girl, in fact that fact would not dawn upon him until later, but the fact that he was learning. From Dianas no-nonsense attitude and stern personality he had expected her to have a far more cruel method of teaching, but even though she was hard on him, it had a sort of 'tough love' wibe to it rather than cruelty. Even though they had not graduated to actual techniques yet, he still felt himself improving slightly. he managed to avoid going into traps that Caleb-this-morning would have no hope of avoiding and each of the rounds he lasted a little longer and did just a little better. Even as he was exhausted he felt as if he had acomplished something.

After about an hour and a half, it seemed they were about done. The robots on Erwin's side were just about genuine ninja robots by now, but that remained to be tested. Erwin heads over and helps Caleb out of his armor, while sharing a large liter bottle of Gatorade, either orange or lemon flavored.

Diana gave Caleb a last minute lecture, the swordsman as tired and on the ropes as anyone else.

"Well. At least you're learning. Listen carefully then, for we won't be around for awhile. Winning a fight takes more than just technique, but the will to survive... or the will to put your enemy down. That's why I was testing your raw courage. You've got some ways to go, but you make good progress."

Oyuki and Diana then headed to the shower-lockers and changed into their casual clothes, and carried out fairly large bags. Luggage. Oyuki hands Diana her things, the two girls ready to go somewhere it seemed.

Diana approached Caleb once last time, handing him a few brochures. "...We might be gone for a few weeks while we tackle a cell in France. If we stir up trouble there we could take some attention away from both of you. So here."

The brochures were for martial arts schools in the vicinity of Caleb's home, not more than 10 blocks away. They included Greco-Roman wrestling, fencing, Savate, Karate and Taekwondo.

Erwin looked at the brochures. "Martial arts schools, yo?"

Diana nodded. "Erwin can probably teach you about boxing and some footwork, but it's good to diversify. I checked out the places, the instructors are legit... for your level anyway." She said, without any derisiveness or snideness, just as a matter of factly.

Erwin nodded to the comment. "Yeah yo, and I got some job interviews lined up in New York so I'm gonna be a bit busier. I'll try to spare some boxing lessons like once a week, yo."

Oyuki decided to chime in, without the high pitched japanese, offering Caleb a bit of info he might find interesting. "FYI, The Greco-Roman wrestling place is full of sweaty, hairy men... but the Taekwondo class has the most female students... and teachers." She winked at Caleb and Erwin. Erwin let out that snorty laugh of his.

"Haha, alright we'll check it out yo. So... when are you coming back?" Erwin asked, a bit too eagerly to Oyuki. The girls took a moment to answer, not wanting to get Erwin's hopes up.

"Once... we've dealt with business. And maybe make some money. Well, we've got a plane to catch. See you boys later. Try to be prepared." Diana said, then heading out the gym, a waiting Uber car right outside.

Caleb hung limply against the ropes, breathing heavily. His muscles ached, but in a good way. Even though this had been alot tougher than he had expected he had been pleasantly surprised too. In a way it had been rather fun. Like playing street fighter in real life. He already looked forward to next time. At least he hoped it would be a next time. Caleb nodded as his teacher told him how battles were won. He was far too tired to say something meaningful right now. Even though the two of them where probably rather close in terms of chronological age, she acted as if he was quite a few years older than him.

As he took a quick shower and got back into his street-clothes he could not help but to wonder why the two of them were the way they were. In his own and Erwins case it was fairly obvious why they did the things they did. They had both been born exceptionally clever and then honing their intellects through studies and play. He knew that their level of smarts were unusual, but compared to the Dangerously Deadly Diana and the Opressively Optimistic Oyuki the pair of them and their remarkable achievements were as common as the common cold and as dull as dishwater. What manner of childhood would create someone like the pair of Martial artists fate had paired them up with. Perhaps he would ask them some day, and maybe they would even tell him

However, his train of thought were interrupted as Diana told him that they were going to France for a few days. Caleb knew he had just met the pair, and was unsure if the two of them even considered him a 'friend-friend' or an 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend-friend' or perhaps not even that. In fact, he was quite uncertain where they stood himself, but nonetheless he was disappointed to hear they where leaving. "Wait, you're leaving?" he asked in surprised, but cursing at himself silently for saying it out loud. He did not want them to think he was clingy. He wanted to play it cool

"Yeah, uh cool. I'll try to learn some new tricks before you like, get back man. Good luck in France." He said in a far more laid-back fashion, smiling. He nodded to Erwin as he mentioned the job-interviews, but that he would do his best to squeeze him in. He felt even more dejected to hear that his friend was probably going to work in New York. Of course, until now they had spent most of their time hanging out about two miles apart in front of their computers, but nonetheless it had been nice having him nearby.

"I'll probably look into that Taekwando-place. For like, science, of course." Caleb joked, grinning at Oyuki before she turned to leave.

"Yeah, good luck with the Ninja-Cell." He started before interrupting himself.

"Wait, before you go, take this." he said handing her a note on wich he had scrawled down a series of digits.

"It's my phone number, in case, ur you need like technical help or something. I'm good at that." he said rather awkwardly, as he realized that the girls probably thought he was awkwardly coming on to them, which he actually was not. After all, he was painfully aware that he had more chance to build a house out of gasoline-drenched matches in the center of the sun than he had of any of these girls finding him attractive.

As the girls left, he turned to his friend, as they stood outside the gym. "Y'wanna go get some burgers? I'm buying. Oh yeah, what's that interview you mentioned" he said as the pair of them walked off to have a meal at Bob's burgers.

And here we leave our heroes for now, until next time!

Erwin looked at the car with a quiet sadness as it drove away, wondering what could've been. If Caleb Spared hun a few glances at the other ring, He'd see Erwin had the grandest time ever training with Oyuki, trading pointers about physical combat. Erwin was every bit as eager to spar with Oyuki as his robots, as some kind of bonding. He had to snap back to reality with Caleb's question.

"Oh. Yeah, sure yo. I got called up by the DOD man. The Pentagon wants to look at my robot designs, ... but I also got a call from Wong Industries, want to hire me as a consultant. Yeah... I gotta do like, a ton of paperwork." Erwin paused, then agreed to the idea of burgers. After that work out, he was feeling pretty generous with himself and ordered a double burger and large fries.

Once they were finished eating, Erwin gave Caleb encouragement and parting words, clearly still having second thoughts about his friend using his knowledge and tech this way. "Anyway man... good luck with the martial arts thing, and being a superhero. But really... if you're in trouble, just call. And uh... you could totally use your noggin to get into M.I.T. when you're like, all famous and retired."

ACT II

The Taekwondo Dojo, or Dojang as they'd correct, was located in a modestly designed, Korean cultural center that also had offices and a small grocery store. It was frequented by the local Korean community, but also had a sizable, multi-ethnic number of workers and visitors as well. Practice was held at 4pm and 6pm.

While there was an elevator for safety and building code reasons, there was a sign on the ground floor that had an arrow point up to the Dojang, which was on the roof of this 7 storey building. "Taekwondo Students take the stairs." the sign said, and Caleb would see little kids in their white uniforms not only taking the stairs, but happily running up them in a race, clearly challenging each other to a race up to the gym. Their parents of course, took the elevator.

The Dojang was a nice, well lit and big open space on the top floor, complete with a receptionist, and a lobby full of kids and teenagers. The high ceiling and fans meant it wasn't such a hot place, but neither was it spoiled by air conditioning.

Parents stayed in the lobby so the kids could focus on training. A group of young adult black belts, Whites and Koreans, were doing advanced flying, spinny kicks over in one side, lining up to take turns hitting some kicking pads to practice their agility and accuracy. Some teenagers with colored belts were practicing their own forms in the center, at times accentuated by shouts at a certain move. Meanwhile a lone female Korean Black Belt, particularly very tall, was teaching little beginner kids their basic punches and kicks.  

The receptionist, a short, cutely roundish Korean-american gal with the nametag "Kim", welcomed any new comers and introduced the lessons and rates, as well as the instructors. The reception area also had a generous snack bar, catering to the kids' love of sweets, though they also had healthy snacks and energy drinks. The parents were also appreciative of the coffee machine and a stand with magazines and newspapers.

More information was available on the screen- According to a video played in a loop on the big LED Screen, the head instructor was the small statured, 5'3" Korean 6th Dan, Mr.Shin, sporting a big smile with his pupils in a class photo. Guest instructors' photos and names were also on display, including a typical blonde American man, Robert "Bob" Bailey, a younger African American teen boy, Abrahim "Abe" Masjid, and a close up, photogenic picture of the tall Korean handling the beginners, Ja-Eun "June" Yong, which looked more like a Kpop picture than a formal photo. then again, Koreans tended to all look photoshopped these days...

Caleb awkwardly shuffled into the community-center and quietly wondered if he had gone to the right place. This did not really look how he expected it to look, and his first reaction was to go out and see if he had made it to the right place. Maybe Oyuki had tricked him for a laugh or something. He sighed heavily as the thought hit him. It was not the first time that someone had gotten his hopes up for something and then revealing it had all been a cruel joke. Mindy McMillan had done it to him in fifth grade and Claire Crawford had pulled the same stunt in eight grade, and even though eh was ninety nine percent sure she was trying to trick him, he had relented just in case of that slim, one-in-a-million opportunity. Of course it had not been one of those, and people had laughed at him for a few weeks. Ah, well, life goes on and all that.

However, he was woken from his dreary flashback by the noise of children babbling excitedly, and just so he saw a trio of them running by. All of them were wearing white karate-style uniforms. and then he knew he was in the right place. He tossed his bag over the shoulder and followed them and saw the sign. He sighed heavily. Stairs. He started walking up the steps, quickly falling behind the children, and even worse, getting passed by more of them, all of them running and shouting noisily. Apparently this was nothing unusual to them, because not one of them seemed to be even breathing heavily.

He thought going to the seventh floor was rather hard, even though he did it rather slowly, and he expected that it would be a rather long day of hard w ork in front of him, but he was ready. Well, he would be provided there was some adults there. He did not want to end up in some sort of glorified kid-activity. He tried to hide his own heavy breathing as he reached the top of the stairs. He was not exactly out of breath, but if there were four more stories to go, he would probably have been by the time he would have gotten up. As he saw the older kids practicing he felt a wave of relief over him that soon turned to a slight nervousness. He once again could not help but to think of how many easily breakable bones he had in his body and how painfull it would be to have them broken in all the various ways they could be broken in. However, all the unease were forgotten as the receptionist smiled at him. She looked cute, but more importantly she looked kind, and there was something about her that made him feel completely at ease for some reason. He handled the registration and after a few encouraging comments and directions where he aught to go. he shuffled on to get changed. Apparantly he was to train under an instructor called "June"

Once he got out into the dojo proper again, it did not take long to find June, his instructor, as she was head and shoulders above everyone in the room. Caleb had always been rather tall for his age, but compared to this huge woman he felt like one out of the midgets from snow-white. However, one thing he had learned was that it was impolite to stare, so he didn't actually gawk at her, but rather perambulated over to meet his fellow beginners.

Once he had a chance to change. Kim escorted Caleb to the exercise floor, just as the session was about to get underway. "Well, just do what the others do and have fun, Caleb."

The session started with every greeting the head instructor, Master Shin. He was all smiles and laughs off the mat, and on it. He introduces Caleb and a few fellow beginners- thankfully including two adults and two teenagers- and the class gave them all a hearty "Annyeonghaseyo!"

He leads the courteous bow to the American and Korean flags, the opening meditation and the warm up calisthenics... which included a mixture of basic stretching, briefly intense cardio, pilates, yoga, and good old fashioned splits. He referred to the kids by their first names, encouraging them to do the exercises properly- he does the same with the older participants, but only with polite looks their way if they weren't quite able to go all the way. The program was much more accessible and kid-friendly,

But of course this was just the warm up.

Half an hour later he divides up the students into groups. Bob Bailey led the Black Belt varsity in their advanced combo kick drills, getting everyone in armor. Their moves were fast and explosive, but followed tournament rules, using only kicks and movemenet. Compared to Diana they were... just competent. They were teaching and practicing Taekwondo the Sport, after all.

Abe handled the intermediates and has them do their Kata, having everyone move in unison. He corrects some, while emphasizes others to put power and purpose in each move.

Mr. Shin brought the beginners to June, whose name was derived from her real Korean name. "Ja-eun, please assess our newest students." June obliges, and He then goes joins the varsity team once they finished a round of drills. There, the friendly master turned serious, testing his pupils thoroughly in self defense and combat. Of all the Black Belts, Shin was *maybe* the only one who had practiced original combat Taekwondo, and reminded all his advanced students not to become too devoted to the sport.

And so June started with the adults. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they had migrated from other disciplines, having already done a fair bit of kickboxing, and wanting to improve kicking techniques. The kids were kicking with strong shouts, but their techniques were still a bit awkward. One kid was just stand there picking his nose. Another was jumping around, flailing his legs wildly out of unison. A third kid fell down on his bum and cried. June took care of all this in a jiff, the kids referring to her as big sis June.

June then came to speak with Caleb once all the nose picking and leg flailing and crying was under wraps. "Hello there Caleb, welcome to Taekwondo! Before we begin, have you practiced other martial arts before?"

Mr.Shin seemed to be a very cheerful sort, at least that was the first impression of him. As always it was rather awkward to be introduced to the class, but despite this, Caleb smiled a bit as they greeted him. Then there was the meditation. Caleb had little problems with that. However, the warm-up was obviously tougher than he had anticipated. It was a series of various stretches movements to limber up the body, but his joint frequently tried to tell him that he was not supposed to bend them like that, and that this was not how they worked. Caleb did the best he could, but some of the things were simply beyond him, althugh he did always try his best. After all, with the ninjas being after him he could hardly afford to do something half-heartedly. Despite this, he appreciated the fact that the instructor seemed to be rather tolerant when it came to newbie mistakes.

If this had taken place before the ninja-incident, he would be in awe of the black-belts that immediately started to train kicks and movement, however, after seeing Diana in action, they were not all that impressive. Sure they were probably light-years ahead of him, but compared to Diana all of them were Calebs.

"Thanks June! Uh, no, I've never only practiced once against an aquaintance." he responded as the towering woman welcomed him. He felt slightly more calm when he saw the awkwardness of the kids. Perhaps everyone here wasn't as much of a killing-machine as he had feared. The adults however mostly looked the part of martial artists of various disciplines. Even if not all of them were in tip-top shape they seemed to have some level of experience already, a few of them even seemed to know one other at least superficially as he noticed the smiles and nods between them. This was so not his world.

And so Caleb and the others were given the basics of Taekwondo kicks, June demonstrating and breaking down the basics. Kicks were differentiated into two main groups by their mechanics- roundhouses and spinning kicks got their power from speed, rotation and torque, while straight kicks benefited from body weight and technical simplicity. Advanced kicks combined both for difficult but powerful attacks. The cross-training martial artists simply had a laughing good time.

Dragon Girl also demonstrated very basic punches- jabs, straights, hooks and uppercuts, all already done by Erwin. Then there were blocks, and basic movement footwork, reviewing with the kids when not trying to help them tie their pants properly when they fell down mid-kick. June had her hands full but overall was a patient and engaging teacher. This way, once the pupils understood the basic parts of the moves, they could be eventually combined. Diana seemed to weave offense and defense simultaneously, but the kids tended to paused between the two.

Practice would eventually conclude with everyone being paired off for defense training, where they would take turns focusing on blocking and dodging while the other focused on attack. As there were an odd number of beginners, June pairs up with Caleb.

She attacks first, but of course being practice her attacks were more quick, light taps with her hands and feet, to help Caleb develop some muscle memory. "Okay let's take this slow then! dodge, dodge, block, block, dodge, block..." the usual targets were the head, the torso, and the sides.

"It was generally much better to focus one's protection on the head, and avoid using just hands or forearms to block kicks. Even veterans get injured wrists and fingers from reflexively blocking a kick they should have avoided." Xiao would explain, once it was her turn to defend. She lets Caleb try to get to her. Overall it was a typical day of training.

Then, near the end of the training session, around 7pm, one of the mothers from the lounge- a caucasian lady with short blonde hair, middle aged, in a blouse, jeans and sneakers- your average athlete mom- and looked around in a hurry. She approached Mr. Shin first, then came to speak with June. She sounded very worried.

"June! Honey, have you seen Finn or Jake? Are they here?" She asked, looking around but obviously not finding the ones she was looking for.

"Um, no. Mrs. Robinson. They didn't come in today. What's the matter?" June called for everyone to take a break while she dealt with the lady.

"Oh God... they aren't responding to my calls! the school said they left on time..." She was getting more tense as she spoke, adult fears building up.

"Have you tried activating the Phone Finder?" June slowly brings Claire Robinson some distance away from the students, the kids looking very affected by her emotional state.

"I did, but something's wrong with it! I'm scared...oh lord, there's been kidnappings in the area... I wanted to pick them up but I got overtime at the store and..."

"Okay. Calm down, Claire. We'll call the police and the school again. Their school is only six blocks away. They might just be along the way. Why don't you sit in the lounge? Kim will keep you company." June escorts Claire to the lounge where the other parents were hearing out her concern. June spoke with Mr. Shin again and in a few minutes the practice was over. Everyone did their cooldown exercises, bowed to the flags, and dismissed.

June changed out of uniform in a hurry and left just as quickly with her gym bag, bidding her small pupils goodbye without staying, and headed elsewhere...

At first Caleb was rather scared and careful and seemed more focused at not hurting himself or others, but under Junes tutelage it did not take long for him to get into the swing of things, and as soon as he felt comfortable and found his courage, both his ability and his boldness grew steadily. At first he was barely able to block any of Junes strikes, but after a few tries he had gotten the routine down and was capable of blocking or dodging all of them. However, he definitely decided to take the advice about blocking kicks with nothing but his arms to heart. Even though June was obviously holding most of it back he still felt the kicks as they connected. At the end of the session felt he had improved quite a bit during the session. Despite all of his misgivings as he had entered the cultural-center had pretty much vanished by now.

However, even though he was in the beginners class the session was grueling and tough. he had never been all that active, and he felt that he was lacking in stamina, even compared to the young ones. after all, in the few 'super'-encounters he had been a part of thus far, he had relied upon his suit and anti-grav pack to keep himself afloat. (pun intended) Even though it was a weakness that had yet to be much of an issue, he felt as though it would be rather foolish of him to allow it to become an issue before he rectified it. Maybe he would start off with Taekwondo two or three times a week, and when he his body would adapt to the work-outs he would add one of the other disciplines on the list.

However, his thoughts were interrupted by the sudden arrival of a frantic woman. Apparantly her boys Finn and Jake had dissapeared on the road home from school. the young hero felt a tad sorry for the woman, but paid it little mind as he finished the cooldown exercises with Mr.Shin. However, after a taking a quick shower and getting dressed the thoughts arrived unbidden into his mind. Perhaps it would be worth taking a look into. After all, with all of his technology he would probably have a greater chance of success.

He hurried downstairs and got on his moped wich he drove around a corner into an empty alleyway, that looked empty enough. He opened up the compartment where the helmet was normally stored and voila, there was his suit. Of course it took him a minute to put it on properly The black overall went over his regular clothes, only the jacket was left behind, then came the armour-plating and lastly the helmet. The computer booted up and he felt the weight of the thing decrease significalntly before he flew off, looking for June. After all, he had no clue what the boys looked like so he expected her to tell him. It did not take long to find her, since even in her civilian clothes she was still head and shoulders above everyone else.

"Hey, tall Asian woman. I hear you're looking for a pair of lost boys. You're in luck, I'm willing to help you out. I'm a superhero, by the way. One of the good ones. Also a genius, so yeah." he said, the voice-masking software turning his rather ordinary teenage voice and transforming it into the awesomely Darth-Vader style badass voice of. . . Whatever his super-alias was now-a-days. He needed to come up with one of those one of these days.

How a seven foot tall asian girl would vanish in the area was a mystery. However, searching low, Caleb would soon find himself as though in a whole new world altogether.

The area Caleb found himself in was a quiet part of town, business that were closed for the night. But it was far too quiet. Street lamps were not functional. There were police cars with their blinkers still on and doors ajar. Police barricades were set up in the street but no one manned these stops. On closer inspection, it was the scene of a shoot out- spent casings and blood littered the ground, and not far from the barricade were the bodies of several... creatures, strange fish-amphibian things, which were nothing more than teeth and legs. They had a wretched smell as they rotted in the street, but their recent wounds indicated they had clashed with the police and reached them, likely having overwhelmed them with numbers.

Further down the road, the flash and sound of gunfire rang out, four figures were making their stand in a large butcher shop. The streets ran slick with the blood of the foul Amphiboids, but more of them swarmed the butcher shop,

"I don't know how much longer we can hold em off!" a female voice rang out, as a bright round object zipped through the air.

"We can't leave Wombat!" Another man said, dressed up like a construction worker and whacking the creatures out of the air with a shovel, or caving their heads in with his tool.

"You have to leave... get help... leave me..." A third figure huddled behind the counter said.

"We ain't havin' none of your crazy talk, partner! I'd go down fightin' these here varmints than let em take you!" A third figure, dressed up like a cowboy and wearing a bandana to conceal his face, was shooting off his period weapons, taking out the creatures. These four were in grave danger, as another wave of Amphiboids were emerging from the very sewers- they would spot Caleb, and rush him- their disproportionate legs carrying them, their hungry, fang filled outs wanting to tear him to pieces. Their hissed and screamed like no other creature of this earth did...