On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) (5 page)

At five she packed a bag with her soft soled work out shoes,
a pair of blue sweats and a sturdy black and silver sports bra. She wouldn't
sag, breast wise, ever, but she was
just
big enough for her swinging
breasts to actually throw off her center of gravity if she wasn't careful. Not
quite big enough to actually hit herself in the face, no matter how hard she
jumped, at least if she kept her head up, but something to keep that swaying in
check when she could get it made sense to her.

The door locked behind her automatically, reminding her to
keep her key on her person at all times, not having a roommate to come and bail
her out if she got stuck in the hallway. Of course she could go to the student
advisor at the end of the hallway, but that could get embarrassing if it
happened too often. Slinging the bag made of heavy canvas over her shoulder,
she headed toward the dining facility, hoping that she was supposed to bring
her clothes and not wear them to dinner.

She found Don sitting with a tray in front of him, eating too
few vegetables to be healthy for a Human. Looking relaxed as he munched on
fries again, sitting in the secluded little room they'd met in the day before.
She walked over and gave him a hug before sitting down. Behind them a girl with
short, golden colored hair, not the pure pale blond of Britney or Blaine, but a
color that hinted at turning a light brown some day, stared at her longingly.
Kate waved to her and said hi before sitting down.

Don looked at her clothes.

"Does that bag have your workout clothes in it?
Otherwise you're going to look funny doing high kicks. I don't know how that
works for girls, but when a guy does that in jeans... Ouch. Right between the
thighs, you know?"

Actually she did, and he was right. It was a real hazard.

“I didn't know if I was supposed to wear them to dinner or
not. I see you did though. Not a problem, I can change anywhere.” She wiggled
her eyebrows a bit and looked around the room, indicating that she could even
change there, if need be, which turned the boy's mind toward her being naked
under her clothes, or at least that had been her intent. He seemed to get it,
twitching his own eyebrows in return, and smiling big, seeming almost happy
compared to the day before.

Blaine and Britney got there at about the same time, dressed
in matching gray sweats having come from Britney's room where they'd been
discussing what they wanted to do with them later, while they practiced. Don
snorted at the potential double entendre but the other two managed to keep
straight faces for once, having
actually
been planning out the practice
session.

The food hadn't gotten any better overnight, so Kaitlyn felt
no particular need to linger over the meal. The others ate, so she did the
same, hoping that her dislike of the food here didn't seem
too
clear to
the others. Over the last year she'd grown used to the idea that food should be
really good in the main. Maybe a little lower quality if an emergency came up.
At Underwood, the embassy complex she'd worked at that hid itself as a mall, the
emergencies had been catered as often as not. Even the snacks she had from
Merri, things just thrown together by the small woman's standards, were many
times higher in quality than anything the dining hall had. Thinking about this
made her feel a little homesick for the woman. And a little hungry. She grinned
at the idea and stood to leave with the others.

It had gotten colder outside, as they walked together through
the dark toward the gym. No one went outside here without a coat, hat and
gloves. Not this time of day at least. Her nose stung a little bit from the
cold air, the inside of it feeling like the small hairs had frozen together,
even though she didn't
have
hair inside her nose. Just like she didn't
have to shave her legs or under her arms. If having hair there became popular
again, it would grow, but right now the consensus told her biology to keep
those areas bare. She still had pubic hair, but it looked perfectly managed all
the time. Again her body simply doing what most people around her thought most
pleasing. No one really understood how that worked, but every Alede saw the
effects of it over time, with some of them being more sensitive to the effect
than others.

Brit took her to a changing room, since Humans exercised
there regularly. There were lockers, but she could just stuff her clothes in
her bag and take it with her, she decided, not having a lock with her. She
dressed quickly, so that everyone wouldn't have to wait for her while she
dithered.

The other girl checked her out while she changed, staring at
her and making small gestures that hinted at wanting her. It made Kate feel
appreciated, though it wouldn't be strictly needed. Alede could and
did
have sex with each other, mainly because it felt good and helped them bond, but
they couldn't share energy that way. Or at least if they did, one of them
lost
energy while the other gained, to a net loss in the end, since no energy
transfer was ever perfect. When they got energy from Humans or members of a few
other groups, like Weres, they actually harvested waste energy
after
it
had already been given off by the person. They needed that energy to live, and
other Alede didn't produce it.

The boys had waited for them on the hard wood floor, polished
to gleaming. Both of them stretching lightly while they waited. Without being
told, the girls started doing the same as soon as they reached the place the others
stood. There weren't a lot of people in the room, only about six others. One, a
girl, doing some rather impressive looking stretches. Yoga, it seemed. She
managed to orient her body toward their group before bending over backwards and
splaying her legs. An obvious sexual signal, though it wasn't clear who exactly
she was trying to impress. Blaine or Britney, most likely, though it wasn't out
of the picture that Don would be her target. Not likely given everything, but
not
impossible
. Some people, especially women, actually liked their
lovers to be slightly less good looking than they were, or at least roughly the
same. It had to do with fear, she knew and the desire to hold on to the person
they loved. It was harder to hold on to someone really good looking. Everyone
knew that, at least deep inside, Kate thought as she watched the scene unfold.
This was Kate's first time here, so it wouldn't be about her, she knew. Not yet
anyway.

The others ignored the woman, except for Don, who glanced toward
the limber woman, a slightly wistful look on his face. Sighing softly, he
turned away and focused on what he was doing.

Blaine finally took charge after a few more minutes of stretching
and suggested they work without contact, sticking to percussives at first,
since he knew that they'd all be able to do that, it being basic school
training, then they'd work on grappling and throws, if Kate felt comfortable
with that plan. She nodded. Seeing that Don had a strange look on his face,
Blaine added an aside.

“Percussives, that just means punches, kicks, knees and
elbows. Any move that hits, it's what we
normally
do, you know... so
that you won't feel all gay when grappling with me gets you turned on?”

They broke into pairs, with Kate and Blaine going first, so
that the others could observe what they did and come up with plans to take them
down when it was their turn. It seemed clear to her that Blaine wanted to work
with her first himself, just in case she sucked, or came from a school that
didn't stress combative control. Some didn't, just sticking pads on the kids
and telling them to go to, figuring that a real fight didn't need them to pull
their punches, which was true, as far as that went. It also led to lack of fine
motor control in her opinion, which impacted the ability to target on the move.
Her school had required both, work with pads and without, as well as occasional
full contact fights against the instructors, where they'd actually be punched
and kicked, so that they wouldn't be taken by surprise when it happened in real
life. Not everyplace had been so hard on the kids, of course, but since those
lessons had literally saved her life more than once, she could see the value in
them now.

Today they'd stick to non-contact, punching or kicking within
an inch or so of the other person, making contact only with blocks if possible.
They could be hurt still, if someone mis-judged a distance or time factor, but
at least they wouldn't be
trying
to hurt each other. Kate liked this,
because it meant that Blaine had bothered to really think about what it meant
to add a new person to their group for the day.

They didn't bow or anything, though Britney did step forward,
a hand between them and told them to begin, pulling away as fast as she could.
Kate, dropped into a deeply focused state without hesitation. Not as deep as
what Zack could do, she knew, but deep enough that the world seemed to slow
around her a little bit. Blaine had started out with a round house kick toward
her middle, which she saw coming, a line of energy running from her to him
along the path he intended to follow, she noticed. Her friends Troy and Hilda
both did that, though the Taoist masters Wu-Li and Dan both simply
moved
.
Never showing intent, just pure focus. This, what Blaine did, made it a little
easier for her compared to working with them.

She raised her left knee to block the move and saw that he
intended a double kick, a weak move, but dropping from the higher position on
the first kick, then trying to take her knee on the second would still be
effective. So rather than put her leg down after the block, she moved forward,
falling toward him, her left foot suddenly trying to stomp on his left knee, a
delicate target at the moment, since all his weight rested on it. She pulled
back when her white sneaker rested in mid-air about an inch away, then drove
her foot as far between his legs as possible shifting her weight again so that
her left hip hit him in the right thigh as he tried to pull his leg back into
place. It wasn't a throw, exactly, and she hit him, but only as part of a
block. It seemed within the rules to her.

Caught off guard, he scrambled back, wildly throwing a
roundhouse punch toward her head, which she blocked easily, by simply raising
her left elbow to eye level, pushing the punch over her head. At the same time
she threw a back fist into his now exposed ribs. This was a throw away move. Too
soft to cause damage in real life, that he didn't even bother trying to block
at this distance. They went on this way, trading attacks and counter attacks
for a while, neither doing anything that would have ended the fight had they
really been attacking each other, since her moves were both weaker and lacked
reach in this form, being a lot smaller than he was. For his part, he aimed
good blows at her and used clean movements and clever strategies. He just
couldn't seem to
hit
her or even come close enough to count. Finally, in
frustration, he managed to speed up enough to slip a punch past her guard and
hit her jaw with a dull thud. His eyes went wide, but Kate merely smiled at him
and kept going, hiding the fact that it had her reeling a little bit.

That had been one of the first things that Master Dan had
worked with her on. The idea that if you got hit, you simply kept fighting. Too
many fights, he'd told her, were lost when people responded to rather minor
injuries by grabbing at them or trying to shy away from the next attack once
hurt. When you fought, you had to commit to fighting even if you were injured.
Since this lesson had been followed by several sound thrashings, she'd finally
gotten the idea.

For the following several minutes, they kept going, nothing
else getting through her guard, even though Blaine finally started trying
again, speeding up as much as he could to try and hit her. Most of his attacks
left holes she could exploit, turning the block she used into the next attack,
moving into the places he'd left open, since all attacks left openings like that,
this had been something she'd practiced a lot over the last year.

Finally Blaine jumped back, calling the exercise to a halt.
Kate stepped back, but kept her guard up while she did it, since faking an end
to the exercise to create an opening
would
actually be fair in her book,
she half expected him to do that now. Instead he relaxed and smiled at her.

“You're
good
! Sorry about hitting you like that...
Poor control on my part. I just couldn't touch you so I got reckless trying...”
He wrinkled his nose in disgust when he spoke of his own poor control.

Kate waved this away, "If you fight, you get hit. We all
know how that one goes."

Since they both needed to catch their breaths a little, he
asked Britney and Don to go next, while they lounged around watching them. The
way he said it could have been followed by him saying “dance monkeys dance!”
from the tone, but he didn't add anything more. He got them started easily and
then stepped back, letting the two of them go at it. Britney didn't look as
good as her brother had, but then she worked with Don, who, while not bad,
clearly wasn't up to the level of the other two in ability yet. He'd worked
with the other girl enough that he knew not to try and hold back too much, even
while making sure he didn't hit her. This would probably be difficult for him,
because it required him to step away from his attraction to her, even as her
nipples hardened from excitement while they worked. They seemed to be holding
to a one punch, one block pattern, the most common one for martial artists.
And
the one thing that really got them in trouble if they fought good boxers. Most
boxers would try to throw between two and six punches as quickly as possible by
training, then pause, reset and move to the next combination. Two or three
being the most common patterns. No matter how fast they did it, there would
always be that pause afterward.