Destiny is delighted by this plan! 

Where do they want to go for it? The gym has enough space but also apparently it's dangerous? 

"I don't want to do just two of us in the gym being distracted even the first weekend; let's grab an empty classroom and shove all the desks against the walls."

On their way to the stairs, they cross paths with Bobbie jogging laps through the freshman halls. She slows and jogs in place on the balcony opposite them.

"Oh, hey, Destiny, Marcy. Got weekend plans?"

"- Oh! We're just headed out to spar. I owed you some sparring too, right? So maybe we should just make a sparring group!" 

"I'd love to. Going down to the gym?"

"We were thinking about an empty classroom, but with three of us we could go to the gym and take turns being the lookout."

"Yeah, we weren't going to risk it with just the two of us, but if you're coming that sounds a lot better all of a sudden!" 

"Alright. If there's other people around, having three people opens up more ways to do handicaps, too."

"Yeah! Cool, let's go, then." 

"Excellent." They can all hike down to the gym. Going back up these stairs while tired from sparring is going to be great for mana.

There are a couple groups of sophomores or juniors already present; one of them is testing some sort of artifice and the others are running laps.

"What training've you got, Marcy?"

"Mostly dodging things, throwing my knife at them and running the other way, but I did get some melee instruction too." Honestly she doesn't have much of a chance against Bobbie in unarmed combat--Bobbie's arms are nearly as long as Marcy is tall--but it'll be fun and mana-building to try it.

"Hm. Unless you've got some practice knives we should probably stick with unarmed, which means - Destiny and I should give you some instruction so you're safe to spar with."

"Yeah, I was figuring we'd do it unarmed. I do know how to spar safely, I love my knife but it'd be stupid to be helpless without it."

"Morty's going to make me some practice knives in shop," Destiny offers. "Unarmed is lots of fun, though!" 

"Practice knives will be great when we have them but we can mix it up. I can be lookout while you two spar first if you want."

"Alright. I'll want to test you, Marcy, before we do anything serious, though. No offense, I just want to be sure you're not going to fall badly and break your wrist, I feel like that might be bad for my relations with Boston."

She settles into a fighting stance with her left hand held behind her back and waits for Destiny to come at her.

"None taken." Marcy acknowledges the temptation to watch Destiny and Bobbie for technique education, sets it aside, and watches everywhere else for mals instead.

Destiny goes at her! 

She's definitely doomed in unarmed sparring against Bobbie, who is, like, almost twice her size. But she's fast, and good at not telegraphing her moves so she's unpredictable, and she's vicious (in a carefully controlled way where neither of them is actually going to get hurt). Kicking is mostly a bad idea in an actual fight, but if she sees a good opening, she can make use of her absurd flexibility. Losing suuuuuuuucks but here Destiny is going to give herself a pat on the back if she can hold out for thirty seconds. 

Fast and unpredictable is a good combination for this fight, because with one arm behind her back Bobbie has a lot more trouble deflecting every attack to come her way. She does, eventually, manage to catch one of Destiny's wrists and haul her off balance and that's the end of that. It doesn't quite last thirty seconds, but Destiny's on the offensive for most of it.

"Marcy, should we go another round or do you want to rotate in?"

"Sure, I'll take a turn. Did you want to see me do practice falls or something first or do you want to just assume I've sparred before and go at it?"

She holds her hands out, palms open and facing Marcy.

"I'd like to see some practice falls first, and check how well you pull your punches. And kicks if you're planning to do any of those. And check in on your preferred force levels, sparring at home we'd aim for plenty of bruises but nothing worse."

She falls over backwards, kips up, falls over forwards, rolls to her feet, and says "I can do bruises or I can just do touches, your pick."

"Let's start with just touches for now, easier to not overshoot." She taps her palm. "Show me?"

Marcy tags Bobbie's palm with a couple of punches and a side kick, hard enough to be noticeable without looking but not hard enough to hurt.

"Alright, let's go." One hand behind her back again but that's really not enough of a handicap for someone without martial arts experience. She'll just... not move her feet, there's another handicap.

Marcy's fighting style is very much not designed for fighting humans, or really for offense in general; she focuses on being hard to hit and she is. Still, she has to get well inside Bobbie's range to even attempt to get a hit in, so she's not likely to last long either.

She doesn't get a hit in. Marcy aborts her first two attempts fast enough to dart back out of reach, but the third time Bobbie slaps her off-balance long enough to a grip on her elbow and reel her in for a pin. She notices how Marcy's style is oriented, though.

"Sorry, I really have no idea how to fight like a six-legged lion with tentacles. I could be more aggressive but I was handicapping myself by pinning my feet this time."

"Yeah, sorry, I'm all dodge and no offense."

"I can have a go? Pretending I'm a six-legged lion with tentacles sounds fun!" 

"Sure thing, I'll keep watch while you two go a few rounds."

"Awesome." And Marcy and Destiny can go at each other with no handicaps! Marcy continues to be very fast and desperately in need of a growth spurt.

This is going to be SO MUCH FUN! 

Destiny is about Marcy's size, so Marcy's delayed growth spurt and the reach problem are less of an issue, but she definitely has a lot more practice with unarmed combat. Destiny is very fast, and very hard to predict - her krav maga instructor made her drill that relentlessly, she still has anxiety dreams sometimes about not being allowed to leave the dojo until she could punch or kick a target before he saw her start to move and yanked it away from her.

She plays it aggressive on the first round - though she's also calibrating for touch-only hits - just to see how much she can get away with. 

Increased aggression mostly just makes Marcy go even faster until Destiny ends up chasing her all over their section of gym, but if Destiny overreaches Marcy will definitely go in for a strike.

Destiny lands a kick, but one that wouldn't be disabling even at full strength, and by the time she sees another opening she's getting tired from all the chasing, and she's not quite as fast. 

Marcy takes a long time to get tired, or perhaps just gets more determined the tireder she gets, and she gets around Destiny's left side and tags her in the ribs.

Destiny groans. "Nice one! You are fast. I...think I need a break...and then I'll have to try some other strategies. Bobbie, you're up?" 

"Sure, though I'm thinking if we want to be efficient about everyone getting practice we should see if we can get someone else to watch our backs and go two-on-one." Bobbie was not expecting to find a matched sparring partner in here given the frankly unreasonable amount of martial arts she did as a kid. She's glad she met Destiny but with her extra experience and height and reach and strength it's still pretty one-sided.

"Marcy have you got thoughts for more handicaps? Or I could try teaching you some techniques if you'd be interested in that. You'll owe me a small favor later, though."

Marcy realizes how much running she's been doing as soon as she stops, but she would still rather fight Bobbie again than admit to needing a break in front of either of them. "Finding someone else to watch and doing two-on-one would be really cool."

"Maybe those kids'll be up for it after they finish their next lap. That'll give you two a chance to catch your breath, too, I haven't just been running all over the gym."

As the group of runners passes them by, she waves them down and has a quick chat.

"OK, one of the girls'll watch for us if we'll take her along to the showers after, and if she can go a round or two with one of you if this goes long. Sound good?"

"Fine by me."

"OK, ready?" She switches to her right hand behind her back this time.

"Ready." She glances at Destiny. They haven't trained together nearly long enough to coordinate effectively, but 'one goes right and the other goes left, try to flank' isn't exactly four-dimensional laser tag.

Bobbie is not going to give them much of a chance to do that. As soon as the first syllable of 'ready' is out of Marcy's mouth Bobbie is lunging toward her and snapping a fist forward.

Woop it is Dodge Time! Dodge and feint and dodge and try to be a distracting gnat bothering a bear so Destiny can get an opening.

Destiny has a pretty good sense of both Bobbie and Marcy's styles, by now, and she can try to anticipate Marcy's distraction feints and dodges and pick a moment when Bobbie is looking the other way to go for one of her absurd-flexibility kicks to the head. (Very carefully calibrated to deliver only a tap, of course.) 

Bobbie only has one hand to fight with and it's busy so she winds up blocking Destiny's kick with her own, shin-to-shin. This knocks her off-balance but she turns the fall into a roll and jabs Marcy in the sternum (only a little hard) when the smaller girl goes for the apparent vulnerability.

"Your leg OK?" she asks, still in a crouch.

Kicking above one's own head height is very cool. Marcy can theoretically do it but she telegraphs it like mad every time so today she had better not. (Most mals can't read human body language.)

It's definitely smarting! Still, she deserved that, and also it was EPIC. 

"Yeah, I'm fine - you?" 

"Smarts a bit but nothing serious. That was a good kick, I almost didn't catch it. You good, Marcy?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. You guys are really good."

"Thanks. I've spent more time practicing than is entirely reasonable for most students. I could go another round?"

"I'm game if you two are." Just because she didn't focus on martial arts doesn't mean she didn't do tons of cardio.

She is game! She will fight less aggressively this time around and keep an eye out for Destiny's insane high kicks, mostly relying on maneuver to avoid being outflanked.

Marcy will try harder to get some of her own attacks in instead of just being a distraction; it's likely to get her hit but she needs the practice.

She lands half a dozen hits on Marcy for every one Marcy gets on her, and manages a slightly in-her-favor ratio on Destiny at the same time, but all of them are light enough there's no need to pause and check if anyone's hurt. Eventually Bobbie catches Marcy's arm and physically interposes her to block a flurry of attacks from Destiny, and that seems to mark a good stopping point.

"Thanks for the match. We should make this a regular thing, at least until the gym gets too dangerous."

"We should, it was fantastic exercise. And educational, too. So, how about that trip to the showers?"

"Let's go, then." A shower run after sparring is good for more than just repaying their mal-watcher.

"So, I never actually got around to US Geography, is Oakland near Boston?"

“Not especially! They’re on opposite coasts. The US is big.”

Oh, so Oakland is in California or something, good to know.

"The enclave Oakland is really near is Sacramento, they're practically our neighbors," Destiny offers cheerfully. "S'why we used to train together sometimes as kids." 

"Oh, neat. Sacramento's cool."

"I think Raleigh might be too much of a gentleman to survive here, but Sacramento can get away with that if anyone can. ...Apparently they had some sort of drama last year though?" 

"From what I heard they didn't, like, cause the drama, they were just adjacent to it." Any more than that would be Not Hers To Tell.

"Raleigh seems really stressed out about it? He's, like, avoiding ever sitting at the table with his own enclave, that seems kind of bad to me." 

"Sacramento is not one of the enclaves I had heard was involved, but Winston was not the most forthcoming with details."

"Huh. What did you hear?" 

"Some indie poached an enclaver in his year, the enclave assumed another enclave'd put him up to it, they started fighting about it. The indie and someone from the poached enclave both went maleficer, tried to outdo each other's body counts, it was a giant mess and when the smoke cleared some desperate idiot from Oxford had gone and murdered his own enclave because the other disaster had gone and messed up his graduation plans. He told me the names of the first two enclaves but I'd never heard of either and have forgotten them now."

"Murdered his own enclave?" If that was in the first telling she heard it was overshadowed by the Vanya mess but now she's actually processing it and what the fuck.

"How the heck would that possibly help with his graduation plans????"

"I don't fucking know, I'm not a retrospective necro-mindreader. Probably he was already a little cracked? Maybe he wanted the whole mana store for himself. Everyone involved is dead now, of course, including everyone he was close to."

Well, it sounds like he deserved it even if nobody else involved did. Not that what anyone deserves matters when they're dead and nobody can give it to them.

"I really hope this year is normal," she says, not sounding especially hopeful.

"It won't be." sigh

"- Do you have, um, intel on that or something?" Destiny says, suspiciously. "...I'll trade favors for information."

"Double or nothing on that offer if it's anything I don't already know."

"Well, Chicago got wiped the day of induction and we've got a half-dozen mundies running about, I'm sure you both know that already. There's also - we've got a couple kids in the incoming class who're already maleficers, I don't know if you've heard that yet but one of them's not even hiding it."

"...God. I'm assuming you don't mean the Pisa lot?" 

"Yeah, on top of Pisa."

"Well, that's not doomy at all! What....do you mean, exactly, by 'not even trying to hide it'?" 

"Is one of them creepy African boy? He hasn't admitted to anything where I was listening but he's creepy."

"Well, not hiding that he's pulled malia before, from mammals, and has gotten used to it so it doesn't hurt anymore. Loudly announced it on a supply run, kept asking what was wrong with it. Creepy African boy, yeah."

"Oh, I maybe know who you're talking about! Is that the same kid who was inexplicably wandering around in the cafeteria with a box of mal grubs?" 

"That's two separate kinds of weird! If you could pull malia from grubs nobody'd spend weight on mice."

"...Probably. I didn't see him doing that but he said his affinity was 'mals' in case there weren't enough red flags."

"Can an affinity be a red flag like that? My aunt has an affinity for poison and she's fine, she just doesn't get much use out of it nowadays."

"It's not like it's his fault or anything but it sure is another thing giving him incentives towards doing more fucked-up things."

"Yeah." Destiny groans. "Great. Who's the other maleficer - that South Asian-looking girl?" 

"Yeah. I've got nothing to go on but the aura, there, but it's a pretty strong one for the first day of school, you know?"

"Yeah, no kidding! ...With creepy African kid, I wasn't sure how much it was just that or the part where he literally smelled like garbage and kept doing bizarre creepy things constantly? But if he literally announced it to everyone in earshot, then - wow, that's such a thing to do." 

"It can't possibly be that it was normal where he came from, right? If there was a part of Africa that was like Pisa my parents would have known that."

"Pisa's the only enclave I know of that tolerates maleficing, and I expect we'd know if there was an African enclave with a similar rep. I don't know where he's actually from besides 'Africa', but someone must've sponsored him. Maybe he kept quiet about it outside, but it's bizzare that he'd keep it secret out there and not in here."

"He didn't look like an enclaver? No power sharer, and all his stuff looked like he literally pulled it out of a dumpster somewhere." 

"Yeah, but Africa doesn't test. Some enclave decided to give him one of their indie spots."

"Maybe he bought it with literally all the money he could get and that's why he had awful gear."

Destiny isn't going to bother with further speculation when she has just about no idea how anything works in Africa. 

"However it happened, our class is not going to be a normal one. Who wants first shower and who wants to keep an eye out?"

"I can keep a lookout." Destiny has the very fortunate trait of not sweating that much even when she's done an utterly unreasonable workout. 

Marcy offers to keep watch for the girl who was keeping watch for them while they did the two-on-one rounds, and then they can swap. She's very glad the enclave gym was set up with some of the showers visible from the locker room, so she's used to seeing people washing themselves and washing herself with other people nearby and it isn't weird.

Then Bobbie will shower first and then swap with Destiny. Nothing attacks them.

Once they're all clean and dressed again: "So I owe you a favor for the gossip; got anything in mind?" She'll probably want to sit on it but it's worth a shot, and bringing it up proactively makes it clear she's good for it.

"Nothing in mind yet, but I appreciate the sentiment. Try not to die before I can call it in."

Chuckle. "You know it."