Scene #8697: Nonon Spars With A Giant

Owner	Pose
Redshift Operators	Been a minute since Red Dwarf did anything vaguely resembling construction. But down in one of the cleared-out cargo spaces, where once there were civilian materials or even civilian residences, he's worked with Neutron and with Nonon's clearing to set up a sort of... tactical field. Thin metal girders and corrugated sheets make for simple barriers, platforms, and other simulations of environmental complexity that one might use if they were training. Or, in this case, sparring. Anyone can tell he's a bit out of practice with the welding. But his astronaut friend has rigged up some simple cameras and monitors to watch things, for those interested. Should be a decent enough show. White Dwarf stands by, to act as simple medical aid. She's standing outside the boundaries that have been marked at the edge of the zone Nonon cleared out. Simple spray-painted lines, where "CAUTION" has been industrially stenciled in place. The only way Red Giant agrees to sparring is with a ring-out condition rather than a knock-down condition, for... whatever reason. What did he do to help contribute to this event? He brought a meal! Some delicious, long-lasting seafood dishes he's trying to learn from the locals. He doesn't get much seafood where he's from, so it's prepared without practice but with lots of love! Have a bite, then join him in the ring. He's waiting, limbering and stretching on a warmup routine.
Angela	Nonon is ultimately someone who does love a good fight. She doesn't think fighting makes her a better person or more understanding of others or anything, she just likes the rush of it, the adrenaline. She doesn't meet too many people bigger than her either without major cybernetic augmentation well beyond what Nonon has. She also thinks like a pirate. A bit of a show to improve morale before a battle to end all battles is, in her mind, a great idea. It's coming. She wants to help. She doesn't want to see a crew like this fall to a Calamity like has fallen many Whalers back where she's from. Eating before the match? She thinks it's a great idea. She happily enjoys a meal. The Red Giant seems like a cool guy though that's not as much a surprise to Nonon as it might be to others. Big folk, in her experience, tend to learn how to be gentle. Maybe they have to. When she enters the ring she says, "Hey man, appreciate your crew helping out"! She grins widely, joyfully. She always seems so happy. Maybe that's what she learned. "You and Shajo should exchange some cooking tips sometime, you've got a real talent for it." She performs some stretches of her own, largely focusing on her lower body (she habitually works on her upper body) and asks, "So Ringout right? Any other rules you've got, buddy?" Despite the casual use of the word 'buddy' it isn't a sarcastic use of the word buddy.
Marigold	There's a small crowd of spectators, all sitting at a very, very respectable distance. The most notable are a familiar pair leaning against a cargo pallet, and each other in sickeningly lovey fashion. Even in their downtime, Brune and Sonia are still in harpoonist gear- that's just how it is, this close to the nest. "So who's your money on?" Brune says, while crunching fried shrimp. "Honestly! Is that all you think about? I'm here for the spectacle." "Yeah, but you've got a favorite, right?" "Why would I?" "It's just no fun if you're not rooting for somebody." "Oh, is that how men think?" "Damn it, don't make this weird, Sonia." "Welllll... you know me. If I have to pick, it's the big guy. Isn't he charming?" "Hell. No way. You haven't seen the look in that lady's eyes." "You haven't seen the look in his! He's wearing a helmet!!"
Redshift Operators	The giant doesn't stop his warmups when Nonon joins him in the ring. Somehow he manages to loom while stretching. It would be a lot of work for anyone else, but it's accidental for this big guy. As for gentleness, well, true. He knows to be careful. Cautious. But somehow, for most, he still exudes that air of menace. A fierce potential for violence. He lets out a short, firm "hmh" of assent. "For a show like this, the right display is important." He understands she wants to put on a bit of a performance! "I can't have what happens to you next remain hidden." After all, he should make sure his medic can watch and help look at it after! As for other rules? "Vital areas will be... spared." He wouldn't be able to muster the will to do it! And his are armored enough that strikes are pretty risky. "And tap-outs respected. Nothing else." He just can't remember all that many more! Plus he doesn't want to constrain Nonon's tactics. He finishes up his limbering and stretching. Somehow, he seems even taller when all he does is stand straight up, approaching the middle. "Two of you ready?" Looks like Red Dwarf is acting to ref this one, approaching. The giant wordlessly nods, taking a ready stance and offering a gauntlet out. Tap it, and Red Dwarf will start the fight!
Angela	Gentle, as it turns out, doesn't mean non-violent. ''I can't have what happens to you next remain hidden'' Nonon whistles lightly. Whether he means it in that way or not, that's a confident thing to say to Nonon! She eventually finishes up her own prep, that everpresent smile of someone who has learnd to smile past horror and enjoy the little things (and perhaps even the big things) is tough to shake in her in particular. Her ego, and her EGO, won't allow it. "Sounds good to me." She didn't bring the Harpoon. While her fists aren't exactly less dangerous than a harpoon, there is the principle of the thing. She takes position, starting in a boxer-like stance as she looks through her arms towards the Red Giant. Shajo didn't come to watch, she knows. He said 'fucking Wings I've got real work to do' and waved off watching but there's some locals who are already showing up to watch--and that encourages her to give it her best fight. She slides a foot forward, the dust left behind by the moved crates being pushed away by her foot as she twists her body-- --a woosh of wind swooshes past before the punch goes out as Nonon snaps her body back into neutral as she throws a singular punch towards Red Giant's upper body, hoping to seize the initiative by giving a nice good clock right up the start--and no doubt give the Red Giant an idea of what'll be coming at him throughout the match! "Who gave you the color 'Red'?" She asks. "You pick it out for yourselves?"
Redshift Operators	"Alright... FIGHT!" The leader makes a firm, practiced gesture, a signal in Egregorist operative hand-signal-language to begin combat! The giant readies himself! (In law-enforcement tactical-hand-gesture-ese dialect, Red Dwarf's motion instead means something along the lines of "put two flashbangs in your mouth and stick your head in an atmospherics scrubber".) The first strike comes hard and fast, a shot straight to the body that provokes a cracking sound of armor shifting on the giant's body. He's pushed back, but his tremendous mass and firm stance mean it doesn't get him too badly. Optics narrow. "Stars." He speaks in a tone of gravel that gives away no sense of impact. His tone is almost... distracted. It takes a lot of effort to remember something so long ago. It must have been at least five subjective years! "Red has a meaning for them. Redshifting. Being untouchable. Immune to reach and harm. Redshifting is protection and distance. And a speed of impact." Unlike Nonon, Red Giant doesn't strike with surprise. His arm pulls back, and the armor engages in a screech of straining motors and muscles, metal on metal, nails on chalkboard. It's like an agonizing gun loading and firing. He grips Nonon's assaulting wrist, if he can get a solid grapple. "Returning an upper body strike." His gravel tone gives those words the menace of a predicted meteor impact, but remove any surprise. For him, it's sparring, it's practice. He can't think of it competitively. Even still, those fists will hit like meteors, wherever they connect. Where Nonon goes for heavy strikes straight to the body, Red Giant is trying to grapple the arms in one giant hand and return shots to the body, taking advantage of his endurance and size to try to maneuver Nonon around, get her stumbling, and shove her closer to the ring-out zone, between field obstacles.
Angela	Nonon says, "Stars of the City. That's what our world calls some of the biggest and toughest threats to the City." Is she saying that the Redshift Operators are a threat to their city?! It might be weirder if they weren't--but Nonon isn't particularly aligned with the City anyway--she was a pirate after all. "Since we live on the dirt, we can't help but look up to them... And try to bring 'em crashing to earth." Speaking of a shooting star hitting the earth, the Red Giant is able to seize one of the arms--Nonon is faster than she looks--and get her good in the gut as she is pushed back towards the ringout. And if it wasn't Nonon, if it was any other Agent--they'd probably have been Ringed Out already. But Nonon is insane. She digs her foot into the metal flooring to pin herself to the floor, crouching down before throwing a jab up for the Red Giant's chin. It's a spar, of course, a show--but Nonon might be a bit of a Diva. She wants to put on a good one. If the Red Giant gives her an opportunity, she'll even lift up her foot for a gut strike with her free foot. If Nonon can open up some space for herself, she can try to push back sooner rather than later. The longer she endures, the greater the show. It doesn't matter if she wins or not.
Redshift Operators	A heavy strike on a '97 Steeljaw EVA Hardsuit Helmet Module turns something that would be dazing into something that's just briefly stunning. The man himself hardly flinches as his slasher-movie endurance kicks in, even while the strike itself kicks up more dust in this old cargo floor. It may not mitigate the damage much, but it gives him the presence of mind to bring an elbow down and intercept the kick, disengaging from his grappling tacticsm and turning her gut-shot into a kick-off, separating the two. He keeps a distance for a moment. He takes deep breaths, breaths that provoke staticky, speaker-peaking warped sounds from his helmet. And he speaks. "In the frontier, we never know soil." He should know, he tries to care for a lot of plants! He adjusts his shoulders and cracks his neck, each crack echoing through the arena. "A pound of dirt has costs. I couldn't touch the surface of the Earth if I tried." He gestures around to the crowd. "Almost like these people." He takes a ready stance. Yet again, he can't take an offensive action with the intent to win, only to spar. Yet when he speaks, the gravel tones would make any lesser observer feel surges of fear. "But I'll still approach you. I'll hold, strike, and throw." Describing his tactics before he acts on them adds an intimidation factor to things before he kicks off a rocket-powered rush. His jetpack surges him towards Nonon at high speed, attempting to shoulder-check her into one of the field obstacles, grab her in the chaos, then strike her firmly in the arms and shoulders before attempting to throw her out of the ring after all the accumulated stunning and dazing. He'll be repeating this tactic, to wear her down -- or to let her practice, depending on how you see it.
Angela	Nonon really dug her foot into the floor there but Nonon actually doesn't know what a jetpack is. So it's a bit of a surprise when one sends a Giant speeding at her at high velocity. It's like a mountain on jetskis, something that one can't help but laugh at. She has time crouch down, planting her feet. In truth, most fights are over quickly. So quickly, that they are usually over depending on who gets the first solid hit in. Nonon is insane. The intimidation inherent in the Red Giant excites her. She bites her lip, staring into that helmet. ''Almost like these people'' "Maybe there's still earth out there." Nonon says. "A wonderful neverland. No paradise. Lasts forever." Her body feels hot. Her bones are aching. If there wasn't a ring, she could risk ducking and weaving around blows but even a near miss could push her back past the line. "But I remember the freedoms of the sea. The dangers. But even the Great Lake is bound by oceanic laws. Even without bars, the frontier can become a prison as much as any Nest." The jetpack slams into her hard. Her foot is ripped free from the little hole she dug into it to brace herself and she lets out a wild roar, pressing against the Giant, digging in her heels, digging in her heels, grinning like she's facing down nothing less than one of the Five Calamities. It won't make her happy to let it end here will it? No. Nonon clenches her gauntlet, having pulled her hand free with that last brutal impact. "My turn. EGO Repeated Strikes. Upper Body, Chin, Gut. That order." Don't Overclock, this is a friendly session. Golden energy crackles around as she bursts forward--she used something like this against Petra before, a golden eruption flashing around her fist as she follows the exact order she gave, following the Red Giant's own tendency to describe his next moves before he gives them. The series of blows, despite coming from just one arm, have a flow to them like tides trying to keep you from coming up for air, pulling you up just to drag you down under the waves. Open up space. Push back. The idea of trying to twist around the Giant doesn't occur to her. Nonon can be clever, but she doesn't rely on it here. It's not what brings her joy in an exhibition like this.
Redshift Operators	The tide yet rises. A golden tide, in this case, as opposed to a more troubling kind. It shoves him back, back, further back as he tries to plant his feet and just winds up skidding. The overwhelming impact of the ego, strike after strike, shoves him to the edge. He stops at it, digging in for a moment as the flurry persists. For a moment, he looms over Nonon, overwhelming her vision, one good eye gleaming with intent. Dust kicks up around them both. The floor of the cargo bay, the hull itself, rings with the impact, rattling this whole space and a good dozen bulkheads neighboring it. "Sometimes a prison is not a law or a room. Sometimes a prison is loving your family, and seeing them starve." Then he slips back, slammed and shoved by one of those strikes into the marked RING OUT zone! The referee of sorts instandly calls it! That looks like the end of the spar! "Ring out! Nonon takes it!" He declares, with another sweeping egregorist hand gesture that indicates termination of combat! (Like the other gesture, this one has a meaning in law-enforcement and military dialect. This one means, approximately, "I'm going to hire the robots from Bionicle to shoot plastic disks at your dog.") The giant remains there, nodding. "Good turn." He starts clambering up onto his feet, looking a little battered. The armor wails. The breathing is heavy, staticky. But he offers a hand to her -- and anyone below a certain amount of bravery is going to instantly believe it to be something that would crush her neck, but it's to shake on a good sparring session.
Angela	Even on a barge this large, Nonon can feel the mist in her eyes, the dust of a deck in need of scrubbing and yet--even in such a need--the ever present moistness under the feet, a constant reminder of the precarious freedom--and danger--of the frontiers. Space, Nonon wonders, what does it feel like to battle amongst the sea of stars. She can only imagine. The City only cares to bring down the heavens and bring them down to their level. She remembers, every day, what it is like to be on a sea like this, a boat like this, amongst a crew of comrades--the bond tighter because you never know if a watery grave awaits the following day. ''Sometimes a prison is not a law or a room. Sometimes a prison is loving your family, and seeing them starve'' "I'd rather everyone eat their fill, plates not quite cleaned up." Nonon agrees in her own way. "Shajo and the girls are the family I've left." And the stronger she is, the more likely they'll see freedom some day. There's only so much she can do for her personality. Despite winning the match, just barely, Nonon's condition isn't really better than Red Giant's. She's struggling to breath and bends over as if it'll make her heart slam against the walls of her ribcage more gently. The Giant even recovers first (Nonon is insane) and Nonon straightens up. Nonon has many character flaws, she's a brute who solves her problems with violence and is kind of a mad idiot. She stands up with some visible pops occuring from somewhere within her as she extends a hand to him and to shake that big ol' hand. "If I didn't know how to stand on a ship, I'd definitely have been blown away in one hit." Nonon says, smiling. "Was a bit selfish of me to ask for this but I appreciate it. If you ever need anything from Disciplinary, feel free to hit us up. And I hope your Wish goes well." She hasn't forgotten.
Redshift Operators	"I'd rather everyone eat their fill, plates not quite cleaned up." The giant nods. "You understand. I'd rather that too." His grip firms up for a moment. Then lets go. He doesn't understand much of the further discussion, though. He's really tired! And that always messes with his focus. "Yeah, yeah. Sea legs are tough legs. Next one, let's see you do it in zero gravity." Mutters the referee of sorts. "WD, give him the checkup! God, that last bit rattled my bones. As for the wish, I've got that one figured and settled, planted exactly where and how it should be." Maybe that gunman is smirking under his helmet, he certainly has the posture for it. "And I'll keep that in mind, because the big guy sure won't. I handle the memory stuff for him. Let you know if he's ever in a tight spot." The giant looms. He shakes his head. "Not selfish. Dangerous. But I know why you wanted to do it." Because of the wonderful urge of friendship!! And to boost morale!! "So we'll keep that going." Which means the giant is gonna be heading back to the kitchen after the medic's done with the checkup. Gonna keep a little gathering here well-fed and encouraged, with spirits properly lifted!
Angela	Nonon says, "Ha! Sure! Only fair I let you have the homefield advantage next time! And ... Gotta admit... Sometimes the stars are the only company we get out there. Would be nice to get a closer look." Nonon rolls her shoulders back. There's another series of pops and a grunt that sounds like she got hit in the gut. Maybe it's a bit touristy for her to say something like that though. She's too old to move homes, isn't she? She gives Red Dwarf a nod. She is already kind of patterning him to Shajo so that all makes sense to her. ''Not selfish. Dangerous. But I know why you wanted to do it. So we'll keep that going.'' Nonon's eyes widen faintly. Then she smiles. "Thanks man. Once Shajo gets back I'll join you." Hopefully there aren't any terrible surprises on the horizon. That'd be just terrible and it'd be nice to keep the good vibes going.