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Some time after talking with Steph, Zuko still has no idea how to go about approaching the many people who he should proably talk to.

Instead, he's focusing on something that puts it all off very nicely, and practicing firebending forms out in the training field. They really do make much more sense after visiting the Masters - without having to spend to much effort on brute force and anger to produce the flame, everything flows more, and that in turn is levelling out his thoughts.

So. Another version of him had children. And they're here. They also seem to think he's their father- at least, the version that they knew. He should talk to Mel first, then. He's not sure what she thinks, but he should ask, in any case. And Iroh should know.

Later. He finishes off a form, and moves onto the next.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

HE SO TOTALLY IS.

"Then if you wanted any extra teaching, I can offer it," he says. "It makes sense to have as many people as prepared as possible."

"I'd totally be up for that," she says, hiding her glee very poorly. "If you're all right with teaching a beginner."

A really, really beginner-y one. With lots of half-cobbled-together ideas about fighting to unlearn.

On the plus side, she's stubborn as hell and determined to quit sucking so much.

"I'm fine with it," says Zuko. "If you're all right with someone who won't go easy on you."

Really, really won't.

"I can't teach you to bend, but the rest is enough without it. And..." he eyes her calculatingly. "Can you shape that stuff into swords? If so, you could learn Dao technique, too."

And he could have a sword sparring partner! Everybody wins!

By way of answer, she holds up a hand and closes her fingers around thin air that is the hilt of a glowing white Excalibur by the time the motion finishes.

"Like I said, useful stuff." She drops the sword, which shatters into mist. "Doesn't last when I'm not touching it, though-- see?"

So if you disarm her, you really disarm her.

Broad grin.

"And please don't go easy on me. I'm trying to learn. Won't be much use if I don't know when I fuck up."

Right.

"Wait there," he says, a gleam in his eye, and heads over to where he left the twin Dao swords hanging in their sheath over a fencepost.

Now she can have a model!

"Awesome," she declares on seeing the swords, grinning. "So-- lemme see-- like this?"

And her hands sprout duplicates of the weapons. Not perfect by any means, but pretty damn close. A further inspection allows for some adjustment.

It is, she thinks, a little like learning to extrude a lockpick from her finger but way cooler.

Zuko scrutinises the reproductions carefully.

"How strong are they?" he asks, holding up one of his for her to try against. Either version snapping wouldn't be helpful.

"Depends how much I'm thinking about them," she admits. "Let's see--"

Steve gave her a whole lecture-- several whole lectures, in fact-- on variable tensile strength as it relates to how she can please avoid punching holes in expensive equipment with her tentacles. Not much of it stuck, but...

The sound of white sword hitting grey, edge to edge, is a slightly higher, clearer version of what you might hear if Val's sword were metal; neither weapon comes away marked. She looks proud of the accomplishment. "There," she says, satisfied. "Got it."

Zuko nods, satisfied.

"Let's start with some basic moves, then, and you can put them into practise once you've got 'em. Hold one out like this," he demonstrates, "It'll start off as your defense, and raise the other like this. The trick it to think of them as one weapon once you start to move."

"Huh."

Her usual style is both an advantage and a disadvantage here. Advantage: she's used to controlling ten limbs at a time, so synchronizing two swords isn't difficult. Disadvantage: she has to keep them steady density-wise, and she can't just follow instinct pour on more tentacles when the going gets tough. Also, she's not used to thinking this much about her actual hands.

So she copies his stance carefully, but not quite as steadily nor as perfectly as she'd like.

He watches her critically. "It will get easier once your muscles are used to moving this way," he says.

"Now, flow through this way, coming down as attack, raising as defence."

He demonstrates, slowly at first, then speeding up in a cycle, so she can see how it's supposed to go.

She frowns in concentration and gives it a shot.

Not bad. Not good, really, but it would seem Val is at least a decent mimic.

That'll do, for now, until muscle memory kicks in.

"All right. Widen your stance a little more? Stick to the same movement for the upper blade for now, but try some different ones for the defense. If an attack comes from lower down, like this, straight on, combine a side-swipe with stepping away. One movement, like so."

She obeys, obeys, nearly gets the hang of it, then overbalances at the last second and falls backwards.

...

Yeah she's just going to blink up at him, smile sheepishly, and then stand back up again. Possibly with the help of a tentacle.

Fighting with only four limbs is hard. Why did no-one ever tell her this?

He nods once when she gets back up.

"Don't let your guard down, even if you fall. If it's fast, you can even use it, kick at your opponent's legs to keep them off guard so you can get up again. Form is important, but survival is more so."

Then he raises his swords, facing her. "Try an attack."

Val thinks this over, then returns his nod.

What he says makes sense.

And she does her best to really attack, figuring he's good enough that she can't possibly hurt him.

(She's right. Val Bell is neither strong nor fast, when it comes to fights that don't involve the infamous Hentai Approach; after all, she's never needed to be.)

Well, at least Zuko doesn't punt her out of the field, as he's been known to do to the occasional n00b?

He parries, making sure to use the technique he'd just taught her, and follows through with a cut to her back as he steps so she goes past him, making sure to turn so it's the flat that will hit if she doesn't dodge, not the blade.

Fine as he may be with training people into a bruised puddle, he's not going to slice people up.

She oofs, falls, rolls away gracelessly, and bounces back to her feet with the help of a mass of tentacles.

Since she's facing almost directly away from him, there's no good leverage for her to attack with either sword. But since she's facing almost directly away from him, there is good leverage for an elbow to the kidney, aimed with the help of the fuzzy omnidirectional sight afforded by her glowing white pseudopodia.

Ow, and spin away.

Zuko's midsection is pretty much a solid wall of muscle, so although it hurts, it doesn't wind him, and he narrows his eyes in concentration, turning back to face her, swords ready.

If we're going off form? Let's do it properly.

"Show me how you'd usually fight if armed with those," he says, nodding at the swords. Not that he expects her to stick entirely to the swords, but it's a good enough place to start.

"You got it," she says, dragging her hair out of her eyes with a sweeping tendril.

And... two things happen.

One: the seething tangle of soft tentacles contracts into a hard, smooth second skin that glows beneath her clothing, complete with a faceless mask. It's not nearly at the usual strength she gives her armour, because she needs some concentration to keep the swords going, and she trusts Zuko not to suddenly pull a gun and shoot her in the face. But it lets her get away with things she ought not to be able to get away with.

Two: she tries that attack again, but this time it's accompanied by thin tentacles flicking out from her forearms and batting at his face and hands: half distraction, half an attempt to disarm that she doesn't think will succeed. There's barely any thought in them, and when they meet the edge of someone's blade they give way with all the resistance of cobwebs, but there are lots and the glow is making it hard to see.

Zuko moves into the parrying form almost automatically, narrowing his eyes against the glow, and drawing in a slow, deliberate breath as he kicks backwards against the back of her knee.

Then he turns, exhaling hard, and flames envelop the Dao blades.

She goes down. Again. Val just plain isn't any good at keeping her feet.

But she doesn't have to be, because four tentacles stop her fall and she flips back up, kicking hard at his shin and attacking with both swords: right low, left high.

The kicked shin goes off the floor, but Zuko shifts his weight back onto the other foot, and spins to keep his balance, bringing up his swords with force behind them, bearing forwards until his foot goes down again for balance.

He's fairly trusting, here, that they'll stay solid.

One of his swords is blocked by one of hers, the other one by an armored elbow with a muted clang that elbows just do not ordinarily make.

All this 'keeping your balance' business is leaving her dizzy, but that's okay! She still hasn't exhausted her repertoire of ways to cheat shamelessly.

Which is why, all of a sudden, her back sprouts what can only be described as a titan's bedsheets and she shoots upward with a remarkably loud, fluttering flap of new-made wings. Getting good vertical acceleration is always hell, but she gets over Zuko's head at least, and sort of flails downwards at him with swords which miraculously she still remembers about.

WTF?

Oh, well.

If she can cheat, so can he. That's why Val suddenly gets a burst of flame obscuring... mostly everything, while Zuko rolls out of the way.