Serena stretched out with a yawn as she stood to one side of a quiet hallway. As was often the way of things she had to get an early morning time slot for the danger room. This was outside of when she might come into the room otherwise with Sam or another adult to do some training, she was here to actually help out a younger mutant. She took a slow gulp of her coffee as she continued the process of waking up while she waited for the student to arrive.

She smiled leaning against the wall as she remembered her first early morning training session with Sam, where he's accidentally made her bleed and then she'd accidentally used her mutation and ended the session with passing out and being taken to the doctor. She was going to do her best to avoid that with Abby.

She quickly checked her phone as she normally would when she was bored and waiting for something to happen. It wasn't necessarily that Abby was late either, she'd just set off very early in worries of traffic coming to the mansion. She could have used the gym for this, but the danger room offered some distinct advantages that a normal wood and training mat environment simply did not .

It had been a little surprising getting a request for Abby to help her with some basic self defense, given that there were a fair few people that could do that already at the mansion, but Serena was glad that the younger mutant seemed to be able to trust her enough to ask. She didn't know if she could match up to Sam (on a good day) but she'd certainly do her best.

Abby knew she should have gotten up earlier. She had wanted to get up, dressed, eat a little, and let her stomach settle some before going to meet Serena. She had really wanted to avoid people in the kitchen and dining room. Unfortunately she wasn't so lucky. One of her classmates had been in the kitchen too and had started a conversation with her. She still wasn't good with talking to people so it took a while before she could leave. Now she was racing down the hallways with an apple hanging from her mouth. One of the few reasons she was happy she knew how to keep her jaw locked, keeping food in place.

Her tennis shoes and socks were hanging from one hand, since she was faster without them. She knew she'd need them for this though. She'd deal with the shoes for this. This being learning how to defend herself. She also had a towel thrown over her shoulder, just to be safe. It hadn't seemed like something she needed when she was younger, defense that is. But now... After meeting Panu and Astrid... After the fallout from the Rally, where she met Kirsi... She knew she needed to know at least enough to be able to get away encase she got caught.

Asking Serena seemed like a good idea. She knew Cafas trained, but seeing how he looked after put her off asking him. She knew few other adults to ask. She had known Serena for a while. A few years, if only barely. She was an adult, and she knew about her meeting Astrid and the Rally. Abby figured it wouldn't be hard to ask for help in this. Besides, Serena had only been nice to her.

There! Abby spotted Serena and turned to get to her. She slowed down as she approached, then bit off the bite of apple her teeth had started. "Sorry!" she flushed after swallowing. "I got a little sidetracked this morning."

The blonde stretched out her arms over her head and smiled at Abby as she arrived shaking her head gently. "It's no problem at all, you're not really late. This isn't a class." She responded softly. Serena couldn't imagine teaching actual classes, that would be so weird. She didn't think she was really the teaching type. Sure, she liked helping people but she didn't really know how she felt about others being dependent on her.

She finished her coffee and threw the cup in a nearby bin before turning back to Abby and glancing at the girl. Serena herself was glad in some workout shorts, a black tank top made for exercise and her hair was tied up into a neat pony tail. She wasn't the type to wear much make-up normally anyway, but she had forgone it for obvious reasons when she did training. She didn't know how much she herself would be getting exercised.

With a smile at the younger girl she gestured towards the danger room. "Anyway, good morning Abby. Have you ever been in the danger room?" She asked as she moved towards the door and scanned her ID to let the two of them in. The mansion was fairly huge and incredible overall, and one of the bigger contributions to that fact was the danger room. She was still amazed by it to this day.

Abby's Workout Clothes

Abby smiled at Serena's logic. This wasn't a class. It was more like... one-on-one tutoring? That would work. Abby munched on her apple as quickly as she could, though not too fast otherwise she'd upset her stomach.

>>"Anyway, good morning Abby. Have you ever been in the danger room?"

The little blonde shook her head as she swallowed a bite. "No, this'll be my first time." She was a little nervous, but it wouldn't be anything like what Cafas did.  He was an X-man and she was just a student.  Serena, as far as she could remember, wasn't part of the team.  And since Abby you too young to go to the Danger Room on her own, Serena wouldn't do something really hard.  Not on her time doing this kind of stuff.

The young girl caused another smile. Serena was definitely not going to put the danger room on anywhere near the setting that Sam or Cafas trained at, she wouldn't even go that recklessly high herself let along bringing a young girl into it. "Well then, this might be a little startling for you at first. But basically the danger room is a big room that generates objects and scenarios and so is used by the school, primarily for power training." She didn't mention that it was the X-men's training space too.

She led the way into the large, mostly metal room as the lights came on and smiled, moving her arms out and sticking her bag in a locker. "This is the danger room, I'll get the scenario set up soon, but first I need to ask what kind of self defense you know already." She asked, unsure of how far along Abby was in terms of ability to protect herself, though she suspected it wasn't terribly far.

She began by demonstrating some basic stretches that she liked to do to limber up. "As I'm sure you've heard in Gym, stretching is very important. You don't want your limbs to cramp up before practicing, though obviously if you were ever in a situation where you had to protect yourself you wouldn't really have time for this."

Abby looked around in excitement. It wasn't just getting to learn how to protect herself. She was excited about seeing inside a room other students only talked about in whispers. Abby would get to see it before most of the other kids her age. At least as far as she knew.

>>"This is the danger room, I'll get the scenario set up soon, but first I need to ask what kind of self defense you know already."

She thought about it before answering. She knew how to fight like a shark would: bite, tear, turn back around, repeat. My fighting on land was another thing entirely. Her mutation only worked in water after all. "I don't know any real stuff," she admitted. "If I get in trouble, I usually just run away. Because of my tail, my legs are really strong." Serena had seen her tail before, said it was pretty even. Abby scrunched up her face as she tried to think of anything else that would help with fighting. Nothing came to mind.

>>"As I'm sure you've heard in Gym, stretching is very important. You don't want your limbs to cramp up before practicing, though obviously if you were ever in a situation where you had to protect yourself you wouldn't really have time for this."

Stretching was easy. She did that before and after swimming to help keep her muscles from tensing up too much. The few times she had forgotten stood out as very painful experiences. Though if she was in too long they hurt no matter what. She thought it might be because of her tail itself, but she didn't have anyway to test that. "If I can't before, should I make sure to after, when I'm safe?" she asked.

Serena smiled at the girl as she seemed to be taking in what the blonde was telling her pretty well. The girl was a little too young to do anything very advanced, and as Serena had expected Abby didn't really know any formal ways of fighting. That was fine, Serena had a good idea of where she could start with the training then, she was unsure of whether or not she should actually push the girl in the direction of Sam or not, still concerned about his state as she was.

She finished stretching and shrugged at the other girl. "In an ideal situation, yes. But in the real world if you're in a situation where you need to fight and such, you usually have more pressing concerns." She was speaking from experience. "Of course the best thing to do is avoiding fights all together. Picking fights to begin with is a very stupid thing to do, especially if it's somebody bigger or stronger than you." This was Serena's not so subtle way of saying that she was going to help Abby out with protecting herself, not picking fights.

Serena got into a ready position and called out the name of the program she had programmed earlier on. There were a few metallic, but padded dummy's spawned, that at a set time would swing in a certain position and then return to where they started. She stood over away from them and smiled at Abby. "First off, if you were going to be in a fight, how would you stand?" She asked the girl.

Abby listened carefully to Serena's answer. She was happy her usual method of dealing with fights worked with what the older blonde was telling her. It made her feel better. Though there was that time she met Kirsi. "What about if there's someone else involved? Like another person my age? Shouldn't I help?" Though she did want to know Serena's answer, Abby probably would help out even if she said it wasn't a good idea.

>>"First off, if you were going to be in a fight, how would you stand?"

"Um..." Abby shifted her feet around, so they were flat on the ground, spread out at about her shoulders. She turned her upper body a bit and lifted her hands up to about her chest area. "Like this?"

Serena smiled at the question. The innocent way that Abby phrased things showing that she was still more on the child side of entering teenage years brought happiness to her. She met far too many cynical people on a daily basis, it was a refreshing experience hanging out with a sweet young girl like Abby. "Well I suppose that depends on the situation. For example, if there was a child in danger and myself, Sam, Cafas or another trained adult were nearby, it's best you leave it to us." She responded.

Serena suppressed a chuckle at the girl's stance, it was pretty off but that was kind of what she expected. "Okay, so generally speaking while it is a good idea to ground yourself if you're throwing a punch, the way that I fight and that would probably be smart for you to learn is more reactive than that." her own style was heavily based off of Aikido, which involved using your opponents size and momentum against them.

She held her arms close enough to her body to throw a punch, or to move out of the way of incoming blows quickly, and she had her legs spread out enough to maintain balance, but not so far that she couldn't spring up and move when she needed to. "More like this, you want to be able to move quickly if you need to, but still maintain your balance." She responded.

>>"...that would probably be smart for you to learn is more reactive than that... More like this, you want to be able to move quickly if you need to, but still maintain your balance."

"What do you mean by reactive?" Abby asked as she tried to copy Serena's pose. "Like letting them make the first move? I thought that was a bad idea."

Abby's stance looked more like Serena's now, though her legs were a little wobbly. Her shoes were making it hard to stay on the balls of her feet. She thought she was doing okay though.

Serena laughed a little. "No not at all, but from this position you can jab with relative ease, or respond to people by moving out of the way, or blocking them without too much trouble." She smiled. "The fact of the matter is as girls we have a harder time putting on muscle, as a result I prefer not to just blindly swing punches and do damage, I like a little more control." She responded, slightly amused.

She nodded at the girl. "Much better, but you're a little tensed up, the idea is to relax your muscles and have more loose, fluid movement." She thought a demonstration might be in order. "Here, watch my movements closely and you'll see what I mean." She added as she walked over towards one of the dummies she'd set up for herself.

This was one she had set up specifically for demonstrating this to Abby. She assumed a position very similar to the one she'd just showed Abby and moved directly in front of it, nodding for the program to run. She moved quickly from her feet as the dummy did, keeping her body low and to the left, ducking under the programs arm as it tried to catch her before she could swing. As a result it's left side was completely open and she made a quick, fluid jab to it's side and sent it back a few feet.

She took a step back and relaxed, turning to the smaller girl. "You see what I mean? Fighting can be done in a number of different ways, and I've found the best way for me at least is to keep calm and try and control the direction of a fight." She smiled. "This wouldn't work quite so well on someone experienced like Sam, if you've met him. But most situations when you're defending yourself you aren't going to be fighting someone experienced, or thinking clearly." She explained.

>>"Much better, but you're a little tensed up, the idea is to relax your muscles and have more loose, fluid movement. Here, watch my movements closely and you'll see what I mean."

Abby thought hard about what Serena meant. She felt as relaxed as she could get. Maybe it was her shoes. Ignoring her thoughts, she focused on how the older blonde was moving. She was amazed at how easily she dodged the dummy and attacked. It looked so easy. The little shifter hoped she could get that good at protecting herself.

>>"You see what I mean? Fighting can be done in a number of different ways, and I've found the best way for me at least is to keep calm and try and control the direction of a fight. This wouldn't work quite so well on someone experienced like Sam, if you've met him. But most situations when you're defending yourself you aren't going to be fighting someone experienced, or thinking clearly."

Abby hummed and sat down. She took off her socks and shoes. Once they were off, she put them to the side and retook her stance. It felt a lot better. "So instead of letting someone touch me, I'd keep away and keep them off balance?" She paused in thought to think if she knew this Sam person. "I don't know any adult Sams. Would Cafas have the same experience?"

She smiled at the other girl as she seemed to be taking it in, if a little slowly. She nodded gently. "Yeah, obviously this is just basics that I'm wanting you to give a try, nothing too complex like that move I just pulled. But the core concept is the same, it's better to avoid getting hit period, that way you can't get hurt one way or another." She smiled softly.

"What I'm aiming to teach you, is good basic movement, blocking and how to throw a proper punch if you need to. That was the first thing Sam ever started with for me, and it's a good baseline to have as most people don't actually know how to throw a good punch unless they've been in fight before." The blonde explained as she gestured at the different dummies each having a different task.

"They won't hit too hard, and they are heavily padded so the worst you'll possibly walk away with is some very light bruising." She added.

She paused for a second. She was a little surprised, she'd admit. It made more sense why the girl had not sought out Sam though, if she'd never met him. "Well, Sam is a faculty member at the school. He's the formal Self Defense teacher, and was one of my first teachers. He's also the current head of the X-men." She paused for a second before adding. "He's had a rough couple of years so he's not in the best of states right now, but hopefully he'll be on the mend soon enough."

"As for Cafas, I suspect so given that he's an X-man. Most of them are well versed in how to fight, I know for a fact that Sam and Mirror are."

Avoid getting hit. She could do that. She avoided people on principle due to the pain in caused her. This would just be a fast-paced version. Sam sounded like someone she'd like to meet. Maybe she'd ask Serena to point him out later. More friends was always a good thing. And the more adults she trusted the safer she would feel. At least she hoped so. She felt a lot better since meeting Cafas and knowing Serena was around the Mansion. And Dr. Fishman.

>>"As for Cafas, I suspect so given that he's an X-man. Most of them are well versed in how to fight, I know for a fact that Sam and Mirror are."

"If I really wanna see Cafas, and it's not an emergency, I can usually find him with DocProf around lunch time," she commented. "He's nice. He said we could be family. He helped me when my body changed but didn't change." The last bit was added unconsciously as she moved to face off against the dummy.

She moved on the balls of her feet and looked at the dummy. Serena had nodded at the dummy, but Abby didn't know as much so she just got close and balled her fist. Taking a deep breath in, holding it, then as she let it out she extended her arm to hit the dummy's chest. Once she felt her arm extend all the way, she pulled it back into the original stance Serena had shown her.

Sometimes younger kids and teenagers said things that people might not want heard, and they were in such a throw-away manor. The prospect of making frequent visits to Doc Prof was most likely a bad thing regardless, but was this because the person in question was reckless, or had some kind of a health problem? Serena wasn't going to pry either way, she liked to withhold judgement on someone till she actually met them. Besides, she didn't have all the facts.

She raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean changed but didn't change? Power related or puberty?" she asked in a fairly nonchalant way. In her experience it was much easier to talk to those of the same sex, and Abby didn't have any sisters or parents at the mansion so she couldn't imagine the girl had too much of that.

She observed Abby and chuckled lightly. "That was a very good first effort. Stand back a moment." She commented and looked the girl over again. "When you're swinging a punch, you want to make sure you have more balance, and turn your body into the punch, carry our momentum a bit."

She moved over behind the girl and to the side showing her what she meant. "If you are just trying to punch something directly, square your shoulders, turn your entire body into the punch like... This!" She had her legs firmly planted to keep her balanced, until she started moving, where she stepped forwards with the corresponding foot, and turned her body into the blow, carrying through with momentum.