As useful as the danger room was, Cait understandably only had limited access as part of her therapy so she'd had to turn to using some of the outdoor facilities for some general training. It wasn't nearly as exciting but she did get to actually enjoy some cool weather for once and as she got into it, she kid of got lost in the motions.

General fitness stuff passed quickly and the yoga had seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye until she was running through forms and techniques with non existent weapons.

Which was generally harder than with existing weapons but Cait was nothing if not adaptable. Well, that and she did cheat massively by being able to kind of summon ones when she really needed to run through a live motion with something actually in her hands.

She got some strange looks as she continued, stranger looks when she was holding a pair of see through knives but most of the people tended to keep away from her, not that she could blame them. She'd apparently been a bit reclusive when she'd first been brought in an flighty around new people so a lot had stopped trying to talk to her after a while. Which absolutely sucked now since she was dying to talk to someone. Instead she turned back to her practice, flickering between weapons and non. After all Impact had always told her to use her power more.

He’s meant to run a mile or so around the mansion grounds. Mostly because he was avoiding certain students who wouldn’t stop trying to make him their bestest best friend ever!

It had been cute, at first. Like a student he’d once known, named Koga. A cute lizard boy who’d wanted to be an X-kid and be super useful and good for the mansion. But it has worn him out.

It was all Mr. S, this! Mr. S that! Look Mr. S! Have you ever seen this, Mr. S? Isn’t this like that one time you fought Gold Balls the ball summoner, Mr. S? Or was that Invincible Fighter, Golden. The gold man who somehow learned to fly. Or was it Gold Member, the evil— no wait that was a movie.

He’d wanted to like him, really. But the legendary levels of Fanboying had put even his to shame... and he wore homebrewed Power Rangers consumes he’d made (with his mind). So, he was running from his problems. Sorry, Mr. X!

Something caused him to pause in his jogging, though. There was a red headed mutant he’d never met before not too far ahead, in his path. She was going through all sorts of (martial arts?) forms, flicking around as if she had weapons. Which gave him an idea...

The Asian stood in black sweatpants and a blue and black running jacket, focusing for a few seconds. Not really staring at anyone or anything in particular. Ten heartbeats, or around that number. Probably more. But ten heartbeats sounds way cooler than five to ten seconds. And then, it happened.

A black and gold katana appeared in his outstretched hand.

Part of him just wanted to rush her to truly test her mutant prowess! But that part was the same part that invites students to X-men missions without any prior training. The irresponsible part. And so, he approached her calmly and steadily. Sword in hand.

”I’m Shin.” He said. ”Or Shard. From the X-men. Want to spar? I don’t think I’ve met you before.”

As any anime fan knows, the quickest way to get to know someone is to fight them.

Cait could sometimes be unaware of things happening around her. Doubly so when it came to trying to figure out peoples intentions, since she generally assumed good but when someone dressed in dark clothes stopped to watch her she generally had one of two thoughts. They wanted to hit on her, or hit her.

Seemed like the latter in the case by the looks of the sword he made. Pretty cool sword as well which was annoying because anything she made looked half finished. Like a kids drawing that hadn't been coloured in. Christ they could even be seen through, so she couldn't hide behind a shield and stop people seeing what she was doing.

Raising an eyebrow at the sudden invitation to fight, she was actually pretty tempted. She'd been needing some sparring to round out the days workout, so it was very nice of the gentleman to oblige. "Cait," she replied lightly, "or Shivs if that's easier. And likewise, in a sense. Different universe but same idea."

Quickly forming her standard paired knives and pulling them into reality, she made sure to give them a blunted edge. "And of course I'd like to spar, always my favourite way to meet someone new.," she finished with a smile. She didn't recognise the man but the name was ringing a bell from her time in the mansion. Seemed nice, if a little sword happy if that's how he normally greeted people.

"Weapons only for now?" As much as she'd like to try a proper fight she didn't think it would be a good idea. Out here. In the open. Without proper protection.

Moving into a better position in the area so they had some decent room to move, she dropped into a defensive stance. She liked going aggressive agaisnt someone with a longer weapon but she got the feeling that seeing a couple of movements first would be smart.

Oh god. She was strategising. Who the hell was she?

Cait. Or Shivs. Honestly, he preferred civilian names. He wondered what that said about him. Cait was a good name. Shivs sounded like she was ready to stab someone.

He supposed she would be, in an X role.

From what she’d said, different universe and all, he had the sinking suspicion she was from that other world. The one that had gone.

”Alt-verse?” He asked. ”Cool.” He had met her Becca. Impact.

Idly, he wondered if they did training on that other side? Had done. Training... drills? Impact drill. Heh. He was SO clever. Clever enough to keep a bad pun to himself.

As she pulled some knives that looked half-finished from out of thin air, he mentally shifted the edge of his blade to a blunted one. Like a reverse blade sword, except blunted on the back, too. Sakabato. Just call him ken Shin Himura. His blade was a man slayer, no more.

He returned the smile. ”I agree.” Sparring WAS a good way to meet someone new.

”Weapons only sounds good.” He said.

He couldn’t turn his eyes off. But all they’d do was help him with the angles. He didn’t figure he’d have to mention something she could see.

As far as proper fights went, he tended to make constructs because just throwing a million tiny razor blades at someone was a great way to lose them. The people. Not the razor blades. Who cares about razor blades?

She dropped into a stance, and he did as well. It was a casual stance, that left his arms free with his sword at his side. It was almost as if he were simply walking, but— well.

For the hell of it, he’d started referring to the dumb made up styles he used by the names of forms from out of a book he’d read. It wasn’t as if he’d actually trained in the blade. Simply been raised in it. He’d done some training when he was a kid, with a bokken but that doesn’t count.

So, he crossed the distance between them using Cat Crosses the Courtyard with confidence. And from there, he’d quickly moved into a series of aggressive two-handed overhand strikes.

The Boar Rushes Down the Mountain.

Grinning at the response, "Yeah, pretty damn cool."

Good, weapons only was smart. She had no clue what Shins powers could do but hers was a little too stabby and her compositions a little too shaky to try them out with a real person for the time being. No, she'd leave that to holograms of angry mutants and weirdly voiced robots.

The man was quick, closing the distance between them so rather than let him build too much momentum she stepped into his heavy strikes. Smart too apparently since he took advantage of the longer weapons reach and better leverage instead of doing anything flashy and wasteful. Pretty strong hits too.

Against someone without her grueling training, that kind of heavy opening move would have worked. But Combatant had been a harsh teacher. A good teacher but not exactly a nice one.

Rather than take the hits head on she deflected them to each side, taking energy out of the hits. Tended to make it possible to actually block two handed hits with a dagger.

Between one hit and the next she made a move that might not work, but gave her more of an advantage when using the knives. She tried stepping into the attack, to deflect it with one dagger while bring the other upwards into a slash across the chest.

Moving towards the strikes, and into them... it was a smart move. Helped her avoid him getting up a head of steam, and with her short blades, it lessened her disadvantage of reach.

Her deflections were good, removing some of the power from his attacks by moving with them and turning them aside. Using some of that power against him. Then, she stepped under his guard.

With one hand, she threw his over handed strike off course, and with the other, she went for a slash across his chest.

Quickly, Shin responded by switching the hold on his sword to a one-handed grip, and taking a step slightly back and to the side. With his now free hand, he tried to grapple with the wrist of her slashing hand. If he caught the wrist, he would try and shift his body to pull the same trick she had done and use the upward momentum against her by pulling her towards him as he stepped out of the way.

If he failed the grapple check, the lunging blunted blade would lightly scrape against the side of his chest, but he’d avoid anything that could have been considered a lethal blow, due to the dodge... or else they’d bump hands, and everything would get a little chaotic. Perhaps they’d even get tangled up, or fall. It all came down to skill and luck here. And he was trying to dodge, grapple, and throw all at relatively the same time.

((Dealer’s choice.))

He was good. Taking her counter into stride and not stubbornly clinging to his two handed grip his quick switch in movement nearly caught her off guard. While his hand closed over her wrist and tried to pull her off balance she actually followed the movement.

Stepping quickly forward and twisting she brought her free hand up to guard the sword while giving the man a quick grin.

On the inside she was kind of running through a few options and discarding each one given she couldn't use her normal methods to break grapple, instead she went for something a little riskier.

Letting go knife in her caught arm and letting it fade she made clenched the fist and yanked it hard before quickly changing the direct and trying slam it into Shin to tie his own arm up and get her back into dangerous range. If that didn't work she'd plant her feet a little solidly to not get knocked about and try to block any sword attacks.

Which would be real hard given she was at a major disadvantage at the moment.

Again, she went with the flow of combat and surged towards him. The girl twisted her body to guard against his blade, then dismissed her second blade.

He had not caught the smile. He was focused on footwork, and the positioning their weapons. Her little move to dismiss the dagger, and is red his own motion against him was a good one. If he hadn’t been focused on that blade, he might not have been able to react properly. Now that things had grown hairy.

It was funny, she thought she was at a disadvantage. He thought HE was at a disadvantage.

She jerked her arm around, and tried to hit him. Tried to tie up his arm. Shin kept his blade up by the side of his head as he stole a page from her playbook and with with it, turning his chest slightly as he went, to tank the blow. Then, he surged forward now that they seee real close.

Things happened in rapid succession. Shin let go of her arm. Shin tried to butt her in the forehead with his head... and directly following that, he tried to do some of that fancy footwork in order to bring a leg up behind her leg so he could hook it with his foot as she reeled. Or kick her. Whichever worked. If the attack even worked that way, of course. Otherwise, he’d have taken a good punch and tried to honk his head just to leave her open to attack him if she somehow slipped under his guard.

Battles are confusing. Blade fights, even moreso. Shin had never really had any sword training except a brief series of aikido lessons as a child. He was going largely by feel and anime... and whatever horrible lessons he had taught himself along the way. She was arguably better with blades than him.