ArchivedLogs:Pulled Punches and Pretty Faces

Pulled Punches and Pretty Faces
Dramatis Personae Daken, Trib
In Absentia	2015-03-30 '
Location <NYC> Foswell's Gym -- Hell's Kitchen
Foswell's Gym is not the /fanciest/ of gyms, catering more to the boxing crowd than the Zumba dancers and their ilk, although there's plenty of signage encouraging non-boxing people to take advantage of their amenities. Located on the edge of Midtown and Clinton, it's almost a Hell's Kitchen landmark. Particularly since the owner, a former champion boxer, is one of the very few in the area who doesn't do business with Wilson Fisk. As a result, many of the locals come here to train alongside the boxers. The layout is relatively simple; a large room with a boxing ring in the middle. To the right of the entrance, a pair of doors lead to modest locker rooms and shower facilities. On one side of the gym are a line of punching bags, both heavy and speed, as well as a row of butterfly weight machines. On the other, weight benches line up in front of a rack containing weights from 5 to 100 pounds as well as dumbells with similar range. Towards the back, a glass wall looks onto a room padded with heavy canvas where often self-defense classes can be seen taking place. Next to that room, a door with the words OWNER/MANAGER marks the office beyond. Monday evening finds Foswell's Gym fairly empty. Perhaps that's because people are slow to respond after the weekend. Whatever the reason, only a few people litter the main area, a couple of meaty-looking guys working the weight machines, and a smaller-built man using a heavy bag to practice his kicks. In the center of it all, in the boxing ring, is Trib. The big man is dressed in a loose-fitting pair of gray shorts, and a snug black t-shirt. His hair is pulled back in a ponytail, keeping it out of his face as he throws jabs at his sparring partner. His partner -- definitely out of his weight class -- does not look happy about this arrangement. The welterweight is sweating profusely as he struggles to keep his padded hands raised to meet each blow. Trib's jaw is set in grim determination, and his swings gain power as he backs his partner into a corner. Thwap. Thwap. THWAP. Daken obviously hasn't been here long, the man has barely broken a sweat working on the weights in the corner. However of all the things that can be said about him, his eye not wandering isn't one of them. And when he spots Trib and his partner, he gets off of his machine and moves over to the side of the ring. "Hey there.. Doesn't look like he's super happy about this arrangement." he calls over to the large boxer, flashing a sideways grin. "Up for a punching somebody a little bit sturdier in the face?" Trib lands a couple of punches in the time that it takes Daken to reach the ring, and when the other man speaks, the boxer stops, giving Daken a long, appraising look before he drops his hands. "Fuck, /yes/," he says, glaring at his current partner. "Fuckin' Carter ain't worth a shit." Carter sheds his pads quickly, tossing them at Daken as he slips out of the ring. Only then does he turn back to lift both middle fingers somberly at Trib, earning an amused chuff from the big man. "Good guy," he grunts when Carter disappears into the locker room. "Be a fuckin' /monster/ when he finally gets in the ring." Trib wanders over to Daken, and leans against the ropes. "I'm Trib." Daken catches the pads with ease and dips his head slightly. "Daken." he offers simply. "Sparring, or just pad practice? Personally haven't boxed in a few years, but I've kept up on everything else. Hard to find a gym to accommodated all the styles I've learned." He shifts a bit, cracking his back. "Aren't you one of the guys over with heroes for hire?" he questions after a moment with a raised brow. "Might just be confusing your face with somebody elses though. But if you are, be a good chance to see how they train the people they send out as body guards." There's something to the smirk that graces his face that would be unsettling to a normal person. "We can spar," Trib says, moving away and gesturing with a gloved hand to a pair of sparring gloves hanging from one of the posts. "Look like you can take it." His gaze narrows slightly when Daken identifies him, and after a moment, he lifts a shoulder. "That's me," he says, lifting his chin appreciatively. "I guess I ain't hard to miss." The smile and the statement get a similar sort of expression in return, although his smile is barely a curl of one corner of his mouth. "Damn, you're chatty, ain't ya?" "Sometimes. Always found these places limiting though, especially for people that want to learn to use what they have. Not many places dedicated to that." Daken replies, there's a SNK as a pair of claws break through his left hand, but there's withdrawn back into his arm almost as quickly as he's shown them off. "Anyway, I've said enough, haven't I?" Then he's climbing into the ring and securing the gloves over his hands. Trib blinks once, twice, and a third time at the reveal of the claws, and his expression when he looks back up at Daken is appraising in a whole new way. "Don't trash my gym, dude," he says, simply, moving to the middle of the ring. "I can actually /afford/ this fuckin' place." He lifts his gloves, holding them loosely in front of his torso. "An' don't fuckin' stab me. I got a bout in ten days." "Not trashing the gym. More of a personal place, not under Fisk's thumb either. Speaking of Fisk, we need to have a heart to heart sometime." Daken pauses thoughtfully, before turning his body and raising his fists. "And I wouldn't stab you, not everyone heals as quickly as I do." There's a teasing wink at that, before he motions the boxer forward. "Good luck with /that/," Trib offers about meeting with Fisk. "You might get to meet him if you hang around here. His goons are always fuckin' with me." He grins a bit widely. "Maybe they'll give you a fuckin' appointment." At the beckon, forward he comes, circling Daken slowly and taking in his posture and stance, learning what he can about where the first punch will start. In the meantime, he takes a couple of test jabs at the older man's face, not really intent on landing any right now. Daken keeps his hands up and blocks the strikes, keeping Trib in front of him at all times. "I'm not overly worried about his goons shooting me. Wouldn't be the first time. I was around before he really hit it big out here. Made my way west to try the same thing.. But got hooked on heat instead. If they start selling that shit, let me know, yeah? I'll gut all of them." Then he steps forward with his right foot, the only warning the boxer has before he tries his own surprisingly quick jab aimed at his face. There's a twitch of Trib's brow when Daken reveals he was around pre-Fisk, and he grunts a bit in surprise. "Hell, he's been around since before Murdock died," he says. Any further question is lost as Daken starts his advance, Trib barely getting his gloves up in time to block them. He doesn't offer any ground, though, even /leaning/ into the jabs before looping his right hand around for an attempt to jab it into Daken's ribs. "If they start sellin' that shit, I'll fuckin' help you," he says when they part and resume circling once more. "I hate that kind of shit." Daken takes the jab with a mild grunt, attempting a jab of his own at the man's sternum. "Was in New York in the nineties, left shortly after September Eleventh. Ran a law firm for a bit, but they wanted to take their business to people they trusted more after then. Part of the reason I need to have a chat with Fisk, I'd be sitting where he is if he hadn't of stepped all over my business." "You're a lawyer?" Trib can't mask the surprise in his tone for /that/ revelation, and he trips just the tiniest bit. He corrects quickly, throwing a jab as he does to cover it. "You don't look it." "I'm not." Daken says with a slight smirk, blocking that jab and throwing a right jab at the man's midsection, only to step forward and aim a left cross at his jaw. "But some of the people that worked out of it were." Trib takes the blow to the breadbasket, exhaling as it lands and allowing the blow to his jaw to land as well. Which is probably like punching a metal bar, and just as giving. The boxer's lips curl into a smile, and he makes a show of spitting towards the corner of the ring. "Nice gig," he rumbles, advancing panther-like on the older man. "But seems like, if you bugged out, there was an opening, yeah?" He throws a feint at Daken's face, already in the pivot to land the next one above his kidneys. "You plannin' a...whattayacallit. Hostile takeout?" Daken twists his body away from the actual punch, aiming a jab at Trib's ribs. "Nah, just a chit-chat. If they're rude, I might take a business or two away from them. What's the worst they'll do, shoot me in the face? As soon as I get up from that, they'll like me even less." Trib manages to slide away from the jab at his ribs, leaving a one-two combination as he goes. "Fisk ain't big on chattin'," he notes, circling once more. His golden gaze is alert, sharp as he watches for his next opening. "Whether you hop back up or not." He rolls his head on his neck, and dances back a step or two. "How's that work, anyway? You just...heal up? I mean, I gotta /do/ shit to do it." Daken blocks the strikes before feinting low and striking high once more. "Yeah, bullet works it's way out, and it closes up. Even grew a finger or ten back before." Trib's jaw clenches as he takes the blow in his cheek, and he allows the blow to snap his head to the side before coming back with a barrage of quick jabs. Once he's pushed Daken back, he wipes a wrist over his cheek, and inspects it. Possibly for blood. Of which there is none, but a spectacular bruise is already beginning to form. The idea of growing back fingers gets a frustrated sort sigh, and Trib wrinkles his nose. "Must be nice," he notes. "Not havin' fingers sucks balls." Daken manages to block a majority of the strikes, but takes one or two in the upper area of his arm. It bruises over and heals in a matter of seconds. "Would hate if I lost mine, or if my face didn't stay pretty for long." His hands pops back up in a defensive manner. "Trained in other fighting styles?" "It is a nice face," Trib notes, his eyebrows hitching up a small notch. "Guess there's somethin'. Don't got to worry about your nose lookin' like mine one day." He doesn't seem overly bothered about the ruined ridge of his nose, indicating it with a glove. "I miss my fingers, though." He rolls his shoulders, and steps in to work over that defense for a couple of minutes before falling back. "I only know boxin' and street fightin'," he answers the question. "I never had no money for learnin' other shit, an' I ain't exactly built for all that jump-kickin' stuff." "They care if we throw the gloves off and have a bout? I'll pull my punches so you're not sore for your bout." Daken suggests, that grin of his lighting up his features. "And I've been training since the late fifties. One of the last formally trained samurai. Only other one I can think of off the top of my head is Wolverine. Need to have a heart to heart with him, and see about getting his sword." /That/ stops Trib, and he drops his hands to stare at Daken. "The fifties," he repeats in a flat voice that makes it clear that he's pretty sure that Daken is fucking with him. Observe the way his brow pulls into a deep V in the middle of his forehead, and his jaw works as he contemplates that. Then he blinks. "They made a wolverine a samurai?" he says, this new information also not tracking. "You sure you ain't thinking about the ninja turtles?" "His real name is Logan. Unfortunately he's my father." Daken explains. "Might have even ran into him, I know I haven't seen him about just yet. Doubt the bastard even knows my name." He rolls his shoulders a bit. "But if you, or any of the other people they hire out as guards or whatever it is you all do need some extra training, I have no qualms offering lessons. I'm not one to complain about money." Trib shrugs at the name correction. "I dated a guy who knows a Logan, but I never met him," he says, lifting his right hand to work the glove loose with his teeth. "'Course 'Logan' ain't exactly a lot to go on, for a name." He gets the glove loosened enough to let it slide from his half-hand, and flexes his fingers beneath the tape. Then he's taking off the left glove a bit more rapidly and scooping his discarded glove up to toss both at a corner. "Trainin', huh?" he muses, one eye narrowing. "I might take you up on that. For me an' another guy, maybe." Daken works his own gloves off before returning him where he got them. "Logan Howlett, goes by The Wolverine. Passed by a town where he was doing cage fights once, missed him by a bit though. Unfortunate, I'd have loved to break his nose. Can't miss him, hear he's a teacher now. Keeps ridiculous mutton chops and doesn't look much older than me. Run into anybody that knows him, get them to tell him I'm looking for him, yeah?" There's another roll of his shoulders before he stretches so his back pops. "And I offer tiger style, bow training, sword play, spear use, akido, drunken boxing, and even a few down and dirty street fighting moves if you want to stay in the realm of practicality." "I'll keep an eye out," Trib promises, lacing his fingers together behind his back and stretching lightly. He listens as Daken explains, and narrows one eye. "Yeah, you're goin' to have to write that down, 'cause I ain't goin' to remember none of it," he says simply. "But I'm pretty fuckin' certain I ain't goin' to be shootin' arrows or wavin' a sword aroun any time soon." He shrugs lightly. "Whatever you think." Daken reaches into a pocket to produce a worn older looking wallet. And from it he produces a card he passes over that simply reads 'Daken, a little bit of everything' and has a cell number. "I always preferred using my hands. Hopefully I won't have to rough up anybody you're charged with guarding. Wouldn't be a good look for the Heroes for Hire." Trib takes the card, reading the information on it a couple of times before he chuffs an amused noise and bends to tuck it into the top of his workout boot. "Yeah, hands are good," he grunts, his lips curling into that half-smile as he returns to the center of the ring. "It'd look good," he says, lifting his chin. "Look at us. We'd be on the mother fuckin' news, with mugs like ours." Which doesn't sound like a joke at all. He raises his hands in a simulation of his boxing stance, fingers curled in loose fists. Daken moves back to the center of the ring. While his hands do come up, it obviously isn't a street fighting stance. "I've been doing this for a long time. Still kicking around on the street. When you're ready." "Yeah, but the /news/," Trib grunts, and then he's moving -- faster than his size would indicate, and attempting to land a punch somewhere on Daken's upper body and allowing the momentum to carry him past the older man. Which may or may not be how he planned it, given his sudden exhalation. Daken doesn't move or try to block the strike. Instead he moves into it, attempting to grab Trib's fist and flip the larger man over himself. "As I've said, been doing this a while. Haven't been on the news yet." Trib isn't expecting that move, and with his momentum, he's easily flipped. His exhalation turns into a noise of pained surprise when he hits the mat, and he pants for a moment before he's rolling back to his feet, sprining up lightly. "Shit. 'Sbeen too long. Forgot about that shit." Which is probably meant for himself more than Daken, and he shakes his head. He reaches up to pull the tie from his hair, and shakes it loose, lettting it fall into his eyes as he begins to circle. His posture is not unlike a great cat gearing up to strike. "Me neither. I'm hoping to make the sportscasts first." Then he's moving forward, sweeping his leg forward in an attempt to catch Daken behind the knee. Oddly enough, Daken even charges this attack. A moment before the sweep he propels himself forward, clearly trying to use his agility to gain the upper hand. Instead of a tackle though, he falls back and attempts to plant both of his feet into the larger man's midsection. Maybe Trib was expecting something like this, or maybe his next move is pure instinct, but when Daken is no longer there as a target, Trib rolls left. This allows him to avoid the worst of that donkey-kick, catching it just below his ribs with a pained grunt. He manages to get a foot under him, and uses that to propel himself at the older man, dropping his weight like a stone, elbow extended. Daken take the hit square on the ribs. There's a cracking noise and an annoyed grunt, but he's soon back on his feet after rolling away. His fists come up in a more traditional stance. "Alright, let's try that again." Trib seems a bit satisfied with that cracking noise, and he rolls to his feet, bouncing on the balls lightly. "Sorry. I ain't fought like this in a year or more," he says, rolling his neck with a cracking sound. "Got carried away." His hands come up, though, curling into fists. "An' sorry ahead of time if I forget an' bite the fuck out of you." And here he comes, fists coming in hard and fast as he moves around the smaller man. Daken moves to grab for the arm again. But instead of trying for a flip, he moves in and attempts to smash the knuckles of his fist into Trib's trachea. "No worries. Only hurts for a second or two." Trib seems prepared for this, despite the clacking noise that comes from his throat when Daken's fist lands. His own hand comes up to wrap around Daken's wrist, and he pushes against the fist in his throat, driving his elbow at the center of Daken's face. If he had a response, it's caught in his pinned throat. With the elbow comes the splitting of Daken's lips, but they heal up before they really have a chance to bleed. And with that he seems done with pulling his own punches, aiming a surprisingly hard strike at the larger man's ribs. Trib takes the punch in the ribs, grunting in pain as he dances back. "Mother /fucker/," he growls, his face reddening with a mix of pain and irritation. "Don't fuckin' /break/ 'em." He closes one eye, sucking in a lung full of air before he moves forward again. He seems a bit more cautious, now, eyeing Daken warily as he waits for his opening. When it comes, he goes for it, coming in swinging tight, rolling his shoulders to lend his weight to the punches. "Didn't try to. Still holding back a bit." Daken assures, dropping down and attempting to sweep Trib's legs out from under him as he comes back in. Trib doesn't say anything to Daken's explanation, but he looks a bit concerned aabout it. He looks concerned /and/ surprised, though, when Daken's foot sends him to the mat. Lashing out with his own foot, he attempts to drive his foot into the older man's hip. Daken actually flips over the foot, landing back on his own feet. "Alright, try again. Swinging wild and hard might work on some of Fisk's goons, but you're getting nowhere with me." "Yeah, well, you're the first samurai I've ever fuckin' fought," Trib says, getting to his feet a bit slowly. "Fisk's goons ain't so fuckin' worldly." He winces a bit as he pulls himself upright, shaking his head to clear it a bit and muttering darkly under his breath about pretty faces and bad decisions. Then he's raising his fists gamely. "Right. Let's go, then." And the circling begins again, even more warily this time.