His breath was hard and heavy at the moment, yet he didn't have any time to relax. Every sense was on alert as he strained to spot any sign of something happening. That was hard, considering the fact that everything was looking the same, with the walls covered in grids of big 'bumps'. However, he could feel that something was going to happen, and knew that he had to keep himself ready for anything.
The readiness was proven to be the right move when one of the 'bumps' shot out of the wall and nearly took his right shoulder off. Such a hit would have hurt if it'd landed, but he'd shifted his weight just enough to avoid it, letting the column blow by his arm. Had he desired to savor his success, he lost the opportunity to do so as he had to twist out of the way of another one, and then had to bend over backwards to avoid a third large rod. When he had to leap up to do a split and twirl in mid air to avoid yet one more strike, he set up a start of movement when he bounce, bounded, and whirled around the chamber, always keeping out of the way of each of the attacking tubes.
Finally, he just landed on his tones and the fingertips of one hand, grinning as a rod came bare centimeters from grazing his cheek.
"That's it," came a voice over an intercom. "The training exercise is over."
There was a moment when Ranma didn't seem to recognize the information, but then he blinked, almost shaking himself out of the focus that he'd been in. Rising to his feet, he stretched just a bit before stepping over to where a section of wall had shifted to reveal a door. When that portal opened, he stepped out of the small room and spotted Roll standing there with a towel in her hands.
"I hope that you had fun in there," she muttered, clearly looking put out over something.
Even if he'd been around girl robots for some time now, he was pretty sure that he wouldn't ever totally understand them, even if the girl-bot in question was his best buddy. "C'mon, it wasn't that bad."
"Ranma, you were asking to be hit. Literally."
"Can't train if you don't."
"Yes, well, it wasn't fun."
"Maybe for you...."
"Humph," Roll groused. "I might understand sparring, but why this mess?"
"I've got to be ready for any sort of attack, right? This helps me be able to be able to react as soon as it happens."
"I suppose...."
"But it's still plenty fun, you know," he drawled, taking the towel from her.
"Idiot."
"Hey, you can't do training right if you don't try to push yourself even a little in it. About the only thing that I can remember my old man being right about. Not that I can remember everything about him now."
"Does... does that bother you? 'Not remembering', I mean,"she asked, trying to keep from showing her concern.
"Sometimes. But since I didn't always like him, that might not be a bad thing."
"You want to forget that sort of thing?"
"Who'd want to remember the sort of junk that he'd pull?" Ranma commented with a grin as he began to wipe off his sweat.
Allowing him his point for the moment, Roll peeked over at where her human friend was rubbing himself down. Doing so was only natural after all the exercise that he'd done, and he'd done it since she'd met him as a little boy. But he wasn't so young anymore, and the wiry musculature that he was gaining was making him look quite appealing from a feminine standard. As it was, he was growing taller and healthier than most boys of his age group, if one went by the recorded data.
Either way though, she was happy that her friend was growing up well, and hoped that this would continue, while:
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(Posted Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:09)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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