It is currently 15:40 Pacific Time on Fri Jul 30 2004. Currently the moon is in the waxing Full Moon phase (90% full). You paged Natalie with 'You've turned anime.'. You go through the heavy, reinforced door that leads into the attached stone tower. Cockroach Mansion -- Tower Unlike the rest of the mansion, the interior of the four-story-tall tower has a rough and almost medieval feel to it. It's all concrete and stone and exposed lightbulbs. There's one room per floor, plus a basement underneath; a winding iron staircase leads from one level to the next. The highest floor of the tower provides the best view of the grounds and surrounding neighborhood; there are several windows with dark brown curtains and a couple of chairs to sit in. A black trunk acts as a makeshift coffee table and footrest, and there's even carpeting. Interestingly enough, all the windows are set with heavy black iron bars. On one wall hangs a whiteboard and some dry-erase markers and matching eraser. The rest of the rooms are used mostly for storage and have a chilly, shadowy, dusty feel. In the irregularly-shaped basement reigns the boiler. There are cockroaches everywhere, on every floor of the tower. Natalie collected the lupus and sent her upstairs to the tower with the words, "We're going to practice your fighting. In homid." There's been a jittery tenseness to the Galliard for the past week now, and the size of the moon isn't doing a single thing to fix it. Chaney takes the stairs up two at a time, hearing that. The young Ahroun is tense as well, tense and excited, as if her mood doesn't know whether it wants to bounce around joyously or go hurricane on the furniture. Natalie stops her on the third floor. "This'll do. Don't want anything happening to the furniture up there." But all the boxes used for storage, those are OK. The Galliard stalks toward the center of the room, eyes fixed on the cub. "You ready? Hit me." Some of it storage left by the previous Walker Elder. But, well, he left. Screw him. Chaney watches Natalie closely, breathing through her mouth. She knows the word "hit" from those lessons with the punching bag, so makes her hands into fists and jabs at Natalie. Natalie knocks the blows away easily with her forearms, avoiding one by simply stepping backwards. "Try again," she orders, tersely. "/Hit/ me. Don't just wave your hands in my general direction." Chaney's brow furrows. The punching bag never avoids her. The punching bag never _blocks_. Lower lip jutting out, she throws another one-two punch at the Galliard. The punching bag doesn't mug anyone either, or send out minions to try and corrupt the world. Nat lets the first blow connect in order to snap a hand around Chaney's wrist on her second attempt. Crap. Then -she- attacks, sending a fist for the cub's midsection. Chaney lets out an audible 'oof' sound as the Galliard's blow connects and knocks the breath out of her. She doubles over, or as much as she can with Nat holding her right wrist. Natalie lets go once Chaney's doubling over. Chaney'll have a lovely view of the woman's foot coming for her knee, too. Coming for it, and only brushing the side of her leg before Nat dances back. "So don't let me grab you, huh? Come on, hit me again." Chaney backs off a few steps, rubbing her stomach and frowning deeply. She gets a determined look, clenches her hands into fists, and then edges toward the Galliard, circling around to the side. Natalie circles as well to keep the cub in front of her. Chaney's not going to get an easy attack handed to her on a silver platter. "You flip into Crinos," she warns, almost idly, as her eyes study the cub's form, "and I'll smack you into tomorrow." Chaney grunts. "No Kinnos," she agrees, then quickly darts in and throws a punch at Natalie's face. Natalie may not be an Ahroun with years of training, but she can hold her own, especially against a barely-trained cub. The Galliard ducks away from the punch, leaving her leg open for a second attack if the cub is quick enough. Still she's not striking back. Perhaps she's just warming up, or perhaps she's just getting Chaney used to a moving target. Ha! Yes! A bare foot smacks against Natalie's leg, just below the knee. Enough force is behind the kick to hurt, but not enough to break anything. Natalie grunts and sends an elbow toward the side of Chaney's head with a, "Good." Her fighting style is a combination of lots of things - karate and dirty fighting being the primary two components. A skilled observer could see that she's holding back despite the moon, despite the provocation. Chaney attacks, Nat blocks. Whenever the cub manages a hit the Galliard retaliates. The cub, though, seems to get more and more frustrated. She manages to block one blow by copying something she saw Natalie do, but that hurts _too_ -- as evidenced by her surprised yelp. Each blow she throws at the Galliard, each kick, gets more force behind it, goes a little bit faster, until -- call it a breakthrough -- Chaney pistons out a savage one-two-three faster than the human eye. Rage-fast. Natalie keeps up with Chaney's mounting ire until the cub flips. Even then she is able to deflect most of the first of the Rage-fueled trio, but the second and third catch her shoulder and head and send her spinning around, almost down onto one knee. There she stops, not making a move to rise again, fingers flexing on nothing but air. "Stop. Enough." Chaney, breathing hard, with a wild look in her blue eyes -- a look made wilder by her long, untamed hair -- holds herself still, feet spread, knees slightly bent, fists clenched. Natalie takes a minute to regain her composure - damn full moon - before she straightens again. "Good. -Good-. Now tell me what you just did." A negligant flip of one hand. "Flip to lupus if you have to." Chaney's brow furrows. She slips back into wolf form and gives herself a good shake before answering. Was angry. _Very_ angry. I wanted to hurt you. Natalie continues to flex and fold her fists as she watches the cub. "Good. But you controlled it. And you didn't frenzy, either. Being able to control yourself is important. /Damn/ important." Many Faces licks her nose, her ears canted backwards. She looks thoughtful. I was angry. I moved fast. I _hit_ you. I did not make the Crinos form. I stopped when you said stop. Natalie rubs at her shoulder where Chaney's fist landed, and nods. "Right. All of it is what I wanted you to do. You were channeling your rage to move that fast. The rage... um, your anger. It's what connects you to Gaia, to the moon. Humans can't move that fast. I don't know of anything else that can. Vampires, maybe." Many Faces cocks her head. What? Natalie says "Hell. I'm not explaining this well, am I?" Shaking out her hands she paces off a few steps, then returns. "Where'd I lose you? It all made sense in -my- head." Many Faces licks her chops. Rage is anger. I was doing something with Rage. It does something between me and Gaia and the moon. Humans cannot... I don't know. And you said you didn't know something. And then... I don't know. "Rage," Nat says again. "It's what let you move so fast. Humans can't - they don't have any Rage. That's because Rage is the Garou's connection to Luna."