The Last Defender (FINISHED)

Chapter 13: The (Not So) Epic Training Montage

The next morning started... strangely, involving Raleigh entering my room uninvited, a lot of yelling, INSANE amounts of pizza, two smoke-bombs, and an overdose of weird.

Probably needless to say, I was late for training, which I was told to meet Tri for, despite of the fact that I got over to the holodeck as fast as I could. That said, "as fast as I could" wasn't very fast considering the fact that every muscle in my body hurt, but frankly, I didn't care.

"Ah, so the little lady finally arrives," Tri said when he saw me.
I opened my mouth to protest against "little lady" but I changed my mind.
"I apologize. I... was held up."
"It's alright, little lady. I'm used to it. Raleigh was also late every time."
"Please don't call me that."
"Sorry, tiny lady."
I really didn't feel like working with this guy. Sadly enough, he insisted. "Let's get to work," he said, before he led me into the gym-hall. Reluctantly, I nodded and followed.

Tri grabbed a wooden sword. "Prepare yourself."
I reached for my daggers, only to find that they weren't in their sheathes like they would usually be. I cursed. "Uh... Sky still has my daggers."
Tri shook his head. "No, no, the little lady must earn steel. That's the point of the first lesson." He sheathed the wooden sword before drawing my daggers. "One must understand their weapon before using it."
"Oh, right," I muttered, my voice heavy with sarcasm, "how could I have forgotten?"
Tri ignored me. "Skyal has told me about your predicament with the blades, don't worry. He had a protective layer cast around them."
I nodded, pulling off the leather gloves I had put on when leaving my room. "Guess I won't be needing these then," I said as I tucked them into my belt. "They're a bit warm."
Tri shrugged.

We stood in awkward silence for a moment as I waited for him to tell me what to do, or give me a weapon, or something. Instead, he just suddenly slashed at me with my own daggers, diagonally from top right to bottom left. I jumped back, yelping, only barely escaping. I was suddenly very alert, despite of the fact that jumping back was painful, but at that point I saw it was essential to stop caring about that.
Tri got back to his original position. "The greatest disadvantage of a dagger or a knife is the length of the blade. It is not difficult to dodge the blade, but not hard to stop it, either, even when you're unarmed."
I nodded. "Got it." I noticed my voice was shaky. Then I looked at Tri, waiting.

Then he ran at me. This time, he went for my neck, which was quite obvious.
I ducked, but he stabbed down at my head. "You immobilize yourself," he said.
I rolled out of the way, even though it wasn't necessary anymore, before getting up, even though I had some trouble because it hurt like hell.
"Well, sorry?" I was more than a little frustrated. I didn't understand why everyone was acting like I should already know how to fight. First Skyal, now Tri. "I'm new to this, okay?"
"Come on, fight back!" Tri urged.
I reacted in an annoyed tone. "What do you expect me to do?!"

"If you don't have a weapon, try to find one." He got back to his original place again. "Or use that of your enemy to your advantage. The length of a dagger means that a fighter has to completely devote to their attack. Use your enemy's weapon to your advantage." With that, he stabbed forwards to my chest. I dodged it by stepping sideways, and I, somewhat dryly, grabbed his wrist, looking at him for confirmation that I was doing what he had intended me to do.
Apparently, it was. "That's it, keep it up!" Then he kicked me away and tried to stab me again. So much for encouragement.

I grabbed his wrist again, trying to twist it this time, but he was too strong and nothing happened.
"You're doing good, but not good enough!" he said, before literally lifting me up while I was still holding his wrist, then flinging me to the other side of the room. I shrieked as I flew through the air before hitting the ground hard with a loud groan.

I sat up painfully, only to see Tri already charging at me again, going straight for my face. I had major "uh-oh" moment, considering the fact that I was never gonna be able to get up in time to defend myself (or, possibly, just run away).
He was still running at me full speed and I just decided to roll aside. That must've looked really strange considering the fact I was still sitting up when I started rolling, but Tri rolled with it (I'm really not sorry). He changed direction so he was still stabbing down at me.

I was still sitting up, and I shrieked as I grabbed his arm and pulled him down. To my surprise, it actually worked, and he lost his balance, falling on his face. He groaned and tossed me the daggers. I caught them.
Tri got up. "There we go! Now we can get to work."

The next few weeks went by insanely quickly. My fighting improved significantly, and it only took about a week for me to not be so sore every morning that I could barely move. However, by the end of the day I would be completely worn out. I usually didn't want to go to sleep immediately, however, so instead, I would study the books Skyal gave me to pass time. So basically, I spent my first month on Ionica learning.

Not only from the books and training, either. I also spent some time reading in Diana's diary and found that she had had the tendency to write about trainings and, sometimes, real fights, in full detail. I learned a lot from her description of her own technique, although she used her magic a lot in these battles. She only used what she called the most basic spells; a trapping spell, and ice and fire-based spells. She also liked to use what she called a stab-and-teleport routine, where she'd teleport behind an enemy, stab them, then teleport to the next victim before the first even realized they'd been struck.

Sadly, neither of these techniques were of any use to me, at least not before I had better control of my magic. Aside from that, as far as I was aware, I was not capable of teleportation. Nevertheless, I learned from the diary, and still improved during that first month. And significantly, at that.