9 Chapter 8: Progress

She quickly crossed her arms to guard against his strike before taking a step back and try to take a proper stance. He didn't give her this chance however and immediately pursued her. He struck again, this time attacking her side instead of her head. She tried to fend it off with the edge of her gauntlet and let it slide off of her.

Reality didn't really go as she expected. It wasn't really a surprise, she had just leaned to fight a few days ago much less experienced it. She was already doing quite well. He was completely overwhelming her. She didn't get the chance to gain a proper footing and use her superior strength like she wanted to. She was growing restless.

Her opponent sensed this and kicked at her knee. She saw it coming but was too late to guard and could only watch as the boy's boot connected with the side of her knee, making her wince in pain and almost fall upon the ground but stopping in a crouch.

He kicked again, right at her chest. She guarded properly this time but couldn't gain a proper foothold and was forced on the ground from the force behind it.

She scowled. The fight was over. She lost.

She tried to stand up, only to see the boy extending his hand to help her up. She took his hand and he pulled her on her feet.

"Gregory" he said.

"Huh?" it was so sudden that she couldn't properly understand the meaning of what he said.

"My name, Gregory." he clarified.

"Oh, I'm Dana" she answered with a small, embarassed smile because she couldn't even understand something so simple.

"Hm, I know. Everybody prbably knows by now."

"What do you mean?" she asked cluelessly.

"Do you really think that when a young girl such as you can keep up with all the rest of the group, she won't stand out?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh... Ehehe, right. Sorry?" she said while scratching the back of her head.

"Well then, wanna go again?" he asked.

"Ah, yes. Gladly." she quickly got in her stance again and this time fought with more certainty. They both helped eachother out, she helped him test his techniques and ideas and he gave her advice on how she should fight.

It was a rather fulfilling training for the both of them.

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At the side of the training field both Melissa and Bratt watched as Dana fought against Gregory, albeit completely different reasons.

'This just isn't fair! I proposed the idea to do mock battles and I am the only one left out! I wanted to fight Dana the most and yet everyone avoided me the moment they had to fight someone! Bunch of cowards!'

It was just like she said. Because they were an odd number because six of the students were magicians, they weren't here anymore. Everybody knew Melissa was a real battle junkie and she would lose her head when in battle. For this rather obvious reason, nobody waanted to fight her because, frankly, she wasn't exactly weak, she just liked to hit everything with her full power befores he considered using skill.

Bratt, on the other hand, was amazed at her side.

'It looks like you were right Alan, she really is talented. She only trained for a day and she could already pick up this much. What level of skill will she have reiched in a few years?'

After a few hours, altenating between breaks and mock battles, it was finally time to stop for the day and resturn home. Everybody was exhausted but they all felt glad that they made good progress today, even Melissa. Bratt eventually assigned her to different groups in rotation to fight her, to much dismay of her opponents.

She really fought like a beast, just pure strength and and savagery, but they couldn't really dent that she was talented. If only she didn't have such...flaws...

Dana felt really glad she didn't have to face her as she was currently still a 'beginner' and didn't want to face her yet, much to the annoyance of Melissa herself. Eventually Bratt had to appease her himself and that was the reason she was so happy at the moment. She may not have won but that didn't really matter to her, only of the fight was enjoyable.

They all returned to the orphanage, had dinner and wnet to sleep.

******************

The next morning, just like yesterday, Dana did moring duty before heading off to the forest with Father Alexander.

When thay were back at the same tree with all the knifemarks, they stopped and he gave her the throwing knives back before explaining another technique.

"Another way to throw knives," he began, "is instead off letting the knives spin, is to let them fly in astraight line. This is a little harder to do and only works at close distances, but with your greater strength you should be able to increase the range. You just need to control the knives trajectory accurately but that's nothing a little practice won't solve. Now, just try to practice both forms and when you can hit ten out of the twelve knives accuratelt, we'll start with the next step."

Dana nodded and stood at the familar two meter distance of the tree and began practicing her throwing. It went more smoothly than yesterday and she began hitting the tree more often now, with both forms, but she still had a long way to go until she could aim properly and hit targets at longer distances.

After she was done, she went back to the orphange and took her gauntlets again before setting off towards the training field. She was excited. She came up with a few more ideas to incorporate into her fighting style and she couldn't wait try them out.

When she arrived, they were already split up into groups so she just greeted instructor Bratt and went towards Gregory to begin her mock battle and train. She tried out new things and both Gregory and Bratt gave her advice, both on techniques and tactics, and she improved visibly.

This continued for a while until after about a week, Bratt called her after they were walking back towards the orphanage.

"Dana, we have a surprise for you tomorrow so you can look forward to it."

After that, Bratt had to fend off a ton of questions from Dana about tomorrow and he was exhausted when she finally relented and could finally back home. Why couldn't he just tell her the new the next day? He truly didn't know but he regretted it a bit now.

Dana wasn't much better off herself. She loved surprises and she just couldn't wait until tomorrow and constantly thinking about what it could be. She didn't really pay attention at supper and so she burned her tongue which served as a reminder not to stop paying attention to her surroundings, not that she would still have it tomorrow because such small wounds heal overnight so she would be good as new tomorrow morning.

She spent a few hours in bed just staring the ceiling, still thinking about what tomorrow would bring.