Training Room!

*Argh* Dawn patted. He was grabbing his chest after being thrown so hard on the floor. He had been thrown so hard that he slid 13 meters away before stopping.

"Damn it!" he whispered under his breath as he clutched his jaw. It wasn't only his chest that was hurting but his jaw as well, in fact, multiple other places were hurting but he could not discern whether his bones were damaged or not.

"Quit complaining and get up!" Minty yelled in what might have been her form of encouragement from the middle of the room with a chain hanging over her shoulder. She was recoiling it with her hands to make it easy to use again.

"You got this Dawn!" Terra shouted from a seating ring that had been made for the audience.

"I don't think it's right to tell someone who is losing that they 'got this.' Especially when they have been getting tossed around from the moment that it started," Vito replied sitting next to him.

It was not his intention to be next to him, Terra just chose to sit next to Vito and Vito couldn't simply just walk away.

"Still, I would rather he fights back by now, it is insufferable to watch him get beat up like this," Vito added.

"Well, maybe he has a reason for not wanting to hit a woman?" Edith asked. "Maybe he fell in love with one and then hit her accidentally which caused her to run away saying she could never love such a violent man ever again in her life, thus this pain remained in him for the rest of his life!" she... hypothesized.

"Edith, I think you grew up watching too many dramas," Cyrus replied. "I would have said reading but you don't seem like the type to read."

Edith threw a fist at him and he turned his head to dodge it without looking at her. He then fixed his glasses back up.

Frustrated but accepting the fact that she missed she said, "Well then you make an educated guess, oh mister, de-tec-tive," she spelled out.

"That's easy," Cyrus answered. "Trauma."

"What?" Edith asked as she placed her full attention on Cyrus. Even Terra and Vito were now interested in what he had to say.

"What?" Cyrus asked surprised by their looks, "None of us have ever lived normal lives, that much is apparent with how quickly we adapt to these bizarre scenarios and how we act. And with nothing else that we might have in common as representatives, I think it's safe to say that we are all traumatized in one way or another."

"And that explains why he hasn't attacked her properly despite getting beat up a lot," he properly has a reason he doesn't want to talk about that would explain his actions.

"Well I wouldn't want to see trauma as a thing we can all relate towards but I don't think it is so far-fetched," Edith answered.

"Of course it isn't, I'm a detective, aren't I? When have I ever been wrong?" Cyrus smirked as he turned back to watch the sparing session.

So far, Vito, Edith, and Cyrus had all already sparred with Minty, in that order. Which just left Dawn to spar with her last seeing as how Terra was exempted.

Terra was looking at Dawn worriedly. He understood that just like him he had to have had a good reason for not wanting to fight, but he couldn't stand seeing Dawn getting injured so much like this.

And knowing from his own experience with Minty, she wouldn't stop until she was satisfied. Meaning that this would only keep going until he fought back. There would be no exceptions.

****

Back in the ring, Dawn had had enough. He was originally planning on dodging and blocking the strikes that he could from Minty and taking the hits he couldn't while watching and learning her technique, but that plan had a flaw.

Minty would only ever use the same weapon so often, then she would switch to a different one quickly after using the first. There was no rhythm to this or strategize, simply whenever she felt like it she would switch weapons and her proficiency made it to where each weapon felt like her specialty.

However that was not the case, she did have a favorite that she worked well with but she would only ever use that as a last resort. The only instance she has ever had of using it against someone in this room, was when she picked up the halberd against Terra and nearly lost despite using it.

"I was hoping that I could avoid you because I am faster," Dawn said as he was getting off the floor, "But it seems you can react quick enough to predict what I will do and prevent that."

"I was hoping I would be able to subdue you since I am stronger," he said now on one knee, "But you never let me get the chance and would throw me around when I tried."

"I was hoping to draw this out until you were tired since I regenerate my stamina," he said now standing up straight, "But it seems you have good composure and you never let yourself get exhausted."

Minty prepared the chain once more as she said, "Speed, Strength, Stamina, all of which representatives and candidates for representative excel in, thanks to that mark on your shoulder of course," she said now flexing the chain.

"But all of which can be overcome with experience," Minty replied. "And I have years of that over you."

"Experience, huh?" Dawn repeated without looking at her. "You know, I don't feel comfortable having to hit a lady in the face and you are my instructor after all. But after how hard you've hit me!!?" Dawn said turning his face to her with a look filled with anger.

"I believe I can make an exception," he declared as he rushed forward.

Minty was relieved that she had finally got through to him. 'Who knew that anger could be such a good motivator,' she thought.

Minty swung the chain down at him as he ducked to dodge that blow. Without realizing that she was hoping he would do that, he kept going forward.

She pulled back the chain that was now on the floor and as she did so, it came back to her while wrapping itself on Dawn's leg.

Dawn felt an entanglement on his leg, but before he could react, she swept him off his feet and started moping him around on the floor.

Dawn tried to use his strength to undo the chain or maybe even break it but there was a constant pressure of force being applied to it causing him great pain. And so, for some reason, he couldn't use his strength when he was in pain, he would always heal first, as though his body prioritized healing as a survival method.

With a constant amount of pain being applied he realized that he couldn't rely on his powers, so he used his own two arms to push himself off the floor with as much force as possible causing him to fly through the air for a while.

It was an awkward push due to Minty moving him around so much that he might have broken a bone while doing it, but with the constant regeneration taking place he knew it would heal soon enough.

Landing on his feet and on the other side of her, Dawn further wrapped his own leg with the chain that Minty was using and then he stepped on it.

This had caused some cheers from Terra who was watching in awe that Dawn would be capable of such a feat. Even the other three didn't expect him to be able to do this good.

With his leg and arm now healed, Dawn grabbed the chain with both hands and started pulling Minty towards him.

Minty let go of the chain causing Dawn to fall down and this time, she rushed towards him!

He didn't have time to get up so he twirled himself around on the floor with his arms to cause the chain to go and spiral around the room. Despite this, Minty dodged every hit that he had tried to land on her.

Seeing her get closer, Dawn pulled back the chain, Minty thought it was supposed to hit her on her way towards him but instead, it went past her and into his hands.

Coming down on him, Minty used her full force to land a fist downwards into the ground and pound Dawn with it. Dawn on the other hand wrapped the chain around her arm in such a way that if she continued with her pursuit she would break her own arm by the joints.

Minty stopped as her fist barely made contact with Dawn's face and he was shaking.

"You did good," she smiled as she pulled back her fist and he let go of the chain, still feeling wobbly after.

"The submission you used to restrain my arm in the last second is good, though if your opponent didn't care about themselves that much, they would have kept going and broken your face along with their arm."

"And on the other note, my other hand was still free. I could have simply stopped the first one in order to hit you with the second one with no drawbacks."

"But for someone who has never been in a 'real' fight only virtual, you did great," she congratulated him.

"Wait!" Vito yelled from the audience, "You have never been in a Real fight before?"

"Shut up!" Dawn yelled back. "A fight is still a fight. Real or not!"

"Spoken as someone with no real experience," Vito commented as he reminisced about Dawn being disappointed in him falling to kill Terra because of Cyrus while he believed that Dawn would have done worse if it had been him.

*Argh* "Whatever," Dawn said as he ignored Vito. "Here," he handed over the chain back to Minty, "Your weapon."

She took the chain and smiled as she said, "Speaking of weapons, it is time you received yours."

"You as well," she yelled looking towards the audience, "Now that the training is over, I want you all to come down and receive the weapons that have been assigned to you. I made sure to pick something that would best suit your fighting style after confirming your capabilities myself just now."

"You will be taking them with you on your upcoming mission."

Hearing this, they all got up excitedly got up and made their way towards Minty. With Terra rushing down in the lead first.

"One question," Dawn asked standing next to her. "How did you know that I only have virtual experience?"

"I looked at your file," Minty replied. "John gave it to me after looking through it himself and then I gave it back. It spoke about how you spent a big portion of your life gaming online and practicing how to fight."

"Ah I see," Dawn answered a little disturbed at the invasion of privacy Minty just so blatantly exposed to him. "So that's how you know."

He was a little uncomfortable that they could just do a background check on him and figure out whatever they wanted, but he was in no position to say anything about it. For all he knew, these people had been doing this for as long as possible.

Still hearing the name of his former instructor made him curious.

'John huh?' Dawn thought. 'I wonder how he is doing?'

****

Someplace, Somewhere, in a room filled with a workload of paper, John was holding a file displaying the name Dawn on it.

Closing the file and placing it back on the desk, John sighed as he laid back into the chair and said, "Dawn huh? It had been so long since that incident, that I never even realized that we had met before, despite spending time with you."

"Though it seems you didn't recognize me either," John chuckled.

"You've grown up a lot," he said before taking a deep sigh. "I am sorry that I didn't know what you were going through back then, I would have helped you more had I known, but I can't change the past."

"I can only better the future by helping you now. Any support you need, I will give it to you, I will stick around this time and hopefully, you might get better along the way."

"I will be sure to visit you soon, Dawn," he said as he closed the file and placed it on top of his desk.