Chapter 10

I had to spend four more days in the dreadful all-white hospital wing, I kept coughing up the remnant of the blood in my lungs. My hand was doing well, it was healing nicely, it still hurt a lot, but nothing I couldn't handle.

I was free to walk around now, and sleeping in my room, but I couldn't train the kids with fencing or self defense until 'BeRtHa gave me PeRmIsSiOn.' Which will never happen in the next month or so.

So, naturally I did it behind her back. Amalie had asked yesterday, and I had told her we could do it today, under the pretense I was 'taking a stroll in the gardens.' My body felt perfectly fine, and as long as I kept the stitched up cut on my hand safe-ish, I would be fine with teaching her hand-to-hand defense. Amalie is already better than Laden with fencing, but she needs to know how to take down someone twice her size. So, I'm turning all ninja again.

I pull on stretchy pants, I like to call them leggings because why not? And then a black loose tank-top, its optimal for the stretchy movements about to take place.

"Hey, are you ready?" I ask Amalie once I catch sight of her wearing almost the same outfit as me but she has a longer grey shirt on, in the fencing room of the first floor. The room I had found my first week here.

"Yes!" She tells me, almost bouncing in place. I smile at her enthusiasm.

"Okay, for warm-up, I want to do standing-rolls to help you with the falling techniques, because you will be falling often." I tell her. She nods and stands beside me, waiting for my demonstration.

"You will put your left hand on your clavicle, or collarbone, whichever you want to call it, and your right will go above your head, palm facing up." I show her, she mimics my movements.

"Now, put your right foot forward and I want you to lean forward, taking your left leg off of the floor completely, and when you fall, hit your forearm, roll to your right shoulder down to your left hip." I tell her, and then I lift off of my left leg, throwing it up, rolling on my forearm, shoulder, and then hip. "Like that." I say. She looks at me apprehensively.

"That didn't hurt?"

"No, I had rolled safely, it doesn't matter if you do this on stone or a bed, it will feel the same if you are doing it correctly."

"Alright." She says, putting her arm back up in the air. I watch her closely as she rolls, but her hadn't doesn't protect her and she rolls from her head down her spine. "That must've hurt." I comment, smirking.

"Yes." She answers, rubbing her low back.

"You know why?"- she shakes her head- "You rolled wrong. You rolled on your head down your spine. I want your to roll from your shoulder to your hip." I tell her, coming up behind her and tracing the path from her shoulder to her hip. "Like that." She nods and puts her hand up again. I watch her do it almost perfectly. "Much better!" I compliment. She smiles at me and waits further instruction. "Were doing the room down and back twice." I tell her, getting into the stance by the wall, looking at the thirty-forty foot distance to the opposite wall.

"Ready?" I ask her, she nods and smiles apprehensively. "You'll do great, if you mess up, fix it, and move on, it doesn't matter if you're slow also." I tell her. She nods, looking determined.

"Ready?" I put my right leg forward. "begin." I state, rolling and getting back on my feet on one fluid motion. I do it again and again, until I hit the wall on the opposite side of the room, and then going back. By the time I made on trip, Amalie had touched the wall. She's doing better than most at this, she's taking caution, and making sure its perfect every time.

Once she rolls back on her feet I tell her we are switching to our left side now, which means left hand up, right hand on clavicle and left leg forward.

We start again, I was a little faster this time, but Amalie was doing great nevertheless.

"Nice!" I smile at her, complimenting her fast-learning skills.

"Thank you, what's next?" I laugh at her question.

"Two take down maneuvers."

Amaile's eyes start to sparkle, and she looks at me with a huge smile.

"First one is called the wheelbarrow." I say, getting into a neutral stance. Amalie follows my feet, getting ready.

"Okay, so imagine a person punching at you, with this take down it doesn't matter which arm is punching at you." I say, jumping once. "So, they're going to punch at your head, or chest, step forward with your left foot 45 degrees, you are going to drop down, so far that your chest is touching your thigh." I say, dropping down quickly.

"You will have your hands up in a defensive stance as you are dropping down. Next, you are going to corkscrew punch the crotch, and retract your hand, putting both hands by your waist."

Amalie mimics as I demonstrate. "Next, with your hands back, you're going to step forward, and shove your shoulder into their bent over crook, wapping your arms around their legs, tackling them down to the ground, as they go down, move your hands to their heals so you still have control over them." I say, doing to motions as if a person is in front of me.

"Now, drop their feet, and get into a deep horse stance, spreading their legs apart as far as you can. Now, corkscrew punch to the crotch, leopard paw strike to the xiphoid process, and then spear hand to their throat, next you will step to the left with your left foot, cross behind with your right, and then uncross with your left, getting into an on-guard stance."

"Understand?" I ask, turning to Amalie. She nods.

"We're going to do it all at once, but while counting the moves." I tell her.

"Okay, Amalie says in a breath, getting into the neutral stance again.

"One, drop and punch. Two, tackle, keeping their heals in your grasp, three, let go of feet and punch the groin. Four, leopard paw, five, spear hand, Six, step-cross-behind." I look at Amalie while saying the steps, she already looks like she got this.

"Do you want to do it on me now?" I ask, She snaps her head to me with wide eyes.

"You want me to practice on you?"

"How else are you going to learn if you can't do it to people?"

"But what if I hurt you?"

"You won't actually be punching me, or tackling me, but you will do the motions and tap the areas." Amalie nods, understanding now.

"Okay, on move." I say, stepping in front of her in an on-guard stance. "Move." I say, punching at her head.

She drops low and taps right beside my groin with her fist. She then steps forward, lightly wrapping her arms around my legs and guiding me to the ground extremely controlled.

"Good." I grunt at her, she does the next three moves and then does the step cross behind. I kip up and smile at her performance.

"Do you want to get a guard in here and practice on them?" I ask her with a smirk.

"We can do that?"

"Of course we can, why're guards, but what are they guarding as of right now?"

===

So, for the next few hours we practiced different techniques and moves, I was genuinely surprised at the amount of stamina that Amalie had, she always seemed to be bursting with energy.

"One more technique." She pleads. I look at the two guards I brought it, their helmets had been thrown to the sides as well as the metal chest plate. The men look at me with a smile, wanting to be a test dummy again, it being so much fun for the last three hours. "One more, and then I have to check in with Bertha, otherwise she'll have my head." I jest.

"Yay!" The three of them scream, watching my next move.

"Nicholas." I motion the blond over with my hand. He steps in front of me. "This is one more takedown move, so, they are motioning to grab you with their right hand, you duck under their outstretched hand, your head is now by his ribs." I move my hand to grab his left shoulder, using the motion the jump on his back, my whole body off of the ground, in the jumping motion I keep the jump to have my left leg inside his other leg, my body now completely on the other side of when I started to jump. I switch my hands so now my left hand is where my right was, and force my body down, my eyes seeing the floor behind him, making his fall down with me, I roll on my shoulder and get back up, the guard now on the floor, gasping for breath. "Now, I couldn't do that in slow motion one bit, you have to use the momentum to throw him down." I explain.

"What just happened?" Amalie asked, her eyes huge.

I smile at her. "I'll explain as soon as Nicholas gets back up."

"I'm good." He grunts breathlessly, getting up slowly. I smile apologetically at him.

"Okay, Thomas, will you help Amalie with this?" I tell him. He nods, stepping in front of the princess.

"Now, Thomas and Nicholas, make a move to grab us." I instruct, they follow my instruction slowly.

"Amalie, duck under his arm, wrap your right hand on his opposite shoulder of his one reaching out to you. Now, we have momentum once we step, so, step around his legs, and jump on his back, jumping so that we will end up on the side you grabbed his shoulder with, while you are jumping, make sure your left leg ends up wrapped inside his left, and now once you're up here, you will replace your right hand with your left, and then force your body down, rolling out of your hold like in the warmup we did together." I couldn't actually shove Nicholas down like last time because I didn't have the momentum.

"Are you ready?" I ask her.

"Yep!" She tells me, smiling.

"Are you ready Thomas?" I tease.

"As I'll ever be."

"On Move." I tell them, standing a few feet beside Thomas. "Move." Thomas moves to grab, Amalie ducks under, grabbing his shoulder, jumping on his back, but she got caught up with his legs.

"Okay, that was good. But, you forgot to step around his legs, so basically think of it like you are running from the side to get on his back, but you keep your hand on his shoulder." She nods and gets into position again.

"Move."

Amalie ducks and steps around his legs, jumping on his back, replacing her right with her left, but she lost momentum while pausing to switch her hands that she couldn't take him down.

"You are doing so well, but you cannot pause while up there, you jump, while you are getting to his opposite side, you need to switch hands. And then you throw him backwards." Amalie nods, getting into position one more time.

"Move."

Amalie ducks, grabs, jumps, and replaces perfectly, then she starts to shove her body down, and she rolls out of the way, leaving Thomas on the ground.

"Yeah! Good job!" I tell her, clapping along with Nicholas.

"Did I do it?" She asks, standing up.

"Yeah!" I tell her. Amalie jumps up and down in happiness.

"Yay!"

"Great job, now let's do it eight more times perfectly."

"Eight?" Thomas yells.

"Oh! So, where you are going down, start to roll backwards so it doesn't hurt you."

"And you are telling us this now?"

"I though you two were strong men who could handle roughness." I tease. The both snort.

"Alright." Thomas says, getting into position again.

"Move."

===

"You do know that once we save the King I will never again torture my eyes with your face." I open my eyes, hearing my mothers voice in my head. I was in another memory.

"I'm counting down the days where I will not be forced to interact with...YoU." My father states, smirking at her.

"There's at least one thing we can agree on. " My mother mutters, sneering at Aliax.

They both went back to the paperwork, trying to get leads to get closer to finding the King.

"OH!" My father bursts out after a while.

"Yes?"

"Right here, it says the King was last seen at the Gala of Monterplier, the gala is a week long, and it has one more night left, which is this night. If he was last seen there, then we might have a lead with going to the Gala undercover." My father deducts, showing my mother the invitation.

"That might actually work, how will we go in? Undercover?"

"Definitely, let's pose as dates, if anyone asks, we're the barons of a township close by."

"Just one little problem, what township, and which Barons? It's going to be harder to pose as a political figure because almost everyone knows who they are."

"True, then, we get the Queen in on the undercover date."

"Alright." My mother checks her wrist-watch. "The gala starts at 7, that gives us three hours to get ready and set a plan of attack, so, to be fully into the 'date' aspect, I will set up maids to get us ready, come to my room in twenty minutes with formal wear, we will set up a plan in there."

"Alright, twenty minutes." He says, checking his watch also. "See you soon." He teases, then leaves the library through the jade door. I found my mother smiling after him.

===