Something feels… not quite wrong. In fact, you feel better than ever, considering what's been going on the past few days. As you swing your sword, you feel like the blade is lighter, the swings easier, the power greater. You've been in the training room since classes ended, but surely you didn't power up that fast. You've even been taking more than a few tumbles learning… how to tumble; even against an unmoving dummy, you've been practicing how to fall and roll and duck and weave.
It isn't until you heft your sword over your shoulder and take a breather that you spy your reflection in a wall mirror. You're still not quite used to seeing… whoever you are looking back at you, double for the hat covering your still alien ears, but something is different about your reflection from earlier.
"Oh, hey! Briar!" says a familiar voice from behind you. Startled, you look in the mirror and see Yang and Ruby. While Yang was in some tight-fitting workout gear, Ruby was in her usual dress and cape; you find it a bit strange, considering she was in a gym. She did wear that during orientation, though… Is that what huntresses wear? Weiss was in a skirt, too…. Whatever. Yang was dressed a bit more appropriately, wearing a sports bra and short shorts; in addition to showing off her impressive bust and shapely hips, she also highlighted her muscles. You're a fan of all of that. "Nice to see you working up a sweat on day one!" Yang said, scanning your progress.
Letting your body relax, you turn to face the sisters. "Yeah. Just… thought I might try to get ahead, seeing as I'm kinda behind and all. I imagine you're doing the same?" Looking to Ruby, you wonder, "And what are you doing?"
"I was gonna do some training too!" Ruby says, enthusiastically. "I got all pumped up watching Weiss earlier today!"
"And because she and Weiss aren't getting along~" Yang teases. Ruby pouts. "It'll be fine, sis. You'll nab her with your feminine charm one day!"
"Do you have to be so embarrassing in front of people!?" Ruby whines, tugging at her hood.
Laughing, you walk up closer to the pair. "It's fine, it's fine. Sorry you aren't getting along."
"Yeah, it's a rough start…" Yang says, looking at the ground. "Lucky you, having no team."
"But that leaves me with no training partners," you say, totally not fishing for a pity spar.
"Well…" Yang looks over at Ruby. "You said you're a total noob, right?"
"Pretty much."
"Well, I'd undoubtedly kick your ass with or without the golden girls." Yang flexes, showing off her bracelet weapons and her still surprisingly large forearms. Big boobs and a six pack worked really well, especially on a woman as body-confident as Yang… "But Ruby here needs some hand to hand training. What do you say, Rubes?"
Ruby shies back, startled. "R-right away!? And without Crescent Rose?"
"You need to learn how to not rely on one weapon. You never know where you're going to be unarmed."
"B-b-but I thought he wasn't ready to fight!"
Yang blinks. Turning to you, she cocks her head to the side. Realizing whatever was wrong, she pops up and says, "Wait! You're better!"
You raise an eyebrow. Oh, wait! She's right! You touch your hand to your face and massage the area by your eye; since your run-in with Gild and the other racists, your black eye had felt tender and painful and your bruises ached. You turn back to the mirror and see that your eye wasn't a gross purplish color! It's still a little obvious you had a black eye, but it seems your Aura is almost back to default; you're relieved to learn that you're no longer in danger of deep-seated injuries. The same went for your arm bruises; they were faded, but not gone.
"Oh, sweet! You're right! I didn't even notice!"
"See, Ruby? Your charm has cured our ailing friend!"
"Yanggg…"
"That means he's good for a spar! C'mon! He needs this! And YOU need it, too!"
"Ughhh…" Ruby whines. You imagine she won't say no to her sister in a situation like this, so she relents and hands Yang Crescent Rose.
You suddenly realize something. While Weiss' absence was explained by her and Ruby's bad relationship, that left the fourth of the group. Remembering the insanely pretty dark-haired woman, you ask, "So… uh… where's your other teammate, then?"
Yang brightens at the sound of her other teammate being mentioned. "Oh, Blake?"
Blake is a pretty name for a pretty girl…
Yang continues, "She decided she'd rather read. She's a bit worn out from yesterday, and that's totally fair." She pushes Ruby forward, sending her sister off balance until she catches herself. "Now, go on! Knock him senseless!"
"Just gimme a sec!" Ruby whines. You allow her to compose herself as you move the dummies out of the way, giving you space to spar. The ground was padded and no one else was around, so you take a fighting pose and get ready to… oh, wait, you're gonna spar with a girl half your weight and two years younger than you. Even if you win despite her training, you don't think you'll feel great about it. That said, you know Yang is lethal with her fists, so better chance it with someone less… her. Thankfully, Ruby wasn't using a weapon; Oz said she was a prodigy, so you don't think you would last a minute.
Ruby takes up an unconfident fighting stance. You toss Synstylae to Yang and take up your own; you aren't experienced in any discipline, so you pull up your dukes and lighten your feet.
Yang announces you and Ruby to start, taking a seat to watch the show. You wait until you see Ruby move before stepping in, only to find a cloud of roses where she was. You feel a tap hit your cheek as she bops you with a light punch. Aside from a small sting, you feel nothing; she was clearly toying with you. You turn to face her and find another cloud of rose petals, followed by another sting. Starting to feel an innate sense inside you, you focus on moving.
You take several more playful jabs to the face, already understanding that you were out of Ruby's league. Though, as time goes on, you're able to start parrying and blocking her attacks until she starts getting a little more serious. Ruby starts mixing things up, though you know enough about her fighting to know that she's not too skilled, either; you aren't fast enough to react, but you know that her moves have a distinct pattern. She went for one, two, three, four, repeat. Ruby also was only punching, and still playing with you. You aren't sure if that was because she was being easy, or if because that was all she knew; if Yang said she wasn't good at close combat, you think you start to understand why and how.
Putting your guard up, you start to ingrained Ruby's taunting blows. She was still going for the same few areas, and she was still acting in a pattern. Feeling her moves incoming, you start weaving out just enough to let them scrape by you, barely missing. Your body acclimated to Ruby's enhanced speed and you act; as you feel a pattern coming, you dodge out of the way and manage to grab Ruby's arm.
With most of your might, you pull Ruby off balance and shoulder check her. She gets knocked to the ground, but catches herself pretty easily. Though him would feel bad about hurting her, she looks up at you, rather impressed with what you did.
"Woah! What an upset!" Yang says, mimicking an announcer. "The crowd goes wild!" She fakes a crowd, whispering, "Ahh! Ahh!"
"That was pretty good!" Ruby says, standing up.
"No, it wasn't," Yang says, smirking. "You're just too predictable, Ruby. I could see right through you, and so could he, after a bit, at least."
"That's fair," you agree. You succeeded in letting yourself get punched until you managed to get punched right. That wasn't a long term strategy against something with claws and a friend filter on.
"I wasn't that bad!" Ruby shouted.
"You kinda were, sis. I know you were taking it easy on him, but you still need to mix it up. You didn't kick, or elbow, or anything."
"But I'm short! You have long legs and arms!"
"Which means you can duck and dive and stuff better than I can. Anyway, yeah, you're right, Redfield; you ARE new at this."
"That obvious?"
"Pretty much. Here, let's do some legit stuff." Yang wandered over to a rack of wooden approximations of weapons off to the side. She picked up a long pole analogous to your sword and tossed it to you. "I'm gonna take a stance, and you're gonna tell me what you'd do." She removed her bracelets and handed them to Ruby. "I'll pull my punches, but if you guess wrong, I'll tap you more than Ruby did."
You foresee this going poorly. Wielding the long wooden shaft like your greatsword, you ready up. Facing off against Yang, you're taken off guard by her cleavage; in her workout gear, her boobs were spilling out of the top of her sports bra. You swallow and refocus, trying to focus on how much failure would hurt. Instead, you focus on her other attractive features; unfortunately, her well-toned arms would mean that, even if she was pulling punches, her fists would hurt.
Yang takes an open stance, favoring her left leg, and puts her fists up. "Alright, Red. Whatcha got?"
Thankful Yang was letting you think about your answer, you raise your "sword" and consider. If she was leaning on her left foot, then she'd have to step to the right. Right? Unfortunately, that meant that she was on the wrong side; your sword was in your right hand, otherwise opposite of where Yang would be stepping. The large size makes it too unwieldy to swap to the other hand, so you're left with few options.
"I'm going to jump…" you say, hopping to your right/Yang's left, "…over here, and I guess I'll put up my guard." You hold your staff in front of you and brace it. From your perspective, Yang would have to pivot her entire body to get a good shot on you.
"Not terrible," Yang says with a grin. She does indeed pivot her entire body to better face you. "I would have only been able to get a quick jab in, and that would only be if you were close enough. She adjusts to be lower, balancing her feet equally. Without warning, she jumps at you, raising a fist aiming to strike.
On instinct, you flinch, but manage to shrug off Yang's punch by batting it away with your faux weapon.
"That's good! You're better at reacting, at least. Maybe putting you against somebody that's Semblance is Speed wasn't a great idea." Yang loosens up, relaxing her body. Even quicker than before, she moves in to punch you, succeeding seeing as you put your guard down.
You take a quick, painful jab to the face as Yang's fist connects. Thankfully, your newfound Aura quickly fades the pain away.
"I'll admit, that one was unfair," Yang laughs. "But you need to be prepared. No one is gonna choreograph their fighting style THAT much.
"Duly noted," you say, rubbing your cheek.
"Come on, let's go again." Yang reset her position, taking a new stance with openings. "Ruby, you be in standby to switch out. This'll be good for you, too." Ruby puts everyone's things down and sits.
You spend a good chunk of the afternoon getting your ass kicked. Yang begins to ingrain in you how humans that can move fight, teaching you how to spot a weakness in stances and prepare for surprise attacks. By the end of the day, your Aura is gone (again), but your new bruises are a small price to pay for the combat experience. You're incredibly glad you met Yang and Ruby; they make great teachers and great training partners, so you set up a few times where they can help you at hand to hand and with weapons. You feel like you'll become a proper fighter in short order.
