Part Two: This Is Not a Game
"Ben, I'm not sure ab—" she started out nervously.
"We need to train you in some sort of fight skill…"
She worried her lip, eyeing the wooden staff in her hands.
"You can't hurt me," he assured her, "Come at me!"
So she lunged, going into the standard staff sparring routine. He parried her blows easily, weaving to and fro, shouting, "C'mon Julie, you'd be dead by now!"
She gritted her teeth, beginning to improvise her moves and striking harder.
"Good, good, but you have to hit harder! These wouldn't even bruise a human!"
With a disappointed sigh he easily disarmed and then incapacitated her.
"You're dead Jules."
He helped her up, telling her, "This isn't a game, Julie. We have no save points, no extra lives; screw up and it's game over for good…"
"I know that!" her face burnt. How dare he imply that she was treating this as a joke.
"Apparently not; I know you can fight harder, I've seen you do it."
"Self-defense classes aren't the same; those people are human!"
"Well I'm not. The creatures you'll be fighting won't be either; get used to it or give up."
The staff struck him across the side of the head, knocking him down.
"Get up." She ordered, with a fire in her eyes that wasn't usually there. He had gotten her angry. He grinned, leaping to his feet.
She was striking harder, improvising moves more this time and so lasted a couple seconds longer than before but he still easily rendered her vulnerable. But she wasn't done yet. He had had gotten her pissed. It wasn't easy to get Julie to go berserk but when she did it wasn't very nice. He blocked most of her strikes and so she played dirty, grabbing his family jewels and twisting. He went to his knees, as she released her hold, holding himself and squeaking out, "Not fair, Julie, not fair!"
"Never imply that I think this a game or I'll do much worse."
He gulped, tears of pain still rolling, and nodded frantically. He the fell onto his side, beginning to whimper.