Ch8: Training
"Alright Kurt, give me your best shot." Taiyang said, holding Dragon's Breath in a diagonal guard angled towards me.
I drew my swords from their sheathes on my back, holding Pearl in a reverse grip, before charging straight at him. I slashed upwards with Anne, to knock Dragon's Breath away and open him up to a strike from Pearl.
I succeeded in knocking away his sword, only to be kicked back a few yards.
'Well then, that'll leave a mark. Time to change plans.' I think, picking myself up and sheathing my cutlasses.
"Is that it?" Taiyang asks, sounding a little bit disappointed.
"Not even close." I smile, drawing Marxman from its holster on my left hip, aiming at Taiyang's center of mass with the assistance of the ENTIRELY NECESSARY 4x magnification scope I had installed with Ruby's help.
My new strategy consisted of me plinking away at Taiyang with Marxman while bamf-ing in a (barely) successful attempt to stay out of his reach.
That is, until he decided to fire FLAMING BUCKSHOT AT ME.
I may be able to teleport instantly, but that doesn't help against something moving so fast that it hits you before you can even think to teleport.
Fortunately, I had managed to figure out how to tap into my Aura a few days earlier. It stopped the more lethal hits, but I did take a few glancing hits in my upper right arm and lower right leg.
"Well then. Ow." I said, a combination of my Aura and my tendency of ignoring physical pain preventing me from collapsing as I managed to hobble back to the house, using Blue Death in sniper form as a crutch as I was too exhausted to Bamf back.
"Sorry about that, just trying to pin you down, that semblance is annoying to work against." Taiyang said, walking next to me.
One of the first things I did, even before making my weapons, was to at least be able to reliably access my semblance, I'm by no means perfect with it, but I can manage to Bamf reliably. Not accurately, but reliably.
"It's alright. I'm still alive."
"So," He said when I finally got inside and sat down, the buckshot wounds were (mostly) healed, but I was sore all over. That was the sixth training round of the day. "Tell me what happened in that last fight." After every fight, Taiyang and I would discuss what I did right and, more often, what I did wrong.
"I started out pretty well."
"You did."
"But then I didn't have much of a plan after that."
"No plan survives the first strike."
"And if we have no idea what we're doing, then the enemy certainly can't tell what our plans are."
"You come from a strange culture."
"Commie."
"Alright then." Taiyang has, by now, stopped questioning the random (to him) things that I say.
*Arf!*
"Hey there Zwei, aren't you just the cutest little thing, yes you are." I say in that voice that almost everybody uses when talking to animals and babies.
Taiyang chuckles.
"I've been meaning to ask you, why'd you get such a small, adorable dog? I thought a Hunter like you would've gotten a larger dog." I say, Zwei is now in my lap, being scratched behind the ears.
"Well, he was more for the girls than anything else, and he's got his own secrets."
"Such as?"
"He's fireproof and almost impossibly tough."
"It's like every day this family gets more and more awesome." I chuckle, holding Zwei up in front of my face. 'Isn't he so adorable... aaannd now he's licking my face.'
"You two getting along well?" Yang calls from her room.
"Your dad beat the crap out of me and now your dog's using me as a living pillow."
"So, same as usual."
"Pretty much." 'This is pretty much my home now… not bad, not bad at all.'