I grunted, the moment I hit the ground when Red Hood had just judo flipped me, showing that she knew a hell of a lot more than the archives showed, "And that's why you need a grounded stance and a balanced center of gravity, any questions?" I gave her a thumbs up and slowly got off the floor, noticing my limp right arm... I think my shoulder got dislocated.
I pointed at it with a frown, "How do I deal with this?" She stared at me and straight-up grabbed my forearm and shoulder and pushed up, getting a sickening pop in response and forcing me to bite down a scream.
Taking a deep breath, I gave her a tired stare, "Ok... that was painful." I started rotating my arm to see if anything was wrong and felt nothing wrong, aside from the soreness.
"Dislocated limbs are just joints out of place, putting them back into place is easy with a decent knowledge of the bone structure and decent force applied too." She is way better at this teaching stuff than I expected her to be, she has been teaching me some unarmed combat and how to not stand like a fucking idiot that could be toppled over by a single push.
I got up and glanced at her while she drew her knife/ax and pointed it at me, "Time to see how good you are with a weapon, draw boy." I pursed my lips and then smiled in amusement, management must be losing their shit... again.
Butterflies came from the coffin in my back carrying the beak shield and One Bro's mace, I grasped the mace with my right hand and the shield on my left one, "Good enough, but only because E.G.O is bullshit." She stared at me for a moment and literally blurred.
Bringing up the shield and getting pushed back from a stab, I suddenly had to step back from a swipe of her leg that almost tripped me, while she was below me, I brought down the mace and... what the fu-
Suddenly, I received a spin kick from her position on the ground that nailed me on the ribs and threw my ass to the ground, but the confusion I felt negated most of the pain.
Red Hood was looking down at me with an 'eye smile', "You seem confused, anything you noticed on that exchange?" I gave her a flat stare, how was I supposed to know you could become intangible!?
"Aside from the part of you being a damn ghost, nothing much." So I'm probably a little salty, she signaled at me to get up while shaking her head in minor disappointment.
She stood there lazily and pointed at my weapon, "Hit me." I gave her a quirked brow but shrugged my shoulders and swung for her head, yup, just went through her.
"Again, but pay attention." I feel like she is calling me stupid on her thoughts, I decided to concentrate more on her rather than my blow I swung in an arc towards her chest, and she... I almost missed it, but I think she tilted back slightly to barely dodge the blow, then what the hell was that shit I was seeing?
My stare of confusion was apparently all Red Hood needed to explain herself to me, "I'm doing two things here aside from dodging. First of all, I'm predicting your intention and moving before you do, if you know what they are doing, then you can dodge it no matter what." That... seems a little too high-level for our first class.
"Ok... how exactly do you do that?" That sounds like shit straight out of a manga from back home, also dope as hell.
She put a finger under her chin and closed her single eye, "Cues, eye movement and body twitches along with posture and finally the position of your own body. If you can have those three things in mind, you can do it... of course, this is based on predictions and experience rather than reflexes." Okay yeah this is some high concept stuff to what I thought it would be just swinging your weapon really well.
She rose her knife/ax again, "Let's go again, you have to instinctually know how your body is moving to keep your full attention on your enemy and surroundings." Okay, so this is an exercise on awareness and battle, and to think at some point I thought math class was hard...
We went at it again and by that I mean she dodged everything I threw at her, I did try to keep my attention more on her, even if from time to time I tripped and got a kick to the face from that blunder and while I could see the tilts she made to dodge sometimes I still saw my attacks go through her, E.G.O lets me use it efficiently but clearly, it doesn't show me how to fight.
I blocked a high-kick aimed at my face with my shield, and she threw her other leg at my face and grabbed me before literally flipping me to the left when she spun her whole body and made my face eat the metal floor, "You should probably call it a day boy, I'm not fond of bullying my prey... unless they are wolves." yup... life is pain.
She removed her legs, which had a lot more lean muscle than expected. While I laid there contemplating how much she kicked my ass, "SO... ugh-how did I do teach?" I asked, my face still kissing the metal floor.
I had a feeling she was giving me a flat stare, "6 out of 10, try to work more in your awareness and learn to dodge decently." The room flashed green, and I slowly got up, swiping with my thumb the blood on my nose while giving Red Hood a thumbs up.
There goes some of my masculine pride...
The moment I left the door, my whole team looked ready to murder Red Hood... minus Amelia who was at best curious, "I feel like we have been here before." That was probably not the smartest thing that I should have said in this particular situation.
At least Amelia is amused, so that's a plus.