"Alright, I'm ready to- oof!"
As soon as I moved my consciousness to my puppet body, someone kicked me in the gut. The kick was strong enough to break a rip or two on a normal human. Obviously, there was one person that would do that.
I held my stomach and rolled over while glaring at Scathach. "What the hell was that for?!"
"What student leaves their teacher as soon as they reached class?" She countered with her own glare, her hands at her waist.
"The kind that earned his break," Zack replied, standing up and dusting himself.
"I never said you earned your break," Scathach's glare didn't falter.
"And I never asked for your approval of a break, so we're even," Zack replied with a shrug.
Scathach's eye twitched. Taking a deep breath she reached forward... and began pulling my ear like a parent scolding their child!
"Ow ow ow! Hey!" I cried out but Scathach didn't care.
"Clearly I will have to teach you manners alongside how to fight. Even Setanta wasn't this disrespectful!" Now she also sounded like a parent scolding their child alongside looking like one.
"Are you kidding me! I'm older than you! You're the one who should respect me!" I cried in protest.
"You are still a guest and a student! And you have been nothing but disrespectful as both!" She replied. With that, Scathach began pulling me by the ear into her castle.
After she dragged me into the courtyard of her castle, she gave me a pole with weights on each end and made me swing it in several forms.
"Again!" She barked at me.
"I already know how to fight!" I said to her but started swinging nonetheless.
"Fighting to survive is not the same as fighting like a warrior!" She yelled at me, summoning a red spear and hurling it to nearly impale my feet when I went out of form. "You still don't have an actual style of fighting! Watching you is like watching a wild bear pretend their a trained warrior!"
"Who's fault is that!" I yelled back. She's the one that had me survive on my own after teaching me the basics!
"Yours! I taught you the basics! You should have used them as foundation to create your own style! Not just use them to know when to swing and when not to!"
Okay, I guess she's right that I should have worked on what she taught me, but still.
Scathach kept working me - well, the puppet body actually - to the bone and when I was done with the pole, she gave me different weapons.
She gave me fake swords with weights on the blade, she gave me knives, she gave me another pole but with one end not having weights so I can balance it on my own, and she even gave me a lance.
After all that weapon training, she had me balance myself while carrying a log... on a collection of poles... with the ground covered in spikes.
"Balance is everything!" Scathach cried out. "If you lose balance even for a second during battle, it can cost you your life!"
"I know you're being serious, but you sound like you're reciting some Haiku right now," I groaned, holding the log over my shoulders while standing on a pole with each foot.
After all that was done, the final lesson for today was a spar. I held my sword while Scathach was... bare-handed.
I charged at her with my sword... only to find myself on my back with my blade in her hands now and pointing it to my neck.
"Your stance was disgusting to look at," she actually gagged for a second and threw my sword besides me. "Again! And this time, try not to cheat by showing me something as ugly as that form just now!"
She's really going at it with stance and balance. I mean, as a spear user who focuses on speed, I guess I can understand why she's so focused on the balance and stance parts of my training.
But still...
The rest of the time was spent with Scathach thoroughly kicking my puppet body's ass. When she deemed it 'enough', which wasn't for a while, she finally decided to give me a break.
And with that... I finished my FIRST day in this hell-hole.
I have the urge to go back to my real body again but I know this will make things worse in the long run, so I'd rather not risk it.