Havoc

7: Expectations

Vaughan's POV

I knew that Maya had to have some skills but I must admit that I was impressed when she pinned Revleer. Her movements were incredibly fast and even a seasoned warrior like myself would struggle to keep up with her. Then again, one doesn't become an infamous assassin if they aren't any good.

"Now that, was the most fun I've had in a long time," Maya says as she turns back around to face me.

"I'm going to train," was my only reply. Hopefully she got the message that I prefer training to be more solitary.

She walks over to the table with her throwing knives and to my dismay keeps talking, "ya know it's been ages since I've gotten to spar with someone... would you mind?"

"Maybe some other time," I say. It's not that I couldn't take her down easy, because I'm sure I could. It's because I would rather gauge her skills before engaging in combat. Clearly she wasn't happy that I refused because she let out a rather large scoff and begins to mumble to herself. 

Grabbing my bow and a quiver of arrows, I walk up to the shooting range. Taking position in front of the target located 250 ft away I take my aim. The arrow sticks right into the bullseye. A movement to my right distracts me and I look over to find Maya heading my way. I'm not going to give her the attention she is clearly expecting so I just get back to my archery. 

Then she positions herself at the target next to mine. Now I can't help but give her an annoyed look.

"What?" she says, "It's the only other 250 ft target... geez." I notice that she only has her throwing knives and I can't believe she's actually going to try this. Even I would struggle to hit a target at such a distance. Maya is either going to miss the target entirely or not even be able to get the knife far enough to hit anything. 

Clearly she has a high level of self-efficacy because all she does is grab a knife, toss it in her hand so that she's holding the blade and takes her aim. Before throwing it she takes a deep breath, probably to help her focus. At this point she notices I'm watching her and glances at me before sending an eye roll my way. When she had glanced at me I noticed that her eyes were grayer than they usually are. They give her emotions away and once again, I need to stop caring about her eyes. 

Looking back at her target she throws the knife. Of course the bitch hits dead center. Clearly satisfied with her performance she turns back to me with an annoyed smile.

"Does that help you gauge my skills?" She states. How the fuck did she know I was trying to do that? Must've just been a good guess. 

"Fine, I'll spar with you," I say quietly.

"YAY!" Oh my gods I don't think I've ever seen a person so excited to spar.

"Blades or no blades?"

"Do you even need to ask?" My unamused face lets her know that I do. "Blades of course, I'll be using my scims, you can choose whatever you like." 

Naturally I choose my favorite sword, its perfectly balanced and made of steel from Doranelle. It was gifted to me about 150 years ago for my 200th birthday. The butt of it has an osprey carved into it with two red gems as its eyes. I also pick up a random dagger, if she gets two blades then so do I.

She's already on the mat by the time I've grabbed my blades. I wish I had seen incorrectly but no, she just licked along the length of her left scim. I should have expected such grotesque behavior from a child who likes to play with knives.

She makes eye contact with me and her eyes are the same steel color they were earlier, she looks at me and seems to say 'ready' with her eyes. I must have conveyed the same message because before I know it she is leaping at me.