DANGEROUS ⇛ Jason Todd [ currently on hiatus ]

10.

"Can we take a break?"

"No," Stephanie retorts bluntly, her eyes focused on my moving frame. "You were the one who wanted me to teach you how to fight, Danielle. You can't wimp out so soon."

"Soon?!" I blurt, abruptly stopping my jog. "Stephanie, it's almost been a whole hour! My body can't handle so much physical effort at once!"

"You--"

"And I wanted to learn how to fight! Not how to run!" I place my hands on my hips, raisin a questioning eyebrow at her. My chest burns, my legs ache and I'm sweating in places I didn't even know could sweat.

"But--" Stephanie sighs, giving in to my insistence. It's surprising, actually. "Fine. We'll get started by those swings, alright?"

"Cool," I reply, swiftly moving to the rusty old pair of swings. They stood in an abandoned corner of the once lively park. "Let's get it going. We don't really have that much time, Stephanie."

"When it comes to learning how to fight," Stephanie says. "We've got all the time in the world."

We place our stuff on the floor beside the metal railings that holds up the swings. Stephanie drags me over to an empty space on the grass, her grip on my wrist soft yet hard at the same time.

In all honesty, I'm a bit nervous. Before all of this, I could barely harm a fly forget about another person. I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know why I'm doing this but it's too late for me to back out now. Besides, knowing how to fight may just come in handy.

"Make sure your posture is correct first," Stephanie tells me, stepping behind me and placing a hand on my back. She pushes at me, placing my shoulders into the correct position and making my back straighten more than usual. "There's a natural curve in our spines. If you ever look at a diagram or model of the human skeleton you can see it. 85 percent of people tend to slouch and loose it which means that they have to strain their backs when correcting their posture. If you want to know how to fight like Jason, you have to make sure you know how to maintain the right stature first."

"Stephanie," I mumble, wincing as she fiddles with my tailbone. "I don't want to fight like Jason, I just want to be able to not die when I'm attacked. I want to learn just enough so that I can do something to help."

"Fine," She sighs. "But we still need to fix your posture."

I yelp out at a sharp pain that pulses through my shoulder. It's gone just as soon as it came. I turn around and glare at Stephanie, my gaze hardening as she laughs and steps away from my shoulder and I. She places her hands on her hips, simply watching me stand still and stab her with my eyes.

"See! You're standing straighter already!" She smiles. Stephanie motions for me to step towards her. I do as she says.

"The most important thing to remember is to keep your guard up." Steph explains. She steps behind me, grabbing my hands and forming them into fists before placing them inches away from my face. "When your not attacking, make sure to defend your face and your neck. One hard blow to either will have you down almost immediately and damage is worse in these two places. If someone hits you hard in the face, you can be knocked out or if there's enough force, it could snap your neck. If your hit on your neck you can easily choke or, you could even become paralysed because your neck is what connects the major muscles and nerves in your body to your brain. If that connection is lost, you'll be stuck."