mutated

chapter thirty one: wet paper salad is gross. you'll see what i mean

Karyn leaped towards me, her arm swinging back to punch me, and as she started to come closer, I caught her fist, twisting her arm and pulling her under my own, till her arm was in a painful angle. To release her from her misery, I delivered a swift kick at her back, and she stumbled onto the floor. "That's too direct. Lia's fast, she'll see it coming and you'll be on the floor like this."

"You know, when I came to the training room for the first time to ask you for help, I didn't expect to be thrown across the room the whole day," Karyn muttered.

She had a fair point. While I wasn't even sweating or wearing proper gear, Karyn was in the breathable and light combat gear, yet was drenched in sweat, strands of hair plastered to her forehead and neck. The talented artist had come into the training room for the first time in five months, and seeing that I wasn't really doing anything productive (that was true, I was just throwing daggers around), forced me to help her prepare for her fight against Lia.

I wasn't surprised she would be asking for help. She had already been close to elimination last round, losing to Abby but luckily defeating Alyssa, and now, she had already lost to Camellia. One more loss and she was out. Stuck in rank Topaz.

Furthermore, she was against Lia. Even I had trouble beating her, and now she had to? Well, we had a long way to go.

"What did you expect? Have you even met me?" I replied, tugging on the edge of my shirt. It was one of my classic stripy shirts, which was probably one of the reasons why Karyn was sorta pissed at me. She insisted that wearing stripy things all the time was an unhealthy fashion habit, but I had to disagree. Stripy things were okay, just as long as you didn't waltz around in purple and black stripy pajamas from Uniqlo.

And the pajamas being a matching set, making you look like a rip-off Cheshire cat.

That's not directed at anyone from our class, so there's no need for anyone to become indirectly triggered.

"I have met you! Just I thought there'd be a bit more... technique."

"The technique is not to get thrown across the room. Think of this like improvising."

"I hate improvising! It's so fücking hard!"

"I thought you liked improvising?"

"Whatever. So what's the technique for not getting thrown across the room?"

"Don't attack them, wait for them to attack. Like, you're obviously much slower than Lia-"

"thanks."

"You're welcome. Anyways, if you're slower than her, and she's faster, you can use her momentum against her instead of using your own energy to fight her. So, if you charge at me-" I waved her hand, and she huffed, getting back to her feet and running towards me. At the last minute, right before she punched me, I sidestepped, before grabbing the back of her shoulder and her waist, flipping her onto her back as she lost balance and crashed on the mats.

"-I can flip you over, using your own momentum to launch you into a flip." I continued to explain. "Now, you try with Ris."

"Who?"

I flicked my hands, and one of the training dummies stood up on its feet. This one was different to the other ones, as I had customized it to have fully functional joints and could balance by itself, so it was basically like a person. Just for the fun of it, I had given it clothes and features and hair. Black waves of hair, blue eyes, an all black-assassin look with a cloak and a mask. The dark curls were compiled into a bun at the top of 'her' head, and blue markings were visible near the circlet on her forehead.