When I arrive at the practice field I scan around for Alice. I also allow for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

"I see that you didn't run here today. I thought that you were supposed to."

"I was supposed to, but I did indeed forget. My apologies mistress Alice. I did warm up however when I danced and played."

"Ah, the bar dances."

"Yes, that and the fan dance earlier."

"Speaking of the fan dance." Alice says, and hands something over to me. Well, two somethings actually.

"I had these custom made. I know that they might seem a bit crude, but that was only because they were made so fast. They are good quality. They won't break while we spar and that is what is important."

I take what she hands me. "Two fans?" I inquire.

"Well, I had you fighting with two daggers last night, so you will be fighting with two fans tonight. I thought it provided you with an even balance. Don't you agree?" she asks. I do agree actually, and I tell her so.

"What are the rules tonight?" I ask, wanting to know this ahead of time.

"No rules, we just can't actually harm one another." she said, and I heard a weight in her voice. I knew to take her seriously right now.

"No actually harming one another. Is there a way I will know that training has ended."

"Yeah, when you are on the ground and unable to move." She says. “Or I mock kill you seven times."

"Why seven?"

"I like the number, not everything has meaning." she says and takes her stance. As she said there were no rules this time. I whisper the incantation that came to me while I was speaking with Cat.

"Fire that does not burn, lightning to shock but do no harm." Cat said that what was most important was that I make my intentions clear. They are my skills, and they should respond to what I am asking of them.

I see them light up, one white and sparking the other blue with ethereal flames. I tap them together and they both turn purple, I would not have guessed that reaction but I am much pleased with it. They seemed to be sharing their effects. I grin and touch them to my skin to be assured that they would do no harm. I did feel a jolt, but it did not hurt and let no marks. Perfect, why almost stunning.

"Go." she says, and lunges at me. It is possible that she moved even faster tonight than she did last night. Goodness, if that is the case I shall have to work even harder than last night. I run my fans over her weapons, turning them away so that they would not touch me. I see sparks dance off my fans. It lit the area even more. I saw Alice leap back and stare at my weapons.

I nod to her and show her that they will not harm her by touching them to myself. I thought that she had seen me do that earlier, but I can understand why it is something she wished to confirm. She nods to me in return and whispers something. If my hearing was any less keen I would not have heard her.

"Shadow step."

I don't think so, no one steps on my shadow. I feel her slam her wooden dagger into my arms. It hurt but I angled my arm turning it into a glancing blow, it runs down my skin and to my fan. When it got near the end of my fan I turned it away from me and attempted to disarm her with a wrist flick. Of course, it did not work, but I thought that it might be a good idea.

"Nice thought." she said and faded into the shadows again.

"Faux fire!" I shout and lights danced around us like last time. However, my lights followed my intent and spread out to different areas around the training field. I take notice of the obstacles used during the normal course work, and I planned on making use of everything that was there.

"Interesting." I hear her comment in approval.

This time I lunge at her. Our weapons slam together, causing my wrist to hurt. This time I slid my fan down her weapon and twisted it when it touched her wrist. I see her begin to jump back from the static shock. I leap into the area that she just vacated, and spun on my toes, one fan held out, and the other kept close to my body in a defensive position.

I tried to will the flames and electricity off of my weapon. Come on, respond please. I would really like to find out if this is something that works now before I try something like this in the dungeon. My fan takes on a glowing, lightning edge, that extends past the fan blade. It works! Not very far but it would do. I swing and it looks like a little bolt of purple lightning is flung at her, and hits.

I see her eyes narrow, and her shoes come off. It seems that she gets serious when she kicks her shoes off. I can feel the danger increasing as she grows claws on her feet. Not only is she holding weapons, but her hands and feet are clawed. As soon as my light show ends her eyes narrow, and I take off running.

I feel like a rabbit as I bounce my way up the wall and onto the platforms. This time though I jump from platform to platform, and make sure that there is fox fire on each of them. I then slink over and duck down behind the targets.

I can tell that Alice knows the direction that I went in, but I don't think that she knows my current location. I am hoping to use that to my advantage. I watch. I see her moving so fast that she is leaving shadow blurs behind her. Oh goodness, I am in for quite a world of pain. I think back to my stats sheet. Was there anything else that was on there that could be useful to be. Bonus to rhythmic kinesthetics? No, that won't help right now. What else was there. I feel my mind scrambling to think as she gets closer. That just leaves, Pinpoint accuracy. Instinctively I reach for my throwing knives, right practice match I don’t have those with me. What does that leave me with? Oh right.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

One should never forget that they are a weapon as well. I lunge at her with my fan folded and aimed straight. "Pinpoint accuracy" I whisper to myself and take aim at her knee. I do manage to hit her, but instead of her knee buckling, she threw her entire body up into a flip and lands in a crouched position. Well, I suppose that is one way to avoid falling. I really need to learn how to do that.

I am now standing within her range, and she wastes no time in retaliation. She reaches for a pouch connected to her leg. What is she doing? As I am questioning and trying to decide which direction to run, she throws something at me. It sticks onto my cloak and throws me backwards. I land heavily on my back.

"Ouch." I wince as the words slip out. I try to get up but am unable to without losing my cloak. I was NOT losing my cloak, that wasn't an option. While I struggle to dislodge it Alice pounces on me, her knee on my sternum and knife on my throat.

"Death number one." she whispers in my ear, then removes whatever it was that she used to pin me down.

"You got yourself in a sticky situation there.” She pauses to smirk at her own joke “I realize that you do not want to lose your cloak, so it is a good thing that you are truly learning to fight in it." she lets me get back on my feet, and hops onto a platform before shouting, "Go!" And I went.

I needed to find something that gives me an advantage. Who can I emulate? The only dual wielder I know is Alice and she is the one I am fighting. If I use her own moves against her than it's already over before it even begins.

Kay. I will pull a Kay. Instead of shouting fireball over and over I shout, "Faux fire!" and manifest it into my hand and keep chucking it at her over and over until she was surrounded by, and covered in dancing blue flames.

When I feel that her night vision starts to diminish I hop around until I am able to get behind her and as swiftly as I am able to I slash my fan forward and boop her in the back of the neck.

"That's one." I tell her and she starts laughing gleefully.

"You know each time you pull a move I learn what it is and it will be much harder to use it against me again."

"You could just say, ‘good job what an impressive student I have’. If I am as clever as you think I am then I will think of other ways to use what I have."

"Alright." She leaps down to the ground gracefully before shouting, "Go!"

I was having a lot of fun, but I was beginning to flag a bit. I had been running, hopping, rolling and dodging for a while now. Should I simply start going hand to hand with her. I do need to practice close quarters fighting as I am on the front lines and not a distance fighter.

I follow her down and leap, trying to land on my toes and roll forward. I clumsily manage it and kick her ankles. She is surprised enough that her center of balance is thrown off. I pounce, and not gracefully. When I have her down, we both thrust out and smack each other's throats at the same time.

"Dead." she tells me.

"You too."

"That doesn't matter at all if you die in the process."

I nod in acknowledgement and dance a few steps back, causing her to laugh a bit.

"Are you a dancer or a fighter?"

"Yes." I say. I know it would make more sense to say both. But if I say both than I am separating them out. I would be saying that I am both a dancer and a fighter. That was truth enough I suppose. But I am both at the same time at the moment. So, yes.

"Interesting. Close range now. You are not allowed to move further back then to the wall. I want to see what yes means. How can you use those fancy dance steps?"

That is something that I want to know as well. She starts coming at me with a flurry of blows. I manage to step and block. I almost close my eyes. I hear it! I hear the rhythm of her movements. If I listen for a break in them, I can catch her off guard. I dodge, doge, block, hop back, hop back, swerve and... I slam my fan into the bottom of her dagger and flick it up. Not only does it fly into the air but I do too. With the opening that she leaves I jump into the air and kick off of her chest. As my momentum sends me flying away, I have enough time for one more kick and aim at her remaining dagger.

‘Success’ I think as I see Alice devoid of weapons. Now I just had to deal with her claws. I don't know how to deal with her claws. I was learning all of this on the fly. I was amazed that I was still standing.

As much as I wanted to keep fighting, as much as I wanted to catcher her off guard one more time, as much as I wanted to come out the winner or at least her equal, I just could not keep up with her. Although I could feel how much my constitution grew, it was nothing, NOTHING compared to Alice's speed and stamina. I feel as though she left those openings only to teach me to respond to them. I can't help but feel as though I somehow let her down, not good enough!

I feel my energy starting to fail me as a heavy rainstorm came in from nowhere. Okay, I do understand that there were most assuredly signs that it was going to rain but I did not notice them as I was so focused on our fight.

"Hahaha." Alice says as she tips her head back and lets the rain wash over her. It did more than make us wet, it was raining so heavy that the area that we had been standing in was quickly becoming muddy. I was having a lot of trouble not losing my footing as I dodge and attempt to parry her blows.

Training ends as I slip in the mud and land heavily. If this is how it is going to end... I manage to hook her leg with mine and yank her down on top of me. She lands and I tap a fan to her throat. She then pushes down, and I realize that she somehow landed with her claws pressing against my chest. I let out a groan.

"You are much too fun. I am amused, and also surprised. I have only mentored one or two before you, and none of them were willing to duel me like this once, let alone back to back. They ended up crying and asking me to just teach them the basic moves. So I pawned them off on someone else."

"Alice is notorious at making people cry. We firmly believe that it is one of her hidden talents and the reason she won’t let us see her stat sheet." Cat comments now that the sparring had ended.

"Hidden?" I ask as I lay in the mud panting.

"Yes, hidden. I am just not going to pull my punches with you. You are in 'my' guild after all. And you have so much raw talent. I will not go easy on you. Do you want to do boring things like drill formation or hand motions." Alice makes over exaggerated gestures.

"No. I like this. Though if you see something that really needs correcting..." I say and trail off.

"I will take advantage of you and smack you around and into the mud. However many times it takes for you to learn what you are doing wrong."

"You don't think that I am running away too much for a dual wielder?"

"Not really. You are using everything at your disposal in order to fight a stronger opponent than you. And the use of your skills? Really creative, I can't wait to see what they become."

"I hope they become illusions personally." Cat says, walking over and pulling me out of the mud with one arm. "Sorry Alice but I need to get her home. Kay was getting really impatient about showing her his updated stat sheet. He is very proud of his growth."

"I would assume that he would be. I mean, if Crestin is pushing him as hard as I am pushing Ami than he will have a lot to brag about."

"What? Oh no poor Kay, I don’t think he is built for this level of… training… Do you mind if we hit the showers first?" I ask.

“You were going to say torture weren’t you? Haha, come on, we can all go wash up. Dungeon rules, no complaints. Let's go."

"Dungeon rules?"

"Co-ed. We aren't even playing around on the separation of genders. I am not allowing it from this day forward. Do you have a problem with that?" Alice asks me.

"No. I grew up with co-ed bathing. The fact that people are so ashamed of their bodies is confusing. However, I am going to wash with all of my clothes on this time as they need a good wash as much as I do."

“You know, if she can talk this much I don’t think you are pushing her hard enough” Cat comments to Alice.

They both start laughing.

"How long did it take you to be comfortable with dungeon rules Cat?" she asks.

"A year into being an adventurer. You?"

"Same. Remember, we dared each other to do it at the same time."

"Good times, good sights." Cat says with a really not needed wink.

I don't even know what to say between these two. I just get to the showers, shower off and stand there in the heat, fluffing my tail as they joke around and reminisce. I want to be that close with my guild. I want it to truly be like a family. I need that. Once again, I find myself thinking about Nila.