Joy took her time eating dinner, taking time to rest her arm every time she ate a forkful of food. Her limbs felt totally deflated from the days’ activities, and she groaned to herself thinking of what else Simon still had in store. She stretched out her legs, and noticed Paul had sat across from her, still with a smile on your face.

“So what do you want? Care to rub in Rex’s victory over me a bit more?”

“Actually, I’m more asking how training went today.”

She poked at her food. “Being used as an overglorified tow truck for a few miles wasn’t fun at all, nor was being humiliated by Rex. I swear someday I’m going to get close enough to knock every tooth out of his head.”

“Quite the competitive spirit I see you have. A bit different from me when I first came.” He kicked his legs up on the table. “Joy, do you know where I came from before I was scouted for special operations?”

She glanced up from her food. “Dunno, why does it matter?”

“I used to work for search and rescue, a pretty big name in it too as well. That’s how I got these.” Suddenly two massive wings sprouted from his back. Joy jolted back, nearly falling out of her seat.

“What kind of rescue agency were you working for?”

The wings retracted into his back. “Several, actually. The wings are from the God of Guardian Angels. You do civil service, you get those wings in turn. Only downside is you have to commit your life to civil service. I’m still doing it here, to an extent.” He chuckled.

“So you got big fancy wings, what does that have to do with advice?”

“I managed to get scouted and selected to join the crusaders special ops because I was one of the best in my field, and my wings prove it. Being the best in my field wasn’t enough for special operations however, and and it ruined me for my first month here. Going from top of the class to utter garbage isn’t a fun feeling, but it was a necessary one.”

She huffed. “No shit it ain’t fun. So what?”

“What I’m saying is that it helped changed my perspective a bit. I’d be doing greater work, but I needed to understand that I wasn’t the best in order to adapt. Hell, how I go about my work hasn’t changed much, it’s just I learned how to better cope with gunfire, and became remarkably better at breaching locked rooms.” He laughed.

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“Aaand?” She stared at him quizically.

“Sheesh you are dense… What I mean is that how you go about well… Brutally beating the crap out of whatever you find?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, uh… That. You can still keep what you know to best do that, but you need to be adaptive and resourceful to the new situations you’ll encounter.”

“Hold on… Simon said something like that once before now that you mention it.”

“Well, take it to Simon directly then. He IS your trainer, as brutal as he’s going to be.”

She stood up, stretching out.

“I think I should be good enough as long as he doesn’t force me to do heavy lifting. I’ll try giving your advice a shot.”

He waved goodbye. “There’s a lot of stuff only your trainer knows. Ask if you’re confused about anything!”

----------------------------------------

Joy returned to the arena, where he had a selection of submachine-guns and pistols out on a table. He turned to face her.

“Well, you’re here a bit sooner than I expected.”

She flinched. “Excuse me?”

“That’s not important anymore. Now as for a better way for training you we’re obviously going to return to basic combat scenarios, all while still working on your stubborness and endurance. For the time being, it’ll just be you and me, and I’m going to hammer in those points you need to know-”

“Sorry to interrupt, but I actually have a question.”

He paused, crossing his arms. “Go ahead then.”

“It’s my resourcefulness you want me to work on, right?”

He nodded. “Glad to see you’re becoming a bit more observant. It’s one of many issues, but one of the most important regarding your blessing. Your strength allows you to carry likely any weapon short of a tank’s cannon, and we could fit a hell of a lot of armor on you to little to no issue. Using-”

“Sheesh, slow down. And cut it with turning me into a walking tank thing, I don’t want to look like some kind of killer android. You saw against demons how well I can fare at the test, right?”

Simon grabbed one of the pistols from the table. “So how much faith do you have in your God then? To protect you from one of these?” He aimed it at her shoulder.

“Go ahead, try me!”

A crack echoed through the arena as he fired the pistol. The bullet crashed into her shoulder and she let out a yelp, flinching. The projectile, however, had flattened as it hit her shoulder, bouncing to the floor below. She stared down at it and grinned, rubbing her shoulder.

“See, armor be damned!”

“Not exactly. That was merely a 9mm, but it’s probably the most most grunts can afford. Now what would you do if a sniper had a scope trained on your head?”

“That’s what this training is for, is it not?”

He nodded. “Getting better Joy, getting better. It’s your decision on how you want to fight, but if you can make it work, I’ll accept it. As for the last of training tonight, you just need to disarm and capture me. And since you proved your durability, I’ll be using live ammunition, nothing lethal.”

She cracked her knuckles. “You shitting me? Piece of cake!”

He held up his hand to her. “You want to learn how to be resourceful, this is how you’re going to learn. When I sound the buzzer, you can begin.”