“You did good.” Vanessa stated, watching the fight beside him.

Cael felt slightly uncomfortable from the compliment, but Vanessa looked no such way. She just continued watching the match, giving Cael a slight glance as he gave her no reply.

“Thanks a lot.” He replied, also keeping his eyes onto the match.

“Would you wanna train sometime? Just us. I want you to teach me a few things.” Vanessa offered, moving her head to try and get a better angle of the current spar.

Cael felt bemused by this offer from her. She was usually quite closed off in training and found it a lot more fun to train with the others like Friso and Keagan.

Whenever they sparred or trained together, she acted like she was forced to most times.

Once it was over, she’d maybe give him a single word before not giving him another glance.

The session soon came to an end, and the day ended soon after.

Cael took his lone path not to his home but instead to his workplace. He decided to check in on the place, opening to see a large cobweb in the corner of the work area.

Along with that, he arrived at the control room in the upper area of the industrial unit to find dust covering the buttons used to control the lighting and heating of the place.

“It’s been too long.” He told himself, as he blowed the dust off the different coloured buttons.

With some of the time that he had left in his day, Vanessa and Cael met in one of the training grounds to begin their sparring.

Vanessa was clad in her own training uniform, revealing her attractive, athletic physique. Just as Cael was starting to fight, he almost felt flustered and taken aback by her beauty. After so much time spent around her, it felt odd that he hadn’t taken note of her attractiveness for so long.

Her blonde hair was kept up into a ponytail, with a few golden strands of hair flowing down over her face. She faced him with a face of seriousness, with her enchanting, hypnotising blue eyes.

Cael assumed his own battle stance, holding his fists up to just below his chin.

Vanessa crouched down slightly, with one hand pulled to her side and the other held lower.

“Let’s go for 5 5-minute rounds. We’ll have a few minutes break in between.” She stated with a calm, but somewhat bold voice.

She spoke with serious conviction, and remained totally firm in her stance as she talked. It looked almost unnatural to see her stood in such a way. Even the strongest of gales wouldn’t have shook her.

“Alright then. That sounds good to me.” Cael replied.

With 5-minute rounds, he knew that fatigue would set in eventually. However, it was all for the greater good. Work now would only benefit him in the future.

Across from them, Vanessa’s mobile teleporter projected a hologram displaying a digital clock. A 10-second timer was running down, and soon reached zero.

Fwoosh!

Vanessa rushed forward with energy and vigour, swivelling her body to throw her heel straight at Cael’s arms.

He saw no need to do anything extravagant here since the attack wouldn’t land on his actual body. He blocked the attack rather well, and didn’t seem to move very far back from the strike, either.

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Cael had just managed to take some of Blaine’s full power strikes so these paled in comparison. They had some weight to them, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

He wanted to attack back, but could see that Vanessa’s assault was not over. As soon as she landed, she aimed to strike back with a punch aimed straight at his face.

Her fist was sent hurtling toward his head, but he had ample time to properly readjust himself and evade. The tight, advancing fist just slipped past him, merely inches from his left ear.

Now in this new position, he was given a better view of Vanessa. She was open in several areas but the place he went for was the head.

Throwing a swift, precise right hand straight directly after, his fist cleanly slammed into her jaw.

POW!

A sense of guilt washed over him as he watched her whole body fall back in response. The hair laid calmly across her cheek was shot up as her head jolted back.

Cael looked almost startled, and just stood there with his fist still lifted. His mind couldn't let him hit her again after seeing what he’d done.

“What are you doing?” She asked, almost furious with him from her intimidating tone.

“S-Sorry?” Cael asked, almost flabbergasted by her statement.

“Come on! Fight back!” She demanded, slugging her fist forward.

Cael just about managed to dodge that strike, but was unable to intercept the next strike aimed straight for his stomach. There wasn’t enough time to assume his signature low guard, and he was smart with her moves.

Even if she wasn’t the very strongest, she’d received the best training out of anybody here being a Fonti family member.

Vanessa continued in this rather aggressive manner, which didn’t play to her favour. She felt able to continue this swift flurry of hits, but Cael had already began to see through her movements.

He could discern a punch now aimed for his head and so, threw in a kick to her ribs before it could reach him.

Her arm was lifted in this motion, which gave him a perfect line of trajectory straight into the side of her torso. The impact was heavy, and once again knocked her aside.

Each attack he landed seemed to do some serious damage to her physically, but not mentally. Her eyes remained as resolute and fiery as ever, her eyes would lock straight back onto him after every hit.

Vanessa continued with her tactical but aggressive style of battle, but had almost met an insurmountable challenge. She was strategic, but Cael was even more so.

She had the slight upper hand with her first strike initially, but the tides strongly flowed in Cael’s favour. He had almost broken down her style, knowing which attack she’d throw from just the micro-movements of her body.

Vanessa grunted with anger, thrusting her leg straight for his face in an arc. He could tell that she’d become more furious over this battle from her lack of success. It did make sense -he did just defeat Blaine after all- but it still infuriated her.

Reason and logic cannot calm the mind in the heat of battle.

Cael, lifting his arms up to his head and dipping down, slipped right under this attack before stepping to the side, still in a crouched position.

With her left leg coming crashing back down into the ground, she accepted this momentum and thrusted up her right leg.

The previously planted foot whipped through the air, with its heel on track to slam into Cael’s chin. With a slight sidestep and dip, the leg flew straight over his head once again.

Finally, he saw the slight time-window that he needed to pounce. Leaping straight toward her, he lifted both legs and tightened up almost into a ball. His knees reached up to his chest, before he shot both legs out with force.

He landed a double drop kick, throwing her straight into the air. The collision sounded deep and heavy, with Vanessa being sent flying back into an intense roll.

Unlike before, where she was able to mask the pain and injury, she grimaced and grunted.

The damage she’d amassed was reaching her limit. Instead of her snappy advances straight back to Cael after being hit like these, her raise to her feet was sluggish and weak.

A strong sense of guilt kept Cael still. If she didn’t have the willpower or strength to charge at him, he wouldn’t either. It would just be too disheartening to go all out with her in this state.

Fury started to grow in her upon seeing Cael just suspend the battle. Before she could say a word, she was saved by the bell.

Much to Cael’s displeasure, Vanessa forced him to go through the rounds. During this time, he tried his best to act as if he was constantly trying his hardest to appease her. Even when she was so tired to the point where she couldn’t even get words out, she’d signal for him to advance.

It was almost sadistic. Cael thought he understood Vanessa up until now, but he saw a totally different side of her. She resembled a true warrior; never fearing the challenge ahead and almost eager for it.

With not much longer in the last round, Vanessa stumbled to a knee a few metres from Cael. Her lip looked busted, with a stream of blood trickling down her sweat-covered face.

The previous mental vigour and fortitude that she had was slowly slipping away. After trying so hard to beat Cael and being unable to do so, she looked and felt crushed.

Totally crushed.

“I do mean something!” She whispered, almost coming to tears.

Seconds later, the bell rang, and she whispered the same thing again.

“I do mean something...”

Thud!