Training in the Closet

Nicola's eyes analyzed every lunge, every strike, every moment. This was depressing to watch, and she could only help but wonder if she looked just as idiotic when she was swinging her sword around to practice for her next encounter with demons. Bending down to her knees, her hands searched through the scattered bokkens for one that was somewhere around her size. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. By the time she found one, Madison's rather strange screeching noise rang into her ears, and before the strike could hit D'Angelo, Nicola held the sword out in front of her face, catching the blow with her arms practically crossed, her sling slipping out of its position. Her body had angled itself away from the other girl, her feet spread out a little more than shoulder-length as she placed all her weight on her back leg.

Once the dull blade had stopped in its tracks and she had lowered Madison's sword, Nicola leaned on her own, letting out a sigh, "Did you randomly pick one of these up? That one's too big for you." She readjusted her cast with a grimace, trying to shrug off the pain that shot through that one area. "Both of your grips are terrible, by the way. Madison, you're too tense. Might want to relax around the shoulders," she started, not holding back at all on criticizing either of them. After all, it was just a part of her nature. "D'Angelo... well, you're not holding it tight enough. Don't give it a death grip, but you probably should have it so it doesn't have the ability to slid out between your fingers." As she thought for a few moments, the question clicked in her head.

"Say, have either of you been in actual fight before? With weapons and stuff?"

"No way..." Madison successfully blocked his lunge and was already mid-swing in attack. Her sword rapidly approaching his side. Damn. This was going to sting a bit. He prepped himself for the wood to make contact with his side. Just as when he thought it was going to whack him, Nicola had stopped it. D'angelo let out a sigh of relief, focusing his attention toward Nicola. She had began giving them advise on their handling. Too loose. "I thought so. It did feel a bit too free between my fingers." He brought it up to his face. He tightened his grip. Taking Nicola advice. She was after all, a sword wielding, demon killer. Talk about badass.

"A fight? Yes. With weapons? no. It's not like it was common for some dude to fight with a sword or something of that caliber. Closest thing would be a knife." It was the truth. Back home, he had his own share of fights. Some serious. Some just messing around. Never anything too crazy with weapons or guns.

Nicola stopped her blow. No way, that was going to hit. "Hey!" she said in a barking tone, but grew more silent in a fear that she was overreacting. "That was going to be a direct hit..."

She was right, though. The sword was heavy, causing it to move around in her hands more than she had wanted. She couldn't see anything that looked lighter though. There were only a few swords sitting around, all the same size. Maybe if she started lifting something more than her head each morning, she'd be able to wield it more easily.

"Maybe there are some lighter swords in the back--er, closet, it's not really...in the back..." She sighed and threw her sword to the ground. It was no use; even if she got a better one, she'd still fight like an amputee. "Can one of you check?"

"It was so slow and clumsy that it wouldn't have made a decent impact if it hit," Nicola retorted, handing Madison the sword that she had used to block that very attack. Okay, maybe that was a bit too straightforward, just maybe. "We're close to the same height, so you could just take mine." Her arm awkwardly dangled there as she waited for the other girl to take it from her as she glanced towards D'Angelo with a small shrug, Madison's original sword clanging onto the ground, shaking before settling completely flat. Probably not damaged, though possibly a scratch.

So, no actual fights quite yet? "Oh, no wonder why." No offense to D'Angelo, but he definitely looked like the kind of guy who got into skirmishes a lot in dark alleyways and would beat up people without any mercy. Nicola chalked it down to how tall he was and well, he was kind of intimidating, but she bit her lip, holding back any more remarks that could've been rather... nasty. Her eyes traveled back towards Madison, and she let out an exasperated sigh, "Do you want to learn a few techniques or would you rather fight like a drunk man?"

"Good job though anyways, Madsion." He gave her a quick thumbs up and a light smile. Even if it was 'slow and clumsy' it still would have landed on him. D'angelo then focused back on Nicola. "This obviously isn't something you recently been doing. How long have you been training with swords?" he was quite impressed on how much she knew. Almost like a small sensei. "Another thing you might want to start doing is lifting some weights. Nothing too crazy. Start off easy." He Added after Nicola offered to teach Madison some techniques.

Nicola was getting on Madison's nerves. She was so breathy and condescending. Madison looked down at her feet fir a while, even with D'angelo's compliment. She didn't even want to do this anymore. She'd come to the gymnasium alone, to practice alone. Madison never asked for this.
"Techniques, I guess..." There was a bitter shakiness to her voice, and her thumbs traced around her palms with an antagonized brevity. She dug her nail into another finger, on one of her hands. She didn't feel the pain, because she was too ashamed to. Fuck this, fuck everything.

A frown deepened across her features, watching Madison sulk in misery as she withdrew the sword from the air, digging the tip into the ground. Nicola rested her elbow there, allowing it to balance loosely. Did she hit a nerve or something? Okay, maybe she was a bit direc--- who was she kidding? She was being blunt and straightforward without an ounce of sugarcoating. Was this what people considered being mean? All Nicola was seeing was the honest truth; it's better to know how horribly you're failing rather than hearing someone tell you that you're doing so well and practicing incorrectly. It'd prevent a rather bad breakdown later. Putting a thoughtful look on her face, her head bobbed side to side as she tried to recall the answer. "I took martial arts with my brother when I was about 8, but a demon starting teaching me how to fight when I was... 6?" She let out a small sigh, straightening up her position. "I don't really remember. It was a long time ago."

Her eyes turned to Madison, an upbeat tone underlining her voice; her face was completely opposite of the way she spoke, betraying a blank expression with a slightly forced smile. "Not everyone gets it right away. Don't worry about how you start off. You'll get it in no time!" Man, she really sucked at motivating other people and realizing why they weren't very happy with her words. Honesty is the best policy... or so they say. So, why exactly was it so bad to just verbalize it?

An odd expression grew over the autumns face. A demon taught her? That was surely interesting. Being taught by a demon how to fight...at age 6. "So there are good demons as well as bad ones?" Up until that point, He assumed they were all bad and evil. Scratching the side of his head, he supposed the possibility of good demons could be true.

D'angelo watched as Nicola attempted to cheer up Madison. Attempted was the right word. It was as if she was forcing herself to mutter those words. She could have at least tried to match her face with the upbeat sound her voice produced. "Yeah! Cheer up. Like they say, 'Rome wasn't built in one day.' He smiled at the discouraged girl.

What D'angelo said about Rome changed her. Could she really be Rome? She knew it was a popular saying, used for anything, even the most mundane of people and things. Still, though. He believed she could be a Rome. She snatched up the sword from Nicola, still a little angry at her. In some ways, Nicola talked better than Madison. In other ways, Madison talked better than Nicola.
"Let's do it, then," she said to no one in particular.

A Cheshire Cat-like grin crossed her features as Madison seemed to be re-energized and ready. Nicola made a mental note to thank D'Angelo later for making up for her mistake. It was silly of her to think that the other girl would be fine with her being so straightforward and blunt - people who were reserved weren't normally like that. Glancing over at the taller boy, she shook her head, "I don't think there's such thing as a good demon. The one that taught me is well..." There was an awkward pause in her words, and her chin rested on her fist, a thoughtful look on her face. "The sword that I use. It's actually a demon I contracted with, so it's actually forced to do whatever I want." Or at least, that's what the contract said. Of course, they never had a legal document signed for that, so she could be mistaken.

Picking up a random sword from the floor that looked just an inch or two bigger than the one that Madison know wielded, Nicola inspected it, tossing it in the air to experiment with the weight before she was satisfied with it enough. Shouldn't be too bad to use this. "I know this is a kinda weird thing to ask, but could you hold the sword out and just swing it straight in front of you? Don't try and hit anything - just swing." Okay, it was a pretty strange request and Nicola hastily added on an explanation, "I need to see how your grip and alter it to make your strikes more effective. Holding it a certain way can guarantee a powerful blow even if you aren't physically strong."

Madison blinked, staring down at her wrist and turning the sword in her hand. "A-all right..." she said, not looking back up. It was time to swing the sword with a little self respect. She raised the sword, stiffening her arm and making it as straight as possible. When her muscles began to buckle from this task, she raised the sword even higher, curling if toward her, and slashed. She had to step forward to keep it from taking her down with it, but it didn't look as clumsy as before. It was more of a...car wreck than a train wreck. Madison smiled grimly. She so did not want to do this, and her downcast eyes showed it.

"That sword is a...demon? He said with a questionable tone. A blank expression forming on his face. Demon. Sword. Contracts. Badass albino. Talk about being complex. What stumped him the most was the contracts part. Only thing he could relate that to is sports. Players were given contracts based on their value to a team. We're demons the same? Doubt it. It was probably more comparable to signing a deal with the devil more than sport signings.

After a few seconds, He decided to focus on Maddison and her training. She seemed to be motivated after his words of encouragement. He could see the confidence in her eyes. D'angelo smiled at the sight of her raising the sword. He watched as she took one swing. It wasn't great but it looked better than earlier. "Hey, it looked better already. Keep it up." He said in an encouraging tone. He could already see that she was feeling slightly discouraged. Glancing over to where Nicola was standing, hoping she wouldn't be very harsh like earlier.

"Is it that surprising?" Answering a question with a question. Best way to get an A+ on your test. "I mean, it's even blood red and all." With a small shrug, Nicola's eyes turned back to Madison, watching the strike fall down with gravity beating on its trail before it completely halted mid-air. Damn, D'Angelo was looking over at her and she wasn't allowed to criticize as much. Unless of course, she wasn't going to hold back. If it was the truth, then what was the point in hiding it? If someone was that bad at something that they should be crying in a hole about how proud they were at their failures, then someone should tell them that they sucked. Simple as that. "Let's see..."

Nicola bit her lip, her mind washed over with formulas of sentences and phrases she could give.
That was great! There was nothing that I needed to fix.
It was pretty good, but you could use a little work there.
Not too bad. If you fixed this and that, it'll be good to go.
That freaking sucked. Why are you even trying?

She didn't wind up using any of the ones that she could conjure up in her head. Instead, her mouth did the work for her, and she took a deep breath before walking over, stopping in her tracks only a feet or two away from Madison. Blue eyes inspected the hold, and she'd nod every now and then, keeping in complete silence until she was positive that she knew what was wrong. "Okay, first off, your left hand should be the one that's closest to the bottom of the sword so it can give power for the strike. Your right hand should be only a little bit above to control the direction of your swing." Closing her eyes, she glanced up to the ceiling as though the answers were written up there in plain neon colors, trying to think. "If both hands try and add into the power, they'll interfere with one another and your strike comes off as clumsy."

Casting a glance behind her shoulder towards D'Angelo, Nicola blinked, "You look athletic enough. Isn't this kinda the same thing as how you should hold a baseball bat?"

So she was supposed to use both hands for different things? Madison held the sword vertically in front of her eyes, looking down at her grip. She nodded; that made sense. The girl decided to try again, raising the sword and pointing it forward with her left hand. Then, bring her right hand up to meet it, gave the weapon a hard grip with the fingers of her left. She veered the hilt with her right hand, giving a clean diagonal chop with the fake blade. It looked pretty good, until she forgot about where her feet were. She did a little dance at the end of the chop to keep balance, tarnishing a solid display. Dammit, she was so close...

'Is it that surprising?' Yes. Yes it was. You're talking to a guy who spent most of his life playing sports, not demon slaying. D'angelo shrugged it off and returned to watching Madison's training. Awaiting for Nicola to give feedback to the other girl. Is she said anything discouraging he would have probably teleported her into the lake. To his relief, Nicola didn't, instead she sounded very informative on what Maddison was to do to help with her strike. He gave a slight chuckle at her. Knowing damn well she wanted to criticize like a judge of a competition. "Hmmm.." He began mimicking how to hold and swing a baseball bat. Left hand for power. Right to keep the balance. Mumbling to himself until he looked back up. "...Yeah. That's pretty much exactly how it is. Nice comparison."

As he was still drawing the comparison of the two, Madison had taken the advice and put it into motion. It looked really well up until the end. Still was a very good attempt. "That was pretty solid looking. Try to keep balance next time. You are so close." He said to Madison.