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For Davey, the promise of a proper spar was a welcome change from solo training with the dummies. They were useful for building up a FEAR charge and for learning to use your weapon initially, but after the amount of real-world fighting that Davey and Azrael had been in by this point, still dummies just didn't cut it anymore. The monsters were thinking, breathing, moving opponents - and that was what Davey needed to train against.

He'd half forgotten the offer to train with Cass, made several months ago now. Or, more accurately, assumed she had forgotten or been busy, and so let it go. He was keeping busy himself, with training and with learning to live with his disability (while trying to work himself hard enough that he could momentarily forget about the disability).

Her call to finally arrange a fight was a surprise, but a welcome one.

When Davey arrived, he already had Azrael called out to hand. The sword's voice hummed with excitement in Davey's head - it had been impossible not to give in on the way and let Azrael out early. Besides, the grip of the hilt was a familiar and comforting feel.

~Don't squeeze so hard, I'm not a stress toy!~ Azrael squawked, indignant.

Davey relaxed his grip. Clearly, he was looking forward to this too much.

"Not a problem," he told Cass when she apologised. "This place likes to keep us busy." What with all the new training options and duties for the trainees, it was a wonder that their free time had matched up to let this happen at all.

Noting only half of Cass' weapon present, he asked, "So, just the sword half today?"

Davey chuckled. "Well, you could, but since you said you wanted to improve your swordwork, I don't know that you'll get much out of this session." They might have to try that at some point, though. Cass at full strength and Davey working on dodging bullets as well as blades.

He rocked back on his heels as Cass mentioned Caelius nearly breaking her ribs. A training session gone wrong, or some kind of punishment? He noticed the Death Hunter's temper (who hadn't, after the whole 'losing Soul Harvester' thing), but that seemed a little excessive. When Cass turned the conversation to the new training courses, Davey was relieved.

"Yeah, I've tried two of them so far," he said. "I'm looking forward to rest of them." Probably the most challenging ones had been left to last. The Mist and Death courses had both seemed very complex, and better left for when he had more time.

"Would you like to start, or should I?"

The nice thing to do would have been to say 'ladies first'. But the enemy wasn't going to be that nice and he doubted that someone like Cass wanted him going easy on her just because she was female. She was just as dangerous as any of the guys, so Davey would treat her the same way.

"En guarde," was the only warning before he struck.


[[ HP: 40/40
Damage: 12 - 6 = 6
FEAR Charge: N/A ))

Davey nodded in thanks for the information. That seemed like a good idea, to leave Mist til last if it was parts of all the others rolled into one. The Life mission... oh yes, the Jenga tower. "Doesn't surprise me if Dr H designed it," he grimaced.

Then Cass was attacking and Davey let conversation drop to focus on the spar. He raised Azrael in an attempt to divert Cass' blade, but she still scored low on his side.

Moving back, Davey considered the wound. Not terrible (thank goodness for the FEAR shielding that their weapons generated), but he was glad to have brought some bandages in order to take care of any scrapes afterwards.

"That was a nice move," he told Cass. For soemone who said she favoured the gun half of her weapon, she had started off on a good, strong note.

He feinted a thrust at Cass's midsection, but she easily moved out of the way. Davey almost smiled. This could actually end up being a challenging fight.


(( HP: 34/40
Damage: 6 - 6 = 0
FEAR Charge: N/A ))

"You don't pull your punches, do you?" Davey growled as Cass landed a strike against his good shoulder. Fair enough, it wasn't like she was going to take the other arm off or anything, but it... cut a little close to home. (It probably would have been much worse if she'd targeted his bandaged shoulder, though.)

Shaking it off, Davey closed in quickly and struck. If Cass had been trying to play with his head, she'd succeeded. Davey missed for the second time in a row.

~What are you doing?~ Azrael demanded, voice heavy with disgust. ~Get over your precious ickle feelings and FOCUS before she takes us out completely. This is so humiliating...~

Davey couldn't argue with that. He forced everything else aside. Cass would be making a return strike soon - he needed to be ready.


(( HP: 29/40
Damage: 4 - 6 = 0 ))

Davey's lips twitched. He almost smiled. "I'd rather you went all-out," he agreed. "Otherwise what's the point of training at all?"

He'd clearly been spending too much time only using the practise dummies. Against a real opponent, he was doing the worst he'd done since first partnering up with Azrael. His actual battles against monsters had gone better than this, and they'd been trying to kill him!

"This just isn't my day," Davey muttered to himself as his next sweeping slash barely pricked Cass. Better than missing entirely, sure. But still pretty darn pathetic over all.


(( HP: 21/40
Damage: 7 - 6 = 1 ))

"Yeah, I didn't mean that," Davey amended as Cass reminded him about her gun. "Though we should try that some time, too." After he'd trained against a few other people, he thought, and grown more used to facing a live opponent again. The dummies were making him soft.

Cass made some good points about his weapon. Speed hadn't been much a problem against monsters - he'd always managed to do quite well against them - but it seemed Cass was more agile than they were. Or just more inclined to dodge. (Maybe the monsters were just that stupid, who knew.)

"I don't do too badly," he told Cass. At the same time, he lunged. Azrael thrust forward at a low height, somewhere around Cass' thigh.


HP: 20/40
Damage: 10 - 6 = 4

Davey frowned, unfamiliar with the strange names Cass threw around. "Is that from a movie? I must have missed it." One of the cons of being deployed so often was that Davey didn't really get to keep up with television or cinema. He had to settle for dvds and TiVo on his downtime while at home (though Sarah had dragged him to the movies a few times, for something different).

Of course, 'giant sword' just made him think of Clarice and her weapon. He didn't think Azrael was going to be competition for the title of biggest sword.

In his head, Azrael snickered.

'What are you, five?' Davey demanded. He shook his head and focused on the match.

"I wouldn't say no to more regular sparring," Davey said to Cass. It couldn't hurt. The worst that could happen was that he missed his swings - just like now.


HP: 17
Damage: 5 - 6 = 0