Welcome to Gaia! ::

Getting a handle on her surroundings had seemed to be a good idea when she'd planned what to do with her day. It still was, although Finley was feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. As it turned out, the Hunter facilities were huge! She'd spent the day so far popping in and out of places, getting a quick look and then moving on - an in-depth examination would come later, she was sure, when she had a mental map of the facilities worked out. But for now, it was all hit and runs.

Or at least it had been, until she'd gotten lost in her own thoughts and ended up wandering aimlessly while absentmindedly humming along to tunes she half-remembered heard in adverts.

Which was how she ended up at one of the training grounds, examining the place with interest. It even had training dummies! Some of which looked more ragged than others - they were probably the tougher ones, who had seen magnificent battles and lived to tell the heroic tale, while the ones who looked who looked less scarred were likely newbies like herself, fresh and untested.

Lips curling into a smile, she decided that she quite liked that analogy before re-starting her humming where she had left off and going to check out another dummy.

Hm? Finley stopped both her movements and her humming, cocked her head to one side and decided that that had definitely sounded like a person making noise. And it was coming from over there, where the really tall guy with dark brown hair was --- oh. No wonder it'd sounded like a person, then; it actually was a person!

Breaking into a smile and waving madly in his direction, the Mist trainee decided that he really looked like someone who could use a spot of company and started making her way over. Her footsteps were fast and had a small spring to them, so it didn't take her long at all to reach him.

"Hi! You look relaxed! Not that there's anything wrong with that or anything, being able to relax is a brilliant thing - I mean, life would be pretty shite if you could never relax at all, right? Or maybe stressful is more the right word. Yeah, I think stressful is definitely the right word." Stopping to take a breath, Finley held out her hand with a beam on her face, "anyway! I'm Finley, newly woken Mist trainee. Who are you?"

"Nice to meet you as well! I was kind of just wandering around to check things out here, but sparring sounds a bit intriguing." She fiddled with the slave bracelet that was Zayde's desummoned form, slightly hesitant yet very tempted to jump right into it, "were you looking to do some sparring? It sounds like that might be fun, but this would be my first time so I'm not sure, are there like, rules and stuff for it?"

"That sounds fairly simple! Though even with mystical sci-fi weapons-that-used-to-be-people I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do something like that," she trailed off in a slightly awkward laugh, scratching at the wrist where the base of Zayde's unsummoned form was secured.

But she perked up when he mentioned being able to patch her up afterwards, "not much reason to pass then, is there? I'm game!" And then, after a beat of silence, "who starts off?"

It was a good thing he had some experience in this sparring thing, because Finley really didn't.

Finley was suitably impressed with his quarter trick and bounced in place while thinking quickly, "tails! Definitely tails."

Expectantly she waited, staring at the hand that concealed the coin and getting caught up in her own excitement.

She reacted quickly when Zascha summoned a wicked looking spear, slapping a hand against the slave bracelet that sat on the other hand and summoning Zayde in her weapon form of wind and fire wheels. It was less graceful than his had been though, as there were two wheels and she still hadn't quite mastered grabbing them in a graceful way as they manifested. It was a work in progress, okay.

Which explained why she was still fumbling around when he slashed at her in a wide arc, catching her broadly on the side and to the front. "Shite!" She cursed, automatically jumping back in surprise before realising that she needed to do something now before he got her again.

Intent on her goal, the trainee huntress barely even noticed the stinging from where she'd been slashed - although if she had, she'd have exclaimed over how fancy the Fear shields were to be able to minimize pain and damage to this extent. Instead she made a move to attack Zascha, holding both wheels level with one hand each and twirling once (ostensibly to give her strike momentum) just before her weapon hit him.

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HP: 34/40
Damage: 5 dmg
Charges: 1/3

Finley let out an unladylike grunt as he rammed his shoulder - his very armoured shoulder, mind - into her. It was pretty clear that his outfit was much more geared for protection than hers was.

Reacting quickly as he stabbed at her shoulder, she caught the spear tip with one of her wheels before it could do too much damage. Still though, with the tackle and the bit of stabbing that she was still too slow to prevent, she was definitely beginning to feel the toll of his hits.

Clumsily redirecting the spear to the side, she twirled again (she was really liking these twirls) and with a few quick steps made to attack him from the back with one of her wheels.

"Like this, you mean?" Her smile was impish, and she was starting to build up a sweat that was no doubt making her hair frizz terribly, but she didn't care. This was fun! Why had no-one told her that fighting was this fun?!

:: I told you, :: Zayde chimed in with an amused huff.

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HP: 29/40
Damage: 6 dmg
Charges: 2/3