Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess

Chapter 32 – Hand-to-Hand Combat

After finishing lunch, Emily quickly drops off her notebook in her room and makes her way to the training hall. Finding the door to the hall already open, she walks in and sees a wide-open space with racks of weapons on the walls and packed dirt on the floor. In the centre of the room, she sees a dozen students standing together in a group, looking at the most intimidating woman Emily has ever seen.

She is tall, at least a head taller than Emily, with short spikey brown hair, shaved at the sides. She’s wearing tight brown leather trousers with boots coming up to her knees. Over her white linen shirt is a leather harness holding a large greatsword to her back, and underneath Emily notices a set of large, barely concealed muscles.

As she turns to look at her, Emily sees a rough scar across the woman’s closed right eye. Her remaining eye is a fierce green, the intense light in it matched only by her manic grin.

“Ah, our new recruit!” she calls out in a rich booming voice.

“Sorry, am I late?” Emily asks, certain she arrived on time.

“Not really, I just like everyone to be here slightly early so we can start on time. Now come over here. What’s your name?”

“I’m Emily Coldstone,” she answers while approaching the large woman.

“Nice to meet you, Emily. I’m Agnes Olea, third circle. Just call me Agnes though, I don’t like formality in my class,” Agnes says while offering Emily her hand.

Emily gives a firm handshake, which only seems to make Agnes’ smile grow.

“Have you received any martial training before?”

“No, but I have a little experience fighting with my fists and knives.”

“I see.” Agnes turns to face the rest of the class she was ignoring, and Emily notices Jeremy and Kyle standing amongst the group glaring at her with excited grins on their faces.

I guess they think this will be a chance to beat me up.

A malevolent smile forms on Emily’s face.

Well, they can try.

“I want all of you to warm up then pair off and practice the grappling drills I was teaching you last week. Remember, this is a test of technique, not strength. I don’t care how much stronger than your opponent you may be, control yourselves so everyone gets adequate practice!”

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“Yes, Miss!” the whole class calls out at once, before dispersing and following her instructions.

“Now as for you, I’d like to test your starting level, so I know what to teach you. Get rid of your robes and warm up, then we’ll spar a little.”

Emily nods and drops her robes on the floor behind her, then she starts moving around to get warmed up. As she does, she looks around the room and sees the students have moved a fair distance away to give her and Agnes space.

I wonder if they’re being considerate, or if they’re scared of her.

Once warmed up, Emily looks over to Agnes and sees her standing with her arms crossed, watching her expectantly.

“Ready? I want you to try and land a hit on me. It doesn’t matter how. just try with everything you have to strike me. Understood?”

Emily nods and raises her fist before her while spreading her feet into an even stance.

“Good, begin!”

The moment she hears the signal, Emily springs forward, quickly closing the gap between her and Agnes. Stepping into arm's reach, she plants her front foot and lowers her body as she pivots forward and throws a twisting punch towards Agnes’ gut. As her right fist stretches forward, Emily feels a small burst of strength and speed from her melee combat skill activating, accelerating her punch slightly.

Agnes lets out a small exclamation as she takes a step back and sweeps her left arm down, sending Emily’s punch off wide. Emily uses the momentum to spin around and leans down further, reaching for the ground with her left hand as she sends her right foot towards Agnes’ chin. Agnes smoothly catches her ankle and pushes it back to send her off balance. Planting her right hand down as well, Emily cartwheels back to upright and pushes forward again.

With her carefree attitude gone, Agnes raises her open hands before her with her legs spread apart, ready to intercept Emily’s charge. Just as she steps within range, Emily tosses a handful of dirt into Agnes’ face and steps forward to deliver a strong straight kick to her gut. Raising one hand to guard her eye, Agnes shoots her other hand down to catch Emily’s kick. Before her hand connects, Emily retracts her leg and twists, sending it curving down into Agnes’ shin. However, Agnes reacts in time and leans onto her back leg, lifting her front leg to meet Emily’s. Hooking her toes around Emily’s ankle, she catches the kick and then flicks her leg out with enough force to send Emily tumbling to the floor.

Rolling away, Emily quickly gets back to her feet. She starts circling Agnes, with her fists still raised, slowly moving closer. Once again getting close enough, Emily moves her left hand as if to throw more dirt. However, the moment Agnes raises her hand to guard her eye, Emily retracts her empty left hand and throws her right fist straight towards Agnes’ exposed chest. As Agnes realises her feint and starts moving her free hand to defend her chest, Emily opens up her right hand and catches Agnes’ arm while swinging her left fist down towards Agnes’ front leg.

Her fist connects with Agnes’ thigh just as Agnes’ foot connects with her chest, knocking her flat on her back, coughing. As Emily catches her breath, Agnes steps forward and offers her a hand up with a grin.

“Well done, that was a very good use of feints and your environment. Not many people would have the guts to throw dirt in their first spar,” Agnes says as she pulls Emily up with ease.

Emily blushes slightly while quickly defending herself.

“You did say to use everything I had to strike you.”

“Haha, that I did. And you even managed to succeed, just at the cost of taking a hit yourself,” Agnes laughs as she steps back and takes off her harness, placing it, along with the heavy sword, at the edge of their space. “You clearly think very well in a fight. Aiming for my stomach on both your first engagements worked well for making me slightly slower to react when you went for my leg on the third. Your use of feints to try and draw me into your pace was very good too and would probably have worked on a physically equal opponent. You also did a great job using the momentum of your failed attacks to keep up the pressure. However, you tunnel-visioned too much on landing your own attacks and didn’t notice when I started hitting back. I’m sure you could have avoided that kick since I matched your speed with it. Let’s try again, but this time remember to watch for any counterattacks.”

They repeat the same exercise half a dozen times, stopping every time Emily takes a hit for Agnes to give her feedback. After the first attempt, Emily fails to land another hit and begins to get frustrated.

Lying on her back panting again, Emily looks over at Agnes offering her a hand up.

“You got reckless on that last one, let's call it there for today.”

Emily starts to object, but Agnes cuts her off.

“Don’t get me wrong, you did great. No one else in here could give me that much trouble now, let alone on their first lesson. I’m just stronger, faster, and have a lot of experience. Catch your breath, I’ll go grab you a partner to talk you through the grappling drills we were doing last week.”

Patting her on the shoulder, Agnes walks off as Emily checks on her stamina.

¯¯¯¯¯

[Stamina:] 132/175

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Hmm, sparring was a higher drain than my workouts. Is it affected by both the level of exertion and focus throughout? Would that make sense with it not draining from mentally strenuous tasks though? Maybe I’m using muscle groups I missed with my workouts.

Emily ends her mental questioning as Agnes returns with someone. He’s a thin boy around Emily’s height, with long blonde hair tied up in a bun, crystal blue eyes, and a confident smile plastered on his face.

“This is Oscar Salvia, he’s one of my best students so I think he’d make a good sparring partner for you.” The smug look on his face only grows as Agnes speaks. “Oscar, as I said before, teach Emily here the basics I went over last time and have a few spars before I get you all to switch partners. Good luck.”

With that, Agnes collects her sword and leaves to go inspect the rest of her class, leaving Emily and Oscar alone.

“Nice to meet you, Emily. I’m Oscar Salvia, heir to the Salvia household. You haven’t received formal training before, correct?”

His family wasn’t on Jenny’s list, but he seems like a prick.

“Yes, none at all,” Emily responds dryly.

“I see, in that case, I will start by explaining what grappling is. Grappling is the act of using throws, trips and sweeps to bring your opponent to the ground, then using submission holds to take control of your opponent's body and limit their movement. For example, say I was going to punch you, how would you react.”

As Emily rolls her eyes at his long explanation, he suddenly springs forward, releasing a right jab towards her face. Reacting quickly, Emily steps forward and to the left, narrowly sliding past his incoming fist as she lowers her body. Hooking her right arm up and around his chest, she sweeps his front leg out from under him and slams him down into the dirt. Following him down to the ground, Emily quickly pulls his arm back and wraps her legs across his front, holding him fast in a solid armbar.

“I don’t know, I think I’d probably do something like that,” Emily responds smugly as Oscar struggles to escape.

After a few moments of failing to release himself, Oscar taps Emily in surrender. However, failing to understand his intent, Emily holds fast until she feels him starting to go limp. The moment she releases him, he scrambles away and gasps for breath. Standing up while massaging his red throat, Oscar looks at Emily sheepishly, his smug grin replaced by a look of acknowledgement and a hint of caution.

“Sorry for that. Anges told me to try attacking you the moment we began when I asked if I really needed to be the one to teach you,” he quickly apologises, before muttering under his breath: “Though, I would prefer if you accepted my surrender sooner.”

Wait, that’s what the tapping meant?

Emily laughs at his embarrassed response and to cover up her own blunder.

“Well, am I worth teaching now?”

“Yes, that was a great takedown. Have you really not had any training?” Oscar asks while rubbing his right shoulder, clearly still slightly in pain.

“Nope, I have fought quite a lot though, and submissions are a great way of getting someone to give up something they’ve taken.”

“I see, that should make this easy then. In our last lesson, we went over…”

Oscar proceeds to explain all the content the class covered in their previous lesson, with short breaks in between to test the moves as both the aggressor and defender. By the time Agnes asks everyone to switch partners, Emily has a solid grasp of what to do and says goodbye to Oscar on amicable terms, forgiving him for his earlier aggression.

After a few partner switches between students Emily has never met before, Agnes calls everyone back to gather in the centre of the room.

“Good work today everyone, most of you are showing great improvement. Next week’s lesson will be on daggers so remember to wear clothes you don’t care about. Dismissed!”

As she’s leaving the classroom with the rest of the students, Oscar approaches Emily.

“Hey Emily, if you ever want to spar, give me a shout. I’m in dorm A19 so just come knock on my door, and if I’m not in, leave a note or something on the door.”

Glancing at his chest, Emily sees a tall gold-stemmed purple flower on his crest.

So that’s what he meant by the heir of the Salvia household.

“Sure, I’m in dorm B53, come knock on my door whenever you want your ass kicked.”

“Haha, will do,” Oscar chuckles as he walks off towards the private training rooms.

Wow, he’s diligent. I want a shower after that lesson, not more training.

Praising Oscar internally, Emily heads back to her room. After a nice long shower to soothe her aching muscles, she leaves her room with her notebook and knocks on Juliana’s door. Juliana quickly opens it and greets Emily with surprise.

“Hey!” she says, throwing her arms around Emily and pulling her into a hug. “What are you doing here, it’s not like you to come see me before dinner.”

Wincing slightly and tapping Juliana’s shoulder to ask to be released, Emily responds:

“I just got done with my hand-to-hand combat class and didn’t want to sit alone again. Can I come do my work in here?”

“Sure, you’re welcome in my room whenever!” Juliana says happily while stepping aside to let Emily in.