Days ahead

After her first day of training, Al woke up the next morning to every muscle in her body aching. Her calves throbbing along with her forearms. When she stepped down on her feet, her arches would stretch causing pain under them. Marco disappeared for a several minutes to come back with a few bags of ice. He placed them all around her body, he figured it was the least he could do to help since he did put Al through all this pain. Until the next day, Al relaxed in their train car while waiting for the train to stop, the pain was bearable at this point. Her shoulder still throbbed of pain, but she knew she didn't have a choice except deal with it. Once the train was stopped, everyone including Al and Marco exited the train for a nice little stretch. Everyone was stiff from their heads to their toes. The little adventure helped everyone clear their heads and bodies.

The conductor could be heard in the background, "Be ready in an hour and an half. I will be calling at the 10 minute mark and the 5 minute mark so all passengers can aboard the train nice and easy in a timely manor."

Each person nod their heads at him as they passed him to ensure he knew they heard and understood what he was saying. It was important he didn't lose any passengers as him and his employees filled the gas, it would cost him his job.

Every passenger was on a set path to get everything they wanted done before the boarding time was here.

Some wanted to shop, some wanted to tour, some wanted to try out all the beer and liquor in the little town. While each of them checked off their to do list, Al and Marco were training nearby the train, next to a tree. It provided the perfect shadow, enough for them to be able to defend each other's hits and not get overheated.

Marco first wanted to make sure she got the moves from the day before down. She didn't have much time left before Incubus took her away forever.

Once Marco knew she got it stuck in her head, they will be able to move onto holding a dagger.

He lunged for her as he did yesterday, repeating everything. She did it with grace at first, but towards the end she slipped up. She messed up on the last two exercises which helped Marco know what she still had to work on. She did a lot better than he thought and this way he didn't have to reteach her the other things. Once he felt comfortable with her doing the last two exercises, he told her to start punching back. The more she punched back, the strong she was going to be able to help herself when Marco isn't near. For the rest of the time before the conductor yelled out the 10 min mark, Al and Marco kept trying to push her to get her stronger. Al was so afraid of Incubus that just the small thought of him made her fist tighten and her mind foggy. As he threw his self towards her, she would dodge out the way and try to hit him with her right side, she knew it was the stronger of both her sides. If she could get the right side to punch even Marco down then she knew she could defend herself. Once back on the train, they continued punching each other. Marco was starting to enjoy it too much that he accidentally punched her to hard in the stomach. She fell to the ground, holding her stomach in hopes holding it may stop the pain, but it didn't. She looked up at him with the look of "you got to be kidding me." She didn't say a word, but Marco could feel the sentence coming through his mind telepathically. He leans towards her while saying,"sorry, I couldn't help it. There was a rush and it it was a wrap after that." He lifted his shoulders to shrug them. He didn't know what to say considering the fact that it was habit for him, but he didn't want to tell her that. He thought he might scare her away if he did. Al stood up still holding her stomach, but she didn't let her eyes off Marco, she didn't trust him during training, not after pulling that move. She was able to take a deep breath and tell him to continue. Once she had mastered dodging and punching Al was able to learn to hold the daggers. Marco told her that she had to finish learning for the morning, but that he was going to at least show her how to hold it in case of any surprises.

"Hold the dagger like this, throw it up like this to parry anything coming your way. Granted not everything is parriable. You can at least try because if you don't, we'll you could die." As he was telling her, he had his favorite dagger in his hands, showing her where to place her hand on the handle and how to parry other weapons. She thought to her self, how could he have known all of this, but it across her mind that he did say they would meet at his house when he would leave Al's for the day. How many other people trained him, was training the same way he was teaching her? So many questions ran through her head as he told her the rest.

Marco told her that she needed to do it on her own while he went to go get them dinner. She nodded her head as he stepped out the door. She turned back around and got into position. She was determined to learn, she didn't want to be weakling anymore, anyways crying and always in the way she thought. She began with a parry then ending with a stab and repeated this until Marco came back.