First Couples Fight

~

"Here." Ariel tossed Ky two plastic daggers.

They luckily were a similar size to his real daggers, but obviously not sharp at all.

Ariel however, got the short end of the stick.

Her younger sisters didn't have any longsword replica toys, so she had to use a Space Wars Lightsword.

Both sets of weapons were slightly flimsy so it would make it difficult to block and parry without breaking the toys, but they didn't have any other options at the moment.

Neither person wanted to use real weapons just yet. They were not confident in their skills enough to not hurt their opponent with the sharp blades.

'Could be worse I guess.'

Ky tossed the daggers around his hands to test how they felt.

He and Ariel then walked to the middle of her backyard that was very spacious and open.

It was mostly just grass other than the trees and bushes around the perimeter blocking the neighbors from looking into her backyard.

"Let's spar until one person lands a hit on the other, and we can explain what we think the other could do better after each match." Ky suggested.

Ariel nodded her head in response.

She then got into a stance and started to count down.

"3. 2. 1. Go!"

Ariel and Ky were only 2 meters away from each other before the start of the fight so they didn't need a dramatic run up scene to start the fight.

Ariel instantly swung her plastic lightsword out in a horizontal strike aimed at Ky's arm.

Ky, who was holding both daggers backwards, brought them up to block the sword.

The weapons rebounded off of each other.

Ky tried to get closer to Ariel so that he could land a strike on her.

She understood what his plan was, so she prevented him from closing in.

Ky chased her around, but Ariel kept swinging at him while backing away.

'How do I get closer to her with short range weapons when she can just back away?'

He thought while blocking her fourth strike to his torso.

On the fifth slash tried to dodge. He ducked down to make the plastic lightsword pass over his head.

However, he didn't duck low enough.

"Ow!" He grabbed the side of his head.

"Hahaha! Stop being a baby."

"Sigh. I couldn't figure out how to close the gap between us." He said.

"I think you need to do one of two things. Dodging was smart if you had been able to do it, and parrying is the other option." Ariel said.

She continued, "You kept trying to block, you should have tried to use my momentum against me and parry. That most likely would have given you the opening you need to close in."

"Ahhhhh. That makes sense, thanks Ariel."

"No problem. Do you have any tips for me?"

"Try to change up your attacks. You kept doing the same horizontal sweep, it made your attacks predictable. You should incorporate some overhead strikes, feints, stabs, etc." Ky responded.

"Okay. Let's go again."

Ky nodded and started the countdown, "3. 2. 1. Go."

Ariel started the fight off with a horizontal slash again.

'Didn't I just tell her not to do that so much?' Ky thought.

Sadly for Ky, she did indeed listen to his advice.

A smirk formed on Ky's face as he brought one of his daggers up, prepared to push the plastic sword away.

At the last second, when the sword was 10 or so centimeters away from the dagger, Ariel stopped her swing and brought the sword above Ky's head.

She quickly striked down without bringing the sword back towards her too far.

"Ow! Dammit."

"Hahaha. Didn't you just tell me not to slash horizontally so much? Why would I do it again silly?" She said while still laughing.

"Sigh. Just start again."

"3. 2. 1. Go." Ky counted.

Ariel, for the third time today, opened with a horizontal slash.

'Dammit! What do I do?' Ky shouted in his head.

In a moment of panic, Ky decided to use the fact that he was dual wielding to his advantage.

He brought his left hand up to block the horizontal slash and brought his right hand above his head in case it was another faint.

Ariel was planning on using mind games to defeat Ky again. She was going to complete the horizontal slash, thinking he would expect the feint.

While she wasn't wrong, she didn't expect Ky to defend both sides.

By the time she realized what he was doing, it was too late.

He parried the sword by blocking and then pushing the sword away.

He used a decent amount of force, so it caused Ariel to almost lose the sword and lean to her right side.

Ky took advantage of her imbalance.

He dashed forward and stabbed with his right hand, which was still above his head.

He stabbed Ariel in her left shoulder, right above her heart.

"Damn!" She shouted.

Both of them were very competitive individuals.

Neither liked losing at all, so each time they lost they got frustrated.

The fact that these losses were occurring within a few seconds of the fight starting only further increased the frustration they were feeling after each loss.

However, the fights were not lasting such a short amount of time because of skill, in fact, it was the exact opposite. Neither person had any prior fighting experience, so they did not know how to do much of anything with their weapons.

The previous fights against monsters that they won could be attributed to mostly luck and teamwork, or in some cases mana.

They would not have defeated that first goblin horde without each other. They also would have had a hard time against the horde if the goblins were of a higher level or rank. They were lucky that they encountered them while Earth is still in its baby stages.

Later on, after some time has passed since Earth's mana core was awakened, the wild monsters on the planet will be much higher leveled and harder to beat.

The first hobgoblin the duo defeated wouldn't have been possible without teamwork.

Hobgoblins may be extremely strong and big, but they are also extremely stupid.

Having to face two enemies at one time is not something a recently evolved hobgoblin can take care of.

Even then, Ariel was still seriously injured during the fight, and Ky only avoided serious injuries by pure luck.

"I think you left yourself too open that time." Ky told Ariel.

"Yeah, I need to find a way to recover after being parried like that."

Ky nodded.

"Alright, let's go again."

Ariel started the countdown, "3. 2. 1. Go."

This time Ariel started the fight with a stab towards Ky's head.

Ky easily dodged and spun his body in the direction of Ariel's dominant hand.

When she returned to his field of vision, he saw her sword still pointed out and swinging back towards his head.

This time he parried with one dagger.

He tried to close the distance and stab at Ariel like he did in the last match, but this time she had a plan.

She attempted to dodge herself.

It didn't work because she was not fast enough. Ky was still able to slice her on the side of her stomach.

They stopped again. This time their match lasted a second or two longer, but it was still a very short spar.

"That was good. You just need to be a little faster with your dodge." Ky told Ariel.

She nodded before getting back into her stance and starting the fight again.

~

3 hours later, Ky and Ariel were lying on the ground trying to catch their breaths.

"Hahhhh hahhhhh. I think we should call it quits for the day." Ky said in between breaths.

"Hahhh hahhh. Agreed. Hahhh. We did good though."

Ariel and Ky were growing at an astonishing rate.

This could only be due to their divinities and they knew it.

They were able to have a spar that lasted almost a minute by the second hour of sparring.

This type of growth is unnatural for two people who have never used a weapon before.

They weren't able to spar for longer than a minute though because after the second hour they started to feel the tiredness creeping up on them. Lasting another hour still helped, but they couldn't fight to their fullest potential while constantly out of breath.

"Let's eat lunch, then practice using mana, then we can kill all the monsters that have gotten too close to this street so we can have a good night's sleep."

Both Ariel and Ky trusted their mana sense enough to not have one of them up at night for night watch now.

Keeping up their mana sense 24/7 had shown its benefits. Even while sleeping, if a mana cluster was getting too close to them they would feel it and be awoken.

The problem was that they couldn't distinguish between hostile and friendly mana clusters, so sometimes sudden movements from Ariel during her night watch shift would wake up Ky and vice versa.