And Then There Were Two...

[Josh Cole]

Alright. So, the Academic was dead, and four of the Spies had been banned.
This meant that Josh was the only non-Warrior in this room.
Balls.
He had to keep reminding himself that although he was a Carer, he was not a wuss.
Not a wuss.
I am not a wuss.
I am not a...
Aw, screw it. Who was he kidding? He was surrounded by guys with biceps like friggin boulders, and there he was, little Carer Josh. He did have muscles... they just weren't obvious...
"Alright, so everyone is going to go together today..."
He started to pay attention to what Madeleine was saying. It was the first training session that she'd hosted since waking from her coma - and hell, was she back. All the loss of confidence and authority that had been there before her coma was gone, and Madeleine was back - better than ever.
And she scared him even more now.
Okay, yeah, she was tiny. But she was still as scary as hell. Josh knew that she could beat him up with barely any effort at all. Same for almost everyone in the room, actually. He'd seen her kill guys about three times her height.
Well, at least she was a good Head.
They were doing sword-work again today - Madeleine said that she'd found it useful and that everyone seriously needed to go back to basics. He was glad. He could actually do this, unlike loads of stuff where he was left going whaaaaaaaaaaat. And it was lucky, especially since he was going to be pitted against a Warrior.
He gulped. Oh, God.
Madeleine was coming off the stage, and she was approaching him, a small blonde girl in her wake. He frowned, slightly puzzled.
"Josh," she said brightly. "Can you pair up with Ailith? We're all together today, considering there's only two non-Warriors, and it'd probably be good for the two of you to work together."
Josh breathed in relief. "Sure sure."

[Ailith Rayner]

Madeleine signalled to Ailith just after she'd ran through her training session summary with the group. Ailith followed obediently and they approached a frowning boy. He was tall, slim but fit looking with dark hair and brown eyes and by the way he was standing and the fact that Madeleine had brought her over to him suggested to Ailith that he was the other non-warrior that hadn't been kicked out or sadly departed this life. Madeleine addressed him as Josh and confirmed that he and Ailith were to work together.
"Sure sure." Josh had said. It really wouldn't have mattered what he's said what Madeleine said went, especially after she banned four non-warriors from training Ailith wasn't prepared to mess around and neither, it appeared, was Josh. That or he was very meek.
"Hi Josh I'm Ailith." She knew she'd already been introduced but smetimes people needed to hear her name twice. She held out her right hand to Josh.

[Josh Cole]

Josh smiled, extending his hand and shaking Ailith's. "Hey."
Okay, so Ailith was maybe about a foot shorter than him, and very pretty - but she gave off an air that suggested that she was not to be messed with, and a little of the authority that Madeleine had.
d**n it, what was with all these scary chicks?
He glanced about while all the Warriors paired up, feeling a little awkward. "So, what group are you in?"

[Ailith Rayner]

"Spies." Ailith watched him watch everyone else and feeling some of his nervousness. She drew her sword smoothly even though it was slighty to long for her. As it always was. She disliked things that were to long or big for her so she flipped her sword and took a bit off the blade tip, before wiping it on the side of her hand.
"What ab..."
"GO!" Madeleine's voice rang through the huge room, short, sweet but crystal clear.
Ailith re-sheathed the sword quickly and drew again simultaneously with Josh. He drew without any fancyness whatsoever but he was technically perfect which brought a smile to Ailith. The last time she saw someone draw like that he had cut a length of wood with a 15cm radius in half with a single swipe.
"What about you?" She adopted a defensive stance, "What group are you in?" as she said the word 'group' she shifted her weight to her left leg and made a cut.

[Josh Cole]

Josh blocked her cut. Dammit, she was going to be good at this, he could tell. And he had to admit, he was impressed by her shortening of the sword. It was simple - but incredibly quick.
There was obviously a lot more to her than the small, pretty blonde girl that he'd met two minutes about.
"Don't laugh at me," he said, striking towards her. "I'm a Carer. It explains a lot about my sword-work."

[Ailith Rayner]

"Don't worry about that, there is nothing wrong with the way you handle a sword!" Ailith was surprised he didn't realise he was actually quite good at the whole fencing thing, "You just blocked me for fffflip sake."
She had learned naughty words at the Watchhouse but was careful to watch her mouth. She flicked her blade to the left and bounced forward but took the flick wide and the quickly to the right.

[Josh Cole]

Josh chuckled as he dodged her blade. "You can curse, it's fine."
He was actually enjoying this - that was weird. It was much more fun than he'd thought it was going to be. He struck for her again. "Done this before?"

[Ailith Rayner]

Ailith saw his blade swing forward. Ha! She knew this one. She spun in a fowards 360 turn so that she was standing inside his defensive circle but outside his arm. She raised her sword vertically in front of her expecting him to move back and away to face her, but he had other plans. He spun himself the other way and did the same thing to her as she had just done to him. Ailith thought quickly and ducked out of the way sword swinging over her head to prevent him thrusting her.
"Yes. I suspect you have as well?" Ailith stood, appearing calm and unperplexed, inside she was thinking, Ooooooooh! Sneaky Carer lad eh? We'll see...

[Josh Cole]

"Once or twice," Josh admitted, striking for her, but missing by a mile as she dodged him again.
Man, this girl was good. He had to admit, when he'd seen her, he thought that he'd be able to beat her with little effort, but hell - was he changing his mind! He was really, really impressed by what she was doing.
But he was now getting a little scared...
She was going to wipe the floor with him.
Oh, balls.
She made a strike toward him, but he swerved backwards, the tip of the blade missing him by an inch. "You're annoyingly good at this!"

[Ailith Rayner]

"You're annoyingly good at this!"
Josh barely finished the sentence when Ailith moved her blade around his in rapid flicks making a scraping metal noise. Josh's eyes watched the swords carefully and to detangle his blade he thrust forward in an attack.
Ailith was already subtly on her toes, leaning forward and with the speed and agility of the spy that she was she began to lunge. Ailith watched in slow-motion, Josh’s blade was thrust towards her, she dodged to the right and sprang forward, her left arm lifted as Josh tried to pull back to defend and she clamped his arm at the elbow, making his sword redundant. She was inside his defence area and she brought the tip of her sword to the left side of his chest at a very acute angle.
“Riposte et touch.” She spoke simply in French, accent and all, before releasing her grip on Josh’s arm and taking several steps back she smiled at him. Ha ha! Not so sneaky, slightly slow Carer. But …
“I have to say, you’re kinda great at this too.” She meant that, but didn’t necessarily want to say it. Ailith had a slight competitive streak. She supposed she got it from living day in day, out with poker-loving men.

[Josh Cole]

This was where Josh was lucky he wasn't a Warrior.
A Warrior - and he was thinking of Levi Ryder here - would be really pissed off at being beaten by a female Spy.
Josh was actually mildly amused.
That had been a lot more fun than he'd expected - and he'd been right when he'd realised Ailith was good at this. And she'd just smashed the girly blonde stereotype to pieces. It was really impressive...
She was impressive.
"Not as great as you are," he smiled, extending his hand to her. "I'm really impressed."

[Ailith Rayner]

She took his hand and smiled, "Thanks." Think that's impressive you should see the way I throw a knife...
"Again?"
Josh nodded.
"En garde." Ailith and Josh turned to face side on leaning back heavily on their back leg.
"Pret." Josh got there before Ailith did. Ah so he really does know what he's talking about! They raised their swords and made a few practise bounces.
"Allez." Both opponents called together.
Then came the whirlwind of attacks and blocking. Ailith found she was working fast and hard, thinking every flick of the wrist and step carefully but at lightning speed. She had to becuase there was no let up from Josh. It was a good conversation between blades with feints, passes and parrys galore. Neither opponent said a word until... Josh's sword began from the right as a thrust, Ailith was set to block or dodge when Josh swerved it violently to the left, Ailith almost blocked but a definate metallic clang rang out as the blade clipped her personal-fitted breast-plate.
"Oh touche." Technically Ailith knew Josh had met his target. But she was nearly there and it was so fast it might have been her sword. He won't take that...

[Josh Cole]

Ha!
Feeling very much elated, Josh stepped back and extended a hand to Ailith.
Okay, it probably wasn't good for him to feel so thrilled by beating a girl. It was hardly chivalrous at all - but since when did Josh care? His dad was always telling him that his fencing was crap, yet he'd managed to beat Ailith.
His dad would tell him that beating a girl was nothing to be proud of.
But judging from Ailith's fencing skills, Josh suspected that she was not an ordinary girl.
"Sorry about that," he laughed.

[Ailith Rayner]

Ailith smiled and made a weak laugh. Grrrrrrrrr he's just lucky, I am so much better than this, what's up with me today because there's obviously something not right, I mean... and so went on Ailith's thoughts. She took his hand and shook it firmly, careful not to squeeze too hard and reveal how put out she was.
They began again and this time (two and a half minutes later), to Ailith's sheer delight, Josh just wan't fast enough to deflect a beautifully calculated cut, if she did say so herself.
"Two one. But really good work." I suppose...Oh get an ego check Ailith. They shook hands once again and smiled it was genuine from Ailith this time. She raised her sword again eager to have at Josh again, not least to recover herself but also because she was thoroughly enjoying the challenge that Josh presented.

[Josh Cole]

Well, he was pretty pleased with that.
Josh guessed that Ailith was probably more annoyed being beaten than she was letting on, but was keeping her thoughts to herself.
He was kind of glad of it. She seemed almost as scary as Madeleine, and he would not like to get on the wrong side of her.
Not until his fencing got better.
But, if he kept on practicing with her, he could tell that he would improve. She was definitely a challenge, but he was enjoying trying to beat her anyway. He doubted he'd beat her again...
Ah, well. He was a Carer. No one really expected that much.
"Nice one," he said, shaking her hand again.