Sparring

If anything, the sword arena was Kayla's safe haven. She loved the sounds of weapon against weapon and the aura of competitiveness surrounding everyone. It was a place to let loose and ravage anything in sight. She felt like her Ares was showing a little too much with her excitement. Kayla grabbed a fallen sword, fiddling with it and throwing it in her hand a few times and swung it to test it out. Nice sharp blade and sturdy grip, she thought. Now the next thing she had to do was find an opponent though she lacked everything social wise.

Two weeks. That's how long it had been since Taylor had set foot in the arena. It had been long enough that his daggers had gathered dust. Not that he didn't like the arena, he had just been busy. The memories are what finally brought him back. The sounds of fighting; metal on metal, war shouts, and swearing.

Taylor had always been a competitive person and that didn't change when it came to fighting. He loved seeing the aggressiveness of the fighters. He sat on a bench, his daggers uncomfortably poking into his hips. He unlaced his boots, and began tying them again, getting ready for a fight.

Kayla looked around the arena, eyes scanning through the mass of people for anyone who was available for combat. Everyone else already seemed to have someone to spar with except for a boy sitting on a bench who was tying his shoes. She'd rather not engage in conversation with someone she didn't even know but she really wanted to spar with someone and it didn't look like he'd be coming up to talk to her first. She began to walk over to the boy with her sword by her side until she stopped a close enough distance near him.

"Are you free to spar or are you waiting for someone?" She asks.

The heat on the back of Taylor's neck sudden vanished and his feet were covered by a shadow. He looked up. A girl was standing over him. He couldn't really see her face for the sun shone around her head in a blinding fashion.

"Are you free to spar or are you waiting for someone?" She asked him.

Taylor straightened his back. So this girl wanted a fight. "I'm not waiting for anybody, as far as I can remember. So if you think you can take me, alright then." He stood up, now towering over the girl. He was at least a foot taller. "By the way, I'm Taylor."

Kayla narrowed her eyes as the boy loomed over her at a staggering height and straightened herself and crossed her arms across her chest. She looked him up and down, assessing her competitor for weaknesses and strengths and looked back up to his face.

"The name's Kayla." She replied, turning her back to him and walking to a more open area where there were less people. She tied up her hair and readjusted the armor she had borrowed before getting into a more proper fighting stance with her sword ready at her side. Taylor seemed pretty confident in his skills so the challenge would be a good one, a better match than her last one with some other girl she had sparred with.

Taylor was well known around camp, so he knew many faces. Kayla's was one that was of the few that were a bit fuzzy to him. At some point, Taylor might of met her or at least seen her at some event. What table did she sit at? That usually helped him remember people. No bells rung.

He shrugged it off and followed her to an open area. he'll get to know her later. It was time to spar. Taylor stood straight up as Kayla adapted a fighting stance.

"Alright, what are the rules?" He pulled his daggers out of their sheaths. Some dust fell off the blades. "First to draw blood? Or a fight to the death?" He smiled.

Kayla eyed his daggers and thought about their disadvantages and advantages. It'd be better for her to stay clear of his close range, that might make her an easier target to stab or cut. With her sword she'd gain distance so it couldn't have been too hard or so she hoped.

"First to draw blood, neither of us would want a death on our hands. Or at least I wouldn't. Don't know much about you so I can't say." Kayla said with a mocking grin.

She held the sword close to her side and gripped it before feigning to strike at his left side but spun around to actually hit his right but she did have to give his speed some credit.

Taylor never made the first move. He had learned early on that usually the first move didn't help your cause. He had lost plenty of battles after making the first move. When Kayla attacked, she feigned an attack to Taylor's left then attacked his right side. She might of had a good strike if he didn't use dual daggers. He deflected her strike off to the side using his right one.

He took a step back, "Nice strike, I guess you fight a lot?" He stabbed his left dagger at her gut, while swinging his right at her legs.

Kayla was lucky she had her chest plate armor or else Taylor's dagger would've pierced into her skin like no problem. Luckily she had quick footing to miss the right dagger coming for her legs. She took fast strides over towards him and  kicked his chest backwards and used the back of her sword to hit his feet, trying to do her best to knock him off balance.

"Naturally, seeing as my dad's the Greek god of war. It's sort of in my blood to pick fights or cause one." Kayla said as she backed up in a defensive position.

"Ah, Ares spawn. I'm not good friends with too many off you." Her kicked mildly discomforted Taylor. He was large enough he didn't stumble. He dove over the sword as it swung at his feet. Taylor rolled and clumsily got to his feet. A successful combat roll is hard to complete when you are really tall.

He turned back to Kayla, a smirk appearing on his face, "For a child of Ares, you kinda suck at fighting." He didn't mean it, he just wanted to get her riled up. What fun is a fight without a little trash talk.

Kayla narrowed her eyes and grinded her teeth in anger. Lying or not the comment made her fueled with anger. Infuriated, she swung her sword ruthlessly as a retort, fastly as it flew from side to side. She wanted to lose her temper and just forget the sword and beat him up the old fashioned way but she had to control her temper. Now wasn't the time no matter how much she wanted to wipe that stupid little smirk of his off his face.

"Yeah well, I don't really care what you have to say if you can't even get up from the ground right." She lied.

Taylor blocked Kayla's strikes. They were angry strikes, not very controlled. Therefore easy to deflect and dodge. She had plenty of energy as it seemed, as her strikes remained at a constant speed and strength. Taylor probably would of have taken a beating if he wasn't extremely physically strong.

Her jibe was weak but he laughed anyway, "The ground is a long distance away for a tall person. I guess you wouldn't understand, shorty." Time for Taylor to go on the attack. He swung both his daggers towards her left side.

Kayla met the two daggers with her sword, deflecting them from penetrating her side. She forcefully put pressure on her stance to drive his weapons back, jumping back before he could retaliate, quickly bringing her sword back to hit his daggers as celestial bronze met celestial bronze. Her moment of anger had resided to give control to the more calculating side of her brain and she was more careful.

"Ha ha, you're so hilarious." Kayla retorted sarcastically as she rolled her eyes.

It had been a while since Taylor had sparred and he felt it. Muscles he had not used in weeks were being stretched and it hurt. He tried to take a low swing and his arm didn't do what he wanted it to do. Pain shot through his arm and his dagger fell to the floor. Taylor went down on one knee, clutching his right arm, a grimace on his face.

"Well, that's not good." Taylor said. Another shot of pain went through causing him to grit his teeth.

Kayla drew her sword close to her chest, ready to strike until she saw Taylor go down on one knee. Her eyes watched as his dagger drop to the floor and his face looked like he was in a lot of pain. She could just strike now in his moment of vulnerability since he wouldn't really be able to defend himself properly but then again what was the fun in that? She squatted down next to him and set his fallen dagger next to him.

"You look like you're out of shape, you sure you wanna keep sparring?" Kayla asked. She was still alert though in case this was some kind of trick or in case he just sprang up and tried to attack her. But he didn't look like he could.

Taylor snorted, [color:4d32=#lightblue]"I'm in shape, just not sparring shape." He flexed his hand and pain ran through his arm. He straightened the arm until the elbow popped and just held it. The stretch hurt like Hades but Taylor needed it so he could keep sparring. He stood up and began pacing back and forth.

He stopped and changed the stretch, pulling his arm against his chest, [color:4d32=#lightblue]"Just give me a sec, I should be good to go."

Kayla rolled her eyes and stood back up. She watched with a raised eyebrow as he stretched, leaning on her sword as she waited. She wondered if he had a recent injury. Lots of demigods did, get injured that is, it's tough business fighting monsters and what not. Unless it was just something else.

She shook the thoughts from her mind. It wasn't her business anyway, all she came here for was to spar. Kayla picked her sword back up and tossed it in her hand, slashing it in the air from side to side fluidly. Maybe training with a dummy would've been easier, she thought to herself. She looked back at Taylor in boredom and readied herself slightly for when he was ready.

Taylor repeated the stretches for about 5 minutes and his arm did not start to feel better. The pain was gone replace by a non-cooperating limb. He couldn't move it that well. He looked at his left. It still had the dagger in it. He sheathed it and walked over to his dropped one. He scooped it up, lefty of course, and walked towards Kayla.

"I'll take you on left handed." He leveled his dagger at her. "They're almost the same in skill level."

Kayla raised her eyebrows at that and shrugged, "If you say so." It obviously put him at an angle of disadvantage but she could work with that. She lunged at him, making the first move once again and hit his dagger with her sword. It would be easier to disarm him with only one weapon and since her sword was heavier she could try to knock it out of his hand.

With that in mind she swung her sword multiple times, trying not to chop off his hand in the process. He already had a non-cooperating arm and she didn't want to sever his hand.

With the loss of usage in his right arm, Taylor had to resort to using more speed instead of strength. He could probably still beat Kayla using strength, but he didn't know her limits. She was built a lot smaller than him but her dad was Ares, that always made things trouble some.

As the fight continued on, Taylor kept deflecting her attacks. Using a bit of speed and some strength, pushed her attacks away from his body. This seemed to be the best way to defend using a dagger. It was kind of hard to start an attack, when having to defend this way though.

Taylor rolled under one of her swings and came up swinging at the small of her back, hopefully getting some offensive pressure on her.

As Taylor had rolled under one of her swings her surprise was apparent. She lost focus for just a second but a second was long enough. She tripped over one of his legs as she tried to turn away quickly and she felt his dagger prick her back for just a moment before she fell to the ground unceremoniously. Before he could take the chance to strike her when she was on the ground, she rolled and got back up to the ground masking her embarrassment with a poker face.

Her sword had scratched up her legs and was so close to baring blood. It would kill her if her own blood was spilled by her own hand and not by her opponent's. She gripped her sword tightly only to wince; she had shielded her body from the ground with her hands and landing in a bad position it had made them ache at only the slightest of touch.

Kayla could bare it. She had to if she wanted to win. She struck her sword once again to his left and slashed diagonally to aim for his legs, missing as one of her hands pulsed and made her pause before actually aiming to hit.

Taylor grinned as Kayla fell. That strike felt good yet she got up quite quick. He got to his feet and began walking towards her, "Did I get ya?" Kayla looked a lot more scratched up than before. He could see cut on her legs, yet no blood. He spun his dagger in his hand. "I mean I'm fine to keep going, it's just that we decided on first blood." He pointed his dagger at her. "Dost thou yield?"

Kayla did not respond, instead she swung at him. For some reason she missed. That wasn't like an Ares kid. Taylor stepped back, "You okay? You kind of missed me."

Kayla gritted her teeth. Of course she noticed that she had missed but did he really have to point out every one of her mistakes to make her feel inferior? Maybe it wasn't his intention but still. She spun around in a flash and decided to strike his face with the flat of her sword like a steel slap. Not really knowing or caring if she had inflicted a lot of damage on him, she ducked her head and moved around him and used her elbow to hit in the center of his back.

She fell back and caught her breath, it'd been a while since she had such a leveled fight and the thought made her adrenaline pump even more and placed a grin on her face. Kayla loved the feeling of sweat and moving like your life depended on it. It was exhilarating.

The slap was unexpected. Like, who hits someone with with the flat of the blade in the face? Her elbow managed to get Taylor too. The slap had stunned him enough that he actually stumbled, not something that happens a lot for someone of his size. He managed to recover though, arm flailing to keep him up.

Taylor pivoted on his and faced Kayla. He sheathed his dagger, reaching up to feel the welt swelling up on his face. It stung. A smile came, then laughter. "That was an interesting move. A slap with a blade." He laughed again. "Never had that happen before." He touched the welt again. "Doesn't seem to be bleeding though." He drew his dagger. "Want to continue?"

"I'm glad it surprised you," Kayla said with a grin still on her face as she rolled back her shoulders. "And of course I want to continue. I'm going to keep sparring until I win." She stated in a matter of fact tone with confidence flaring through her chest. She could hear her heartbeat thumping through her ears and she felt more energized than ever, bouncing on the balls of her feet with her sword in hand and ready to draw blood. Not a time to get cocky, she had to remind herself. Arrogance always lead to downfall.

She advanced swiftly and swung her sword wildly, almost in a savage manner though with a control where she was mostly aiming for was his arms and legs where she might've had a chance to tear through something. Kayla backed up with offense through most of this battle where she noticed that Taylor had kept his defense. There had to be some sort of flaw to that plan that she could pick out. Question was, could she find it before she started to bleed.