Spren of Kindness

It hits him solidly in the shoulder. His bad shoulder, as a matter of fact. He'd almost forgotten about that. He does his best to shake it off, switching the knife to his other hand and spinning it into a reversed grip. Another slash upwards, in the same way that Reese had shown him. Then a stab towards the shoulder in the same movement. He's sweating now. It's been some time since he had a fight that lasted this long.

"Match?" Martin asks. The hand that isn't holding the knife is shaking. He balls it into a fist.

Staff. He recognizes this. He knows how to makes this work. He ducks beneath the staff, pivoting to come up behind Ayia and hold the training knife against her neck.

Think, you idiot! Martin scrambles back to his feet. "Think like Reese," he mutters. Think like the small person. The one at a disadvantage. He circles carefully, watching Ayia. She can make those rods stay anywhere. That's it. He pulls out his training knife, the weighted rod that he still carries for some reason, (Mik gave it to him, before he died), and switches it to his left hand, closing the gap between the two of them, and slashing upwards.

"Not a gentleman," he clips out as he falls, braid whipping past his face. "I'm a soldier." Was. He hits the ground, ankles protesting, and runs forward, leaping into a full body tackle.

That's three kicks in a minute. Magic is unfair. Martin slams his elbow backwards, trying to hit Ayia in the kidney.

Martin grunts as Ayia's foot hits him. He's going to have a nasty bruise or three after this. He moves forward, grabbing Ayia's wrist to put her arm behind her back.

Martin plants his left foot behind him, letting it take some of his weight, shaking off the kick, and grabbing Ayia's ankle to throw her off balance.

"One, two, three!" Martin barks, springing forward towards Ayia.

"She will, so let me handle that." He knows very well how to avoid metal objects. "On three?"

"We're fighting her. You take left, I take right?"

"Got it." Martin shifts, rocking on the balls of his feet until his back is towards Fresco. He does not like this. That's not good. He's gotten too used to having Reese at his back, and too used to expecting anyone else to stab him, or shoot him, or both, when his back is turned.

"Interesting." "I agree." Reese would fit in here well.

Martin nods. "You're good at that. Who taught you?"

"We'll see."

"I did some hacking, back where I came from, but I have a feeling that won't be any good here." He retrieves his knife, frowning at the sap on the blade. That'll be miserable to clean. "It's not much, but it's not terribly showy."

"Okay." Martin looks around, sizing up the terrain. There's a couple trees within decent range. Nothing too advanced - he definitely recalls someone saying not to expose people to new technology. But he doesn't need anything fancy. He takes a few steps forward, making sure the rest of the group is behind him, and takes one of his throwing knives from his jacket, hurling it towards the tree. It sticks, quivering. Not as good as he would like - it's a little lower than he was aiming for, and he could have sworn it didn't fly as fast as it should have. But it's in the tree. "That's one thing I'm good at. I'm a decent hand-to-hand fighter as well."

"Do you want me to demonstrate my skills?" Martin asks Aiya.

Finished Starship Troopers! It was pretty good. A little bit formulaic in parts, but I liked the ending. A couple spoilery thoughts: Probably I'll finish up the Young Elites series next with The Midnight Star - either that or The Clockwork Rocket, which seems more likely, since I really haven't enjoyed The Young Elites thus far.

Seventeen pages into Starship Troopers, and I need to express this:

I can't remember if there's a meme about the song, but this is unironically epic in the strangest way.