NOVEL NEXT Chapter 138 – Rejoicing at the Sight of another’s Misery
"You can totally love someone and still enjoy watching as they get their socks beaten off them, especially if the one doing the beating is another friend. Not an uncommon sentiment amongst more physical folks like us, really." - Igor Krevin, therian mercenary leader, circa 16 VA.
Not half an hour later, Aideen found herself at the mansion's courtyard - which was pretty much any open area near the mansion, since it was not even fenced up - as she stood across Grigori, with her weapon in hand.
After the therian man had gushed out about her weapon for a while he practically begged for a spar with her. One look at Artair's and Zoya's massive amused grins told Aideen that there was no help to be found there, so she relented in the end.
Grigori stood with a suit of chainmail on his body over his gambeson, which covered his torso completely. He also had metal bracers and shin guards on him, and his prodigious mane were covered by his open-faced helmet. He held a heavy training blade made of ironwood in one hand and a round steel shield in the other.
As for Aideen, she wore nothing over her tunic and trousers, and just had her weapon with her. She had kept it in its three sectioned form as that was what Grigori was most keen about, but kept the blades out of play just to be safe.
Her own safety was not even something she was bothered about despite the utter lack of protective gear, as between her being a healer and an unliving, she doubted anyone in the mansion could do anything to her anyway. Even so, Zoya and Grigori had expressed their worry, though Artair just snickered behind them.
"Anytime you're ready," said Aideen as she casually twirled one of the staves around. Her left hand held the staff at the left end, while her right held the middle staff and lightly rotated the right one around in circles. Grigori actually eyed her warily when she did that so effortlessly, as he was now familiar with the weight of that staff.
Even before the large therian man charged, Aideen noticed what he was about to do from the way he flexed his legs. He barreled towards her far faster than she could move, but she was already moving out of the way by then.
His practice saber came in a heavy swing at her, but she parried it lightly with the staff in her left hand, the blow deflected harmlessly away from her. Before Grigori recovered his stance, she flailed the other end of her staff towards his side. He reacted fast enough and interposed his shield to catch the blow.
The loud sound made by the impact nearly deafened everyone in the vicinity for a moment, and to his surprise, Grigori had to take a step back to stabilize himself, and he was astounded to see the sizable dent on his shield. That blow had packed a lot of power behind its relaxed appearance.
He did not get much time to contemplate about it because the next thing he knew, Aideen had whirled around and one of her staves came in from his right. He blocked the strike with his saber, but had not expected the even greater weight behind the strike.
It took all his strength to not lose his grip on his saber to the heavy strike, and when he saw the other end of the staff whirl around as well, he decided that discretion was the better part of valor and leapt back to avoid it instead.
Aideen had not allowed him to get away, however, and Grigori found that she had rushed after him, while her three-sectioned staff kept whirling around her like a living creature and struck blows against him from tricky angles.
He did what he could, parried a couple blows with his saber, blocked a half dozen more with his shield, which acquired a new dent with every hit, while he tried to gain some distance to catch his breath from her relentless assault.
Grigori had not expected to see Aideen stand her ground, and as she whirled around, held her staff by one end, before she whipped it towards him at full extension. It came too fast for him to evade, so all he could do was to place his saber in its path, in the hopes that he could block the blow.
Even though he braced himself for the blow to come, he had failed to consider what would happen if his weapon was not up to it. The solid ironwood actually shattered into slivers of wood that flew all over the place when the staff struck it head on.
The blow had not spent all its momentum yet either, and it barreled straight towards his upper arm. He felt as if a bull had rammed him from the side, as the staff hit his arm and broke the bone with contemptuous ease, the force of the blow itself was enough to drive his arm against his side violently, where he felt more sharp pain. Likely cracked a rib or two right there.
Even in pain, he still widened his eyes in surprise as he saw how Aideen pulled her weapon back seemingly just with a flick of her wrist, as she caught the staff with her other hand as was pulled over by the movement. The ease with which she handled the far too heavy weapon made it look as if it was made of feathers instead.
"Got me good right there," he admitted to Aideen as she came over and healed his injuries right away. He had been told of it, but was still surprised to see that she had done away with the broken bones and bruising in mere seconds. "Thanks for the fight."
"You're welcome," replied Aideen as she shook Grigori's hand. She noticed how Artair and Zoya, who were watching them, had looks of schadenfreude on their faces, and just shook her head at it. Siblings would be siblings no matter where she went, it seems.
