Chapter 18 : The Training Continues
Monroe's backyard wasn't designed for combat training, but we'd made it work. The fence blocked sightlines from neighbors. The grass was soft enough to cushion falls. And the old oak tree provided a vertical surface for practicing strikes.
I'd been at it for three hours. My arms burned. My legs shook. And Monroe had just put me on my back for the fourteenth time.
"Your footwork is terrible." He stood over me, barely breathing hard. His woge flickered at the edges—wolf features threatening to surface, then retreating. "You telegraph every attack. Any Wesen with combat experience will read you like a book."
"Then teach me not to telegraph."
He hauled me upright with one hand. The casual strength was a reminder—reformed or not, Monroe was still a Blutbad. Still capable of tearing me apart if the mood struck.
"Grimms usually rely on weapons and surprise. They don't fight Wesen hand-to-hand unless they have no choice." He circled me, demonstrating proper stance. "But since you insist on training for the scenario where everything goes wrong..."
"Everything's been going wrong since I got here."
"Fair point." He adjusted my guard position, pushing my elbows closer to my body. "Blutbaden attack in patterns. Lead with the dominant hand, follow with teeth if the target's exposed, retreat and circle if the first strike misses. We're sprinters, not marathon fighters—if we can't bring you down in the first thirty seconds, our advantage drops significantly."
[COMBAT TRAINING: BLUTBAD PATTERNS]
[RECORDING: ATTACK SEQUENCES, WEAKNESSES, TELLS]
[NOTE: INFORMATION VALUABLE FOR MULTIPLE CONTEXTS]
I pushed the System's cataloguing impulse to the background. After my conversation with Monroe about the Collector's Obsession, I'd been trying to engage with training as a person learning skills, not a database accumulating data.
It wasn't easy. The System wanted to optimize everything.
"Again." Monroe reset his stance. "Watch my shoulders. They'll move before my hands."
He lunged. I tracked the shoulder motion—a slight dip before the strike—and sidestepped. His claws cut air where my throat had been.
"Better." He circled, looking for another opening. "Now what do you do?"
"Counter while you're off-balance."
I stepped in and drove an elbow toward his exposed ribs. Monroe blocked—of course he blocked, his reflexes were superhuman—but the motion was correct. The technique was sound.
"Good. Now faster."
We continued for another hour. By the end, I'd landed three legitimate hits and taken a dozen more. My shirt was soaked with sweat. My enhanced senses throbbed from overuse, the Blutbad abilities I'd extracted pushed past their comfortable limits.
[STAMINA WARNING: APPROACHING THRESHOLD]
[ENHANCED SENSES: TEMPORARY DEGRADATION (15 MINUTES)]
[RECOMMEND: REST PERIOD]
"Take a break." Monroe tossed me a water bottle. "You're pushing too hard. The abilities you extracted—they have limits. Burn them out, and you'll be fighting blind."
I drank, feeling the cool water cut through the heat in my throat. "How do you know about limits?"
"Because all Wesen have them. We can woge for extended periods, but it costs energy. The longer we stay transformed, the hungrier we get, the harder it is to think clearly." He sat on the back porch steps, stretching muscles that had barely been tested. "Your extracted abilities probably work the same way. They're borrowed power, not native. The strain has to go somewhere."
Borrowed power. The phrase resonated more than he knew.
"The pheromones." I set down the water bottle. "From the Ziegevolk. I tried using them on Angelina."
Monroe winced. "How badly did that go?"
"She punched me in the face."
"Sounds about right. Ziegevolk pheromones work on desire—they make targets want what the user wants. Blutbaden don't operate on desire. We operate on rage." He grinned. "You're lucky she only punched you. She could have taken your head off."
"She mentioned that."
The back door opened and Angelina stepped out, moving with the liquid grace of someone who'd been awake for hours but didn't show it. She'd cleaned up since her bloody arrival—fresh clothes, brushed hair, the predator's beauty restored.
"Speaking of taking heads off." She dropped onto the porch railing, balancing with casual precision. "I heard you needed combat evaluation. Monroe's too gentle. You need someone who'll actually hurt you."
"That sounds like a terrible idea," Monroe said.
"That's why it's a good one." She hopped down from the railing, circling me with appraising eyes. "The Reapers aren't going to hold back. They're not going to adjust their strength for a training exercise. If Cross survives the next two weeks, he needs to know what real killing intent feels like."
She had a point. Monroe had been pulling his punches—necessary for training, but limited in what it could teach me about genuine combat.
"Rules," I said. "No killing blows. No permanent damage. First blood or submission."
Angelina's woge surfaced—red eyes gleaming, teeth extending past human proportion. "Where's the fun in that?"
She moved.
The speed was impossible. One moment she stood five feet away; the next, her claws were raking toward my face. I twisted aside—pure instinct, the enhanced senses screaming danger—and felt fire trace across my cheek.
First blood. Hers.
"Not bad." She was already circling, looking for another angle. "Most humans freeze the first time they see a woge. You've at least learned not to panic."
I drew my sword. Training blade, blunted edge, but still capable of hurting. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
She came again. Faster this time, testing my ability to track her movements. The Blutbad senses I'd extracted helped—I could hear her heartbeat accelerate before she struck, smell the adrenaline spike that preceded each attack.
But knowing when she'd attack wasn't the same as being able to stop her.
Her second pass opened a cut on my forearm. Her third sent me sprawling into the grass, sword knocked from my grip. Her fourth would have torn out my throat if she hadn't pulled the strike at the last second.
"Dead." She stood over me, woge receding, expression almost bored. "Three times dead in thirty seconds. Monroe's right—your footwork is terrible."
I retrieved my sword, ignoring the blood dripping down my arm. "Again."
"You want more?"
"I want to learn. Pain's a good teacher."
Something shifted in her expression—respect, maybe, or just surprise. "Fine. But I'm not going to go easy on you."
"I'm counting on that."
We sparred for another hour. By the end, I'd managed one good hit—a slash across her forearm that barely broke the skin. She'd put me down fifteen times, opened cuts on my arms, chest, and face, and demonstrated conclusively that my combat training was nowhere near sufficient for the threats I faced.
[COMBAT PROFICIENCY: 18% → 24%]
[INJURY STATUS: MINOR LACERATIONS (MULTIPLE)]
[ASSESSMENT: SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT REQUIRED]
"Not terrible," Angelina admitted as we wrapped up. "You'll last maybe thirty seconds against a Reaper instead of fifteen. Progress."
I accepted the backhanded compliment. Thirty seconds was better than nothing.
"Same time tomorrow?"
She considered. "Sure. But I'm bringing weapons next time. You need practice against something other than claws."
Monroe watched us from the porch, expression unreadable. Whatever concerns he had about Angelina's involvement, he kept them to himself.
That night, I sat in Daniel's apartment, icing my bruises and recalculating. Eighteen days remained. At my current rate of improvement, I might reach thirty-five percent combat proficiency by the deadline. Survivable against average threats, but Reapers weren't average.
I needed advantages beyond skill. Environmental preparation. Allies positioned for support. Contingency plans for when—not if—things went wrong.
The System hummed quietly, offering tactical suggestions, optimal training schedules, resource allocation recommendations. I listened to some, ignored others.
Monroe's words echoed in my memory: If you start treating us all as collectibles, you'll end up alone.
I pulled out my phone and texted Monroe: Thanks for the training. Clocks tomorrow?
His response came thirty seconds later: Only if you bring better coffee than last time.
A small smile cracked my battered face. Some things shouldn't be optimized. Some relationships were worth more than their tactical value.
But that didn't mean I couldn't pursue both.
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