Private Sometimes You Need Your Butt Kicked

It barely took anything to make Dalia blow the fuck up on Ida. That little imp had a bad reputation, for sure - Andrasta knew how quickly the new girl had landed in detention, and the kind of stuff she had done to land there. Andrasta could only imagine what had happened between Ida and Dalia, but it had to have been terrible. After all, she was putting out serious threats. Claiming she 'didn't care if she got put on the islets again.'

Everyone's mood was sour now. Orsick seemed like he didn't want to talk to her. Just about everyone else had left the community center. Andrasta was stressed out about it too, but she was going to stay with Dalia. Help her calm down, then figure out what was going wrong.

Dalia liked fighting, and Andrasta was pretty good at that too, so she offered to spar. They found a place not too far away from Andrasta's foster home in the woods, but far enough away from their neighbors that there wouldn't be noise complaints.

"We haven't done this in forever," Andrasta said. She was actually a little excited, circumstances aside. She had grown a lot since the last time they did something like this.

Andrasta took her shoes off, too. Her foster parents would probably be upset if she messed up another pair doing dumb shit with her powers. Still, she would have to be careful. She could probably kill Dalia if she went too hard with her powers, and Dalia could probably take her out of school for a while if she zapped her enough or brought her spear out.

"I don't know what counts as a point, so let's just go until we don't feel like it anymore." That was a much easier way to do it. "And I've taken some pretty bad falls without breaking anything, so don't worry about hitting me too hard." Dalia had probably seen at least one of those incidents. Like the time she fell down the stairs and ended up hurting the stairs last year.

With that out of the way, she took a fighting stance she'd learned from one of her past selves - light on her feet, hands up and ready to block or punch, with her right side angled back just a bit. She closed in, circling around towards Dalia's back, then she slid forward and led in with a low kick.

Andrasta had no fear. She blocked that jab, knicking it out of the way, then moved closer. This close, the punch wouldn't be able to hit as hard, but it would definitely hit her somewhere.

She took it like a champ. As she got in closer, she struck at Dalia with her elbow, then backed up, covering her retreat with a couple of punches. She had been thinking of trying to grapple Dalia and get her on the ground, but she thought better of it.

When she got the chance, Andrasta would go in again, but this time, she would use her powers. Dalia would hear a loud pop! off to her side - it was a distraction! Within moments, Andrasta would be on her, throwing punches, trying to get a few hits in on Dalia with her guard thrown off.

Andrasta didn't expect Dalia to burst forward and grab her like this. That knee hurt.

This was probably her own fault for bringing powers into it - but honestly, she knew she couldn't win very decisively without a little creative power usage. Dalia's mom was a war goddess, and she taught her a lot about fighting for almost her entire life. Plus, Dalia was bigger and stronger.

But Andrasta had a really hard head. She headbutted Dalia and pushed her back, then fell back into a fighting stance.

"You're fast," Andrasta said. She chuckled a bit, still out of breath from that knee strike. She'd be ready if Dalia tried that again. Or, at least, closer to ready.

Andrasta snorted. She took a moment to reenact the taunt captain falcon was known for, as a retort: "Show me your moves!"

And then she fell back into her fighting stance and closed in again. This time, focusing more on boxing. It occurred to her that she would lose if she engaged Dalia this way, but she also realized that she didn't actually care about winning or losing. What would winning even mean? She was doing this to help Dalia blow off some steam.

So she was fighting like a normie boxer now, and she was fairly competent at it. But if she wasn't so good at taking a punch, this would have ended fast.