The Other Witch; Training

Hack had said simply 'show him how to fight' over dinner the previous night.  Neither Braga nor Salvia had any interest, and only minimal experience, teaching anyone how to fight, much less a human thief who had thus far only managed to insult the former and disgust the latter.  So they'd settled it the way Ga-Vok and Nielda traditionally settled important discussions, mixed martial arts competition, best two out of three doesn't have to do it.
Now, after spending three days recovering from her injuries, Salvia was preparing to show the young twerp how to hold a sword.  She'd have sooner gone another round with Braga.
"Its very simple, pointy end faces away from you, pointy end goes into the other guy."
"I've seen movies, I know how to hold a sword."
"Great, then you've already got lots of bad habits and no idea what its like to hold an actual sword.  Pick up the sword, then try and stab me with it."
He looked at her like she was some sort of talking tomato.  Admittedly, considering the angle of his gaze, he thought she was a well endowed talking tomato, but a talking tomato none-the-less.
"The safety is on in here, that's not a real sword.  It's a holo-repulsor representation of a real sword that can, at worst, cause indigestion.  Usually, it just goes through me and the computer counts coup.  My weapons are the same, only I've got the safety turned a little lower for my weapon."
A very scary, but no less attractive, talking tomato.
"You'll learn to dodge the easy way, by being afraid of pain.  Just like the rest of us did."  This wasn't true, Father Krell had used telepathy to hurl paint-soaked cotton balls at her, and counted on her deep and abiding hatred of being dirty to teach her the same basic lesson.  Traditionally, Ga-Vok and Jaguan's both learned to dodge by being forced to run obstacle courses with very tight spaces, dodging around them was the only way to do it in the alloted time, and failure resulted in social shame.  Harakai preferred slow motion training, letting you grow accustomed to the actions until you could dodge anything from a feather to a sniper's shot.  Gravagan's didn't dodge.  When it came down to it only Nielda, the Seclorans were particularly brutal about it, and humans used pain as a motivator.
"Can't we just do this in slow motivation and gradually increase the speed until I'm good enough to do it properly?"
"That assumes I don't want to cause you pain,"
"Kinky"
"Just stab me already."
He grabbed the sword and immediately charged her.  Maybe he'd meant to take her off guard, and most people probably would have been, but she'd had a few people try this on her before.  He made a wide, horizontal slash at her, which she didn't even bother to block.  Salvia stepped inside of the arcing blade and delivered a sucker punch with the butt of her own sword.  His sword went flying out of his hand and he collapsed.
"Hold onto your sword next time, then at least you can cut at my legs."
"That was harsh, don't you think?"  Braga came into the room and keyed in his weapon.  He'd opted for a standard quarterstaff, an excellent training weapon, as it allowed for effective blocking and a variety of attack angles.
"What, are you going to gang up on me now?"  The human had better endurance than she'd anticipated, he'd managed to crawl to his knees and was now leaning on his sword.  "Real sporting you are."
"More sporting than our enemies will be.  You think us harsh, but you have not seen what evil looks like."
"You shouldn't be so quick to judge.  I know what evil looks like; evil is a man who'll sell anything for profit. Evil is someone who'll kill a boy's father before his eyes.  Evil is a society that'll leave an orphan to fend for himself in the streets with nothing but snipes and gutter folk for company.  Trust me, I know what evil is."
Salvia had to catch herself.  She had judged him too quickly.  She'd written him off as just another human, and not even considered that he had his own life and his own story.  And now she knew that they had at least some common ground, and he hadn't had the benefit of Father Krell's guidance.  Braga didn't seem to have been affected by his words, but he hadn't felt anything more than a bit insulted to begin with.
"What's your name?"
"James, about time somebody asked.  You drag me to your ship, hand me a sword, tell me I'm supposed to help you fight some evil, and then punch me in the kidney.  Least you could do is ask a man his name."
"I'm sorry James.  Truth be told, we don't know what evil we're supposed to be fighting either.  We joined a bit more willingly, and nobody punched us in the kidney, but we're all in the dark here.  I signed up because I'm looking for a man who went missing and Hack says we'll run into him.  Braga signed up because he recognized Hack from a TV show that went off the air thousands of years ago.  But you didn't get a choice, you probably never have."
James was quiet for a moment, "I got over that a long time ago.  Why are you both willing to follow him over so little?  What if he's lying to you?"
"Old Cloak is the Harbringer of Adventure.  To travel with him is the opportunity of a life time."
"All the evidence I'd found when I met him told me that the man I'm looking for is beyond the knowledge of mortals, Hack doesn't strike me as mortal.  Its not as though immortals are a vast organization, they basically all know of each other.  He says he knows, I can't prove otherwise, so I go along with it.  Braga seems fairly confident, and I trust him."
"And that's good enough for you both?"
"Yes."
"No, but I don't know a better way."
James poked her in the knee with his sword.  "Stab.  I win.  What do I win?"
"Proper safety protocols and slow motion drills.  And if we ever get one, an explanation."
"Sounds like I hit it big, You'll have to come up with something really special if you need to reward me again."  He smiled roguishly and she started wondering if he'd really been all that hurt in the first place.
"Not even in your dreams."
"You just try to stop me."
Salvia teleported in front of him, a bit closer than she'd intended actually, and poked his forhead.  "Any time you dream of me, you will wake up on the sight of any skin you've not actually seen."  She pulled her finger back and continued, "Don't tempt a witch."  Then she left as gracefully as she could.  Curses tended to leave one weak in the knees.