We got in early the next day, as requested. Well, day was a strong word. We arrived in what was technically the morning, despite the lack of sun and any waking people to interact with. We caught the Beast Lord Garden initiates going HOME for the night when we got in, and I used all five wishes for them to bump up my Perception, since it was my lowest stat. Fifteen points onto an even hundred was simple enough that I didn't have to actually think about it, which was good because thinking wasn't really my strong suit right now.

Callie was NOT pleased with this turn of events, and was not a morning person when someone woke her up instead of letting her wake naturally. So, when we arrived to find Abel waiting for us alone, she had no patience whatsoever with the nonsense games he liked to play, and just flat out asked. "Where is Mel? I thought we were supposed to be sparring with you two together?"

Abel chuckled at her waspish tone. "No. I said that I would be taking a personal hand in your training. Which I will. You're going to be getting that personal hand upside your heads for the rest of the day. Just me for now though. Get out here and get in position to attack. No Skills or abilities." We both groaned, shuffling out into the dirt ring to take up our place together across from our teacher. Once we were standing adjacent he nodded. "Good. Now fight me."

Then he just stood there. I blinked. "Ok. But...what do you want us to learn from this? We won't know what to take away from this fight if we don't know what aspect of teamwork we're supposed to be training. You can't just tell us to fight you and then not tell us why."

"Really?" He asked archly. "Why not?" I opened my mouth to respond and then trailed off, earning a smirk from Abel. "Exactly. This is training. It's my job to teach, and your job to learn. I don't need to spoon feed you every lesson. This particular training has two purposes actually, but I'm not telling you either of them. You need to figure it out yourself. Now hurry the fuck up. I want to go and get some pancakes on our first break, and I won't be stopping until neither of you can stand."

That was annoying. Hell, much of what Abel did and said was annoying. Now we had a way to respond to that. He literally told us to beat his ass. So I shrugged and lashed out with a whirl of my cane. He stepped away, towards Callie, but came up short of entering her space. I started to react to his attack, but when he didn't actually make one I kind of...froze up. Abel just stood there, looking bored. "You figure some of it out yet?" His tone was dry and somewhat mocking.

I grimaced. "Well fuck." Callie looked over at me, quizzically. I'd taken priority though, so she hadn't really noticed it. I turned to my girlfriend and sighed. "Reaction. He's trying to point out that as a team, our combat style is currently entirely reactive. It's instinctual, but instincts are responses. We don't know how to integrate in joint attacks except in response to openings we see during battle."

"See." Abel said. "I told Mel you weren't stupid. She gets caught up in that brains vs. brawn thing. Thought you wouldn't get it just because you let your girl do all the planning. I think you're a bit like me though. Combat intelligence and day to day intelligence aren't the same thing. Essentially correct, at least for the first part. You don't act, you react. Defense is great, but you need to be able to take the initiative. That SHOULD show you the second reason for this training, but somehow I doubt it will. Try again."

I looked over to Callie, gesturing subtly with a hand, and we started to circle. We might not have a way to integrate both of us into an attack directly, but some training with my wolf method could polish that weakness out. That was the reason he had banned Skills, I suspect. All of our combination attacks were Skill based. He was right that we hadn't integrated physical combat initiative into our style. Luckily for us, if we both attacked together, anything he did in response would trigger our defensive instincts.

I lashed out at the back of his head with my cane, Callie whirling out one leg to sweep his feet out from under him at nearly the same instant. Abel ducked my blow without even looking, stepped over hers, and reached up to grab my cane, pulling it slightly forward and unbalancing me as he did. I started to fall, and scrambled to catch myself by putting a foot forward, only to step into the way of Callie's foot and get my load bearing leg taken out from under me, sending me spilling to the ground.

Instead of backing off this time, Abel stepped in and aimed a stomping kick at the back of my neck. Callie tried to intercept it with a kick of her own, but Abel shifted the position of his back foot slightly,turning the stomping blow into a snap kick from the side and smashing it into Callie's head while I was on the ground, staggering her. He reached down and grabbed me by the jacket, picked me up, and physically fucking hurled me at my currently off balance girlfriend without a second of hesitation.

He stared down at us dispassionately. "You figure it out yet? Because I just gave you like four hints." It was infuriating how casual he sounded, like he'd just come back from a nap rather than kicking the living shit out of us. I groaned as I got to my feet, holding out a hand to help Callie to her feet.

She answered this time. "I got it." She was wincing and rubbing her head. Apparently Abel could hit like a truck even without his ability. Not exactly a shock. "It's cohesion. We know how the other person thinks, how to be aware of them, but now we need to put those things together. Uneven training in the two areas is making it impossible for us to operate smoothly, and you're exploiting the gaps." She sounded frustrated, but honestly I was just impressed she got it so easily. I would have needed much longer to understand that lesson.

Abel had no problem confirming the lesson once we'd gotten the second one. "Exactly. The single biggest flaw in any team combat is lack of cohesion. The gaps between where your styles overlap. I'll even give you a freebie. The point of this training isn't just to make you aware of your limitations so you can fix them, it's also to teach you to spot that same kind of gap in other teams cooperation. In this tournament, we'll be fighting plenty of other teams from what you said. Being able to break formations and cooperation is going to be a vital skill."

We'd seen that before, when dealing with some of the enemies during the scavenger hunt, so I could definitely follow his train of though, but it left one glaring flaw in this whole training regimen. "What about you guys? How are we supposed to work with you when all our training is going to be on working with each other? Can't they exploit those same weaknesses in our cooperation?"

Abel smiled at that. "Now you're thinking. And the answer is no. Or at least, not easily. For a few reasons. First of all, we're training you on how to work with each other, but you can apply these lessons to others, since we've already learned all this, learning to cooperate with us will be simpler by far than learning to fight beside someone who wasn't your teacher in the first place."

"Secondly." He said with a grin. "You're neglecting to remember that we're going to be actively watching you train and learning your combat styles. We have much more experience with this style of fighting, and after training you we'll be able to integrate ourselves into your teamwork pretty easily. All you have to do is work with each other and trust us to handle the rest. Now, enough talking. Back to work. The lesson is far from over just because you figured out how it works."

He stepped back, leaving himself open again, and I grimaced. This really was a pain in the ass. I met Callie's eyes over his shoulder and made a circle with my hand. She cocked her head for a second, and then her eyes widened as I made a biting gesture with my hand. Wolves. She got it. With a solemn nod, the two of us began to circle. Abel didn't even react, seeming to be staring casually off into the distance, not even paying attention to our obvious attack preparations.

We rotated for a while, gauging his reactions and waiting to see what he would do in response to the few feints we tried. Nothing, he was just relaxing and staring off into the distance. Finally, after three consecutive times ignoring my feint, I drove my cane at the back of his knee in a stabbing blow meant to buckle his leg and dump him on his ass. As I did, Callie launched herself at his chest with a punishing strike aimed to plow her fist right into his sternum.

I was sure it was punishing, because it caught me right in the solar plexus as he neatly shifted his body on one foot, leaning back a bit so her punch grazed past him even as my cane sailed through the spot his leg had been. I saw his hand snake out like a viper and clamp around Callie's wrist, and barely had time to register it before he yanked her up and over his head, bringing her full weight down in an arc right on my back where I was bent forward from the low blow with the cane.

I fell to my knees at the impact, and Callie barely managed to yank me out of the way of the kick aimed up at my chin from the ground like he was kicking a ball. We both stumbled back, and I shot her a nod of gratitude. I'd gotten so lost in the danger I'd let my instinctual defense of her slip. I should have deflected that grab. Abel watched us scramble away without any special interest.

Which is when it clicked. "Oh you asshole!" I turned to Callie. "He isn't ignoring us, he unfocused his fucking eyes to take in more of the battlefield, he's probably hyperfocusing on Perception right now, processing every tiny indication of what we do to predict our attacks. How did you see me coming from behind? Or did I make too much noise?"

That drew a snicker from our teacher as his eyes finally focused on us. "Reflection in the pupils. It's why we spent so much time teaching you to operate without looking at each other. When partners constantly track each other's movements it makes it too easy to predict what they're going to do. You should really watch that."

I growled as I took up position next to Callie. Abel simply let his eyes unfocus and waited. Ready for anything and nothing all at the same time, body relaxed and hands hanging loosely at his sides. He looked like he was wide open, but having seen the bastard move I knew that couldn't be further from the truth. Forget landing a hit, we would need perfect teamwork to avoid getting brutalized. I sighed before gesturing for Callie to circle around the other side. If at first you don't succeed I supposed. Still, I had a feeling this was going to be a long fucking day.