Pretty sure you've done enough princess.

11

He held the door open for me again, and the bell jingling made the butterflies appear yet again. I saw a blonde girl staring at the writing on the wall, I looked over at Eli and saw that he was listening to the other Sensei who I didn't know the name of about his war experiences, which really wasn't interesting at all to me.

I walked over to the writing and saw it said "Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy" The girl turned to look at me. "Hi, are you new here too?" She asked. "Um yea, I joined yesterday" I replied.

"Well my names Tory......did you find this dojo from the demonstration too?" she asked. "Uh...no actually, my um.....boyfriend brought me here" I told her. "Really? Who's your boyfriend?" she questioned eagerly.

I pointed to Eli. "Badass" she said. "Quiet!" Sensei Lawrence yelled. "Oh shit" I heard Tory mumble to herself. "Fall in!" he yelled again.

I got into a line standing next to Tory, Eli was in front of me. He started to go on about the new recruits and after being distracted for a few seconds I heard him say something about someone fighting Miguel.

There was a few moments of silence. "I'll take him" Tory said confidently. Everyone looked back at her. "I saw your little demo at the Valley Fest. You guys can put on a show but can you really fight?" she asked.

God even the girls here could fight. "Look are you sure you wanna- Miguel couldn't finish his sentence because Tory had already started to fight him.

Everyone  began to spread out. Eli grabbed my hand and pulled me next to him. I watched as Tory and Miguel sparred. It was close and Miguel kept saying phrases critiquing her.

She ended up winning that fight though. The only thought I had was....am I the only one who can't fight? Sensei had us partner up and Tory immediately grabbed my arm.

"Let's be partners!" she said. Sensei explained to us that we would practice foreword strikes on each other's hands. "You can go first" I told her.

I looked at Eli and saw he put his hands up and watched as Miguel punched his hand. I watched Miguel's movements so I at least had an idea of what to do.

I copied them and waited for Tory to strike.  She cocked her fist and I squinted, flexing each bone in my body. She punched my hand but it didn't hurt as much as I would've thought. She did it a few more times.

"Okay, your turn" she said happily. "Just so you know I haven't really done this before" I told her quietly, embarrassed because everyone else seemed like they could defend themselves well.

Tory put up her hands and I copied what Miguel had done before. "Damn!" she exclaimed shaking her hand. "I thought you never did this before!" she remarked.

"I haven't before" I said with a slight chuckle. Maybe it was all the times that I DID defend myself from my stepdad. But when I would do that it would only make things worse.

"You know...it helps if you imagine an enemy of yours....or someone you just don't like" she suggested to me. I imagined the face of my stepdad, then punched her hand again.

"Hey take it easy" she said laughing again. "Sorry, I guess the advice worked" I said with a smile. We alternated a few times then Sensei taught us how to do a hook kick.

It was nearing the end of practice and Sensei just told us to hangout while he talked to the other Sensei. Eli told me his name is Kreese. I talked to Aisha and Tory for  the last minutes until practice ended.

"Hey do you want to hangout?" Tory asked me. "Sure.....we just can't at my place though" I replied. "Well I'm new here, you wanna take a walk around town?" She asked. "Sure...I never really walked around here so maybe we'll find some cool places" I told her. "Let me just tell El-Hawk" I said.