She lunged first, sword bared and held high. She leant towards me, footsteps practised and perfect, falling into a textbook example of the swordplay position. Her steel sword clashed strongly against mine as I bought it up to parry the blow. I looked into her eyes, determination blazing in both of our eyes. She swung her sword to the side again and swiftly bought it towards my side, I blocked again. She swung hard and fast driving me back towards the wall until she had me pinned up with her sword against my throat. She obviously thought she had already won, judging by the smirk on her face. Other mentors around the hall were cheering as she grinned. Quickly I bought my foot up and kicked her, pushing her off my body. This time, I attacked. Short sharp swings, dancing around, I was faster than her, but my blows were weaker. One time, I even managed to kick her knee and she fell to the floor, but her sword clashed with mine as she lifted it up off the ground. We continued delivering blows to one another, by this time, the tension in the room had risen and everyone was watching us, breathless. I swung at her hip as she swung at my chest. I ducked, leaning backwards, but it caused me to fall. On my knees, she held her sword at my throat. I held her gaze, which had changed during the fight from cockiness to a perfect emotionless mask. Her fighting face, I knew I had the same expressionless one. I nodded at her from where we were, admitting defeat. Immediately a round of applause echoed around the room, but she only grinned and held out her hand to me. Grasping it I pulled myself off the floor and sheathed my sword. Alina immediately flew over to me, winding around my neck and face, checking for injuries.
"Nice. I have never seen someone with those skills when they were a Newbie, except for... oh, nevermind." She looked thoughtful for a second.
"Well. I'm going to mentor you." She decided.
"Right. Okay. Well. Sure. Great" I replied hesitantly, still not quite sure if this girl was going to beat me up again or not. She walked back over to the other mentors and they all walked out laughing and talking. We all just stared as they departed still not quite sure what we had witnessed.