Rhonda had started their winter course of hand-to-hand training with them in comfortable clothing - sweatpants or leggings, t-shirts or tank tops. That let them move freely, and learn a wide range of defenses and counters. In several of the recent sessions she'd been teaching them in a full combat load, and she'd been making them focus on attacks on vulnerabilities in their liberated high-tech Black Tusk armor.

Today, she abandoned the first stage, where she was always the attacker, with them learning to defend... and to their dismay, set them on each other. She urged them to use the attacks targeting each other's necks, armpits, waists, and thighs she'd been throwing at them, driving them to better understand an attacker, and to prepare if they ever fought someone with such complete torso protection again.

Both girls were hesitant. It didn't feel natural to be directing aggression towards each other, and they kept pulling their punches. Ronnie groaned in frustration as Rebecca immediately backed off when Sam yelped in discomfort from a wrenching parry, just like Sam herself had let up a minute before when she got inside Rebecca's defenses.

"Dammit, girls. Stop dancing around with each other." They both looked mildly crestfallen at her chastising, but not as convinced as they needed to be. "Look. I get that you care about each other and it's weird pretending to try to kill each other. But you're partners, right? In more ways than one?"

Rhonda waited for them to glance at each other and nod to her. "Good. Then that covers pushing each other in training too. I know it feels unnatural to you right now, that you're scared of hurting each other, but it's a trust thing." She tossed a sports bottle to Rebecca, who downed a gulp and passed it to Sam. "You're both good enough now to control your blows, but you're doing it too much. Who else would you spar all-out with than someone you trust completely? When you're babying each other, you are doubting the other's ability, implying you don't think they're good enough to hold you off... and you're doing them a disservice. You are teaching each other right now."

She paced in front of them, arms crossed. Partially to keep herself from slipping into old habits and yelling in their faces. They were attentive and intelligent enough they didn't need that, she'd save it for any of the soldiers and civilian militia members milling about in the background who stopped to ogle the spectacle.

"You're both good enough to know the other one can stand up to you. Rebecca, you have reach on Sam, but she's faster than you, and better with her off hand. Sam, her center of gravity is higher so she's easier to tip, but she's got more meat on her and can move you around if you're grappled. You have to trust your partner to keep themselves from getting hurt, and from really hurting you. If that fails, you both know it won't have been intentional, and that it will be forgiven. You need to learn these hard lessons when it's safe, with someone who wants you to defeat them as much as they want to beat you, when the only consequence is more learning." She noticed the girls had switched from watching her to looking at each other thoughtfully.

"Alright, let's go again with a twist." Rhonda reached behind her and picked up the P90 from the table,"Cold weapon." She held up a transparent empty magazine, then kept it between her lower fingers as she pulled the slide back on the chamber, looked in it, and then tilted it to show them. Once she'd seen them both look and nod, she attached the magazine and handed it to Rebecca. "Put that on, and start from a low ready."

Then, she repeated the process with Sam's Vector SMG. "Sam, sling it and then slide it around to your back. Bex, close your eyes and hold still."

Rebecca quirked an eyebrow in puzzlement, but obeyed, holding her position with the P90 shouldered and ready in front of her, aimed slightly downwards. She heard Ronnie moving behind her, then felt her hands rest on her ears, muffling her voice. "Now, Sam, take up position on either side, ready to attack like she was coming through an open doorway. When I say to, Bex, open your eyes and defend yourself. Loser does laundry."

That was no small penalty, hand washing things in a five-gallon bucket with a (never-used) toilet plunger through a hole in the lid as an agitator. Rebecca realized Ronnie must be waiting for Sam to pick a side, making sure she couldn't hear her before the match, and tensed up as Ronnie's hands lifted away. "Three, two, one, go."

Rebecca opened her eyes quickly just as she heard a crunch on her right. It took her a moment to spot Sam coming up from a crouch in the blind spot created by her gun, and she was barely able to step back in time to bring her arm down on top of Sam's, trapping it under hers with the training knife against the inside of the gun's stock.

She shifted her left hand from the front of the P90 to wrap her fingers over Sam's, prying them back and fighting to pull the knife from her hand, which she managed to do just as she shifted her foot to avoid Sam's attempt to hook her leg and trip her. However, she missed the block on a blow Sam directed at the side of her face, still not full strength, but enough to make her flinch.

Sam felt a visceral flash of satisfaction as her diversion strike worked, and snatched Rebecca's own knife from its sheath, got a foot against Rebecca's thigh, and pushed hard to separate them. The tug it took to get her pinned arm free was unpleasant, but the lower body strength she brought to bear was enough it was effectively ripping the bandaid off, getting it over with quickly. Rebecca recovered from her stagger just as Sam did, and they faced off for a moment, holding each other's knife, before an unspoken moment's agreement to laugh at the trade.

A pointed throat-clearing from Ronnie started the next round. Sam moved in fast enough to keep Rebecca from getting the P90 up, dodging to Rebecca's right again and striking the upper sight rail of the gun hard enough with her fist to knock it loose enough in Rebecca's hand that a second shove to the same spot made her drop it to dangle on its sling. She swore when Rebecca retaliated, sliding her strong arm down the outside of Sam's, twisting at the wrist to grab a handful of Sam's hair, pulling painfully.

"Ow, shit! You bitch!"

Rebecca's move, pulling Sam back and to her side, meant that Sam's shoulder rested against her forearm, supporting some of her weight. Sam let that ride, and kicked her heel hard at the back of Rebecca's far knee, folding her leg, tumbling them both to the ground in a tangle. Sam's ankle was trapped under Rebecca's legs, but she managed to twist, pinning Rebecca's arm between them with her torso, and get the tip of the knife in her off hand inside the neckline of Rebecca's armor, right where a piece of flying debris had cut her last year, the night of the big Black Tusk attack.

For Rebecca's part, just before she fell, she managed to twirl the knife in her left hand like a pen, from the reverse grip it was in after she wrenched it away from Sam, and get the blade pointing upwards in her hand. She held it to the side of Sam's throat just as she hauled herself on top of Rebecca, but felt the tip of Sam's blade press down against the gap between her trapezius and scalene muscles.

Sam untangled her leg from Rebecca's and untwisted herself to face her more comfortably, both of them still holding the practice knives in position, and they looked into each other's eyes for a moment, panting for breath.

Rebecca spoke first. "Sorry about your hair. Are you okay?"

Sam nodded. "Did I get your eye?"

Rebecca shook her head. "No, I'm good."

They stayed like that for a few moments, easing the grip on the blades, still looking at each other as they caught their breath.

Above, unbeknownst to them, Ronnie closed her eyes and shook her head above them. She knew what that would probably lead to, and it was going to involve the two of them getting a room. "I guess we'll call that a draw. Get up." She watched as they rose and dusted themselves (and each other...) off. "Rebecca, when she got in close the second time, you should have led with the knife, not the P90. Sam, when she pinned your hand inside and took the knife, you had a chance to disconnect her gun from the sling and get it away from her."

Sam was confused. "But you just told her not to go with the gun that close... and I was taking HER knife away."

Ronnie nodded as she paced in front of them."Yup. There's always a bunch of different options in a fight, and I'm just pointing out the ones you didn't take. It's hard to think of them all, or know which ones are 'right or wrong' in the moment, not to mention outguess your opponent's choices. That's why I'm making you practice like this, you don't have time to think close-in. I'm glad you were listening though, and started to actually fight. Again. Reverse roles."

The next match went much quicker. Rebecca's elbow was moving towards Sam's face from the left when she opened her eyes, and she ducked under it. She rose inside Rebecca's defenses again and brought her knife tip up under Rebecca's chin in her left hand, her dominant right hand wrapped over the pommel after letting go of the Vector. But, she felt Rebecca's dull blade driven against her abdomen, under the bottom edge of her armor. It had bunched up her shirt around the tip and probably left an impressive bruise where it ground the fabric along her skin.

The pain drove Sam's adrenaline in the next match though, and she won with a hard simulated slash across Rebecca's femoral artery that drove her back with a yelp. That left Rebecca slightly off balance, keeping her weight off the bruised thigh, but she overcame it to triumph in the last round, using her left arm to capture Sam's right and sliding her blade home under it.

They were both pretty done after all that, and looked to Ronnie plaintively as they disengaged. She nodded and waved her hand dismissively at them. "Fine, fine. Give me the guns, go on and get yourselves cleaned up."

She muttered to herself as she watched them stagger towards the nearest building entrance. "... and each other, I bet."