He grabbed a few pistols and a sub-machine gun from the table, tucking them in his coat. He strolled away into a building several meters away from where Joy stood. The buzzer sounded, and she dashed forward, crashing through the doors of the building. She paused and glanced around, before feeling a few cracks and stinging shots on her bandadged wound. She screamed.

“Never charge through a building like that Joy!” Yelled Simon from the opposite side of the building. She turned towards him as he disapperead around a doorway and she charged forward. She headed into the doorway and noticed it was a stairway. She began running up floor after floor. Coming around a corner, she saw him aiming the sub-machine gun down the stairwell, and he opened fire. Several bullets stung across her body, feeling like several pins crashed into her. She fell backwards, tumbling down the stairs.

“Charging head-first isn’t being resourceful Joy! Using your strength you could have just scaled the wall of the building you know!”

He disappeared further up and she heard a door open furher up. She dusted herself off and hurried up, now on top of the roof of the building. She noticed Simon aiming the sub-machine gun at her, and she quickly hid back in the doorway.

“Good, now think Joy! How are you going to approach me?”

She glanced around, and noticed something: The door. She appeared from the doorway, ripping the thing off the hinge, and tossed it towards him. He rolled out of the way, but noticed she had closed most of the distance between the two of them. She didn’t realize it, but from behind his mask he smiled. She ran forward to grab him, but he kicked backwards, unleashing another hail of bullets upon her. She stumbled backwards guarding her face with her arms.

“The nice thing about your strength is that you can use almost anything around you to your advantage Joy. Remember that!”

He ran to the edge of the roof and pulled out a grappling hook from his coat. Quickly hooking it to the edge of the roof, he repelled himself down, kicking throw a window to a lower floor of the building. She glanced over, almost ready to claw her way down, but paused, and smiled as a new idea hatched. She instead reared her fist back and slammed it into the ground, smashing a hole through the roof. She fell down a floor, and continued to do this until she landed in the same room, staring face to face with Simon. She smiled and charged forward.

“Smart, had I been anyone else that would have seriously thrown me off guard!”

He fired another spray of bullets until his magazine clicked empty. She was still charging forward, guarding her face.

“You’re getting used to this feeling fast, hm?”

He drew a pistol and fired several times at her legs. She stumbled at the pain and tripped as he slid out of the way. She crashed into the wall, dazed and stinging all over from the bullets. From the dust, she still stood back up, trying to ignore the constant stinging. Her body was red in multiple spots all over, and she was visibly grimacing.

“That’s quite the will you have Joy. But it’s a ballance of will, strategy, and technique that guarantees you a spot in special operations. Show me!”

This time, he charged forward towards her, drawing his boot knife. Before she could react, he swept her feet, knocking her to the ground, and sliced the knife accross her bandages. She screamed.

“What the fuck? That’s no fair at all!”

“There’s nothing unfair about exploiting obvious weakness Joy!”

Her body now burning all over from the bullets and holding a hand to her gash, she felt absolutely enraged. Simon had leapt out of a window, taking cover behind a car to reload his sub-machine gun. He stared back out the window, waiting for her.

“Shit…” He muttered to himself. “Joy, do you need medical attention? Joy?”

He waited, and still nothing. Pulled another grapple from his coat and threw it at the window. He quickly climbed up, finding her limp body.

“Gods…” He ran over and kneeled near her. “I need a medical-”

All of a sudden she rose to life, grabbing ahold of him in a bearhug. She sneered.

“I didn’t expect you to be the caring type, but you’re caught!”

She heard a slight chuckle. “Clever, but I wouldn’t recommend using that on any opponent Joy. They don’t have concern for your well being. Plus, they could still have an ace up their sleeve.”

She felt a prick in her arms, and looked over, she noticed he had lifted his arms and placed them near her’s. In just a few moments, they went completely numb, Simon effortlessly stepped out of her grip.

“Now it’d only be fair if I could use a trick only I could know, yes? I doubt any old grunt would know anesthetic would work on you. By the way, you’ll start feeling them within the hour, by the way.”

She groaned. “Dammit… And I was so close.”

“On the contrary Joy. With all the years of experience under my belt, I’m prepared for every situation the world can throw at me.”

She huffed.

“Well, looks like this method of training works well. You can return to your quarters. We’ll start off mornings with heavy endurance training, and finish afternoons with live fire combat training. Understood?”

“More of that APC pushing crap? At least I can get a bit of a kick out of this stuff. Why can’t we do more of this?”

“I said, do you understand Joy?”

“Understood” she grumbled.