Jacke's POV
The Golden Child of Ice was right, we were being beaten down and built back up, nothing short of perfection; Over the course of three days, we were pushed to our limits, asked to break our limits, and push onward. Dodgeball turned to fencing, fencing turned to archery, and archery turned to creating our own weaponry from our energy and dueling our peers. What really surprised me was that instead of dueling him, M asked me to duel Damien and Jameson at the same time, and that was as painful as it came. We fought for hours on end, not giving up and fighting until the other fell, only for them to get back up with newfound energy. There was something else going on, I didn't understand it so eventually, I got up after Jameson and Damien fused together to get the edge and turned to M.
"How long must we endure this torture?! We've been training for three days, and it's felt like weeks! What's your plan then?!"
"Jacke, duel me," He said throwing his jacket off his shoulders, and that's when I could see it, he didn't have 2 eyes like the rest of us. He had 3, one on his forehead, he knew what I was going to do before I was able to do it; This wouldn't be a fair fight, and that was the lesson he was trying to teach us: Our opponent wouldn't fight fair, neither should we, if we wanted to beat La Bruja once and for all, we couldn't fight fair.
"Alright then," I said, taking my gun out of the holster and the 2 faced coin out of my pocket, that got his attention real quick.
"The Sickle of Kronos, I'm not surprised that weapon called to you, I am however surprised you answered its call. You do know her story, don't you?"
He was expecting a response, I wasn't going to give it to him, I raised my gun and channeled my energy into my first shot; Perfectly aimed at his third eye, it wouldn't blind him, but it would keep him on his toes.
The sound of anguish confirmed that I hit my shot, right on target, but all he did was laugh; Chuckling a sinister laugh, it was unnerving, yet soothing.
"Well done, Jacke, now: Let's dance, Alhambra!" He yelled, and charged me, a hundred arms of darkness following him as he struck time and time again, leaving me only the option to deflect and redirect his attacks with my scythe, but no matter what I did, it wasn't enough; We clashed time and time again, but no progress was made. He severed my shoulder, I shot his eye, He slashed my arm, I severed his stomach. This was as even a matchup as they came, and while I was excited to have someone like him on our side, this fight wasn't going anywhere. An eternal duel, as no one else was a part of it, neither side yielding to their opponent. This was a beautiful disaster, the perfect weapon against the perfect Meister, which side would gain the edge?
'You're looking at this duel the wrong way.'
"TIMEOUT!" I yelled to take a breather and sat on the sidelines, I wasn't crazy. The scythe spoke to me just before M was about to hit me, and it gave me the time to dodge out of the way, but I needed to be sure.
"You don't usually yield, what happened?" Damien asked, he knew that something had happened, but not what it was.
'You're not crazy, I said what I said, you're fighting a perfectionist. He knows your move before you do, but not the extent of your strength. He has no weapon other than his energy, so he manifests arms to strike, and sends projectiles to distract you. If you wish to win this duel, you need to turn the tables. Stop thinking, have faith in me, and your gun. We win this duel if we fight as one, not 3 separate entities.'
'She's right, Jacke. I'm a hand cannon, not a toy.'
"Then let's get back out there, and win this duel."
I got back onto my side of the court as M stepped onto his, he looked just as smug as he did before, but I knew better. He was not only confident in his abilities but my own, he respected me as an opponent but knew not the extent to which I would go to win this fight. This was the turning point, the odds were in my favor now, not his.
'Strange Music Box' played from the Strange Music Box as we charged at each other, slashing and piercing, eldritch and divine, yin and yang. This was a test for me, and a game for him, and I had no intention of losing this fight. When he slashed an arm in my direction, I caught it with the Scythe and redirected his energy back to him, punching him square in the face; Only to follow it up with a shot from the .600, right in his eye. This went on for an hour, back and forth, neither of us giving up, giving more and more of ourselves to the fight until finally, after what seemed like a century, I caught him dead in his tracks. He had sent several projectiles all at once, and I twisted and turned as they were sent, only to use that energy to slingshot forward and slam him into the ground.
"You've been bested, Child of Ice, well done," I said before extending my arm to lift him back up, and when he stood he had an eerily warm smile on his face.
"Well done, Jacke, now. Explain that whole ordeal to your people, I need some time to rest, when I wake back up, we're going to get started on your plan. La Bruja will fall before you, of that, I am certain."
He walked off to lie down on the bleachers, and I joined back with my family, this wasn't going to be easy to explain, true lessons never are, but I knew how to do it. Jameson and Damien joined by my side as we explained exactly how I had won that duel, explaining the bond between the wielder of a weapon, and the weapon itself. Weapons are tools to be respected, yet, there's so much more to them than that. I told the story of my scythe, and where it came from, along with the story of my hand cannon, and why it was just as essential as the Scythe to my fighting style. Everyone has their own way of doing things, whether it be working, writing, fighting, whatever; Mine was chaotically neutral, my pistol resembled the hellish energy that birthed me, the scythe resembled the righteousness of my cause. This was a very new concept for me to understand and was rather difficult to teach, as I barely understood it myself; However, I knew that it worked, and at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.
"Now is the time for you all to consider what I just explained, and find a fighting style that best suits you, whether you work better with others, or by yourself, you need to find a style of fighting that speaks to you."
"Sir, if I may?"
"Proceed."
"If everyone has a fighting style, what's his?" A young woman asked, pointing to Mallow, and while his fighting style was obvious to me, having experienced it first hand, it wasn't surprising that it wasn't as obvious to others.
"That's a valid question, and I think he's going to explain it to us later, but for now. You all need to focus on yourselves, find what style resonates with you, and learn it to a 'T'."
This wouldn't be easy, but our foe wasn't an easy foe to face, even if we had bested her once; Her ability to reconstitute herself within the safety of Necropolis was concerning, to say the least.