Mike and Phuong are training.

"Ooof!" Mike Stein stumbles back as his teacher's foot catches him in the sternum, sending him reeling. He tumbles across the crash mat in the basement of the Herbert W. Harding Memorial Gymnasium, his red "ST. E" t-shirt sticking to his muscled chest.

"Focus!" his teacher snaps. Phuong Marie is a diminutive but muscular Vietnamese girl a year older than him, currently clad in a generic white gi. Though there's a light sheen of sweat on her skin, her black hair is still neatly wrapped in a knot at the back of her head. "You have to learn as many ways of fighting monsters as you can if you're going to survive what's to come?"

"Ugh." Mike picks himself up slowly. The 20-year-old man is tall and broadly built, with short-cropped brown hair and warm brown eyes. He's a got a handsome, smooth-shaven face and athletic build. Unlike Phuong, he's wearing gym shorts and the aforementioned t-shirt. "Do I really, though? I thought you said I was 'of the Blood of the Sacred Stone' and that I was blessed with protection and powerful magic...can't I just use that?"

"You already are," Phuong rolls her eyes as she crosses her arms, annoyed. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got knocked on my ass."

"Yeah, which is how I know your magic is working. If you didn't have that, I'd have broken your sternum. Do you even work out? Like ever?"

"Uh..." Mike glances down at his body, as though realizing for the first time that it's pretty athletic. "Not really, no."

"And how exactly did you think you ended up looking like that?!" she gestures at him. He grins.

"You like the way I look?"

Phuong colors. "What? I - No! That's not the point! The point is, you are clearly blessed somehow."

Mike shrugs and stretches, showing off his muscles deliberately. "Always figured it was just good genes. I've looked like this since puberty."

"Very good genes. By which I mean: magic," Phuong informs him dryly. "Now come on! If I can knock you on your ass - and I'm just a normal person - you're never gonna be able to handle a real monster."

"I already handle real monsters!" Mike protests, but he gets into a fighting stance.

"No, you've handled a couple ghouls and one very irritable squirrel," Phuong says. "Nothing that's a serious threat." She takes up her own stance. "Now: grappling practice, fourth form. Ready? Go!"

With a yell, Mike launches himself at her.