She clung to Mercer's arm, grabbing his wrist, her legs pressing forcefully against his chest, rendering him immobile: "Didn't you also use the Single Molecule Line! I'm fighting bare-handed!"
"That's Sianwistan's fault!" Mercer retorted stubbornly. The two of them simply stared each other down, neither willing to concede, until Mercer realized that the position his hand was held in her embrace seemed a bit awkward...
How to put it, his palm was, in every sense, trapped by her.
Mercer unconsciously wiggled his fingers.
"...Damn it!" V slowly realized this bastard seemed to be taking advantage, and after letting go, nearly bit at him in anger, taking a step back in shame and fury, covering her chest and glaring at him as she stood up.
Mercer, however, moved his arm and wrist around nonchalantly, then lay down: "I'm injured."
"You're bullshitting!" V was so angry she laughed.
"You don't realize your own strength, do you? You threw me over your shoulder using Sianwistan and twisted my arm that hard."
Mercer acted as if he was in pain, covering his arm and not getting up.
V chuckled—you're faking it, aren't you?
She reached out her hand, squinting: "Then let me massage it for you."
"That's really not necessary." Mercer sat up with a sit-up, moving his arm around: "It needs rest, you understand?"
"Go to hell!" V took off her gloves and threw them in his face, glaring at him angrily: "Why do you always oppose me like this? Why aren't you like this with Lucy and Rebecca?"
"When has Rebecca ever roughed me up?" Mercer had a point to make.
"Bullshit! Didn't she pin you down so you couldn't move?" V retorted.
Mercer chuckled: "She did that to take advantage of me... It's not clear who would act against whom."
"Oh, so you're saying you got the feel and habit for that hand move from practicing on her?" V said meaningfully.
Mercer replied matter-of-factly: "What are you talking about? I have no idea what you mean."
They stared each other down in silence until V, unable to stand his shamelessness, rolled her eyes and moved on: "Forget it, bastard, I won't spar alone with you again."
"Oh, come on, it's just because you sometimes feel like beating me up when you're bored, isn't it? Or are you like Rebecca?" Mercer teased, raising his eyebrows at her deliberately.
Grinding her teeth, V eventually just huffed: "Can't you see what state you've been in these last few days? Not eating, not sleeping, plugging data cables into your computer every morning in a daze.
On normal days, you would never be late for an occasion like today, but today you've even forgotten about that.
If you ask me, you should be active every day; staying underground like you're locked in a dungeon, what kind of life is that?"
"Ah, immersing yourself entirely in work is like that, you probably wouldn't understand a 20+ intelligence work style." Mercer's words prompted her to throw a punch, hitting his shoulder and eliciting a hiss of pain.
"Damn! I shouldn't worry about you!" V turned and left angrily—not that she brought him to train just to beat him up, it was simply because she couldn't stand his workaholic madness these past few days.
But Mercer just caught up with her in a few steps, naturally draping an arm around her shoulder, looking at her angry face and smiling: "Alright, alright, I'll stop teasing you. But you need to change too, if you're worried about me, just say so, why the beatings?"
V definitely wouldn't admit that she indeed wanted to hit him—this guy always knew how to rile her up with words, she was normally straightforward with her scolding and couldn't match his sarcastic remarks, so all she could do was show her true skill with her hands.
But thinking it over, she softened her tone and just moved his hand aside: "I didn't really want to hit you, if I did, would you still be standing? I could have destroyed your Black Customer Service."
"Hey, that still hurts, you see, my skin's tender, look, isn't it all red?" He pulled down the Black Customer Service zipper a bit, showing the red marks on his arm.
V averted her eyes nervously: "Train hard, bleed less in battle, that's what you always told me."
"I work my brain 16 hours a day, can you work out your muscles for sixteen hours every day?" Mercer retorted, punching her shoulder lightly.
V stayed silent—after all, to her, his punches felt more like he's playing.
"Whoa, that was quick!" A somewhat sarcastic voice echoed down the hallway, and Rebecca eyed the two of them, noticing V's messy hair and Mercer's uneven breathing, her internal alarms blaring.
"She bullied me with Sianwistan, I'm done sparring with her." Mercer said, while V gave him a glance and huffed, speeding up her pace to leave.
Once Rebecca saw V off, she hopped onto Mercer's back, wrapping an arm around his neck, biting his ear—not hard though.
"Damn! When I ask you out to exercise, you play dead, yet when she asks, you go?" she mumbled into his ear.
"Did I have a choice? She could have yanked my arm off with her strength." Mercer explained, tilting his head to push hers away: "Don't try it, she might take an arm, you might rip me in half."
"Bullshit, every time I mess around with you, I set my Gorilla Arm's strength to zero!" Rebecca scoffed but still kept lying on his back.