fandomhigh | Interdisciplinary Studies or whatever, Class 3, Friday, Period 3

Today, Squall was waiting in the Danger Room, which was set up to look like... A big empty room. How imaginitive. He was leaning against the wall near the door, half-asleep.

"You," he said, pointing at Ronan once everyone had assembled. "Today's your lucky day. I decided I don't care about the detention, so don't bother with it." He shrugged. "Unless you went last weekend, in which case I hope you learned your lesson."

He smirked. "In fact, you're doubly lucky, because today we're taking your suggestion and learning how to use a sword." He smacked a button on the wall beside him and a table materialized into being a few yards away. A very BIG table, laden with one of just about every type of weapon you can imagine that consisted of a handle on one end and a blade longer than a foot or two on the other. Except for a gunblade. The only one of those in the room was resting against the wall next to Squall.

"So," Squall said, walking over to the table and picking up a claymore. "Blade. Hilt. Pommel. Crossguard." He pointed to each part in turn. Some swords have one edge, some have two. Some don't have an edge, which makes them stupid. Some you use one-handed, some you use two-handed, some you can use either way. Some are curved, some are straight, and the hilts can come in just about any design you can think of."

He dropped the claymore again and went back for his gunblade. "You have two basic attacks -- slash or slice with the edge, or else thrust with the point." He demonstrated, with a grin. "The rest is just finesse."

He pointed at the table. "You're in the Danger Room, and all the safeguards are on. Have at it."

[~~Wait for OCD~~ Go on, have your way with the post.]

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Ronan looked down the length of the sword a moment, and then sent a prayer to the Powers. Surely he'd retained something of swords from the One's Champion?

"Learn by doing, then?" he asked, and settled into an approximation of a fighting stance before lashing out with a swipe to Squall's side.

"Best way," Squall grunted, and easily knocked Ronan's swipe away. "Try again, and don't suck this time. If I'm not bleeding, you did it wrong."

Ronan grinned wryly. "Sure, insult the ability of the guy who's never done this before." But he did try again, this time with an easily blockable strike, and the intention to follow through on the backswing after that strike was blocked.

(OOC: Mind if we finish this today? I fell asleep last night.)

"If I don't insult you," Squall grunted, as if this were some profound piece of wisdom, "you'll never learn."

"Very nice," he said, as narrowly avoided the backstroke. "You're a quick learner. Now try again." But instead of allowing Ronan to try again, he launched his own feint followed by a quick strike.

[Not at all!]

Ronan instinctively blocked the feint, and then narrowly managed to dodge the worst of the strike. He still ended up with a slice down his arm, blood trickling down to his hand. "Funny," Ronan said, ignoring the blood and repositioning himself to feint low and strike high, "I've always found positive reinforcement a better teaching method." But he was grinning as he said it, and there was no true insult intended. This time.

And then Squall was alternating between glaring at the rip in his leather jacket that blood was trickling out of and giving Ronan a pleased sort of grin.

"Teach many people, have you?" he asked.

Ronan grinned at the successful strike, but didn't let it distract him. Hey, he wasn't new to battle, just to swords. "Not so much, I guess, no, but I have had a wide variety of them over time. There is certainly a time and a place to be told that what you're doing is wrong or incorrect," and here he struck out again, trying to strike across Squall's torso, "but it's not worth anything if you never tell someone what they're doing right, too.

"Plus, if you get people to like you first, they'll feel worse when you're disappointed in them."

"..."

Squall blocked the strike, with a bit of effort.

"What you're doing right is picking up how to swing a sword fairly quickly," he said. "But what you're doing wrong is insulting the guy who's waving a sharp pointy thing at you."

He swung his gunblade with as much force as he could muster, trying to smack Ronan upside the head with the flat of the blade.

Even with the safeties? That really, really hurt. "Ow. Okay, I maybe kinda deserved that one." But Ronan was still grinning. "Thank you, though. The sword... kinda feels right."

He stepped back a bit, taking himself out of immediate weapon range, but not relaxing his guard just yet. "So, I don't imagine you expect to make us master in one class. How far do you want us to get?"

Interdisciplinary Studies or whatever, Class 3, Friday, Period 3

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