fandomhigh | Basic Sword Skills [Thursday, Period Three]

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fencing

Basic Sword Skills [Thursday, Period Three]

Max had reviewed the class roster and was oddly relieved that he didn't have any repeat students. It saved him the time it would take to break a bunch of bad habits. Because while Slacking had been a relatively relaxed class, even though he took the subject seriously, Max had a very different approach to teaching the blade. The relatively small class size was also likely to give him more time to spend one-on-one with his students, and he was hoping that turned out to be more of an advantage than not.

As the students arrived at the Danger Shop ~~where they had handwavily been told to meet~~ the first thing they were likely to notice was the ridiculously extensive collection of blades. Max apparently had everything from Swiss stilettos to Japanese naganaki to Javanese kris. The second thing they might notice was that their instructor was wearing Roman-style legionary armor. A steel breastplate, a studded leather armored skirt, and steel greaves and bracers. He also had a short sword strapped to his waist. Max didn't wait for any stragglers, as soon as class was scheduled to begin he started.

"All right, listen up!" he barked. "You are here because you wanted to learn about swords, someone else wanted you to learn about swords, or the universe itself conspired to make you learn about swords. I don't care what your reasons are because regardless you're going to learn about swords." He looked around to see if anyone had any problems with that. And if they did he planned to ignore them. "All sorts of people draw distinctions between swords and other weapons in all sorts of places, but for the purposes of this course we will consider a sword to be any hand weapon which is a blade for more than half its length." He nodded at the rack to illustrate.

"We've only got seven weeks and there's a lot for you to learn, so we're going to get straight into it. Each of you will step up to the front and select a weapon, or two if you prefer. You will then explain to the class why you selected the one you did. There is no wrong reason to select a blade. If it looks pretty, that's fine. If it feels good in your hand, that's fine. If you're familiar with it already, that's fine. Once you've made your selection we'll do a quick practice match in which you'll, hopefully, learn some of the strengths and weaknesses of your selected weapon."

His eyes narrowed suddenly. "The safety systems here will not allow any injuries today, but don't even think about using that as an excuse to be sloppy. Treat every potential hit as a real one, and don't take a strike just because it won't leave you bleeding."

"You!" Max snapped as he pointed to a random student. "You're first!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Max almost grinned. At least she was attentive.

"In a skill-against-skill match against me, you're dead. Which means you have to do something else. That trick you did earlier where you made the blade disappear for a second, is that easy?"

Karla looked like she'd been slapped. "Wait--are you telling me that this entire time I could have been using Craft?!"

She bit her lip. Must not yell at the Master of the Guard. Must not yell at the Master of the Guard.

"Yes, it's very, very easy. I've been doing it since I was a child," Karla said slowly. "I am quite skilled. May I use Craft, then?"

"Can you use it at home?" Because that's what Max cared about.

"Yes," she said, barely audible, glancing away.

After a breath or two, she cleared her throat and looked back at Max. "Only landens are without Craft," she said, voice stronger. "All members of the Blood use Craft."

"Then you're free to use it." Max leaned forward suddenly. "As long as you don't neglect your basic skills here, feel free to be creative. If I decide you're using your Craft as a crutch, however..."

That was not a very reassuring grin. Karla wasn't the only one who had some powers in reserve.

"I'll be sure to use them," Karla said, trading slightly feral grins, "just as soon as I learn them."

Figuring that she'd need every edge she could get, she began backing up slowly so she could get some additional maneuvering room. "Whenever you say, sir," she said, leaning ever-so-slightly to the right.

Max lifted a critical eyebrow. "You're planning on giving your opponents a chance to prepare themselves?"

Oh, it was going to be like that, was it? Karla didn't really have a problem with it, though.

"No. But I also don't intend on poisoning you. I figure some" her regular shields snapped into place, without any outward indication of their existence "rules applied." She vanished, pulling up a sight shield and also an aural shield so that she couldn't be heard. Then she flung herself further backwards, running up the air behind her and then darting to the left.

Max let an eyebrow twitch, but that was the only sign of surprise he gave. So she had some tricks up her sleeve, huh?

He took a deep breath and drew deeply on his watercrafting abilities. He didn't often use them to read emotions, but he was strong enough that it was possible. He could feel someone from where Karla had been, so he decided it was probably a safe assumption that it was her.

He couldn't see her, of course, so he didn't see what she might be planning, but he could turn to face her and hopefully her emotions would spike when she actually struck.

Karla wasn't sure how he was able to keep orienting himself to face her, but it was a bit problematic for her original intention. Which meant that original intentions needed to be scrapped and something else improvised.

That was fine, though. She could do improvised.

Making sure that there were no students between the sword rack and the area of the mats where she and max were sparring, she called all of the remaining swords, sending them hurtling towards Max. She put shields over all of them though--no reason to risk damage to either them or her teacher. She did keep the shields invisible though. If Max didn't know they were blunted, he'd probably be less inclined to just let them hit him.

[So sorry about the wait. Things = crazy]

They were training blades, and Max was pretty sure that the Danger Shop wouldn't let him actually get hurt, but the point was to treat it as real. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and spun to see what it was, drawing on wind for speed and metal for its ability to let him know where any of its element was.

He twisted and his blade flashed, moving just enough to deflect or dodge each incoming projectile. Max tried to keep a corner of his mind open to the Karla's emotional signature. Once this attack was averted he would be able to focus his metalcrafting in her direction and locate her weapon precisely. Then he could attempt to disarm her even if she wasn't visible.

[Hahaha. No need to apologize. Especially since things = crazy for me too this past week.]

While Max was busy deflecting and dodging--and doing it far faster than she would have thought possible--Karla sent a wave of energy at him. She kept it to the level of the White, and kept it a wave instead of any kind of projectile. She wanted to knock him down (or at least off-balance), not actually harm him.

She barely even noticed the rush of concern and apprehension that accompanied her attack.

Max sensed the surge and he spun to fend off the attack. He hesitated for a moment because she hadn't moved. Which was about the time that the wave of power slammed into him and he stumbled backward.

He didn't, quite, go down. Instead he drew on wind and earth to keep his balance and responded with a burst of air in her direction. He wasn't actually very precise with wind, but he was strong.

Karla was pushed backwards a few feet before her shields snapped into place. That had been unexpected to say the least. How the Hell had he known where to send the blast?

Still, she wasn't one to give up, especially when she'd seen him nearly stumble. She sent another few swords at him and then another wave of energy, this time moving up to the Yellow. Hopefully between the two, he'd miss her rushing in to attack.

This time he knew what to expect from that surge of emotion and Max was able to brace himself by leaning into the blast. Of course he'd underestimated its force and that'd pushed him backward, but he didn't go down.

The incoming blades were a distraction, but Max had been fighting for over half his life and he moved automatically as he sensed her sword closing in, sweeping his sword up in a wide block.

She managed to keep her grip on the sword, which just meant that she and the sword went flying. The problem with doing anything on the air meant there wasn't really anything to hold on to when you get bowled over. "Bloody Hell," she cursed as she fetched up against a wall.

Max didn't have any plans to give her time to recover. He was rushing toward her, blade ready in one hand to bat hers aside if he need to in order to get his other hand on her somewhere. Once you had a hold of someone it didn't matter all that much if they were invisible.

Ha! Like she could get her sword up in time. And Max would have no difficulty finding her, not with the way the adrenaline was pulsing through her veins. Still, she did have a few other tricks up her sleeve. Like passing into the wall once he'd gotten a grip on her.

That... was definitely new. It wasn't enough to make him let go, of course, but... he'd definitely have to do some thinking. Because that presented some intriguing tactical possibilities.

Karla called in her hunting knife also covering it with a shield. After all, she didn't know if the Danger shop protection extended to weapons beyond the ones he'd created in the room. Heart pounding, she brought her face beyond the surface of the wall so she could see how Max was positioned. He still had a damned good grip on her, it was true, but that meant his mobility was limited, too.

Heart racing, she slid her arm out of the wall, roughly at groin-height, called in another series of attacks from the discarded weapons, then dropped her sight-shield.

Max had his metalcrafting senses wide open, and that meant he knew where every piece of metal in the room was. Instead of swinging around to deflect the incoming blades with his own he simply slammed out a pulse of air hoping that would be enough to stop them while he brought his hand down to protect himself.

Karla cursed as her shielded knife bounced off his hand. She sent another Yellow-strength wave at him to buy him some time. He'd already proven that he wasn't terribly affected by it, but perhaps since they were already this close...

Max tightened his grip on her arm. Not enough to actually bruise, but hard enough to remind her that he could if he wanted to. And he used that grip to keep himself close to her even as the force of her attack pushed him backward and away. Still, that point of contact was enough to keep him from losing his feet altogether.

He reached forward to tap at the wall. "Unless you can go through my hand you lose," he suggested.

[And now I'm off to see HP again!]

Karla considered her options. There were several things she could do, but those probably went beyond the bounds of a simple workout, the same way Max wasn't actually bruising her arm. Still, she wasn't going to let him win unconditionally. Placing a thin shield around her hand, she grabbed the arm that was holding her and extended her serpent's tooth against his flesh.

"Mutual loss?" she suggested.

[Have fun!]

He eyed her hand for a moment. "That depends on what, exactly, that is." He wasn't about to dismiss her out of hand. She'd already shown a number of surprising abilities, after all.

Basic Sword Skills [Thursday, Period Three]

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