fandomhigh | Keeping Your Advantage: Terrain and You, Week VI [Monday, Period 4]

When students arrived in the Danger Shop today, they'd see an obstacle course, modeled after rooftops and walls, about six-to-ten feet off the ground, foam mats all over the floor.

"Good afternoon," Ghanima said cheerily. "Today we're looking at remaining mobile in an unfamiliar urban environment. To this end, we are studying parkour, or l'art du déplacement."

"When lost or being pursued in an unfamiliar city, sticking to the streets is the equivalent of painting a target on your back," she continued. "A stranger will stick out like nothing else, and sometimes an alternative view of your surroundings can be unbelievably helpful."

"Parkour is an activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as smoothly, efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body. It is meant to help one overcome obstacles, which can be anything in the surrounding environment—from branches and rocks to rails and concrete walls—and can be practiced in both rural and urban areas. Parkour practitioners are referred to as traceurs, or traceuses for females."

"Now, parkour is a physical activity that is often categorized as a sport or an extreme sport; however, parkour has no set of rules. Most experienced traceurs think of parkour as a discipline closer to martial arts. It is often said that 'the physical aspect of parkour is getting over all the obstacles in your path as you would in an emergency. You want to move in such a way, with any movement, as to help you gain the most ground on someone or something, whether escaping from it or chasing toward it.'"

"The primary characteristic of parkour is efficiency. Practitioners move not only as rapidly as they can, but also in the most direct and efficient way possible. This characteristic distinguishes it from the similar practice of freerunning, which places more emphasis on freedom of movement and creativity. Efficiency also involves avoiding injuries, both short and long term, part of why parkour's unofficial motto is être et durer - to be and to last. Those who are skilled at this activity normally have an extremely keen spatial awareness."

"So, today, you'll be trying it out on a smaller scale," she said, going over some of the basic moments with the students. "For those of you that manage this course, I'll switch the Danger Shop over to an actual urban environment, and you can feel free to take a run at a slightly more realistic scenario."

[OCD up!]

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"Whoops!" Dinah stopped, and danced around the cables, having to slow down enough not to trip over them or the equipment laid out. "Sorry!" Then went diving off the rooftop again. "Almost there!" she called to Triela, laughing breathlessly. She could see the bridge over the edge of the last roof, only a couple blocks away. "And does that make you crazier for following me?"

"I can't be crazy," Triela tossed back with a smirk. "Not allowed to."

"Good thing you know me, then!" Dinah got to the edge of the last rooftop, and looked down; no fire escape. Swing off a streetlight?

Or, you know, take the stairs.

She pounded down the staircase and out the fire-door, and then turned right, heading for the bridge, dodging a group of bicyclists. She checked her watch. "ONE MINUTE!"

Triela followed down the staircase, leaping directly from landing to landing. "You're the one slowing us down," she teased as she barely avoiding colliding with some coed out jogging.

Dinah didn't even bother with a "Pbttttt!" but put on speed, bouncing up and over a park bench, around a bus shelter, and swinging off a streetlight to land on the bridge.

"...done."

And flop down to the ground, panting.

Their final steps hit the ground at the same time. Triela glanced over with a grin. "Worn out?" she asked, breathing only slightly heavier than usual. "You're out of shape, Dinah."

This time the "Pbbttttt" was audible, even as Dinah grinned up at her. "Not! That one was a rush!" She snickered and sat up, wishing for water, rubbed the back of her neck. "Rest while I can, is all." She sighed and climbed to her feet, face still flushed and happy. "That last run, I forgot how rough those can be. Although the satellite guys were funny."

"I don't think we broke anything at least," Triela grinned. "Even if is all just a simulation."

"A good one, too." Dinah nodded, poking at the grass, then the streetlight. "I never get over how real the Dangers Shop simulations are." She sighed happily. "I bet we could shave a lot of time off our run, now that we know about the detour."

"We probably could. Though I sort of doubt we'll ever find ourselves running through... whatever this city is supposed to be based on."

"True." Dinah looked around, humming. "Barbara always gives us directions to avoid that kind of thing at home. Remote comms and traffic control. It's good to do it without her running interference for once, though."

Triela nodded thoughtfully. "A good person running control for a mission is always useful. But it's important to know how to handle a mission without one."

"And fun! Helena goes off comms all the time to just run patterns in areas she's familiar with. Which makes Barbara crazy, but I think Helena has a point that you have to know it for yourself, too." Another happy sigh. "Okay, back to get water. I really think we have to do this through Fandom, sometime. We need to know the fastest ways through town."

"I've already got a few paths mapped," Triela told her. "But running through them is always useful. And I don't have the entire town covered."

"If you could loan me the maps too, we could do this. And I bet some other people would think it was fun too." Dinah grinned. "And we can find out which shop owners are okay with us dashing through their kitchens."

She might be thinking of the goodies a J,GoB here.

Triela nodded. "Swing by my room sometime and I'll give you copies. And maybe we could stash some climbing ger around town too. Just in case we need to get an entire group onto a roof or something."

"Yes!" Dinah punched the air. "Coooool."

"I've got an emergency bag in my room, but it's not the same as having gear in place. Maybe a bag on the roof of the dorms..."

Dinah nodded hard. "And maybe something in the lobby, too, in case you have to go out that way."

"Maybe. But we're not allowed to keep weapons on school grounds..." Because what Triela really wanted in her bag was some grenades. And a few SMGs.

"Well, then you couldn't keep them on the roof, either," Dinah pointed out. "But a map-and-survival bag, and a swing past the salle, sure."

"We should sit down and work out where to put bags and what to put in them."

Dinah nodded enthusiastically. "Definitely!"

"Just swing by sometime," Triela grinned.

Keeping Your Advantage: Terrain and You, Week VI [Monday, Period 4]

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