fandomhigh | Introduction to Personal Weaponry [Monday, second period]

The Danger Shop, perhaps disappointingly, looked like a classroom today. Though the big pile of random-looking crap on the floor was new. Chair legs, a couple of complete stools, hockey sticks, two-by-fours, baseball bats, some lead pipes, and a number of things most people actually considered weapons, ~~all of it moddable~~.

"Today we're talking about sticks. And, well, all the things that work pretty much the same way." Max grabbed a six-foot staff from the pile seemingly at random.

"A stick does a couple of things for you. It gives you extra weight, it gives you extra reach, and it gives you something that you can hit harder with without breaking bits of yourself in the process." Max swung the stick in a wide arc to demonstrate.

"All of this translates into hitting harder and breaking things better. You can also take a hit on a stick that you'd never be able to take on, say, your arm." This time Max swung the stick into his desk. Sure it wasn't real, but the sound as the top of the desk cracked and the stick snapped in two was plenty impressive.

"Last week I showed you how a roll of coins can become a weapon, enhancing whatever fighting abilities you already have. Sticks are similar because most things can be used to add weight and reach to what you already have." He gestured at the pile.

"You'll have to adjust slightly to each item to get a feel for how you can use it to your advantage, and that's what you'll be doing today. Everyone pick something from the pile, then pair off and figure things out. You can just discuss technique or strategy, or you can take a few swings."

His eyes narrowed. "I'll be watching, so everyone be careful. There may be safeguards in place here, but that's no excuse to get sloppy about things. So don't even think about goofing around."

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"I'm not real high on guns either," he agreed, swinging the cane back and forth before he leaned against it. "I'll use 'em but I'd rather not run the risk of shooting myself in the foot."

"Ow," Zack informed Alex, very eloquently. "Yeah, that's something that's defintiely to be avoided, trust me."

Not that Zack had ever shot himself anywhere, no. But he'd been punched through with enough bullets over the past few years to know that it was an experience better missed.

"Sticks are way safer."

"I don't know if I'd use a cane if I had my choice but it'd do a pinch," he decided, tapping it against the back of his leg. "I think I'd prefer the hockey stick."

"Made to be swung around at things," Zack agreed, holding it out to Alex with a grin. "Wanna give it a try?"

"Yeah, why not?" Alex decided, nodding. His shoulder felt up to it. "Point of the class, right?"

"If you can't swing around a hockey stick at things here, you can't do it anywhere," replied Zack, in his closest approximation to a solemn tone. "Except for maybe during a hockey game..."

Curse those technicalities.

"Maybe give it a good whack against a desk or something, and see how it holds up?"

"Good idea," Alex said, sidling up to a desk and giving it a few taps with the cane before he reared back and slammed the cane down on the desk. To the cane's benefit, it held together save for several cracks in the wood.

"Not bad," he said, nodding. "I thought it'd come apart."

"Way more solid than I was expecting," Zack admitted, tilting his head at the cane before giving the hockey stick a contemplative sort of glance. And then, a grin crossing his lips, he swing it, good and hard, at the desk as well.

The hockey stick broke clean in two, with a small shower of splinters for good measure.

"... Oops."

"Well."

Alex tilted his head at the hockey stick.

"Guess the desk won."

"Remind me to not try to rely on a hockey stick in a fight in the future," Zack agreed, holding up what was left of the half of stick that had been in his hand. "I can't do much with this except for maybe poke people with it."

Which, some little voice in the back of his head noted, would be very handy against vampires. But Zack really, really wanted to avoid that train of thought if at all possible.

"You wanna see if the cane does any better in your hands?" Alex wondered, offering up the curved end of it.

"Why not?" Zack shrugged, tossed the hockey stick to the floor, and accepted the cane, giving it a few swings at the air and a twirl in order to get a feel for it. Shorter and lighter than what he was used to. He already didn't care for it too much, but a stick was a stick, he supposed.

He wound up with it, and then brought it down onto the same desk with a crack and a snap.

This time around, the desk and the cane both lost, a split appearing in the top of the desk, and the cane snapping off along the split that Alex had put there before.

"... You got that one started for me, though."

Alex started laughing immediately more for the fact that they were getting to do this in class and it was what they were supposed to do. "I'd guess that it wouldn't break as easily if you nailed someone with it. They're a little softer but man, that cane is done for."

"It sooo is," Zack laughed. "And anyhow, I can't see me having my hands on one of these in the first place."

A pause.

"Unless I get attacked by somebody's grandma or something?"

Which was an amusing mental imagine in and of itself.

"Man, that'd have to be one pissed off grandma to attack someone with a cane," Alex decided with another laugh. "I guess you never know these days, though. Everyone has the capacity to get that pissed off."

"You'd totally be surprised," Zack laughed. "Being older doesn't necessarily make people nicer, you know."

Crotchety and senile was totally a possibility!

"Have experience being attacked by the elderly?" Alex wondered, smirking.

"There's a first for everything," Zack replied, in a tone of voice that suggested that yes, he absolutely did have experience with that kind of thing. "They weren't very good at it, though."

As was probably to be expected.

"Which means you won," Alex said, reaching over to push against the damaged desk. "I hope?"

Zack leaned over, inspecting the crack in the top of the desk, and then he shrugged.

"I probably would have, if he didn't have backup swooping in to save the day," he decided. "He was really out of shape."

"An elderly army?" That was just weird to think about.

"Well, nah," Zack admitted. "Just the one guy was old. Kind of old. Older than my parents, so... old enough."

He'd been his mentor's father, after all.

"But his backup was younger. Maybe ten years older than me, if that. And there were lots of them."

Clones of people tended to add up that way, yes.

"Man, I was so hoping to hear about an army of the elderly," he snickered,. "That would have been something I'd never heard before."

"Well, if you keep talking like that, you'll give them ideas," laughed Zack, shaking his head. "Give it time, man. Now that we're talking about it, it's totally bound to happen sooner or later."

Introduction to Personal Weaponry [Monday, second period]

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