fandomhigh | Basic Strategy, Monday, Period 4

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Basic Strategy, Monday, Period 4

Class met in the Danger Shop today, which had been set up to look like a dimly lit dungeon, deserted save for a swarm of small, ugly beasts that looked a bit like purple wolves with lizard heads.

"Last week our subject was acknowledging things about ourselves we can't change or forget," Tyrion said without preamble. He was impressed with himself he'd gotten the Danger Shop to work, and it might have shown in his bearing. "This week, we begin a unit on making the best of what you have. You may be strong. You may be clever. You may be lovely to look upon. You may be rich. Unless the gods gave with both hands at your birth, it's unlikely you're all four. It's far more likely you're weak, stupid, ugly or poor -- relatively speaking, of course."

"Your choices are two. You can either concentrate on what you have a gift for and hope it's enough to get you through anything, or you can spend your life trying to master the things you're worst at in hopes of balancing yourself out. All things being equal, and assuming you're being honest with yourself about having tried to improve, I'd say you're usually better off focusing on your skills and making them as good as they can be. A swordsman does not prepare for battle by reading, nor should he, and it makes no more sense for a weakling to spend his days fiddling about with a sword. He might hurt himself."

But -- because this is my class, and I have the right to be perverse sometimes -- today we will start with a single kind of skill, and pretend we're all trying to improve our strength." He pointed to a beast. "Your job is to fight these lovely fellows. They've no ability to speak or reason -- all you can do is find a way to bash your way out of this one. After you've done that, we'll talk some more."

Before he released the class to fight the beasts, he added, "And by the way, Kate Daniels is my assistant now. Bother her if you can't find me."

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There are moddable creatures to spar with, and an array of clubs, swords, shields, knives and bows and arrows to choose from. The fights aren't long, and they won't be especially difficult for anyone with fight training. You can't get hurt, but if the beast knocks you down, it counts as a loss for you and the exercise ends.

Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah crap why didn't she bring a gun why didn't she have Wesley teach her bow and arrows why didn't she have a blowgun why why--

Uninterrupted by her internal flailing, Kenzi was diving for a shield, a club, and reluctantly leaving the bows and arrows to those who actually knew how to use them. Then watching for an opening. Or, you know, someone else to go down so she could run past them. "Niiiice lizard-doggies. Nice."

They were not amenable to flattery. So whapping about as hard as she could with the club, that was it. And she managed to get past one, then two, then... well, the thing bit her on the leg and she went down. "Damnit."

Edited 2011-09-05 04:58 (UTC)

Claudia spent awhile dodging and wishing she had her tesla on her. She was really good at dodging, not so much with, like, hitting. The fight seemed to go on forever, in her mind, and was almost entirely made up of being chased around in circles by the little purple beast. Finally, it seemed to get tired of that tactic and made a lunge at her. She dodged -- and shoved it right into a wall.

Well. That wasn't so bad. . . .

Bruce didn't bother with any of the weapons. When he saw one of the beasts charging, he just settled into a low stance. When the beast was close enough and lunging for an attack, Bruce stepped to the side and slipped an arm around its neck as he jumped on its back.

Yes, Bruce was putting an angry creature into a sleeper hold. It wasn't the first or last time he would do this to a monstrous animal, because it often proved effective. After a short time in the hold with Bruce weighing it down, the beast dropped to the ground, unconscious and wheezing.

"... whoa." Kenzi stared. Did anybody else see that? 'Cause really? Impressive.

"Remember that next time you eye anything on my dresser," Bruce said. Because, yes, he heard that. And he remembered the time in the cabin.

Kenzi twisted her head until it was sideways, mouth going sideways too, looking like a human Emoticon. "Bruuuce. I would never."

Not now, anyway. Damn.

From her little corner where she'd been quietly sitting with her book, all invisible-like, Susan couldn't help watching. Interesting technique. For some reason she felt like she should remember that.

Stephanie couldn't help fistpumping a little when she saw that.

Go get 'im, Boss!

. . . yeah, she wasn't gonna be outdoing that. Sigh.

Sure, this Bruce wasn't his Bruce, but it was still fun for Jason to watch him take down the animal like that. It was a nice reminder of Gotham, if nothing else.

Now that he was actually supposed to fight them, maaaaaaaybe Lionel would have been the better choice after all.

He picked a sword that mostly closely resembled a rapier, not that he thought what little fencing he'd done would really help, but at least he was halfway familiar with the weight.

He managed to stab a whole one lizard before another knocked him down. Ow.

Um, hopefully no one from PETA saw this, but rather than screw up her manicure, Caroline grabbed up a club to defend herself should a monster make the stupid choice of attacking her.

No, she would not be taking the initiative to attack. She wasn't stupid.

Sure, he should probably go the smarter route and run like the wind, but when did Tony Stark ever prove to be smart?

Instead, he picked the sword with the most padding in the grip to fight with. Then, wrapped what might have been the guts of his phone tightly around the base of the blade. If anyone asked why he had a strange wire coming out from his shirtsleeve to attach to those parts, he'd just respond with a very enthusiastic lecture on science.

He grinned, sword held carefully with both hands as one of those lizard-wolf thingies charged. The hardware could only handle one go at this, so he just needed to make it count. Once the lizaolf was close enough, he darted out of biting range ~~with a totally manly yell~~ and stabbed down into it's shoulder. Not enough to kill it with the blow, but the ~~so the audience at home can see it, goddamn you cartoons~~ blue surge of energy running down the blade into the monster did the rest of the job.

Eew, burnt fur.

Edited 2011-09-05 14:59 (UTC)

Simon took a sword and a shield, and drew in a breath, and then did something he'd never done around so many people before: turned invisible. He was completely prepared to explain to people, afterwards, that it didn't hurt as much as it looked when his head moved in a blur right before he vanished.

Once invisible, he waited for any of the creatures to come to him because he didn't want to be the one to start a fight. Eventually though, one of them found him by nudging him, and didn't seem to care about seeing him once it had felt him.

But, he still had the advantage from his power, and the fight was fairly short, if not terribly elegant.

Okay, this wasn't so bad, right? She'd fought animals before . . .

Okay, kicking geese and running away from a crocodile weren't the most practically-applicable experiences she could claim, but, um . . . well . . .

Stephanie, who belatedly realized it'd been a while since she'd done anything like this, went for a shield. Setting her feet just right (and sweating a lot) just kept her from getting knocked over by the creature's initial charge, and if there was something really undignified about cowering behind the shield grimacing she didn't care.

She managed to dance, dodge, or by-the-skin-of-her-teeth-duck out of the way of several more attacks before she spotted an opportunity to somersault over the lizard's head, smack the edge of her shield down on it mid-flight, and . . .

Land on her ass immediately afterward.

"Does that still mean I won?"

"5.8!" Kenzi called, arms in the air. "The Russian judge is being a bitch. The Latvian judge thinks you got hosed."

Stephanie groaned and used the shield to lever herself back to her feet, wobbling a little on the way.

"As long as I'm not DQ-ed for eating dirt. Technically the lizard-thingie didn't do the knocking over of me, right?"

"Technically," Kenzi agreed, cheerful. "I think it shouldn't count, 'cause it's not like they chomped you after you went sprawling, right? Nice somersault, by the way."

Stephanie brushed her hair out of her face and wagged the shield vaguely in thanks. "And they said I didn't have a future on the vault horse."

Kenzi snickered. "You do gymnastics? As a team thing, or just for fun?"

Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [9/05]

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Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [9/05]

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Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [9/05]

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Re: STRENGTH EXERCISE [9/05]

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Sword and bow were Faramir's choice of weapons. If one were to ask, he would tell them that he was not the swordsman his brother was, but that did not mean he was fumbling with the blade as hours of training had made him skilled even if he did not possess his brother's aptitude for it.

So Faramir dealt with a few creatures without too much trouble, putting some down with his bow and a few others with his sword.

Another class where she got to kill things! Surreal was smiling - although it wasn't a very friendly smile - as she called in her curved hunting blade. Not as beloved as her stiletto, true, but more apt for a situation like this.

Two of the creatures charged her, and she sent one flying into the wall with a blast of Craft from her Green as she darted around the other one. The moment it turned its head to snap at her, she closed in and yanked up on its head, slitting its throat neatly.

As they both faded from view, she turned to face the rest of the creatures and see which one would die next.

The damnable teacher had said that there was no talking her way out of it; her beauty may be a weapon in other circumstances, but it was thoroughly useless here. She had witnessed carnage before, but never had she lifted weapon to fight anyone, or anything, either.

The Lord Sforza had hunted, and that stray thought was enough inspiration to start.

She picked the closest little devil-spawn, and named it Giovanni Sforza in her head. She grabbed a club, and with no concept of skill, or training -- nothing but long-dormant rage -- she swung, poorly, at the hated thing.

It reared and snapped at her. She screamed, hopping back. She dropped the club, and stumbled over her own toes. She landed, heavily, on her bottom. She flinched, awaiting the inevitable.

The inevitable did not come. And when it did not, she gathered what was left of her dignity and sprinted away from these nightmares.

Jason looked over the weapons for just a moment before picking a club, deciding that beating the creature with something blunt would be a little less violent than going for the sharp and pointy things. His fight ended up alternating between dodging and striking, so it was a little longer than it might have needed to be, but Jason didn't mind that at all. He hadn't gotten to beat anything up in way too long.

Somehow the message of "it's not real" did not imprint in the squire's head. Picking up a sword that resembled his rapier, he lashed out at the first and the second, quickly dispatching them, a bit more viciously than he might to another creature. He stood breathing heavily for a moment after, not used to this much of an adrenaline surge.

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