Defending Yourself [Monday, Period 1]

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"Welcome back. Hope you all enjoyed your weekend." Max eyed his students. "And that you took the time to do your homework."

"Today's lesson is actually going to be short because I'm going to try leaving most of our time for some demonstrations, but there is something I'm hoping you all pick up on today: each of you has a set of instinctive reactions when threatened. Everyone has different ones, of course, but the lesson to learn is that most of them are useful. Maybe not all the time, or in all situations, and it's useful to be aware of when to fight your instincts, but it's also important to realize that no matter how new you all are to the concept, each and every one of you has some ideas about how to defend yourself. And not all of those ideas are bad ones."

"For instance," another look around, this time with a grin, "I gave you a homework assignment last week I gave you a homework assignment with very little guidance, and I'm willing to bet that you all managed to do it. And I also suspect that most of you came up with something the others didn't, if only because of the way you think about things."

"So let's see them. Everyone take a moment to show us what you've brought, and explain why you picked it. And feel free to talk ideas with each other."

And then Max's grin turned downright evil, and he nodded toward the door that wasn't part of the usual classroom setup (thank you, Danger Shop!). "While you're doing that, you'll find a list of your names in totally random order by the door. If you're at the top of the list, come on through for a personal evaluation." That totally wasn't going to be an ambush so that Max could evaluate your instinctive reactions to surprise attacks. Unless it was.

Hint: it totally was.

[Continuing my no-sign-in experiment! If it really is a problem for you, feel free to leave an OOC comment, or hit me up via email! Or AIM! Or LJ PM!]

Comments

The lecture

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Is short, sweet, and other things that are like that

Show and tell

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

What'd you bring for your homework assignment? Did you even remember your homework assignment?

Re: Show and tell

[walkswithcoyote]

Mercy's Mun had to go back and look to see what the assignment was had brought a small heavy length of pipe that fit nicely into her purse.

Re: Show and tell

[whitequeensfire.livejournal.com]

Angelica didn't feel comfortable carrying any real weapon around, but she had keys. Keys could be used as a weapon in case of emergency, right?

Re: Show and tell

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

William... had brought his mind. No, really.

Quick thinking had got him out of any number of situations before they'd escalated, and observation and knowledge of human anatomy had allowed him to effectively dispatch would-be attackers when avoidance wasn't an option.

But to the casual observer, it might indeed appear that he'd forgotten about the assignment entirely.

Re: Show and tell

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

Quinn held up a can of pepper spray. "I don't really carry this around," she said, "but if I thought things were going to get bad again I'd totally use it."

Re: Show and tell

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

Kenzi showed off her steel-toed boots. "Helpful for making things and defending self!"

Re: Show and tell

[harpy-daughter.livejournal.com]

Surreal just leaned back in the chair and put her boots up on her desk. "Guess," she said, baring her teeth in a grin."

Re: Show and tell

[new-it-girl.livejournal.com]

Hanna actually did forget about the assignment, but she reached into her bag for anything she could use, finding a nail file. She could find a way to use it as a weapon.

Re: Show and tell

[glacial_queen]

Karla brought her Eyrien sticks to class--the non-bladed ones, of course.

Re: Show and tell

[randomspanish.livejournal.com]

Freddie would have borrowed Sam's butter sock, but he was a little afraid of the butter sock.

"I brought my Galaxy Wars officially licensed stun blazer replica," Freddie said. "It actually does everything it should."

Step through door number 1

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Because there is no other door.

Students will find that the room is dark. Not completely so, as there's just enough light to make out the shapes of desks and other furniture things that made the room look pretty much exactly like the one they'd just left. Except with all the lights out.

Also, this room just happens to feel eerily silent. Like something's waiting in that darkness for you.

NOTE: For anyone who wants to not have their character suddenly jumped from the shadows, it is perfectly fine to handwave that Max left their name off of the list. Either intentionally or out of forgetfulness.

Re: Step through door number 1

[walkswithcoyote]

Mercy put all her senses on alert, then stepped through the door. Since it was dark, she stepped carefully and quickly to the left side of the doorway, hugging the wall. She could see very well in the dark, so she looked - and smelled for whatever might be there.

Re: Step through door number 1

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

It smelled an awful lot like Max was standing (looming, really) behind where the door had swung open, just waiting for the perfect moment to ambush her. Probably by jumping out and yelling 'boo'!

Re: Step through door number 1

[whitequeensfire.livejournal.com]

Angelica's first instinct was to concentrate on using her powers to create a soft glow around herself so she could see better.

Of course, that made her all the more visible to whatever might be lurking out there as she nervously peered around the room.

Re: Step through door number 1

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Glowing, huh. Lucky for Max he was on the other side of the door. (He'd totally seen that trick on some TV show somewhere.) He concentrated on staying silent and giving Angelica a second or two to see what else she might do.

Re: Step through door number 1

[harpy-daughter.livejournal.com]

Surreal winked at her classmates before wrapping a sight-shield tightly around herself, effectively vanishing from view. She reached over to open the door, waited until the count of three, and then walked in.

She would just leave the door open to give herself another escape route, and moved forward, almost completely silently.

Re: Step through door number 1

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Pretty good plan, really. It probably would have worked a lot better if Max hadn't spent enough time training Karla that he actually tended to think of sight shields as pretty common.

The waiting trick was nice, though.

Of course, Max could wait, too. And he did. Standing behind the open door to see what Surreal would do next.

Re: Step through door number 1

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this was gonna be fun. Kenzi wandered through the door, relaxed, looking everywhere. Including up. (You must always look up.)

Re: Step through door number 1

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Good move. But Max wasn't up. Nope. He was behind the door.

Waiting.

Re: Step through door number 1

[randomspanish.livejournal.com]

Freddie was more than a little worried as he stepped through the door.

He might have been expecting the worst, but that didn't mean he'd be prepared for the worst.

Talk to Max

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

After the activity is over, he'll be back in the classroom.

OOC

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

I'll be glad when this project at work is over...

Re: OOC

[answer2bheard.livejournal.com]

I know I'm not in your class and so I probably have no place saying it, but I wouldn't be able to play the game without sign-in threads. Especially weeks like this one, where I'm starting a new job and the best I'll be able to see myself doing until I fall into the swing of things is sign in, if I manage to get that far at all.

I'm already planning on spending a few nights this week sleeping in the studio, I have no phone, and the internet there is for animation reference only. This is my life for the foreseeable future. Hell, this is my career. If I were in your class, I'd have to pull out.

Re: OOC

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. I know having people do nothing but the sign-in isn't ideal, but just about everyone at some point is gonna hit weeks where that's all they can manage, time-wise. So it's nice to have that option there.