fandomhigh | Defending Yourself [Monday, Period 1]

"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!]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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'!

Mercy could smell him there and pretty much make out where he was, so she waited quietly to see what he'd do. There wasn't going to be much surprise on her part.

If it had been one of the werewolves back home, she'd have done her best to startle him instead, but she didn't know him that well.

Max waited a couple of seconds, then shoved the door shut and... Okay, he actually jumped forward and yelled "Boo!"

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?

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.

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.

"Hello?" Angelica said nervously, stepping further into the room. It was hard to see what was beyond her circle of light.

She was so going to do badly on this test.

Once she'd stepped past the door, Max made his move. First he stepped forward, scuffing his foot slightly to give her a fraction of a second of warning or so. Then he yelled "Boo!".

Yeah. Really.

Mercy tilted her head calmly at him. "Hi, Professor."

"Hey," Max answered with a grin. He started to say something else, but instead leaped forward, arms extended to grab at Mercy's shoulders.

Fortunately, Angelica had been expecting something, so she didn't entirely freak out and lose control of her powers. She did, however, shriek a little and spin around, her powers flaring brighter and hotter, but she struggled to hold it back so she didn't accidentally harm Max.

Then it probably didn't help that Max was also doing his best to look very threatening, and also continuing to come toward her with his arms extended. Because scaring her wasn't really the point. Max wanted to see how she'd defend herself.

Fortunately they were in the Danger Shop, so even if this wasn't his smartest idea he wouldn't get hurt too badly.

Angelica darted away, trying to keep some of the furniture between her and Max. "I really don't want to hurt you," she said.

But asking please wasn't really going to stop someone from coming at her in real life, so she tried to make her voice more firm. "But I will if you don't leave me alone," she said.

Max just chuckled. "You really think you can?" he challenged as he kept moving forward, perfectly content to pick up desks and chairs to toss them easily out of the way as he did.

She couldn't bring herself to use her powers on a living being, but she could do her best to bluff. "Yeah, I will," she said, fighting the quaver in her voice at how easily he was tossing the desks and chairs aside. She held her hands out in front of her, concentrating to superheat the air around them so that they became wreathed in flames.

Hey, that was actually pretty impressive.

Max paused. He didn't retreat, but he stopped advancing for the moment, waiting to see if she'd do more than that.

"Come any closer and I'll set you on fire," Angelica said, making the flames jump from her hands a little bit, not close enough to burn Max, but to let him know she had control over it.

Mostly. She hoped.

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.

Edited 2012-01-09 20:05 (UTC)

Page 1 of 4

Defending Yourself [Monday, Period 1]

The lecture

Show and tell

Step through door number 1

Talk to Max

OOC

Re: Show and tell

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Show and tell

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Step through door number 1

Re: Show and tell