fandomhigh | Defending Yourself [Monday, Period 1]

"We've talked about fight or flight responses, and I mentioned that one of the things we'll want to do is begin to adjust your instinctive reactions so that those automatic responses don't get you into trouble if you need to defend yourself. Today we'll be taking the first step with that."

Max grinned and looked around the room at his students. "Today's lesson is that sometimes the 'fight or flight' response is actually the wrong approach. In fact, in a lot of cases, you actually want some combination of the two. Stomp someone's foot, and then run; or running until you find a better position to fight from. After all, there are plenty of situations where just running, or just fighting, are not optimal. I mean, chances are you couldn't outrun a tiger chasing you, and you certainly don't want to fight one in the open."

"Today's exercise is pretty simple. Everyone's going to get some distance from each other, and then the Danger Shop is going to begin cycling through localized scenarios. They'll all be still scenes, so you have as much time to think about your responses as you need. You can even get a bit of practice in with your proposed solution, though since everything will be frozen it won't be all that realistic. Still, I'm hoping it'll help you think about some of this stuff in advance."

"Well, that's it. Let's get to it." He paused. "Oh, and Surreal, I'd like to speak to you after class, if you have a moment."

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Mercy waited to see what would happen, reflexes ready to do whatever was necessary.

And suddenly, Mercy was in the middle of a forest. Well, in a clearing in a forest. With a tiger in front of her.

What? Sometimes Max liked to actually give his students a heads-up. If they were clever enough to notice that's what it was.

Oh lovely.

Mercy stayed very still, watching the tiger intently, but with downcast eyes, so she didn't look challenging.

That would probably work pretty well against an actual tiger. But this tiger was programmed by Max, who was nothing even approaching a tiger expert, so it just growled and stalked slowly forward.

Well, this was a problem.

She could get to a tree and well off the ground before it could get to her, but since tigers could climb trees, that wouldn't stop a determined one.

She wasn't armed and couldn't see anything on the ground that she could throw at it or use as a weapon.

Probably her best bet was to get up a tree and kick at it or something. Well, honestly, in real life, she'd shift and run. She could outrun it easily that way. But since she wasn't ready to out herself just yet...

She was across the clearing and up a tree pretty damn fast.

The tiger followed, but she did get to the tree with enough of a lead to get off the ground. And rather than follow immediately, the tiger paced around the tree looking displeased.

Mercy carefully took off a sneaker, tying the laces together in such a way that she'd be able to swing it around and use it as a kind of projectile she could hold onto. Then she hung it over one shoulder and worked on doing the same thing to the other sneaker.

The tiger didn't seem inclined to let her finish with the second of her shoes. It finally stopped prowling around the tree and planted its claws in the trunk, scrambling toward the lowest branch.

She swung the shoe to smack it as hard as she could at/into the tiger's head and screamed as piercingly as she could into its sensitive ears.

Even tigers programmed by Max had sensitive noses, and having a shoe smack into said nose had the tiger recoiling. Enough to lose its balance and topple from the branch it was on, landing on all fours and looking up at Mercy in a most displeased manner.

She shrieked again at the top of her lungs - and she had pretty darn good lungs - and got both shoes ready to go again.

After all the class had to end sometime soon.

True. And the tiger had apparently decided that getting hit in the nose was likely to happen again. So, fine. You won this round human...

With a disgusted sort of huff, the big cat turned and stalked off.

Mercy let out a sigh of relief, but watched warily from her perch in the tree as it left.

The scene shifted from the forest back to the classroom. Except for the tree Mercy was in, anyway. That stayed, for now.

Mercy slid easily down the tree and went back to her seat.

Max was perched lazily on the desk next to Mercy's. "Not bad," he decided with a grin. "The shoe thing was particularly clever."

She smiled up at him, mostly relaxed, but still a little wary of him. "It was the only thing I could think of that might work as a weapon."

"Good thinking," Max complimented her again. "And the screaming wasn't bad either."

"Their ears are pretty sensitive," Mercy said. "Especially to high-pitched sounds. Plus in the real world it might have gotten me help. Though I might have yelled fire instead since that attracts more attention."

Max laughed. "Good point. You're pretty cool-headed, I've got to say."

"Oh trust me, I panic enough inside," Mercy said ruefully. "But I... well, growing up I spent a lot of time in... I guess you could say kind of a rough neighborhood."

Well, what else would you call a place that was home to a bunch of werewolves?

"It's not the first time I've had someone - er, thing - trying to kill me."

"I'd kind of suspected that, yeah." She had the instincts of a survivor, after all.

She shrugged, looking down. "Some places you just grow up fast. My foster parents were really great, though."

Leah wouldn't have dared try anything when they were still alive.

"I know the feeling," Max chuckled. "But, again, well done."

"Thanks," she said with a smile.

Defending Yourself [Monday, Period 1]

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