fandomhigh | Pointy End AWAY From You. Wednesday, May 6th, 2015

"Hello and welcome to Pointy End AWAY From You," Anakin began, dressed in slightly more casual clothing today, which meant he'd ditched the robe and was only in the rest of the Jedi uniform ("how to drop your robe like an absolute drama queen, OBI-WAN" was a class for later). "If you were under the misimpression this was a workshop on not running with scissors, you're out of luck."

Obi-Wan, on the other hand, was wearing the full ensemble. (And EXCUSE YOU, Anakin, you had perfected the drama queen robe-drop.) "Rather, we are here to examine some of the fundamental types of weaponry you may come into contact with," he said, "and how to use them responsibly, so that no one accidentally loses a limb."

Deliberately, on the other hand...

Just stand there and gloat with all your original limbs, Obi-Wan. No biggie. Anakin crossed his arms over his chest (replacement ones that Obi-Wan HADN'T cut off) and nodded. "In the grand tradition of the first week of classes, we want to get an idea of your experience. If you've never stabbed a guy before--" his face said "amateur" even if his mouth didn't, "--or if you've been doing hand-to-hand combat since you could walk...it'll change how we teach you."

"And please let us know your name and the regularity of violence in your home universe, as well," Obi-Wan said.

Yes, with all of his original limbs. Which had never gotten chopped off. Not even once. (Thus proving that in the field of limb removal, Anakin was an outlier and should not be counted.)

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"Hello again, Kathy," Obi-Wan said, with a polite inclination of his head. "I'm sorry to hear that about your neighborhood. What is done, if anything, to try and prevent it?"

"By the people in charge?" Kathy asked with a slight curl of her lip. "Not much. Koreatown is a primarily immigrant neighborhood. The commercial area is pretty decently patrolled, but the rest of it, especially the poorer neighborhoods..." She shrugged. "LAPD tries, I guess, but the Seventeens have a hold there, too."

It wouldn't be the first time cops and politicians were paid to look the other way. Or even worse.

"What we have instead are a few costumed vigilantes who patrol the area. Nobody is really committed to it--" yet "--but I know there are a few who are more than happy to tangle with anyone wearing a green bandanna."

Obi-Wan frowned thoughtfully.

"And these vigilantes," he said, "What weapons do they use?"

Hopefully not the excessively lethal kind...

"Depends on their powers," Kathy said. "One guy can stop people with a look, knocking them unconscious and leaving them tied up for the police. The Mighty Dragon can fly and breathe fire and is invulnerable, so he just heads into the fray and starts swinging. I, uhh, make due with repurposed gymnastics equipment which, ahh, is more effective than it sounds, I swear."

"Repurposed gymnastics equipment?" Obi-Wan echoed. "What should I picture, here?"

He should probably stop raising his eyebrow, but no.

Kathy tried not to sigh; it wasn't anyone's fault but her own that everything about her screamed 'innocuous.' Nobody had made her dress in rainbows and use the stuff she'd learned in gymnastics to fight crime. "This," she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a modified gymnastics ribbon and handed it over to him to inspect.

The want had been hollowed out then filled with metal. She couldn't tell you what kind of metal it was, since she'd done all the melting, drilling, and filling in the high school's metal shop, but it was heavy and that was all she worried about. The handle was then wrapped with duct tape, and the ribbons were reinforced by thin strips of wire she'd painstakingly sewed into the fabric following the warp of the fabric.

In short, they looked pretty ridiculous. Kathy was neither a seamstress nor a metal-worker and the end result was fairly crude.

"I know it doesn't look like much," she mumbled, not meeting his eyes. She knew how silly it looked, she didn't need to see his judgey eyebrow. "The duct tape keeps the plastic from cracking and gives me a better grip. And it took me a couple of attempts to find a way to strengthen the ribbons while keeping them flexible."

Edited 2015-05-07 00:43 (UTC)

Obi-Wan took the ribbon. It did look rather impractical as a weapon: the ribbon itself would balance unpredictably to the wand itself. And it would likely go skittering everywhere unless placed in the hands of a wielder with experience.

He gave it an absent twirl just to establish how that balance fell out-- he might have been called the Negotiator once, but you hardly got to his level without having a knack for weaponry-- and then passed it back.

"Interesting," he said. "Provided you don't hit yourself in the face with the ribbon-- which I assume is a problem you've already addressed."

"I was a rhythm gymnast for over a decade," Kathy said, nodding. "I learned how to use ribbons like that for my routine. Once I readjusted to the weight, it's basically the same thing I used to practice with." Less fluttery, of course, but she wasn't as inclined to make pretty patterns in the air if there weren't a panel of judges watching her do it. "Most of the time, though, I'm using it backwards, instead. Make a slipknot with the ribbon, put it over my hand, then send the wand flying into somebody's temple. Or sternum. Or wherever else. The ribbon's fourteen feet long, so it makes for a decent distance weapon that I can hold on to and pull back. The only time I throw the ribbon end at someone, I'm using it as a lasso--the wire reinforcement keeps people from being able to just rip the material."

It wasn't perfect, no, but it usually kept them busy long enough for her to catch up with them and handle things a little more up close and personally.

Pointy End AWAY From You. Wednesday, May 6th, 2015

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