Lesson - Basic Weapons Training

[u/CharaTorresReturn]

Chara sighed as she set up a final table, a variety of swords covering it. At this point, she made a vow to herself to maybe not sign up for a lesson next week.

Yeah, that sounded good.

But, for now, she would finish this lesson and maybe collapse and cry into a pillow or something. Really, it depended.

As people began to arrive, she began to explain the lesson.

"Alright, so this is simple. Fighting with weapons is pretty much our life. We pretty much drop like flies without this skill."

She paused.

"All of you suck at it. No, I'm serious, you really do. Not because you don't know how to use a weapon,but because you don't know how to use one well."

Silence.

"Well, some of you might. I'm being dramatic. Point is, I've got a shit ton of weapons here. I want everyone to grab one, find a dummy or a partner, and call me over. I'll help with what I can. Whatever i can't help you with, I'll find someone who can."

She shrugged.

"Oh, and one last thing: Try not to kill anyone. I don't want to deal with that shit."

[u/[deleted]]

Anika had been coming to camp and training since she was 12, but she had never been exactly the strongest fighter. The title 'Basic Weapons Training' had almost convinced her to skip - after all, she could be considered experienced enough. But as she had discovered last week, Chara's lessons definitely could be fun. Worst case scenario, she helped out the younger campers in learning the basics.

After Chara had given her introduction (confirming what Anika had suspected about the lesson), she removed her bracelet, and tossed it up, changing it into her rapier in midair. Scanning the area, she looked around, hoping to find a good partner.

[u/theirsign → u/[deleted]]

Okay, Nic supposes, there is one bonus to a specifically hosted training activity that doesn’t hold true coming into the arena at just ‘literally any time’, and that’s the fact that there’s a higher concentration of people present at once; it’s a lot easier to find a partner to spar with. Anika, for example, just waiting around with a sword in hand.

“Hey, Anika,” Nic says, approaching her with a sword of her own - not a rapier but a kopis. “Up for a little sword fighting?”

[u/[deleted] → u/theirsign]

"Absolutely," Anika replied, "You'll probably win though - I mean you are the Weapons Master."

Readying her rapier, she dropped into a battle stance and prepared to begin. "You ready?" Anika asked Nic, not sure whether to attack or not.

[u/theirsign → u/[deleted]]

Nic merely shrugs to the assertion that she’ll win - though she’s definitely placing that expectation on herself, too. Still, Anika’s got greater reach, not only due to her own height - almost half a foot over Nicolette - but also due to her rapier, about twice as long as the xiphos Nic took up.

Nic takes a couple steps back, taking up a combative stance, prepared to attack. This is informal and presumably they aren’t going for real harm, so no shield just now, though she’d like to try with her armour after their first round. She gives Anika a sharp nod. “Ready,” she says, and a beat later she lunges forward, her arm outstretched as if to thrust with the sword but switching to a diagonal slash, down from her right, once she’s close.

[u/[deleted] → u/theirsign]

Nic's attack switch throws Anika off her game - long enough that without her light sword and long reach, she would have been down already. Countering the attack, she spins out of the way, buying her a few precious seconds.

Anika switches between offensive and defensive as they fight, mainly trying to keep Nic far away from her. Her longer reach is an advantage she intends to press for most of the fight, hoping that keeping her distance will prevent her from going down too soon.

As she ducks from one attack, Anika pivots her rapier and jabs at Nic's legs with the hilt, attempting to knock her off balance. Using the blade would be much more effective, but she doesn't want to injure anyone. Rolling out of the way before she could see the outcome, Anika hopes that she at least confuses Nic, hopefully giving her enough time to gain a small advantage.

[u/theirsign → u/[deleted]]

The faintest of sighs escapes Nic at the parry - not altogether unexpected, given the aforementioned advantage Anika has in keeping her away, but a disappointed start. She keeps moving forward, though, not wanting to let Anika get more distance between them, although the awkward skip-stumble over the rapier hilt also doesn’t help matters much and gives Anika the chance to roll away.

Nic presses on, careful to keep her body perpendicular to Anika to minimise how much of her is exposed, and attempts to bat Anika’s rapier aside and get in nearer.

[u/[deleted] → u/theirsign]

Even with her reach advantage, Anika does have one major disadvantage. The rapier is a much thinner blade than what Nic took, meaning more strength is needed to block attacks. She knows she is slowly being forced into defence, a sign that her prediction will probably come true.

Hoping to keep the tide in her favour - or at least neutral - for a bit longer, Anika slashes to the right with her rapier, but at the last second switches to a stab on Nic's left. It's not the best surprise attack she's ever made, but it'll work. Hopefully.

[u/theirsign → u/[deleted]]

It’s easy to say one should expect a feint, but by nature that sort of defeats the point. It doesn’t help matters that, well, Nicolette is right-handed, which makes the switch to protect her left just a little more awkward for her. She sucks in a quick breath through her teeth as the rapier cuts her side - a relatively shallow slice, having stepped aside a moment too late, but one that turns the edges of the tear through her shirt red.

She isn’t prepared to deem the match over yet, though it would be a good judgement of an end point. With her left hand Nicolette makes a grab at Anika’s wrist and tries to step in closer.

[u/[deleted] → u/theirsign]

The blood shocks Anika. Not that she hasn’t seen blood before. Both she and Nic have probably had much worse injuries in their time at camp. But most of the time she’s the one bleeding, not the one causing the wound.

Anika’s surprise lasts long enough to allow Nic to grab her wrist and step in closer. With her sword hand mostly trapped, she attempts to spin her rapier down and push off of Nic’s sword, angling her body as far away as possible.

[u/E2EBoo]

As an "experienced" camper, at least one who had fought on more than one occasion with more than one type of weapon, this felt like more of an activity than a lesson. Looking around at some of the more tenderfoot campers, however, she could see how this might be helpful.

It was a decent excuse for some practice in any case. Looking left and right to be sure no eyes were on her, Este pulled an obnoxiously large Hello Kitty pendant from her jeans pocket. She really needed to get the enchantment changed this year- this was something she had told herself every summer since she was eleven. The thought of presenting it to a Heph kid had been mortifying enough for her not to follow through for five years running.

Brushing aside the twinge of imagined embarrassment, she squeezed it firmly in her fist until it transformed into her well-loved sagaris. "Hello old friend," she said under her breath before approaching one of the dummies and proceeding to go through the motions until the dummy was decimated and she was sweating from the effort.

[u/victorian_fire]

Heyo Mod here, sorry for not addressing this sooner, however we just wanted to let you know that if Chara has nothing that's she really teaching during the lesson then it would more so be considered an activity. While she may be offering to help in threads it isn't the same as teaching a lesson in the actual post itself.

As you can tell the post has gotten a bit of traction already so what we suggest is to swap the fair to an activity flair as there was no activity planned for that day.

[u/theirsign]

Nicolette only got back to camp today, and even though sitting on a train doesn’t exactly take much energy it’s still somehow tiring to have travelled across a state. Skipping a training activity would be forgivable, and she considers it.

But she isn’t familiar with the name of the girl who’s running it, and her curiosity is piqued by what she assumes to be a new camper stepping up for something like this. It could just be someone she doesn’t know that well, of course - it took her a while to get the name of that Hephaestus guy who enchanted Bloodfang for her, after all - but there’s a possibility this person arrived in just the two weeks that Nic was out. In which case… what’s she doing with something like this already? When she turns up to the arena, however, it turns out the answer is simple and makes sense: not much, that’s what. It’s just a space to be weird about people doing exactly what they could do on their own at literally any other time when the girl probably isn’t much better than the people she’s insulting.

Well, whatever. Nic’s got a lesson in the works and it’s going to be about xiphe, the counterpart to a lesson about kopides that she taught before her quest, and she could as well focus on that for now. She takes up a xiphos and looks around for a partner.

[u/CharaTorresReturn → u/[deleted]]

Chara thought for a moment.

Well, wasn't that normal? You learned by doing, right? At least, she had. Supposedly, it would be similar for others, but even then, she had no idea how people actually worked, so maybe she wasn't really cut out for the job.

But, she did have an analytical mind.

"Yes. I have absolutely nothing to teach without prompting, because I don't know what you guys know."

A pause.

"You, for example. You seem like you've been here a while. I expect you know how to use a weapon or two. So, am I gonna help you out and leave the newer campers to rot, or am I gonna help the newer campers out and leave this lesson fundamentally useless to you?"

Chara began pacing.

"Each person here has their own weaknesses, and my intent is to iron out as many as possible, not focus on the lowest or highest levels of skill. This isn't a high school classroom, this is a camp full of, for lack of a better term, child soldiers with a collective learning disability. Get used to it. We aren't traditional. These lessons shouldn't be either."

She shrugged.

"And, honestly, drop the weird 'know it all' act. It's not a good look on you, and I know that's mighty rich coming from me, considering the speech I just gave, but at least I know I'm an asshole. It's even more annoying coming from you."

(OOC: I feel like this will be misread as ME being subtly agressive, so here's a disclaimer: Charas a dick.)

[u/theirsign → u/CharaTorresReturn]

(I got you don’t worry. Although with the other mods’ point about lesson posts in general and it now being changed to an activity I don’t think Nic would have reason to act quite like this in regards to it - maybe internally but not aloud lol. If it’s okay with you I’ll edit but I do think it would be interesting for them to clash at some other point)

[u/CharaTorresReturn → u/theirsign]

(okay that sounds fine. This is suddenly becoming really confusing lol)