damned_institute | Nightshift 60: F11-F20 Hallway

Renji nodded, feeling a small wash of relief. The fact that it was monsters instead of people made things both more and less complicated. Monsters were a lot stronger, but also more direct. "Gotcha. Okay. Guess we'll work with what weapons you got, and a couple of things you can do unarmed. It's a place to start."

He eyed the candlestick thoughtfully and nodded. "Glad you have it. I used to have a sword, but it went missing when I got taken out, so I guess it's gone for good." He made no move to take the candlestick, though. He didn't want her to think he was going to try to take her stuff.

He glanced at the door, but there was no sister immediately running in, so that let him ask the next question. "Your sister gonna let you protect her? Because it's way harder to get the job done if there's someone in the way."

"I'm afraid she might have the same intention. Our parents died when she was young; we've only had each other ever since." The fact that Lana herself couldn't have been that old, given the usual minimum age this place seemed to allow, went without saying.

"I think we might be able to agree to watch each others backs, though." She didn't want to let Ema go after any monsters, but she was trying to be realistic. One of them had to.

"As far as I know, she's unarmed, so perhaps we should start with that." Lana's eyes flicked to the door -- she hoped Ema hadn't fallen asleep again, even if the girl could use the rest.

[from here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1212196.html?thread=81785636#t81785636)]

When Ema finally arrived at F16, she could hear muted voices from the other side of the door. It looked like their tutor had beaten her there, which wasn't much of a surprise given Ema's delayed start and her slow pace. More likely than not, they would get started as soon as she announced her arrival. All she could hope for was that she wouldn't be too much of a failure as a student. Self-defense wasn't something with which Ema was well-versed. Lana was the one capable of great physical feats, not her.

Of course, all of that would happen after gaining entry to the room. Ema knocked on the door a few times before calling out, "Lana? It's me!"

Renji nodded. He knew kind of how that worked, at least when it came to kids watching each other's backs and the bond that formed. It was important, and not something you could just break. "Okay. I understand. More'n you might guess." He grinned. "You can probably get her to let you be in front eventually, but it helps if you're way better at fighting than she is." That had been the only way he'd ever gotten Rukia to let him take some hits, and even then she'd sure made him pay for it.

But he didn't want to think about that right now.

"The unarmed is going to be ugly. Get her a weapon. Something with some range on it, but still light. Like maybe a broomstick." He considered suggesting that she get the candlestick, but a club-like weapon was probably better used by the older sibling who was probably going to be a lot more aggressive with it. "Something like that's good for keeping the bad stuff at bay. But unarmed is most important, you're right."

Because unarmed with a monster - unless they were way more advanced as students than Renji was willing to bet they were - was all about just getting the hell away from them hen something had already gone really wrong.

If he was going to say anything else, he fell silent when someone knocked on the door. It was probably Lana's sister, considering he heard the muffled sound of a girl's voice. He glanced at Lana, then took the few steps over to the door and opened it, making sure to stand aside so Lana would be visible. He knew he looked kind of off-putting to some people.

"Understood." She didn't like it, but she didn't have to. She just had to do it. And as if summoned, Ema had arrived. She caught Renji's positioning; nicely done. She waved, beckoning Ema in.

"Ema, this is Renji. He's agreed to give us a few pointers."

The next words came out like she'd swallowed leftovers that had gone bad -- the words came out normally, but her brow was wrinkled and her expression confused. "He mentioned that we need to get you a weapon -- after we're done here, do you want to go look for something?"

"But first, your students await."

Ema stepped into the room when Lana beckoned her in, looking around until she found their instructor for the night. The man--Renji--looked like someone who knew how to defend himself; she couldn't help but feel like meeting him under different circumstances (i.e., in a fight) was something she'd want to avoid. It was a good thing he was there to help, at any rate. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Renji."

When Lana brought up weapons, Ema's stomach sank a little. She was armed last night, although she didn't actually use it when the monster attacked. Besides that, Mr. Javert's handaxe was no longer in her possession. Perhaps it was just as well. Ema wasn't sure she'd have the heart to actually wield it. "I have a small garden shovel," she offered, pulling it out of her bag to demonstrate. "I figured that was better than hitting rats with my flashlight." After a bit of hesitation--honestly, Ema didn't want to go anywhere--she added, "But we can get something after we're done if you think we should." What Ema wanted and what she needed to do were entirely different things. It was like Zero said. She needed to move forward.

That decided, Ema set her stuff down so that they could begin. She set her flashlight onto the other bed to help eliminate more of the shadows.

Renji gave Ema a little bow, just because he felt like he should. "Yeah, likewise."

He looked at the shovel. "It's definitely better than the flashlight. But mostly what I'm thinking is you probably want a weapon that's going to give you better range. Like a broomstick, maybe."

He gave the two women a wry smile. "Because that's lesson number one. If you guys aren't normally fighters, it takes a long time to get really good at it. So what you should always be thinking about is how to get the hell away from things. Only stand and fight if they corner you. And there's nothing wrong with doin' it that way. I was a street kid. You learn quick that most of the time there's a fight, you're better off just not being in it." So wherever you're going, be thinking about a couple of escape routes while you're going there. Ones where you can get a door between you and what's chasing you."

"So for something like that shovel, you're probably going to want two-hand it, like this," he demonstrated how it would be best to grip it, "just because that'll give you more power when you swing, and you're less likely to get it knocked out of your hands. A lot of the stuff is just animals, so sometimes you can scare it away if you give it a good smack. Eyes, ears, and nose are the most vulnerable things you can hit. You hit hard enough, it hurts like a bitch and it's really disorienting, so that can buy you time to run."

He paused, knowing he'd already said an awful lot. "I mean, that's all real basic stuff. Okay so far?"

"We're with you." Lana took a grip similar to the one Renji had shown on her own candlestick, and took a tentative swing. "I'd like nothing better, I assure you. I'm just afraid that hasn't been possible, in my experience."

"The thing I saw looked like a lot of different animals patched together -- with some ugly claws." The fact that Ema had seen something similar didn't need to be brought up; if she could spare her having to talk about anything, she'd do so. "What's the best way to avoid those, if running is impractical?"

All they'd need to do would be to get to each other, if she could use the ring to move, but that hadn't worked very well last time, now had it? Though why Gant hadn't teleported himself alone, she would never know; pride, perhaps. It seemed more likely than altruism.

When it came to physical combat, Ema's pride wasn't so great that she intended to prove her prowess by standing down a monster in the hallway. She'd been on the receiving end of an attack by a smaller animal and had seen first-hand an attack by a much-larger patchwork horror. Escape from an attacker was priority number one. Scientifically speaking, it was one-half of the fight-or-flight instinct, after all.

When Mr. Renji began his instruction, Ema grabbed her journal out of her bag and began jotting down notes. This was a lesson, which meant that she was taking it seriously. What if she forgot something later? She even took a few would-be practice swings with the journal, holding it on either side with both hands as she went through the motions. "Got it."

Lana's question interrupted Ema's practicing, however. This was something that Ema needed help with, more so than defending herself against the giant rats that roamed the hallways.

Renji watched both the women and made a few corrections, just on how to stand a little better. "When you swing, you get the most power out of overhand, but it also takes longer. Just try not to have to do an upswing. It's low power and you're fighting gravity instead of getting help. Okay, and since there are two of you, get comfortable fighting back to back if there's more than one thing. That doesn't mean actually having your backs together... you need enough space that you can still move and get in a good swing. So you want like two or three paces between you. Enough that you can back up fast if something tries to get between."

He thought about the creatures Lana mentioned. "Those ones are... weird. They're always different so there's not one right way to fight them. And if there's just one area they stick to, I haven't heard of it. Honestly, unless you've got some... uh... big guns with you, just run. Get the hell away from them. Go for the nearest stairs, since most of the time they can't manage those real fast. If you absolutely can't run, go for the heads, try to avoid the claws, hope for the best." He looked at the shovel. "You can try to use something like that as a shield because it's got some surface area one it. So one of you blocks, the other attacks. You just need to have a good grip on the handle and be ready to turn the blade to catch the claws."

He looked at the shovel again. "If you don't mind..." he picked it up and held it. The thing felt really small, but it probably would work better for the girls because they were small. "So the big thing is you have to have your grip pretty loose so you can turn it, but then hold it firm when you actually take a hit." He demonstrated. "You never put a tight grip on a weapon unless you're about to take an impact."

Even guns hadn't done much, though as guns went, it had been a rather small one. The scalpel had done the most damage, but it had been a complete lucky hit, and one that she couldn't count on repeating.

The stairs were a good idea -- damn, she should have jumped on the desk instead of ducking behind it. Grabbed one of the drawers as a shield. Instead, she'd hid and panicked and relied on Gant's rusty firearms training, which had not been his most shining moment.

"I was afraid of that," she said, in answer to his comment about those things infesting the entire institute. "It was my fault; I knew this was something we should do, and I hadn't found the time. Now all we can do is prevent it happening again." She still hadn't specified what it was, but if Renji couldn't put two and two together, he didn't need to know.

Then she fell silent, watching his technique.

"Loose hold, right." Lana wasn't usually one to buckle under an onslaught of information, but she usually wasn't having to do anything physical at the time. She wasn't about to join Ema in making notes, but she muttered a reiteration of the things he'd just told them as she stepped through a couple of swings. Perhaps hunting for shields, not weapons, would be the prudent course.

For her part, Ema held onto Mr. Renji's every word as she took down notes--advice, technique, all of it. Although, when he got to how best to deal with the patchwork monsters, Ema had to use extra effort to stay focused. It was hard not to get caught up in remembering the previous night and how that had ended. Mr. Javert could have ran with them, but he'd elected to stay back and hold it off. And...

No. She needed to focus so it didn't happen again. Otherwise, this whole exercise in self-defense was pointless, as was Mr. Javert's sacrifice. Better to focus on the lesson and not the feelings associated with it.

After watching Lana give a few practice swings and swinging her book twice herself, Ema turned to their instructor and asked, in all seriousness, "How would you define what's too tight and what's too loose, scientifically speaking?" It was a perfectly legitimate question as far as she was concerned, since it sounded like the margin of error that was permissible for either was relatively slim.

He definitely got the impression that there was a reason for the sudden interest in self-defense, and it probably had something to do with a bad encounter. Maybe a bad encounter that had gotten someone killed. If they weren't talking about it straight, though, he wasn't going to poke his nose in and ask. It was probably hard enough for them to deal with alread.

Renji stared at Ema like she was speaking a foreign language, then finally said, "I don't think I can. It's too lose if you can get it knocked out of your hands, too tight if you're fighting against yourself or lose some of your motion range cause you're holding on too tight. You got to just practice it and feel it." He guessed he should be flattered that Ema didn't think he looked like too much of a moron for a question like that, but he kind of was. Or maybe not so much a moron as uneducated. Shinigami didn't really bother with the whole science thing.

Renji watched Lana carefully. She was starting to get that look, like she was getting a little overloaded. It was a look he'd had on often enough himself when he'd first gone to the academy and had been playing catch up. It hadn't done him a lot of good to try to learn everything at once, and he doubted it would work any more for a couple of presumably normal humans.

He nodded as if to himself. "How about we call it there for tonight unless you've got any questions. You two practice what I went over, and keep the stuff that you can't really practice in mind as best you can. If you want, we can do some more tomorrow. Just let me know what you want to do."

Ema grabbed things and hung on until she was hanging by her fingernails from the ceiling. Though usually in a more metaphorical sense. She looked interested, though, and not thinking so hard about what had happened; both were a marked improvement.

Then again, Lana had occasionally been accused of stubbornness herself. She admired Renji's patience, and appreciated it, as Ema's questioning could -- and had -- made grown men weep, though for very different reasons than Lana's turns at interrogation.

"That sounds like an excellent idea. I think we've both got enough to practice, and I expect you have things to attend to." She wouldn't dwell on the fact that, at night, she and Ema were both pretty much useless; it didn't help to think about it, and if they couldn't be helpful, at least they could learn to avoid slowing anyone down.

Mr. Renji's answer wasn't satisfactory (why weren't people more scientific about these things?), but it at least gave clearer parameters on what was acceptable and why. Tightly enough to keep a grip, loosely enough to maintain flexibility. She'd have to undertake her own experiments to see where those limits were on her own time.

As if realizing as much, he and Lana both seemed to believe that they had enough to work on for tonight. Ema had to agree--she'd already filled a few pages with notes and needed to review them before they stopped making sense. Besides, like Lana had said, he probably had his own agenda to attend to during the night. It was better not to use up all of his time. "Thank you very much for helping us tonight, Mr. Renji. I'll practice and do my best." And, if she figures out the calculations of force and pressure and velocity, she'd give him the scientific answer he didn't have for her. Just in case someone else asked him sometime in the future.

"Sure thing," Renji said. "Just give me a yell when you want to work on more." He grabbed his flashlight and headed for the door, then paused to say, "Stay as safe as you can, both of you."

He slipped out of the room and headed out into the hallway.

"Did you want to now? Practice, that is?" Her eyes gleamed. "A little empiric study?" Lana laid the word empiric out there like a trap for a defense attorney, though with no malice in it. They both could use the practice, and the exercise.

"Or we could go hunting some better shields, if you'd rather not be stuck in here all night." Her nonchalance was studied; to be honest, she wasn't sure she was up for too much poking around in dark corners, but she had to pretend.

Several moments (and a few swings of Ema's spade) went by before Ema answered. The silence wasn't teenage petulance or anything of the like; rather, Ema needed the time to think it through. She was torn between what they should get done and what she felt most comfortable doing. Priority number one really should have been procuring weapons and a method of defense. However, after last night the idea of spending a lot of time wandering into who-knew-what was wholly unappealing. Even after spending a day doing her best to push past what had happened, she was still pretty strongly shaken.

Carefully, Ema looked up at her sister. "Maybe it would be better if we practiced instead of went out exploring. So we're more ready tomorrow night." There was hesitance in her voice, as if she expected Lana to disapprove or disagree. Ema felt a bit disappointed in herself, like she should have been able to recover faster than she had been.

"Certainly." Perhaps it might be prudent to practice with something less dangerous than a candlestick and a shovel...but that would require having other options. Oh, well. The worst that would happen would be a loose tooth or a few bruises.

"Before we do that, though, there's something I should show you. Two things, actually." She went to the dresser and opened the second drawer, motioning Ema to come look.

In the drawer was a revolver and a small, golden ring with a red stone. "If something happens to me," she said, and trailed off. You should know to look for them. "At close range, even if you miss, a gun will startle a monster. The safety is here; flip it off, and pull the trigger."

Then she picked up the ring -- the easy one. "As bizarre as it sounds, this will teleport you. Break the stone, and you and anyone touching you will be brought here. Blood will reset it to the location where you're standing. Or so I'm told. It worked once, but I haven't tried it myself." If Ema couldn't figure out when, well, she didn't really need to know.

Nightshift 60: F11-F20 Hallway

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[argh sorry christmas ate me]

[post-Christmas ate me. ^^() Sorry about the delay!]

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