fandomhighdorms | The Salle, Tuesday Afternoon

It was a grinning, fully clothed Reno who sauntered his way into the salle today, his baton in its usual resting place on his shoulder.

He was in a good mood, yes.

In his hand, he was holding a few shiny green marbles. Which, he mused as he stood back for a minute to watch his buddy mangle the dummy, he was going to have to pocket for a moment just to be sure Romeo wasn't going to grab them and run off to destroy France or something.

He watched for a few more moments, and then he cleared his throat.

Romeo got in one last good blow before he looked up, eyes still a little wild. "Reno," he greeted, lowering the rod to his side. "This is a good day for us to have a session. Are those the materia?"

He would only destroy part of France, really.

"Yeah, man, these are the Materia. Blizzaga and the extras you asked for, yo." He idly tossed them into the air, catching them again with the same soft 'click' sounds you'd expect from marbles. "You need help figurin' out how to get those into the sockets? Or should we, uh..."

He glanced at the dummy. Almost felt sorry for it. Except that it was a dummy, and all.

"Well, I was gonna suggest we warm up. But I think maybe I better start by gettin' you to do a few swings you didn't just pull outta your ass."

"Were they that bad?" Romeo asked. "I wasn't really being careful with my form. I had something else on my mind."

He twirled the baton in his hand thoughtfully. "If it came down to a fight between Hannibal and myself, unarmed, who do you think would win?"

See Romeo. See Romeo look for ego-stroking.

... "Unarmed?"

Suddenly, Reno realized that he'd stepped into the middle of something that was kind of messy. And it took every ounce of restraint to not glance at the exit.

"You, uh, wanna put the baton down and practise spar some, maybe?"

It was the nicest way he could possibly think of to answer that particular question.

Romeo sighed, understanding what not answering implied. He lofted his weapon again. "No. Let's work with the batons. I'm not supposed to fight Hannibal again, anyhow."

A beat. "He's still angry with me for ... you know. Angela."

Three weeks should totally be enough to get over a little thing like a wedding, right?

"Can you blame him?" Reno bit at his lip for a moment, and then gave his shoulders a shrug and held the handful of Materia out toward Romeo. "I mean, if someone ran off and did somethin' like marry Rikku right from under my nose, I'd wish 'em all the best together if they could ever find the guy's body again, yo."

Reno failed at subtlety at the best of times.

Romeo scowled as he clocked the orbs into place.

"I apologized. He just keeps calling me a girl and a weakling. And Yurika and Angela are getting along," he offered feebly, knowing Reno was right.

"You know he's callin' you shit just to get a rise outta you, Romeo," Reno noted, tapping his baton against his shoulder. "He's pissed off, he's got every right to be, so he wants to bloody up his knuckles some. Like it'll make him feel better. With girls, it's different. I dunno what's up with them, man. Seems like all they gotta do is paint one another's nails an' the whole world is right again, zoto."

Reno didn't understand girls as well as he'd like to. Maybe that was for the best.

"So, next time he tries to call you out, why not try... I dunno. Offerin' to buy him a drink or somethin', instead. To make up for the shit that's actually got him pissed, instead of just perpetuatin' it an' givin' him more reason to hate you."

Also, everything could be solved by drinking. Even things that drinking caused in the first place.

Reno might not understand girls, but he wasn't giving bad advice about guys.

Not that Romeo wanted to take it.

"I think I'd all but sooner drink poison again than sit next to him in Caritas, though," he whined. "He already hit me. And it's hard not to argue back, when someone says such things."

Which was as close as Romeo could come to admitting he'd provoked it.

Reno smirked faintly and rolled his eyes. It was okay, he usually didn't follow his own advice, either.

"Then there's the ever-classic 'ignore the guy because he's beneath me anyhow' thing. He's probably just tryin' to beat on you now just to prove he doesn't have a small dick or somethin'. Walk away, man. Don't say a word. Just walk away."

"He already thinks I act like I put myself above him," Romeo noted. "That would drive him insane."

He probably should not have sounded quite so gleeful about that.

Reno blinked as he watched his suggestions continue to backfire on him in the worst way.

"Ooooookay, then! Let's start, uh, workin' with the batons now?"

Because teaching Romeo how to kill things with icebergs falling from above was absolutely the wisest move here, Reno. Yes.

Romeo seemed to be bound and determined to get himself killed one way or the other.

Pity, really.

"Of course," he said, hoisting it into the same position Reno held his in. "You wanted to see me practice using it with more care, right?"

"That's right," Reno agreed. "I wanna see you swingin' it like I taught you, puttin' some strategy into it, before I start showin' you how to cast potentially lethal spells, man. That baton is a loaded weapon right now. Treat it like one, yo."

That was Reno's 'not fucking around' face. If Romeo wanted to hold a grudge against Hannibal for something he started, he was welcome to. On his own time. Right now, Romeo was his.

"Swing. Hard. At the head of that dummy. Then in the same move, haul it back and jab it at its guts, too. Lemmie see."

The "loaded weapon" reference caught Romeo's ear more effectively than anything else Reno could have said, and he shifted, fluidly, to give the rod the respect it deserved.

He swung, hard, catching the dummy in its jawline, then stepped back for a gentler -- and so slightly less effective -- slash at its stomach. If he was still picturing Hannibal as his victim, he'd at least given it up as a topic of conversation.

"How did that look?"

"Well, it looked good enough, if we're goin' for makin' this pretty," Reno mused, stepping forward and repeating the steps that Romeo had taken, just to get a feel for it. "But I'm a little iffy about that attack to the gut. Looked like you held back."

He glanced at Romeo and grinned a little. "There's more to the baton than just the length of it. You wanna hurt somethin' good, put the same amount of force into makin' like you're gonna stab someone with it. It won't break skin, nah, but if you're aimin' it right... Well. There's somethin' to be said for blunt force trauma, zoto."

He demonstrated, hauling back with the baton and putting his whole body into the motion against the dummy. Once to the guts. Once to the groin. Once to the face where the eyes might have been. Again to the throat. "It's all in knowin' where to hit, and then makin' the hits count."

The thought flashed through Romeo's head that Reno was a frightening man. "So I shouldn't be afraid to use it with as much force as I can muster," he nodded. "All right. I'll try again."

He smacked the dummy again, this time hitting where a nose would be, and, before he could second-guess himself and pull back, put all his strength into a blow to the chestbone. It wasn't as strong as Reno's but it was more respectable. He ended with a solid whack to the knees again.

Reno could be a very, very frightening man when he wanted to be. He derived joy just from knowing it was something he was good at.

"Better," Reno noted, grinning faintly. "See, I wanna make sure you know this shit because you're startin' with a higher-level Materia, yo. I'd start you on Blizzard, like more people do, but I dunno if they're gonna level and evolve wherever you're goin'. Don't wanna take the chance. So you're gonna have to grow into the Materia."

He stretched and let his baton rest on his shoulder. Lecture mode was kicking in.

"Which probably don't make much sense, I guess. But experience is the difference between bein' able to fire it off four times before runnin' dry, and bein' able to keep goin' nonstop for twenty or thirty shots. Nevermind that if someone interrupts you while you're castin', you gotta start from scratch with it. You rely on Blizzaga totally, they'll beat you to the floor before you even manage a shot. It's an attack for distance. Know your swings."

Romeo took it in, listening as carefully as he could, before offering his baton to Reno. "Like a gun, then, with the distance. Could you show me how it looks when done properly?"

Reno nodded, taking a moment to uncuff his own baton from his wrist and then offering it to Romeo for a temporary trade.

"Hold this for a moment? I don't need to be holdin' two of these things, yo."

Not that he couldn't, but knowing his luck he'd end up getting his batons mixed and he'd cast Thundaga anyhow.

He backed up a bit, motioning for Romeo to follow as he made decent distance between himself and the dummy.

"Keep in mind, Blizzaga ain't like Thundaga, which targets specific enemies. Blizzaga hits an area that your opponents are standin' in. It's easy as shit to dodge, so you wanna make sure that they ain't goin' anywhere to start. And it takes two or three seconds to cast. A lot can happen in two or three seconds."

He lifted the baton, focusing intently on the dummy for a moment. From somewhere around him- beneath him, from him, through the baton- there was a noise, something between a whoosh and an electric hum. And over the top of the dummy, an ice crystal at least as tall as Reno formed, falling down on top of it.

After it had fallen, splintering down on its head and the floor, the dummy had quite obviously seen better days. "Those splinters? Those hurt, too. You don't wanna be standin' too close when that thing falls. You'll feel it."

[Edit to add: If you can watch this at all, this clip shows Blizzaga pretty clearly. And the casting time, and the time it hovers in the air before falling. Viva YouTube!]

Edited 2009-03-24 17:53 (UTC)

Romeo accepted Reno's baton, idly leaning it back against his shoulder as he watched the ice crystal form and fall.

That was impressive.

"Can you cast it by aiming along their path, to where you think they'll be in a few seconds?" Romeo asked. That was how he'd been taught to hit a moving target. "And you just think of Blizzaga and the stick knows what you wish to do?"

That was the strangest bit of it, to him.

"I wish it worked like that," Reno said, giving a shake of his head and offering the baton back to Romeo, holding his hand out for his own. "Blizzaga, Thundaga, Firaga, they're all pretty much the same in that regard. They'll only fire off at a specific target, yo. Thundaga works fast, and you can take out however many people are stupid enough to be standin' in the way, so that's the one I default to. It don't hit as hard as Blizzaga by a long shot, though. Firaga actually changes its course if your target moves, it's probably the most accurate, but it ain't as strong, either. Blizzaga ain't accurate by a long shot if you got a movin' target, but it's the one most likely to kill 'em off or take 'em down on the first hit if you get 'em."

They all had their little trade-offs, really.

"Castin' it is a little different. It's kinda like... Think about reachin' and puttin' that spell there. With hands you don't really got. Or... askin' someone else to do it for you, and picturin' them doin' it, yo. That's why it takes a while to cast. You gotta actually see it happen in your head, first, and then make it happen, zoto."

Kind of like meditation for people with short attention spans.

Romeo traded the batons, still listening. "So I shouldn't waste this until I have the fiend cornered," he said, bobbing his head in a nod. "I'll give it a try. I think I cast by luck alone with the Thundaga in the woods -- I didn't know how to do it, but somehow it just worked."

Playing a vivid mental movie of the ice crystal forming and falling, he aimed the baton at the poor abused dummy, swung the baton, and cast. A rain of pebble-sized hail fell from -- somewhere. "A start," Romeo judged.

Reno blinked. He blinked and stared.

"A start," he agreed, chewing on his lip again, this time in an attempt to keep from looking too amused at the effort. The hailstones were kind of cute, almost. "Maybe with less swing, now. It ain't about show, it's about pullin' the spell from right outta your guts and lettin' the Materia do the job."

Hee. Hail.

"Less swing, more thought," Romeo nodded, and swung again, slower this time but with more will behind it.

He got an ice crystal to form and crash down on the greatly abused dummy, though it wasn't nearly so large as Reno's ~~not dirty~~. "I think I'm going to have to pay for the dummy."

"We'll just draw a frowny face on it or somethin' before we go and say he was havin' a bad day," Reno mused, scratching at the back of his head.

He'd pay for it himself, if they wanted. He was the one getting Romeo to practise in the salle, instead of some place like the preserve where the worst damage would be to things that had spent all winter frozen over anyhow.

"You're gettin' the hang of it, anyhow. Try a few more times? Until you run dry or whatever. I brought a few ethers along if you wanna keep goin' after that, yo."

"That sounds like an excellent plan," Romeo nodded, and cast Blizzarga again, a second time, and a third. Each time, the crystal got slightly bigger and fell slightly harder. He was far from an expert, but he was getting better; the little movie in his head sharpened with each repetition, and he could feel the power he was drawing from deep in his gut.

He went to cast it again a fourth time, movie crystalline in his head, and --

Nothing.

"I broke it." Romeo lowered the baton to his side. "Or ran dry, as you said."

"The Materia's just fine," Reno replied with a little shrug. "You wear out like that, you can't cast nothin' until you sleep it off or take somethin' to fix it. Here..." He rummaged around in his pocket, and then tossed a small vial at Romeo. "Drink that down. It tastes kinda like ass, but that'll fix you right up. Ether, yo."

Romeo held up the vial, eying it. "Are these hard to replace?" he asked. "I wouldn't want to waste your stock just for training."

"You figure five shots a day is gonna be enough to teach you? They got ethers on Rikku's world too, so just because they ain't makin' 'em anymore on my world doesn't mean they're rare or whatever. We can talk to her about keepin' you in stock, if you're worried. No problem."

Reno shrugged things like that off easily enough. Getting ethers? Not an issue.

"Five shots a day is barely a start," Romeo had to admit, drinking the vial down. If Reno wasn't worried about running out, neither was he.

He made a face. "That is foul. But I suppose it's needed to get back to work?"

"You think that tastes bad, you should try the shit Rikku forced down my throat back in Edge," Reno mused, wrinkling his nose.

X-potions tasted like the physical manifestation of every black, sludgy nastiness that people tried to hide from in their nightmares.

"But yeah, that ether should be enough to keep you goin' for a bit, yo. Give it a few more shots, and we'll see how you're doin' from there."

Romeo scraped his tongue on his teeth, trying not to grimace. "Of course, Reno."

He shouldered the baton again and went back to trying to cast the spell. It was still wobbly, and one attempt resulted in not just hail but pink hail that smelled of vanilla, but he was getting there.

If Reno bit his lip any harder, it was going to bleed.

"I wonder if that'd go good in milkshakes?"

He couldn't help it. He was laughing. This was kind of mandatory laughter, really. It was pink.

"You ain't focusin' on the spell, man."

"Maybe I'm hungry," Romeo suggested, brushing his hair out of his eyes again. He was irritated -- not at Reno, but at the pink hail. "If I throw it once more, can we call it a day and get a snack before Turtle's party?"

"Turtle's got a party?" Reno blinked, and then laughed. "You're probably thinkin' pretty hard about candy corn or somethin', man. I couldn't make pink Blizzaga if I tried, yo."

He waved a hand toward the poor, mangled dummy. "Go on, man. Cast a few more times, and we'll call it a day."

"She has a birthday; I think Amber is throwing the party, at the pool tonight," Romeo explained. "There was an email."

He shook his head, as if to clear it, and closed his eyes. "I'll focus, now."

His next ice crystal was the right size and fell in the right place.

"There you go!" If he wasn't holding on to his own stun baton, Reno would be applauding right about then. "Do that enough, and it gets to be like second-nature, even. I can cast Thundaga without really thinkin'. It does get easier, yo. Promise."

If little kids in the slums could make use of Materia, dammit, Romeo could too.

"I'll keep working with it this week until there's no chance of pink snow," Romeo promised. "Thank you for the training. I can see the trick to it, a little."

"You'll catch on. Here, I got a few spare ethers you can take, zoto. For the road. You feel you need help at some point, though, call me. I don't have much planned this week anyhow, yo."

Reno dug around in his pocket and pulled out a handful of the vials.

It was amazing, sometimes, how many of those he could carry around.

Romeo accepted the potions, jamming them into a pocket. "Do you always carry this many?" he asked.

He shouldn't have been surprised.

"Whenever I can get my hands on 'em," Reno replied with a nod. "I tried countin' how many I had on me at once? It's freakin' weird, yo. I got ninety-nine of these little buggers into my pockets once, somehow. Couldn't get an even hundred in, though. Figure that out."

A pause.

"I didn't even know my pockets were that deep, zoto."

~~I am going to hell for this ping.~~

"They don't bulge from the outside," Romeo said, shrugging a little. "But that is strange."

"It's probably somethin' to do with the item anyhow. I probably wouldn't be able to fit that many pencils in there, or whatever. They make room."

A long pause followed.

"At least, I hope to Odin that's what they do. Otherwise, I'll just end up hurtin' my head trying to think about it."

"My head's already starting to hurt," Romeo volunteered. "Let's at least try to clean the puddle up, and then I'll buy you a drink."

"Good plan," Reno agreed, grinning and nodding his agreement. "I say next time, we go training outside, on the cliffs or somethin'. Few puddles never hurt nobody out there, yo."

And then he was chuckling again.

"It smells like vanilla, man."

The Salle, Tuesday Afternoon

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