The Drakon’s armory was adjacent to the so-called Dome and could be accessed through a door between a pair of raised bleachers. The floor was covered in a mixture of mats and markings that suggested it was used for structured combat practice much like the Dome was. Most of these spaces were a good deal smaller and none were as extravagant as the three Mad Max-like centerpieces of the main arena.
There were training stations placed around the walls of the room, clearly meant for individual practice. They were equipped with training dummies that ranged from simple reinforced planks to thick sets of armor and included more complicated setups, like spinning quintains and rotating mannequins with pegs arms and blunt weapons or shields.
The only thing that seemed to be missing from the room was weapons. Aaron thought the room would be filled with racks and stands bristling with armaments, but there were none. Instead, it turned out that they were stored in wide, flat cabinets he’d mistaken for wood paneling. More than that, the Drakon’s training weapons were not at all what he expected.
Inside the cabinets were simple wooden mock-ups. These plain, blank models varied slightly in size and shape but they were all basically the same — blunt wooden rods distinguished largely by their handles, which had been carved based mostly on the length of the weapon. They seemed far too generic to be of much use for training.
“So how do these work?” Aaron asked.
“First you decide what kind of weapon you want to practice with,” Griffin said. “Then you find a waster that’s about the right size and weight and insert an engram into the handle.”
“What’s a waster?”
“Wooden practice weapon,” Griffin replied, pulling one of the rods out of the cabinet.
He flipped down a second, narrow wooden panel running underneath the bottom of the cabinet, revealing rows of shelving about half an inch high that were laden with small, glass-like stones pressed into a soft setting. He withdrew one of these stones and slotted it into the bottom of the rod’s handle. A moment later, the simple wooden baton transformed into a classic European arming sword.
“Whoa, the blade even shines and reflects light,” Aaron observed.
“These engrams are pretty cool enchantments,” Albert said. “And they utilize magic similar to the stuff in the treadmills and the dampening bands, so they can be used for full contact training.”
Griffin returned the engram and waster to the cabinet. “So, ignoring any practical concerns you might have, are there any weapons you have a particular interest in?”
“Why would I ignore practical concerns?” Aaron asked. “Shouldn’t I learn whatever’s most optimal?”
Albert held a hand out in the so-so gesture. “Only if that’s what resonates with you. In general, the more you like a weapon the better you’ll do at mastering it. That’s not just a motivation issue, either; it’s tied in with intent and magic, too.”
“Do you think I’ve learned how to use big ass hammers because they’re peak optimization?” Griffin asked with a snicker. “You’ll see more eidolons wearing metal armor than anyone else this century who isn’t LARPing, but it’s not like our world is crawling with people in full plate.”
“Okay, well, let me think for a minute; I haven’t given a whole lot of consideration to what my favorite kind of melee weapon is since I thought quicksand would be a much bigger concern than it turned out to be. Even in games, I usually pay more attention to stats and we don’t really have those in real life.”
As he thought back over that youthful period of his life when you had to have a favorite everything — from color to band to animal to painter to tank, weapon, and submarine — Aaron found that he remembered a handful of weapons he had been especially fond of at some point or another. In each case, they were at least mildly cringeworthy.
“I can think of a few I liked when I was a kid, but none of them really grab onto my imagination now,” he said.
“Like what?” Griffin asked. “Give us some examples.”
Aaron sighed. There was no escaping the embarrassment, it seemed. “Nunchucks, zweihanders or claymores, and katanas are the ones that spring to mind.”
“Dang, you really hit the nerdy kid trifecta,” Albert said.
“Tell me about it.”
Griffin gave Aaron an encouraging smile. “Maybe they won’t be for you, but it doesn’t hurt to give each of them a test drive and see if they speak to you.”
Which is precisely what they did for the next half hour.
Aaron was provided with an engrammed waster for each of the weapons he’d mentioned, one by one, and told to just do whatever came to him on any of the training stations. It was fun, moving from one station to the next and wailing on them with weapons from his childhood fantasies, but none of them really felt right.
“No need to worry,” Griffin reassured him. “Believe it or not, plenty of drakus find their way to us with no real experience in using archaic weaponry. The Drakon has gotten pretty good at helping our people find things that work well for them.”
Back at one of the waster cabinets, Griffin touched several small rivets on the inside of the wooden cover. The panel was immediately covered in an array of images. Each image had two parts: a weapon and a picture of someone wielding it, usually posed in a fighting stance Aaron assumed was best suited to that specific piece of equipment.
“This is a neat illusion, much improved by copying modern technology,” Griffin explained. “It will track the motion of your hand just like a touchscreen would and it can scroll or flip like a book.”
“You can also touch an image to expand it into a new page with similar but distinct weapons or drag and flick one to remove it and have something else replace it,” Kiara added.
“If you want to go old school,” Albert said, “there’s also a big enchanted book that’s way more annoying to use but gives you that tactile feedback some people love.”
Aaron had no objection to the conveniences of modern technology — even if it didn’t feel appropriately super magical on his end — so he passed on the inconvenient tome and started going through the catalog on the panel.
The three delvers helped him parse the catalog, which was expansive, by asking him questions or making suggestions. It took them the better part of an hour, but they finally narrowed down the search to a handful of options. There was still some debate and lingering uncertainty over a couple of Aaron’s choices.
“A one-handed bardiche?” Albert asked. “I’m not sure that even exists.”
Griffin rubbed his chin and hummed thoughtfully. “Actually, the epsilon axe is pretty close in terms of the axe head and I think there are historical images or something of it being used with a shield.”
“Screw it,” Albert shrugged. “Add it to the pile and let’s give it a whirl.”
After Griffin pulled out a waster around three feet long and inserted an engram into the base to activate the phantom weapon, they had a total of four options: the epsilon axe, a four and a half foot long bastard sword, and a pair of Japanese kama. Two more weapons had been set aside and were the subject of additional discussion.
One was the European cousin of the kama, a one-handed sickle nearly identical in shape to the agricultural tool seen in the hammer and sickle emblem used by communists around the world. The other was a kukri, a thick shortsword with a recurve blade that bore a vague similarity to the sickle.
“I think it’s telling you picked three different short weapons with a scythe-derived blade design,” Griffin said. “I don’t want to rule out the epsilon or longsword, though.”
“Ominous and spooooooky,” Albert added, wiggling his fingers at Aaron until Kiara smacked him on the shoulder.
Aaron frowned down at the two mismatched weapons. “I just couldn’t seem to feel my way to one or the other. Maybe I’m just being scatterbrained here, but it was making my eye twitch trying to pick.”
“I’ve got extra engrams for the sickle and kukri, so we can run through every combination until you get a better idea,” Griffin assured him.
“Now comes the shitty part,” Albert muttered.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“What’s the shitty part?”
Kiara sighed. “Wailing on the dummies is fun and can help you get an idea of what tickles your pickle, but now that it’s time to get serious about what really clicks with you we need a more formal approach.” She paused. “Unfortunately, none of the three of us are really experts in a ton of different weapons, while-”
“While I studied the blade,” a nasally voice interjected from behind them.
Aaron and the delvers turned to find a man standing a few feet away. He was tall and gangly with blond hair tied back in a ponytail and small, round glasses perched on the edge of a hawkish nose. He wore gray jeans tucked into knee-high combat boots, a bowling shirt splashed with garishly bright colors, and a leather trench coat. To top it all off, a fedora rested on his head. Not a trilby; an honest to god, full-on fedora.
“Aaron Abrams,” Kiara said, “This is-”
“I am Shinobi Sensei,” the man said. He raised a hand with the first two fingers extended to the brim of his hat, then bowed slightly at the waist. “It is my great honor to meet you, Abrams-kakka.”
Aaron gave the tall man a very confused look, but Albert cut in before he could question why the dude had just called him a piece of shit or something. Japanese suffixes were not one of Aaron’s strong suits.
“Shut up, Greg,” Albert said. “Greg Masters is a turbo-weeb who, much to our misfortune and ruin, is some kind of god damned prodigy at learning and mastering the use of melee weapons.”
“Not just melee weapons, Albert-tan, although that is where I excel,” Greg Masters (and definitely not Shinobi Sensei) said. “To better explore and understand your talents and inclinations, I will lead you through a series of exercises with each of the lethal implements you were initially drawn to. You may have to repeat them several times until I am satisfied, yet I remain confident we can find the weapon that calls out to your very soul.”
“We have a lot to do today, so try not to take too long about it,” Kiara said. “Please.”
Masters’s lip curled into a smirk, but he made no other comment. Kiara simply rolled her eyes and joined her fellow delvers in observing and assisting in the assessment process as needed.
The first step in narrowing down the selection involved Masters showing Aaron several different forms and movement patterns with each potential weapon, then having him repeat them. Aaron thought of them as kata, the choreographed series of movements he had learned when he took karate lessons, but Masters used a variety of different terms.
When they practiced with the kama, Masters did, in fact, refer to them as kata, but with the kukri it became yudhan, the epsilon axe required cheironomia, and for the longsword it was the very German-sounding meisterhaue. Only the forms for the European-style sickles were described in English, but even then Masters wasn’t satisfied with calling them something simple like drills or forms and instead referred to them as flourishes.
Regardless of their labels, the end result of these exercises was the same across the board: Masters would guide Aaron through relatively basic stances or movements, advise and assist him on what adjustments to make until he deemed it acceptable, then have Aaron string them together into something resembling a single, cohesive whole.
These simple drills also brought a pleasant surprise — Aaron was able to learn and repeat each of them with relative ease. He’d always had decent kinesthetic awareness, almost startlingly so considering his heavier frame, but this was on an entirely different level. He could reproduce even the most complicated positions and movements in just one or two tries, a significant improvement as far as his understanding of his own capabilities went.
Probably another benefit of the Emergence, he thought. Dragons really are some kind of busted bullshit. I really lucked out that I didn’t awaken into being a troll or something.
Aaron discarded the European sickles as soon as he was done with the exercises. They felt unwieldy and awkward in his hands and he had more trouble with his positioning using them than anything else.
“Very good, Abrams-kakka,” Masters said. “No less than I would expect, yet still exceeding my expectations. It is time to take the next step on the path to mastery and further winnow down your choices.”
They went to one of the training stations with a spinning dummy, this one with a large blunt weapon affixed to one ‘hand’ and a shield on the other side. Masters pulled out a laser pointer and, wielding it like the handle of a rapier, flicked the red dot across the body of the dummy.
“I am going to mark the dummy with my point,” he said. “I want you to attack in whatever way feels comfortable to you. Your goal, however, is not simply to strike your target, but to match the path I set with my guiding light. Remember: you will also need to consider the weapon, shield, and movement of your foe and respond accordingly.”
This new series of exercises was more dynamic and engaging than drilling forms, but it was also exponentially more difficult. Attacking so the blade of a weapon matched the angle of Masters’s pointer was hard enough, but doing it without getting nailed by the blunt steel rod or shield attached to the dummy was frustratingly complicated.
Aaron wouldn’t have said his performance with any of the weapons was more than passable, if he were being charitable. Masters and the delvers, however, all seemed to think he performed quite well, especially given his lack of training or experience.
Training with the dummy also helped Aaron eliminate the epsilon axe from the running. It felt too limiting and he was way more sluggish trying to react and adapt with it. That left the bastard sword and either the paired kama or kukris.
Masters regarded him with a critical eye after the exercises. He placed his odd two-fingered gesture against his lips and angled his head down slightly, perhaps to cast his eyes in shadow for what the wiry man probably thought of as some kind of cool effect. A prodigy with implements of murder the man might be, but he was still a massive fucking dork.
I bet he’s tried to put some kind of coating on his glasses so they’ll turn completely opaque when the light hits them, Aaron thought.
“Can you describe for me, Abrams-kakka, your instinctive style with each of the three remaining weapons?”
Aaron thought over the question for a few seconds. He could feel the answer, intuit and picture it, but putting it into words that made sense required a little time to work out. It was difficult to communicate and easy to get wrong, so he gave the question the consideration it required. After all, the answer could indirectly save his life in the long run.
“I think… or rather, I worry that I might seem hesitant with the bastard sword, but I don’t think that’s the case, exactly. It’s more like my instinct is to use it, uh, deceptively, I guess?” He paused for a moment to reorganize his thoughts and find the right language, because that wasn’t wrong but it wasn’t right either. “I’m prone to feigning passivity with the sword, like probing and hanging back to give the impression I’m yielding momentum and being reactive when, really, my goal is to bait out opportunities or get the opponent to overcommit.”
Masters pursed his lips into his fingers. “Interesting. Please, go on.”
“With the kukris, I feel like I’m more aggressive,” Aaron said. “I’ll push in and try to bully the space, which could help keep an opponent off guard and get around some defenses but I think that also makes it a lot more likely I’ll get banged up in the process.”
“And the kama?” Masters asked.
“A mix of the two, or maybe it’s more accurate to say there’s more, uh, movement between those two approaches. Attacking with them feels harder to do than with the others, but they also feel more adaptable and responsive and I feel like… like I can defend myself and retaliate with them more effectively than the other two.”
“Fair and accurate assessments all around, if somewhat shallow,” Masters said. “Do you have any inkling of which you might prefer, Abrams-kakka?”
“Probably the kama, only…” Aaron paused, biting his lip lightly. “The awkwardness I felt attacking with them worries me. I mean, isn’t that the most fundamental purpose of a weapon?”
Masters shook his odd two-fingered gesture side to side. “The kama are the weapon with the least intuitive usage of anything you chose today, save perhaps the sickle. The placement and position of the blade does not follow the natural lines of the arm and wrist as easily as most other blades.”
“So I should toss it?”
“Should you?”
Aaron found, to his surprise, that he didn’t want to discard the kama. Even if Masters’s caricature of aloof wisdom was annoying, it helped bring his thoughts into focus. The most rational part of Aaron’s brain said the kama would be the hardest to gain serious expertise in, but the bulk of his thoughts leaned strongly in favor of keeping them.
They felt the most him of all the options.
“No, no, I’d like to keep them,” he answered. “But maybe I should learn how to use one of the others, as well?”
“A jack of all trades will be a master of none,” Masters replied. “Besides, practice makes perfect. Or a reasonable facsimile.”
“Alright, the kama it is, then,” Aaron said. “What comes next?”
“I’m told you’re doing a number of assessments over the course of the day. Once you’ve got all of those settled, we’ll work out a training schedule that will optimize your time for the most efficient improvement.”
“We can make that happen,” Kiara said. “One of us will get in touch with you later today, probably this evening.”
Masters bowed slightly to her. “Arigato gozaimasu. I understand our potential Primus has a number of concerns that require his attention, but you can rest assured that I will personally guarantee we have adequate resources available if the decision is made to place an emphasis on weapons and close quarters combat.”
“Thanks, Greg,” Albert said, clapping the tall man on the shoulder and earning a very small sneer in response. “Now, we’re off to get some lunch and then hit the range.”