Let's go!

{if BatonVolt == True}What's awesome is that, because of the work you did in Equipment Maintenance, you can actually join your batons into a staff now. It's shorter than these wooden ones, but still, a lot of what you learn today should carry over. Bopping!{elseif Weapon == 3}This class won't really help you out when it comes to your own weapon, because pepperbox pistols are totally different from wooden staffs, but it should still come in handy when it comes to actual field work. If you get good enough, it might not even matter if you run out of bullets, or your gun breaks, or anything like that. Bopping!{endif}

So far, you and Cameron have both learned all of the techniques to Professor Phoebe's satisfaction, which is saying something! You've got a few basic blocks and defences down from a bunch of different angles, as well as learned attacks that are somehow even better than your initial "giant overhead swing" tactic. Now you can do lunging thrust strikes, which are super hard to block, leg-sweeps, which make you glad that the floor is padded, and smaller non-overhead swings, which don't hit as hard as your tactic, but let you chain up a bunch in a row pretty easily. You had a habit of just holding the staff in the down-position for a few seconds after doing your giant overhead swing tactic, because it made it feel more powerful.

Under Professor Phoebe's excellent training, you're both partially adept at staff-based combat now. Right now, with the basics learned to a (pretty great!) degree, the best thing you guys can do is keep repeating them so that they become muscle memory. With only a little bit of time left in the class, Professor Phoebe occupied with teaching Miranda the second block technique (and giving the rest of you the green light), and with your first free period up next meaning that you're all invincible and that any amount of damage dealt to you will be healed up in no time, it's time to give fighting with Cameron a go. For real this time! No drills!

You grab him by the wrist and pull him, skipping, to find an empty spot on the blue mat for you two to do this for real. He jogs lightly to keep up. When you reach a spot which is to your satisfaction, you release his wrist and quickly run a few steps away from him and hoist up your staff.

Cameron is staring at you with a little smile on his face, like you'd look at a child excitedly explaining the story behind their favourite toys, and hoists up his own staff. You're probably wrong about interpreting that smile though, since it wouldn't really make any sense right now, but that's what it's like.

It's show time, then! The two of you start circling each other slowly, in a mixture of waiting until you see an opening and building up hype in your own body because man this is exciting.

Lexi strolls up to a balance beam near to your fightspace, and hoists herself up to sit on it and watch you two as she swings her legs gently from atop her perch. Miranda's still getting the close attention from Professor Phoebe, so there's not much Lexi can do without a partner, and she seems pretty happy with that. She sets her own staff across her lap, and idly runs her thumb across the smooth wood watching you and Cameron circling a few metres away from her.

Cameron stops walking and lifts his head. "Hey, Lexi, how come-"