Practice Swings Pt. 2 - Julien's Revenge

Julien Bianchi wasn't exactly the smartest kid at camp. He wasn't some dull knucklehead, but let's just say his athletic-based bloodlines didn't necessarily aid him in his studies or common sense. Sure, he passed the previous session with ok marks, but he wasn't going to be heading off for Harvard or Stanford or anything. If anything, Vanderbilt was as high as he could reach for American universities.

But when it came to common sense, Julien wasn't the most...proficient. For example, he was still shooting golf balls at the Ares cabin, still trying to set off the many landmines that circled the crimson hut. And this time, he intentionally would be getting someone involved; Kanchana, this blind Indian girl who he was mentoring, was told to meet him there around this time. Now, he wasn't sure how she'd find him, or how she'd even know when to start..."looking" for him, but he just figured that after his last encounter with a muse kid, she wasn't short of any friendly people to aid her in her day.

But in the meantime, Julien just stood outside the Nike cabin, dressed in the casual outfit of blue jeans, Real Madrid shirt, and a new hat, firing off little divoted spheres of rubber and plastic, hoping to create a disruptive explosion.

Thanks to her developed spatial memory, Kanchana had managed to find the Nike cabin again without help. However, she heard weird noises. Hiss, thwack. Hiss, thwack. "Who is there?" She carefully asked in Ancient Greek, her shoulders tensing. Maybe it was Julien, hopefully it was.
She had taken his advice and sought out the help of Aphrodite campers, who had been happy to cut her hair. Not really caring about the result as long as it was short and practical, she had given them free space to do whatever they fancied. They had described it to her as an 'asymmetrical bob, Julianne Hough style' but that hadn't really helped with picturing. All she knew was that it felt weird now, without the familiar weight swaying down her back.

Between shots at the Ares cabin - none of them resulting in a bang, mind you - Julien heard the familiar voice of his new student, cautiously asking who was by her. "Just me Kanchana, just me." He took another swing before finally turning to look at her, a bit upset by the lack of an explosion this round of practice swings. "Nice hair, much less likely to kill you too. So, how's that spear working for you?"

OOC: Before you get all trigger happy Morgan, no mines are going off in this RP, not by a golf ball at least. And if you want to, you can have Kanchana already have her spear set up with the cane. If you do, we can just skip the Sawyer scene we talked about and move onto more training.

Julien. Good.

She tapped the bottom of her white stick against the ground. "This is practical," she said. "I don't know anything about weapons but your friends said this was the perfect weight and size for me. She's the daughter of the blacksmith god, so I think she knows this better than I do."

Julien had introduced her to a friend of his who had such a deep voice that Kanchana had thought she was a boy. After asking her a few questions, weighing her and examining her body posture, she had crafted her a long thin spear that magically turned into a white stick. Additionally, she had given her a pair of daggers disguised as rings and a bracelet that could transform into a shield. Wonder was maybe not enough to describe how Kanchana had felt receiving those. It was a mixture of fascination, shock, bewilderment, curiosity, awe and reverence. Wearing them, holding them, she felt as legendary as Karna or Parashuram.

However, she still needed to learn how to use them. But she was confident. She was carrying magical weapons and could charm others with her voice. She felt more confident now than in any other time in her life.

OOC: Done! I think it was easier this way :P

OOC: Oh yeah, much easier.

BIC: Julien had an internal smile when Kanchana brought up Sawyer. If there was something he liked more than anything else in the world, it was a woman who knew her way around a shop. Or, in this case, a forge. Regardless of the locale, he found such a quality both attractive and beneficial. After all, when his dad has been talking to several Indycar team owners about their testing seats, it wouldn't be bad to have someone he knew working on the cars.

But that was all just speculation, the Indy seats, so that wasn't a priority at the moment. Whether or not the racing torch was passed to him was not his decision to make, at least not when at camp. Right now, Kanchana was standing before him, many new toys in her hands that she didn't know how to use - use properly, that is (anyone can use a knife and a bespoke spear tailored to them).  "They are practical indeed. Much nicer carrying around a cane than a spear, isn't it? Anyway, which one of your new tools would you like to start working on?"

"Which one do you advise?" In this, she was following Julien 100%. She had no experience, he had plenty, which made her opinion on this stuff practically null.

OOC: Should we do flashes of training so it doesn't drag on too much?

OOC: Montage you say? I'll grab the 80s music then.

OOC: :P Sure thing. Wanna keep it in this topic or start a new thread in the arena?

OOC: Why waste this topic? Let's keep it here.

Kanchana whirled the spear around like Julien had showed her, but he still managed to hit her.

"Too slow?" she asked.

"Too slow." he replied; "You're not going to last a battle if you keep moving around like a drunk. Listen for the opponent and then swiftly strike once they're close, got it?"

But how will I know when they're close enough? She wouldn't be able to see her opponents. All she had were her ears.

Yet, she set her jaw and nodded once. There was no way around this. She just had to train as hard and often as she could.

Kanchana took her spear and went back to the first fighting stance, listening as hard as she could for any movement on Julien's side. Footsteps, rustle of clothing, metallic sounds,... even a sliver of breathing could be helpful.