concoursec | Office Hours

Entry tags:

Office Hours

Character(s): Snow and... you?? (Anyone who drops by his so-called office hours!)
Location: The WTR classrooms.
Rating: PG?
Open/Closed/Finished: Open.
Summary: Snow is a good Instructor who makes himself available to the students if they need anything.

Once classes finished for the day and the students had entered the blocks of time set aside for tutoring and extracurricular activities, Snow moved back into the training classrooms to hold what he called 'office hours'. The classroom wasn't much of an office, of course, but he figured he'd do more good in it than behind a desk.

He'd let his own classes know that he'd be available, but he hadn't specified that it had to be martial-arts-related. He'd passed word to the other Instructors too, just so they knew he was here (and please don't book the classroom at the same time!).

Until someone showed up looking for him, though, he was content to pummel a punching bag. He had to keep in shape himself, right?

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"Well, okay," said Bulla, still not assured that this was a good plan. There were people around who could use cure magic, though. And she was aiming for his hand rather than his face or stomach, so there was no chance of serious organ damage.

"...I'm really sorry if I break your hand or dislocate your shoulder from this."

She got into stance. Her body language was still reluctant, but she was going to try. After she made certain he was prepared.

"Ready?"

"If you do, I'll be disappointed in myself," he said. He tightened his open palm into a fist momentarily, the brand on his forearm shimmering and the emblem on his coat darkening as active power flowed through the garment. Then he opened his hand again.

"Bring it on."

Well, at least she'd warned him. And she was following instructions. It wasn't as if she was just walking up to Instructor Villiers and decking him.

"Here I go," she said, taking a deep focusing breath before she slammed her fist into Snow's hand with everything she had.

It's... not like punching a wall, because walls don't have a little bit of inevitable biological give to them, and walls would probably not have weathered that blow with just a grunt, a flash of light from the brand, and a shimmer of the emblem.

"That is something," he said, impressed, as he shook his hand a little to ease the sting. "Yeah, no wonder you hold back."

"Is your hand okay?" Bulla asked. She was impressed that he hadn't gone flying, but she noticed the light when she made impact. He had mentioned the anti-matter in his coat before. Perhaps that had something to do with it? She didn't really understand, aside from grasping that it helped Snow be more durable than most people.

"Para-magic isn't my strong point, but I can manage a basic cure spell."

"Just stings a little," he said, flexing the fingers a few times to demonstrate his retained mobility, for her benefit. Then he gave her a look that pretended to be dirty, but that effect was ruined by his overall amusement. "I think you may be underestimating me just a bit. I am a l'cie still, even here."

He leaned back slightly, punching his own palm pretty much unconsciously as he thought. "Hmm, what to do with you."

"Sorry," apologized Bulla. "I wasn't sure of exactly how much you could or couldn't take. Though if I didn't believe you could take a hit better than most people here, I would never have hit you as hard as I could."

As it was, she tended to use about a tenth of her strength when sparring against most of the other cadets, and still got complaints about hitting too hard from some of the natives.

"The reason everyone feared l'cie, back on Cocoon, is that one of us could have destroyed the world." He said that with a light grin, though of course it bothered him more than he'd let on. It was past history, though. He had no intention of dwelling on it.

"Well, first of all, you don't want to give up practicing with that strength. You need to master using it all-out, because it would be one serious waste otherwise." He frowned, still punching his palm without any conscious awareness. "Espio might be able to handle it. He's really tough. If not, I'll do it.

"As for controlling it? The best thing you could do there is judo, or aikido. Both of them are very strong on not using your own strength, but redirecting your opponent's. That has the advantage of being easier on your sparring partners and very good practice in controlling, both."

"Then you'd do just fine around my family and friends of the family," said Bulla, grinning back. "Dad's where I get my strength from. He and my big brother are on a whole other level from me."

She listened to Snow's advice. Espio could handle a fair amount of force. She wasn't sure about using her full force against him, but if not, there was still Instructor Villiers. Knowing that there were people who could take a hit from her without her holding back was somewhat of a relief.

"I think my sparring partners will probably appreciate that," she admitted. "Then it's mostly their own force being turned against them rather than mine being used directly."

"Now, Aang and Katara both might be excellent practice partners for you for that," he continued, running this through his head. "They both already are pretty skilled, and both their styles are more defensive and internal. Different, though. Heh, maybe I should make a class out of this!"

"Learning how to adapt to different kinds of fighting styles is important," said Bulla. "That's part of why I started Fight Club, after all."

Well, that and to give cadets a place to organize sparring matches and give each other pointers. It was also an indirect expression of being homesick.

"I'll talk to them about it and help them work on dealing with an opponent with a fighting style that's more focused on strikes in return."

"Good plan. If there's any way I can help you out, you tell me and I'll make it happen. Just don't go too easy on them in return. You'd be surprised how often 'survive the incredibly powerful hit' is a necessary battle tactic."

He lowered his head, looking aside for a moment as he thought, then looked back up. "Question. How are you doing with paramagic in all this training?" He'd been considering the question of paramagic for some times, as it related to weapons training. Bulla seemed like one of the best students he could sound out.

"Maybe I should get them to hit me as hard as they can and then hit them that hard unless they tell me it's okay to hit harder?" suggested Bulla.

As a personal rule, she tried to get an estimate of an opponent's physical strength and durability and then hit them at about the level of the hardest blow she received from the opponent. It wasn't a flawless plan, but it meant not injuring anyone too badly.

"I barely use it, to be honest," she admitted. "My para-magic grades have been average to maybe a little below average. Rinoa offered to help me improve with it, but I'm trying to rely on my own strength and durability."

"As hard as you all safely can," Snow said with a frown. He didn't want anyone getting injured or hurt in the course of ordinary training, but... "There's a lot of things out there that hit a lot harder than you. Hopefully there aren't many on this world, but if time compression brought you and me here, tomorrow we could be facing down an adamantoise. Those things are about the size of the Garden."

And Snow would never, ever attempt to fight one again!

"See, I was afraid of that," he said. "Magic and fighting combined is better than magic alone. That's something I think I need to pass up the chain, then."

Bulla paused as Instructor Villiers described an admantoise. Now that actually sounded like something pretty intimidating, and it hadn't occurred to her that some of the threats of people's worlds could be brought here via Time Compression as well. She crossed her fingers that none of the threats from her own world had found their way here. Even if she had gotten stronger in her time here, she still didn't feel up to taking on something that could smack around a super saiyan.

"Well...if one ever shows up, I promise I'll come help with fighting it," said Bulla. "It sounds like a lot of people could get killed if one ran wild."

As intimidating as it sounded to fight one, she'd prefer to fight it rather than leave someone else at risk. At least flight gave her a better chance of evading attacks than most people had.

"Everyone would probably want a chance," Snow said, a little glum. He hated to think of how many confident cadets, or even SeeDs, would be injured if one ever showed up here. "I'm just going to hope the only things from Pulse that ever show up here are Vanille and Fang. Everything else can stay there!"

"Well...teamwork is important," pointed out Bulla. "But if you've got monsters the size of Garden from your world, I'll pass on meeting them in person if it could be avoided. I wouldn't want any of the enemies my dad fought showing up here, either."

"Funny how missiles and Sorceresses are the lesser of two or three evils." And l'cie not even on the radar. One more reason for Snow to be generally happy even in the face of these dire imaginings.

"How far along are you in your specialization?" he asked.

"I think you'd be a good judge of that, Instructor Villiers," said Bulla with a cheerful smile. "Considering my first specialty is martial arts. I'm still trying to decide if I want to try for Covert Ops as a secondary specialty or not. I was considering Negotiations, but I don't think I'd feel right doing that."

Back home, she had agreed to stay where it was safe almost without question. But then, back home, there were enough people stronger than her that she wouldn't have contributed much to the fights. Here, she could help, and the idea of other people in danger at the front of the line while she negotiated terms with the enemy safe in some meeting room didn't sit right with her.

"Besides," she added, giggling a little as she put her hands into fists, "if things weren't going well, I might get tempted to talk with my hands."

"That's not a bad idea, actually," he said thoughtfully. "I'm here because I talked instead of punched. It doesn't always work, but it's always better if you can talk sense into someone instead of punching them out."

To break the seriousness of the moment, he grinned broadly. "Of course, monsters aren't very good at listening, huh? I don't think anyone goes into the Training Center to talk the grats into being friendly!"

"Grats and T-rexaurs just aren't very good conversationalists," said Bulla, continuing on with the sillier side of their chat. "Of course, you never know. Maybe they're secretly very talkative and they put on a show for all the Cadets and SeeDs."

"Well now I feel guilty, thanks a lot," he said, still grinning. "I better go apologize to them. Seriously, though, if I was your faculty adviser I'd tell you to go the negotiations route. Knowing when to punch and when to talk is the best skill anyone can have, especially when they hit like you."

"Maybe you can invite them to tea," Bulla teased. "Of course, that might get a little difficult for a T-rexaur."

She considered what Instructor Villiers had to say, but she was still leaning more toward Covert Operations - primarily because she wanted to be out in the field. Covert Ops would allow her to make use of social skills when she needed them, but wouldn't involve worrying about impressing politicians.

"Maybe, but I think Covert Operations would be good for that, too."

Did she really just set him up so obviously? A hero never backs down from even something so easy!

"Why would it be difficult?" he said, biting down on a grin. "They have 'tea' right in their name!"

Then he lifted an arm as a halfhearted guard as he laughed, because she'd be totally justified in swatting him for that one. Never let it be said he's a stodgy stick-in-the-mud professor!

"Oh, that was just cruel and unusual punishment, Instructor Villiers," said Bulla, though she laughed as she said it.

Office Hours

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