Despite it having not been that long since he sat down, Mammoth was still making quick work of his food. That said he wasn’t a messy eater, though one would be hard pressed to say he ate with manners, regardless it took the giant teen a moment to finish his mouthful before he could respond to Jinny.

“Oh, uhh.” He would give a shrug, seemingly a bit taken aback at Jinny coming over in the first place. “Not a whole lot, just trying to get the most out of breakfast that I can.” He’d say before eating an entire muffin in one bite. “Your Gizmo’s friend yeah?” He’d ask after swallowing.

“He mentioned you last night, something about needing to keep an eye out for you and something about his jetpack?” The teen would scratch the back of his head at that. “Not sure what he was talking about. Especially since his jetpack was still a work in progress from what he said last time I asked.”

“If not, Sorry about that. Either way name’s Baran.” He’d offer up a hand to shake with his introduction. “I go by Mammoth in class.”

“Baran.” Jin shook his hand, or tried to. The most her small hand could wrap around was one of his fingers. She sat on the bench beside him, her feet swinging in open air. “Call me Jin. Callsign is a work in progress. And - yeah, Gizmo and I met.” She chuckled.

“He let me fly his jetpack without telling me it was still in beta. So there’s that. I think he’s under the impression that I’m going to get him back.” She smiled a warm smile, a practiced smile. Her brown eyes were cold. “I’m honestly already over it,” she lied.

All she needed was time and a good plan. How to embarrass Gizmo just enough that he got the message without completely ruining his cred? She knew she only had one chance, and she’d have to make it count.

She ate some of her breakfast, her ingrained manners a lot more polite than Mammoth. Although, she was probably packing food away just as fast.

“So, do you guys get a special dorm room or something?”

“Ha!” Baran let out a booming laugh that got a few curious looks purely due to the noise of it. “Yeah, that sounds like him.” He’d agree with a smile. “Had a similar sort of first introduction, I was pulling shrapnel out of my teeth for days because of it.”

“And nah, same room as everyone else.” Would be his answer. “Giz lives there though, so pretty sure we’ve got a few things that aren't normally a part of the rooms. Unless your stove is also an intruder defense system as well?” He’d ask, but the look on his face was rather apparent that he doubted it.

“Either way, we’re down in 314.” He’d add on with a nod towards the hallway. Though from what Jinny had seen that did mean that their room was on a lower floor.

“What class do you have after this?” Baran would go on to ask, most of his food eaten at this time, but he was taking his time with the last of it, mainly fruits. “I’ve got Algebra two.” He’d offer with a grimace.

Jinny was surprised. She figured kids in a villain school would be a lot more wary of strangers. Especially revenge bound strangers. Either she was a better liar than she thought, or Baran didn’t care about the info he spilled. In any case, she’d just picked up vital info. Now she knew where to find Gizmo when he slept, and she now knew to prepare for a defense system of some kind. And she hadn’t even had to try!

“Math is first. They stuck me in geometry but I’m so past that. It’s so boring – I’m going to have to test high to get out of it.”

“Algebra 2 is pretty cool stuff. Polynomials and quadratics are the building blocks to the really good shit-” She paused, noting the grimace on Balan’s face. She was getting distracted and reined herself in. “Anyway, what I meant to say was, I’m trying to get into that class. If I get in and you want help, I’m sure we can work out a trade or something. Especially if you’re good with English.” Now it was her turn to make a face. “I kinda hate it.” Even though he was older, maybe he’d be cool about having a small friend. If Gizmo was any indication, perhaps he already was.

After emptying her tray down to crumbs and an errant banana peel, Jinny grinned upward. “Anyway, it was cool to meet you, Mammoth. Tell Gizmo I said hi.” She got up, dumped her tray, and consulted her campus map and her course schedule.

1st Math
2nd English
3rd Power Control
4th Open
Lunch
5th Stealth
6th Weapons
7th Open
8th Spying

Most of the “normal” courses were above ground. Math was one of them, so she headed outside. Even though it was still early, it was shaping up to be a nice day.

“We can talk about that trade when you show up to class” Mammoth would say with a nod, not surprised at Jinny’s love for numbers. But with a friend like Gizmo, it was hard to find a small person who liked math surprising.

“And don’t worry I’ll be sure to send Giz your hello.” He gave a surprisingly wicked smirk as he waved her off “After all you are such good friends right?” His tone made it rather obvious that he knew that Jinny wasn’t done with Gizmo. But also that he was probably going to simply sit back at watch rather than doing anything about it.

He was friends with Gizmo after all.

Exiting the cafeteria and going above ground was a simple thing. And in her school uniform she blended in as just another student getting ready for the day. Not that she went unnoticed. The staff seemed to recognize her easily enough, as did a few of what seemed to be the older students.

The staff were professional about it, an extra moment or two of inspection than treating her like any other student. The older students seemed to take her presence as an indicator of Slade being somewhere nearby and would try and spy the man.

A failure in the making even if he was around.
The Math classes, alongside a majority of the regular ‘core’ classes, were housed in the main building, which the main elevators did connect to, they were also only a short walk away from the above ground dorms, which likely had their own elevators down into the hidden aspects of the school.

Still walking around up here, fresh and ready and aware, it was easier to notice the things hidden. Places that lacked cameras or noticeable scuffs on the floor where people stopped often at a seemingly bland section of wall. Jinny didn’t know where everything was, something that only the teachers did if what she learned yesterday was right, but she could pick out at least the obvious locations for now.

The math class itself was sadly underwhelming all in all. It was a rather normal class with only a few notable differences. The first was the teacher had a rather complicated looking linear algebraic equation on the board before the class had even started.

“Anyone who can solve this equation before class is over, tell me what it is used for, and if the math is right will get an automatic pass in any of my classes you might end up in for the rest of the year.” The teacher explained, obviously not expecting anyone to be able to fulfill that challenge.

“For those who feel that they are in the wrong class level” He would go on to say wheeling out a cart with test packets on it. “Feel free to take a test for whatever level of math you think you are ready for.”

“Everyone else, welcome to geometry.”

He then went on to give what seemed to be a standard introduction to the class and what it was he would be teaching. Leaving the students who were trying to study into a different class alone while they were working, but not stopping his teaching as he did so.

English was, if anything, even more disappointing as it was simply straight up a normal class. Really if Jinny hadn’t seen the true school yesterday she would likely have been very disappointed. As at the moment the only odd thing about her classes was that not everyone was the same age. Most were older than her, some only by a year, some by nearly five. It seemed merit was more important than age.

Thankfully, her third class of the day was below and removed any concern that might have been sticking around about the nature of the school. The teacher was a woman who was at least partially composed of fire as far as anyone could tell. And she explained that the class's goal was to help teach control over the various abilities the students might have, at least for now, and eventually would shift into combat uses for them.

The other thing of note about this class was that Jinny recognized one of the other students here. Jinx was also in this class, but despite being her room mate the older girl made no mention or gesture of any kind of familiarity with Jinny. In fact Jinx very obviously kept herself apart from everyone else in the class, something that the rest of the class seemed all too willing to reciprocate.
The class was simple in scope for the first day, getting a baseline idea about what the various students could do. Speed of power use, scope of power use, and strength of said power. With the only point of note about these baseline tests being Jinx’s target dummy violently exploding when she was up to demonstrate her power.

After that class Jinny had a whole period to herself, and free access to any of the gym’s not being used by a class at the moment. She also had the chance of rolling it into her lunch and just getting an extra long break.

After that came Stealth. The teacher was a nondescript looking sort, if one ignored the fact he was dressed like a ninja. And he too greeted the class with a challenge. “Whoever can lift this from my person undetected before the end of the year will be excused from all further classes.” He said holding up a large gold looking disc about the size of his palm. “They may also keep it and do what they wish with it.” He added before slipping it into one of his pockets.

He went on then to explain how the class would function, it was a split theory and physical class. The theory would cover techniques and ideologies useful to going unseen or unnoticed, gaps in human psychology that were useful to those ends. The physical aspects would be where they were given a chance to hone their technique on either him, their fellow students, or various obstacle courses that would be set up.

There was also the feeling that Jinny got that this teacher was watching her more than any of her others so far, but they said nothing about it and quite literally vanished the moment class was over. It was a decent class overall though, and served as a decent warmup for the next class.

Weapons.

Stolling into the gym where this class was held the first thing Jinny would notice was her father was standing in the middle of a large mat dressed in his full mercenary outfit with his arms crossed over his chest as he waited for all of the students to arrive. Outside the mat there were a few tables set up with a variety of practice weapons of all sorts. And a few older punching bags lined up against the wall next to the door.

While waiting for class to start, Jinny would come to learn that she shared this class with both Gizmo and Bumblebee. Both of them recognized Slade, even if Gizmo didn’t recognize who it was under the mask.

“Shit” Bee would swear softly as she took in who their teacher was. “I heard the rumors but I didn’t think it was true. How much did they have to pay to get the Terminator to teach here I wonder?” She would muse aloud, something that various other students were also doing even as Slade simply stayed where he was unmoving and silent. Knowing him he would stay that way until just as the class started.

“Damn it all” Gizmo on the other hand was simply complaining. “I just wanted to work on my accuracy, but this is going to be a whole thing isn’t it?” Which judging by the table of weapons that were next to the mat was a good assumption. There were firearms there as well so he would be getting his wish with some accuracy training as well at least.

“Oh come on, we are getting taught by a living legend here, you could show some enthusiasm about it.” Bee would retort eagerly awaiting the beginning of class.

Jinny was not amused with the stares. It had been less than 24 hours and the staring thing was already old. She took it in stride, though, making eye contact with the older students, and then letting her gaze pass through them as if they didn’t matter. (She had been practicing this in the mirror for months.)

It was nice to get a good look at the school with less people around. Now that she knew certain things were there, she was noticing the missing cameras, walls and areas of the grounds that seemed a little off, staff that looked a little too bulked up to be normal. What she really wanted to do was explore the place in earnest. But: there was class. Oh well, maybe tonight.

Early morning math was the best thing to get her mind going. It was a very normal classroom, which was a definite disappointment. She settled in the middle of the class, noting the equation on the board and writing it down. Playing with her braid, she let it simmer in her brain a while. Some of the math she was able to work out and write down, but the rest of it stumped her. That was exciting. So far, she hadn’t met an equation she couldn’t tackle, but this… this was new.

She actually had to tear herself away from the new puzzle in order to take her test. It wasn’t particularly hard. She’d seen most of it in the textbooks she owned at home. Finished in half an hour, she dropped the completed test off on the teacher’s desk before quietly starting back on the complicated equation. What could it be for? It was a little disappointing to leave, especially since she had the dreaded English next.

While she could read, it was a slow process. Letters tended to move and twist, leaving words incomplete, or incomprehensible. Sometimes she jumped lines and had to go back. Certain fonts left her illiterate entirely. She’d gotten around it in school with memorization and audiobooks.

It was a surprise to see the blended class, though. She was definitely not the youngest, but the older students were a bit of a surprise. It didn’t particularly bother her, though. If she was going to make it here, especially in the upper level courses, she’d just have to make them respect her. Easier said than done. She left English with a clouded brain and an early assignment.

Power Control helped clear that up, happily. If she’d been asleep before, she was definitely awake now. Now the real tests were going to begin. For her power demonstration, she levitated the training dummy while lifting herself off the ground at the same time. And then, she shoved it into the nearest wall with a hard wave of her hand. It didn’t break nearly as spectacularly as Jinx’s had. She chose to ignore her roommate, only in part because Jinx had chosen to do the same. It would probably be easier that way, going forward.

With her free period, she decided to meditate. It had been mostly a day of sitting down and paying attention, so far. It made her antsy, for one. And for another, there was no sense in breaking from a routine that worked. She went back to her room, and after locking the door and putting on peaceful music, she sat on her bed and closed her eyes. Not asleep. Still aware. Just… letting her fast and scattered thoughts compose themselves into some kind of order before lunch. She spent a good 45 minutes at that before going to lunch.

The cafeteria was quite busy by this time of the afternoon, even with the multiple lines leading to multiple dishes. Today, she decided to try some pizza, a supreme with plenty of toppings. Once she was done getting her food, she peered around the cafeteria for the few people she knew. Finding no one, she sat alone. After picking off the olives and eating, the rest of her time was devoted to picking at that morning’s math problem again.

The teacher’s challenge in the Stealth class was somewhat ignored. Jinny knew she was good at stealth, but not perfect. Being able to float was helpful, but she wanted to learn it for real, from the ground up. She recorded the teacher on her phone for later note-taking, knowing for a fact that this would be integral for her to learn well.

And then:

Weapons.

She stepped into the gym, noting her Otou-san standing in the middle. She did not go to him, though she sort of wanted to. It was still intimidating to her, seeing him in full gear. While she wasn’t scared anymore, she figured that he was in a serious mode. Maybe she’d bother him once the day was over. The table of weapons gave her pause. Maybe she should try something new for the class. Start from the top, and keep the daggers to her private lessons.

Joining her friends, she pretended to be just as surprised and intimidated as they were. The surprise was fake. The intimidation? Much less so. “I bet it was a lot of money. I also bet we’re probably going to get our asses kicked. A lot.” Both true statements, but how true remained to be seen. “How’d the rest of your classes go, guys?”

Gizmo lifted up his goggles so that Jinny could see the full display of his glare at her in regards to her question. “Mammoth says hi, and I regret telling him about you already.” Came the smaller boy’s reply though there wasn’t much real heat to his words. “I lost my lunch break because of him,” He sent another glare at Jinny “And you.”

“But I was finally given access to the workshop again, and I think I figured out what the problem with my jetpack was so I was able to get that fixed.”

”It was nice to get back into the swing of things..” Bee would say trailing off into silence near the end. A reaction that made it suddenly clear that no one else in class was talking at the moment. A glance around revealed that just about everyone was regarding Slade with some notable level of apprehension.

The reason was slower in coming but after a moment it was obvious that Slade, despite not having moved at all, was seemingly on the verge of violence. He gave off the air of a predator just waiting for an excuse.

The only ones unaffected were Jinny herself, who had faced much harsher atmospheres from him during their own training sessions, Gizmo, who was tapping away at his watch while he waited for class to start, and a pair of other students who were busy signing to each other while they waited.

The tension continued to build as Slade seemed to grow ever more disposed to a violent occurrence. It was only broken when the bell to start class went off, causing some of the tighter wound up students to jump, as all violence vanished from Slade’s presence.

The moment the bell to start class was done ringing Slade started speaking. “Welcome to class. My callsign is Deathstroke, and there are only a few rules you need to know about this class.” His voice was surprisingly clear even with his facemask down, and he had yet to move, but everyone could feel the sharp weight of his eye as he examined everyone. Picking them apart. “The first rule is that my word is law within this room. The second is that when I am speaking you are listening. The last is that outside of class time, if you want anything from me, be prepared to pay for it.”

He unfolded his arms and took a few steps towards the gathered students “This class is very much a physical one, there will be no written tests and very little theory discussions overall. If you want to bring water or a snack that is your prerogative, I don’t care. There will be three main courses I will be teaching, but the exact details of those courses will be largely left up to your choices. The first course is a melee weapon course. The second is a hand to hand course, and yes I know there is a class for that, no I don’t care that some of you might not want to learn, your body is the only weapon that can never be fully taken away from you, so you will learn how to use it, so long as I am here. Lastly is a ranged weapon course.”

“Today is a simple day. It is evaluation day. each of you will be given an opportunity to display what skills you have in all three of the stated categories. We will start with melee weapons, which you can use one of the props on the table. If there isn’t the kind of weapon you are looking for we can arrange for the correct one. After that I’ll bring up the firing range and we will test your capabilities with three categories of ranged options. Lastly is unarmed where each of you will be facing off against me for as long as you can.”

“If at any point you are done with my class feel free to strike one of the punching bags.” he would say gesturing towards the ones lined up near the door. “Once you do that I’ll consider your time in the class for the day over and you’ll be free to leave. I refuse to waste my time teaching if you don’t want to learn.”

“With that out of the way, grab your weapon of choice and partner up. Once that is done start a light spar with each other. If you’ve no idea about any weapon, pick one and see what you can figure out.” The class was a bit hesitant at first but eventually everyone would start moving to the tables to get a better look at the choices on display.

“That could have been worse” Bee would say with a shake as she tried to regain her normally self assured demeanor. "Wonder how that spar with him is going to go." She would muse as she too walked over to start looking at the weapons.

"Damn it all" Gizmo would complain again, sending more than a passing look at the punching bags, wondering if he shouldn't just dip out now and go make better use of his time.

Jinny grinned wide at Gizmo. It was less a cheery expression, and more a baring of teeth. “If you’re going to keep secrets, you should get a quieter roommate.” She was about to respond to Bee when she noticed the sudden quiet. It wasn’t hard to know the reason.

Even though she knew she’d seen him in far worse moods and lived, it was still incredibly scary. She had to fight the urge to stop breathing. It was a primal instinct from the base of her brain, and together they’d been working on getting her to overwrite it. She raised her chin in defiance, staring him down even though she knew he wasn’t looking. Just as she had been taught. But her stomach still twisted into knots doing it. She was quite glad when the bell rang.

Silently, she listened to the rules laid out, her eyes already darting between the tables of weapons. What to pick? She’d already decided to save the daggers for their private lessons – no sense in showing her hand before she knew what everyone else could do. That still left her with plenty of options. As she listened to Gizmo complain more, she smiled in a predatory way.

“You might as well go now. I mean, I could take you out blindfolded. Or maybe you stay and learn something other than how to bitch.” She smirked and left him behind, striding confidently over to one of the tables. There was a weapon calling her name. Quietly, she ran her fingers over a basic short sword on the table, a gladius, if she remembered correctly.

Lifting it, she tested it’s weight carefully. It was one handed, probably made for use with a shield. It was longer than the wakazashi she’d been training with as well. Heavier than the daggers by far, but not so heavy that she couldn’t handle it. It would do.

Once she’d decided on her weapon, she pulled her braid up and out of the way. Then she started stretching, dropping down and doing push-ups with the sword strapped to her back.

Even if she had already turned away, Gizmo’s reaction to Jinny’s baiting was very easy to hear. As it was a lound string of unrepentant cursing before he marched up to one of the tables, shoving people out of his way as he went.

Slade’s only reaction to such was to tilt his head to the side slightly in softly apparent curiosity, but let the cursing go without comment.

Still despite Gizmo’s angry approach to the tables, it didn’t take long for most of the students to select their weapon of choice. Jinny herself actually didn’t stand out with her choice of weapon, she was far from the only one to pick up a shortsword, as the majority of them stuck with more traditional weapons. Staves, swords, maces. A few students opted for the two handed variants but nevertheless traditional.

The students that did stand out were the twins from earlier, Bee, and Gizmo.

The twins each had chosen a Jian, not to stand out on its own, but they both also picked up a second sheath as well. one of the sheaths was worn on their belt while the other was wielded as an off hand weapon. and it seemed that the bases of their style had them trading off one of the swords between each other.

Gizmo for his part seemed to have partially cobbled his choice together. A long length of chain with a decent handle on each end of it. And while his stance and basic movements were atrocious his skill of getting the chain to move was notable.

Bee had picked a pair of Tonfa, and in a lot of ways was the inverse of Gizmo. Her warm ups showed a solid handle of hand to hand, but a lack of awareness on how to make use of the tonfas as anything more than a fancy pair of brass knuckles.

Once everyone had chosen their tool of choice most of them easily paired off. The outliers were Jinny and Gizmo. The reason why? They were both shorter than everyone else. A fact that Gizmo was quick to pick up on and had him even more pissed off.

“God damn, moronic, long limbed, crud munching…” Even without Jinny’s extra training it would have been easy to hear Gizmo heading her way. There was a fierce look of determination in his eyes as he marched up to the only other person in the room near the same height.

“Right. I don’t doubt your word at being able to take me out. But don’t think that means I’ll go easy.” He would say as he began slowly spinning one end of the chain. “First to three hits or conceed?” He’d ask ready to start the moment Jinny replied.

While Gizmo cussed his head off and made enemies, Jinny studied the room. Pretty standard choices from most people. It seemed she’d picked the right weapon to blend in with. The twins with the jians caught her attention the longest. The double sheaths interested her, and she definitely wanted to watch that battle. But there was work to do – maybe she could figure out their deal later.

This was going to be her first fight against someone near her age. For once, she stood a chance of winning. Plus, Otou-san was watching. Time to put what she’d been taught to work. Her eyes fluttered shut as she narrowed her focus. While it was still a work in practice, perhaps the other students would be able to notice the shift. She was tense, but ready. For the next several minutes, there was nothing else but battle.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes as Gizmo approached. For someone even smaller than her, he sure did make a whole lot of noise. Tipping her head slightly at his question, she grinned in that eerie, tooth baring way. “Concede. Let’s make this fun.” Without further warning, she darted forward. Her first strike was a simple one to his left shoulder. For anyone with experience, they would recognize a test blow. Jinny wanted to see Gizmo’s response.

Unseen by Jinny both due to her eyes being closed and Gizmo demanding her attention right afterwards, but a few of the other students in the class did notice her little trick. Bee, and the twins mainly, but so did a couple others. It got all of them suddenly much more alert, not because Jinny was an overpowering threat like Slade had been, but because Jinny was a credible threat and they had all missed it.

Gizmo didn’t seem to notice, but he also missed Slade’s open threat so it seemed more like he just couldn’t read the atmosphere of a room worth a damn.

That said he was prepared for Jinny’s sudden opening. As she darted towards him he launched the length of chain he had been spinning right at her. That was an easy enough move to dodge, his follow up of using the other handle to somehow forcefully redirect the chain in mid flight into a horizontal sweep was less so.

Still the short exchange did what Jinny was wanting, it told her about Gizmo, and to her eyes he had basically no idea what it was he was doing. He had no stance, he was literally just standing there. His skill with the chain was impressive, all the more so since it was obvious he wasn’t a very athletic person, but it wouldn’t be hard to get the timing for it and then rush down Gizmo as the pintsized genius didn’t seem like he was planning on moving.

Getting him to concede would be more difficult, if the look of determined spite in his eye was anything to go by, but details.

Rather than wait for Jinny to make another go, Gizmo just continued to launch out the chain at her and once again he displayed frankly ridiculous control over the thing. Able to redirect the momentum of the chain multiple times back to back, though how he was doing it was beyond Jinny. There did seem to be a limit to how many time he could do it though, after the third redirect he needed to reset and relaunch the chain before he could redirect it again.

Jinny twisted neatly out of the way of Gizmo’s first swing of the chain. The second was more difficult, mostly because it came out of nowhere. Her size came in handy, for once, as she was able to crouch low and let it sweep over her. Her brown eyes were fixed on him, and only one person in the room would be able to recognize the way Gizmo was being picked to pieces. While she wasn’t even close to as adept as her father was, she could already see several points of weakness that she could take advantage of.

His stance was laughably bad. One good kick would send him sprawling. His fixed position left him little room to maneuver and adapt. His muscle tone was a joke – obviously he spent too much time indoors and his diet was trash. With proper leverage, she could take his weapon with a little fight. This could be over in 30 seconds.

And yet…

How the hell was he doing that with the chain?

Jinny had to know.

She moved in and took two quick strikes at Gizmo with the gladius. Her control of a weapon she’d never used was impressive. It would hurt like hell, but he’d be fine. Then she darted back out again, her movements practically daring him to swing.

Despite his absolute lack when it came to physical capability there was one thing that Gizmo did have in his favor, his awareness in a fight was razor sharp. Not that it helped all that much, seeing Jinny move too close in did nothing to help stop her as his body just wasn’t capable of keeping up with her, much less the speed of his thoughts.

Still it did allow him a partial victory when he was able to block the first strike, not that it was more than him getting a small length of chain between him and the gladius. He couldn’t do anything about the follow up strike however, and just grit his teeth at the painful smack.

His pain fed into his anger, which Gizmo had long ago learned how to use as fuel for his spite. Not directed at Jinny in particular, even if she was his current target. It sharpened his focus, and Jinny could almost see the gears in his head churning as Gizmo’s gaze flickered around for a moment not abandoning her, but calculating everything around her.

His attempt at retaliation was quick, impressively so considering his poor physical condition, a smooth pull and twist and Gizmo once again had the chain fully extended out and swinging down on Jinny from above.

But now that she was looking for it Jinny caught sight of the basis of Gizmo’s manipulations. There was about six inches of chain slack that Gizmo kept on hand and he was using that slack as a fulcrum to redirect the chain. Had he been in better shape it would have been easy to assign it as long hours of practice, the lack of that meant he had to be running the math in real time. He was simply too accurate for it to be anything else.

Still his overall attacks were simply too straight forward or too slow to be of much real danger to Jinny, Gizmo might have been skilled, but he wasn’t that skilled. Soo his attacks remained easy to dodge.

There is however always one thing that can bridge a skill gap. Sheer dumb luck.

With one of his strikes he miscalculated, put too much force into it, it went wider then he meant for it too causing the chain to run into the ground. Something that he had been trying to avoid as that normally would have killed any momentum the chain had.

It didn’t this time though, it wasn’t something Gizmo was expecting, so he wasn’t entirely sure what caused it, but instead of simply striking the ground the handle skipped off it. Reacting nearly blindly Gizmo was able to pull off one more redirection of his weapon. Whipping the length of the chain into Jinny’s ankles, which hurt, and pulling once the chain wrapped around her leg causing her to stumble at least.

Gizmo was quick to let out a triumphant “Ha!” at his first successful hit. Unknowing that he drew Slades attention back to the fight, and him in particular because of it.

After keeping a careful eye on her opponent, and keeping herself from being hit, Jinny slowly worked out the method behind the control. It was genuinely impressive. No one else would have been able to make it work. Maybe not even her. She could do the math, sure, but not that fast. Not enough to put it into real play.

There were so many variations to consider to keep up with that constantly changed the equation. Like luck. Idiotic beginner’s luck. Despite her dodging, she was hit. Not once, but twice.

Jinny blinked.

The smack on the ankle was fairly painful, and she’d have a bruise to match. The length of chain yanked her leg the wrong way, and distantly, she knew she’d pulled a muscle in the wrong direction. Those were all part of the battle.

But that laugh. Something about that irritating laugh, heard for the second time in as many days, burrowed under her skin in a way she didn’t understand. He hadn’t done anything to earn his triumph, and he knew it, and he was still acting like that?

Somewhere in Jinny’s subconscious, a tiny seed of something dark that had been buried for years, chained up by a regiment of training and a man that the child wouldn’t even dare to challenge, rose to the surface just behind her eyes. Her stance shifted. Shoulders square, jaw set, eyes firmly focused on the target. Slade would recognize it immediately.

After all, who wouldn’t know their own form in the mirror?

“Oh. So you are a fighter. Good.” Jinny smiled. It was not an expression that belonged on the face of a child. “That means I can stop playing.”

She darted into an attack, faster than she had before. Gizmo might have been able to calculate her incoming trajectory. But without the physical strength to overcome Jinny’s speed, no amount of math would make the equation work.

The first strike was right to Gizmo’s jaw, the pommel of the blade hammering his teeth. That was smoothly followed with the blade itself, slicing his cheek on that side. Tossing the sword from her main right hand to the left, she scooped up the slack of the chain at Gizmo’s feet and tossed it up and over her opponent. It landed behind him.

Without giving him a moment to gather his thoughts, she smacked one of his hands with the pommel, as hard as she could. As he dropped the chain on reflex, she put the sword back in her right hand and did the exact same thing to his other hand.

He was disarmed, and the whole thing had taken about thirty seconds, if that. The fight could be declared here if he decided to give up. But somewhere underneath the haze of anger in her head, she knew that she couldn’t just let Gizmo walk away. She had to make sure he wouldn’t think about stepping to her anytime soon.

The next swing of the gladius blurred forward, right at his midsection. But instead of using the sharp end of the blade, she used the wider flat end. The raw power behind the blow sent her opponent stumbling back. The chain on the ground was suddenly a tripping hazard. He stumbled and was suddenly flat on his back. Jinny was about 5 seconds behind, with no light in her eyes but the shine from a very sharp blade. One that was in line to go straight for his throat.

Before Jinny’s final, lethal, strike could land home a voice was suddenly speaking from right next to her “That’s quite enough of that'' and just as suddenly she was wrenched up and away from Gzimo.

It didn’t take long to realize who it was that had interrupted her murder attempt, if his voice alone hadn’t clued her in, but that did nothing to stop her from being stuck dangling in the air due to Slade’s grip on the back of her shirt.

His gaze was resting on her, and for most people it would be a bland look that conveyed nothing of note, but she could detect the humor in his eye. “Wasn’t sure if I was going to need to tell all the classes this, but the trend seems to be holding so far. So take this as all of your one warnings: Don’t kill each other while in my class.” He would say, his amusement bleeding into his tone easily.

He shifted his attention down to Gizmo for a moment assessing the downed boy. Who was slowly pushing himself up, but surprisingly wasn’t shooting his mouth off as he normally seemed to do so. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t pissed, his glare was dark enough when he sent it Jinny’s way, but oddly enough it didn’t seem like the young man had taken the near death experience personally.

It returned to Jinny soon enough. “Overall not bad, you lost some points for the theatrics however.” he would say, setting Jinny down. “Tossing your weapon back and forth like that is asking for it to get taken from you.”

“There is a med kit in the closet over there” He would then say to Gizmo gesturing towards a door at one end of the gym. “You are welcome to it.”

With that he would turn away from both of them ostensibly to continue observing the rest of the class, but it was quickly apparent that wouldn’t be the case. As by now everyone else was watching them instead.

The students were of three minds, either they were looking at Jinny with fresh eyes, no one who could so easily go for a killing blow was to be ignored after all. Were looking at Gizmo with a mix of schadenfreude or concern, the pint sized genius had a reputation after all, but it was still a rather vicious looking take down. Or they were looking at Slade with growing amount of trepidation, his absolute nonchalance at the near murder reminding all of them that their teacher was a well known killer.

“I guess we should move on to guns then, since everyone seems to have finished up with their spars.” Slade would say after a moment of everyone staring at him.

A few students looked like they wanted to speak up about that, if it was about Slade’s disinterest in Gizmo’s injuries or that they weren’t done with the weapons was up to interpretation. Regardless, Slade didn’t address those that didn’t speak.

Instead he reached into his belt and pulled out a remote. Hitting a button on it the room began to reconfigure itself into a shooting range, the crash mats being retracted into the floor as shooting stalls began to rise up. The tables with the weapons were also removed as gun racks folded out of the walls. There were dozens of different firearms of all varieties, everything from state of art assault rifles to plain old fashioned longbows.

“For this you will need to choose three weapons.” Slade would go on to explain the next segment of class “You need a side arm, a primary weapon, and either a specialist weapon or a low tech weapon. Once you’ve picked your weapons, pick a stall. Once everyone is ready we will move on to the evaluations.” With that said Slade moved off to the side to wait for every one to finish with the task assigned.

“But what about these weapons?” one of the students would ask, holding up his ax for emphasis.

“They are yours now, keep track of them.” came Slade’s bored reply.

There were a few moments of uncertainty before the class started going about to look at the various guns that now hung from the walls.

Jinny would notice that she would be getting a handful of looks from some of the other students still. Most unsure of what to do in regards to her displayed willingness to kill. Bee was one of them, and looked a bit more disturbed than the rest of those that looked her way.

It would take a bit, but one of the other students would eventually approach Jinny while she was examining the guns. He was a taller student, not outstanding in the class for it, but notable nevertheless. He wore his dark hair on the longer end of short and had it slicked back. And his green eyes seemed cheerful enough.

All in all not all that distinct, if it weren’t for the fact that there was another student in this class that looked nearly the exact same. But such is the life of a twin. “I have to say I was rather surprised that our teacher was able to stop you in time” The boy would say, a slight oriental accent to his words “Last I was aware he was watching me and my brother, and we were on the other side of the room.”

Jinny made the faintest squeaking noise as her father plucked her out of her final strike. She struggled for a moment before realizing who it was. Slowly, she made eye contact, her fear obvious to anyone who was looking. When she realized that he was not upset at all, she relaxed mentally, dangling in the open air like a very small, very lethal kitten. It was a surprise that her father wasn’t angry. She had lost her temper. Showed her hand, or at least some of it.

Maybe he was saving the punishment for later.

When Gizmo finally struggled to his feet, Jinny simply watched. He didn’t look all that bad; she’d had worse. As he shot her a look, she raised her chin with pride, meeting his eyes. There wasn’t need for revenge anymore. Gizmo wouldn’t dare laugh at her again.

The moment she was set down, Jinny smoothed her shirt and stowed her blade. Slowly, she let her eyes drift over the stares of her classmates. Confusion was evident in her face. What was the big deal? Wasn’t this a school for people like her? It wasn’t like Gizmo was dead, or anything. She had planned to stop, just before the killing blow. As the classroom started to change around the students, Jinny stood still, barely paying attention. While she didn’t outwardly show it, real fear started to twist her stomach. What if she didn’t belong here either? What if she didn’t belong anywhere?

She shoved the anxiety down deep as best she could, before it took over her mind. Classes weren’t over, after all. She tuned back in just in time to hear Slade explain what was to be done, and she wasted little time in approaching the weapons. As she was weighing her options for low tech weapons, one of her new classmates approached.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess he’s fast.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Didn’t even know he was coming.” That was true, actually. Jinny had been so focused that her environment had practically ceased to exist.

"You missed out" The older boy would say as he picked up a compound bow to examine. “It wasn’t much more than him running, but his acceleration and deceleration was crazy. I wish I knew it was about to happen. I would have paid him more attention. I might have been able to learn something from that alone.” He would state as he gave the bow a full draw to test what the weight on it was.

“From what I saw of you, you’d likely have been able to as well.” The boy would say easing off the draw and shouldering the bow. “Only really saw your take down at the end, but you have definitely got the skill for it if that is anything to go by.”

“Name’s Inei” The now named Inei would introduce himself as he extended a hand towards Jinny. “My brother’s Kiri and while he’s too shy to admit it, we are both looking forward to sharing class with you. You are about the only other person here who seems to know what they are doing.”

A quick look would show that Kiri was on the other side of the room, looking at a pair of rifles. And though it was well hidden, he was also unfamiliar with the more modern firearms.
A longer look would show Bee had gravitated towards the submachine guns, a pair of pistols already on her hip.

It would also allow Jinny to notice Gizmo. More or less glaring at her still, though it was more determined than actively hostile. His three weapons have already been chosen; a revolver, a bolt action rifle and a crossbow. He seemed to be waiting for her to finish choosing her own weapons, as he was making no move towards the stalls of the firing range.

Jinny looked quite flustered at the taller, older boy's praise. She honestly wasn't sure what to say to him. It was the first time anyone outside of her father had made note of her skill. "Oh, um. Thanks. I was practicing over the summer." After a moment's pause, she snatched up the set of darts from the rest of the weapons on the table.

"I'm Jin." She shook his hand, her gaze looking for Kiri. Once she found him, she returned her attention to Inei. "I thought that most people here would be... you know. Like me. But, apparently I've freaked everyone out. I don't get it."

She could feel Gizmo's angry stare on the back of her neck, a subtle itch like a mosquito. It was something that she'd realized her mother had been honing in her before she'd even learned to read. So many games of "silent hide and seek" - where little Jinny's goal was to stay hidden as long as possible. That game had been mastered at 3 where she'd managed to toddle her little self into an old dumbwaiter that neither Yumiko or Solomon knew the house had. 12 hours, 3 officers, and 2 terrified parents later, Jinny had won that game permantently.

When Slade began his own teaching on the subject, he was pleasantly surprised that she already had an excellent sense of her surroundings, and just needed fine-tuning. One of the things he was able to teach her early was how to start properly guaging those sensations. Separating a nuisance from an actual threat.

That's exactly what she was doing now. She felt Gizmo's stare heating the back of her neck... and brushed it off like the minor irritation it was. She had already won once. If Gizmo dared step to her again, the beating he'd recieve would need more than a classroom medkit.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who can actually fight." Jinny picked up a Glock 19 and as many magazines as she could fit in her pockets. After more consideration, she took a rifle off the table as well. AW Covert - a little new for her, but she'd seen it in action and was curious.

"Well. Time to get my butt kicked."

“Yeah, I know how that can be.” Inei would sympathize with a grimace. “Me and Kiri ran into that as well in our first year here. There are others here that get it like you and I do, but not as many as we were expecting.” He’d explain picking up another bow and slinging it over his shoulder as well.

“The Teachers are all good about it though, thankfully, so at least there is that.” He’d add before tossing a quick appraisal around the room. “My guess is the main reason you freaked so many people out is…” He stalled for a moment contemplating how to finish his though. “Well, no offence, but you’re still a kid.” He would say at last with a shrug and an apologetic smile.

“Like I get that doesn’t mean all that much, but it still came out of nowhere.” Inei was quick to reassure Jinny. “It’s like how you don’t expect anyone here to already be blooded, but if you go looking you can learn who is. To be faced with the fact that the person someone next to you has already taken a life, it’s just unexpected really. Same thing here. Those that are going to be worth anything will shake it off soon enough I'd wager though.”

After Jinny collected her weapons of choice Inei would excuse himself “I’m going to go grab Kiri, and catch back up with you at the stalls.” Though from the look of it might be a bit still. Seeing as Kiri had yet to actually make any choices.

The stalls of the firing range were rather simplistic at first glance. Seemingly bare steel, with the only thing of note being the pair of ear bud sitting in the center of each stall

But any amount of poking around would uncover the fact that there were touch screens on most of the surfaces. Most of the screens held records of recent shots, along side other bits of useful information about those shots. But a pair of screens on the table top held the controls for setting up your targets, allowing for various different shooting environments or circumstances. High wind settings, low visibility settings, distance for the target, and things like that.

The ear buds were far from simple as well. Tiny, but vastly effective, noise canceling headphones. Would allow everyone to keep their ears safe but also able to communicate easily despite all the gunfire that would be soon to fill the air.

Shortly after choosing her stall, Jinny would see Gizmo setting in the stall to her right. Going so far as to evict the person who had been getting set up there before him. Doing so with a black glare that was miles more threatening than anything he had shot Jinny’s way so far.

He remained silent, but judging by the tension in his jaw it wasn’t an easy accomplishment for him.

Still, it didn’t take Gizmo long to go about familiarizing himself with how the stall was set up. He kept an eye out for what Jinny was doing as he did, but rather then waiting like he had earlier he was quick to move on and set up his targeting range and start getting a feel for the weapons he had brought with him.

Gizmo wasn’t the only student to already be setting up, but in total those that were comfortable enough to start practicing with the guns less than those that weren’t.

Still, it wasn’t all bad, or awkward as it might be, as not long after Gizmo had gotten underway Inei and Kiri would finally make their way over to the Stalls. Setting up in the two stalls to Jinny’s Left. Their weapons of choice being a Compound bow, An Uzi, and a MP5 for each of them.

A few minutes later Slade’s voice cut though the din of those already practicing, and would have done so even without the ear buds possibly. “I do not care.” He wasn’t shouting, that required more effort than what he was putting forth, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t loud. “You have ten seconds to pick or you will be failed on the spot” He was… Towering wasn’t the right word, as once again that implied more effort that what Slade was actually seeming to give. But he was standing close to a student who still had yet to choose what weapons they wanted to take to the firing range. A student that Slade happened to be over a foot taller than.

“Ten” Nothing happened for a moment. “Nine. Eight. Seven.”

The poor student was then quick to grab what ever was closest and book it over to the last open stall.

Slade simply let out a sigh before shifting his attention to the class as a whole. “In ten minutes, I’m going to go down the row.” He would explain pointing at the far end of the class room from Jinny. “When I get to your stall, I’m going to set up a prearranged set of targets, based on what firearms you choose. Each set will have a timer and I’ll be judging speed and accuracy. Once everyone has been evaluated, we will move onto the final portion of class. Until I get to you, and even after, I expect you all to be practicing.”

“If you have questions for me in the mean time turn on the stall light, and I’ll get to you one at a time.”

“Guess that answer what kind of Teacher he will be.” Inei would say after. “Harsh”

“But probably all the more effective for it.” Kiri would pipe in, already into the swing of things with the bow. Showing more than just a bit of passing skill with the weapon. Though he had also yet to even touch the other weapons.

“Yeah, sad that we likely won’t be able to see any of his skills in action today from the looks of things though.”

Jinny couldn’t help but roll here eyes as Inei called her a kid. “Yeah, yeah. I'm small, and I look like I should be in a fuckin' tutu instead of wearing a sword. I hate it. Can't wait until I stop being a shrimp." She considered correcting him about being blooded - she hadn't killed anything but animals. But in the end, she let Inei get his brother without comment. If he wanted to jump to that conclusion, let him. It'd be true sooner or later.

She could feel that fine itch at the back of her neck again as Gizmo stared her way, but presented no reaction. This time, it wasn't deliberate. She was just distracted by what was in front of her. New tech was always fun! Silently, she started to familiarize herself with the touch screens' various settings. Once she'd decided on a set of targets, she checked the Glock over. Unload it, clean the barrel, make sure the sight was clear, reload it. The steps were almost meditative.

There had been a reluctance on her father's part before he allowed her a firearm - even the rabbit killing rifle for the camping trip. He'd drilled gun safety into her well before she'd known what he was, or that she would be following in her mother's footsteps. At this point, she didn't know what the problem was.

Inei returned with Kiri in time. She grinned at them both before focusing in. She left the safety on while she stabled her aim. The only question was - would she hold back here, or show what she could really pull off?

Her father's voice cut through the room, in a tone that put her on edge. She'd only ever heard this tone directed at her once, and would gladly be fine never hearing it again. Still, she had to give whoever that was credit - they didn't freeze too long.

"Harsh. That's one word for it." She looked over the twin's choice of guns. "Huh. Interesting choice." And then she started setting up the training program to give her a line of targets.