Dueling - Lesson 1 - All Years

Ares was throwing his knife and hitting it exactly where he wanted it to be thrown. He was taken out of his little throwing world when the Professor asked if he had been practicing. "Why yes I have, one gets bored when their older siblings are too busy trying to impress the folks. This is a good way to kill boredom" Ares replied. He wasn't jealous of Aphrodite and Apollo, he was glad that they were sucking up to the parents because that gave him time to pull his pranks.

It seemed as though the marjority of the class were having fun, something which made the young witch smile to herself as she watched them all carefully, pleased that there weren't any injuries. In her own school years, the hospital wing had been far from her favourite place to be, and she assumed most of the other students felt the same. The Lugarmago healers had been rather uncomplimentary to her when she wound up in there, though thankfully it had only been a handful of occasions.

"Okay guys," the part Veela spoke, making her voice loud enough to be heard above the rips of fabric and weapons in the air. "Firstly, I want to say how immensely proud of all of you I am today. Every single person in this room has done something to be proud of." She moved to the very centre of the arena and turned slowly as she continued, ensuring all of the students could hear her.

"If you would please return the objects to the table for me, I would be very grateful. I look forward to seeing you all next time. Thank you for attending, I hope you enjoyed yourselves. I'll be nice and not set homework this time, so class is dismissed."

Their professor had come around and shown them, individually, how to use their weapons. When her turn came, Janique knew she had made the right choice; the weapon was very suited to creating maximum damage.

After the professor had moved on, Janique took a few moments to watch the others before she herself started, and saw, with some disgust, that Victoria had thrown up. Of course, this was the same girl that thought house elves needed respect, and so Jani was not all too surprised.

Turning her attention back to her dummy and the medieval weapon in her hands, she took an experimental swing towards its torso, only allowing a couple of spikes to enter. The effect was instantaneous. Blood started trickling out of the two holes made in the lower body, and Janique froze for a split second. Hurting real, living people like that was something she knew she wouldn't be able to bring herself to do, but in this classroom setting, the thrill of the activity was more inviting than her moral conscience and she didn't mind going to extreme lengths with the dummy.

Taking a step back, she shifted her weight to even it out. Testing the weight of the mace one last time, she swung it hard, directly at the dummy's head. The first contact sent long vibrations up her arm, and she nearly dropped the weapon, but managed to keep her grip on it. As the mace continued moving, she felt - and heard - the slow ripping of the flesh tearing away from the body.

It was the longest moment in her life, and although only lasted a few seconds in reality, she felt repulsed. Never again, she though, but the excitement she felt when she saw the head hanging limply from the end of the weapon, dripping blood, made her almost want to do it again. Then, she had looked back at the body and found blood spurting out from the neck of the dummy and closed her eyes, not wanting to see more.

Luckily, it was at that exact moment that their Professor had dismissed class, and, with no little relief, she had dropped the mace and turned away, walking out of class after thanking her. She didn't know how exactly she felt about the whole class; as much as she had enjoyed using the weapon, the destruction she had caused frightened her, and hoped she never found herself in a situation where she had to do anything like that to a real person.