Weapon of Choice

There were so many weapons lined against the wall that it was hard to even keep track of them. There were a bunch of more typical weapons that Zaid was familiar with such as basic spears, shields, and swords, but there were also countless interesting weapons that he had never seen or heard of before. Luckily all of the weapons had little placards underneath them saying what they were called. That helped a little but since kids with phones were at least able to look up the weapon then.

As Zaid was lost in thought looking at the piles of weapons, the spiky haired boy walked up first to go pick his weapon. He walked right up to these two ring like weapons. Each wheel was a flat metal ring approximately 15 inches diameter. One quarter-segment had a padded grip with a cross-guard; the other three segments had protruding flame-styled blades. With one wheel in each hand it looked like the boy would be able to slash, stab, parry, or disarm an opponent. They looked pretty cool and maybe a little menacing in his hands. The placard underneath them called them Wind and Fire Wheels.

As the boy picked up his weapons he turned to the other students and said "I'll see you on the other side" with a little wink and a chuckle before he went in through the door to begin the trial.

"Impatient one, that kid" the speaker mused to himself somewhat out loud.

After the spiky haired boy went in others began to walk up to the weapons to choose theirs, Zaid included.

"Move aside!"

Before anyone else could get to the weapons a girl with flowing white hair ran through the students and pushed them aside with a laugh.

In addition to her snow white hair that went down to her waist she also had piercings lining her ears. It looked like at least 5 on each ear. Her eyes were a deep purple. "Contacts maybe?" Zaid thought to himself. She had on a black jacket that seemed to have more pockets on it than Zaid could count. She was also wearing black cargo pants and combat boots. Everyone could tell that this girl did not come to play.

"Ignis may have beaten me to picking a weapon but I call next. Move it!"

As she yelled that she made it to the weapons and quickly scanned her eyes over everything before grabbing her weapons of choice. She picked up what appeared to be a pair of sickles each on a metal chain with a heavy iron weight at the end of each one.

"It seems they are called kusarigama" Zaid thought to himself in interest.

With that the girl gave the weapons a few quick spins before jumping in the door saying "See you losers" as she stuck out her tongue and pulled down her eyelid in a comical gesture.

At that point everybody kind of paused and looked around waiting to see if anyone else would bombastically make a display like the first two people did. However it looked like everyone else decided to be at least somewhat calm about the weapon choosing process.

With those two out of the way the group went up to the weapons and began looking through them, trying to decide what would work best for them.

Most people chose the more generic weapons like sword and spears. There were even a few that choose a bow and a quiver of arrows. Some people said screw it and just choose a spiked bat.

"Nothing wrong with simple" said Nathan as he gave a few practice swings with his bat and pointed it towards Zaid before walking off with his henchmen.

Zaid choose to ignore him this time as he was too focused on deciding a proper weapon for himself. He decided to go about the decision systematically.

He first went over to the very short range melee weapons. He looked at weapons like spiked gauntlets, those wind and fire wheels, some daggers, and even and interesting weapon called Bach Nakh. That last one kind of looked like a pair of tiger claws with knives on the ends. In the hands of someone skilled they looked like they could do a lot of damage. The downside of course being that one would need to get in very close to their opponent and risk injury. This was true for all the weapons in this section though.

After looking at the close range melee weapon section Zaid paused and thought it through to himself.

"While a lot of these weapons look easier to use and even quite powerful, I'm worried about getting in too close to my opponent. I'm not worried about getting a little hurt since I'm used to it, but I think I might be too weak to make full use of such a close combat style. I try to workout 6 days a week but there is only so much I can do without proper nutrition. I'm lucky to even have average strength for my age." As he thought all this he gave a slight shake of his head and walked over to the next section.

This section was a big one since it was the sword section. It even had to be split up into 3 parts just to make it more cohesive. It was split into short swords, straight swords, and curved swords.

He looked at the three sections in thought.

"While swords are a good weapon I'm not sure if they are right for me. They do have a lot of versatility and the difficulty of using them varies greatly depending on the sword. If I were to choose a simpler one I might be able to get the hang of it after a relatively short amount of time. Maybe a week. But I'm not sure if I have that long in the tower. Plus due to the majority of people picking it if I have to fight other students in the later tests it could be an issue since we would have the same type of weapon and they would likely be able to use it better. Even if we were just as bad they would still be aware of the weaknesses of the weapon since it is the most common weapon type. Still I can't disregard the idea of a sword completely. I guess I'll put it on the back burner for now. I should check the other weapons first"

As he thought that he walked over to the next weapon section. The next section was the war hammer section.

"Skip" he said to himself.

"I'm far too weak to make good use of a war hammer"

The next section after that was the trauma weapons. This section included all of the club like weapons.

"Hmm this section likely has the easiest to use and learn weapons but their simplicity is probably a double edged sword. They fall victim to one of the same problems swords do. Everyone knows their attack patterns so it's easier to fight against it. Except at least the sword had versatility. There are so many different swords and combinations of abilities one could use that it can't be compared to these simple club like weapons. Ultimately they are just too one dimensional for me."

"So far swords are looking like the best option" he thought with a small frown.

He continued looking at all the different weapon types but none of them caught his fancy.

Spears were simple to use and pretty effective. They were probably better than swords or clubs at least to be honest. But he simply found the fighting style dry and uninspiring. Plus the lack of versatility really irked him. To be versatile with a spear would require a lot of training he thought.

Bows would be too difficult to learn quickly plus if an enemy got close he was screwed.

Axes were too unwieldy.

The flexible weapons were…well also too unwieldy.

Then he came across the shield section. As he looked at that section an awkward expression came across his face.

"Why would they have shields here? Unless you could use one with a sword or spear you would be giving up offensive option for a little bit of defense, right?"

As he looked closer though he noticed that the shields weren't as simple as they first looked. Some had blades or spear-tips coming out of them. Others looked like they could expand or contract to different sizes using mechanical mechanisms. While a few looked like they could be detached and thrown and by making good use of physics one could actually have it bounce around and return to them.

Looking at all the different shields there was one particular one that caught his eye.

"This is the one" he said.

"This will be my weapon of choice"