Never Be Afraid To Ask Questions

Luca lay in her bed, tired and dreary. She let out a sigh and rubbed her eyes. She heard the phone ring from across the room, so she got up and answered the phone.

"Hello?" She said.

"Yeah, hey, it's me," the person on the other line said. She pretty easily recognized the number; it was Ganodo.

"Oh." She was taken back a little back how quickly it took him to reach back to them. "Where you at?"

"I'm just outside, probably near the closest exit to where you guys are."

"Probably?"

"Well, you never told me so I'm just taking a good guess."

She sighed once again. "Alright. I'm already dressed in casual clothes. Do you need me to change back into uniform or anything like that?"

"Nah, you'll be fine. I already told Rambone about it so you should y'know... get your butt over here." He sounded excited.

"Alright... see you there." She hung up the phone and then walked over to the mirror and gave a double check on what she was wearing. Socks and sneakers: check. Black skirt: check. White Tanktop: check. Blue sweater: check. Blue hairband: needed a bit of adjusting but, check.

She had considered wearing Cara's jacket but found it rude to do so, so she had it hanging in her wardrobe.

She grabbed her sword and headed out the door, and the exit doors thereafter. Outside the arena, where she was met by Ganodo and Rambone who had been standing around for what seemed like a hot minute.

"Hey, we all ready to go?" Ganodo said.

"Yeah," Rambone replied, taking a moment to stretch.

"Yep."

"Cool. I'll walk us over to my place. I'll show you two the sneak peek then."

"Can you tell us what it is right now?"

"Nah."

"Awww! Why not?!" Luca asked.

"It's kind of a big deal to me and I don't think I can reveal it out in the open without getting in trouble."

"What do you mean by that?" He gave a puzzled look.

"Just don't want to. I think I can trust you guys not to spread it over Wolfshaus like wildfire."

"Wildfir-" She tried to poke before getting cut off.

"As I said, I'll tell you both when we GET there," he said, very clearly annoyed.

"Okay, geez. Chill."

"So shut up about it till we get there. Got it?" He was more firm this time around.

They both nodded their heads, somewhat intimidated. "Good."

20 minutes passed as they walked over to his apartment, occasionally snaking through alleyways to shorten down the time.

He fumbled with his keys and opened the door, holding it for them.

Upon stepping in, they were met immediately by his living room. Two armchairs, a couch, a rug, and an adjacent big-wheeled in whiteboard with a table next to it. And across the room laid a stack of wooden planks.

Ganodo closed the door and stepped ahead. He gestured to Rambone and Luca to sit down, flashing a smile.

"Eh. Guess I'll take a seat on the touch," he shrugged.

"I'll join on that, too," she said and sat down next to him. "Alright, what's the big reveal? I'm excited to see it."

Ganodo quickly looked around the room, patted his pockets, and then found the thing he was looking for: a marker.

"What do you have the marker for?" Rambone asked.

"If you give me a minute, I'll show you. For now, just stay there," he walked off and into another room.

"What's he off to?"

"Dunno."

"You can't just tell me that you don't know like that."

"What am I supposed to tell you?"

"Like a guess. I don't know."

The two then sat in silence amongst themselves for a minute before he walked back in with some papers in hand and plopped them on the table. He turned to face them and clasped his hands for a second before holding the marker in a hand.

"Time to buckle up, 'cause I think I've learned something big here and I want to show you two what I know so far."

"How big are we talking here?"

"Pretty big."

"Seems more appropriate I guess. I'm not entirely sure if this is true or not."

"Okay, now I'm interested." Rambone leaned forwards.

"So, I've discovered something on my own time here. What this is, is it enhances one's weapon in sharpness, swing speed, and the ability to thrust or pierce. I'm not entirely sure how one can even activate it. From my experience, it's like a switch. However, it's not something I can activate."

"By how much?" She said.

He struggled to find the words at first. "Kinda like what I just said, I'm not entirely sure how significant of an enhancement it is. But, first, let me tell you I'm pretty sure it's called."

He took off the cap of the marker and began writing on the board: Mendus. He underlined the word.

"That sounds lame as shit? Come on, who came up with a name like that? Some kinda fuckin' nerd?"

"Yeah probably, Rambone. Probably." Luca agreed and chuckled.

"While I can't answer that question I've come up with a theory to activate it. I tried it and it nearly worked."

"So can you activate it or not?" She gave him an unsure look.

"No. I got close though. Here's what I did."

He then got to drawing on the board. First, he drew a doodle of someone tired and sweating.

"You know how after working out or running your heart is like pounding? If you can keep your heart rate around that level for as long as you need it to be, you can go to step two."

Secondly, he doodled the figure holding up a sword and sighing, their eyes closed.

"Now, step two. What you want to do is kinda close your eyes and focus your attention into whatever your weapon is." He drew an arrow pointing to the sword from the face. "And what from I've done a bit of digging into, Mendus should activate, making your weapon more deadly."

He walked over to the stack of planks and propped a plank up against the wall. "See, when it isn't activated, a normal slice or thrust isn't gonna even damage this here plank. The only exception to this case is if you're strong. But if you focus up your energy into your weapon, it'll break the thing clean off. Schoop." He somewhat mimicked the motions of a sword on the plank with a hand. "Here, let me go the sword I bought specifically to test this."

"Hey, before you go get it, do you seriously want us to try and activate it?"

He nodded "Obviously."

Rambone sighed. "I'll get it done first try."

"So will I."

"Psh. You'd probably get it on your thirtieth try."

"Nah, you're bullshitting me."

"I'm not."

"If you say so... I'll still prove you wrong, though."