Throwing a Chance [Private with Nym & Jericho]

[Jericho Galley]

This was possibly, no it was, the most dangerous thing Jericho had done since arriving at Beacon. He felt like something like this was for sure going to get someone to look deeper into his credentials and find some flaw and boot him out or arrest him. Someone was going to find out what he was doing and punish him and he would probably be found out and killed by Blackhand for it.

What he was doing... was leaving campus.

Was it even allowed to do this? He knew some kids went into town to shop and hang out, but he was headed into the Emerald Forest! Were students allowed here? That aside, were students allowed to take things out of school? He currently held a wheelbarrel he had taken from the Outdoor Elective's closet, and filled it with things that he found in the backs of other closets that hadn't seen use in years, judging by all the dust.

Throwing knives along with some normal fighting knives, a wooden study desk with a wobbly leg, a stack of decade-old text books, some bottles and cans from the vending machine that had yet to be opened, and some flat wooden boards that may have either been floorboards or the remains of a students desk, perhaps after some Semblance ripped it apart.

He found a suitably flat location and sent Nym a text through his scroll, telling her to meet him in the Forest for "Something that the fun kids do". Was that how people texted? Whatever, he put it away and began setting things up. He used the desk as a base, resting the slightly shorter leg on a root to keep it steady. He then stacked things nearby and piled most of the books onto the desk in order to put whatever they were targeting ontop. It was easy not to go back and forth from his wheelbarrel with his Semblance grabbing things for him. In no time it was set up. Now he just had to wait.

He decided that it had been a while since he had thrown, so without anything to use as target practice other than a tree trunk, he grabbed the combat knives that differd in size and weight and began throwing them. It was better to practice with things that were uniform, but that wasn't how he learned at all. He was much more used to judging the weight and length for each knife.

[Nym Magenta]

Classes were over and Nym couldn't have been happier with that fact. The second she'd gotten out of her last one she'd headed straight back to her room to shower and change. She had a date. It wasn't really a date, but thinking about the look on Johnny's face if she said it to him made her smirk. He seemed like the type to take flirting not-so-smoothly at first. Not that she knew him well enough to know that with any real certainty. They'd barely even met. All she really knew about him was that he was a nervous guy who had done something to make himself paranoid about people following him to Beacon from Mystral. It had to be something highly illegal, right? That or he had some kind of blood feud with a family of crime lords or hunters or something. The air of mystery was enough to make her want to find out. That, and she felt a little like they were kindred spirits of a sort. She too had ghosts that she'd rather leave behind; ghosts that made her a little nervous when she thought about their influence and power.

But she wasn't going to think too much about that. Her school uniform made it's way to the laundry basket and she donned her favorite casual outfit. While the weather was starting to warm up, she would never be getting rid of the hoodie that she preferred to wear when formalities and uniforms weren't required. The long, grey sleeves hid the numerous cuts and scars from fighting that dotted her arms like stars in the sky. A tight fitting black undershirt with matching sports bra meant there wasn't any chance of seeing much if she needed to get athletic. Well fitted short shorts and socks that came almost all the way up her thighs left the thinnest sliver of skin exposed to the air. Pants had never sat well with her. Shorts had always felt more freeing and less likely to restrict her range of motion. Practical, grey boots with tufts of white were pulled on and buckled in. A sky blue scarf was the final piece to her ensemble and just about the time she had it on was the time she got a message from Johnny. She snorted. Something that the fun kids do, huh?

kk, c u in a sec

Her texts were always brief.

It didn't take long to track down Johnny and the makeshift shooting...throwing range that he'd put together. She heralded her approach with a low whistle. "Wooow, not bloody bad." She hadn't expected all the extra flair! A few knives and a couple of bullseyes was the best her imagination could come up with. One more thing that she'd chosen to bring along with her was strapped to her back. A magnetic holster she kept under her clothes kept her weapon of choice pinned to her back. At the moment it looked like little more than an engine attached to a handle, a very complicated hammer. The Emerald Forest wasn't that dangerous for someone with as much time at Beacon as her, but it never paid to be ill-prepared for danger. If the Grimm came calling she didn't want to be defending herself with just her fists and a few daggers.

"Really went 'ole 'og, eh? You sure you weren't tryin' t' put the moves on me?" She said it with a chuckle as she strode up to Johnny and gave him a light punch on the shoulder. "Wasn' expectin' t'see all this dragged out 'ere jus' fer little ol' me."

[Jericho Galley]

Jericho let the knife fly from his hands just as she whisteled, causing him to turn his head. The small movement caused his shoulder to move a bit and thus the knife went off course. Of the other three sticking out of the trunk, this fourth one glanced off the bark and went spinning into the grass. He looked back to it and shook his head. He used to be able to ignore the sounds of a battlefield while he fought, now one cute lass doesn't even speak, just makes a whistle and he misses his shot.

"Hey!" He called back, raising his right hand. Nym was wearing a really nice outfit, if he had any right to judge someone's fasion. He wasn't, as evident by him still wearing the Beacon Uniform, though untucked and his suit jacket was tied around his waist, his white shirt had the top two buttons undone to allow more breeze, and his neck tie lay in the grass nearby. His dress shoes and black khaki's he wore just like normal. He missed his old clothes, but was honestly a bit too scared to go out into town alone and buy new ones. Because of that, he had saved up a bit of Lien that the school gave him, but it just sat in his wallet without being touched.

She walked up to him and punched him lightly on the shoulder, which he accepted with a smile. "Well, I don't know if I'm trying to put the moves on you or not," He said. He really wasn't sure where they stood, especially since it seemed like her and Ax were closer than just friends, if Ax's words had any truth to them, which he thought that they might. He didn't take her as a liar. Plus he didn't know if Nym even had thought about thinking about him in the way at all. Jericho did only a little bit, until he remembered that a relationship could mean telling his secret, and that might get him killed.

"But I did do this 'jus' fer little ol' you." He copied her accent at the end while putting a fist at the top of her head and bonking her lightly. He was almost a foot taller than her and it was real easy to do. Plus she had hit his shoulder, he could hit back. "And me, honestly. I'm used to targets, not the broadside of a tree." He smiled down at her. She just had a figure and face that was hard not to smile at.

He then took greater notice at what was one her back, something with a large handle. He leaned and peaked over her shoulder. "What... is this? This your huntsman weapon?" He asked. It looked like... Some massive hunk of metal that he might have called scrap if it didn't have a resemblance to The Corsair's Wind Dust turbines and the machinery he had seen on other boats that had forgone traditional sails. It then just had a big pole on it. "Do you swing that around or just hold it while that top part just does whatever it does?" He asked.

[Nym Magenta]

Nym's ears flattened to the sides to avoid the light knock from Johnny's hand and Nym reached up to brush lightly at the point where they'd made contact, unphased. If she couldn't take it, she wouldn't dish it. She also wasn't going to indulge too much in idly flirting with him. It would have been a bit awkward to give him the completely wrong idea that she was doing anything other than being a little playful. Breaking the habit of openly hitting on people for fun was going to be hard, but she'd have to do it eventually. Now was a good time to start. She glanced briefly at the trunk he'd been using to warm up. Yeah, maybe trying to land a solid hit against bark was more difficult than she thought? Did the ridges make it harder for the knife to stick? She wasn't going to think too hard about it. It looked like they'd be tossing their knives at more interesting targets.

She grinned as his attention turned towards her weapon. While her academic skills were not something she was proud of, this was. "Spot on, mate, she's called Whispa'." With her right hand she pulled it from her back and held it in front of her to let him get a better view. "And yeah, I do a lotta swingin' 'er around, but usually only afta' I do this." With a motion that felt as natural as breathing, Nym twisted the second handle and the weapon underwent a fast transformation. A blade guard sprung from the engine along with a toothy chainsaw. The engine revved and the belts came to life. Metal rattled briefly as the chain began to spin. It was a much louder weapon than the name implied.

"Real beaut', this lass." The weapon itself was obviously well used. None of the paint looked fresh and there were numerous scratches and dents from battle along the blade guard and engine block. Even to the untrained eye it was obvious that it had seen dozens upon dozens of fights. "Bloody 'ard t' learn 'ow t' fight wif this thing. Spinnin' chain makes yer swings wobbly if ya don' know 'ow t' use it right." To demonstrate, she tossed it straight up. Any sword would have looped in a circle around it's center of balance as it rose and fell, but the chainsaw followed an unusual path thanks to the centrifugal force of it's spinning blade. Nym's eyes didn't even follow it, catching it as if she'd done this a thousand times before, twisting the handle, and holstering it as it collapsed back to it's dormant state in a single, smooth motion. "But, when yer used t' it, s' better'n jus' swingin' something sharp 'round f'you ask me." It was a lot more complicated than that, but Nym didn't want to just launch into a lecture on how useful her choice of weapon was when she'd only been asked if she fought with it.

[Jericho Galley]

He smiled to his eyes when her ears moved and she rubbed at the spot his fist had touched. That was adorable.

When she pulled out her weapon Jericho took a step back at the shear mass of the thing. That thing must have weighed a to- He took another two steps back as a chainsaw came out of the center mass of the engine, spinning loudly. She admired her weapon, and he looked it over for anything else that might spit out and kill him. Then she threw the thing into the air and it spun oddly. He had thrown his dual blades into the air many times and they didn't move like that. But she said something about the chain making it wobbly. That was wierd. Wasn't it just spinning in place? Why would it make it move like that?

Either way, his eyes watched it come back down and land in her hands before she put it away. She then said that it was better than swining something sharp. "Yeah, no kidding." He said with a chuckle. "My swords couldn't do as much damage as that whole thing! Kraken's shit...!" He cursed darkly. He hadn't brought his swords with him, just the knives and the supplies, so he couldn't show them off like she had. Nothing much to show off, really. They didn't transform or anything, just a your basic combination of gun and sword. His Hand could do some neat tricks with them though. He didn't really just want to break it to Nym about his hand though. She'd probably think he was weird. He liked to do a scary trick with it to reveal it to people anyhow.

"Well, I don't have my swords on me," He said. "Didn't think to bring them. But I got knives. Wanna start learning how to throw them?" He offered and turned his body, his hand motioning towards his little improvised range.

[Nym Magenta]

Nym chuckled, obviously pleased by Johnny's impressed reaction. Whisper did tend to get people's attention. It was a loud, flashy, threatening weapon that could chew people up and spit them out almost as easily as it could the person wielding it. "I don' think yer gonna end up needin' 'em too bad. Forest ain't so dangerous fer people like us." People who were combat capable and accepted to Beacon. "Jus' brought it along t' make sure any interruptions end up bein' short ones." They were training to be hunters. If they couldn't dispatch whatever weaksauce Grimm came their way with their fists and a few daggers how were they ever going to be professionals?

She eyed up the wheelbarrow and the knives and then nodded. "Yeah, mate, let's get down t' business, eh?" She laced her fingers together and pushed them forward, cracking all of her knuckles all at once. She was going to have to let Johnny take the lead on this, though, she didn't know the first thing about throwing knives around other than the objective was to stick the pointy end into a target.

[Jericho Galley]

"Well, first thing to know about throwing knives is that you want the pointy end to hit the target." He said. "But, you probably already knew that." He picked up the throwing knives and set a book against the tree trunk. There were flat pieces of steel without gaurds or wooden handles, only the top inch of so of the blade and tip were sharp enough to cut and a little lower than the middle point the steel curved inward before it bowed back out to have a teardrop-like handle.

"So there are a lot of ways to throw a knife, but one that looks cool and the one we'll start off with is spinning the blade once before it hits the target." He took one of the knives and held it loosley like he would a kitchen knife. "I don't really know how to explain this, but watch closely." Jericho then slowly put his left foot slightly forward in a stance and raised his hand with the knife back to his head before swinging his arm forward, body leaning into the throw. He didn't flick his wrist much, just let it soar out. It spun once in the air before hitting the textbook, sinking in an inch. There was a satisfying thwump and Jericho straightened back up.

"Now, when you throw it, it may bounce off." He held one up and he mimiced the target with his other hand as a flat plane. He spun the knife in his other hand and had it over-rotate before touching his hand, the tip pointing downward. "If it hits like this, it's going to bounce upwards or to the side. This means that it rotated too much and you should take a step closer." He turned to the target and took the same stance, throwing it again. This time, it did what he said it would do, bouncing up a foot or two and hitting the trunk before clattering to the floor.

Jericho turned back and held up the last knife. He adopted the same position as before with his left hand as the target and his right spinning the blade. This time it didn't rotate fully and the tip was pointing up. "If this happens, it didn't rotate enough and you should take a step back." He turned and demonstrated the same, this time it bounced off the target and completed it's spin to stick into the top of the desk. "See?" He said before he retrieved the knives and handed them to Nym.

"If there aren't any questions, it's your tuen to try. It might take a few tries, but you'll get it." He said with a nod. He folded his arms and took a step back, watchng her.

[Nym Magenta]

Nym watched, and tried to absorb what Johnny was saying and doing. There was definitely a lot of technique involved in this and not as much strategy, as the explanation was fairly simple and straightforward. Throw knife, adjust distance based on how it lands, throw again. By the time he'd let all three knives soar, she could tell that he had a lot of experience with this. Any kind of projectile took time to master to the point where you could make mistakes on purpose to explain it. What a bizarre hobby! Who in the world got into the art of knife throwing? Was he some kind of former criminal? Hah, as if criminals were the only people who threw knives. She'd run into a lot of perfectly normal Beacon students who had all manner of thrown weapons in their arsenal. Anyone who liked fighting might indulge in it.

She took the proferred knives, holding the two she wasn't throwing by the blades, between the fingers of her left hand. They weren't sharp enough to be dangerous holding them like that, and if she really got sloppy her aura would be able to take care of her. Her feet carried her to a spot that was slightly closer to the target than Johnny's starting point had been. Being shorter probably meant she should be closer, right? Her grip mimicked his and she put herself in the same stance he'd taken.

Then she diverged entirely as she used her entire body to throw the knife as hard as she could. Her hips turned, her arm whipped around, even her core engaged as she tried to throw the blade with enough force to stop a beowulf in it's tracks. The blade whizzed across the clearing and by sheer luck managed to hit the book she'd been aiming at, obliterating it, sending pages flying everywhere as the book was reduced to shreds. Nym blinked. "Bloody 'ell," she said with a laugh. "Piece o' piss," she said, giggling before turning to look at Johnny. "Sorry mate, couldn' resist." She'd been expecting the knife to go wide and embed itself in a tree a few yards past the target, but maybe beginner's luck was a real thing!

[Jericho Galley]

He watched her body tense up as she readied her throw, and he could tell she was about to throw it much harder than she needed to before the book exploded. He thought it was going to bounce of hard or go flying, but the book just flew apart! He couldn't help but burst out into belly laughter at the sight, truly impressed. It wasn't that the sight was funny, it was just his reaction to seeing something like that.

"Locker's Bells! That's a strong throw you got there!" He said as he tried to stop himself. "You sent the pages flying into the air!" He couldn't help but keep chuckling as he continued. "In combat, throwing knives normally aren't meant to be killing blows, you know. Your body can't keep up with putting that" He gestured to the destroyed book as he walked forward to pick up the knife and put another book up for practice, "much energy into every strike for the length of a fight. With more precision and less power, you can get them into joints or tendons and other weak points. And it's ok, maybe this time just try and get the tip to hit the trunk through the book, alright?" He stepped behind her, making room for her arm.

[Nym Magenta]

"Sure, sure, it can't keep up wif throwin' that 'ard fer that long, but if I jus' end the fight, don' need t'keep throwin' 'em, eh?" Nym said with a cheeky grin on her face as Johnny went to get her a new target and retrieve her knife. "Besides, can't carry that many knives can I? Gotta make 'em bloody count when I use 'em, eh?" Throwing knives didn't seem like her style. Whisper needed two hands in order to function, and it's ranged configuration was a lot deadlier and more consistent than any knife could be. Knives certainly had a purpose, but fighting Grimm with them? It wasn't a good fit for the style that Nym had fostered. People, though...under the right circumstances they could be useful. There were places you could hide knives that you couldn't hide a chainsaw. Actually, no, she probably didn't need to start thinking too hard about that. They were just trying to throw some knives around for fun right now.

Once her line of fire was cleared, she prepped again, trying to remember some of the advice that Johnny had been giving her and use it. Successfully fighting off the urge to let another rocket fly across the clearing, Nym threw the knife. It was much closer to the form she should have been using! The rotation was solid! It would have certainly stuck in the book just fine had it not missed it be several inches and ended it's arc in the dirt.

Nym turned her face to give Johnny a faux glare. "See? That ain't gonna kill nothin'. Pretty sure I was doin' it right the first time." She was not. She hadn't quite been gripping the knife right and she knew it. She turned back towards the book and narrowed her eyes. The arc of the blade had been spot on, her aim had just been off. She didn't need to move, she just needed to hit the target. Her finger pinched the handle. She drew the blade back. Her eyes focused on the book. Her sliced forward as she leaned just about as much as Johnny had the first time, and she let her final knife fly.

Thunk

The knife made a satisfying noise as it embedded itself in the table next to the book. "Ahhhhhh, piss," Nym muttered, her tail swishing behind her. She wasn't far off the mark, though! A few more throws and she could probably land the knife pretty consistently, right?

[Jericho Galley]

"Well..." Jericho began but didn't really have a counterargument. True, stop the fighting fast you didn't need to dwaddle around with more knives. And you surprisingly could take in a large number of daggers if you sized them down a bit and strapped them all over your body, but that was hardly practical for fighting Grimm. Wouldn't be too hard to recover them once the thing dissipated though, he supposed.

He kept his arms folded as she threw her next two knives, giving her a smile and a nod after the first throw and an impressed nod after the second. "Hey, you're not too bad. The tip made contact each time. Your aim is the only thing to improve. Your technique is great." He said, patting her on the shoulder with his left hand before he stepped forward to grab the knives.

Jericho walked towards the desk to pull out the knife, and in pure habit of his own reach with his Semblance, his gloved left hand simply floated off of his wrist over to the knife in the ground, picked it up, and retreated to his hand. He pulled out the other knife and started walking back towards Nym with the knives.

[Nym Magenta]

"Yeah well, got a knack fer physical stuff s'all." Fighting, athletics, they were her specialties. If it involved using her body there was a good chance she could master it more quickly than the average person. Her spatial awareness and kinesthetic senses were naturally adept and had only been sharpened with time and experience using her unique weapon's style of fighting. Watching Johnny was enough to understand the idea of the motion, the stance, the intention, but there was only one way to get good at anything. Practice, practice, practice.

Her train of thought was derailed abruptly as she watched Johnny's hand separate from his arm and float over the grass to retrieve the more distant knife. Her mind considered a few possibilities. Was she hallucinating? No, she hadn't been indulging in anything that would make her trip; she was too lucid to be seeing things. Was it some kind of gear? It didn't seem like it. There were no wires, and she couldn't smell the tell tale signs of dust being used to manipulate a fake hand. Semblance? Probably? But there wasn't any way to know for sure what it was without asking.

"Wow mate, s'a pretty 'andy semblance y'got there, eh?" She was making a stab in the dark. Maybe it was gear and he was about to correct her. Or his glove was haunted, hah! She'd heard stranger ghost stories.

[Jericho Galley]

She mentioned his Semblance as he turned around. His feet froze where he stood and he looked down at his left arm. Crap, he hadn't been careful with that. He let out a little groan and shut his eyes. Well, she hadn't freaked out too much, just thought that his Semblance was 'handy', ha. Jericho jumped at the chance to pull a little prank on her that he hadn't been able to pull yet here at Beacon.

Still looking like he was regretting letting her see it, he discarded the knives onto the desk, grabbed a larger knife that he had been throwing before and put his left arm on the table with his palm down. He raised the knife, aiming for his wrist. "Damn it, know I gotta go through this again!" He winced as if remembering the pain that would be coming.

He didn't swing down yet, this was all a show for Nym and to get a reaction out of her.

[Nym Magenta]

Nym watched with curiosity as he flinched. Had he been trying to conceal his semblance? It seemed like an odd choice given his current place of residence, though, not all that odd. Her own semblance was one that she didn't like sharing with others. She had only told a handful of people what it was. A few professors and her best friend were about it. Having an unknown semblance was an advantage in any fight, but it wasn't as if knowing what her semblance could do was that much of an advantage. Her eyes narrowed as he trudged towards the table and went for a real cleaver of a blade, raising it above his head while shouting in frustration. Or, mock frustration? Who would just cut off their hand?

She crossed her arms and cocked her hips to the side, raising an eyebrow at him. "Think 'm squeamish, mate? It'd take a lot worse than choppin' off a hand t' phase me." Her tail flicked playfully behind her. "Or were ya hopin' fer shock?" She put both her hands on her cheeks. "No Johnny! Don' do it!" She said with half-hearted concern. "Y've got so much t' live for!" Nym didn't really know what he was about to do. This might be some kind of parlor trick! He could have had a really clever turn around coming. Maybe he really was just trying to surprise her with some sudden violence, but he'd probably picked the worst girl in the academy to try and make balk at the idea of him cutting off a hand.

It wasn't her hand, after all!

[Jericho Galley]

Well.

That was a bummer. She wasn't really falling for it with just the knife, huh? Jericho knew this worked better on people who hadn't seen his hand disconnect from his body already, but hey, he could still try. He had to keep up the act though. He had been doing it the whole time at Beacon, so it wasn't too hard. He turned to her and grimaced. "This is part of my Semblance, you know. A part that sucks..."

He turned back to his arm, raised the knife a little higher, then plunged it down right onto his wrist. The knife cleared through where his wrist would be and Jericho screamed and let his legs buckle a little after the knife bit into the wood. His gloved hand lay limply where it had been, curling slightly as if the tendons had released their tension. His right hand grasped his left arm hard as he panted and let out painful sounds, his feet sliding out from under him before he caught himself with the other. "RRrghh! Damn it!" He spat through clenched teeth.

[Nym Magenta]

The grimace on his face looked quite genuine. Johnny was clearly a good actor! That, or this really did have something to do with his semblance and he really was about to gouge out a hole in his hand. Nym placed her hands on her hips and watched as the knife slammed into the table. His pained gasps, the grim screaming, the writing in agony, it was convincing! He really did seem like he was in a lot of pain. Her eyes lingered on the wood of the table. There was no telltale splatter of blood on his clothes or against the knife that he'd brought down quite forcefully.

"You know," she chimed in, "This'd prob'ly work betta' if ya kept some ketchup packets tucked away somewhere." She was being pretty flippant in the case that he really had gravely injured himself, but...he had chosen to do this! Supposedly it was necessary for his semblance to work, too. He couldn't be that sensitive about it if it was real, which she wasn't convinced it was! Even then, a single self inflicted stab wound wouldn't even be enough to get her to stop eating if she was hungry. "Though, gotta 'and it to ya, s'a pretty convincin' act. Prob'ly could fool me if ya did 'ave some fake blood or somethin'."

[Jericho Galley]

Jericho pretended not to hear her and remain in agony. She was right. Having something to act as blood would help tremendously. All the little details counted. Something to think of for when he did this to Ax.

Then without warning his gloved hand would spring to life and like a spider crawled over the wood of the table, leaping at her face!

[Nym Magenta]

His commitment to the act was genuinely impressive. Even after she'd clearly found out what was really going on, he was still going for it! She snorted out a laugh. "C'mon, man, yer not gonna fool-" Her eyebrows raised as his glove came to life and ran across the table at her. If she hadn't seen him remove his hand before, watched the knife land without a splatter of blood, seen through his dramatic act, it might have been scary. Instead, it reminded her of a B movie horror flick she'd watched with Ax called 'The Hand.' She didn't bother dodging or moving to swat it out of the way, letting it land on her face as she continued to laugh.

"Oi, mate," Nym said, struggling not to laugh as the glove filled her vision. "Less you feel like losin' any limbs fer real, you betta' keep yer 'ands t' yerself."

[Jericho Galley]

Jericho only kept up the groaning and pained act for a second or two after it his hand grabbed onto her face. He then stopped and stood up straight, the glove levitating off of her face and booped her on the nose. "Really? None of that got you at all?" He placed the stump of his left arm on his hip, as if his hand was still there. His floating hand hung limply at the wrist, giving a disappointed expression to Nym if a hand could ever give one.

"I do think some ketchup or fake blood could help, but I don't want to keep packets up my sleeve all day waiting for the opportunity." His hand rolled in the air as if bored by the thought. "Something must have surprised you though. Was it when I actually brought that cleaver down?" The hand mimiced a karate chop through the air.

[Nym Magenta]

Nym scratched at her nose lightly where the glove had given her a parting poke. None of it had gotten her! Well, sort of! "Nah, mate. I mean, 'f it really is part'a yer semblance t' stab yerself, n' yer in Beacon, wouldn't that mean y've done it 'undreds'a times? Can't imagine it'd be somethin' yer not used t' doin'...or, at least it ain't about t' kill ya." She hated to leave him disappointed. It was a good performance and the least she could do was compliment that. "I've uh...got t' ha-...got t'say," she was going to drive herself crazy if she kept saying hand over and over. "Was a pretty convincin' act. 'F I 'adn't 'ad ya figured out, might'a bought you were in some serious pain."

She planted her butt on the table, taking a seat, keeping her heels in the dirt and her legs stretched out in front of her. "I've..." she hesitated, not sure how honest she should be with him about the subject. Maybe just a little honest. "I've seen it b'fore, y'know? In person. People losin' limbs n' gettin' stabbed." That was putting it extremely mildly. "Might be able to fool a lotta the less, uh...well, other people 'ere who ain't seen it, but..." She trailed off, sighing lightly and giving Johnny a shrug. "Well, like I said, was a pretty good act, jus' need some ketchup or somethin'. Joke prob'ly works betta on people who 'aven't seen yer semblance already."

[Jericho Galley]

Jericho sighed and his hand floated quickly back to 'reattach' itself back onto his wrist. He leaned against the table, as she spoke and eventually joined him on the table. He was nodding and agreeing silently with everything she was saying. He couldn't help but crack a smile when she stopped herself from saying 'hand'. "You're right on every account there. Just, normally people don't think about the whole "you must have done this a ton of times by now" bit. Plus, yeah, most of the time I do it before they even see my Helping Hand leave my wrist."

He was looking slightly dissapointed, but it wasn't deeply or anything. Just the frown of a prank not working right. "It's just like, the one prank I got, you know?" His slight frown turned up at the corner. He took the cleaver he held and threw it at another tree not too far off, the blade sinking into the bark after spinning twice. Then he turned back to Nym. "How badly do you think it'd get Ax? She hasn't seen it yet."

[Nym Magenta]

The one prank he had? He probably hadn't spent that much time thinking about how to come up with pranks for his semblance! Not that that sounded like a high priority for a Beacon student, but there had to be so much more potential when you could send your hand flying around! He could tap his friends on the opposite shoulder from where he was standing...down the hall from them! He could do the separating thumb magic trick, but make his whole hand pop off instead! The possibilities were...well, there were at least three of them. Nym wasn't creative enough to volunteer her ideas or think of more.

"Pfffff, oh, mate, no. No, no no," Nym said with a laugh as she turned and looked towards Johnny. "I don' think ya wanna try'n pull that on Ax. She would not appreciate ya trickin' 'er inta' thinkin' ya cut yer own 'and off. Didn'cha see the metal one she 'ad? Not sure she'd think it was funny. Not unless ya did it really comic-like, tongue-in-cheek, y'know? Made it kinda obvious it was a joke." She pulled one foot up onto the table and wrapped her arms around it. "Like, no real knife, maybe jus' chop it off with yer otha' 'and or a plastic spoon or somethin'." Nym wasn't honestly sure how much or how little Ax would enjoy the dramatic self harm, but knowing her history, she was pretty sure it wouldn't go over well. "And uh...def'nitely skip the screamin' n' whatnot. Don' think that's the kinda prank ya wanna pull on people ya don' know. Yer, uh, kinda flippin' a coin on whetha' or not they'll think it's funny or that yer a psycho."

[Jericho Galley]

Right, she did have a metal arm. Honestly, that was one reason he thought she might have found it funny after the reveal. He was fine making the joke of self harm because he was completely over losing his hand. Maybe she wasn't, missing hers enough to not like those who joked about cutting off limbs. He could understand that.

He thought about making the joke super obvious and comical, and perhaps it would be more funny like that to her once his hand actually popped off and ran at her. No screamin', just 'oh no, look at me, about to cut my hand off with a spoon!'. It could work out.

Then Nym mentioned that last part about being a psycho. Right, although these were students studying battle and fighting monsters, they probably didn't live with people who collected scars and lost limbs like trophies. He knew one guy who's nose had been broken so many times the whole thing was scar tissue. Among them, the joke had gone over well. Nym seemed to have been from a similar situation, not being fazed by much. Or she really did just see through everything.

Which meant that she had a really solid head on her shoulders, all things considered. Not a lot of people had that these days. Too many people on the ships that had... borrowed... had lost their minds just at the sight of The Corsair. Nym wouldn't have been sent screaming to jump overboard, she would have used that chainsaw thing to fight. He liked that.

He probably was staring at her longer than was normal as he thought everything through. "Uh, yeah, don't want people thinking I'm crazy. I'm trying to lay low as it is..." He trailed off at the end and rolled his neck. "Well, do you wanna make some more throws and practice some more? You've only thrown one hand."

[Nym Magenta]

Nym held Johnny's gaze as he seemed to be mulling over everything she'd just said. It wasn't long enough to make her feel uncomfortable, thankfully. Some people needed a little more time to think of an answer. She could be like that too. Her brain didn't always figure out how to say what it wanted to say right away. His answer was a little curious. He was trying to lay low? He'd mentioned being worried someone from Mystral was looking for him. She wanted to know what exactly he was being so vague about, even if she'd already told him he didn't have to tell her. But she bit her tongue and kept her question to herself, instead choosing to take him up on his offer and beginning to gather up the knives before moving back towards the spot she'd been throwing them from in the first place, taking her time to give Johnny ample opportunity to move away from the targets as she did. He wasn't in danger of losing an eye. His aura would stop any serious injuries, but it still hurt!

"Y'know, Johnny," oh no, she wasn't biting her tongue hard enough was she? "I am a lil' curious where in Mystral yer from n' what it was like fer ya livin' there." She tossed one of the throwing knives up and down, getting a feel for the weight and the balance, catching it by the blade end and then by the handle. "You don' 'ave any kinda accent I've eva' 'eard b'fore. Mystral's bloody 'uge though, n' s'not like I been everywhere in it." Okay, she was nibbling her tongue, not biting it, but asking about other people was part of making a connection with them right? Ah! But what if it was her? She had a bloody hard time talking about Wind Path with anyone other than Ax. What if Johnny actually did have it as bad as she did? Well...she could just be understanding about it if he shut her down.

[Jericho Galley]

He backed up enough for her to throw no problem. He stood patiently as she spoke and readied the knives.

Where he was from in Mystral? That was easy, he had taken the info from what Johnny had told him about where he grew up incase anybody looked into him. Though, being in the middle of the continent would mix with all the 'lass'es he had been throwing around. As far as he knew, that was all sailor speak. And his accent? Crap, even after meeting Nym the first time, he hadn't thought of that.

There was a pause as he thought things through and tried to remember what he had said before. Ocean's breath, lying was hard to keep up with. "Well, I first grew up opposite of Wind Path, in Kuchinashi. If ye don't know what it's like, it's basically just a criminal city, like Wind Path, except with a lot less lights. It was... hard. I got me and my mother out of there to Argus where I worked on the ships in order for us to get by. I was also able to travel a bit around and had visited Wind Path a few times."

He blew out a breath, trying to make sure he got what he rehearsed in his head right. "Working as a sailor was hard work, but better than living in Kuchinashi. I lost me hand in an accident." At least he could tell one piece of truth. As dangerous as sword fighting was for your hands and fingers, he had lost his to a bloody rope. "I suppose my accent is partly from Kuchinashi and also from the sailors." He said with a grin.

[Nym Magenta]

She once again emulated the form the Johnny had showed her before, letting the knife sail through the air. It made a satisfying thunk as it embedded itself in the table next to the book she'd been aiming for. She clicked her tongue in annoyance. Close, again, but no cigar. "Neva' been," she said with regards to Kuchinashi. Her goal when she'd left Wind Path was to get as far away as possible as fast as possible. Big cities were asking for trouble. There were too many people, too many eyes. A little spark of jealousy lit in her stomach at the mention of Johnny's mother. It didn't last long. She couldn't help where she came from, right? "Argus, though, yeah, been there b'fore. Stole away on a private ship 'eadin' t' Vale. S'ow I ended up 'ere."

He worked as a sailor out of Argus? She could hardly imagine that line of work was enough to train him up for a spot at Beacon. Stars, how was the enough to get people after him? "So, saila' boy," she looked at him with a wry smirk before letting another knife loose. "How'd ya end up at Beacon? Workin' on ships n' losin' a hand don' sound like a great way t' make it t' the best academy in the world fer trainin' huntsmen n' huntresses." Thunk. This time she'd managed to hit the target! But only barely. The knife was sticking out of one of the lower corners, apparently not landing with enough force to send it flying. "Oh. Aces," she muttered happily to herself.

[Jericho Galley]

"Good job!" He said after he next volley. At least she didn't destory these targets like the first one.

How he came to be here, eh? Well, that was the big question, wasn't it? He watched her throw the knives for a moment before speaking. "Captain of the crew had gone through Haven academy back in his day, though he didn't say if he had graduated or not, and had his own Aura and Semblance." Which was true, honestly. Blackhand was rumored to have graduated and to have been a full fledged Huntsman who turned to piracy, though he never confirmed nor denied it. Jericho had no clue what academy he would have gone through though.

"Turns out that when you grow up in Kuchinashi and then live on a boat and have to fight off Grimm, you get pretty good at taking care of yourself. The Captain said he saw something better for me than working on the boats and recommended me to become a Huntsman. I took it. Some... things... happened at school and I decided to transfer here." Jericho didn't get into a lot of detail of what happened to make Johnny leave, so unfortunately he'd have to just hope people didn't want to pry and left it alone.

[Nym Magenta]

Nym tossed the last knife up and down while she listened to Johnny's answer. There were that many Grimm out at sea? Her boat ride had been fairly uneventful, but maybe that was a bit of an exception. She didn't know hardly anything about boats or travel by water, and if he was at Beacon that was probably enough proof that he knew what he was doing. It wasn't like just anyone could stumble through the front doors. What sorts of things at the academy in Mistral would be enough to get him to leave another continent behind? Did it have something to do with who was after him? It seemed like about the only thing that would be severe enough to get someone to transfer their schools. "What kinda things?" She let the final knife fly, and the moment it left her fingers she could tell where it was going to land.

Thunk.

Dead center. The toss had felt just right. She looked down at her hand with an impressed look on her face, then she moved her arm again to attempt to mimic the same swing and commit it to memory. How did it Feel? "'M sure s'prob'ly somethin' difficult t' talk about if yer jus' callin' it things, so...you don' gotta tell me or nothin', but I ain't about t' judge ya fer it. Y' gotta do whatcha gotta do t' stay alive, right?" She wasn't truly expecting him to open up now, but she could at least give him a chance. He was lonely, a stranger on the run from something in a new city where he didn't know a soul. Where had she heard this story before? It'd taken her a long time to talk to anyone about where she'd come from and what she was running from, but she never would have come to terms with it if no one had reached out a hand to her.

And wasn't that part of being a huntress, too, helping those in need?

[Jericho Galley]

Jericho frowned in appreciation at her throw and also at her question. He was silent until she continued speaking, thinking things through. Unfortunatley for him, humans are contradictory beings. As much as he wanted to take her offer in order to keep tight lipped about the whole thing until he could investigate his own past, he also wanted to open up a bit to Nym. He liked her and, well darn it, he knew more truth about her than she knew about him. A tiny tiny bit of him was, by the way, not thinking that a bit of mystery tended to attract lassies. Not at all.

"My team was..." His mouth was open as if to speak but closed for a second before opening again. "I was sorta..." Same thing, he closed his mouth. At length he let out a breath. "There's a reason I don't talk about them much. Or too them, at all. I don't think I'm ready to talk much about it. Sorry. Oh, and great throw. It was perfect."

You gotta do what you gotta do to stay alive. Right...

[Nym Magenta]

"Cheers," she replied with a grin. It had been quite a throw! Luck, mostly, she was still guessing at what form would deliver the right results. It would probably take a while before she could reliably hit the center of the target, but her fundamentals were good. Once she knew how it felt to throw the knife she'd never have to think about it to hit bullseye after bullseye. That was going to take some time, though. So would Johnny. Whatever had happened between him and his former team had been seriously bad if it was enough to completely cut ties and change schools.

"Well, f'yer feelin' like openin' up a little n' tellin' the truth t' someone, I'll listen. But f'you cop a feel when yer doin' it, no one'll eva' hear from ya again." It wouldn't have been the first time someone feigned a moment of genuine closeness in order to feel her up, unbelievably enough. "You'd, uh...maybe you'd be surprised 'ow good it feels t' tell someone somethin' y' think ya can't open up about, or...that no one else'll understand." Hopefully that would get the message across, right? She hated the idea of having to flat out say she'd done the same, had her own stories she thought would be the immediate end of a friendship if spoken aloud. That she'd said them to someone who cared and found that they were even better friends than before. A burden shared was a burden lessened, right? What were the chances he actually had done something unforgivable?

"B'sides, already seen ya cryin' once, so I know y've got some kinda heart inside yer chest! Can't be embarrassed about doin' it again, now, eh?" The awkward dance of trying to be serious, but not too serious. A dash of support followed by a heaping helping of humor, just in case he didn't think her assurances were welcome. Ax was better at this.