Lunamor

The Wonder Pets use the power of friendship and song to smite you.

“If you really want to, sure. But it’s absolutely not necessary.” Jenny looked at Sword. Memories she had suppressed for years were beginning to bubble back up, making her mind feel like it was stretched. She’d avoided thinking about them to the point where they became blank spots. The only way to understand them was to acknowledge what had triggered the events, so she had decided to just not understand them. ”How long were you on the run?”

Jenny was rather proud of Edgar’s commitment to practicing. She eventually stopped throwing knives and left him to his practice, skipping over to Harold. She hadn’t spoken with him very much yet. ”Hi Harold! How are you feeling today? Yesterday must’ve been really stressful.” @The Clarinetist

The Wonder Pets use the power of celery to rescue them and take the sandwich as payment.

“That’s ok! I do appreciate the concern.” Jenny started practicing throwing a knife with her left hand in case something happened to her right hand. Her throws were decent, but not perfect. Instead of running to retrieve each thrown knife, she waited until the group eventually reached its resting place when walking. It made her feel a little impatient, but constant running felt like a waste of energy. She wasn’t Harold.

She was glad Edgar seemed to be ok with waiting to learn knife tricks until he practiced some more. Jenny didn’t want to argue with him about that. However, she might have to argue with him about his concern for her. “I’ll be fine, I promise. I can take care of myself. I’ve been on my own for years before, and I’m not alone this time, anyways. I’m more worried about you right now.”

Chuck Norris has counted backwards from infinity.

“That was fantastic!” Jenny excitedly dashed over and retrieved both knives. Edgar was doing even better than she’d hoped. ”After you practice that some more, I can show you the fancier stuff. If you want to be safe about it, it’ll take a couple hundred horizontal throws to become fully familiarized with it. Normally I’d be fine with a little danger, but you’re already injured and can’t afford to eat any more ambrosia.”

“Great!” Edgar was a fast learner. ”The final step is to release the knife once your arm is straight. After you release it, keep your arm going downwards. Don’t let it stop- that’ll mess up your momentum. Don’t try and focus on using force too much as well. Think about just letting the knife slip from your hand rather than chucking it. It’s about finesse, not strength.” Jenny looked around briefly, searching for a target. She then realized that aiming for a target was probably a bit too difficult for a beginner. Instead, she threw a knife directly in front of them. It soared forwards a good distance, although she refrained from throwing it too terribly far. The empty field they were in made that a simple task fortunately. ”Now you try.”

“You’re welcome! And don’t worry about any mistakes; unless you’re the child of whichever god has throwing knives under their domain you probably aren’t going to be perfect on your first try.” Jenny assumed the proper stance again. ”The next step is to swing your arm forwards. You need to move your forearm forward from the elbow until your arm is straight. At the same time, shift your weight from your back foot to your front foot to generate momentum.” She swung her arm forwards a few times as an example. ”Make sure your wrist ends up being straight as well.”

“You’ve got a bit too much weight on your front foot. You need to make sure it’s all on your back foot, or else you won’t be able to generate enough power when you throw.” Jenny looked over his stance a bit more. ”Your forearm is bent too far backwards as well.” She gently pushed his wrist forwards a bit. ”It could mess with the angle of your throw.”

“Before you can toss it in the air vertically, you need to practice throwing it forwards horizontally. The tricks I like to do are more difficult than you’d think, so you have to be very familiar with the simple stuff first.” Jenny resisted the urge to demonstrate another vertical toss. “To set up a throw, you need the proper stance. Shift your weight completely onto your dominant leg and rest your non-dominant leg in front of you. Then, hold your dominant arm up perpendicular to the ground and bend your elbow until the knife is beside your head.” She demonstrated, moving slowly so Edgar could track her movements.

“Since this is a double edged blade, a hammer grip would work best for you. It’s got the lowest chance of accidentally slicing yourself.” Jenny pointed to a faint white scar on her palm. ”I learned that lesson the hard way. Wrap your four fingers around and under the handle, and rest your thumb on top. Hold it like you would a hammer, essentially.” She demonstrated the grip with Sword. Jenny preferred a pinch grip on the blade, but had plenty of practice with other methods.

Jenny grinned and immediately rifled through her bag, pulling out a plain looking dagger. She hadn’t brought her favorite ones on this trip in case she needed to abandon them. She flipped it once, testing its balance, then put it away and grabbed a different one. Jenny wanted to ensure that Edgar’s lesson would be as straightforward as possible, and balanced knives were best for beginners. She held it out for Edgar, handle facing him.

Jenny noticed Edgar watching Sword and smiled. ”Would you like me to teach you how to throw a dagger? I can throw it forwards too if I need range. I normally don’t do that with Sword, but I’ve got a bunch of ‘disposable’ ones in my bag.” She shifted slightly to stop one of her disposable daggers from poking her back.

The Little Einsteins crash their favorite rocket ship on you and steal the sandwich.

Such a specific reference Receives a singing rat. Inserts a bar of soap.

Here’s a rat skeleton. I have a vague sense of dread.

Chuck Norris mines bitcoin with a pen and paper.

I’m cheating using Google. Why did the car get a flat tire?

Nope! I’d like to maybe visit someday, though. TPBM has sleepwalked.

I’ve heard it both ways. Did you get the reference I made above?

I dropped my ice cream. Sadness.

She poked her cheek again. She thought that it hurt slightly less now. ”They don’t impair any functions and the pain isn’t too bad. Achy rather than stabby.” Jenny started tossing Sword between her hands. ”It’s pretty annoying, though, to be honest. I’d forgotten what this was like. I think getting hit with wooden swords for five years has made me go a little soft.”

Jenny nodded. She’d remind him to eat some more tomorrow morning. She started tossing Sword a little higher. After a few more throws, however, it nearly slipped out of her hand, so she went back to her former tossing height. She considered digging another dagger out of her pack so she could toss two at once, but decided that it wasn’t a great idea to experiment with that while on a quest. Jenny was rather proud of her restraint. ”If you ever need a dagger for whittling and stuff, I have a few extras you could borrow.”