Karkat loved Strife class. It was much better than that stupid Physical Education class that the humans took and was one of the few classes that mixed the different grades together. Strife at first was only for trolls but starting last year, a few stronger and agile humans were able to join, like Dave. Well actually, Dave was the only one who bothered to join since all the other humans were too afraid of getting too heavily injured. John came the first day but soon dropped out after seeing the demonstration match between two graduated trolls. A class like this really helped Karkat relieve his anger issues through the many battles that he partook in. He'd rather have a match than watch though. It wasn't like he loved to fight, it was more like a good exercise in a controlled environment to help his abilities grow. Plus he didn't feel as angry after a good match.
"Oh well hello there Miss Sea troll. Don't see too many of your kind here," the green blooded troll instructor took interest in Zylpha right away. The instructor was right in not seeing sea trolls in that class. Usually sea trolls or highbloods above blue had their own private Strife instructor or they went into some other class. Eridan was in a sharpshooting class with Jade while Feferi was, of course, against violence. Gamzee was one of the rare highbloods that joined the class except he joined through recommendation by his friends while the others just wanted to beat up some lowbloods.
"I never knew there was a specific class for Strife. I found it quite interesting so I decided to join and see how it is," Zylpha responded calmly.
"Oh ho well then, why don't we find you a partner to spar with so we can see your current skill level," oh great the first match of the day was going to be really showy and everyone would be required to watch. Karkat hated days like those because he always felt the chance of being unable to get any sort of training done.
Zylpha just nodded as the instructor pointed at a male purpleblood lower than Gamzee and motioned the troll to the fighting ring. Karkat liked this instructor. He treated everyone as equal and only treated the trolls according to the hemospectrum when required. He usually let people pair up with whoever they wanted for an ordinary spar but when it came to skill checking and showy matches, the troll instructor paired weak people against stronger ones. It was either to show how much the weaker person needed to work, to enjoy the scene of a lowblood beating up a highblood, or to see highbloods beat the crap out of each other. Karkat believed that maybe if he and his father met they would've become somewhat good friends.
"This should be interesting," Terezi cackled. Karkat just hoped that the match would be over soon.
Zylpha stepped out into the ring where the male purpleblood was waiting and gave her a sly grin. She took no heed of it as she unraveled her weapon from her waist, she then pressed a button on each of the batons and handles flew out. After grabbing them she took a ready position with the chain hanging behind her. It was pretty long and hung down to her ankles.
"Tonfas, sweet choice," Dave commented. That just made her weapon stranger, why the hell would she have a chain connecting the ends of her weapons. It looked like it would restrict some of her maneuvers and with the chain so long it looked like she could easily trip over it. Well she obviously didn't have any trouble with it when she tied and pinned Karkat the other day.
"She looks puretty strong," Nepeta complimented. Kanaya and The Dolorosa didn't approve at first to letting Nepeta into such a violent class, but allowed it once it was explained that it was a good idea to help her learn self defense. Plus Nepeta really wanted to take the class since it was the only one she could take with her brother.
"Yer sure yah know how to use those things darling?" the purpleblood held two sabers in his hands with his grin still in place as he waited for the start signal.
"The match ends when someone steps out of the ring or when I say so," the instructor looked at the two participants before shouting, "Begin!"
The purpleblood lunged right away for a frontal attack and Zylpha held one of the tonfas up to block. His right saber hit her left tonfa and when he brought up his left blade for a swing she easily blocked. Zylpha kicked forward making the male troll jump back to dodge. It was then her turn to attack. She dashed forward and her right arm went forward for a side attack. The purpleblood held up his sabers to block, but there was no impact. Instead, Zylpha had thrown her right tonfa past his head and ran past his left, caught her tonfa behind him and pulled forward. The chain connecting the two tonfas wrapped around his ankles and pulled them back, causing him to fall forward and land flat on his face. Well it definitely looked like she knew how to use that complicated weapon.
The purpleblood quickly scrambled to get up as the class giggled or tried to hold back their laughter. Zylpha had a small smirk on herself for a second as she watched the male compose himself and put that sly grin back on. That annoying grin soon turned her smirk into a frown. She didn't like how he kept grinning like that especially after such a humiliating display. He lunged once more with both his sabers for one powerful attack. Zylpha blocked with both tonfas and the two stood there for a struggle.
"Yer pretty good missy," the purpleblood complimented before leaning in closer and whispering something in her ear. Karkat wasn't paying attention so he didn't catch it but he noticed Terezi's face twist into disgust.
"Hahaha wow what a dick," Karkat looked at Dave and then at Vriska who also had a face of disgust.
"What'd he say?" Karkat began to feel curious.
Before anyone could answer Zylpha kneed the purpleblood in the stomach eliciting a pained grunt from the male and making him step back clutching his stomach. Karkat saw anger flash over the sea troll's face before she smashed her right tonfa into the face of the purpleblood. A few of the students quickly scrambled out of the way as his body flew out of the ring. Dave whistled as the body skidded a few feet across the floor.
"Oh my God FUCK!" the troll clutched his now broken and bleeding nose while squirming with pain. His other highblood friends immediately went over to help him.
"Whoa okay match to Maluna," the instructor declared as he watched the group leave to take the injured to the infirmary, "Interesting tactics you got there."
Zylpha just looked away and walked towards one of the walls, the students in her direction moved out of the way in slight fear. She sat down against the wall and took out a cloth to wipe off the blood on her tonfa with her usual impassive face but it showed hints of irritation.
"Asshole totally deserved that," Vriska sneered, "I wouldn't have just left it at that, she should have beat him up more."
"Can someone tell me what the fuck just happened?" Karkat irritatingly asked.
"He used a really bad pick up line and instead of a slap he got a stick to the face," Terezi frowned.
"Was it that bad?"
"Yeah what'd he say?" Nepeta asked curiously.
"Dude she almost smashed his face in," Terezi covered Nepeta's ears when Dave cleared his throat to imitate the violetblood's voice, "I heard yer a good singer. I'm pretty good with music myself. How 'bout sometime this evenin' we go make some beautiful music together at mah place. What do you think?"
"God sorry I asked. That was fucking horrible, yeah he probably deserved worse."
"Aw I wanted to hear!" Nepeta pouted.
"Trust me girl it's best if you don't know. The words of slimeballs have no right to reach your innocent ears," Terezi patted the disappointed Leo.
"Now how does that motherfucker know she's a good singer? Any of you hear her make some miraculous wind pipe sounds? You've only heard her hum right best friend?" Gamzee surprisingly made a really good point. Especially since Karkat thought that the clown was daydreaming and not paying attention like usual.
"Well considering her powers I guess she would be a good singer right? They'd only be able to know that on the second day if they knew who her mother was, but how would they know? It's not like it was broadcasted who her mom was when she introduced herself," Vriska's brows furrowed.
"What if someone overheard us talking at lunch?" Nepeta brought up with worry.
"Fuck no that can't be it, no one likes to pay attention to us," Karkat hoped, "That creep was probably just desperate and looked up info on her like Ampora did and used it to hit on her. You know highbloods have all those fucking connections and all that shit."
"Right . . ." was the only response he got and it was from Dave. Karkat expected some sort of snarky or idiotically ironic comment, but one never came.
"Alright class pick your partners for some training matches, I'm gonna go see if that kids' face is okay or not. Maluna you're class ref for the day. Leijon, explain what it is to her," Nepeta looked at Karkat, who shook his head at her indicating not to bring up what happened yesterday, before energetically bounding over to Zylpha as the instructor left.
"Hi I'm Nepeta! First year!" the Leo stuck out her hand at the sea troll's face.
Zylpha blinked at the hand before getting up without taking it and threw out her tainted cloth into the nearest trash bin, "I am Zylpha, second year. You should just hurry up and tell me the details of being a 'ref' so you can be on your way and continue with the class."
Being a ref consisted of just watching over the class and stopping any training matches that went too far, but instead of just explaining normally, Nepeta tried to incorporate examples all the while trying to get to know Zylpha a bit better and spouting a few facts about herself. She left that fact about being Karkat's sister out just in case Zylpha would decide to cease speaking with her completely.
"I have a feeling that she's going to really hate Nepeta platonically in the next 30 seconds, girl is persistent and she's the type that looks like she doesn't like energetic people," Vriska predicted.
"Hehehe well she should learn to adapt," Terezi then latched her arm around one of Dave's and pulled him to the side, "You're my partner today cool kid, you still haven't taught me that one sword twirl."
"You're a really dangerous blind girl you know that. Shit TZ who the hell even tricked out your cane to be a blade anyways, your mom?" Dave said sarcastically.
"Yes," Terezi replied with an even larger fanged grin.
"How ironic," Dave let Terezi pull him away from the others. He shouted out ironic warnings as Terezi unsheathed her blade and purposely swung it around haphazardly to create more room for them to work with. Even if she was known by everyone to maneuver just fine being blind, no one wanted to take a chance for the inevitable injury she may cause and blaming it on her disability.
"Hey Gamzee you should come help me pair up with some of those first year lowbloods," Vriska just wanted to scare the crap out of them using Gamzee highblood and juggalo traits.
"Sure thing sister, coming Karkat?" Gamzee oblivious to her intentions immediately agreed.
"No, I'll go find my own partner, you just go ahead," Karkat waved them away. When the two left he looked back at Nepeta. Sure enough, Zylpha began to look quite annoyed with Nepeta's friendliness. He really wanted to just go over there and drag her out of the class to talk but it would cause a scene and he already decided to leave it to his friends. So with a sigh he went to find an unfortunate sap to take his frustration out on.
"Hey we're going to the mall so see ya later," Vriska announced outside to the group waiting for their usual school bus. Terezi just waved to the group as she followed her sister to the city bus stop. Karkat became suspicious of the sudden announcement. Usually Terezi would always invite everyone to come against Vriska's protests, claiming it would be more fun with more people, but this time she didn't even try and just went with it. Karkat waited for the two to go around the corner before he began to follow.
"Where you going dude?" John asked.
"Mall."
"Oh cool I'll come with," John invited himself and waved to the group before following Karkat.
"Whatever," Karkat didn't even bother to reject him since it was John and it was hard to. Maybe he could even help with seeing what Vriska and Terezi were up to. He highly doubted they just wanted to have a sisterly hangout randomly in the middle of their strange situation.