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There weren’t many melee phighters Sword paid much attention to.
He and Banhammer didn’t have similar weapons; Skateboard was— well, himself- and Biograft was a robot.
Aside from the occasional hangout with Skateboard, he never had a lot of reason to pay attention to them.
But!
There was one other phighter he’d become interested in each time he participated, mainly due to the fact that they almost had the same weapon.
Katana!
Sword had asked Rocket multiple times about whether or not to ask for advice, and he’d given one of the same responses almost every time:
“I could just teach you more explosives.”
“If you want to, then ask.”
“Next question!”
He tried pressing on and repeating the question whenever Rocket said ‘next’, but it usually ended in them bickering.
There was never really a proper opportunity to talk. In the phights themselves, Katana always looked too focused. Sword couldn’t really tell with the mask— but it was his personal opinion.
All the fast-paced slashes, along with the cool sword unsheathing, looked like some serious effort.
And he didn’t plan too hard on changing that.
There were a lot of cool people he didn’t talk to outside of the arena, so he wouldn’t suddenly change it.
But today, when Rocket walked up to him, he noticed someone following.
“I think I’m gonna lose another leg,” the boy mumbled, already grabbing onto Sword with a visible burn mark towards the end of his jeans.
Sword gave a small frown at that, trying to check “Don’t- Medkit’s gonna keep me doing your leg repairs forever.”
“You complaining?”
“Yeah, ‘cause when all the screws get loose, and I don’t have the specific-” Rocket shut him up with a glare, but it wasn’t targeted towards him.
More like a long look at someone behind him.
There was one tall shadow on the ground, directly stretching over him.
Someone huge was behind him.
“Do you need something?”
Thank the sword deities that Rocket was braver than him; either way, when he turned around, Sword lost all of his cool immediately.
“You’re the other sword guy!” His eyes lit up, and he almost eagerly pulled out his gear again to show off to Katana, “I was planning to try and talk to you one of these days!”
For an extrovert, Sword had gotten nervous real fast. He’d almost dropped his gear with how eager he was to show it off.
“That’s nice.”
One gruff and dry voice.
Katana didn’t seem too keen on making small talk, but Sword was beaming. Especially as the man pulled out his own gear, reciprocating the action to compare.
“Your blade’s too short,” Katana mumbled, using his free hand to gently touch the sword.
He did the same with the katana, eyes narrowing with pure curiosity:
“Yours seems too long.” Still, the retort wasn’t to be mean— he was way too sheepish for something like that right now.
By the time Katana stopped checking the sword, he was trying his hardest to look somewhat impressive.
“Who taught you your techniques?”
“Ah?”
They weren’t that special, were they? If they were, he had some major thanking to do with Venomshank.
Sword turned around to see if Rocket was still behind him, but he wasn’t. Blegh, he’d already gone to Zuka.
It wouldn’t hurt to stay a little longer and explain himself.
“My dad’s into some older stuff!” Having the chance to explain his training had him excited, even if he was still somewhat anxious about messing up in front of someone like this.
“If it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle,” Sword could hear the hint of embarrassment in the man’s tone, seeming somewhat ashamed for asking, “Would you mind trading techniques with me?”
Really?
He looked cool enough that someone like this would want tips from him?
Sword held back the majority of his excitement when hurrying back towards the arena, already smiling while walking, “Yeah! Of course.”
“My methods of teaching may be more ancient, for your liking.” Katana was incredibly soft-spoken for someone so scary-looking.
The contrast was somewhat comforting.
“I might not be a good teacher either, honestly. My dad kind of freestyles how he teaches me.”
“My master did the same.”
To be real, he had no clue how to continue. The phighting arena had been mainly cleared out, aside from people practicing for the next match. It wouldn’t be until tomorrow morning, though.
“Do you want me to just like—” Sword loosely gestured with his hands, finding the words after cutting himself off, “I can spar with you if it makes it easier! It’s a bit hard to explain my techniques without doing anything.”
Katana paused, hand on his weapon as well, before going, “If we do, I’ll explain mine afterwards. It’s easier to explain the specifics when I’m not performing them.”
“Fine by me!”
Sword held up his gear very carefully, taking in a deep breath.
He had to imagine it as any other training match, similar to the ones Venomshank put him through every other day.
With a shakier breath, he charged, giving a sheepish grin before getting parried. His methods were a bit messy, but he figured the training for different weapons was what did that.
“See, like when I get parried, I sort of just-” He couldn’t explain himself, hastily knocking the other’s katana to the side with more force than he’d meant to.
It didn’t do a lot, especially with how quickly Katana could slash.
Katana analyzed each of his moves throughout the fight, occasionally allowing his sword’s little explosions to hit harder.
Sword only realized how clumsy all of his fighting was when against a professional, slightly laughing every time he had to parry a good attack.
“But when I can’t, uhm,” he stuttered a bit while blocking, quickly continuing between the clangs of their swords, “Get in a good hit, I just do this.”
With one more quick block, he threw his sword behind the other, watching it stick into the ground. There was a little confused hum, up until his sword exploded.
“Ah.”
Surprise. That wasn’t an overdramatic sign of it, but he knew that much was impressive.
“Does that work when the sword’s lodged into an opponent?”
“Usually works better like that.”
Katana gave another small hum, one that sounded more like approval, as he said, “Sounds gory.”
“My brother does a lot of healing stuff in the phights, so it usually doesn’t get that bad.”
The other seemed more lost in thought while looking at Sword re-summon his gear, foot tapping as he put his katana back into his sheath.
“The most I could teach you would be better speed.”
“Actually?” Getting some new teachings on how to use his sword was a welcome thing! Venomshank would probably be so proud of him for putting in the extra effort.
“Mhm. It’s simple, actually.”
Right as Katana moved to unsheathe his weapon again, Sword paused.
Right, he was meant to go home with Rocket and get slushies today.
Staying out this late was fine, but not when Zuka was actively waiting in the truck for him.
“Sword!” Rocket jumped a bit more towards the two of them, side-eyeing Katana momentarily before saying, “I’ve been waiting in the truck for twenty minutes.”
He didn’t look mad yet. It was just the ticked-off expression of someone far too impatient for him.
“I was about to come out! We’ve just been showing off stuff.”
“Good for you, either way, I want to get home earlier tonight. I have work in the shop tomorrow.”
Katana was only watching the two of them before chiming in with a small sound, “My apologies if I’ve been interrupting something. I had no clue there was anything happening.”
Rocket seemed to soften at that. As angry as he could get, he wasn’t completely insincere. He was still clearly frustrated with Sword, but all he grumbled back to Katana was:
“It’s not your fault he didn’t give you any heads-up.”
“Still. Didn’t mean to delay him.”
Sword only looked at Katana before reluctantly admitting, “It was sort of my fault for forgetting, so don’t worry about it too hard, man.”
He didn’t know where else to leave it. Katana gave him a small shrug before extending his hand and giving one of the most professional handshakes he’d ever experienced.
“I appreciated the opportunity to spar, as short as it was.”
So now Rocket could be patient? Because he was clearly waiting for Sword to finish up the interaction, despite how he barged into the arena a second ago.
“We can always run it back! I need to see how you do that quick draw stuff anyway.”
“I assure you, it’s easier than it looks.”
Sword was in thought for less than a second as he eagerly said, “If you’re at tomorrow’s phight, we can figure it out there.”
“Fine by me.”
He blinked, standing there for a second before Rocket yanked him back. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Katana!”
It wasn’t out of anger or jealousy— did he really want to go home that badly?
“You’re such a prick,” Sword mumbled, cutting all other complaints short when Rocket scowled at him.
Yeah, twenty minutes doing extra training with someone Rocket had never met was his fault.
But he had all of tomorrow to keep up the training!
Even if that training ended up involving a mess of him dropping his sword and accidentally detonating it multiple times, in futile attempts to mock Katana’s quick draws.