I stared at them, a bit afraid as to what was going to happen. I didn’t want either of them to get hurt. I knew how much they hated each other, and they used these matches to really lay into the other. I wondered how long I could watch.
Chase went straight towards Malcolm, his elbows close to himself, punching towards his torso. Malcolm blocked them all and tried to rebut with his own technique, but Chase blocked him as well. Then Chase laid one right onto Malcolm’s jaw.
I put my hands over my mouth as Malcolm wiped away the blood on mouth. “Good one.”
And with that he punched Chase right into the jaw as well. Chase stumbled back for a moment, then charged back at him with another punch. Malcolm easily deflected it and kicked him in the side. Chase blocked the second kick, adding a few more punches of his own. One landed straight into Malcolm’s stomach but he didn’t let it phase him. Quickly he punched back, making Chase turn his back to him to block. Malcolm had the upper advantage for a moment, but Chase quickly got out of it.
“Oh my god, when are they going to stop?” I whispered more to myself than to Davis or Melvin. Neither of them were slowing down and the more they fought, the more they appeared angrier.
Chase took a large swing at Malcolm, which Malcolm easily dodged and kicked Chase straight in the face in retaliation. I watched as blood started to run down his face next to his eye. God, I couldn’t stomach watching anymore, but my eyes couldn’t look away for even a second.
Malcolm charged at him, round kicking twice at his face, but Chase dodged both of them and punched him straight in the face. Chase kept punching but Malcolm held off each attack and punched him in the nose. He started to fall back but Malcolm grabbed him and pulled him into a full Nelson. Chase was helpless.
“When are you going to realize you can’t beat me, cat?” Malcolm yelled. “Stop being a selfish bastard and realize you are nothing! Just a pain in my ass.”
“Why should I ever take orders from you, you’re an outcast! A criminal! You should have never been allowed back into Wonderland. Alice should have never accepted you, she was stupid to think you could ever change!” Chase kept struggling in Malcolm’s grip, but couldn’t do anything about it. I wondered if they meant the original Alice, the Alice of legend.
“That is none of your business!”
“Boys, enough!” Howard stepped in the room. “Really, I leave you alone for ten minutes and I come back to this. How is Alice supposed to learn if you can’t hold it together for a few minutes?”
Malcolm let go of Chase and Chase dusted himself off. They both answered. “Sorry, sir.”
“Chase,” Howard sighed. “I want you to teach Alice how to use a sword. You are the best one to teach here.”
He nodded. “Sure.”
“Well then,” Howard gestured to the swords. “Go ahead.”
Howard stared at Chase, scowling at him as he went to get the swords.
“Come on Alice, we will practice over here,” Chase said.
Chase started showing the different type of swords there were and what each one was best at when it came to fighting. “There are many types of swords, as you can see. I will give you a quick overview before we decide which one we should practice with.
“First off, you have your longswords and bastard swords, which are the typical medieval looking swords. These can either be one or two hands, though with the heavier ones I think they need two hands. It really just depends on the handle. They are usually double-edged.” He moved on to the next swords.
“For one-handed swords, we have broadswords which include claymores. Then there are long knives which are always good to have handy in case something happens to your main sword.
“Next we have the edgeless and thrusting swords, such as the xiphos, rapier, and panzerstecher, which are more for agility, finding your opponent’s weak spot when it comes to armor and aiming there. Then there is the single-edged and curved swords, which include katanas, sabers, and cutlasses. Any questions?”
I had a lot of questions, actually. I knew nothing about swords and suddenly was thrusted in having to choose one of them. But there was one thing I wanted to know. “What would be the best to fight against Morpheus with?” I asked.
Chase scratched his chin. “Really depends on what he has. It’s not like I have seen him fight with a sword. As for the King and Queen’s guards, they fight with rapiers, which have more precision when dealing with armor. With Morpheus, you don’t need to worry about that. You also won’t be able to learn to be that precise and quick. As for double-sided, two-handed swords, I think they might be too heavy and slow you down. So really for you I would pick either a claymore or any of the single-edged swords.”
I glanced back at the rest of the boys and Howard. They were all talking, and Malcolm seemed to be arguing about something, but Howard wouldn’t have it. The tension was growing thick in the room.
Turning my attention back to the swords, I studied them all. I did agree that I would want to start out with something light at first and there was one that stood out to me above all the rest. I grabbed the katana.
“Should have figured. All right.” Chase grabbed the other katana. “Let’s start our
