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Leslie carefully navigated the slippery floors, clinging to the wall desperately. Thank ******** no one was ever down on this side of the basement, it was why he'd chosen it from the available lots, rather than taking a packed upstairs room. People on all sides made him ******** like none other.

He dragged himself up to the fields, and after a brief stint of getting lost, ******** around with his phone, then getting lost again, Leslie was on the training fields.

It was wound around his wrist, because it said its name was Aleria, but objects didn't get to pick their names. Mutants didn't give their powers a separate name, so the weapon just got to be it. (Even if it did seem nice. Maybe Leslie would pick a better name for it later, after it proved itself.)

He showed up looking like the teenaged hooligan he was: a stained and worn hoodie that was too big for him, jeans with holes in the knees, and a pair of combat boots that had seen better days. Rep was a hard guy to miss: he could see the red hair from across the field.

"Hey," Leslie offered with a wave of a hand, toying with the bracelet around his wrist. "Do I just, summon it and go, or how does this s**t work?"

Rep just looked, like, normal, like he'd expect a hunter to look. Decked out in uniform, the white of his coat almost radiant in the sunlight. Leslie hated his coat, but it was also the nicest thing he owned, so it sat on a hanger in his room hanging off a nail, and it would until someone forced him into it.

He gave head-nod back, catching the general drift. So far, he definitely didn't look or act like some sort of f**, definitely wasn't a jew, and he didn't like bitches to boot. To Leslie, he was the coolest thing around, and the only one that understood his plight.

When Rep summoned his weapon, he was treated to a shocked "Jesus shitting ******** christ on a ******** stick." The axe gleamed in red and black, its runes harshly glowing against the surface of the blade.

"Jesus," he muttered again, and the bracelet on his wrist shifted in a puff of cool air, turning from a barbed string into a tall stave, sharp metal protrusions at the top of it, centred around a sharp gem that pulsed with a clean, blue light. It was a good foot taller than him, and it was clear in the way he handled it that Leslie still didn't know how to use it correctly.

<< Stick him with the pointy end, >> it offered, curious and on edge in equal amounts, << and move yourself rather quickly. It is a very, very big axe. >>

With a running lunge, Leslie managed a glancing blow, and it crooned with a pleasing sort of purr. <******** stop that. It's really ******** weird.

"Sorta like that, I guess?"

hp// 40
dmg// 3
charge// 1/3

To fight in such a casual context was a completely alien experience for Leslie. Combat was what happened in retaliation to a threat, large or small. It was done with the adrenaline high of a reckless man who didn't have anything to lose, with the hopeless fear of success in any context. He fought like a cornered animal, wild and terrified and relentless.

Never like this, with the guidance of someone bigger than him, with more experience and ... no malice. He didn't trust that it'd last, but if he could learn to be a weapon, then the world would be in his hands.

"Momentum? What does that-" Leslie started to ask, before he was cut short by a demonstration of the practical variety. He scrambled to move, but Rep's axe was just so damn big that it was nigh impossible to avoid. Bracing himself for the incoming pain, Leslie winced-- but the pain never came. Not as much as there should have been for such a vicious weapon. Instead, there was a blunt ache where the axe had struck, and the force of the swing caused him to skid back a few feet. No surprise, there: on a good day and sopping wet, Leslie hovered around 115 pounds.

Huh. So it was just as Jordan had said: it gave him a layer between his flesh and the outside world, something cool that blunted the pain and protected him. Mentally, he felt it cradle him, spindly fingers with claws embracing his heart. << We are not just a weapon. We are not just a shield. We live within you, and we hunger. Strike again. >>

"Uhh." With one hand, Leslie held the middle of his stave, where the grip was. With the other, he held as far back as he could manage. It was heavier, and the blow collided with a bit more force than before-- but it was a little harder to get it right. "Well I suck s**t at physics, but that's pretty ******** cool. If you hold it closer to the end and s**t, I guess you have more control too?"

hp// 36
dmg// 5
charge// 2/3

Leslie greeted Rep's nickname for him with a squinty-eyed glare, a suspicious little animal. He braced himself again, and he wasn't sure how long it'd take for him to stop flinching with every received blow.

"I don't know how I feel about my weapon," he confessed, shaking off the blow, and it listened closely, appraising Leslie, refraining from judgment until he damned himself. "It's a little bit of a ******** weirdo. Are they all that way?"

Leslie chanced another blow, this time holding the weapon closer to the crystal, careful of the metal thorns that twisted around the length of it. He dashed forwards, trying to get behind Rep and angle an arced slash up his back. The key word being trying.

"That sure ******** explains why it says it's hungry in a creepy feed us voice." Leslie mentally reassured it that the voice was creepy as hell.

It laughed, and its dual-layered voice sounded like wind and frost and cold. << The freckled one knows us and ours. We have enough. >>

hp// 31
dmg// 4
charge// 3/3

Leslie snorted with laughter at Rep's description of his own weapon, and felt better about it.

What are you? he mentally asked his weapon, and his tendrils of curiosity were stronger than he wished.

In return to Leslie's question, the weapon muttered unhappily, growing restless. It temporarily ceased its talk of fear and hunger, in order to unhappily express itself. << We were a demon, crafted of frost and vine and solitude. We will say no more. We are better here, with you, for you are ours. >>

"Mine says it was basically a cold plant or some s**t," he offered to Rep with a shrug. "It talks in like, two voices. They both say the same weird s**t, but it's like two people working with one brain or something. ******** crowded."

In his weapon's flash of woe, all thoughts of consuming the fear he'd gathered was lost, and instead he was stuck with a stifling pressure, and a melancholic wail of unadulterated woe.

"It uh. Doesn't like talking about the past. It kind of cries like a b***h."

That only made it screech louder, and to distract himself, Leslie gripped the staff by its middle grip with both hands, and thrust forward with a jagged swipe upwards.

hp// 31
dmg// 8
charge// 3/3

"It's annoying already," Leslie said, bitter, which only threw his weapon's mind into further unease. He'd had quite enough: he was going to put a stop to this s**t as early as he could. He mentally reached out to it.

Yo. Yo b***h. Just, ********, just stop that. It's annoying, I don't care about your stupid past, quit being such a b***h about it. It was downright uncomfortable to listen to the thing's upset mutterings-- it was less weeping, and more monologues of regrets, even if they were vague ones. He didn't catch most of it; only the dregs of sorrow and loneliness and weakness. It gave Leslie's heart an unexpected pang that swiftly shifted into irritation. You're not the only one who was alone. Shut up and do your <******** job.

It stopped, its mental attitude shifting towards the frigid.

<< We apologise, >> it replied primly, and the chilliness in Leslie's mind soon actualized in reality. His weapon consumed the fear it had collected, ice forming around his hands where he touched the staff, racing up his arms and clothing, swirling in hoarfrost as it did.

In the end, leslie felt...rejuvenated, and not just him, but the shield around him did, too.

"Right? I would've taken the ******** amnesia. Jesus. At least it seems to be doing its ******** job, I was afraid it might now." He shook the frost off his hands, and brushed away the rest on his clothes. It didn't seem quite real, not from the same stuff that reality was made of. Weird. "I should probably give it a name, but I didn't like the one it chose. And it's mine, so ******** it. I'll call it what I want."

He laughed, ugly. "It's not like dogs name themselves."

hp// 28+19=40 cos HEAL TOO STRONK
dmg// 0
charge// 0/3, 1/2 used

Leslie liked the sound of that: of having control over something autonomous, to bending something to his will. It fluttered, and began to press back on his mind. Most of it was incoherent whispering, but there was a little he understood. << We chose you. We made you and could unmake you. Feed us again. >> It conjured images that Leslie was easily able to push away: denial was his middle name.

"That kinda sucks d**k," he complained, rolling his eyes at having to get closer to the weird weapon, but the blow that followed almost made the idea a worthwhile one. axe The axe cleaved through his protective barrier with the ease of a knife cutting room temperature butter, his attempt to block the blow with his own weapon a complete failure, and the jab at Rep was a weak one. He cussed in a fit of irritation, snapping at the thing in his head. Do your <******** job.

<< We exist as a tool to be used, >> Leslie's weapon replied, << we are as good as our user. >>

The young hunter shook his head violently to clear it, and suspiciously looked at Rep's weapon, and thought of all the power it held. The other hunter was holding back, and he was still able to lay significant blows. "Tracey, huh? Was it always so big?"

hp// 31
dmg// 2
charge// 1/3, 1/2 used

In essence, Rep was telling him to put up or shut up, and he wasn't wrong. When the sentiment had come from Thompson it had been an insult, an extension of the man's bitterness and regrets, words he shared so he could tell Leslie "I told you so" later when he inevitably failed.

From Rep, though, they were the words of a man that had walked through true darkness, and the strength of the blow that followed his words knocked Leslie clean off his feet. Leslie's head smacked against the turf, and for a moment he saw stars, unable to stand.

<< We cannot protect you if you do not feed us, >> it said primly, each word deliberately weighed and used to hurt, but it wasn't as though Leslie was unused to that. It meant that he tuned out, attempting to retaliate with a swipe that missed its mark by a landslide.

I'm trying. He was frustrated by his failures, at the easy power that Rep had and he didn't. It gave Leslie a goal. If he survived long enough, he would get to see himself the villain, and that was exactly what he wanted.

<< Sweet little scareling. Let us help. >> The words were saccharine sweet, layered over the hunger he'd been given a glimpse of. It was eternal, yawning like a chasm. It didn't matter how much he fed his weapon, it would never be satisfied.

"Jesus," Leslie said, "you're ******** powerful. Christ."

hp// 20
dmg// 0
charge// 1/3, 1/2 used