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The message from the meeting and getting chewed out by Luna after was still clear in Tallulah's head: either the moon senshi needed to take themselves a lot more seriously, or the Negaverse would win. This meant no more getting caught on tape, no more taking it easy on agents, and no more goofing off on Patrol. It also meant that Team Anglerfish needed to start working harder if they wanted to be an actual fighting force. After getting by mostly on improvisation and sheer luck, she resolved that:

"We need to take a self-defense class," she said, without preamble, as soon as Pasha picked up his phone. She was using the special new senshi phone in the name of testing it out, and was happy to report that it worked just fine. "I'll be at your house in fifteen minutes, get ready."

A while later, the pair arrived at the Destiny City community center, land of pottery classes and amateur theater. The nice little old lady behind the desk informed them that self-defense classes were in the dance studio on the second floor. The dance studio on the second floor, as it turned out, was still occupied by last hour's step aerobics class, and a group of middle-aged housewives milled outside the door.

"We'll be the youngest people here," Tallulah mumbled to Pasha, and wondered if the instructor was a handsome 20-something hollywood stuntman taking a sabbatical, because that would be awesome.

If Luna and the cavalier's harsh comments hadn't been enough to motivate Pasha into learning how to hold his own in a fight, his unfortunate meeting with Serandite certainly did the trick. It had broken his spirit and left him incredibly sore, both emotionally and physically. He had no intentions of letting that happen again, because he'd never felt so ucky in his life.

He moved a little more sluggishly than usual, hoping that Tallulah wouldn't notice his lack of vigor. Getting smacked by a giant bunny paw wasn't necessarily the most gentle of injuries he could have sustained.

"Uh-huh, we are!" he piped up, forcing himself to not be mopey in public. He didn't want anyone asking questions, and moping was so out of character for the young teenager that people inevitably would. A bright smile met the other boy - Pasha noted that he was cute in a way that resembled his own appearance, and immediately hoped they could be friends. "I hafta learn how to take care of myself. I can't be too careful, because someone might not always be there to help me out of messes." The last bit sounded suspiciously as if he'd parroted it from a more adult source.

He smiled up at Tallulah. As long as she was there with him, he thought he might make it through the class, ouchies or not.

For kids his age, they sounded very young, and he had to wonder if they knew what this class entailed. It wasn’t a place to feel as if they would be able to go into any dark alleyway with confidence. It meant avoiding conflict and making smart decisions. He’d have to point that out to all of them anyways, and as the last class went out, he gestured for the gather self-defense class to start making their way in. A few of the women waved to him politely, and he nodded to them before heading into the gym, opening the side door and helping bring out mats. “I know some of you might be new, but make a friend. You need a partner to practice.” There were a couple new faces here and a few back for additional lessons and practice. He helped those that needed his help before taking a mat to the front of the room where he and Mr. Rieder would start.

“I want you all to find a buddy okay, and make sure you’re in the right class. This is Self-Defense.” He always had to make sure. “I’m Ladon Shepard and I’m Mr. Rieder’s assistant. She’ll be here in a minute. While we’re waiting, I want to start off by welcoming you all to the class, both new faces and those of you returning. This is a class designed to make smart decisions and to also defend yourself during an attack. Don’t expect to come here and learn how to fight someone. This isn’t what this class is about. It’s protecting yourself enough to be able to escape. This doesn’t mean you should feel safe walking into dangerous parts of town and not be aware of your environment and potential threats. Even after this course, you should make the right decisions. Okay? Alright.”

It wasn’t long till Mrs. Reider stepped in, shutting the door behind her and smiling to them. “Hello everyone! I’m Mrs. Reider, your instructor this evening. How is everyone? Good? Good. I see we have some new faces.” She went up to Ladon and whispered to him, and he nodded to her. “Okay now. We’re going to learn how to stop an assailant from a roundhouse punch. We have several methods, alright. I want to choose who will be the victim and who will be the assailant. Don’t worry, you will switch roles. Now I’m going to demonstrate.”

Ladon came to stand in front of Mr. Rieder. Being smaller and younger, he usually served as the victim. It was said that it gave confidence to the students that anyone could do these methods. Frankly, he thought it was a bit rude to think he couldn't be an assailant. Usually he let it go since he was helping others, but he grew mroe and more irate at the idea ever since he had the power that Wolframite had. It also made teaching self-defense harder and harder when he knew that if any of these people actually met a senshi or Negaverser, they wouldn't stand a chance.

Not letting that stop him, he demonstrated the technique they would use. It was simple. Raise your arm to block the punch, PRETEND (and Mr. Reider stressed this point) to punch the person. Then it was taking the back of their neck and bringing it down to knee them.

“Now all of you practice that. I’ll be moving around to see how you do and then when we’re comfortable, I’ll move on.” Splitting up, Ladon went to check on the new comers.

To all outside observers it would appear that Team Anglerfish was not taking this nearly as seriously as they ought to. Tallulah laughed a bit at Pasha's attempt at being intimidating, and then nodded. "Yeah, yeah, go ahead," she giggled, earning what she was certain was a glare from Ladon in the process. She took a moment to compose herself, setting her face into a solid, serious expression with a thin line of a mouth, and glanced at the instructors for pose references.

"Okay," she said, falling into a basic defensive starting pose. It felt natural. She could get used to this. "Let's go. Bring it on."

Another look at Pasha made her crack a smile. She looked once more to the instructors, just to make sure she was doing it right, and gave him her attention once more.

"I'm ready," she said.

Once he saw that Tallulah had assumed the defensive position, Pasha prepared himself to, in fact, 'bring it on'. While the thought of hitting someone still made him feel uncomfortable, this was just play-pretend, so the faux-punch thrown in slowed motion towards his friend wasn't too much of a problem. It connected with as much power as a falling feather with Tallulah's blocking arm, leaving her very little work to do for that portion of the defensive technique.

Just as he was about to improvise his attack into a crazy lunge (inspired by a mixture of ninjas and kittens), he found himself in the middle of another scolding. Was he ever going to be able to do any of this fighting stuff correctly?

"I'm sorry, Mister Ladon," he mumbled, the weight of the situation pushing him down once more. He was right, after all. There were people out there who wanted to kill him, and if he didn't learn this stuff really soon, they might do just that. Without another word, he moved into the next position of his fierce attack, waiting for Tallulah. "Okay, you can do your stuff now. Just not too hard!"

While he certainly trusted his teammate, his eyes were still scrunched closed as if he were unprepared for the blow. And he might have been - it ached to even bend as minimally as he was.

Mister Ladon?! That wasn’t something someone used every day. It might have had more of a punch coming from someone else, but coming from the boy, it only sounded as if the kid was much younger than he appeared. Maybe he was? Who knew, but at least the two were getting into the proper mindset and that’s all that really mattered. Supervising, he watched the two of them practice, doing very well with their first go, but overly concerned over the faintest touches. He could only hope they were not as hesitant to administer some real damage when it came to the real thing.

“That’s good. Remember that after the punch, to take the neck, push the body down, and knee a part of the body. Since you two are younger and shorter, an attacker won’t be stopped by the punch to his face. It is only meant to stun them, and that gives you enough time to continue your own attacks to really bring them down. After a while, you’ll learn to defend from an attack, and then use combinations of self-defense techniques to continue to bring an attack down until it’s safe enough for you to go. The last thing you want to do is stun then and race off only to have them grab you again. Best to get in an opportunity when you have it.”

“You are both doing very well for your first try. Practice those a few more times to get the feel of it.” He at least gave praise when it was do.

Tallulah met her friend's eyes, a growing look of concern on her face. "Tell me later," she whispered as she twisted to accommodate his half-hearted headlock. Something had happened, she could tell, not to Pasha but to Pyxis. That and Ladon didn't seem like he would tolerate his class being turned into social hour.

She squirmed out of his grasp and took her turn trying the move, masking her curiosity with newfound dedication. Whatever had happened to him, they'd be sure it wouldn't happen again. They'd know how to defend themselves better.

The Negaverse had better look out, because Team Anglerfish was about to get serious!