The thud of the first bandit face planting after an academically assisted KO was still echoing faintly.
Keldric winced. That was one way to get feedback. He barely had time to fully process what had actually just happened before another figure pulled away from the stunned, collectively brain fried group, stepping forward with a grim new look.
Another bandit, seeing his mate get an assisted self KO (and a surprisingly decent grade, all things considered), decided his best move was… to also charge the three foot academic nightmare. Rusty sword aimed down. Clearly, he didn't care about the recently shown rules of ergonomic self preservation.
Specs SIGHED. A sound of deep tiredness. It echoed. With footnotes. On how common tactical stupidity was, and the shocking fall in basic bandit common sense. What would this one try?
"Repetitive engagement strategies. Zero iterative learning. Such a disappointing adherence to predictable hostile action loops. Honestly, it's like they want to fail."
Oh, here we go again. Round two. Ding ding. Professor Specs is about to school another one. Maybe this one will get a C? A man could dream.
The bandit hefted his rusty blade, and swung with a roar that promised swift, brutal, and entirely unthinking vengeance.
As the rusty sword descended, glinting with malice and poor life choices, Specs produced… a ruler? From the very fabric of academic smugness, it appeared. A standard, twelve inch, wooden school ruler. Complete with faded markings. And, yes, Keldric's eyes did not deceive him, a crudely drawn cartoon cat near the twenty seven centimetre mark.
A RULER?! HE'S GOING TO FIGHT WITH A RULER?! This world is just making stuff up now! What's next? A protractor of doom? An eraser that rubs out your hit points?
Specs held it up. A flimsy sliver of wood. Against a descending blade of sharpened, tetanus infused steel. It was like watching a documentary on the futility of hope.
The bandit's downward chop picked up speed, rusty blade arcing towards Specs's skull. Specs, in contrast, simply raised the wooden ruler. Held it perpendicular to the incoming attack. A flimsy looking defence that couldn't possibly work.
Steel met wood.
Instead of shattering, the ruler flexed. It bowed dramatically under the force, absorbing the impact with an unnatural resilience.
The wood groaned. Then, with a sudden release of tension, it snapped back to its original shape. A tiny, sharp splinter flew from its edge. It travelled in a straight, precise line. Connecting with the soft tip of the bandit's nose.
Ping!
A minuscule sound. Almost lost.
He… he parried a sword. With a school ruler. And then shot a nose splinter. What even IS this timeline?!
TWANG-CLACK!
The secondary sound, perhaps the ruler fully recovering its composure, was louder. More decisive. Like a final, sharp rebuke.
The bandit SNARLED. Eyes watering. A single, almost comically tiny splinter now protruded from his reddening nose. He looked less like a fearsome warrior and more like a very surprised, very angry porcupine.
Rage boiled off him. Likely fuelled by the sheer nerve of being wounded, however minutely, by office supplies. His counter-attack was immediate.
He lunged forward. Sword a blur of unfocused aggression. A series of rapid, stabbing attacks.
Each thrust powered by fury.
Each aimed to skewer the small skeleton.
And each was met by the ruler.
Specs's movements were efficient. Minimal. His feet barely shifted. The ruler in his hand became a precise barrier. Tapping, deflecting. Each contact turned the bandit's blade aside with the smallest possible effort.
A wild, sweeping slash from the bandit. Aimed to cleave Specs in two.
Specs took a single, short sidestep. The sword whistled through empty air. So much force in the miss, the bandit overbalanced. Stumbled. Nearly tripped over his own feet, a display of pure uncoordination.
Okay, so the bandit is all rage, no grace. Specs isn't even breaking a sweat. He's just… calibrating? Taking notes? This is less a fight, more a practical demonstration of incompetence. And Specs is clearly preparing the grade.
The ruler became a blur. Wood against steel. It whirred. Intercepting a desperate overhead chop. Sliding along the flat of the bandit's blade to deflect a clumsy recovery thrust. Each movement from Specs was fluid. Precise. Each parry a tiny, sharp lesson, though it seemed the student wasn't learning.
Dink! The ruler tapped the flat of the sword, halting its advance with an almost insulting ease.
The bandit froze, just for a second, before Specs began his critique.
"Your wrist angulation is leading to suboptimal force transfer!" Specs declared, his voice cutting through the bandit's grunts. "Clearly, you've never grasped the fundamental principles of rotational mechanics as outlined in 'Basic Bludgeoning for the Bewildered,' Chapter three, subsection B! And your follow through has all the conviction of a wet sock after a long march!"
The bandit, already stinging from the critique and the splinter, roared. He lunged. Bringing his sword around in a wide, powerful swipe aimed at Specs's midsection.
Specs didn't retreat. He met the attack head on. The ruler flashed upwards. Intercepting the heavier blade with its flat side.
Thwack!
The impact was solid. Surprisingly so. A sharp crack that resonated, jarring the bandit's arms right up to the shoulders. Keldric swore he saw the bandit's teeth click together. The poor guy looked like he'd run into a very small, very condescending brick wall.
That… that had to hurt. A ruler should not be able to block a sword like that. It just shouldn't. Unless it's, like, the Ruler of Agony +5? Is that even a thing?
Before the bandit could recover his balance from the unexpected halt, he swung again. A desperate, diagonal slash, wilder this time.
Specs's ruler was already in motion. It flowed like water. The thin edge met the flat of the incoming sword. Not to block. But to guide.
Swish!
The ruler slid smoothly along the length of the bandit's blade, subtly altering its path. The vicious attack, meant to cleave the small skeleton, instead carved a deep gash into a large, innocent fern nearby. The plant shuddered.
"And your weight distribution is ALL OFF!" Specs continued, his tone that of a deeply disappointed professor. "You're practically BEGGING for a counter! Especially against a smaller, more agile opponent who, I might add, possesses a superior understanding of Newtonian physics and isn't afraid to use it! Balance, my dear fellow, balance! It's not merely a suggestion, it's a prerequisite for not falling on your face and becoming a cautionary tale in my next lecture!"
The bandit, now visibly trembling with a potent mixture of fury and mounting bewilderment, howled incoherently.
He lunged. Sword held high, then brought down in a clumsy, telegraphed vertical chop.
Specs didn't even seem to register it as a threat. The ruler in his hand moved with incredible speed.
Tip-tap!
A series of short, sharp raps. Not against the blade, but against the bandit's exposed sword hand. Each tap landed precisely on the knuckles.
The wooden edge, though not sharp, clearly stung. The bandit grunted, his grip faltering slightly.
Is he… is he literally rapping his knuckles? Like a misbehaving schoolboy? The sheer disrespect! That bandit's going to have an aneurysm.
The bandit recoiled his hand instinctively, attack momentarily forgotten.
His eyes, wide with pain and disbelief, fixed on the offending ruler. That hesitation was all Specs needed.
The small skeleton pivoted slightly. The ruler, held lightly, came up. And then down. With surprising force.
Bonk!
A flat, solid impact squarely on the bandit's forehead. It wasn't a killing blow. It wasn't even trying to be. But the sound was decisive.
The bandit's eyes unfocused for a second. A jolt visibly travelled down his spine.
He staggered back a step. Looking dazed.
"Core stability! Where is it?!" Specs demanded, his voice rising slightly in exasperation. "Are you outsourcing your postural integrity to a passing breeze?! Such blatant disregard for the kinetic chain! Your entire methodology is an insult to the very concept of applied force! Honestly, it's as if you're actively trying to get yourself impaled! For shame, sir, for shame!"
The bandit, now a sputtering engine of pure, undiluted rage, threw all remaining caution (and presumably, any lingering brain cells) to the wind.
He bellowed, a sound of pure primal frustration, and charged. Sword raised high for a devastating overhead blow.
It descended with furious intent.
Specs barely shifted.
The ruler, that unassuming strip of wood, now surely infused with the very essence of academic superiority and possibly feline judgement, flicked up.
It met the bandit's blade not with force, but with an almost disdainful angle.
The heavy sword skittered off the ruler's edge.
Deflected harmlessly to the side.
Its wielder stumbled, carried forward by his own unchecked momentum.
Before the bandit could fully recover, he twisted. Launched a desperate side slash. Fast. Wild. Aimed to cut the little skeleton down.
Specs pivoted on one heel. The ruler moved in a short, sharp arc.
Intercepting the flat of the incoming blade with a precise Clack.
The sword's trajectory altered. Again, it met only air. The bandit's grunt of exertion was loud. And, Keldric suspected, grammatically questionable.
He's actually getting worse. More power, sure, but his technique is just… dissolving. Meanwhile, Specs looks like he's critiquing a particularly flawed thesis. On the 'Art of Aggressive Incompetence'.
Each subsequent strike, fuelled by an increasingly colourful vocabulary of frustrated snarls and growls, met the same fate.
The ruler was a constant, unwavering defence.
Turning aside ferocious chops.
Parrying desperate lunges.
All with an infuriating, contemptuous ease.
All while Specs delivered a non stop, TED Talk from hell lecture. On the bandit's many shortcomings. As a swordsman. As a sentient biped. As a vaguely functional carbon unit who was failing miserably at both sentience and bipedalism.
"Your chosen attack vector deviates by a statistically significant fourteen point three degrees from the optimal path,"
Specs explained, the ruler a sudden, zippy blur. It snaked past the bandit's clumsy guard with insulting ease. The end of the ruler, the part with the cat's knowing smirk, rapped sharply against the bandit's sword elbow with irritating, percussive precision.
"A classic blunder for those who neglect their combat trigonometry. You did take Combat Trigonometry, yes? Or were you absent for the chapter on 'Acute Angles of Agony'?"
"This, predictably, exposes your entire ribcage. A tactical oversight of such magnitude, it borders on a signed invitation for disembowelment. Honestly. Was the course material on 'Vulnerable Anatomy for Village Idiots' too complex? Perhaps you'd prefer the pop up book version?"
The bandit, thoroughly demoralised by the lecture and the relentless, baffling defence, made one last, desperate lunge.
His sword arm extended. More an offering than an attack.
Specs seized the opening.
His own arm, wielding the innocuous ruler, moved with blurring speed.
The end of the ruler, precisely the section with the judgemental cat illustration, connected sharply with the underside of the bandit's exposed wrist. A specific point. A cluster of nerves.
FLICK-TWAAAANG!
The sound was sharp. Distinct. Like a thick rubber band suddenly snapping against tough skin.
An electric jolt shot up the bandit's arm. His fingers spasmed open involuntarily.
The sword didn't just clatter to the ground. It sprang from his grip. As if overjoyed to be free of such an incompetent wielder.
It flipped end over end in a surprisingly graceful arc. Performing what Keldric mentally scored as a triple somersault with a half pike.
Solid 8.5 from the imaginary goblin judges. Points deducted for the rusty landing.
The weapon then plunged point first into the soft earth. It stood there, quivering. Vibrating with, Keldric imagined, sheer indignation.
The bandit just stared. First at his own empty, tingling hand. Flexing his fingers as if they belonged to someone else. Then his gaze shifted. Up to the small, bow tied skeleton who was now calmly adjusting his glasses. The bandit's face was a slow motion capture of dawning horror. Confusion, sharp pain, and the soul crushing realisation that he'd been utterly defeated by school supplies. And possibly a feline drawing.
Yep. That's the look. The 'my entire career choice was a critical error' expression. Specs is going to break so many bandits.
"D minus." Specs announced, his voice crisp, like the snap of a freshly sharpened pencil. "A marginal improvement in aggressive spirit, perhaps fuelled by the previous contestant's rather illustrative failure. But alas, still fatally undermined by a fundamental lack of talent, coordination, and, frankly, any clear grasp of basic physics. See me after class. We have much to discuss regarding your grasp of rudimentary leverage. And bring several notebooks. There will be an extensive, possibly eternal, quiz on today's… practical application of repeated failure."
Another D minus! Is that, like, the standard passing grade for 'Attacked by Specs and Lived to Regret It'?
He shook his head. A reluctant grin playing on his lips.
At this rate, these bandits are going to end up with a collectively terrible GPA. And a lot of therapy bills. Assuming therapy is even a thing in this world. If not, Specs might just invent it. And then grade them on their progress.