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There's a new high school librarian. The old "high school librarian" was a cash-strapped student aide of sorts; apparently it's hard to keep staff working on the Hell Orifice. His name is Mr. Giles. He is British. And sort of old. And sort of crusty. And when Bella takes out certain books he looks at her with certain scrutiny.
"Is my new librarian a Watcher?" she asks Sherlock the day after Mr. Giles joins the faculty.
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cross_and_bow
cross_and_bow
"All right."
Vampire wants her target disabled but with a beating heart; vampire wants to avoid breakage but doesn't care about bruising; vampire is motivated by hunger and will break off if her target is too dangerous to be worth eating. With this in mind, Bella launches herself.
Vampire wants her target disabled but with a beating heart; vampire wants to avoid breakage but doesn't care about bruising; vampire is motivated by hunger and will break off if her target is too dangerous to be worth eating. With this in mind, Bella launches herself.
eversomuchfun
Sherlock fights nothing like he usually does. He is defensive, deceptive, fractionally slower than he is really capable of. He fights as though he is nearly outmatched and has to use every trick in the book to keep her off him.
There are a lot of tricks in his book.
There are a lot of tricks in his book.
cross_and_bow
Isabella lets autopilot do its job with the goalset she gave it, and watches carefully.
cross_and_bow
"Nothing I can articulate yet. I'm certainly paying attention and this is certainly different."
cross_and_bow
Onward indeed. "I'm not really seeing how to translate this into modifications," she says after a few minutes.
cross_and_bow
"Well, you seemed to be able to understand the format I wrote my notes in. You could just tell me."
cross_and_bow
"Maybe not, but worth a shot," she says, disengaging and plucking the notebook from the floor to hand it over. She also has a pen in her messenger bag. (And a pencil, but that seems like it might be a vaguely threatening thing to offer a vampire.)
eversomuchfun
He spends a minute or so staring thoughtfully at the page, and then writes a proposed subroutine and hands her back the notebook.
cross_and_bow
She looks at it. She consults her glossary.
"Yeaaaah I could install that but I think it's ugly and do not want it in my brain," she says, tossing the notebook back where she got it. "Maybe if I ever need to leap into an uncomfortable form of expertise overnight for an emergency we can try that. Okay, there's got to be some other way for me to figure out what goes in, hm." She begins to pace.
"Yeaaaah I could install that but I think it's ugly and do not want it in my brain," she says, tossing the notebook back where she got it. "Maybe if I ever need to leap into an uncomfortable form of expertise overnight for an emergency we can try that. Okay, there's got to be some other way for me to figure out what goes in, hm." She begins to pace.
eversomuchfun
Sherlock spreads his hands in an understated told-you-so gesture, and lets her think.
cross_and_bow
"Can you be - repetitive? Can I try a dozen things against the same attack pattern - a serious one, not one you're dumbing down for me, although please don't take my arm off or anything - and then see what works best, what feels right, and then figure out a higher level of abstraction that would've generated that without knowing what was coming?"
cross_and_bow
"Excellent. Sequence of about thirty seconds to start, we can step it up as I get better at this and have more complicated basics to build on. Autopilot engaged, hit me," she says, dropping into stance.
cross_and_bow
Bella watches what the autopilot does. It's not good enough. What would be good enough?
When the thirty seconds are up and she's sprawled on the floor, she thinks. If she'd seen that coming and countered thusly -
Autopilot off, up on her feet, and - "Again."
When the thirty seconds are up and she's sprawled on the floor, she thinks. If she'd seen that coming and countered thusly -
Autopilot off, up on her feet, and - "Again."
eversomuchfun
Again. Precisely the same, to start, although when she deviates from the original script he adjusts to match.
cross_and_bow
Okay. That was all right as far as it went, but it left her in an awkward position for what followed and cost her a split second to reposition. If she dodged instead of blocking, she could be poised for -
"Again."
"Again."
cross_and_bow
And so they go until they have gone through the sequence fifteen times and Bella has what is, if she does say so herself, a beautiful counter for it.
She picks up her notebook, scribbles out what she was doing, and seeks a pattern.
This takes her about ten minutes of writing, drawing arrows, referring back to earlier notes, and tapping her pen on the page. Sherlock is welcome to read over her shoulder.
When she's done, she writes the abstracted adjustment with all the triumph of a math professor chalking a theorem onto a blackboard. She closes her eyes, thinks it into place - it's so much easier to work with the Slayer stuff than it is to handle anything else, it's like she's got root access, like the instinct package has handed her a scalpel and begged for surgery - and gets up.
"Surprise me," she says, grinning.
She picks up her notebook, scribbles out what she was doing, and seeks a pattern.
This takes her about ten minutes of writing, drawing arrows, referring back to earlier notes, and tapping her pen on the page. Sherlock is welcome to read over her shoulder.
When she's done, she writes the abstracted adjustment with all the triumph of a math professor chalking a theorem onto a blackboard. She closes her eyes, thinks it into place - it's so much easier to work with the Slayer stuff than it is to handle anything else, it's like she's got root access, like the instinct package has handed her a scalpel and begged for surgery - and gets up.
"Surprise me," she says, grinning.
