“Hello, students, welcome to the first battle arts and practical combat tactics seminar of this seminar.” in a spacious hall with a high dome ceiling inside of the castle of the Hellbruck House, a slim, short man with a pair of kind of goofy goggles stood on a stone platform and announced to a full hall of students: “And my name is Pratt Patterson, I will be your speaker for today.”

“Yo, Mr. Patterson, when are you gonna show us something explosive?” some of the students heckled.

“Maybe later this semester, when I have the details ironed out.” Pratt Patterson smiled and waved to the hecklers: “Stay tuned! And today, I am going to present to you, something I promised many of you the last time: practical combat arts that we developed from researching various combat arts during our visits around the world, and even studying from some of the martial arts and combat methods from the civilian world.”

“Woohoo! Mixed combat arts and new experimental moves!” a group of students cheered.

“Never thought that combat art researchers can be this popular. I thought it’s just gonna be like nerds surrounded by jocks.” Thomas clapped along with the crowd and said to Aimee, surprised: “I mean, I like the academy much more now. It’s much more fun than the police academy, I’ll say that.”

“Yeah, I wonder how it is in the police academy here in the magic world. Or do they even have police here? Since almost everyone has the ability to fight with magic.” Aimee nodded and asked.

“Well, I heard that they do have their own kinds of law enforcement agencies, not that unlike the police and the feds.” Thomas chuckled.

“... now, let’s take a look!” the slim, short man with goggles snapped his fingers on both of his hands, and two fire pillars shot up towards the ceiling from two altars on both of his sides. When the pillars of fire dissipated, two human-shaped shadows made of fire sparks and burning cinders appeared in the air, the one on the slim, short man’s left side was holding a two handed staff, and the one on the slim, short man’s right side was holding two short stick-like weapons: “Now, on my left side, is the shadow of someone holding a staff, he’s holding your standard battle staff. And on my right side, do any of you recognize what kind of weapons he’s holding?”

“Nunchucks!” “Two smaller sticks!” “Batons!” the students were shouting their guesses, but looked like none of them got it right.

“Do those look like … short barrel shotguns to you?” Thomas squinted his eyes and asked Aimee.

“Yeah… kinda… like the ones we confiscated from the… what was the name of the drug ring again?” Aimee snapped her fingers trying to remind herself of the details from one of their past cases: “Corner boys? Side street pals? I remember it’s kinda cliche and lame.”

“Cul De Sac Gang. I think that’s their name.” Thomas snapped his fingers and chuckled.

“Okay, and here’s the answer, for those of you who had taken my class before, you’d know that I am a firm believer of the potential of civilian combat arts and civilian technology. And these two weapons, are just a pair of new inventions of mine. They’re based in a couple of civilian technologies, it’s a combination of civilian shotguns with slugs as ammunition, artillery with shaped charges and flash grenades. And behold, my presentation.”

The two shadows charged at each other with their weapons drawn, the shadow holding two short sticks put the two sticks forward against his opponent, one in a higher position and the other in a lower position, and opened fire from both his short shotguns.

The higher gun launched a small slug, which exploded midway and released a concentrated beam of bright light right at the staff-holding shadow’s head and shoulders. The shadow was instantly paralyzed by the beam of light, and the slug shot from the lower gun struck him right on the abdomen.

The crowd cheered, leaving Thomas and Aimee quite confused.

“What… what are they cheering?” Aimee asked: “That’s like a cheating weapon - ”

“I - I have no idea. ” Thomas shrugged: “Is this like a … ritual or a show?”

And it was indeed a show - right after this presentation, the lecturer Pratt Patterson started discussing all the different kinds of pragmatic combat methods, combat arts and tips for defending oneself or attacking one’s opponent under different conditions. The weapons and tactics talked about in detail and weapons recommended, to the surprise of both Aimee and Thomas, were not as far fetched or out of their depths as they thought - they managed to learn quite a bit and even got somewhat inspired, that the practical experience they gained from their former detective lives could still apply in the magical world.

The highlight of the seminar was the introduction and explanation of the tips on how close quarter combat focused power wielders like knights and paladins can counter ranged opponents like wizards, sorcerers and witches. Judging from the fact that most of the attendants were members of the Hellbruck House and more than sixty percent of them were at least partially close quarter focused, though neither Aimee nor Thomas had much real experience to judge the quality of the tips, Pratt Patterson sure knew how to cater to his audience.

“I think this is good enough. Let’s discuss it over at training tonight. ” Aimee was holding a magical recorder, with which she tried to record all of the visual presentations shown by Pratt Patterson: “You think Caroline and Jason could help us with it? They will come tonight right?”

“I don’t see why not.” Thomas was writing some notes down, “After all, we have just tonight for some last minute training.”

“Well, then, I hope you’ll kick their asses.” the voice of Pratt Patterson came from their right side: “I recognized you, you’re the civilian born students that got unfairly challenged by the jerk-offs from Martin House, right?”