Strategy

Best are shooting weapons, second best are stabbing weapons, third best are slashing weapons. Blunt instruments are way down the list. They slow hand speed. Their uncontrolled momentum is disadvantageous after a miss.

People who wasted time and energy cursing recent errors were certain losers.

Rule one: Be on your feet and ready.
Rule two: Show them what they're messing with.
Rule three: Identify the ringleader.
Rule four: The ringleader is the one who moves first.
Rule five: Never back off.

You don't start fights but you sure as hell finish, and you don't lose either. The best way to lose was to assume it was over when it wasn't yet.

Except they had never had a fight. Not in the sense meant by people paid to fight or die. Pushing and shoving at the schoolyard gate or on the sidewalk outside the soda shop or late at night after a start-of-summer keg party was as far from fighting as two fat guys tossing lame spirals in the park were from the Superbowl.