Closed Whaaaa Pycon?? [Ball]

[Rabbit]

--Spring 40th 513AV-- Rabbit was practicing his jumping skills, using a collection crates, that were stacked into teetering piles. They were also spread out quite far, making this an excellent place to practice. He'd found this area not a week before, and was trying to get as much out of it as possible before someone went and took all the boxes away. So he hopped around, looking silly for any observers, but luckily there were none, so he didn't have to suffer any embarrassment. So he hopped around under the morning sun, with plenty of time to hone his skills before night fall. Finding a particularly long and far drop to the next crate, the Pycon readied his hind legs and leaped forward, pushing off the wooden surface. The distance was a little further than he expected, and when the creature landed on the next crate he was too close to the edge. To avoid falling off backwards, he executed a roll forward as he landing, positioning him now in the centre of the crate. He stood up slightly awkwardly, since though he'd rolled to protect himself from most of the damage, he still felt slightly squished in places. Rabbit realized that now he'd gone down so far, he needed to work his way back up again. Finding another crate maybe two feet away, and half that up, he decided to move there. He leaped more upwards rather than forwards this time, pushing his body at an angle so he'd reach the next crate. He landed, barely, but this time was unable to do a roll. He stood at the edge of the crate, off balance, trying to lean forward in order to stay on. His hind paws began to slip off the corner of the surface, so he had to resort to other measures to not fall off. Shifting the bottom of his feet, he bent them so they gripped the corner themselves, rather than just being flat. Using this as an aid, he awkwardly pushed upwards again into a jump, and landed in the middle of the crate. He found a much closer and easier one to get to, and continued his movement upwards. The Pycon was quite focused on his running and jumping, steadily growing more accomplished as the sun rose higher in the sky. He completely ignored the world outside of this collection of crates, though there was nothing to worry about since the place continued to be abandoned. Apparently most people didn't come to this spot, which Rabbit was perfectly fine with. He liked the occasional isolation, especially since there weren't that many people he would like to be with anyways.

[Ball]

40th of Spring 513AV

Ball had left his mount a few yards from the stack of crates when he heard the commotion of the crates shifting about. What surprised the small squire was to see a rabbit jumping from crate stack to crate stack, such an odd behavior for the animal. Ball didn't realize that the 'rabbit' in question was actually a fellow pycon until he watched it manipulate it's hind legs to better grasp a set of crates it had landed on.

Ball remained quiet, not wanting to disturb a fellow clay kinsmen in their training, he knew how important it was to train. Training was an important aspect in life, and Ball figured this specific member of his kin was training to become something, much like Ball was training under Imass to become a knight.

Hmm, Four-Legged Pycon can jump. I wonder if I could do that? Ball watched as the crates shifted with each bound from the powerful hind-legs the other pycon pushed off with. Ball looked down at his tentacles, he could tell they weren't suited for jumping, but he had a feeling the with their design he was better equipped to climb and attack with. So with that the once spherical pycon waddled to a stack opposite Rabbit and with each tentacle Ball slowly wedged them into cracks and grooves within the crates and climbed his way to the top of the stack.

A better place to watch from.

[Rabbit]

Hopping across the boxes, Rabbit didn't notice the small creature sitting on the other side of the stacks. He continued to leap from one to the other, up, down, to the sides. He found quite a large gap, and, deciding to try his luck, gave a short running start and pushed off with all his power from the crate. Moving closer, he noticed he was starting to fall, and knew he wasn't going to make it. Swearing mentally, he attempted to twist his body to the side, and aim for something nearer, but failed. Instead, he crashed into the side of the box he was aiming for, and tumbled down to a box several meters below him.

If the Pycon had dropped from that height normally, or hadn't been moving so fast, he could have rolled and pulled it off without too much trouble. Sadly, this was not one of those situations, so he landed heavily. It was a hard blow, and it hurt quite a bit, and the worst part was that Rabbit could feel his back squish slightly under the impact. The feeling was strange and annoying, and it just made him feel worse about his failure. He shoved himself back up, grumbling quietly, then quickly resumed his natural shape. That had not been fun...

The clay creature hopped over to the opposite side of the stacks, looking for more challenges. He hopped from box to box, picking some of the easier jumps to complete. Rabbit also tried to move himself upward on the stacks, but was having a hard time, since the only ones that were tall here were much too high for him to reach. He sighed, and decided to try his hand at climbing, something he wasn't quite sure he was good at.

Finding a pair of tall boxes, with a small ledge that was in his reach, he leaped straight up, and grabbed onto it with his fore paws. He attempted to lift himself up, but lacked the grip and tumbled back down to the original crate. The Pycon glared at his paws, shaping them to be more flat, and able to cling to corners. He repeated the jumping action, forcing himself off the ground and grabbed the ledge again. This time, his paws held on, and he lifted himself up. His little arms were strong from using his whip, but this was a different kind of movement. It took a lot of effort and time to finally be able to lift one of his hind paws up onto the crate. He stood up... then fell. The ledge had been too thin for his body to rest on, so he had been literally pushing himself off.

So apparently climbing wasn't his thing... that was annoying. He leaped upwards and forwards, finding a slightly higher spot, then suddenly saw something. It looked like a little clay ball... with tentacles. That was slowly inching it's way up a set of boxes. Huh... was it another Pycon? He'd never encountered one in Nyka before, and only knew some from his childhood. It had been a while since he'd seen another of his kind, and stood there awkwardly, not quite sure what to do about this new appearance.

[Ball]

Once at the top of the stack he had climbed, he came face to face with the one he saw jumping about. Ball bobbed his being a bit and remained motionless, watching the other pycon, even with no visible eyes, the mostly spherical pycon squire could see. Having watched him hop around from stack to stack, climb, fall and catch his balance, Ball knew he was pretty agile on his feet.

But is he agile enough? Well, why not find out? Curiosity overtook the usually mild mannered pycon's nexus as he lashed out immediately with all four tentacles. Their coiled forms stretching out towards Rabbit's body in various places. The sudden shifting of their weight and positioning caused cracking and snapping sounds to emit as the tentacles exuded nearly twelve pounds of pressure through the gap between the two clay beings.

It wasn't the hit that Ball was testing to see if Rabbit could handle, it was the ability to dodge them. It was spontaneous, random, and completely out of curiosity. The first tentacle, if landed, would strike the tip of Rabbit's right ear. The second tentacle, from the same side as the first, would strike Rabbit's right upper paw While the other two tentacles were directed towards Rabbit's legs. If any connected, Ball's body would immediately tilt forward, the tentacle that connected would curve around the appointed appendage and then yank the poor unexpected pycon forward.

It was the forward pull that would give Ball all the advantage as he was tilting forward his curved top of his body would split and become two more tentacles, those two tentacles would become two more just as quickly.

The competent py-ken warrior would then bring the right two tentacles on his upper being to pull at Rabbit's left arm, yanking the rabbit shaped pycon around on his feet, pivoting to face in the opposite direction, while the bottom four tentacles would then wrap themselves up and around the right leg and yank back towards their owner's body. The last two tentacles that sprouted from the top of Ball's head would proceed to wrap one of themselves around Rabbit's right arm, yanking it back, and the other tentacle would wrap tightly around Rabbit's neck...

The idea was simple really, Ball grappling ahold of Rabbit's body would force the other pycon to follow Ball and have to fight to control his shifting, then tentacle around the neck, if enough pressure was applied, would essentially force Rabbit to lose consciousness, of course, that would only occur if Rabbit struggled, and in which case Ball would immediately release.

Of course, all this would only happen if a single attack landed, if all four landed then the process would occur without the extra set of four tentacles, in a much faster bout of twisting and grappling.

Then again, if none hit Ball's lunge forward would easily extend into a sucker punch of the ages as several pounds of weight came crashing into Rabbit's body.

oocSorry for the long post after so long, I has having so much trouble coming up with a response. Sorry if this took too long, and I hope yer okay with it... heh

[Rabbit]

Rabbit was frozen for less than a tick, staring at the rapidly approaching Pycon. What was not on his mind, however, was why the creature was attacking him. It was more insulted, and amazed. The creature was a year old.. a sixth of his age. But he had more experience!! It didn't make sense to the rabbity creature. With five more years of learning, fighting, exploring, this... youth, practically, knew more than him! Though he knew he had to accept it, the knowledge annoyed Rabbit to an extreme. It just didn't make sense... he'd moved in with humans to learn more than those who stayed in their settlements, but... this new Pycon completely crushed that. Remembering the attack, the Nykan decided to leap backwards, in hope that the tentacled creature would fall short. It probably was a good plan, though most likely wouldn't have worked. He pushed hard off the wooden surface, and heaved his body backwards to go as far as possible. It may have seemed like bad luck at the time, but turned out to be helpful, as he moved to far away and... fell. He'd leaped straight off the crate, and tumbled down a meter before landing hard on one below, with him cursing all the way down. Realizing he had to put up a good face, Rabbit quickly picked himself up, ignoring the pain he felt. What the hell!? Now was the time, to be annoyed with the attack, rather than how much more the creature had learnt. He hopped a few steps back, staring up at the crates he'd just fallen from warily. "What was that for?!" He yelled up, irritation filling his brain. What was the whole point of just... seeing someone, then attacking them? Truthfully though, it was an excellent tactic, one that the older Pycon would have used quite willingly, but he ignored his own transgressions and always focused on others. It was never his fault, always theirs. It was a good set of morals to keep up, as it mostly obliterated self-doubt. Though, there was always the doubt about his skills... something he was feeling quite strongly about at this time. He didn't know if he could beat this strange attacker... who knew so much more... at least some of it must be about fighting. He also removed his whip from his back, not quite sure how useful it would be in a fight like this, but it made him feel more secure. Actually, using it would probably bring his attacker closer to him, so Rabbit stood on the tips of his toes, ready to leap in any direction. This time, he made sure there were easily reachable crates to his right, left, and back, so he didn't fall off again. It had been just plain embarrassing...

[Ball]

Ball dropped from his crate without hesitation, landing on the tips of his tentacles the young pycon stepped towards the one now wielding a whip. “Yu.Jah.Um.Pa.Yu.Tee.Ech.Me.” [‘You jump. You teach me.’] Ball stayed where he landed, now resting fully on his tentacles, allowing them to roll up underneath his body to give him something to sit upon. Ball knew that even though his age was several years lower than the one before him, he knew the older pycon was hesitate to react against him, it wasn’t age that the pycon was hestitating against, it was the fact that Ball seen more…. Knew more.

Ball wasn’t surprised really, it seemed this one before him hadn’t seen the world in the same way Ball has.. .Since day one of his life, Ball had seen hardships… Starting with the Spring Djed Storm last year, to getting knighted, to the Sahovan Water Beast, losing his sponsor knight not long afterwards... Then he traveled to Mura with Pretty Lady Pycon… It was a miracle he survived it all.

Ball remained silent after his request, there wasn’t much more to say. All he knew was if his fellow pycon didn’t lower the weapon, the squire knew he would have to resort to kicking the crap out of the older pycon to teach him a lesson.

[Rabbit]

The Pycon attacker leaped down from the crates after Rabbit, and moved slightly closer. The rabbity Pycon hopped back an equal distance, still watching the ball closely. It stated something, through a slit that seemed to be a mouth. The wording was awkward and stunted, and slightly hard to understand. You.. Jahumpa? Jump? Wait... it wanted him to teach it how to jump? That was a strange request, considering their original encounter. "Mmph. Maybe... if you answer this question. Why did you attack me?" he demanded, speaking slightly harshly in the last sentence. It had been quite a surprise, and very uncalled for. If the Pycon wanted a lesson... well, he needed to provide an explanation first, didn't he? At least it didn't look like their fight was quite about to continue, so Rabbit relaxed his grip on the whip, holding it loosely on his right side with one paw. Now that he was thinking about teaching the ball to jump, something occurred to him. How in the world could that thing jump in the first place? It didn't have any legs... All it had was four tentacles that it was sitting on. Wait... maybe it the thing pushed up with it's appendages, like a spring, it could launch itself around. That would work quite well actually. As long as it had the strength to finish such a feat. You never knew... the things looked slightly skinny, but it really depended on the weight of the main section of the Pycon. "And what exactly do you mean by jumping... it's not very specific" he muttered, though it was loud enough for the younger Pycon to hear. Really... there was a decent bit of stuff in general around 'jumping'. Jump up? Jump around? What kind of jumping did it want to learn? It would probably want to do the stuff that Rabbit had been doing, but... that seemed like it would be pretty hard for it. Being so small, and lacking his powerful legs. Just jumping in general would be a challenge....

[Ball]

Ball paused at the words his fellow Pycon was muttering and speaking. “Uh... Yu. Tee.Ech.Me.To.Juh.Um.Pa?” [‘Uhh… You teach me to jump?’] Ball didn’t really see how that was an odd question, it was literally all he wanted Rabbit to teach him. Ball didn’t know there was any difference in jumping around for fun and actually jumping…

Ball fell silent, there wasn’t much more he could say. His clay body quivered slightly with its own uncontrollable coiling of energy being built up. It was obvious that this young pycon had a bunch of pent up energy within himself and his tentacles would lash out every few seconds trying to release it without injuring anyone. To Ball what Rabbit was doing would be the perfect outlet for Ball to remove some of this pent up energy, plus it would also give Ball more platform to work into his own specialized form of unarmed combat.

OOCSorry for the epic blegh post. =( I will try to do better next post.

[Rabbit]

Really... Well, it seemed like this younger Pycon knew barely anything of jumping. Sad. And irritating. And hard to explain... for him, jumping was almost natural, especially with his rabbit form. Since it would take way too long to explain the differences of jumping... he might as well start with up. That was really the basic, right? So... now to translating this all into words. This was really turning into a strange day... With a small sigh, he began to explain. "Alright. Use those tentacles of yours, and push straight up. With force, and all at the same time. Ok?" He informed the ball harshly, his teaching skills being basically zero. As an example, he pushed hard off the ground with his two hind legs, rising a foot, before falling down again. "See? Like that. Just with.... four legs, of sorts." This was going to be confusing, and complicated. "Here... another example" Rabbit took his paw and began morphing it roughly into a ball, sticking four tentacles out like his student had. It was very strange to have his hand like this, but he ignored it and pressed the newly shaped hand onto the ground. "So use the tentacles and push up" He stated, while manipulating his paw to bend the appendages, before shoving up with all four. It didn't really create much power, since they were practically his fingers, but he demonstrated by lifting his arm up. Once that show was done, he relaxed and returned his paw back to it's normal, and more comfortable, shape.

[Balderdash]

Delicious rewards! Happy days and jubilation!

Skill	XP Awarded
Py-Ken	2
Observation	1
Climbing	1
Persuasion	2

Lores: Jumping Requires Legs, Tentacles Are Cool, Eh; Might As Well Lay A Beatdown, Shenanigans Equals Authority, Rabbit the Jumping Oldie Pycon

Items and Consequences: Nil.

So short! A pity this never got finished.

If you have any questions or concerns about this grade, please PM me. A happy you is a happy Balderdash!