[Anthonius Fighters' Pits] A Lesson in Humility.

by **Archailist** on June 21st, 2014, 5:00 pm

1st of Summer, 514.

It had been so very long, since he'd stepped into the somewhat-familiar arena of the Anthonious Fighters Pits. There were a lot of things that hadn't change the slightest since the last time he'd stepped in the dust-red courtyard and looked at the half-finished walls and training dummies filled with hay. Even Gerard seemed to sit in the exact same spot - leaning against the same piece of wall, with his arms folded over his chest and a firm scowl on his face as he looked over the various commoners training alongside each-other. Thankfully he couldn't see any knights or squires working in the area - they would all much prefer the Training Grounds, he could be assured. Working in the professional vision of the Weaponmasters and with the finest facilities available. Sometimes he wondered why he rarely saw them actually fighting within the Pits, or around the Pits. All of the strangest things seemed to arrive thee - the wanderers from the other cities of Sunberth and Ravok, and beyond the region itself. It was a perfect place to learn whatever one needed to, about the happenings in other cities, while training and sparring on the side. Heck, it was the perfect way to learn how adept the rest of the civilian in the city were, in their weapon skills.

As the squirrel stepped into the arena and moved towards the nearest empty space, however, the one thing that caught him eye was the least likely thing this side of Mizahar itself. A Pycon, sitting. Not just any Pycon, either. Its clay was a shade of worn grey, with barely a hint of its 'true' clay beneath its silvery hide. Its entire body bent at the midsection in the shape of an elbow joint, and its head was strangely flat, with five fingers protruding from around it. If anything, he could say that it looked distinctly similar to that of a human arm, complete with a hand on the end, and a face on the palm of the hand. The face itself looked warped.. one eye was at an angle and the mouth was permanently lifted into a dark scowl, that made Gerard's look playful in comparison.

He didn't even realize he was steadily gravitating towards her until the Pycon turned and caught his stare - and actually leaned back a little, to get the squirrel out of her face. "Hey. Back up." There was no room for negotiation in his voice - a lot rougher, and harsher than he'd expected. But then, by looking at her, it was pretty fitting with the rest of her body. Coarse, uncaring - yeah, that looked about right. He hadn't been the only one staring - there were quite a few fighters and trainers around the Pits that stared at the two Pycons just apparently chatting to each-other, entirely aware of the others strange bodies. One, an arm, and the other a squirrel. Yep, that made for an odd combination. When he eventually did step back, and the Pycon was allowed to straighten herself again, as much as was possible for a large arm, she glared down for a long few moments before speaking again. "Well? What do you want, then?"

Usually he was the one who asked the questions. And truly, he didn't know what he wanted, so he couldn't give an answer if he wanted to. "I dunno. If you're here to fight, I guess I'll do that. I need to work on my Py-Ken. Is that why you're here?" She was in a fighting pit, but he didn't know why she was there - there really was nothing to run on. He was just amazed to see another Pycon that fought. There weren't many of them around and being one of the few was roughly the same as being the only, as far as he was concerned. Few, in all of Mizahar, meant there wouldn't be much of a chance that he met with any of the others, if there were any.

"I'm here to teach. If you want to know. But if you want to know, and you want me to teach, then I need to know what you can do. Got a few Miza's?" He stood there in silence for a few ticks, but eventually pulled out five gold Miza's and tossed them towards her. One stubby paw caught them and hid them away.. and that was it. Suddenly, the arm-Pycon was on all-fours with her stubby arms and legs supporting that massive, open palm that stared at him. The change happened so quickly, the squirrel barely had time to jump back and prepare himself for whatever was coming next. "That means go."

by **Archailist** on June 22nd, 2014, 6:14 pm

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

True enough, he'd never met anyone close to the new Pycon. Not even of any other species. Not even the monks could often be as gruff as her - since they only did it part of the time. She was hard and mean before, during and after fighting, and everything between. He was so confident that he could at least outrun her, as he had done with so many monks and other competitors around the city. There were few that could match the raw agility of the squirrel, through his many flips and countless other things. So, imagine his surprise when he begun his quick jumps forwards.. and the much larger, seemingly much heavier Pycon performed near enough the same moves with acute precision. He'd been expecting something much, much slower.. but instead, he was nearly toppled before he'd managed to get close. His concentration was wavering, and he nearly stumbled and fell right into her. Thankfully, he regained his composure and banked a hard left instead.

It was the perfect plan - to suddenly change directions and emerge from the side instead of head-on. It was a move he'd practiced repeatedly with the various monks of Nyka, except they had big feet to use. The Pycon stood opposite just had one massive hand to grab him in - and the squirrel had a big tail behind him that he could use for weight distribution and balance, so that he could make a quick getaway if needed, and change directions much faster than normal. She must have noticed that, because she didn't move from where she stood - didn't even turn to meet him. Although he could tell there were eyes watching all the same, waiting for something to happen. Being receptive, watching the opponent in order to understand and react accordingly to every attack. Smart.

Just as he prepared himself to slam with the full weight of his body into the new Pycon, she turned on the spot, much faster than she should have been able to, and before he could even jump away once again and prepare to make a secondary attack, the fingers of the arm clenched down incredibly tight around his midsection - enough to disfigure it into a lump of clay as his arms and legs were squished together into a single mass, with just his head sticking out of the top. It shouldn't have happened - after all, clay working against clay often should have just ended up with both of them squishing. But the fingers and the palm felt as solid as stone, as they squeezed and eventually released the lump of squirrel. Once released, he tumbled back and stared at the sky in utter disbelief.

If he still had a lower jaw, it would have taken most of the clay in his body to drop it as far as he wanted it to. Not even with the monks, had he ever come across such a one-sided match. Never, ever! And yet, he'd been so quickly and so easily defeated that it felt like she'd not even been trying. She'd had no need to change her body, she hadn't even needed to move that much to reduce the squirrel to nothing. She could have killed him, in the bat of an eyelid. "What... how did you...?" He tried to form simple words but they came out garbled and utterly confused - more mere parts of questions all pushed together. He needed to pass some time while his limbs reformed any way.

"You've got agility. You're fast. But you're not strong. I can teach you how to be strong, but you need to tell me why you want to be better in Py-Ken." It seemed like a reasonable exchange. Heck, it sounded fantastic. He'd never learn Py-Ken from anyone else in the city, he knew that much. There were no Pycon squires, no Pycon knights.. nobody interested in the arts of the Pycon. He'd never learn things like Py-Pole, or Py-String, or Py-Whip from any of them. But this was a true opportunity to learn from someone that was obviously incredibly knowledgeable in the art. He hadn't even managed to dodge or evade the first attack she'd thrown at him.

"I want to become a Syliran Knight. Or even a squire, if I can. I want to be able to protect the city from all of the dangers that might face it..." That was, if they would even take him. He'd not managed to find the registration office for the knights, and even then, he'd have no idea if they would consider a squirrel as a worthy candidate for the position. He'd have no clue who his patron might be. Or how the knights may treat him. It was all very worrying, in the end. But they couldn't not accept him, if he had something that made him valuable to them. If he had some special skills, in the arts of the Pycon, unknown to any human or even any other creature than the Pycons themselves. Then they'd have to take him on as a squire, and eventually as a knight. He would be a prized member!

by **Archailist** on June 22nd, 2014, 6:34 pm

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The Pycon nodded quietly. "Good. My name is Hammer Fist. Call me Fist." The squirrel nodded as the last of his body finished reforming from the clump that it had once been. Although there were still marks over his body that needed time to fill out again. Grooves around his arms and chest that showed where the fingers had once crushed his body. Although those could wait for now -they'd reform by themselves over the next few chimes, and they didn't impede enough of his movement for him to try to concentrate on filling them. The squirrel had more important things to focus on. Like Fist, as she turned and walked a few steps away, before turning around again. He once again had a good opportunity to look over her entire body - the strange grey colour of her clay, that was definitely unnatural. It was so much deeper than anything else he'd seen - it was as if a human had skin as black as coal, all over. Not just dark, but utterly black. Or white enough that it seemed that they had been born of Syna themselves, but lost all of their light. Reduced to a blinding white.

"Your problem is that you're soft. You need to learn how to push your clay. I can see that there'd be a lot in your tail, so for now, focus on taking clay out of your tail and putting it into your hands... paws. But don't let your paws get any bigger. Clay goes in, but it gets tighter. Do it." He was no stranger to moving his clay - he did it often, after all, in his acrobatics. She was spot-on, that his massive tail was often used to balance out the rest of his body, and so had a pretty large quantity of clay inside of it. But, he wasn't very used to manipulating his clay in such a way as she had described. Pushing it into a body part but not letting it get any bigger? Surely he couldn't.. but, he wasn't going to come this far and not believe someone who was obviously more learned than the squirrel himself. So, he begun to do it. He formed small channels in his tail, where clay begun to slowly flow out of the tail and instead went all the way up through his torso, chest, and eventually out his arms and into his paws.

It wasn't easy, stopping the clay from simply pushing out his paws and making them bigger. It took more concentration than he was used to exerting, and he couldn't see a possible use for it. As much as he tried to hold back the growth of his paws, he could feel them swelling a little to a larger size. The shift in clay to one body part was very obvious, but.. eventually, he reached a limit. "I don't think that I can fit any more inside." The clay had begun to push into his arms themselves, and around the joints. Filling the body parts with clay made it much harder for the squirrel to move the joints, and the last thing he wanted to do was make his arms unable to move. Otherwise, how was he ever supposed to punch anyone? Just as he spoke, though, Fist walked up close and pressed one stubby hand against the fists that were held out before the squirrel. To his surprise, when she pushed on them firmly, they gave much less than he'd expected. Given he'd just felt her touch, he expected his body to crumple once again. But it didn't, for the most part. The clay still softened and pushed back, but its basic shape was still there.

"Pushing more clay into individual body parts will make them firmer to the touch. You need to practice more, making your clay firm. You use your entire body - you shouldn't. Use individual parts. Punches and kicks - and stuff with your tail." He couldn't believe it. He was actually going to be able to punch someone and have the same effect. Although it made sense - enough that he wished he'd thought of it earlier, because it was pretty damn simple. Pushing more clay and more mass into his paws could make them harder - making more pressure in the small amount of clay held in a small spot would stop it from splattering. Obviously he wouldn't be able to do it with his entire body... but it meant he could at least be partially solid.

by **Archailist** on June 22nd, 2014, 6:41 pm

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

"Now, try it on me." Those were, admittedly, the last words he'd ever expected anyone to say, let alone the person that stood before him. But then again, Fist seemed very confident in her abilities, and for a very good reason too. She obviously saw his disbelief, because she continued shortly afterwards. "You need to get used to punching. Not just bits of wood - you need to practice hitting a real Pycon. And you need to see what you're working towards." Well, he couldn't argue with that logic. And even if he could, there wasn't a chance that he would. The best he could really do, was begin to harden up his paws once again - channeling clay through his entire body, and taking it out of his tail again. It made his paws feel a lot heavier than he'd previously noticed.. although that was mostly because now he was actually moving with them.

All of the change of balance and weight made the squirrel a little wobbly on his feet. He had to switch to all-fours, and even then, it felt a little strange running. Like there were weights attached to his front two paws - in a way, though, there were. He had to take even more clay out of the rest of his body, to push it into his tail and keep a counterbalance active. It lessened the effect of the weight but it didn't remove it - he was still working on two boulders and two paws, for the most part. And the rest of his body had less clay in it.. there were little pockets of air appearing inside, which would probably condense almost immediately on impact. It all made for a very wobbly glass cannon, and he could pretty much guess that was what he was. A glass cannon - not even a skyglass cannon.

However, mercifully, Fist was patient. She stood there with her palm wide open and ready as the squirrel stepped in close and reeled back on fist, as far as he could possibly bring it. But when he finally did snap it back, with all the force he could muster - two of those fingers reached, from above and below, and pinched the fist between them. It was amazing how quickly the clay inside the other Pycon could move - it was as if her entire body was of the same utterly solid consistency. He could actually doubt that stepping on her would squish her, as it did so many other Pycons. He couldn't even move his fist from the iron-like grip of two measly fingers, much to his shame and embarrassment. He just had to stand there with one fist outstretched, looking very comical and sad for himself. "That's not how you punch." It seemed he had a very, very long way to go before he'd be able to make much more of a dent on Fist than he was now. More like a fly buzzing in the way of a brick wall, it felt like.

He wasn't sure what Fist had in mind to show him how to punch, considering the massive hand that made up the entirety of her body. But soon enough he found out. Not slowly at all, the hand faded away as a muzzle pushed out of the palm and two fingers changed into ears - the others folded in on themselves and melted into the rest of her body. Her stubby arms grew, and a large tail pushed out of her lower back. In barely a few chimes, he stood staring at what was pretty close to a representation of himself. Same moderately long arms, same wide tail. It wouldn't have passed off as the squirrel himself because of a lot of minor details but it fit the bill well enough. "You don't pull back the fist like you've got all the time in the world. You make it quick and fast. Like this." Suddenly, one arm launched out at a lightning-bolt speed, and the squirrel nearly fell over backwards in surprise as it came for him, and stopped just shy of slamming into his chest and most likely throwing the squirrel the length of the Fighters Pits. "Now you try."

He tried to prepare the same way but it was little good. His arm couldn't build up enough power in such a short distance and when he raised his paw, it did little but smack upwards like a club, using the back of his hand in a fist. It looked cool.. but didn't do that much damage. As shown when it collided with Fist's chest.

by **Archailist** on June 23rd, 2014, 12:53 pm

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

She shook her head and sighed quietly. Apparently he'd been doing worse than he thought - but the entire thing was so confusing. The squirrel was more or less used to just running at people and knocking them over with his body - not actually punching them or using individual parts. He could see the perks in it, of course he could. The ability to deal more damage in more concentrated areas. But there was so much work put into them, so much technique and precision that the squirrel could have little to no clue at all, without the aid of some kind of teacher. Thankfully he had one now, even if she was a bit stern, but she wasn't even his patron knight. She was someone milling about in the Fighters Pits, waiting for someone to come along that she could charge for a few lessons to keep herself above the water. She was a very good teacher, there was no doubt about that, though. Even then, with her body altered to match the squirrels, her attacks were fluid and sudden. Perhaps even more so, because of the longer arms and more slender body.

"Build the attack from the hip." She showed him - clenching one paw into a fist and holding it about waist level, clenched and tight. Suddenly it rose and turned into a punch that even sent a bit of wind in the squirrels face - and not just the arm moved but the entire body, building up as much power as possible within the small amount of space. There was no doubt that a single punch like that could seriously injure someone, even if it was a bare fist. Because that fist was made out of clay - and damn, he knew that his full body could feel like a brick on average. But when it was hardened, focused on a specific point, and then delivered with such ferocity.. heck, just thinking about what could truly happen was pretty terrifying. "Anyway. We'll end all of this with a final spar. Use everything I told you. Be fast, but be strong as well. Use punches, not just your whole body." He nodded but Fist didn't see it - and if she did, she didn't show it, because she'd already turned her back on him to step a few steps back.

This was it. A second chance, to try and use everything he had. Although, for the love of God, he hoped she'd go easy on him. She was incredibly fast, he knew that now - and not only that but she was strong as well. She could anticipate his moves before he made them. If only he could become as fast as her - even though, in all truth of the matter, he was fast enough at that moment to be able to outclass a lot of the other knights and squires in the area. It'd been enough to outrun a few monks in Nyka, and a few people around Syliras.. how much longer until there would be nobody left to outrun? Hah, and more importantly, how long would there be, before he wouldn't even need to outrun anyone any more? Where he could turn around and beat them into the ground with single punches, as he imagined Fist could easily do, if she so wished it?

As soon as the female Pycon turned around and lurched forwards in a full stampede, he knew that she wasn't going to be going easy on him. It was nothing short of a miracle he managed to jump aside in time to watch her fingers grab at empty air.. and in the brief moment that he was given to make an attack, he threw a punch. His clay wasn't very solid, but he pushed as much as he could into the fist at the expense of the rest of his arm. And the punch wasn't as powerful as he'd of hoped, because there wasn't enough time to move the paw down to his hip before lifting it. It didn't even matter, because before it could hit, one of Fist's stubby hands rose and caught the punch right on the knuckles. It squelched a little but it remained firm.. and gave a little more of a jolt than before. He could feel it. Though it still did absolutely nothing against the sheer force that the other Pycon could command in those stubby little arms of hers. "There's not much strength in it. But it's more than last time."

by **Archailist** on June 23rd, 2014, 2:12 pm

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

She released his paw and he hopped back a few steps before they came forwards again - and this time, the squirrel ran towards her on two feet, wobbling slightly, before throwing a hard punch from the hip. It was stronger than before, but there was less effort put into the clay.. so even though it was harmlessly batted aside by one of Fist's paws in turn, the thing was soft and squishy to the touch. Fist was still taking on the appearance of a squirrel, and so Arch could truly see what it meant to use every inch of ones body to their advantage as Fist seemed to flow effortlessly between different attacks.. and considering what it did to his body, he couldn't even begin to imagine what the havoc could do to a humans body if they were allowed to come together. Even at the ankles or another weak area, it could be devastating.. and he was only left mostly unscathed because of his soft, clay body...

Fist threw her right paw for Arch's chest faster than he could blink.. but even before it was finished slamming into his soft body, disfiguring the clay of his torso without shifting in the slightest for itself, another punch was thrown with the opposite paw. And another, after that. They went on in a sequence of five, each harnessing almost the full weight of the rather large squirrels body and severely damaging Arch's body. Even as he stumbled backwards, dazed and slightly confused, the attacks would not stop. Fist turned on her heels and swung her lower body up into the air - held down with her hands as the clay shifted from within them and moved down to his feet - in order to launch a savage two-footed kick straight into the same craters that had formed in his chest. The attack was too much this time, and it knocked Arch straight off his feet.. and onto his back, instead. It was there that he remained while Fist straightened herself again, and reshaped her body back into her original form. It was a much faster change than before.. as if a piece of elastic snapping back into shape, once stretched.

"You will need lots of work. If this had been a real fight, with real weapons, you would have been killed very quickly. Your speed will not always be able to save your life." There wouldn't be a chance in heck, that he would forget that now. The squirrel could only sit there, moderately dazed, while the 'wounds' on his body filled in once again and his body returned to its original form. When he'd finally gained his mind and rose, the other Pycon had already moved back off to a corner of the Fighters Pits, looking over the place once again. The squirrel could tell that he was no longer needed - he'd learned a lot, especially a valuable lesson. As much as he hoped and prayed that there would be fair few that could actually catch him.. there were those that could, and if given the chance, would utterly humiliate him. He could only hope that his patron wouldn't be one of them. Although, maybe he should have wished his patron would be. He wouldn't be able to learn anything from a person that couldn't even hit him when it came down to battle.

None of that mattered for the moment. The squirrel turned with his head held low, as he walked out of the Fighters Pits. A few people, mostly commoners, looked his way and then away again quickly. He wasn't sure if he heard a few concealed sniggers, but none of that mattered. That day had opened up a lot of possibilities for the Pycon. If only he could harness the sheer power that Fist obviously held. He'd be the greatest knight ever. Worthy of respect - even if it was from Loren Dyres himself!

Continued here.

by **Radiant** on June 24th, 2014, 3:39 pm

Archailist :

Notes :

My radiance is not bright enough?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, beam me a PM and we can work it out.

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	+3 XP
Socialization	+1 XP
Py-ken	+5 XP
Acrobatics	+1 XP
Running	+1 XP
Endurance	+3 XP
Tactics	+2 XP

Completed [Anthonius Fighters' Pits] A Lesson in Humility.