Flashback Chipping Away

[Victus]

50th Day of Summer, 498AV
Tall Johnny's Casino and Cage Fights

It had been a score of days since they'd marked him, and the pain was starting to fade. They'd had to stuff a rag in his mouth and hold him down when the time came. His master sitting in one corner, watching impassively as three of his men forced the boy on his back and some bored old man broke out his tools.

Needles. Charcoal. Ink. Ointments to clean wounds and fire to cauterize them.

Then the old man had started scraping and digging his fine little tools into the flesh around his wrists... then across his chest. Only when he started the latter did the panicking, panting Victus see Johnny walk over, peering over the tattooist's shoulder with an air of concern.

"Yes, yes, like that... distinctive but not too excessive, hmm? Make them look more like... old injuries. That should play well."

"Think they'll believe that," the old man muttered, gesturing lazily with the red-and-black-smeared needle, "From a boy?"

Tall Johnny snorted, derision enough for all of Sunberth oozing from his dazzling smile. "You'd be amazed what those morons who scream at the cage will believe, Hedley..."

Victus shut his eyes and tried to force his mind to do the same. He thought of his family, such as it was: bedraggled and wretched and whole with in there. But they grew hazy and blurry with each scrape of sharpened bone and metal against his skin, then the hissing, burning agony of charcoal and ink forced into the grooves.

Without thought or desire, his mind snapped to something else... and he found his breathing... steady.

Tarak. The cellar. The endless jerking dance of fists and feet and everything else they threw at each other. The jolts of pain as he was beaten to the floor, the silent, growling hatred as he got back to his feet...

Hatred. Victus opened his dark eyes and stared at the ceiling, growling around the rag like a dog gone mad. He held tight to his hatred and let Hedley work. The pain was there, the outrage, the sickening sense of... violation, but that was... bearable. Because they couldn't take his hatred away. It would burn in his heart until it spilled from his eyes like lava and then-

It was over. Hedley had bandaged up his wrists and chest with a whistle and Johnny had sent him back to the cellar.

As soon as he got there, Victus began to work the bag. Or the sack, more accurately. Tarak taught him the moves, but his body needed strength, muscle, the kind of mindless memory that constant repetition gave a fighter's limbs. The slave had seen other men punching those big leather bags before, but... there weren't any down there.

But there were flour sacks. Lots of them. And rope.

It had hardly been raising a barn. He'd looped the rope over a beam, tied one end tight them hoisted a huge sack of flour up. His legs strained and thighs burned, shoulders screamed and biceps bulged (such as they could, anyway) as he raised the sack higher... just a little more... right... there!

Then he'd tied the other end and stepped around the gently swaying bag. It was nearly as tall as him, perhaps half again as heavy, thick, coarse fabric but when he reared back and punched it-

It hardly moved. Victus smiled grimly and did it again, a double-tap from his right, then a left hook to follow it-

Remember what the purple man said: everything is a weapon.

-then jerked his hips and threw his knee into the side of it instead, right where the kidneys would be... well, if it were a child like him, anyway. He supposed for a grown man it would be... the knees?

Victus sighed and massaged his sore knuckles. He'd have to find something to bind them with. He had a long way to go, and a few feet to grow... but as he snapped his knuckles into the bag, he felt something delicious and comforting beyond their sting.

He saw faces in that blank sack. Johnny. Rastus. Hedley. His father. The men who'd held him down, who'd beat him, mocked him...

The steady thump-thump of flesh on sackcloth echoed dimly through the cellar, matched only by his quick breaths with each blow. The boy's brown crushed down over his eyes, and he let his hatred fuel his limbs.

[Victus]

Tarak was hardly a man who gave his approval easily, but even he couldn't stop a slight twitch of his lips when he heard the distinct sound of someone "working a bag" in the room they were approaching. The boy Johnny had hired him to train was certainly taking it seriously.

"Working the bag", he thought suddenly, face twisting briefly with scorn. As if it were labor, some menial task without passion or dedication. Since Johnny's grandfather had been a boy, Tarak had devoted himself to the art of combat. The dark and bloody beauty of vanquishing your enemies with nothing but your hands. There was pride and power and worth in such a thing, and studying your flesh in its mysteries was not work.

The boy seemed to have the idea. The door creaked open and Tarak caught a glimpse of the slave finishing a quick flurry of jabs at about chin height, sweat gleaming off his bare torso... or at least the parts thats weren't bandaged.

He snorted softly. Fucking slave would need to start toeing the line, unless he wanted those on his flesh every sodding week.

Victus turned to them and Tarak noted further that he was starting to fill out. No longer could you count every rib the boy had through his skin. His elbows and knees weren't knobbly anymore, starting to get hemmed in by muscle and fat gathering on his arms and legs. His face had lost that gaunt, starved look... or at least the flesh had.

The eyes burned like a Yukman's sockets, and Tarak could see another problem he would have to overcome. Rage and hatred were useful, but only when properly directed. If all Victus wanted to rely on was mindless, numbing anger, well... sooner or later he'd find someone who'd use it against him.

"I'll return within the next bell," Johnny said airily, stepping back out into the halls, "Man's got a business to run..."

Tarak grunted apathetically, uncaring either way. Human and Akalak eyed each other as the door slammed shut; listened as those brisk footsteps faded... hen vanished. Once they had, Tarak breathed in deep through his nose and sauntered over to the rude training circle, cracking his knuckles, working his head back and forth, side to side...

Victus stepped away from him and to his side, the two of them soon settling into familiar stanced, circling each other sideways like fiddler crabs before a clash. They knew the steps to this dance by now; they'd been dancing for over a season, and Tarak was impressed to see his little student toughening up, the movements becoming smoother with confidence-

-like when Victus darted forward and crouched, right leg swinging his shin towards Tarak's-

-following it with a left hook aimed at his jaw-

-both parried or blocked, Akalak shooting back fire in the form of three harsh jabs-

-that drew grunts from Victus each time he felt their shattering vibration, but instead of lowering his guard he slid away to his side-

-lashing out with a body hook to Tarak's side-

-but the Akalak was already spinning, left arm out, elbow powering his way-

-firearms barely blocking him but sending him staggering backward, glaring out from between his raised arms, already bruised and aching.

Tarak grunted, popped his neck one more time, then went on the offensive.

[Victus]

Victus had seen a man create a statue, in a shop bordering the Tent City. It had started off as some huge, square, faceless block nearly eight feet tall. The old stonemason had hammered away at it first with heavy hammers, knocking chunks off to give it come bare form, and then he'd started getting... precise.

Victus could hear him, chipping away for bells, every day, with hammer and chisel. He'd watched him a dozen times, wrinkled face made even more lined with a serious frown, twisting and adjusting his angle and grip over and over. And with each tap, another chunk had fallen away, or sometimes even flakes... and slowly, wonderously... a man had began to form.

It had taken him most of a season, but flake by flake, the old man had made a man out of the block. Muscles stark and defined on a white marble body, arms reaching out to the heavens, face complete with eyes and mouth and nose, posed in a gasp of supplication.

All from countless little chips and taps. He thought of that man more nowadays. He was starting to understand the process.

The Akalak swung for him again, a right hook that came in low to his side, and he shifted his block-

-only for the tight purple fist to halt at his side, a feint, masking the-

-left that jabbed for his chest, forcing him to sway back-

-even further as a leg lashed out aimed at his chest.

The slave growled. He was tired of the massive Akalak forcing him back and back with his reach. Every time he got close enough, he had to backpedal after two strikes, if he was lucky, surrendering control of the fight to Tarak. It made him feel... helpless.

A season ago, the feeling would have been natural. Expected. Normal. But he'd nearly a hundred days of training under his belt and fucked if he wasn't going to use them-

With a low, feral growl he charged at the Akalak, arms a blur of movement as he rained blows on the bigger man, keeping his guard up-

-then kicked out fast with his right leg, battering Tarak's shin and making him wobble-

Here it comes.

As expected, the big man wasn't slow to retaliate. He jabbed out at Victus' face with his right and the boy barely managed to block it... but this time, he didn't step away. He didn't back down. He absorbed the blow, the blast, the physical shock of it, and kicked out again, straight forward-

-actually succeeding in making Tarak take one step back as his foot collided with his rock-hard stomach-

-following it with a body blow to the same place.

Tarak didn't have the time to frown, but he could see the change in his pupil. The boy had learned how to deal with fear, crushing it down and devoting his mind to the fight. He'd even understood the difference between pain and damage: that the former was just the body's instincts given silent voice, and the latter was what he really needed to worry about...

But his temper... his anger... his frustration at not being bigger, stronger, older... that tripped him up every time.

Victus' blows became more erratic as he pounded at the Akalak's raised forearms, breaths coming out nearly as sobs, face twisted, obsessed-

Enough.

Faster than Victus had ever seen him move before, his arms snapped out and grabbed Victus' wrists as easily as he would a babe's. Arms suddenly immobilized, he knew the boy would try for a kick, and jerked his hips forward before he got the chance-

-slamming his knee hard into the boy's stomach.

It felt like something had exploded in his guts, and the blast forced all the breath from him in a whoosh that almost made him want to vomit. Tarak held him up by his wrists and Victus was suddenly limp and helpless in them, barely on his feet...

Until he heard an urgent grunt from the mute giant. He forced himself to look up into a scowl carved into a face hard as granite.

Tarak put a finger to his skinny chest slowly and shook his head. Then he pointed two fingers to his eyes, and tapped the side of his sore head... then nodded, eyebrows slowly raised over his brow.

The man never spoke, never made a sound save for breathing and grunting, but Victus had learned to follow his cryptic signals. He had to ponder over it, though, until finally he had the wits and breath to give voice to them.

"Fight... with what you see... and you mind. Not... your heart."

Tarak released him. By supreme effort that his body vowed he would pay for, the slave stayed on his feet, not doubling over in pain. He wondered if the fresh tattoos would run or bleed now. The Akalak nodded and as if by some divine plan, the door opened... and Johnny stood there, taking in the scene.

"Ah!" He said lightly, turning on the charm like it was a faucet, "Finally he ends a session without being laid out on the floor. Progress, indeed."

Tarak nodded to his student and left, taking his usual purse without looking at it. Johnny watched him go with something like hunger in his eyes. Gods, what a champion he would make for the cage. He could feed him fighters like you would a tiger meat, but the damn Akalak had no interest in it.

Those days were long before Tarak found his place at the Gold Lodge, after the landscape of Sunberth had changed so much it had become almost unrecognizable. Back then, he didn't have the love of Iselda to cool the flames his dark half stoked for him; all he had was the endless, simmering yearning for violence, and the Dragoons gave him all he could handle. They still would, in the far future, but back then... he was little more than their pet killer.

But by then, Johnny would think of him far less. He had his own, and he would remember days like that, when he'd turned to see the growing boy panting, bruised and enflamed of eye, standing in the cella and begin working on that bag again.

Some day, boy, he promised himself, you are going to make me a lot of money...

[Vanari]

Victus

Observation	+3 XP
Unarmed Combat	+3 XP
Endurance	+2 XP
Body Building	+1 XP
Tactic	+2 XP
Philosophy	+1 XP

Lores :

• Hedley: Man Who Marked Me
• Hatred Makes Good Fuel
• Chiseling a Man from a Block
• Fight With What You See, Not Your Heart

Notes :

Superbly written, as always.

Please don't hesitate to PM me with questions, comments, or concerns! Also, remember to edit your grade request as "graded."

Cheers