Out of his Element [Ssafirsotibones]

by **Faval** on June 26th, 2012, 3:27 am

Faval listened quietly and attentively as the man lectured him on the merits of never underestimating your opponent and basing too much on preconceived notions and assumptions. It was sound advice, but Faval had answered his first test in such a spectacular fashion that he couldn’t help but succumb to a sense of arrogant smugness. It was to be expected and while wrong, it wasn’t completely unforgivable. Faval was rarely right or impressive with anything and now that he was getting even sideways praise for one of his endeavors brought a whole cadre of arrogance that he didn’t know he was capable of before. He couldn’t help but feel the need to show off some more.

As his teacher announced the next segment of their more practical training, Faval dropped down in to a ready stance as well; however his was slightly more defensive than his educator’s. Faval’s right arm rose straight up along his centerline, positioned neatly ahead of him and covering the center of his body quite nicely. The boy’s left arm extended out a little lower than his right and off to the side, the left hand positioned behind the right. The boy’s knees were bent only slightly, his toes pointed in and his weight on left, rear leg. As the strikes came flying it, Faval reacted just as he had practiced a thousand times. With a quick flick of his wrist, Faval’s right hand chopped in to the wrist of the first strike, deflecting it quite wide of his body. As the second punch came in, Faval’s right leg dropped back slightly, the weight falling to it as his left hand exchanged places with his right, intercepting the next attack at the wrist and diverting it away. Faval generally repeated this process for the rest of the flurry, diverting some, completely stepping out of the way of others, all the while keeping the center of his body directly perpendicular to his opponent. Then he saw it, the opening. To throw a stronger punch, you needed to cock the fist back farther to unleash it. The second he saw his opponent’s fist cock back far enough to deliver a powerful blow, Faval snapped to the offensive. As his opponent’s fist started moving forward, Faval ‘s front leg darted forward and far to his opponent’s side, his front knee bending forward heavily and dropping his whole center of gravity very low. Dragging his body with the step, Faval caused the man’s powerful strike to whiff completely. With most of his weight on his front foot, Faval drove up on it and threw his fist up toward his opponent’s jaw, putting his whole body’s force behind the punch.

Unfortunately, Faval was too busy trying to watch the man’s hands that he didn’t notice the kick until it was far too late. Having not dragged his trailing foot in quickly enough, a result of his novice level of skill, Bone’s foot collided with Faval’s shin as he was punching, causing the boy’s leg to flail out and throw off his balance. He had gotten enough upward momentum that if the punch hit, it would smart rather badly, but having his leg kicked out had thrown off his balance enough that the fist would only barely catch Bones’s chin as Faval was flailing away and it wouldn’t be too hard to simply lean backward and let it miss him entirely. Faval, having too much forward and upward momentum from what should have been a decisive strike, hit the ground and rolled in a tumbling heap for a few feet before rolling to painful stop in the dirt. He had gotten too carried away going for the strong shot to his opponent’s jaw and he was paying for it. Faval slowly pushed his palms against the hard ground, dragging himself to his knees and then his feet. It was apparent on his face that he wasn’t happy with himself.

“Didn’t expect the unexpected…”

EditAdded a line break between the last paragraph and the dialogue, it was bugging me.

by **Ssafirsotibones** on June 26th, 2012, 6:42 pm

Of course, most of Bones questions were not really meant to be hard. They were really there to make sure he had down the theory well, and to gauge were he was, not to pose a difficult or philosophical quandary.

Bones though did not notice as the human grew a bit arrogant, and "high on his own fumes." If he had, he probably would have done something to put him in his place. But no one ever said he was an expert on humans.

Bones ready stance, was of course not as defensive, since he had no plan to defend, but to attack. And as he launched into the fight, he was totally focused on it.

Initially he did not do worse than he expected. He could have easily torn him apart by putting full force into each blow, but instead relegated himself to some light pops. It was a spar after all. Though if Bones had really been trying, he would have found those same "light" jabs a lot more difficult to redirect.

He did well, until it came to the big punch. Bones intentionally did this punch as a normal human would, cocking back and making it clear of his intentions, so the human would know what he was doing.

In a real fight, he likely would not have shown such a tell, since with his strength he could gather a human equivalent strong punch, without even cocking back. Though if he wanted to go full dhani force, he still had to. Instead, he did cock back, and made his intentions clear, while still holding back his force from full.

He managed to dodge that attack, and threw a punch at Bones face, not noticing that Bones had immediately followed with a kick. If he had been more focused, and perhaps thinking less highly of himself, he might have noticed that, and not dive in right then for a punch.

His kick set the human off balance, messing up his punch, which barely grazed Bones chin. He might have a bit of a bruise there on the skin, but was not even hurt that much by it.

As he rolled off and tumbled into a heap, he finally came to a halt. Bones took a step or two back, to make it clear he was not going to hit him while he was down, not until he got back to his feet.

"Not bad, not bad. Ssough yesss, you did over-commit, and did not notice my kick. If you had waited anosser few momentsss, till after avoiding sse kick, your blow might have been sssuccessssful."

Bones simply stared down at him, his breathing returning back to normal, after it had been quickened the tiniest bit, by there scuffle. Which might seem odd, considering how fast his breathing had been a moment ago, when they had barely even been fighting. Now, after a much more intense bout, he seemed completely unfazed.

"I did not catch your name... What wasss it? You can call me Bonesss. Everyone doesss."

by **Faval** on June 27th, 2012, 6:51 pm

Faval gently rubbed the dirt off his face as he glared back at the man who had sent him flying. Even if it were a serious fight, it wasn’t a matter of consciously leaving a tell for him to see. It was simple physics, without some kind of extra-human strength, or possibly even with it, to increasing or decreasing the speed and consequently the force behind a punch always gave off a signal. It was simple physics. Force is calculated by multiplying the mass by the acceleration. The mass of your fist never changes, so to augment the amount of mass being put in to a strike, you need to involve other parts of your body and other physical properties, such as applying torque from your hips in to a strike to increase the amount of mass you’re contributing to the strike, this gives a physical tell. The only other way to increase the force of a blow was to increase the speed in which it is thrown and your fist needs time to accelerate to reach faster speeds, consequently your need to lengthen the distance traveled by cocking your arm back before throwing the punch, another tell. Completely hiding those things is nearly impossible simply because of how requisite they were for generating more power. Faval himself was ignorant of the scientific explanations for these things, but he had gotten hit by enough punches and was observant enough to be able to spot all but the most subtle of cues. Faval wasn’t going to have any trouble spotting such things, his only troubles would come when Bones decided to move way too quickly for him to process what he saw and react to it.

Faval glared at his trainer, his face rife with fierce determination as he quietly listened as Bones spoke, affirming what he already knew and letting it drill in to his skull. He didn’t need to be told what he had done wrong there, the ache in his arms and head were enough to let him know what an idiot he was, but hearing it did tend to further instill what needed to be done to rectify the problem. Faval needed to calm down and approach his fights with an emotionless precision, at least that’s what his old teacher had told him. It just wasn’t easy for an emotionally charged individual like Faval. Succumbing to emotions like arrogance and anger and apparently, unbeknownst to Faval, hunger in the case of his teacher. It made your moves too predictable and Faval had a firsthand encounter with doing it to himself. He knew he could be so much better if he just stopped letting his excitement get to him and cause him to try and take openings that weren’t truly there. It was handily his greatest weakness after not having much natural talent. As the man spoke to him, the determined and fierce look didn’t leave Faval’s face as he replied, trying probably harder than he should have to in order to not incidentally imitate the man’s speech impediment.

“Faval, sir. Faval Verbeugen. Again, sir?”

by **Ssafirsotibones** on June 28th, 2012, 3:32 am

Bones simply read the humans face, seeing a bit of anger on it. Though it was tough to say if it was at himself, or Bones. Really, it did not matter. Bones would fight him all the same. Of course, like so many things, Bones had his own philosophy on it.

"Anger... Rage... Pain... Ssessse can be bad or good. But you can control it, or let it control you. Sssome sssay to pusssh it assside, lock it away, and fight wiss logic... Ossersss, sssay to ussse sse rage and anger to fuel your fighting... Let yourssself fall into sse natural inssstinctsss your body would have of you, to punch, dessstroy, kill... When you do ssat, it letsss you fight at a amazing rate, not taking time to ssink, jussst doing what isss needed and right in sse moment, ssat your flesssh insssisssts... But you mussst be careful not to lossse control, lessst you lossse yourssself in your rage..."

Bones looked at the human... Even that puny race, could embrace there long dormant animal side... That bit of human instinct, that need to live and preserve yourself... Once tapped into, it became a amazing thing... Bones paused here, letting his words sink in...

"Or... You can do sse mossst difficult of all... You can try to do boss... You can have ssossse emotionsss, anger, rage, feel sse pain... But sssurpassss it. Don't control your body, itsss inssstinctsss, but guide it... Let it flow into combat, and sssimply prod here and ssere to make it go asss isss bessst... Keep control, while letting sse flood of power wissin yourssself free... Ssisss isss hardessst of all... Sse mossst difficult to do... To boss give up control, while keeping it..."

Bones smiled at him, his creepy unnerving inhuman smile... He realized how confusing and contradictory what he had said was... And yet, he saw it as true... Bones himself had long since been working to master his feral dhani instincts, to guide this mass of fighting ability inside of himself... He knew how hard it was, but also saw how strong he would be, once he conquered and befriended it...

"Now Faval... Attack me again... If you want, give it your all, ussse your aggressssion, your rage, and take it out on me... Or try and bottle it up, and try to fight logically, while alssso controlling ssessse emotionsss... Choossse whichever... And ssen attack..."

ooc :

by **Faval** on June 29th, 2012, 4:09 am

Faval’s fists clenched as the man gave another one of his incomprehensible speeches. They might mean more to Faval, again if he had the handy dandy translation, if he could understand anything the man was saying. What he did understand contradicted what he was already taught. Faval’s eyes narrowed as he tried to logically fight against his opponent’s rhetoric, not at all in agreement. Even if it were possible, which it probably was, there was too much that could happen in battle that would interfere and mess with your mental state. Dangerously flirting with two sides of a coin that could quite easily get you killed if you’re not prepared for either seems to be a horrible idea. However, Faval was here to learn and second guessing everything your teacher said wasn’t very conducive to that. While Faval wasn’t necessarily a fan of what the man was saying, spurning other view points because they did not fit your mold of conventionality and practicality was more dangerous to your health than considering a dangerous viewpoint. The look of defiant determination still blazed in his eyes however as he continued to glare at the man ahead of him. He wasn’t sure why he was like this, normally he was considerably more level headed, but for some reason he really wanted to prove himself here, more than before. Before it was academic, but now Faval was pissed, mostly at himself. He had gotten carried away, lost sight of what was important and he was sent flying for it.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t use it. Faval decided to take the man’s instructions in a way he entirely did not mean. Faval was going to use his anger, he was going to let it show, he was going to make a big show of it even. Faval was going to throw that fury straight at the man’s face and…well…we’d see if he underestimated Faval the same way Faval had underestimated him. As he issued his command to attack, that furious look on Faval’s face intensified and before he could even finish explaining that he didn’t care which avenue Faval took, Faval was tearing toward him with a look of pure aggression depicted across his features. Repeating his earlier attack, Faval’s approach seemed to be to try and smash his head off a brick wall until either his skull or the wall broke. Faval pulled back his right arm slightly, his fist aligned with his sternum before completely closing the distance and loosely throwing his fist forward, aiming for his opponent’s sternum. If he trapped him, he trapped him, if he didn’t then he at least could reset and go back in on the attack easily enough.

by **Ssafirsotibones** on July 4th, 2012, 10:01 pm

Already, Bones could see it on the human. The anger. Rising like a broiling heat inside of him. Bones had seen much anger in his life, anger for some of his deeds, anger for what he was, anger for nothing... he had seen so much of it, that he could recognize if as easily as others read common...

Bones himself was usually filled with anger. He could not help it. All of these insignificant humans, so weak, forcing himself to go easy, to never show his true might... Such short insignificant lives... Killing his kind on sight, thinking the dhani to be the monsters...

Even though he felt this anger at his core, more or less every moment of his life... It rarely showed. He had long since learned to quell such anger, to not show it, to only let it free when it could be used constructively... Perhaps that was why he had his particular philosophy... Using it was the only way he could exist, that he could function... Otherwise he would simply rage, until the entirety of the world burned and lay in rubble... It was only through his use of this skill, that even know he fought the impulse to snap this mans neck, and the next ones... And the next ones... To devour and feast... Only through his control, and his sheer will... Did he keep from doing as his instincts said.

His entire existence, consisted of controlling his instincts, guiding them, and letting them go when the time was right, in a functioning, useful way...

As the human launched himself at Bones, he simply reacted as his training told him to... As his instinct told him... He became as liquid... Ready to move in any way needed... He would only become solid and exact, in the moment he had to meet his foe, match them force to force, and then go back to a liquid never ending movement, before lashing out snakelike with another precision blow...

Bones partially sidestepped the first blow, sending out a darting left palm to lazily push the punch wide. Then he moved forward, crowding in on the man, and moved to punch him with a quick blow to his left side, with Bones right hand.

But he would move even closer, once that blow was done, coming into the grappling range of wrestling, trying to pin the mans arms down if he could, and to force him to the ground, with Bones on top. Wrestling after all, was the preferred fighting style of constrictor dhani, even if it was not his best fighting skill.

by **Faval** on July 6th, 2012, 8:41 pm

Perhaps Faval was adopting Bones’s teaching a little more readily than he was expecting. It was easy for him to let the anger show because he was, in fact, pretty angry. He was not remotely fond of Bones, he didn’t know why, maybe it was some misconceived tone of arrogance he was picking up or perhaps he was just angry that he messed up earlier, he honestly wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he was, in fact, pretty pissed off. He wasn’t sure that he was even pissed off at the man he was fighting though; in fact he was pretty sure he wasn’t. Bones was annoying to Faval, but he was probably only annoying because Faval felt upset and guilty that he had been putting on such a pathetic showing. The anger was still there, just like Bones had described, Faval was still pissed, but there was a lot of rational thought in his movements. He was focusing that anger on a target and using every ounce of cunning he had and thankfully, Bones seemed to take the bait.

It didn’t take much to piece together than the tall, broad; mass of muscle was going to be stronger than his opponent. Consequently, the best way to try and fight Faval for him was to get inside and use the gap in physical strength to limit Faval’s ability to move around. It was the rational and most effective way to approach fighting someone less physically imposing than you, but it could very well backfire when the person smaller than you stops trying to fight like they were smaller than you. If Bones knew how Faval was approaching this and didn’t realize he wasn’t just getting carried away and too close carelessly, Faval would have been in a lot of trouble. He wasn’t going to win a head to head fight like this on his skills and strength alone. The only way he was going to succeed at all is if Bones underestimated him and so far, it seemed to be working.

Faval did not put all that much force in to the punch and kept his arm rather relaxed, contrary the amount of huffing and puffing that had gone in to the blow. When his opponent brushed it aside in a rather cavalier manner and stepped in to close the distance, Faval took his chances and hoped he had actually caught the man off guard as he snapped forward, pushing his momentum forward and toward the bigger opponent. His closed fist quickly opened in to a turning palm as his hand moved to latch on to the wrist that was brushing it aside as his opposite and left arm tucked in hard against his side and locked in to position, covering it and blocking the incoming fist. He couldn’t redirect it and had to absorb the force of the blow, so the impact of the fist was going to sting for a little and leave a rather irritating bruise, but Faval had more or less effectively blocked it. As his opponent’s fist was thrust for his side, Faval threw his body forward and viciously aimed to smash his forehead off the bridge of his opponent’s nose, using his opponent’s forward movement against him to limit his time to react. Faval’s head was going to sting a bit, but his forehead was a lot stronger than the flimsy cartilage of the nose. If Faval’s head successfully connected with his opponent’s face or if he managed to dodge but still proceeded with the grappling attempt, Faval would pivot slightly on his right foot before violently driving his knee up and toward his rather close opponent’s gut.

by **Ssafirsotibones** on July 9th, 2012, 10:09 pm

Bones of course, was used to being attacked. When the man made a play for him, and tried to headbutt him, Bones automatically tried to dodge. A emphasis on tried.

His fast impulses sent him off at an angle, to try and avoid being smashed in, but only managed in making the headbutt a skull to skull attack, landing on Bones forehead. Both of them would get hit equally hard, in the more or less same spot.

Bones stumbled back, his head smarting pretty good from the hit, and just missing the attack to his gut. Bones took another step back, looking at the man, shaking his head back and force a bit, like a dog shaking off water.

Well if that was the way he wanted to take it, so seriously and really trying to mess him up, he could also do so. He stared the man down, a bit of his own rage coming into his eyes, as he came lancing back at the human.

A pair of punches at the chest with his right, a third at the neck with his left, two quick kicks at his shins with his right leg, and then a right hook across the face. He flurried all of these attacks back to back at the foe, making a nice combo of moves, combining his entire body, not focusing on just one limb.

Bones was ever more sinking into combat. Though really, this human was doing about as well as could be expected, against Bones. Lucky for him, he was doing his best to only be a bit stronger than a human, and holding back his full dhani endowed strength.

by **Faval** on July 29th, 2012, 7:30 pm

There, that is what Faval was looking for. The anger that washed over his teachers eyes was what he wanted. The man hadn’t been taking Faval seriously at all; Faval had enough skill in observing people to know that he was holding back. Why he was holding back Faval was ignorant to but he knew that he wasn’t putting his all in to things. Faval wanted him to get angry, he wanted him to try, Faval wasn’t going to learn anything if his teacher was coddling him. He wasn’t the type to tolerate that lack of respect from another person either. Faval might not be as strong and fast as Bones or really most other people, but he was just as dangerous through preservation, ingenuity, and general disregard for his own safety. Bones was going to either respect that or neither of them was going to learn a thing. Faval should have been more careful in regards to what he wished for, but there would be no regrets if he was biting off more than he could chew. He was gaining nothing here if Bones chose not to take him seriously.

The impact of the headbutt to a less soft part of his opponent’s head caused the second attack to his gut to never be thrown, but did not cause the same disarray for Faval that it had for Bones, simply because he was prepared to get hit in the head long before the impact even occurred. No amount of preparation was enough to completely deaden the pain and the daze however and Faval stumbled back afterward, putting distance between himself and Bones and shaking the cobwebs loose from the jarring blow, Faval recovered rather quickly, at least quick enough to watch the rage seep in to his opponent’s gaze in its entirety. Faval’s knees bent as his focus completely steadied, dropping in to a ready stance to handle whatever counter attack would be bouncing back at him. He didn’t have to wait long to see.

He was not fully ready for the strength of the first punch, it was stronger than any human Faval had ever seen and if his fundamentals weren’t as practiced as they were he wouldn’t have been able to deflect it at all. Faval’s same side hand cut to the middle of his body and chopped in to the incoming fist’s wrist, diverting the powerful blow away from Faval. The force of it had slowed Faval down enough that when the second strike came for him; he was forced to do what he really couldn’t afford to do, block it. The fist struck Faval’s raising forearm with enough force to push Faval back as it rifled pain throughout the boy’s body as he moved with the incoming punch and jumped back a step himself, trying to put more distance between them and reset the terms of engagement to compensate for the new found strength he was dealing with. He wasn’t going to have that option though as his opponent continued his assault with another strike toward his neck and Faval reacted instinctively rather than intelligently. The boy snapped his head back and the fist sailed over his face, harmlessly. Harm would follow however and as Faval was resetting from his desperate evasion, the man’s foot crashed in to his shin before he could react with a dodge and given the man’s strength was more than enough to knock Faval’s foot off the ground and rifling more pain through his body. Faval, becoming more and more desperate, made another concession to avoid the incoming foot for his other shin. Using the backward momentum that he had been accumulating this whole time rather embarrassingly, Faval, rolled back on his heel before bending slightly and pushing off with his still grounded foot, pushing himself clumsily in to the air and above the incoming foot. Given that backward momentum however, landing on his feet (foot) was out of the question as Faval’s body was careening backward. Throwing out his arms to his sides, Faval, more gracefully than he had jumped, caught his fall to the ground by slamming his hands in to the ground and enlarging the surface area for his fall, allowing the force of the impact to become more dispersed across his body instead of in one spot. He was still in a load of trouble though and violently lashed out his right foot at Bones’s shin, hoping to use it to dissuade further aggression before Bones could realign his right hook to hit Faval’s prone, grounded form.

by **Ssafirsotibones** on August 8th, 2012, 1:32 am

Rage. Often when in a fight, Bones lost it, and his rage lost control. That was one downside to a spar. He could not give into that rage, even when the other person did things to infuriate him, like this human was. Eh, humans, he wished he could find some proper beings to fight, instead of these weak blooded humans...

Really, it was quite easy for Bones to be angered. Especially for a human as this. He had no way of knowing that this foolish human was actually trying to anger him, as he had done in other spars against foes. Of course, in that case he was trying to egg on a weaker fighter that was afraid to go all out against him. In this case, the human was egging on someone far out of his ability range.

He managed to knock one blow away, to which Bone blew out a breath from his nostrils, while continuing on with the next one. But he was a bit more foolish with the next one, blocking the blow from hitting him center mass by throwing up a limb in its way, and taking the hit to the appendage. Not to smart really.

He pulled himself back and out of range, leaning from one blow, and catching another kick in the leg, as he threw himself backward, like he was trying to crash into the floor. What the petch kind of combat move was that even, Bones thought to himself... All the while, he was carrying his forward attacking momentum at his foe, taking every step this human was giving up, as he kept losing ground to the Dhani.

As he fell to the ground more or less flailing, and tried to kick Bones while he the human was down, he connected one blow of a foot to his leg. Bones reacted to it by reaching down, and trying to grab the ankle of the leg and hold it, and if possible to do the same to the other leg.

If that maneuver worked, he would use his body as a pivot spot, turn to face the other way while gripping both the humans legs, in other words spinning on the spot, and try to toss the human sideways flying through the air to crash some feet off. Not really a deadly attack tossing someone across a room, more of an odd thing he had once used wrestling some isur, but would surely wind the man, and smart a good bit upon landing.

If he failed to grab the mans legs, he would simply jump forward, and try to mount the man on his chest before he could rise, if successful using his weight to pin him, and using his knees to try and pin his arms to the ground, leaving his hands free if possible.