PM to join Eye to Ball Coordination [Ball]

[Markus Andres]

Winter 73rd 512 AV It was time. Time Markus put his petty annoyance behind him and do his duty. Duty before everything... Even his intense dismay of training a lump of clay. Acknowledge the things existence as a squire. Acknowledge him as a brother... sister...Sibling! In the order. It left a bad taste in his mouth to even think such thoughts. Guilt had restrained him from cursing Imass' name for allowing such a travesty join the knights. More than once he had wondered if the big oaf had intentionally meant to insult the knights by allowing the creature to join... Or if he had been so blinded by his zealous ways. But Markus was going to train the thing, blasted be his personal feelings. It was his duty. ... Petching duty. Markus wore his full set of armour, missing the helmet, perhaps a wink or two from a Konti might soothe his tempers. But he doubted it, for he had gotten the impression that they did not look favourly upon heavily armoured and armed knights strolling down their peaceful streets. With a cold gaze he scanned the area for the moving brown spot. Hoping the thing was out of town, or just plain missing in action. Markus thought he saw movement. Movement from a brown creature, not the fair whiteness of almost all other occupants of the island. Markus swore that if he stayed on this island any longer, he would become snow blind from merely gazing at the women. "Squire Ball?" Markus asked out loud. A part of him really wished he was talking to inanimate clay.

[Ball]

Ball had a strong feeling this knight wasn’t too pleased with training him, but he had duty to keep in mind… And a promise to Imass this fellow knight had. With Imass out of the picture, Ball had taken his training and Nira’s into his own… Err… Tentacles. This was the first time the squire had to deal with a person other than Imass and himself that was an actual knight. He wasn’t sure how to honor the larger Pycon’s title of knighthood, so Ball just dropped from the back of his mount and stood before the giant’s foot.

Ball remained silent, not wanting to anger a knight at the moment, Ball had other things to work about. Next season he was going to be turning one, the small squire also planned on returning to the Rock-Beast to start on his knighthood quest, something he knew about but had no clue how to train or prepare for such an ordeal. Train more I guess… When he finally got tired of waiting for acknowledgement the Pycon bounced in the air, his four tentacles trailing underneath his mass.

Ball did indeed have the near likeness of the Lagool that they fought at the shores of the Undead Isle.

[Markus Andres]

The little creature stirred and moved to stand... sit? ... exist before him. He looked down at the creature and was immensely disgusted by the appearance it had chosen to wear. A grim reminder of the many dead knights. It took every ounce of willpower to keep his temper from flaring and punting the Pycon several hundred feet away in sheer disgust at his chosen appearance. He wondered if the little thing even knew what an insult his chosen form was, he probably didn't, but Markus wouldn't give him the luxury of the doubt. A fire had been sparked in his eyes. He was going to train this little thing until its tentacled would dissolve from being overworked. Until the thing simply lost the will to maintain that petching shape. "Respond when you're being addressed, Ball." He would have used a last name to keep them most distanced, to keep a professional relationship. But knowing the first name, it was probably something odd like rectangle or triangle. But it was hard to address the squire as Ball, the name emanated a lack of seriousness. "Given the unfortunate fate of ser Imass, I will be needed to train you during our stay here on Mura." There was not a single vibe of joy or eagerness in his tone. "But I need to know what you have been trained in. And more importantly, how can you be of use?" Question was direct to the point and more than a bit rude.

[Ball]

Ball was none to please the larger pycon’s lack of respect. The man may be older than he was and a knight in his own regard, but he was a brother in arms. Ball grunted at the man’s demands for being addressed. You will get no respect from me…

When the Markus spoke of showing him what he was capable of doing , granted he used the words ‘how can you be of use?’ Ball immediately growled and launched his small body towards Markus. It was with ease that Ball closed the gap between man and clay, less then a second. During this second movement the pycon’s body, tentacles and all, shifted and elongated, forming a torpedo of clay rocketing towards Markus’s right knee, Ball could see the man was wearing armor, and with a hard enough connection to the plate covering the knight’s kneecap the metal would buckle inward in the shape of the three-quarter inch diameter compact point Ball’s frontal portion was.

The impact would feel a lot like a bowling ball slamming into the kneecap, it wouldn’t hur t immediately for Markus but bloody hell it would later, especially if he went to move, the buckled in steel would hinder the knight’s movement and would give Ball a bit more advantage. If this attack did indeed connect the next move was completely natural for Ball in terms of movement and attack…

And that was the uncovered backside of Markus’ left knee becoming the next target. This second attack would be a blind sided attack as it wouldn’t be expected, and the left knee would come into direct line up if the first attack did indeed connect.

The connection to the left knee would immediately bring Ser Markus down to the ground with a rather large bout of pain and that would leave Ball vulnerable to the man’s buttocks sitting on him.. .But such was fate, and the poor pycon knew he had no choice to take that if it did occur.

Of course, if the first attack did connect but the metal didn’t buckle, Ball would still have smashed the plate into Markus’s kneecap causing the knee to buckle under the weight… And the second attack would still result in its natural course .

If Ser Markus was indeed fast enough to move out of the way or block Ball’s first attack, he would either be left rocketing off behind the large pycon, or completely at the knight’s own fancy. Ball was only as good as his trajectory and stretching would allow him… And the first attack was also the most vulnerable for the small squid-shaped Pycon.

[Markus Andres]

Markus had never heard clay growl before, thus his eyebrow raised at the odd sound. That peculiar motion soon turned to wide eyes as Ball slammed directly into the right knee. Markus leg was blown back by the strike. He bit his teeth together as his mind was flooded with pain. Markus barely noticed what happened next. His right foot touched the ground just as his left leg involuntarily bend at the knee. Markus’ left knee touched ground harshly. Digging into the frozen ground as both his gauntled fists slammed into the snow as well. The little shyke had managed to bring Markus to his knees with such ease. That angered him more than the attack itself. Markus would pound the thing until it become one with the ground. Destroy the piece of shyke coloured wanna-be knight apprentice. Markus pushed off with his left leg. His leg protested with a jolt of pain, but he did not care, he had a Pycon who was in dire need of being taught a lesson in respect. Markus jumped forward. Away from wherever that suicidal Pycon was. He spun around mid air and that was when he felt the buckled armour on his right leg. Markus eyes went down to his own knee and widened with surprise. His eyes went up at Ball. The little shyke had tried to cripple him and the attempt managed to buckle his steel armour. Tried to cripple him… That changed things. This was no longer training, not when Ball was trying to end Markus as a knight. Markus tried to take a step back, but both his knees were still trying to recover from the initial attack. Markus’ right hand shot up to the dagger on his left side, unsheathed it in a single smooth motion and in the same motion let it fly free from his grip directly at the Pycon. Markus cared little whether it connected to him or not. It was just a ploy to give Markus more time to draw his bastard sword. With the bastard free of the scabard, Markus could scewer the Pycon should it attempt another head-on attack. Markus really wanted to close the distance and slice the clay apart, but his knees protested any such movement and Markus would rather not aggravate any injuries on his legs. Even if he was only a couple of kilometers from the Opal Order’s headquarter. So he would wait for the pycon to attack again. Or had the shyke knocked himself out with his initial attack?

[Ball]

The thrown dagger missed the spherical-namesake pycon by a millimeter, two at most. Ball was lucky that his trajectory and the man’s startled reaction were in his favor at that time. The squire had landed a few feet away, barely swiveling in place to turn his direction to watch the knighted human pull out a sword made of live steel.

The attack Ball had started with wasn’t in an attempt to ruin this man’s career as a knight, but it was to teach him some respect, Ball was the squire of a fellow knight. And that knight’s name was being tarnished by this knight. That was for Liege Lord… This is for me. Markus was at a large disadvantage with such a weapon, Ball had faced Imass with a wooden version of the same basic weapon, and Ball knew he could send this one with much more force into the face of Markus. This was going to be a fun time.
It was simply a matter of timing himself, this time without taking the blade’s edging into his body. Ball could see the anger in the knight’s eyes; he wasn’t going to call a break on this one. It was going to have to be a victor it appeared, either Clay or Flesh… And the Clay was a smaller target to hit.

This was a lesson Ball remembered well from Imass’s training, he was a small target that means faster and harder to hit… But most of all… Ball was energy, and that means he could move his energy to his advantage… And his opponent’s.

Action was going to be taken at this point, and it was going to be taken FAST! Ball curled his tentacles back into his body, using the force he pulled them into his body to propel himself towards the forward foot’s connecting ankle, this was the feint in the attack, and Ball knew the knight was going to take his sword and attempt to slash at him, it was visible in the man’s form. As soon as the blade came down towards Ball the Pycon would jump upward, slipping past the sword’s sharp edge and settling in the air inches above it, rotating like a top before dropping his full weight down against the cross guard of the sword.

Now, here came the fun part, as soon as Ball felt the cross guard he would wrap himself around it, using two of his actual tentacles that he pushed with his body to do so, tightening their grip as the rest of his body’s mass slipped to the left and immediately the Pycon’s center of gravity shifted so it hung towards the ground… Now this was simple scientific deduction, and Ball knew the trick worked once before.

With the additional weight of the squire on the cross guard, the whole weapon in Markus’ hand would be out of balance, the weight on the cross guard would cause the blade to arch upwards to point to the sky, this bringing it parallel to the knight’s body and thus the flat of the blade would meet the semi-solid tip known as Markus’s nose. This would hurt so much more for Markus than it did for Imass, seeing the blades were made of two different materials… and Live Steel was way denser than wood. The results should be pretty obvious after that.

Of course, the attack was only there is Markus did as Ball aspected him to do. If the Knight decided to try and flat blade the Pycon into the ground, the trick was far easier to handle, Ball would repeat what he did to Imass, this time by passing the sharp edge as he did in the first rendition of the attack. Only difference is Ball would drop on the flat of the blade’s top side and then crawl like a fast moving slug into position of the cross guard, wrap himself around it and once again drop his mass over the left hand side of the guard and towards the ground, and the results would still be the same, parallel blade and all.

There was the second scenario, and one a little less likely to happen as Markus seemed intent to kill the little bugger now, and that was the knight dropping the sword once he saw and felt Ball’s weight hanging from the sword’s cross member. This would leave Ball in a world of trouble as the he would then have to take the time to literally squeeze himself out from under the blade’s weight, something he truly wouldn’t be looking forward to. The likelihood Ball imagined this happening, was… Well, slim, as a knight wouldn’t want to lose his weapon in battle, now would he?

The last option was that Markus did nothing with the sword and Ball either slammed into his ankle, which would once again smart quite a bit for Markus. The hammering into the ankle bone would cause Markus to immediately roll his ankle, turning the foot inward which would then kick Ball upward and once more Ball would find himself prepared to wrap around cross guard and hang from it like previously mentioned.

The one that would truly suck for Ball, and honestly probably wouldn’t be very nice for Markus in the long run due to aggravating his already injured knees would be to move, this would put Ball into the snow banks that surrounded them, and then who knows what was underneath them let alone what sort of advantage he left Markus at that point.

OOCSorry if I sorta god-moded in my post, if I did please PM me and I will change the post to reflect any changes you deem necessary… If I did okay with the post, or you will let slide whatever indiscretions I did, please just PM me and let me know that as well, and I will do my best not to repeat my god –moding actions. >.<

[Markus Andres]

Markus noted with a bit of worry that the creature had managed to move quicker than he, once again, had anticipated. Getting above his weapon as it was descending. Markus bit his teeth together hard and tried to reverse the swing of the sword in time to cut the pycon in half. But to no avail. The clay moved a tad too quick for Markus to make it in time. The curious creature landed on the hilt of his blade. Having already felt the destructive power of the creature's attacks, Markus was not one bit pleased about this development in the fight. For if the creature aimed at his head, then he would blast right through his skull and appear bloodied on the other side of him. Markus did the instinctively smartest thing he could do. He shed his weapon. Threw it right down on the ground. In mid-air the strange creature ought not be able to move as freely, nor should it be able to attack Markus with such destructive strength. Unless this strange creature had some sort of racial ability to allow it to fly, then he figured himself safe for the briefest of moments. Markus saw the creature had swung underneath the sword when he threw it. Meaning it was in a prime position to get pinned between the sword and the ground. Especially with a little aid from Markus' boot. He ignored the still aching knees and stomped down hard upon the hilt of the sword and both indirectly and directly on the strange clay-based creature. He would lift his foot up and look to see if they creature had been hit, if not, he would stomp again or kick out at it if Ball had managed to 'stand' up. Kick him away so Markus might retrieve his weapon.

[Ball]

Something didn’t seem quite right to the squired pycon… The weight difference of the sword didn’t seem accurate enough, it wasn’t tipping upwards… In fact it wasn’t tipping at all! Ball realized too late what was happening and with a quick drop and Markus’s sword pinning him to the ground Ball soon found his vision was out of focus, breathing heavily, and watching as a foot came roaring down after him. Oh shyke… How to get out of this mess? The pycon squirm and wiggled, but the blasted sword was just too heavy for him to move.

The closer that foot came down the less time to think and more time to panic, he never realized that a full-sized sword made of steel was going to be this bloody heavy! With a heaving push the Pycon did the only thing he could do, he managed to push the blade so it was resting partly on him, but the majority of the weight was resting on the edge side of the blade, from tip to about a third of the way up the blade and then the rest of was being held up by the Pycon’s sheer determination to keep from being crushed and the sword’s cross guard.

Luckily for the pycon he had backup, and apparently it was long forgotten! His faithful dog came barreling out of nowhere at Markus, his small stubby legs pushing hard off the frozen island mass as it gained first momentum and then finally air! The dog cleared the complete length of the sword doubled before coming into range of Markus.

The dog wasn’t very big and clearly was inexperienced in attacks against an armored man. The dog was only about a foot tall, about a foot and a half from nose to tip of tail, and weighed about thirteen pounds when shaved… Right now, the dog weighed in closer to twenty pounds with its overly long coat that was covered in gore, dirt, and who knows what else from the trip to Sahova and back.

The idea was for Ball’s mount to try and distract Markus long enough to allow Ball to wiggle his way out from underneath the sword’s weight. Otherwise, it was going to be a long drawn out struggle with it and Markus on his case. The dog’s teeth were bared, and the snarl that came with them was clearly one of both protection and fear. The dog was aiming for the leg that was holding up Markus’s body mass, one good connection from the dog and Markus would find himself flat on his back with a furry dog snarling and snapping in his face.

Created goes to Arandolya

[Markus Andres]

Markus had been in a good deal of fights in his time with the knights. Many of them just practise and spars, but a significant chunk of them had been real action fights against bandits or yukmen. Even a huge squid. The most memorable of those fights, squid aside, were the moments where his opponent had done something so surprising that Markus had been left bewildered as to what had happened. It was those fights that allowed him to grow as a fighter. To find new aspects of his fighting that he could improve. This current situation. He wasn't entirely sure how he could improve on his "dog out of nowhere" technique. The dog struck his stationary leg hard and Markus was impressed with the tenacity this dog wanted to defend its owner. Running directly into a leg armoured with a solid layer of steel. If Markus had not been amazed and slightly infuriated that the dog had snatched his victory away from him, he would have felt pity for the dog. For it must have taken quite a beating himself with that attack. As Markus fell back as the backleg no longer could support his weight and the natural way to regain balance had been in front of the back leg, Markus had little to cushion the fall ith beyond his arms. They did soften the fall, but not as much as the snow and his bum did. Markus could hear that the dog had not knocked itself out, for it was still snarling and sounding very pissed off. Markus could imagine why. Running headfirst into the man who was threatening your owner? Pissed probably not even start to describe what the dog felt. Markus was about to get up on his feet again when something heavy landed on his chest and went straight for his face. Markus reacted instinctively. One arm going up to shield his face. A 20 pound dog slammed directly into the armoured arm. Markus' other hand went straight for the legs of the creature. The back legs to be more precise. He pulled the dog away from him and with a rather brutal swing he would swing the dog in a sphere away from his body and directly into the ground to Markus' left. He raised the dog in its hind legs. With a growl from blind fury he raised the dog into the air and his right arm shot across his own body and the gauntlet that covered his fist would be aimed directly into the vulnerable stomach and rib area of the small dog. Had Markus' head not hurt like he had fallen from the height of 6 feet and a couple of inches and landed on semi hard snow and frozen ground, he wouldn't have done something so terrible to a dog who was just defending his owner. I just petching punched a dog The fighter in him tried to defend his action with a rational combat pragmatism, but it was quickly overruled by his conscious self. Markus would be frozen, eyes wide, for a brief moment before he would kick against the ground. Send cascades of snow over Ball and his own sword as he backed away from Ball. I just punched a dog.... Markus fury had subsided at the horror of what he had just done. Punched a dog with a gauntlet. Markus knew his strength. Knew that he could chip rock when he wore these gauntlets. I punched a petching dog!. Markus would still back away from the scene of the crime. Put space between him and the incident. Not wanting to associate himself with it. Distance himself from his own crime. It was too reminiscent of something he had long ago buried in his past. He shook his head to keep the memory at bay. But there still was Ball to deal with. A owner who probably wouldn't be in a good mood and Markus couldn't blame the Pycon. He would raise his hands flat. Try and diffuse the situation before the fight resumed. Stop the Pycon from resuming his offensive.

[Ball]

Ball had managed to slide out from under the sword just in time to watch Markus left his mount up by his hind legs and land a blow that Ball could hear crack at least a rib or two and cause the snarling and howling furry comrade to yowl in pain and fall silent as he was casted to the side like some sort of rubbish. Watching the knight run off as if his actions were of the highest level of wrongness, and they were. Ball unleashed a loud growl as he made his way to his dog’s side, seeing that his mount as still breathing and whimpering Ball would’ve cried at the sight of his dog if he had tear ducts. Luckily he didn’t.

Patting the dog’s head gently with a tentacle and scooping up snow by the tentacle-full, the pycon busied himself with coating the dog’s chest with snow, trying to keep the swelling down, the dog didn’t care much for it, but Ball knew he would have to handle first the offending party’s judgment and then his mount’s health.

Once the deed was finished Ball turned to look down the trail that his adversary took. It wasn’t hard to follow the large dragging marks made in the frozen snow and he was moving a lot faster then he would’ve normally. This was supposed to be a training session! But no, he had to take his anger out on my poor dog…

Ball growled as he closed the gap rapidly between himself and Markus. The bouncing motion he was using gave Ball more speed than a simple push off the ground forward. The science behind it was simply put a ricochet effect, and an object in motion stays in motion, well Ball was forcing the ricochet effect to a whole either level by pushing himself forward when each bouncing leap forward would apex out.

Once the gap was less than three feet apart Ball hit the ground with a heavy thud launched upward while at the same time coiling his inner body tightly into a coil shape before reaching the apex of this bounce. This inner coil shape placed all five pounds of Ball’s weight into his movement, a formidable way of pushing himself forward indeed. At the apex Ball released the inner coil shape so he would rocket forward, his aim was simple, the knee couldn’t move forward so Markus’s backing motion was more of a staggering attempt in a crabwalk in reality, armour didn’t help matters any for Markus’s movement.

Ball’s target was the already big dent right above Markus’s right knee, if one remembered correctly that was the knee Ball had dented in the metal cap that covered the front of it… The great thing about plate mail was it could protect a person indefinitely until it takes any amount of significant damage, and Ball was using that damage to his advantage. The releasing of the inner coil’s effect on Ball’s seed wasn’t the only thing that shifted in this burst of speed, Ball’s semi-spherical form once more elongated on itself, pushing itself in a more tapered form than it usually would, this time the leading ‘point’ was nearing the measurement of a quarter inch, give or take a millimetre or two.

Ball had the distinct of being a smaller, faster, and more agile being in this case, his attack was within Markus’s range of sight but it wasn’t one he had a feeling the knight could do much to block or dodge from After all, the knight placed himself in a sticky situation remaining on his butt on the ground when he should’ve stood and ran. It may have been considered a really dirty and low trick for Ball to perform, but this wasn’t about combat training at this point… This was exacting revenge for hitting his dog.
The attack only had two options, to connect or to fail… If it failed, Ball would rocket past Markus, bounce off a nearby tree and using that extra momentum from his inner coil would immediately bounce back towards Markus, this time his path of trajectory would being aiming towards Markus’s neck, more specifically the spot where the plate mail and his helmet gapped. This would hurt Ball quite a lot, but it would immediately cause Markus to gasp for breathe minimally if the secondary attack connected… If he was that lucky.

EDITFixed the stuff about being behind Markus to being in front and had to edit attacks too.

Created goes to Arandolya