Solo The Monster With The Face Of A Squirrel.

[Archailist]

49th of Winter, 513.

Continued from here.

He couldn't believe it. They didn't think he could do it.. that he was worth his own weight in clay. Insulting, humiliating.. beyond reconciliation. Treated like an infant, condescending. The list went on and on and on. And still he couldn't believe it. Fools. He'd show them all that a squirrel could stand up to his name and his race. All he needed was a battle plan, to find the damn cultists and beat them. A few good punches and kicks to the side of the head, knock them over.. how hard could it be, really. He'd done it before, to the old monks.. and the others. It hadn't hurt much, and with enough of a run-up, he was sure that a good few punches would be able to knock him unconscious. And then, he could drag the man back over to the monks to let them give the cultist a fair and honourable trial. They'd be forced to admit that he wasn't a child, that he could take care of himself and they'd underestimated him.

All he needed to do, was figure out where they were hiding. Once that was done, then he could go over there. Conversely, he could take a perch on the higher buildings. One that he was currently sat upon, with his legs dangling absently over the edge, pondering in thought. He'd do a bit of self-training around the forests, or in the city itself. Punches, kicking, all that stuff. And.. oh. The claws. He needed to make sure, before he did anything else, that they were sharp. If he couldn't create sharp edges, he wouldn't have a chance of fighting the cultist if things got ugly.

But his stupid claws wouldn't work. Soft, malleable, bendable clay. He knew it more than well enough - they were pretty useless as claws when they came to climbing, but because they were made of clay, he could actively change the shape to conform to the small gaps in the stone and heave himself up using them. However, as weapons... well, that was another matter. He couldn't do any slashing attacks, because they'd just bend away. He could even try it and make sure. But for that, he'd need something to work on.. someone to work on.. oh.

As soon as the thought passed his mind, he had an answer. Eric, the child-monk that he'd found in the forests.. or rather, the boy that had found him, and saved his life without even knowing about it. The perfect person for such a job. If the boy was there at all, anyway. He'd cross that bridge when he got to it. For now, though, there was a more pressing matter.. how to get down from the building, which was actually the West Quarter Headquarters. He probably shouldn't have been sitting on its roof, but nobody had spotted him yet.. although getting off would probably draw some unwanted attention. So, he turned and gently eased himself down from the ledge of the roof and instead settled on the top of the window-frame just below. And from there, he could hop quickly over to the neighboring residential building and begin a very fast series of leaps over the adjacent roofs to head for the gates of Nyka.

Before he got there, though... there was a gap. A large gap. One that he could usually just hop around instead. But he wanted to test himself today. Test how his acrobatics were progressing.. after all, what was the point in staying in Nyka, training his body and his mind.. if he didn't progress at least some way in his acrobatic skills?

It took a long time preparing for the inevitable leap. Long from the Pycons perspective. Preparing himself, with his claws 'digging' into the roof as much as they could manage, molding around the small gaps for purchase. His hind-legs coiled, prepared to spring.. tail straight out behind him, for balance. Deep breaths.. focusing concentration down into a high-powered beam, single-minded objective. He could make the jump, after all. He'd done it before, although never this far. He should have been able to do it, so he would, though. He'd been training for the moment, and now the moment had come, and all of his training would pay off. Hard work would reap great rewards. Deep breath.. hold it.. run. Leap. Falling.. but then his paws found something. Solid rooftop. His hind-legs found it as well, although it was a bit of a scramble to make it.

He'd crossed it. He'd crossed it. And he continued on his way to the forest with a happy smile spread all over his face.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The trees of the forest would be more difficult to maneuver than simply running between them on the ground, but he needed the height advantage. Luckily, after only a few chimes of trying to traverse the rather dangerous and weak tree branches wound around each-other and covered in snow, he found the boy-squire on his usual rounds. Short-bow in hand, crouched down low.. almost in a predatory stance. Spooky. But he knew that the boy wasn't going to shoot, so he didn't bother to mask his appearance. Rather, he made quite a bit of noise out of it as he hopped down from the higher set of branches belonging to the closest tree, to a lower set - which began to creak as soon as his weight landed on it. And he didn't have a lot of weight.

It didn't take long for the thing to snap and clatter down to the floor.. but it didn't take long for the squirrel to quickly jump down to a lower set again, which was at least more sturdy than the last. Except, the noise sent the monk turning suddenly.. and firing an arrow straight for the squirrel. What the petch?! "Hey!" he yelled at the top of his lungs while moving as quickly as he could manage to the side of the fast approaching arrow.. except there was another quickly behind it. And two more. He had to take evasive action and suddenly hop over the side of the branch, hanging with only his paws for purchase.. and straight in the firing line of another arrow. "STOP IT!"

Petch it all. At least that arrow was the last, as he managed to very narrowly avoid it by swinging his legs around to bring his torso just barely out of its path. Another inch and it would have sliced straight through the nexus, though. Not nice at all.. at least the human seemed to have realized what he was doing, and was now smiling sheepishly with the bow dropped down to his side. "Sorry, Arch... I didn't see you there. Thought you were prey.. next time, you should really try to.. you know, make less noise." Yes, he'd certainly remember that, he thought as he steadily dropped the last few feet to the ground and dusted himself down from that rather.. odd encounter. "Why are you here, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be training and stuff?"

"I am.. and you're going to help me. I need to work on my fighting techniques." That wasn't strictly true. He didn't need to work on them for his knighting.. but he certainly did need to use them if he was going to have a chance at those damnable cultists. "You up for it?" He'd go easy.. if he would be able to. After all, he had absolutely no unarmed combat training.. apart from the few times that he'd been forced to hold himself off against monks or others. Apart from that, he had nothing.

"Oh.. but I don't know anything about fighting. Just using my bow and all that. I guess I could give it a try.. if you really want it." He did. So he nodded, and the boy-monk returned the nod before gently setting his bow down on the ground, near the tree that the Pycon had fallen from. Along with his quiver and the archery greaves and gloves that he'd been using. "Alright.. whenever you're ready, I suppose." He could tell that this was going to be awkward, but how else would they learn anything?

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The boy got into his stance - for some reason, he kept his fists lifted, as if that was going to do anything against a squirrel that was barely 5" tall. Fat chance that he was going to be in with a punch. And he kept one foot forwards, the other back.. probably for balance. Of course, without his Py-Pole, Arch be reliant entirely on his own fists.. and that would mean his speed a well. So, conversely, the Pycon took a stance where his clay claws dug into the snow as best as they could manage, with both feet bent and ready to spring from. That was how running was done on four legs, after all.. the front and the back moved independently, instead of the left and right like humans ran. It'd leave more power because he had both legs to push off from, rather than one. That was what he told himself anyway, as he thought back to all the times that he'd been forced to outrun the monks around the city. They'd all had to avoid all of the other people, all of the objects around the street that he could easily slip between. Well, this would be exactly the same, really. He had the higher mobility.. and against someone as large as Eric, it was an advantage that he could use. And would use.

And then, he was off. Springing forwards, running at full pelt with all four paws put to his advantage to gain speed. However, Eric didn't move until the precise moment that Arch lurched to try and grab onto his left ankle.. so the Pycon ended up catching himself on his front paws instead, and turning as fast as his body could manage with the aid of his tail to give some extra mass and balance out from completely toppling over, to try for the right ankle. Except that one lifted as well, after the left foot came down. Eric wasn't even trying to step on the squirrel or put up an offensive, he was just trying to step around Archailist and hope that he wasn't caught off-guard. As soon as he saw the pattern, he made a quick dash for the left ankle again, and when all of the weight shifted to the right, he immediately back-tracked and plummeted straight into the right, sending the left foot down for stability and the boy toppling. His foot was quickly followed by a knee, as Eric lowered himself down and tried to trap the Pycon.. only to have it turn on its head, as Arch hopped onto the knee, straight up the leg, and across the side using his paws to dig into the fabric of his shirt.

The boy was up like a crossbow bolt - regardless of the rather heavy-handed full-body attack into his ankle - swatting with both open hands to try and dislodge the squirrel from his perch. Arch wasn't having it though. He clung as hard as possible to the fabric of the boys shirt, lodged deep in the spot just in the center of his back where the human couldn't reach, only blindly grab and fruitlessly squirm. Hands grasped and swatted, but he couldn't reach, and he leaned further and further back to try and find the right spot, unknowingly tilting his balance further and further.. right up until he toppled backwards and the squirrel was forced to abandon his post seconds before Eric slammed into the snow, sending up a faint scattering of white powder into the air. When it cleared again, the squirrel had hopped from the side of the boy up onto his chest, and now stood there staring down at the boy.. not with arrogance, but slight annoyance and exasperation. It shouldn't have been that easy... he hadn't even landed a punch, and the boy had done himself over!

"Come on, you need to try harder! Stop being such a wimp and actually try to hit me!" he yelled with a quick stamp of his foot - nothing painful to a much larger human - before hopping down again. He needed real experience, not this.. it wasn't even a spar. It was the boy acting as a damn post. He didn't know when he'd suddenly become so angry, but he didn't care any more. He needed to actually start fighting, if he was going to have a chance against the damn cultists!

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

"Come on, come on, HIT ME!" Eric was becoming uncomfortable - his face was a mixture of anxiety and true fear. The Pycon was relentless though. He took a few steps back, readied himself once more - in the same way as Eric began to prepare as well. And then they were running at each-other again - or at least, one of them was. The human only had to lift a foot and stomp down over the squirrel to end it, but the Pycon could easily anticipate it and hop to the side, before slamming his full body weight straight into the ankle of the foot as it came down. His tackles weren't particularly gracious.. but he put all of his weight into them, as he build up the heavy strikes and slammed home with his shoulder and right arm. It wasn't enough to throw the human down, though. The foot lifted up, and reeled back for a kick. When it came, it was much harder than before.. but again, it missed and swung harmlessly out to the side while Archailist stepped aside, ran straight for the right foot, and reeled back a punch.

To stop his fist simply splashing out, he had to focus and control it. Push more essence into the fist, the fingers and the entire arm until the clay became nearly turgid, and slammed into the point just above the joint. There wasn't much power put into it.. but he was sure that it'd be enough to knock down the human. It wasn't. He was visibly hurt, though, and slid his foot out to try and hit the Pycon - and succeeded. The side of the foot threw Arch back straight through the air and sent him rolling through the snow a few times over before he could come to the stop. He'd forgotten, for a moment, that he was a Pycon; unfortunately there was a lot more strength in these humans than there was in him. Even the ones that were inexperienced. The monk was still rubbing his ankle as he glanced over, although there wasn't even a bruise where his fist had struck. "That petching hurt!" It was actually the first time that he'd heard the boy-monk swearing, although he felt quite happy for it. That meant that the monk was actually starting to put some effort into it. Even if it meant that he was going to have a much harder time doing anything to the boy - but, then again, the cultists wouldn't be as light as Eric was.

He needed more effort though. The kick didn't hurt.. it stung, but it didn't hurt. If anything, it just made him want to go even harder. So he did - he rolled over onto all-fours, and broke out into a straight-forward sprint for the human, right when he was still nursing the slightly-injured ankle. He had a much longer run-up this time to build up all of the power that he'd need.. an with the human on one foot, it would be perfect. The full-power impact into the side of the humans shin sent the monk flying (not literally) to the ground as his balance toppled and his shoulder struck the snow. Archailist, for his part, quickly turned around and flung himself straight onto the humans chest for a second time, standing over him and panting heavily - or at least, imitating it because he actually didn't have any lungs. Why he imitated the panting was anyone's guess.. probably just spending too much time around the humans and other human-like races.

He didn't know why, but all of the aches came back at once, when he stopped. It was like a switch had turned itself on, and then just as quickly, it had turned off again. He was exhausted and tired, and so was the human that lay beneath him in the snow, clutching both ankles. "Sorry.. don't know what came over me there, I don't think."

"Don't worry about it.. I guess asking for you to help me up is out of the question?"

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The squirrel could only laugh and concede that his inferior height would prove useless and his weight probably wasn't helping either, so Archailist quickly hopped down from the boy-monk in order to let him rise by himself. He still seemed to be nursing an ankle injury but it wasn't harmful enough to stop him from standing or walking normally. Hah, here was a mighty human worried about an ankle hit by a flying squirrel, and the squirrel in question had to worry about being crushed to instant death if the human should so much as accidentally trip on something. Sometimes, being small put all the (metaphorically) big issues into perspective. Not that he should have been worrying about that at this point. "You're alright, Eric?"

The boy nodded with a faint grin on his lips - he looked pretty fine. In fact, he looked like he was ready for even more. "You never cease to amaze, Arch, but I don't think we can end with you beating me. My parents would kill me if they found out I'd been knocked over and beaten by a squirrel..." Well, although he didn't like to be constantly undermined because of his figure and stature.. and race.. it was true, he could easily understand that scenario and how much anyone would not want to be in it. It was the same reaction people would give if they heard that someone had tripped and fallen on their own sword. It actually made him feel a little bad when he viewed it in that light - but then again, that would always be how he was viewed. No matter who he took down or how, it'd always be in the name of hilarity rather than a show of strength. Pitting a clay squirrel against a knight would be like putting a chicken dyed red against a bull.

"So, what? You want to try again, is that what you're saying?" Not that he'd ever be objected to that, and the boy could see it pretty clearly as well because he was grinning again as he nodded and rose back to his feet, dusting down his robes. "Well, if you say so."

This time, they came together running. Not that it made a difference - the squirrel could already see how these things would end. Arch wasn't human in any way - not even really very humanoid in stature or look. And it presented more problems than either of them had known before they'd come together like this. It meant that things like punching and 'advanced' techniques were immediately thrown out of the window, because one could never aim for specific parts of a body that was a mere fraction of their own. One couldn't block, or counter, when the attacks only ever went as high as the shins. Suddenly everything became very limited.. and not just for Eric. Arch couldn't really attack anywhere but the legs, which were also the parts of the body moving the most in the combat. Every time he threw a punch or tried a kick, a simple step to the side could throw everything. If he had his Py-Pole, maybe, he could try something more advanced and try to use the pointy end for some extra stabbing.. but again, it was all pretty limited.

They still tried, although the attempt was mostly futile anyway. A thrown punch here, and a kick there, but neither could land a hit on each-other for what seemed like the longest time. It became more and more taxing, the longer they went on - more for Archailist than for Eric. The squirrel had to practically throw his entire body out of the way of every kick and stomp, while the boy only had to lift his legs to avoid even the mightiest blows that could be given in return. And even then, the inevitable happened. As Archailist once again threw himself into a four-legged sprint for the boys ankle, while he balanced precariously on one foot with the other waiting to stomp down at the moment of opportunity, he found his senses lacking.. and his reaction time could not compensate. His timing was thrown and a few seconds too early, the foot came down and stamped right onto the left side of his body - turning the entire area numb.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The pain was horrible but he couldn't imagine the same being for a human if their body was crushed. No no - when you were a squirrel and when you'd experienced the feeling more than enough times, then you grew to understand and eventually conquer the pain. Of course he wasn't that far yet - he could still very much feel the pain lancing down the entire left side of his body, but it wasn't as excruciating as one might think. Not with all the adrenaline of the fight. "Oww!" The boy-monk didn't take it as a sign to stop and instead lifted the foot a second time, to come down on the opposite half of his body. The squirrel couldn't allow that though - even though this was a strict training fight, that foot had come dangerously close to his head. And everyone who was experienced with Pycons knew that the head was the part that was actually important. The part that couldn't be reformed when it was squished, like the rest of him.

"Woah, woah, woah!" He barely managed to rise himself up with the one free leg and arm, to roll his half-mangled body over and evade the harsh stomp. He got a face-full of dust from it though. And a very stern reminder to keep his attention on more than just where he wanted to attack next. He wasn't a beserker, he was a knight. Or a soon-to-be knight anyway.

The squirrel soon found himself on the defensive, so this piece of advice was actually very important. He needed time to reform his other arm and leg... and the other half of his torso. And he needed to stop Eric from completely crushing the remainder of his body. Every kick was suddenly met with a half-roll, half-dive for the side and every stomp met pretty much the same. There were no more punches, no more kicks.. and that meant every attack came faster and faster than he'd been dealing with previously. The entire fight had taken a drastic change in the advantage of Eric. But he couldn't let that get him down - he needed to focus on finding.. something to help, before he ended up squirrel pancake. Except, he only had one thing to use - the trees, that still stood high all around them. And the dirt around the ground.

There was an old, rotting tree nearby. One that he could use to climb, if he could reach it in time, to get up to chest-level with Eric. Perhaps he could knock the monk-boy over if he reached it, but he wouldn't be able to run there in time because the boy was practically standing between him and the tree. He'd need a way to distract him long enough. But how...

When the next stomp came, the squirrel lurched forwards instead of to the sides, and rolled nearly directly under the boy, in the hopes of making a simple quick run for the area. But on the way, he realized something very important... because, well. He was supposed to pay more attention to everything around him, not just where he wanted to go and what he needed to attack. The boy's attacks were getting sloppier.. not in terms of the power put into them, but the aim. Because, when he was directly underneath... he couldn't get a direct line of sight to his target. Genius. Why didn't I think of it sooner, damn it? When Eric tried to backpedal and duck his head down to see where the squirrel was, Arch followed and kept the same position between both feet, waiting for the right move. Eric kept stomping here and there, stamping both feet as much as possible in the hopes of catching the squirrel unaware.. but he could see every attack winding up before it even hit the ground, and could easily step left or right to make sure that it never came close.

And then, the moment came. The boy was growing more and more frustrated, and just as he prepared his next stomp, the squirrel bolted straight out from between his legs and for the branch. Waiting for the right moment had given him enough time to reform his legs and arms, meaning that he had full use of them for a quick climb up the rotten and crumbling bark along the bottom fringes of the trunk, up to the broken stumps that had once held thin branches at around chest-level.. and from there, into a sudden flying leap as the boy turned around and ran in, attempting a hard punch. Of course, the punch missed...

But the squirrels aim was true, and struck the boy straight in the ribs, knocking the wind straight out of him, and nearly tumbling to the ground. "Oww, watch it! Hah.. maybe we should leave it there." Apparently he'd hit a tender spot because as the boy sat down, he was still rubbing the patch. The squirrel sat down alongside him, and couldn't think of anything better at that point than a good sit down. He was exhausted, inside and out. And, more importantly.. he was ready. He was ready to take down a cultist, just like he'd taken down Eric. How hard could hunting down a cultist be, after all?

Continued here.

[Aoren]

Riddled With Rewards Archailist Experience Skill XP Earned Planning +1 EXP Climbing +1 EXP Acrobatics +3 EXP Unarmed Combat +4 EXP Observation +1 EXP Endurance +3 EXP Tactics +2 EXP Lores • Lore Earned • Plan: To Test My Mettle • Acrobatics: Evading Arrows • Unarmed Combat: Basic Fighting Stance • Observational Insight: Picking Up On Attack Patterns • Unarmed Combat: Mid-Air Winding Tackle • Tactics: Acting On Observed Weaknesses Notes : If you have comments, questions or concerns please approach me at your earliest convenience. Don't forget to edit/delete your request in the request thread!