Martial Arts 101 [Fend, Shoga]

    "Ah, fuck."

    This time, Fend wasn't caught off-guard by the energy slowly scaling up Korin Tower.
    But that didn't mean she was any more prepared for this than last time she met with Terryn.

    It had been on a whim that she agreed to train the earthling, and concocted the story of the mythical Korin figure being on a very, very extended vacation. She paced around the tiles of the tower's interior in her moments of alone time, trying to figure out what to say if questioned. Sacred Water takes a lot of time to make? He was out mentoring some other totally real people and left her alone for awhile longer to test her? Hopefully her skills in theatrics and improv would continue to carry her through, because she just didn't have the heart to tell the poor guy to get lost the first time they met.

    Though she did take up the role of teacher on impulse. She had been looking through every tome in the Lookout above, every scroll in local public dojos, and filled her ZPhone's search history with "how to teach martial arts" over the past few weeks.

    Plus, she just enjoyed any kind of company these days, what with most of her friends having seemingly vanished into the aether.

---

    By the time Terryn reached the top of the tower, Fend had already brought up a cooler full of bottles of ice water and various flavors of Hetap in anticipation of the human's exhaustion. "Congratulations! You have to deal with me again." Fend quipped back to Terryn's first remark about Korin with a pair of finger guns. "I restocked on drinks and installed some AC." She pointed back to an air conditioning unit nestled inside of the interior of the tower.

    Again, though, there was the mystery of why Terryn didn't just fly up this time. The whole climbing the tower as a rite of passage bit was a one-time thing, as far as she was aware. "Hmmm... Well, when I'm feeling particularly lazy, I just teleport up. Flight works fine too, though. I can assure you this place isn't cursed to like, yoink anyone that flies around back down to the ground." Fend casually spoke, scratching her chin.

    Everything was fine and dandy until Terryn said he had a question. 'SHIT.' Fend was silent, but her thoughts were already racing. Was he going to ask why she was a terrible person that was lying about this whole thing? Or why he somehow found out that Korin was actually super duper dead? Or maybe that he knew she was an otherworldly outlaw with a stolen, sacred sword?

    On the outside, though, the mysterious masked swordsman just casually nodded without a second thought. "Yeah that's cool beans, ask away." But despite the deafening volume of her internal screaming, something else caught her attention. "...Uh, quick question of my own first. Did you bring a friend this time?" Fend glanced over the ledge, furrowing her brow. There definitely was another energy nearing the top of the tower... But who did it belong to?

Fend's Utility Technique, Ki Masquerade is in effect. This hides her Ki from feeling like that of a Shinjin!

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WORD COUNT: 516

"Eh, whatever. Guess that's a good excuse for me to come back around here a third time, huh? Thank god you got an AC here though, the sun is fuckin' relentless at this height!"

What was that she said though? Fend just teleports up here? Nah, that couldn't have been true, could it? "No way," Terryn replied with a forced, nervous laugh. "There's no way you just teleport up here. Flying I can handle, but come on." He waved his hand toward the prodigious student of Korin's as a brief silence fell over them.

"Crap, you're being serious, aren't you?"

Had Terryn been any less exhausted and focused on other things within his head, he'd have felt pretty envious by now. Who the hell could just teleport wherever they desired? Where could Terryn learn how to do that? This was total bull.

"Uh...-" 

Terryn fell a bit silent at Fend's question. The girl suddenly walked toward the railing and peered over. Silently, Terryn followed along and peeked over the edge. Down below, he spotted a vaguely familiar figure...And then it clicked.

"What the fuck?"

What the hell was he doing here? Had he followed Terryn all the way here? In complete silence and bewilderment, Terryn watched as Shoga rolled onto the plateau and sat up straight. He stood beside Fend with widened eyes, blinking sheepishly at the completely random arrival.

"U-uh, yeah. Yo?" Terryn awkwardly raised a hand to wave the abundantly loud Earthling hello. He fell silent again as Shoga went on and on about how he almost died climbing up here, erupting into a loud fit of laughter.

"Uhm, Fend? This is...Shoga. We met once at the Yahoy Port. Believe it or not, but he's part of the reason I came back here in the first place."

He truthfully doubted that the battle with Sesame had left as much of an impact on Shoga as it did himself. Shoga didn't seem like the guy to overthink things like the risk of people dying, or the extent of just how absurdly powerful they were compared to other humans. He just seemed to be around for the ride.

"We fought off this insanely powerful Demon guy; Large, pink, barely spoke a single word? Maybe you've heard of him, I'dunno. Anyway, I think we saved a bunch of lives that day..."

Terryn paused, eyes drifting toward the ceiling as he breathed out. He let out a brief chuckle as a faint smile stretched across his lips.

"...You can probably guess what I was going to ask based off of that, huh?"

---

Word Count: 493 + 430 = 923

Fend do be up doe

    "Damn." Fend put a hand to her head, processing the tale Terryn and Shoga just told her about the demon they fought. "That's like, actually super impressive. Good on you two." Teaming up to fight a foe much stronger and seemingly succeeding was an impressive feat, especially with the fairly low power levels she was sensing from the two. But that nagging thought remained in her head- they could have gotten themselves killed. Though she'd only just met the duo, Fend didn't like the thought of some merciless enemy tearing them apart.

    But still, the thought of continuing with this lie of hers for god knew how long made anxiety invade Fend's every thought. What could she teach them? How could she teach them? "..." She put on her sternest glare and most threatening tone, but somehow that only made Terryn's conviction stronger. If Korin ever existed, Fend was certain he'd be taking this human as a student in a heartbeat.
    
        Fend posture still remained tense and firm, but she took a single step back.
        ...Even if she did say no, would Terryn take that for an answer?

    But before she could respond, the tension in the air was snapped like a twig. "GAH--" Fend jolted, startled out of her thoughts by Shoga's spontaneous enthusiasm as he boarded the bandwagon of lies Fend had spontaneously assembled. Wasn't he on the verge of passing out two seconds ago? Where did this energy come from?! 

    "Well, u-uh... I..." For a moment, Fend's façade dropped- it was impossible to hide the uncertainty in her voice with this sudden second student to address. She debated just spilling the beans then and there- telling the duo that their god was dead and she was just a hobo who made herself at home here. But there was something else aside from the fear of disappointing these two mortals stirring in her gut as she made her choice... Her instincts had guided her this far- she could rely on them for awhile longer. "...Alright, alright, you win."

 "I will do everything possible to train you two to become defenders of this planet."

This time, the words that came out of her mouth were the truth.

    "...Er, real quick note, though, this is my first time mentoring people all on my own. Korin usually helped me before." She twiddled her fingers, but managed to put on a smile beneath her mask. "I-I guess this'll be a learning experience for us both, then!"

    Taking a deep breath in in a feeble attempt to mentally compose herself, Fend positioned herself between the two humans. "Now, for our first session..." She'd move to put one hand on each of the earthlings' shoulders, before the scenery suddenly changed.

    Fend's teleportation was instantaneous. The world would blur slightly before reforming to a familiar landscape. The smooth tiles of Korin Tower's perch turned to the wild glass in a clearing of Korin Forest, right beside the base of the looming tower. "The whole climbing up by hand thing's a one time thing, by the way. If ya need some fast travel, I can give you my number if you need to call me for some teleportation."

    She stepped a few paces forwards, arms folded. Fend was using nothing but her self-taught skills in dramatic theatrics and improvisation to carry her through looking like a smart mentor right now. Internally, though...

    'AAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT DO I DO NOW GOD HELP ME IM SO DEAD' 

    "B-before we get into the nitty gritty, though, I need to know exactly who I'm training." That sounded sufficiently smart and teachery and bought her some time to think. "First and foremost, I'm talkin' about your style. What do you think you're good at when throwing hands, and what are you not so good at?." Fend was really hoping she was sounding good so far... But she did promise rigorous training, and this certainly wasn't that so far. Again, she let instinct take control. "I, uh, did lie just a liiittlle bit up there, though- This first day will be comparably easy compared to what's to come since I need to evaluate you two before I can come up with some personalized lessons."

    "We'll do some proper exercises in a bit, but I'll ask the million dollar question. What kind of fighters are you?"

Ki Masquerade is still in use.
Kai Kai is used to teleport Fend, Terryn, and Shoga a down to the base of Korin Tower!

---

WORD COUNT: 1,906 (+772)

"...Gonna take a wild guess here and say that's not all there is to it, my guy." Terryn couldn't help but comment towards Shoga's reply. Sure, building strength was important and all, but if that was the entirety of training, Terryn wouldn't have been here in the first place. He was in desperate need for some technique and real skill.

"How-e-ver, I dooo have to agree with him," Terryn turned to face Fend, a friendly smile stretching on his lips as he crossed his arms. "You'll do just fine teaching us, Fend. I trust 'ya."

"...Oh, that's Fend, by the way. Did I mention that?"

Rapid, shoehorned introductions aside, it was time for their training to truly commence. Fend wanted to start them off by doing a little bit of soul searching. What kind of fighters were they? What were their styles? Important questions. Difficult questions! How the heck was Terryn supposed to know?

While Terryn stammered and hesitated to give a clear answer, Shoga jumped in with an enthusiastic little demonstration. Terryn always had the feeling Shoga possessed more skill than he did, but he never would've assumed that he practiced such a weird and cool style of techniques!

Terryn watched on in amazement as Shoga displayed his personal technique, hardening his skin for all sorts of handy purposes. "Dude!" Did he just punch himself in the face full-force? That he did. He didn't even hesitate! Shoga even went on to pierce a boulder like it was just a big bundle of Styrofoam. Cool stuff, really.

Well, Terryn supposed that answered his question on how Shoga hadn't gotten his head kicked off during their fight with Sesame. The guy was ridiculously tough!

With Shoga's demonstration out of the way, all eyes would surely land on Terryn. His eyes widened, then narrowed.

"What? Oh, yeah. Right. Uhm...-"

Terryn was clearly at a loss for words. His style...? How was he supposed to figure that out in a single fight? In all honesty, Terryn began to feel a bit inadequate and ashamed. All that strength, yet it simply amounted to some lumbering idiot swinging his limbs around like one of those inflatable tube people you see at car dealerships.

"F-fend? I honestly have like, zero clue..." He finally admitted, looking to Korin's prestigious student with a nervous expression. Idly running a hand through his hair, Terryn clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, trying desperately to come up with something.

His legs. Terryn felt pretty confident in his kicks, didn't he? A-and he almost caught that Demon off-guard with that fancy footwork he pulled out of his bum!

"What about my legs? I felt a whole lot stronger kicking than I did punching. A-actually, there is one neat thing I can do. W-wait,"

Nervously, Terryn took center stage. The usually confident and laid-back Earthling was truly out of his comfort zone for seemingly the first time in his entire life. It felt strange, being such a rookie at something and needing to be so honest about his shortcomings. A pretty humbling experience.

Well, he did sign up for it himself.

And so, Terryn crouched down ever-so-slightly as a steady stream of short flames came blazing from underneath his feet. It was the only real way Terryn knew how to control his latent Ki, but it got the job done.

"I figured out one day that I can use my, what's it called again? Ki? My Ki-! To kinda glide around."

Terryn demonstrated for a bit, taking off and performing various athletic movements to show off for a bit. Deftly gliding across the grass which scorched beneath his feet, Terryn eventually returned close to Fend and Shoga with a twirl and a skidding halt.

"It's kinda like Ice Skating! Except y'know, without the ice and the skates. That's probably useful for something, right Fend?"

---

Terryn shows off his [UTILITY]Trailblazer to glide around the area!

Word Count: 1344 + 644 = 1988

    Fend was amused by the juxtaposition between Shoga's excitement and Terryn's dread at the mere mention of attacking her. Shoga rushed in first, though his masked teacher still casually stood there with her hands in her pockets as he gave her his all. The cloud of dust didn't earn any reaction from Fend. She could sense Shoga's energy moving around behind the cloud clear as day.

    Shoga shouted his attack's name, and a sparking cannon of energy burst through the dust cloud. 'Oh, so he's one of thoooose types of fighters.' Fend scratched her chin, casually raising a hand to the oncoming blast. The stream of energy split like water upon meeting Fend's palm, harmlessly diverting around her. Her hand stung a little from the impact.

    "Fun fact of the day, telegraphing your attacks by telling me exactly what you're firing is very helpful if you want your opponent to be able to take as little damage as possible." She shook off her hand. "I said to try and land a good hit on me, too. You've got good posture and flow, but I hardly felt that- c'mon, I bet you got somethin' waaay cooler than that."

    Terryn rushed Fend right as she finished speaking, though Fend didn't bother to dodge or block his attacks, either. If anything, human would be hurting more than her with how pitiful his punches felt- it'd be like punching a brick wall. Fend side-eyed Terryn, obviously judging his poor combat choices. There was an obvious sloppiness and hesitation to his attacks.

    Eventually, Fend decided she was bored. Her arm lurched forward in a blink of an eye to intercept and clutch Terryn's own fist. "You told me you were serious about this." Fend narrowed her eyes, the chipper and casual tone she'd been sporting for most of the spar turning into a stern rumble. "Were you lying?" Part of her was still holding out hope for the two thinking this was too much and calling it quits here. "I know you're holding back a lot. Like your friend there, I can sense Ki." She'd tighten her grip on Terryn's fist. "If you cannot follow the simplest instructions on the easiest day of this training, then you sure as hell aren't prepared for what you asked of me."

    Fend's cloak flared as she let loose a kiai, releasing her grip. If Terryn couldn't get his footing back in time or resist the winds, the mighty gale stirred up by her aura would send him tumbling through the sprawling woods behind him.

    Casually dusting her cloak off, Fend turned around back to Shoga, continuing with or without Terryn. "Allllrrrighty. Anyways! Back where we left off..." She readjusted her stance into a proper defensive posture. "I hope 'ya got something with a little more oomph in your arsenal, kid. Come at me!"

Fend tanks Shoga's Spark Cannon attack for +5% damage.

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KP: 6/6
MP: 2/6 (+1)
Damage: 5/250 

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WORD COUNT: 2,844 (+475)