To Be a Master: A Student Found -- Part Three by shelleylow |  |
Marko was intensely furious. He had no idea what to eat.
Fruits and flowers grew in thick profusion on different shrubs and trees, but
not being naturally from the wilds he had no idea what was safe and what wasn't.
He was starving and thirsty, and the hunger pangs and the dryness of his throat
seemed to add an edge to his frustration.
With growls and grumbles of suppressed rage
he stomped about, scaring the more timid forest creatures and making the bolder
ones chatter angrily at him from a safe vantage point. He ignored them, except
one. A Meekins had skittered unknowingly into his path, and not being in a particularly
good temper he had roared and swiped at it. His aim wasn't perfect, seething
with angry exasperation as he was, but the little thing had yelled and scurried
away.
Snorting disdainfully, Marko continued along
the path. The scent and sound of running water soon reached his ears. Interest
quickening, he slunk towards the sound on silent paws.
Peering past a large clump of Lulu flowers,
he spied a female red Aisha, sitting on the floor of the jungle, a fluffy Meekins
sitting calmly in her lap. She was garbed oddly, he thought, much like the training
uniforms he had worn at the Training School during Neo Fu lessons, but it didn't
look exactly the same. So she was a Neo Fu student? Well, she probably wouldn't
be any trouble in fighting to obtain some water from the spring. Even in the
battle he had been able to tell that Loveberry was both experienced and strong.
This Aisha was much weaker than Loveberry in terms of statistics, he could see.
Still, there was no sense in taking chances.
He peered closer. She had her back to him, and
the wind was blowing her scent in his direction. Beyond her, he could see the
spring itself. Good. She hadn't seen him, and he could have the advantage of
surprise when he attacked. Lowering his sleek frame to the ground, he tensed
the muscles of his hindquarters, ready to spring.
With a cry he rushed her, but suddenly she wasn't
there and he tumbled onto the scrubby ground. Shaking his head in bewilderment
at where she could have gone, he looked around and saw her standing at the edge
of the clearing. It was as if she had known he was coming.
Wiping the astonishment from his face, he came
at her again. If the element of surprise was gone, at least he had her now.
He could see she was weaker than him, but she simply spun away from him and
he was left with only empty air. Enraged, he turned to look at her, expecting
to see her with a mocking smile on her face. Strangely, her face was impassive.
"Please," she said gently, "let us talk. I'm sure I can help with what you need.
Just stop attacking me, please. I don't want to hurt you."
That last remark tore it. She, weaker than him,
was asking him to stop attacking so she could avoid hurting him? She really
was a weakling, and a strange one at that. He launched himself at her once more,
keeping his eyes on her. She broke to the side, but he was expecting that, and
in a lightning move he bounced off the ground and flung a paw, all claws extended,
at her. There was no way she could dodge that. Triumph gleamed in his golden
eyes. He had her now.
Or so he thought. Before Marko knew what was
happening he was on the ground. The Aisha was holding one of his front paws,
the one he had tried to attack her with, lightly in her own, a feather's touch,
and applying no force at all. She really was frailer than he had thought if
that was the only resistance she could come up with. Snarling, he tried to get
up and swipe at her again, but as he moved an agonizing pain that took his breath
away shot through the held paw and he was forced to lie back, gasping.
"Now calm down," he heard her voice say, softly.
"As long as you relax and you don't move, you won't get hurt."
He wanted to protest angrily but at that point
a blissful peacefulness he had never known flooded through his being. Brandon
had never comforted him or gone through the ordinary pet-owner displays of affection
like patting or stroking or rubbing his ears. This was something new to him,
and he felt like a tiny baby Kougra again, drifting languorously through oblivion,
safe in his Neo Egg.
***
Aihami thanked Fyora that her training had not deserted her. As experienced
a Neo-Kidoka as she was, besides her Battledome fight with that Acara Fleren
in her early years, this was her first real fight, with a pet who really and
truly wanted to do a lot more than just take away her hit points.
She had kept sensing wrong in that direction,
and to make him think he had the element of surprise, if it was truly a pet
causing this trouble, she had turned her back to it. But she had sensed the
wrong feeling and uncertainty building at her back, almost as if it were water
behind a dam.
Just as the tension behind was stretched to
breaking point, she could have sworn she heard a whisper in one of her ears.
There had been no words in it but it had most definitely been a warning. At
the same time another, sensed warning flared through her perception.
She leapt up, tossing the Meekins onto a nearby
tree branch where it would be out of harm's way, and heard the Kougra's war
shout resound from the bushes at her back. Instinctively she pivoted, twisting
out of his attacking line. In the ensuing battle, he had taken no heed to her
appeal to him to stop, and so she had been forced to overcome him, softly taking
his attacking force and rotating it around, redirecting its target from her
to him in a simple movement of the wrist, feeling it flow past and through her,
miss her, hit him. Soon she had him sprawling in the second paw-lock. He tried
to get up and attack her again but his movement only jarred her own paw against
his pressure point, which, as she knew from experience, was extremely painful.
She thought of the Meekins. She had calmed it,
quelled its fear. Could she do it again?
Breathing steadily, she thought of calmness,
turning her eyes inward, towards herself. It was something she had never done
before, but she went through it as though guided. She saw for the first time
what was her centre, her life-force, that inner well of energy inside her. It
looked like a shifting, gently bubbling pool that shimmered a pale but warm-looking
red. It was her self. She made the calm thoughts stronger, and saw the red glowing
mass flow and surge out, towards the arm that held the Kougra's paw. This time
she was consciously seeing and feeling the great waves of gentle, calming energy
rush into his being. Looking from herself, she saw his life-force. It was very
weak, only giving out a feeble deep blue glow. The aura was dim and dark, and
faded. Looking towards that fragile light, she sent her own power towards it,
and saw the red, like molten metal, gush into the heart of it and dissolve.
She could sense the tension ebb away from him,
and all the pent up violence and hatred and anger that the trained eye of Ryshu
the Nimmo had detected in Marko's movements was purged, scorched away by her
gentle, simple, unimposing energy. The dull black cloudiness faded from the
surface of his spirit as she watched her own red power burn it into nothing.
He certainly was a faster learner than that
Fleren, she thought, figuring out her strategy much quicker than the Acara had.
It had only been her reflexes that had saved her serious injury on that last
attack. He must have had some training in some form of martial art, probably
Neo Fu, though of course with all the hoarded rage she had found in him he had
doubtless not gotten the best out of that art. And, she thought to herself wryly,
I'd probably be like him now, wanting to fight, to win, if I still had my old
attitude towards battles. It was lucky for me I learnt Neo-Kido…
Of course. If he learnt Neo-Kido, he'd learn
the philosophy as well as the techniques. He'd learn why Neo-Kidokas strove
so hard for peace, how sometimes the only way to win a battle was to yield,
in a way. He'd be a changed Kougra. She could teach him. Turning once more to
him, she saw his life-force properly. The deep blue pool was only giving out
a faint bluish glow, as it had been weakened from Marko's constant hard feelings,
but it was there, and slightly brighter than when she had first seen it, now
undimmed by spite.
She felt herself coming out of that strange
state she had been in, in which she had been seeing things unseen, and returned
to the familiarity of the jungle. The Kougra was stirring in her grip; she gently
let go of his paw.
"I don't understand," Marko mumbled, but the
rage was gone from his voice. He found that the anger and uptightness, so long
accustomed to that he had felt that was the natural way to feel, was totally
gone, leaving only awe and surprise. Wonderingly he glanced at the Aisha. "But
you are weaker than me…"
"I am. I had no training at the Training School."
"Then how did you defeat me? I have been training
at the Training School since the day I was born into this world… I am stronger
than you."
"Strength is relative," Aihami said, looking
up at the trees. "If you can turn your own opponent against himself, it doesn't
matter how strong he is, or how physically weak you are. Plus," she added with
a smile, "if you are strong in spirit, anything is possible."
A squeak from above made Aihami look behind
her, and she grinned as she saw the Meekins peeking from a nearby branch. Lifting
up a paw, she felt the little creature leap onto it and scamper onto her shoulder.
She looked from the Meekins to the Kougra, and then gave serious thought as
to what she had just done. Using her own energy, her own power, she had just
calmed two beings, one terrified out of its wits and the other with a store
of concentrated negativity stored in his soul. Had she really accomplished that
with her life-force? If so, there must be limitless possibilities. She wanted
to explore them all.
"What is your name, friend?"
The Kougra looked straight at her. "I am called
Marko. You must be a Master of Neo Fu."
"No, not Neo Fu. A different martial art. But
one that thrives on peace and harmony. Neo-Kido."
Neo-Kido. Marko said the strange word to himself.
He had never heard of it before, but there was no doubt about its power. It
didn't increase physical strength. With it, the weak could defeat the strong.
It was unlike anything he had heard of in his life.
Peace and harmony? Just a few minutes ago, he
would have scoffed at such an art, calling it weak and ineffective. But now…
what was weakness? What was strength? He wasn't so sure anymore. That beautiful,
blissful feeling that had enveloped him… It had been wonderful. And now, as
he got slowly to his feet, he realized that inside, he felt not only awed, but
also refreshed and cleansed of something, like having a thorn removed from his
paw. Ready to start anew. He turned towards the Aisha again. "Please…teach me
this art. I would dearly like to learn it…um…" "Aihami. That's my name. But
you should call me by title as well."
"Yes, Aihami-Master. I am willing to learn whatever
you have to teach me about this... Neo-Kido."
Aihami smiled, and ruffled the apricot fur of
the Meekins on her shoulder. "Come then, Marko. We should go to the training
hall and get you kitted out in your uniform. I believe my old one would fit
you fine."
The End
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