Day 7: The Way of the Tickler

Kidnap / Tickle

Economy of movement.
Soft fluid motions.
Focus on strikes to the vitals.
Use of control against overwhelming ****.

Those were the Four Pillars of the martial art style known as Go Chi Quan. That's what attracted Zhu Yuanjun to pursue the style, and dedicate himself to the art.
But what he found out was nothing like what he expected.

“Ahh! Ahahahha!” Yuan writhed on the ground, pinned under the back-paw of the mouse girl while she hooked his ankle under her armpit and chest, tickling his foot relentlessly.
“Your spirit energy is out of balance.” The mouse girl declared without judgement or contempt, as if only stating a fact, “You lack focus. Leave yourself open.”
“Sifu... Have mercy! Auhahaha! Mercy, please!”
Sifu Zhi relieved her paw from her student’s chest. She waited for him to climb back to his feet, then cupped her fist in her palm and bowed respectfully. Yuan did so as well, after remembering his manners in the ring.

“Until you have found your focus, you will not be able to progress any further.”
Yuan growled, but faced his sifu “I am focusing, sifu. You’re just moving too fast for me.”
Zhi started walking, pacing circles around him while inspecting him carefully, “That is the problem precisely. You preoccupy yourself with what your opponent is doing. The real battle happens within. Once you have obtained balance, there is no opponent you won’t be able to overcome.”
“I… Yes. Yes, sifu.”
“Good. Now practice the forms 99 times, then meet me in the temple again.”
She cupped her fist again, and he mirirored her. Yuan went outside, into the garden to proceed with the training. The fluid motions in his exercise extended even to his fingers. That was the secret of the Go Chi Quan. The art of tickling. Only after agreeing to spend the next three years under the tutelage of Zhi did he find out about its true nature.

Since then, every single step of every single form had been thoroughly drilled into him. He could do them blindfolded. But it was all in service outdo one’s opponent by… tickling them.
While he was preoccupied with his forms, his sifu attended the garden. Armed with a trowel and shears, she knelt before a lot and saw to it that her precious bloom got just the attention and care it needed.
Somehow she could do this on hours on end without the fiery aura burning around her constantly charring any of the plants.
“My dear pupil.” Sifu Zhi said.
“Yes, sifu?”
“Are you done with your forms”
“Yes, sifu. Do you want to meet in the temple?”
“That can wait. I need you to run an errand for me back in town.” Zhi produced a purse of coins, “We are starting to run out of tea. I need you to buy 19 ounces and bring it back here.”
“Yes, sifu. At once.”

Zhu Yuanjun took the money and made his way down the mountain upon which the Go Chi Quan temple was perched, through the plains that stretched out and past the grand lake. There the town of Shao Ning was bustling with people. At that time of day, travellers were well on their way to and from the town. A mercantile settlement such as Shao Ning could be inhabited by entirely different people from one day to the next, yet Yuan came to know there were always the same set of faces he could expect to encounter on his visit.
Martial disciples were generally revered as folk heroes who lived disciplined monastic lives cultivating their spirits and their virtues, while conserving cultural traditions that could be traced centuries to warriors of legend.
That was, if they adhered to what was considered orthodox practice. Yuan, on the other hand, was seen as the gullible weirdo who spent his days tickling mice back in the Go Chi Quan temple.

They could jeer and shout at him all day. He wanted nothing to do with their tomfoolery. He was there for tea, and tea alone.
That is, until he saw a group of lowlife kakuen from the north mountain range. He didn’t let his eyes peel away from them as they made their way down the street. Not for a moment. They were monster girls with features of monkeys, including large round ears and a long prehensile tail.
Kakuen lived along with bandits in the wilderness. Often they ended up picking up on the behaviours of one another. The kakuen would turn into delinquents, and the bandits would turn out more monkey-like, to the point they often ended up becoming monkey girls themselves.
Usually all it took was for one kakuen to join a band, and soon you’d have a whole gang of simian scoundrels on your case.

Fortunately they had no interest in him. Instead they honed in on another young man carrying a shoulder pole with jugs of water. Their leader walked at the front with a confident stride. She had fiery red fur and hair which she kept short and constrained by a black headband. A crimson robe like a short-skirt dress hugged the prominent curves of her athletic build. She bumped into the young man, and made him spill one of the jugs all over her bountiful chest.
“Auck! Watch where you’re going, you clutz! Look! You ruined my shirt over here!” She shouted at him, towering over him as she shook her fist.
Yuan was certain that she could have avoided him if she wanted to. In fact, passing one another by casually would have been inevitably, unless she went out of her.
“Oh, no. Forgive me, please." The young man bowed over and over, "I wasn’t looking for trouble. I’ll replace that shirt immediately.”
She grabbed him by his head and made him look up at her, “You do know this is some quality shit right here? Shirts like these don’t grow on trees! For a peasant like you? I bet it’s worth four times your house! You really imagine you’re gonna pay for that from your pocket?”
“Ah…” He flinched, “I’m sorry… I don’t… What do you want me to do?”

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask!” She pulled him close to her body, “It’s as simple as this, boy. You want the water back, and I want the water off my shirt. So… you’re just gonna have to suck it all off my boobs here until the shirt is dry.”
“What? Ah, I can’t do th… Mmpmph!” His face got shoved between her tits.
“Make sure not to miss a single spot, boy. And hey, let’s see where this’ll take us!”
The girls behind started cheering her on, and yelling about how the lucky guy was enjoying himself, and how they themselves wanted a piece of him after.
The young man flailed desperately in her grip, but didn't manage to draw anything other than amusement from the leader.

Yuan stepped forward, “Sorry to involve myself. I couldn’t help but to overhear this predicament, but... if you insist on this solution you could always remove your shirt and let him clean it comfortably and quietly.”
She sneered towards him without losing her grip, “Hah. Yeah, I bet a loser like you would love it if I took off my shirt.”
He shrugged, “I was merely offering a solution. And no one wants to see you without a shirt.”
She growled, shoving the young man back into the waiting arms of her gang.
The kakuen leader stormed towards Yuan, her fist clenched.

“So… You’ve got quite the mouth there, huh? Do you got fists to match?” Her body sank to a low, compact stance with her arms extended in claws.
Yuan backed away, “I didn’t come here to fight.”
“Yeah? Maybe think of that before mouthing off! HYAAAAH!”
She broke her stance. Launching herself forward with explosive momentum. It was a rising kick, one from a bent knee where the ball of her foot touched her butt. He swayed out of her way as she flew past him. With a twist of her toe the moment she landed with her knee pointinig upwards, she turned the rising kick into a spinning kick, fast enough and fluid enough to attack him even from behind. He merely ducked his head as the monkey's leg swept high past him. The wind from the kick brushed through his hair. She used the power from her latest attack to kick the ground, propelling herself towards Yuan with an acrobatic leap, where both her knees were tucked against her torso. She threw not one but two kicks in quick succession. Yuan dodged them both.

“Hey! Stop moving about so I can hit you!” She yelled from over her shoulder, her fist clenched threateningly.
Nobody was as surprised as Yuan that he had been able to evade the attacks of a mamono, who he was convinced surpassed even the strongest humans in power, speed and energy. But compared to his sifu, the monkey's techniques were sloppy and predictable. She had told him that in martial arts, there is no race or gender. Those who have mastered the technique is the superior.
The kakuen leader marched forward, and unleashed her fists on him like a storm. They even sounded like thunder through the air. Yet he swayed away from the fists with ease. She focused on fast, unpredictable movements in an acrobatic barrage. But in his training with sifu Zhi, he had learned to tell when an attack was truly meant to harm. Next to his sessions with her, that baboon had nothing to offer.

As she grew furious and more reckless, Yuan decided to try out some of the moves he had learned. When his opponent struck, she left herself ****. So he reached out to tap the side of her ribs with his index finger.
Tap.

“EEEEEEEHHH!” She leapt back, her form utterly compromised, “You think this is playtime!? You think this is a game!?”
Yuan shrugged, “It’s not serious for me.”
The kakuen leader huffed. She had enough. Yuan was smiling at her. He opened his kua, extending his arms in a soft pose with his palms open, as if offering her a cup of tea. She charged in, her arm raised to land her the greatest haymaker of his life.
He moved in tandem with her, almost like a dance. Her arm snapped in his like two pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. He **** it under his armpit and made sure to keep it taut. She struggled of course, but it was all for naught. Struggling only made her wince in pain. He freed up one hand to trail his finger from her armpit and down her side. He felt her demonic energy pulse through his skin. He was searching for that one sweet spot. The one that surpassed all defenses and rendered any opponent as **** as a child.

He felt a throbbing warmth underneath her skin. He had found it. It was just at the base of her tail.
“Gochi gochi~” He said as he tickled her just above her cheeks.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” She fell screeching to the ground, writhing and laughing by his feet. She completely lost control, flailing **** punches all over without any risk of hitting. He himself kept a tight grip on her wrist.
“PLEEEEASE! NO MORE! AHAHAHHA!”
He didn’t stop.
“This is for all the torment you have inflicted on the town.”
“NO! I’M SORRY! SORRY! SORRY! I PROMISE! I’LL BE GOOD! AHAHAHA!”
“Then let go of that man. And leave this town for good.”
“YES! AHAHAHA! ANYTHING! AHHAHA!”

With that, Yuan let go of her. No more tickling. She remained a limp exasperated husk on the streets, panting and groaning, before she finally struggled to get up.
“...Leave him be, girls. We’re going.” The kakuens appeared **** to part with their prize, but when their leader shot them her cruelest sneer, they pushed him out of their arms. The kakuen leader peered over her shoulder and met Yuan with a furious scowl.
She said, “This isn’t the last you’ve seen of us. Just you wait… ”
Then, they all slunk away out of town.

While the fight had transpired, it had managed to garner up quite an audience. Once the hooligans had been driven out, Yuan found himself surrounded by roarious applause. He could hardly believe it. For that one moment, he was no longer the weirdo who tickled mice. He was a hero.
When no one else had the strength or courage to drive the bandits away, he stood up against their tyranny and bestowed peace once again on the town. He had proven once and for all that the martial arts he had pursued truly worked. The reputation of Go Chi Quan had been redeemed.
His sifu must be proud of him.