Martial Arts Week 1

John’s stamina bar was not happy with him. Thankfully, he had bought instant ramen for this exact scenario. A cup of water and a few microwave minutes later, he had hot noodles to slurp on his way to class. He checked the time. The clock read 1:45 pm, which meant he had just enough time to take the walk to campus.

“Elora, keep watch over the dorm,” John began ordering his summons as he let the noodles cool and changed into a fresh set of Firesmith uniforms. “Have your girls take shifts, I don’t want everyone working round the clock. Calista, Omorfia, I’m sending you back to the Temple to rest. Ignis, you’ll be coming with me in case anything happens on my way to class. Understood?”

They all agreed with various levels of enthusiasm, filling his dorm with liveliness as John stepped out, ramen in one hand and Dismiss Summon in the other. Elora’s Aerial Squads started patrolling as Calista and Omorfia became motes of blue and purple light, and John tossed his dorm key to Ignis as he shut the door with his foot and scooped a bite of ramen into his mouth with a fork. Ignis locked the door and the duo made their way to the elevator, riding it down to ground level and stepping out into the daylight.

They passed Layla’s dorm as they began to make their way towards Firesmith, and John heard some sort of commotion coming from inside but decided against prying into whatever she and her roommate were doing in there. Ignis hopped and skipped along beside him, humming a cheery tune John didn’t recognize. He finished his ramen and willed the empty cup and fork back into his inventory. They popped out of existence and a can of fruit punch flavored Turbo popped into their place in his hand. He cracked it open and Ignis whipped her head towards the sound of the hiss and pop, her nostrils flaring at the sudden fruity scent.

“What’s that?” she immediately demanded, leaning heavily on his arm and sniffing the air inquisitively.

“It’s a zoom potion,” John replied. “You drink it and your heart goes zoom!” He booped her nose and took a swig of the energy drink.

Ding!

A status effect dinged into existence.

Wait, what? I was kidding. No way this has actual status effects.

Turbocharged: +5 mana per second

Per second? That’s… I think that’s way more than my current mana regen. I haven’t checked in a while, actually.

John opened his character sheet and tapped the MP bar as he took another sip of his Turbo. Nothing happened.

I could have sworn this was how I checked my mana regen last time.

He tapped each section of his character sheet, yet none of them opened into the sub panels he was starting to believe didn’t exist anymore.

What the hell happened to my character sheet?

He closed the sheet and took another gulp of the drink in his hand, only to see a stack of system messages had been sitting behind it.

What the actual fuck are my powers running on? Windows Vista? Why are all these error windows BEHIND the window that was causing errors?

He read through them and they all said practically the same thing:

Feature temporarily unavailable, update scheduled in 10 hours, 9 minutes.

“This is starting to get really frustrating, Developer…” John muttered.

Ding!

This time the title above his head dinged, and John groaned as he looked up to read it.

The Gamer
(Level 10 Whiny Bitch)

“Okay, a little uncalled for but you know what this next update better be worth it or else I’ll be more than a level ten whiny bitch.”

Ding!

The Gamer
(Level 11 Whiny Bitch)

“Fuck you…” John grinned and chugged the rest of his energy drink, suppressing laughter. Ignis grabbed the can before he could slip it into his inventory, and pried off the pop tab. She stuck the tab in her mouth and handed the can back to him.

“What are you doing? Why is it in your mouth?”

“Tasty!”

“What do you mean tasty, it’s metal! Spit it out, Ignis.”

“No!” She gave John the cheekiest grin, the tab held loosely around one of her pronounced canines, and pranced forwards just outside his reach.

He chased her but she stayed perfectly at arm’s length, never close enough for him to touch her, all the way to the Firesmith courtyard. As soon as John took a step into the strange barrier surrounding the courtyard, Ignis pivoted and pounced, wrapping her arms around his neck and giggling as she hung from him. John caught her and held her up as she stuck her tongue out and winked, the pop tab placed perfectly in the center of her tongue. He briefly considered taking it from her with his own mouth, but decided it would be weird and instead took it with a hand.

Ignis released his neck and so John lowered her to the ground. The empty can and the pop tab took up two different spaces in his inventory, which annoyed him a little bit but not enough to be particularly upset with her. He checked the time again. The clock read 1:58, so they had arrived just in time, with barely two minutes to spare.

We wouldn’t have made it in time if Ignis hadn’t made me chase her…

John poked her in the cheek and laughed as she puffed them up and pouted. The minutes passed quickly and soon John found himself in a black void. Panic swelled in his chest for a few seconds before Ignis manifested fox ears made of fire, illuminating herself.

“Professor?” he called out hesitantly. “Did you forget to pay the light bill or something?” He tried for humor, mostly to calm himself.

Surprisingly, he received laughter in response. Followed by lights turning on in a sequence of rows reminiscent of an enormous warehouse. The ka-chunk sound of each row of lights buzzing to life started to his right and traveled to his left like rolling thunder, illuminating the room.

John wasn’t sure what kind of room he was standing in. In some areas it looked like a high school gymnasium, in some areas it looked like a Japanese dojo, and in others it looked like some cross between a boxing ring and a UFC arena. If he strained his eyes, he could kind of see a gymnastics area with swing bars and foam pits. Surprisingly, the room didn’t smell like sweaty feet. He also couldn’t find the professor.

I mean they have to be around somewhere, right? They laughed at my shitty joke and turned the lights on.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and jumped in shock before whirling around to face whoever had just touched him. Ignis yipped and whirled around in reaction to John whirling around. A tall, blonde woman stood in dark athletic wear that bared her sculpted midriff. John snapped his eyes up from her ample chest to her face, which bore an amused expression.

“John, I’m assumin’? Great job getting here on time, mate.” She spoke with a vaguely British or perhaps Australian accent. John couldn’t tell.

“Yeah, I’m here for Martial Arts training.”

“Great! Let’s see your stance, then. What do ya kids say these days? Square up?”

John tried not to cringe too hard at that and shifted into the semi-active use of Parkour he’d been using so far to navigate his violent encounters. Ignis took a few steps back and sat with her legs crossed on the laminated wood floor, her fox ears extinguished. John stood on the balls of his feet, his shoulders slightly hunched and his arms spread casually at his sides. After a few seconds of standing, he started to bounce back and forth and shake his hands as if flinging sweat droplets off them.

Did I just perform an idle animation? Do my powers come with idle animations? What the fuck?

“Alright, let me guess, John. You prioritize movement and speed over actual defense?”

“For the most part, yeah? I just want to be hit the least amount of times and to hit my opponents the most amount of times.”

The professor nodded and seemed to suppress a smile as she shifted into a fighting stance of her own. She planted her feet wide apart and squatted low, holding her hands in fists by her waist with her elbows facing back.

“Show me what you’ve learned on your own so far, John. Hit me as many times as you can while making sure I don’t hit you!” She grinned as she issued her challenge, and her aura flared to life in a flash of steel gray.

“I’m sure you can take way more than I can give, so here goes nothing!” John took a deep breath after responding to her challenge in kind. Then he pounced, casting Bolt in one hand as he reached down to the ground with the other, propelling himself forward into a cartwheel and… slapping his empty palm against the professor’s shoulder with a loud smack. Her fist swung at a surprisingly reasonable speed towards him in return, but John was too stunned to dodge and instead was sent flying by the **** of her retaliation.

-20 hp

“Ah, shite! All you did was tap me, kid, I didn’t mean to book you a flight. You looked like you meant business there, is all.” The professor jogged over to where John landed, an apologetic grimace on her face. “Oh, you look fine. Can’t even tell where I hit ya. What happened there, John? Can you tell?”

He sat up with a small harrumph and scowled. “My spell didn’t work. It completely threw me off and I didn’t react in time to your counter.”

“Spell? You were trying to cast a spell while in melee? That’s some advanced stuff there, you’d need at least a basic grasp of a martial art to keep your concentration proper enough for techniques like that. Not to mention there’s some antimagic doohickey in place here in the dojo. Let me finagle with the settings and I’ll be right back, we can try again.”

John nodded and stood, walking over to where Ignis was suppressing giggles. He patted her head as they waited for the professor to return, the silky smooth strands of her hair soothing his bruised pride. The professor didn’t take long, and John’s eyes were drawn to her ample chest as she jogged back to where he stood. He snapped them back up to her face as she drew near and took a few steps forwards to keep Ignis out of the melee. He shifted back into his idle state, and this time his idle animation included sparks and flames raining from his fingertips.

“Electricity is a good choice for melee if you can stun with it, and fire is a good basic tried and true option, but ice is the real enemy of martial artists if you can manage it.” The professor gave John some tips as she also entered her stance, then made the cliche “come here” gesture and stuck her tongue out at him.

John took a deep breath to steel himself before rushing forward, taking two quick steps before casting Fireball directly in front of her face and tucking into a tight twirl to the right. The professor blinked, the bright light of the fiery explosion temporarily blinding her, and John peppered her shoulder and midsection with quick casts of Bolt as he transitioned into a cartwheel behind her.

The professor’s reaction was again surprisingly easy to see coming, but deadly accurate. Her leg shot out to sweep where John’s hand landed to support his cartwheel, and he tumbled onto his back.

-10hp

He splayed his arms and legs and spun, casting Sparks as he got back to his feet to emerge facing her savage grin right before she threw a straight jab at his chest. The solid hit knocked him back a step and he decided to flow with it into a backflip, twisting midair in a conflagration of Flame in a **** attempt to stay ahead of her.

-10hp

The flames made her blink again and John decided to strike, lunging low with a sweep wreathed in Sparks. He felt intense resistance, like hitting a wall, right before watching the professor drop into a push-up position. John cast Fireball again as he took several light steps back, deciding to wait for the professor to press an attack.

She’s definitely toying with me. Which, I mean, makes absolute sense, but it still -

His train of thought shattered as the professor’s stance dramatically shifted from low and firm to high and mobile to match John’s. She lunged into a cartwheel, matching John’s speed perfectly as she twirled into range for a barrage of punches and kicks. John’s reflexes kicked into overdrive as he struggled to parry and redirect them all, pushed to the limit of his dexterity.

The two were locked in a whirling storm of limbs, a dance of flips and spins, for what felt like ages. Sparks flew, flames roared, and the steely flash of the professor’s aura shone bright. The professor had gauged his abilities perfectly and fought him on equal footing, meeting him blow for blow with ease. Then, just as sudden as her first lunge, the professor leapt back out of the fray.

“Alright, alright. Time!” she announced, holding up her hands in a time-out gesture. “Not bad at all, kid. It’s not every day that I get a student who can stand on the edge of their skill for this long. Your stamina is good, your mobility is great, and your innate skill with melee magic is honestly enviable. That being said, it’s kind of obvious you have no actual training. Where did you learn to do all this shite that they didn’t teach you the basics? Your breathing is all over the place, your stance is unsteady as hell, you fall for feints left and right, and you walk right into punches! I’m practically going to have to start your training from scratch, and that’s going to be frustrating for both of us.”

She took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. “But no worries, kid! I’ve gotcha now, and I’ll teach you as much of what I know as your lil noggin can hold.” She grinned at him and offered her hand.

John took her hand and shook it with a sheepish grin of his own.

“You can call me Amelia. None of that master, professor, whatever nonsense.”

John nodded, unsure of how to respond. An uncomfortable silence began to grow.

“So what now?” he eventually asked.

“Oh! Right, right. I’ll grab you some water and you can just rest for the last fifteen or so minutes of class.”

Amelia chuckled and jogged off into the distance. The building really was massive. John sat next to Ignis as he waited for her return. After a few minutes, Amelia came back and tossed John a water bottle.

“Keep that with you, it’s magically linked to some thingamajig or other that makes it so it’s never empty while it’s in the dojo. Really handy.”

“Magically linked to a thingamajig?” John immediately questioned Amelia.

“Do you want water or not? I teach martial arts, not arcane arts.” She stuck her tongue out at him before turning and trotting off in a different direction from before.

Where do they get the staff for this place? I feel like every professor I’ve met has been at least slightly unhinged.

John sipped on his newly acquired endless water bottle and watched as his stamina bar replenished. Ignis stretched and draped herself across his lap. He played with her hair absentmindedly as the final minutes of class ticked by.