Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Jul 22, 2010 19:33:01 GMT -6
Captain Onthinor Apek stood before his class of 10 students, wearing his fatigues. Most of them he recognized from basic, when sergeants Relas or Draco brought them through for basic RMMA training. He looked at this next crop, cautiously optimistic. They might just do okay. He ordered them to circle up around him, then spoke.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to day 1 of your specialized training in RMMA," he said. "As most of you know, my name is Onthinor Apek. I'm a captain, first-class and a first-degree RMMA black belt. I'm also your instructor, and from this day forward you are to address me as 'master'."
"In my class, you will learn to defeat armed opponents with your bare hands," Apek said, slowly walking around the circle. "You'll learn to defeat groups of enemies. You'll learn to defeat opponents who are twice your size, or who get the drop on you."
"For your first lesson, direct your attention to the table," Apek said, gesturng to a table covered with leg and arm braces. "That is resistance gear," he said. "It's meant to prevent you from bending your limbs."
"Now there's good news and bad news," Apek said as he walked to the table and picked up a leg brace. "The bad news is that you'll all be running 5 miles in this gear today."
"The good news," he continued as he removed his jacket, "is that there's a way out of it. Knock me down, and you get a pass. If any of you abstain, you'll run 7 miles, but without the gear."
Apek cracked his neck, then his knuckles. "Begin."
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Sept 9, 2010 15:24:53 GMT -6
Maku struggled not to laugh. He'd been hiding a smile from the moment Apek walked in; of course it made sense that the Captain was also the ST instructor for RMMA, and if things were the same as they'd been before Graduation Day, he wouldn't be quite as entertained. What really did it, though, was Apek's challenge.
The results of the Enrichment Program still hadn't been made public, so Maku and Apek were the only people in the room who were aware of the Captain's involvement, or the radical results of the experiment.
For Maku, the choice was clear: He knew full well he could run 7 miles unhindered. He had his doubts about his ability to take down a superpowered Onthinor Apek without his powers, at least with the knowledge he already had.
Looking down the line of students, however, he could see a few of his classmates were already preparing to try their hand with Apek. Doing his best to hide his amusement, Maku kept his mouth shut for the time being. He was interested in seeing how the good Captain would use his strength here.
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Sept 9, 2010 15:42:36 GMT -6
Apek saw 3 of the 10 students in the room come toward him. As they approached, a fourth who had hesitated now joined her classmates.
As each one attacked, Apek could only smile. They weren't even coming at him in a group; each one of them was gonna try their hand individually.
At first Apek simply dodged the strikes or pushed the students, but soon he began to counter - gently enough to not do any harm, and certainly not using his newfound super strength, but with enough force to give these new recruits pause.
Soon the group learned their folly, and all four lunged toward him at once. In a single twisting flip, Apek managed to redirect two students' attacks toward each other, causing each one to knock the other down, and simultaneously struck the other two with a spin kick, sending them sprawling to the floor.
Apek landed on one knee, and quickly spun around, rising to his feet. "Each of you brought valuable skills with you today," Apek told the group. "And each of you was just taught something valuable by your classmates."
"Those of you who chose to attack showed courage and determination. You knew what you wanted - not to run. You knew how to get it - knock me down. And you went for it. These are vital skills for any RMMA student, and you won't get far in the class without them."
"Those of you who chose not to attack," Apek continued as he walked around the circle, "showed wisdom and discretion. You calmly and properly assessed the threat - you, a red-belt, versus a master. Whether you were waiting for a bigger group to come after me, or simply knew you weren't going to try your hand, you decided it was a fight you simply could not win with what you had at your disposal, and you held your ground. These are vital skills for an RMMA student as well, and you won't get far outside the class without them."
Apek helped up the students who hadn't risen yet. "Alright, those of you who faced me, gear up," he said. "The rest of you, get going."
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Oct 10, 2010 23:13:04 GMT -6
Maku listened to Apek's lesson, satisfied with his decision to abstain from the Captain's challenge. While the four who'd tried got into their resistance gear, Maku, along with the other five students, snapped off a salute, followed by a simultaneous "Sir, yes sir!"
With Apek's dismissal, Maku led the way out of the dojo, heading to the track. It would be a long run, but it'd feel a helluva lot shorter without braces fighting back every step of the way.
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Oct 10, 2010 23:32:20 GMT -6
As the next two weeks passed, some members of the group began to feel cheated. Apek had only taught them a few new things, and most of the time had been spent exercising, with that damned resistance gear as often as not. But according to Master Apek, today that all changed.
"Hello, class," Apek said as he entered the facility. As most of you likely know by now, you've gone about as high as you're going to without completing one of the more grueling tests advanced RMMA has to offer: being in constant motion for extended periods of time, maintaining form and facing an enemy in combat while you do so."
Apek grabbed a stack of about 15 throwing knives off of a nearby table. "The majority of you are now orange belts," he told the group without turning to face them. "But so far none of you have made it to brown belt, even though a few of you have asked me in private to take the test - and you know who you are."
He finally turned around, holding several fanned-out throwing knives in each hand. "Well, now's your chance," he told the group. "Someone has to go first, and today we're gonna find out who. Whoever can catch one of these without spilling a drop of their own blood gets to take the brown belt test this very day."
Apek then tossed the knives skyward, causing them to rain down upon the group.
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Oct 11, 2010 0:37:37 GMT -6
Maku scrambled like the rest of the group when Apek tossed the knives up, trying to find a space where he wasn't crowded by the other students, but could also catch one of the knives without worrying about others falling on him.
The first part was easy; in order to minimize the risk of getting hit by falling knives they hadn't seen, most of the group had tried to move away from the center of the area the knives seemed to hit. Maku, on the other hand, ran more or less into the middle of the training floor, eyes up to keep from getting cut.
The knife-catching part was as easy as reaching up and grabbing one out of the air. When he looked at the blade he'd caught, however, he noticed with dismay that the blade was cutting into his palm and fingers. He wasn't bleeding, but he knew why: he'd grabbed with his prosthetic hand. However real his synthetic skin looked and felt, it would never bleed.
In a moment of panic, Maku looked around, hoping to see another knife. Perhaps he could catch this one without cheating. However, he noted with dismay that the only knives he saw either littered the floor, or were held carefully by some of his classmates. He couldn't see whether they were bleeding, but it didn't matter; they'd caught their blades legitimately.
Just as he'd resigned himself to having to pry the knife out of his hand, however, a flash of silver caught Maku's eye, drawing his attention upwards. It seemed that, in order to give the students time to react, Apek had given the knives a fairly strong toss, enough so that one of them had managed to hit the ceiling point-on, sticking while the others had fallen back down. Now, for whatever reason, this last blade was following suit, falling end-over-end.
Without a word, without any thought beyond making sure his false arm stayed at his side, Maku moved to meet the knife where it would fall, dropping to his knees as he reached out with his right hand. Pinching carefully with his fingers, Maku felt the cool metal sliding through his grasp, slowing as it did.
Tightening the grip, Maku brought the blade to a halt, holding his breath as he looked around his hand. Had he stopped it before it had hit the ground, or had he merely held it upright and kept it from bouncing after it had already landed?
The two inches of open space below the blade's tip were all the answer he needed, and he let out a lungful of air in a silent laugh. It had taken obscene luck, but he'd done it. He'd caught not one, but two of Apek's throwing knives, without a drop of blood to show for it.
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Oct 11, 2010 1:00:08 GMT -6
Apek nodded approvingly. Most of the class had headed for the edge of his knife rain, to ensure they only had to contend with one knife. Four of them had caught knives. Of those four, 2 had done so without bleeding.
The only exception had been Riskan. He ran directly to the epicenter of the falling blades, and managed to catch one. Apek noticed that he had done so with his prosthetic hand, and though that kind of gash in a normal hand would be bleeding profusely, it obviously did nothing to Maku's artificial hand.
Apparently unsure if Apek would have let that slide (he certainly would have - students who used more head than hands to catch their knives were always allowed to take the test) Riskan had opted to catch the knife Apek had accidentally stuck into the ceiling. He did so with his organic hand, and without drawing blood.
"Riskan!" Apek blurted. Once he had the youngster's attention, the faintest grin crossed his face. "I see one knife wasn't enough for you. I guess it's a good thing I threw up some extras, so there were enough to go around." He looked at the members of the class who hadn't caught a knife. "Fisher, Waters and Reyner, circle around Riskan. The rest of you, line up by me." The students all did as they were told.
"Okay, Riskan, since you showed enough initiative to catch two of them, you get to go first. Once I start the sparring session, holding any position for more than 5 seconds will cause you to fail. Fisher, Waters and Reyner can and will attack you from any direction they see fit. You have to last against them for 5 minutes, starting...now."
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Jan 15, 2011 1:25:51 GMT -6
While Maku was still trying to wrap his head around the rules of this new test, his sparring partners took advantage of the delay, Fisher starting off with a straight punch towards his face. Taking a step back to dodge the blow, however, Maku found himself falling back as he tripped over Rayner's sweeping leg.
Using his momentum to his advantage, Maku cursed as he swung his legs back over his head, turning his fall into a backwards somersault.
Damn it! I can't bother keeping track of the time if I'm gonna pass...just hope I can keep moving that long... Moving into a crouch from the somersault, Maku saw Reyner advancing on his left. Grimacing as he realized what he was going to do, Maku launched himself at the other man, making for a tackle.
Reyner sidestepped as Maku knew he would; such obvious attacks were easily avoided with a basic understanding of RMMA. As Reyner's hands were occupied deflecting his attacker, however, Maku's left hand flew out, striking Reyner in the groin with all the force he could muster.
Almost immediately, Reyner's hands were gone from his side, and Maku stood quickly as one of his opponents fell to the mat. It wasn't clean fighting, but RMMA was about logic and efficiency, not looking pretty, and fighting 2 opponents, while not ideal, certainly made more sense than trying to fight 3.
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Jan 15, 2011 1:43:07 GMT -6
Apek was barely able to stifle a laugh as Rayner dropped after Riskan's groin attack.
"Rayner, you left one of your most vulnerable points wide open just to avoid grappling with an opponent," Apek said, as the fallen trainee groaned in pain next to the fight. "Not many people think about protecting that area, but as you can now tell, they should."
He looked over at Fisher and Waters, who were using solid, if predictable, attack strategies - both struck at once in most cases, seldom from the same angle, but their actual attacks were uninspired. Riskan's ability to telegraph and dodge their attacks, coupled with his metallic arm's inherent blocking value, left him performing admirably.
"Two minutes in," he said. "This is the part where fatigue starts to become an issue, and the reason you guys did all that work in resistance gear. Mind your breathing, Riskan. Fisher, Waters, you gotta get more creative or he's gonna keep on dodging everything you throw at him."
He looked over at Riskan's first victim. "And Rayner, unless he popped one, you better get your ass back in there and help your teammates, and do it soon."
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Jan 20, 2011 2:07:33 GMT -6
Maku allowed his focus to shift to his breathing for a moment, and that was all it took. Waters took the opportunity to throw a wild haymaker, a move Maku would recognize later as an obvious distraction.
In the moment, however, he fell for it. Quick-stepping backwards to get out of range, he backed right into Fisher's outstretched leg. Before he could correct himself and regain his balance, he found Fisher grabbing hold of his shirt at the shoulders. With a push, Maku fell back, and Fisher came down with him.
As he fell, Maku tried to assert some control over his position, but Fisher had 30 pounds on him easy, and Maku was more skilled as a striker than a grappler. This left him one out, an action that was still almost instinct, despite all his efforts to control it.
Grasping Fisher's shoulder with his hand, and before he realized he was doing it, he struck, that all-too-familiar surge of energy traveling down his left arm...and demolishing the delicate machinery inside the prosthetic as it went.
Luckily for Fisher, the black bolts never reached him, never even making an appearance outside of Maku's arm, save for some minor sparking around his shoulder where real flesh met synthetic. Even so, the damage was done.
As his arm fell to the side, Maku found himself panting hard, sweat breaking out on his brow. Between the surprise at Fisher's unusual change in tactics, and the shock at his own instinctive retaliation, Maku simply lay under the other student, and five seconds ticked by without him making any attempt at continuing.
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Jan 20, 2011 2:44:08 GMT -6
"Time," Apek called out once Maku's five seconds were up. "Alright, Riskan, not a bad first showing. You made it 2 minutes, 24 seconds. You showed poise and intelligence, but you seemed to lose some of your fire at the end there. Don't be so quick to lose heart."
He looked over at Maku's opponents. "Fisher, well done. Not RMMA proper, but you did utilize your experience as a wrestler to your advantage. You took what you'd learned and added it to your current skill set, instead of just swapping one for another. I'm impressed."
"Waters, well, you really swung for the fences," Apek told her. "If that had connected, it could have ended the spar then and there. But no one with even a little RMMA training would fall for such a wild and erratic attack. It played into Fisher's grapple, and if that was the idea, you executed it well. If not, don't try that shit one on one."
"Reyner," Apek continued, "your strikes were solid, and your stance was perfect. You've clearly got the fundamentals down to a science. But you got careless and made quite a few mistakes once you went even a little outside your comfort zone. You'll definitely improve a lot with practice, all you need is time."
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Jan 20, 2011 3:16:03 GMT -6
Waters and Reyner took Apek's words in stride. Fisher pushed himself to his feet, then extended a hand towards Maku, a helping hand which he gratefully accepted.
As Fisher pulled him to his feet, however, Maku felt something wrong, something disturbingly familiar: the dead weight of a limb hanging off his left side. He still had control enough in his shoulder to hold it level, and help disguise that there was anything seriously wrong, but his hand was unresponsive.
Just as worrisome, he could feel an odd shifting of weight as he stood, as though something had come loose inside the prosthesis and had settled towards the bottom of the false limb. He'd do what he could with the maintenance kit he'd been given when he left Thoncir General last, but he had a strong suspicion he'd have to give Dr. Marwen a visit before long.
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Jan 20, 2011 23:17:41 GMT -6
"Sarkesh, you're up next," Apek said. "Damarc, Kardis, and Verali, you're facing off against her. Starting...now."
He then approached Maku and the three students who fought him. "Guys, way to put him through his paces. There's nothing I hate more than someone half-assing it so their teammate gets an easy belt. I expect you to do the same if you work in a spar with anyone else."
He then looked at Maku. "Not bad, Riskan," he said. "And don't worry about it. Even I didn't make brown belt on my first try."
He then noticed that Maku's arm was immobile. "Something up with your arm, soldier? Forget to oil that thing?"
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Feb 11, 2011 2:28:28 GMT -6
Maku gave his shoulder an experimental shrug, frowning as his hand began swinging back and forth. Reaching over with his other hand, he stopped the motion, then glanced back to Apek.
"Something's wrong, but I can't be sure how serious until I get a chance to look under the hood, sir. If I'm lucky, the repair kit I got from Dr. Marwen should be all I need to take care of it."
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Feb 11, 2011 3:09:42 GMT -6
Apek nodded. "Fair enough. After today's session, crack that thing open and look at it."
He then looked back at the sparring. "Watch your footing, Kardis. Good form, Sarkesh, way to anticipate."
He looked back at Maku. "If you can fix it in time for training tomorrow, do so. If not, I expect you to contact me by 1830 tonight so I can clear you and let Marwen know you need a tune-up."
Apek's head quickly turned when he heard a heavy thud. "That's what happens when you tire yourself out too fast, Damarc. You leave yourself wide open for a big strike."
As Apek focused his attention on the sparring session, Vance Fisher walked over to Maku. "Great job out there, Maku," he said. "You had me worried for a while. I hope I don't have to spar against you when I go for my brown belt."
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