Difference between revisions of "(KigaVerse) Shaolin Kid: Origins"

A cold, heavy rain battered the flat surface of a Westside rooftop with relentless conviction. The unwavering downpour had been soaking Millennium City for hours, leaving it under four millimeters of water which was now feverishly working its way around the topography of the city, traveling along various paths of least resistance. The city was empty. Ghostly in its presentation at such a late hour. The only movement aside from the symphony of rain water coursing through the cityscape was the low pattering of a thousand nimble feet in pursuit of a common bounty. The full force of Millennium City’s Red Banner militia had descended upon the Westside in search of a single man.

Wounded and alone, Adewale Manuel, also known as the Azure Dragon, had been fleeing his pursuers for close to twenty straight minutes. Struck by a cultist’s blade in the left kidney, he was bleeding out and losing strength by the second. Any ordinary man might have been concerned for his own life. He might have been thinking about stopping the bleeding and getting his side stitched up. But there was no ordinary man to be found the Azure Dragon. His only concern, only focus was to protect the spirit of the Dragon Warrior which resided within him, giving him the strength and abilities he had used to become the Azure Dragon. For it was this power that the master of his pursuers had been seeking on this night.

Adewale was a tall, thick man of African descent with a muscular frame that swelled from under the flared, azure and gold trimmed shoulders of his super suit. His neatly groomed goatee was soaked with a crimson mixture of blood and rain water. He had been struck by the tip of a blade amid the heat of battle. The strike came without warning and left Adewale with no chance to prepare himself. The blow was clean and deep, piercing the pale blue leather of his costume and puncturing the skin beneath and sending a sharp pain through the left side of his abdomen followed by a numbness that made his knees feel weak. It became clear to Adewale within only moments that he had been bested this time. The struggle leading up to the fateful stab wound had left Adewale fatigued and damaged to begin with. Now he had likely been mortally wounded by a Red Banner blade and he wasn't sure if he could survive the night. He didn't have any of the answers he needed. No plans in place for this sort of thing. If he could escape his immediate pursuers, he may be able to heal up and fight another day. But he was losing blood at an accelerated rate.

The golden leather sole of Azure Dragon's boot lumbered heavily through the long puddle of a Westside alley, his feet sloshing through the water with labored effort as he nursed his left side, leaning against the building to his left for support. He cast his weary gaze down the length of the alley toward the street ahead. As he scanned the street for a moment, he was startled by the sound of a metallic door jarring open to his right.

Fifteen-year-old, Ricky Feng, poked his head out the door and into the rain, squinting in the raw exposure of its onslaught.

"Shit," he mumbled, averting his gaze to the threshold of the doorway where he took an old grey umbrella in his right hand. Extending the shaft overhead, he stepped out into the rain and locked eyes with a wounded, panting Azure Dragon. They shared a long moment of silence before voices could be heard from the street beyond the alley.

"Spread out and find him! He couldn't have gotten very far," an older Asian man shouted, seeming to be approaching the mouth of the alleyway where both Ricky and Adewale stood. As Ricky's eyes glanced down the alley, Adewale's eyes drifted above Ricky's head. The sign above the door he stood under read: Hanlong's House of Wushu.

He fixed his fiery hazel gems upon Ricky with a steadfast sort of intention that made Ricky uncomfortable upon locking eyes with the costumed hero once again, umbrella in his right hand, garbage bag in his left. Pushing off of the wall behind him in a labored fashion, Adewale attempted to lurch his way toward Ricky, but collapsed in the puddle after only a single wobbly step.

"Please," he uttered as he fell to the submerged concrete on his hands and knees. Ricky moved to his side immediately, dropping both garbage bag and umbrella to aid the costumed man. As he knelt next to the Congo native, Ricky noticed the wound leaking blood profusely. He was about to speak, ask if he needed an ambulance, or something, when Adewale's left hand shot forth, grasping Ricky's right wrist tightly. Ricky flinched, withdrawing as much as he could before he found himself in this stranger's grip.

"There is no time for me to prepare you for this," Adewale gasped, looking deep into the boy's eyes. They displayed a mixture of fear and intrigue, perhaps even alarm and confusion. Ricky was just a helper at the dojo, hardly a student until he could afford to pay for real classes. He mostly listened and watched as he did his job as a cleaner and part-time handyman. But after hours the Master would let him practice and do some light, unsupervised training. A routine garbage run had turned into what felt like the beginning of a martial arts movie.

"Prepare me for what?" Ricky asked nervously, tugging his right hand away from Adewale as if he had now regretted coming to his aid.

"For the sacred power of the Dragon Warrior," Adewale answered him.

"The what?"

In an instant Ricky felt a rush of warmth and energy surge through his being. Each of his senses seemed to be amplified in a nanosecond. The sound of every rain drop pelting the cityscape, as clear as his own heartbeat. The labored breaths drawn by Azure Dragon, seeming to slow down and stretch out over themselves. Every breath that filled his own lungs, cascading a wave of oxygen through his bloodstream and to each muscle group. His eyes widened and his chest fluttered as the power surged through his being, eyes ever-locked with those of the Azure Dragon.

"What is your name?" Adewale asked him, raising his voice over the sensation of the power coursing through the young man's mind, body and soul. Ricky was terrified, overwhelmed, but he answered him nevertheless, and perhaps even to his own surprise.

"Ricky Feng!"

"I bestow the power of the Dragon Warrior upon you, Ricky Feng," Adewale declared as ceremoniously as he could given his current state.

"I don't understand," Ricky uttered.

"Nor did I, Mr. Feng," Adewale mumbled as he loosened his grip on Ricky's arm slowly. "Now you must hide before they come. For the men who pursue me must never possess this power," he tried to explain through his pain and fatigue.

Meanwhile, on the street, the voices of Red Banner warriors drew nearer to the mouth of the alley. Adewale struggled to his knees, gripping the wall behind him for support to regain some semblance of his footing.

"Now go!" he barked in a low volume, prompting Ricky to haul his scrawny Chinese-American butt into gear. Ricky found a hiding spot behind the trash dumpster he was heading to in the first place. Adewale feigned readiness as the silhouette of Red Lotus emerged in the mouth of the alleyway.

"You want me? Here I am, Lotus!" Adewale shouted down the length of the alley toward the figure. The mysterious man known as Red Lotus wore sleek black and red armor wielding twin short blades from his back. He made his way up the alley slowly, more and more silhouettes of Red Banner warriors emerged in the mouth of the alleyway, piling up in silent anticipation of the coming moment. As Red Lotus gained quarter on Adewale, the Azure Dragon lost his strength and his legs failed him. He dropped to his knees before the man whos blade had pierced his side. Red Lotus loomed over him stoically, raising blade's edge to Adewale's chin gently lifting his gaze to match that of a fully masked Lotus. Only his venomous, vitriolic green eyes could be seen from under his mask. They radiated judgement and hatred. As Ricky looked on in an adrenaline-fueled panic, he imagined for a moment that eyes like that must make the devil uncomfortable. His gaze roamed along the edges of the rooftops above where more shadowy Red Banner figures stood in silent judgement.

Before Red Lotus could act against Adewale, a pitchy, serpentine voice shrieked across the sky.

"HALT!"

A dreadful hush seemed to fall upon the night itself. Lotus stayed his blade and stepped to the side. As he gazed over his shoulder toward the entrance of the alley, a shadowy, robed figured with a high ornamental hat and elongated arms with long, boney fingers boasting razor sharp talons, floated effortlessly into the alleyway. He hovered slowly toward Adewale roughly four feet off the ground, so as not to dirty his robe.

"For this one," the figure said in a maniacal manner of speaking that rolled and swelled with anticipation and calculation. "This one is all mine," Hi Pan finished as the exterior structure lighting of Hanlong's House of Wushu illuminated his face.

Ricky observed the man with a combination of amazement and anxiety. Ricky thought it had to be him. Hi Pan, Leader of the Red Banner Cult here in Millennium City. Ruthless, cunning, and one of Westside's most dangerous gang leaders. There weren't many people who lived on the Westside who didn't know the name from one of Westside's famous Reb Banner stories and rumors.

Hi Pan hovered gracefully toward Azure Dragon, his lanky arm swooping down ever so slowly to cease Adewale by the neck, hoisting him gently off of his feet and into air. There he held him in place, leering into his eyes.

"Give it to me," he hissed with satisfaction.

"There's nothing left to give," Adewale managed to utter through the strangling vice of Hi Pan's skeletal fingers.

Hi Pan's expression contorted into a scowl of panicked rage.

"No! What have you done?" he growled with dread and malice.

Ricky looked on as Hi Pan gave a sharp jerk of his wrist, wrenching Adewale's neck and breaking it in the palm of is hand. Without hesitation or ceremony, Hi Pan's trunk spun to his left and he threw Adewale's body against the exterior wall of Hanlong's House of Wushu with violent force. He smacked against the brick exterior of the building and collapsed in a disheveled slump of limbs.

Ricky's mind went blank as he gazed upon the body of Adewale, his face gripped with awe-stricken shock and a numb sort of grief for this man whom he really hadn't known at all. In this city, a crime fighting costume spoke a thousand words. It carried an unspoken code of honor among civilian and hero alike. But Ricky didn't have time to process these emotions, for Hi Pan's gaze had shifted to the umbrella and garbage bag which still lay in the middle of the alleyway. Upon examining the odd pair for only a second, his brow dipped with a cunning rage that made Ricky's stomach swirl as Hi Pan's line of sight lowly traced its way from the garbage bag to the very dumpster he was hiding behind.

Ricky's heart began to beat even faster, a sense of shear, crippling dread overcoming his entire body. He began to feel like a cornered rat. Trapped, the unwilling target of a homicidal super villain's wrath. He wanted to run, just bolt for the Westside Police Station as fast as his legs could carry him, but there were too many Red Banner warriors surrounding the alley. His position within the alley was too jammed in and covered by Banner bodies. There was literally no escape.

Before Ricky's mind could fold on him, releasing a treacherous clamour of desperation into the cold wet night, the side exit door of Hanlong's House of Wushu flew open with authoritative force and Ricky's Master, Hu Chen, emerged with a cigarette protruding from his lips, spilling smoke into the rainy air which was contrasted against the night by the exterior lighting of the building.

"It doesn't take five whole minutes to ta-" Hu's sentence trailed into silence as he locked eyes with Hi Pan, and Hi Pan's cohorts all set their gazes upon Hu. As Hu's mouth stopped speaking his lower jaw hung in place and the cigarette fell from his lips. The moment it hit the watery concrete below, it hissed as the water snuffed the cherry and almost as if waiting for the cue, Hi Pan's right digits formed a stiff knifehand and his neatly arranged talons punctured the soft tissue of Hu's throat. Hu's right hand gripped Hi Pan's wrist as the villain gazed menacingly into his eyes. As the men exchanged gazes, Hi Pan grew bitter once again. Having found no trace of the Dragon Warrior within Hu Chen, he ripped his talons from the elderly Chinese-American man's throat and he stumbled back through the doorway of his school.

In that very instant, Hi Pan and all of his warriors were interrupted by the thunderous sound of Ricky's fist making flush contact with the dumpster he had been crouched behind. They all watched in awe as the dumpster hurdled across the alley with supernatural force, colliding with the exterior wall of the building with a spectacular fireworks show of dislodged trash and black bags. In the alley, where the dumpster once rested to conceal him, Ricky stood in the heavy rain, an expression of resolve and rage smeared across his boyish face.

Hi Pan rotated his body to face the young man, now sure of the new vessel in which his bounty resided. He looked over the skinny, frail, unremarkable young man with a renewed sense of motivation and vigor. The two souls locked eyes in the unforgiving rain, a now unspoken thread of destiny having been woven tightly between them.

Ricky's jet-black hair hung over his eyes in soaking wet locks as he leered the short distance to the doorway of the dojo where Hi Pan hovered, glaring back at him with predatorial malice. Seeing the only man who'd ever shown him any kind of compassion and kindness struck down before his eyes had pushed Ricky's temper over the edge. Within moments he had become soaked, and water spilled from the knuckles of his tightly clinched fists.

Hi Pan flashed a sly grin.

"Bring him to me," he decreed into the cold, wet night with a clever smile intended to taunt Ricky's audacity.

With only four words, every Red Banner body began to eagerly shift and reposition with one clear and common goal. Ricky could hear every agonizing rustle of clothing, clang of equipment and splish-splashing of rain water. It was like a symphony of impending threat and doom. It didn't take long before Ricky's courage began to shrivel and quiver before the might of Hi Pan's militia. He drew an anxious breath, trying to hold his resolve, but his core biochemistry wasn't playing along with the act. Ricky didn't know martial arts. He couldn't fight. Members of his own dojo picked on him in addition to his peers at school. Ricky Feng was a known orphan, poor kid and push-over.

Red Lotus made way toward the now shaken teen with his trademark slow, confident, menacing strides. As he moved toward Ricky, Ricky moved backward, away from Lotus and toward the Banner warrior who had dropped from the rooftops behind him. Ricky's mind couldn't piece together any of the information his senses were being bombarded with. Before he knew it, he felt rough hands snaring the nylon fabric of his cheap black windbreaker. One of Hi Pan's warrior's had ceased him by the shoulders, and began to pull him backward as Lotus gained quarter.

Ricky let his arms slide out of the windbreaker, lifting his shoulders and leaning forward. Without realising it was even happening, his hips shifted to his right, allowing his right leg to lift and thrust a back kick toward his assailant. His heel caught the nylon coat and they both collided with the Banner warrior's chin with considerable force. As the stunned warrior stumbled into the embrace of his allies, Lotus was already advancing with a right-handed blade thrust.

Ricky recovered from the back kick into an southpaw xu fighting stance, his right hand making contact with Lotus' inside right wrist in order to block the path of the blade mere inches before it pierced his throat, his shoulders withdrawing with the blade's tip as it careened toward him. Lotus recovered his right blade with mild irritation and drew the left slowly.

Ricky's mind reeled in confusion as he broke his stance, shambling toward the wall to his right, spreading his back across it. He felt as though he couldn't control his own reactions, and that was a scary, unnerving feeling. To make things worse, he was kicking the hornets nest. Literally. Agitating the wrath of the Red Banner was the last thing Ricky wanted to do. He just wanted to escape, get to his master and try to save his life. But right now there was no escape. They had closed in all around him, and over their shoulders loomed Hi Pan, watching in grotesque anticipation. As upset as he was, he didn't want to be anywhere near Hi Pan. He wanted to survive the night.

Ricky reached the exterior wall of the school, spreading his scrawny back across the soaking wet brick surface. A female Banner ninja stepped in wide and low on her right foot, popping up with a sharp, hard left head kick coming in from Ricky's left side. He reacted by leaning his entire torso to his right, into the range of another Banner warrior but avoiding her left foot entirely. At the same time he lifted his left forearm at the elbow, sinking the crutch of his thumb and wrist into the back of her ankle as her foot connected with the wall, intending to trap it there momentarily. As his left heel turned inward, allowing his frame to turn left and into the ninja to throw a low heel kick into her weight-baring foot, he was struck on the back of the head by a vicious elbow, the warrior's bracer splitting his head open on the right side.

A sensation flooded Ricky's head, dulling his senses and momentarily blanking his mind of almost any thought. He'd been hit hard. Harder than he'd ever been hit before. It was as though someone had hit the pause button on his brain for a second before letting it crawl back to a steady play again. As his senses returned the rain felt louder, colder, wetter. His body felt tired, fatigued, as though he'd just hit someone with all his might several times, instead of being the one getting hit. He took to the wall again, leaning harder on it this time. He was scared, wounded. Before he could muster a substantial thought or action of any kind, the Banner Warrior before him quickly stepped in, making Ricky's stunned mind react in a generic, flinchy, ineffective sort of way. He lifted his right knee and turned it slightly inward, raising his hands outward at half guard in unpracticed anticipation of something, anything. With that fatal error, the Banner warrior landed a ferocious, linear tiger palm that jarred Ricky's senses once again, pressing the back of his head against the brick wall.

A brilliant flash of white overtook Ricky's consciousness and in a moment out of time, he stood before a man in an ancient temple. The man had a shaved head and was adorned in brown robes with one arm exposed to the shoulder. He sat, legs crossed with his back to Ricky under a tree. Ricky felt like the man looked as though he was meditating. As the flash of white light overtook him again, he heard the disembodied voice of a man baring a thick Chinese accent mumble the words, "You must feel the chi."

As the vision faded and reality began to flood back in, Ricky's jaw was pinned between the wall behind him and a Banner warrior's tiger palm in the moment of impact. Ricky felt a warmth surging through his entire body. The pain and fatigue he had felt prior to the vision no longer seem to be a present factor to his senses or cognitive process; He felt rejuvenated. In addition to this strange sensation, 'it' was beginning to happen again, because Rick had already landed a stiff, linear closed fist counter punch to the body of the Banner warrior. Ricky began to stave off a grin as he observed himself unleash a barrage of one-two left-rights up the length of the warrior's chest, his fits rolling over one another between strikes. He finished with a crushing right strike to the warrior's nose that put him on his arse in the cold, unforgiving rain.

Hi Pan's deplorable leer of sadistic anticipation began to sink into a frown as he could see but a glimpse of the Azure Dragon emerge in the frail boy. He swooped over to Red Lotus, gliding through the rain water to his shoulder, whispering into his ear from behind.

"I've worked too hard to obtain this power for you to screw it up now!" he growled under his breath. Lotus closed his eyes in resentful discomfort as Hi Pan slithered down the length of his spine with that awful voice. But he had a job to do. His dreadful jade gems rolled open with a newfound detachment and resolve.

Ahead Lotus observed as three of his fellow devotees approached Ricky. A slender male held a pair of twin sai in an orthodox heng dang stance. He he stood in front of Ricky and held a careful eye on him as two cohorts advanced from either side. The female ninja once again attacked from his left, throwing a blinding right spinning heel kick toward Ricky's jaw. The speed of her movement was almost supernatural her form was so perfect. She had every intention of ending it with one kick, her body stretched out like a ballerina as her hips spun ferociously into the kick.

The moment she began to move, Ricky adopted an orthodox du li stance with equally supernatural speed. He raised his right arm above his shoulder, against the wall and lifted his left leg at the knee, resting his left foot against his right knee. His left hand shot straight into a fully extended open palm to block her kick. He quickly bent his elbow, recovering his left hand to his chest, palm still open.

As the ninja's right foot hit the ground she planted her weight into it and followed her hips through into a hard left high kick. Ricky let his right knee get limp, ducking low and bending his right knee as his weight dipped, pushing is calf and right hand off the wall to force his body down faster. In the same motion, he extended his left leg all the way out to support his incoming weight and spread his center of gravity low, arms fanning out like the wings of a bird as he glided under her foot. This motion merged him into a fleeting pu stance as he dodged her attack. As she recovered from the kick, following through, Ricky merged into a compact qui long stance, tucking his right arm and elbow in to narrowing avoid a thrusting straight kick from the second advancing devotee.

By now the sai wielding fighter had seen his opening. It was now or find out what the kid had planned for him. He planted on his left and forward foot, stepping in long with his right to breach mid range and torqued his entire body into a karate style straight thrust of his right sai toward a crouching Ricky.

With all of his weight going into is left foot, Ricky popped up into a gong stance, his left hand sweeping outward from the cradle of his breast to redirect the path of sai away for himself at the wrist, in the same motion his right hand swept outward from his breast and the back of his close fist connected hard with the fighter's jawline. Ever the tenacious devotee, he countered with his left sai, thrusting it overhand toward Ricky's neck.

Ricky immediately, and with consistent supernatural speed, sank his entire body beneath the path of the strike and into a snug xie stance, his knees bent low, right over left, and lifted his left hand overhead to provide a guard while he landed a solid closed fist right straight punch to the fighter's solar plexus. As he was recovering his strike, he popped up into a ma stance with an explosive demonstration of balance and core strength and followed with a left straight punch to the fighter's face.

"Enough!" Red Lotus commanded with embarrassed frustration. His rugged voice bellowed through the crowded alley, ushering in a symphony of amplified rainwater bombarding the city. The Banner warriors leered at Ricky as they cleared a path for Red Lotus.

Ricky felt a wave of anxiety swell within the core of his chest as the menacing man approached him. He retreated to the wall once again. He felt like if his back was to the wall they couldn't surround him. He didn't want to be struck from behind again. But as he backpedaled away from Red Lotus, something inside him urged him to stay put, and it only worsened his growing anxiety. The man's eyes were so intense and dreadful he could hardly stomach a glimpse, and it was certainly playing a psychological role in the situation. He was afraid of anyone with that much hatred and malice inside of them. It radiated outward and penetrated the soul.

Lotus planted his right foot before Ricky, just inside striking distance. He lifted his left foot and let the tips of his toes keep contact with the submerged ground. Looping his foot out and around, through the water and to the front, he adopted a perfect neko ashi (cat) stance, both knees bent with his hands in a traditional karate guard with his left arm extended into a knifehand and his right fist tucked into his ribcage at waist level.

Ricky flinched enough to be visible as Lotus adopted the stance, unsure of whether or not an attack was coming. He tried to prepare himself as he caught another brief glimpse of those horrific jade eyes, but as he began to adopt a stance, Lotus's left foot lifted with malicious intent and mesmerizing speed. The knee rose to a stop and his calf extended into a ferocious muay thai leg kick directed toward Ricky's knee.

Ricky immediately lifted his right leg to check the impact of the kick. As the strike neared the target, Lotus rotated his leg in the hip joint, adding extra torque and force to the flawless form. It struck the soft meat and unprotected bone of his scrawny leg, the twist of the hip joint helping to force Ricky's leg to the side as Lotus snapped his leg back into a soft recovery, letting it fall inside clinch range instead of pulling all the way back. Ricky winced in pain as his leg flung to the inside, calf and shin blistering with a shot of pain that lingered and worsened as he made the mistake of stepping over Lotus's left leg and to his own right, in the hopes of sliding out of clinch range. He shifted his body to his right as his foot planted, throwing a quick, linear wing chun left fist which Lotus weaved around with the sliding of his neck and head to the own left, keeping eye contact with Ricky at speeds that were beginning to surpass what the youth and his newfound powers were capable of keeping pace with. He followed up with a wing chun right straight, lifting his left foot to cross over that of Lotus as he threw the strike, hoping to cover and complete his transition out of clinch range.

Lotus leaned back as he observed Ricky's shoulders shift into the wing chun right hand. As Ricky's fist careened toward him, he brought his left hand over the top of Ricky's right from the outside, ceasing Ricky's wrist in the palm of his hand. In the same motion he planted his weight into right foot allowing him to slide his left foot to his own left, pushing against Ricky's right and weight baring foot. As this was happening, Lotus shifted his hips clockwise and pulled Ricky's wrist across the length of his chest, forcing Rick's right leg over that of Lotus's left leg, causing Ricky to lose all balance and footing. As he tugged Ricky's wrist and released it, he shifted all of his weight and torque counterclockwise, unloading a blistering open palm right straight to Ricky's face with bone chilling accuracy.

Ricky's head and neck recoiled from the masterful impact and Lotus followed the strike all the way through, stepping off of his right foot and pushing Ricky into the wall where he collapsed, half unconscious. As his limbs flailed about, a group of old mop sticks were upset and toppled into the rainy alley in front of Ricky.

Lotus regained his posture with ominous ease and methodical control. He had an arrogant ease and calculation to his every move in combat. He turned to face the chuckles and remarks of support from his fellow devotees, and glared at Hi Pan over the crowd as if to remind him where the real physical power and capability in this outfit resided.

Ricky's head had been sandwiched between the strike of a full grown male and the brick wall behind him twice now, and his consciousness was teetering on the edge. He lay on his side, parallel to the base of the wall, tucked along it. The falling rain barely rinsed the blood from his upper lip and chin as he gasped breathes of air, vision blurry and disjointed by rainwater soaking his eyes.

As he struggled to regain his sense of vision, nursing the back of his head, the peculiar white light once again enveloped the entire alley as Ricky's vision miraculously began to clear, and his fatigue and pain faded away. It was a strange, exhilarating sensation, but he was alarmed to see the form of Red Lotus still standing before him with his back turned. Below and between them, the mysterious monk sat in a gently flowing stream of sparking water with his leg crossed and his back to Ricky.

In a thick, murky Chinese accent, the monk spoke to Ricky in a disembodied voice that left a soft, residual echo just within audible reach but gone as quick as Ricky swore he heard it.

"Clear your mind, and focus on my voice."

Ricky began to panic. What he wanted more than anything was help. A way to escape. He scrambled to his hands and knees, reaching out toward the monk.

"He's too strong," Ricky uttered as he began to reach for the monk's shoulder.

As Ricky was about to touch the flesh of the monk, the white light dissipated so fast that it startled Ricky, who now found himself back in the cold bombardment of rain water. Instead of the monk's shoulder, his hand was clutching an old mop stick that was missing the head piece. As he heard the audible symphony of Red Banner chirps, cheers and heckles fade upon seeing him clutch the stick, he heard the monk's vaporous voice once again.

"Clear your mind, and pick up the stick."

Lotus gave a glance of his shoulder, offended by the boy's audacity. He'd gone easy on the boy, just sat him down. Now he might have to break a bone, or take a limb. He turned to face the sight of Ricky clutching a dirty old mop shaft in an orthodox bow and arrow stance. His body and legs were turned sideways to Lotus, left leg leading. Both knees were gently bent, allowing for swiftness of footwork in virtually any direction. His right hand gripped the base of the shaft firmly at waist height to control and guide the shaft as desired in a maximized range of motion and angular positioning. His left hand grasped the middle of the shaft to maintain control and accuracy, as well as set up transitions and various techniques.

"When set upon by a more powerful foe, one must become like flowing water..."

Red Lotus exhaled a controlled breath, his eyes shifting from the tip of the mop shaft to lock eyes with the teenager. At speeds faster than most of the devotees present could clearly observe, Lotus shot his left hand across his torso in order to grasp the mop and cease the boy's offensive capability in the palm of his hand. But Ricky - just a hair quicker than Lotus - rolled the shaft counter clockwise, away from and under his incoming palm. As the shaft crossed below palm, Ricky's right hand swiftly forced the entire mop shaft through his left grip, thrusting a sharp, penetrating blow into the ribcage of Lotus.

As his torso began to flinch ever so slightly and his right hand shot across his abdomen to once again cease the weapon, Ricky yanked his right hand all the way back, the wooden tip of the mop cracking against the brick wall just behind him.

Lotus reset his form by cutting both hands to either of his sides and into a standard karate guard. He took a short, firm step forward with his left foot as his knees bent into a back stance, his right foot again taking all of his weight as he sunk backwards onto it.

"A river can be both gentle and violent..."

Their eyes remained entangled in a shared focus which held the Banner crowd captivated by their every move. Lotus maintained a calm, menacing composure as he leered directly into the boy's soul. Ricky flashed a sly grin that made Lotus' eyes widen with a mild rage.

In that moment, Ricky's right hand sprang into action with blinding speed. The tip of the mop shaft careened toward Lotus at speeds that began to test his own threshold, but he able to gently lean out of range in perfect tandum with the motion of the mop tip. They repeated this, Lotus unwilling to be baited this time. As Ricky began to recover the second thrust, Lotus spun his hips and took a short, swift right step. In the same motion, his left palm spun outward and moved to barely cease to tip of the mop shaft. As he planted his right foot, his right hand shot forth in an open palm, snapping several inches of the mop shaft off in the the palm of his hand.

"It does not resist the presence of the stone..."

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"But takes the shape of it..."

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"And given enough time..."

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"Will erode the stone into a fine sand!"