Would have. Could have. Been. Too late... but he’d worked it out.

THWACKKK! His fist connected with the body of one wolf as it was mid leap, while his follow on kick threw away the other.

The solution turned out to be simple - when attacking a wolf he had to empty his mind and just think about the attack itself, nothing before or after. Simple to state. He couldn’t hold a plan for a sequence of attacks, just the one attack he would be executing at that moment. The implementation of this simple approach was extremely difficult. Making a plan and then not thinking about the plan while carrying out each step of the plan. As part of his training he’d learned yoga and meditation. He called on that experience to attain a meditative state, while he dodged the wolves attack, emptying his mind and letting his instincts guide him.

He had practiced martial arts since he was six. Growing up on the streets, life had been a constant battlefield for him but he had still made time for his practice each day, about 11000hrs till he passed on. It had turned things around for him then and now. The blocks and tackles came easily to him. Keeping his mind empty, trusting then following his instincts was harder. It took time, more than it had to come to the realisation of the path he had to take. He knew it worked, so he wouldn’t give up. He was stubborn like that, to the point of being stupid.

The wolves tried many ways to get to him, attacking from two sides together, staggering their attacks, one going low the other high, attacking together. He countered by windmilling his fists into them, knocking one into the other, leaping through gaps while using kicks and fist to keep up his attack, hitting both on the side of their heads to knock their heads together. He was moving faster than he had at the start, possibly ever.

At first only 1 out of 10 hits of his connected, then 2, then 4, then 5... till he was able to connect each time he swung at the wolves. When he punched he only thought of his fist hitting. When he kicked, he would only think of the kick. Or of nothing at all. When he attacked with an empty mind the wolves’ reaction suggested he was hitting harder. It took all his willpower to stay focused on the attack only, during the attack. Then he found some more to empty his mind and keep it empty.

As he fought he was happy. He didn’t expect to win. He didn’t even know what victory meant in this strange place. But he was content that he was able to fight back and that he would go down fighting, not helpless. The most satisfying hit had been the first one, when a power backed fist connected with a wolf’s muzzle, and it yelped as pain and surprise fought over its face to express themselves.

His hits were getting harder. It felt like he was beating shaggy carpets as his punches sank into their fur causing little wisps of cloud to float away. That gave him another idea.

The wolves circled around him, one came at him from the front the other came at his back. The one in front was going low, the one at the back would be leaping at his head. He spun to the side, stiffened his fingers and clawed at the wolf in front moving his hand in an arc to also swipe at the one coming from the back. When his fingers dug into the first wolf, it didn’t feel like flesh more like cotton candy as his fingers came away with chunk of cloud from the wolf. He missed the second - it had also dived for his feet, clashing with the one in front when he spun away. The first wolf yipped then whined loudly moving away slowly, clearly in pain. The second wolf veered away quickly to avoid a similar fate. He looked them straight in their eyes as he put the wolf candy chunk in his mouth. There was no taste, no influx of energy but he felt different, somehow better.

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They paced in front of him, their body language had changed, their tails hung low. They had felt confident and dominating when they were tearing chunks off him, then defiant and angry as he fought back. Now he could sense a new emotion from them - fear. He had been hurting them, but now he was able to cause damage. It was on like Donkey Kong.

The wolves started attacking ferociously. Till now they would attack, pull back, pace a bit then attack again with a different tactic. Only a few times had they come back immediately after a failed attack, chaining no more than 3 attempts. Now they were relentless. If a leap failed they would dive for his feet. When they missed his feet they would lunge at his chest or back. If he managed to duck out they would swipe with their paws and attack again as soon as they landed.

He was like a whirlwind. Spinning out, turning in, jumping, diving, punching, kicking and more often than not gouging out more of the wolf candy cotton. So much so that the wolves and he were quickly covered by a cloud which resounded with the sounds of their brawl - grunts, groans, yips, yelps, growls, thumps, thunks. Quite like a Looney Tunes fight.

Mara was shocked. She would have been mortified if she could see the look on her face, the open mouth. The sheer willpower of the boy had been astounding as he kept going even after being bit. She had thought of letting him struggle a bit before rescuing him, but he had defied all logic and appeared to have learnt some of the rules of the Soulscape. He also seemed to be breaking some of those rules, quite possibly unconsciously, forcing the Soulscape to strengthen his soul in accord with his will, with his refusal to back down. And then he started swiping chunks off then wolves - cue shock and awe on her face.

The cloud of memory wisps was mesmerising. Normally the cloud wisps couldn’t form under a scape-shell, and even if they did they would quickly coalesce back to looking solid. This fight before her had created a cloud of memory wisps that wasn’t coalescing within the scape-shell. The cloud kept pulsing, as if keeping the tempo of the fight going on within it. Suddenly the wolves broke off from the cloud and ran towards a shell wall.

When he saw the wolves break for it and try to exit the dome, he relaxed. In the last fight they had managed to tear a few chunks off him, but he extracted 10 times as much from them. The wolves clawed at the wall, even tried to push through it, but the dome’s walls held. After a few attempts they gave up, and sat down on their haunches, posture straight and cold. He could sense that they refused to acknowledge him as a winner but did agree to it as being a draw. On his part, he didn’t care. For him surviving any fight was a win. Yet what did survival mean? What was he? Would he be stuck forever in this monochromatic space? Hell, was he even dead? With plenty of questions playing around in his he turned his cold gaze to the one person who had the answers.

“I need you to save my child.”