If XJ-V had thought his life in the monastery had been challenging before he had officially joined the ranks of the Cultivators, he now regretted his ignorance.

“SHAH-HAH!”

Fai-Deng’s lightning fist came flying at his abdomen. With a swift sweep of his right arm he repelled the blow. Then another. Then another. When the next fist jabbed at his body he managed a counterattack, striking the Tiger just beneath the side of his ribcage and knocking him back.

“You are holding back on me, Tiger Disciple.”

Fai-Deng straightened up and cracked his knuckles.

“The Tiger probes his opponent for weaknesses before it makes its final strike,” he replied with a low, menacing growl. “Yours are all too clear to me, now.”

XJ-V crouched into his Fuhubu stance and kept his palms upright, ready to catch the claws of his opponent.

“Then come and show them to me.”

For the past week, the Cog and the Tiger had trained under the dome of the Tiger Sect Chamber of Symmachus – their glass training hall that served the same purpose as the Eternal Dragon’s Dragonpyre Hearth. Yet the environment could not be more different – Symmachus was a hallway adorned with mirrors along its walls which created the illusion of six men training when there was one, or a dozen men sparring when there were two. It was supposed to mimic the symmetry espoused by the Tiger Prophet - every Disciple of the Tiger’s greatest foe was his own reflection. Life was a constant struggle for balance against the shadow impulses of one’s being.

And no two Disciples in Ramor-Tai reflected this fact than the pair that were currently sparring within the hollow chamber’s glassy innards.

The aim of this particular session was twofold – one, XJ-V wished to perfect his second Earth-Grade technique native to his Sect – the Dragontail Swipe – so called for the mesmerizing moves of one’s hands this technique would conjure. XJ-V had watched in wonder as Mah-Jung had first shown him the move in a practice Kata – his hands seeming to multiply and swish through the air to intercept and counter any strike XJ-V could throw at him.

When he had ended up on the floor again, Mah-Jung had chuckled in the good-sporting way he often did, and extended his hand to his Cog Brother.

“Perhaps this is a move you should test on your new Tiger comrade,” Mah-Jung winked. “After all, a Tiger’s claws are slower than a dragon’s tail.”

Standing in front of the focused, ever-present form of Fai-Deng now, XJ-V was more than willing to dispute that claim.

When he had approached the Tiger and suggested he wished to try out the defensive technique today, the Tiger had smirked as though the robot had just bestowed him with a birthday gift.

For that was the second purpose of this Kata exercise – for the Cog to become Fai-Deng’s personal punching bag.

XJ-V wiped such regrets from his mind and braced to meet Fai-Deng’s furious hands, only slightly distracted by the fact that his left arm, though repaired physically by the skilled Core Regulators of his Sect, was still the shade of deepest charcoal.

“Ready, Cog?” the Tiger grunted.

XJ-V focused his breathing, letting the Qi enter his Chakras and wrap around his Anima Cores. Slowly he fixed his mind’s eye on the flow of energy as it traveled up to his palms and wrapped around his fingers…

“Defend!”

Fai-Deng’s form became nothing but a blur of sapphire light. In the next second XJ-V put up his hands and managed only to fend off the first two blows that came sailing for his neck before Fai-Deng’s flurry of fists came crashing down upon both his knees and forced his whole body to buckle.

When he hit the ground, he almost expected Fai-Deng to deliver a stout heel to his face to finish him off, but the Tiger Disciple merely spit on the ground and turned away.

“The fact I lost to you is a miracle.”

“Twice,” XJ-V said, rising with a schoolboy-like smile.

“Both times a fluke,” Fai-Deng replied, administering three swift kicks to XJ-V’s torso that he only just managed to parry – catching the Tiger on his heel and attempting to counter by flipping him on his side and delivering a low kick of his own to the boy’s ribcage. In the moment that he felt his victory was at hand, however, his foot met nothing but the unbreakable glass of the Sanctum’s wall.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“What…”

Once again XJ-V felt the sting of the Tiger’s claws as the flat edge of his hand slammed into the back of his neck and sent him stumbling against the wall, causing cracks to ripple up its surface which instantly evaporated like tears in an ocean.

The Cog spun round, looking with frustration on his opponent’s snarky smile.

“Had enough?” he asked.

XJ-V looked from him to his own irritated reflection all around the hall and dropped into a pained meditation pose.

“You are still holding back on me,” XJ-V observed.

The boy snarled back at him as he usually did, seating himself down in the rigid pose of the Tiger meditation style.

“I am not the only one,” he said. “As much as your suffering amuses me, it means nothing if you do not fight with all your strength.”

XJ-V knew what he was hinting at – he had not employed the greatest trick he had up his sleeve.

“I still remember the feeling,” Fai-Deng told him through eyes lined with wrinkles of hate. “The feeling of your cold touch tearing my Lightning Claw away from me. Nullifying the light of the Qi.”

The Tiger fixed him with his hard stare. “How do you do it?” he asked.

XJ-V simply sighed in response. “I do not know.”

“Then why do you resist the urge to employ this cheater’s tactic now?”

“For the same reason your Lightning Claws remain retracted,” he replied. “Because I will never learn anything new if I simply rely on one, as you call it, ‘cheater’s tactic’.”

But neither am I able to understand how to counter your speed, XJ-V thought within the darkness of his mind’s eye. Is it possible that the Dragontail Swipe is simply not quick enough? Or could it be that I am using it incorrectly? Perhaps a visit to the library shall –

A distinct feeling of pain radiating up the side of his head knocked XJ-V awake.

Fai-Deng stood above him with crossed arms, his muscles bulging as though they themselves were furious with him.

“Is it the policy of the Tiger Sect to attack an opponent in meditation?” XJ-V began, taking a step towards Fai-Deng before he felt his leg buckle under him.

When his back hit the glass floor of the Sanctum, he looked up once again to see the balled fist of the Tiger inches away from his face.

“Dead,” the Tiger told him. “I have killed you three times over in the space of this duel. And do you know what the most irritating thing is? Your weakness is so painfully obvious. Even when you fail, you mock me in the simplicity of your defeat.”

XJ-V was about to send a Dragon’s Tooth strike flying towards the brash boy’s face when his eyes beheld a sight far stranger than anything he had expected to see today.

Fai-Deng grabbed his torso with his blackened hand and hauled him up.

“If you are going to be my training opponent, you should at least fight like a real Cultivator.”

And before XJ-V could even protest, Fai-Deng straightened his body and bent his arms, palms upright, right leg firmly planted before him while his left swept behind.

“Siliubu,” he said. “The ultimate defensive stance. You can try and watch my movements all you like, but your machine-eyes will always lie to you unless your body is properly poised to defend. You focus too much on counterattacking. Your mind is thinking forwards, not in the moment. This, machine, is why you fail.”

XJ-V desperately wanted in the moment to sling a clever comeback at the brash Disciple, but found himself reflecting instead. He had not considered that some stances might well synergize well with some techniques more than others.

How had he not seen it before?

“Tsk,” Fai-Deng spat. “Even when you do not speak you fail. You read your opponent like a book, Cog. You spend too much time within your metal skull. How can you temper your body when you are so caught up in your own head.”

Fai-Deng kicked at the Cog’s feet to knock them into position and then sliced his arms through the air. It took XJ-V a second to realize that he was showing him, in his own strange, angry way, how to actually employ the stance.

So, concealing the smirk that smeared across his face, XJ-V followed suit.

“Like this?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Fai-Deng grunted. “Sloppy. Perhaps I should speak in Cog language: place 40% of your weight on your leading foot and 60% on your rear.”

XJ-V did so.

“You copy the form like a child,” Fai-Deng remarked. “But even a suckling calf can defend itself, if it knows how to counter its hunter.”

In the next instant, XJ-V felt the rapid swish of air beside him and turned to meet Fai-Deng’s strikes. His arms flew out to catch each blow, while his legs slowly moved back, aided by the pressure on his main foot and the light touch of his left heel behind him. Fai-Deng pushed forward, aiming each body blow at a different part of the Cog’s torso, and the robot sent his punches flying wide while he stepped back, recovered his stamina, and braced himself to counter again.

The arms of both Disciples became simple bursts of stuttered air, one attacking, one defending, and both of them fully immersed in the moment. So much so that XJ-V thought, for a second, that the fury-driven Tiger let a smile slip through the intense rage that normally dominated his countenance.

When finally they moved apart, both men heaved with exertion. XJ-V looked at his shaking hands and realized that the key to the technique had been within him all along – all he’d needed was the right stance. All he’d needed was the proper motivation to succeed. This – this changed much about the way he had trained up until this point. Why had Feng-Lung or Mah-Jung not told him of these stance synergies?

His thoughts were interrupted by the gruff shout of Fai-Deng.

“You are in your head again, XJ-V!” he roared. “If you have so much time to think, then you have time to fight. Defend!”

And the young warrior threw himself at the machine again, forcing him back into his defensive posture and application of the Dragontail Swipe. XJ-V in the meantime let a sly smile play across his face again. Because, even as he acknowledged the advice of the warrior was sound, he couldn’t help but latch on to the significance of what he’d just heard him say.

My name, he thought as he repelled each raging fist that came at him for the rest of the day. You just called me by my name.

Perhaps the Tiger was learning something here, after all.

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