Quickie: Team Hierophant's Shuffle
On a peculiar day amidst the dawn of spring, Heaven-Fall Hillock was a late blizzard of flying fists and ascending roughhousing. Nearly all of Team Hierophants were in the throes of sport, hollering and screeching and even the pacifist Lily was reading a tome with explosive intensity. Only Mari and Anthony were absent, off investigating the abundance of pollen in the air.
Out of them all, however, none of them were harder at it than Jude and Kera.
The blubbery duck, Jude, had Kera in his grasp by her tiny foot, swimming through the momentum of the air like a bullet as he slammed her into the ground. And the earth shuddered, shrieking as it repelled Kera back into to air, her and that pan of hers. Jude swung his leek into the air after and Kera recovered to springboard off of it, twisting in the air.
"Cuck!" Her shout broke through the chaotic static of darkness that circulated the air and broke physics- all so that she could slam back down at Jude like a cannonball gone rogue.
At the last second, both pivoted and struck their weapons at each other, Leek against Pan, strange fleshy membrane against steel. Technique accounted for lack of probability as they both repelled away, only to rush back in again.
Such a sight created strange sounds to those watching, like a glizzy pummeling a stop sign. The Mienfoo charged with observing the two was positively confuddled, bloody flabberghasted, lost in his own world of just what the fuck he was supposed to be doing to help these two experienced assholes who just wanted any excuse to spar.
The answer dawned on him when the smaller Kera was chucked his way and he had to perform a last second dodge. Nothing. So he helped himself, and took notes.
The aforementioned Lily, though not in the ways of sweat-pouring violence, was also training hard. She had her own Mienfoo disciple, and the two were hunched over a tome riddled in age and written in old footprint dialect.
It whispered her secrets in the way of tactics and noble navigation, strategy and fun little techniques one could imploy to fuck over an entire nation of people.
It even delved into fun string-art, for the use of bug type who happened to be interested.
"Check this out, yo."
And within the little hovel built into the Hillock, the team's base proper, was Sam. He danced around the clutter of barrels and bags and books strewn open, huffing and heaving his icy breath as he full on fell onto his side and spun like Kera had shown him. He failed, fantastically, losing his momentum just at the end- but his own Mienfoo was entertained all the same.
So while Sam heaved on his side, blotches of ice-cream all over the place, his partner cracked his fingers, struck a pose and started doing the robot.
"No sweat, kid. Gotta. Find. The. Flow!"
And then the Mienfoo dropped to the ground with a display of the splits.
"Woah. Sick. Cool. Bet you can't get down with this."
Finally, grandly so, at the peak of the base nearest to the setting sun, Raphael sparred with a Mienshao- the last Mienfoo on the side lines. Perhaps the worst of the bunch, the tiny bird had a hell of a time hopping here and there, barely managing to dodge the fighting type's weakest kicks. He'd occasionally flex his feathers and fire a barrage of leafy plumage at his opponent- but it never actually managed to do any damage.
"Can't say- I reckon- I'm cut out for this!" He'd heave and complain, like he'd been doing during the whole afternoon. "Not like usin' a gun! Could use one of those, honest!"
"Focus, Rowlet. You will find your flow." The Mienshao said.
"Horse's ass!" Raphael said, directly before being kicked in the face.
It was a truly enlightening experience for the all of them, that day of training, and when the dawn rolled around, not a soul of them awoke properly.