My Style

The forest was refreshing. The wind that pressed against Gray's face was something he adored deeply, reminding him of the relaxing feeling of the mansion's garden. "Okay, we can stop here now," said Ben. They stopped at the side of a river leading to the forest lake. Ben sat on top of a rock, stretching his tiny Quokka body.

"Now Gray, before we start, do you have any boxing experience?" questioned Ben. Gray could think about some moments when his father tried to teach him boxing, but Gray didn't really care much to remember the entire thing. "My father did teach me how to jab, but in general, I don't know how to box."

"Hmm, I see. Well, I'll teach you from the very basics then Gray." Ben stated. Ben then took the stance of a boxer. It was the stance of what you'd think of when you try to imagine a boxer. Both arms up, body angled, left foot in the front, right foot in the back. It was hard to visualize a human doing this stance when Ben was a literal fuzzball. "First, determine your boxing style."

"My style of boxing?" Gray said in response.

"Indeed, your style of boxing. I want you to train your footwork alongside your style of boxing as some styles might have different types of footwork included in them."

Gray looked up as he brainstormed for an idea. "Well, I don't like to get hit, but I also like to hit hard." Ben's eyes sharpened upon hearing this information. "Hmmm, I see, you probably are an out-fighter."

"An out-fighter? What's that?" Gray asked. "An out-fighter is a boxer who keeps his distance and breaks down his opponent using the reach he has," replied Ben. "Yeah, I'm probably an out-fighter then." Gray being an out-fighter seemed fitting for what he had seen but for some reason in Ben's mind, it was utterly wrong. ("He seems to be an out-fighter but... for some reason, I know that is wrong, I don't know why.")

Moving on, Ben clasped his hands. "Alright, now you need to understand what type of stance you would want. Depending on what you do in boxing, your stance will compliment your actions."

Ben raised his right arm to his chin and lowered his left arm. He then proceeded to swing his left arm in a small, back-and-forth jittery motion. "When I was a human, my stance was the Hitman Style. With the Hitman Style, it's set up to use flicker jabs as its main tool and go for strong chopping rights, that's why my arms are positioned like this."

In Gray's eyes, Ben looked stupid. "Ben, that looks insanely dumb, Why would you purposely leave your guard open like that? My dad taught me that you should always keep your guard up!"

"Well, all stances have different purposes. You could have the average boxer stance, but you could also have other stances. Look at Bloyd Hayweather for example with his Philly Shell, one arm is designated near his lower section while the other is up, this allowed him to defend his upper and lower body. Using body movement and evasive maneuvers with his arm positioning, his defense was considered something out of this world. You could also look at Prince Naheem, his hands were low but he was an elusive fighter with speed and amazing counters."

"Ah, I see," said Gray. He then put himself in a traditional orthodox stance. "My father taught me this so I'd rather use this than whatever you mentioned."

"I mean... It's preferred that you use something that you enjoy using the most-"

Gray cut off Ben during his sentence. "Yeah, and I prefer what my dad taught me."

"Well, moving on then, now that you have your style ready, it's time I teach you the first thing you need to learn in boxing, your footwork."

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A division of horses with knights approached the Swayar mansion. Stopping at the front gate of the mansion, the knight at the front takes off his helmet. "Alright everyone, we've arrived at our destination." The knight was ugly and barely looked human, he looked more like an ogre to many. His face seemed deformed, and he had a brown mustache that did not look good with his hairstyle at all.

"Rizzart, may I get off now?" spoke a young boy's voice from behind the knight. The knight turned his head, glancing behind him. "Ah, Harold, you seem impatient to meet your little cousin, eh?"

Behind the knight was a young boy who seemed to look around 5 years old. He had armor similar in design to the knights he had traveled with and appeared very exhausted as well. "No, I just don't want to be near you any longer, Rizzart."

"H-Harsh kid..."

Opening the gate was Howard who greeted them upon their arrival. "Welcome, the knights of the Crook Family, it seems you've arrived." Rizzart approached Howard and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, my name is Rizzart and I'm the leader of the warrior unit in the Crook Family." Rizzart went over to his horse and grabbed a pouch that dangled from its side. He grabbed the bag and approached Howard with the bag in hand. "We're here to do our trade, correct?" As Rizzart held the bag in hand, it began shuffling around a lot.

"Yes, indeed." Howard fumbled in his pocket before producing a small box. Taking the pouch from Rizzart's hand, he handed over the small box. Rizzart opened the box, revealing a shiny red gem that had a red mist enveloping it. Picking it up with his fingers, he observed the red gem. "This is indeed the Gem of Sonnas." Howard also doing the same, opened up the pouch to check its contents. "This also seems to be what we wanted as well, pleasure doing business with you."

Rizzart smiled and scratched the back of his head. "Oh, don't worry, the Crook family always delivers! Even if we have Crook in our name..." he said, looking away in the end. "Oh yes, I forgot to ask!" Rizzart grabbed Harold by both shoulders and brought him in front. "I heard that the Swayar family had gotten a new child so I was hoping you were able to allow Harold to become friends with him."

"Oh my, but I'm afraid that is not possible currently, Master Gray seems to be in the forest training right now."

Rizzart's look exploded with concern. "W-Wait, you mean the forest around your mansion?! Did you not know that there are dangerous creatures everywhere? It's even worse that Gray has no talent at all, he won't survive!" Rizzart rushed over to his horse and mounted it. "I'll go rescue him right away!"

As Rizzart was about to start moving, Howard interrupted him in his panic. "Now, now, no need to be in a rush. I've already sent someone who I've trained personally to watch over him, and also, this is a sort of experiment if you would call it."

"Experiment...? What do you mean by that?" Rizzart asked.

"Even though Master Gray was born talentless, he has always shown to surpass my expectations every time. I'd rather see how he grows instead of me guiding him to his potential, who knows, maybe he will turn out to be some sort of prodigy like how everyone hoped for him to be." Howard responded.

Back in the forest, Ben clapped in joy. "Amazing, even though you have the body of a three-year-old, you seem to be fluent in doing boxing footwork!" Gray weaved and stepped forward before halting in front of Ben. "In my old body, I was able to do stuff like this before I turned really fat. Without that fat anymore, I can easily do this once again," he explained. Gray continued practicing his footwork and maneuvering in diligence.

("He's good, but the true test is going to start. He can maintain a good balance with his stance while he's moving around, but can he throw a good jab?")

Ben snapped his fingers to garner Gray's attention. "Alright Gray, let's increase the difficulty to see how well you do." Ben began doing simple jabs in a slow manner. "Do you know how to do one of the most important punches in boxing?" Gray saw the motion that Ben had done and mimicked it. "You mean the jab? My dad taught me all about it," he replied.

Ben nodded. "Indeed, the jab. The jab is a sharp, and quick punch to get easy damage in. The thing with the jab though is how versatile it is. You can hold someone back in place with your jab, and you can measure distance with your jab as well. Though, the jab can also be a setup for many things as well."

Gray's head tilted. "Like what?"

"Some fighters use the jab to pull their opponent's arm back and sneak in a right hand, others use it to push their guard in to punch with their right hand as well. There were also other cases where people used their jabbing hand to parry, or to hit their guard down." Gray couldn't process all of this information at once. "Uhh... Ben you're saying too much, can you slow down for a bit?"

Ben sighed. "Too much? How am I saying too much?"

Gray didn't respond, instead, he thought it was pointless to tell him. Ben was hopeless in Gray's eyes.

"Either way, you should practice your jab step by step first," stated Ben.

Gray sighed, bothered that he had to do more things for training. He began to motion a jab, trying to remember what his dad taught him. During his jab, Ben quickly cut him off after seeing his very poor and sloppy jabbing technique. "Let's start building your jab step by step first. First, when you punch, always have the opposite hand guarding your face when you do. Also, another thing, when you practice any fighting technique, you ALWAYS slow down your motions. Master the technique first, then speed up right after you've mastered it."

Gray nodded before adjusting himself to step one. Raising his guard while he punched made Ben give a nod of approval. "Good, next you should add a tiny step when you jab. When you do this, you must feel your whole body's momentum fuse with the punch you're doing. This also applies for every punch that you output."

Changing up his technique a bit, punching now felt kind of smooth, but it still felt a little bit off. Ben seeing this, nodded once more in approval. "Good, now try not to telegraph your punches when you jab."

"Telegraphing? What do you mean by that?" Gray asked. "Telegraphing your punches means that you're giving a small hint of when you're going to punch. Whenever you jabbed, you reel your arm back just by a little bit before outputting your jab." Ben said."But that's just a tiny motion, why would they even care?" Gray replied.

"Because the human reflexes are way faster than you think. They can tell a punch is incoming and either prepare to dodge or counter. You may not think that this is a big deal but experienced fighters know that telegraphing your attacks is not the way to do it. If you want an easy way to not telegraph your punches, imagine your fist producing a line whenever you punch. When you punch, that line should be in a straight motion coming outwards, and snapping back in the same position to where it started. There should never be a time at the start of your punch when the line does not move outwards in a straight line."

Once again, Gray listened and delivered. He quickly fixed up his jab within a second, impressing Ben once more. "Gray, you are a very fast learner, that's a great trait about you. Now, whenever you punch, I want you to exhale a little tiny bit."

Ben started to shadow-box while making the noises. "Fighters always do this, but for good reasons. When you exhale a little during your punch, your body is more relaxed and you conserve way more stamina."

"But if your body is relaxed, doesn't that make your punches weaker?" Gray mentioned.

Ben shook his head. "Nope, in fact, it's the complete opposite, when your body is stiff, you cannot fully use all the muscles in your body to punch. Instead, when your body is more relaxed, you can concentrate more on how you function your muscles to punch."

Mimicking the small exhales that Boxers do with each punch, he could really feel the difference when he does it. Every jab isn't so exhausting and he feels more smooth when he jabbed. He didn't feel like he was trying to punch underwater anymore. Continuing on, Ben pointed at the tree that stood beside him. "Now, I feel like you're almost ready, go ahead and punch this tree."

Gray went silent. "Punch what?" Ben continued to point at the tree. "Punch it."

"Ben, do you want me to break my hand?" Gray saw the look in Ben's eyes. They were serious about this. ("I don't understand what Ben might be thinking but I guess I'll have to see.") Gray walked up to the tree, fists clenched, and paused to stare. Gray went in for a simple jab but stuttered halfway through. He then heard Ben say something. "Don't be so scared, just try not to hit it with all your strength okay?" he turned his head over to Ben, raising his voice. "I'm not scared!"

"Yes, you are, you were hesitant to attack the tree. You're scared of what comes after your punch. Don't be scared, instead, calculate what your desired outcome should be. If you want your hands to not break, control the power and speed of how you punch, if you don't want your opponents to hit you after you attack, always have your guard up and prepare to counter right after you throw a punch. Stay collected and don't break down in fear because fear is your downfall when you're in combat."

Gray never thought about the mental aspects when it came to fighting, and it seemed more difficult than he expected. He wanted to overcome this, so he mustered up his strength to do so. ("If other people could do it, I could too.")

He took a deep breath and punched with all his might, flinching at the impact of the punch. Soon came right after, a sharp pain ensued upon his hands and wrist. "You idiot, why did you punch at full force?!" Ben screamed. Gray looked at his left fist. It was numb at the moment and he could barely move it. The skin on his fist was also peeling from the rough texture of the tree bark. "You told me to punch without fear!" Gray said in response. Gray was quivering as the pain was slowly building up. "Yeah, by being calculated, not just blindly punching and hoping it all goes well!" Ben sighed and closed his eyes. "We didn't even get to conditioning your fists yet..."

"Ben, I can't really move my hand anymore and it hurts like hell!" mentioned Gray. Gray was now on the verge of tears. "Obviously, because you broke it!" Ben then hopped down right next to Gray. "Look here, you also need to do another thing when you punch, when you punch, make sure your wrist and arm are aligned so you don't injure your wrist-"

"Ben, stop trying to teach me things, my fist REALLY hurts right now." Gray was shaking from this punch. He figured that since he was in the body of a three-year-old, it made way more sense that he can't handle something like this.

Suddenly, a noise came from the bushes. Both Ben and Gray turned their heads towards the direction of the noise. Gray tensed up in all the pain he was in. "What was that?" Ben squinted his eyes in the bush, trying to get a better view. As he did, he could see the silhouette of a wolf leaping at him.

Bursting through the bush was a grey wolf, almost three times the size of Gray. In the eyes of Gray, he could only watch in terror as he was powerless to even step in to attempt to save Ben. ("My fist is broken and I'm literally just a three-year-old baby, what am I going to do?!") The wolf got closer and closer to Ben with every moment and all Gray could let out was a scream.