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Now, Zane helping anyone in any sense other than existing in the way of their harm was of course bound to fail. Everyone knew that. I knew that. Even he knew that, yet that he could fail so spectacularly that Nip exploded belied belief. The blast shot him out of the dojo, protect shields...

Nip wasn't okay. He needed... something. Help? Simple enough. Zane just needed to help Nip. "Dude, what's wrong with you?" Somehow, even Zane recognized this as abysmal. "Er, I mean," Zane mumbled. He desperately searched for at least mediocre attempts. With only his mind to call from, he found...

Zane kept his arms up for just a moment until he finally realized Nip was serious. "What?" he balked, tossing his arms to both sides. "The hell happened to your fight? You'd've iced me six feet under half a second ago!" Tacticians to be would look on in awe as the inevitable loser of a conflict...

Zane called the shield back the moment it shattered. His ears shot up the instant Nip called him a coward. “Do you even remember the last fight? Without me, you’d—” When he looked up to point a claw at Nip(s), he saw the unearthly light. He took half a step back. “Nip, what the hell? You’re...

Time to panic. As increasingly pissed as Zane had become, four Nips preparing to hit him with a blizzard each cut it all down into terror. No time to run, he threw up his arms and prayed that shield thing would work again. By some miracle, it did. He couldn’t notice, though. He’d curled up...

Zane didn't waste a moment turning around after the icy blast hit him. "That's a bit hard when there're two of you!" he snarled. Rage melted the icy pelt on his back. Goring Nip didn't seem all that bad an idea anymore. Then, the second Nip appeared. The third. He trained his gaze on the...

The lack of icy pain pelting his fur left Zane confused enough to peek an eye and check up on his incoming doom. Seeing not one but two opponents shot him up to his feet. He desperately tried to keep track of both at once, but unfortunately only managed to cross his eyes and dizzy himself. A...

Zane could only spout out, "Wait! You said you wouldn't—" before he backpedaled into the dummy he'd thrown. He flipped over backwards, arms just barely catching the ground to take the fall instead of his neck. He cleverly used the momentum to roll away, curled up into a ball to protect his vital...

A brief moment of realization struck Zane before he remembered he wanted to look competent. "What? I'm supposed to gore you in a spar?" He flexed his claws half to demonstrate his point, half to remind himself he had them. He hadn't even washed them this morning. A scratch could give Nip an...

Zane couldn't blink before Nip dashed behind him. He turned around just in time to see Nip sitting on top of his attack's aftermath. He talked himself into a fight. One against probably the hardest hitter of their team. "Won't attack?" Was that a trick? Nip didn't seem to be preparing a...

Nip agreed? Zane failed not to show the surprise on his face, but recovered by replacing it with confusion. "Right, yeah. Training. Let's." His eyes hopped from one dummy to the next. How would this even work? Would they watch and coach? Zane didn't have much to offer in coaching. Or fighting...

Zane, unfortunately, took this politeness to mean Nip didn't think him the scum of the earth. About the closest he had to a friend, Zane decided not to let this opportunity pass him by. "Ah, hey, well, if you're preparing for disaster," he gestured to himself in an awkward, unfortunate attempt...

Zane rolled out of bed at around the same time, rearing and yawning to take on the day. Without any more community to service, he had all the liberty in the world to sleep in, and he took it. Wandering on his way to nowhere, he spotted Nip. Standing there. Was Nip okay? Maybe he and the dummy...

"You're, wait, what?" Zane's head spun. "You're offering to help me?" Not only had she encouraged him, now she offered to help? He tried to fit the pieces together, crunch the numbers like a calculator (solar powered, left in a cold, dark basement for many years), but, like an inverse sine...

The more Brisa talked, the more she confused Zane. Her... accent befuddled him enough, but even stranger, the more she said, the more he struggled to interpret her words as denigrating. If he didn't know any better, he'd think she didn't hate him. The cognitive dissonance threatened to buzz his...

Zane let her talk, brow raising and head tilting the more she went on. At each others throats moments ago, and now she sat back to have a chat. “You tear me to pieces just to give a pep talk?” he mumbled. He shook his head. She was probably much more accustomed to fighting than him. Everyone...

The accent took him back just enough to wrench him out of self pity. A little bit. It was, admittedly, kinda comfy down in the dumps, but he listened to her and stood anyway, making a show of how much it hurt to stand on his bleeding foot. "There. On my feet. That what you meant by more?"

Anger bred more anger. "Shut it!" Zane rolled up to a sitting position. "You wanted to fight me because you knew you'd win. Don't act like I made a good show now." He rolled his eyes with a sneer. "What? You expect me to believe you got mad enough to fight because I said you and Starr are both...

Zane ripped his mouth off while the shock burst through him. As many, many shocks as Jolt had suffered him through, this surge brought him to his knees. His stubbornness lost out, and he shouted, "Stop!" while he threw her off. "You win, all right?!" he struggled to scream while his lungs rasped...