Yenx wasn’t sure if the sudden onrush of challengers was more about some deep rooted hatred of saurins or whether it might not be due to the fact that Rakla had just bounced him off the ceiling.

It made no difference, not in the moment. He had to respond. He’d chosen this class because he wanted to establish himself as a champion among myrmidons. That role couldn’t go along with begging off of the first sparring session.

He fixated on the smallest among those around him, jerked his chin at her, pointing to a nearby circle of sand that no one had picked yet. He did his best to make it seem as though he hadn’t even noticed the other challenges that he’d spurned, made it more he was eager to fight this woman than that he was afraid to take on the hulking ursin.

She spoke as they took their place on in the circle of sand, even as the rest of the class was pairing off and beginning spars of their own.

“I am Gleerex Ranse,” she proclaim, “and I give thanks to my brother for his wise tutelage.”

Yenx pointed a thumb at his own chest.

“Yenx.”

She started moving immediately, and Yenx’s hands rose up in defense, but she hadn’t actually moved up to attack. She was just doing some sort of dance or something, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other, bobbing her head around, that kind of thing.

Yenx just stood there, feeling a little awkward. Should he do the same thing? It seemed pointless, as long as they were beyond each other’s reach.

She started to circle him, still keeping up her endless shifting. She flicked out a foot, then a hand, miming strikes despite the distance between them being large enough that there was no chance they’d land.

Yenx turned along with her, keeping her squarely in front of him, keeping his hands up. He was conscious, almost embarrassed, at his comparative lethargy.

Was this just more of the human need-for-motion that he’d seen so much of? It made sense, their endlessly burning inner furnaces wouldn’t stop pushing them into action just because they were in battle.

“My brother is tall, but-” she said, even as she stepped suddenly towards him.

Yenx lowered his hands, but he was a second late, she’d already darted out a low kick and thumped it off the side of one leg.

He grabbed at her head, but she threw herself into a roll, passed back out of his reach and came back to her feet in one smooth, easy motion.

“I heard you’d been sniffing around the Rummedo heir,” she commented, “If so you’ll need to work hard on your physical training. Meghan is notoriously pitiless with her underlings.”

Yenx narrowed his eyes and kept his focus on her, trying not to get caught up in what she was saying. He was getting it now. The constant twitching had blinded him to when the important movement had actually began. He’d been late reacting because he had gotten used to her moving without it actually mattering. It had taken a second to realize that her charge was something different from her usual dancing about.

“Where are you planning to put your first rank?” she asked.

“What?”

“We’re myrmidons, and soon enough we’ll be using our Sigils to-“

She darted in again, and once more he was a step slow, a trick behind. She ducked under his warding arms and got right up to his belly, hammering away with a brisk trio of short punches.

Yenx grabbed for her, but she was already rolling aside once more. He hooked her shoulder for an instant, but she’d wrenched it from his grasp before he could actually get a good grip.

He thought there might be an opportunity, as she was climbing back to her feet, but he kept himself steady. Those blows…they hadn’t really hurt all that much. He was still smarting from the impact to his shoulders and head from when Rakla’d sent him flying, but Gleerex’s hits hadn’t seemed to do anything, just glancing off his scales.

“Why do you make fists like that, blank?” she called out, beginning to circle again. “Who told you to do that?”

He had the way of it now, she’d use the conversation to try and get him to hesitate, then lunge in to do some more of her futile jabs.

“I watched Honored Elder Brother Rakla,” he responded, warily, keeping his hands out in front of him.

Another thing was obvious. The reason she could get in so easily under his guard wasn’t just that she was quick, or that he was distracted, she was also right down near the bottom of his standing threat range. Even the smallest duck took her under where his arms would naturally grab.

“Lizardmen don’t normally fight that way,” she went on, “They are more like this, ‘Raaaah’.”

She spread her fingers out wide and opened her mouth, while hunching her neck and sticking her butt out.

“Well, the whole point of-“ Yenx began, but she was already dashing in. This time Yenx was ready, bending over and punching furiously.

She deflected his punches, rather than taking them straight on her guard, but she didn’t jump back again, instead just pushed forward as he was pulling his arms back.

Yenx swung a savage hook, just as the first of her jabs began to beat at his abdomen, and she hunched away, deflecting the force of it behind an upraised shoulder guard. She hit him twice more as he pulled his arm back to try again, then her third strike collided with his other arm, which he’d thrust down between them to stop the barrage.

Now she backed off, rolling away into another one of those weird flippy moves. She’d been trained in some kind of combat class, clearly. Yenx marked up yet another advantage for those Aspirants whose memories hadn’t been stolen.

“I’ll fight how the Guild teaches me,” he snarled. “To win!”

Now it was Yenx’s turned to charge, pounding towards her on with a great and sudden rush of motion. Gleerex sidestepped frantically, but he swerved without effort and kept her before him.

He threw another vicious side punch, and tried to catch hold of her arm when she deflected it, without success. She stepped inside once again and put two blows into his midsection, then pushed on by him as his arms came down again.

Yenx turned to try and keep her before him, only go see an arcing boot incoming, his opponent having flipped herself entirely inverted in the second that she’d been outside his field of vision.

He jerked his head out of the way of the kick, only narrowly missing the opportunity to catch ahold of her.

Gleerex took distance again, a grim smile crossing her face.

“Now you’re getting it,” she said, “It isn’t just about fists. We use our feet too, every part of us has to be a weapon. Even our mouths-“

She charged back in as she spoke, and this time she dropped into a slide as soon as she got back into Yenx’s range, kicking at his ankles with all of her forward momentum.

He stooped down to grab at her, and as before she was the faster, batting away his reaching hands and actually kicking off of his shins to speed her escape.

Yenx stopped himself from charging after her. She’d only escape into his blind spot again, slip around him.

Gleerex spun back to her feet, began her restless circling again.

Yenx turned to keep her before him, mind racing.

Blind spot? Why had he thought that? Why was she faster every time she got close?

He stepped forward, suddenly, and threw out a jab of his own. Gleerex parried adroitly, but couldn’t return fire. He was outside of her reach.

Saurin don’t smile, but Yenx was a blank, and so he tried. Gleerex blanched at the sudden, monstrous leer.

Yenx felt a sudden burst of inspiration. The distance was the key to it. She was faster up close, somehow having shorter arms was helping her. He didn’t know the exact mechanics of it, but it seemed like every time he got to do one thing, she was already doing two or three. That only made sense if the things he was doing took longer.

Gleerex circled around him, always in motion. Humans were terrifying, their tenacity and stamina seemingly without limit. Yenx turned to keep her before him, already working out his plan.

He’d jab, and she’d duck under it, then when she got right up along side him she’d be expecting another of his ponderous hooks. As long as he kept his other hand between them, however, he should be able to grab onto her somewhere, turn it into more of a contest of strength.

Towering over her as he did, that was one arena in which he had no worries.

Gleerex seemed to know something was up. She kept on circling, feinted a rush, then backed away instead of ducking under when his jab shot out to meet her.

“You are one of those human nobles,” he tried, knowing her fondness for attacking while he was speaking, “Shouldn’t you be in the Merrippa heir’s class? Isn’t one of your rivals getting a leg up on you right now?”

She blew air through her lips.

“You are a lot more interesting to me,” she confessed, “Not often that the Guild blanks such a prominent personality!”

Yenx didn’t react, all too aware that she was probably just trying to distract him again.

“What would it even look like?” she wondered, “If the Guild let you operate as one of us? What would the dynamic be, in a Party that had you as its face? I’m deeply interested.”

Yenx took a step towards her, flicked out a jab, but it wasn’t actually on target and she didn’t even bother to dodge.

“I guess the Ranse family must not be in serious contention then,” he said, “If you’ve got time for-“

She took the bait, charging forward with her hands up.

Just like he planned, he swung a hook at her, let her duck under, then smashed down with his other fist, like he was trying to pound on a desk.

She met that one with arms crossed, and he turned his hands over to try and grab a forearm. He caught her arm and started to lift, but she was already wrenching at his thumb with her other hand, filling the arm with pain and forcing him to let go.

He glimpsed her face, a feral smile contorting it, then it vanished from his view as his jaws clamped down on her shoulder. His plan had succeeded.

He’d figured a human’s fighting art would focus on those similar to them, defending against the weapons that other humans would bring to bear. She’d been fighting him like he was a large man, trying to make up for her lighter frame and lack of strength with deflections and quick movement.

She’d been unprepared for a saurin’s primary weapon, and now her blood and flesh filled his maw.

He heaved convulsively, and let his jaws fly open, perhaps the single most effort he’d put forth since his blanking. Yenx hurled her through the air with his back and neck muscles alone, blood splattering in a furious arc across the circle.

He could have done a lot worse. He was pretty sure he could have crunched down on her until his teeth met on bone. Or he could have just gripped her there and held her in place while he beat on her with his fists. There’s no way she could have deflected his blows while he gnawed on her shoulder.

But this was only a spar, and Gleerex wasn’t someone he was sure he wanted as a long term enemy, so he’d gone with this approach. It was showy, spectacular even, but it shouldn’t put her out of action.

At least, he hoped not.

“Is everything all right?” asked Rakla, who Yenx suddenly realized was standing very near their circle.

Had he been there all along, or had he hurried over when Gleerex got into trouble. Yenx forced down a sudden annoyance that the elder brother had apparently been content to watch him used as a sandbag, but the first drop of human blood on the sand drew out his protective side.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” said Gleerex, who’d rolled back to her feet somehow. She had her opposite side arm up to the mauled area of her shoulder, and she was trying to stem the bleeding.

“Really?”

“I had just given my brother some pointers about using his whole body, even his mouth!” she said, feigning a chuckle through what had to be agonizing pain, “He was merely putting my instruction into use.”

Rakla scowled at them, for a moment, before gesturing for Gleerex to move off to an area by the side of the room, which seemed to be populated with other wounded Aspirants.

Yenx felt the Guilder’s regard, and wondered for an endless eternity, or perhaps ten seconds, whether Rakla was about to bounce him off of another wall.

Instead he merely called out “Everyone swap!”

There weren’t nearly so many people looking to spar him now, perhaps due to the blood trickling down his face. Yenx felt a certain satisfaction at this, which curdled as he realized that the ursin heading his way wasn’t looking for some other giant lizard hiding behind him.

The rest of the spar passed in a haze of blows given and received, small lessons learned at the cost of aches and pains. Yenx was unable to do much in his match with the beastman, but he wised up after that and began to issue challenges of his own.

He never ran into another human quite so talkative as Gleerex, but he also didn’t have to fight another ursin. He found that, for the most part, it was possible to use his size and strength to compensate for his opponents’ greater fighting experience, with perhaps a minor assist from the fact that most of them hadn’t been trained or taught in fighting his kind.

“Everyone break!” called Rakla, after the spar had gone on for far too long. Yenx dropped back from the other saurin he’d been grappling with, holding the eye contact for a single beat longer than he had to.

“That wasn’t the worst first day spar I’ve ever seen,” boomed Rakla, “But it was certainly in the same battlefield, and you should know that there was a time where we had classes that were ALL blanks! I expect swift improvement if any of you want a future aside from the ones that the Goons are enjoying.”

He paced around the circle again, glaring at each of the Aspirants as he passed.

Yenx wasn’t sure if he was imagining a deeper, crueler animus directed towards him than the others. He wasn’t sure if Zemp’s ‘them’, the ones who would make sure no saurin passed, included Rakla or not.

“Fortunately,” the Guilder went on, “Your swift improvement is virtually guaranteed, because we are going to be stuffing you with elixir!”

A small cheer rose from the audience, and several aspirants bowed fist-in-hand to their elder brother.

“So what do you say I explain where you ought to spend it?”