One of Wormwood's better memories of his Father was when Aethelwulf had taught him how to train. Their relationship had always been extremely strained, and rightfully so, but when the older lion had been showing him new moves to use in battle... that had been when they had both been at their happiest. Sure, the training had never been extremely necessary when he had been a cub, since the pride hadn't really had any large enemies that they were frequently battling with, but it had still been in good fun, and had made sure he was safe even when his parents weren't around – not that they had cared very much whether he lived or died. Beyond a couple of scuffles with smaller hyena packs while he had been growing up, Wormwood hadn't really had to train his fighting chops until he had been on the way to Tanglewood in pursuit of his brother. Several rogues had tried to steal prey from him by being sneaky and attacking him when he wasn't looking, but he had always managed to quite easily deal with them, usually choosing to sling them away rather than killing them. There had been a couple, however, who had been looking to turn him into the prey. Those had been the ones that Worm had put his entire fighting prowess into, bloodying his pelt before moving along.

Now, here in Tanglewood, the only time that the hellhound had shown off his fighting skill had been in the fight against the Pitt. Not that he particularly wanted there to be a bunch of violence happening within the territory, but there were several times where he had wished he had been around to enact violence upon those that had stolen away his clanmates. Still, seeing as he couldn't go back in time and prevent anyone from ever being taken – as much as he desperately wished that he could – there was still something that he could do. Instead of using his fighting prowess to watch over every member of Tanglewood 24/7, the canine had chosen to host a little class that would hopefully end up with a few less people being taken away. Sure, not everybody could really take in every bit of information and use it to protect themselves – and he had a distinct size advantage over some members as well – but this could at least make it a little bit harder for them to be taken, and could even end up buying enough time for somebody else to come and be able to help. That way the damn Pitt could go and rot on their own time, without taking any of their members to rot along with them.

When Worm had first begun putting things together for a little training session, Red had noticed and had come over, seemingly excited to do anything that didn't involve being on bedrest. He had even volunteered to be a mock punching bag for the event, but Worm had quickly expressed his concern about – and denied – the idea. So now, even with a sulky gorilla nearby, the hellhound had seemingly finished preparing for the training session, hoping that some of the members he knew not to be well versed in fighting would come by. Such as Moth, or even the younger members like Roy and Torren. Even if they couldn't participate in any sort of spar. That didn't mean the kids couldn't learn techniques that could possibly save their lives later on. Pulling the last of the sacks of hay over that he had chosen to use as punching bags instead of Red, Worm took a deep breath in before calling out from the middle of the town, his tail wagging behind him, "Hey, anybody who wants to learn some techniques to defend themselves, come over here! I'll teach some basic fighting techniques and stuff, and how to get out of certain surprise holds, that way we can have less kidnappings around here... and yes, I realize that if your opponent is something massive like a dragon, it can be difficult to defend yourself, but these are the bare minimum to make sure people stay safe." After all, he was a chaser now. Part of his job was assisting the clan, and keeping everybody safe was assisting, right? He hoped it was, anyways.

view point: mirror

mirror was far too confident in his ability to fight. if anything, his fighting ability was sub-par, especially considering he could only control half of his body. his brother, who was a coward and a massive baby, had control of the other half. so, when a training session was suggested, he gave a quick glance at image, who's head was low and eyes half lidded in exhaustion from their journey. maybe we should sit this one out, he thought, licking at his own maw.

settling on the side lines, he would lower his side of the body and his brother followed in suit, until they laid on the ground. "i think we'll sit this one up. were both tired from the journey, but im sure watching will help us learn something.. meaning watch, image." the last bit was added quietly, which made his brother's ears pin back and plop his head down onto the ground in disappointment. he didn't care how tired image was, or how much he hurt- mirror wanted to watch the training session.

BROTHERS IN MORE THAN NAME / ☆☆☆

Four others arrived, two familiar and two – three, technically, if he counted Mirror and Image as two separate entities – mostly unfamiliar, in everything except for name. He had only recently met Mirror and Image, and the only real thing that he knew about Crowley was that he was a fan of plants and gardening, but Feza and Mayari were more familiar. He wasn't too well acquainted with Mayari, nor was he on the best terms with Feza at the moment, but at the very least he knew their faces well. Still, he offered all five of the others gathered around a small smile, toothy thanks to his lack of lips, at least mostly. It seemed as though Mirror and Image just wanted to watch, but for the other three he could already start to figure out things in his head. Feza was larger than him at this point, Mayari was roughly the same size as him, and Crowley was smaller, but the same things could apply if he taught them right, at the very least. Sure, Crowley would probably have the most problems with what Worm was going to teach, since the male was so small compared to the rest of them – not that he would point that out, as it would be rude.

Tail wagging at the fact that people actually showed up for his training sessions, the male blinked at Feza and said with a soft snort, "Well, party surprises are certainly better than attack surprises, especially considering how many people have gotten taken lately. Thankfully Red is back now, and so are Sam and Beck, but we were all worried sick when they were gone, and I think this might help a little with making sure we can all defend ourselves... Mirrorimage, even though you won't be participating, there won't be any real fighting right now, so I can demonstrate things for you to see without any getting sore or hurting." He chuckled a bit before moving over to Mayari, saying softly as he reached a paw up to gently press it against the back of her scruff, being careful not to nick her with his sharp bone claws, "I'm demonstrating on Mayari right now, but this applies to all of us. One of the most common ways that people get taken, especially if they're a smaller species like Crowley over there, is that they get grabbed by the scruff and taken off while they can't get out of the hold." He had to worry more about it now, since he wasn't a massive lion anymore, but this was probably obviously targeted at all of the smaller felines that resided in the clan, like Crow or formerly Moth.

Making his way over to where the little hay bags he had brought out were sitting, he barked softly as he moved to bite down on one part of the bag, "So, pretend that this is one of you, and I'm a pittian, grabbing you by the back of the neck." He demonstrated it quite clearly, before he said with little flick of his paw, a motion to accompany his words, "Now, the obvious instinct when that happens is to try flailing and trying to turn around so that you can dig your claws into your attacker, but usually that doesn't work all that well. So, instead what you should try to do is slam your head into the attacker's face. If you go limp, like you're giving up, and then slam your head up as fast as possible, you can catch them off guard, and you can actually break their nose with your head if you try hard enough. Another way to do that is to swing your head to the side, but generally going down and snapping back up is most helpful. One thing you need to watch out for with that is that... obviously Pittians are pretty ruthless, so if you go limp, they might think that means they can just kill you easily. Now it's doubtful that they'd try to kill you if they were attempting to take you back to the Pitt, but you should still be careful."