Close combat - battle training event A

Morgan couldn't help but feel excited as he finished setting up a small training area in the junkyard. Thick slabs of ice were shaped carefully to resemble large animalistic proportions. They had the texture of hard ice on the outside, but beyond a thin layer of it the insides were about as close to a fleshy consistency as the dog could make. Small traps were scattered around the area as well, mostly consisting of less harmful ones like snares. Lines were drawn in the ground to separate lanes leading to well-worn targets, and a large circle lied off to the side to denote the borders of an arena.

Proud of himself, the samoyed sat back and took a break. The scheduled time for the training session was approaching quickly. His excitement built further as time went on; he had not seen his fellow Tanglers fight very much in a long time outside of the one raid he had been in the previous month, and he had hardly seen enough of the newer group members to know what they were capable of. Monitoring them to find out their powers and abilities would be quite useful for establishing a stronger fighting force - something which Tanglewood was in dire need of in such dangerous times.

...

With his wait finally concluding, the General began to speak.

"Welcome to the first training session, everyone,"

he barked, looking around.

"Although some real experience will probably help more, it's important to work on whatever fundamentals you can. Today, we won't actually be fighting each other. I know that might sound boring, but I thought of a way to make it a lot more interesting: a competition."

Drawing water from his leg bracers, he formed a short spear.

"Think of it as a way of practicing with an extra incentive."

Finding the nearest makeshift practice dummy, he took a breath before launching a flurry of careful strikes into several key points: its neck, its underside, and through its head. A deep purple liquid poured out of each spot, eventually pooling around the sculpture.

"This paint - 'blood' - will be how I rate each of you. The rules are pretty simple: I'll give you about twenty seconds or so to do as much close-range damage as you can to these 'enemies' with whatever weapons or abilities you have. Get creative!"

He levitated a bit of the purple fluid, forming a skull shape with it before returning it to its puddle.

"I arranged the paint to run throughout these guys like real blood, so aim for areas where you know you'll draw plenty of it."

Bringing his spear back and repairing the sculpture with slow breaths, he continued,

"Just to make things a little more fair, if you use any 'powers' like my water manipulation, I'll only give you five seconds to attack. That's a quarter of the normal time. This means you can choose whether or not you use your powers, so do whatever works best for you. We'll work outside your comfort zone later."

Once he was finished repairing his work, he turned all the way around and pointed to a few open crates.

"There's a bunch of random weapons thrown in there. Nothing too exciting, but if you need one, feel free to use what you need."

Turning back toward the group of Tanglers, he exclaimed,

"And that's it! We'll be doing target practice and long-range attacking later, so don't worry about that just yet. Just pick an 'enemy' and start when you're ready. No teams allowed, alright?"

"Oh, and one more thing: I've got a reward or two for whoever can do the most damage."

---

TL;DR:

Weird minigame time!

There're a bunch of ice-based practice dummies placed around the junkyard. A contest is being held to see who can do the most close-range melee damage to a single dummy in 20 seconds (without powers, weapons allowed) or in 5 seconds (powers allowed). Purple paint flows throughout the dummies like blood; it's meant to be drawn as the dummy is attacked. Aim for vital areas to draw the lots of 'blood'!

Use common sense to figure out about how much your character will be able to do in the time they have. Make sure to name specific body parts or areas to target to make it a bit easier for me to keep scores. Get creative with whatever methods you use! You only need to write one post here, so there's no need to wait for attack responses like in a typical sparring thread.

Now, don’t take this as the truth, but Leroy often referred to himself as the ‘king of 42nd Street’, alluding to his dwelling prior to Tanglewood. According to his tales, both factual and tall, it was a nickname that wasn’t meagrely bestowed upon him for no plain reason - he earned the damn title. Whenever the time for storytelling was nigh, the mutt took absolutely no shame in going into as graphic detail as he can when describing the various acts he’d partaken in during the course of his four years in the Big Apple, intermittently conveying images of blood spilling from the throats on those who opposed him, and now and again shamelessly exemplifying how cutthroat some of his actions exactly were - before reminding those present that he’s a changed man, and rarely acts akin to his past self these days. A further notion construing his use on the battlefield, in addition to reputation, was his experience with this genre of life. It would be a lie to say that Leroy was young; it would also be a fib to say that he was old. No, Leroy was a median, aged enough to have more than plenty exposure to what the world has to offer, though not ripe enough to have seen everything. Though if one asked him anything on the topic of fighting, owing to the canine’s copious background knowledge on the subject, it was more than likely that an exceeding-proper answer would be given. The folks back on the impecunious avenue made him endure a torturous “initiation rite”, as they called it (which later turned out to be nothing more than deceit), and then taught him everything he understands now about combat. And, those guys were tough. Not sufficient enough to escape their comeuppance for their dishonesty, but they were tough nonetheless.

He’d watch with the utmost interest as the Jim fellow tore into his targets with fang, and with repugnance as the wolf/monkey hybrid took his turn with machetes.

That must have been a fucked up orgy if a dogmonkey came out of it. No. Focus, for once. Your shot is coming up quickly, and you’re thinking about intercourse - between dogs and monkeys.

Shaking the unruly inklings out of his mentality, which proved to be the bane of his very existence at times, the hound readied himself, lowered his spine into a stance that was shown to him by his old mentors, and on his go, he began.

Another strength that Leroy has, one may add, is his imagination. To him, it was quite easy to visualize the inanimate ice constructs as members of the Pitt, or perhaps a Rosebloods, who’ve fleetly established themselves as enemies in the guardsman’s aged eyes. Merely putting one of the groups’ names into his mind fueled a hate-lusting fire inside of him, and hate only ensured extra energy. With only twenty seconds to cause as much damage as possible, he initiated his ferocious onslaught with a leaping headbutt towards one of the sculptures. Indubitably, he had underestimated the sheer strength of the motionless moulds of solid water, as regret instantaneously drowned his mind whilst his noggin rammed into his idle oppenent, making “blunt-force” sound like a stark buzzword. Sure, the ice-wolf’s head was clean off, spewing its foul violet contents unto its attacker’s forehead and chest, but it rendered him confounded for a period of maybe five or six seconds. In the grand scheme of things, that was very short, but in the span of twenty seconds, that was a huge fraction. Realizing this, Leroy on the dot swapped targets for one which remained intact, feasting upon the soulless creature’s solid exterior, and to the melancholy to his taste buds, the artificial blood as well. Then, knocking it into its side with a less-than-swift hind kick, a paw of sharpened claws slit from where he’d bitten the fiend, and slit downwards until reaching the groin area. Sucks for this guy if he wished to have some icekids with a nice icelady or something.

It was at this moment, when he began to attack yet another sculpture, snarling horrendously as he did so, and drawing even more false blood onto his chest area, that his brief interval of allowed destruction was at its end. At this time, his head, chest, and front right appendage were completely drenched in the stuff, swapping the natural tone of mixed greys to that of a liquid purple. For one, it tasted vile. For two, the paint smelled just as vile.

Strutting satisfyingly away from the scene to get cleaned up, his eyes widened out of piercing realization - his razor was in his satchel the entire time.