Luke
He had both trained with and trained some of the best men his country and the world had to offer over his military career. As a legacy child of one of the most distinguished pedigrees in the martial world, he had grown up around all kinds of fighters. Matter of fact he was actually the greatest genius his clan had produced in the past few centuries. He had gained mastery of all the external martial arts within his clan at the tender age of 16.
He proceeded to develop his internal martial arts to a level that rivalled martial artists twice his age by the time he was 20 years old. He finally left his home in search of glory and using one of his family's connections he joined the military. He worked his way up and in a few short years, he became a commander at the tender age of 24. he had subordinates who were over 10 years older than him, yet they showed no disrespect or disgruntlement. Why? Because the legend of the demon was famous in the military world.
In a nutshell, Luke was a fighting genius and an expert trainer. However, that very genius was shocked. The source of his shock? Leo August. A kid no one had heard of and who seemed to possess zero martial arts background whatsoever. The kid had some impressive abilities and he possessed basic fighting skills. However at the beginning of their training, Luke had clearly labelled him as trash. Trash that could stink less with the right handling but trash nonetheless.
The kid had a good grasp of techniques but somehow he had very poor fundamentals. It was almost as if someone had shown the kid the moves but didn't teach him a basic foundation. He possessed no defensive instinct during a fight and only knew how to dodge and evade using his inhuman senses and reaction ability however that was not enough to fight true experts out to kill you, let alone the monsters who infected their world now.
He also lacked the resolve necessary to deliver attacks to take down his opponents. In other words, Leo was just like a box of the best ingredients to make the best dish however he didn't know how to cook them and combine them into a masterpiece. And so he was judged as trash. Luke then began his training by trying to develop his fighting instinct. Usually, you were either born with such an instinct such as with geniuses like Luke or you developed them over years of gruelling battles to hone it. But the kid seemed like he was rushing towards something so Luke chose the quickest method. To fight an opponent, several leagues, above you to improve by adaptation.
And so he pummelled the kid. He structured it into two bouts with very little resting time in between. He would allow Leo to attack him with no counter-attacks from him with him simply using internal martial arts to avoid and or negate the attacks then after he tired himself out, he would then begin to attack him with about 10% of his ability as an external martial artist. This was a technique his grandfather used to train those he saw potential in. His grandfather called it the hammer and anvil technique. He used to think that this was about its training of attack and defensive instincts respectively until one day when his grandfather remarked with an evil look on his face that the trainee was like a potential sword getting pummelled between a hammer and anvil which led Luke to break into a cold sweat back then.
Luke originally wanted to test the limits of Leo's determination and body and see how many rounds on the Anvil he could go, he expected him to clock out at 10 but then the little maniac exceeded expectations by persisting until the 25th bout before finally giving in. This made Luke see him in a different light. He was no longer just trash but was more of recyclable material. They called it quits and then went to rest. During the night, Luke heard the kid groan and shout in his sleep in a way that showed that he was quite troubled. And after the little Leo had said of his story and what he could deduce, he didn't blame him.
In the new world, sad stories were a dime a dozen, Luke decided he would try to help him as much as he could. He had never really had a sibling bond because even his blood relatives were just rivals to him and even his men at arms were good subordinates. This would be a new experience indeed. "Well, here goes nothing," he whispered to himself as he began to meditate and use his family's chi technique to manipulate and gather the ambient energy to grow his power.
This was four weeks ago, so the question is why was the Demon shocked? Well, it is because the trash he casually fought with one arm for 25 bouts on the first day, increased the number to 30 on the second and 50 on the third. By the second week, it had risen to an average of 120 bouts daily. In the third week, he was forced to use two arms to deflect and defend. Now in the fourth week, he was forced to actually attack with both hands. Given it was a fraction of his power with no chi, it was impressive growth in a month. It rivalled even some talents from his clan.
He had judged wrong because the trash was actually a tiger cub instead. Things had become interesting.
Leo
He did it, he finally did it. He got that monster to use both hands in his attacks. These past few weeks he had been bitterly accumulating bruises as he fought to improve his skills. He would use his reflexes and superior senses to try and last longer. All the while observing and slowly emulating the grace with which Jacobs moved. He would assimilate that in his goal to fluidly combine his three fighting styles. He had given up on trying to read and predict how his opponent moved next. Instead, he fully allowed his body to get used to how to dodge and follow through on attacks.
He had always had this idea about fights being ended in one critical attack and while that was a beautiful idea, it was mostly unrealistic especially when fighting skilled fighters at the same level or higher than your own. The goal was to create a dance of movement that switched from attack and defence fluidly in tandem with your opponent, all in an attempt to break their rhythm and incapacitate them. That required your own attacks and defence to be fluid and superior enough to ruin theirs.
And so that was what Leo ate and breathed every second of the day. If he wasn't physically fighting then he ran simulations in his head as he meditated. He used every single moment he could spare to develop himself to be a master. Somehow subconsciously, his muscles and bones and tendons began to develop into the ideal shapes and sizes to guarantee fluidity. He found himself able to make transitions from wing Chun to taekwondo and tai chi as easily as his head left or right.
The first few days he struggled to eliminate the obvious mistakes in his own movements and to find his true centre. The more he got pummelled or that his punches and kicks overreached, the more he could self adjust. He learned to slowly turn off his predictive and analytical skills and would try to fight off instinct. The only ability he would use his hyper cognition during their bouts was the memorisation skills. He would remember every twist, jab, dodge, and painful throw he experienced during their fights.
After getting his ass handed to him quite painfully each day, he would take one really long shower to cool down and reorient his mind for the second part of his daily training. The analysis and assimilation. He would lie on his bed and then as if it was a movie playing back in his head, he would see every single second of their many bouts on a loop as he fully analysed what he did wrong and how Luke moved at that point or other. All in an effort to perfect his own movements.
After about 6 hours of that pseudo-sleep/meditative, he would rise fully invigorated and then begin his early morning warm-up where he would begin to test his movements and fight a shadow version of Luke to see if he could destroy the version of the Demon who had beat him. He would try different combinations of his core martial arts to try and develop different ways to evade or counter each particular attack. In this way, he programmed the movements into his own muscles and improved his fighting instincts. This was how a different version of him fought Luke with each successive day.
All these mini transformations had allowed him to finally force Luke to attack with both hands. The gruelling training had finally paid off and his joy was the kind to make a man shed tears of joy. Leo probably would have done a little jig in celebration if Luke wasn't standing there staring at his clenched right fist with a very menacing aura billowing off his body. Shit was about to go down.
"Ah, I love when a little cub starts to develop its fangs because that is when it is qualified to see just how deadly this dog eat dog world really is. don't you agree little bro?" Luke asked with a casual smile as he cracked his knuckles quite audibly. Leo had goosebumps all over his skin from the moment he saw the demon smile at him and his weird words did not help him. His instincts told him that he had really poked the bear. Another part of him felt excited since he was now being taken seriously.
"From this moment onwards I will train you how the geniuses of my family were trained kid, if you can survive the training for 5 months then I will finally consider worthy of a secret that will guarantee you unlimited power especially in this new and magical world we live in now. Do you accept?" Luke asked this in a very solemn voice which contained a tinge of foreboding.
Leo was visibly shaking, be it from excitement or from fear it was difficult to tell for most people, but Luke saw his eyes. There was a resolve reflected in them, almost a mad obsession that was so clear to see. ' The kid truly is crazy about attaining power,' Luke thought to himself. " I am prepared to do anything I need to do to achieve my mission, including selling my soul to the darkest forces so agreeing a deal with the Demon is nothing at all. Bring whatever you got big bro, I'm ready." Leo said in a very serious voice with his hands grasping the sides of his pants tightly. His emotional turmoil was evident but his resolve was without doubt.
Luke smiled and then gestured to him with a closed fist, "You're my protege, for now, show me if you're worthy of becoming my legacy successor." he then took a fighting stance to show that the fight toward Leo's future would begin at that moment. Leo simply smiled and then he took a defensive stance to finish his turn as the Anvil.