The Knights of Scooby
Chapter Nine
by Lionheart
*-*-*-*-*
Feedback is the coin of the realm.
*-*-*-*-*
Mind-scapes can be an interesting thing. For one, they are fully subjective, weeks, months or even years may pass in mental space for each moment of real time.
This was fortunate in XanderÆs case, as he had much to learn.
Due to a cosmic coincidence, XanderÆs ancestry stretched back in California far longer than anyone supposed, and according to the man himself, Xander was a direct male-line descendant of Zorro, although intervening generations had done much to obscure his Spanish origins.
The one thing they had not dimmed in the slightest, at least in XanderÆs case, was the pure, undefiled reaction to true evil - he would resist it to his last breath, and beyond if required.
The dead hero was quite pleased to see that trait of his resurging. Nor was he the only spirit so delighted by the appearance of a True Hero, even a neophyte one.
One thing about the dead is they are pretty well informed about who is killing them. No repressing there! Death was the ultimate Wake Up call. Enough lives had been destroyed in Sunnydale that the ghosts of those who had passed on had no doubts at all about who was behind it, having traced back who and what was responsible. They even had names and addresses of Mayor WilkinÆs entire organization, plus any independents he tolerated, and they were willing to share it all with someone who was willing to avenge them.
No, willing did not cover it. They were positively EAGER!
So it was that Xander learned far more than he had ever supposed about his mayor and the night life of Sunnydale. In fact, he knew more than Wilkins and his cronies did about the particulars.
But first, before he could afford to do anything about that, his ancestor had some things to teach him.
It turned out Mayor Wilkins was far from the first corrupt magician to gain an office and use demons or undead to oppress his people. There were other, much more famous ones, even ones right there in California.
Apparently, the Spanish Governor of California had been one such, once upon a time. He was far less famous, however, than the hero who had faced him. A man known to history as Don Diego, but otherwise remembered in legend and folklore as the amazing masked bandit Zorro.
Most renditions of that story did not have him dealing out destruction to the undead and demons a corrupt and greedy Spanish Governor used to terrorize his peasants into obedience, but who would have believed such a tale anyway? So, as it passed from mouth to mouth, it became soldiers instead of demons, corrupt tax men stealing life in the form of desperately needed coins rather than vampires who took it direct from veins.
But the Hellmouth was hardly a new invention, and it was those Spaniards who had named it Boca del Infierno. They were aware of it, and the corrupt mayor of Sunnydale was not the first greedy and power-hungry man to make use of it for personal advantage. Or the first to be fought or resisted on it.
So Zorro was not only a hero who knew a great deal about fighting, he had direct experience facing exactly those same types of foes as Xander did.
The youthÆs gratitude on meeting this ancestor could not be described in words, as the teen had been very nearly broken by his burdens at the time heÆd made his call for help, and his many-times-great grandfather was the perfect man to answer the call.
And it wasnÆt just that he was a supremely practical fighter of evil, but that he had the capacity to give his many-times-removed grandson the one thing he truly lacked that no other could give him.
A loving family.
Don Diego and his wife, Esperanza, welcomed Xander into their home, and did what no one could outside of the fluid realms of dreams - they shrank him back to a kid and raised him all over again. And the couple had experience doing it right, as there were quite a few legends of the æSon of ZorroÆ being as much of a man and hero as his father had been.
Xander got to spend fourteen subjective years being a child of the de la Vega family, growing up all over again with mists to shroud his mind so he could not recall his previous childhood while they did so, and thus they could do it right this time.
It would not erase his former childhood, nor could they stop him from having those memories after he had woken up. However, being the child of the de la Vegas in what was at least a subjective reality did give him another road map as for how a family ought to function.
It was all very well and good for Xander to resolve not to be like Jessica and Tony. But neither his resolve, nor Mr. Mage DudeÆs command, gave him any other pattern to follow.
Most people just go through life following the patterns they know.
Forging new territory was always hard, and particularly so when there was another option, even a bad one, waiting nearby. It could be so easy to slip and fall back into those known behavior patterns rather than stick to the effort required to make new ones.
And, in fact, that very equation of effort versus ease had doomed many good hearted and well meaning youths of awful parents before this. By no means all, but many.
However, by having memories of a lifetime raised by good parents, even if only in a dream (albeit a full sensory one with real person interactions), Xander now had options he did not have before. He UNDERSTOOD how good families were to operate! And thus, rather than having to forge some habits out of scrap ideas, he merely had to choose between ones already known.
Once put on that footing it was no contest. Obviously, he preferred those patterns taught to him by Zorro and his wife and children, as they knew how to be productive and happy and his own original parents hadnÆt.
So that was a good thing.
This did not erase his previous childhood. It was merely a very intense dream, one where he, for a time, could not recall his original upbringing (all of which would return before he woke), and hung around interacting with the ghosts of his ancestors who took time out of their afterlives to teach him things.
As they did so they quite deliberately loaded his mind with all of the tools and habits necessary for it to treat its own wounds, so the memories and scars of abuse and neglect could fade away, leaving only the good stuff, and leave behind the hard core of an iron strong young man, further sharpened by his new experiences with his ancient ancestors.
Dreamtime was not realtime, and it was infinitely more flexible. So there also came a number of skills not purely related to his mental health from having spent a subjective decade or two on the de la Vega Hacienda.
Everything that a cowboy is supposed to know, they taught, including how to ride (and not just ride, but ride hard, ride fast, ride long and do tricks while performing all of the above), rope, lasso, use a whip or a branding iron, run a ranch and also manage a prosperous farm or estate, build with adobe, cut wood, shoe horses, saw timber, mend fences, shingle, and in all other ways survive on a plot of land a few thousand miles from civilization where if you couldnÆt do a chore it didnÆt get done.
In the modern world one economic law rules above all: That if you canÆt buy it, you canÆt have it. However, back in those ancient days of the untamed wilds another law once stood: That if you canÆt MAKE it, you donÆt have it.
That applied to food and clothes and just about everything else.
So the people of the day made practically everything themselves. It was a day of craftsmen and practical engineers, where men worked first to create tools, then used them to construct farms, mines, towns and eventually cities, including every little detail along the way, from printing presses with movable type to washbasins and all of the daily necessities.
It was freedom of a sort that few modern people could imagine. Yes, the work was hard, but you owed nothing to anyone. And, aside from your land or health, there was nothing you could lose that you could not replace by your own labors. You were independent of just about everyone else.
And if they saw something in a shop window but couldnÆt afford it, most of the time those hardy people could go home and make their own.
There were exceptions to this, of course, but not as many as youÆd think.
The rich, of course, didnÆt bother so much with doing things on their own, and as prosperity and civilization spread so did specializations, so it became easy not to know how to do everything you needed to stay alive because more and more it became possible to rent out your services at one specialty and use that money to buy the labors of other specialists in turn.
However, in 18th century California that was nearly impossible, as it was nearly a wasteland in most places and the population too low for specialists to have any effect on the necessity of taking care of yourself.
So Xander stood there helping and learning while the ghosts of his many-times-great grandfatherÆs workers did everything you can imagine from blacksmithy on down to making cheeses. They werenÆt the best cheeses in the world, but you could make a taco out of them.
In the dream to which he had been drawn, Xander effectively lived the life of a young boy being raised on the Hacienda. Nor was Zorro a proud noble who disdained to use or learn the skills of those peasants who were beneath him. If there was wood to be carved or bricks to be formed, he was there at least knowing how to do it so that he could supervise properly, which often meant being better than the men doing the actual labor.
Carpentry, bricklaying, brickMAKING, stonecutting and carving, blacksmithy and leatherworking, all of this was there as an integral part of life on the Hacienda, and in more cases than not Zorro did his own work, as it was difficult to hide your secret rooms or passageways, fittings for a distinctive saddle on a very well known horse, and so on otherwise.
Similarly, making repairs on a very famous sword, or crafting a replacement those few times it became necessary. To keep a secret in a small community where everyone knows everyone else, you had to do all of the hidden work in private, else everyone would instantly be able to see through your disguise.
It would not be, ôWho is that masked man?ö but instead rather, ôOh, I see Don Diego is out riding in that mask I made for him.ö
Xander, quite naturally did all of this with him, learning by the side of his very skilled ancestor (this whole thing WAS set up for his benefit after all - as the ranch and farm of the de la Vegas no longer existed and the building of walls or performing of chores no longer needed to happen, they and other ghosts who were helping had all just arranged this for their descendantÆs education).
And boy was it an education!
There was, on the most obvious level, the basic essentials of getting by and making your own living beholden to no other man. How to feed, clothe and build shelter for yourself, even achieving a fair degree of comfort using nothing that you couldnÆt create with your own two hands or tools that you made with those two hands.
And then there were the next stage beyond, where they taught him how to eat and dress and act properly with what was then high society on the wild frontier, lessons that were surprisingly applicable just about anywhere as the basics had stayed unchanged for quite some time.
The third level yet was the fun, heroic stuff, where his famous grandsire passed on those skills that made him Zorro.
Obviously, the ones most practical to XanderÆs dangerous situation centered around how to fight effectively, which the Spaniard knew well. The fighting arts had been just as thoroughly studied in Europe as in the Orient. Boxing, fencing, wresting... the ancestors of these modern sports had been fighting arts surprisingly far more deadly than their rather tame descendants.
The most extreme example was in Fencing, where the modern sport to bear that name bore practically no resemblance at all to the once deadly art of swordsmanship, save they were called by the same word. To fence, in the ancient term, was every bit as deadly as those duels fought by samurai who crossed swords in the East and died by thousands.
The main difference lay that in the East, masters sought students to carry on their schools as a legacy, while in the West the most skilled masters of those deadly arts rarely taught them to anyone, and did not record their arts for fear of facing their own pupils in battle some day, wanting to retain whatever advantages they had discovered against possible rivals.
It was a violent age when warriors could expect to walk out the door at any moment and enter combat. These men were not so much concerned with following along with one style or instructor. Rather, they were concerned with pragmatic methods of practical fighting, in other words, with acquiring the personal skills to simply protect themselves and defeat enemies.
However, in quality, those masters in Europe could walk as equals with their counterparts in the East, and Zorro was one such master, trained by the best available at the height of such dueling and his skills further refined by his natural genius and grown only more deadly through his great experience.
But there came a time not long after when duels and challenges were on the decline and it became no longer acceptable for so many students to die or be injured learning and practicing those extremely deadly fighting styles. So, those who wished for those legacies to live on chose to convert them to ever less deadly forms, safer to learn and to practice, until they had been wholly converted from deadly fighting arts to recreational sports, safe for anyone, where a minor injury was a small tragedy.
However, in a true life or death struggle, there are no rules, and those much diluted practices could no longer ensure any real degree of safety, as their parent arts once had.
The practice of historical fencing or real swordsmanship was not about accommodating participants, building self-esteem, or feeling good; it was about functioning effectively as a fighter in a combat situation willing to take any advantage offered, with the whole body considered a legitimate target. That kind of combat training could not be made accessible for everyone without eliminating the very struggle for dominance that it embodied.
And ZorroÆs mastery of it had been nearly supreme for his place and time.
Upon being summoned, he began teaching the boy how to take on the job of his successor, all in a single night. Of course, there was no guarantee that his descendant would ever fully master those arts like his famous ancestor had. Training, no matter the source, was still only training. It was up to the pupil to take what was being taught and make it his own, to convert it from drills and theory into practical application adaptable to any situation.
However, nothing ever learned like a motivated student.
Zorro was, as Xander knew from the comic books, a major inspiration for the character Batman. And there was a good reason for that, as the infamous banditÆs descendant discovered. He was an extremely agile athlete and acrobat, using his bullwhip as a gymnastic accouterment to swing through gaps between the city's roofs. He was very capable of landing from great heights and taking a fall, and, although an expert swordsman, had more than once demonstrated his more than able prowess in unarmed combat, even against as many as twenty armed opponents.
Early on, he had also used a pistol.
His calculating and precise dexterity had enabled him to use his two main weapons, his sword and bullwhip, as an extension of his very sleight hand. He never relied on brute strength, more his fox-like sly mind and well-practiced technique to outmatch opponent after opponent.
Usually he used psychological mockery to make his opponents too angry to be coordinated in combat. But he was very adaptable to any circumstance. He had used his cape as a blind, a trip-mat, and (most effectively) a disarming tool. Zorro's boots and hat were also weighted, which he had thrown, frisbee-like, as an efficiently substantial taunt to his enemies. He also had a medium-sized dagger tucked in his left boot for emergencies.
His horse, Tornado, had well lived up to his name, outrunning entire armies, overtaking enemies miles away, even catching up to a full speeding train so that Zorro could save his wife and son. As an inspiration to the crowds that love Zorro dearly, he would often rear up in the distance, with the sun behind him, and raising his sword to symbolize victory to the people of his beloved country.
It was a cliche, but things only become cliches when they were so effective the first time that they get endlessly repeated.
Just like the Spanish hero who used rapier, fists, whip and pistol to fight evil had spawned distorted reflections in the form of a fist-fighting, line-swinging Batman, and a pistol armed archeologist by the name of Indiana Jones who copied his whip work over almost point.
The changes wrought by this training on Xander were both very huge, and so small as to be inconsequential. Truly, as the Heir of Zorro the fourteen year old boy was a completely different man. But, at the heart and core of him, he was very much the same as heÆd always been.
Time would tell what heÆd become, but already heÆd broken the mold that Fate had once assigned him.
Right before waking up after a very long and event-filled night of the most intense, time distorted dreams, Don Diego gave his many times removed son a last walk through the by now intimately familiar Spanish manor house, and gave him some pep talks and final advice.
The last words of this great hero to his not so far removed descendant were enough to resound in XanderÆs mind long afterwards. ôThere are many things that cannot be taught, but must be learned all the same. You are fortunate, my little fox, in that you have already come to realize some of them. In time, you will learn more. Go now. Do not look back or pine with wishes to return to us. Life is short, and even if you life hundreds of years we will still be here when you cross into the afterlife to join us. Come back with honor, my son.ö
Xander startled as he awoke to find Willow draped all over him, crying.
*-*-*-*-*
Thankfully, the hospital had not been called, but it was a near thing.
Xander had been asleep for over twelve hours, long enough for his friends to get suspicious and for Willow to go looking for him, finding him once again in his room passed out, she had nearly dialed the hospitalÆs emergency number.
The youth was glad that she hadnÆt as explanations were already awkward enough. Once they got together with the rest of the group they were all day recounting events and setting things straight.
Xander was rambling as they all left a fast food joint together, after having conveyed most of the pertinent details of his story already. ôDid you know Zorro is Spanish for fox? Why canÆt they teach practical stuff like that in school? Most of our books are on how to ask directions, and youÆd be hard-pressed to find something more useless, since youÆd never understand the answers you got anyway.ö
Willow giggled despite the light blush that had prevailed upon her fair complexion all day as the New And Improved Xander had, quite unconsciously, been treating her with all of the gentle courtesy that proper Victorian men gave to their ladies.
The part of her that wanted to raise a standard for feminism was ruthlessly squashed down by the much larger part that wanted Xander to treat her like this forever.
Yes, sad but true, sheÆd rather be pampered than liberated. Romance does often have that effect upon impressionable young things like her.
Amused at having watching this interaction all day, Jesse proudly inflated his chest and declared, ôWell, other than a sudden appreciation for Mexican food that is downright spooky. IÆd have to say that he looks like our Xan, he acts much like our own Xand-man, and since nobody on this hemisphere dresses like him, IÆm tempted to say this is the genuine article.ö
Amy giggled at JesseÆs dissertation.
ôAccept no substitutes.ö Xander agreed with his friend, then shrugged. ôOn the plus side, I know what Boca del Infierno means. This place is the literal mouth of hell, a dimensional weak point on which icky grossness feeds and that attracts bad guys of every kind.ö
Now Amy giggled into her hand, looking up to challenge Xander with shining eyes. ôAnd we know just the masked man to do something about it!ö
End of Chapter Nine
AuthorÆs Notes:
Not much more than a training collage, but those have to be gone through from time to time as you level up a character. I had a hard time doing this one, though.
Oh, well. Hopefully more fun stuff awaits us beyond.
Chapter Nine
by Lionheart
*-*-*-*-*
Feedback is the coin of the realm.
*-*-*-*-*
Mind-scapes can be an interesting thing. For one, they are fully subjective, weeks, months or even years may pass in mental space for each moment of real time.
This was fortunate in XanderÆs case, as he had much to learn.
Due to a cosmic coincidence, XanderÆs ancestry stretched back in California far longer than anyone supposed, and according to the man himself, Xander was a direct male-line descendant of Zorro, although intervening generations had done much to obscure his Spanish origins.
The one thing they had not dimmed in the slightest, at least in XanderÆs case, was the pure, undefiled reaction to true evil - he would resist it to his last breath, and beyond if required.
The dead hero was quite pleased to see that trait of his resurging. Nor was he the only spirit so delighted by the appearance of a True Hero, even a neophyte one.
One thing about the dead is they are pretty well informed about who is killing them. No repressing there! Death was the ultimate Wake Up call. Enough lives had been destroyed in Sunnydale that the ghosts of those who had passed on had no doubts at all about who was behind it, having traced back who and what was responsible. They even had names and addresses of Mayor WilkinÆs entire organization, plus any independents he tolerated, and they were willing to share it all with someone who was willing to avenge them.
No, willing did not cover it. They were positively EAGER!
So it was that Xander learned far more than he had ever supposed about his mayor and the night life of Sunnydale. In fact, he knew more than Wilkins and his cronies did about the particulars.
But first, before he could afford to do anything about that, his ancestor had some things to teach him.
It turned out Mayor Wilkins was far from the first corrupt magician to gain an office and use demons or undead to oppress his people. There were other, much more famous ones, even ones right there in California.
Apparently, the Spanish Governor of California had been one such, once upon a time. He was far less famous, however, than the hero who had faced him. A man known to history as Don Diego, but otherwise remembered in legend and folklore as the amazing masked bandit Zorro.
Most renditions of that story did not have him dealing out destruction to the undead and demons a corrupt and greedy Spanish Governor used to terrorize his peasants into obedience, but who would have believed such a tale anyway? So, as it passed from mouth to mouth, it became soldiers instead of demons, corrupt tax men stealing life in the form of desperately needed coins rather than vampires who took it direct from veins.
But the Hellmouth was hardly a new invention, and it was those Spaniards who had named it Boca del Infierno. They were aware of it, and the corrupt mayor of Sunnydale was not the first greedy and power-hungry man to make use of it for personal advantage. Or the first to be fought or resisted on it.
So Zorro was not only a hero who knew a great deal about fighting, he had direct experience facing exactly those same types of foes as Xander did.
The youthÆs gratitude on meeting this ancestor could not be described in words, as the teen had been very nearly broken by his burdens at the time heÆd made his call for help, and his many-times-great grandfather was the perfect man to answer the call.
And it wasnÆt just that he was a supremely practical fighter of evil, but that he had the capacity to give his many-times-removed grandson the one thing he truly lacked that no other could give him.
A loving family.
Don Diego and his wife, Esperanza, welcomed Xander into their home, and did what no one could outside of the fluid realms of dreams - they shrank him back to a kid and raised him all over again. And the couple had experience doing it right, as there were quite a few legends of the æSon of ZorroÆ being as much of a man and hero as his father had been.
Xander got to spend fourteen subjective years being a child of the de la Vega family, growing up all over again with mists to shroud his mind so he could not recall his previous childhood while they did so, and thus they could do it right this time.
It would not erase his former childhood, nor could they stop him from having those memories after he had woken up. However, being the child of the de la Vegas in what was at least a subjective reality did give him another road map as for how a family ought to function.
It was all very well and good for Xander to resolve not to be like Jessica and Tony. But neither his resolve, nor Mr. Mage DudeÆs command, gave him any other pattern to follow.
Most people just go through life following the patterns they know.
Forging new territory was always hard, and particularly so when there was another option, even a bad one, waiting nearby. It could be so easy to slip and fall back into those known behavior patterns rather than stick to the effort required to make new ones.
And, in fact, that very equation of effort versus ease had doomed many good hearted and well meaning youths of awful parents before this. By no means all, but many.
However, by having memories of a lifetime raised by good parents, even if only in a dream (albeit a full sensory one with real person interactions), Xander now had options he did not have before. He UNDERSTOOD how good families were to operate! And thus, rather than having to forge some habits out of scrap ideas, he merely had to choose between ones already known.
Once put on that footing it was no contest. Obviously, he preferred those patterns taught to him by Zorro and his wife and children, as they knew how to be productive and happy and his own original parents hadnÆt.
So that was a good thing.
This did not erase his previous childhood. It was merely a very intense dream, one where he, for a time, could not recall his original upbringing (all of which would return before he woke), and hung around interacting with the ghosts of his ancestors who took time out of their afterlives to teach him things.
As they did so they quite deliberately loaded his mind with all of the tools and habits necessary for it to treat its own wounds, so the memories and scars of abuse and neglect could fade away, leaving only the good stuff, and leave behind the hard core of an iron strong young man, further sharpened by his new experiences with his ancient ancestors.
Dreamtime was not realtime, and it was infinitely more flexible. So there also came a number of skills not purely related to his mental health from having spent a subjective decade or two on the de la Vega Hacienda.
Everything that a cowboy is supposed to know, they taught, including how to ride (and not just ride, but ride hard, ride fast, ride long and do tricks while performing all of the above), rope, lasso, use a whip or a branding iron, run a ranch and also manage a prosperous farm or estate, build with adobe, cut wood, shoe horses, saw timber, mend fences, shingle, and in all other ways survive on a plot of land a few thousand miles from civilization where if you couldnÆt do a chore it didnÆt get done.
In the modern world one economic law rules above all: That if you canÆt buy it, you canÆt have it. However, back in those ancient days of the untamed wilds another law once stood: That if you canÆt MAKE it, you donÆt have it.
That applied to food and clothes and just about everything else.
So the people of the day made practically everything themselves. It was a day of craftsmen and practical engineers, where men worked first to create tools, then used them to construct farms, mines, towns and eventually cities, including every little detail along the way, from printing presses with movable type to washbasins and all of the daily necessities.
It was freedom of a sort that few modern people could imagine. Yes, the work was hard, but you owed nothing to anyone. And, aside from your land or health, there was nothing you could lose that you could not replace by your own labors. You were independent of just about everyone else.
And if they saw something in a shop window but couldnÆt afford it, most of the time those hardy people could go home and make their own.
There were exceptions to this, of course, but not as many as youÆd think.
The rich, of course, didnÆt bother so much with doing things on their own, and as prosperity and civilization spread so did specializations, so it became easy not to know how to do everything you needed to stay alive because more and more it became possible to rent out your services at one specialty and use that money to buy the labors of other specialists in turn.
However, in 18th century California that was nearly impossible, as it was nearly a wasteland in most places and the population too low for specialists to have any effect on the necessity of taking care of yourself.
So Xander stood there helping and learning while the ghosts of his many-times-great grandfatherÆs workers did everything you can imagine from blacksmithy on down to making cheeses. They werenÆt the best cheeses in the world, but you could make a taco out of them.
In the dream to which he had been drawn, Xander effectively lived the life of a young boy being raised on the Hacienda. Nor was Zorro a proud noble who disdained to use or learn the skills of those peasants who were beneath him. If there was wood to be carved or bricks to be formed, he was there at least knowing how to do it so that he could supervise properly, which often meant being better than the men doing the actual labor.
Carpentry, bricklaying, brickMAKING, stonecutting and carving, blacksmithy and leatherworking, all of this was there as an integral part of life on the Hacienda, and in more cases than not Zorro did his own work, as it was difficult to hide your secret rooms or passageways, fittings for a distinctive saddle on a very well known horse, and so on otherwise.
Similarly, making repairs on a very famous sword, or crafting a replacement those few times it became necessary. To keep a secret in a small community where everyone knows everyone else, you had to do all of the hidden work in private, else everyone would instantly be able to see through your disguise.
It would not be, ôWho is that masked man?ö but instead rather, ôOh, I see Don Diego is out riding in that mask I made for him.ö
Xander, quite naturally did all of this with him, learning by the side of his very skilled ancestor (this whole thing WAS set up for his benefit after all - as the ranch and farm of the de la Vegas no longer existed and the building of walls or performing of chores no longer needed to happen, they and other ghosts who were helping had all just arranged this for their descendantÆs education).
And boy was it an education!
There was, on the most obvious level, the basic essentials of getting by and making your own living beholden to no other man. How to feed, clothe and build shelter for yourself, even achieving a fair degree of comfort using nothing that you couldnÆt create with your own two hands or tools that you made with those two hands.
And then there were the next stage beyond, where they taught him how to eat and dress and act properly with what was then high society on the wild frontier, lessons that were surprisingly applicable just about anywhere as the basics had stayed unchanged for quite some time.
The third level yet was the fun, heroic stuff, where his famous grandsire passed on those skills that made him Zorro.
Obviously, the ones most practical to XanderÆs dangerous situation centered around how to fight effectively, which the Spaniard knew well. The fighting arts had been just as thoroughly studied in Europe as in the Orient. Boxing, fencing, wresting... the ancestors of these modern sports had been fighting arts surprisingly far more deadly than their rather tame descendants.
The most extreme example was in Fencing, where the modern sport to bear that name bore practically no resemblance at all to the once deadly art of swordsmanship, save they were called by the same word. To fence, in the ancient term, was every bit as deadly as those duels fought by samurai who crossed swords in the East and died by thousands.
The main difference lay that in the East, masters sought students to carry on their schools as a legacy, while in the West the most skilled masters of those deadly arts rarely taught them to anyone, and did not record their arts for fear of facing their own pupils in battle some day, wanting to retain whatever advantages they had discovered against possible rivals.
It was a violent age when warriors could expect to walk out the door at any moment and enter combat. These men were not so much concerned with following along with one style or instructor. Rather, they were concerned with pragmatic methods of practical fighting, in other words, with acquiring the personal skills to simply protect themselves and defeat enemies.
However, in quality, those masters in Europe could walk as equals with their counterparts in the East, and Zorro was one such master, trained by the best available at the height of such dueling and his skills further refined by his natural genius and grown only more deadly through his great experience.
But there came a time not long after when duels and challenges were on the decline and it became no longer acceptable for so many students to die or be injured learning and practicing those extremely deadly fighting styles. So, those who wished for those legacies to live on chose to convert them to ever less deadly forms, safer to learn and to practice, until they had been wholly converted from deadly fighting arts to recreational sports, safe for anyone, where a minor injury was a small tragedy.
However, in a true life or death struggle, there are no rules, and those much diluted practices could no longer ensure any real degree of safety, as their parent arts once had.
The practice of historical fencing or real swordsmanship was not about accommodating participants, building self-esteem, or feeling good; it was about functioning effectively as a fighter in a combat situation willing to take any advantage offered, with the whole body considered a legitimate target. That kind of combat training could not be made accessible for everyone without eliminating the very struggle for dominance that it embodied.
And ZorroÆs mastery of it had been nearly supreme for his place and time.
Upon being summoned, he began teaching the boy how to take on the job of his successor, all in a single night. Of course, there was no guarantee that his descendant would ever fully master those arts like his famous ancestor had. Training, no matter the source, was still only training. It was up to the pupil to take what was being taught and make it his own, to convert it from drills and theory into practical application adaptable to any situation.
However, nothing ever learned like a motivated student.
Zorro was, as Xander knew from the comic books, a major inspiration for the character Batman. And there was a good reason for that, as the infamous banditÆs descendant discovered. He was an extremely agile athlete and acrobat, using his bullwhip as a gymnastic accouterment to swing through gaps between the city's roofs. He was very capable of landing from great heights and taking a fall, and, although an expert swordsman, had more than once demonstrated his more than able prowess in unarmed combat, even against as many as twenty armed opponents.
Early on, he had also used a pistol.
His calculating and precise dexterity had enabled him to use his two main weapons, his sword and bullwhip, as an extension of his very sleight hand. He never relied on brute strength, more his fox-like sly mind and well-practiced technique to outmatch opponent after opponent.
Usually he used psychological mockery to make his opponents too angry to be coordinated in combat. But he was very adaptable to any circumstance. He had used his cape as a blind, a trip-mat, and (most effectively) a disarming tool. Zorro's boots and hat were also weighted, which he had thrown, frisbee-like, as an efficiently substantial taunt to his enemies. He also had a medium-sized dagger tucked in his left boot for emergencies.
His horse, Tornado, had well lived up to his name, outrunning entire armies, overtaking enemies miles away, even catching up to a full speeding train so that Zorro could save his wife and son. As an inspiration to the crowds that love Zorro dearly, he would often rear up in the distance, with the sun behind him, and raising his sword to symbolize victory to the people of his beloved country.
It was a cliche, but things only become cliches when they were so effective the first time that they get endlessly repeated.
Just like the Spanish hero who used rapier, fists, whip and pistol to fight evil had spawned distorted reflections in the form of a fist-fighting, line-swinging Batman, and a pistol armed archeologist by the name of Indiana Jones who copied his whip work over almost point.
The changes wrought by this training on Xander were both very huge, and so small as to be inconsequential. Truly, as the Heir of Zorro the fourteen year old boy was a completely different man. But, at the heart and core of him, he was very much the same as heÆd always been.
Time would tell what heÆd become, but already heÆd broken the mold that Fate had once assigned him.
Right before waking up after a very long and event-filled night of the most intense, time distorted dreams, Don Diego gave his many times removed son a last walk through the by now intimately familiar Spanish manor house, and gave him some pep talks and final advice.
The last words of this great hero to his not so far removed descendant were enough to resound in XanderÆs mind long afterwards. ôThere are many things that cannot be taught, but must be learned all the same. You are fortunate, my little fox, in that you have already come to realize some of them. In time, you will learn more. Go now. Do not look back or pine with wishes to return to us. Life is short, and even if you life hundreds of years we will still be here when you cross into the afterlife to join us. Come back with honor, my son.ö
Xander startled as he awoke to find Willow draped all over him, crying.
*-*-*-*-*
Thankfully, the hospital had not been called, but it was a near thing.
Xander had been asleep for over twelve hours, long enough for his friends to get suspicious and for Willow to go looking for him, finding him once again in his room passed out, she had nearly dialed the hospitalÆs emergency number.
The youth was glad that she hadnÆt as explanations were already awkward enough. Once they got together with the rest of the group they were all day recounting events and setting things straight.
Xander was rambling as they all left a fast food joint together, after having conveyed most of the pertinent details of his story already. ôDid you know Zorro is Spanish for fox? Why canÆt they teach practical stuff like that in school? Most of our books are on how to ask directions, and youÆd be hard-pressed to find something more useless, since youÆd never understand the answers you got anyway.ö
Willow giggled despite the light blush that had prevailed upon her fair complexion all day as the New And Improved Xander had, quite unconsciously, been treating her with all of the gentle courtesy that proper Victorian men gave to their ladies.
The part of her that wanted to raise a standard for feminism was ruthlessly squashed down by the much larger part that wanted Xander to treat her like this forever.
Yes, sad but true, sheÆd rather be pampered than liberated. Romance does often have that effect upon impressionable young things like her.
Amused at having watching this interaction all day, Jesse proudly inflated his chest and declared, ôWell, other than a sudden appreciation for Mexican food that is downright spooky. IÆd have to say that he looks like our Xan, he acts much like our own Xand-man, and since nobody on this hemisphere dresses like him, IÆm tempted to say this is the genuine article.ö
Amy giggled at JesseÆs dissertation.
ôAccept no substitutes.ö Xander agreed with his friend, then shrugged. ôOn the plus side, I know what Boca del Infierno means. This place is the literal mouth of hell, a dimensional weak point on which icky grossness feeds and that attracts bad guys of every kind.ö
Now Amy giggled into her hand, looking up to challenge Xander with shining eyes. ôAnd we know just the masked man to do something about it!ö
End of Chapter Nine
AuthorÆs Notes:
Not much more than a training collage, but those have to be gone through from time to time as you level up a character. I had a hard time doing this one, though.
Oh, well. Hopefully more fun stuff awaits us beyond.
