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On a sunny morning, brewing with life, a beautiful day in Ionia was rising. Along a dirt path, a tall man could be seen walking, with somewhat visible bruises and cuts. Some bandaged, some not. This human vastayan hybrid would be Sett, the owner of the Pit. The most popular fighting arena in all of Ionia.
Yesterday was one of the most exciting days he had ever experienced. At first, it seemed it was just going to be another day, still entertaining, but nevertheless still samey as many other days. That was until a bunch of fish people, or whatever they were, barged into the arena with their leader named Jack, challenging him to a fight. Oh, how could he refuse such an opportunity? And on top of that, Samira, a noxian mercenary he heard more than enough about and her reputation, was hunting some poor guy with her crew there as well. The chaos that night was off the charts. And so was his fun. Sett admits that Jack put up a good fight. Probably the best brawl he had in years. But growing bigger and stronger in the middle of the fight could only do so much to help you. So in the end, Sett came out with a decisive victory.
Overconfidence is a massive hindrance if you can't back it up.
He learned that fact in his younger years the hard way. Yes, as he is known now, everyone thinks he was completely undefeated when he started out as just a fighter in the pit before he took it over. That though was not the truth. Before he became the owner of the pit, there was only one loss on his record that mysteriously got wiped as he got more popular. You would think at least one individual from a massive audience would remember it but somehow no. But unlike them, he remembers that day as if it were yesterday.
- - - Many years ago - - -
After a seemingly endless streak of wins, his young ego very much expectedly got a massive boost, which, when met with someone who gave Sett a hard time, made him go into mindless rage, swinging with no aim or thought. The bastard predicted everything Sett threw at him afterwards. The next thing he knew, he woke up in a bed outside of the arena, being told that he had lost. Sett instantly jumped off the bed and demanded to know who beat him, though, as they said, it was pointless since the man already left for lands outside Ionia right after the fight.
Not wanting to destroy the medical equipment nearby, Sett stormed off, wanting to refresh his mind and think over it until he found out what he did wrong. Unfortunately, since his recently scarred ego wouldn't let him process the correct thoughts, he spent the next ten hours walking in a straight line without even realizing it. Over cliffs, rivers and even pits. And by the time he did come to his senses, the half vastayan had, by accident, reached some kind of a sanctuary. With plants he had never seen in his life, carved stone ground with symbols he did not recognize, and a smell of tea. It smelled heavenly, but, of course, it was still miles away from ever reaching the tea his ma made. Nobody could surpass that.
Walking on the now stone path, Sett eventually came across a large, orange fur ball of a creature with white hair, a red/purple vest, a rope tied around his waist decorated with bells, and his back turned to him. Sett has heard of these yordles before and did technically meet several face to face, but that was always only a second long exchange before both parties continued with their day. He was about to ask who this yordle was until they responded first.
“What makes such a youngster come here of all places? I presume Meditating is not one of them.”
The yordle jumped while rotating midair to face Sett when he landed before continuing. “Oh, it’s always wonderful to meet another vastaya!” The chunky yordle gleefully smiled.
“Uh… half vastayan actually. My bastard father was a human.” Sett cautiously added, scratching the back of his head.
“You say that as if it were a bad thing. A half vastaya is still a vastaya. Now we should introduce ourselves. Me first.” The yordle wobbled to Sett to then present a handshake, which Sett obliged to. It was kind of weird since the yordle was half his height, but his hands were the size of his face, with his palms glowing and a swirling pattern on the back of each hand, but hey, he wouldn’t judge someone on such detail.
“My name is Kobuko.” The yordle simply said.
“A jolly sounding name you got there.” Sett said, wanting to be nice to this seemingly peaceful guy.
“And you would be right!” Kobuko cheerfully replied. “And you would be?”
“Sett.”
“Now, unlike me, that sounds like the name of someone who gets into fights a bunch but has a heart of gold. Though I am confident in being at least correct in the latter,. I can also see you seem troubled. Want to sit down and tell what happened? I got tea to freshen your mind as well.” said Kobuko joyfully.
Sett sighed. “Yeah, I would like that. Today has not been a good day.” He never thought he would be doing something like this in his life, drinking tea and relaxing with a yordle, but anything that would improve his day without him revealing his secret to his mother, he would take it.
After sitting down, with both of them tea in hands, Sett talked about his life, his mother and father, how he started going to the pit for fights since it made a lot of cash from something he was good at, and how his mother would not approve of anything like that. He then continued how, today, his wild way of fighting, which usually made his fights a breeze, was actually a detriment on this occasion. It felt weird pouring so much about himself to someone he just met, but... the yordle’s aura made him feel comfortable, and Kobuko’s way of speaking and character alone made him appear like an uncle you see only every few years or so.
The yordle also shared a part of their life, how he traveled the world discovering how cruel and harsh it was, and how he came across Ionia where he fell in love with the people, the environment, and the philosophies, and then added his own brand of yordle eccentricity to the mix. This had made Sett gain a lot of respect for Kobuko, since no person would willingly go to the freakin Shadow isles unless they were insane or knew what they were doing. Sett heard more than enough legends on what happens there.
“Hmm maybe it’s not your temper itself that needs calming. Perhaps you just need to learn to use it well.” Kobuko said before taking a sip from his cup and placing it next to him. He then stood up and walked in front of Sett. “You just need some good old training.”
“I never needed to train. I am the whole package from the start.” Sett said nonchalantly. “And besides there isn’t anyone who I can imagine training a half breed like me. Unless you know how to pull a punch.”
Kobuko chuckled at him. “You know, abroad, they say ‘never mess with a yordle’ for a reason.”
A sudden glare burst from Sett’s eyes, and he cracked his knuckles. “Oh, so you think you can take me on? Well, how about you prove it?” Right then he stood up and started walking towards the yordle with a walk filled with fighting spirit.
“Hoho! The attitude of a younger one sure brings a lot of surprises. I try to not to start fights... but I will finish them!” Kobuko said, starting to do some kind of a slow, majestic dance before taking on a stance.
And so they fought.
Looking back, Sett felt that he should have known challenging him wouldn’t be the best idea. His mom has told him stories about the tricks of yordles. But that didn’t matter since he got absolutely obliterated after all. Kobuko weaved around his punches despite his roundness with his dance as if he could see the future (He asked later and got a very solid no), and with his oversized hands, using his palms, the yordle launched him into a stone wall, creating cracks in it. A few strikes and a bleeding nose on Sett's face later, Kobuko decided that it was enough for this spar. That last word hit harder than any of his attacks to Sett. He was putting in his all while the yordle was just having fun.
To this day, him asking Kobuko to teach him still feels out of character for him. Yet it still happened. He didn't ask to be taught new fighting styles or something. He would never abandon what got him this far in the first place. And to his delight, Kobuko agreed. Furthermore, the yordle told him about something he had no clue about. Apparently, when Kobuko hit him, he could feel part of the kinetic force being absorbed into Sett, which, after a bit, disappeared. Sett always thought this was just adrenaline kicking in, but to his surprise, Kobuko theorized that absorbing said force, and thus being more hurt, makes him have an increased healing factor, and if harnessed both enough and correctly, he could release the stored power in a devastating attack. He also said something about “being like water”. Sett would never learn what the yordle meant by that, but he guessed that would make him a tsunami.
And so every week when he could he visited the yordle under the lie for others that “He was taking in the beauty of nature with mountain hiking,” which made his mother surprised but happy. Which is fair enough, he was not the kind of a guy to care about plants and stuff anyway.
With each visit, he knew that he was getting closer to achieving something grand but, one day he came to the sanctuary to find it completely empty, with only a note left just for him.
It contained a letter from Kobuko detailing how he feels bad about not telling Sett that he made a good promise to a friend to visit him at a specific time. Sett shrugged at this. Come on, how could one trip to a friend possibly take?
Turns out apparently a very long time. So long, in fact, that he managed to not only finally control his kinetic absorption, which for simplicity he called “Grit”, to him managing to use its full effect on the guy who started all this. The guy really thought he could embarrass him a second time. With enough punches taken, his hair and ears turned yellow and flickered with the leaking, stored energy.
Oh, that face the man made when the debut of Sett’s most devastating move, which was named by the audience as Haymaker, struck him right in the gut, sending him flying to the other edge of the arena. The cleaners were not fans of the aftermath, but the audience sure was.
- - - Present time - - -
*crack*
Sett snapped back to reality from his recounting of his memories to the sound of him stepping on a twig… and turning his head in front of him, he could see the dirt path stopping where a stone path continued. He is almost there.
Honestly, he doesn’t even know if Kobuko is even there. It’s been over a year since he last visited the place. He tried making it a yearly visit to make the place at least not look rundown, but running a whole underground arena takes a surprising amount of time.
A little bit later, Sett reached the sanctuary to find it completely clean. It even looked better when he tried to polish the place himself the last time he was here.
Aimlessly walking around the place, his nose caught a smell that undoubtedly was tea, which meant…
“Hoho! Sett. How good seeing you again!” The soothing voice came to Sett’s right ear where he promptly turned in that direction to see Kobuko again, looking pretty much the same as when he last saw him. Maybe his beard grew a little but that’s about it.
“The road to your friend must have been long huh?” Sett said sarcastically while he crossed his arms.
“I-i uh…” Kobuko sighed. “After the visit was over, things got, how do i say this… a bit hectic and I-”
“No need to apologize, old man. I don’t really care for what reason you couldn’t come. Just glad to see you back.” Sett smirked. “When did you come back?”
“Oh, just last week in fact.” Kobuko replied. “I was happy to see this place only slightly dirty. I must thank you.”
“That isn’t necessary. Can’t have the place where we are going to have a rematch in a poor condition now, do we?”
“Oh silly me! You are right. You promised me that one day you would win our spar. But first, how is life going?”
“You know how it goes. Mastered what you taught me, defeated the guy whose actions led to our meeting, took over the pit and became the owner of it, and kept my mom happy as she deserves. The usual.” Said Sett with a casual voice before cracking his knuckles and approaching Kobuko. “So as I was saying- “
Sett cut himself off as his right fist aimed for the yordle’s chunky body. Kobuko reacted quickly enough, using his hands, launched himself a bit into the air and fell quickly back to the ground before laughing. “Glad you haven’t changed friend.”
Sett smirked before resuming his assault.
- - - - - - -
To his ever increasing frustration, Sett’s strikes feel just as pointless as before. Not like it was going as poorly as last time. At least Kobuko isn’t dancing between his punches like before, Sett’s punches were too fast and unpredictable for the yordle to do that tactic again consistently. But now Kobuko just simply blocks them with his oversized fists, fluff negating most of the impact. He also didn’t waste time retaliating as well.
“Huha!” Kobuko unleashed his move of striking his opponent with both of his palms at once. Sett saw it coming from a mile away this time and blocked accordingly, still being sent back a bit. This was though the final push towards the threshold. Sett’s aura crackled with energy as his hair and ears turned yellow, something akin to electricity flickering out of his eyes.
“You sure have come far, boy. Now show me what you truly learned!” Kobuko said, his voice unchanging from his happy attitude.
“I sure will, old man.” Sett replied, putting his fist hastily behind him before releasing the stored power.
H A Y M A K E R
The next several meters in front of Sett were covered in dust and leaves from the immense wind pressure created by the attack, making it take Sett a bit for him to realize that Kobuko again jumped out of harm's way into the air. He also now notices that gravity seems to affect him weirdly as well to not make him fall instantly back down.
Smart move for sure but this makes a perfect opportunity for him to show off the crowd's favorite move he ever did.
Sett leaped into the air, grabbing onto Kobuko on the way, which surprised the yordle, and rotated him by one hundred and eighty degrees before…
S H O W S T O P P E R
He slammed the yordle headfirst into the beautiful stone ground, burying nearly his entire body into the crater in the floor.
After the dust settled, Sett looked over Kobuko’s wiggling legs triumphantly. But something felt wrong. That was weird, he was supposed to feel satisfaction right now.
Oh. The sanctuary.
Kobuko never minded them fighting here for whatever reason. Sett guessed that he was just confident in collateral damage not happening, but this...
Not only has Showstopper caused way more destruction then he thought at first, but the trees and other plants were hurt as well. One tree crashed on the ground as well. That one was him being launched by Kobuko’s knockback attack a little bit ago.
Sett knew himself as someone that doesn’t really care about nature, plant life etc. but this… this was the place of someone that he appreciated and even cared for. It didn't matter that it had been so long since they had seen each other. He was already well versed in that from his bastard father. This will be a long, long cleanup and rebuilding.
As Sett was processing all this, Kobuko managed to get himself out of the ground, spitting some pebbles from his mouth as he did. “You put up a good fight. I never would have expected something like that.” He said, seemingly not caring what just happened to his sanctuary. Sett took note of that.
“But what about this place? It’s ruined.”
To this Kobuko only chuckled as he made his way to the small shrine that he usually meditates and drinks tea at. He then started performing some kind of a dance, a lot different from the one he did during the fight. Glowing green particles started appearing and orbiting Kobuko before multiplying and flying around the entire place before a massive flash of light jumped into Sett’s vision.
Putting back his arms, which he used to cover his eyes, Sett saw the outcome of whatever spell Kobuko had cast. The sanctuary. The entire ground, trees, plants and other things that were located in it were restored completely, as if nothing ever happened to them. The atmosphere here now felt even more magical than before. One could even smell it in the air.
“Now that was something. Would be pretty useful in the pit.” Sett chuckled.
“Huff, Don’t get ahead of yourself boy puff this magic is only to be used in the domain of beauty, not some savage place. And besides it takes a lot out of me as well. Not to mention our squabble from earlier Hoho!.” Kobuko said as he made his way back to Sett, exhaling from the strain on his body. “I guess I have no choice but to pronounce you the winner of this spar.”
“Honestly? I don’t even feel any different from you saying that. I guess I am just glad to meet someone I respect as much as you again.” Sett said, a smile forming on his face.
“Now that being behind us, how about I tell you some of my stories with my tea as well. Can’t really promise for them to be more exciting than whatever you probably went through in those years.” Said Kobuko as he gave Sett a teapot filled with more of Kobuko’s tea that he seemingly materialized out of nowhere that remained hot to this moment. Probably some yordle magic, Sett thought.
“It’s my day off. Anything goes.” Sett comforted Kobuko with his doubts. “Say. Why give this to me? Are we going somewhere else?”
“Of course! We are going to visit your mother. This time I can prove to her that I make the better tea.” Kobuko giggled, walking towards where Sett entered the sanctuary from, presumably pathing to Sett’s mom’s house.
“Oh, alright- wait a second, you know my ma? Since when?!” Sett shouted in genuine surprise and started following the yordle with confusion.
“Hoho! We met a few days after we did ourselves Sett. You are very lucky to have someone like her in your life.” Kobuko laughed as he picked up the pace. “Last one there is a rotten Bandle berrie!”
“You’re on, you old geezer!” Sett also gave into the laugh. Yea, he was in his early thirties, and so what? Can’t a man like him have a little childlike fun sometimes? Gotta make back the childhood he mostly missed out on after all.