Good storyline, in my opinion. But if you wish to improve the story itself further, look within the spoiler below.
There was once a certain grandmaster of the dodgers order ((seems a bit awkward)), a man so good at what he did that there were none who could surpass him. Like others of his order he trained in the art of not being hit, as well as medicine, writing, math, engineering and the like. The grandmaster was training his students one day when a rival grandmaster of "the order of never missing" approached him bringing in tow a group of her own students.
"Everyone take a break stop firing the crossbows collect all the bolts." ((Throw in some pauses, extra punctuation. Make it more natural speech.))
"Yes master!"
The grandmaster then turned to face the newcomers as they approached him and his students from across the grassy field. ((somewhat confusing to me.))
They stopped about thirty paces away, then all but one of them pulled back their hoods. Then the hooded one walked up to the grandmaster and revealed her face. She was in her thirtys with tightly braided black hair and fierce eyes while the grandmaster was an old man with wispy grey hair and a neat pointy beard. ((I think this belongs earlier.))
"I am the best of those that never miss and I have come to challenge you and prove that offense is the best defence." The master of hitting clenched her fists so tightly they creaked.
The master of dodging went crosseyed. "I see no reason to fight, as avoiding a fight is the helper of dodging." ((The helper of dodging. I see where you're going, but... still awkward.))
"I wasn't making a request."
"Ahhh, I see." The old man turned to his students most of which were watching the discussion instead of gathering crossbow bolts. "Students, leave that ammo for later. Come gather round and learn something."
The master of hitting motioned for her students to gather round as well. Together both groups formed a large circle, with dirty white clad students on one arc and stain hiding black clad students on the other.
The old master of dodging, still cross eyed, folded his arms across his chest. "What shall be the rules of this challenge you so earnestly desire?"
"First guy ((seems a little informal for two martial arts masters)) to die, loses." The master of hitting then adopts a wide footed stance with her arms up and fists clenched at face height.
"Fair enough." The master of dodging then focused his eyes on his opponent. "One two three go." ((Are you going for slow or hasty? Slow, then add commas. Hasty, then fuse the words together like onetwothreego!))
With the fight started the two masters wasted no time in... staring at each other intensely for about an hour, unmoving.
All the students soon grew tired and sat down. The parts of the circle where the two groups met soon broke out into idle chitchat. Talk of technique and philosophy. Some cheese and wine was broken out.
At about the hour and a half mark one of the students, as she was eating the last of a cheese sandwich and listening to her seat neighbor go on about how he's never missed, notices that her master had just twitched. She stopped chewing and looked harder. Now the other master twitched. And her master again. They were making subtle movements every so often, but otherwise still holding their poses.
"I think I just saw them move." The student pointed with her mostly eaten sandwich.
"...And I didn't miss that time either. Wait what?" The chatty student in black glanced at the masters and back to his neighbor.
"The masters moved, I'm sure of it."
"Did they?"
The master of hitting twitched once again. Three times in quick succession. These were matched by the master of dodging, but neither of the two came anywhere near each other.
"What do you suppose they're doing?" The student finished her sandwich.
"I thought they were supposed to be fighting. More wine?" The chatty student offered.
"Sure." The now sandwichless one held out her cup.
Turning back to the two masters the students saw what looked like two people facing each other and having seizures on their feet.
The young master would flick an arm and the old master would jerk slightly sideways and then the young master would give a hint of movement in her leg with which the old master would counter by twitching both feet as if to start a jump. All this in such rapid fire movement that they all seemed to happen at once.
The students looked on in confusion as their teachers went on like this for ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour. They have both started sweating profusely. An hour goes by and still they twitched like epileptics in a bathtub with a toaster in a thunderstorm. Their faces contorted in a visage of effort.
"I get it now. Neither throws a single punch because both know if an attack will hit or not before it is made." The chatty student glances at the sandwichless student.
"Fascinating...We should do this again sometime, it's been nice." She continues staring at the strange duel.
"Do what?"
"Get together and have a picnic. Both our schools together you know. We-" The student stops midsentence.
If you had eyes fast enough you would have seen the master of dodging's eyes go wide as he froze for an instant. If you could read minds and were there in that instant, you'd hear him think "Oh shi-." In an instant the master of hitting surged forward with her arm extended punching the master of dodging far out of the encircled students where he landed on the back of his neck. ((I wonder how that happened.))
It was early morning the next day back at the dodgers ((still)) home temple. The funeral pyre had burned brightly all night while the two groups discussed what was to happen now. Through the wisdom of the master of hitting and some voting on lesser matters it was agreed that hitting was the better discipline, for now, and that the two schools would meet once a year for friendly-er duels and assorted picnickery.
After the politics of the day had been dealt with, the students assigned to take away the ashes of the pyre made a shocking discovery.
The master of hitting looked down upon the body of her defeated opponent and shook her head in amazement. "He was truly a master of dodging. To think that a man could attain such skill as to be able to dodge fire after his own death. Much will be gained through exchange of our techniques. But hitting is still superior."
DODGE!!! ((don't quite get the point of this.))
~~~
Purple: Restate this.
Red: Restated for you(used in terms of spelling mostly)
So... yeah, pretty good, just needed some awkwardness removed, tenses corrected, punctuation added, and spelling corrected.))
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Topic: Short story: A duel between masters (Read 749 times)