Chapter 73: Wise Words, Mix of Light and Dark, and He Is Back
If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @
[ https://www.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis.
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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo / AlanL]
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"Are you going to that place today as well?" asked Ms. Rosey as she saw Quinn off at the gate of the West manor. "You have been going there daily."
Quinn tied his shoes and replied with a single word, "Yes."
It was five-thirty in the morning, and Quinn was dressed in a tracksuit, ready to go out. He hadn't taken the magic dampening potion because he liked to take it sometime around noon, and that would last him till dinner time.
"Is fighting that much fun?" Ms. Rosey asked. She didn't like the prospect of Quinn participating in something so inelegant.
"It isn't the fighting I like, Ms. Rosey... Well, I don't dislike it, but I like the physical exertion that comes with it. I like my body responding swiftly to my commands when I am sparring against someone else. It gives me a sense of control."
Quinn answered as he got up and spoke out, "Polly, let's go."
When he opened the door, he found the house-elf was standing there as if waiting for Quinn to get ready.
He turned back towards Ms. Rosey and informed her, "I will be back before lunchtime."
Polly raised her hand, and Quinn held it. The next second, both the house-elf and human disappeared with a pop.
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- (Scene Break) -
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Polly and Quinn appeared in a deserted alleyway, appearing with the distinct pop of elf-apparition.
"Thank you, Polly," said Quinn letting go of the hand of the West family house-elf. "I will call you when I'm ready to leave."
Polly nodded and popped away, leaving Quinn in the alleyway.
The raven-head boy exited the alley, crossed the road, and walked for half a minute, and reached the destination he visited every day at the same time.
「Kaewpadung Gym」
It was one of the few Muay Thai gyms in Britain. Quinn had been coming here in the summer breaks since he had started Hogwarts.
At first, it was just for fun, and didn't take things too seriously, and just did it to remain fit because he thought that he had been spending too much time sitting. But, this year, he had been going there every day and had been spending many hours in that place before returning home.
Muay Thai was developed centuries ago as a form of close-combat that utilizes the entire body as a weapon. Referred to as the art of eight limbs, Muay Thai uses eight points of contact that mimicked the weapons of war.
The hands become the swords and dagger. Shins and forearms hardened in training transform into armor.
Fighters used the elbow as a mace or hammer. Legs and knees became the ax and staff.
The body acted altogether as one unit.
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He entered the gym and shouted "Good morning!" as he walked inside.
"Morning!" ... "West." ... "Kid." ... "Good morning!" ... "Morning."
Multiple shouts greeted him back as he entered the gym. He went to the back, deposited his duffle bag, and walked back out.
"When are we starting," asked Quinn as he walked to the group of young adults and adults.
One of the guys in the group ruffled Quinn's hair and said, "You should smile more, kid."
Quinn sighed and swatted away the hand on his head. He had learned to portray fabricated expressions while under emotional occlumency. But even then, Quinn came out as a quiet boy.
"I will smile when I find something funny," said Quinn as he stretched as he waited for the instructor to arrive so that they could start.
Suddenly a rather loud yell greeted the people present,
"Good morning!"
Instinctively, everyone responded back in unison.
" "Good morning!" "
The people who were sitting down or talking in separate groups gathered around as the man walked towards them.
"How is everyone today? I presume all of you are feeling well."
There were lots of ayes and 'yes' in response, which made the man smile.
The man standing in front of the group of ten was Sken Kaewpadung. He was a British-based Thai Muay Thai trainer, fight choreographer, and fighter promoter. Sken decided to learn Muay Thai to avenge his father's murder, but in the end, was dissuaded from such a path to devote his life to teaching Muay Thai to anyone who wished to learn.
Sken Kaewpadung was the only person largely credited with bringing Muay Thai to the United Kingdom.
"Let's get started with a five-kilometer run to warm ourselves up," said Sken as everybody nodded.
As everyone there was an adult, Quinn trailed behind the group and arrived a couple of minutes after them.
"Alright, fifteen minutes, skip-rope, three sets of five," shouted Sken as he moved around the gym, instructing everybody. "Boxer step, high knee, criss-cross, and show me some speed!"
The repetitive motions of skipping rope while staying light on their feet helped the fighter become fast on their feet when moving around an opponent in the ring. It improved coordination and timing; to jump a rope for a sustained period required coordination and timing, or you would keep snatching the rope with your ankles. Jumping rope was a highly energetic cardiovascular exercise that made it great for conditioning training for boxers and other striking styles. And finally, it was a great way to build stamina, keeping the intensity high during skipping.
After everyone was done skipping, it was time to do rounds of shadowboxing.
Quinn started his own drills of jab, cross, hook, followed by a knee. But just as he was about to get into it, he heard a shout.
"Quinn! Move after a rep. You don't want to stay in the same position after striking. Move to a different position," Sken shouted from a distance. "Build that into your muscle memory. I don't want to see you standing still. Move! Plus, give me a double-teep double-check after this. You are ignoring the legs."
"Yes, sir!" Quinn replied.
"Louder!" shouted Sken.
"YES, SIR!"
"Excellent!"
They ended the shadowboxing session with burnouts and pushups.
After that was time on the bag. It was just more striking but against a heavy bag. Quinn repeated the same drills he did during shadowboxing.
Shadowboxing and bag-work complemented each other.
The heavy bag was great for developing power and explosive endurance. You were essentially punching the bag with a very high degree of force you can exert over time. But there were limitations to overworking the heavy bag. Generally, people tended to stand way too close to the heavy bag, at a distance where you would not stand in a real fight situation. This was okay when strictly working for power. But if overused, it could inhibit the perception of proper distance and striking ability at full reach of the fighter.
Shadowboxing helped with that as it forced you to focus on your own body movements and proprioception (awareness of your body with its environment) without looking for the satisfying feel or sound of striking. This was a good thing because people often strayed into poor techniques to hit harder or hear what they thought sounded impressive.
Heavy bags were for working more on the form while hitting a moving target. Fighters had to focus on speed, coordination, and power while also having to move to hit the target they wished to strike.
Shadowboxing allowed total freedom of footwork as you didn't have to position yourself relative to an apparatus like a punching bag. Plus, it also allowed unrestricted body methods as strikes weren't unimpeded by the unhuman-like dimensions of the heavy bag.
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Pad work is arguably the most representative and important part of training in Muay Thai. Unlike many gyms in the West, pad-holding is a task that is more commonly performed by a trainer and not a gym partner. It is a role that is taken seriously by the Thai trainers. Pad work was one of the most intimate moments in training. Where an instructor got to shape and sharpen the style of a fighter. Something that couldn't be achieved by only training with a partner.
Sken and other trainers made sure to point out things during pad work. Besides, pad-work at Sken's gym was intense as the gym's standard practice was to mimic ring action with three to five rounds of three to eight minutes. Quinn did four rounds of three minutes in one stretch of pad-work.
After that came the part of training that Quinn hated; clinch wrestling.
The clinch was defined as 'stand-up close-quarters grappling'. This is a position where both competitors are fighting for control to gain a dominant position.
What made the Muay Thai clinch so different from clinching in other striking combat sports like Boxing or Kickboxing was that the referee would not immediately break the clinch up. Clinch was allowed As as long as there was action going on in the clinch. Which meant that as long as either fighter was in a fighting position to get in strikes, the clinch was allowed to continue.
Unlike some other Muay Thai gyms in the West part of the world, Sken paid extra attention to teach clinching just as it was done in the combat sports' homeland, Thailand.
Afterwards, all the people in the group ended their session with warmup and stretches. All either had work or college, so they needed to go home to get prepared.
Quinn, who didn't have anything to do, just continued with his shadowboxing and heavy bag. He didn't have anywhere to go and liked to spend his time there because there was nothing much to do at home.
"Quinn, come, let's do some light pad work," said Sken as he was free around this time. He would do with Quinn another session of pad work.
Quinn walked over and did pad work with Sken.
"No, not like that. You need to plant your other foot firmly on the ground to create ample force for a knee strike. Do it again."
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"Don't flap your foot while kicking. Bring your knee up fully before extending it. You want to kick like you are stabbing something. Good, that's it."
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"Keep your hands up and try to grab some kicks to counter. You need to take advantage of the openings."
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Quinn kept on doing whatever Sken was throwing at him.
"So, Quinn. Why did you join the gym?" asked Sken as Quinn continued to kick and punch.
"Hmm... For fun, I guess," replied Quinn between moves. He had other motives, but those motives were for the future.
"Why do you only come in the summer?"
"I attend a boarding school in Scotland," replied Quinn. He wasn't lying as Hogwarts was a boarding school in Scotland. "So I am not at home for most of the year."
"Oh, why did your parents send you off to a boarding school? Have you caused trouble?"
Quinn fakely chuckled and denied it, "No, my grandfather attended the school, so I also went there. It is quite fun, actually."
"Hmm..." Sken hit Quinn with his shin, who wasn't able to dodge, and asked as Quinn punched in retaliation. "But, you have been coming here daily this summer, and you have been working hard as well. Is it just for fun?"
Quinn didn't know where Sken was going. "...Yeah, why?"
"Even though you don't show it in your expression or words, your strikes show great anger and frustration. So I'm sorry, but I can't believe that you are still doing it for fun."
The student was surprised to hear that, and it showed when he was flipped over by Sken. Quinn went down with an 'oof.'
"So, tell me, what angers you so much?"
He just laid down there, and while staring at the gym's ceiling, Quinn didn't know what came over him, but he spoke,
"I was good at it, you know. I didn't consider myself a genius or something. Even when everybody praised me for being so great, I didn't think I was some kind of prodigy. I thought of myself as a normal bloke who just worked hard at what I loved."
Sken listened to Quinn. He didn't know what the 'it' meant. But he just listened as the boy vented.
"I spent all my time on it. I barely had a life out of it. Now, when all my hard work has broken down into shambles because I've made a mistake, I don't know what to do. I don't even know how to fix this. It's just so frustrating when all the work I put in crumbled, when I was just trying to gain more, just trying to get better at it."
Quinn's detached emotions felt numb. It had been a month and a half since he lost his magic. He had already spent a little less than half of his summer break doing what felt like pushing against a wall, trying to make it move.
"It is just so damn frustrating."
Sken sat down beside Quinn and spoke,
"You know, I trained in the art of Muay Thai because I wanted to avenge my father who was killed by some bastard back in Thailand. I thought that if I became strong enough, I would be able to kill that man," Sken said, not considering the fact he was talking to a nearly fourteen-year-old teenager. "I was so focused on to achieve that goal that I lost sight of everything else. Just like you, I had no life outside of fighting. Just going into fights to hone my skills and earn money to live another day."
Quinn turned his head and stared at Sken as he spoke.
"But, one day, I found out that, without knowing it, that bastard had already died. There I was, having trained all my life, without knowing what to do. All of a sudden, I had no aim in life. Nothing to focus upon. All I was left with was skills in fighting."
Quinn opened his mouth to ask, "So, what did you do?"
Sken glanced at Quinn and smiled, "Negative emotions like rage, fear, loneliness, or anything that isn't considered positive have an important role to play in a happy life; they are big, flashing signs that announce that something needs to change." He looked around the gym and motioned at it. "I left the country because it brought me so many bad emotions within myself. I needed a change, so I traveled here and opened this gym, as teaching was the only thing I knew to do."
Sken took a deep breath and spoke,
"When something bad happens, you have three choices." One by one, Sken counted the things on his fingers. "You can either let it define you. Let it destroy you. Or, you can let it strengthen you."
Quinn's pupils dilated in surprise. It just clicked in his mind. It was sitting there, and he didn't see it.
'Ah, maybe this would work,' Quinn thought as he looked at Sken. He got up and spoke, "Thank you, let's continue."
Sken nodded and set up his pads for Quinn to strike against. After some strikes, Sken smiled. He felt it; something that had changed, as Quinn's strikes were no longer of anger but of hope and determination.
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- (Scene Break) -
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Time passed and August 31, 1993, arrived. It was just one day before Quinn had to leave for Hogwarts.
"So, where is he?" asked Alan. The old mind-arts master had come to get one final look at Quinn.
"He is in the garden. He's been outside for quite some time this past week," replied George.
George had called Alan in order to have him take a look at Quinn. He feared that Quinn wasn't ready to go back to Hogwarts. It worried him that Quinn would force himself to go to Hogwarts and keep on taking on the magic dampening potion.
"How long do you think it will take for the potion to show a negative effect?" asked George. Quinn hadn't been showing any negative effect, but George wanted to know if something could go wrong.
"From my estimates, I think he could take it for another month before his physical condition starts to deteriorate," answered Alan. "The potion is a modified version. The effects are diluted, and the doses are regulated so that it isn't active around the clock. It isn't strange that Quinn hasn't shown any symptoms."
"I'm worried that he will become dependent on the potion." George sighed. He knew his grandson's personality; Quinn loved magic more than anything else and would do anything to be near magic.
"Well, let's see how has he been doing. Do you know what his progress with magic is lately?," Alan asked. Quinn's progress with his magic would be the deciding factor. He would look at Quinn's condition before making any suggestion. "Has he been doing magic while under the potion?"
"I don't know, actually," answered George, causing Alan to frown.
"What do you mean?"
"Quinn spends a lot of his time running in the backyard, doing exercises. While he is in the house, he plays his instruments or silently reads a book. When he is not under the potion, he either goes to the gym he has been going to or locks himself in his room to only come out for meals."
At first, George thought Quinn was distracting himself, but after a month of Quinn not speaking much at all, he started to get worried. Plus, George had been told that sometimes Quinn would spend hours intensely thinking about something.
"... I see," murmured Alan. He couldn't think of a reason why Quinn would behave as he did. But he was about to meet Quinn, so maybe he would get some answers.
The two adults arrived at the West estate garden, and in the lush green of a well-maintained garden, they saw Quinn standing with his hands behind his back, facing away from them.
George was about to call Quinn when Alan raised his hand and quietly asked, "Is Quinn under the potion right now?"
"Yes, why do you ask?" questioned George. Quinn had been taking the potion at the same time every day, so today shouldn't be different.
"Quinn's shields are operating in full effect," Alan replied, and for once, he didn't sneak into Quinn's mind. He was confused. "Let's go talk to him."
The two adults walked towards Quinn, and the sound of their footsteps in the grass caught Quinn's attention, as the boy turned around. They saw Quinn had a smile on his face.
"Mr. Alan, what a surprise. Not that it is not good to see you. What are you doing here?" asked Quinn. He wasn't expecting to see Alan today.
Alan eyed Quinn before asking, "I'm here to see if you're doing okay..." He took a pause before continuing. "... and to see if you are set to go back to school."
Quinn laughed in response. He guessed the motive of Alan's visit and George tagging along with him. It was just a day before he had to leave.
"You two don't have to worry. I am fine now." Quinn looked at his hands and spoke. "I'm back to my full capabilities and healthy as ever."
"What about your magic?" asked Alan. George looked curious about the question, too.
Quinn stared at the two older men and grinned. Immediately, flowers sprouted out of the ground. Rainbow-colored flowers littered around the green of the ground.
The two men's eyes widened as they saw the flowers growing, and the next thing they knew - bees, butterflies, and beetles started to futter around the flowers as if to collect pollen from the newly grown flowers.
"My magic is back under my control," Quinn smiled when a butterfly on his finger. "I haven't felt better in such a long time."
"How? How did you regain your magic so quickly?" asked Alan, bewildered at the scene. He could only explain the rapidly growing flowers with magic, as the tiny butterflies fluttering around them weren't indigenous to the region.
George chimed in and asked a question of his own, "But you said that you were having trouble with progressing your magic."
"That was a month ago, grandfather," replied Quinn as he stretched his arms. "I have made a steady and fast recovery since then."
"How? How did you regain your control so fast?" questioned Alan, genuinely curious.
"I always thought that I understood the place of emotion and will in magic," Quinn spoke as he walked towards the two. "But it turned out I was wrong. I was so wrong. The past 'me' knew nothing about the place of emotion in magic."
A cool breeze of wind swept through the area as Quinn continued spoke,
"I thought about it, you know. If the curse increased my control by utilizing the emotional connection between me and my magic, why couldn't I use the same method? I could use my emotions to strengthen and build up the focus I lost."
Suddenly the three watched as a deer hoped into the garden before stopping to nibble on some grass.
"I drew on all my emotions to increase my connection to my magic. Steadily, I used my emotions to emulate the same thing that the sin curse did to me. And, you know what? It worked," Quinn laughed as he joined his hands. When he separated them, tiny orbs of light flew out of his hands.
"The curse forced my connection to my magic by manipulating my magic. It wasn't me who was in control. This time around, I was the one who felt my emotions on a deeper level and actively tried to connect them to my magic."
Alan frowned. He knew about emotions and this wasn't how emotions and magic worked together.
"Quinn, that is not how things are supposed to go. You couldn't have gained your focus back so fast. You lost years worth of progress." He stepped forward. "How about you let me check if there is something wrong."
Quinn chuckled, "Of course, you can check. But you are wrong. The thing about magic is that there is no dark or light magic. We, humans, categorize magic as such. I always subscribed to this school of thought. And then I thought, why aren't emotions subjected to the same way of thinking? Why are emotions like fear, anger, hate, and suffering termed as negative emotions?"
"Love is said to be the strongest emotion of all, but I think every emotion can be just as strong if utilized properly." Quinn stared at George and Alan and revealed, "I used the so-called dark emotions to regain my focus."
Alan's eyes widened at the statement.
"Quinn, you know that the negative emotions could consume you. Rage, resentment, failure, sadness can consume magic users. Especially someone with a deep connection to magic as yourself." He was getting worried about Quinn. If Quinn utilized the darker emotions, then it could become a problem later. The darker emotions had a seductive charm that had ruined a lot of people.
Quinn quickly stepped forward and spoke, "True, they have a certain quality to them, don't they? But, they will only consume you if you aren't true to yourself." He quoted what Sken had told him, "I could have let them define me, I could have let them destroy me, or I could use them to strengthen myself."
"I felt frustrated that I was not able to use magic. I feared that I would never be able to get my magic back. I hated myself for not having thought it through. I was miserable because I had nothing other than magic going for me. I was drowning in feelings like those." Quinn looked at his two hands, bending his fingers into claw shapes. "I had all these emotions, emotions that I was trying to run away from. I had them in such abundance. Now, wouldn't it be a waste to let them go unused?"
Quinn had a sad smile on his face which then turned into the brightest of smiles as he said, "So I tapped into every single type of emotion I was capable of feeling, it didn't matter if it was 'good' or 'bad'. I opened every door, turned every stone, and plundered everything I could get my hands on. I used the frustration I felt —as I wasn't able to use magic— to push myself towards, in the hope of, one day, regain my magic back. I hated my previous self, so I strived to be better than him. The determination that this wasn't my ceiling overcame the fear of never getting back my magic. I didn't believe that this was the end of my magic."
He stared Alan right into the eye and laughed, "Don't you get it. I used both sides of the spectrum to progress my magic. I didn't struggle by using the only side which is seen as proper. No matter what I am feeling, be it joy or misery, turmoil or serenity... all the emotions are mine. I had to accept that I was feeling down and the emotions that went along of it. A mix of emotions coming together to create a magnificent symphony. When you mixed that blend with magic? Magic would reward you, it would dance at your fingertips, move at a single thought of your mind. You just need to… feel."
Quinn turned to George and beamed. "Adversity is what builds character and strength. I was at rock bottom, and you know what? After hitting rock bottom, there is nowhere else but to go up."
"I used adversity to regain whatever I lost in just a month. I used everything that I had, every resource I had available, to claw my way out of the pit." Quinn's voice gained some solemnity as he continued, "Humans need adversity to grow. They need hardship to appreciate the good times. Without it, we become lazy and stale. Adversity to gain happiness keeps us moving. Being happy all the time is not at all bad. Everyone should aim for happiness, but without knowing what is on the other side, how would you learn to understand yourself."
"Do you know that I haven't taken the potion in close to three weeks, and even before that I was skimming on doses" Quinn softly smiled as he looked at the two older men, who were stunned at the sudden piece of information. "I stopped taking it because it was dulling my connection to magic as it was supposed to do. I shouldn't have run away from my magic in the first place. I should've faced it head-on. But let's not talk about the past."
"I let my magic flow. It was painful, oh so painful... I hated every second of that time, but I had to continue because it was helping me," sighed Quinn as he remembered those times. "Pain is a powerful motivator, so I endured it. Slowly but surely, under the pressure to reduce the pain and solve the consequences, I was able to stop my rampaging magic by getting all of it under control. Negative thoughts combined with the positivity I was feeling from seeing progress, so I combined it together to boost my progress. It helped that I was rebuilding something that I had lost, so my progress was so fast."
"The time I spent feeling all these emotions, even those I didn't want to feel, made me learn a lot about myself and my magic. I felt free. I actually feel much better from before the sin curse got a hold on," Quinn stretched his hands above his head and stated, "My magic, which was made to grow artificially, is now under my control. Do you know that I gained an extra year and a half of progress? My artificially expanded magical core has now become a natural part of my magical physiology. My control might not have gotten the same boost because I had to rebuild it in such a small amount of time, but I learned a lot about emotion and will, and that will help me in the long run."
By the time Quinn stopped speaking. The garden was full of short shrubs and beautiful flowers. Squirrels, butterflies, three dears, one peacock graced the transformed landscape.
"Do you know how difficult it is to fool the senses of two practiced occlumens? It gets more difficult when one of them is literally on the top of the mind-arts field," Quinn waved his hand over the colorful scene and said. "This much amount of work is required. I wouldn't have been able to do it before, but now I've been able to pull it off."
"What do you mean?" asked a frowning George.
Quinn raised his hand and snapped his finger. Instantly, half of the flowers and shrubs vanished like they were a mirage. The larger animals like deers and peacocks ceased to exist.
"I did not conjure those things or transfigure those animals. They were the work of an elaborate illusion," Quinn stated in a quiet voice. He pointed at the butterflies and bees and said: "Only a quarter of these flying insects are conjured; the rest of them aren't real. A huge share of the flowers and shrubs weren't even corporal and were just accompanying the small amount of transfigured flora. They gave an illusion that they were real. I used small details so you wouldn't look at the bigger picture."
He turned to face Alan and said, "I distracted you with the buzzing of bees, the chirping of crickets, so you would believe that all of this was real. My words kept most of your focus on me as I continued to add more illusions. None of them were mental illusions because you would catch them instantly, so I used physical light manipulation. I faked sounds, created light gusts of wind to immerse you in the scene. A lot of delicate illusion work combined with a small amount of corporal mixed together to form something you thought was completely real."
Quinn gave a beaming chuckle, "Fooling a master of mind-arts, who has complete control over his mind is great for a day's work, don't you think?"
Quinn closed his eyes and yelled at the sky.
"I AM BACK! QUINN WEST IS BACK! WOOHOO!"
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End of Volume Four: Hogwarts: Year Three
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Quinn West - Light and Dark mix to create brilliance - Yeah~!
Sken Kaewpadung - Your typical wise master - My words are wise and I am real.
Alan D. Baddeley - Mind-arts master - Feeling shocked.
George West - Worried grandfather - Still hasn't comprehended what happened.
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