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[sup][h1][center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019e955d-c7ac-71af-ab26-948b50548d89.webp[/img][/center][b][center][color=black] R O C K[/color]
[color=green]R O C K[/color][/center]
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[center][b]Chapter Three[/b][/center]
[i]“I am a shark, the ground is my ocean, and most people can’t even  swim.”[/i] - Rickson Gracie[/center]

The Everyday Heroes Center was the jewel of the Narragansett Bay. It was designed in the style of all the United States’ greatest civic buildings, with wide arched roofs supported by marbled ionic columns. The base of the centermost column, beside the Center’s revolving doors was carved into the form of a man. The Mountain bore the column’s weight across his back, grinning wide beneath his half mask at passersby. It was based on a photo from his early years, using his hysteric strength to brace a bridge against the weight of the passenger train that roared across it. The statue was commissioned by the Lichtensteins as part of their donation to the center, revealed as part of the final design as the Center opened its doors. Saw always hated it.

They even wanted to call it the “Saw Chaw Center”, a prospect that made Saw sick. This place was meant to have food and clothing drives, dedicated social workers and services, housing assistance, legal support, public recreation spaces; all ways meant to hold up the average person, not prop up Saw’s ego. Rock never understood it as a child. It was his glory, so Saw should feel free to claim it, not shun it. Saw fought for it anyway, fought to keep his name off of it, used Thiri’s legal connections to ensure the place was made by and for the people of Calder. He swore as long as he stood he’d never let greed or ambition poison it.

Now, standing before it, Rock knew the poison had seeped in anyway. The Count’s money had wormed its way in, beneath their notice. Saw only drove support, he was a figurehead. He never kept track of the books or the particulars of the donations or donors. Had he seen The Count’s contribution he would have rejected it outright. It came from extortion and selfish deals. The Count would use his scientific mind to engineer some new innovation, medical devices and drugs that could save the lives of millions; then he would sell them to the highest bidder for private use only. It was blood money.

Blood money that had to have given him latitude in the Center’s construction. He had a portfolio of hideouts across the world and in the city over the years, and it figured he would conspire to place one at the heart of his greatest enemy’s desires. If it was like any of his others, it would be undetectable to passersby, hidden from even those that lived and worked in the Center every day. It would be almost impossible to find. But The Count was nothing if not vain: he would have left his signature.

Rock pushed through the revolving doors and into the main hall, greeted by a pair of bright eyed staffers who wanted to know how they could help him today.

[color=green]“Gym,”[/color] Rock grunted, stepping down a hall he hadn’t trod in years. The gym was where the Center held its self defense and disaster response classes, preparing ordinary citizens to deal with the worst the greys could throw at them. But the gym was not Rock’s final destination. He unzipped his hoodie a fraction and consulted the compartments of the utility belt looped around his shoulder.

Saw was no gadgeteer, he preferred to solve most of his problems with might and vigor, but he tried to include gizmos to get around situations he could not punch out, especially in his kid sidekick’s iteration of the belt. Most of the equipment inside was sourced from or otherwise invented by other members of the Vanguard. There were the Mountain shurikens forged by Anvil, smoke bombs from Eagle Eye, a hi-power flashlight donated by Beacon, and the one Rock’s hand closed around: the TMPD, Techtronic’s Multi-Purpose Detector.

The TMPD could read barometric pressure and altitude, function as a compass, radar, automap, and detect about every type of wave there is. In this case, it was a geiger counter. Rock took the palm-size TMPD and cranked its sensitivity as high as it would go. The Count would have marked the entrance to whatever structure he’d hidden within the Center with a minute amount of radioisotope iodine-131, barely traceable above background radiation, undetectable by conventional equipment. In the event of a disaster, natural or otherwise, The Count could use it to locate the remnants of his strongholds to recover his research. It doubled as a calling card, his challengers would know what to look for. A sign Rock and The Mountain had found many times.

Ten minutes padding across the Center’s linoleum tiles brought Rock to his answer. In the east wing, beyond the gym and a battery of soundproofed study spaces, an anonymous fire control panel pinged hot on the TMPD. It was larger than standard, a thick red plate poking out of the wall. Rock stuck his fingers behind it and pulled, prying it open. It revealed a hollow space with a fireman’s pole.

Rock descended into the darkness, broken up only by muted strips of glowing green light. He didn’t know how far he slid, ten feet, twenty, a hundred, until his feet came to rest against unfinished concrete. The room was ten feet across, dominated by a curved, featureless steel wall all along the far end. A raised red button was all Rock could make out in the darkness. He pressed it and grinding gears filled as ears as the steel wall began to shift. Plumes of concrete dust fell around Rock and the wall turned inch by inch, revealing an elevator sized box. He stepped inside as the movement stopped and pressed another button. The passage sealed behind him and he was rotated once more. It felt like Rock was a kid again, back on one of Saw’s stupid family trips to Corsair’s Cove, being shuffled through lines, up and down rickety stairwells to disappointing slides that led to nowhere, a farce that did nothing but keep him busy. Maybe this was some joke by The Count, at the end of this he’d find nothing but a featureless wall, another statement of The Count’s superiority. Or maybe there’d be a bomb, to blast him apart for his insolence.

Instead of a killbox, the wall opened before Rock into a grand chamber. It reminded Rock of the colosseum in Rome, as though the ancient structure had a cast made in the bowels of Calder City’s infrastructure. Rows of gunmetal stasis tubes defined the outermost circle, filled with off-green liquid that reminded Rock of uncracked glowsticks. Each housed an organ or strip of bone floating in solution. Rock made out hearts, lungs, and lumps of replacement muscle, growing or stewing in their nutrient soup, ready to be fitted into The Count as needed. They were the open secret of his long life. He couldn't heal like Saw. Instead he flash-cloned every part of himself, replacing anything damaged beyond repair, had done for centuries.

Rock was born in a vat just like these. The Count harvested eggs from donors and defeated combatants he found genetically ideal and created batches of children. He would grow them, train them, break them. Pit them against each other. One of Rock’s earliest memories was of his hands around his vat-brother’s throat, as The Count coached him to squeeze harder and close the carotid. Many died. Many more washed out and were discarded at orphanages around the world. Not Rock.

Instead he trained harder and was allowed to grow older, in a place like the one at the bottom of the Count’s lair. It was a circular arena, filled with sand and the memories of the fights it housed: hair, teeth, fragments of bone and long since dried blood. In the center, he was there.

The Count’s throne sat on a raised dais a few yards across, steel, arched frame supporting plush red leather cushions and the immense stature of the man upon it. Linked screens supported by an arm from the ceiling fed him information from the four corners of the earth, but they were already ascending, now beneath The Count’s focus. His eyes were already on Rock as the young man descended towards him.

[b]“So nice of you to join me, Kenneth.”[/b] The Count of Combat’s voice was posh and trim, deep and old. He was much larger than when Rock had last seen him, his physique pushed beyond that of a bodybuilder and into the grotesque; thick bands of hypertrophic muscle covering every part of his body. His fingers were steepled, displaying the girth and definition of his carefully sculpted forearms.

[color=green]“How [i]dare[/i] you. [i]Here[/i]? Here, of all places. You couldn’t just kill Saw, could you? You had to poison his dreams just like you poisoned him.”[/color] Rock’s fists shook, balled so hard his fingernails cut into his skin.

[b]“Out with the suspicions before the salutations, I see. Are you still so incapable of withholding your indignation?”[/b] The Count lazed back, draping an arm over the side of the throne.

[color=green]“I know you hated him. Hated both of us. Strived to destroy everything he ever built.”[/color] Rock stepped forward. It took everything in him to not leap across the arena and start striking. He’d break The Count’s nose first, wet his fists with the blood and set to dismantling him.

[b]“Understand that my hatred is a privilege that the pair of you rarely enjoyed. It is a fine vintage, uncorked only for the most special occasions. For you now I feel only pity, which itself is unbecoming for a man of my status. For Saw? I search my heart and I can only find respect.”[/b] The Count stroked his chin as he spoke, eyes half lidded, watching Rock boil as though Rock was paint drying across the wall.

[color=green]“[i]This[/i] is your [i]respect[/i]?”[/color] Rock spat. He swept his arm out to the lab behind them, the bastard products of The Count’s cruel science.

[b]“You cannot become the kind of man Saw was without a love of challenge, boy. It was what bound us together, each of our spats pushing us farther, elevating our arts.”[/b] The Count sat forward and the corner of his mouth turned up. [b]“Something [i]you[/i] could not understand.”[/b]

[color=green]“I’ve travelled the world challenging myself, challenging others. Now I’m here to challenge you and make you [i]pay[/i] for what you [i]did[/i],”[/color] Rock said, assuming his stance. It was the traditional pose of lethwei, two hands forward, front leg slightly raised, all nine points prepared to strike.

[b]“You insist on this notion,”[/b] The Count said, ignoring the challenge. He stretched, rotating thick shoulders the size of basketballs. [b]“You actually believe I would stoop so low as to poison him?”[/b]

[color=green]“Not much lower to stoop when you’re already scum,”[/color] Rock said. He didn’t move an inch, eyes locked onto The Count.

[b]“A most audacious claim from a stripling. You must understand I am fundamentally disinterested in any victory my body cannot bring me on its own. Even if I were to abandon this philosophy, abandon everything I am…”[/b] The Count flexed his bicep as if his physique was proof of his point. [b]“I have already conquered Saw to my satisfaction.”[/b]

[color=green]“You never beat us,”[/color] Rock sneered.

[b]“Our definitions of victory were never symmetrical. As a pair, you were adept at destroying my facilities, souring my best laid plans, but these objectives come and go as the tide. Immaterial across the span of my life. But our combat?”[/b] The Count smiled and leaned back in his chair, the reminiscence playing about his face.

Rock knew it was true. Every battle with the Count would end once they freed a hostage, destroyed his latest device or ruined his lab. They’d run off, secure in their victory, as Saw worked to heal damage that would be far beyond mortal on any other man. Even as a kid, fleeing from the wreckage of The Count’s lab, Rock would look back and see him making that smile, that same one he made now.

[color=green]“If you were so satisfied, why even come back here? Why taunt me by showing up at the funeral?”[/color] Rock’s fists lowered a fraction.

[b]“Might I not pay tribute to one of the greatest fighters of our time?”[/b] The Count tilted his head at Rock, something in his eye twinkled. [b]“Saw was, in his way, a genius. He was one of the five greatest living martial artists, a God, if you will. Without him there is something of a hole in our pantheon. I must sort out the matter of succession. He left behind no heritor to be slotted easily into his place.”[/b]

[color=green]“You're looking at him.”[/color] Rock thumped his chest. His travels had turned him from a [i]sidekick[/i] into a warrior. He had learned from the very best in the world. Learned enough to shove The Count’s words back down his throat.

The Count laughed. [b]“Only in your view. I cannot deny you would do well in the televised fighting championships. Or perhaps the grey brawls about the Docks of this hovel city would lionize you. But in my world you are a mewling kitten.”[/b]

[color=green]“Your world?”[/color] Rock asked. Was he not a part of it? Was he not a product of The Count’s ‘world’? The cycle of violence Saw sought to stop, the one The Count perpetuated, the one Rock had risen above in sublime skill?

[b]“One that does not concern itself with ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’, but with the art. The pursuit of strength, and the balance of the strong. The Chinese devised a brilliant system of five elements, each balancing the others. So too do we balance each other. I have been called The God of Metal for a century. Saw, the latest to bear the name God of Wood, was one of my opposites. Without him, our system threatens to fall into disarray,”[/b] The Count detailed. It sounded like bullshit, some pretentious justification for what he did, what he’d keep doing. Maybe Rock could keep him talking and he’d present an opportunity. Then Rock would eat him alive.

[color=green]“Look. I'm not here to hear about your [i]system[/i] or your [i]values[/i]. I'm here to put the pieces together. If you [i]truly[/i] didn’t do it… If you [i]really[/i] respected him… Why don’t you solve it? Clear your name? We both know you could.”[/color] Rock said, beginning to circle The Count’s platform, searching for a clear opening in his guard.

[b]“The problem does not interest me,”[/b] The Count said, waving off the suggestion. [b]“It has its scintillating features, but once one considers all the actors and motivations at play, its solution becomes quite elementary.”[/b] Rock bit his lip, had to force his legs to keep moving through the sand and not leap at The Count to tear his throat out.

[color=green]“And you’re not keen on sharing?”[/color] Rock said.

[b]“I would not dream of depriving you the pleasure of working it out for yourself,”[/b] The Count said, staring right back at him, flashing that smile and bearing those teeth that now seemed like fangs.

[color=green]“So why should I believe you?”[/color] Rock contested. The Count shrugged.

[b]“Believe whatever brings you comfort, child. Why would I bother deceiving you?”[/b]

[color=green]“So you don’t have to face [i]me[/i],”[/color] Rock growled. He felt like a lion stalking his prey, completely unaware. The Count had no idea how big the gap between them had become.

[b]“Does the sun fear the challenge of a penlight?”[/b] The Count looked away, not dignifying Rock with a glance, consulting the buttons on the arm of his throne.

[color=green]“I’m not just some kid you can chew up and spit out anymore.”[/color] Rock opened the utility belt’s third compartment and his hand closed around something hard and sharp. It was a Mountain shuriken in the shape of Saw’s logo, excellent for severing ropes or attacking from a distance. Rock palmed it and continued circling The Count.

The Count shook his head. [b]“The boy I remember bears a shocking resemblance with the one before me now. You fear true challenges. You are only here before me now because you believe you can best me without difficulty. Your ability gives you great latitude, that devil’s brain I birthed you with. You learn so quickly I began to believe I had finally created a worthy successor. But you balk at depth, you scorn it. You convince yourself you have learned everything worth knowing and move on. This is what drove you into Saw’s arms… And out of them. Martial arts are a [i]mountain[/i]. You think you have reached the top, but have only arrived at a plateau. You must summit the peaks to become their master,”[/b] The Count said. More self aggrandizing bullshit, it was all The Count could muster to fluff up his ego. In his rant, in his distraction with his damn chair, The Count presented Rock with his moment.

[color=green]“I’ve become more than you could imagine.”[/color] Rock hurled the weapon at The Count’s head, hard enough to punch through his skull and destroy his brain.

 But The Count’s hand snatched it clean out of the air.

[b]“This is precisely my point,”[/b] The Count waved the shuriken and looked back at Rock. [b]“You allow yourself to play around with these… Toys.”[/b] The Count squeezed it between his fingers, bending the hardened steel into a half moon shape. He discarded it and it clinked against the teeth littering the sand. [b]“You lack [i]purity[/i]. You have made no real advancement.”[/b] He rose finally from his throne, moving with a grace that belied his titanic form.

[b]“If you insist on this course, perhaps you should witness just how far the distance between us is,”[/b] The Count said. He reached into the throne’s armrest and produced a syringe, glowing green in the chamber’s fluorescent lights.

[color=green] “Poison?”[/color] Rock accused. Maybe it was the same he used on Saw. [color=green]“I thought you were ‘above’ poisons.”[/color]

[b]“I am, indeed… On others.”[/b] The Count depressed a button on the throne and it and the dais descended into the sands as The Count stepped off, bare feet padding closer to Rock.

[b]“This is a custom neurotoxin of my design, based on the chemical structure of griseosporine.”[/b] The Count pressed the needle to the inside of his elbow. [b]“It will suppress the speed of my neurotransmission, and reduce the energy efficiency of my metabolism. It will induce fatigue across my entire body and produce pronounced joint pain, as well as acute acidosis in every muscle group. My vision will begin to blur, and my decision making faculty will be hampered. In effect,”[/b] The Count said, smiling, [b]“it [i]may[/i] make you an appropriate match for me… If you are [i]lucky[/i].”[/b] He breathed deep and rolled his neck as the syringe’s liquid disappeared into his bloodstream.

This had to be a lie, too. Surely it was some steroid, some shot of adrenaline and artificial vigor. But it didn’t matter. The Count could take every advantage in the world, and Rock would still obliterate him. He’d give everything. For Saw. For himself.

Rock assumed his pose, and The Count did the same. The Count used [i]baritsu[/i], a custom art of his design, based on the English combination art bartitsu. These facts both Saw and The Count beat into Rock’s head. It was all encompassing: traditional bareknuckle boxing, jujitsu, judo, shaolin kung fu, even dambe and sambo, a style as eclectic as Rock’s. But The Count had rested on his laurels too long. His style, as everything about him, had become more about the inflation of his ego than his real skill. Even his stance showed it: two open palms, no guard to speak off, as if he was about to wrap his opponent in a hug, as though he believed no one would be able to hit him. Rock was fresher, smarter, [i]deadlier[/i].

To an outsider, they would appear to stand totally still for a half minute, watching each other. This was the first step of their combat, move and countermove. Reading the other, the subtle twitches of their muscle that would belie their intention. To move first would mean commitment, to open oneself to brutal punishment. But Rock could see The Count getting lost in the strategy of it, his eyes beginning to glaze as he read intention beyond intention beyond intention. Rock would keep it deathly simple.

He shot forward for a takedown. He would ground The Count and pound the big man into submission. Rock’s arms blasted forward for the hold, but The Count, eyes still fogged, stepped backwards. Rock stumbled and The Count’s leg moved at impossible speed. A heel slammed into the back of Rock’s skull and he hit the ground, mouth filling with earthy, iron-specked sand as stars flashed across his vision.

Rock rolled out of the way, sputtering sand, and threw his arms up to block, but no attack came. He looked up, eyes stinging, and saw The Count with hands lodged firmly in his pockets.

[b]“Your foresight lacks refinement,”[/b] The Count said. He gestured at Rock with his chin. [b]“You seek to prove your strength… Can you even prove to me I need to use my hands?”[/b]

[color=green]“Prove this.”[/color] Rock slashed his leg across the sand and shot up a cloud of dust to hide his motion. He shot out of the dust like a missile, aiming both hands at The Count’s sternum. With enough force, he could stop The Count’s heart with one shot and end the fight before it truly started.

The Count sidestepped the blow by a fraction and pushed Rock’s knee with the tip of his foot, sending Rock spinning out of control, off-center from his target, unrooted from his base, pinwheeling to crash into the sand again.

[b]“I can read the flow of your power without complication. It has little stability.”[/b] The Count stood over Rock, leering at him as he pushed back to his feet. [b]“I see you have improved your grappling, learned new methods of striking… But you still know nothing of ‘principles’.”[/b]

Rock roared and leaped, throwing his knee up at The Count’s chest. The Count turned to drive his shoulder into the blow and deny its impact, but Rock’s real strike was coming from higher up. Every muscle from Rock’s waist to his straining neck worked in one motion to slam his forehead into The Count’s face. It was the ninth point of lethwei, the signature move of The Mountain: the Calder Cudgel. Rock felt The Count’s nose break against his skull, felt his own brain rattle around in his head. If he wasn’t concussed before, he was now.

Rock’s ears were ringing, and he swayed from side to side, but he was still up. But so was The Count. He stood as a statue, bleeding freely from the nose, eyes darkened from his brow.

[b]“A clean hit,”[/b] The Count remarked. He pulled his hands from his pockets and pressed his thumb into his left nostril, and pushed a fountain of blood from the right. [b]“It will be your last.”[/b]

Rock stepped in with a straight and The Count’s backhand cracked across his face.

[b]“Be serious,”[/b] The Count chided. Rock went for a muay thai roundhouse, forcing his full bodyweight into his shin, enough to destroy legs or ribcages in one strike. The Count’s hand moved faster than Rock could perceive and he felt two finger tips against his knee, an electric feeling across his hips as his motion was arrested. [i]What?[/i]

[b]“There,”[/b] The Count said, [b]“the ‘point of force’.”[/b] He met Rock’s eyes. [b]“Are you beginning to understand?”[/b] The Count’s hand moved from Rock’s knee to his chin and smashed his head back.

Rock’s world was a pinprick of clear vision that everything else swam around, dominated by the severe lines of The Count’s face. He had to change the game. Maybe he could hide and then mount The Count, force him into a rear naked choke and submit him. Rock’s hands found the utility belt and selected a half dozen small spheres.

The smoke bombs exploded in Rock’s hands and a pall of smoke enveloped him. Tears ran down Rock’s face, from the pain in his head and the migraine fraying the edges of his mind or the stinging smoke he could not tell. With the smokescreen Rock could recover and -- 

Out of the smoke, The Count’s huge hand closed around Rock’s neck. [b]“Don’t think I can only hit what I can see,”[/b] he said, resolving out of the gas, lifting Rock into the air one handed as his son squirmed.

[color=green]“Hrk--”[/color] Rock thrashed and felt the rough thumb driving into his neck, pressing on his carotid. His vision was starting to swim. He had to get out fast. Rock used every muscle in his abdomen and jerked his whole body upwards, wrapping one leg across the Count’s torso and the other around his neck, forcing the huge man into an armbar, threatening to break his elbow. The grip loosened and Rock sucked in a breath. The Count dropped and slammed his full weight across his arm and into the sand, forcing the air out of Rock’s lungs. Rock felt the sand’s teeth and nail fragments dig bloody gashes into his back as his grip came loose and The Count pulled his arm free. It was a small miracle his spine hadn’t broken, that a wedge of bone hadn’t worked itself into a vertebrae.

[b]“Get up,”[/b] The Count said. Could Rock even manage that much? Somehow he found his feet again, legs trembling.

[b]“[i]Attack![/i]”[/b] The Count demanded. Every muscle in Rock’s body felt heavy. He raised his arm.

[b]“Your striking is [i]pitiful[/i],”[/b] The Count said. Rock’s elbow rammed into The Count’s abdomen and bounced off, sending Rock stumbling. It was like hitting a tree. [b]“The relationship between technique and power is [i]exponential[/i], boy. The majority of the strength lies in the approach of [i]perfection[/i]. Observe.”[/b] The Count drew back his fist and Rock knew it would be too fast to dodge.

Rock threw up his left forearm to block the blow. It connected and he could feel The Count’s knuckles grind against his bone, fracturing his radius and pushing Rock yards back across the sand. The bruise appeared instantly, a black splotch from his wrist to his elbow. The arm was useless. Even rotating his wrist a degree sent waves of agony across Rock’s body.

[b]“Every part of your body can be a weapon, not the crude instruments you flail about with. A hammer, a spear, a [i]knife[/i].”[/b] The Count’s hand lashed out and knuckles scraped over Rock’s forehead. A cut appeared and a curtain of blood dripped over Rock’s right eye. Rock threw a right blindly and The Count caught it. He twisted Rock’s arm backward. He drove his left knee into Rock’s side. Rock felt his ribs splinter, needles of bone poking into his lungs.

[b]“Perhaps you [i]are[/i] worthy of my hatred, boy.”[/b] The Count said. Rock laid on his back, struggling to breathe. Was he dying? The Count kicked his side again and Rock felt something in his chest give way and a rattle of air pushed out of his throat.

[b]“A braggart, with [i]nothing[/i] to show for all his vinegar.”[/b] The Count shoved his foot under Rock and rolled him across the sand, gathering a new collection of cuts and friction burns from the debris. The pain was already too intense for them to be anything but a pleasant distraction.

[b]“A spoiled brat, suckling on the teat of his betters.”[/b] The Count pushed his face towards Rock, and spat a thick wad of phlegm between his eyes. This close, spittle burning in his eyes, Rock saw the sweat across The Count’s brow, the pale in his face. He really [i]had[/i] taken that poison, and there was still nothing Rock would do to him.

Rock pushed his arm down, dragging jagged bone across the interior of his elbow. His fingers pried the face off the belt’s clasp. The panel fell away and revealed a dark, inlaid Mountain sigil. He pushed his screaming palm against it and the sigil came to life, pulsing through primary colors.

[b]“No aid will come from this trinket. This facility exists within a faraday cage.”[/b] The Count shook his head. [b]“I should strip it off you and beat you to death with it.”[/b]

[color=green]“Kill me,”[/color] Rock croaked.

[b]“But I won’t do you that dignity,”[/b] The Count ignored him. [b]“You are not even worthy of death by combat. I’ll dispose of you with the other trash.”[/b] The Count of Combat’s savage hand closed around the nape of Rock’s neck, and dragged him like a newborn fighting for life as the cold closed in all around him.

He was vaguely aware of the smell of rotten food and discarded plastic, the feeling of a soft, jagged bed of waste beneath him. Then the rush of pneumatics and the feeling of warm sunlight across his broken, bleeding form. Then, darkness.

[hider=Author’s Notes]
-The elevator pitch for The Count is “what if Sherlock Holmes, Nikola Tesla, and Yujiro Hanma were the same guy?”

-Spinning from the Holmes inspiration, I thought it would be cool if The Count used “baritsu”, an incorrectly transcribed martial art first called such by Arthur Conan Doyle. The story goes that ACD attended a seminar by Edward William Barton-Wright, demonstrating his style known as “bar[i]t[/i]itsu”, invented after Barton-Wright became one of the first known Englishmen to study juijitsu. But ACD incorrectly noted the art down as ‘baritsu’ before making it Holmes’ speciality, inadvertently making his misspelling the much more commonly understood name of the art.

-This is also where I say that Rock’s character and the lore of his world is an adaptation of a personal martial arts worldbuilding project I work on occasionally with a friend, based heavily on the underground martial arts scene seen in shows like Baki or Kengan Ashura. At the time of starting this sheet there was no concept of ‘Rock’ though, and really the firmest character was The Count of Combat. A very loose prototype of Saw existed as well as the ‘God of Wood’, who we had determined to be a lethwei expert with an unusual ability to bounce back from his brawls.

-The ‘Gods’ system The Count mentions is also a holdover from the aforementioned universe that I thought about cutting, but decided to leave in the flesh out the idea of extreme martial arts ability as a kind of superpower. At the moment only the Count and Saw’s positions as the Gods of Metal and Wood respectively have firm holders, leaving Fire, Water, and Earth open. 
[/hider]