Pacifists don't fight.
Even if their life is in danger.
Even if the lives of other people are in danger.
Even if it kills their family and friends.
Even if they're the only ones who can stop the aggresor.
Not even in self-defense.
Even if there are no other options.
No other options?
What if the pacifist can protect the victim with their own life?
What if the pacifist can wear out the aggresor?
Make him have to run away, because they'd be wasting too much time staying out?
Disable his ability to attack, without direct contact?
Force him to stay defensive in his attacks through your own defensiveness?
Speak to him, try to understand him and calm him down without distracting yourself?
Well, yeah, you can do all that.
But it's hard.
Very hard.
You'll have to train.
Steel your mind and body.
Perfect your techniques until they become second nature.
Get money.
Have financial stability to be able to focus on your training.
Put yourself into many dangerous situations.
Legally.
You'll have to legally be allowed multiple times into those situations.
Legally resolve them, so that the pol-
Police.
Obvious in retrospect, right?
Even individual and police training aren't enough for Li to be satisfied. She needs to put herself in real fights, put the theory to practice. It can't be real fights, for many obvious reasons. That's why she's a regular colloseum battler. Even if she doesn't win and obviously can't change the enemy's mind on winning, she can train her skills.
A regular training partner and a close friend of hers is a nidoking with a chacteristic drill horn, apparently inherited from his Rhydon dad.
"Hi, Mark."
× Hey. The usual?
"Yeah"
Mark is famous for his grapples and his..."unshakeablility". He agreed to help Li train a few years ago and despite the type matchup, somehow he never fell behind.
He takes a menacing, Folkstyle wrestling stance.
Li takes a standard Judo pose, though her own, personal fighting style doesn't really demand any specific one.
Neither of them waited for a judge to start the fight. There was none.
Mark immediatly charges onto Li with as much aggresion as he can muster. He's not worried about hurting her too much.
As he predicted, the moment he started rushing, his hands tucked in, as if he wanted to tackle her, he slowed down just a bit and subconcioulsy became more weary, despite the fact that he tried to attack with as little thought as he could muster.
Li easily jumps over Mark's attack and hops on his shoulders. He tries to throw his hand upward and grab her legs while they're close, but she counters that by jumping on the palms of his hands and bouncing off them faster than he can catch her.
Li created a bit of distance between them, but got more tired than Mark. She's a bit distracted today.
Mark's horn starts to spin. He's trying to help her focus. She never liked having to deal with Megahorn. Especially now, since Mark was given a moment to get his bearings and jump forward with full strength. Now, his resolve weakening won't be a factor. Li has to deal with this directly.
Detecting the inital action is easy enough. She is more worried about the next one. She might recover from it, but getting hit is never fun.
Mark isn't just here to win. He wants to improve. He wants for Li to improve. He's not gonna keep throwing out "useless" moves.
Sparks of electricity course through Mark's body, congealing into a single point at the tip of his horn. The charge starts to loop around within that small space at rapid speeds, creating a spherical bolt. In an instant, that minature thunder is let loose, and it flies toward the closest conductor possible: Li.
She has time to react, but instead stays, as if the sight of an Electric-type attack was enough to paralyze her. She tries to dodge left, but the current is already locked on to it's target.
The pain isn't excrutiating, but still unpleasant. While normally Li would've been taken to the hospital immediatly, somehow she can nonchalantly recover in no time. She's not worried about any more distractions. Pain is always a good motivator.
She's able to dodge the next bolt. Even though Mark could've used his other attacks, he keeps on fruitlessly using the comparetively weaker Thunderbolt. The battle starts to take on a specific flow. Thunderbolt, Detect, Thunderbolt, Recover, Thunderbolt... Before long, Mark can't generate any more power. Li finally falls to the floor, utterly exhausted. While previously her brainnwas completely focused on just surviving, now, after this mind-dumbing onslaught, the first emotion to surface is anger.
x You know that you could've just-
"Shut up. YOU should've told me we were gonna be doing this fucking shock therapy."
x Would a real enemy warn his target?
"This is just training, Mark. Besides, I have no counters to-"
x Thunder Punch.
"Jeeeesus Chriiiiiiiist... *sigh*, You just had to, didn't you?"
x I really don't know what's your problem with it. I wasn't forcing you to attack. You could've used it defensively, to absorb my-
"Yeah, sure. At first I'll use it"defensively", then I'll get accustomed to it, fall back on it when I'm in a pinch, or when I feel like I have no other choices, I won't be scared of attacking with it anymore, I'll start to use it more regularly, it'll feel liberating to finally get rid of this fear, I'll start overusing it and - oh shit - suddenly I'm now the very thing I dedicated my life to stopping. Guess I'll dieeeeee~"
She jokingly falls to the floor from a sitting position, with arms dramatically stretched outward, as if she was playing a character's death in a play.
Li knew that telepathy was completely achievable by anyone, especially Psychic types. It demanded years of dedicated training and the honing of a specific mindset, which made it unappealing to most people, but there were small communities of telepaths and monks who dedicated themselves to the study of this ability. However, she was not one of them.
x ...That aside, your linking was good today.
"I just tried out what we discussed earlier."
x Yeah, but it worked, right? See, all you needed was the defensive stance.
"Yeah, I guess I never really needed to consider it before."
x Besides, I don't remember you being especially good at dodging tackles.
"Anything's easy to dodge if you know that's the only thing the enemy can do."
x I wonder what would've happened if you took a different stance?
"Doesn't really matter. If I know how an attack is going to turn out, all I need is an appropriate kind of dodge for it."
x Yeah, but you could do stuff like...
She points to her head.
"Already in your mind. You don't have to explain.
x Oh, right.
.
It's really weird, cuz you're actually right.
.
" It's strange, isn't it? Like, not being able to understand each other is kinda the fundamental struggle of humanity and the cause of god knows how many wars and conflicts and I just -*whoop!*- throw it out like that.
x It's REALLY weird.