Ralus takes his Muay Thai training very seriously; it's his bread and butter in the cage, after all. And he owes a lot of his fighting prowess to his teacher, the dark blue shark, Dhaxon. Even when experimenting with other styles, the dragon is always eager to go back to his roots and seek more guidance from his mentor. Not only does this mean doing part-time work at the shark's gym to help train his students too, but also be available for practical demonstrations. And more excitingly for the dragon: sparring. Light spars are commonplace, at least once a week, both private and public for any attending trainees. However, once a month, Dhaxon requests a hard spar. These get way more intense, obviously, and are almost always done after-hours. Thankfully, with Ralus being a healer, fights can go as hard and long as they need to with little in the way of consequences. Just two fighters going all out to see who the last man standing is.

Here's a quick peek at one such hard spar. The hard hits come in almost immediately, and it doesn't take long for both sides to get roughed up. Ralus' body conditioning has gotten better in recent times, but will it be enough to overcome the larger, more experienced shark?

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Art by  crassir and thoughts on both pieces in part 2: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/58705972/