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 Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:56 pm
posts: 3/17
At this last one, she stopped. Turning to look at the small, unimportant-looking purple rose, she realized that she hadn't given it much thought. Leaning down to sniff softly at the bloom, the memory replaced her surroundings, and she was a child once more, before the time of her Mother, watching a tiger stalk through a clearing, near the tree that stood in its center. She didn't know what it was tracking, but a particular bird in the tree seemed to believe that it was a threat. Without regard to its own life, and in what should by all rights be a suicidal move, the bird dived down and began pecking and clawing at the tiger's eyes as if it were the most lethal thing in the world. The tiger did not put up with this for long, and swatted the bird out of the air, where it died in an unmoving pile of feathers. Arin had waited for the tiger to go, watching the previous events with her head tilted. She went forward to the bird and touched it. It was dead. All at once, she heard the sounds of a faint tweeting from the tree. upon climbing to observe, she saw the birds nest. Inside were two freshly born birds, now orphans. Arin had never really understood this, and had put it out of her mind. They had made a good meal that day, as had their parent. As Arin finished inhaling, she saw the flower bloom before her eyes, and grow as it did, and knew that she would not forget this memory so easily again.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:23 am
posts: 4/17
Arin paced slowly forward, but it wasn't a deliberate motion. It was almost as if she were being drawn inexorably onward by some unseen force, drifting through her memories in a way that was not unpleasant but that might be disconcerting if any of this seemed real. Here was the first time she had, in another life, been drilled endlessly on the proper use of the bo staff that was Aki's chosen weapon. On the other hand, a different weapons lesson was being demonstrated, a man was fighting with a sword and a shield against ten men using varying weapons. As she watched through the crystal clarity of her memory, she could see every drop of sweat, every tensing muscle. She studied the man in the center, who was no more than any of the others; a human. She was watching through Aki's eyes a demonstration of what a master could do once they truly learned to treat their weapons as an extension of themselves. It was a sort of motivational exercise, and she was surrounded by the other students, watching wide-eyed at was was sure to be a free-for-all that they would remember for a long time. Arin leaned down and inhaled deeply at the remarkably vivid memory.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:24 am
posts: 5/17
Aki sat in wonderment as she tried to guess which one would come out on top. The students had fights like this all the time; throw a bunch of people in the ring and let them beat each other until there was only one standing. Each student would typically pick one of the people near them that they had an advantage over: a greater reach, a heavier weapon, superior skill, or someone whom they simply knew a weakness to exploit. These battles were brutal, and oftentimes there would be a stalemate because by the end of the fight all the little wounds and the exertion would catch up with you. Even if you were in the last two, you rarely had energy to stand. They degenerated after a short tiem into brawls, where techniques were forgotten in an effort to simply continue to strike at the opponent. The students learned quickly that temporary alliances were more beneficial than going it alone. Two people could take down one person down more easily than either could do on their own. In this way, these battles were made more manageable, and you could then turn on your partners when it benefit you, or break away from them to quickly finish an opponent locked in another melee.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:25 am
posts: 6/17
However, in this fight, there were eleven masters. She made her wager on the one with the wicked looking shod staff. It was a menacing weapon, a little shorter than a bo staff, with an iron ball located at each end, as if they had had an argument and gotten as far away from each other as possible. The balance of such a weapon was such that it was only very slightly heavier than a regular staff, as each ball worked to offset the weight of the other. It could be spun viciously fast, and each movement served to increase the momentum of each ball, which drove the other forward as well. It was a cascading series of events that ultimately made it one of the most momentum driving weapons she had ever seen, and once it was moving, it was very difficult to stop or beat in terms of speed, despite its size. Each warrior had a perfectly crafted, beautifully decorated weapon, some elegant and beautiful in their extravagant detailing, and some crude and beautiful in their simplicity. But one was different. he was another story altogether. Aki figured he would not last long with his pitiful armament.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:26 am
posts: 7/17
Aki quickly realized that this was not a free-for-all once the gong sounded. It was a one-on-ten fight. Everyone swarmed the fighter in the center, armed with a simple (almost insulting) sword and shield of such miserable quality that they may well be nothing more than a rusted, battle-torn iron stick and a rotted piece of bark. While the other warriors were using such wonderful lacquered and polished weapons, it seemed almost a direct insult to them or to the shieldsman that he had to carry such loathsome, diseased-looking equipment. It was an insult to the man that he was not given a chance to succeed. It was an insult to the other warriors that he was placed in the same class as them. Aki could see every fighter in the ring around him appeared to think the same thing. He was nto worthy. Their anger and disdain for the man bubbled near the surface, and all ten turned on him as the gong sounded. Aki looked away for a moment, turning away from what was going to be a terrible image. One man torn apart by ten others before they set about the rest of the demonstration.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:31 am
posts: 8/17
The dishonor of these masters attacking one man so completely helpless was sickening. Aki could scarcely stomach it. She made to rise to the man's aid in a sudden decision when she looked back into the fight to see who she was going to attack first. She saw a shocking sight. The man was still standing. More than standing; he was completely unharmed. He had four weapons pressed against his shield and five against his sword on the opposite side. The last weapon that was being aimed at him was a meteor hammer, and he watched it's user even as he held the other fighters off with much less apparent effort than it should have taken. It was almost like he was taking the force from one group and applying it to the other, using them against each other as they each pushed and fought to unbalance him and overpower his defense. It was an incredible technique. By catching all the attacks in the soft wood and metal of his equipment, he'd trapped every blade in the material, and by using all the warriors against each other, he was expending little obvious energy, almost at ease in the situation, despite his intense concentration as he made adjustments to counter the forces on each side.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:32 am
posts: 9/17
As the meteor hammer came forward, directly toward the shieldsman's chest, she knew it was over. He had no way of escaping. If he tried to get away, the fighters in range would all attack him. If he didn't move, he would be destroyed by the projectile. With a subtle rebalancing of the equation, the side with five men slid up his sword, being dragged by their own weight in front of the meteor hammer, which struck the scimitar master in the side of the head, bringing him immediately down. This rebalancing of the situation allowed the side on the man's shield to push harder, and the shieldsman spun lightly, allowing the ones on his sword hand to move forward and the ones on his shield to continue forward as well, ending with them having swapped sides and lost a member all at once. The sword followed onto the back of one of the men who had been on his shield, and he fell to the ground unmoving, even as the shield followed the ones who had been on his sword, striking the tetsubo user on the back of the head, at the base of the skull. He fell forward and struck the ground with a thump.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:32 am
posts: 10/17
Aki had only begun to open her mouth as the battle continued, so quick she might have missed it. Following his shield, the man slashed another warrior in the back, spinning with the force and bringing the full weight of the spike at the bottom of his shield down on the spine of yet another victim. Now five lay on the ground, one by himself with a meteor hammer, one by himself on the side that had formerly been on the shieldsman's sword. Three stood from the group who had been on his shield. From the downward strike with his shield, the man thrust forward and struck the remaining fighter in the spine between his shoulderblades. The men behind him had now had time to turn around (barely) as the meteor hammer came flying back at the shieldsman. He moved forward as the projectile flew at him. Using his shield deflect the weight at an angle and his sword to wrap the wire around he let it slide down the length of his dulled sword, sending the weight back at its defenseless owner. The package was received with enough force to strike the man in the chest and lift him off his feet.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:33 am
posts: 11/17
The remaining four warriors rushed him and he pressed a spear aside with his shield, sliding forward and slamming his only piece of armor into the chest of the spearman, lifting him off his feet as the shieldsman brought the shield down and to his right to parry a katana that was striking from above. Having deflected the blade into the ground without diminishing its speed, he raised his sword and punched the katana wielder in the face with the hilt of his sword. A huge, wicked-looking hammer came down over the shieldsman's head, and he bashed the side of it to deflect it as he spun and hammered the shield into the exposed hammerman's face. He finally ran out of momentum as he sized up his last opponent; the one with the iron shod staff. There was a brief moment as the staff master built momentum before rushing forward, charging the only other target on the field. Taking his time, the shield master allowed the enemy to approach. It was over. Once that weapon had its momentum built up, it was difficult for even the user to stop it. Aki watched the weapon spin with dreadful finality.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:34 am
posts: 12/17
And then it was over. She heard the final crunch as the battle came to an end. It took her a moment to process what had just happened. Instead of blocking or deflecting the attack, the shieldsman had pushed it harder. At the last second, he'd stepped aside to avoid the strike, to the outside of the staff user. Using his sword and shield in opposite movements, he had pushed each end of the staff in the direction it was already going. The staff had been sent flying into the air, and with his arms crossed across his body, the shieldsman had raked his weapons back in a scissoring motion, stopping just short of what would normally have been a decapitation, his sword and his shield pressed against the rapidly pulsing veins on either side of the disarmed warrior's throat. The shieldsman lowered his weapons and left without further ceremony. She had stared as he left an arena without a single bead of sweat on his body, sliding his sword into a metal ring on the inside of his shield, leaving ten masters laying on the floor, bleeding, groaning and writhing on the cold stone.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:35 am
posts: 13/17
Arin returned to the world that was passing for real right now and furrowed her brow. It was no small feat what that human did. Compared to the destruction Arin herself could unleash, it was negligible, but the absolute perfection of his art was what made the largest impression on Arin. The utter lack of energy required to use those weapons so gracefully, as if he had known exactly which actions to take at all times, and had never really been in danger. Arin wished that she could be so wholly dedicated to a task that she was capable of such effortless perfection. Alas, she feared that her saiyan blood gave her too hot a head to truly master something to a cold, calculating degree like that. She may try some day, though, and see how far she gets. It was worth a try, and it would add another layer of padding between her and her opponent, which --if current memory serves-- might be a good idea, all considered. This place wasn't so bad, though. She looked over the flowers and wondered at the untold secrets here. Sure, she had lived it all. Twice. But you would be surprised what you forget.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:36 am
posts: 14/17
She breathed form the next flower that caught her eye. She came upon a memory of herself as a child, watching the ants of Nexum battle a rather large, flat beetle. It was roughly eight inches in diameter, and it was a vicious, quick fighter, whose only mistake was wandering too close to a passing line of the incredibly intelligent ants. In truth, the ants had been hunting the beetle. They formed huge, self-crossing lines of ants to trap targets in, like a web. Because so many ants were already deployed, they were able to respond quickly, and because it was simply a large circuit, new ants would constantly be joining the fight before a small patrol would bring back the hoard from the colony. To someone unaccustomed to the ant's strategy, it looked like they were losing. The beetle was beating them back, and advancing in a direction that it believed was of its own choosing. As it moved forward, suddenly all the ants rushed it. It was covered in them as they piled on top of it to add weight to the already massive creature.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:37 am
posts: 15/17
A prepared pitfall that the ants had hollowed out gave way. The thin layer of earth crumbled under the combined weight of the beetle and the ants, and the beetle fell into a hole that did not give it any room to maneuver. The ants scurried away all at once, through tunnels they had dug back up to the surface, and they swarmed around and under a large rock. Pushing the rock, the ants moved the seven inch round stone to the hole, and it fell on top of the beetle. It was not enough to kill it, but it pinned it quite thoroughly into the hole, unable to move, strike, or bite. The ants returned through the tunnels they had escaped from, and began tearing pieces off the still-living beetle to take home as food. Arin had marveled at the ingenuity of the ants, and had employed similar traps to catch her own dinner for a short time before she realized that the energy spent digging such a trap was better spent simply slaughtering the foodstuff to begin with. Nevertheless, she wondered at how she could have forgotten such an event. Sure, it was merely a war of insects, but very real parallels could be drawn to real sentient life.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:38 am
posts: 16/17
She came now to a very recent memory... She barely breathed in before she was taken back to a vivid third-person retelling of her battle --her massacre-- on Orsa. It was all so pointless... Arin couldn't even see why she was so angry. It was all senseless. There were entire families destroyed because she was throwing a temper tantrum. She took a deep breath and watched as she continued to rip warriors limb from bloody limb, and beat them to death with the corpses of their fallen comrades. It was... Well, it was scary, really. Arin was terrified of what she had become. It was overwhelming to watch men, women, children all ripped apart, incinerated, turned into ash by her anger. Her rage shined purple in the bland landscape. It was as if she were aiming to destroy the very world she stood on, and she gave no thought to the very real possibility that she might end up doing just that. She'd killed ALICE. She'd stranded her soldiers on a foreign world with no supplies. She'd awakened a terrible beast to ravage the world. There was no one who could stand up to such a monster.
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 4:54 am
posts: 17/17
No... one... She pondered the issue for a moment. There are a great many more mooks than monsters on this planet. Or at least... On the planet that she'd formerly been on. Who actually knew where she was now. Or where she was supposed to be. This place was not really a planet, she guessed. She sat and wondered how long she would be here. She for the first time felt the strangeness of this place and was suddenly overcome with an ironic claustrophobia. Being in a completely open plain and feeling so trapped seemed to be enough that she was shocked out of her reverie. She watched as the sky began to glow bright. Too bright. She clenched her eyes shut and the light still burned through her eyelids.
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