NP1: Middle-Weight Challenge: Clash Fah versus Raikenzu

[Raikenzu Graves]

The Omega Returns

Years have passed since they last met, and as time heedlessly carried on, the Multiverse became a smaller and smaller place to exist.

Planets reached the height of their inhabitant’s technological ingenuity. Spacial regimes conquered their own galaxies then were overthrown by rebellions. Races were both discovered and forced into extinction simultaneously. Eons flashed by with beautiful supernovas of brightened stars accompanied with the depressive deaths of countless bloated suns. Universes burst into existence with promises of galactic life only to meet their cold inevitable end in the blink of a cosmic eye. Within those realms that lay between their worlds, countless miracles and unspeakable calamities have occurred; just a mere decade has transpired in the Earthen and Gaian calender.

Important things were expected of the Omega. The cosmos proved to be very resourceful, and they usually reaped what was articulated behind those ominous constellations. His life was either meaningful, bestowed with tragedy or one grueling trial after the other. Important things were expected of the Omega, so his life had become all of those. Destiny tested him with the demand of self sacrifice, the expectance of responsibility, and an inherited wanderlust. He rose from death. He ensured his planet’s survival, and there are still so many worlds to see. Important things have been done.

--

Raikenzu had not thought of that place in a long time. Once in a while there used to be a fleeting remembrance, the words that were spoken before everything went black. That was when he met the shadows for the first time. That was when he left that world called Gaia behind. What were those words again? He couldn’t make them out. They sounded like a garbled language spoken underwater when trying to recall them. Clash had said them. Why was he remembering this now? He remembered the man that spoke the indistinguishable words, he knew his name, and he knew where he was. Why was he fighting in that realm to begin with? He wasn’t thinking straight back then, insanity had claimed most of his thoughts when he was mortal. Now that he was a dead man, bound to perpetual day-dead-old flesh, he had reason and conscious thought. It would seem rather unfair he attain the most basic of mental functions when his skin went cold and he said goodbye to humanity. It had been for the best. The others treated him no differently, even if he was different from them.

Almond hued eyes studied the blank wall before him. The compound seemed to draw in around him, he could imagine it shrinking with him inside it. He glanced over into the corner where three swords stood propped up. Each were in their respective sheath, he couldn’t turn away once he looked at them. The black sword resembling a katana had ornate gold decorated along it’s handle and case. It was darkly beautiful with an ebon blade forged of shadesteel. Her name was Angel Slayer. There was another sword reminiscent of a katana, but this one was of a silver metal in entirety. At the base of the handle the letter R was engraved--this was one of the call signs of his kind. It was their trademark, designated to each awakened XETA. Manufactured from Hyper-Titanium and given a monomolecular edge, a Xetaken can be just as easily identified as a XETA can. He rose from the bed he sat on, went to the corner to grab the black and silver swords, then left his room. Both were mounted to his left hip during his walk. When he turned the next corner, he was gone. He had vanished into thin air, disappearing completely from the hallway he just entered.

The shadowstep was a dark form of teleportation granted to him by birthright. Moving without the constrictions of tangibility, it was a seamless travel from point a to point b in a timeless, non-bodied fashion. The matrix of empty-space he crossed yielded no signs of his presence; he entered Gaia as soundlessly as he left Earth. Raikenzu did not use his shadowy ability often. Instances of dire need or accessing vast distances were deemed reasonable. An off colored yellow scarf covered his neck. The clothes he wore looked similar to that of a mercenary’s. The gear he had on felt like a second skin, from his boots to his gloves, wearing anything else just didn’t feel right. There was one thing he didn’t need to pick up before he left the compound. That was his blade set. He always kept an assortment of hidden knives on his person, some known to be as sharp as his Xetaken. He observed his surroundings. While viewing the scenario he twirled an exposed four inch knife, moving the slender blade in an unnatural grace with the fingers of his right hand. He came here for one person, to see if they were still alive. To see if they were still strong. Raikenzu came to see Clash.

 

[Raikenzu Graves]

Air constantly moving around the edge of his blade was soothing to him, audible in it’s momentum. It was then accompanied by the sound of approaching footsteps--the knife stopped.

Index finger slid the slender blade back into the compartment silently from whence it came. He focused his view on the person coming towards him. Clothes of a combatant and exposed armaments gave him a menacing look, but it was his face and those eyes that made the biggest impression. It seemed he hadn’t changed since they last met, the androgynous face cut into an apathetic countenance showed no signs of aging. If anything, the pallor of his complexion had grown a shade lighter. Almond colored hues of a dead-man, lifeless, yet moving, took the figure of the other man in. Most importantly, he looked the man right in his eyes when he was close enough. He heard the salutations, then the confirmation of their second meeting. This was the person he was looking for. It was Clash.

The man was alive. Was he still strong?

A corpse is what Clash had greeted. Raikenzu was not alive anymore. In the literal definition of the word’s meaning, and there was a faint envy for those that were. He still felt, he still thought, he even dreamt if he slept, though blood did not course through him, nor did a heart beat beneath his chest. It all seemed so stale. He found himself still mimicking breathing from time to time when there was no need, or moving his eyes when he innately perceived beyond the mundane. Old habits that didn’t die when he did. Most of the time he felt out of place. In the midst of battle was where he was truly at home. It was always like that, even when he was alive and stricken with insanity. He was still the tried and true leader of the XETAs, a killing machine not set back by his loss of mortality, but freed from it’s limitations. His demeanor screamed lethality coinciding the wrongness he passively emanated. That in itself should give off one hell of a bad feeling. Knowing who he was didn’t help.

An explosion engulfed the both of them, the dirt patch they stood on, and the seats that closed it in. It wasn’t a physical force that did any harm, yet it was pervasive and usually detested if felt by others. His outer-body-awareness erupted from him, deployed timelessly along the astral to blanket his surroundings in a sensory projection. This is what they referred to as their Burst, utilizing their senses in full corporeal capability. Energy manipulation, metaphysical occurrences, and non-bodied events in it’s range were detected. He saw what the eye did not, felt vibrations around him, and heard what was thought to be silent. He could also hear the whispers and growls of terrifying things that lurked behind the wall of the material realm. With a trained authority over one’s self, the attached distractions of his actualized prowess gave no hindrance. They were ignored by something that could be more horrifying than the nightmare creatures beyond the veil. If he chose to be so.

A sound that was both loud and unexpected shrieked when he pulled the metal sword from it’s case. Right hand casually held his Xetaken. The scream produced was the result of air howling along the monomolecular edge of his sword. Celerity applied to the withdraw caused a blur of black and metal before it rested at his side. Raikenzu gave a slight nod of his head in both response and acknowledgment. He never broke eye contact.  

[Raikenzu Graves]

Unleashing genetic dormancy provided a large yield of strength and speed. Surpassing the standards of normalcy’s peak, they referred to it as the Boost. Already superior to the biology of mankind with their bred design, enabling this potentialization resulted in the heightening of an already advanced genome. Olympian feats looked as if they were child’s play when compared. Boost was customarily activated before sensory expansion; he was well enough trained to properly correlate the gifts he was born with. If it hadn’t been for the methods in their making, he wouldn’t be able to accomplish the way he managed his existence as a partitioned set of bodies. Each and every XETA felt the surge when that part of themselves were unlocked. A rush and the knowing they can do much more. He welcomely embraced it. Clash began to chuckle then unfurled himself before the Omega. A familiar sensation returned to him. The product of why he returned to Gaia. It was the thrill of battle.

No visible signs were revealed in his actualization; changes with Clash were immediately noticed nevertheless. His awareness exposed Clash’s transformative affair and the impending attack. Boots made a deep impression into the dirt from his issued motion. The air tore around him as he eluded the gouge with an assisted and sudden shriek. The space crossed was ten feet, traveled in an accelerated haze of movement he exhibited earlier with the draw of his sword. Raikenzu was made of obscure hues of black, grey and yellow in his backward avoidance. The flash of silver and that tell tale shriek lingered even after he changed position. In the blink of an eye he evaded Clash. The flash of silver was a one time spin of his sword that intended to remove those bony digits upon his departure. Connection was made during the beginning of the Xetaken’s spin if his opponent didn’t properly act. His maneuver showed he wasn’t simply dodging the offensive. He had countered leaving a small window for reaction due to the sword’s closeness to the targeted leg.

Raikenzu did not slide across the arena’s dirt floor after he relocated. He was stationary with his sword held the same as it was before he was struck at. The escalation had already started, his mind joined the fray with it’s release from mental limiters. A heavy pressure flooded the reach of his outer-body-awareness as the latent potential of his consciousness surfaced. This was their Trance. The actualization of the psionic mind. He tore midway at the ground between him and Clash with a telekinetic lash in a reflexive act of focus. His mentality had flexed. His mind’s eye perceived the terrain to be ripped, though he kept those almond hues locked on the eyes of his adversary.  

[Raikenzu Graves]

Did Clash know about Raikenzu’s projected outer-body-awareness? Would he wonder over how fast they seemed to switch psionic grasp on those severed bone slivers? If Clash did not know, it could go either way if he was surprised or not. The man was a fighter like he was and battle was a place to expect any possible outcome. Both of them should be instilled with that knowledge from the lives they have lived.

His mind’s reach was in the range of his deployed awareness, though closer to him did the strength of his will become the most potent. If Clash kept hold of the bones, he could have achieved more in his rather ingenious tact, but with them just sent, the influence of the XETA clutched them as soon as Clash’s hold abandoned them.

They did not make it far at all.

Raikenzu’s sense and mind were everywhere in the arena. If his adversary knew that information, the swiftness in which he reacted would be of no question. He always expected other’s to be just as capable as he was. Paranoia wasn’t a handicap to his kind, it was a necessity. They knew better than to underestimate someone or something. They new it often lead to unwanted repercussions if they made that mistake.

He held the bone slivers just like Clash did, suspended in the air with a telekinetic controlled hover. It took one thought, an imagined action, and the kinetics burst to life with the mental command of intense pressure greater than the one he emanated.

The bones were pulverized into dust.

That felt good, he thought. That felt really good. He released the restraint he was keeping on himself. Raikenzu was discarding his reservedness rather quickly, then all at once. This arena was going to be a playground for his prowess he decided. Maybe this planet should experience the pinnacle of their evolution. Maybe, just maybe, Clash would like to see the Archetype?

He was resolute with his decision. Psionic occurrences flared around him with just the passing of thoughts.

Telekinesis flourished wildly, awareness detected thoroughly, and body flooded with anxiousness. Anxiety was caused by apprehension of moving into the next stage, of commanding a form not many witnessed. The anxiousness was made of both a want and uneasiness. Completion is what the paradigm demanded, what his bodies felt like they needed--he would obey it willingly. He had to, he already started. There was no need to stop anywhere along the process, he would always be committed to taking it all the way. The unease stemmed from knowing he might lose himself in the process of it all.

A gentle wind picked up the bone dust and carried it away. Lightning flashed overhead without warning and thunder boomed loudly as rain started to fall. The mind, body, and senses synchronized with one other, aligning their separate shifts as close as they could to each other while being on different planes of existence. When they were in sync a change came over Raikenzu. For now there was no apparent sign that anything had happened--the result had yet to be unveiled. He no longer kept vision locked, yet tt still looked as if he never broke eye contact even when Clash did. Mortal perception had been forgotten in the comfortability of seeing beyond the flesh, and so his eyes showed their unblinking lifelessness like a corpse should.  

[Raikenzu Graves]

Awareness let him see even though eyes were cast elsewhere, though it was Clash that broke from the gaze first. He was down, and rather this was stance now, weapon having missed by inches. It wasn’t a slouched, but knee’s bent and body relaxed. His sense was unparalleled compared to the norm, and that would be displayed as Clash came in close. There was no blocking of his sight, he was readied for what came, and when the Hyper-XETA unveiled itself from the syncing of his three ‘bodies’, supersonic movement in causality was obtained. He had waited a long time to fight Clash, and when the air around him exploded outward in gale force once Clash came at him, Raikenzu had turned himself so he could directly stop the punch at his kidney with flat palms. The sound of hands colliding burst out from the point of impact, and a shockwave was released from the blocked blow when it hit his palms. This was when he took counter-measures, and moved away like before, with a push of his foot, causing the kick at his calf to miss, as well as the other combination of attacks that ensued if he followed through. Ten feet away, during his transient motion he lunged his sword skyward, and appeared to be unarmed at his destination. The dirt arena would no doubt be suffering from incessant riddling of the faster than sound nature his body was moving, though it was to of no concern to these individuals. At least, not to Raikenzu.