Prelude to a Legend

[Deleted]

??/60

There was stone everywhere, and the animals seemed to keep their distance from this place, though perhaps it was more that they were keeping their distance from the girl and her bear. Of course that could just as easily be the bear and her girl. It was hard to tell, because the girl was leading the way, but whenever a creature crossed their paths it was slain and fed to the bear. Interesting relationship there. Did wild animals even thin in those terms? In any event it was difficult to determine who was in charge here.

Musubi, the bear, appeared familiar with this segment of the forest, but seemed to dislike the stone slabs littering the area as they traveled farther and farther in the general that-a-way direction that Maria assumed the map was leading. It got harder to tell with any certainty where in the nine Hells they were going with each passing step. But the structure fragments looked ancient. Then again, moss might grow extra fast here. The Lands were littered with freaky elemental hotspots, each of which manifested itself differently. So, who really knew anything?

In any case, the bits of rock were getting more and more frequent, and also less and less mossy. Maybe there was some significance to that? Maria's mind was getting too hazy with the sheer effort of keeping this bear fed enough to stop it from eating her to really think about what she was doing anymore. Physically she was fine, but mentally she was burning out. In order to preserve itself,, her mind had switched to an autopilot of sorts that kept her moving in her best guess of the right direction, maintaining her bodily requirements, and feeding the bear.

They seemed to be settling into a routine, albeit a tense and awkward routine that might end in bloody violence if the exhausted human made a mistake. Musubi was still leery about trusting the girl. Or just thought she resembled strawberries and mint. Which was delicious. Just like the charred meat. In fact, it went extremely well with the charred meat. But she'd eaten better in the past few hours than she had ever before. The food was amazing, and plentiful. So Maria would go untasted. For now.

[Naota]

+17

[✗Gohma✗]

Food For The Time Being

[/b][/center]
The meal was fantastic, both for the filling of the stomachs, and the taste. Though as they both began to progress further into the slabbed terrain, a large spiritual looking formation would appear with them. A large circular pattern of stone slabs. The two would continue to walk further and further, until finally, when they reached the center of the circle, their legs would be gripped. It would happen in almost a couple seconds time. Eyes would widen, and the bear would only be able to roar once by the time they were both pulled underground.

A whine would be able to be heard from the bear and then, darkness fell upon the girl. A large thump to the head would put her out of sight, plus the lack of light since they were pulled into the mess didn't help. The knock on the head would have come from something sticking off of the side of the wall that had been created by someone. This was a trap, and Maria knew it. Though it didn't seem like it was a trap to kill, no. It was something to capture.

The terrain below you seems cold, and if you were to touch it, it would feel gritty and rusty.

Questions, Questions.

[/font][/blockquote][/td][/tr][/table]

[Deleted]

20/60

Maria shook the sluggishness away. Or tried to, at least. But that just made things worse. Her head hurt like hell. Idly she wondered just how many more knocks to the head she could survive before encountering permanent brain damage. She was really, really getting tired of it. And apparently so was Musubi, even though the pair had met only recently. The bear stood guard over her source of spectacular eating protectively, almost territorial. It seemed Maria had been claimed as her personal walking restaurant.

The area was metallic, and old. And very definitely a trapfall. She couldn't see anything, couldn't focus her chakra around the swimming in her head and eyes. No telling if this was a cage or merely a pit, whether her captors would arrive soon or whether they were long dead, having placed this for some other purpose in the distant past.

Musubi stood high upon her hind legs now, and waddled to the nearest wall. So there was plenty of headroom, and that wall at least was solid. She roared in defiance of anything standing between her and her desires, which right now was to eat who or what ever had placed this...downward-cave-in-the-dirt. She cocked back one mighty paw, and sent it slamming fiercely into the wall, followed by the other, then the first for several pounding blows[1/5]. The reverberations of the mighty strikes were absolute. There would be a great deal of dislodged dust and dirt. Though whether this would somehow free them or prove a wasted effort was yet to be seen. After a few moments of snuffling at the wall to see if it had opened up, if it had not the remarkably intelligent ursa would move to another wall and bash at it as well, and so on unless some event occured to distract her from the self-appointed task.

---

Musubi uses Fury of Blows anywhere from 1-4 times, untill SOMETHING or other happens.

[GO AWAY]

[✗Gohma✗]

Now we cant have this...

[/b][/center]
The bear would undoubtedly be smashing it's hands against the walls and attempting escape. Though as this went on for quite some time, the metallic room that they had been enclosed in, was a cage. A box that was pressed up against the concrete surroundings. The room was too dark to see, and the bear would only make Maria uncomfortable from the annoying noises. A small thunk sound came from just about ten meters away, and suddenly the banging stopped. The bear wouldn't growl, or move. Lying on the ground defenseless.

A blue light would flicker abruptly, showing everything in the room. Behind the bars in front of Maria would stand a dark figure, holding a torch with a blue aura. As soon as it lit, the presence of Maria's chakra would seem to have dissappeared. Not deplete, but it seemed to have just up and left.

He would begin to speak with the sounds of the grunge in his throat.

~You might be?

He said in obligation of getting a name. The bear could be found sleeping, still breathing, with a dart sticking out of it's buttocks. In order to stop the pounding on the walls, it seemed to be a good idea to do that anyways.

Reveal your identity please?

[/font][/blockquote][/td][/tr][/table]

[Deleted]

26/60

"...You might be?"

Really? This guy had just shot Musubi, was imprisoning them both and somehow that light was siphoning off her excess chakra. She didn't know how she knew but she knew. It was as if it was just...gone. But Maria was alive, as was Musubi. So he wasn't trying to hurt them...yet.

Perhaps it would be best to cooperate.

She rose, eyed her captor, and struck a pose with her left hand on her hip, near to her remaining feng huo lun, while her left hand hung low, her first fingers centimeters away from the edge of a crossbow bolt in the hip quiver she sewed into the leg of her uniform. She was still armed.

Cooperation?

...To the Nine Circles with that!

"Tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine."

[✗Gohma✗]

Insolence

[/b][/center]
The man was wearing a hood, and the dark voice of his kept an uneasy tone within the room. Though he looked to see what his new captive had been planning. His face was obscure and he knew this, so he didn't bother with facial expressions.

~Very well, naive attitudes will get you nowhere.

He began as he paced slowly towards the girl standing on the inside of the box. He would pull down his hood and show his wrinkly pale face. A smile would appear as he would walk up to the bars of the cage.

~If you were to kill me, how would you escape that cage?

A diabolical scheme, though he knew what he was getting at. He thought it was rather funny as his smile would grow to the max.

~You don't even know what it's made out of.

As the torch grew closer, Maria could feel the chakra edging further away from her. It was a chakra depleting device. Though it made no difference, those bolts could still kill.

~Nevertheless, I'm known as Flick.

He said with that very same old man grin. His robes, black as night made him look up to no good.

Your Turn

[/font][/blockquote][/td][/tr][/table]

[Deleted]

??/60

"Okay, Flick. Let me indulge you a sec. I'm Maria Kazeraikou," and her hand would brush through the dirty and knotted mass that was her once-luxurious mint-green mane. Her reputation had led to more than a little vanity. "And I didn't plan on killing anyone unless I had to. You never attacked, neither did I. Plain and simple. But you did shoot Musubi, so I don't think we're gonna be best buddies. Now are you gonna tell me why we're stuck in this hole or am I gonna have to bury a bolt in your gut? Might kill you, might not, but it hurts like all the Hells at once."[/color]

Musubi had become her friend, sortof, in their short time together. So Maria wasn't feeling particularly polite.

[✗Gohma✗]

Hmph

[/b][/center]
The man would keep his distance and his smile would fade away as his patience with this girl had found itself going wild. He would open his mouth to speak.

~Naive girl. Is your companion dead? The dart I had implanted in it, put it in a tranquil slumber.

He shook his head within the darkness and let out a sigh before he would begin to speak again. Walking from the right side of the room, to the left, he would keep talking.

~Why is it that you're smack dead in the middle of fang country?

It was a serious question. No one comes around these parts unless someone wishes to possess power.

Darkness is the new Light

[/font][/blockquote][/td][/tr][/table]

[Deleted]

OOC: Since you posted I'm going to assume Heero gave you the all-clear. So lets get this show on the road! Marino Bares her Fangs at God!

??/60

Defiance rose and burned hotter within her chest.

"Why am I here? Because the quickest way between two points is a straight line, and I can handle pretty much any dangers of the wild that's why. I was shipwrecked, and separated from my companions. When I woke up I was in Tsume no Kuni. My supplies had been salvaged and left with me, along with a map leading somewhere in the Middle of Fang, and a weird Key," this she pulled out from under her dented breastplate to show the man. It hung on a cord around her neck, safe and sound. And somewhat creepy-looking.

"The old geezer was going to help me get stronger. Strong enough to annihilate that woman and rescue my friend! I'd just assumed that he, Brock, and Natsumi had gone ahead and left me with directions to meet back up with them," she explained with a small shrug, an odd finish after having gotten so heated just moments ago.

Now she smiled, a grim twist of the lips that matched her now-flat eyes perfectly.

"So it's my turn to ask a question again, an answer for an answer. Penny's in the air now, Flicky. Why do you care, so much that we weren't killed in our sleep, but that we also remain caged?"

Marino had been rising more and more instinctively lately, despite being a remnant of a past long buried. The Great Thief was her perfect defense mechanism. So much so that her stress melted away, her stunning sapphire eyes returning to their usual shining emerald, though dark and cold now.

[← KIRA →]

+3

[✗Gohma✗]

Usiel gave the okay. Can't Be...

[/b][/center]
Ignoring the rest of the conversation from the end of when Maria claimed to have the key, he would walk forward with his neck stretched straight.

~This is just impossible.

The key would be black, with a swoopy design. It seemed that only a certain lock would be opened from the key, and Flick knew exactly what it was for.

~Why would they choose you?

Flick would give Maria a stare down as if he's portraying what she could accomplish, what she could prove to him. Why was she chosen. After a long while of waiting and watching each other. The old man would begin to walk backwards after shrugging his shoulders and turn his back on the girl. It was all too quick, he left through the door and on his way out, he hit a switch on the wall that opened the cage door. Then came the darkness once more. The echo of a voice came rushing through Maria's head as the door behind him closed.

~Find a use for that key then...

'Nuff Said

[/font][/blockquote][/td][/tr][/table]

[Deleted]

29/60

Musubi stirred then, one eye watching the skinny-cloaked-man-Flick take his leave. Perhaps she should eat him? No. Too groggy. And mint-fur-fire-girl-Maria looked absolutely triumphant. She seemed more than when they had initially met, like some spark was reclaimed that she'd lost. Defiance. She had fangs-of-life-spirit worthy of a Bearkin, but was as kind as a Den Mother when she wanted to be. Strange little two-leg. A good strange, for certain.

The two would travel again, walking through the dark, led only by the natural instinct of the Bear, and by the two-leg's strange sense of danger and obstacle. She couldn't see the walls, but always halted before hitting them. They wandered. Musubi mused on how this had come to pass so quickly. Now that her hunger had been truly sated for the first time in many moons, she was thinking clearly again, Certainly more clearly than any two-leg could hope to accomplish. Such silly creatures.

They made progress, this much was certain. But without the vaguest ideas of where they were or where they were going, no hint of the structure's layout, there was no telling how far remained. How far they would walk, together, in the cold and the dark and the empty. And with her growing unease, Musubi knew there was danger. Perhaps Mint-fur-fire-girl-Maria sensed it too. Let them come.

Her fangs were great, and sharp. Maria's, sharper.

And come what may, the pair would bare those fangs as one.

[✗Gohma✗]

Search Harder!

[/b][/center]
The room was dark, and after stumbling around into walls for a while, Musubi gathering herself, they would both find themselves at the very same door 'Flick' had escaped from. Creaking open the door, they would find themselves staring down a rather large hallway.

Torches would find themselves hanging from the walls, but they were feint. The color from the torches was the only thing that the two companions could search for. Then as soon as they would meet up with one of the torches, there seemed to be more and more.

~The key to power hangs next to your heart

The voice echoed through the halls as ominous as it would seem. It may also seem that you had been going in circles for a long time now.

The Torches Don't Help Much

[/font][/blockquote][/td][/tr][/table]

[Deleted]

??/60

A dark sort of light, as conflicting as that might sound, began to shine from the mint-fur-strawberry-scale-two-legs's breast. Musubi eyed it as the oddity it was. But when the girl brought out the key, it began to really shine, especially nearer to the wall-fires. The pair continued to walk. The wall-fires remained ever the same an endless corridor. Something wasn't proper. And that key was telling them something. That dark-light-skull-key was somehow the solution.

They kept walking, no progress. Musubi grew irate. Maria grew concerned. Trying to follow the lights on the wall wasn't working. Following the shine of the key worked even less. Wait. Wall-fire. Endless wall-fire. They walked past one, another came into view off in the distance.

Musubi nudged her favorite two-legs, getting her attention. Then she took aim, and spat a piece of wolf that had been stuck in her teeth at the wall-fire nearest the pair. Nothing happened. No sizzle, no flicker, no reaction but a faint splat. The bear appeared quite smug.

---

So, either a genjutsu, or some other manner of trickery. Maria felt deep withn her for the core of her chakra, concentrating. Undisturbed, it was. So that left something...physical. But how? there were no mirrors, no false walls. Only this one endless path. And the voice of Flick. Still he spoke, goading, taunting, encouraging. The key to power indeed...

"To the Nine Circles with this idiocy, I'm going my own way!"

And so she charged stubbornly in the direction of the voice, as the crow were to fly, walls be damned, if she could find any. Walls could be built, walls could be broken. And Heaven help Flick if she found him. He would squeal every secret - she'd make certain of it.

[✗Gohma✗]

Idiocy Could Grant A Decent Outcome

[/b][/center]
Launching her way into the darkness, Maria would find herself in a well lit room. The torches on the walls here were far more bright than the ones in the hallway before her. A large chest would sit in the middle of this room which would look like a crypt for an Egyptian King. Statues on the wall, paintings on the ceiling, basically anything that would be in old books, it was found here.

~And so it seems you chose the plausible output instead of the solid one.

The walls would speak once more. The chest still sitting right in front of you would have the lock shaped as a skull. Shiny and shaped oddly, it could be possible that the key around Maria's neck could fit. Though it wasn't a given.

Never Hurts To Try

[/font][/blockquote][/td][/tr][/table]

[Deleted]

??/60

Well hell. Maria made a face, somewhere between a grimace and a grin. She had a key, and here was a lock. Exactly how was a girl of her kleptomaniac proclivities supposed to resist temptation? She petted Musubi, who was snuffling about at her side, for reassurance. What a strange pair they made, the battered girl with green hair and the too-thin bear. Somehow they'd become good friends, bonded a the least through a measure of trauma.

They say that in adversity one finds unlikely allies. Then again, they also say that curiosity killed the cat. But neither of them was a cat, so perhaps it was okay?

"Screw it, I'm pushing the big red button."

And so she did, despite this statement being no more than a metaphor. She removed the key from her neck, inserted it into the lock. It fit snugly.

She twisted.

[✗Gohma✗]

Glory Within The Chest

[/b][/center]
As the chest would open, a dust would spring up into the air around Maria's face. The dust would find its way to make it up her nose, and get in her eyes, though it wasn't a very big deal. Just a little dirt.

~Your friends had you come here?

A voice would alarm her from behind. Flick would be standing in the doorway that she had arrived from. Letting out a small sigh as he kept eyeing her from top to bottom, he would cock his head side to side.

~It seems that maybe, you could possibly use power.

He said with a smirk. Walking forth to the chest, the man grazed by Maria and pushed his hands into the container.

~I had no intention of doing this for the likes of someone of your attitude. I suppose it's not up to me.

Pulling his hand up, he would hold a small wand looking weapon. Then, quicker than expected, if Maria hadn't moved in the time being, 'Flick' would slam the wand into the side of her neck, which would leave three smudged marks on her neck filled with ink. If she was struck, then Flick would kneel next to her as she lies on the ground, either awake or unconscious.

The Power Awaits

[/font][/blockquote][/td][/tr][/table]

[Deleted]

??/60

The Dancer's Grace made her aware of the attack. But only her own body would decide if Maria would be able to fend off the stunning blow. Maria would twist her body around to crouch low, raising her forearm in an attempt to deflect, which if she was successful would lead to her twisting Flick's own arm in a circular-like motion that she might grip his rod just above where he himself held it, while her emerald eyes shifted to the brilliant sapphire of the Ryuugan.

Musubi would then charge in with a roar to shake the foundations of this complex, hefting a single massive paw which would lash out in defense of her newfound friend to send the captured underling soaring through the air, the Tetsu Tekken. more like than not, if this was successful he would be without his weapon, Maria now bearing it instead. Musubi knew just what the mint-furred two-legs could do with a weapon of the proper length.

Should all this come to pass Maria would nod approvingly to Musubi, and the rod weapon would swish through empty air once, twice, three times - each angled differently so as to prevent complete escape. The air itself would split at the seams, a shockwave crashing across the distance to strike with the relative force of a baseball bat. Albeit, a baseball bat being swing at maximum velocity by a specialist in taijutsu. This was the Dragon Strike, and through her control of the wind allowed by the ryugan, she could minutely alter its trajectory as needed, making eachh strike even more difficult to evade.

Of course, should any single part of this gambit fail, the Girl and the Bear would do their best to back out of harm's way, but this entire structure was small, and the chamber dominated by that which contains the dead.

"Alright Flick, time to start talking, 'cause I'm getting pretty damned tired of the whole world trying to kill me! Who are you, and what in the NINE HELLS is this bullshit about!?"

Musubi wuffled in approval of these queries. She was getting hungry again, and even the unappetizing skinny-cloaked-two-legs-Flick was beginning to look more like dinner.