Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2012 4:36:32 GMT -5
Carmine stood on the deck of the Demon Galleon. The night sky was clear around him, and there was a silence that lay over everything like a soft, inviting blanket. He took a deep breath, and looked to the parcel in his hands.
It had been left in his room by Keyra and Oda, a long cardboard tube wrapped in brown paper. A note had been tied to it which had read:
Don't break this one, you idiot. Added a little something for luck.
The first sentence had been in the rough, angular handwriting of Keyra. Carmine recognized it from the various blueprints that he saw scattered around her workspace. The second sentence, however, was in a fluid and meticulous script, the kind of handwriting he'd expect from a martial artist like Oda.
He opened up the package, and from within he produced a sword, much like the one he had used at the tournament, but longer and lighter, with a deep blue handle. The tassle on the end was a bright red, but alongside it was a trio of little brass bells. They chimed merrily at the slightest movement, and Carmine smiled.
He'd done a fair amount of research into the individual purposes of the varying sword designs of the world. The German broadsword, meant to bring down large armored foes, but balanced enough to allow for technique. The Nepalese kukuri, designed to cut through the tough bones and muscles in the human neck in a single well-trained slice. The Japanese katana, fragile and brittle but with a nearly unmatched cutting edge, originally designed to be used on horseback. The Chinese jian, light, fast, double-edged, with a bright red tassle on the end.
The tassle on the jian was the greatest mystery to Carmine the first time he saw it. A fascinatingly minute design element, at first glance primarily decorative in nature, it turned out that the jian's red tassle was one of the most insidious design tactics in all of human history. You see, the eye is naturally drawn to bright colors, especially the color red - it's why red cards get pulled over faster, why cherry candy is so popular, and why being red-in-the-face is such a cause for concern. By putting a small, hanging bit of dynamic red fabric and thread on the handle end of the jian, the Chinese were tricking the eye away from the business end of the sword, thus affecting their opponents defense on a subconscious level.
The bells Keyra added would only add to that effect - a small, chirping distraction, harping in the ears of anyone not trained to ignore it. Carmine, of course, was capable of greater filtration of sound with his mechanical ears, and would be much more readily capable of ignoring the little bastards.
He nodded. The bells were a nice touch, and the tassle was longer and brighter. The sword's design was interesting, a rare hand-and-a-half approach to the jian. He would have to ask Keyra where she got the idea. This sword was going to be a real cunning thing, smart and sneaky. A good weapon to learn from.
"Like it?" Oda's voice called out from behind him.
"It'll more than suffice, that's for sure," Carmine replied.
"Doubt it'll stand up to the Captain's blade too much longer than the last one, but you shouldn't have a problem with most normal steel. Keyra's been showing me some moves, by the way. Can't say I'm as good as you or the Captain yet, but if you want to give it a go..."
Carmine looked at Oda, who held a traditional-looking katana in his hands. It was already drawn, naked steel shimmering in the moonlight. "It's poor form to draw on an opponent who hasn't agreed to a duel," he said.
"And here I thought we were pirates." And with that, Oda was upon him with a three-slice combo starting at his head and ending at his waist, every slice directed in such a way as to bisect him in one way or another. Carmine dodged and deflected them with grace and his still-sheathed sword. He took a few quick steps back, out of Oda's blade's reach. He slowly drew his own sword, and it flashed in the light.
There was no banter in the first parts of their battle. Carmine returned each of Oda's advances. his strikes quick and fluid. His blade was like a phantom, and each time Oda was cut he didn't notice until several moves later. Despite a few surface wounds however, Carmine hadn't landed any significant blows. He hadn't recieved any either, however.
Their techniques were vastly different from one another, each displaying their skill with their chosen blades. Carmine was constantly in motion, counterbalancing a number of positions that seemed indefensible with his limbs in order to make them defensible through ease of movement. Oda was far more still, counting on blade positioning and lateral displacement to keep his body out of harm's way.
Carmine could see, however, that as the fight went on, Oda's focus began to split. He was tiring, and allowing outside stimuli to catch his attention for brief moments - specifically, the bells and tassle. In a moment of weakness, he looked directly at the tassle on Carmine's sword, and Carmine took advantage. The jian bit into Oda's shoulder deeply, and Oda winced and gritted his teeth before backing up hard, riding his heels away from the steel.
Bleeding heavily, Oda looked angry. He was angry with himself and with Carmine and quite possibly with the danger Earth had been in lately.
"You're good. Better than me. But I've noticed something about you, Carmine," Oda said as he sheathed his sword to signal that he was done.
"What's that?" Carmine asked as he wiped the fresh blood from his blade.
"You're all machine, no man. Everything you do is some new gadget, some new doodad. Eventually that's going to catch up with you, man."
"What do you expect? I'm a machine. It stands to reason that my combat maneuvers are technological in nature."
"You can sense ki, though, right?"
"I have sensors that read energy levels, yes."
"That's not what I said. You can sense it. Feel it. No sensors or errors or readouts, a feeling."
Carmine didn't answer. Oda was right, as it turned out. He had never really thought much about it, but there was a definite sensation of weight that accompanied his sensory input with power levels. When Ryota powered himself up, there was a sinking feeling. When Touketsuki had arrived, there was a sort of dread.
"I knew it. You've got too much instinct to just be a soulless robot. I don't know, but maybe whoever built you knew what they were doing. Either way, you can sense it. If you can sense it, you can mess with it."
"What do you mean?"
"Have a seat, Taoism 101," Oda commanded, and Carmine listened. He got onto the deck into lotus position, and Oda followed suit, "In all things, there is energy. Energy is essentially what things are made of. In some things, that energy is inert, potential. That's rocks and bricks and dirt and all the things that aren't alive. In living things, however, the energy moves, flows, dances. The potential is alive, awake, and kinetic. It's this flow that I'm trying to address."
Carmine nodded.
"See, everything with ki flow has a center - in most humanoids, it's just around the navel. That center controls the entirety of where energy goes - to the arms, the legs, the brain, and into techniques like blasts and waves and flight."
"It's a processor."
"Something like that. Now, what happens if you mess with the processor?"
"The whole motherboard goes, and unless you've got a backup or something the whole system is going to crash."
"Exactly. You disrupt the center of someone's ki, and they'll be hard pressed to fight. Now close your eyes."
Carmine closed his eyes, and listened closely.
"Concentrate on my power. None of that sensor crap, the sensation. It helps me to imagine it as a bright light. You got it?
Carmine felt Oda's power, but he didn't imagine it as a light. It was easier for him to imagine it as an electromagnetic impulse, almost like a sonar to where Oda was.
"Yes."
"Good. Now, focus on it. You should notice that it moves and changes, almost like the waves on a beach. Like the moonlight on that water."
He began to feel a distortion, and several anomalies registered in his imagined sonar. It looked like a game of battleship.
"Now you just have to track those movements to their source. The place where the light is the brightest. That's the center. It's not so hard if you know where your own is."
Oda had trailed off in that last sentence. He clearly didn't know if Carmine even had proper ki or a proper center of energy, but Carmine understood what he'd meant. Before the tournament, he'd have been lost, but his recent meditations had taught him quite a few things about himself, and about the idea of an energy center. Applying that knowledge, and with Oda's direction, he had no trouble finding Oda's center. It was like a whale amongst dolphins on his mental sonar, and it was telling the dolphins where to go and what to do. It was the ringleader, and he knew what Oda had been talking about.
"All I need to do is knock out your command center and the whole thing comes crashing down."
He stood, and drew his sword again.
"Get up."
Oda, hesitantly, pushed himself up off the ground, still bleeding.
"Sword up. Defend yourself. I'm sorry in advance."
And with that, Carmine sent an incredible offensive at his wounded friend, who did everything he could to deflect and dodge and duck the incoming blade. He did nothing to retaliate, not wanting to die or lose an ear or his nose or anything. Carmine, however, wasn't really even trying to harm his friend but instead get a feel for his energy as he was in motion. He needed to get a good bead on the center before he could try to disrupt it. It took him several minutes, and once he located it his task changed radically.
Oda had gotten a good defensive rhythm going, and Carmine found himself unable to get his sword anywhere near the human's energy center. So, he got dirty.
"PHOTON FLASH!" he shouted, and watched as Oda raised his hands to defend against a bright light that never came. He'd lied to his friend, and as his hands were raised, Carmine lunged forward, stabbing his sword two inches below Oda's navel, right into his center.
What he and his friend hadn't noticed was the apparent ambient heat that had been coming off of the blade as he transferred his energy through it. He did, however, notice the sensation of commitment and oneness with his blade as he delivered the blow.
Oda staggered back, holding his wound. It wasn't shallow, but neither was it lethally deep. He dropped his sword, hands shaking, and held his palm out towards Carmine. His aura flared, and a bright light formed in the man's hand before fizzling out. He gritted his teeth and began to levitate upwards, almost drunkenly, before dropping again from ten feet up.
Carmine dropped his sword. He'd done it, but to what end? Had he just permanently crippled his friend? He helped the human up. He must have been showing his concern, however, as Oda spoke up before he could ask any questions.
"Don't worry bro, the flow of energy exists in all living things. It can be disrupted and halted, sure, but meditation and rest will restore the flow quickly and painlessly, before the wound has even healed. I'll be great in the morning."
[NEW TECHNIQUE: Scorpion's Lunge
Carmine focuses on an opponent's ki for a post, locating their energy center. Once located, he can deliver a sword lunge, pushing a disruptive bit of his own ki through the blade into their energy center, effectively cutting off the flow of his opponent's ki. At first, this manifests as a fatigue, but soon becomes a drain of their ki energy until even the most basic techniques are too much strain for the fighter to handle. The effect can be reversed through an hour of deep meditation, a few hours of rest, or a senzu bean. If Carmine misses with his lunge, he need not spend another post relocating the target's center.]
It had been left in his room by Keyra and Oda, a long cardboard tube wrapped in brown paper. A note had been tied to it which had read:
Don't break this one, you idiot. Added a little something for luck.
The first sentence had been in the rough, angular handwriting of Keyra. Carmine recognized it from the various blueprints that he saw scattered around her workspace. The second sentence, however, was in a fluid and meticulous script, the kind of handwriting he'd expect from a martial artist like Oda.
He opened up the package, and from within he produced a sword, much like the one he had used at the tournament, but longer and lighter, with a deep blue handle. The tassle on the end was a bright red, but alongside it was a trio of little brass bells. They chimed merrily at the slightest movement, and Carmine smiled.
He'd done a fair amount of research into the individual purposes of the varying sword designs of the world. The German broadsword, meant to bring down large armored foes, but balanced enough to allow for technique. The Nepalese kukuri, designed to cut through the tough bones and muscles in the human neck in a single well-trained slice. The Japanese katana, fragile and brittle but with a nearly unmatched cutting edge, originally designed to be used on horseback. The Chinese jian, light, fast, double-edged, with a bright red tassle on the end.
The tassle on the jian was the greatest mystery to Carmine the first time he saw it. A fascinatingly minute design element, at first glance primarily decorative in nature, it turned out that the jian's red tassle was one of the most insidious design tactics in all of human history. You see, the eye is naturally drawn to bright colors, especially the color red - it's why red cards get pulled over faster, why cherry candy is so popular, and why being red-in-the-face is such a cause for concern. By putting a small, hanging bit of dynamic red fabric and thread on the handle end of the jian, the Chinese were tricking the eye away from the business end of the sword, thus affecting their opponents defense on a subconscious level.
The bells Keyra added would only add to that effect - a small, chirping distraction, harping in the ears of anyone not trained to ignore it. Carmine, of course, was capable of greater filtration of sound with his mechanical ears, and would be much more readily capable of ignoring the little bastards.
He nodded. The bells were a nice touch, and the tassle was longer and brighter. The sword's design was interesting, a rare hand-and-a-half approach to the jian. He would have to ask Keyra where she got the idea. This sword was going to be a real cunning thing, smart and sneaky. A good weapon to learn from.
"Like it?" Oda's voice called out from behind him.
"It'll more than suffice, that's for sure," Carmine replied.
"Doubt it'll stand up to the Captain's blade too much longer than the last one, but you shouldn't have a problem with most normal steel. Keyra's been showing me some moves, by the way. Can't say I'm as good as you or the Captain yet, but if you want to give it a go..."
Carmine looked at Oda, who held a traditional-looking katana in his hands. It was already drawn, naked steel shimmering in the moonlight. "It's poor form to draw on an opponent who hasn't agreed to a duel," he said.
"And here I thought we were pirates." And with that, Oda was upon him with a three-slice combo starting at his head and ending at his waist, every slice directed in such a way as to bisect him in one way or another. Carmine dodged and deflected them with grace and his still-sheathed sword. He took a few quick steps back, out of Oda's blade's reach. He slowly drew his own sword, and it flashed in the light.
There was no banter in the first parts of their battle. Carmine returned each of Oda's advances. his strikes quick and fluid. His blade was like a phantom, and each time Oda was cut he didn't notice until several moves later. Despite a few surface wounds however, Carmine hadn't landed any significant blows. He hadn't recieved any either, however.
Their techniques were vastly different from one another, each displaying their skill with their chosen blades. Carmine was constantly in motion, counterbalancing a number of positions that seemed indefensible with his limbs in order to make them defensible through ease of movement. Oda was far more still, counting on blade positioning and lateral displacement to keep his body out of harm's way.
Carmine could see, however, that as the fight went on, Oda's focus began to split. He was tiring, and allowing outside stimuli to catch his attention for brief moments - specifically, the bells and tassle. In a moment of weakness, he looked directly at the tassle on Carmine's sword, and Carmine took advantage. The jian bit into Oda's shoulder deeply, and Oda winced and gritted his teeth before backing up hard, riding his heels away from the steel.
Bleeding heavily, Oda looked angry. He was angry with himself and with Carmine and quite possibly with the danger Earth had been in lately.
"You're good. Better than me. But I've noticed something about you, Carmine," Oda said as he sheathed his sword to signal that he was done.
"What's that?" Carmine asked as he wiped the fresh blood from his blade.
"You're all machine, no man. Everything you do is some new gadget, some new doodad. Eventually that's going to catch up with you, man."
"What do you expect? I'm a machine. It stands to reason that my combat maneuvers are technological in nature."
"You can sense ki, though, right?"
"I have sensors that read energy levels, yes."
"That's not what I said. You can sense it. Feel it. No sensors or errors or readouts, a feeling."
Carmine didn't answer. Oda was right, as it turned out. He had never really thought much about it, but there was a definite sensation of weight that accompanied his sensory input with power levels. When Ryota powered himself up, there was a sinking feeling. When Touketsuki had arrived, there was a sort of dread.
"I knew it. You've got too much instinct to just be a soulless robot. I don't know, but maybe whoever built you knew what they were doing. Either way, you can sense it. If you can sense it, you can mess with it."
"What do you mean?"
"Have a seat, Taoism 101," Oda commanded, and Carmine listened. He got onto the deck into lotus position, and Oda followed suit, "In all things, there is energy. Energy is essentially what things are made of. In some things, that energy is inert, potential. That's rocks and bricks and dirt and all the things that aren't alive. In living things, however, the energy moves, flows, dances. The potential is alive, awake, and kinetic. It's this flow that I'm trying to address."
Carmine nodded.
"See, everything with ki flow has a center - in most humanoids, it's just around the navel. That center controls the entirety of where energy goes - to the arms, the legs, the brain, and into techniques like blasts and waves and flight."
"It's a processor."
"Something like that. Now, what happens if you mess with the processor?"
"The whole motherboard goes, and unless you've got a backup or something the whole system is going to crash."
"Exactly. You disrupt the center of someone's ki, and they'll be hard pressed to fight. Now close your eyes."
Carmine closed his eyes, and listened closely.
"Concentrate on my power. None of that sensor crap, the sensation. It helps me to imagine it as a bright light. You got it?
Carmine felt Oda's power, but he didn't imagine it as a light. It was easier for him to imagine it as an electromagnetic impulse, almost like a sonar to where Oda was.
"Yes."
"Good. Now, focus on it. You should notice that it moves and changes, almost like the waves on a beach. Like the moonlight on that water."
He began to feel a distortion, and several anomalies registered in his imagined sonar. It looked like a game of battleship.
"Now you just have to track those movements to their source. The place where the light is the brightest. That's the center. It's not so hard if you know where your own is."
Oda had trailed off in that last sentence. He clearly didn't know if Carmine even had proper ki or a proper center of energy, but Carmine understood what he'd meant. Before the tournament, he'd have been lost, but his recent meditations had taught him quite a few things about himself, and about the idea of an energy center. Applying that knowledge, and with Oda's direction, he had no trouble finding Oda's center. It was like a whale amongst dolphins on his mental sonar, and it was telling the dolphins where to go and what to do. It was the ringleader, and he knew what Oda had been talking about.
"All I need to do is knock out your command center and the whole thing comes crashing down."
He stood, and drew his sword again.
"Get up."
Oda, hesitantly, pushed himself up off the ground, still bleeding.
"Sword up. Defend yourself. I'm sorry in advance."
And with that, Carmine sent an incredible offensive at his wounded friend, who did everything he could to deflect and dodge and duck the incoming blade. He did nothing to retaliate, not wanting to die or lose an ear or his nose or anything. Carmine, however, wasn't really even trying to harm his friend but instead get a feel for his energy as he was in motion. He needed to get a good bead on the center before he could try to disrupt it. It took him several minutes, and once he located it his task changed radically.
Oda had gotten a good defensive rhythm going, and Carmine found himself unable to get his sword anywhere near the human's energy center. So, he got dirty.
"PHOTON FLASH!" he shouted, and watched as Oda raised his hands to defend against a bright light that never came. He'd lied to his friend, and as his hands were raised, Carmine lunged forward, stabbing his sword two inches below Oda's navel, right into his center.
What he and his friend hadn't noticed was the apparent ambient heat that had been coming off of the blade as he transferred his energy through it. He did, however, notice the sensation of commitment and oneness with his blade as he delivered the blow.
Oda staggered back, holding his wound. It wasn't shallow, but neither was it lethally deep. He dropped his sword, hands shaking, and held his palm out towards Carmine. His aura flared, and a bright light formed in the man's hand before fizzling out. He gritted his teeth and began to levitate upwards, almost drunkenly, before dropping again from ten feet up.
Carmine dropped his sword. He'd done it, but to what end? Had he just permanently crippled his friend? He helped the human up. He must have been showing his concern, however, as Oda spoke up before he could ask any questions.
"Don't worry bro, the flow of energy exists in all living things. It can be disrupted and halted, sure, but meditation and rest will restore the flow quickly and painlessly, before the wound has even healed. I'll be great in the morning."
[NEW TECHNIQUE: Scorpion's Lunge
Carmine focuses on an opponent's ki for a post, locating their energy center. Once located, he can deliver a sword lunge, pushing a disruptive bit of his own ki through the blade into their energy center, effectively cutting off the flow of his opponent's ki. At first, this manifests as a fatigue, but soon becomes a drain of their ki energy until even the most basic techniques are too much strain for the fighter to handle. The effect can be reversed through an hour of deep meditation, a few hours of rest, or a senzu bean. If Carmine misses with his lunge, he need not spend another post relocating the target's center.]
