Fathers and Sons [Abridged]
It is a very difficult thing to accept the unknowable. In the shifting circumstances of life people strain to find a meaning from composition of unrelated events. More often than not the inventive mind will create some sort of rationalization. Everything must happen for a reason. In viewing particularly auspicious natural phenomena this is often the base of superstition. But sometimes the eye is keener than the inventive mind, able to perceive and accept what simply is.
Without so much as a sign of a wind. a storm had swiftly arrayed itself around the Island of the Red-Crowned Crane like a dark crown of smoke. The bay stilled as if a large, stagnant pond, as if the world had held its breath, and the sun was blotted out by shadow miles-long.
Then the sky split.
The maritime sailors swore that they saw the clouds part for miles over the Senbei Archipelago that day, a fleeting return to daylight until the blue itself seemed to shatter. Hailstones as large as fists fell riotously into the tropical mid-day, like fragments of the now-exposing stars falling to earth between the flickering aurora. The inverted night suspended itself, the ocean lurching and spitting like some wounded beasts, as its energies bathed crested wave and shuddereing masts aglow with banded fire.
Gulls cried out over the warm flotsam, and staring upward at them, Kuki narrowed his eyes as their broad shadows parted from the sun's second rising. Floating upon his back, blood-warm seawater sloshed around in the shell on his back, and he lazily bobbed adrift upon the waves.
In a battle between Masters, heaven and hell themselves would quake. He hadn't considered the old adage much until today.
"S'a sharp young man, that he is. Might've underestimated him. "
"Gyek." Ishii rubbed his beak over the swelling purple shiner on Kuki's cheek. The Old Turtle winced as salt water got into his wounded brow.
"Heh-heh. Yeah I know. But y'should see th'other guy."
Ten years ago, a False Tiger was revealed to be a Crane with broken wings. Five years ago in the snows before the Frozen Fall, Kamesennin Kuki pulled a fellow apostate from the brink of death. They had much in common, and with nowhere to return to, the world they had left behind continued without them.
Even now, the head of the house stood prominently, for those who have the will to reach for victory are strong indeed. But once all battles have been brought to their final conclusion, what is it that remains at the end of a destroyer's road?
Where can they grow from there? A conundrum held in kind.
[CENTER][I]O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies
undaunted!
To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can
stand!
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!
To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns
with perfect nonchalance!
To be indeed a God![/I]
Walt Whitman "A Song of Joys"[/CENTER]
Dragonball M, The Movie: All Hallows' Cleave
[QUOTE=Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh;4690599]There was a measure of childlike glee to be found in Gutts' expression, when the rusted meathook found its target ... and when the Unknown Gunman was drawn in towards the Putrid Abomination's grisly maw; the politeness it had first displayed never wavered.
"No mind if me do, thank you !"
And when its free hands reached out to clasp and grasp, it seemed the Gunman had fired his last ...
"Oh my !" Gutts declared, jerking upright as the Putty-Chinned Pugilist furiously fisted his feculent foe. For it was not simply some random hole that had been so lovingly and deeply penetrated from behind, no ... but Gutts' stomach !
... and as he hemmed, and hawed, and heaved to prise himself free ... he succeeded; and along with his fist came the contents of Gutts' previous meals.
The horror.
... The horror.
Yet despite the rank, and the stank ... the Gunman was spared a most putrid demise.[/QUOTE]
The Gunman's expression shrank, the only indication he'd lost his cool a bead of sweat that broke upon his brow. Yet as he drew ever closer to those cold, salivating jaws, he held in the urge to gag. The chain at his feet held him fast, but his hands were free; Gutts's whitened eyes somehow remained bigger than his stomach and that would be his undoing.
"You heard me," he bristled as he flew towards those rank teeth. "[URL="https://youtu.be/x-iZgkkGuME?t=148"][B]Hot Shot[/B].[/URL]"
For he had a second pistol, and sheathed in ki, he'd poured concentrated energy into it. When the Putty-Chinned warrior below plucked his arm out, he seized upon the moment. The last round in the chamber glowed red hot down the barrel, and was shot straight down Gutts' overjoyed gob.
The muzzle flash far wider than a 9mm shot should allow burst forth, blazing an incendiary trail as the Gunman blasted a concentrated ball of fire straight down his neck as he went sailing past on the force of the kickback.
Down below, the Rubberman was not so lucky. Old blood and rot and feter hit him directly in the face in a steady stream of gut-juice. Though he was fleet of foot, as it poured on he felt the urge to live swiftly leave his limbs. But when his comrade pulled the trigger and loosed it straight down the corpulent gullet in a bid to ignite the gassy giant, he screamed as [I]yet more bile gushed out, boiling hot![/I]
[SIZE=5]"FIRE AT [I][B]HIM[/B][/I], NOT [I][B]ME~![/B][/I] AHHHHH-!!!"
[/SIZE]
[CENTER][img]https://i.imgur.com/qha4Bez.jpg[/img][/CENTER]
A flood of Ruby-Quartz light from a full-power [B]Optic Blast[/B] ripped through the graveyard, murderous vision burst from a bloody dam flood wide and it fell onto the putrid abomination, swallowed Gutts' silhouette in a torrent of raw energy.
The Search for Aiden Cromwell
[QUOTE=Monstrous Bird of Qin, Ou Ki;4689885]Totoma had been in the training area, doing his stretches again... and, of course, had his head firmly tucked between his legs. By this point, he'd managed to get really damn flexible... though he was really eager to actually try it in a fight! Gods, this trip was taking so l--
The half-saiyan was shaken from his thoughts--and his ridiculous pose--by Aiden's voice, which seemed... closer than before? He wasn't even sure 'closer' had any meaning when it came to telepathy, but... bah, no, he was getting distracted. But before he could call to Karine, she called to [I]him[/I], asking if he was awake and that they'd seemingly arrived where they'd been headed for... however long they'd been travelling.
Meandering into the cockpit, he leaned forward, placing his chin on the top of her head, eyes scanning the various instruments and readouts, as well as the inky blackness of outer space outside. "Yep, was just... doing yoga, pretty much, when I heard your dad's voice and then yours--"
"And then mine," came his mother's voice from behind him.
"And then y--wai, wha!?" Totoma jumped as the realization that his mother had IT'd in behind him without him even noticing. "Geez, mom, [I]stop[/I] doing that."
Tasure sighed and shook her head. "Just checking up on you two. Happened to overhear you talking about hearing Aiden's voice. Heh, looks like I dropped in at just the right time."
Regarding his mother for a moment, Totoma turned back to Karine. "So... sensors picking up any planets nearby?"[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Sion Reaver;4689913]Karine wasn't too surprised about Tasure appearing; she tended to come and go thanks to that technique of hers whenever she pleased. Karine had a techique of her own that allowed her to get to point A to B but it was limited by shadows instead. Since obviously not everywhere had them there were times it wasn't as useful so she'd either have to refine her ability or ask how Intant Transmission work so she could possibly make a magical counter part to it.
"There is one, actually.." The young woman said after a quick scan. "It seems rather isolated as well, I imagine its possibly a outpost so we best be careful when we reach land fall. If they're any kind of competent they'll pick us by scanners, assuming they are alert. Then again, we don't know the details of everything present but its best to exercise caution."[/QUOTE]
The scanners had indeed picked up a presence. Radar indicated some physical register of a great span, and mass spectrometers picked up trace elements, breathable atmosphere and solid rock, teeming with oceans. Any signs of life at this distance seemed still, static, and motionless, but very much alive.
But outside the canopy, however, the three would only find a long stretch of darkness. Featureless space, no stars by which to check their coordinates, nor so much as a drifting meteorite.
The psychic whispers swelled, but where once they heard a call from a distance, like the crashing of waves against the shore it was a cacophany of despair laden in the darkness.
[I]Karine...
[/I]
Where it manifest before them, for her in particular, there was something oddly...warm that quieted the whispers to silence, something resonant within the darkness. She could feel it watching them.
As their craft drift forward, slowly the shadow receded, and gravity seized hold of the ship as they descended to the mist-clad world below.
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