This story was inspired by The Hunger Games, like the ways of the towns, made-up beasts and such.
DISCLAIMER:
I don't own Metal Fight Beyblade, or The Hunger Games in any way whatsoever.
An army of merciless creatures declared war on the prosperous country of Gaelleon twenty-three years ago. They call themselves Fortissimus, as a reference to their mighty onslaught of gruesome beasts and assassins. Fortissimus has driven the armies of Gaelleon closer towards the center of the country—the capitol city Sirius.
Men are continuously being picked up from towns to participate as soldiers in the war—separated from their families and friends.
Desperate, schools all over the still-free cities are training children over the age of ten—no matter how high or low they are in society—in order to produce stronger warriors to fend back the Fortissimus.
From a traveler's point of view, it probably looked like a beautiful day in Ensis, Gaelleon. In Gingka Hagane's perspective, it was pretty normal, but not at all that beautiful, although the dense forests and lush meadows around the city fitted the description well enough.
The chaos in the Ensis Academy, however, was quite the opposite, especially when Gingka was sweating like a pig, his sword arm hurt like hell, and his body was covered with numerous cuts and bruises. The other forty-nine teenagers in the bare training field were practically oozing exhaustion, like he was.
The fourteen-year-old redhead was going through the easier levels of sword-fighting with the training dummy, which was really a thick, six-foot-tall sack stuffed with dried grass, leaves, sand, and soil.
Gingka wouldn't exactly call himself a beginner—he already knew the basics by heart.
Or an expert.
He didn't know the fancy techniques.
He didn't know the best ways to disarm an opponent.
He didn't even know how to actually disarm an opponent!
Or even a person in the intermediate level.
He didn't know how to look for just the correct openings to strike.
He wasn't very quick.
He wasn't very good at defending himself.
His blows were also quite weak.
No, Gingka would say that he was a fair way away from the beginner's level, and a little off the intermediate level.
He did know of one person who wasn't exactly an expert, but was well beyond the intermediate level. In fact, that person was right beside him.
His roommate—green-haired Kyoya Tategami—was practicing the more complicated techniques. With one solid slice of his sword, the upper half of his training dummy flew through the air and flopped limply onto the ground, spewing straw and dried grass onto the dark, lifeless soil.
Kyoya never failed to impress Gingka, but even as he was watching, Gingka's steady pace remained unbroken.
"You call that a swing, Hagane?" Ayumu—the weapons instructor—snapped. His booming voice almost made Gingka drop his sword; he didn't even notice his teacher watching him. "Do it again! Faster this time!" The redhead drew back—feeling the aching pain in his arm increase drastically—as every eye in the large training field turned to him. The emerald-green gaze of his instructor was the worst.
"Y-Yes sir!" Gingka whimpered. He lifted his worn sword and swiped upwards at the training dummy, the sharp edge of the blade diagonally slicing the cloth sack from the right ribs to the left shoulder. He glanced upwards hopefully.
Ayumu's expression remained stoic—he seemed to hate all of the pupils because he preferred being on the battlefield—but he moved on along the line to yell at the other students.
Judging from Ayumu's reaction, Gingka thought that he did an okay job.
He sighed in relief—wiping his face with the end of his white shirt—and sat down on the hard-packed ground, wincing as his limbs shrieked in protest. He had just scooped a ladle full of clear water from the drinking bucket when Ayumu's voice ringing across the field once again made him jerk upwards instinctively, effectively splashing his beverage into Kyoya's face.
"KISHATU!" Ayumu roared. "What is this crap? You've been practicing the basics for weeks, and you haven't improved a bit! I thought Hatori raised you better than that!"
He just loves embarrassing us, Gingka mused, ignoring Kyoya's lethal-looking blue glare aimed at him.
Ryuga Kishatu—who was located two rows in front of Gingka—threw down his blade in frustration.
Ryuga's father Hatori was one of the soldiers who was led into battling a dozen Infernum Pilum. As the chance of winning dwindled, the leader of the troop tried to withdraw from the battlefield with the remainder of his warriors in order to save them. Only half a dozen lived to see the next sunrise, due to one of the Pilum chasing after their retreating party.
Hatori Kishatu was not one of the survivors.
Instead of cowering before the vicious instructor, Ryuga growled, a scowl etched into his sharp features. Amber met green in a fierce clash for victory and only victory. It was clear that they shared a mutual dislike—or hatred—for each other.
"I told you, already, I'm trying!" Ryuga bared his sharp, fang-like teeth in an almost-feral snarl, and he picked up his sword, as if ready to drive it into Ayumu's skull with the little skill and respect he had for the weapon.
The instructor himself already had his fingers wrapped around the handle of his own sword before he spun around stiffly and marched away, one of his heavy boots snapping a spear in half—making the owner gasp in dismay. "Then try harder."
Ryuga drove the blade of his sword into the ground with an angry scoff, followed by a silent round of Gaellean curses. Gingka winced at the foul language, whilst the short boy beside Ryuga—Kenta Yumiya—was wearing a mask of indifference, brown eyes unblinking.
"Why don't you try another weapon?"
At Kenta's suggestion, Ryuga shoved him to the ground. However, Kenta was pretty used to that kind of treatment, and stood up, brushing dirt off the seat of his pale brown tunic and tights and picking up his knife to practice on his own training dummy.
Ryuga picked up his white cloak—which lay discarded on the ground—and fastened it around his neck, clamping the brass buttons together forcefully as he got ready to skip the rest of training.
Gingka didn't understand why Kenta hung around Ryuga. The amber-eyed young man was too violent and cold—he wasn't very good at controlling his temper, and to make things worse, he could flip a table over with one hand. In one of his rampages, he flipped Kenta himself, and the younger boy was lucky not to have broken anything more serious than his wrist.
"What are you looking at?" Ryuga screamed. It took a while for Gingka to realize that the older teen's slitted eyes were spitting fire at him. The redhead just shrugged—he was immune to such glares, since he and Kyoya shared a room in the dormitories—and turned back to the drinking bucket, only for Kyoya to toss a handful of water at him.
I'm just experimenting with this, since I haven't planned out every chapter, so I'll just see... Review please. Either I continue this or make this a one-chapter story.
Names:
*Gaelleon- some random name that popped into my mind. (Kind of like "galleon," a large sailing vessel from the 15th and 17th century.)
*Fortissimus- "champion" in Latin.
*Sirius- After one of the brightest stars in the heavens.
*Ensis- "blade" in Latin.
*Infernum Pilum- "Hell Fur" in Latin. To be announced in later chapters (if I go on).
Sigh... I just love Latin...
I won't be updating this in a while. I need to write the rest so I could be sure that this story doesn't go plummeting off a cliff.