One Must Fall: 2097 fan fiction by Brian
Disclaimer: One Must Fall, all the characters in the game, and many in here, the robot's names, the arenas and everything else except my imagination are products of timeless research of Epic Megagames. Enjoy. Note: This is my fourth OMF fanfic. Hope you like it. Updated 2/14/01
Chapter 4: Moonlighting
Brian slept soundly that night. In his dreams, the government charged him to keep the Earth safe from an asteroid shower that would be able to destroy most anything in is path. If it reached the Earth, nothing would be left. Brian was quickly zipped into his robot and launched into outer space. At first, everything looked cold and dark, and he received a chill by the absence of real light. Sort of like what happens with the moon (It's colder on the dark side of the moon than it is on the light side, even if it's just turning dark, you could freeze in under a second). Suddenly he saw it. Giant asteroids hurtling toward him and the Earth with no mercy. Behind him was all civilization, as he knew it. He knew he had to protect it!
Brian turned on his ion boosters (ion charge propulsion; VERY new and VERY powerful) and flew at the first few asteroids at top speed. He created two hydrogen gas balls of fire in his hands and threw them at the first couple asteroids with all he and his robot had. Two blew up in a fiery explosion, and he cut and slammed the other ones to bits, but as he was going through this, he noticed a somewhat larger asteroid was headed towards Earth. It was moving slower than the others, but he still wouldn't be able to destroy all of them in time unless...
Brian knew what he had to do. Focusing all his energy, he used as much as he could to rocket to each of the smaller asteroids, or rather, the ones that were moving the fastest toward Earth and ramming them with all he had. As he was doing this, he was beginning to get tired out. But he pushed himself to do better. By the time he had all the other asteroids out of the way, he was in no condition to fight the larger, more massive asteroid headed towards him. Brian looked down within him, and realized that he had nothing left to fight with. Maybe some excess hydrogen for fireballs, but that was it. Brian could only sit and hope that the world was still there in a few minutes.
Suddenly, Brian had a small suggestion in his mind. It would mean his robot's absolute destruction, but, when talking about something as severe as the Earth's destruction, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. Brian focused all of his robot's energy into a small illuminated ball, which grew progressively larger as he concentrated. Fatigued, he blasted it out of his hands like a cannon and fired it into the core of the asteroid. At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then, with a blinding explosion, the asteroid shattered into an umpteen million pieces. Hovering in mid-space, his robot breaking apart from the shock, Brian inwardly smiled as his robot began to break apart while floating through the Earth's atmosphere.
Brian sat up in bed and looked around. The dream had been so real. In a way, it was telling him that he didn't really try enough on that last battle. There was only one way to prove to himself that he had what it takes to be the best. To give it his all, and never stop trying. Brian got out of bed and took a quick shower. He got dressed and went out the door.
(Meanwhile)
Kelley was a bit sad that Brian had lost his match against Cossette. Kelley thought that Brian probably was sulking at home eating chips and getting fat. Brian's parents had also been a party to his fight. Brian's mother had been slightly disappointed that Brian lost in combat with Cossette. Brian's father, however, was not in the least sad or angry. In fact, his father was pretty happy that Brian had lost. "Brian was pretty cocky at the fight. He should have been using all his fighting ability. After all, I trained him. Although... Some things just can't be taught." Kelley knew he was right. But just to be sure, Kelley called Brian at his house. It rang forty-nine times before Kelley was sure that Brian wasn't home. Kelley hung up and began to wonder where Brian was...
Brian read his note and then looked up at the sign that read, "World Martial Arts Association: You give us your stats, You'll be flat on the Mat!" In disbelief, he looked back at his note. "This can't be right... What an utterly stupid catch phrase. Ugh..." Reluctantly, he went in. "That has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever seen." As soon as he entered, though, a man in a white karate uniform met him.
"HYUUU-AHHH! Welcome to the DOJO!" the man yelled, standing in a praying mantis karate pose.
"I stand corrected..." Brian watched the man stand there with an uncomfortable look on his face for a while. Soon, in a small voice, the man said...
"Could you please help me to sit?"
Brian looked at the man, trying to make sense of it, but found none, so pulled him over to the nearest chair and started bending his body (with lots of popping noises) to fit the chair comfortably. Brian noticed a small water cooler in the room, so went over and got the man a small cup of water. The man eagerly drank the water and thanked Brian for his help. "So, then, my name's Jeff. What can I do for you?" Jeff walked back to his desk and sat on the swivel chair.
Brian looked at the man in the eyes and said, "I would like to sign up for a Martial Arts Tournament."
"Okay, then," Jeff said. "Name, please?"
Brian pronounced his first and last name, and Jeff typed it in.
"Okay, then, Brian... Oh, but you're already signed up for The North American Open."
"I know," said Brian, "I want to join another one on top of that."
"That's not quite right. You could get tired very easily, and not be able to function correctly!"
"That's what I want. I want to challenge myself to the extreme limit."
Jeff couldn't really argue with that. He typed something in to the computer and said, "Okay, now, how much do you weigh?"
"One-hundred-forty four Pounds," Brian answered.
"Height?"
"Five foot nine."
"Age?"
"Sixteen."
"Okay," Jeff exclaimed. "Let's see which tournaments you can enter..."
The computer searched over 9,587,665,232 pre-scheduled tournaments all over the world, found 90,533 that matched his statistics, and sorted them into categories. This process took about 1/4 of a second (fast computers in the year 2097, eh?).
"So," Jeff asked, "of the ones listed here, which one would you like to join?"
Brian looked at the long, long list and after a while, he found one he would probably do well in. "Here's one. It's the World Martial Arts tournament. It's happening in two days..."
"...At the Lice Raided Center." Jeff finished for him. "They're preparing it right now. You want me to print you out a copy of the rules?"
"Please."
Jeff printed out the rules and handed them to Brian. The rules dictated that there was no killing allowed in the tournament. Anyone who killed another person in the tournament, even by accident risked disqualification and possible criminal proceedings. It also said that there would be no "pokes to the eyes or hits to the groin" allowed. Such actions would also be grounds for disqualification. Other ways of losing would to be knocked unconscious, land on the ground outside the arena, go down for a count of ten, leave in the middle of the tournament, or say "I give up." The prize money for winning was $2,000,000 and the Official Championship Belt.
Brian realized that he had another fight tonight. He had a fight with Shirro. Undoubtedly, Shirro knew what to expect out of him now. Fighting styles were like signatures. No two were the same. It has always been that way. You can certainly get better, but it never changes very much. He hurried into the stadium (avoiding the media), and rushed towards his ready room. Once again, he ran in to Shirro, and, once again, he fell to the floor. "Oh, not again," he thought to himself. He hated to talk to people before matches. They could say something really unnerving. And in a very predictable show of age, Shirro forgot Brian's name again.
"Hello again, Brad," he said with a smug smile.
"Once again, my name is Brian."
"Whatever. It's not important for this match."
Brian sighed. "Whatever. Anyway, we have no real time for this. Let's just get the battle over with."
"If you want to," Shirro said.
Brian froze. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all." Still smug, Shirro walked into his ready room.
"He must have something up his sleeve," Brian thought to himself. He hesitantly went into his ready room. When he got there, everything seemed normal. It seemed that Shirro was just trying to get to him... Or he found some big weakness. The latter seemed more believable. But nonetheless, he got zipped into his robot and stood ready at the platform. As Brian stood there, just watching Shirro in his robot, Thorn, he neglected to listen for the Ready command and just heard...
"FIGHT!"
Shocked by not hearing "READY," Brian panicked. He lurched forward, and swung at Shirro frantically. Shirro locked Brian's arm and shoved a spike into his (Katana's) chest. This brought Brian back to senses, and he stepped back to think. However, Shirro gave him no time to do so, and leapt at him with a vehement blitz. Brian wasn't ready for this. He realized that with Shirro pummeling him like this, it wouldn't be long till he knocked him out. Brian caught Shirro's arms in mid-strike and pulled him close, followed by a knee to the chest. He retaliated with a blitz of his own. Brian kept it up for a few seconds, then jumped up, and landed a back flip off of Shirro's face.
Shirro got up and tried to shake off his dizziness. This was just like when he fought Brian the last time. Shirro looked at his wrist, at his power gauge specifically. It was just about to the middle. He predicted that that was about what Brian's meter read. Shirro stood there, his psyche in his Thorn, plotting, if you could call it that, his next move. He got another idea (like before). He jumped up against the near wall.
Brian watched as Shirro jumped up, sticking his feet into the wall, and rocketing off. Brian just stood there, waiting for him to get close enough, and when he did, he rolled onto his back, grabbed Shirro, and shot him straight up into the air with his robot's powerful legs. As Brian watched Shirro fly up, he realized that it would be a pretty long time till he came back down. Brian pretended to play Klondike as if he had a deck of cards. This caused the spectators to laugh humorously, and Brian soon pretended to put the cards away. He looked back up and saw Shirro plummeting towards him. He quickly did a side step, which let Shirro hit the ground with break-neck force.
Shirro lay there unable to do anything. He could still move his legs, but his arms were jammed. He could also still move his head around, so he looked up in the direction of Brian. Brian raised his foot over Shirro in a stomping motion. As Brian landed the stomp, Shirro's vision went black.
Brian watched Shirro's Thorn's eyes become dim and realized that he had just been shut down. He stood over Shirro's lifeless robot, and raised his hand over it asking THE QUESTION. The crowd cheered with agreement. He picked Shirro's Thorn up, started spinning it in the air like a propeller, then, when it was at top speed, Brian thrust it into the air. When it was at its peak, Brian jumped up at it, his blades bared. There was a huge flash, which seemed to miss the falling robot, but when it hit the ground, broke in two and a few seconds later, exploded. Brian walked back into his bunker and waited for his psyche to be transferred back to his body.
Zip! Brian woke back up just as they took the pins from his skull. "Man, those fights leave you drained," he thought out loud. As he got off the operating table, Brian's manager "congratulated" him on a job well done.
"What happened there? You looked like you were possessed with a confused baboon!"
"Hey, Lay off man," One of the operators said in Brian's defense. "You aren't the one who has to battle every single day against 30- meter tall robots!"
As they were arguing, Brian walked out the door. "Goodbye, all! See you tomorrow."
"Goodbye, Bri, goodnight," everyone else said.
Brian got home and flopped on the bed. He was hoping he didn't have another fight tomorrow. To be sure, he sat up and turned on the TV. "... And at about 10:30 A.M., police arrested 4 people successfully committing suicide. And in sports tonight, Brian was, yet again, victorious over Shirro, and finished the match with over half of his energy left."
"I wasn't paying attention to that. I lasted longer than I would have thought."
"Brian ran circles around, and sometimes over, Shirro in an impressive foray of skill. And now, the weekly editorial on HAR fights by our own Rob Thepour. Rob?"
The screen changed to a man with a British accent. "Hello, Janice. It's amazing how many people are signing up for tournaments. Just today I got word that Brian, the newest challenger of pilots for the HARs has another unranked challenger at his heels! (Brian got closer to the TV) She's a cute little number, about 16 years old as well, named Monica. It seems to be her first match ever, because I have no record of her at all on my HAR pilot list. If Brian accepts this challenge, you can bet your life I'll be there to catch the action. Back to you, Janice."
"And in other news, a pet shop was robbed of all its ants today. Estimated value-" Brian switched off the TV and quickly dialed the number for the news station. He acknowledged that he accepted the challenge and hung up. He realized that he really needed to go to sleep. He undressed and got into bed. Singing Beatles songs to himself in his head, he soon slipped off to sleep.