Chapter 9: Freaky Friday
Jin
I woke up groggily, not an unusual occurrence, and slowly rose myself to a sitting position. I could hear someone give a startled cry and I turned toward the sound. There were five people in the room and they hurriedly gathered around me. My eyes took a long time to gain focus and when they did it still took me a while to realize that I knew none of them. I scooted out of the bed that I had occupied and took refuge in the corner, where I could see them all.
There were three men and two girls. One of the guys slowly came forward.
"Scipio, are you alright?" he queried, gripping my shoulder. I immediately shrugged his hand off, giving me a surprise when I saw mine. My skin was pale! As I gazed at my hand in shock, one of the girls spoke.
"Scipio! What's wrong?" she cried in a concerned voice.
"Well, let's see," I began in a voice that was not my own, "I'm trying to remember the exact moment that I changed into a TALL WHITE GUY!!!" I looked at her. She was about my age, with platinum coloured hair that fell over her shoulders. She wore a long white dress and I observed an S shaped mark on her upper arm. Her face had a familiar look and I soon knew why. This girl looked almost exactly like Ken! However, this was not what surprised me. It was the name she called me. "Wait a minute? Did you just call me Scipio!? What the hell is going on here!?" I screamed, my eyes darting frantically from her to the guy standing in front of me. I had awoken in a strange place, with people who I had never seen before in my life. I was pretty freaked out and I instantly took a fighting stance and kept my eyes focused on them.
"You two, take the ladies outside," the man ordered his companions at the door, "I'll see to Scipio." I grew angry.
"I'm not Scipio!!!" I yelled after they left. The man backed away and sat on a stool beside the bed. He gestured to a mirror on the opposite wall.
"You aren't? See for yourself," he said. I did just that and was even more traumatized when I saw Scipio's face in the mirror instead of my own.
"I...I am..." I whispered, "but how!!?" I was about to argue further but the guy cut me off.
"Relax, I know that you aren't Scipio," he said, "Sit down. You do want an explanation, don't you?" I nodded and slowly sat on the bed. "My name's Brass, by the way. Scipio's my brother. He used a technique called Body Change on you. Right now, he should be waking up in your body, wherever it is," he stated calmly. Well that would certainly explain a whole lot, but there was still a very important question I needed to ask.
"Why, huh? Why me? What does Scipio hope to accomplish using my body?" I asked. Brass gave a sigh and lowered his head.
"We are on a spaceship called the Odine. This ship is, literally, as big as a planet and there are over one hundred million people aboard it. We're salvagers. Our own planet was destroyed a while ago so this is our new home. We also make it our jobs to help out people like us...so we assist in the evacuation of dying worlds," Brass explained, "the place is kinda crowded, if you know what I mean, so it goes to reason that a disease would spread like wild fire if someone was infected. A month ago Scipio and I encountered some infected beings while on a salvaging mission. We were forced to defend ourselves and due to the close contact we were infected." He looked up at me and smiled.
"What?" I asked. He shook his head and continued.
"The disease spread and our scientists were at a loss as to what to do to create a cure. It was then that we picked up transmissions from the planet Nedan about them having a cure. We contacted them pleading for assistance but the ignored us. We figured that they hadn't received our transmissions so we went to the planet ourselves, in hopes that we would be helped, but the mayor refused to share with us. We grew desperate. Lord Obsidian, our leader, resorted to using threats to get them to hand over the cure," he went on. I brought a hand to my chin in deep thought. Why would Jeran's father refuse to help these people? It made no sense to me so I kept silent on the issue.
"That explains what Scipio was doing on Nedan," I said, "but you still haven't answered my question."
"Scipio didn't like Lord Obsidian's...destructive...methods, so we came up with another plan that we kept from our leader. He gave the mayor time to gather fighters to try to defeat us. Then he would steal one of their bodies and infect it with the disease. Then we would retreat and make it look like we lost, so that they would give him the cure. After that, all Scipio had to do was return to us where we could extract the antibodies from the stolen body," he finished, "Scipio's supposed to fake amnesia with your people so he wouldn't sell himself out. That boy couldn't act to save his life." I took this all in rather calmly and, although I was extremely upset about the whole body change thing, I found that, strangely enough, I believed Brass.
"You know, one of my friends is the mayor's daughter. We could get her to confront him about it. Then this entire body switching thing won't be necessary," I suggested, "Let me contact my friends, we'll get to the bottom of this." Brass smiled again.
"Young people, they're so naïve. What makes you think a politician will listen to a kid, even if it's his daughter? And besides, if we did that Lord Obsidian would find out and punish us, even if we did get the cure," he said. I sighed. I guess I was going to have to play along for now.
"Alright," I said finally, "So should I fake amnesia as well?" He shook his head vigorously.
"No, that'd be too suspicious. Lord Obsidian is still confused about your coma even after we gave you a senzu bean," he replied.
"A what bean?" I inquired.
"Scipio's body was pretty banged up when Lord Obsidian brought you in. that was just a week ago...you catch my drift yet?" he said, rising to his feet. Hey! He had a point! Joel had literally crushed Scipio's body, breaking almost every bone and leaving his body badly deformed and beaten, but I couldn't even feel a broken bone!
Brass pulled out a small sack and tossed it to me. I looked at its contents and saw that it was filled with weird looking beans.
"One bean can heal all of your injuries and entirely restore your ki," he explained, "It's the only reason we're all still alive. Eating a bean seems to dampen the effects of the disease." I pulled a senzu bean from the sack and scrutinized it.
"Seems too farfetched," I stated, "well I guess I could play Scipio for a while. Can you give me an idea of how to act?" "Scipio's nineteen years old, his personality is non-existent and he's probably the most aloof person you'll ever meet. The only people he really lightens up for are his fiancé, Treasure, and our sister, Mei," Brass told me. I raised an eyebrow. "What about you? I mean, you two are brothers," I asked. He gave a loud laugh and headed for the door. "Long story. There are some clothes in the closet. I'm going to send Treasure in," he replied, "Oh! One more thing. You're gonna see some strange things on this ship. Try not to act too surprised." He gave me another smile and then left. I searched the closet and found armor similar to the one that Brass wore. "This is some weird shit," I said, donning the armor. After I dressed, I stood in front of the mirror and observed myself. "I wonder how Niki's doing." I muttered to myself.
"Scipio?" called a timid voice. I whirled around and saw the platinum haired girl from before. Brass told me it was alright to come in," she said, "are you alright?" Hmm...how would Scipio have answered that? I decided to use my own dry, nonchalant tone.
"If you mean that moment of dementia I had a while ago," I answered, "I'm over it." Treasure suddenly ran into my arms.
"You had me so worried, Scipio!" she cried, latching her arms around my neck, sobbing, "When daddy brought you in you were in such bad shape that I thought..." I didn't exactly feel comfortable holding someone other than Nikita this way and especially, to make matters worse, someone who looked like Ken. It just felt sick and wrong. Well, I suppose if I had never seen Ken in my entire life I wouldn't have had that problem. She was beautiful, but the resemblance was uncanny; not to mention she had the same marking on her arm that he did. Then I thought of Scipio holding Nikita like this and I released Treasure. "Scipio?" she started, but I placed my index finger on her lips, preventing her from continuing.
"Treasure, your face is the best thing I've seen since I've been on that stupid planet," I told her. She smiled at me and once again rested her face on my chest.
"I'm glad you feel that way," she said, "I was hoping that you would tell me about your battle." I used this opportunity to get her off of me and I sat with her on the bed, trying my best to describe the battle from Scipio's point of view.
"A giant monkey!?" she exclaimed, when I was finished, "How did you survive that?" I wracked my brain trying to remember her father's name.
"Um...Lord Obsidian saved me," I replied. Before she could say anything else Brass came in with a little girl behind him. She couldn't have been more than ten years old.
"Look who's come to visit," said Brass, gently pushing the girl toward me. I was about to ask Brass who she was; not a very smart move, but Treasure saved me the trouble.
"Little Mei, you came to see your brother. And what's this?" she stated. Mei came up to me and held out a card. I took it from her and a smile crossed my lips. It was a homemade 'get well soon' card. The card made me remember when Julia made cards like this for me long ago.
"Thank you, Mei," I said, passing a hand through her hair. So far, Scipio's life was actually pretty okay. "I like it a lot," I added. Brass stepped forward.
"Treasure, can you keep an eye on Mei for us? Scipio and I are needed on tier sixty three," he asked. Treasure nodded.
"Sure," she replied, "I know you took a senzu, Scipio, but I still want you to take it easy, okay?" As soon as we vacated the room I let out a deep sigh.
"Thanks for getting me out of there," I told Brass, "Man, she is aggressive." We walked down a long winding corridor and entered an elevator before he said anything.
"She really loves Scipio," Brass replied, "Your discomfort with her leads me to believe that you already have someone special in your life." I nodded.
"By the way, what's tier sixty three?" I asked.
"It's the arena," he answered, turning toward me, "I'm curious. I would like to find out how good a fighter you really are." I cracked my knuckles.
"You may get more than you bargained for, Brass," I told him dryly. The elevator ceased moving and we came out into another corridor.
When Brass said that the Odine was crowded I thought he was exaggerating, but what I saw made me see that he wasn't. The corridor was brimming with people, mostly children. They were all running all over the place playing some sort of ball game. We stood there for several minutes before anyone realized we were there. The seemingly endless chattering gave way to an uncomfortable silence as they all cleared a path for us by shuffling quickly to the sides of the corridor. Brass pushed me forward gently and we made our way to another elevator. I peered at these people as we walked. They were all staring at me and if I didn't know any better I'd have thought they feared me. Wait a second; did I know any better? Before I could ask Brass, one child, who apparently wasn't alerted to our presence ran right into me. I staggered backward in surprise and the kid bounced off of me and landed hard on the floor. My first instinct was to see if the boy was alright, but Brass lay a firm hand on my shoulder before I could do so. He took a menacing step forward.
"Why don't you watch where you're going, ya little punk!" he growled. The poor kid crawled backwards in fear.
"I-I'm sorry sir! I didn't see Lord Scipio," he stuttered. Brass took another step toward the boy.
"Silence! Such insolence will not be tolerated! You say you're sorry. You're not, but you will be!" he shouted. He brought his foot forward fast at the child, but I easily intercepted it with my own.
"Enough Brass!" I ordered, my foot still blocking his, "leave him alone!" The look of surprise on his face caught me off guard. It was obvious, judging from Brass' reaction that Scipio had never challenged his authority before. With a snarl, he pushed past the child and continued along the corridor, I followed him and soon we were on the second elevator. There was an awkward silence as the elevator climbed tiers swiftly and, only when we came off into another corridor Brass broke the silence.
"Don't make it a habit to undermine my authority," he said, "Scipio does it all to often and I'm sick and tired of it." I grinned. So I had done exactly what Scipio would have.
Two elevator rides later we arrived on tier sixty-three. It was amazing. For as far as the eye could see there were there were hundreds of battles going on and I could feel that everyone in this huge arena had a powerlevel way higher than my own!
"To get a better idea of your abilities I've set up some tests for you," Brass said, gesturing for me to follow him.
"What kind of tests?" I asked hastily. He gave me a look that seemed to say 'you'll see'. He guided me over to an area that had a large circular pattern on the floor. As soon as I steeped into the circle, a huge cage fell around me. "What the!?" I cried, instinctively taking my fighting stance.
"Bring out the Saibamen!" cried Brass. All of a sudden four small circles that were in the big one opened up and four of the most hideous creatures I had ever seen in my entire life jumped out of them. Their scaly skin was dark brown and they possessed claws instead of fingers and toes. The back of their heads reminded me of the human brain and it disgusted me. I didn't have time to puke because they all leapt at me. Immediately I brought forth my aura and intensified it, sending them all flying back into the metal bars of the cage. Before they could recover I dealt each one a finishing blow, lopping one's head off with a punch, bisecting another with a sweep kick and the remaining Saibamen exploded upon contact with my fists.
I noticed people gathering around the cage with interest as another batch of the ugly critters jumped out from the holes. This time their skin was pale green. I threw a glance at Brass who had a smile one his face.
"Give them a good show brother," he said as more people came over to watch. Cracking my knuckles, I smiled to myself. I'd give these people a show.
I defeated a grand total of three hundred Saibamen before Brass had the cage lifted.
"You're a skillful fighter," commended Brass, leading me to a larger part of the arena, "Now let's see if you're a strong fighter."
"You'd have to be a lot better than those Saibamen," I laughed. We had our own private audience as we faced off. I took my stance and Brass took his, which interested me because I had never seen it before. It reminded me of Muay Thai.
I took the initiative and charged into Brass, a very big mistake, as I was soon to find out. I began to throw super fast punches at him but he simply parried the first punch and retaliated with a rain of punches and kicks that seemed to come from all directions. At first I had no problem defending against them, but after a while he just overwhelmed me with attacks and I just couldn't block or dodge any of them all. To make a short story extremely shorter, I got plain beat up.
It was when I was trying to pick myself off of the floor that it happened. A small pain that I had earlier associated with one of Brass' punches grew significantly and I began a coughing fit. Blood gushed out of my mouth from behind my clenched teeth and, to make matters worse, I found that I couldn't breathe. This was the first time in a long time that I felt truly afraid. Tears mixed with the blood collecting on the floor in front of me as I sobbed like a baby, fearing that I was going to die. I didn't even notice when Brass forced one of those senzu beans down my throat but when it began to work on my body I could feel all the pain just disappear! Even the bruises that Brass had given to me himself were gone!
My body was now as good as new but my mind just couldn't get of the shock of the near death experience. The only thing that I had on my mind was Nikita and it took me a while before I could even speak.
"Are you alright?" asked Brass, who seemed sincerely concerned. I ignored the question.
"Is that what the disease does to a person?" I managed to whisper. Brass gave a solemn nod. "Well let's pray to Kami that Scipio gets that cure soon. For everyone's sakes."
CHARACTERS RECRUITED INITIAL P/LVL
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SOUNDTRACK: SYNTHETIC by Spineshank
Jin
I woke up groggily, not an unusual occurrence, and slowly rose myself to a sitting position. I could hear someone give a startled cry and I turned toward the sound. There were five people in the room and they hurriedly gathered around me. My eyes took a long time to gain focus and when they did it still took me a while to realize that I knew none of them. I scooted out of the bed that I had occupied and took refuge in the corner, where I could see them all.
There were three men and two girls. One of the guys slowly came forward.
"Scipio, are you alright?" he queried, gripping my shoulder. I immediately shrugged his hand off, giving me a surprise when I saw mine. My skin was pale! As I gazed at my hand in shock, one of the girls spoke.
"Scipio! What's wrong?" she cried in a concerned voice.
"Well, let's see," I began in a voice that was not my own, "I'm trying to remember the exact moment that I changed into a TALL WHITE GUY!!!" I looked at her. She was about my age, with platinum coloured hair that fell over her shoulders. She wore a long white dress and I observed an S shaped mark on her upper arm. Her face had a familiar look and I soon knew why. This girl looked almost exactly like Ken! However, this was not what surprised me. It was the name she called me. "Wait a minute? Did you just call me Scipio!? What the hell is going on here!?" I screamed, my eyes darting frantically from her to the guy standing in front of me. I had awoken in a strange place, with people who I had never seen before in my life. I was pretty freaked out and I instantly took a fighting stance and kept my eyes focused on them.
"You two, take the ladies outside," the man ordered his companions at the door, "I'll see to Scipio." I grew angry.
"I'm not Scipio!!!" I yelled after they left. The man backed away and sat on a stool beside the bed. He gestured to a mirror on the opposite wall.
"You aren't? See for yourself," he said. I did just that and was even more traumatized when I saw Scipio's face in the mirror instead of my own.
"I...I am..." I whispered, "but how!!?" I was about to argue further but the guy cut me off.
"Relax, I know that you aren't Scipio," he said, "Sit down. You do want an explanation, don't you?" I nodded and slowly sat on the bed. "My name's Brass, by the way. Scipio's my brother. He used a technique called Body Change on you. Right now, he should be waking up in your body, wherever it is," he stated calmly. Well that would certainly explain a whole lot, but there was still a very important question I needed to ask.
"Why, huh? Why me? What does Scipio hope to accomplish using my body?" I asked. Brass gave a sigh and lowered his head.
"We are on a spaceship called the Odine. This ship is, literally, as big as a planet and there are over one hundred million people aboard it. We're salvagers. Our own planet was destroyed a while ago so this is our new home. We also make it our jobs to help out people like us...so we assist in the evacuation of dying worlds," Brass explained, "the place is kinda crowded, if you know what I mean, so it goes to reason that a disease would spread like wild fire if someone was infected. A month ago Scipio and I encountered some infected beings while on a salvaging mission. We were forced to defend ourselves and due to the close contact we were infected." He looked up at me and smiled.
"What?" I asked. He shook his head and continued.
"The disease spread and our scientists were at a loss as to what to do to create a cure. It was then that we picked up transmissions from the planet Nedan about them having a cure. We contacted them pleading for assistance but the ignored us. We figured that they hadn't received our transmissions so we went to the planet ourselves, in hopes that we would be helped, but the mayor refused to share with us. We grew desperate. Lord Obsidian, our leader, resorted to using threats to get them to hand over the cure," he went on. I brought a hand to my chin in deep thought. Why would Jeran's father refuse to help these people? It made no sense to me so I kept silent on the issue.
"That explains what Scipio was doing on Nedan," I said, "but you still haven't answered my question."
"Scipio didn't like Lord Obsidian's...destructive...methods, so we came up with another plan that we kept from our leader. He gave the mayor time to gather fighters to try to defeat us. Then he would steal one of their bodies and infect it with the disease. Then we would retreat and make it look like we lost, so that they would give him the cure. After that, all Scipio had to do was return to us where we could extract the antibodies from the stolen body," he finished, "Scipio's supposed to fake amnesia with your people so he wouldn't sell himself out. That boy couldn't act to save his life." I took this all in rather calmly and, although I was extremely upset about the whole body change thing, I found that, strangely enough, I believed Brass.
"You know, one of my friends is the mayor's daughter. We could get her to confront him about it. Then this entire body switching thing won't be necessary," I suggested, "Let me contact my friends, we'll get to the bottom of this." Brass smiled again.
"Young people, they're so naïve. What makes you think a politician will listen to a kid, even if it's his daughter? And besides, if we did that Lord Obsidian would find out and punish us, even if we did get the cure," he said. I sighed. I guess I was going to have to play along for now.
"Alright," I said finally, "So should I fake amnesia as well?" He shook his head vigorously.
"No, that'd be too suspicious. Lord Obsidian is still confused about your coma even after we gave you a senzu bean," he replied.
"A what bean?" I inquired.
"Scipio's body was pretty banged up when Lord Obsidian brought you in. that was just a week ago...you catch my drift yet?" he said, rising to his feet. Hey! He had a point! Joel had literally crushed Scipio's body, breaking almost every bone and leaving his body badly deformed and beaten, but I couldn't even feel a broken bone!
Brass pulled out a small sack and tossed it to me. I looked at its contents and saw that it was filled with weird looking beans.
"One bean can heal all of your injuries and entirely restore your ki," he explained, "It's the only reason we're all still alive. Eating a bean seems to dampen the effects of the disease." I pulled a senzu bean from the sack and scrutinized it.
"Seems too farfetched," I stated, "well I guess I could play Scipio for a while. Can you give me an idea of how to act?" "Scipio's nineteen years old, his personality is non-existent and he's probably the most aloof person you'll ever meet. The only people he really lightens up for are his fiancé, Treasure, and our sister, Mei," Brass told me. I raised an eyebrow. "What about you? I mean, you two are brothers," I asked. He gave a loud laugh and headed for the door. "Long story. There are some clothes in the closet. I'm going to send Treasure in," he replied, "Oh! One more thing. You're gonna see some strange things on this ship. Try not to act too surprised." He gave me another smile and then left. I searched the closet and found armor similar to the one that Brass wore. "This is some weird shit," I said, donning the armor. After I dressed, I stood in front of the mirror and observed myself. "I wonder how Niki's doing." I muttered to myself.
"Scipio?" called a timid voice. I whirled around and saw the platinum haired girl from before. Brass told me it was alright to come in," she said, "are you alright?" Hmm...how would Scipio have answered that? I decided to use my own dry, nonchalant tone.
"If you mean that moment of dementia I had a while ago," I answered, "I'm over it." Treasure suddenly ran into my arms.
"You had me so worried, Scipio!" she cried, latching her arms around my neck, sobbing, "When daddy brought you in you were in such bad shape that I thought..." I didn't exactly feel comfortable holding someone other than Nikita this way and especially, to make matters worse, someone who looked like Ken. It just felt sick and wrong. Well, I suppose if I had never seen Ken in my entire life I wouldn't have had that problem. She was beautiful, but the resemblance was uncanny; not to mention she had the same marking on her arm that he did. Then I thought of Scipio holding Nikita like this and I released Treasure. "Scipio?" she started, but I placed my index finger on her lips, preventing her from continuing.
"Treasure, your face is the best thing I've seen since I've been on that stupid planet," I told her. She smiled at me and once again rested her face on my chest.
"I'm glad you feel that way," she said, "I was hoping that you would tell me about your battle." I used this opportunity to get her off of me and I sat with her on the bed, trying my best to describe the battle from Scipio's point of view.
"A giant monkey!?" she exclaimed, when I was finished, "How did you survive that?" I wracked my brain trying to remember her father's name.
"Um...Lord Obsidian saved me," I replied. Before she could say anything else Brass came in with a little girl behind him. She couldn't have been more than ten years old.
"Look who's come to visit," said Brass, gently pushing the girl toward me. I was about to ask Brass who she was; not a very smart move, but Treasure saved me the trouble.
"Little Mei, you came to see your brother. And what's this?" she stated. Mei came up to me and held out a card. I took it from her and a smile crossed my lips. It was a homemade 'get well soon' card. The card made me remember when Julia made cards like this for me long ago.
"Thank you, Mei," I said, passing a hand through her hair. So far, Scipio's life was actually pretty okay. "I like it a lot," I added. Brass stepped forward.
"Treasure, can you keep an eye on Mei for us? Scipio and I are needed on tier sixty three," he asked. Treasure nodded.
"Sure," she replied, "I know you took a senzu, Scipio, but I still want you to take it easy, okay?" As soon as we vacated the room I let out a deep sigh.
"Thanks for getting me out of there," I told Brass, "Man, she is aggressive." We walked down a long winding corridor and entered an elevator before he said anything.
"She really loves Scipio," Brass replied, "Your discomfort with her leads me to believe that you already have someone special in your life." I nodded.
"By the way, what's tier sixty three?" I asked.
"It's the arena," he answered, turning toward me, "I'm curious. I would like to find out how good a fighter you really are." I cracked my knuckles.
"You may get more than you bargained for, Brass," I told him dryly. The elevator ceased moving and we came out into another corridor.
When Brass said that the Odine was crowded I thought he was exaggerating, but what I saw made me see that he wasn't. The corridor was brimming with people, mostly children. They were all running all over the place playing some sort of ball game. We stood there for several minutes before anyone realized we were there. The seemingly endless chattering gave way to an uncomfortable silence as they all cleared a path for us by shuffling quickly to the sides of the corridor. Brass pushed me forward gently and we made our way to another elevator. I peered at these people as we walked. They were all staring at me and if I didn't know any better I'd have thought they feared me. Wait a second; did I know any better? Before I could ask Brass, one child, who apparently wasn't alerted to our presence ran right into me. I staggered backward in surprise and the kid bounced off of me and landed hard on the floor. My first instinct was to see if the boy was alright, but Brass lay a firm hand on my shoulder before I could do so. He took a menacing step forward.
"Why don't you watch where you're going, ya little punk!" he growled. The poor kid crawled backwards in fear.
"I-I'm sorry sir! I didn't see Lord Scipio," he stuttered. Brass took another step toward the boy.
"Silence! Such insolence will not be tolerated! You say you're sorry. You're not, but you will be!" he shouted. He brought his foot forward fast at the child, but I easily intercepted it with my own.
"Enough Brass!" I ordered, my foot still blocking his, "leave him alone!" The look of surprise on his face caught me off guard. It was obvious, judging from Brass' reaction that Scipio had never challenged his authority before. With a snarl, he pushed past the child and continued along the corridor, I followed him and soon we were on the second elevator. There was an awkward silence as the elevator climbed tiers swiftly and, only when we came off into another corridor Brass broke the silence.
"Don't make it a habit to undermine my authority," he said, "Scipio does it all to often and I'm sick and tired of it." I grinned. So I had done exactly what Scipio would have.
Two elevator rides later we arrived on tier sixty-three. It was amazing. For as far as the eye could see there were there were hundreds of battles going on and I could feel that everyone in this huge arena had a powerlevel way higher than my own!
"To get a better idea of your abilities I've set up some tests for you," Brass said, gesturing for me to follow him.
"What kind of tests?" I asked hastily. He gave me a look that seemed to say 'you'll see'. He guided me over to an area that had a large circular pattern on the floor. As soon as I steeped into the circle, a huge cage fell around me. "What the!?" I cried, instinctively taking my fighting stance.
"Bring out the Saibamen!" cried Brass. All of a sudden four small circles that were in the big one opened up and four of the most hideous creatures I had ever seen in my entire life jumped out of them. Their scaly skin was dark brown and they possessed claws instead of fingers and toes. The back of their heads reminded me of the human brain and it disgusted me. I didn't have time to puke because they all leapt at me. Immediately I brought forth my aura and intensified it, sending them all flying back into the metal bars of the cage. Before they could recover I dealt each one a finishing blow, lopping one's head off with a punch, bisecting another with a sweep kick and the remaining Saibamen exploded upon contact with my fists.
I noticed people gathering around the cage with interest as another batch of the ugly critters jumped out from the holes. This time their skin was pale green. I threw a glance at Brass who had a smile one his face.
"Give them a good show brother," he said as more people came over to watch. Cracking my knuckles, I smiled to myself. I'd give these people a show.
I defeated a grand total of three hundred Saibamen before Brass had the cage lifted.
"You're a skillful fighter," commended Brass, leading me to a larger part of the arena, "Now let's see if you're a strong fighter."
"You'd have to be a lot better than those Saibamen," I laughed. We had our own private audience as we faced off. I took my stance and Brass took his, which interested me because I had never seen it before. It reminded me of Muay Thai.
I took the initiative and charged into Brass, a very big mistake, as I was soon to find out. I began to throw super fast punches at him but he simply parried the first punch and retaliated with a rain of punches and kicks that seemed to come from all directions. At first I had no problem defending against them, but after a while he just overwhelmed me with attacks and I just couldn't block or dodge any of them all. To make a short story extremely shorter, I got plain beat up.
It was when I was trying to pick myself off of the floor that it happened. A small pain that I had earlier associated with one of Brass' punches grew significantly and I began a coughing fit. Blood gushed out of my mouth from behind my clenched teeth and, to make matters worse, I found that I couldn't breathe. This was the first time in a long time that I felt truly afraid. Tears mixed with the blood collecting on the floor in front of me as I sobbed like a baby, fearing that I was going to die. I didn't even notice when Brass forced one of those senzu beans down my throat but when it began to work on my body I could feel all the pain just disappear! Even the bruises that Brass had given to me himself were gone!
My body was now as good as new but my mind just couldn't get of the shock of the near death experience. The only thing that I had on my mind was Nikita and it took me a while before I could even speak.
"Are you alright?" asked Brass, who seemed sincerely concerned. I ignored the question.
"Is that what the disease does to a person?" I managed to whisper. Brass gave a solemn nod. "Well let's pray to Kami that Scipio gets that cure soon. For everyone's sakes."
CHARACTERS RECRUITED INITIAL P/LVL
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SOUNDTRACK: SYNTHETIC by Spineshank