Introduction Part V
by Daredevil 3181
While some contestants had settled into complacency over these past few weeks, others felt comfortable in a more active setting. The tournament sponsors realized this would be the case long before anyone was even summoned to this dimension, so in addition to the other amenities Grandis Somnium offered, there was a fully-functional state-of-the-art virtual reality training facility located not far from the stadium. It was here that the contestants could work on whatever skills they needed to develop, as each program was specifically set to match each combatant, without any danger of hurting innocent bystanders or causing massive amounts of property damage.
"Computer, run sequence 35C-64," said a voice with almost no emotion behind it.
"I require proper authorization before proceeding with that request. That is a level A combat training pro…" the computer responded to the voice command.
"Password: Leon," the man interrupted the electronic voice.
"Safety protocols have been adjusted. Say 'terminate' when you wish to stop."
The sleek metal walls were suddenly replaced with the stony facade of a complex of some sort. Milling about were guards intently patrolling the area for any intruders. Each of them carried a machine gun that seemed to pulse with some fierce energy.
'Time to test my skills,' thought the contestant.
He jumped out from behind a wall and was immediately greeted by a hail of gunfire. The man instinctively tucked himself into a roll. Most of the shots were way off the mark and careened harmlessly off the wall behind him, however a few did ruffle the fur at the top of his black leather jacket.
Quickly discerning which gunmen were the biggest threats, he brought his hand out in front of him and charged it up with some energy. His extremity gave off a fiery red light as little flames jettisoned out of his fingertips and slammed into the closest adversaries. They crumpled to the ground like wrinkled paper.
The remaining guards behind them again pressed their attack, now with renewed vigor. Once again diving for cover, the mercenary looked through a few wayward strands of his dark brown hair to see that around ten of the patrol units remained. 'Still too many for a full frontal charge,' he thought, 'but…there are other ways to thin out the numbers.'
Once again he allowed the connection between himself and one of his guardian forces to come to the forefront. He secured his unique sword underneath one of his arms and then placed both hands on the ground. The floor seemed to tremble as if something was tickling it. The rumbling became more and more noticeable until suddenly pieces of the ground began to literally tear away from each other.
Shots were fired wildly into the air as the guards had no idea what hit them. With each tumultuous heave another person seemed to go down. When it was all over, only four guards were left standing. The man saw this and smiled to himself, quite satisfied with his work.
'Now it's time to finish these guys off quick,' he told himself.
He jumped out from behind the barrels he had used as cover, surprising the men even further. Not even missing a beat he spun around and let his blade taste the flesh of its first victim in a long while. It felt good to let out his rage like this sometimes.
Startled at seeing his comrade get cut down so suddenly, one guard brought his machine gun right in line with the back of the attacker's head. The move was futile, though, as the mercenary quickly moved into a crouch. Pivoting on his left foot, he moved toward the man in a counter-clockwise direction. His right shin soon connected with the feet of the hapless guard, knocking them out from under him and causing him to fall to the ground with a resounding thud, his gun flying out of his hands.
A bullet suddenly grazed off the contestant's shoulder. It hadn't gone deep, but it did sting a little and a fair amount of blood was spilling out. He examined the wound nonchalantly and then quickly locked eyes with the one who had fired at him.
'Must have grazed a superficial blood vessel,' he thought. 'It's nothing too major, but I don't feel like staining these clothes any further.'
His attacker suddenly felt as if a bit of his life force was being leeched out. Green sparks flew out of his chest and into the man with the gunblade. He watched in amazement as the wound instantly closed up and the man advanced on him, no worse for the wear.
Squall kicked the gun away and then plunged his blade through the man's spleen. He kicked him off it, as he knew this one would not be getting up any time soon. There was a whoosh of air overhead and as Squall moved his head to the side, he barely evaded a wild sword thrust. It seemed to be that this last one favored swords over bullets.
'Works just as fine for me,' Squall thought.
He brought his own blade around in a wide arc, causing the guard to back up. He then kicked out and connected with the man's funny bone. His hand numb and useless, one of the guard's swords clattered harmlessly to the ground. Just because he was one blade short didn't mean he was totally defenseless Squall soon learned, as the man was still able to block each slash and stab with relative ease.
The two danced their wild ballet like that for a good thirty seconds before the mercenary saw an opening. Taking full advantage of it, he brought his gunblade around for the finish. Instead of delicate flesh, his sword met hard steel.
'Damn, he feigned that opening!' Squall berated himself. 'I have to be more careful!'
The two were locked in a battle of brawn, as each blade threatened to crack under the pressure. They rocked back and forth, neither one willing to give the other any ground. Finally, as Squall positioned his gunblade right where he wanted it he saw a flash of silver. The guard had unleashed a hidden blade and it was coming right at Squall's jugular.
"Oh no you don't," Squall hissed as he pulled the trigger on his weapon. Fire immediately raced up the length of his weapon's blade and into the man's face. Dropping his weapons, the guard's hands immediately went to his eyes as he howled out in pain. He then felt a fist knock into the side of his head as he slipped into the black sleep of unconsciousness.
"Computer, terminate please," Squall boomed.
"Program is 88 complete. Are you sure you want to exit?" the electronic equipment asked.
"Yes," the man confirmed.
"Action processed and accepted," the computer said as the scene faded into the bland steel room once again.
Squall looked up to see cheering faces waving at him from behind the glass plate of the observation deck. There were mostly girls screaming at the top of their lungs. Although he had learned to open up over the past few years and share his feelings with others, he was still a work in progress.
'I'm just happy that glass is there to protect me from them,' Squall mused as he waved to his fans with a little smile on his lips. He then turned around and pushed the button to open the door from his little cell into the main room. It was here that he was greeted by a familiar figure leaning against the wall.
"Pretty fancy moves in there," the spiky red-haired swordsman said, his mouth upturned in a sly grin.
"I get by," Squall said, his own grin matching his visitor's equally. "How've you been Crono?"
"I really can't complain," Crono shrugged. "In a sense I'm almost happy to be back here in competition again. Gives me a break from all the other crazy stuff that goes on in my home world."
"I know the feeling," empathized Squall. "So, what's on your mind?"
"Thankfully, very little at this time. To be honest I just came here to see some of the contestants' fighting styles firsthand."
Squall nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's one thing to read about them on Gordon's disc. It's quite another thing to actually see some of them in practice."
"Let's take a walk," Crono offered Squall. "We can peek into a few rooms then."
"Sounds good to me."
-----
Red. That was the only way to describe this room. It showed no hint of anything else besides the sticky sight of copious amounts of blood and a solitary figure absolutely fuming with battle lust.
Another figure seemed to pop out of the floor as the computer program was struggling to keep up with its user's actions. Chain blades flew out immediately as the man was ripped to shreds in an instant. As another adversary appeared, the man picked up both halves of the person he had just slain and beat the new threat with them until he too was a bloody heap.
"I've fought gods before!" cried out the hulking figure. "Do you think you could possible prove a challenge to me!"
"Who's that nutjob?" asked Squall.
"Name's Kratos," Crono replied.
"But aren't there two…" Squall started.
"He's the one that won't be seen talking with that idiot swordsman," Crono explained. "I feel sorry for whoever he faces first."
"Yeah, but if his opponent wins it's probably all due to some kind of grand plan," Squall agreed. "Either that or he'd have to have one foot in the grave already."
As the two watched the man rip apart a monster with his bare hands they walked on to the next area.
-----
The next room they came to featured a relatively non-intimidating young man. He had dark hair and was wearing a black suit with buckles here and there. There were demon-like creatures spawning in his room at a fairly constant rate.
"Had enough yet?" the man asked.
He then transformed in front of the duo's eyes into some kind of feline creature with claws and stripes along its back. He proceeded to slash at the advancing horde with apparent ease. The room was flecked with blood, but nowhere near as bad as Kratos'.
"I can keep this up all day," he laughed as shifted back into his human form.
"Let me guess, Yuri Hyuga," Squall stated.
"Yeah, another newcomer," Crono confirmed. "He has some shape-shifting powers and can be a little rude at times. I'm not sure the full extent of his strength, but I'd bet he has a few surprises in store."
"Still, my money's on Samus," Squall said. "That suit of hers packs quite a punch."
"Not to mention that she's a total knockout," Chrono said smugly.
"Well, yeah, there's that too," Squall conceded. "Moving on…"
-----
The next room was certainly a sight to behold. Its occupant looked as if he was swimming about in some type of gelatin-like water instead of fighting anyone in particular. Every now and then he would throw a ball of some type to another person and then propel himself around the watery globe.
"Tidus still up to his old tricks?" chuckled Squall.
"Apparently," Crono responded.
"He tried to teach me that game once, but I wasn't a fan," Squall said. "Blitz-something-or-other he called it."
"Blitzball," Crono corrected him. "And it's not an entire waste of time. His reflexes are extremely quick because of it. Besides he doesn't carry that sword around with him for nothing."
"Yeah, he did knock Shadow out of the picture last year. So he's not totally inept," Squall huffed.
The blond-haired sports star spotted the two through his window and waved to them. He then caught the ball from one of his teammates and swam off. Squall and Crono just shook their heads and moved on.
------
The next room was set up like an extreme dojo of some sorts. There were no massive conflicts, but instead it seemed to be a spar of some sort that was taking place. The man with spiky black hair was fighting an old man with equally unkempt white hair. As each of their punches and kicks connected, sparks of power flew off.
"A rather odd training exercise," Squall observed.
"Not as strange as Blitzball," Crono pointed out. "But it seems as if this just a good old fashioned duel. Nothing real fancy past that."
"You haven't bested me yet, old man," the raven-haired youth said as he caught his adversary's explosive kick.
"He's definitely a fighter and has spirit," Squall stated. "But the fighter mentality never seems to go very far in these things."
"From what I understand this Jin Kazama has a dark side to him, though, not unlike our friend Ryu," Crono explained. "If it's anywhere near as powerful then he might end up having an outside shot."
"Or be flattened," Squall quipped, as Jin took a hard punch to the face that sent him reeling.
------
The two had gained quite a bit of knowledge about the various combatants and all-in-all this was a fairly productive day. It wasn't over yet, though. As they were slowing down, Squall couldn't help but notice as Crono nervously began glancing at his watch every so often.
"Have a big date or something?" Squall asked, somewhat incredulously. He knew how tongue-tied Crono got around some of the prettier ladies.
"Well, not exactly, it's just that…"
"Please move aside," a voice cordially requested.
Crono and Squall looked around to find its source.
"Ahem, down here," the voice said. The two turned their gaze a little lower to find what could only be described as a medium-sized living doll wearing a sky blue cloak.
"I have things to take care of and a few reports to go over," the doll continued. "So if you wouldn't mind, please let me by."
"Whatever," Squall said as he moved aside.
The little man just fumed, "Crazy mortals. The star road doesn't just check up on and repair itself, you know," under his breath. He then hurried off.
Squall was about to say something when Crono beat him to the punch. "Geno." The SeeD just stood there for a second and then nodded his head.
"So what was it you were waiting for...?" Squall asked when a voice soon answered his question.
"Oh, Sir Crono, there you are!" said a figure in enthusiastic greeting. "So sorry I am late!"
"It's alright, Frog," Crono said. "No need to apologize."
"Thou art truly kind to help me work on my technique."
"Don't mention it," Crono said. "Anyways…Squall, here is where I take my leave. But I'll see you around."
"Yeah, you take care, Crono," said Squall. "And you too, Frog."
"Fare thee well, Sir Squall," Frog said as the mercenary walked away. He then headed into a vacant virtual reality chamber to shake some of the rust off his skills. He wasn't alone, though, as Crono joined in and started up the specially-designed program.
'This is going to be a very, very interesting tournament,' thought Squall as he headed back to the hotel for some well-deserved rest and relaxation.
