mastin2
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Chapter One:
“Maneuver”
With the clattering of a blade, it is clear that peace is not in existence in the fortress. After a brief clash with twenty or so weaker members of some squad, the intruder marches on. The grand wall that he had faced was no problem; his power let him break a hole through the gate easily. His opponents took just one strike each to fall, badly wounded. He, himself, would never actually kill them, since he would have no reason to do so. He is there merely to finish the task that he has given himself.
Running at speeds not human in nature, the intruder marches on, the surroundings just blurs. The brown soil that makes up the outer ring of the fortress does not amuse him, as he takes no note of it. The tan buildings around him belong to the outer—weaker—defense of the spirit warriors, the bulk of their defense. He has no wish to clash with them, so he uses his speed to rush through them. At six foot four, he is a young man with extreme power. While muscular, he would not be that strong, if it weren’t for his powers. At the moment, both his hands are completely normal, their effect hidden. On his belt, he wields a thin blue tube, the edges of which contain enough power to meet flesh with ease.
“Why do you weaken yourself so?” a voice in his head asks, knowing that this is not a comfortable form. “Why, to look a little more normal, of course. I look nothing like a Spirit Warrior, so this little advantage helps me.”
“But why spend double the energy of a stage one release to hide our natural form?”
“To catch them off-guard, naturally. They’ll think that I have released my weapon, when I really am just showing you for what you really are.”
“I see now; you’re putting me in negative stage one because you want people to think that the small blue tube is your weapon, so when you release your form, you have four times the strength yet are still unreleased.”
“Precisely.”
The mental conversation between blade and wielder over, he continues further on. Every once and a while, he’ll encounter a group of men which he simply tramples through, leaving them badly damaged. His grey eyes are colored as they are because of his powers, the blue aura they emit being all the more intimidating. With a rush of his blade, he slashes through another group of warriors, the last of the weak ones. For up ahead lies the metal behemoth known as the central complex, the heart of the fortress. He encounters a giant guard, roughly eight feet tall. The guard swings his club, though the intruder has long since dodged the blow. The club comes down, creating a mighty tremor in the ground. The vibrating should be stunning, but the intruder is unaffected.
With a quick jab, the intruder has embedded his sword into the guard, a blow which is devastating but not lethal. The guard incapacitated, the intruder pulls open the metal gate and enters, wishing to get this over with as quickly as possible. Once inside, he closes the door and slows his pace. For the first time since he arrived here, he observes this great fort. The silver metallic walls provide excellent defense, though they can easily be cut through if he were to show his weapon’s true form. From his entrance, there is a metal wall blocking the way forward, two paths forking on each side. “This place is basically an iron box, you know. It will have almost all passageways this narrow, with maybe the occasional widening for convenient battles. The artificial lighting above us will not change, nor will the type of wall. This whole fort is basically just a bunker of narrow walkways that endlessly take twists and turns with the occasional stairs up or down to allow for them to go on. I imagine eventually—somewhere much closer to the center—there could be a place imitating the sky, where a large climb will be needed to obtain what you came for. This really is a place to admire.”
“I know, but my mind is set on other things.”
“Now get moving; the guards are approaching and those within are likely twice as tough as those that are not.”
“Agreed.” With that single word, the intruder dashes to his right, then when he comes to the wall, dashes to his left, going much farther down. Another dash to the left reveals that the path that he hadn’t taken would have lead here as well, though he ignores this and dashes to the right, now facing a rather large box. Inside of this little box—four passageways, one on every side, for exits—there is a force of about fifty of these soldiers, blindly following orders.
Jumping down into this area, he begins slashing away at them all, arching his back with every swing to easily cut through their swords. “All of the people here haven’t accessed stage one yet,” the voice comments, receiving no response. The massacring continues until all but one has succumbed to their wounds, unconscious and beaten. This one quickly mutters a short phrase, turning his sword into a staff. “You human shall be no match for me! I am amongst the top five in squad eight, so…” He is interrupted by a quick swing of the intruder’s sword, at which he extends his hands around his wooden staff to block easily. “I don’t care about your rank; I care that you are in my way.” With those words, the warrior laughs, commenting “For someone who has no idea how outclassed he is, that is quite the arrogant remark.”
After those words, a massive blast of energy emits from the staff, forcing the intruder back a little stunned. The warrior points his staff’s end towards the intruder, allowing for a massive blast to follow, at which the intruder tries to block. The yellow energy emitted from the blast, however, is too much for his blade to block, as some gets through and kicks him back a couple of feet, on the floor dazed. He flips his feet up and leaps back onto his feet, sword in hand. “You’re hopeless, human; you have no idea the power of a stage one release grants…” Again the warrior is cut off, this time by surprise. “Very well; I see that at this time, I cannot defeat you as I am.” With those words, he mutters a few words, forcing an explosion of energy to follow.
The warrior is awestruck, as before him now lays the human wielding a sword of pure brilliance. The blue tube that had been the entire blade, save for the hilt, now is engulfed by a large plume of what seems to be a blade, formed specially to look like the aura of any user’s weapon engulfed by their aura. The blade itself is rather thin, but the width of the blade at the bottom is that of some of the largest swords known to his kind. Gradually, it gets thinner, the edge meeting the two sides of the blade with a small arch. The grey blade is a sight to behold; the appearance just makes it seem like it was made from the wind clashing with the northern ice. The core of the blade is now the blue center, now a dull grey. But the largest shock of all: the intruder’s right arm is now completely mechanical. “When I picked up my blade, my hand was engulfed by its power. Now I show you what it looks like.” The elbow area has a few ridges in it, the whole thing a shade of light grey. The hilt had now been fused with his arm; disarming the intruder would be impossible.
But the spirit emitted is the worst part about it; he can tell just from distance that he is outmatched now. With a swipe of the intruder’s blade, a massive force of wind combined with ice rushes over the warrior, cutting his skin open through a brilliant slash. He collapses, utterly defeated. “It was you, spirit warrior, who stood no chance. I am sorry for what I just did, but it was necessary. You’ll live—barely—so you have no reason to complain. I must be off now.” With those words, the intruder leaps out towards the opposite door, destined for deeper into the fortress.
After running down this particularly long passageway, he finds himself at a fork, both ways containing a lot of men from what he can tell. His form still revealed, he can now easily cut through the material making up the walls, so he makes a large slice out of the walls, creating a passageway through the wall. He then takes a thick sheet of the wall, placing it over the gap. Now inside of this passageway barely large enough to hold his form, he fuses the piece together, making the presence of the wall unnoticed. He then continues down the passageway, finding the other end that he made still open as planned. Once outside—now on the other side of the troops muttering about how a good portion of squad eight had been defeated—he again seals the passageway on the other end to give no trace of his secret tactic. He can cut a piece out of a wall, remove the inside for a near-infinite length, leaving plenty of space for himself, then place the piece he removed on top of that to hide in a crevice that he creates.
A few more similar run-ons and he repeats the tactic several times, when he can also creating a short cut deeper into the fortress. “You’re quite the improviser, aren’t you?” “Always have been; I always will be.” “This is quite the maneuver; I imagine the guards are dumbfounded at how you can defeat so many and then disappear.” “They’ll never know. At this rate, I’ll be at my target and then escape; my presence will cause chaos and by the time they figure it out, I’ll have already left.”
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