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nield -> RE: (DF) Animosity (4/24/2011 6:57:55)
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Chapter 5: A New Alliance and the Gloved Menace.
Alright alright alright, I guess it's time for the next instalment. This next one is a doozy. If you were impressed by my scythe at all... let me tell you, compared to the weapons of some of the Generals in Green... it is as nothing. Also, you may feel it... unlikely that me and mine survived in a war against a far larger army all on our own. Well, we didn't. We did receive some help. This part takes place a few months later.
As the Greenites fled, again, we settled down to await the next battle. They were wearing us down and they had received some more assistance, to boot. The planes of red, yellow and blue had joined them. I received a message from one of my scouts, which read: 'If you have the time to spare, I ask your audience. ~M.N' I wracked my mind trying to figure out who M.N could be. When I couldn't I said to the scout; "Send them to me." And he went off to do so.
The man who walked up to me was someone I recognised, but not someone I had met before. Mechajin Nanashi, Spongemaster and Commander of the Combined Armies of Teal and Silver. He wore his armour in a fashion dissimilar to most Technomancers. Instead of wearing the breastplate over the coat, as most do, he wears it beneath. Also, rather than tearing the sleeve off at the shoulder on his left arm where he wore his Technomancer's Gauntlet, he had it removed in a precise manner, such that the Gauntlet appears to be an extension of the sleeve. His silver hair comes down to his shoulders at the back in a rigid manner, while at the sides it comes down to his chin and no further. While most of his hair is parted away from his forehead, three bunches came down in varying lengths, but extended no further than his eyebrows, which were also silver. The scarf common to all Technomancers, rather than the usual red was coloured teal. On the right shoulder, the arm with which a Technomancer wields his weapon, is a rank badge. The rank is Spongemaster, denoted by three horizontal lines topped by a sponge at the center of which is a gold star. His weapon is a Silver Katana, a weapon that seems to the eye to curve with far more grace than any other katana. The blade of the katana is silver, with runes inlaid of wisps of smoke, coloured teal. Indeed, if you look at the katana right, there actually appears to be teal smoke floating around it. Whether this is by trick of the eyes or design is unknown to me. The guard of the katana, coloured black, has lines of teal that run from its bottom up to meet the start of the smoke runes. There are two parts on the guard, where it extends. These occur on the bladed side of the katana and curl back towards the hand of the weilder, curling up on themselves at the end. Down these are runes in the same manner of those on the blade, lending to the illusion of smoke around the weapon and are also coloured teal. The hilt itself of the blade is teal. Mechajin's face is an odd one. While to look it straight on, you would see it as tanned. However, peripheral vision reveals it to be a curious mixture of teal and silver, one that blends so well it is hard to say where teal ends and silver begins, with the reverse also true. His eyes are a kindly shade of teal, one that inspires a want to trust. His nose is pointed, but in such a fashion that it appears to be rounded at its end. When he speaks he does so in a melodious tone, one that is referred to as Silvertongue. That his tongue is coloured silver may have lent itself to the naming.
"Greetings," He began in that melodious voice. It does leave one thinking that the owner is of no possible harm. A fact that makes Mechajin Nanashi easy to underestimate. "Nield, word has reached our ears that a rogue plane, Grey, has without our knowledge pledged itself to the forces arrayed against you." He paused. "The planes of Teal and Silver would like to offer our assistance." I would gladly take all the help I could get. But I sensed a 'but'. "But," There it is. "We have a single condition." "Name it." I replied. "Should we meet Lady Mritha on the field of battle, there be no attempts to render her form... unuseable, as she has saved my life a number of times." No limb-hacking, got it.
The person to which Mechajin references, Mritha, is an odd sort. She is another person of whom I'd heard, but not seen. Indeed none of my soldiers appear to have encountered her so far. She is equipped in the armour of what is called an Evolved Dragonlord, with the vast majority of her armour coloured black, with the trim coloured purple. The helm she wears is known as a Mirrored Dragonlord Helm, which reflects the colours of her armour. Her eyes blaze purple through the eye lenses in a curious way, reflective of the curious way in which her eyes are a dark, yet bright, purple. The Spines that sprout from the back of the helm are also purple. While few who have seen Mritha without her helm have lived to tell the story and as she rarely removes it, what I'm about to tell you is rare knowledge. Her face is pale and gaunt, a haunted visage, where once it had been tanned and fair. Her eyes as I described before were once like golden beacons. Her hair, now ebony, which extends down to her shoulderblades, had once been white. These changes happened long ago, but at the same time, have yet to occur. The cause for this is that she entered into an odd ocrridor of time, which has caused her to have dual existances, in not only separate planes of existance, but in different time periods of these planes, both as a servant of purple and the normal course of her life. The reason that she is as she is now, is because of a man named Surt, who once removed her heart and tainted it with darkness. Her dragon Odgne is black as an unstarred night's sky, with wings, horns and eyes of a dark purple that lends itself to the shadows. Her weapon, the Dragonlord's Loss, was tainted since its original crafting. The blade of the sword is black, with the hilt and guard purple. the handle of the hilt is mostly silver, with purple metal twisting around it joining the guard and the pommel, which is also purple. As her heart is removed, one cannot kill Mritha in combat. She may be defeated, but not killed. To kill her you must find her heart and pierce it. If, however, one were to separate her limbs from her torso... her body would be quite useless and this is what Mechajin does not want to happen.
I nodded, before rising to take his hand. "I gladly accept your help and acknowledge your condition." He nodded. I continued; "Personally, all I want to do is take care of the Greenites, so I'll leave the Greys to you, as well as as many of the others as possible." He nodded, clearly pleased I was leaving the erroneous plane to him.
Soon there was a noticeable increase in the amount of soldiers, an addition of around about half again as many as there had been before. There were also some... other additions. Some spongeapults. Now, a few of you may be wondering why, when I've previously stated there aren't any catapults. The answer is magic. No, I'm not just using it as an excuse. The spongeapults which are only used by the Combined Armies of Teal and Silver were created by magic, their ammunition is created by magic and they're fired using magic. So they come under the heading of magic. After deliberating with Mechajin, we aimed them at several of the smaller entrances into the main cavern. The reasoning is this: Because the smaller entrances are, well, smaller, they would be easier to overcome and, once taken, easy to defend as more and more troops come pouring out. Accordingly, I also lowered the guard on those entrances that were under the watchful eyes of the spongewarriors.
After a few days we were growing restless. Surely they must attack soon?
A few more days, just as it was getting to the point when we thought they'd given up, they came back with a vengance.
They literally swarmed us, those few small entrances quickly falling. The cavern was soon resounding with BOOM! as the sponges were let loose.
Much of what I've detailed before, except now we had far more soldiers, thanks to Mechajin. So I'll skip to the General.
The voice resounded through the cavern. "ENOUGH! I'll deal with it!" The Greenites all fell back and we let them go. The voice could only belong to the General who was in charge this time. He was not one any of us had heard of before and from his appearance we thought they might just be scraping the bottom of the barrel. He seemed simple enough, with no weapon in sight. He stood slightly above average height. His eyes were the green of fresh grass in spring, with his hair the colour of grass just beginning to yellow. A curious mix to be sure. The colouring of his skin made him appear constantly nauseous. His hair was cut short, mere tufts at the back while allowed to grow long and hang down to his shoulders at the front. He was clothed simply, in a robe that looked like it had definitely seen better days. The sleeves of the robe had been torn off long ago and holes in it revealed his bare chest beneath. He still wore undergarments, thankfully. The only part to his outfit that didn't look like it needed to be thrown away was his glove. This little oddity was black for the most part, except for where one's hand would enter it, which was yellow, as well as the back part of the main hand section. On the palm of the glove was what appeared to be a very well described purple mouth. Which as it turns out, REALLY IS A MOUTH! As the General walked, he seemed to be annoyed at the glove, flicking it and frowning at it. He turned and placed the palm of his hand against one of his soldiers... and seemed to pick him up. Soon we could see the poor person's life being drained away. Literally. He aged as we watched and when he was just a dry husk, he was released, dead. On his chest there were marks as if something had tried to EAT him. We had the idea something just had. The General seemed much more satisfied with the glove now.
I raised my eyebrow. Seriously? That was his weapon? A glove that could eat people's life force? Well, No. He stopped and made the action of drawing a bow with an arrow in his hand. When he had his hand 'pointed' at me, the glove rippled and then there was a bow in his hand with an arrow notched! I barely had time to dodge it. Indeed, I didn't fully dodge it, the arrow boring through my left shoulder and I howled in pain. It had pierced my armour so easily! Needless to say, I took him a lot more seriously after that. He charged at me, his hands in the position as if they were holding something heavy. Again his glove rippled and a large axe appeared in his hands which he brought down on me and I met it with my scythe. I was able to fight him off easily here and he dropped the axe and it disappeared. then he came at me, his gloved hand held out like it was a clawed hand. When the glove rippled it DID become a clawed hand! The claw looked exactly like the glove did... except as a huge claw. As he brought it down on me, the claws raked across my armour, putting scratches in it, but failing to cut through, then when he brought it down again, I made to block. Except I did so with my left arm, which didn't respond well and he close around my gauntlet and ripped it to pieces! My bare hand, now bloody and cut up was exposed as the armour that once surrounded it was torn asunder. Then he changed his hand to the shape of a fist and brought it down, catching me straight in the chest. I was thrown backwards as most of the spikes on the breatplate were torn off. When I got up, I launched my own offensive. Seeing me, he raised his gloved hand up as if he had a shield. Which of course meant he did, once the glove rippled and changed. All of my attacks were met by his shield and when I knocked him back, he changed his glove so he held a katana and charged at me again. This time I was able to meet all of his attacks with my scythe and block him. I was getting savvy to some of his techniques now. But not savvy enough. In the middle of one of his attacks, the katana he was holding changed into a hammer and when it met my scythe, it knocked it clean out of my hands.
It was at that point that I realised that it must take concentration to define what the glove turned into. He must have focused his willpower through the glove while moving it and his other hand to accomodate whatever shape he was making it.
As he changed it back into a katana, I noticed his attacks had a little less force. It must be using an energy of some kind. This was when I remembered what he'd done before the battle. The glove must run on life power. Literally, LIFE power.
I tried to fight against him like this, with no weapon, but I soon got caught by a solid hit to the side of my head with a hammer. This not only put a crack in my helm, but sent me flying. As he walked up to me, he laughed. "You never really stood a chance, you know that?" They always seem to gloat when they should kill me. Because that's the point where I reached up and pulled the glove off with my hand. His eyes widened as I removed it. "Nice glove. I think I'll keep it." I said, shoving it over my ungauntleted hand and then brought my right, still gauntleted into the side of his face, mashing it and sending him spinning to the ground. I focused thoughts of holding a katana in my left hand and soon I was. When he saw this, he had an air of finality around him. "Oh. **-" Whatever expletive he was going to utter died on his lips as I sliced his head in half.
There were cheers from my Armies and from Mechajin's as the Greenites and members of the other planes arrayed against us fled. As I retrieved my scythe, Mechajin approached me. "Fancy thing, that glove." he said. I smiled. "Yeah. Kind of odd it works on energy it gains by stealing the life from people, though." I said, frowning down at it. Exactly what kind of weapon was this and where did they get their hands on it?
Author's note: Mechajin Nanashi and Lady Mritha are used with the permission of the respective forumites.
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