From Out Of Town(Open)

[prythian]

"Incredible..."

It was pretty much all Malthus could say as he walked down the streets of Thebes. A few days after that strange beam had shot from Burning Horizon, some strange creatures and stories began filtering into town. Other worlds, a monstrous red storm, ships that traveled through the stars... it was like all the old legends had come true with the arrival of that 'moogle'. Malthus went to his emergency stash and blew all of his munny instantly on one of the ships, taking the first chance he could to leave the town.

Then he'd arrived here, landing his ship out of town and strolling it. And the differences between this place and Twilight Town were just... well, incredible. He stuck out like a sore thumb thanks to his clothes, he had pretty much no munny to use to get food or anything... but the new things he was seeing more than made up for it, to him.

[mrcrazycakes]

Another day, another insert-item-or-action-of-some-kind-here thing. Today it was shipping a load of fireworks to that newfangled 'gummi ship' port. But hey, weird as this new technological whatever was, apparently people on other worlds were just as keen on buying fireworks as they were here, so it was fine by her so long as some sort of mass murderer made the foolish attempt to come for Olympus. Plenty of up-and-coming warriors, etcetera.

Yatusatari was distracted from her thoughts by a weirdly-dressed kid standing half in the road. It was all right and good that he liked the look of the city, but he'd chosen a fairly poor place to stand and stare. Her cart of colorful explosive orbs, boxes and rockets were being unloaded elsewhere, and she had nothing in particular to do today, so why not prevent some newcomer from being run over by a particularly rushed inhabitant of Olympus. "Oi, kid, sightseeing is fine, but standing in the middle of the road isn't exactly the best place to do it," She said, bumping the kid with her elbow. She hoped the lack of a right arm or prosthetic limb today wouldn't spook the kid. That tended to happen more often than one would think.

[prythian]

Malthus stumbled a bit, caught off guard, and quickly moved back a little, skipping a bit on his feet. "First time coming here." He said, as if that explained it. "The rooftops might've been a bit of a better spot, but I don't know them nearly as well as the rooftops of my home town." He rapidly took in what the person looked at a glance. A bit older than him, but not by too much, if he had to guess... missing an arm? Now that was odd.

Maybe this world was a bit more dangerous than Twilight Town was. "I'm Malthus." He introduced himself. "I'm obviously from off-world. Any idea what kind of places I should go to here?"

[mrcrazycakes]

"Blunt, aren't ya? Yatusatari, resident fireworks expert," She introduced herself, giving a curt nod. One more person not scared off by the lack of a limb. All the better. She shrugged off the blunt manner of his statement and decided to just take the question out of it. "Only real place I can think of is the coliseum, if you're looking for something that isn't every day life. Eat, sleep, work, school, watch things go on at the coliseum, and that's it in a nutshell. Show you around if you like; I've got nothing better to do."

[prythian]

"A coliseum?" His mind immediately went to try and place the word.

Not surprisingly, he came up with nothing. Twilight Town didn't have anything like that that would come up in normal conversation, and being homeless had prevented him from watching television or learning obscure words. "I... have to admit I've never heard of such a thing." He said, looking down. "If you don't mind showing me around, then perhaps you should tell me what it is on the way?"

[mrcrazycakes]

"The coliseum is that big building up on the mountain. Most of the time combat tournaments go on there, but I'm pretty sure that's where Hercules trains. I never was one to keep up with things like that; none of my business," She explained, motioning her hand in the direction of the coliseum. Very hard to miss, but if you didn't know what it was, it was just a really big building. She indicated for the kid to follow, and started walking, pointing out a few places of interest; rest stop for travelers, a couple of shops for weapons, food, and the like. There weren't that many she knew of, though; she preferred to either stick to her own place making fireworks or working out the kinks in her fighting style in the coliseum.

"And that's every place in this city I really know. I live a little ways outside the city just in case one of my rockets gets set off by mistake. So, I noticed you staring at my lack of a right arm," Yatusatari commented, taking a moment to adjust the way her sword was hanging off her back. Poking someone without meaning to with a sharp object never went well. "Don't worry, unless you go and do something stupid you'll be keeping your limbs in-tact. If you need more directions around town, you'd be better off asking someone else; I'd probably get you lost. Not the best first impression of a place."

[prythian]

Ever since she had mentioned combat tournaments, Malthus's eyes had been shining. Twilight Town really was a, well, SAFE place, and since those creatures had shown up... despite them being beaten easily, Malthus didn't feel safe anymore with his combat abilities. This was someplace where they took fighting seriously, judging from that building... unless, of course, it was like the Struggle.

"Actually, getting lost to me seems like the best way to get a first impression of a place. You see both what people would want you to see and what, well, they wouldn't want you to see." Malthus commented. "How did you lose your arm, anyways?"

[mrcrazycakes]

"Honestly, I'd rather not say. Let's just leave it in saying my father was about as nice as an angry Titan," She replied, doing surprisingly well at keeping her anger in check with the memories the question brought to mind. He didn't mean anything by it; just curious, like anyone was when they saw someone with a missing limb. And she -WAS- working on her issues; if she hadn't, her first response would have been to boot the closest person down a flight of stairs or similar obstacle. "A word of warning; I tend to have anger issues with most things involving the early part of my life, so I'd like to ask you not to ask too much about it if you can help it. Sorry if I sounded a bit cross. Moving on, is there anything else you wanted to know about Olympus?"

((Kinda bleh, but it works.))

[prythian]

"Sorry, that was rather a personal question." Malthus said, looking a little sheepish. Then something struck him. "Well, uh... what, exactly, is a Titan?" He tilted his head, shrugging. "Like I said, I know absolutely nothing about this world. I know a good deal about Twilight Town, but Olympus is... confusing to me, because I don't have any experience in it at all. You probably don't have to answer all my questions, or we'd be here all day. It'd probably be better to just head to the Coliseum."

[mrcrazycakes]

"So I guess there's a lot of differences, then. You're lucky, I actually know something about this; I happened across some old scrolls a scholar somewhere around here gave me that happened to be about that," Yarusatari said, thinking for a second on it. It had been a little while, but she remembered most of it. Real interesting. "Basically, what you're asking me goes back to the earliest records of our world here. The Titans were dominant back then; basically, give a natural disaster a Human-looking form, and that's basically it. They sort of ruled over the world, if you want to look at it that way; the Titans essentially had complete control of whatever disaster they embodied.

"For example, one that embodied hurricanes could create, dissipate, and direct them at will. They were a terrible problem until they were overthrown by Zeus and sealed away. I can't really remember everything else clearly; it's been a while since I read it. Zeus is one of the Gods, up on Mt. Olympus, past the cloud at the top. Supposed to be the strongest one, but I've never met him so I can't say. Anyhow, enough of hearing me run my mouth; you wanted to see the coliseum, didn't you? I'm a good ways out of practice, but I think I could help you get the basics of traditional fighting at least. I'm only good for teaching you how to use a sword properly and a bit of melee combat, but I might have one or two things I could help you on. How about it, want to have a tutor for a day?" She said, giving a smile and extending her left hand towards him. Last she checked, handshakes usually sealed deals. Of course, from what she could tell, most of her previous combat experience had just... sort of faded out of her memory. It was a good thing this kid had happened along; maybe she could finally be useful to someone.

((Meh.))

[prythian]

"A sword properly seems to be just what I need." Malthus grinned, shaking her hand. "After all, I recently found myself... in possession of an unusual sword. I'm used to daggers and somewhat melee combat, but I just don't know quite how to use a sword. And I don't think this..." He held out his right hand and concentrated, and in a blaze of orange light Burning Horizon materialized.

"...is the sort of weapon you just flail around with and not know how to use. Twilight Town only has the Struggle Tournament with anything similar, and I never participated in that. Fighting, outside of the Struggle, isn't very common, you see." Malthus explained.

[mrcrazycakes]

"Well, I use a rather un-traditional sword myself; can't say I've seen one quite like that before, safe to say. And you're right, but no weapon should be flailed about at random with," She said, pulling the slab of metal that was her sword from her back and placing the tip of it on the ground, the weight of it making the bladed edge sink into the ground about an inch. It was very unusual for a sword; by technicality, it was just a huge slab of metal with a T-shaped hilt, but with a taper just before it fanned out into a blade, but only at the very end of the blade; most of it was just a thick slab of metal, small chips and nicks from many past battles with its masters. "And this rusty hunk of metal is called Masamune. Seems proper to me to give the sword a name, it being as useful as it is. Of course, I'm not going to use this old monster to show you how to use a sword. Too big and too different for that; this is a broadsword, you've more got a longsword than any other type compared to your size. I'll just be using one of the normal swords they have stocked up there at the coliseum. Much better for showing the ropes than this thing."

She hefted the wide sword and returned it to its place on her back, waving for him to follow and starting off in the direction of the coliseum. "All right, come on then, let's go see if the coliseum is clear for today. If it isn't, you might get to see some of the creatures they keep stocked for the tournament."


As it turned out, things were free today, which meant they could train, and she'd swapped her previous armament with a slim, bronze-hilted sword with square curls at the two ends of the guard, but otherwise unadorned. It came with a plain scabbard made of a brown colored leather so it didn't need to be held out at all times, but it was more so you didn't cut yourself when you were getting it so far as she was concerned. It was sheathed and on her back when they stepped into the empty arena, mostly empty space save for the high walls and four pillars in the center of the area. "All right, before we start, I have a bit of information to impart. I'm not sure about other worlds, but here at least your weapon can be considered reflective of your honor. Masamune looks the way it does because of its previous master's misuse of it. It's not quite supernatural, but a sense of honor can carry you through a battle better than most other things. Fighting to protect others, and fighting to protect honor, and fighting to protect your life are all three different things, and not all of them are quite related. Say you're married and someone murders your wife. If you find and confront that person, it would be considered a fight to protect your honor, and I doubt you'd want anyone to interfere. The other two are pretty much self explanatory. I can't really explain it any better than that; it's complicated, and I'm still young. I do know that the weapon you're using permanently can seem to tell when you're preforming a dishonorable act, such as murder, and things like that seem to make the blade more prone to chipping. Seems to be the case with mine, anyhow. Now, any questions before we begin?"

((... I don't know where this came from, I honestly don't. I think I started channeling Angeal for a while there O.o))

[prythian]

"Hmmm. No, I think I get it." Malthus said, having followed her silently thinking the whole time. He took a position opposite her. "Negative things can affect your sword as much as regular lack of maintenance. Whether that's murder, hatred, or whatever else, I think what matters is simply being good or not. Your weapon, in a way, can be how you express yourself and can reveal a lot to an opponent, perhaps." Malthus always went straight to the implications of a statement.

And somehow, he felt that Burning Horizon, this Keyblade of his, could be affected by who he was more than most weapons.

[mrcrazycakes]

"I'm not sure exactly what that sword would be used for, but I'll start you with the basics," She said, flipping the sword backwards in her hand and taking a combat stance. "Now this is my usual battle stance; I'm not sure what kind of fighter you are, so this style might not work for you. In any case, focus on the concept of what I'm showing you, all right?"

She demonstrated a quick series of four slashes into the empty air ahead of her to start it off. "Slashes are one of the most basic sword attacks, and if you use them properly, you can develop a fighting style that utilizes your sword's strengths and minimize its weaknesses. For example, your sword looks like it would be fairly prone to being pulled out of your hands from the designs on it; with enough practice in the right areas, you could learn to use it to disarm them rather than the other way around."

After that, she wandered closer to Malthus and took up a defensive position. "Keep a firm grip on the hilt when you swing; a loose grip is going to end up with you losing your sword on impact with another weapon or item, but if you keep your grip too tight, you'll end up hurting yourself. Try a couple aimed at me; don't worry, I'll be fine."

[prythian]

Malthus was not only paying attention to what she was saying, he was analyzing her style at the same time. He figured slashes with a sword wouldn't be too different than with daggers, although range, weight, and balance was different. Yet... her style was interesting. Sacrificing range and flexibility in motion for power. More suited to short weapons than long ones, but with a missing arm this is likely the best way for her to get the most power out of her sword. He thought to himself.

Not only that, she's relatively quick with those slashes despite how she holds that sword. I don't think I could block one of her strikes well one-handed... even with both hands on my hilt, I might have trouble. Maybe put one hand on the blunt side for a different center of gravity? As he was thinking, he decided to go ahead and do as she said. He didn't get very fancy; he wasn't actually trying to hurt her, after all, and if he tried everything he could he might land a blow or two on her.

He simply went forwards with his Keyblade in his right hand, slashing at her three times with it in quick succession, making sure that his grip was tight yet relaxed much like he'd held his daggers.