To Be a Hero [Open]

[mrcrazycakes]

"If I don't keep going, I'll never get there; I don't have time to worry about all this other stuff!"

Anyone wandering outside of Thebes down the woodland path to other parts of Greece would find the sound of intense training. Flashes of blazing green in a different shade than the trees, marked by varied shouts that usually come with training (Why? He had no idea; everyone else shouted and stuff, and it made things more fun to shout about it. Well, most of the time.). Zack Fair skidded on his side a short ways in the grass after a failed lunge. Man, this move was taking forever to work out. He had it pictured perfectly in his mind, but now he had to go about actually setting it into play.

"Aargh, this is taking forever! How'm I supposed to be a hero if I can't even pull off this thing right?" Zack sighed and stood up, stretching a little and hopping back into a combat stance. "Okay, one more try!" He said to himself, grinning as his magic sword flared back into a sharp-pointed sword. He charged forward, throwing the blade point-first at an old wooden dummy marked with hundreds of sword wounds that fit the maneuver. The sword connected, and one side became sharp as he pulled upwards, becoming blunt as soon as it exited the 'wound' it had made before a downwards swing hit it, followed up by a quick upwards slash, becoming sharp once more, to finish it up. Zack pumped his left fist into the air in victory, grinning.

"Now if I can pull it off like that every time..." He said to himself, spinning his sword as the blade of energy dissipated, slipping the hilt into the double loop of leather meant to hold it. He looked over at the trail to find himself being stared at, and jumped a bit in surprise. "Ah... I'm not doing anything wrong, I swear!.... So, uh... How long were you watching? That move I just did was pretty cool, huh?" Zack stuttered, giving a confident grin to whoever was there.

[NiNeLiVeS]

Perdition usually did not hang out so close to the Coliseum. She knew what went on in those places. Body oil! Massages! Men in itty-bitty, gold-shiny clothes that they called armor, whacking at each other with swords and whips and various other phallic instruments. It was scandalous! Simply scandalous! Certainly her religion did not allow for such blatant disregard for... proper standards of attire! At least not for something as petty as entertaining the masses. Such things should be done in the privacy of one's home with or without multiple partners and with or without whipped cream and other interesting delights.

That didn't mean she wasn't curious. After all, she was a growing girl with an open mind and a healthy curiosity for that which was different. It wasn't like the Old Ones would begrudge her for satisfying her curiosity about certain things that gladiators may or may not have done in in the privacy of their training.

Sadly, Perdition's sense of direction more or less amounted to 'go to where it sounds most likely.' And the training grounds she was searching for on this particular day, meandered towards a particular clearing with dummies and one Zack Fair who was enthusiastically hitting things. Wooden things. It was - truth be told - not exactly impressive. Certainly it could be admirable, but not impressive.

And he was not wearing itty-bitty plate armor. Actually, it was rather conservative. Perdy was most disappointed.

Apparently he finally noticed her (either his situational awareness was terrible, or he was admirably focused - Perdy preferred to think of it as the former because the grin on his face precluded more than half a dozen brain cells) and actually jumped a bit in surprise before stuttering out a greeting. It wasn't a proper greeting but then again when had she cared about such trivial things?

"It was... umm... it was," never one to pull punches, Perdy admitted, "it looked like you were breaking your sword. Again and again and again. I think you need to get it checked." Since her actual object of curiosity wasn't here she asked, rather too quickly: "Umm, is this where the gladiators train?"

[mrcrazycakes]

"... Okay, yeah, you've got a point about that..." Zack admitted on the subject of his sword. By technicality, the only 'solid' part of it was the hilt; breaking it was nigh impossible, but it probably looked a lot like it with how much changing it did during that in particular. He shrugged defenselessly, then caught her other questions. Gladiator? OH, the armor; she must've though he was one of the participants in the arena. Okay, he was sometimes, but only when he needed to test his new moves against something that could, you know, put up a fight.

"I have no idea. I guess they have some sort of underground lair or something beneath the coliseum where they train. I'm just out here 'cause it's a lot easier to practice without having to worry about cutting some curious guy into ribbons because he got too close. I heard about that happening to somebody once," Zack sort of rambled. He crossed his arms and regarded Perdy curiously. "It's probably none of my business, but how come you're out here in the forest all alone? I thought it was supposed to be dangerous out here for kids. Or something."

[00Penguin]

Oh Zeus, this is hard. Why did master have to make me run all the from home to here in Thebes just for some dumb delivery.
Was all the boy could think of as he jogged along the woodland path with pack full of scrolls.

It was rather interesting how Vir was suckered into it, his master asked him to deliver the scrolls to a friend at Thebes and in exchange he would teach Vir a new technique. The sad part about this was the fact that he fell for the trick for a total of 135 times and was too thickskulled to figure it out. Well it didn't mater... he there on the road delivering scrolls and that was that.

Okay once I finish my deliver I'm going to let master have a piece of my... huh?

Up on the road ahead, there were two figures talking... maybe they knew how far Thebes was from here. Yeah they may know, so Vir jogged a little faster as he called to them to get there attention.

[NiNeLiVeS]

Beneath the Coliseum? Perdy thought to herself in horrified delight. The gladiators sequestered themselves beneath the ground, away from the prying eyes of the masses? What did they do down there? Was that their secret to their luminescent skintones and rippling muscles? Some sort of secret training regimen? And with all those interesting looking men and women... Oh my, this sort of thing was bad for her heart - it was all so shockingly lewd and immoral!

...

...

...or maybe her imagination was. Let's not venture too far into it. This is a girl who travels with a demon that looks like death warmed over and thinks it's a good idea. Her particular imagination is bound to be a bit funky.

Zack's next few questions thankfully shocked her back to reality. Or at least broke the fantasy. Just a bit.

"Ahem," Perdy sniffed, a little disgruntled that her most fascinating daydream had been temporarily broken. "It is rude to ask a lady such a thing. Not to mention that you haven't even introduced yourself! Some gentleman you are." Pause. "Who knows," she said airily. "Perhaps I am a heroine, come to see what prospective heroes are showing up. Perhaps I am a great and powerful sorceress, come to recruit a hero for my cause. Perhaps I am exactly who I appear to be." She made an odd hand gesture that probably intended to be mysterious but just came off as laughably snotty for a girl as young and as oddly dressed as she. "Who knows?"

"Oh! But we have a visitor. Perhaps he'll be more polite," Perdy harrumpfed.

[mrcrazycakes]

"Jeeze! Sorry to interrupt your fantasies," Zack said helplessly, rubbing the back of his head and shaking said head at the same time. Kids would be kids, he supposed. Wait a second, since when did he think things like that? "Y'know, if you wanted me to introduce myself, all you had to do was ask. I'm Zack, nice to meet you... And you too, random guy with large backpack. Where you off to in such a hurry?" Zack asked, putting his hands on his hips and looking around. Man, how long had he been out here? He could've sworn the sun was only at noon point when he got here...

Oh well. No use worrying about it; he got his move down, even if it DID take him all afternoon. "Yeah, I'm gonna be nosy anyways. How come you're out here all by yourself? I mean, I dunno what a sorcerer or anything looks like, but you can't blame me for being a little worried, y'know? Usually kids out here are running away screaming at the top of their lungs about some monster."

[00Penguin]

Vir came to a stop to catch his breath in front of the two. Vir took the pack off his back with a good size thump as all the scrolls inside hit each and settle.
Hey... hey... I have name as well. The name's... Vir. And I'm...

Vir didn't really want to say he was doing a delivery for his master so he went with what he liked to see it as

Training... you know running from one town to another while carrying weights. Anyways... how far off am I from the next town?

[NiNeLiVeS]

Perdy glared at this, this 'Zack' character suspiciously. Last she checked warriors did not have mind reading abilities. How did he know she was having fantasies? Was he some sort of latent empath? Or a monster, come to snack on the hopes and dreams of precious young maidens such as herself while disguised as a dashing young thug? Well, she was onto him! That little creep-!

Payn-Payn would have probably nixed the idea of any such monster trying to get an in on her brain, but since he wasn't, she contented herself with the idea that if he really was a monster she'd fry him on the spot. Or not, well, fry - turn him into paste through the power of LIGHT. And maybe some Dark.

But mostly Light. You got better press when you burned someone up through holy powers. She'd been trying to convince Payn-Payn that this was true for ages. He claimed he disliked the taste of light magic or something. Wuss.

New guy was also training. Apparently a stamina freak since he mentioned the weights. And... well...

That name. Vir. She remembered it from somewhere. Her brain retreating into the folds of her memories, Perdy went silent as Zack continued to babble inane questions about how she got here and how 'worried' he was (ha! If he was so worried he should go start an orphanage or something!) before she jumped up nearly five feet.

"Vir... Vir... Vir..." she mumbled under her breath. Now where had she-

The image of a brunette that had lent them her cart to travel for a bit tumbled through her mind. Her eyes flashed open.

"YOU!" She spat, pointing a menacing finger in Vir's direction and jumping to altogether too many conclusions. "You're the reason Diana doesn't smile, aren't you?"

She cracked her knuckles menacingly and strode forwards.

[mrcrazycakes]

"Jeeze, how come every person coming into town today is so weird?" Zack wondered under his breath, giving a defeated shrug. Well, no sense in him sticking around; those two looked like they were about to go at it. "Hey, if you two are gonna fight, why do it here? You guys would probably make a good show at the coliseum if you went at it. Plus, you could have the winner get paid or something. Give you an excuse to find that underground lair or whatever."

Just a suggestion. Not even a serious one, really. Zack tugged at his turtleneck collar a bit and gave another nonchalant shrug. He probably wouldn't watch anyways; too busy running around town doing... whatever. He wasn't that interested in watching people fight. "What'd he do to make you so mad at him anyways?"

[00Penguin]

Vir was still catching his breath when this girl just seem to jumped him. Catching him off guard Vir tripped over his pack falling backward.

Vir was confuse... what did he do to her anyways? Who was this Diana?

That's what I'd like to know.
Was Vir response when Zack asked what Vir did.

[NiNeLiVeS]

Perdition raised a hand and snapped her fingers.

The far end of the training ground exploded into cloth and wooden shrapnel. Even fifty feet away, the aftershocks of the ball of pure darkness could be felt, a roiling wave of dark miasma that would let everyone know that that was most definitely not a good spell.

A swirling illusion lit her eyes with the dark flames of the Underworld and colored her simple one-piece into an exotic black dress that trailed smoke and ash, as if it were still burning. When she spoke it was with the voice of the Legion.

Or one girl trying really hard to deepen her voice and being kind of unsuccessful. Your call.

"Say that again." She hissed at Vir, ignoring Zack although by the way her hands twitched one might be forgiven for assuming that she was more than ready to blast him too if he got in her way. "Say you don't know. I dare you."

[OOC: Bwahahaha. Finally. Villain character acts villain-ish.]

Dark Burst Lv3
Advanced Illusion
[hp=40/40]

[mrcrazycakes]

"Hey, I understand you're mad, but you can't just go around attacking people. It doesn't work that way. Really, kid, you should calm down; at least tell the guy why you're mad or something! Maybe it's all just a big misunderstanding, right?" Zack suggesting, putting on a nonserious facade, but internally tensing. He gave a shrug and a nervous chuckle to make it seem like he wasn't serious. No way, he was totally serious; that random guy did NOT deserve to get pummeled for no reason.

[00Penguin]

Vir was... was... actually it hard to tell at the moment what this was. His heart was pumping very fast but that could've been because of the running or it could be fear. Vir didn't know what to think, he was getting some many mix signals with his body. He wanted run... fight... play dead... soil himself... water... air... f... No.

Vir bite the side of his lip, as he pulled himself up. He was sweating but it wasn't from the running, this was a nervous sweat Vir felt like he was just about jump in a pit with 2... no 5 Minotaurs without a weapon in hand. But he reminded himself, he was hero... Heros face fear straight in the face knowing that they may not make it out untouched. Vir was willing to accept that as he clenched his hands into fist (keeping them down to his sides) and looked at the 'Underworld spawn' saying with a 'firm' voice.

I... d-Don't... know. What d-did I do you?

[NiNeLiVeS]

This time there wasn't even a hand gesture. Another hole was blasted into the training area. This time it was closer - wooden shrapnel whizzed by, somehow missing the three of them. The illusory mist that was surrounding Perdition was thickening, her eyes glowing with more power, more rage. Unconsciously she began to mimic Payn's form: her skin tone started to become deathly pale, veins stood out, dried blood and old bruises and half-stitched up flesh started creeping around every inch of exposed skin.

"Nothing 'works that way,'" she sneered at Zack, "there isn't a 'way.' There are just expressions of power. Sometimes," she nodded at the weapon, "it's a sword. Sometime, it's a guy telling some malakas that they need to off a little girl."

Another explosion. So close they could probably see the ball of darkness expand and race towards them... before stopping, only scant feet before hitting them. "And then sometimes it's me."

Vir was trembling. He held his ground though. Looked like he honestly didn't remember. The thought that she might have the wrong Vir was morbidly interesting. Kind of.

"Vir, Vir, Vir - I already said this wasn't about me. It's about Diana. Girl. Little taller than me. Brown hair. Round your age? You chased off people that had raped her?" That, she grudgingly admitted, was kind of heroic. "And then you were together for a bit - and then you tossed. her. away."

She grew ten feet. Or her shadow did. Advanced illusion was advanced.

"Now, tell me again that you don't remember," came the hissing order.

[mrcrazycakes]

Zack gave a little growl before gripping the hilt of his sword, glaring. He didn't show anything but defiance to the rising shadow, paying it no heed. A target was a target. "I said cut it out, kid! He doesn't know what you're talking about! I know six other people in Thebes named Vir; just 'cause someone has the name you're looking for is no reason to attack him! Now cut it out, I mean it!" He didn't want to have to draw his sword against a little girl, he really didn't. But if it came to that, so be it.