well, i tried to write a story for my english class a while ago, and since i was playing CB during class, i figured it would be interesting to write about...here is what it turned out to be...
DISCLAIMER: It's quite long
DISCLAIMER #2: any names used here are purely by coincedence (or mostly because they were the ones in chat when i decided to write the story :D )
DISCLAIMER #3: its kind of a mix between Naruto and CB, since i could find a way for them to use magic without expalining it, so i stole it from Naruto with the Seals and so forth...the rest is just my wild imagination :P
well i hope you enjoy it...
Captain America cringed as he brought the smithing hammer down on his
metal armor. He was working late nights in the forge again, and the
wife wasn't too happy about it. What was he supposed to do anyways?
He was bred for this kind of lifestyle. With a shield so powerful it
could stop a nuclear blast, he was the guardian of the four. They
depended on him when the time came, to stand in the line of fire and
take the hits for them. This way they could concentrate more on
eradicating the enemy.
Sparks flew as he pounded the adamantine cuirass over and over again,
beating it into shape. Once he was satisfied, he submerged the
plate-mail in cool water, until the temperature dropped back to a
point where he could hold it in his hands. He knew that after the red
glow disappeared from the metal, it was still very hot, but he
sometimes grew impatient and tested it anyways. Reaching into the
water for the plate, he scalded his hands on it yet again. That was
at least the fourth time this week; he was never going to learn.
Although he was no stranger to fire, heat still had a profound effect
on him, that was until he got his new gift form his good friend, The
Punisher. Right now they were working as a team, fighting in a group
of four to try and take over in a tournament of sorts. The fighting
tournament was simple, no more then four people to a team, and that
was about it. Pretty much anything applied. The Punisher had just
given him a cloak. Not just any cloak, this cloak was a cloak of
fire. There seemed to be a lack of any material to hold the cloak
together, just woven flames in the shape of a cloak. It was held
together by whatever magic bound the flames. This made its wearer
invulnerable to fire, and captain America couldn't thank him enough.
He recalled the day he got it as well. They were in a lower bracket
of the tournament, just starting out. As they took their placed on
the field, their challenger entered into the arena. The team only
consisted of one single person. A male, about twenty, real young. He
hand no armor covering his body, except some leather boots. Plastered
across his chest, was a giant tattoo of a shield. This was a tattoo
of endurance. The captain hadn't heard much about the tattoos, so he
asked the punisher what they were for, since he wore one as well.
"Different tattoo's give their wearer's different abilities. The one
he wears augments endurance. This is a defensive tattoo that,
although he is armor less, gives him the ability to back up to 75% of
our damage to him."
"Wow, 75%. That's pretty impressive. But he is still only one guy."
"yes but since only one guy can use the training facilities
designated to their team at a time, one person can train four times as
much as we can."
"That's not fair!" Captain America argued.
"Sure it is." The punisher responded. "We still have four people, so
he can't concentrate his power on us as well. Although he is unable
to hit each one of us with the full force of his blow, he will still
hit hard, so watch out."
Captain America cast the challenger another sideways glance and then
he noticed something.
"He doesn't have any weapons, how is he going to attack us?"
The punisher laughed.
"Not everyone uses physical weapons. Some people train their minds
to do the damage for them. In his case, I would probably guess this
is what he has done. At the start of the match, he will face us from
a distance. From there he will fire giant columns of fire over at us,
and they won't miss. I'm gonna tell you the truth captain, its gonna
sting. I know u worked a lot on your ability to resist pain, but this
isn't physical damage, this is magical. It's going to go right
through your defenses and burn you to the core."
Captain America gulped.
"Hey, you have a big tattoo as well. What is yours good for?" he asked.
The punisher looked down at his bare chest, to the giant tattoo of an
eagle on it.
"Mine augments my strength. Right now the magic is only powerful
enough to magnify it by ten times, but it will become much stronger.
The way this works, is that the magic from the tattoo enhances the
muscles and makes the muscles that are already there that much
stronger"
The punisher picked up his giant claymore and casually brought it down
on top of the table. As soon as the tip of the blade nicked the
tabletop, the table split with such force that the two sides flew
across the room, and a hole four feet deep was created below where it
stood. Captain America's eyes went wide as he stared at the pit in
front of him.
"You don't have to be very afraid of that attack though" the punisher
said as he placed his sword on his shoulder. Here, try putting this
on" he said as he tossed the captain an Adamantine Cuirass. It had
been enchanted to provide extra protection, and have a resistance to
magic. The captain put in on and snapped all of the buckles down on
the back after he tightened them.
"This is supposed to protect me from that sword of yours?"
"Sure is, let me show you" he said as he popped the sword off his
shoulder and slammed the blade into the Cuirass. The captain didn't
even blink, in fact, he barely even felt anything. The blade had
stopped an inch off of the plate-mail, and was showering sparks over
the ground as it fought to break the spell of the armor.
The captain laughed. "That's really a piece of work you have there.
Looks like I'm nearly invincible" he said as he walked over and
slumped down in a chair.
"Not quite" the punisher said.
"How so?" The captain questioned.
"Well, you will have to see this for yourself" he said, motioning for
the captain to follow him.
The captain followed him for miles, until they reached an open section
of plains, where there was apparently some sort of training going on.
Peeking around a boulder, the captain saw a man by the name of
Blackthorn. Blackthorn was clothed in baggy pants, leather boots and
nothing else. He had the tattoo of the shield on his chest, and wore
no helmet. Closing his eyes, he brought his hands together rapidly.
Two fingers on each hand pointed towards the sky as he grabbed his
hands. Once he was finished concentrating, his head snapped up and
his eyes slammed open. His two hands were pressed together, and the
right hand slid down, the two fingers now pressing into the middle of
the left palm. The tips of his fingers began to glow as he
concentrated ahead. After a short while, his left hand twisted to
face palm up, all fingers extended but together, and the other hand
still pressing two fingers into the palm. As he took aim, the two
fingers lifted off of the palm and shot foreword, pointing towards a
giant pillar of rock. His left hand rotated up quickly now, elbow
back, and then rocketed forewords, palm towards the rock, right along
side of the two aiming fingers. A large pillar of fire blasted
towards the rock pillar, melting it instantly into lava, which he
gathered near his body to burn those nearby.
"Your armor isn't going to take a hit like that" the punisher said as
he looked back over his shoulder at the unconscious captain America.
"Looks like you already know that, though". He said as he touched the
Captain's forehead and woke him with a quiet incantation.
When the captain came to, he was still out-of-his-mind with panic.
The punisher motioned for the two other members of the team to come
over and talk with the captain.
"Meet the rune masters of our team" the punisher said as he introduced
Almuric and Markxe. "These two guys are here to protect you when it
comes to that area, don't worry, you will be safe" he said.
The captain looked over the two scrawny guys, and immediately guessed
that he was surely going to die. Taking the cue from the Captain's
worried look, the two rune masters looked at each other and nodded.
Moving back a little bit, they spread out so as to get the maximum
area for their rune spells. Placing their palms face up, with the
runes permanently tattooed on their hands, they closed their eyes and
concentrated. As their chakra (the spirit energy inherent in all
humans from birth) began to collect in their hands, they spread them
out to their sides. The energy collected and grew rapidly, now
engulfing their entire hands and spreading up their arms. They opened
their eyes and looked at each other, then nodded in agreement again.
At the exact same time, both of them slammed their hands together and
a wave of energy washed over the group.
The captain's mouth was wide open at this display of skill, and the
punisher laughed at him
"That isn't the spell captain, just wait" he said chuckling to himself.
The two rune masters were now holding a giant sphere of chakra, and
once again, in perfect unison, they raised them above their heads, and
then slammed them into the ground. You could see energy flow down
their arms into the ground as they stayed there, feeding it. For a
moment, nothing appeared to happen, and then a wall of energy shot out
of the ground twenty feet from the captain. The walls arched over the
top of them and joined, creating a giant anti-magic dome.
When this was finished, the two rune masters stood up and walked back
over to the group.
"This is an anti-magic field" they both said. "This is what is going
to protect you from the magic you just witnessed. Now don't think
this will stop all of it, because it won't. This is only going to
stop around eighty to ninety percent of the damaged you saw from that
blast, but it will be enough to knock it down to where your armor will
take care of the rest.
"Nice!" the captain exclaimed, no longer afraid to face combat with his armor.
The two rune masters turned and left back to their training, and when
they were far enough away, they turned to each other.
"Heh" Markxe said. "He's going to die"
"Yea he is" Almuric replied as he snickered to himself.
"I do like how the punisher barely touched him with his sword though,
if he would have pushed any harder, the captain would have easily been
dead"
"Yea, he would have". Markxe said as they began walking farther from
the group again.
No sooner had they gotten fifty meters from them, trying to restart
their training, then the announcer stood up and announced the start of
the tournament and described the rules.
The day was finally here, and the tournament was about to begin. The
punisher walked through the crowds and inspected the other teams. He
looked at the match times, we were fourth to go, and the matches were
about to begin. We walked over to the side of the stadium and took the
long flight of stairs up to the top, then made our way down to our
stadium seats. We were in the front row, so we had the best seats in
the house. The first match was announced and the two teams made their
way into the arena. The first team was composed of one person. He was
huge, in his massive arms he carried the largest axe I had ever seen
in my life. The light glinted off it as he swung it through the air,
slicing so fast that you didn't even see him move. Over his shoulder
an elven long bow was slung. He had a giant quiver of arrows, and he
set those out first as he prepared. The other team looked just as
good. The guy wasn't as big, but he had a friend with him. His
weapon of choice was a two handed Executioner's Sword, that he swung
with all of his might, and a crossbow with poison tipped bolts. When
the bolts hit the target, the victim slowed down drastically. His
friend was one of those mages, but this guy didn't have a tattoo of a
shield on his chest, he had Mithril Chain mail on. This was some of
the most expensive armor around, as it was not even noticeable when
you wore it. It was completely weightless, and so most of the arcane
users preferred it to other forms of armor. As they got ready to go,
you could see the look of fear in the smaller fighter's eyes. This
match looked as if it had already been decided. The bell for the start
of the match rung, and immediately the first fighter disappeared from
sight. Wow he is fast, the punisher thought. But he still has to take
them in the order they were called as the rules state. Since the
fighter was first through the door, he had to be removed first. The
smaller fighter stood his ground, and he lashed out when he thought he
saw something. He was wrong. The larger fighter appeared right next
to him, and the giant war axe slammed into his vulnerable body. The
mage saw him immediately, and a cloud of fire erupted, soaking the
fighter. As the fire died down, you could begin to see the larger
fighter. He was standing over the body of the smaller fighter; his
hands had come up and formed the seal of absorption. As he collected
the energies the mage had given him, he walked towards the wizard.
The wizard new he was going to die and the large fighter released all
of the absorbed energy back into the mage at point blank ranged.
There was no way to escape it, he was cremated alive instantly.
Standing victorious, the fighter had made it into the next round.
Teams of cleaning crews came out and cleaned up the mess as the
fighter exited the arena. By the time the second round was to start,
the arena was cleaned and ready to go, and the next round was
announced. This round looked like an open and shut match. The first
team to enter the arena was a team of four guys. One of them had the
tattoo of the shield on his chest. The other team only had one. It
was this tiny, puny guy, with no muscle mass at all. He looked like
something was draining him of his power, little did the other team
know, something was. On his chest was the tattoo of a fist, with a
symbol of power next to it. Below the power symbol was the rating.
His tattoo was rated at over 500.000. This was the most powerful
tattoo in all of the realms. It was no wonder he was being drained of
all of his energy. As the bell tolled, the round began. The four
persons team lead rune master stepped forward, conjured up a large
ball of energy, and pushed it into the ground. A giant, clear shield
was beginning to form around the individual people. This was no
antimagic field, this was an ablative shield. This spell granted
extra health to the person it was cast on. However, the spell was
never fully cast as the seals for a dispel magic spell were formed and
cast by the tiny weakling. Their extra health was nowhere to be found
now. The small tattoo wearing guy then closed his eyes and
concentrated. His hands moved rapidly, faster then anyone the
punisher had ever seen, and he formed seal upon seal in succession.
His hands began to glow, and he worked even faster. Apparently all of
his time had gone into training this skill. As he worked, a solid,
translucent wall was erected before him, and small rings of energy
formed around the other team's hands. The other team, concentrated as
well, and then their hands formed the seal of fire. Fire erupted from
the ends of their hands, but instead of concentrating on the target,
it was channeled back into their faces. Severely injured, they pulled
out daggers and charged the small, weak man. Their target fell over,
however, and they stopped in their tracks. What was he doing?
Everyone in the stadium was on the edge of their seat; they all wanted
to know what was going on. From the ground, the weak man lay chest up
in the dirt, relaxing. The tattoo on his chest began to glow, and
then a glowing familiar exploded from his chest fist first into the
arena. The small man got up behind it, and whispered something to it.
You could see the look of hatred on the familiar's eyes. It was
giant. It had two fists the size of boulders, and glowed a dark red
and gold. Its broken wings in the back didn't allow it to fly, but it
could move faster then you could imagine. One of the mages made the
mistake of charging the familiar with his dagger. The familiar
grabbed the mages arm with one hand, broke it, and then crushed his
head in with his other hand. The other three on the opposing team
turned and fled, but there was to be no escape. The familiar from the
tattoo of the weak caster chased them down before they had finished
their first step, closing the distance of two-hundred meters in under
a quarter of a second. He grabbed two of them, and smashed their
bodies into each other, disposing of them instantly. He then raised
his fists into the air, and drove the third mage into the ground. As
the familiar was preparing to hit him, however, he tried to cast his
fireball again, and formed the seal of fire. He poured all of his
energy into the attack, and it all backfired into him. He was
surrounded in a globe of fire from his own hand. The fist from the
familiar then pummeled his scorched body into the ground and
disappeared back into the chest of his caster. The scrawny caster
then sauntered off the arena floor, and the cleaning teams came out to
fix the mess.
There was now only one more round before their team got a chance to go
out and fight, and the punisher couldn't wait. But first, they had to
assess the other teams to see what they were going to be up against.
As the teams made there way into the arena, loud cheers arose from the
crowds. This was the fight everyone had been waiting to see
apparently. Standing up to get a better view, the punisher looked
down into the arena and laughed at what he saw. It was a fighter, but
he had also been trained in magic, in other words, a battle mage.
They were known to be some of the worst fighters in the area, because
it took so much concentration to be good at either, and they had to
split their time between both. If they went up against a pure form of
either, just a single fighter, or a single caster, then they were
doomed. Although he wielded a fairly large bow, he probably wouldn't
be any match for a well balanced team.
As the other team made there way into the stadium, the crowd went even
wilder. This was a four man team, and the duel caster/fighter would
have the best chance to win and move on in this match. As they set
their team up, the single battle mage prepared his bow. The signal
was given, and then the round started.
Before anyone in the crowd had blinked, three arrows were out and
fired towards the other team by the battle mage. They hadn't even
advanced two steps before one of their casters fell, but not before he
enchanted their feet with swiftness. They were now as fast as the
battle mage was. Another arrow shot out, but it was easily dodged by
the leader. Unfortunately, this was a heart seeker arrow, an arrow
designed to pierce the heart of any magic user it can lock onto with
its enchantments. It struck deep into the mages chest, felling him
instantly.
After this there remained only two fighters charging at the battle
mage relentlessly.
They drew their weapons just as the battle mage put his bow aside and
molded some chakra together. He closed his eyes as they approached,
and his hands made various seals. The final seal was the seal of the
dragon, and everyone who knew what was happening gasped in unison.
His eyes snapped open as his head flipped up, and out of the ground in
front of him shot a wave of instantly freezing water, a moving sheet
of ice basically. Anything that touched it froze instantly, and it
washed right over one of the charging fighters. He didn't get the
other one though, and he had gotten through his defenses. The fighter
brought his sword down quickly to strike the battle mage, but it
wasn't fast enough. The battle mage's hand shot out and grabbed him
around the throat, freezing him solid in an instant. He then chucked
him across the battlefield into the arena wall, were he shattered into
a million pieces. As he walked off the field, he crushed his victims
under his feet.
The cleaning teams seemed to take ages this time as the punisher's
team readied to move into the arena.
"I refuse to let any member of my team die." The punisher announced,
"And that goes especially for you Captian."
They snickered and then all four of them moved into the arena to face
their challenger. They were extremely lucky. It was the same mage
they had seen before.
Almuric, Markxe and the punisher breathed a sigh of relief, the
Captian crapped his pants.
"What the hell are we going to do now?" the captain wailed. "We are
all going to die horrible deaths today!"
Markxe slapped him as the bell sounded to start the match.
"Ok, all you have to do is stand there and take the hits for me
captain, cause if I take one I'm a goner. I have focused all my time
on my strength and speed, and you have spent it on stamina. You will
be fine, just trust the shields.
Markxe and Almuric already had the shields up, and were moving back to
the punisher to start their new runes that they had learned. They
walked over to the punisher and grabbed his sword. Markxe marked a
few runes on it, and then bit his thumb and placed the blood over the
rune.
"There, that's a new rune technique I learned last week. It's called
vampiric blood lust. When you draw blood, you will heal some of your
injuries, and it will also make you more then twice as powerful, thus
making it easier for you to heal more.
The arcane caster had moved into range of his heavy crossbow now, and
so he pulled it out and fitted it with his poison tipped bolts. He
fired two into the caster in the casters first five steps, but it
didn't stop his advance. A few steps later, he fired again, this time
three bolts. By now you could see a dramatic reduction in his speed.
The casters hands flew up in the seal of the tiger, and a fireball
streaked towards the group. It was a giant, rolling ball of flames,
but as it passed through the shields, it was reduced to half the size.
The captain looked at his fiery cloak he was wearing, and activated
the flames on it, because now was the time. As the fireball hit him,
he closed his eyes, and all he felt was slightly warm air passing over
his face. It felt as if the sun had just come out and shown down upon
him.
The captain smiled "yea, we are going to be just fine". He had
finally realized he wasn't in much danger after all.
The punisher didn't hear him though, as he was foaming at the mouth
behind him. He had drawn blood with the bolts, and as the arcane
caster approached, he was beginning to go crazy. As soon as he was
near enough, he leaped out from behind the captain, and charged for
the mage. His sword was brought high above his head, and he sliced
down hard with a golf like swing, right at the midsection of the
caster. A tremendous explosion of power erupted as his sword smashed
into the mages light armor, cutting through it easier than the air
surrounding it. As he hit the mage with his four-foot-long
Executioner's sword, the ground shook with his release of energy, and
the punishers eyes rolled back into his head. All of his veins pushed
to the surface of his skin, and foam poured out of his mouth as he
continued to press, finally slicing right through the mage and
scattering him across the arena. There was nothing left of him when
he finished.
As the bloodlust subsided, he became clam again, and wiped the foam
from his mouth. As they all walked arm in arm from the battlefield,
the first words out of the punisher's mouth were:
"So how did we do?"
The team could only laughÂ…
But that was all a long time ago, when they were younger. Now the
captain was in the smith's shop, forging his own armor, and the
punisher would be in here later, working on his Greater Blacksword.
It had been a gift to him from the Captain for his birthday last year,
and the Punisher had wasted no time in fixing it up to his liking.
Tomorrow was the big day. They were no longer entering in lower-class
tournaments for meaningless prizes, this was for the title. Every
year a number of challenges were made on the best team in the league.
Since people at this league were well respected and had proved
themselves, they would all be given an elixir that would prevent
death, but not prevent loss of consciousness. This way no injury was
beyond repair, but you could see which team was better that the other,
by who was left standing at the end of the last round.
Since everyone was a lot better this time around, the battles were
divided up into a series of rounds. You now only had three rounds to
use ranged weapons, and then a maximum of twenty rounds after that for
melee. You also had ten minutes before the round started to cast any
enchantments you wanted. This made it a lot easier on the two
casters, Almuric and Markxe, who were always under time pressure.
As the day of the fight finally arrived, the team gathered their gear
and assembled in the arena to wait for the current world-ranked #1
team to show up, so they could have a shot at the title.
They were so busy talking about what they would do if they won, that
they didn't even notice the leaders walk in the door. The leader
silently appeared behind the punisher, and held his knife at his
throat.
"If you are ready now, let's get this over with" he hissed.
The number one team was known as The Rangers.
They were a group of three people, and each specialized in one area.
Their group was comprised of a rune-destroyer, an arcane fireball
caster, and an archer who was also very adept with the legendary
Darksword of Devastation.
The punisher looked up to see the entire stadium packed full of
people. He hadn't even seen anyone enter. Was he feeling okay? Was
he up for this challenge? There was only one way to find out.
"Lets get this party started" the punisher said, whipping out his
crossbow again.
The bell rang, and the ten minutes began for the enchantments period.
****END**** (for now)
