trans_9 | In Which Zetta Trains an Apprentice [[Closed]]

Ruffnut poked her head into the room cautiously, her helmet clad head turned this way and that till she spotted Zetta on his little pedestal.

"Hey!" She greeted and slid in shutting the door behind her. She'd come equipped with a new spear and a wooden shield though she was ultimately unsure what kind of training she'd be doing.

"Excellent," Zetta said with a slow and dark smile. "You've come in good time. An auspicious start."

"Er, though if you were a demon, you'd wanna come, I don't know, late or something. Because that's evil. But I wasn't gonna give you that part of the apprenticeship anyway. Just... uh. Anyway. Come on over. I've got a question for you, actually."

Ruffnut entered a little thrown by Zetta's babbling even asking "What's auspicious?" though he may not have heard that. She didn't think of herself as "Evil" persay. Bad ass yes. Hard core absolutely but evil? Nahhhh.

"Means you did good," Zetta said, simply enough. Certainly he didn't seem annoyed by the question. He's in a good mood.

Wiser people might have run by now, Ruffnut.

"So... How'd you get started using a spear?" he asked as she approached. "From what I saw, you seem to prefer a different fighting style."

Ruffnut seemed a little confused by this as well and looked at the spear in her hand as if she'd only just realized it was there, "Oh well...it's what my Mom uses." Seemed simple enough. "She gave me one one to take on my first day of Dragon training."

And then defensively "I can use other stuff too."

"Hey, that's not a bad reason," Zetta said. "And I'd bet spears are good against scales. I'm just trying to get a feel for what you can do. So... I'm guessing greataxe, sword, those would be good weapons for you too. And..." Now Zetta's grinning.

"One thing the Netherworld does pretty well is gloves and gauntlets that improve hand-to-hand attacks. Punching and grabbing seemed like your specialties, if you wanted to try those out at some point...?"

Ruffnuts grin curled in more of a devious manner. Punching and kicking and grappling were things she was pretty great at. Mostly from all the fighting she did with her brother. No weapons in fights like that.

"Would those be any good against the OHM though?" She asked in a rare display of forethought.

"Hey, demons use it all the time... against each other, monsters, you name it. You get good at what you do, and anything'll work. It's all a matter of skill."

He didn't mention that the gloves in question, in keeping with the thinking that hand-to-hand attacks had to be both strong and accurate, increased the wielder's accuracy as well. He could be a LITTLE tactful. If given cause. Good cause.

"Huh...alright!" Ruffnut agreed eagerly, "That makes sense. Hiccups Dad can fight Dragons hand to um...claw. So why can't I?" She declared completely skipping over the fact that Hiccups dad was about as big as a small car and had all the force of a large truck.

This was not on purpose, she simply forgot.

"Training, levelling, and the right weapon! Because you've already got the attitude!"

Zetta grinned quite broadly and sincerely. Despite all sanity and better judgment in the world, he liked this girl.

One of the minions stepped forward, offering up a pair of fingerless black-leather gloves with a metal ring around the wrists. "See what you think," the book said.

Ruffnut took them silently setting her spear and shield down and tugging the gloves on gripping a few times. They felt good, fit like they had been made just for her, or maybe that was her imagination.

Imagining her brother in front of her for a minute she took a few experimental swings. "Not bad." She remarked trying to contain her excitement. One on one training wasn't something they did back home. You either learned from your parents or you didn't learn at all till you were old enough to go into dragon training.

Zetta had spent a reasonable amount of effort grinding up those gloves. Nothing super, mind, but for starting equipment they had pretty darn good attack and hit stats. And he's quite pleased she likes them.

"All right... let's see if you've got the feel for them."

One of the random minions abruptly scooped up a large brick from the ground and pitched it into what really amounted to a void behind the stone platform they stood on. A connected area about the same size appeared literally out of nowhere -- lush green hills that might have been almost tranquil, if not for the two four-foot-tall patchwork penguins with tiny bat wings and double peg-legs that stood in it, bouncing merrily to pass the time.

"Prinnies are pretty lightweight opponents," Zetta said from his higher platform. "I wouldn't recommend throwing 'em, though. Just punch the crap out of 'em and we'll take it from there."

"The heck?" Was Ruffnut's only response as she gave the monsters a sideways glance. Even her giant chicken construct was scarier then these things.

Well no sense in letting good punching bags go to waste, "I don't make a habit of beating up weaklings." She added before throwing the first punch.

Sure she used to pick on hiccup, but teasing and taunting and mocking and beating up were two completely different things in her mind.

The results were quite gratifying: the punched Prinny let out a feeble "Dood!" and vanished.

But to be fair, it wasn't THAT weak of an opponent. Weaker than the chicken, perhaps, but Ruffnut had actually hit this one.

However, the second Prinny charged with a war cry of, "Prinny, dood!", two knives yanked out of its belt pouch. Ruffnut was only human, so Zetta had imagined these guys up with reasonably blunt weapons, but even a pair of dull-edged knives could hurt in a flurry. The safety was off, after all. Light combat this might be -- but it was real. How else could she gain strength and mana power?

Ruffnut was startled by the sudden action by her second opponent and dodged out of the way of his knives. "Give me that!" She demanded and slapped one of the knives out of his erm...hand?

Either way she seized the blunt blade and tossed it aside slapping him hard across the beak as if coming at her was an insult before following through with an uppercut.

The Prinny had only a moment to yell, "Ow, dood!" as it flew backwards before it vanished. A new platform of land erupted out of the ether. This one had corn men armed with ominous looking swords. Yes, really.

Zetta, carried by his minion to not far behind her, let out a low whistle. "Nice. These corn people are tougher, by the way. If you get hurt, pull back and the healer'll fix you up. Otherwise: trial by fire. You keep cutting through 'em, they'll keep coming! We'll see what some Zetta-training does for you! Hyaaa ha ha ha ha!"

Ruffnut cocked an eyebrow in disbelief. Cornmen? Really? And she thought the penguin pirate stitch doll things were weird. But it seemed this was going to be par for the coarse so she might as well get used to it.

She scooped up the knife she'd discarded earlier and flung it at the cornmen to distract them while she rushed in screaming like the viking she wanted to be. They easily dispatched the blunt knife in time to meet her head on.

Yeah, demon opponents could be weeeird.

The lefthand one shot forward in a line, sword slashing in a move that could cut down two or three men if they were foolish enough to stand in a row (and the sword were of somewhat higher quality. The righthand one moved forward more cautiously for a simple slash.

From behind, Zetta watched with interest -- but no real doubt as to the outcome. Even in a short time of knowing her, he'd lay money on Ruff fighting to their destruction, or her own. What she would do if she were injured, or defeated, though... that, he wondered about.

He'd find out soon. While Ruffnut was quick enough to dodge on the left the right one's blade slid through her light armor and left a deep cut in her side making her scream out in pain. Her eyes blazed and she whirled on the right hand man swinging for the fences converting her pain into anger.

These corn were built for offense, not defense. The struck one went down, disappearing just as the Prinnies had, though the remaining one took another swipe.

Zetta kept watching, creeping closer in the hands of his minion, the other loyal mook close at hand.

The second slash found it's mark cutting along Ruffnut's back. This slice was thankfully not as deep and not close enough to her spine to do more then cause her some serious pain.

But as demonstrated before Ruffnut thrived on the pain and swung around fists machine gunning into her next opponent in a blur.

Two opponents down! The next chunk of terrain appeared in a burst of sound, three opponents manning it. These looked human -- one a burly man, one a begowned girl holding a bow, and a third -- farther back -- a miniskirted girl that appeared obsessed with the color red.

An observant Viking might notice they looked almost identical to some of Zetta's minions.

The Overlord tensed in preparation -- the sensorium was still under his control, after all, and if Ruffnut continued on in the throes of berserk rage he'd seal off boundaries until she could get healing.

But he wanted to see what she would do.

She didn't even stop to think about who she was up against. Observant wasn't usually a word one would associate with her.

She went for the burly man first rushing in low as drops of her blood left a trail on the ground. Thankfully she at least had enough state of mind to keep an eye on his hands so she could dodge when and if he tried to stop her from reaching his head.

That's when mesh netting popped up between Ruffnut and the new opponents, separating the two platforms, old and new.

"Whoa, whoa! Easy there, soldier!" Zetta chuckled as the minions brought him forward. "You get killed and you're no good to anyone. You're not part of my Netherworld, so I can't protect you or revive you."

He'd expected just this, so he wasn't disappointed. He was pretty pleased, all things considered. "Still, you seem to be getting along with those gloves pretty well. That was brutal."

Ruffnut clawed at the mesh for a moment as her mind registered what had happened. The fight was over. It took another minute for her brain to catch up to the rest of her and she slumped to the floor wincing, "Ow." Was all she could respond with as she peered at her wounds curiously. They would make fine scars...assuming they didn't bleed out and kill her.

Speaking of which she was getting a little dizzy. She smiled and looked at the gloves, "I like em!" She added.

I-I hope this was for me because here I am ^_^;;

No one else is a worthy apprentice!

BWAHAHAHA!

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Had ONE other person at my office done some work, this woulda been up two hours ago

Curse them! Curse them all!

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