-Elsewhere-
It was actually pretty poor gun discipline. Safety off with no obvious threat. Finger on the trigger instead of the trigger guard. And the trigger was pretty sensitive. But as the woman who called herself, amongst other things, the Joy, knew, sometimes you had to learn the rules to know when to best bend them or break them.
And from the faint whistling woosh she heard, she didn't have time to practice proper gun safety.
She didn't have time for anything as the blue line lanced out from the trees, Joy turning around into a smashing elbow strike that threw her backwards, slamming into another tree. Leaves, kicked up from the ground and knocked from the branches, swirled around as Joy exhaled, all the air knocked from her lungs...
Which didn't stop her from coming off the tree immediately, hands crackling with electrical power. Her foe dodged, but she expected that, she just had to keep her occupied, let her get her breath back, she still had her gun and...
Then with a crunch, the hooksword came down on her wrist, and she didn't have the gun any more. It fell from dead fingers. Her lone response was a snarling hiss of pained air through her teeth before she kicked out, leg crackling with electricity. Take a hit to give a hit, and she was pretty sure she gave it better, the blue fury staggering back before taking off again.
Joy held her wrist, sticking a foot under her gun to kick it back up to...
"Pathetic."
"You're no daughter of mine."
Joy hesitated as the words hit her.
...strange.
They really did feel like they HIT her.
And then the hitting was literal. The blue was back, the hookswords flashing as their ends smashed repeatedly against Joy's torso, ending with one swinging up beneath her chin and the other slamming across her face, sending the woman pitching to the ground in a spray of blood.
The grim look on the man immediately broke, replaced by concern.
"....Athena...I said don't pull your punches. Not 'do your best to half-murder your sister'."
The blue flash stopped.
"Dad, with Merry, there's no difference."
"...Clash is rubbing off on you more than I thought."
"You just told her she wasn't family!"
"Yes, well, we're training and it's getting difficult to...come up with...fresh tactics to try and learn from..."
Joy, nee Merry, nee Merrilee Marsello, was back up.
"That the best you got, pansy? You should stick to puzzles, because your punches are..."
Slamming into Joy's face. Not full on though, the woman trading blows with her adopted sister for nearly fifteen seconds before her injuries caught up to her and Athena "Aggie" Marsello literally beat her into the ground, Ash wincing at the last few seconds of it.
"Medic." Ash said.
----
-Another Elsewhere-
Some people trained through near-psychotic levels of physical combat.
And some actually did things the hard way.
Bernard had gotten about halfway through with Kaede’s face when she started shaking her head and trying to paw at her eyes.
“Careful. You’ll smear more of it.” Bernard produced a rag and wiped it away. “We can always paint around your eyes raccoon style. Getting your face fully covered is important. Eyes stand out enough.”
Bernard collected more mud before he crushed some mold into it, spitting in the mess before mashing it together.
“Especially since you’ll have to apply this yourself. Possibly at speed.”
“You’re sure it’ll help, though?” Kaede reaches up again. “If this gets in my eyes, won’t that just make it worse?”
“The trick is learning to apply it so it WON’T get in your eyes.” And doing it at speed, and doing it in the heat of intense battle, but one thing at a time, Bernard mused. “Since we don’t know what sort of field this fight will take place on, I need to try and get you to learn what to use on hand on said battlefield.”
“I think we can make a couple conclusions, at least! The battlefield’s always generally circular, probably to prevent any corners from being created for easy traps, so we know I can’t rely on anything but in-arena terrain-” Ohhhh dear. She was off on one of her rambles again. As part of preparing, Kaede was intently studying every previous Brawl, start to finish, top to bottom, and it was… occasionally exhausting for those around her.
“Close your eyes.” Bernard just kept trying to apply the makeshift camo. “So, it’s always total chaos. Some advantages there. You know why I keep finding you so easily? I can smell you. But in something like that, there’s probably too many smells to zero in on you. Which is good, because, well...fear is a beacon, and only a lunatic wouldn’t be afraid in a mess like that.” This was Subtle Attempt No #814 or so to talk Kaede out of her plan, at least as she defined it at the moment.
Between Bernard, Peko, and even Kiibo, the number of times people had tried to explicitly prevent Kaede from brawling was almost too many to be counted. So, the subtle approach… which was almost completely ineffective. “It’s true, it is going to be scary… but all I have to do is study the other entrants beforehand! Single out who I have to avoid, let them take each other down, team up with Peko to fight the easy ones, and we’ll win!”
“I thought there was only a singular winner.”
“Peko’s my assistant! I’m the only person who’s the official entrant, so as long as I’m left, I can win with her! It’s like Miu and Kiibo did last time! Assistants winning with their entrant has happened twice, in the fifth and sixth Brawls, with Silence and Blade and then Zeldoten and Nibbles.”
“Did they avoid all the fighting and pick the bones when everyone left was exhausted as well? It doesn’t sound like it would be a popular decision.”
---
Across universes, Sine Cosineau suddenly felt very annoyed, and didn’t know why.
---
-Weaveworld-
"Merry? You are okay, right?" Aggie said.
"Mrgbitmuton." Blood was starting to leak heavily from within Joy's mouth. Fortunately, Ash hadn't called for a medic ironically.
"Hold still." Christine said. She didn't like this, any more than when her husband had done it years ago by her reckoning, but nothing she said or did was going to talk her adopted daughter out of this. Best she be around to supervise the heaviest duty stuff.
"Yes m'm." Christine couldn't tell if Joy had called her "ma'am" or 'mom'. The latter might make this worth it, but everything in its time. "Athena, smack your father upside the head for me."
"What?" Ash said, before Aggie did just that, with one of her (dulled for training) hookswords. "Ow."
"Your father didn't mean it."
"Of course I didn't. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel to try and figure out ways to keep her on her toes. Decided to play dirty, because I'm sure there will be those in the Brawl that could, and would, say worse."
Christine still gave her husband a dull, dirty-in-turn look.
"You don't need t'act like I'm gonna run away the second you two aren't falling over yourselves to tell me we're kin despite th'lack of blood. I know I belong because you didn't dress me up like an aquarium threw up on me."
"Hey! This BlueStreak Tapestry layout is GREAT!"
"I still have more hits on you than you on me!" Aggie crossed her arms, pouting.
"That's just b'cause I like you, Ags."
"Speaking of counting, congradulations. You've crossed the thousand hour mark in preparing for this." Ash said, looking at a stopwatch before putting it away.
"...really?" Joy was more or less healed by now, retriving her hat and gun before she did some stretching. "You sure you didn't attach an extra z?"
"You've been doing this more or less every day since you returned, Merilee. It adds up." Christine walked over to her again, giving her one last check-over.
"Well...best not let it be wasted!"
"I fear even if it was a million hours, it would be."
"Gee, thanks MOM." That was not a 'mom' Christine would have liked, laden with sarcasm.
"It has nothing to do with you, Merilee. I watched that battle chew up and spit out the finest elites from every stripe of existence. I really just don't want that for you."
"Ash entered! Dad did." Joy said, pointing. "He even got in the top 3!"
"Also beaten by a magical soft drink but I'd rather forget that time..."
"And so you seek to improve on his accomplishment."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Because I don't think you should enter the Brawl at all."
That wasn't Christine speaking.
That was Ash.
----
-Kobberworld-
Back to the original negative statement...
“Not really? I mean, they didn’t get that many eliminations because there’s just so much going on in the Brawl, but they did get a few in before the finish!”
“Mmmm. And you want to win this.”
That was a fine ambition; Bernard was not so cut off from his human side to think all ambition was bad. But…
But… Kaede wasn’t really willing to put in the work for it. Whenever they tried to give her physical conditioning, or have her join Peko for a long jog, or something like that? She’d always find a way to wiggle out of doing the full thing, if she did it at all. Training her in tactics or planning, at least, had her put in the effort when she was interested, but it was nearly impossible to make her work for things she didn’t like doing.
And yet she wanted to win this massive death tournament, that attracted more and bigger threats every year. She almost seemed on the verge of thinking it was her destiny. And considering what Bernard had picked up about the girl…
But...it wasn’t his place to tell her no, or criticize her. She didn’t respond well to such overt harshness, as the V3 incident showed. Animals had instincts, and he was closer to animals than most. He couldn’t let that cloud his judgement. Humans had to wing it. At least she had a larger safety net that virtually anyone else if her wings immediately failed and she fell back to Earth. Hard.
It was also why he hadn’t offered to join her as an entrant. He’d floated the possibility to Peko, but she’d shot it down, mainly on the basis that she didn't think they'd be able to get the collective group of three past Jumpropeman's criteria. The Fitemaster WAS notorious for being flexible, but on the other side of the coin, she didn't think they could make it work based on his whims. She’d thought it'd be better if she stuck with Kaede due to years of knowing Kaede and how best to protect her. And if Bernard entered as a separate entrant, well...that meant he was just another obstacle, more or less.
“If only either of us could protect her from herself.” He’d said.
Peko had commiserated, but… Kaede just needed to be disabused of a notion forcibly sometimes. Ever since Kamen Rider V3, she had given up on the idea of getting superpowers with any kind of a shortcut. If she entered the Brawl and lost, it was the only way to knock the idea out of her once and for all.
So, then, might as well play to her strengths. The nature of life was either kill and eat, or run and hide, and he knew a fair bit about both mixed with the learnings of man. So he’d been trying to teach her some stealth, the tactics of avoiding danger. Mainly by letting her run off into various places like forests and cities and then tracking her like a hungry predator. She’d yet to make it five minutes, usually it was less than a minute, but there was some small improvement. And he WAS using the fact he was intimately familiar with her scent.
Not that way. Peko had sort of given him a look when he’d first started popping around, a sort of “You’re too damn far on the power balance scale, you either wait for her to get a clue or turn you down, or you’ll answer to me and the line of people gathering behind me.” Still drove Miu nuts that she couldn’t tempt him to ‘her dark side’, but sadly, the master scientist’s appealing looks couldn’t overcome the fact that she smelled god-awful to Bernard. Like burning plastic and open pits of chemical waste, he’d said. Not her fault. It was just her calling. It’d worked its way into all aspects of her. Normal men wouldn’t notice. But he wasn’t normal.
So his familiarity was just one of constant exposure. An advantage that wouldn’t exist in the Brawl, most likely. If she got better at hiding and avoiding him, it could only help. He REALLY wished he could get her to work on her cardio as well, but Kaede hated extended effort with a passion. She prefered slow and steady, or brief bursts. Otherwise she got winded very fast and weakened arguably even faster. Bernard had seen her weave around after running up a single flight of stairs to grab something before it fell off a table. He’d later commented to Peko that if she wasn’t so averse to physical labour and long-term hard work, she’d have promise in a stagger-type martial art, like drunken boxing.
Otherwise...yeah. Run and hide. At least she didn’t express disgust at the mess that was being applied all over her face, being cold and slimy and equally parts blinding and foul tasting. And that didn’t even get into the lessons of trying to teach her to whip up camouflage based on available supplies. Or what would happen when she sweated. Which she did. A lot.
It let him find her even if he used a technique to wholly block out her unique scent. She reeked of fear. Probably better than being in denial of it though.
“All right. Press yourself up against this tree now.”
“Okay!” With that, Kaede flattened herself up against the tree. Her body shape may not be the best for hiding, but… it could work, if she was careful and was able to focus. She tries to hold her breath, to look as invisible and unnoticeable as possible…
Bernard backed up, before pulling out a large mirror from somewhere, allowing Kaede (who had pressed against the tree back first) to see how she fared…
...he was right. The eyes really did stand out. Otherwise, well, it wasn’t perfect, but she did blend in a bit.
“As you can see...camouflage isn’t perfect. But in a fight like this one, focus is at a premium. The main issue at the moment is your stance. And breathing. You’re breathing far too hard.”
“Eyes still sting!”
“Trust me, the motion is notable.” Bernard didn’t realize what he’d said until he’d said it. Well at least the scientist wasn’t around…
“Hmmmph..” It might have been hard to handle, but at least Kaede’s reaction, after sighing… is to try again. It really all was in how you showed her how to do things. Now… hopefully this would get her at least somewhere in the brawl. Sure, she’d need to fight in it to get the sense knocked into her, but placing last or thereabouts would be just mean.
“...do you have a plan if Peko becomes...incapacitated?”
“Ummm… well, it depends on how far I am in the Brawl, and how many people are left that I can trust or ally with! If I can easily join an alliance, I’ll just do that and try to get far enough that I can make the rest of the distance on my own. Especially if I can scavenge some weapons. If I can’t make an alliance… that’s where all this hiding training comes in. I’ll just lurk around and wait for my chance to seize victory!
There was that glean again. Charming in one way, but...so regrettable in others.
---
-Weaveworld-
There were worse looks to see in an eye.
Like one that mixed surprise with a sudden growing anger and, under that, pain. Joy had grown up with zero support, handling everything by herself. She'd been told over and over that those days were over, that she was family now, but she still thought that deep down, one day, they'd wake up to reality and tell her it was all a pipe dream, or worse, too much effort to be worth it.
Fortunately, Christine was good at yanking her husband's foot out of his mouth.
"AND?" Christine said, interrupting Joy's feelings with a note of hey, pay attention, he's not done.
"Bad wording. Better said...there's no real way to win the Brawl, Merry. No matter how much you train, no matter how much we and our friends find new ways to fight you...there's no winning that fight. There's just survivors of it. Some surviving more than others. Even at the very end. I don't think you should be like me. I entered those Brawls to win. You? Not needed."
Joy crossed her arms, snorting through her nose. In THAT, she showed that she and Athena may as well have been sisters in the traditional sense; the two stances mirrored each other near perfectly, though Joy wasn't one for pouting. "You don't want me succeedin' where you failed?"
"No, I'd rather you succeed no matter what."
"And how, praytell, do I do that?" Joy said.
"Don't enter to win. Don't even enter to place. Just enter because that's who you are, and what you do. What you thrive on in life."
"...I'm not followin'."
"Just..........be yourself?" Ash was reaching so hard, Joy was surprised his hand hadn't stretched across the forest floor to grip her shoulder.
"...that's th' dumbest thing I've heard from you in the last...thirteen days." Joy motioned like she was checking a calendar.
"Think that's a new record!" Aggie said.
"But...yeah. Okay. I get it. I think. It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." It was strange. Coming from anyone else, she would have felt contempt for the seemingly blase and cliche suggestion. But for all the poking of his tonsils with his toes Ash did, he meant well.
"I think I can do that." Joy said, tipping her hat to her adopted father. It was a very casual gesture, but when it came to family, baby steps were always first. "But you don't get to complain when I bring back th'gold."
Ash sighed as he drew his sword.
"Since you're so confident...Athena?"
"Think fast sis." Athena said. And they both went for Joy at the same time. Unfortunately, THIS time she was ready. She even had time for a one-liner.
"FILL YOUR HAND, YOU-!"
Christine sighed herself, getting off the field of battle and sitting down as more leaves, tree bark, blows, and taunts flew all around her. The Brawl and its many dangers were nothing compared to the complications of family. It was, quite literally, all relative.
---
-Kobberworld-
“Kaede, can I tell you a story?” Bernard crouched down, looking at the dirt, seeing if he could make some different makeshift camouflage. Moreso to teach the girl how to do it on the spot than a need to find something else for her to hide in.
“Huh? Sure, go ahead!”
“My father…”
Offff. This must be important. Bernard’s relationship with his dad was highly strained, at best. If he was willingly bringing him up…
“To skip a lot of complicated nonsense, he entered the world I’m from with a certain...ambition. He wanted to be a ladykiller. Oh, he wanted to be a powerful warrior too...he wanted to emulate some fictional character, I don’t recall the name...James Long?”
“James Bond? I’ve heard of him! In our world he wasn’t fictional, and he was a member of the Kobbers in the very first year for a short time! Unfortunately he was killed by one of the minions of the Lord of the Night and-
...Er, sorry. Go ahead.”
Bernard stared for a moment before he mentally shrugged. It fit the pattern of Kobber insanity.
“This James Bond was apparently a very skilled gunsmith and fighter, and he had exceptional luck with women. My father wanted that. Badly. He never got it. He laughs about it now, but I still get the impression that back then, when he set out all cocky and ready to mount the world...each failure was more humiliating than the last. And my mother? She doled out the worst one. He was already rather bitter, and then, well...she more or less exposed him as a fraud. Or rather, a fraud of the image he wanted so dearly to present. He hated her for that.
“But, well...it wasn’t that true a hate. He had esteem problems rather than a bloated ego...well, a bit of a bloated ego. Circumstances threw them together. His rancor manifested in a deep desire to one up her. His essential character came through in that he didn’t want to cheat to do it. Only doing it for real would count. She was too damn good to make that remotely easy...and there lies the other half of the coin. My mother came from a tribe...well, sort of a tribe and organization, well, it was trying to claw its way out of some very nasty traditions. Namely that if you cut away the double-speak, her being the leader’s daughter meant that if someone could kill her without there being clear proof they’d done it, they’d get her spot and be sitting pretty. That, or wed her. Consent was...not wholly required. I’m simplifying, but that’s how it was. Too many people had too many ambitions to let the old ways go. When the war against Xaxargas entered its final days, well...they became a liability. And when they were gone, the traditions died. But that’s a side track. My father, well, he was the only one my mother could trust. He was too...wary, to be kind, to try any sort of violence, even if you considered it within his anger, and since he was so mad at her, he sure as hell didn’t see her as any sort of desirable other. Due to that she stuck close to him. Eventually he grew up a bit and they became friends. And once he’d stopped hating and hadn’t yet betrayed her trust...things progressed from there. He didn’t get what he wanted, but in the end, he got what he needed. Especially since I’m only here because of that fact. At least, as is.
“Could have gone a lot worse. Like I said, he laughs about it now, but even so...he wanted that something, so very badly. And all he did by trying to get it was...well, not it. The opposite of it.”
Bernard left the story there.
Kaede listened the whole way, and didn’t tune out! But she’s pondering the meaning, and nods along… “...Are you trying to talk me out of the Brawl again?”
“More just asking if you can’t see the forest for the trees. Like my father. But no one with any sense or heart tries to talk a person out of their dreams. If you shoot for the moon, you may yet hit a star.”
“I know I probably won’t win, because there’ve been over three hundred people in the Brawls, but only eight winners. But for me, a lot of this is just… the experience! Being in the Brawl! Actually fighting in the huge Kobber death spectacle! I don’t need to win, really, but I need to at least TRY to win, rather than always just watching!”
“...fair enough.” And he meant it. At least she wasn’t COMPLETELY in the grip of delusion. He hoped. “Go fetch Miss Pekoyama. Let’s see if the pair of you can evade me any better than just by your lonesome. You can wipe the camo off now.”
“...YEOOWWWWW!”
“...not down into your eyes, of course…”
---
Family. It could be the best, and the worst, thing in the world. It had a lot of pitfalls and failings. But it wasn't inherent. Choice and chance defined most of it. And the dice didn't always roll snake eyes.
Sometimes, you were on your own.
And sometimes, you were never alone.
But when it came to the Brawl...
Kaede Akamatsu sure wasn't alone.
The Joy wouldn't have it any other way. Like she'd said, in the words of another cowboy.
Fill your hand, you sonavabitch.
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