//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Make a Super Out of You // Story: The Fable of a Lost Wolf // by Solaris Night //------------------------------// The morning sun rose over the horizon and the light's rays shot straight through Avaia's bedroom window, hitting her directly in the face. With a grumble she woke up and yawned loudly. She slowly got out of her bed and went over to her wardrobe. She pulled out her clothes and a small recorder. She pushed the play button and listened to her plans for today, as she changed clothes. It was the usual; she had to meet up with commander to clear up a few issues that were happening around the camp, help at the kitchen where she had volunteered the previous day, as she always did, and to watch over the children for the afternoon. The previous recording stopped and the next one started. "Extra note." her voice said, to which her ears perked since she rarely put extra notes at the end of her daily recordings. She listened closely to what she said, as she combed her hair. "Remember to join Trider at 7:00 for the training." The recording stopped and Avaia put down the comb. She glanced at the alarm clock on her desk. It showed 7:15. Her pupils shrunk as she realized she was late. Quickly she picked up her recorder, took a new cassette from her desk's drawer, her bag and a small loaf of bread, which she quickly munched away. She ran towards the door where she stopped to put on her metal boots. "Crap, crap, crap!" she cussed, as she fumbled with her footwear. "C'mon you stupid thing, just get on already!" she yelled and finally managed to put them on. She slammed open the door and ran out, towards the meeting place. As she was running in between the small huts, someone called out to her and she stopped abruptly. "Yes?" she said, glancing around to see who it was that called for her. She spotted a small Kanisar boy who was waving at her. She walked over to him and kneeled down. "What is it Ghaur?" she asked. The boy pointed towards a very tall tree nearby and Avaia could immediately see what the problem was. A red ball was stuck high up in the branches of the tree. She looked back at the boy. "Again?" she inquired. The boy simply nodded and hung his head in shame. "Wait here, I'll be quick." she said and walked over to the tree. Once she was at the tree's base, she put her bag on the ground and looked up to where the ball was. Energy began to course through her body and shot down to her legs. In a flash she jumped onto the first branch and then the next, leaving a streak of electricity behind her. And just as quick as she got up, she came back down, holding the ball in her hand. She walked over to the boy and gave it back to him. "Be careful next time, will you? I won't always be here to help you out you know?" she said as she ruffled the boy's hair. "I will. Thanks Ava." he said, as he took the ball and ran off towards where his friends were, Avaia figured. She picked up her bag and then remembered her meeting with Trider. "Shit!" she said under her breath. She was just about to run off when somebody else called out to her. "Mornin' Avaia." an older human man said to her. "Morning to you too Mr. Stevens." she said, her voice strained. "How can I help you?" "Actually I could really use your help." the man said joyfully. "Y'see last night a landslide buried some of my crops and I was wondering if you could help break some of the bigger rocks, so me and my family can clean up the rest." Avaia's eye twitched nervously. "Suuure." she said her voice even more strained. The man gave her a skeptical look. "Y'sure? If you are busy, I can always ask someone else for help?" The girl shook her head vigorously. "No, no, no. I can help. I'd be glad to." she said as she began to run towards where the he lived. The man simply shrugged and followed suit. *** It was already 8:45 and Trider was patiently sitting on a rock, waiting for Avaia's arrival. "She's late." he thought, as he played with a small Ki ball in his hand. "She's way too late." His thoughts were broken when he heard someone yelling far in the distance. He strained his eyes and saw the girl running toward him, waving her hand. "Sorry I'm late." she yelled as she quickly approached. Trider looked at her displeased. He broke a small piece of the rock from the large one and threw it at Avaia. The girl was too late to react, as the pebble hit her directly in the head, making her stumble and fall to the ground. Trider jumped off of the rock and walked over to her. "Owww, what was that for?" she sobbed, as she massaged the spot where she got hit. "You're late." Trider said, as he looked at her sternly. Avaia slapped her hands together and raised them towards Trider, while lowering her head. "I'm so sorry about that." she said with pure sincerity. "I kind of overslept and then while I was running over I met a little boy who got his ball stuck in a tree, then Mr. Stevens needed help with clearing the debris from a landslide. Afterwards I met this really nice old lady who needed me to..." She continued to count off all the people she had helped this morning and Trider could only rub the bridge of his nose, at how absurd the whole situation was. "And after I brought the mother the medicine I came here as fast as I was able." she finished. Trider looked at her with a skeptical and annoyed expression. "Why didn't you just say no?" he asked her. "It seems to me that they could've asked anybody for help, they just asked you since you were available. So why didn't you decline when you knew you had other business to attend to?" The girl’s expression turned somber. "I just couldn't." she said, her voice just barely above a whisper. Trider sighed. She reminded him of a certain mare he knew, but she clearly had different reason for helping, outside of 'It's just right.' "Fine. I won't dig any further." he said and helped Avaia to her feet. "I'll just give you a crash course of how to become Super Kanisar, and then we'll begin the training." The girly nodded furiously. She put her bag down and pulled the recorder out of her pocket. Trider gave her an inquisitive look. "Why do you need that?" he asked. "I do a lot of things around here, so I sometimes forget a few things." she said, as she gestured to the device in her hand. "That's why I use this to record everything." Trider nodded. "Okay then, let's begin." he said and looked Avaia straight in her eyes. "Tell me what do you think Super Kanisar is and where does it come from?" Avaia thought for a while and then raised her hand. "It's a special power up only certain, purehearted, Kanisars can achieve and it comes through determination and friendship." she answered, her eyes sparkling like the stars. "Hell no!!!" Trider yelled at her, making her flinch. "First of all, purehearted? Do I seem like a boyscout to you?" he said pointing at himself. "And what was that bullshit on determination and friendship? Did you get that from one of those generic comics that are so popular nowadays?" "Maaaybe?" Avaia answered, a sheepish smile appearing on her face. Trider couldn't help but face palm at her. "Listen here." he said to her, his tone completely serious. "Super Kanisar is in fact just a different form of Feral Unleashing." "Really?" Avaia asked, astounded at the revelation. "Yeah," Trider said and nodded. "Feral Unleashing allows us Kanisar to draw power from deep within us, but at the price of losing our senses. The more power we draw the more we become unstable, to the point of becoming no more than simple beasts." he explained. "Super Kanisar works in the same manner. We still draw power from deep within us, but the difference is that, we retain our senses." For presentation Trider transformed in front of Avaia. "In order to attain Super Kanisar you have to keep your calm while gaining more and more power. Once you manage to push beyond a certain point, you should be able to transform into a Super Kanisar." He stretched out his hand. "Grab my hand and feel how my Ki feels." Avaia reached out towards his hand. She hesitated for a few moments, but she still took hold. She could feel immediately. The Feral Unleashing's aura always felt like fire, hot and painful at times, but this felt completely different. It was cool and felt smooth to the touch she couldn't clearly describe the feeling. "This is amazing." she said as she continued to inspect Trider's aura. "But how come this form is so much more powerful than Feral Unleashing, if they are both the same?" "I don't know exactly, but my thought is that with Feral Unleashing once you reach the point where you lose your senses you also lose the knowledge and capability to effectively draw forth the power." he elaborated his explanation. "While with Super Kanisar you always keep your senses, so you can continue to pull forth more power." Avaia nodded in agreement with his explanation. "So how do I become one?" she asked, eagerly waiting what was next. "Woah, it's not as simple as it sounds." Trider said raising his hands. "It took me months to get to this level and then several more to master the transformation. There is a long road ahead of us, so we better make use of the time we are given." Avaia backed off and nodded. "And that also means that you can't be late anymore." "I said I was sorry." she said back, her face red from embarrassment. "So what should I do first?" Trider grinned at her eagerness. "First I'm gonna see what I have to work with." he said, as he cracked his knuckles. "Come at me with everything you have, but can't use Unleashing, OK?" Avaia grinned back and got into a stance. "I kicked your butt before, I can do it again." The two had a stare down, as neither of them made the first move. Suddenly, Avaia charged at Trider, her body encased in electricity. She raised one of her legs and tried to kick the Kanisar in the side of his head, but he managed to raise one of his hands to block it. Without a moment’s hesitation, she dropped her leg and tried to leg sweep him. However Trider saw that coming as well and jumped away from her. "You've got some moves." Trider praised her. "But if that's all you have then we can just call it quits." Trider's taunting didn't bother Avaia all that much, as she focused her Ki into both of her hands. The Kanisar expected her to shoot those at him, but instead she dropped one of them and kicked it at him. As the projectile was approaching him Trider jumped up and managed to avoid the first attack. But soon after followed the other shot, this one managing to graze him. Thinking, he had successfully avoided the attack, Trider wanted to taunt the girl once more, but a sudden impact on his back stopped him. He fell over as he felt pain surge through him and looked back to see what hit him, only to jump away as a ball of energy, threatened to smash into him. While in the air he watched as the ball bounced off the ground and slammed into a tree, from which it also bounced. Trider watched as it continued to jump from one place to another in a chaotic pattern, with no sign of stopping. Suddenly it hit a rock and bounced right towards Trider, the Kanisar however had had enough. He shot another blast at the ball, cancelling it out. Having dealt with the annoyance, Trider landed on the ground and looked where Avaia was, but she was nowhere in sight. A shadow then appeared above Trider and just at the last moment he managed to get out of the way of Avaia's dropkick. Not wasting a single moment, the girl continued her assault with a barrage of kicks. Trider managed to block and dodge all of her attacks, but he was slowly getting annoyed at her. As another kick came at him, he reached out his hand and grabbed her foot. He looked at her with an angry glare, but she simply smiled. "Penalty Surge!" she shouted and released an explosion of energy from her foot. The blast knocked Trider off his feet and he landed on his back. He lifted his torso up and saw Avaia falling towards him, her leg threatening to smash directly into his skull. "Enough!" he shouted and released a wave of Ki, which halted Avaia's attack and made her fall down. As she tried to recover she felt how Trider climbed on top of her, pinning her legs and arms beneath him. "I told you didn't I?" Trider said, baring his teeth at her. "Come at me with everything you have." "I did." she shouted back at him, while also struggling to get out of his hold. "Bullshit!" he screamed back. "All this time you've been going at me with leg attacks, while leaving your upper body exposed and doing nothing with it." Avaia's face turned from anger to one of horror. "Why? Do you think that just cause you took me down once you should hold back or something?" he asked her, this time much calmer? "Is that why you're acting so cocky?" "I can't." she said, her voice barely audible. "What was that?" he said as he leaned closer to hear her. "I can't." she repeated herself. Trider looked her in the eyes and saw that tears were slowly beginning to form. He quickly got off of her and she raised herself to a sitting position. This time the tears began to run down her cheeks and she tried to wipe them away as fast as she could. "Care to explain?" he asked her. She looked at him and Trider could see the pain her eyes. "Or you can just leave it. I'm sorry that I-" "It’s fine." she said as she cleaned her face. "You'd find out eventually anyway." Trider sat down next to her and waited for her to calm down. Once she composed herself, she looked at Trider and sighed. "Have you ever heard of the Silent Death?" she asked her expression somber. Trider nodded. "I did. It's an illness that ravaged throughout Inu a long time ago. Even before humans turned on us." "That's right." she said and hugged her legs. "My mother was struck ill by it a little before I was born. She died right after I was born." "I'm sorry for your loss." Avaia looked at him and smiled. "Thanks." she said. "While I didn't catch it myself, it still had an impact on me while I was inside the womb." She lifted one of her hands and Trider saw that it was shaking slightly. "My arms and hands have been severely neurologically damaged by the illness, leaving me with subpar arm strength and coordination." She put her arm back down and gazed in front of her. "I can still do crude maneuvers with my hands, like holding a bat or a tray. Utensils are quite tricky, but if I focus enough I can hold and utilize them properly." "But?" "But I can't draw or write. Heck I can't even sign my name, I always have to make an X or stamp anything I have to sign." she said, her composure beginning to falter. "That's why I use the recorder to log any events I go to." Her voice broke a little, but she ignored it as she continued. "And the most I can lift with my arms is my own body weight, if I try anything more it causes so much pain to me." Tears began to trail down her cheeks once more, as she began to break down. "My dad taught me, that I should always help those in need. And I tried to do by his words, but every time I tried to I always messed up, because of these stupid hands." she said and slammed her fists into the ground. "I always made things worse and people began to push me away anytime I wanted to help. I don't blame them though, I understand why they did." "Is that why you don't want to say no to people?" Trider asked in a soft tone. Avaia nodded. "I just want to help people. But I can't." she whimpered. "When the war broke out, I found out that I had a knack for fighting and thought I could help people like this. But even then I wasn't allowed to be part of any mission due to my disability." Casting her gaze at Trider he could see her eyes were red from her crying. "Yesterday when you said that you'd train me, so I could help end this war I felt the happiest I have ever been. But now that you know..." she trailed off, as she began to cry uncontrollably. Trider pulled her into a small hug and patted her head. "It's OK. I'm glad you told me this." Avaia stopped her crying for a minute to look at Trider. "You aren't angry?" "Why would I be?" he asked, giving her a confused look. "Sure I was angry before, because I thought that you were screwing with me, but now I know you really did go all out and I'm happy about that." "What about training?" she asked, as she wiped her tears. "You'll probably find someone better suited than me I suppose?" "Nope!" Trider stated frimly. "So what if you can't use your arms? It’s your determination that counts here. How far you are willing to go to help end this, once and for all." he said pumping his arm into the air. "Besides you are perfect just the way you are. You are corageous, caring and strong. And everyone knows that, and it's also why everyone likes you so much." Tears began to fall once again from Avaia's eyes, only this time they were those of relief and happiness. "Thanks, I needed that." she said and got up. "C'mon what are sitting around for, let’s do this shit!" she shouted. "That's what I like to hear." Trider said and got up as well. "Before we start with your Super training though, I have a few ideas how to improve your fighting style." The two got into a heated discussion about their training, as time seemed to just pass by them in a flash.