paixaorpg | Training Time!

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Training Time!

Characters: Toph, Terra, Sanzo and anyone else who drops by.
Content: Toph and Terra are going to start training their earth bending.
Setting: Vanaheim area (G3)
Time: Afternoon
Warnings: Appearance of Dan

Terra had first suggested the Elysian fields, but Toph nixed that after hearing all those stories about Lumens. If they were going to train anywhere, it had to be at a place where they wouldn't be bothered. In this "grassy" place, Toph found it acceptable enough to train Terra here.

"Ok, we'll start by taking a deep breath," Toph said. She inhaled loudly, then slowly let it out. "We get ourselves centered: this is so we can take a moment to be one with the earth. We're moving it, but in a way its like a pact with the ground itself. Remember that: NEVER take your power for granted and the earth will always listen to you."

She got up and shook herself a little, extending her arms and legs. "I like to warm up a bit first, just so I don't cramp up or anything. You might wanna do the same."

Once the girls had both done this, Toph stomped softly on her left foot and a rock protruded from the ground, to which Toph promptly sat on. She was maybe two feet up from Terra, and she grinned.

"Ok Terra, show me what you can do."

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Terra was pretty pumped about training. Well, she was hoping that things didn't go wrong. Not hoping; more like worrying. "Don't lose control," she kept thinking to herself as they went to the area to train.

When they got there, she did everything that Toph had told her to do. Taking in a deep breath, she began to stretch out her arms and legs -- and felt a few cracks here and there. It seemed that Terra was still sore after that fight back in her world. Despite this, she was ready for training, good as new, when she was done warming up.

"Okay. I'll do that," she said. Taking in another deep breath, she gathered her energy, her eyes glowing a faint yellow. 'Don't lose control, don't lose control...'

She brought her arm up, letting a large rock, big enough to ride on, come up, and she spread her arms out letting out a cry. The rock split in two, and both her arms went forward to shoot the rocks in a different direction. They crashed nearby, somewhere behind Toph.

Toph didn't move. She sensed the rocks of course: they were there and they came pretty close, but there was enough space between her and the impact. She nodded. This was Ok: it was something that needed work, but it wasn't impossible. That was a good place to start.

"That was good," Toph said, opening one eye, "But I ought to let you know something. Remember that as Earth benders, we hold a relationship with the earth, but in order for that to go hand in hand, there's a trust there, you know? We have to have a belief in our ability to move the earth, and in turn, the earth has to believe in your force of will. Stumbling and hoping something will work forms shaky ground in your belief, and the earth senses it. It'll react in an uncertain way, just as whenever you build something and are not sure how it'll go, your lack of knowing affects your work."

Toph got off from the precipice she had sat on and was right beside her. "OK, now concentrate again on your purpose, but keep your courage at par with what you can do. Start with what you KNOW you can do, and once that happens, slowly bring yourself up. You can only do what you define in your mind is possible."

Toph smiled, and sat down Indian style. "Try moving that rock."

Thinking of the Earth literally as a person rather than just dirt wasn't going to be easy for Terra. She's seen Toph's abilities at work and she wanted to get to that level, but she knew it wasn't going to be a breeze. At this point, though, she was willing to give anything a try.

"Kay. Start up with what I can do. Got it," she said, nodding, and she took another deep breath. She concentrated on the rock that Toph pointed out to her. Her eyes glowed again, and she attempted to move the rock. The rock wiggled at first, and then raised it from the ground. Moving it didn't seem so clumsy this time. It wasn't a huge improvement, but it was something.

Tops smiled. "Good, see, you already have the hang of some things. OK, now we're going to try to do something a little more interesting: avoiding collision. You position the rock however you want, and get ready. You're going to need to defend yourself."

Toph got up and made sure she was a fifteen foot distance away from Terra. She closed her eyes, and then slowly brought her arms extended out on front of her, palms up. Toph then spun around and, with her right arm, made a first in the air, her right arm forward. She repeated this with her left arm. Both of these produced rock projectiles that headed straight for Terra, but not before Toph allowed them to hover in the air a moment.

"Now think of yourself training with those heroes of yours!" Toph said. "This is officially your simulation in defense. You're an earthbender and are now having rocks shot at you! What do you do?"

With a small grunt, she stopped the hovering and the projectiles now headed for Terra, and Toph followed up with another circular spin, this time with her palms down, making very noticeable crack in the ground slowly catching up to Terra. It was going to throw Terra off balance so she couldn't successfully block the projectiles.

Now we see what happens, Toph said to herself.

It was good that they were getting to work on defense. Defense wasn't exactly Terra's strong suit. She was good at throwing rocks and the likes, but she never got into a situation where defense was absolutely necessary. She didn't think it was going to be too tough. After all, how hard could it be to stop a few rocks?

Terra positioned her rock so that it was set up right in front of her, so that she could raise it up and block the rocks coming at her. But then the cracking of the ground alarmed her -- partly because she noticed a little too late!

Just as Toph predicted, she loses her balance, and the projectiles weren't blocked. Or at least, not the way that Terra wanted to. The rocks collided, and all it really did was make a huge mess. If it weren't for Terra losing her balance over the crack, that collision and the rocks all over the place certainly would have done just that.

Toph sat down and listened well to everything that happened. She felt the shift in Terra's weight and sighed very quietly, knowing what would happen next. She hadn't expected Terra to be able to do all three things: she had actually wanted to test Terra to see what it was they could improve on. She was glad her new friend hadn't been injured by the rock's collisions (it was why she had had the rocks so close together) but also knew she needed to give Tera criticism.

"You have to be aware of your opponent striking at any time!" Toph said. "The reason I'm so good is BECAUSE I'm blind, and so I have to make sure I know what's happening around me. Remember, an opponent won't wait for you to get that right: once they know you're an earthbender, they'll want to exploit your weaknesses. The trick to that is making sure it looks like you don't have any!"

Toph grinned at that, then shrugged. "You aren't doing too bad. Let's get something to eat, and we can continue the lesson. After that we'll probably need to shower because we'll be pretty dusty!"

Terra lifted herself off of the ground shakingly, taking in Toph's words. Sure, Terra was told she wasn't doing too, but that didn't stop her from feeling embarrassed.

After taking in her criticism, she nodded, "Getting something to eat sounds good --" Terra looked up and saw a familiar face when she heard Sanzo speak to them. "Uhm... we were Earth bending!"

Sanzo had been walking for what had seemed like ages to him. He was in the middle of one of his nicotine fits, due to trying to ration his cigarettes until he could find a store. The man was lost after leaving the hotel, which he hopped to find again when night fell.

Sanzo had also taken note to the fact that the earth seemed to be shaking and that there was quite a ruckus in the distance. So out of his boredom he ventured over to where all the noise and earth shaking was coming from.

What in the world??, he thought to himself as he saw Toph and her blonde friend. The two girls seemed to be controling the earth themselves, with just thier will. Sanzo stood in shock watching them as Toph threw rock projectiles at Terra.

Sanzo couldn't believe what he was seeing. Waiting until after Toph had finished what she was saying Sanzo walked over to the two girls "What were you two doing?" he asked out of pure couriosity, which was unnatural for Sanzo.

((ooc: i hope this is okay with you guys))

Dan's duplicate had been heading to the centre of Paixao, and had just been floating through the area when he noted two girls fighting each other with rock. Interesting... He flew down to observe, invisible to the naked eye. They seemed to be training....how cute. He frowned, remembering those times he trained with Sam and Tucker down in the Fentons' lab. He pushed away the memories. There was no reason for him to remember his past as that--that mere baby.

While the blonde-haired girl was paying attention to the other, he decided to start off with her. Still invisible, he generated a sharp, painful ectoblast in his hand, letting it loose at top speed. To anyone, that would seem like a bright green flash from the side. For this 'Terra,' she'd be in too much pain (or shock, take your pick) to really notice the flash.

Toph grinned when she heard the familiar voice and looked up. She bowed slightly and pointed to Terra. "we're each other's pupils," she said grinning. "We're learning the exquisite art of bending the earth for no other purpose than honing our skills!"

Toph was happy to hear Sanzo again. She had wondered how he was doing after all the drinking, and was glad to meet him again. She was about to talk engage Sanzo in more conversation when she stopped abruptly. There was something very off in the air, and before anyone knew it, Toph had pushed them both aside and sent a very large rock hurtling near Terra. Before anyone could so much as react, the rock exploded into pieces as they saw it had been hit by a green flash.

Toph was lousy at deflecting airborne attacks, but that didn't mean she couldn't sense things.

She turned, angry. "Who's out there? Show yourself!"

The rock itself blocked anything coming at Terra, and Terra was immediately on the defensive. She put her goggles back on, assuming that the both of them were going to be attacked immediately.

Unfortunately, she was too distracted to notice any flash coming from anywhere, but that wasn't going to stop her from looking for the jerk.

"Earthbending?" Sanzo said "We don't exactly have that in Shangri-La, but I'll go with it. And its good that you two are training, you never know when something or someone may strike"

Sanzo could tell that someone was happy to see him in all his hung-over glory, but also noticed that something was amiss when Toph stopped before saying something else to him.

Before he had realized what was going on, Toph had actually managed to push him to the ground as some kind of green flash nearly blinded him.

Sanzo quickly got to his feet, he drew his gun, ready to shoot anything that moved or remotely looked like it was going to attack him or the two girls.

"Come out you coward!!!" he shouted just as angry as Toph making sure his gun was ready to fire.

Dan cackled, appearing in mid-air above them.

"My, quite quick to jump offensive, are we?" he grinned. He then spotted Sanzo's gun and frowned, but in a more playful way than serious. "And I'm afraid the gun won't quite work. Last I checked, bullets didn't kill dead people."

For now, he'd just scare. Intimidate. He wanted to see what these people could do for now...he learned that moving in without an idea of the enemy was stupid, no matter how powerful he was. He couldn't let his ego get to him anymore.

He fired a warning shot at Terra, aiming for the very base of her feet. If she knew what was good for her, she'd jump away. If not, she was probably masochistic or very slow.

Toph sensed the projectile coming at Terra, but she decided that she wouldn't blast it away. If she did that, it would be an insult to Terra, and just as bad as saying that she thought Terra couldn't take care of herself. Instead, she decided to start lobbing some attacks of her own.

Toph took her stance with her legs apart and started rapidly bringing her arms back and straight in front of her, allowing huge loose chunks of earth to be lobbed in Dan's direction (she'd made sure to hear where he was) and finished with a 360 spin and made a striking motion with her hand. This let loose a projectile very different, as it was very concentrated rock rather than the previous porous rock she'd been attacking with.

Unfortunately for Dan, Terra wasn't going to be slow this time. She also didn't intend to be pushed around for no good reason. She quickly jumped out of the way, and she sent a rock up from the ground to jump on it. So this is what that meerkat meant, she thought to herself, as she got steady on her rock and prepared to get a clear enough distance away from Dan.

She didn't know what this guy was supposed to be, but frankly, Terra didn't care. If he was physically here, then there should be some way to get at him. Grunting, her eyes glowed a faint yellow and she raised two rocks, and threw her arms forward to lob the rocks in Dan's direction.

"Then you're nothing but a worhtless shikigami" Sanzo replied to Dan "And last time I checked, shikigamis can be destroyed"

Sanzo let fly a set of rounds into some of what would be Dan's vital points, searching for some sort of charm that was giving Dan his powers.

He watched as Dan fired the blast at Terra. Sanzo figured that she was a big girl and could take care of herself, so he didn't bother giving her a heads up.

After Terra had lobbed her rocks at Dan, Sanzo let fly another set of rounds behind them, hoping that one would find where the charm was hidden. For all that Sanzo knew, this guy was a shikigami, and Sanzo was hell bent on destroying him no matter what it took.

Dan went intangible, allowing all the attacks to go through. Really, did they think that throwing pieces of rock at him was going to work? Did they think that simple bullets would destroy him? Humans were so naive. Dan was grateful that he had gotten rid of his humanity ten years ago. He was better off without it.

He took a good look at Sanzo, the only one who had spoken so far beyond the lines of, "Show yourself!"

"A shikigami, hmm?" he said, his lips parting in a disgusting, sinful smile. "I'm afraid you're mistaken!" And with that, he let his attack do the talking for him, letting loose the widest (but not necessarily) the strongest Ghostly Wail he could. He wanted a good range on these people, since they weren't exactly lobbed together in a chunk.

The noise should deafen them, he thought to himself. Not to mention the intense physical damage... Morbidly, memories of Dan Ghostly Wailing whole slews of the American Armed Forces into oblivion.

He stopped the Ghostly Wail and cackled.

Darn it all! Toph was furious. There was no doubt that they weren't dealing with your average villain, and he seemed to mean business. Her attacks had done nothing, and neither had Terra's or Sanzo's. HIS attack, on the other hand, was very devastating, and while Toph couldn't stop it immediately, she felt enough of the earth to feel the echo. It was a reverberation tactic she had seen in bat-like creatures, and there was really no time to debate anyone's thoughts on what happened next.

Toph literally made herself a human shield: the rocks made the shield and she herself allowed her stance to ground her at the spot. This attack wouldn't be ultimately deterred, but at least the others wouldn't get the full blast of the attack.

Momentarily, it worked. The wail blast hit Toph head on, and not the others. What also happened, however, was the impact of the wail that decimated the rock formation and threw Toph several feet in the air before lading rather roughly at the feet of Terra.

She groaned and shuddered, heaving her body to her feet, gasping. He was strong all right, and she only hoped the others would start to try to bring him down. At the moment, she felt pretty spent.

Sanzo wasn't at all happy to those words coming out of Dan's mouth, or the wail that followed. Sanzo managed to cover his ears just in time, as the wail threw him back into a tree.

"Damn!!" Sanzo yelled, his ears ringing. He tried to stand up but his ankle wouldn't have it, so he supported himself on the tree.

"Toph!" he yelled hoping her hearing wasn't as shot as his was, "Do you think you or your friend could keep him busy?"

Sanzo limped away from the support of the tree "I want to try something, and I need a minute of two" Sanzo yelled to her putting his gun away in his robes.

Dan's eyes narrowed at Sanzo. What exactly was he going to try? Frowning, he shot out a series of blasts around (and at) the man to deter and hopefully stick him to a tree or the grass.

At least one girl was down.

Dan elevated himself in the air, now staring at the situation from even higher above. He cackled insanely, the flames atop his head burning at a faster rate than usual.

"Just trying something won't quite deter me!" he yelled out to the man.

Toph had time to get up now, and though Terra looked a little frozen, Toph couldn't blame her. This guy had just thrown her several feet, and he seemed to be mocking Sanzo right now. She probably felt like there was little she could do.

Well, Toph was going to have to convince her to abandon those thoughts.

Terra got Toph to her feet and, though Toph was panting, her mind was a bit clearer. "We better give Sanzo a hand. I never fought against anything that could avoid rocks, but Sanzo sounds like he's at least fought things like it. We better combine our efforts and direct our attacks at this guy. If your powers get out of control, I'll do my best to keep you under wraps, but right now we gotta help Sanzo!"

The two adopted a similar stance and, under Toph's direction, the two set a barrage of projectiles at Dan in every direction, and Toph had them under rock shielding. She wasn't feeling too good, but that was no excuse to stop fighting.

Sanzo isn't very agile, but he is pretty good at dodging when something harmful comes his way, or at least he thought. he managed to get past the blasts that were shot around him, but juat barely missed the ones at him.

A few of Dan's blasts managed to hit Sanzo's legs as he tried to get out of the way.

Sanzo struggled to his feet as the girls launched their rock projectiles at Dan Sanzo tossed his sutra into the air and began to chant.

Please let this work Sanzo thought to himself as he let the words "Makai Tenjyo!!" leave his mouth, and the scroll that was on his shoulders, opened up with a violet glow, and attacked Dan head on.

(Due to Dan-mun resigning the RPG, this thread cannot be continued. We apologize and our characters will be moved to new active threads soon.)

To the trio's surprise, Ghost Dan suddenly became engulfed in a burst of magenta light just as Sanzo's Makai Tenjyo attack hit home. With a burst of wailing, their enemy exploded in green and blue flames, and the effect knocked them back several feet. Terra hit the ground hardest of all, and lay motionless. Toph lost no time in kneeling down in front of her, trying to see if she was ok.

She looked up at Sanzo. "She's all right. I don't know what went down with that ghost guy, but for now we're safe. Think you can give me a hand? I'm going to lug her back over to that soup kitchen place. After this, it looks like we're going to need a long rest."

Toph took one arm and Sanzo took the other, and the two helped Terra to her feet.

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Training Time!

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