The hunter, the wood prince and a rival

The Autumn season had a tight hold on the environment, even in the bustling cityscape auburn leaves blew in the chill wind. Aria Murakis strolled along the boardwalk wearing a dark purple hoodie, wife beater, black yoga pants and a pair of green running shoes. Cars drove by every once in a while, there was little foot traffic in the area, though very once in a while one person would come into the quiet area, maybe two at a time. The way they were clothed when they came in made it hard to see any identity, but what was clear is that many were not human. They all passed by Aria with little more than a nod from under cloaks and hoods, passing to a doorway to a warehouse that was cracked open. They vanished behind a wall of light and commotion of mumbling voices.

Inside the warehouse there was a crude arena made of the large metal containers and wooden crates. Hordes of people sat up high and watched below as two meta's dueled each other in hand to hand combat. The area around was turned into an impromptu sort of hang out with old but well kept furniture and a makeshift bar and lounge. There even seemed to be some manner of security as mechanical drones hovered around inside the warehouse and skirting the boardwalk on patrol. Besides the mix of various beings there was also a few from outside of America's borders speaking foreign tongues.

Seeing as how interesting a time Aria had with Rai taking a "cruise" she thought it a good idea to bring the demon girl here. In secret she wanted to test Rai a little and see what she was made of in a different scenario, one where she was hindered by stepping outside her comfort zone in a fight. Aria had concern that in the modern era that Rai's style of fighting would be harder against things that were made to counter melee weapons. There was also another person she was waiting on, a friend who knew this lesson all to well and could help her show Rai. The wind stirred up the waves as they beat against the wood and metal piers, Aria zoned out as she gazed out into the ocean and thought of what a nice night it was.

Rai’s boots hit the wooden pier with their usual silent delicacy, expression and body in their usual stoney statuesque demeanor. Her shoulders never swayed with breath nor shifted to keep balance, giving her gate an air of ghostly grace. The night fog floating around her only made her wraith-like appearance worse.

“So where are we?” She asks, looking down into the dark waters below, the many fish below lining up in a weird pattern of lights to her which only served to make her look away so as not to get disoriented by the strangeness of suddenly having depth perception. She was trying to find something to distract herself before the light scent of blood hit her nose. Leather armor squeaks as she immediately reaches for the scythes at her belt, but only to see the near by building. Her vision allowed her top see through walls with some clarity, only for her to find the source of the smell.

“What the hell is that.” She mumbles, pulling her cloak off it’s typical one-shoulder style and moving it to a more traditional shrouding look. “Do people just waste a bunch of energy fighting each other here for no reason?” She asks, only to notice Aria had tuned out the world for a moment. This world was both strange and terrifying in it’s own right.

Aria turned back to Rai but still had that relaxed gaze about her face. "For no reason? No, not for no reason." She walks up to Rai and gives her a hug, feeling familiar and friendly enough now with the demon hunter. "Glad you could make it out here, this place is where I come when I need er... I guess a vacation, somewhere to just forget about things. Folks here just call it Oceanside, there's more than just fighting but that's the main reason people come." Aria guided Rai inside the front entrance past the security. "No offense Rai but you're kinda easy to beat when you dont have your weapons on you, you're strong but like you can't even throw a proper punch. Frankly I'm a little worried, Cebra never took this seriously but he still has some hand to hand training." She led Rai ringside after getting two beers to watch the next fight. "There's someone I'd like you to meet, I think he's up next in the ring. Someone who's as passionate about fighting as I am."

Down below in the make shift ring stood a tall gangly troll with long braided red hair, he bore a plain cloth tunic and what could only be described as burlap shorts. His musculature was lean but strong along his long limbs and his face was riddled with sharp teeth and metal surgically planted on over wounds. He played to the crowd as he flexed and showed off his form, there was some response from the crowd as well as he seemed to have some fans. It was then that he emerged from the crowd an descended to the ring, a giant creature easily reaching over eight feet and built like a citadel both broad and strong. He was wolf like in appearance but a biped and with reverse joints in his legs, his fur was an onyx black and his yellow piercing eyes reflected an intense amount of light until they seemed to glow. He was adorned in some manner of tribal clothing, it was made from a variety of animal leathers and had ornate Norse like designs.

Aria turned her head back seeing the creature stomp his way down to the ring, she smiled and waved to it as she took a drink. The creature shifted it's gaze to her as he passed by, one eye on her as he passed showing he had clearly noticed Aria. However he did not stop or say anything, continuing down to the ring as his footsteps shook the metal containers. He reached the ring and squared off with the troll creature, it was less than ceremonious having no bells or announcers present. The two fighters go at each other in a straight up brawl as the crowd cheers them on with every nasty and brutal blow. Aria seems absolutely enthralled as she stares intensely at the fight "That's who I wanted you to meet, after the fight we'll go get him. I think you two might have some things in common considering where you come from and who you are."

Rai couldn’t think of any reason to get in a ring for any amount of fanfare. She did, however,  agree with Aria on the unarmed combat perspective. She wasn’t trained to ever be unarmed. Rai could cut down a goliath with relative ease, however getting trapped in a fist fight was the worst scenario for her. In Dis she could be bailed out by other reavers, however this was not the case here. If she was ever without her scythes she didn’t have much means of handling a threat.

“I wouldn’t mind learning to fight” She starts taking her seat as the fighters  make their way to the ring. She didn’t notice the nod of acknowledgement from the giant man, she only noticed his soul. It was massive and didn’t seem human at all, nor did the shape of either fighter. They weren’t demons, but they weren’t human.

“I will talk, and I am alright with training, but I do not particularly feel like getting beaten around a ring in front of a bunch of spectators.” Rai admits, not necessarily too comfortable with the crowd to begin with, but she was intrigued by the giant wolf man. “Is that a werewolf? I remember one village outside Rome decided they had a werewolf in their midst and burned 12 people over what turned out to be a rabid dog. Do you not do that here?” She asks, only now realizing what exactly the wolf man was shaped like. She takes a beer, copying Aria as usual and taking a sip only to make a cringed face at the taste. Was this what humans always drank instead of water? She couldn't for the life of her figure out why humans drank this stuff, but wanting to learn how to behave appropriately, she drank it anyway.

The fight was quite brutal as these two large creatures squared off, the wolf took on a sort of grappling pose while the troll was more of a boxer. For a while the wolf took a lot of the hits looking like it was almost a clear one way fight, always on the defense with his guard up and always being punched and pushed back. It wasn't until the mid point of the fight when his plan took effect. The troll grew tired and his punches were sloppy and slower, it was then the wolf with his abundance of endurance struck. He grappled the troll and slammed his knee into the trolls gut making him keel over, it was a quick finish as the wolf power bombed the troll onto the ground with enough force you could hear it outside.

Aria as well as many others in the crowd stood up and either cheered or booed depending on who they bet on or their favorite fighter. Aria was particularly excited as she bit her lip staring at the wolf. "WOOOOOOOOO! ERUM!" She clapped before sitting back down next to Rai and sighing in pleased way. "Mmf I fuckin love a good fight." Aria notices Rai's drink is still mostly full and smiles. "Not a fan of beer huh? It's not my favorite either but it does its job usually. Come on, let's go say hello."

Erum sat on a bench placed on the far end of the warehouse and blocked from view with a series of benches, medical equipment, towels and a variety of things for post fight care. He was surrounded by either fans or friends of his as they congratulated his win. An android nurse patched him up bandaging his bruises and such. Aria walked up behind the crowd but still in Erum's view, she waved at him with a giddy smile and wink. The big guy shooed away the rest of the crowd with nothing more than a head gesture, Aria walked up to him and brought Rai with her. "Erum. dude that was such a good fight!" He smirked, amused by Aria's conduct and they way she spoke. "You win some, you lose some sweet heart. Today I was the better, but thank yeh for bein in ma corner." His accent was a thick Dutch and his tone was raspy but booming from that barrel chest. One could guess the relationship Aria had with this creature already but what made it as plainly obvious as day is when his huge paw reached around and gripped Aria's followed by a kiss. Aria gave a little squeal of pleasure as she leaned into it.

Erum glanced over to Rai meeting her gaze curiously "And who is this pale little flower? A friend of yours?"

Rai watched the fight, or at least as much as she could make of it. She was trying to watch the form of the fighters, only really understanding that it looked like a bar fight to her. Reavers were never unarmed, therefore unarmed combat looked very strange to her. To her that was something only humans did and it was over matters she didn’t involve herself in.

Either way, seemed the giant wolf man was losing until all of a sudden he wasn’t. She cringes, seeing the flickering in the troll’s soul as he hit the ground. Understanding absolutely no cultural norms about this sort of thing, thus she lags behind in copying Aria to stand and half-assedly clap in her confusion. Should she yell too? What was an Erum? “My first beer. Doesn’t taste good. What job is it supposed to be?” She asks, following along as closely as she could so as not to lose Aria in the crowd. She never caught any of the context in Aria and Erum’s interactions, instead she was desperately trying to understand his accent.

Rai spoke in a heavy accent as well, she’d been here long enough to understand an american accent with decent accuracy. Dutch was a new experience for her. It took a few seconds for her to understand at least the main points of what he was saying.

“Oh, um. I’m Rai. I am a reaver, but I do like flowers.” She mentions, not really understanding what he’d asked her, or that he referred to HER as the flower. Language was still a bit of a barrier.

Erum looked at her a moment scanning her face for deceit, though upon her face he saw only a naïve young girls misunderstanding. Aria smirked as she rolled her eyes. "So what business brings you two lovely girls to see me, or rather why have you brought this wee lass before me Aria? One of your other play things?" He smiles and chuckles heartily right before Aria jumps up and blocks his muzzle closed awkwardly. "Ehehehe not a play... Don't talk about that in front a her you lug. But uh right! I thought you could help me out. I'd like to train my friend here Rai to fight hand to hand like we do, you're the the best choice as far as I know. So how about I owe you one and you help me out with this huh?"

Erum looked at Aria incredulously and then to Rai, he eyed Rai from top to bottom as though making some kind of examination. From his scoff and cocked eyebrow he didn't look all that impressed or interested. "You serious lass? Aria how many favors do you owe me already? You're debtors must hound you day and night woman." Aria frowned defeatedly "C'mon I'm good for it, you know your girl always comes through." She says with a cute wink. "Alsoooo." She says as she walks up and whispers in his ear with a hand high up on his thigh "I'll be one of your playthings later if you help me." She finishes by kissing his snout. The big wolf seems to relent at Aria's persistence with a heavy sigh as he once again turns to Rai. "So you want to learn to throw hands do yeh?... Well if Aria brought you to me you must be made of something." He looks over to a heavily reinforced punching bag held in place with thick titanium chains, the bag itself being made of composite materials made to endure super strength. "Come with me."

He sits up with a creak of the bench and walks over to the bag. "Give it your hardest punch, let's see what you can do little flower."

Rai’s tail whips around in interest as she slowly begins to piece more of Erum together in her mind. Large and wolfish as she began to get a better picture of what that meant, however the image she had in her head appeared more like a giant bipedal hellhound, and she didn’t currently smell sulfur.

“Throw hands?” She asks? Having entirely missed the explicit content of Aria’s offer. She had no idea what any of that meant. She just assumed Aria had traded something of material nature or something. “If I throw them, does that mean something is going to catch these hands?” She thinks, following the logic before laughing, suddenly realizing the implication. Only then did she realize she’d earned a nickname. Fair enough. She liked flowers, and she did acknowledge she wasn’t very large.

Rai had no idea why she was to hit the bag. But she was asked to so she would. She instinctively lowered her stance and went for her scythes, only realizing she was to be unarmed. It led to her taking on a bit of an awkward stance, one that mirrored what she looked like when she had her scythes, but didn’t lend itself well to unarmed combat. She slams her fist into the bag with enough force to sound like two bricks hitting each other, even if the force was dampened due to improper form. She had power behind the blow, but she could have much more if corrected.

“Like that?”

Erum stood there in utter disbelief, not at her power for that was pretty common place around this arena. But her form was awful to the point he was surprised she didn't fall over. He turned to Aria with deadpan stare of frustration, knowing what he'd gotten himself into. Aria merely smiled and turned her face away in awkward embarrassment and mutters to herself "You kill demons but you can't throw a decent punch? Geez." Erum walks over to the bag "No not like that, not at all like that.  He thinks for a moment as he looks down at her with the occasional tail swish "Alright then come'ere." He grabs her arms with one huge paw and her waist with the other and adjust her stance "When you're throwing a punch you want to lean into it, throw all your weight behind the swing. Not swinging some invisible knife or whatever the fuck you were doin lass."

"Alright so try again this time, except when you swing remember to turn your hips and throw weight behind it yeah?" Aria gives Rai the thumbs up and a big grin trying to encourage her friend on, though the uneasiness in her was pretty obvious. He saw some discipline in her which was enough to keep Erum on board, but he considered her like a pup who just learned to walk and swing an axe.

“Typically I just cut the demons into pieces and that suffices.” Rai had overheard Aria’s grumblings to herself. Her inability to comprehend sarcasm only highlighted by the fact she felt she needed to answer her. She lightly stiffens as the giant hell hound takes her hands, physical contact still being an incredibly new experience. No one in Dis dared touch reavers. Some old wives tales said they brought the plague.

Her skin had a strange texture, like a soft covering over a stone flesh and a distinct lack of body heat or scent. Despite being dead, she didn’t have a corpse smell… more like a tangible ghost, even as her ribs creaked beneath the ribbing of her armor in an inhuman manner.

Erum reminded Rai of the bishops and white cloaks at the new spawn training, except oddly nicer. Sure he cursed at her, but that was actually considerably kind considering the hell training was. She repositions as she was guided, giving a short experimental jab just short of the heavy bag.

She swings again, producing much more force from the advice, laying some weight into it enough to rattle the heavy chains on the bag and knock it back again. Her form is a good bit better, but still not perfect. Her hit landed more straight on than the usual sweeping motion her scythes made habitual.

“Better than the first?”

Erum could see the Little flower was quick to pick up concepts, at least this could mitigate how much of a novice she was. "Better I suppose, but a long way from good." He ends with a sigh thinking of all the time that this might require. Looking back at Aria a thought came to his mind that would lessen his burden "Aria, since you seem so insist   on teaching this wee one to fight. I trust you have no complaints being her sparring partner ya?" Aria hadn't expected that question to come up as she pointed to herself quizzically "Moi? I mean er... If you're comfortable with it Rai I'd love to be your partner. It's your call."

"Well if we've got all of that settled then I need a solid schedule and a place to train you, I'm around here frequently enough every weekend... When I can get away from my duties. I hope you don't live too far away because this is where you'll be coming Little flower."  Aria was almost giddy to the point of exploding at the prospect of training with her new buddy but kept her cool for the most part. "Sooooo you're gonna do it then? Sweet! This is gonna be so worth your time Rai, you'll see." as she slaps Rai's back encouragingly.

Some hours later back at Cebra's house in his garage, Cebra fiddles with various devices and tools while moving around scrap metal he had been collecting. around him in an orbit chunks of semi solid metals half in a liquid state send out occasional electrical charges around Cebra. His eyes have a light green tint to them as information streams before his eyes at an incredible speed. In the corner of the room is some working station unlike any other, the tools and devices on it are equally unique and highly sophisticated. In the driveway he can hear the sound of a vehicle pulling up

Rai perks at the idea of Aria being her sparring partner. Last time she had a sparring partner was training upon spawn, She hadn’t seen that other reaver since then. She did like the spars at training but quarrels between Reavers were frowned upon. She’d never fought anything that wasn’t a demon since. “I will spar with you.” Rai agrees with a nod, not really sure how to elaborate. She just couldn’t believe how giddy and happy Aria seemed to be able to fight her on the regular.

Rai could only hope that this excitement wouldn’t manifest itself into deadly force. Sure she’d survive most damage, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed getting budgeoned into submission.

She gives a light smile, straightening as Aria gives her an assuring smack on the back of her armor. “I’ll be here each week then.”

Rai could smell the scent of metal dust in the air as she lets herself into Cebra’s house. However, there is no trace of Cebra. She hadn’t even thought of checking the garage, she didn’t even really know the garage existed or what it was for. “Um. Cebra?” She asks, unbuckling her pauldron and cloak, settling it onto the kitchen counter.

Aria had dropped Rai off and driven off back home. Cebra was deeply engrossed in his work; wiring, fusing metals, calibrating devices, separating liquids in a centrifuge. The garage was buzzing with energy as Cebra did a good portion of this work without his hands. "Huh shock absorption is off, rebalance the coil... Uh... hm?" After a few moments he recognizes Rai called out to him. "I'm in here!" He shouted as he looked at a computer monitor that was placed in a wall and attached to various other components. The display showed various blueprints for pieces of what looked like advanced combat armour for a female form. It looked fitted for a light frame and unmistakably had some design similarities to Rai's armour.

Cebra did intend to get on helping Rai to acquire her own home in town. But truthfully he did find comfort in having his obsessive work ethic disturbed by someone coming home as it were. He takes a seat in a steel chair and sighs as he looks over his work so far. Twisted and fused micro fibrous wires along with capacitors and other internal workings, nothing that resembled any kind of armour yet. Indeed he wasn't a human but despite his biological differences he shared much in common still, the sweat dripping off his forehead still stung his eyes after a whole day working with metal in a hot enclosed space. He enjoyed the hard manual labour even with his powers assisting him. It made him feel more grounded, not human, just kind of masculine. Cebra had a hard time with his identity, figuring these small things out helped comfort him.

Rai was still getting used to being welcome to walk into a home as if she herself lived there. However it didn’t seem to take her very long to shed her scythes at the door as well. Placing them, blade side down, by the front door. She was about to head into Cebra’s garage, however she immediately noticed one of her potted plants out the back door that’d gotten a bit bigger and she saw what she thought looked like a flower bud. She excitedly hauls the oversized clay pot inside and moves to head to Cebra.

She descends the stairs following Cebras voice, hugging the pot to her, careful not to drop it. “I’m back. Hey, is this a flower bud?” She asks, as she approaches, unable to really differentiate what Cebra was working on from the table. Sadly Rai’s flower bud was just a folded leaf, but the plant was alive and not wilted so it was something in her favor.

Only then does she realize Cebra was actively working on things and it was not just a very lumpy workbench. “What are you making?” She asks, setting her disappointingly bare potted plant on the floor.

“I um… was with Aria all day. We had some fun in a weird big ring today. They asked me to punch a giant sack of sand.” She shrugs, having no idea that this may clue Cebra into what Aria was facilitating here as even she was unsure about it.

Cebra stands up and dusts himself off as Rai opens the garage inside door. It's a well organized area like the rest of Cebra's property, of course a machine would have everything orderly. "Hey, welcome back home." Something that still felt odd to say but not a negative. Cebra lays down his tools as the levitating ones also fall gently back into their various drawers and boxes. He walks over to meet Rai and leans down to get a good look at her potted plant. "Huh, seems to be growing just fine. Not quite a bud yet but well on its way. " He takes his gloves off and tossed them on the nearby counter top "I um..." Cebra scratches the back of his head in a manner showing discomfort with his thoughts. "I noticed the markings on your body, no doubt from that... 'intriguing' armour you wear. Dont you wish you could be more comfortable?"

Cebra wants to show her a screen but remembers her eyes "I want to make you a more functional suit of armour, there's no reason you need to suffer that archaic design, also doesn't help against modern weaponry."

Cebra picks up instantly that Aria is training Rai, his initial worry of having Aria still lingered in the back of his mind. On the other hand perhaps having someone like Rai for a friend would temper her more violent tendencies. Aria had been pestering Cebra to train for over a month now, he had to wonder if this was another ploy. He also knew Aria was a special little weirdo that had a kink for fighting, now he wondered if she was moving in on Rai. "A punching bag, that's what you hit. I guess I never asked if you could fight hand to hand, just assumed you could after you ripped out my kidneys that one time... Hold on, who is 'they'?"