Xandor Tik'Roth

OOC: This is going to be my character's (Loren "Blackblade" Haze) personal training/house thread. Feel free to pop in any time (in character, of course) and chat it up with Loren. Please try to keep in mind though that Loren is by nature very careful... Well, careful for a Saiyan anyway... So... have fun!

IC:

Loren Haze awoke with a start. Not that he usually woke like this, but it was unusual for him to awaken this early. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He reached over to the small side table next to his bed and grabbed his eyepatch. Putting it on, he realized the sweet irony. Taking of an eyepatch to go to sleep. He chuckled and drew back the curtain to reveal the pre-dawn gray sky, stars still twinkling up in the sky. Loren turned away from the beautiful sight to get in the shower.

He got out and dressed quickly in his typical fare; black shirt and pants. Black steel-toed boots and a knee-length completed his attire for the day. He smiled wearily as he made some coffee for himself. Today was finally the day. At long last, he had a reason to begin training in earnest. He was both looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time. As much as he wanted to involve himself in the trouble to the West, he still had a healthy fear for it. He shook his head as he reminded himself that he was a Saiyan. His blood heated as he thought about those epic struggles to the death. Besides, he was half Kai... so he didn't think it would really matter either way.

Sipping at his coffee, he idly pondered his current situation. It had been 9 years since his village had been destroyed by a stray power blast from one of the Z fighters. There was a time that merely the thought of them made his blood boil and the edges of his vision go red. There was a time that he would have given anything and everything to see Goku broken before him, begging forgiveness for his transgressions. Loren would have granted it, of course, but not before pulling out Goku's intestines inch by painful inch. Only then would Loren feel like Goku had experienced the proper amount of pain and let him fade into the peaceful arms of death.

But then Loren had seen a fight between Goku and Vegeta, his true rival, escalate to epic proportions. As he watched the two warriors do battle, to struggle to survive, Loren finally realized that he would never be powerful enough to make Goku kneel before him, so he gave up on that. Never again after that day did Loren feel the need to shred everything around him when he thought of the Z fighters. Neither did he go out of his way to support them, but he hung in the shadows, silently supporting Goku and the rest of them.

He finished off his coffee and rinsed out his cup, setting it on the counter to dry. He grabbed his cane and stepped outside into the early dawn. Locking the door, he quickly probed the area for any power signatures of note. Finding none, he breathed a little easier and started off with the help of his cane, silently making note to buy a scouter in the next few days. His destination was a grassy field about a mile and a half away from his house. Keeping his power level as low as possible, a white aura snapped up around him as he took off, heading to the East. He looked back on the house that he had built with his own two hands. He always felt a sense of pride and accomplishment when he remembered the months that he had toiled, working day and night on that house. But he never gave up. He had to remember that resolve in the coming days.

Finally he arrived at the clearing and settled down gently in the middle. He thrust his cane into the still-moist earth. He gently took off his trench coat, hung it neatly over the head of the cane, and took a few steps away. He surveyed the surroundings for several long minutes. He took it all in. There were grasslands as far as the eye could see. A few flower patches dotted the landscape here and there, giving a strange glow of color amongst the endless sea of green.

Loren Haze looked up at the sky, turning his back to the rising sun, and set his target as an imaginary point about two miles above the earth's surface. Taking a calming breath, he begun. Spreading his feet to just over a shoulders width apart, he raised his forearms to parallel with the ground and began to power up. A white aura snapped to attention around his body, clinging closely to it as he powered up as quickly as possible without it going out of control. He did this to exercise his restraint. A gentle breeze began to caress the plains as ever-widening circles spread from his feet. A few seconds later, he had reached his maximum.

Well, his usual maximum. With a scream, his white aura changed to a red one and his muscles bulged. He shouted, "Kaioken times two!" The aura completed its transition as his muscles corded and knotted with the power running through them. He also had an almost undeniable need to move. But he held steady as he allowed the power to wash over and through him. A half smirk crossed his lips as he concentrated heavily for a moment, trying to remember each and every movement. After he had gone over them enough times in his head, he knew he was ready. It was now or never.

His right hand shot straight up as he yelled, "KA!" Moving downwards in a clockwise motion with his right hand, his left began to move as it's counter. "ME!" he yelled, halfway through the motion. Finally his hands reached the opposite of what they started at. His left was straight up in the air, his right pointed at the earth beneath him. Strange, though, that he didn't feel anything. Well, that wasn't really true... he could feel something, kind of like a word just on the tip of his tongue, energy all around him, but not settling where it needed to go. He would soon remedy that problem. His hands snapped down, straight in front of his body as he shouted "HA!" Ah! There it was, just the beginning of the power being tapped. Nothing had formed yet, but Loren knew that he was doing things right. As he pulled more and more energy towards himself, the muscles in his arms rippled and corded with strain. With some amount of effort, he pulled his cupped hands to his right hip, screaming, "ME!" A small ball of energy appeared in between his hands, no bigger than the size of a nickel. But it grew quickly as Loren gathered all the energy that he had been feeling earlier into that ball. It grew to completely engulf his hands, but strangely didn't hurt at all. Unable to hold the power there any longer, he finally released it with a mighty scream, "HAA!!"

The power surged from his now outstretched hands. The force of the power leaving after having been pent up for that long nearly tore Loren's arms from their sockets, and drove him backwards several yards. He maintained his balance, however, needing to concentrate on the blast. He had almost made it too powerful. He knew that the Kaioken was unnecessary, but he had to see if it was possible. With great difficulty, he altered the course of the powerful blast, diverting it to the right of his imaginary target. Suddenly, he diverted it once more, cutting it back sharply to the left, rocketing towards its original destination. Only after it "hit" the target did Loren allow his thoughts to turn to a new idea, bringing the blast back directly towards him. He brought his hands up to his chest, his fingers spread and tried out another tactic he had heard of. Except nothing happened.

Loren's heart skipped a beat and his blood froze in his veins. His eye widened as the Kamehameha was getting ever closer, and now seemed to be picking up speed. In that instant, he would have laughed at the irony of being killed by your own blast, but he instead devoted that time to regaining his concentration. He closed his eye and the portal popped open. He widened it to something that he felt was big enough to absorb that blast. A few seconds later, the roar that he heard of his impending doom had vanished, as had the portal.

Loren walked over to his cane on shaky legs, sitting down when he realized that continuing to stand was pointless. He idly realized that at some point, he had pulled himself out of Kaioken. Probably for the better, since he didn't want to burn himself out staying in that silly transformation. He had been feeling something... a kind of stirring, a longing of something that has long been lost and missed, but he never could put his finger on it. Regaining some of his strength, he stood, again probing the area for power signatures. Finding none, and breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn't been noticed, he pulled his sword and began practicing his forms.

As he started doing his forms faster and faster, he mentally ticked off all the things that had just happened, analyzing them, remembering them, realizing what he did wrong, what he could do better, and what he did correctly. It had been a long time since he had trained, but he already felt stronger, like he could take on the world. But he still had a long way to go to get to Goku's level.

After making his final series of blinding slashes with his sword, he sheathed it in one smooth motion. Putting his trench coat back on and grabbing his cane, the took off towards his home. He had enough time to figure out a few more strategies that would likely surprise an unlucky opponent. He would have to take care of a hit tomorrow, but the target was a blundering fool of a man anyway, so he couldn't imagine that it would be too difficult for him. Besides, the pay was pretty good.

Probing for a final time after he landed, he unlocked the door and headed into his house. Making some tea, he sat down in front of the TV, intending to spend a few hours watching the news, keeping in touch with the world around him.

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Manga Currently Reading: Bleach

Manga Needed to be Read: Naruto, Dragonball, D-Grey Man, Berserk, Blue Dragon - Ral Grado, One Piece