The small village of Nino was always at odds with its resident inventor, a very chaotic man known only as 'Jeff' who lived down a dusty trail behind the village chief's hut. He was always creating strange things that caused more trouble than they were worth, hurting his fellow villagers and blowing up in his face from time to time. Jeff was looked upon as more of a nuisance than anything else. Despite everyone's negative opinion of the man though, there was always one guy who encouraged him to keep chasing his dream. Jeff didn't mind much. After all, you only needed one good friend in the world, one that stayed by your side even when the going got tough, right? Dacer was always that type of friend.

That day, he would prove it to Jeff, and it would change his life forever...

---

In his lonely little shack, Jeff was poking away at his newest invention. He called it the 'Grapple Gauntlet', a device he deemed useful for travel, combat, and snatching up a good snack. Today was the day of its completion, and he invited Dacer to see it in action.

"That looks like shit," Dacer quipped, pointing at Jeff's equipped gauntlet while leaning against the wall, "Like, really shit. Like the epitome of shit. You sure this is safe?" Dacer slowly moved away after saying that, closer to the door. The Gauntlet was indeed safe, capable of grabbing a bag of food from across the room. But it probably couldn't support Jeff's weight yet. Hell, it was made of wood and twine! "100% sure?"

"Well geeze", Jeff said giving one of his usual sarcastic responses back to his friend, "Glad to see that usual faith of yours."
Jeff really wasn't too bothered by Dacer's comment truthfully cause he really did have faith that today this was the day he's manage to get this gauntlet of his operational. Sure it was just a prototype, but if this one worked how he expected, it too he'd be ready to take things to the next stage and see about perhaps making more stable version of the device.

Jeff then proceeded towards the door and held it opened for Dacer. "Anyways, feel free to follow me outside so I can prove you and everyone else in this town how wrong you are. I'm finally going to nab that apple from the top of that tree dangit!! No Climbing Necessary!"

Dacer glared at Jeff and grinned. "At least your spirit's operational," Dacer said, following Jeff outside. "I don't get what's so special about that fucking apple though. Grace hands out apples for free..."

It only took a few minutes to reach the center of the small circular village square. In the middle was the grand apple tree that had been growing long before the village was set up here. They called it 'Nino Our Mother' since it had helped the town grow for decades. There were several people staring at Jeff in disdain. Dacer leaned into his taller friend and whispered into his ear, "Do your thing, buckaroo."

"Well it's not just abut the apple, its about having something that can grab stuff that normally can't be reached. And NOBODY has been able to reach that one for weeks. At least until NOW!" Jeff said as he took aim at the apple and hit the trigger on the gauntlet which then fired the gauntlet. It was now, everyone was watching. And to even his surprise it actually worked! The gauntlet shot out flying through the air and latched on to the apple with it still dangling from the tree.

"woah..." Jeff murmored quietly to himself for a moment before realization hit him and he began talking normally again. "errr.. yes.. Ahah!! I knew it would work! Now to tug back and get the apple and from the tree successfully!" Getting a little too cocky for his own good, Jeff tugs back on the grappling hook of his and removing the apple from the tree............ unfortunately... in his excitement, he forgot to properly retract the cord and thus causing him to release the apple and accidentally fling it towards one of the groups of unsuspecting villagers. "..whoops..."

The nearby villagers scattered as the apple bounded across the ground and landed at the village chief's feet. The old woman, Sila, looked rather disappointed in Jeff, like she always was. "What is the meaning of this??" She shouted, stepping past the fallen apple despite its bright, juicy appearance. A child ran over and picked up the apple quietly, and disappeared into the nearby alleyway. "Jeff! What is that contraption!?" She shouted, pointing to the bundle of twine at his feet.

"Hey, at least it worked," Dacer stepped in for a split second.

"It is disgraceful to our lady tree!"

"Nobody got hurt, Sila. Chill your shit," Dacer insisted.

"Oh..." He responded back feeling like an idiot for forgetting how the Elder would react to having this village tree messed with. "I was just trying to get the out of reach apple, just imagine how easy harvesting from trees could be with this device." Jeff said trying to do his best to reassure her his device was a good thing. "We would never have to worry about out of reach fruit again. Plus once I get better supplies to make this with, It could even potentially be used to climb tall objects or pull larger objects!"

"That's enough out of you!" Sila shouted with her hoarse voice, pointing at Jeff angrily, "We've been eating the apples that fall naturally for 50 years! I won't have you trying to change that with some new fangled contraption!!!" Dacer sighed and shrugged, knowing full well that there was no reasoning with this old hag. However, there was a sudden earthquake that shook the ground. Sila fell over, and Dacer had a hard time keeping his stance sturdy. Then a wooden cracking sound roared loudly.

"TIIIIIMMMMBEERRRRR!!!" A large man roared as the trunk of the tree was split in half. The massive tree began to fall forward, towards where Sila, Dacer and Jeff were standing. Nearby civilians rushed away from the crash site as fast as they could. What the hell was that!?!

On the other side of the tree stood a man taller than 8 feet, and bulkier than anyone Jeff had ever seen. He wore an opened yellow vest that revealed his chest and abs, and a pair of yellow pants with a series of erratic black stripes along them. His hair was long, bright blonde, and his face was covered with a mask, revealing only his glowing eyes.

"WOOO!" He shouted excitedly, flexing his arms. The civilians nearby backed away from the titanic man as he continued to show of his strength. "Xi'Ti'Ya always said STRONG trees means STRONG fighters!"

The earthquake took Jeff by surprise and from the look of things, it did so for everyone else. Lucky enough for him though, he managed to stay standing long enough to notice the tree coming down. Doing his best to handle the situation, he turned to Sila who was unable to remain balanced from the quake and proceeds to grab her and pull her and himself away from the tree's timbering path.

"Sila are you okay?!" Jeff as he then looked up to note the buff blonde man who had from his guess caused this quake. The idea brought Jeff into an panic. How could one man knock that tree down? Let alone cause an earthquake that shook the whole town and why the hell would he even do this?!

Going against all sense of reason in his head, Jeff yelled at the man with the questions. "Hey, why did you do that? You realize how many people in this village used that tree for food?!"

Dacer dashed out of the tree's path as well, and stopped by Jeff's side. He looked at the man curiously, thoroughly surprised by his appearance. "Jeff," He started, walking to his friend's side. But before Dacer could say anything, the intruder began walking towards them both with a yellow, glowing smile.

"Ohoho! You got a problem, bub?" He said loudly. His voice was overbearing, but not deafening. It was like he exerted a presence over Jeff, something that couldn't be seen with the naked eye. "Like I give a crap about this one-horse town!.. Village.. Whatever- What are you gonna do about it? Huh!?" He urged Jeff to do something, spreading his arms and taunting him. He then spotted his grappling gauntlet and snorted. "Hit me with your little rope glove?"

Dacer held Jeff's shoulder, and was about to say something, but he was also somewhat frozen in place.

This was bad... VERY BAD! He knew that that gauntlet of his was not battle ready and to use it on such a foe was suicide, but part of him felt like things would be bad if refused his request either.
"Um.. well... isn't really designed for well.. fighting.." Jeff responded back to the man. It was clear at this point that Jeff's fear was starting to get the best of him. At least till the thought of the elder of Dacer crossed his mind. What if this guy turned his focus onto those two instead of him. Perhaps at least a screwup like him could at least buy them enough time to get away from this place.

"But you know what fine. If that's what you really want." Jeff said as he motioned for the elder and Dacer to get out of here. "Though I hope you don't mind leaving these people alone then. I don't care what happens to me."

Dacer's eyes widened at Jeff's surprising courage. Sila was still silent from the fall, supposedly knocked out. The intruder didn't seem to care either way, but he gave a hearty 'HAH' when Jeff spoke those words. 'You've got guts kid! Tell ya what, I'll give you one free shot! Right here, in the face. You can do whatever you want!" The massive man insisted. Dacer was frozen in place still, his hands shakily reaching past Jeff, too slowly to do anything..

'Well shoot seems like both Sila and Dacer are unable to react here.', Jeff thought to himself.
'what to do.. what to do?! doubt this thing will have any real effect if I take a direct shot, using it to strangle him is probably out too... ah man, AH MAN!' Many ideas on how he could handle this popped in his head but only one really stood out to have any real chance whatsoever, 'I know this under normal circumstances would not do much but perhaps if I use something else to maybe add a little force to the blow... still is better then nothing I suppose.'

Jeff then took a few steps back away from Dacer and Sila and firmly gripped his grapple gauntlet in his hand, only hesitating for just a single moment before aiming the gauntlet out at a small pointy rock he noticed lying on the ground.
"You want my best shot then? Well have at it!!"
Jeff then shot the hook at the rock and grabbed hold of it and in a similar way to how he did it with the apple earlier, Jeff swung the rock into the air and by using the momentum swung it down aiming for the top of the big guy's head.

The tall man stood still and allowed the rock to smash against his skull. He reeled back and clutched his face, "OW, YOU GOT ME!" He shouted, stepping back. It looked like he was injured for a split second... But... "Just kiddin, twerp."

With that, he dashed towards Jeff, grabbed his grappling gauntlet, and tore it in half, before aiming to punch his lights out with one of his massive fists.

"Sorry guys... looks like I've failed again..." Jeff said as he stood there. He knew there wasn't any point in trying to dodge this attack, it was way too fast so he did his best to brace for it with putting both arms in front of him.
'though I guess it would take more then a puny rock to hurt this guy... stupid...'

Jeff waited for his inevitable demise, but a loud crack of flesh against wood was all he heard. Dacer stood between him and Rajaka, holding a giant green bow up, which he had used to block the intruder's fist. The masked man's eyes widened. Dacer pulled back on an imaginary drawstring, and a column of white light appeared between him and the massive man, like an arrow of light conjured from thin air. "Pick on someone your own size, Blondie," Dacer growled, releasing the arrow right into his target's chest. It struck and pushed him back several yards, causing his giant booted feet to drag across the ground. There was a small marking on the man's bare chest now, but he didn't seem too phased. More surprised than anything. "Jeff, get the fuck out of here, and bring as many people as you can with you," Dacer asked sternly. It was rare to see him to serious, but the situation called for it. "Don't you fucking dare go back to your hut and pick up all your schematics, just go."

Jeff stood there frozen for a moment before opening his eyes to realize what had taken place. His eyes almost practically widened to the point of falling out or well at least it felt that way to Jeff.
"Dacer, since when could you do this?" Jeff asked him awed by this sudden magic like power. For all the time he knew his friend, he never once seen him do anything remotely like this. Giving himself a moment Dacer's response finally echoed into his mind. "But.. are you sure? This power of yours looks strong yes but.. but..." Jeff said frozen again in thought over everything that happened. Before he could say anything else his body started acting on there own and before he knew it he had picked up the elder and started rushing off to get the other villagers' attentions.
"DANNNGGIITTT!! YOU BETTER NOT DIE ON ME DACER, OR I WON'T FORGIVE YOU!!"

Dacer grinned and hopped back. "I AINT GUNNA LOSE TO THIS IDIOT!" At the sound of the word 'idiot' the intruder immediately dashed towards Dacer and reeled his fist back again.

"Who're you calling an idiot short stuff!?" He shouted as loud as he could. His voice shook the air itself, but this time Dacer wasn't too keen on blocking his punch. There was some serious force behind it now, clearly. The archer dashed to the side with tremendous speed, but was followed with a second punch, but he jumped up onto the side of the massive tree to dodge it, pushed himself up into the air with his feet, and shot another stream of light at Rajaka's back as he flew overhead, landing several feet away before running further and charging another shot..

The further Jeff got, the more villagers followed him, but he didn't get very far before Sila started coughing. "Put me down.." She rasped.

"But Elder, We need to get away from that maniac." Jeff said examining her condition as he continued onward. "And you're hurt, but don't worry I don't mind carrying you."
Honestly at this point it really was gonna take a lot more then a simple command to let her down to stop him. He might be a failure on many regards, but heck if he wasn't going to at least honor Dacer's request to get the villagers to safety.

Sila shut up for once and let Jeff carry her further away from the village, towards the grasslands to the west. If they went far enough, they'd eventually reach the farmlands, and find shelter in Winston's barn...

But as they got closer, it became painfully obvious that this giant man has gotten to it first. The barn was razed to the ground, and there was nothing but debris and torn up plant-life strewn about.

Seconds later, Dacer seemed to have caught up with them, running faster than any man had the right to run, like a speeding bullet. He stopped next to Jeff, heaving his breath, and placing an arm on his shoulder. "Remember those fiction stories I used to tell you all the time? About the ancient Gaian race? And their hidden village?" Dacer asked, reminding Jeff of the fantastic stories of men and women who could summon weapons on command, and wielded amazing powers that no normal human could. "Remember?"

They were green-eyed warriors, all with a beautiful composure, handsome or well rounded. The protected the earth from many dangerous threats to its life, and had apparently disappeared without a trace several years ago.

Upon seeing the barn in that state Jeff slowed down a bit, I mean just how much damage has this nutcase of a villain done and why? Though I guess the time for questions would come later as they would need to keep looking for a safe place to escape to. Perhaps something near the barn could at least be a of use.
Before Jeff could start heading off, Dacer appeared running at god knows what speed to catch up.
"Oh thank gods that you're safe! Though I still don't get how or what you were doing..." Jeff said before Dacer's question of storys were mentioned.
"Wait stories...? Yeah I remember a little bit about them, though what does that have to do with you sudden super powers and Mr. Tall, Blonde and Stupidly Strong?"