[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/190412/e4dbf397d85ea4a514a02d2553a44c17.png[/img]
[b][color=burlywood]Level 3 - (1/30) + 3 = (4/30)
Difficulty Level 1[/color][/b]

And
[color=lightblue][h3]Donnie[/h3][/color]
[color=lightblue][b] Level 3[/b][/color] - (17/30) + 3 = (20/30)
[color=lightblue][b]Location:[/b][/color] Peach's Castle Kitchen
[color=lightblue][b]Word Count:[/b][/color] 1,959

(Note: This post is a flashback, and a collab between myself and [@Genon])[/center]

The toad tilted his head to the side at Gene's question, indicating curiosity. [b]"Stronger?"[/b]

Gene's face fell. Oh great, they [i]definitely[/i] didn't have anything stronger. Still, maybe...? [color=burlywood][b]"Y'know, alcohol! It gets you drunk! Don't you have any?"[/b][/color]

The toad still looked confused. [b]"Alcohol? Drunk? I don't know what that is."[/b]

... Perfect. They definitely didn't have any alcohol. Gene reared his head back and let out a groan. [color=burlywood][b]"... Great. Just great. Well Donnie, guess we're not getting beers."[/b][/color]

Donnie paused from inhaling a plate of chicken parmesan and seemed to visibly deflate. “Ugh. That’s a shame. So, you first or me?”

[color=burlywood][b]"Hm. I'll go first I guess... Jeez, what should I even talk about though?"[/b][/color] Gene cupped his chin in his hand, contemplating, before snapping his fingers. [color=burlywood][b]"Let's start at the beginning. You wanna know how I got this,"[/b][/color] Gene clapped a hand on the God Hand, [color=burlywood][b]"In the first place?"[/b][/color]

“Oh, sure,” Donnie said, his interest audibly piqued.

Gene grinned. [color=burlywood][b]"Well, to put it simply, I saw some thugs harassing a girl. Now, me being the stand up guy I am, I went in to save her...and got my ass kicked. Those guys were looking for this thing called the God Hand, and were cutting people's arms off to find it, so they decided to see if I had it."[/b][/color] He paused for dramatic effect. [color=burlywood][b]"So, long story short, I got my arm cut off."[/b][/color]

Donnie looked at him like he had three heads. “Wait, so the God Hand is your [i]actual[/i] replacement arm? That thing doesn’t have any caveats, does it? In my experience, objects of that level of power tend to have a catch of some kind.”

Chuckling, Gene took a drink from his juice, then continued. [color=burlywood][b]"Yeah, it's my actual arm. Turned out the girl I saved was carrying it and planted it right on my stump, no clue how [i]that[/i] works though. As for drawbacks...well, I kinda have to keep this on,"[/b][/color] he pointed towards the Deistic Brace, [color=burlywood][b]"or else the God Hand's powers will weaken. Y'know, let it build up before letting it burst. Other than that? Nothing of note."[/b][/color]

“Really now?” Donnie said as he chewed on a piece of chocolate cake, “You lucked out. Anyway, what happened next?”

That question got a simultaneous sigh and chuckle from Gene. [color=burlywood][b]"Well, it turned out the girl, Olivia, was [i]crazy [/i]. She said that if I didn't follow her around and do as she said, she'd cut my freaking arm off with an axe!"[/b][/color] Gene let out a groan, taking a long, [i]long[/i] drink. God, he wished that the Toads had alcohol. [color=burlywood][b]"So from that point onward, I was basically her slave. She had me hunting down whatever bad guys were in the area, and, well... Let's just say that's where most of my stories come from."[/b][/color]

“Oh Gods, that sounds horrendous. Still though, if you want to, you mind recapping a few of those stories?” Donnie was now up to his second apple turnover.

Gene nodded. [color=burlywood][b]"Oh, yeah, that was the point of this whole conversation right? Well, to give the highlights reel..."[/b][/color] Gene began to list them all off on his fingers as he went along. [color=burlywood][b]"I fought two gay twins in freaky outfits, a fat demon named Elvis, a giant crane, those assholes that cut my arm off, that fat demon Elvis [i]again[/i], a gorilla wrestler, a team of midget superheroes, a succubus named Shannon, those assholes who cut my arm off [i]again[/i], the other God Hand user Azel, a robot named Dr. Ion, a wannabe rockstar and his friends, fat Elvis [i]again[/i], a psychic midget, the midgets again, Shannon again, a samurai, an old guy who turned into a fly, some fat ninjas, a guy with an afro, then Azel again, and finally, the king of demons Angra... Phew, I fought a [i]lot[/i] of people."[/b][/color]

Donnie looked like he was halfway between laughing at some of the stuff Gene said and being generally impressed. He didn’t know what a “superhero” was, but he just chalked that up to universal differences. “God, some of those fights sound like they must have been epic. On my end…I guess I’ll start at the beginning as well.”

“The first thing you need to know about my world,” Donnie said, “is that it’s wracked by war. There are two huge factions called the Alliance and the Horde. The reason they’re fighting doesn’t really matter for our purposes, but for some asinine reason, it has shades of a race war. Humans tend to be on the Alliance side, and I was raised in one of the last human bastions, a coastal port kingdom called Stormwind. My dad was a maritime trader, and he took me along on merchant trips. So then a massive storm hits, destroys the ship, and I end up clinging on to a piece of driftwood. I held on for what must’ve been days, and when it was over I found myself on some kind of island. The island was actually the shell of a giant, sapient sea turtle that had people living on its back. I faint immediately, got taken in by the natives. Oh, and the natives were talking pandas that walk upright. They’re called pandaren. Seriously.”

Gene blinked once, twice. Giant sea turtles? Panda people? What kinda world did this guy come from? Still, he figured he had to say something instead of just awkwardly staring at Donnie. [color=burlywood][b]"... Uh... Go on."[/b][/color]

“Yeah, I should’ve figured I’d get that reaction. Azeroth’s a pretty weird place. Anyway, I ended up training on the Wandering Isle as one of their warrior-monks. It’s how I learned all my badass fighting moves. Cut to ten years later, when an Alliance and Horde ship crash into the Wandering Isle--that’s what it’s called by the way--and I took the opportunity to head back to Stormwind after a farewell. I checked up on my family, and well…”
He grimaces. “Remember how I said that Stormwind is one of the last human bastions? Azeroth--my world--has been targeted by the Burning Legion--basically a gigantic army of demons--for ages now, and one of their schemes was to create a puppet ruler in the form of an undead necromancer called the Lich King. And one of the Lich King’s greatest weapons? The Plague of Undeath, basically a magical disease that revives anyone who gets killed by it as a mindless undead under his command.”

He looked Gene in the eye. “The Plague of Undeath was primarily meant to destabilize the human kingdom of Lordaeron, one of the greatest military superpowers and the heart of the Alliance. So it’s designed to kill humans above all other species. Even elves and orcs don’t get revived. That’s why Stormwind is one of the last human kingdoms. And apparently, the bastard had unleashed it on [i]Stormwind[/i] while I was off training on the Wandering Isle. My family was among those dead.”

He took a swig of grape juice. “So, with nothing tying me down at this point, I became a freelance adventurer, traveling the world, killing bad guys, and getting paid. I got good. Really, really, good. I killed thousands and thousands of monsters. I’ve saved the world, more than once, but I’m pretty proud of the time I killed Kil’Jaeden the Deceiver, a Burning Legion general and right-hand man of the demonic Titan Sargeras. I fought him onboard his spaceship with a group of 24 other people. Yes, he has a spaceship, don’t ask. Took a long time. We needed a full team of magical healers, several mages and warlocks, and we needed a few paladins and protection specialists to take the brunt of his damage. With all of us working together, though, he went down eventually. A few of us needed resurrection after the fact though.”

Gene was still trying to process the giant sea turtle when Donnie continued on. His story was an epic one, [i]far[/i] more exciting than whatever antics he had wound up in, and far more serious to boot. Gene took down a Demon King, Donnie had saved the world several times over. And considering he was told not to ask about the spaceship, the only thing that wasn't rightly explained, he instead decided to just go with simple shock and awe in his response. [color=burlywood][b]"... Wow. That's... About all I can say. Wow... There is one thing I'm wondering about, though."[/b][/color] He gestured to Donnie's handblades. [color=burlywood][b]"How'd you get those?"[/b][/color]

“Oh, The Fists of the Heavens? That’s a trip. When Sargeras set his sights on Azeroth again recently, the different orders founded to fight him decided they needed to get some unique magical weapons to take him down. Among those was the Order of the Broken Temple, the monk order that I’m currently the Grand Master of. I set my sights on a few artifact weapons, legendary items that could prove useful. One of those were these.” He put the Fists on the table.

“The Fists were forged by a smith named Irmaat. He was trying to create the most powerful weapon imaginable. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to have as much common sense as he had skill in forging, because he decided to charge the handblades with power from the Elemental Plane of Air. He performed a ritual that targeted Al’Akir, the plane’s ruler and the strongest air elemental, and basically stole vast quantities of his power. Al’Akir knew what was happening though, and decided to sabotage it. He started donating even more power, filling the Fists with more magic than they could handle. Irmaat didn’t realize this, thought he had succeeded, and picked them up. The next instant, he accidentally creates a gigantic magic hurricane that levels his entire city and buries it in the desert sand,  because he couldn’t control them [i]at all.[/i] He died in the storm, of course, and they lay dormant for centuries until Al’Akir died during a recent event called the Cataclysm. I’m not going into that right now, but it caused a power struggle in the Plane, and another air elemental called Typhinus found them and used it against his enemies. He wins the war, but controlling chaotic energies for so long drove him nuts and he became a tyrannical despot.”

Donnie grinned. “So I killed him and took the handblades. Turns out that you need inner spiritual discipline to control it, and monks have that in spades. So that means that basically, only I can use them.”

He looked at the pathetically small vortexes in the center of the handblades. “Unfortunately, they’re not actually as impressive as that story makes them out to be right now. Galeem drained their power. A lot. They’re actually pretty weak right now, but I have a feeling they’ll regain their true strength eventually.” He took them off the table and sheathed them, then went back to devouring his four scoops of ice cream.

Gene eyed the handblades, almost wanting to make a grab for them to try them out. Still, he left them on the table, especially after hearing of their awesome power. How was it that Donnie didn't get killed like... Oh, wait, that was the next thing Donnie explained. Good to know.

When Donnie finished, saying that Galeem had drained their power, Gene felt a little disheartened. Who's to say that the other artifacts they may find wouldn't be drained as well? [color=burlywood][b]"Well, for what it's worth, they look like they'd be able to kick enough ass! ... I still wanna try them out, too."[/b][/color] As soon as the words left his mouth though, Gene let out a yawn. [color=burlywood][b]"... Maybe some other time, though. I'm tired. What say we head to bed?"[/b][/color]

“Yeah.” Donnie belched right after.. “I’m stuffed anyway.”