[center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1089216474998128771/1122141437832732752/DC3.png[/img] [color=violet]"Remember to love with your heart, and use your head for everything else!”[/color] [color=888888]— Daniel Castro[/color][/center] [url=https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1089216474998128771/1122151474101764126/EzUAhykVIAUnMRV.png?width=511&height=427]Two adorable twins[/url] were camping in the woods. Their tent was pitched, the rain deflector was up, and they had a table set up with all of their other camping gear on it. Compass, whistles, lanterns, canteens, even a water purifier and a generator was part of their load out. To the uninitiated, it might seem like they had prepared for everything. Though a seasoned camper would find fault with the teenager’s outfits. Their black and white colors were horrible for visibility in the wilderness, and did little to let them spot ticks that might be crawling over their clothes. They were stylish though, and cool. Something that a younger viewer might emulate or respect. They had just finished stacking wood under a small camping pot. It was suspended over the wood from a short cable, which was held by a metal tripod. The boy adjusted one of the sticks under the pot before standing up. [b]”I guess we light it now.”[/b] [b]”Should we?”[/b] The girl used her oversized sleeve to wipe her head, which was dry. [b]”Dad’s not back from work yet, and mom went to see Auntie May”[/b] [b]”But we’ve got to surprise them!”[/b] With a shrug, the girl walked over to the table and grabbed a big red Jerry can with the words “GAS” written on the side. It was so big in fact, that the girl had difficulty holding onto it. She took three steps before tripping up. [b]”Oh no!”[/b] The Jerry can flew through the air in a perfect arc and struck the boy in the back. In an incredible display of bad luck, he was trying to light a micro torch and dropped it as soon as he got it lit. The torch flew from his hands and landed in the dry leaves. [b]”Come on!”[/b] The leaves didn’t catch fire, they [i]instantly ignited[/i]. The area around the teenagers were set aflame, trapping the kids in a ring of fire. [b]”What do we do?”[/b] The girl asked, but the boy remained silent. They were way out of their element, and the flames were only getting closer. And the Jerry can was right at their feet... But when all hope seemed lost, a soccer ball made out of pure ki flew through the flames. Then another, and another. Each time a ball flew past them, more of the flames disappeared. When there was only a single flame left, their savior stomped it out. The savior in question was Daniel Castro. Better known by his fans as… [b]”Captain Superstar!”[/b] The teenagers said at the same time. They immediately ran to either side of him. [color=violet]"Hey guys! I thought I smelled something cooking, but I wasn’t expecting this!”[/color] He looked between the two teenagers. The teenager’s joy immediately turned sour. The boy pointed at his sister. [b]”She shoved the torch out of my hands!”[/b] The girl placed her hands on her hips . [b]”Only because [i]you[/i] didn’t help me move it! I knew we should have waited!”[/b] Dan, still smiling, raised both of his hands. [color=violet]"Hey! Fire safety is everyone’s responsibility! You’re a team, and everyone wins if everyone’s safe!”[/color] [b]”You’re right.”[/b] The boy looked at his sister and lowered his head. [b]”I’m sorry, we should have waited.”[/b] [b]”I’m sorry too. I should have asked for help.”[/b] With a sigh, she looked back at Dan [b]”Can you coach us on fire safety?”[/b] [color=violet]"Of course! First, it should go without saying that you should always have adult supervision when starting fires. Beyond that, the best way to stop a fire is to prevent it.”[/color] He grabbed a rake that just happened to be within arms reach and started to go around the campfire. [color=violet]"There’s lots of flammable stuff in the wilderness! Fallen branches, dead leaves, and trash can all catch fire. It’s a good idea to make sure that there’s nothing flammable around your camp fire.”[/color] He passed off the rake to the boy, and then he reached for a broad metal ring that had a “Fire Poof” logo stamped on the side. [color=violet]"It also helps to have a fire ring around anything you want to burn. Just be careful, as most of them will be hot after a fire has burnt out!”[/color] The sister’s sleeve lit up when she reached for the torch. [b]”Oh no! I’m on fire!”[/b] [color=violet]"You need to stop, drop, and roll to smother the flames!”[/color] While the girl rolled on the ground, Daniel removed his cape and dunked it in a “Fire Poof” marked bucket before throwing it over her. [color=violet]"Then you or a friend should throw a wet blanket or coat over you to finish extinguishing the flames! You should always have a bucket of water on hand to put out fires, but Fire Poof does make some fire blankets when water isn’t available.”[/color] After smoothing his cape over the girl, he reached behind his back and handed the boy a fire extinguisher. [color=violet]"Fire extinguishers are also good to have on hand, but you should only spray burning people with them as a last resort. They are best for putting out every other type of fire. Just get one with the proper letter rating!”[/color] While the boy blasted the camp fire with the extinguisher, Daniel looked down at the girl. [color=violet]"Are you alright?”[/color] Her eyes were half closed, and a grin spread across her face. [b]”I’m still a little hot.”[/b] [color=violet]"That’s… Normal.”[/color] He stood up, suddenly holding a Fire Poof brand smoke detector in one hand and a smaller extinguisher in the other. [color=violet]"Fires can happen at home, too! Make sure your parents have a smoke detector in every bedroom. Hallways and in front of sleeping quarters are all great places to put smoke detectors. It’s also a good idea to have an extinguisher on every floor, and an extra one in the kitchen. Fire Poof makes an all white extinguisher with a sleek design that looks great on any counter top!”[/color] The boy leaned on the rake and smiled at Daniel. [b]”Thanks Captain Superstar! I feel a lot safer now!”[/b] His sister was hugging Dan’s cape without saying anything. [color=violet]"Well guys, I’m off to check on the rest of the park. Just remember, when the team wins, everyone wins! And nothing makes a fire poof out faster than Fire Poof!”[/color] … … … Daniel, much like anyone from SHINING, wasn’t going to show up at a fighting tournament without getting a microphone shoved in his face. And if no microphone was involved, an interview would be recorded while a doll faced [url=https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1089216474998128771/1122196323765080166/tumblr_o9b3ywR8iZ1qjf3vjo1_1280.jpg]reporter[/url] got the scoop. Complete with cameras flashing and a whirlwind of notes flying off the reporter’s notepad. Dan was dealing with the latter today. [b]”Alright-my-boy-all-right!”[/b] The reporter paced her words like an auctioneer. [b]”Now-let’s-see-here-Captain-Superstar-let’s-see. You’ve-got-one-hell-of-a-competition-coming-up. It-looks-stiff-it-looks-mean. I-hear-it's-your-first-tourney-Superstar-is-that-true?”[/b] Daniel chuckled. Thankful that it was quiet enough to get covered up by the loud background music. [color=violet]"I haven’t attended something like this before.”[/color] Dan kept grinning while looking at the reporter. [color=violet]"It’s not like I haven’t trained with other Nomads though. SHINING is filled with talented nomads and I’ve been able to spar with a few of them. But there’s a lot of talented people here, and I’m just happy to be a part of it all.”[/color] [b]”And-the-stone-my-boy-you’ve-got-to-have-a-plan-for-the-stone!”[/b] [color=violet]"You can’t expect to win the first time you do anything, but!”[/color] Dan’s grin got just a bit bigger. [color=violet]"I’ve already decided that whatever I win is going to charity, so if I get the stone, I'll auction it off and donate the proceedings.”[/color] [b]”Alright-boy-fair-is-fair. Just-one-last-question-if-you-please-you-mentioned-SHINING-you-think-you-and-the-Justice-Riders-are-going-to-fight? You-gunna-whoop-them-boy-or-do-they-intimidate-you?”[/b] Dan shook his head. [color=violet]"I haven’t sparred with them before, but I respect them as heroes of justice. I’d be honored to face them in an arena like this.”[/color] [b]”Thanks-boy!Thanks!”[/b] She gave his hand a vigorous shake before blending into the crowd like a ninja. But Dan could only exhale once they left him alone. The room felt alien to Dan. He lived in Mexico, America, and even Brazil for just the past week, but this didn’t feel like any of them. People from all over the world had come together taking their culture and beliefs with them. There were no two people who were alike, and the only thing they shared were that they were all nomads. Without cameras to pose in front of or a reporter to impress, he felt lost. There were no familiar faces that he could see, and he figured the ones he did know were still getting interviews of their own. He was attending a costume party where he didn’t know most of the guests. Dan’s manager was right: There was nothing quite like the atmosphere at the fighting carnival. A testament to this was the fact that there was a blond girl, decked out with a crazy number of swords and scrolls, climbing under a table cloth with a chicken wing in her hand. He didn’t know what to make of that, but it wasn’t like it was the weirdest thing he had seen today. [sub][@Punished GN][/sub] He found himself approaching a garbage can. A small part of Dan just wanted to climb inside it and hide. It looked to be empty, but there was something small at the bottom. His curiosity got the better of him and pulled up the object in question. [color=violet]"A drumstick?”[/color] A chicken drumstick to be precise. He couldn’t understand why someone would throw away good food after taking a single bite. The soccer player looked over his shoulders to see if anyone was eyeing him before taking a bite himself. And… Yea, it was a little ‘meh’ when compared to how it looked. A bit too much breading, and it was dry. But it wasn’t the worst thing he had to eat, and it was wasteful to throw away. It didn’t seem like its former owner was going to finish it, so Dan did before dropping the bones back into the garbage. Hopefully no one saw that. And it was likely that nobody did, as someone had invited themselves up on stage and was singing to everyone who could hear them. That was pretty much everyone. Dan couldn’t even say if he enjoyed it or not because of how loud it was. He found himself holding his hands over his ears as the deep base of Number One Ninja felt like it was reverberating inside his rib cage. A tap on the shoulder brought him to his senses, and a [url=https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1089216474998128771/1122223239276535848/d93f4d5d1b10160630b7e647209f796c.jpg]girl in a baseball cap[/url] stood in front of him. She waved him to come closer and walked to the edge of the stage. [color=violet]"Huh? What do you need?”[/color] But the girl didn’t say anything. She stepped behind one of the speakers and held out a black cable. Dan hadn’t gotten any verbal cues from the woman, but felt like she wanted him to hold the cable. As soon as it was in his hand, she ducked behind the massive speaker and was out of sight. Just a few seconds later… Static. Every speaker in the room hissed for a few seconds before going silent. There were some sparks and smoke coming from the back of the speaker, and Daniel looked to make sure the woman was okay. But in looking behind the speaker, he could see that she must have swapped one of the power wires and one of the sound wires to blow out the speaker system. But the woman herself was nowhere to be found. Aside from a single chicken wing, there was no evidence anyone had been back here. When Dan pulled his head out from behind the speaker, there were a few concerned people looking at him. He met their gazes, then looked to the speaker, and finally at the cable he held in his hand. The power wire that was used to fry the speaker system. [color=violet]"Uh…”[/color] He forced a smile before dropping the cable. [color=violet]"How about that, huh?”[/color] [hr] [center][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1089216474998128771/1122141437455257633/OS2.png[/img] [color=tomato]"Are drinkers or rappers worse?”[/color] [color=888888]— Oriko Ishii[/color][/center] Oriko, or Oros the Swift as she was known in costume, lifted the table cloth. She crawled out, stood up, and dusted herself off, and adjusted her scrolls. If there was one thing she didn’t like about her current setup, it was that all the artifacts she carried around made it hard to crawl through narrow spaces. Though to be fair, crawling wasn’t something she wanted to be doing. In such a loud and crowded room, the speakers burning out didn’t concern a lot of people. This was a group of nomads, and if some speakers were going to scare them off, they didn’t belong in a competition like this. Not that Oriko had any love for this venue. It was a bit like a Wal-mart in that it seemed to attract weirdos regardless of its location. [sub][@CaliforniaState][/sub] And speaking of weird, you couldn’t get much stranger than a drinking competition taking place among a group of nomads. Oriko was baffled why so many people would spend money to get here, only to then drop out of an annual contest because they got hammered before a fight. Or maybe they thought they could win drunk off their ass? It was deplorable. Moreover, did no one find it weird that the skinny bitch had somehow managed to out drink everyone? But that was nomads in a nutshell. Every single one of them had their reputation to uphold, and yielding to anything but the bell or a knockout was out of the question. Despite how Oriko might have felt about the event, it did intrigue her. Especially since the current “champion” was oriental like herself. Technically Oriko was only half oriental, but who cared where her blood came from? Oriko didn’t ask how much she had to bet or even who was next in line. She shoved her way through the crowd until she came to the wood table. At one side was the champion, at the other, a pile of defeated bodies. She used her foot to shove the last bastard off of his chair before looking at her seating arrangement. She stripped one of the men of their shirts and used it to wipe down her side of the table before casting it off to the side. Then Oriko turned her seat backwards and sat in it. It was an undignified way for a lady to sit, but the giant scrolls on her back made it impossible to seat herself any other way. There were some annoyed murmurs from the guys that wanted to go next, but there was also a lot of interest in how long this [i]other[/i] girl would last before she joined the pile of sleeping bodies. She reached into one of her sleeves and pulled out a ceramic sake cup. It was only a little taller than a shot glass, but it was considerably wider. She had to pour three shot glasses into it just to get it full. Once she was done, Oriko cupped her hands around the cup and lifted it to her lips. The positioning was weird. The back of the chair was between her arms, and she was so short she had to rest her chin on the backrest. But after a few seconds, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and turned her cup upside down. Not a single drop came out. After setting her sake cup beside three empty glasses, she reached into her sleeve again. [color=tomato]"Where I come from, we don’t sip our swill from a glass chalice.”[/color] She pulled a second sake cup out of her sleeve and shoved it across the table. It came to rest just a few inches away from the edge of Rui’s side of the table.