Brucenorris007

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce stared at the place where his blade had been moments before Mikey simply made it disappear, his fingers still held as though gripping the hilt. He listened intently, though, to Mikey and Ross' explanation, taking particular notice of Ross' comment that ki was not an object, but an extension of the soul. It made sense to him. Finally able to accept the ease with which it was destroyed, he glanced down at his sheath. He wondered if having it, something he felt a bit emotionally attached to, affected the flow of his ki into his blade. He made a note to experiment in the coming days while everyone trained.
Breaking himself out of his reverie, he focused on the rest of Mikey's talk to Jeff and Jenso about Arki. Bruce had the feeling that the information might not directly influence his own personal training, but understanding how his allies would operate during the final confrontation could mean the difference between victory and death.

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce's brow furrowed, absorbing Mikey's lesson with a critical eye. He didn't enjoy the thought that he might be excluded from any part of it, and might have repeated his sentiment from earlier, though, recalling what Mikey had said during their evaluations about focusing on their individual strengths, he resisted.
Bruce stepped forward at Mikey's behest. He closed his hand around his sheath, the hilt of his blade materializing out of ki in the next instant. He pushed it up out of its resting place with his thumb before pulling it out fully with his other hand. His impulses nagged him to attempt the manipulations he'd seen Mikey doing, but Bruce was a student here, so he heeded Mikey's request and waited.

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce chugged down half a pitcher of water as he entered the arena, setting the vessel down once it had been emptied against the wall. The time since the premier of Ada's footage had seen him split his efforts between meditating to recenter himself and mixing his favorite drinks to aid in burying the unpleasant memories it had dredged up. He stepped onto the battlefield proper, partially conscious of his fingers twitching and knuckles cracking. He restrained his impulses and maintained his ki output at zero. When he stood in front of Ross and Mikey, he inclined his head to each in turn, bowing slightly.
"Whatever training this entails, I'd like for you both to know," Bruce said, straightening up again. "I will be furious if you spare anything out of concern or for any other reason."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce glared at his old friend- he knew, again, where the rage was coming from, but he was holding back his own outburst toward Luke for implying that he didn't feel exactly as he did.
'Luke, you cannot make up for past decisions by volunteering yourself to be killed, even in the name of a just cause.' Bruce thought. He wanted to say so, but he knew it would only add to Luke's momentum- Jenso had undoubtedly inherited his stubbornness from his father.
"Do you want to know what that thing who just spoke to us was thinking while it did what it did?" Bruce asked of Luke, referring to Ada in such a way that his disgust was clear. His voice carried so that the whole room could hear. He stood up and paced until he was right in front of Luke. "You think that, for even one second, it actually noticed the scouts it destroyed, the men it slaughtered?"
Bruce threw his arm back to point at Jenso, still keeping eye contact with Luke.
"Do you believe that it specifically asked for Jenso because it and the rest of the Order feel threatened by him? By any of us?"
Bruce slammed his palms down on the table across from Luke and leaned forward.
"We can't do any good by just charging in because we aren't a threat to them. They don't even know who we are."
Bruce took a deep breath and paused again, pulling back from the table and standing upright. He pulled his hair back and tied up his ponytail again.
"No one's arguing that something needs to be done," Bruce conceded to Luke, making sure he understood that he wasn't being attacked. "If we're going to do something, we must take advantage of the fact that the Order refuses to give us any real recognition. We need to present ourselves as a threat, and also in such a way that they won't know our fullest capabilities on sight."
Bruce bared his teeth for just a moment, suppressing a growl as the image of Ada laughing reappeared in horrifying, vivid detail, in his mind. He glanced at everyone in the room in turn, skipping over only Alvios, whose lack of a response thus far concerned him, though he knew better than to preach when he was closest to Melina.
"We must become a threat that they cannot ignore."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce remained still while the recording played. At several points, the images on screen provoked others he'd seen to flash across his mind's eye, only to return when the audio came back on and Ada's voice broke out again, sickeningly sweet until it crescendoed into a high-pitched squeal of perverse delight. He had a vague awareness that the others were in the midst of their own outbursts. The howling indoor wind Jeff caused blew out his ponytail, leaving his hair in a mess, yet he didn't move. Jenso's heat registered against the entirety of his skin, and still he couldn't react. He didn't trust himself to move or speak.
"I'm going to the tower NOW, and none of you will be joining me."
The first words that Bruce recalled hearing was Jenso's ludicrous declaration that, even understanding the anger behind it, Bruce could barely restrain his own voice from violently shutting him down. He trusted that one of the others would be able to take on the role of moderation and reasoning, yet Jenso continued almost unabated in his fury until Oz spoke. Even though some of the rage leaked from his voice, the overflowing emotion that had been triggered in him, not to mention the others, would insure that getting anything done would be next to impossible.
"Jenso," Bruce said, without turning to look his friend in the eye. "Shut the hell up."
Bruce paused a moment, stringing together what he knew to be the truth from the memories, thoughts, and his own murderous desires the footage had dredged up.
"I can only speak for myself, but I made you a promise that I would fight the Order next to you," Bruce said. "That promise cannot be altered by declarations you make in the heat of unadulterated rage, or by anyone except myself at the cost of my conscience. If you insist on charging out there against them now, never mind whether or not you'll be giving them the advantage- you will be putting, at least, one more life than just yours up to be forfeit."
Bruce turned finally to stare Jenso in the face.
"Mine."
Bruce held his gaze on Jenso for several moments. He kept his ki in check, but permitted himself the outlet of gripping his empty sheath until his knuckles turned white and his fingers threatened to break it.
"Don't believe for a second that you are the only one with the right to be furious."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce let the rest of those gathered do most of the talking, subtly sipping a drink while he considered the gravity of all that was culminating in his head. He regarded Ross' offer, twitching on corner of his lip upward and nodding at him to show he appreciated the offer. He'd probably take him up on it.
'The playing field will be complicated in many ways,' Bruce thought, scanning the room again. He knew several of his allies had fairly specific vendettas against the Order of Chaos, and now that the stakes were forcing direct confrontation, that tension would erupt dangerously. He counted it fortunate that he considered the people gathered trustworthy and expected little conflict in their efforts to cooperate. He took a longer shot of his drink, his gaze settling on Jeff, though he wasn't looking at him. 'Jenso and I have fought together, but there's no practical prior experience to indicate that the others' abilities can instinctively mesh with mine.'
"Jeff," Bruce said, perhaps out of turn- he'd lost track of the conversation in the midst of his thoughts. "Remind me of what's been found regarding Vale's blade, if you could."
Bruce focused his gaze again on Jeff. He had more questions for the wind user, specifically regarding the arsenal of technological weaponry he no doubt had access to. Bruce allowed the ideas for complementing his own connection to the planet with the potential destructive force Jeff might be able to provide. Feeling the perspiration on his glass run down onto the skin of his finger, he also split his concentration to tap into that connection- momentarily, the sensation of temperature faded from his hand as it turned to stone, changing back after a modest psychic effort.
'If I am to be truly useful,' Bruce thought, 'I must be able to change at will. And expand my capabilities further.'

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce blinked at the idea that technology had progressed to such a point, but he shrugged it off.
"I'll find the way there," he said, picking up his sheath off a bedside table and strapping it back to his waist. "After I have one last drink."
Bruce took a tentative step forward, pleasantly surprised at how quickly his body was regaining strength. At the doorway to the lower floor, he turned back.
"The city is called Corona. It's near Oar Bay." he said.

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce looked after Luke for a minute before addressing Jenso again.
"I can't say for sure how best to get there," he said, again going against the medical staff's protests when he swung his legs off his bed. He anticipated that he and Luke would have strong words for one another soon, and as per usual, he'd prefer if he wasn't present. "But Alvios was based in a coastal city last I heard anything about him. I believe it lies northeast of here."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce remained silent for several moments. The only sound in the room came from the medics tending to their injuries.
"It's complicated." he said, harboring a slight hope that Jenso would let the matter go. He felt that to tell him would be intruding on a subject that should be Luke's to divulge.
When it became clear that Jenso wouldn't drop it, he let out a sigh and, against the protests of the medical staff, pulled himself up into a sitting position.
"There's a reason Luke leads his group against injustice from underground," Bruce said, keeping his voice even. He felt angered each time he recounted the tale. "It was before he met me, but he wasn't always so wary of established cities. He used to believe that most people were similarly minded to him, that only a few possessed whatever it is that makes people commit evil acts."
Bruce paused, listening for any sign that Luke might return. He knew that there was only part of the story that the renegade leader was truly sensitive about.
"Thus," he continued. "When someone, I don't know their name, from a wealthy city and a certain clout amid that society's military met Luke, he befriended him immediately. Luke never doubted for an instant that this man was genuine in his sympathy with Luke's cause, that he'd fight with him and persuade his superiors to pool the city's vast resources to strengthen and fortify the renegades' own power."
Bruce took a deep breath to steady his pulse- he had reached the point in the story that always incurred his anger.
"So imagine, for a moment, just how much it pained Luke when, once his friend conferred with his superiors and found that instead of improving the lives of many, they wanted greater luxury for themselves. How better to achieve that than fight a war against an enemy they felt sure to win against?" Bruce said. He grit his teeth. "The city's army fell upon the renegades, led by the one Luke had thought his ally and close friend."
Bruce let his eyes close and his head fall back against the bed's headboard. There were more details he could give Jenso, but he preferred not to delve any farther into it, and he'd managed to address Jenso's question anyway.
"You know how deeply Luke is set in his ways," Bruce said, eyes still closed. "It's why the vast majority of the people you see here arrive as refugees."
Bruce opened his eyes and glanced over at Jenso.
"I can't say what it might take to persuade him to extend his trust like that again."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Bruce blinked before taking the communication device from Jenso, ingesting everything he'd said quickly and then looking back down at the phone before speaking.
"Hello." he said, simply. He glanced down at the blade, deciding that the easiest way to transport it would be in his otherwise empty sheath. "I look forward to working with a friend of Jenso."
Bruce manipulated the earth beneath the sword again, coating the hilt of it with stone and earth to avoid direct contact with it. Even with that measure taken, he still chose to make the earth on the sword levitate and angle it so it slid into his sheath rather than pick it up himself.
"I don't know what we can learn from it that might help us," Bruce said, looking back at the phone. "But better in our hands than with Vale regardless."