Beast VS Plant (Solo Thread)

Karrl Garm, an eighteen year old recruit for the Elite Mercenary Force of Balamb Garden, more commonly known as SeeD, was sitting in his dorm room, more pacifically his bed. His roommate was not in the dorms, since, at that point in time, he was at class. No, Karrl did not have classes, not at that moment, since he was given the day to prepare in his own way, as all student who were about to undertake what he was about to had, and his roommate was a year to young to take this particular test.

The young man had gain a bit of infamy among the other students, some held him with respect, because of his strength and skill, whilst other kind of feared him. However, the day was not about dwelling over infamy, good or bad as it was, the day was about preparing. As he sat there he swigged from the bottle of drink he had in his hands and ran his free hand through his long, silver hair, which was, at that point in time, tied up into a thick knotted braid, as it always was he was about to do what he was about to.

He was sitting there in his full battle outfit, which was his long, reinforced, red, leather trench-coat, with the symbol of Balamb Garden on the back. Underneath it was the uniform of the SeeD recruits. His half mask was not currently on, since of the fact, that has been previously stated, he was drinking. His half mask, red in colour, and, like his trench-coat, leather in material, was laying on his lap. As he took another swig from the bottle of drink in his hand he thought about what he was about to do and why he was doing it.

Like stated before, he was preparing, but, the thing he was preparing for was his Final Exams to become a full fledged member of SeeD. He had been held off by the Instructors, as well as Headmaster Cid, about taking it. Karrl had been ready for the Final Exams for two years, but, due to the events of two years ago, he wanted to make sure he was ok before they even considered him taking the Final Exam. It, in fact, came to his surprise, when, two month previous, they said he was finally allowed to take them.

Draining the last of the liquid from the bottle he threw it into his bin and placed the mask on, tying it up around the back of his neck. When he stood up it was clear that he was a big guy, standing at a good six foot, and extremely well muscled, when it came to his physique, not too big, but, some might, say, the point where many muscles become too much. Mix that with the various, little things about his appearance, such as his slitted pupils and his, pointed and elongated ears, it would not be thought bad of someone to consider him an intimidating presence.

Once he had stood there for a moment or two, just thing, he finally spoke, “Right Karrl, time to get this show on the road, need to make sure I aint gonna cock up on the Final Exams tomorrow.” With that he took one last deep breath and shook himself loose a bit before he grabbed his blade, Wolf’s Fang, and set off out of the dorm room. The location he was heading to, if it was not clear from the way he was dressed, or the fact he had his sword with him, was the training area.

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As he stepped out the dorms he looked around. He had to admit, even though he had lived in Balamb Garden all of his life, that the school was impressive. He had never seen such a grand structure like the Garden in his entire life. Of course he had never actually stepped of the Island of Balamb. It was not that he did not want to travel; in fact he wanted to visit all of Gaia. He wanted to see the technological city of Midgar, the vast plains known as the Calm Lands, and, maybe most of all, the Royal City of Alexandria.

However, he knew, if he wanted to be, not only a member of SeeD, but a member who was a high rank as well has held renown throughout Gaia he would have to train and train hard. Never the less, not only because it was a part of his training, he studied on all of the areas within Gaia, not only culture, but politics, and everything he could get his hands on about other lands. It would not be a unsafe bet to assume that Karrl had read, if not all, but most of the books the Garden library held. It came to a shock to some people but there was a brain inside of Karrl’s skull.

Taking a deep breath he walked down the walkway that lead to the main corridor from the dorms. He looked around as he walked, seeing the other recruits who did not have class and full SeeD members who were currently not on mission. He wondered what they were up to, however, he soon let the wonder leave him when he saw a couple of recruits running out off the training area in a bit of a panic. They seemed quite young, about three, maybe four years younger than him, so, at first he thought they had just bitten off too much. However, when an older student, someone he knew was taking the Final Exam, like him, the next day, it got him worried.

So, without a second thought he rushed over to them, moving over the time extremely quick jog, almost at the point of running. When he got to them he looked at the older student, “What’s going on, what’s the matter.” Karrl’s crimson red eyes peering into the other pre-exam taker. He wanted to know, and, it seemed that a couple of recruits, as well a SeeD member of two were curious as well. When the older recruit spoke, he told Karrl about the Grants going haywire, and hurt the two younger recruits.

Karrl nodded, “Take the younger ones to the infirmary to get looked over, I’ll check it out.” He turned to the SeeD who were standing there, “Don’t worry , I will check it out, most likely it is nothing too bad, besides, plant type creatures are my speciality.” He was not lying, Karrl was good when it came to dealing with a few of types of creatures, and those are beast, insect and plant type creatures. This was mainly to do with his fighting style and the few abilities he had at his disposal. He would make sure it was nothing, if it was more than he could handle, he would call for backup, but, he did not want to waste the time of SeeD on something small like this.

So, without another word he nodded at the SeeD, who seemed to accept Karrl taking care of it himself, and rushed off towards the Training Area. As he headed towards it, he hoped his original theory about it not being that big a deal was true, mainly because of the fact he did not want to lose face in front of the other recruits, and, there was also the fact that, if the Grants had gone wild, what on earth caused it.

It did not take him long to get into the Training Area. He stopped for a moment and looked around. Karrl was trying his best to see if he could see or hear anything. At that point in time he could not, which kind of worried him more than he would have been if he could. The Training Area always had some noise going on, but, it was almost eerily silent. He did not like that, however, despite whether or not he liked it, he knew he would have to check out, after all, he said he would, and it would bad if he went back on his word, especially since he was so close to taking his Final Exams.

So, with that settled in his head he drew his sword, Wolf’s Fang, and started to move. His movements were not fast, but average speed, but almost methodical in their approach. He had all of his sense trained, because, at the end of the day there would be a snow day in hell before he was caught unawares, that and it would look bad for him if he did. He had decided to enter through the east entrance, since, there was a good chance, if there was anything that had attacked the other three recruits, it would be there. He thought this since, most students entered through the west and left through the east.

When he entered the east entrance he bent down putting his sword into the ground as he did. He looked around the area, for tracks or anything like that. The thing was with Karrl, outside of combat, he had good ability in tracking, and, even though he did not really need to use it, it was always good the keep the skills sharp. From what he could see on the ground, there had been three sets of footprints, recently made, that left through the east entrance. This could have just proven his theory about the Grants being near, well, the mad ones at least. With that he followed, with his eyes, the way the footprints came from.

Once he had gotten things settled in his head about the way to go he stood up. He then pulled his sword out of the ground and swung it to one side to through off any dirt. He looked at the blade and, even though there was still a little dirt on it, it was easily clean, and then there was the fact that, if he came across these so called mad Grants he would have more than dirt on his blade. Once he nodded and looked around he set off again. His movements were a little faster than before, since, he had a certain route to travel this time around. He would make sure he did not miss anything, which was the reason why he was not running, but, he was not moving that slow anymore.

As he made his way through the grounds of the Training Area, he was quite surprised how things had turned out. True, he had planned on coming to the Training Area before this happened. However, he did not think, as he had prepared himself before, that he would be in there hunting down some crazed Grants that had hurt a couple of the younger ones. True, this place was far from safe at the best of times, but, if the Grants were crazed, more so than usual, they needed to be dealt with and dealt with quickly. If it was something that could spread, well, it was not a pleasant idea, especially if one of the T-Rexaur caught it, just the thought of a crazed one of those beasts was enough to send a chill down even Karrl’s spine.

As Karrl made his way through the Training Area he did not like it. The near silence he had encountered when he first entered the place he was still there. The thing was, this area had always had some noise, if it was not recruits or full SeeD training, it was the buzzing from the Bite Bugs. He had to admit, thinking about it, the noises that were normally in the Training Area was actually quite nice. Well, the idea of fighting creatures in someone’s own home might freak most people, however, it was not the case for Karrl, in fact he could almost go as far as it being therapeutic. He did not know why, he had thought about it in the past, and, he considered the fact that it was the beast inside of him, calling to other creatures out there, and the sounds were like nature answering back.

However, outside of the noises from the water, and the odd bit of wind that managed to entered, there was pretty much no noise whatsoever. In a way, if you put aside the ominous reason why Karrl was in there, it was kind of relaxing, almost peaceful. However, Karrl was not foolish enough to let that thought be the dominate one. So, he kept his mind on the reason why he was there, ignoring the peace. He did not like ignoring the peace, but, he had to, since, the lack of sounds was unsettling him, well it might do if he thought on it, since, if he thought on it, so would the beast and it would become unsettled and that was never good for anyone, an unsettled beast like the one inside of Karrl was a not a good idea, it could be called dangerous to let it become such a way.

However, as Karrl had expected, but hoped would not happened, that soon changed. The sounds he was hearing, Karrl kind of wished that there was no noise. In the back of his mind, he had hoped it would not happen, that the guy had just overreacted to hide the fact he had been beaten by a couple of Grants, but the sounds, well, it did not bode well. From what he could hear, there was a lot of footsteps, and fast moving. Whether or not they were friendly or not was yet to be determined, however from what he could hear, there was a good chance, a very good chance, that the footsteps he was hear, were not human, a thing he had, like it had been stated before, something Karrl had expected, but, at the same time, kind of wished would not happen.

Karrl stopped and took a deep breath as he looked around before he suddenly raised his blade into a defensive stance the grip on Wolf’s Fang’s handle tightening. The hand that was holding the blade was almost completely outstretched, but, the elbow was bent slightly. The hand itself was straight, with the knuckles pointed upwards, so the blade was facing sidewards, crossing over his chest. He had his feet planted and shoulder length apart but his right foot was out front and his left foot behind, so, his body was turned sidewards for a smaller area for him to defend. His head was tucked down slightly so the blade became at equal level with it. Along with that his free hand, the one that was not hold the blade went behind his back, the fist closed. He readied himself for whatever was about to come, whether it was human, than he would look a little foolish, if it was not, well, he would not look a little dead like he would have if he had not done it.

Standing there in his defensive position he sounds become images, and what he saw made him realise why the others had run. Good side it was not a T-Rexaur, which he was extremely glad about, if it was one of them he would bolt. Karrl was strong, especially for someone of his current standing, as a recruit and not a full member of SeeD, however, he was far from ready to face one of them. Just thinking about one of them filled him with a mixture of equal parts rage and dread. However, the bad side was, even though not a T-Rexaur, it would easily push him to his limits, and he had no doubts about that, which he did not like.

Coming in close was not one, not two, not three, but six Grants. He looked at them all, making note of all of their position as they seemed to circle him. As they took their position he made his battle plans. He did this as quickly as he could. He knew he would need to make an effective battle plan if he was to defeat all of them. He also knew that if he did not do it quickly he would not be able to do it at all. Unlike videogames he did not have the pause button to give him the time to plan his plans. He knew that, he would have ten seconds, at the most to get at least a reasonable plan together.

It was about the same time he made his plans when the attacks began. The first of them charged in and swung their vines at him. He stepped back, moving his front foot backwards and bringing his blade around the parry the strike. Just as he parried the second of the Grants came in and swung their vines at him he ducked under the vines and rolled backwards, quickly getting back to his feet and his defensive stance, then the third attack came. Yet again it was the vines but this time it was from behind. Karrl just managed to duck underneath the attack. As he ducked he swung his blade around and sliced into it, making it stagger backwards.

He followed through after the swing of his blade to get back to his defensive position. He saw the one of the other Grants coming in. Yet again Karrl managed to move backwards using his blade to parry the vines once more. However, Karrl made a mistake when he parried those vines, it left him open, well, at the point in time at least. One of the other Grants sent a blast of gastric juices, catching him in the arm. Karrl grimaced and staggered backwards going to clutch his arm from the pain he was suffering from. Yet again this left him open to attack, which could mean he was in deep trouble.

The final Grants came in for an attack. It charged in and brought its vines up high. When it got close enough it swung the vines downwards right towards Karrl. Luckily enough for Karrl, he managed to push past the pain and bring himself around to face the Grants. Karrl brought his blade upwards and blocked the strike. However, the vines had come down to hard and he was having trouble holding them. So, with his free hand he placed it on the back of the blade to help him hold the vines in place. However, the force of the strike he come down so hard, it knocked Karrl down to one knee. He was in trouble and there was no doubt about that.

Holding his position, on one knee, with Wolf’s Fang being the only thing that was between him and a set of vines smashing into his body, he knew he needed to think quickly. He currently plan was not working, and believe it when that could have been one of the biggest understatements of the century. He did not want to, but, he knew he had to do it. At first he thought he could deal with them with just basic attacks, alongside quick and clever thinking on his part. However, seeing his position at that point in time, he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, if he wanted to win, he would have to pull out the big guns, his special techniques and spells.

Looking up at the Grants his eyes were filled with rage, a flash of red crosses his eyes, momentarily making his natural crimson colour even more intense. He grunts as he started push up, trying to move the vines away from him. As he started to do this he started to mutter underneath his breath. What he was saying was a long chain of words that were an invocation chant. The first move it seemed, one of his big guns, was going to be one of his energy manipulation techniques. Karrl was a warrior, but, he had a few special skills, one of them being energy manipulation, the ability to use his internal energies to fight.

As he continued to push and chat he started to glow. White energy was coming out from his body, growing more and more intense the more he chanted. Continuing to chant and push the glowing started to sway and shift, moving to a single point in his body. Just as the energy focused on one point, his throat, he made one last push. He managed to knock the vines away, making the Grants stagger backwards. At the same point he opened his mouth and sent out a massive, ear splitting screech, so intense, the sonic energy wave from it were visible. It smashed into the Grants he had just knocked back with such force it sent it flying, smashing into a tree before it slumped to the ground defeated.

Even though he wanted to have a second to celebrate he knew that would not be the case. This knowledge was made even more apparent when, just as the Grants he had defeated had slumped down another one charged at him. He spun around, his stance had changed from the defensive position to an open one, which looks like it values speed and attack power of methodical defensive style. He brought his free hand up as the Grants came towards him. Within a second of the hand coming up he started to chant again, but this time the energy was red. The next moment a ball of fire sprung from his hand and he sent it, and, thanks to the previous attack, was strong enough to defeat the second Grants.

Spinning around he started to move on the tips of his toes, judging the other Grants movements. He looked around and saw one of them move in. He jumped backwards quick dodging the vines. He started to get into his stride and the rage seemed to melt and an almost cocky smile appeared on his face. With the other Grants he made either dodges or quick parries. However, his cockiness got the better of him. With the last one he let his guard down slightly and it managed to slip through and smash him with its vines sending Karrl backwards. He lifted his hand and felt his cheek, where the vines hit, and the smile went, and the rage came back.

He turned to face them. He was feeling the effects of the attacks he had suffered, even the ones he had blocked of parried, since the fact way, the strength he had to put behind them drained him slightly as well. True the attacks may not have hit him, but, the fact was, the moves took an exertion of strength, and since he had blocked or parried a lot of attacks, them seemed to pile up, and, in effect they took their toll. Due to this he knew one thing, he would have to finish the fight and finish the fight quickly. He had only two special moves in his arsenal, well, two he had at least perfected enough to perform in battle.

Knowing he had to whittle down the ranks quickly. He knew exactly what move to do, however, he did not know if it would finish them off with a single blow. The technique he was about to perform was, both his strongest, but at the same time weakest technique he had. It was designed to take out multiple weak foes, and, unfortunately these creatures were far from weak. Never the less, if he pulled it off right this could be the time the battle would turn in his favour. However, if he did not play it right it could mean his defeat. Never the less, he knew he had to try it, because, without this, he knew he would no chance of winning.

Moving his blade so it was pointing upright the blade directly in the middle of his body, with the pommel at the point of the middle of his chest, so the blade with going directly upwards in front of the middle of his face. He closed his eyes and started to chant. His free hand, moved to the base of the blade as he did this. As he continued to chant his hand moved up the side of the blade. As his hand went up, Wolf’s Fang’s blade started to be coated in fire. It took him a few moments to do this, and when his hand reached the tip of the blade he opened his eyes.

At the point of his eyes opening his spun around bring his blade like it was doing a horizontal slash. When he came back around so he was facing them he performed a mid arching slash. The flames themselves seemed to know what he wanted and they left the blade. The fire had become a wave of flames heading straight for the Grants. He stood there and waited, hoping that it would be enough, but, at the same time, just in case it was not enough he would have to perform the technique again. When the flames stuck them, it knocked them back, and off their feet. However, it seemed like it was not enough, as he feared, as they got back up again.

So, as he moved his blade so it was pointing upright the blade directly in the middle of his body, with the pommel at the point of the middle of his chest, so the blade with going directly upwards in front of the middle of his face he began the preparations to perform the attack once again. He closed his eyes and started to chant. His free hand, moved to the base of the blade as he did this. As he continued to chant his hand moved up the side of the blade. As his hand went up, Wolf’s Fang’s blade started to be coated in fire. It took him a few moments to do this, and when his hand reached the tip of the blade he opened his eyes. He then performed the attack once more, but this time, the three he had stuck, fell in smouldering glory.

Karrl stood there and looked at the last of the Grants. Normally the situation would bring a cocky smile to his face, however, the battle had taken its toll, and there was a good chance that the only thing that was keeping his going was a mixture of adrenaline and rage. He took a stance and waited for the right moment to strike. He knew, if he did not finish this battle within the next one or two move, he would not have the energy to continue. He did not like the fact that he had been push to his limits, but he knew that, if he won, it would not matter. He would could walk away, he would be satisfied.

It was a few seconds after he had taken the stance that the last of the Grants came charging in. As the Grants charged he knew the exact move he could do, and, he was kind of glad it played out that was, since, it was a) his last special technique he had perfected enough to use for battle, and b) quite a fitting a dramatic way to finish it. He waited for the right moment, and he would strike. Just as the Grants brought his vines up for a strike Karrl spun around and brought his blade into the right position for his Spinning Back-Thrust technique. It pierced the flesh, right where its chest was, however, at the same time the Grants managed to connect with its vines, just before it fell dead.

Staying in the same position for a moment, with the Grants behind him, he finally stood up. When he was standing up fully he swung his blade to the side throwing off the excess blood from the creatures he had just defeated. He looked over his shoulder, the intensity that was once in his eyes was now gone. He was breathing heavily as he stood there. Even though exhausted from probably one of if not his toughest fight, he was filled with a feeling of satisfaction. He knew at that point in time, defeating that many Grants on his own, he was ready to take his Final Exam. However, first thing was first, he had to go back out and speak to the others.

As he made his way through the Training Area, he started to hear the sounds that were heard regularly within the place. He could not help but smile, it was strange, but he found it satisfying that, with the battle he had just been in, being over, the Training Area was getting back to normal, and surprisingly quickly. However, in the back of his mind he knew that, well, he hoped that he could get out of there without encountering anything else. The battle had been tough, and he knew, even if it was a single Bite Bug, he did not have the enough energy to fight again. So, with that, he moved as quickly as he could on his low energy supplies.

Luckily for Karrl he managed to get out of the Training Area without any other encounters. He made his way through the corridor leading out to the main area. He wondered how he would play this, he knew he could not act cocky, no one really liked someone like that. So, he decided to just play it straight, and tell them what happened. When he exited the corridor of the Training Area, he saw some recruits and the SeeD still there. Karrl smiled, “It’s done, it was not that the Grants were crazed there were just a large number of them, six to be exact. It was no…” As he said no, the last of his adrenaline wore of and he fell to the floor, and, just as he passed out he heard some shout, get him to the infirmary, he is badly injured.