04-24-2009, 10:35 AM
Her body was wracked with pain. Her pink hair had fallen gloomily over her eyes. Her skin was bruised.
None of this bothered her, strangely. Before this tournament, Ashelia Branford would have been horrified at this situation, running for her life and cowering in the hope that someone would save her. So much had changed within her from then till now. She was an entirely different person.
Wait…
No. She was a stronger person. But her greatest strength came to her from who she was, not who she would have become. In Kai’s alternate future, she’d become a horrible woman. She had been the female parallel of Kai Demolic himself, forsaking her compassion and love for the world in favor of monetary accumulation as well as status and power. She’d… created a new tournament in homage to this horrible event and her first and final act for the launch of this tournament was to sacrifice her own daughter in the name of television.
That’s how it had seemed, anyway.
Part of Ashe believed that she had done what she did as an act of mercy for her daughter. She had already tread her path so deeply that there was no going back for her, no road to redemption, but her daughter had had an entire lifetime to learn from her mistakes. Instead, Ashe had watched her younger daughter, Celestial “Celes” Rain Branford, grow to become a beautiful and warm, loving woman that gave back to the world more than she took from it. She, under Kaden’s guidance, had become everything that Ashe once was.
Everything that Ashley Rose wasn’t.
No, Ashe knew deep down that she had sacrificed her oldest not for the show as it had seemed, but as a way of tying up loose ends. Ashley Rose had been too far gone down the path that Ashe herself had taken, and despite her alternate future’s attempt at leading her to love while still maintaining her fierce discipline, she had remained vigilant and cold, refusing love of any that would offer it to her. Whatever Ashe had become in this future, she had prevented the world from seeing Ashley Rose become far worse.
What Kai had taught her was that she couldn’t guarantee what a path in life could bring to her. She couldn’t follow her heart entirely and hope for happiness to just work itself out, as her life with Kaden had proven that there was more to it than that. She’d still treated their relationship as a child would, placing all the blame onto herself in some situations while in other situations blaming everything else for their failures. Looking back, it was interesting to note just how much money she had spent drowning her pain at the bars to complete the cycle of self loathing that she had entered over lack of money.
Inversely, she had found that betraying her heart, pushing away everyone that cared for her and anyone that might have loved her, in favor of showing them a strong and business oriented woman out to achieve her goals with no tolerance for failure, would lead to a great deal of what most would consider success… But would she be happy? She would even be willing to sacrifice her own happiness for her family’s, but in this future, she had destroyed her lover’s chance at happiness, had even corrupted her oldest daughter to be unable to see warmth… And yet her youngest daughter, who most closely resembled the true Ashelia Branford, had sought out the love and compassion of the world while keeping herself strong in the face of opposition.
“Thank you,” she whispered, catching the attention of the three woman to her sides. Her arm slowly lowered, bringing the ki pistol that Sage had bestowed upon her to her hip.
The game show host’s cold eyes locked onto her own, yet he said nothing. Observant as always, he watched for the fourth flower in the bouquet while wondering if it too would bloom.
Celes was what Ashe wanted to be. Celes was the daughter that she wanted to have. Celes was the symbolic future for which she fought.
Curiously, without Kai’s vision, the high school student would never have lived through the experiences that she faced in that cruel twisted persona she had taken. She would never have come to know Kaden in a way that affected her soul to the depths of her heart. He was a great guy, and she knew that. Before that vision, he had simply been a great guy, nothing more. He’d been someone she had met situationally and would never have really come to know on any greater level.
Now she knew what they could have become. Even greater, however, his vision gave her the ability to avoid that loss altogether if she so chose. But then, it was better to have loved and lost, she supposed.
No, she didn’t believe everything that he had shown her of her future, she argued. The man had proven himself to be a great many things, but omniscient or oracle had not been one of those things. It was a series of imagery and experiences that Ashe had lived out as if they were real. She had learned a great many things.
But this was still her life, and she would need to live to know for certain what she wanted with her life. There were people counting on her, here and at home. Her sister Terra was waiting, hoping to hear all about her life back on Earth while showing her the ropes on Kajin Rala. Her best friend Becca would insist on being filled in on all the details before attempting to drive the pain away from her with constant exposure to zombie movies. Her other friend Claire would be worried for her, in tears at the things that Ashe had gone through on this island.
There was her grandfather that was not all related, Gensei, who had been her guardian her entire life. What had become of him? When the robots had shot the two with darts and had taken her, what had they done with him back on Earth? Had he informed her parents of her fate? Were they worried for their daughter’s safety, possibly losing their jobs while trying to find her? Sage would likely be devastated if her new friend were to fall on the island, especially after losing her own sister to the same madman that had brought them all great misery.
She tightened her fist around her weapon in resolve, the smile strangely crossing her face. She had everything to live for. She would not leave them to suffer her funeral. But more importantly, the three woman standing alongside her would also not fall. Together, the four of them were going to bring the end of this tournament.
“You wanted your finale, Mr. Rogers,” she finally spoke, breaking the silence with his absolutely mundane name. Her right hand held tightly onto the pistol at her side. Her other hand, however, rose out slightly from her waist to point at him while she watched him, the entire group spellbound. Sparks of energy had begun gathering around her fingertips, dancing like wisps in the moonlight from cuticle to cuticle before flowing their way down her arm.
His eyes had never broken her own, but he was staring into a set of deep eyes that were glowing a fierce blue. It was something that she would later realize that she and Kaden shared, despite having no relevant similarities to their ancestry. The Star’s Tear buried deep within her breast was burning now, an enveloping yearning as it cried for release. Ki lanced from her eyes in rapid and erratic flashes, echoing the strong arcs of energy that were washing down her left arm.
“Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it,” she warned.
The man finally smiled, his red energy field tightening around him as he watched the foursome before him. “And finally, the fourth rose has bloomed,” he replied coolly. His arms spread at his sides as if to bring their awareness to their surroundings. “Do you not appreciate what my show has brought forth from each of you?”
Sage answered by summoning a shard of razor ice beneath the man’s feet, showing no sign of disappointment as he nimbly hopped back out of the way before continuing. “You could almost say that I created you!” he taunted.
“You are no God!” Sophia snapped, firing off a quick blast of simple Ki energy his way. His trained hand simply swatted it away.
“I have allowed each of you to combat your own demons and come to the realization of who you really are, all before a live televised audience!” he proudly proclaimed.
The red haired medic vanished before him, attempting to remove his head with a swift kick from above as she screamed in fury. He was no longer where she expected him to be even as she reappeared, his retreating form continuing to harass them with his words. “I have even shown each of you how easily you can fall, while equally showing you why it is that you fight even now,” he finished, his accusing finger moving across the four recollecting women.
A raging blue aura was burning around the relic imbued woman with pink hair as her hair blew wildly from the torrential energy that had overtaken her system. Despite this, she calmly gazed at him through brilliant luminescent irises. “I doubt any of us would contest that claim,” she replied sadly. “Kai Demolic, you have indeed shown us just how far an ordinary man can fall. Your arrogance and pride were your downfall,” she judged.
He seethed at this, bringing up his fist in challenge to her. “I am not at my end. And I have never been ordinary.”
Her pink hair whipped from side to side as blue pulses blasted through each strand. “None of us have ever been, judging by what you have shown us. Yet, in a world where everyone is unique, much like the snowflake, we find that our differences bring us together in the end, giving us the ability to bind together into the strongest arctic snowstorm, so pure and uniform, despite every particle being entirely unique to itself.” She looked over at the icily calm doctor at her side and smiled warmly, giving her an approving nod.
Kai took her in for a moment and then haughtily burst into laughter. After a moment of not luring any of them in by his false drop of security, he smirked boastfully. “Oh please. Is this the type of poetry that you write in your little online journal before cutting your wrist? Keep it up and I might consider it myself,” he taunted, hoping to hit a soft spot.
The girl smiled back at him before the energy coursing through the left side of her body finally flowed into her right side, collecting around the pistol in her right hand. “Even now, in your final moments, you still believe yourself to have won.” She pursed her lips for a moment as she strangely cocked her head to the side, beginning to see the gorgeous display of the lights flowing from specific locations of his body to other points. She recalled that they were known as chakra points, according to the books at her shop. It was an amusing sight, at the least. “The sad truth is that you are powerful enough that you stand a great chance at taking down one of us. Of that, we have no illusions,” she gave a sorrowful side glance at the feminine collection. “Savor that one victory, Kai, because I highly doubt you can overcome all of us fighting together. United.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to start with you!” he raged, suddenly bursting forward.
None of this bothered her, strangely. Before this tournament, Ashelia Branford would have been horrified at this situation, running for her life and cowering in the hope that someone would save her. So much had changed within her from then till now. She was an entirely different person.
Wait…
No. She was a stronger person. But her greatest strength came to her from who she was, not who she would have become. In Kai’s alternate future, she’d become a horrible woman. She had been the female parallel of Kai Demolic himself, forsaking her compassion and love for the world in favor of monetary accumulation as well as status and power. She’d… created a new tournament in homage to this horrible event and her first and final act for the launch of this tournament was to sacrifice her own daughter in the name of television.
That’s how it had seemed, anyway.
Part of Ashe believed that she had done what she did as an act of mercy for her daughter. She had already tread her path so deeply that there was no going back for her, no road to redemption, but her daughter had had an entire lifetime to learn from her mistakes. Instead, Ashe had watched her younger daughter, Celestial “Celes” Rain Branford, grow to become a beautiful and warm, loving woman that gave back to the world more than she took from it. She, under Kaden’s guidance, had become everything that Ashe once was.
Everything that Ashley Rose wasn’t.
No, Ashe knew deep down that she had sacrificed her oldest not for the show as it had seemed, but as a way of tying up loose ends. Ashley Rose had been too far gone down the path that Ashe herself had taken, and despite her alternate future’s attempt at leading her to love while still maintaining her fierce discipline, she had remained vigilant and cold, refusing love of any that would offer it to her. Whatever Ashe had become in this future, she had prevented the world from seeing Ashley Rose become far worse.
What Kai had taught her was that she couldn’t guarantee what a path in life could bring to her. She couldn’t follow her heart entirely and hope for happiness to just work itself out, as her life with Kaden had proven that there was more to it than that. She’d still treated their relationship as a child would, placing all the blame onto herself in some situations while in other situations blaming everything else for their failures. Looking back, it was interesting to note just how much money she had spent drowning her pain at the bars to complete the cycle of self loathing that she had entered over lack of money.
Inversely, she had found that betraying her heart, pushing away everyone that cared for her and anyone that might have loved her, in favor of showing them a strong and business oriented woman out to achieve her goals with no tolerance for failure, would lead to a great deal of what most would consider success… But would she be happy? She would even be willing to sacrifice her own happiness for her family’s, but in this future, she had destroyed her lover’s chance at happiness, had even corrupted her oldest daughter to be unable to see warmth… And yet her youngest daughter, who most closely resembled the true Ashelia Branford, had sought out the love and compassion of the world while keeping herself strong in the face of opposition.
“Thank you,” she whispered, catching the attention of the three woman to her sides. Her arm slowly lowered, bringing the ki pistol that Sage had bestowed upon her to her hip.
The game show host’s cold eyes locked onto her own, yet he said nothing. Observant as always, he watched for the fourth flower in the bouquet while wondering if it too would bloom.
Celes was what Ashe wanted to be. Celes was the daughter that she wanted to have. Celes was the symbolic future for which she fought.
Curiously, without Kai’s vision, the high school student would never have lived through the experiences that she faced in that cruel twisted persona she had taken. She would never have come to know Kaden in a way that affected her soul to the depths of her heart. He was a great guy, and she knew that. Before that vision, he had simply been a great guy, nothing more. He’d been someone she had met situationally and would never have really come to know on any greater level.
Now she knew what they could have become. Even greater, however, his vision gave her the ability to avoid that loss altogether if she so chose. But then, it was better to have loved and lost, she supposed.
No, she didn’t believe everything that he had shown her of her future, she argued. The man had proven himself to be a great many things, but omniscient or oracle had not been one of those things. It was a series of imagery and experiences that Ashe had lived out as if they were real. She had learned a great many things.
But this was still her life, and she would need to live to know for certain what she wanted with her life. There were people counting on her, here and at home. Her sister Terra was waiting, hoping to hear all about her life back on Earth while showing her the ropes on Kajin Rala. Her best friend Becca would insist on being filled in on all the details before attempting to drive the pain away from her with constant exposure to zombie movies. Her other friend Claire would be worried for her, in tears at the things that Ashe had gone through on this island.
There was her grandfather that was not all related, Gensei, who had been her guardian her entire life. What had become of him? When the robots had shot the two with darts and had taken her, what had they done with him back on Earth? Had he informed her parents of her fate? Were they worried for their daughter’s safety, possibly losing their jobs while trying to find her? Sage would likely be devastated if her new friend were to fall on the island, especially after losing her own sister to the same madman that had brought them all great misery.
She tightened her fist around her weapon in resolve, the smile strangely crossing her face. She had everything to live for. She would not leave them to suffer her funeral. But more importantly, the three woman standing alongside her would also not fall. Together, the four of them were going to bring the end of this tournament.
“You wanted your finale, Mr. Rogers,” she finally spoke, breaking the silence with his absolutely mundane name. Her right hand held tightly onto the pistol at her side. Her other hand, however, rose out slightly from her waist to point at him while she watched him, the entire group spellbound. Sparks of energy had begun gathering around her fingertips, dancing like wisps in the moonlight from cuticle to cuticle before flowing their way down her arm.
His eyes had never broken her own, but he was staring into a set of deep eyes that were glowing a fierce blue. It was something that she would later realize that she and Kaden shared, despite having no relevant similarities to their ancestry. The Star’s Tear buried deep within her breast was burning now, an enveloping yearning as it cried for release. Ki lanced from her eyes in rapid and erratic flashes, echoing the strong arcs of energy that were washing down her left arm.
“Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it,” she warned.
The man finally smiled, his red energy field tightening around him as he watched the foursome before him. “And finally, the fourth rose has bloomed,” he replied coolly. His arms spread at his sides as if to bring their awareness to their surroundings. “Do you not appreciate what my show has brought forth from each of you?”
Sage answered by summoning a shard of razor ice beneath the man’s feet, showing no sign of disappointment as he nimbly hopped back out of the way before continuing. “You could almost say that I created you!” he taunted.
“You are no God!” Sophia snapped, firing off a quick blast of simple Ki energy his way. His trained hand simply swatted it away.
“I have allowed each of you to combat your own demons and come to the realization of who you really are, all before a live televised audience!” he proudly proclaimed.
The red haired medic vanished before him, attempting to remove his head with a swift kick from above as she screamed in fury. He was no longer where she expected him to be even as she reappeared, his retreating form continuing to harass them with his words. “I have even shown each of you how easily you can fall, while equally showing you why it is that you fight even now,” he finished, his accusing finger moving across the four recollecting women.
A raging blue aura was burning around the relic imbued woman with pink hair as her hair blew wildly from the torrential energy that had overtaken her system. Despite this, she calmly gazed at him through brilliant luminescent irises. “I doubt any of us would contest that claim,” she replied sadly. “Kai Demolic, you have indeed shown us just how far an ordinary man can fall. Your arrogance and pride were your downfall,” she judged.
He seethed at this, bringing up his fist in challenge to her. “I am not at my end. And I have never been ordinary.”
Her pink hair whipped from side to side as blue pulses blasted through each strand. “None of us have ever been, judging by what you have shown us. Yet, in a world where everyone is unique, much like the snowflake, we find that our differences bring us together in the end, giving us the ability to bind together into the strongest arctic snowstorm, so pure and uniform, despite every particle being entirely unique to itself.” She looked over at the icily calm doctor at her side and smiled warmly, giving her an approving nod.
Kai took her in for a moment and then haughtily burst into laughter. After a moment of not luring any of them in by his false drop of security, he smirked boastfully. “Oh please. Is this the type of poetry that you write in your little online journal before cutting your wrist? Keep it up and I might consider it myself,” he taunted, hoping to hit a soft spot.
The girl smiled back at him before the energy coursing through the left side of her body finally flowed into her right side, collecting around the pistol in her right hand. “Even now, in your final moments, you still believe yourself to have won.” She pursed her lips for a moment as she strangely cocked her head to the side, beginning to see the gorgeous display of the lights flowing from specific locations of his body to other points. She recalled that they were known as chakra points, according to the books at her shop. It was an amusing sight, at the least. “The sad truth is that you are powerful enough that you stand a great chance at taking down one of us. Of that, we have no illusions,” she gave a sorrowful side glance at the feminine collection. “Savor that one victory, Kai, because I highly doubt you can overcome all of us fighting together. United.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to start with you!” he raged, suddenly bursting forward.
![[Image: Ashe.jpg]](http://i1017.photobucket.com/albums/af298/symbiosychotic/Ashe.jpg)