Day One: Early Morning

[Yamu]

The calm forest betrayed the sinister undercurrents of Dante's Abyss. The VIP room had almost made Yamu's head explode as the combined energies of ki and ego mixed together in a putrid tonic of sickening bravado that made the Earthling want to vomit. He had avoided the people he knew, choosing instead to recline in a corner with his bag and memorizing every line, wrinkle and imperfection of all forty-four participants.

The muscled titan sat lotus style, the weighty length of the Ki Sword resting in his
lap, its contact points carefully balanced upon both knees. His breath
was slow and heavy as minute by minute, he tracked the path that had led
to this moment.

This moment that he now regretted to the depths of his soul.

"I have cheapened myself?" The words slipped quietly from his lips, a nasty taste dancing along his tongue. "I have turned myself into a common WHORE! This is not ME!"

Nothing stirred at his outcry, neither a bird nor leaf moved as he pounded his chest in self-outrage. "Life and Death are not a game?" He rose to his feet, his artificial saber springing a deadly emerald flame that matched his inflammatory mood. "What am I doing here? Friend or Foe was slavery?it was fight or die?this?this was?IS?I CHOSE this path?". The muscles that made the warrior such an intimidating opponent and the veins that made him such a fearsome sight began to shake with rage and shame. "Why am I here? This isn't me?" His black eyes blazed in fury. "I fight FOR things, for people?not for a show?not for entertainment. NO!"

He spun, limbs like a snake's head, as his body morphed into the all too familiar shape of Burter. Yamu's usual baritone voice rose slightly and developed the humanoid reptile's trademark rasp, "I play at fighting now?I treat life like a toy?something to entertain others with?" the pre-provided weapon sliced the tree as if it had already been turned into paper.

Another spin, Ki Sword extended, as his body shrank and grew flowing blond locks and his voice took on the melodious notes of Hasky, "Not only that?I take an innocent in with me to experience the pain and suffering of a violent death?" the memory of dying by his own Shotgun blast sent a tremor of physical sorrow streaming through his body.
Another massive tree fell like a child's building block.

The slender leather clad figure spun into the air hitting an invisible line in the sky, that as he crossed through, formed the metallic-tailed figure Yamu had first met on Namek, and had since run into on several other occasions. "To kill to die?when Metal Koola and I fought it had purpose? meaning! A planet's fate was determined by our fists alone?" Upon dropping back to the ground the glistening figure split yet another tree in half, sending the two perfectly equal halves toppling into others and making
a domino effect of death.

When the fighter landed he had already assumed a different shape;
Deep violet locks sprouted from the shining skull; soft, fleshy curves had replaced the bulky aluminum of the artificial changeling. "This is not even a tournament like my time
with Violet, where honor and respect are won through honest combat!" The heat in the voice was evident. "This is no competition?this is Violence Pornography!" The voice was her's, but the words were Yamu's. The shapechanging form's hands blurred as
it struck out at a tree hundreds of times in the tick of a clock. He stopped, and the towering trunk erupted into a fury of wooden fireworks.

The shape slowly grew and achieved the original framework of Yamu, clutching the massive collection of artificial ki between his fists. "No?this is not me?I am above this?better then THIS!" A noise that could shake mountains erupted from the lips of the roused fighter and with a swing of his massive weapon cut another mighty swath out of the once peaceful forest, the shockwave from the mighty stroke toppling more of the impressive woods than the weapon itself.

"Do-you-HEAR-ME! I am beyond this game!" He paused as introspection only honed and did not lessen the flames pulsing in his mind and soul. "No?this will not be like last time?no playing?no following along?" Shoulders heaved, oversized veins pulsed with ferocity as his eyes took on a feral light no one had seen in the man since the Pits. "I have soiled everything I once stood for. There is only one way to pull my pieces back together...to win?I'll give these other hapless souls the one thing that was not afforded to me last time a collar was forced around my neck: a quick death."

Spittle flew from his mouth as he charged through the woods?he had gone to a place he had buried for so long, a place he had tried his entire conscious life to suppress, but was now enveloped in like coat of many colors. He was a gladiator once again?he was a killing machine?


There, folks is fighter number Twenty: Yamu. Not a crowd favorite
nor one of the strongest in DANTE'S ABYSS, but look at the PASSION that
man has! Whoever gets in the way of that moving meat slicer is sure
going to regret it!

An old man sat at his television, reluctantly flipping to the premiere
of this season's Dante's Abyss. His furnishing would have been
considered opulent when they were first installed but the over-stuffed
chairs and massive walls of bookshelves were now worn, unpolished, and
covered in a thin line of dust.

His once state of the art TV was now missing a knob but still received
crystal clear picture, he sat down in front silently lamenting what
martial arts had now become. He turned away form the screen and back
to his book: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, when a
familiar name jerked his attention back to the program.

The cameras focused their collective attention on the rampaging
swordsman who was blazing a trail through the forest instead of going
around even the slightest of impediments.

"Yamu?" he asked to his large empty house as the close up shot framed the feral glint in his bulging eyes, "Oh?oh no?they do not know what they have unleashed?" his hand shook with a mix of terror and palsy as the tome at his side flipped under the open AC vent to a very pertinent passage.

Cry 'havoc' and let slip the dogs of war..