Turtle Hermit Part III (Complete)

The Turtle Hermit Part III

Hard Quest

Requirement: Must have completed The Turtle Hermit Part II

Reward: 3,500 zeni and 10 Hero Points.

After your island venture, Roshi has taught you some of his best moves. Soon enough and you'll be the master of the Turtle Hermit Style. He has decided to test the skills you've learned in actual combat. On a nearby island, a martial arts school holds an monthly tournament. Roshi has signed you up. However, little do you know the venerable master has also signed up under the guise of Jackie Chun. Can you beat Master Roshi himself in hand to hand combat?

As was his normal morning routine, Sairai was sitting out, floating above the beach with one leg crossed over the other and his tail folded over his shoulder. The young Changeling had been impatient and nearly everything but outright rude to his master, and Roshi had dealt that and more back at him over the course of his training. As he meditated, he envisioned the entire flow of energy throughout his body. From the solar plexus, in the center of his abdomen, the power of his entire spirit radiated out and through him, the source of his ki, and of his powers, both physical and spiritual.

Attuning himself to this ancient knowledge, Sairai felt the ki rise up and wash over him before receding back, like the tides of the sea in front of him. It was natural for his powers to build, hit a high note, and crash against the shore before receding again. However, the ocean of water and the ocean of ki had a few things that they didn’t share in common. Key among these was the fact that the ocean of ki also acted like a muscle. The more it was used, the deeper and more far reaching it would become.

That was the reason that training of the body, mind, and soul was part of the ever expanding disciplines of the martial arts. Sairai sensed his master coming before he even left his house. When Roshi’s foot hit the porch of the Kame House, Sairai opened his eyes, turned around, and bowed, hands together, at his master.

“Master Roshi, you’re up early this morning,” the Changeling noted as his master sat down on the porch, beating his old wooden staff against the porch in a bored fashion. The younger man walked up to him and sat down next to him, tail hanging off the edge of the porch and swishing back and forth in time with Roshi’s strikes on the porch.

“Well, of course I am. I did promise you I’d put you through some special exercises today. We just can’t do it here. I decided to wake up a little early today so we can get there on time.”

“So… uh, how are you going to get there?” Sairai asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Roshi looked at his student with a slight smile and said, “I’ve arranged for transportation, but you’ll be hoofing it with me. I’m not about to let my student fly ahead of be just to avoid a two hour long boat ride with little if anything to do.”

The Changeling’s heart dropped like a stone into the pit his stomach. He’d have to go by boat, floating on a two hour trip that would take him all of fifteen minutes to fly across, all because Master Roshi didn’t want to be bored alone.“Yeah… That sounds about like something you’d do.”

Roshi didn’t bat an eyelash. At least, Sairai assumed he didn’t bat an eyelash. He couldn’t see the old man’s eyes underneath his giant sunglasses. Sighing, the Changeling walked back out to the beach to await the boat, bringing up his legs and resuming his meditation ritual.

On the boat, about half an hour later, Sairai was trying to meditate, if only to keep himself calm and collected but Roshi and the fisherman he’d paid to come and pick them up were just having a jolly good time with one another. A vein had to be popping out on the Changeling’s head, but he tried his best not to show it, swallowed his building annoyance, and let it pass.

“So, you two are headed to the martial arts tournament, right?” the fisherman asked. “Gonna compete?”

Roshi shook his head. “I’m not,” he said, before patting Sairai on the back. “He is, though.”

“Oh, is he now? You know, I’ve heard rumors that Jackie Chun will be making an appearance this year. Not many, if any that I can remember, ever managed to outright beat him,” the fisherman said, waggling his eyebrows comically, as if there was some kind of hidden joke about it, but if there was Sairai wasn’t paying enough attention to catch it, nor would he have cared to think about it if he had. When Roshi decided to go off the deep end and turn his sadism up to full throttle, there really was no point trying to stop him or even figure out the point to what he was doing.

Roshi smashed his staff down on Sairai’s tail, eliciting a loud yelp from the young man. He brought it up into his hands and began rubbing on it gingerly. “You know, if you had done that to another of my race, they wouldn’t have thought twice about having you killed, venerable master or not.”

Roshi nodded. “I know, but you’re not like the others of your race, are you?” he asked, a sly grin creeping across his face.

The Changeling collapsed back onto his seat with a deep sigh. “No, I suppose I’m not. I’d never had left my home if I was.”

Roshi nodded. He’d managed to piece together Sairai’s story bit by bit over the last few months they being had spent with him. He came from a race of prideful, arrogant, ambitious tyrants, and he had been lucky to escape alive, much less with a sense of right and wrong still attached. Despite it being skewed a little, the Changeling had come far in his training, and was growing closer and closer every day to becoming what most would consider a good person. It probably wouldn’t be much longer before the people of Earth really started to look up to the small alien as a hero, or at least as a champion martial artist who was friendly and easy to approach.

At last, they reached the shores of the island where the tournament was being held. As they disembarked, Roshi handed a few coins to the boatman, and the man walked away with a smile on his face. The old men turned back to him and yelled, “And remember, meet us here before sunset. I’d like to be home before dawn tomorrow, if you don’t mind!”

Sairai chuckled before his master tore out across the beach, headed for a strange little building overlooking the coast. Sairai had to struggle to catch up with the old man. Even with his considerable speed, he was beaten to the top of the cliff. He struggled for breath by the time he made it to the top of the cliff and looked up at the top of the giant double doors they now stood in front of.

“A martial arts school?” he asked, looking at his master with a curious gaze.

“Yes. Didn’t you listen on the boat?” Sairai shook his head. “I’m signing you up for one of the tournaments they hold here every month. Registration ends today, and you’re going to have to hurry.”

The younger man ran to the front desk of the school while the old master disappeared from sight, a slight smile on his face. Once the Changeling made it to the front desk, he was met with a somewhat strange expression before the clerk looked him in the eye and said, “Here for the tournament?”

He nodded and was handed a sheet of paper and a pen. He filled out the information that was necessary, his name, and current place of residence, and turned the form in. The clerk took it and placed it in the pile of finished papers to be signed off on before the matches started.

“Alright,” the little woman said, a slight tone of disdain to her voice. She pointed to a small man dressed in what appeared to be some kind of a formal fashion. “You’ll follow him to the locker room. This is a hand to hand tournament, so please leave any…” she looked him up and down, “…space weapons in your designated locker. Next, please?”

Sairai felt a little bit insulted by the woman’s attitude. He had never planned to cheat nor use a weapon. In fact, he didn’t even plan to use ki. Most of the martial artists on the planet were unable to use ki of any kind, and that was an advantage he would really prefer to keep under his hat unless he absolutely needed it.

Despite his alien appearance, the young man was welcomed easily enough among the people who were in the locker room. They seemed to all be enjoying a little camaraderie and increased spirits. A few of them looked to be meditating, keeping their minds as sharp as their bodies, and then there was the strange man in the corner, in black clothing. Something about him looked familiar, but the little alien could not place it. He pressed his thumb and forefinger to his chin, trying to think it through, but was immediately interrupted by someone coming in and motioning for him to come over and talk to them.

He stood up and walked over, and listened at the man explained, “You claim to be from another planet. Is this some kind of a hoax?”

Sairai lifted his tail and tapped the man on his right shoulder. “Nope. Afraid not. Is that all? I need to mentally prepare for my first match.”

The man nodded and turned away, a little confused. Why would an alien have any reason to participate in a local martial arts tournament?

Sairai went back to his bench and rested his eyes for a few minutes until his name was called. He walked out to the ring, prepared to face anything the world could throw at him.

WC: 1,615

Sairai stepped out to face his first match, with his ki almost completely suppressed. As he had feared, his opponent had little if no ki to speak of, and was little more than a standard physical fighter. Of course, judging from the size of his muscles, that was no idle threat to the Changeling. The man looked like he could rip Kame House in half.

Sairai balanced himself momentarily before he invited the man to come at him. The giant beast of a man immediately rushed him, only to meet thin air and Sairai’s foot underneath his own, tripping him with little less ease than fighting a small child. “Calm down. Show a little more restraint or your opponent will be able to take advantage of your open-,” the man swung one of his giant fists at the smaller creature, who merely ducked underneath, grabbed his arm, and flipped him over on his back, “-ings, like I just did.”

Big, tan, and angry didn’t seem to be done yet, though. He stood up once more and punched at the Changeling’s head with increasing frustration, though every time he swung he hit nothing but air. The smaller creature was just far too fast for him to comprehend. Then, suddenly, the human got a sneaky idea. “The alien’s scared of us humans! Look at him, he’s so scared all he can do is dodge!”

This sent the crowd wild with hisses and boos, though the young man couldn’t tell if they were for the dolt in front of him or for him. He pondered for a few moments before decided it really didn’t matter all that much. With a quick open palm strike to the man’s solar plexus, he brought him to his knees. “You should know better than to pick on those smaller than you,” Sairai said, slapping the human’s face softly with one hand. “What if they turn out to be stronger than you, and you just can’t take the embarrassment of being beaten by someone less than half your size?”

Howling in rage, the human stood up and began to swing violently at the small being. Again, he couldn’t so much as touch the Changeling. “Tsk, tsk. You really should pay closer attention to your surroundings,” the young man said lightly as he continued to dodge.

“Coward! Stand up and fight me!” the man bellowed at the creature before him in rage, the strain of missing finally getting to him and leaving him frustrated. His fists kept hitting nothing but air, until finally the Changeling seemed to disappear from sight and stood behind the man. As he turned around, Sairai sighed, shook his head, and used his tail to bring the man’s legs out from under him by sweeping around and grabbing him with it before pulling as hard as he could.

The man flipped through the air and landed right on his rear end, a mighty “Oomph!” escaping his lips from the shock. By this point, Sairai was already bored, and smashed his palm right into the man’s back, sending him flying out of the ring, to face plant in the grass outside of the ring.

“Now, if I remember the rules of martial arts tournaments around these parts, that’s a disqualification by ring out, is it not?”

As if to cement his words, the ring announcer came out and said, “Winner by ring out, Sairai!”

Sairai smiled slightly and went inside, where his smile was immediately dropped. That match was so pathetically boring. What possible use could Master Roshi have had for signing me up in this forsaken tournament if I wasn’t going to be challenged?

The young man assumed his meditative stance again, before he was approached by the man wearing black he thought he recognized earlier. A pair of small eyes beheld him as he turned around, and what Sairai sensed amazed him. This person’s spiritual strength was nearly through the roof. There was no way any normal person could be this strong.

“Who are you?” the young man asked, completely forgetting his manners due to the shock.

“Name’s Jackie Chun. I’m participating in the tournament. I’m in the bracket across from you, so if we fight, it’ll be in the finals. I just wanted to wish you good luck,” the old man said with a wink. Sairai smiled back at the man. It was almost as if he had known the old man for quite awhile, but he couldn’t figure out exactly how he seemed familiar.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to ponder as he was called out for his next fight. This time, he wasn’t facing some hulking behemoth who could barely think. This man appeared to be something right out of fiction. His body was lean, compact, but also fairly tall. He looked like he could move as fast as the wind itself.

Sairai pondered for a moment whether or not he should release his ki, but thought better of it and decided to just fight the guy at his current level of ki. If he proved to be too much of a challenge, Sairai could easily just change tactics and go all out a little further down the line.

The ring announcer called the match to an open, and as the Changeling expected, his latest opponent decided to take the initiative, attacking with a series of swift kicks and punches that Sairai could only just barely dodge. Unfortunately for his opponent, he was still have relatively little trouble dodging, so it remained intensely boring to the younger of the two fighters.

Sairai decided to make things a little bit interesting he would take a couple of hits. The man struck him first in the abdomen, then both shoulders, and finally delivered a quick thrusting kick to his chest that caused him to stagger back a few feet. The Changeling looked up at the man and tilted his head in a confused manner. “Is this really the best you can hit me with? The other guy hit like a truck, and you move faster than most I’ve seen, and this is strongest you can hit? You need to learn to balance your tactics a little more.”

He moved up on the man swiftly and punched him on both shoulders, causing the man to fall backwards in a heap before he stopped attacking. “Swift hits in rapid succession are good for slowly wearing an opponent down, if you have the endurance to keep it up over the long haul. Strong hits in very slow succession are good for taking your opponent out as swiftly as possible, especially,” he jumped in the air and landed on the other side of the man, “if you have the physical strength to deliver punishing blows that can break bones or destroy muscles.”

He vanished for a moment and reappeared in front of the man, who had just managed to stand up and turn around to look at him. “On the other hand, strong attacks in rapid succession, which requires a combination of both of the above requirements, are much preferred by those who don’t want to get hit, but also want to lay their opponents out as swiftly as they possibly can.”

Sairai danced around the taller man with a swift combination of moves involving his fists and feet, and came around with a lightning fast strike with his tail, causing the man to go spinning into the air before falling harmlessly to the ground, a little broken and battered, but still in one piece. “Of course, a combination of the three styles also works wonders, now that I think about it…” he said with a slight chuckle

The ring announcer announced his win yet again and he went back to the locker room with a smile on his face. He might not have been getting much in the way of a challenge yet, but he was teaching a few “seasoned veterans” a few things. A scant 22 years old, and the Changeling was already among the best at the tournament. That much was certain to him. So far, from what he felt, there was only one person of any real challenge to him, and that was this mysterious Jackie Chun, who he could swear he had met before somewhere along the line. Wrack his brain as he might, he couldn’t think of a single person who fit the full description of this man. Perhaps he would ask Master Roshi at the end of the tournament who the man was.

He watched with wonderment as the semifinal round of the other bracket was completed. The Jackie Chun guy was mopping the floor with the other person, and didn’t even top to give pointers like the Changeling had. He just outright attacked and knocked the other guy out of the ring.

Sairai could already tell he was in for a challenge when and if he made it to the finals. “Semi-finals for Bracket B. Will Sairai and Lexan please come to the ring?”

Sairai stood up and looked around himself at the other contestants, looking for this Lexan person. A smallish boy around the age of fifteen walked by him and out to the ring, and Sairai followed, hoping against hope that this small boy wasn’t the one called Lexan.

Oh, how wrong he was. Lexan bowed to him, and he back, before the announcer called a start to the match. Lexan flew forward at a surprising speed and started hitting Sairai fast and hard, causing him to back slowly almost to the edge of the ring. Sairai struck out with his tail, spinning to his right and almost falling out of the ring, and the young man merely jumped back and out of the way, a slight smirk on his face.

“You use your tail a little too much in your fights. I’m guessing that it’s the best maneuver you can use, isn’t it, using that fifth appendage to destabilize your opponents and keep them on their guard? It won’t work on me. I’ve been watching your fights in between my own.”

Sairai smiled slightly and thought, Finally, a real challenge. His eyes lit up at the prospect and he flew forward at full speed, unleashing his full ki and punching at the young man with all of his strength, only to find that he had punched through an illusion. The boy had moved so fast that he had left an after image.

The Changeling looked around, trying to find his opponent, before he caught the back of the young man’s heel upside the back of his head. “You’re going to have to do better than that to catch me!” he said, spinning in the air and landing on his feet with the grace of a gazelle. Sairai frowned for a moment as he rubbed the back of his head.

“That was kind rude, kid,” he said, his eyes narrowing slightly as the Lexan merely turned around, patten himself softly on the rear, and stuck his tongue out.

“Well then,” Sairai said, appearing beside him and kicking him a good thirty feet in the opposite direction. “I guess I’m just going to have to earn your respect, then.”

The kid stopped himself with one hand, doing a handspring and ending up on his feet again, but Sairai was already on the other side of him and grabbed his arm with one hand, flipping him over on his backside with a swift flick of the wrist.

The two began exchanging blows almost immediately. Sairai ducked, dodged, weaved, and punched back at full speed while the young man did the same. The Changeling had to admit that the kid was good as he continued to dodge, until the kid caught him with a fist to the gut and immediately began pounding on him before kicking him square in the jaw, sending him careening into the sky, before jumping up and grabbing him in a lock as they duo began to fall toward the ground.

Sairai broke free from the hold at the last second and was only barely able to hold himself together long enough to push off from the kid with a rough kick, but just as he was about to flip through the air to come out on the other side, the human grabbed his tail and tugged downward as hard as he could. The two of them hit the ground at roughly the same time, chins smashing into the concrete flooring below.

Sairai’s head bounced a couple of times and his vision went cross for a few seconds before he was able to pull himself together and stand back up. The kid, who had been quicker to the draw in standing up, smiled down at the alien creature and pulled back his fist to deliver a final attack. Sairai brought his hands up, pretending to beg for mercy.

As the child’s smile grew even wider, Sairai saw his opening and kicked the kid in the chest with both feet, full strength, sending the kid flying out of the ring.

The crowd erupted into applause at the attack, and Sairai stood, a little shaken, but otherwise mostly unhurt. He waited for the ring announcer to proclaim his victory and walked over to the kid. “You okay?” he asked, extending his hand to help the kid stand.

Lexan took his hand and stood up a little uneasily before saying, “Yeah. I’m fine. How’d you do that? No one’s ever caught me off balance like that before.”

Sairai smiled and said, “Well, we all still have so much left to learn, after all. No one can expect to be a master of every attack and defensive technique in the world all at once. We have to pace ourselves to become the best in the world. It was a good match, though, wasn’t it?”

Lexan smiled and laughed aloud. “Yeah, sure was, especially the part where we both almost broke our jaws against the ring floor. That was real fun.”

Sairai laughed at the young man as they went back to the locker room.

Jackie Chun was waiting for him. “You’ve done pretty well so far. Let’s see how you handle a real martial arts master, shall we?”

Sairai could only nod and hope in his heart of hearts that he wouldn’t embarrass his master out there in the coming finals match.

WC: 2,402
TWC: 4,017

Finally, the time had come. “Sairai and Jackie Chun, please step forward. It’s time for the final match!”

The Changeling looked at the older man with a curious expression. He knew there was no chance he’d be able to hold back against this man, no matter how strange he seemed with his bluish silver hair and white moustache and beard. Sairai gave up trying to place the man’s face, and instead focused on the coming match between the two of them. His icy blue eyes were sparkling with excitement and no small amount of outright nervousness.

As Sairai stepped into the ring, he bowed to the man across from him. “Let’s have a good match,” he said, allowing his ki to flare out to its full potential. Jackie nodded and did the same thing, and Sairai could immediately see the difference between the two. The man not only had ages of experience on his side, but also a sizeable amount of spiritual strength as well.

The young man took a deep breath and took his ready position, his feet placed shortly apart, knees bent, and both hands up halfway between his torso and face, ready to defend whichever part of the body the old man would try to attack first. Then, without warning, from behind him a fist struck him in the center of his bad.

“Gotta keep a lookout, boy. I left behind an After Image. It’s the same move the little kid used on you earlier. I’m surprised you fell for the same trick twice. Guess you can’t teach an old lizard new tricks after all, eh heh heh.”

Oh, so now the old geezer’s got jokes, the Changeling though, already exasperated with the old man’s childlike attitude. He punched at the old man’s head, trying to knock him senseless, and was only met with thin air as the man bent over backwards and planted his foot firmly on Sairai’s jaw, kicking him up into the air.

Sairai, for one, had come to have about enough of this, and flipped over in mid air and caught himself in flight. The crowd around him looked on in shocked awe, but Sairai was done holding back, pulling all of his strength from within his spiritual ocean. He felt the ki flowing through him with and coalescing through his right arm, out through his index finger. He concentrated it into a single point and let the ki build for just a few more seconds before letting it go, firing his Death Beam at the old codger.

The old man merely screamed loudly and the beam dissipated. “Now, please get your butt back down here so we can finish, or would you prefer me to knock you down?”

Sairai crossed his arms for a moment as if considering and then asked, “And how exactly would you propose to knock me down?”

“Well, you asked for it,” the old man said, pulling off his shirt to reveal his exceedingly muscular physique. Sairai balked for a moment. If he had to guess, by sheer body mass, this guy was even stronger than the first fighter he had faced at the tournament.

A terrible amount of energy built up in the man’s body as he seemed to grow even more massive by the second. Sairai floated back as wave after wave of spirit energy pushed out from the man’s form, until it could almost be seen with the naked eyes. Jackie brought his hands together in the shape of a cup and pointed the bowl of the cup in the opposite direction while speaking what sounded like some kind of a mantra.
“Ka-me-ha-me-ha!” the old man screamed, pointing both hands at the Changeling. A large wave of blue-white ki poured forth from his hands and smashed headlong into the alien, knocking him aside like a ragdoll. He fell to the ground, his chin kissing the concrete flooring of the arena for the second time that day.

He stood up and cracked a few of the bones in his body back into place. “All right… Now I’m steamed,” he growled under his breath as he slowly walked toward the old man, his aura radiating out in bursts of blue and white, like a miniature sun. He powered up to full and burst into his full speed, moving faster than most naked eyes could see, to land a punch right on that old man’s cocky face.

The old man reached out with the swiftness of lightning and caught Sairai’s hand before pulling down on it and sticking his foot out in front of the alien’s, causing him to trip over himself and fall out of the ring.

“And once again everyone, Jackie Chun wins!” the ring announcer proclaimed to the roaring crowd. “Let’s give a hand for our runner up, though.” The crowd clapped politely as the Changeling stalked out and into the locker room.

Lexan and a few others tried to calm him down, and then the winner himself walked up and put his hand on the Changeling’s shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I don’t think anyone’s held that long against me in many years. You should be proud of your accomplishments, instead of drowning in the sea of your past defeats.”

Sairai looked up into the old man’s eyes and his eyes opened wide in shock. It finally made sense now. This man was Master Roshi. No wonder he couldn’t win, he was fighting the very person who had taught him most of what he knew up until this point.

A few hours later, after the ceremony for the top three competitors, Master Roshi and Sairai were headed back to the boat, and Roshi asked the young man, “Learn anything interesting while you were at the tournament?”

Sairai smiled lightly, turned around, and grabbed the old man’s sunglasses without any warning before twirling them in one hand. “Yeah. Next time I pick a master, make sure he doesn’t embarrass me in front of a large group of spectators.”

WC: 1,005
TWC: 5,022