Hell Seems To Be Everywhere I Look

[Dante Lopez]

"Freedom...how do people call themselves free when all they do is worry about what is coming upon the next dawn?" these were the words uttered by a red cloaked man as he takes his steps through the blood plains. Eight years, to this exact date, has past since he came back to Earth yet still he is struggling to accept what has happened to his home planet. Who is this man? He's a survivor...a mercenary...a loner. His name is Dante Lopez, he is twenty-three years old and is one of only two people to ever have escaped from that hellacious planet.

His clothes consist of black leather pants and a black top, connected with straps and buckles, but the top is hardly seen since his blood red cloak covers not only his shoulders and upper arms...but the majority of his upper body as well. Part of his long, shadow black, hair easily fringing over his red bandanna by the male momentarily stopped dead in his tracks to look at what is by his feet...some kind of mammal that has long been dead but haven't fully decayed yet "hell seems to be everywhere I look." Moments after finishing those words Dante looked up towards the clear sky with the sun mercilessly blazing down upon these plains, no wonder these plains look so lifeless.

Yet Dante personally preferred being within this mostly lifeless desert instead of Ghettien Settlement...why is that? The dissatisfaction in his voice, when saying his first line, reveals how negatively he views the mindset of many at the Settlement. He understood younger people thinking about freedom, but they view freedom and caution as the same thing instead of separate matters...yet it isn't the main reason why Dante doesn't feel comfortable living with the rebellion. Like previously stated there Dante was just 'one of only two people' to escape that planet. The other person is called Alakai and he was somebody that Lopez once considered as his 'best friend forever' yet the escape showed how wrong he was has, on very single night, he was haunted by the same nightmare...Alakai throwing Celia, the girl Dante wanted to spend the rest of his life with, out of their ship.

"Why did you kill her Alakai?" roamed through the male's mind as he began to stroll on. Has a mercenary Dante would normally be heading off to the destination of his next job, however instead he has chosen to walk through the desert...as if looking for a purpose to continue living. Even though a plain of rocks and sunlight there are fortunately a couple of little ponds of water for travellers to possibly drink from, since the area was once a enormous forest. So after almost half an hour of walking Dante managed to come across one of these ponds, which are tiny compared to what it us to be, and approached it before pulling out a container of some kind from his cloak. The container was completely empty so it made sense to refill it whenever possible.

But the only problem with water is that dangerous animals normally live nearby them and this creature is a rather big Desert Kingsnake. Normally the wouldn't be considered as dangerous to humans but due to the majority of their natural prey being wiped out, they've adapted to feasting on them. So as his left hand, which was holding the container, plunged into the water the Kingsnake leaped out in attack.

The attack never connected as the creature laid dead with a three bullet holes across it. Within the split moment of attack Dante's right hand pulled out his firearm, pointed it towards the attacker and pulled the trigger. The shots did create a noise as three bullets did fire from the triple-barrelled revolver but fortunately it wasn't loud enough to alarm any faraway sayians. Even though killing the snake Dante's eyes never drifted away from the container as he, after the snake fell dead, he pulled the bottle out of the water and closed its lid, satisfied with the amount of water inside it, before putting the container back inside his cloak. "I guess it won't hurt to take a slight break," the male uttered before glancing over towards the dead snake, considering the possibility of turning it into his lunch.

[Legendary]

Winta hummed quietly to himself as he levitated several rocks of varying sizes around himself, his telekinesis training was coming along quite well, so well that he had even sought out some of the larger and more deadly looking Earth beasts and fought them using only the power of his telekinesis, the results had been overall positive and had done wonders for leaping his skill with the technique forward. Now however Winta was focusing a bit more on pure control over the rocks, sadly his current feat of levitating six rocks was not actually a possibility in combat the amount of concentration needed to preform this was far too great for battle at least for the moment, but with work he was certain that such a task would be trivial eventually. With another breath Winta lifted himself into the air taking things a bit further as he seperated his concentration even further now using both his psychic power AND his Ki power at the same time, Winta felt the rocks beginning to waver from his control and with that dropped one of the larger ones. The immediate effect was a return of will 'control' over the remaining five which to Winta was at the very least satisfactory considering the relative 'newness' of the power.

As Winta floated he heard the familair crack of gunfire causing enough of a break in his concentration for three more of the rocks too fall, frowning Winta dropped the remaining rocks and grounded himself, once on level ground Winta began slowly making his way towards the sound. being apart of the Arcosian Fleet's army Winta was quite accustomed to the sound of gunfire but the fact that someone was firing a gun out in the middle of bumble-fuck nowhere was intriguing enough to draw his attention.

As Winta made his way through the plains he eventually happened upon the area that had been the source of the gunfire, upon inspection Winta noted that it was actually a rather nice area, there was a small pond of water and beside it a human male standing over the corpse of a serpent of some sort, Winta raised an eyerbow as he looked over the human, the man had a rather interesting style of dress and was in fact one of the few who seemed to have some ability to maintain his physical apperance as his clothing appeared well kept with only minimal signs of wear likely from the mans travels through the Plains themselves. Winta managed to catch the man speak hearing him decide to take a break here. What brought this human so far out into the plains? It had been Wintas experiance that it was rare to see a human capable of flight so clearly he had made this trek on foot, a rather impressive feat considering the distance between here and the nearest settlement.

Winta decided to go out on a limb and seek out the human rather than simply hang back and observe as he normally would. There was little risk a human could pose to himself and if perhaps he was mistaken and the man was actually a Saiyan... well then truly fate had blessed him by gifting him a Saiyan so far away from civilization with which to 'extract' information from. And otherwise Winta would get another chance to interact with a Human and learn a bit more. "Hello traveler. What brings you so far out here?" Winta said as he took to the air flying down to where the man was landing a few feet away, more than enough to keep a comfortable distance between himself and the human in case there was any mistake in his intentions.

[Dante Lopez]

It was true that Dante walked all the way to where he is, knowing that others could find such a thing interesting…even though he didn’t find it at all impressive since, in the end, if he never took a step forward then he wouldn’t be any step closer to finding a purpose. The brightness of the sun being just one reason why the gun wielding male didn’t look up towards the sky while another reason being the serpent by his feet since another thing about the plains is that, with animals being so few and far between, there isn't much food available among the plains.

"What should I do? Should I eat right now, as a source of protein, even though I'm not very hungry? Or should I just leave it here and waste the potential meal in front of me?" Roamed through Dante's mind before his eyes wandered off to look at the revolver in his right hand "eight years ago I wouldn't have even pulled the trigger...I kill to live yet how does that make me, the person that people back at the settlement called 'The Blood Gunner,' any different from this piece of meat in front of me? Perhaps I should eat this snake...it's no use to waste food when survival can be lost at a coin-flip."

Even though in thought, the male felt something coming from a distance. During this years of adapting and surviving the red-cloaked man managed to somehow develop a way to sense the ki of others. It isn't as well refined as others but it works well enough for him to prepare for them. Could this source of ki belong to a Sayian? Perhaps it could but if so then it doesn't feel like a veteran Sayian, instead it feels a decent bit stronger than the average Sayian soldier. But the moment the words 'hello traveler' were heard Dante glanced towards the source of that voice, only to see Winta flying down towards him.

In his eight years here Dante Lopez has seen many things, from devastated cities to the dark perversion of some Sayians, yet never once has the male seen an Arcosian before. The skin colour, the horns and the tail itself were features that took the male's attention away from his thoughts...even though neither his eyes or expression revealed any of this as the alien landed a few feet away, predicting that the creature is as cautious of him as he is of the strategist in front of him. "So you were the power level I felt," he muttered lightly while not letting go of his firearm, in case the Arcosian tried to attack him like a few Sayians did during the past few years. "I came out here to simply travel, to broaden my horizons if you will, as well as looking for a purpose to live for..." was the male's answer to the question this alien has asked him. "So, dear foreigner, what exactly brings you out here by yourself?" Is the black haired male wary of the person in front of him? Yes, but that cautiousness has been outweighed by his curiosity of Winta...and it doesn't hurt to have a conversation with somebody when in a lonely world.

[Legendary]

Winta was more than a little impressed, even from a distance it had appeared that the human had tensed up slightly at his approach even before he had actually said anything, it had been almost like the sort of natural 'danger sense' that many animals semeed to have, they could often feel when a predator was nearby and would prepare themselves to flee if need be. Luckily for this human Winta was not a 'predator' in this moment. Now he was merely a curious wanderer. The second he has uttered his greeting the human had whipped around to fact hum giving Winta a far better opportunity to inspect the human, he seemed prepared for travel in this sort of environment as his clothing covered most of his skin which would easily fend off sun burn, as an Arcosian Winta was nigh immune to such damage as his skin was composed far differently than human skin, his people could even survive the vacuum of space, not indefinitely, but still far FAR longer than most anyone else. As Witna ahd noted the human wore primarily red even sporting a red headband and likewise as Witna had noted he had a far more well kept appearance than most of the Humans that he had seen so far. As a sign of good faith Winta raised his arms in a clear 'I mean no harm' manner though it appeared the Human had not yet chosen to consider him a threat.

Just as Winta inspected the human he could also see the Human doing jsut the same, his eyes trying to take in as much of his form as possible. It was actually a rather amusing feeling to know that the person staring you was likely wondering how a being such as himself actually existed. To the human he likely resembled a reptilian to some extent as Winta had noted minor physical similarities between his species and some fot he native fauna though nothing of major importance. Winta raised an eyebrow in confusion as the human uttered something odd. He mentioned 'sensing' Winta, earlier he had been almost jokingly comparing the humans reaction to his arrival to the natural 'danger sense' that seemed common amongst animals. Had he actually been right? The ability to truly sense danger before it could even act would be a truly invaluable skill and it sent Wintas mind whirling with possibilities. He could NOT screw this interaction up, he needed to know what the human had meant when he had said that and if his assumption was true find out how one learned such a skill.

Winta's mind came back to focus at the human spoke again, giving a rather cryptic answer saying that he was seeking a purpose to live for, a rather strange thing to do out in the middle of nowhere but still a rather interesting response. What had this human gone through to leave himself without even the inkling of having a purpose to live for? Witna himself could not fathom having nothing to live for, he had always had something if even minor to strive to achieve in his life, gaining acceptance in the army, making it onto a squad, proving himself to his superiors. The list went on. "I dont believe you will find much purpose out here, there is little here but rocks, dirt, and danger. And myself of course." Winta said with a half grin at the last part, technically he could fall under 'danger' but simply leaving it at that would theoretically give the wrong impression. "If I may ask, if you seek purpose why not seek it amongst your people?" Winta inquired genuinely curious of the fact. It seemed the perfect place to seek your purpose would be amongst your kin, perhaps even among the rebellion.

[Dante Lopez]

Silence, that was all Dante gave as his eyes continued to look up the Arcosian. “From the lack of clothing I can see that he isn't affected by the sun...perhaps his skin is heat resistant or something,” roamed through the his head as the black haired male noticed that the alien was inspecting him like he is to him. Perhaps it could be that the Arcosian hasn’t seen many humans, so the possibility that this was the alien's first visit to earth erupted inside his mind as Winta raised his hands up in a manner, a manner that declares that he means no harm. The human however wasn’t fully sure about this gesture since, in what little remain of history books, the earth has never once came across something registered as an alien before the Sayians came and conquered yet now this one creature has turned up…so perhaps Dante expects the foreigner in front of him to have a potentially threatening reason for being here.

Heck, how can you blame a typical human for holding some caution towards an extraterrestrial? The planet has not only been conquered, ravaged and enslaved by a different extraterrestrial race, but Dante has experience first hand from his youth how horrible and twisted these kind of foreigners can be. But, from what the male has experienced, Sayians aren’t what people would call the friendliest of fellows…bloodthirsty bastards might be a more accurate phrase and, like an over hundred year old saying goes, an enemy of my enemy is my friend. So perhaps it would be worthwhile for Dante to keep this interaction going in a positive manner since, if all else fails, it would be good to have either a friend or just an associate in case the Sayians try to go for him since, if anything, he most likely a wanted fugitive in their eyes.

Indeed the Blood Gunner’s response was cryptic and indeed the middle of nowhere is definitely not the ideal place to find a purpose. But the male definitely chose to come out here and travel to get himself stronger for while personally he doesn’t have a purpose, there is one thing he does want…revenge. But not against the Sayians for what they’ve done to him; instead he desires revenge against the man who haunts his nightmares…Alakai. Yet Dante didn’t see a point in admitting such a thing to Winta since, all he knows, the Arcosian could end up using this desire against him if they ever meet up again.

However he did give out a light chuckle at Winta’s comment of ‘rocks, dirt, and danger. And myself of course’ while finally putting his triple barrelled revolver back into his red cloak, deciding that the stranger isn’t going to cause any harm in this encounter. Dante knew that the male in front of him could as well be classed under the ‘danger’ category but since he clearly made nothing threatening the male chose to trust him as he gave out a half grin of his own. “Perhaps such a wasteland isn’t the best place to find something…but sometimes the greatest of discoveries are found in the weirdest of places,” was his comment before the male in front of him ask his newest question.

“Amongst my own people…” the male started as his slowly glanced towards the direction of the Ghettien Settlement “indeed I’m human and they’re a group of humans…but that is the only thing that links me to any of them.” While saying his words Dante looked back towards Winta before slowly looking up towards the sky “fifteen years ago I was taken off the streets and onto a completely different planet where I and many other children were brutally raised as slaves. Some were treat worst than others…me and somebody else were the only ones lucky enough to escape…” his words almost fell down into a mumble but still managed to be barely heard. “This rebellion, that I’ve heard about…they fight for freedom, even though they don’t seem to know the difference between freedom and fear…” after disappointedly uttering his final three words Dante looked back down from the sky.

“We are indeed human but among them I’m just an outsider, technically like yourself,” after saying those words the black haired male returned his eyes towards Winta. “So let me ask again…what exactly brings you out here by yourself? And what is the name of your, well, race?” while Dante decided to repeat his first question, since Winta didn't make a single answer towards it, the second question was simply added out of curiosity.

[Legendary]

Winta noted that even with his attempt to show himself as a non-threatenign force that the Human still exercised a healthy amount of caution keeping his weapon out and ready as Winta spoke only finally holstering the gun when Winta had made his joke. That was a rather nice step in the direction of civil conversation and helped Winta to see that even despite his very alien appearance that he could still convince even random humans that he was seeking to make himself an enemy. Winta conceded a 'fair enough' sort of not at the humans rather cryptic response. It appeared that while he was willing to speak without being actively armed that the Human still exersized caution when speaking choosing his words carefully to avoid giving anything important away.

Winta riased an eyebrow as the human began to speak again explaining that to some extent he was an outsider among humans because he had been taken away when he was young, taken by the Saiyans to be molded most likely into 'better' slaves, the sort of next step in truly breaking Humanity completely. Aice had mentioned plans of such things but evidently instances of such had been done in the past, perhaps the 'success' of such ventures had been what lead to this becoming a mandated process. Winta shook his head solemnly at the idea. "That is unfortunate to hear, a.. friend of mine told me quite a bit about the way the Saiyans have been 'running things' no child.. no person deserves such a fate, you are quite fortuante that you escaped with your wits still about you. I don't imagine that many would have the strength to continue on and escape." Winta said feeling ti a bit necessary to say as much to the human as he seemed quite troubled, likely by the memories of his escape, perhaps by the memories of those who had not escaped with him.

"I came here mostly for a bit of training by myself, these plains do not exactly see much foot traffic and they make for an excellent place for me to train my latest technique." Winta said as he pointed to a nearby rock causing a purple aura to flare up around it as it lifted into the air ans rocketed into Winta's palm. "Telekinesis, my people are rather naturals with the powers of the mind. As for who I am and what I am. My name is Winta and I am an Arcosian. I don't believe the name of my people will ring many bells for you sadly, we've not been apart of this quadrant of the universe  for many years, for quite the same reason your people find themselves in there current situation. Saiyans." Winta said squeezing the small rock until it finally yielded cracking and crumbling into much smaller pieces that Winta allowed to fall to the ground around his feet. "Now that you know my name perhaps you will share yours? And if you don't mind my asking could I have a look at your gun? It looked like a rather well made firearm, rather a rarity around here. I will of course understand if you will not allow me too, I'm merely curious of its design." Winta asked, he was not personally much of a weapon person preferring the use of his mind and energy but he could certainly appreciate a well crafted firearm and the humans weapon had looked quite interesting with its triple barrel design.

[Tenshu]

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