Starring:
Date: November 4, 2011 - January 16, 2012
Summary:
A scene two months in the making! ;) The beehive-raiding bears known as the Huns make their move, and Raili is still recovering from her efforts to train the villagers. Will the newly-formed militia be able to beat off the attack?
"Attack of the Huns"
A rural village [Land of Fire]
Time rolls slowly forward in the little bee-keeping village. In accordance with Raili's last instruction, Aburei has been DRILLING THE VILLAGERS IN MARTIAL ARTS WITHOUT MERCY!!! …Well, no, he's barely blue-belt level himself, and he doesn't have the meanness to push people to their limits. -.-; He does his best to encourage them to keep practicing, but mostly he does what he does best: medical work. This mainly involves keeping an eye on Raili's condition and preparing pep tonics for her.
Unfortunately, the fate of the village is going to be in jeopardy much sooner than expected. Maybe it's just bad luck. Maybe the Huns are intelligent enough to tell that something is up and are moving to nip it in the bud. Whatever the case, a pack of hulking forms shuffles through the nearby forest, following the smell from the village beehives.
"Hnnf… mrrrp. Uhh… ZAMIES!"
Raili snaps awake, in a panic, her Raili senses were tingling! Literally, a hidden device attached to her person recently began to buzz, rousing her from her current recovery nap. "Crap…" Just a little bit of buzzing would be fine but, this was much more intense than a simple rabbit bounding through or, a few villagers coming in or going out of the village, this had to be an attack.
Without being totally aware of her condition she sat up quickly, sitting there for just a few moments before titling over to the side. Her brain felt as if it were sliding out of her head and her body moved to catch it and keep it in as she plops back down onto the bed. Not knowing how long she had been out, she glances around the room for any signs before pushing her condition any further.
Nothing would be found.
That didn't matter at the moment, even if she couldn't help fight off the Huns at the moment, she could at least warn the others to prepare.
In a haze she rolls off of the bed and stumbles through the door, prepared to yell out 'The Huns are coming!' Instead, all that she manages to do is go, "Laaah Haaa eh gaweh!" Balance fails her again and she falls a painful fall… at least her chakra system was regulating now, she should be functioning soon enough.
Aburei watches a few of the villagers practicing their form with the staffs. Showing off is more like it. c.c; Aburei can tell there's something off about the way they strike, but he lacks the expertise to correct it properly. "Um…maybe a little less wind-up? I know it looks cool and all to swing it all the way back like that, but — " Further speculation on the correct form is interrupted by Raili's arrival. "Huh? Ouch!" Aburei winces and hurries over to help Raili up. "Raili-san, are you okay? You shouldn't really be up yet. Did something happen?"
Raili was used to random bruises and cuts like the ones she just gained, easily fixable with her rainbow and bandages, something much worse was ailing her at the moment. When she is helped up, she looks Aburei dead in the eyes and grasps him firmly on the shoulders to show just how important these next few words were going to be.
Further dramatized by gasping for air(Although… a lack of oxygen wasn't her issue, she was just a little dizzy.) "Aburei."
With a stress releasing sigh, she follows up with, "I am… so freakin hungry right now." With that out of the way, she retracts her hands and stands up straight, pointing off into the distance with a wavering hand. "Oh yeah and that." Some remotely discernable figure loomed within the trees, possibly a scout, if bears had those! "I think the Huns are attacking. Not really important, I need food."
Raili completely disregarded the treat that made her push herself into this condition, maybe she was completely confident in the Combat Training she gave to the villagers that she felt they could figure things out on their own. Either way, she stumbles back into the door looking around drowzily for some food or her backpack, either or would be nice right now.
Aburei locks his gaze with Raili's, giving her a wordless nod to dispense the CRITICALLY IMPORTANT INFO she is trying to say. :o …Oh. "Oh, yeah, that's to be expected. I'll have somebody bring you — " Side-look. Bear-see. Oh-crud. "Uh-oh. BATTLE STATIONS EVERYBODY!!!" Everybody around looks up, grips their weapon tightly, and…! STANDS ROOTED FOR NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO! Raili's genjutsu training, while very effective for a one-day crash course in general fighting, didn't cover any particulars of How To Defend a Village From Bear Attack.
Fortunately, at least one person is willing to randomly take action. "Come on!" shouts the bandit leader from the day before. "Surround him!" Galvanized by orders from somebody who sounds like he knows what he's doing, the other villagers charge toward the fore-running bear. Said bear pauses just after exiting the tree-line, confused by the sight before him. Don't those noisy things usually run in the other direction? o.oa While the bear is thinking this, the villagers cluster around him. It's a miracle that most of the staff whacks actually manage to land on the bear, as the villagers are forgetting in the heat of the moment to organize their strikes. The effect of the assault is to send the bear howling back into the woods. The villagers cheer. Yay, they protected the hives! n.n
Yeah, not gonna be quite that easy.
Raili nods, of course it was to be expected! Why didn't any of the villagers decide to make a banquet for their hero! Who… actually hasn't done anything quite heroic yet but, as soon as they beat off that bear then sure she saved the village.
Which, seems to be the case. "Was… that all they were running from? Wait no, I picked up a lot more than that." Raili raises her hand in the air, cutting off any sort of celebration that might pick up. "You're nowhere near done, stop goofing off dumbos. You've gotta lot more work to do." She then takes a few, nervous, steps forward. "Why're you all ganging up on one bear anyway? That's just asking to get snuck up on or even beaet the crap out of each other, spread out a bit, look more alive!" Raili doesn't really tell them how to spread out, that should be for them to figure out.
That and she couldn't think straight at the moment, so she just plops down and sits where she once stood. Her eyes study the forest, as the men seem to scramble about all trying to go in the same direction when spreading out. "Ugh… I shouldn't of put so much into combat, they're gonna get themselves killed." Sighing, her palm smacks into her forehead and slowly drags down her face.
Just then a growl is heard and in a blur, one of the 'men' gets pounced on. Raili had seen the bear coming but, made no effort to say anything or protect him, "No then…" er eyelids lower, studying them all.
The hapless villager, who seconds before had been cheering in victory, gives a frightened yell as he goes down under the bear's bulk. The others who are near enough strike out at the bear. The bear snarls and retreats, moving to rejoin its approaching comrades. Aburei darts in and clamps a hand over the bleeding gash suffered by the bear's victim. "He'll be okay. Get ready, they're coming!"
The sight of one of their own mauled by the enemy puts a shock into the villagers. It suddenly hits them that they are a barely-trained force of farmers fighting off BEARS with STICKS. In a bizarre twist of psychology, there is fortunately no time for panic to fully seize their minds, as the main force of the Huns comes out of the woods and sets upon the villagers. "Fall back slowly! Fight and retreat!" the bandit leader shouts. While Aburei drags the wounded man to relative safety, the villagers spread out and shuffle backward, swiping at any bears that come within range. It's a ground-losing strategy, but at least it slows the bears' advance and gives them time to think of something better. o.o;
Raili starts to nod a few times then… takes notes? Yes, the young-adult decides to take notes instead of help out. "Mmhrmmm." Raili's head tilts to tthe side as their positions shift again, the leader seeming to know what's going on a bit more than the rest. "So, he steps up yet again. I wonder." Raili takes a few more notes then halts for a moment, "These bears, they don't seem all too special… still." Raili gets up onto her feet and simply slips out from the village, heading in the direction the bears appeared to come from while of course not approaching their general area as best she could.
Meanwhile the bears were getting a bit annoyed, their usual advance into the village was a cakewalk and now they were getting beaten back. Of course, the bears were shocked like the humans but, they managed to get over the confusion much faster. "HUUUUUUUUN." A large bear would call out, looking a bit more grizzled than the rest and even had a scar over where there used to be a right eye. If that didn't make him appear to be the pack leader— the rest of the bears call out, "NEEEEEE!" Well, that would do it.
With the 'Papa-bear' joining the fray, the bears would begin to charge in, noticing that their claws did a lot more damage than stupid sticks hitting their thick skin. The defensive position would do well to keep the bears under control for the time being, their had to be something else…
Aburei manages to get the first victim's bleeding to stop, then looks up to see how the fight is going. Not so good, it looks like. c.c; There aren't any more big injuries so far, but that isn't likely to last for long, and meanwhile the bears are getting closer to their goal, the beehives. It occurs to Aburei to advise the villagers to retreat and let the bears have the honey this time, but he quickly decides against it. Losing another harvest would probably decimate this little community, and even if they could afford the loss, they wouldn't be likely to find the spirit to oppose the bears again. No, something's got to be done to turn this into a victory…but what? Aburei's no great fighter himself, all he can do is a little genjutsu that only a dumb animal would fall —
Wait. DUH! THAT'S IT! These guys may be smarter than the average bear, but they might still be gullible enough that it would work! Aburei rushes to the frontlines, where the bears are getting close to smashing open the first few hives. Aburei puts his recorder to his lips and begins to play frantically. A strange thing happens in the vision of the bears: the bees swarm over the outsides of their hives and actually pick them up. The hives float off of their stands and dip and sway in the air, dodging the swipes of the flabbergasted bears. They give chase, and Aburei starts leading them in circles like some sort of bear-specializing pied piper. It might not solve the problem, but the village has been bought some more time, as long as Aburei can continue to play…
The bears were looking a terrible mess, starting to bump in with one another. In fact it started to look as if they were getting annoyed with each other instead of the bee farmers. Perhaps Aburei's plan was more effective than he expected. If they did indeed turn on each other. The honey chant failed now, instead it was just angry bear grunts and growls. They were safe… for now.
Raili, appeared to have stumbled on something of interest. Bear cubs, quite a few sort of just lazing around until Raili made her appearance. In an instant they allf turned and began to growl. Bears are scary and all but, Raili was pretty confident in actually wiping out the bigger bears if need be, cubs weren't really much of her worry. Besides, something /much/ more interesting caught her eye.
"Well well, looks like the bears have a proper leader. Really man? Really a bear army? How long did you think this would last?"
Raili steps forward, a man meditating on the ground with nothing but, furs. Raili wanted to laugh at how goofy this man was but, her meters were going off the charts as she started to approach him. This man was using Genjutsu, whether he was talented or not was a different question a bear would either be easy to manipulate or impossible. Raili doubted he was doing the impossible, especially dressed like. "So are you going to like, pay attention to me?"
The man gives no proper response just yet. He just forms another seal and starts to chant, "Hooooneeey… hoooooneeeey."
The bumbling bears stop their commotion, instead they turn around and begin heading the way they came. Heading back… to Bear Man. While the little cubs slowly close in on Raili. Ever bear, even the cubs begin to chant in unison with the man over time. "HUUUUUN NEEEE HUUUUU NEEEEE!"
Aburei backpedals as he leads the bears, trying to stay ahead of them. This isn't an easy task, because they get more impatient and quick-moving as the illusionary hives continue to evade them, and it's tricky keeping all those hives moving in a believable fashion, and he's playing a tough piece to help communicate the illusion, andOHSNAPJUSTTRIPPEDONAGRASSRUNNER. D8 Aburei falls back and finds a bunch of irritated bears wondering where those hives went and who can they take out their frustration on. o.o; Then they start up their HUN-NEE chant again, and…wander back towards the woods? c.c That's weird, the real hives are still here in the village. Aburei carefully picks himself up and follows after the bears, trying to remain inconspicuous to them.
Raili blinked a few times looking down to the cubs. "Aww come on guys, I'm not even trying to hurt you or anything, trying to get this man out of your head, pay attention for a second and relax. C'mere cutie it's gonna be a-" Raili then crouches attempting to pat a cub on the head which in turn, she would sneak in a release from the Genjutsu. That doesn't go to plan though as the bear rears back and bites Raili's hand.
"SUNNUVA BISCUIT!" Raili's hand flails about with the bear still attached, the cubs begin their assault all attempting to pounce her. "FREAKIN STUPID UGLY DUMB BEARS GRAH!" Raili goes from sweet to cub punting extraordinaire in a second flat. Yes, punting little furry creatures. What a terrible person! Though at least she manages to break the genjutsu on the bear that was latched onto her which out of confusion… latches harder. "Gaaah."
Raili is flailing around in a not too graceful fashion but, in a jounin fashion she manages to pull together just for a moment to instil a bit of mind trickery on the biting bear just long enough to have it let go. "Ugh… damnit…" Raili was set to beat the crap out of the Bear Shaman guy….thing now but, her vision starts to slip.
The girl wasn't entirely recovered, not recovered enough for that sort of sudden excitement. A bit of wobble and stumble but, she pulls through and makes an effort to back away from the cubs only to turn around and realize the big bears where heading her way too… blocked off. "Well crap…"
Aburei follows the bears into the forest. He's pretty sure bears have good enough senses that he'd never be able to tail them unnoticed under ordinary circumstances, but right now they don't seem to care if he's there or not (actually, maybe they wouldn't care under ordinary circumstances either e.e;). Soon enough, he hears Raili shouting out in pain! 8O Oh noes! Aburei skirts around the bear army as quickly as he can to see what's going on. Oh, there's a person here! He must have something to do with all this. But Raili-san looks like she's not in the best shape, even disregarding her bloody hand. So, looks like there's a few options here: go try to perk Raili-san up so that she can do something with her jounin leetness, do something about the old guy directly, or —
"I'LL SAVE YOU RAILI-SAN!!!"
…Somebody just decided on option C: throw himself heroically and idiotically on the bear army. c.c Looks like it's that bandit leader guy again, doing his best to bludgeon the bears into unconsciousness. At least he's attacking them from behind, but it might not take too long for them to take notice and do something ugly and permanent. At first Aburei thinks this means he'd better hurry up and try to take out the source of the trouble, but then it occurs to him that the bears will probably take even less kindly to the beating if they aren't being mind-controlled. c.c So he dashes in toward Raili with a hand ready to close her wounds and restore her chakra. "Raili-san! Do you think you can do anything about this?"
Confused, Raili is. There was some other yelling, human, human was nice. She was starting to feel safe, especially since. Raili felt a warmth, "Huh?" As her chakra stabalizes, her mentallity does to. "Do something? Oh, right yeah… I'm a ninja aren't I?" Raili had a plan originally, to simply override the genjutsu on the bears but, that was too much for what little chakra she had. There was another plan, take over the brain himself but, given how he seems to be easily controlling that many minds at once… even if they did function like a hive mind- "Haha hive mind. Bears going after honey." That was still an impressive feat.
Over a few seconds many other strategies form until she snaps her fingers. "I got it!" Raili slams her fist into her palm and then executes her glorious plan, she scoops up the nearest bear cub and… throws it at the Bear Shaman Guy Thing. All activity seemed to stop, did she do some complex Genjutsu polarity mumbo jumbo by having the Puppet and Puppeteer connect. Did she pick up some subtle special thing about that bear cub?
No.. no not really, she just managed to knock the guy out by tossing a fat bear cub at his face. Raili honestly… didn't know where that sudden strength came from to whip a bear, one handed… so harshly. "Eh… it worked, I think I overdid it but…" Confused and angry bears turn around on the Bandit Leader.
"We still have an issue…"
Oookay. Maybe Aburei should've gone straight for the shaman guy after all. X) Although he might not have been as…effective at taking him down for the count. Regardless, now they have the problem of ordinary angry bears to deal with. c.c; But not too worry! Aburei's genjutsu has proven effective once, it should do so again! Aburei quickly pulls out his recorder and starts playing a panicked, almost comical melody. The bears see their tormentor suddenly taking off into the woods, and they immediately give chase. Aburei lets them run off until they're close to the edge of his range, then makes the illusionary bandit leader trip and fall. The bears are on him in a second, and judging from the cacaphonic piping Aburei employs, they're having a good ol' gory time with the vision. >.> Finally Aburei stops playing. "That should satisfy them for now. We'd better grab gramps there and get back to the village."
The real bandit leader, meanwhile, continues to swing his staff frantically for several seconds before realizing the bears have left. He stands there, breathing heavily and shaking, while staring after them. "I…I…" Suddenly he raises his staff above his head! "I DID IT!!!" XD He struts forward and almost pushes Aburei aside in an effort to slip himself under Raili's arm. "Here, allow me, Raili-san. I'll see you safely back to the village." ;)
"Eh…" Raili blinks, the bears stop again. "Huh." She brings her hands together and does a gentle golf clap for Aburei's performance. "Well now that that's out of the way." She looks to the bandit leader, about to tell him to pick up the old man only to suddenly be hanging on to the dude. "Aburei… was, doing just fine but, thanks?" While he was at being helpful, she decided to be a little mean to the guy for shoving Aburei out of the way.
Sliding around, she hops onto Mr. Heroic's back and digs her heels into his side, "Onward!" Raili then glances over to Aburei, "You might want to get that Shaman guy… Bear Captain? Whatever it is. To figure out why exactly he was doing what he was…" And mid sentence Raili is taken away, the Bandit Leader not having a care in the world he was being treated like a horse, it gave him an excuse for his hands to wander a bit z.z
Aburei blinks at the guy's all-to-eager helpfulness. Wouldn't it be better for the strongest person to carry the old guy…? c.c Oh well. Aburei goes over and rolls the shaman into position. He may be just a scrawny bard, but he knows how to do a fireman's carry. After hoisting the perpetrator over his shoulder, Aburei sets off for the village. "You've got some 'splaining to do, old fella." ;)
