More Vegeta Training

The Pendulum located in the back of Kami's lookout will put you into a meditative state. In this state, your mind will be transported to a completely different place and time. Here, a massive war has been going on for years. In your mind, you will have to fight in this war. If you are hurt or killed, your physical body remains unharmed.

The alarm pulled Vegeta from a deep sleep, he reached over and clicked the snooze button before sitting up in his bed. He reached up scrubbing his hands across his face and let out a sigh. He wasn't alone in the room, "Kami." He said, turning to face the chair sitting in the far corner. "I'm ready."

"I know you are Vegeta. come, the hour is upon us." Kami stood exiting through the door.

Vegeta slipped into his tights not bothering with his armor. He splashed his face with water from the bathroom sink and grabbed a towel, after he walked out into the hall where Kami had waited for him. Together they walked down another hall and to a large black door, bolted shut with a strong looking lock. Kami selected the key and pressed it into the keyhole. He turned it until it clicked and the door opened. He stood back and allowed Vegeta to step into the room first.

"What happens in this place I cannot say for sure. Past, present, and future all meet here, under the Pendulum. You will be taken to a time not of your own, you cannot die, but what can't harm you physically can destroy you mentally." When Vegeta said nothing in reply he turned and shut the door behind him locking Vegeta in.

Vegeta stepped under the swinging pendulum and into the strange symbol painted to the floor, nothing else was in the room. No lights, no furniture, nothing but the pendulum hanging from the ceiling and the strange mark on the floor. The Prince closed his eyes expecting to feel something, when he did not he blinked his eyes open. "What the hell? Where am I?" He asked, standing in a large room surrounded by brick walls that closed into a high stone ceiling, wherever he was it was no longer the Pendulum Room of Kami's house.

"Excuse me sir?" Asked the human man standing to Vegeta's left

Vegeta was surprised by the human, he had not seen him, or sensed him. In fact Vegeta wasn't able to sense anything, not even his own powers. My power is gone, what the hell is going on here? Kami didn't say anything about losing my strength. His mind raced trying to figure out what had gone wrong, or what else Kami had failed to tell him. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts Vegeta forgot the man standing near him who was now beginning to eye Vegeta with a worried look painted on his face.

"My Lord, are you feeling all right? You do not look well."

"What? No I'm fine, who are you soldier?"

"My Lord, I am Adonis, your High Captain, are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes Adonis, I'm fine."

The man bowed his head slightly in Vegeta's direction. A sword hilt showed over one shoulder, Vegeta reached up and found that he too had a sword tightly strapped to his back. He also took note of the armor covering the soldiers entire body save his head. The man had removed his helmet and now had it fastened to his armors thigh plate. A white wolf head was painted onto both of the mans black shoulder pads as well as his left Brest plate.

The High Captains armor was entirely black, the only color that showed were the white wolf heads. Before Vegeta had time to question his Captain another two men entered the room. The Captain noticed them and turned to wait for them to draw closer. They both bowed before Vegeta, pressing one gauntleted fist to the tiled floor of what Vegeta guessed to be some sort of study. The brick walls were lined with tall book shelves and several tables sat holding papers and maps of all different sizes.

The two men who had entered the room were not clad like Vegeta or Adonis, instead they were dressed in black close fitting clothes. Like Vegeta and the Captain they both had swords strapped to their backs, they straightened and walked to the table that Vegeta and Adonis had been studying. "Belen, Euclea, what news do you bring?"

The one Adonis had named as Belen spoke first. "My Lord, the Aeromancers are moving, they hope to use the cover of night to attack the Fortress, We were only able to take down a scout party that ran into us, they numbered only fifteen. We wasted no time tracking other scouts they had sent, we wished to bring you this message as fast as we could get here. Forgive us for not killing more." The two men grimaced at the thought of not being able to kill more before making their report.


"It is fine, how many men are they strong?" The Captain asked

This time the one called Euclea answered, "We estimated there numbers to be near twenty-thousand. They will be here within the next few hours as far as we could tell."
"Lord Vegeta," Adonis began, "What is our plan of action?"

Vegeta took a second studying the map outlying the terrain around the Fortress. "What are our own numbers?"

"We have five-thousand Imperial soldiers, seven hundred archers, as well as your personal guard of five-hundred Deathwatch Guard. The Fortress it self has an extra one-thousand Imperial soldiers and three-hundred archers."

Vegeta stood looking over the map for a second longer. "Very well, Captain take two-thousand of our soldiers up into these hills here." Vegeta pointed to a place on the map near the Fortress. "Have the archers set up along the front wall here. They will most likely attack here, it's the most exposed point in the Fortress and it's in their direct path from were they are now, they'll want to have surprise on their side so they'll attack as soon as they can." Vegeta paused studying the map once more. he flipped through a pile of maps until he found the one he wanted.

It was a close up of the Fortress. The wall facing to the north was the place Vegeta had decided to concentrate his defenses. it came together in the shape of a bowl and for almost six-hundred feet was clear level terrain. Perfect, he thought. They will ram into our walls and be beaten down by our arrows. He turned back to Adonis, "have the rest of our men set along this wall." He traced a finger along the wall he was talking about. "I want the first rank to be our Elites, once their men begin the assault have the archers aim for their flanks it will force them to cluster. Once I give the signal, attack their flank here," Vegeta slammed a fist on the flank nearest the hill Adonis was to soon occupy. "I will attack their flank here, with the remainder of the men." Vegeta pointed to the opposite side of Adonis's forces.

Adonis looked briefly at the map Vegeta had used to lay out his plan, nodding slowly, "yes my Lord."

"Hurry, we do not have time to waste." Adonis and the two scouts ran from the room.

A light mist had begun to fall from the night sky, thunder rumbled in the distance promising more rain later into the night. The sound of soldiers shouting could be heard across the long wall, officers trying to get their soldiers into the correct order, men shouting boasts of how many kills they'd tally. Vegeta laughed to himself as one giant man claimed to be able to kill a hundred men on his own. Adonis and his men had long since hidden in themselves in the hills that straddled the Fortress. Soon the field before him would be littered with the dead, and the dying. Hopefully more of the enemy than of his men, but every war had it's casualties, and tonight would be no different.

A messenger knelt in front of Vegeta handing him a battle report, he opened it glancing at the message, "good it will begin soon." The messenger waited to see if Vegeta had a reply, when the Prince said nothing jogged back into the Fortress and disappeared from Vegeta's view.

Behind him strung out along the Fortress wall sat a thousand men under his personal command, usually the Deathwatch Guards would follow him into battle but not this time. The human wall Vegeta had set in front of the Fortress would be spearheaded by his own elites. None of his men made a sound, all proud to serve their commander. They mimicked him trying to live up to the Elites that usually protected him. All good men in their own right, battle hardened in countless wars, fighting countless enemies. Most of these men had been bred into soldiers from birth. The Empire had plenty of slaves, and so the actual citizens could serve as soldiers, these men lived to fight for their Empire.

Vegeta turned to regard his men, his men. He strained to see them in the pitch dark of the night, their black armor hiding them from sight, any enemy that stood more than fifty paces away would not be able to make out their forms, maybe they would even mistake them for shadows. He nodded in their direction and a few returned the nod, they would all willingly die for him for reasons he would never quite understand, he was proud to lead them. As humans went these men were true warriors, their was no shame in being weaker than another if you gave your all in a fight. These men all would, he knew they would.

Minutes past and seemed like hours, they had sat motionless waiting for their foe to show himself for far too long. Vegeta began to second guess himself, maybe his recon had been mistaken perhaps the troops they saw were marching to another place, or maybe they had found that their surprise attack was no longer a surprise and so had been called off, or maybe they are planning to attack when we prepare to call off the defense. He turned once more to eye his soldiers, their blank expressions told him nothing of what they thought. He decided to wait with them, if they believed in him than he would not let them down now.

Explosions ripped through the far off hills where Adonis had been stationed. The screams of men could be heard at even Vegeta's distance. Something had gone wrong, something had gone horribly wrong, but what?

Flames erupted all over Adonis's hills. Vegeta watched struck with regret at sending the Captain into that with no way of being supported should the plan fall to shit, which it now seemed to be doing. But, he had little time to conceder his failure as a leader, Aeromancers began pouring into view, even from this distance Vegeta was shocked, twice the size of a man, with more muscles than he had seen on one person. each one carried a sword almost as large as Vegeta himself. white armor stuck out at odd corners their skin was an ash gray color and from this distance it made their armor look like it was floating.

"Loose!"

The sound of bow strings snapping could be heard, the first volley would be set on fire. Vegeta had had the field covered with great heaps of plants still green, and drenched in thick black oil. When the fires stared they would produce thick black smoke that would further cover the arrows to follow. Aeromancers slammed into the front lines of Vegeta's army their long legs carrying them across the field quickly. Metal on metal painted the night with even more noise and soon the loosing of arrows was no longer audible. It was strange but only the screams of his men could be heard, surely some of their men had been downed. The two scouts had killed fifteen on their own.

He waited for the amount of time he had given his archers to fire before he and Adonis were to hit the flanks. Then he turned to address his men and found that they were already on their feet swords out and looking to him ready to join their brothers in battle. He nodded at them without words and turned beginning to lead them out into the field at a quick run. No one spoke. Six of his men broke off and hit the Aeromancers flank just ahead of Vegeta cutting a path thought the unwary Aeromancer line. Then he saw why he had heard none of them scream when killed, they had no mouths. In fact the only thing that he could see were their eyes.

He ducked under the sword of one and stabbed at another's chest, before one of his men cut down the one who had attacked Vegeta, and the six who had sprinted ahead of him stayed close protecting the Prince's back. He hacked and shoved at anything not human. There was no room for flashy swordsmanship, here that would get you killed. His own men's bodies had mixed into the dead Aeromancers and the wounded were crushed under a sea of boots. There is no glory in this, he thought hacking at another enemies face. Then an Aeromancer in red armor came into Vegeta's view and picked him out of the soldiers as the human commander.

Two of Vegeta's men jumped at the red armored Aeromancer trying to protect their commander but he side stepped them both with ease stabbing one with his blade and grabbed the other by the throat with his free hand, even through the sound of battle around Vegeta he was able to hear the sickening sound of bones cracking, the Aeromancer never took his eyes off Vegeta and tossed the lifeless body onto the floor. Vegeta looked down at the dead man, "I never even new his names." He looked up in time to see the giant swing his sword and Vegeta barely had time to use his own. The force of the blow sent him back a few feet and he was surprised to see that a small hole had opened up around him and his attacker. Aeromancers raised their blades encouraging their commander in their unspoken language.

Vegeta dodged again this time sliding under the things legs. Vegeta stabbed his sword into the beasts chest shoving the blade half way through the giants ribs. To Vegeta's disbelief it grabbed the hilt of Vegeta's blade and pushed it all the way through his own chest. Vegeta recovered quickly and reached for his smaller hip sword, he stabbed at it's throat, but his wrist was caught and it forced the blade around sharp end aimed at Vegeta. Vegeta used both hands to try and hold the sword back but the beast was far too strong and Vegeta ended up stabbing himself with his own sword. Pain shot through his shoulder and he felt his left arm go limp. He screamed in pain and slammed his fist into the creatures throat. Vegeta jerked the blade from his shoulder and rammed it into the Aeromancer's guts, yanking it out and slicing through its throat. Thick blue blood squirted Vegeta's face.

He screamed in triumph but was cut short as arrows slammed into his back. He fell to his knees rout with pain. What the hell was that? he thought to himself. The Prince turns and sees another wave of arrows crash into the Aeromancers. Another two hit his chest punching through his armor. "I'm being shot by my own men." He whispers, lifting his hands to his face. Black blood covers his fingers, the Prince remembers being told once that black blood was not a good sign, but he cannot recall why. It doesn't seem to matter to him anymore. "I wonder why they shot while we were still fighting."

"Loose!"

Prince Vegeta closes his eyes and blinks them open again, Kami and Mr. Popo are standing over him. "Are you all right Vegeta?" Kami asks concerned.

"They killed me, my own men killed me."

"Your on Earth now, the training is over, you did fine. Come on you'll need to rest, you've been in here for several days that's much longer than we've ever seen. Come." Vegeta allows Kami to help him to his room, he's not hurt, but for some reason he feels like he's been training nonstop for a week. He's out before his head hits the pillow.

3x for all

is that x3 for all the posts? and what is the normal gain i have to multiply?