The Forest of the Fallen [R,Training,Open]

[Victor Karnes]

Name: The Forest of the Fallen 

Participants: Open

Location: Forest of Menos: Hueco Mundo Where is it located?


Difficulty Level: Medium Likely

Threat Level: DP

Plotline: Training Thread, Discovery of Hollow Instinct, Personal Growth/Conflict

Estimated Enemy Strength: Class 6-3

Estimated Time Until Completion: 1-3 Pages, Depending on Participants

Starts: Now

Special Conditions: Training for SP

[Victor Karnes]

Victor looked into the forest, his mind in shambles. He had just finished giving assistance to another fellow Heartless. After some time, they parted ways, and before he knew it, Victor was within this large forest of crystalline trees. Victor was much more dense than he remembered. His body was less sluggish and reacted more accurately to his thoughts. Though this didn't seem like much, merely being able to maneuver his body as he wished, to Victor this was bliss. He remembered when he had flesh and bone, instead of ooze and a mask. He used to take for granted just being able to run, to feel the sand beneath his toes, to embrace those he held dear in his arms and to gaze at the stars. Now, he feels the grinding of sand against the exterior ooze, he coats anyone he meets with his own flesh out of auto-phobia, unable to be alone for extended periods of time, and he can only gaze at an empty sky with empty eyes. The feeling of sensing the sky of endless night was novel at first, but now his memories of life and truly seeing the real sky pierced his mind like needles. He couldn't stand the thoughts, but the more the thoughts hurt his mind and soul, the more strongly they stood out. As if the memories of pain were the only thing that he would never loose. At least now he could accurately model his flesh, if it could be called such, to suit his needs. Though it expended energy, he could at least feel some semblance of having hands and legs, however faint the feeling was.

Within this new forest, at least Victor saw something new almost every day. The first thing he saw were the large crystalline trees. They reminded him of his life even more. This entire place was endless agony. Everywhere he looked, he saw his previous life as a human layering over this new life. He saw the large white trees and thought he was safe and secure, but very quickly he found out he was almost as wrong as possible. His second week here, he finally found another Heartless. He thought he found an escape; an ally he could work with. Unfortunately, what he found wasn't an ally, but something new. It had a similar feeling as himself; A large amalgamation with no identity of it's own. It was made up of hundreds of thousands of hollows all crushed together. Unlike Victor, however, they didn't seem to work in harmony. The large Heartless staggered around trying to eat other hollows it's own size. Victor quickly classified these large lumbering giants as something different than "Heartless." This was a hollow, one with no mind of it's own and no heart. It was truly Hollow, unlike Victor who still retained his mind.

Quickly, Victor had forcibly wrested control of one of these lumbering hulks. He abhorred taking away something's will, but that idea had a very specific caveat. How can you take away a will from something with no mind or will of it's own. Victor attempted to assimilate with several of these monsters, but discovered most of them had much more strength than Victor himself. So he was forced to patiently wait and wonder. As he did, he saw gatherings of much smaller Heartless. These truly seemed to be Heartless, as they had a mind that was well developed, but they had no qualms of using this intelligence for hunting each other. Victor decided he wouldn't go to these clearings unless absolutely forced into a scenario where he could not avoid them.

After a long time, Victor found a large hollow that had reasonable strength for it's size. It was like the other large hollows, a generic mask and all, but was a good bit smaller. Maybe that was the reason it's strength was lesser. It seemed this hollow originally focused mostly on speed, so it's strength and spiritual energy were too lacking to force off Victor. As such, Victor acquired a more stable form and could, albeit with difficulty, force the host to move to his will. Occasionally, Victor would allow it to move on it's own: He wanted to understand how the Heartless fought. Unfortunately for Victor, this understanding would prove fruitless. This hollow truly had no thought other than to hunt and kill it's own kind, though it was intelligent enough to avoid the clearings for the most part and when it wasn't, Victor was quite determined to not let it ruin both of their lives, so he steered it away from them.

Once Victor attained control, he lost track of time pretty regularly. He started to blank for long periods, only to grow stronger when he awoke. Victor accepted it as the host growing stronger, never realizing how many times he changed hosts. Hours to days and days to weeks, before long Victor had been there several months. Victor finally started keeping his consciousness longer, but not in a manner he was used to. He became enthralled in the battles and kept on remembering the fights, trying to forget the other memories. Before he knew it, Victor had started seeking battles, just like the hollows who hosted him. His mind noticed, but quickly rationalized it. Victor realized that while he was in fights, he could forget the trees around him. He could forget all the memories that dragged him down and pierced him like so many knives in his... well he doesn't really have a skull anymore. The peace and tranquility brought by the fighting overshadowed almost all else, but Victor always maintained his ideal: He could devour the hollow, but he would seek cooperation from Heartless like himself. Victor quickly noticed a pattern. The more generic the mask, the less likely something was to be individualized. So his targets quickly became those who had generic masks, while he avoided those with unique masks. Though they weren't entirely hollows, they were still very temperamental, especially the large ones.

Victor spent a lot of time fighting and feeding, unknowingly gathering strength and power as he devoured and removed competition, while avoiding those who had sufficient strength and willpower to dominate all of the participants in the squirming mass of Heartless. Soon, however, Victor found himself losing track of his own mind again: The fights had gotten tiring and his mind started to wander again, even in fights, leading to more injuries sustained by Victor's hosts. He didn't particularly mind, as he would heal them after anyway and the hollow hosts didn't mind anything, as they didn't have minds in the first place, at least from Victor's perspective.

[Victor Karnes]

With Victor's desire to hunt and fight slowly abating, or rather his desire to settle for such weak mindless Hollows, he decided to change his tactic. Where before Victor was slowly moving towards a target, he quickly discovered his ability to be a blob monster had, to some extent remained. An using it, he could strike from much more unexpected angles. Victor decided to, instead of hunting his target, to lure them to him. He sat himself outside of a battlefield of black masses and spread across the ground, similar to a fallen Hollow. His strategy was to release an active amount of spiritual energy to act as a lure. Eventually, a solitary Hollow stumbled over, looking for an easy meal to make out of the hollow on the ground. It's eyes glowed an eerie red as Victor kept an eye on it. Instead of waiting for it to act, he was planing his moves a step ahead.

Victor began moving in such a way as the weakened Hollows did, simulating his weakness as best he could to the potential host. He didn't need to try too hard as the beast was a basic and standard monster. It seemed lighter on it's feet than it's brothers, but it didn't seem quite conscious of it. The beast was like many before, a mere monster in the shape of a cloaked man. As it approached, Victor struck. His body elongated into the form of a snake like blob of ooze as his flesh quickly wrapped around the Hollow that had just stepped right next to him. Before it's foot had even hit the ground, Victor's body was wrapped around the "hosts" neck and slowly spreading. As he did so, by instinct, the monstrosity released it's reiatsu to try to push Victor off with it's Reiatsu strength. As it tried, Victor reacted almost instinctively. From his body, a reiatsu seeped out with the black ooze slowly coating the huge monstrosity.

Before it got the chance to try to break free of Victor's grasp, Victor began to coat the beast like a second skin. Very quickly the hollow he had wrapped around had a jet black suit of of ooze covering it's body, making it sleeker and shinier. However, otherwise, the new Host felt nothing off. It's body wasn't disintegrated and it had no way to really attack the monster wrapped around it, as it felt as if it was floating in a pond. Everywhere it seemed to strike was just more liquid. However, when it put it's mind to move, it did so without resistance. Before long, the Hollow gave up trying to figure out what was going on and entered the fray once more. As Victor figured, this host was naturally much faster than he was. However it's power was much much lower. For most fights, the host merely attacked quickly and then moved to the next target, trying to take a bite out of the targets when it could. For Victor, he didn't mind greatly as he was getting a free ride. However, he decided that this was a very inefficient method.

He knew the monster he was body sharing with would not know how to utilize a blade in it's hand. After all, it had only used claws and it's mouth so far. He condensed his will and slowly slid a jet black sword out of the back of the Hollow's wrist. [Form:Blade Activated. Cutting Strength = RS (345) Cost: 120 Reiatsu] At first the Host had no idea what was going on. It wildly swung it's wrist, striking a nearby hollow. The wound left by the blade was much deeper and wider than the small wounds left by the claws and teeth it had been using. Assuming this to be it's own strength after successful hunts, the Hollow quickly... wildly swung the blade around like an idiot. The Gillian that Victor was on was not a blade master in any sense. It merely knew swinging the large blade causing large wounds. Which could quickly lead to a new meal. However, before it realized what was going on, Victor devoured the Hollow on the ground that had been subdued by the wild blade wielder. A large white mask had extended from the Hollow's foot and taken a large bite out of the Hollow that had been felled. As it did so, the spiritual energy in the hollow rapidly dissipated before it was left without a meal. In it's rage, it slew another target and devoured it before it hit the ground, keeping an eye out for the mysterious mask that was on it's body somewhere. When it saw nothing, it quickly gave up and resumed it's hunting as it waved Victor's blade around like an idiotic monster.

SPOILER: Click to show

{ Devouring and Techniques}
Form Blade (120)
Form Armor (150)
------------------------
Total Reiatsu (1500-270) = (1230)

Ooze Used:
Form Blade (10)
-----------------------
Ooze remaining to be used (300-10)=(290)

Skills used:
Stealth level 1
Acting level 1

Devoured: 1 Gillian, Class 6 (The one that got taken out to the ground. The host's devouring do not count towards Victor's count)

Assimilation Meter: Quick Gillian (Class 5). 10%
~9 Posts till full assimilation and devour occur.

[Victor Karnes]

Victor's mind slowly fell into a familiar pattern. For the most part, the Hollow host fought savagely. It didn't get into close combat it didn't think it could end quickly. As such, Victor remained inert on the body. The hollow would move and attack in the most opportune ways when it could, it's innate hunting instincts leading it to attack the weaker Hollows as it could. Occasionally, Victor would absorb a hit for the host, his armored form wrapped around the hollow protecting the hollow from minor scratches within Victor's pain tolerance. The larger attacks, Victor would avoid by moving his ooze out of the way allowing the Hollow to remain aware of it's own mortality. As this hosted was quite suited to Victor, he decided not to let it madly charge to it's own death. Finding another compatible host would take a while and Victor would risk running across a Heartless, or a hollow with a mind. Those monstrosities that had unique masks or appearances. Victor didn't want to confront them unless absolutely required. His fear perfectly natural as most of them wouldn't fall for his predation tricks.

As such, Victor continue to let his host be damaged, while taking the damage for the host when possible in order to prolong it's ability to fight. However, Victor quickly discovered the Hollow host, while not a true heartless with intelligence, had good instincts. It didn't fight enemies it couldn't beat on it's own, which made Victors job easier. Unfortunately these instincts also allowed it to predict Victor to an extent, as both the beings were still following the same basic instinct to devour. As such, the host did not let the damaged targets out of it's sight before it would start to devour them. It had started picking off stragglers and the loners. This allowed it to focus all it's attention on the target. For the most part, Victor was unable to devour any targets.

However, during a particularly heated battle, when the host had unfortunately stumbled upon a pair that were fighting and both looked weak, the host was instead attacked by both. It seemed both the Hollows, or rather the Hollow and the Heartless that were fighting determined this new interloper to be a greater threat than each other. Or maybe the Heartless had managed to control the Hollow into attacking. Regardless, this battle was not pleasant. Victor was forced into a position of either abandoning his host and fleeing for himself or to attempt to break one of the newcomers. However, Victor had little faith in his escape abilities on his own. His experience told him a Heartless would find and devour him quickly after leaving the Hollows to fight it out. As such he had no choice but to stay and fight.

The Heartless was very straight forward. It didn't fight like the hollow he was currently ride-sharing. It fought in a very straightforward and brutal way. Its large fists seemed to have caused significant damage to the other hollow. The other hollow's flesh was riddled with fist sized wounds. Obviously this Heartless did not need to resort to tricks, making it more dangerous than the speedy Hollow Victor was "cooperating" with. As such Victor had to change tactics. He would allow the shallow attacks from the smaller hollow, but would block the attacks from the larger and more terrifying Heartless. Victor proceeded to start forcibly taking control of the host in minor ways. The new enemy wasn't super fast. It was about the speed of an average human, but it's power was much greater than Victors. As such he would resort to the next technique in his Arsenal, Form: Shield. By controlling the hollow hosts' left arm and using the shield form, Victor was barely able to negate two of the blows from the Heartless' fists.

Meanwhile, the Hollow host didn't know it's left arm was acting semi-autonomously. Over time, it had come to rely on the black blade jutting out of it's right wrist and focused more heavily on it. The hollow felt the impacts on it's left arm, but felt no pain. Very quickly it ignore it and focused on it's hunt of the other Hollow. The sword dealt significant damage, more than the large heartless' fists. This allowed the host to deal considerable damage to it's opponent. However, when it was going in to devour the target, it's left side, which had been moving mostly within it's will suddenly dropped down. This caused the fist of the Heartless to slam into the hosts' shoulder. A thin shield appeared there, but after a second punch in quick succession, it blew away and the excess damage thrashed through the host's shoulder. While slightly reduced, the damage was more than enough to cause some flesh wounds. The blunt force of the damage wasn't that intense, but there were several scars on the arm of the host and damage was apparent. Quickly, black armor started to cover the wounded area and the pain slowly seemed to subside. Victor activated form Caladarius, slowly repairing the torn flesh.

The heartless seemed to notice this energy and searched for the source and quickly threw a few punches towards somewhere the host couldn't see. However Victor clearly saw the aim of the attacks. It was his mask! Cooperation seemed impossible by this point. The target had noticed Victor through his usage of reiatsu that didn't match the host. For a giant hollow, they wouldn't think about this discrepancy. But a Heartless was different. It had a mind. As such it knew this target needed to be removed first. Thankfully, Victor was already moving his mask out of the way before the fists impacted, leading to large chunks of flesh being torn off the Host's back.

In response, the host turned and slashed down it's jet black saber into the Heartless. Victor momentarily debated about stopping his host and migrating to a new host, however the danger of working with a Heartless with that much power was much to great. He secretly hoped that the target would block the attack, but it seemed off guard after having to try to hit the back of the target and it's footwork was a mess. Sometime inside Victor, however, prevented him from releasing the black blade. A hunger deep inside him that he didn't even notice had already seemingly claimed this as his prey. The blade came down and cleaved halfway into the Heartless. The healing being done by Victor immediately stopped and the wounds tore open once again. The Dark side of form Caladarius was activated. The wound on the black, combined with the wound on the shoulder caused the host to buckle in pain before it could consume it's new meal. While it was screaming and clutching it's shoulder and back in pain from the wounds tearing open again, Victor's mask slid from it's back to the sword and took a large bite out of the Heartless on the ground. With it, Victor felt his soul greatly enhanced as he devoured the Heartless' soul into his own.

Victor then turned towards the other side and, seeing his host still in pain, extended from the armor to also eat this target. The host barely even noticed as it was trying to staunch the bleeding from it's back and arm, hoping for the pain to go away. Victor then returned to the host and reactivated Form Caladarius, his spiritual energy surging slightly as he closed the small cuts instantly and the larger wounds also began to repair. However, the Host still attempted to devour the two giants it had slain. However, it couldn't feel the rising energy it usually did, causing it great rage and frustration now that the pain was subsiding. Victor quietly retreated to the back of the host once more

The host once again set off towards the forest, but was more leery now and focused on checking out a fight to make sure it was nearly over before it engaged. This once again left little chance for Victor to devour.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Devoured}
Rank 6 Gillian Devoured (Generic Hollow Rank 6. The one taken down by the host.)
Rank 5 Gillian Devoured ("Heartless Fist" Rank 5. This one was taken down by both, but rewards were reaped by Victor alone.

Assimilation meter: Increased by 10% due to passive. Increased by 30% due to Form Caladarius (15% for shoulder wound, 15% for wound on back)
New total: 50%. Unlocks weightless blade. Ooze blade no longer has weight to the wielder
Techniques used: Form Shield - Blocks up to Reiatsu Strength in Damage (same as the amount of damage the sword can do, 345.) Was used multiple times, requiring Victor to rest

[Victor Karnes]

The host wandered the forest, avoiding large groups of targets and attacking one by one to slowly increase it's strength in accordance with it's ever-increasing hunger. The more it ate, the hungrier it seemed to become. Or rather, the meals it was devouring were no longer satisfying to it. After the fight with the Fist Gillian, the host noticed that it's sword seemed to weight significantly less and was more able to utilize it in combat. This was attributed to it's own growing power rather than anything else. It also noticed that, it's body would occasionally automatically respond to threats and it's armored body would harden in response. It wasn't a unique phenomenon though. The host had seen another hollow that could harden it's entire body. The fact it had an ability similar, but more just meant it was further in evolution, to it's mind.

As the days and weeks passed, Victor had gotten more and more used to being worn by the host. He was comfortable as the host did not struggle against him, nor did it seem to pay him much mind. This allowed him to focus on his own techniques. He had begun hardening certain locations in advance. A very standard layout for Victor was to prepare a Form: Shield on the left arm while allowing the wild host with no individuality to slash wildly with it's arm. Unfortunately, even though nearly a month had passed, Victor's satiety was not increasing. He was getting more and more starving as his host had started to attack weaker targets and avoid stronger ones and groups. This left Victor without the ability to steal a meal while the host was busy, which was getting quite tiring.

Victor began to debate whether this host was suitable for him. However it's own speed and reaction were well above Victor's. This allowed him to escape many fights he would have otherwise ended up dead from. It was also much quicker at wildly flailing it's arms around, though Victor wasn't quite sure he could be more skillful with the blade anyway. So for the time being, Victor had to simply allow the host to do as it wanted. However, he was slowly building up a plan in his mind. His current host wasn't intelligent. It was merely a walking amalgamation of hunger. In that case, Victor may be able to release it when it's desires took over. He decided he would put this plan into action after the next hunt.

So Victor waited patiently. It took another week before the host got careless. He once again started to attack a Giant hollow of similar strength to himself, if not a little stronger. Using the strengthened left arm to block blows on behalf of the host, Victor's blade cut through the side of the hollow. It wasn't defeated yet though and began to charge an red orb of energy in it's mouth. The host quickly dodged to the side and slashed at the target's leg to throw off their aim. Unfortunately, slashing with the sword was still a different fighting method than the natural instinct of claws, so the wound wasn't extremely deep the large energy blast shot beside the hollow. The debris didn't cause any major damage to the host, but Victor was pelted by it and grumbled annoyedly from within.

After quickly slashing at the large hollow for a few more minutes while running around it, Victor made his move. Using the hardening of the shield, he seized up the knee joint of the host and caused it to take a large claw down it's front. Knowing it was coming, as he had caused it, Victor had retracted the armor there at the last second and allowed the damage to go through to further damage his host, making him weaker again. Victor took control of the arm that had the blade while the host was currently distracted from the pain and he slashed into the target again. Victor quickly noticed why he was so determined to get a host however. His swing was relatively slow compared to the host's natural agility. Had the leg not been damaged, Victor wouldn't have been able to deal a deep wound to the target and caused it to collapse.

While his host was once more busy with the pain, he devoured the mask of the fallen gillian hollow, at least partially. Victor had noticed eating an entire hollow was not necessary to gain the energy. All he really needed was it's essence and soul. After which the large hollow fell to the ground and started to fade. The host noticed this and, though in pain from it's wound, attempted to snatch the meal before it was gone. It finally noticed, however, that it's body was no longer under it's own control. It couldn't move it's arms or legs as it growled and roared. Victor felt the host surge with Reiatsu, attempting to peel him away as it finally felt threatened by the presence it had grown used to. However Victor's own Reiatsu was a good deal stronger and suppressed the target.

The hollow host finally realized it had been played with like a mouse in front of a cat. It had been focusing all it's energy into improving it's speed and reaction time because the blade had made it's strength mostly irrelevant. The body's toughness was likewise disregarded as, even though it suffered wounds, they would always wind up stitched back together, just like the wound on his chest, which was already being repaired by the ooze that coated his body. So focusing entirely on speed had left the host weaker than Victor both in terms of Reiatsu strength, as Victor was very invested in that particular power, and pure strength, as it had been relying on Victor's own enhancements to supplement it.

Victor slowly shambled forward. His control over the body was complete, but it's movement and reactions weren't much higher than a regular humans. However, Victor was still in control finally and could steer his host to more dangerous fights in order to reap greater rewards. This was entirely different from cooperation. This was a taste of domination. And it caused Victor's appetite to swell beyond compare to before.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Devours}
1 Class 6 hollow
Assimilation Meter +10% - New Total 70%

[Victor Karnes]

Victor shambled through the forest. His mind was a bit of a haze, which was odd as he was more in control than he had ever been before. It felt like his control was driving him away from thinking. He even occasionally forgot the host he was slowly consuming. It was getting more and more like Victor's mind only focused on moving from fight to fight, devouring hollows as he went. He couldn't even bring himself to think of it too deeply. Now that he thought of it, it felt like every new hollow consumed satisfied him, but also seemed to stir his hunger more. Similar to quenching his thirst with poison.

Victor took the speed hollow host to another fight. The large black blade on the hollow's arm had enlarged, becoming thicker than the hollow's wrist. It was now about the width of a broadsword. However, when Victor released the hollow's control of it's body, the blade quickly showed that it's increase size didn't seem to quite bother the host. It seemed to be wielded with roughly as much ease as the claws the hollow possessed at the start. Victor noticed this and, utilizing another portion of the ooze that constituted his body, made a second sword slide out of the other wrist. Using these two blades, Victor's host was able to much more efficiently dispatch foes. While slashing at a particularly hardy hollow, Victor had started to adapt to the fighting style even more. He would still block major strikes as needed, but he no longer used the hollow's free arm to do so, allowing both blades to slice at the target on it's own. Victor would instead harden the areas most vital to the host in advance and then allow other attacks to go through. This was necessary because Victor couldn't keep using the host's arm as he wished. The new enemies were getting tougher, and a single blade was less effective. As such, Victor began to heal the host more often.

With this "parasite" the host was getting much more food than it did when it was on it's own, but it felt no joy about it. Realistically, it only felt hunger, but even that was tempered by the fear that he was encased in something he couldn't understand. While fighting the most recent hollow, it had discovered that more than the swords, it was the unexpected attacks that seemed to be doing the most damage. The hollow he was fighting seemed to have some combat experience, and as such once it discovered the two blades were it's opponents main form of attack, it would focus on them. When that occurred, in the middle of the fight, a large black blade sprouted out of the duo's chest. Then another, and finally two large lances seemed to strike into the hollow's arms. This wasn't enough to kill their opponent, but it caused enough of a delay in action that the opponent couldn't react. He was swiftly cut in two by the blades closing in from the sides.

Victor, as usual, proceeded to devour the new meal in front of him, his host still suffering from the injuries in the battle. However, after Victor returned and replaced the missing parts that were damaged with ooze, something seemed to change. He could more accurately feel the hosts' movements, all the way inside. The host began wandering into the Menos forest, not of his own choice. The ooze armor was forcing it to wander aimlessly. Then a fear washed over the hollow that had been Victor's host for several weeks. Victor's eyes had slowly closed on his mask. The yellow glow replaced by black, before a sudden change appeared. Victor's eyes shot open and a red color dominated them as all the ooze of the host was dragged off it's skeleton. Every wound Victor had healed started to tear open as the ooze that had pervaded into the wounds expanded rapidly. The ooze and the hollow's flesh and bone were all quickly engulfed into Victor's body and before the host could react, it's mask was sucked into Victor and it's body shredded apart.

Victor's red eyes closed and went black as he fell to the ground, a black ooze filled puddle in the desolate landscape of the Menos Forest. By the time his yellow eyes opened, his memories were quickly fading. His body remembered the battle experience. His soul remembered the taste of flesh. But the hollow hosts' mask slowly faded from his memory. The bond built up slowly dissolved. In several minutes, all that remained in Victor was an empty hole where that memory existed. An important detail, forgotten forever as he slowly made his way through the forest, his mind churning with the newfound creativity gained from having fought dozens of time, but with none of the mental baggage that come from loosing a comrade.

[

SPOILER: Click to show

{Devour}]
Assimilation Meter: 70%->100%(healing from battle)->0%(host devoured)
Devoured 1 Class 6 Hollow (Combat Posts)
Devoured 1 Class 5 Hollow (Host, Speed hollow)
[

]

[Col Arana]

Awarding a total of 160 TP for this solo training as far as paragraphs.

Also consumed 6 Hollows between Classes of 8-5 for an additional 300 TP.


Total of 460 TP