Harvest Moon: Brawl
Part 1Far away from any cities, lies a small village in a valley tucked in between a dense forest and the ocean. This small village called Forget--Me-Not Valley, is home to only a small handful of people. Their lives are simple and inconvenient, but they all live happily within the quiet and peaceful community.
Within the small community also lives a witch. The witch prefers to live in solitude in a small shack near a villa in the valley. The villagers steer clear of this witch, and everyone can't even remember her name. Even the witch herself doesn't remember her name. She is only known as the Witch Princess.
The witch is not like many witches people believe in. Regardless of her age, she looks young and quite attractive. Along with her smooth flawless face, she has large catlike eyes that nearly glow red. Her long dirty blond curly hair makes her look almost normal, like any other girl about 20 years old or so. But even though she doesn't look like a witch, her clothing does play the part.
He clothing and boots are made of animal skins, and decorated with bones. Her tunic has many pockets and pouches used to carry many herbs and other ingredients she needs to brew all types of dangerous potions. Her cape billows in the night winds when she is out looking for ingredients. The only thing is that she does not wear a pointed hat like most witches do.
Although not exactly evil, the Witch Princess is quite chaotic, and enjoys causing trouble for others in secret. But no matter how much trouble she causes, her plans are always countered by the works of the Harvest Goddess who also lives in the village. Because of their differences, they always end up fighting, but usually ends up as a stalemate.
Over time, the Witch Princess starts to become unhappy. When she first arrived in the village long ago, she used to cause much chaos, and loved seeing the look in the confused or terrified faces of her victims. But now that everyone is used to having her around, everyone simply ignores her, and continue on with their lives. But this is not enough to make her feel unhappy, she doesn't care whether she is noticed or not.
Because the Harvest Goddess fixes everything she breaks, the villagers continue to live happily in the village. As the Witch Princess looks into her crystal ball, she sees so many things that bother her. Things like friendship and love the villagers express freely makes her feel uneasy. Within the past couple of years, there has been three weddings, and many other happy social events.
The Witch Princess has no friends, and keeps herself company by causing trouble for others. But now that her magic doesn't work like before, she starts to feel depressed. She wonders why she feels the way she does as she looks into the happy faces of the villagers of Forget-Me-Not Valley. Could it simply be that she despises the look of happy faces, or could there be more?
"I don't get it," sighed the Witch Princess as she leans back on her seat. "Nothing seems to be fun anymore. My magic won't have much affect as it did before, the villagers are always happy and lovey-dovey, and fighting the Harvest Goddess is getting boring."
She then throws herself on the table, resting her head on her arms thinking about what she wants to do next. She then continues to talk to herself, "Maybe I should move out of the valley. I want to be alone for awhile, and think of new ways how to terrorize people. But where am I going to live if I leave? There isn't many places that I can be alone, and still find a good supply of ingredients? Someplace deserted, with lots of mushrooms and herbs I can collect."
After she says that, her crystal ball begins to glow a faint blue aura. The aura gains the Witch Princess' attention, and she gets up to take a look at what the magical ball is doing. Soon enough, the Crystal ball shows an image of a small remote island out in the ocean. Curious to know what the ball is showing her, she takes a closer look at the island. To the west is a dense forest that must be rich in herbs, mushrooms, and other things she can use. To the north-east side of the island is a jungle that must have even more things to gather than the forest.
She notices some buildings in between the two wooded areas. However, she cannot see anyone living in the island. All the homes and shops are old and decrepit. By the way they are neglected, she feels that they must have been abandoned for many years, even decades. Near one of the buildings, she sees an old sign that says, "Welcome to Sunny Island".
Seeing that there is an uninhabited island rich in resources, she considers her options. Stay in Forget-Me-Not Valley, and be miserable. Or move to this island known only as Sunny Island, and start over from there. It doesn't take her long to make a choice. So she packs her bags, and gets ready to leave the valley. It would be a difficult task if she didn't have her magic to help her shrink everything to travel size. Getting to the island is no problem either with the help of her flying broom.
That evening, she is ready to leave. She doesn't hesitate to get on her broom with her bag full of her mini-sized possessions. She feels no remorse or regret that she'll be leaving the village behind. In fact, she's quite happy about the sudden departure. "See you later suckers! It was fun while it lasted, but it's time for this witch to go!" she yelled just before she flies away into the night.
It's a long flight to the island. She does not arrive until morning, but she feels that the eight hour wait was well worth it when she sees the island in the distance. As she lands on the beach, she feels tired, so she decides to sleep in one of the abandoned homes until she was well rested. By noon, she was ready to explore the jungle, and build her new home.
As she walks through the jungle, she passes by bushels of herbs and fungus she can use for her potions. The ingredients are highly abundant, just as she expected from a deserted island. She then picks up a toadstool, and takes a strong whiff. She smirks, enjoying how pure and virgin they are. She can only imagine what sort of spells she can make with such high quality ingredients, and nobody is around to bother her.
She finds a clearing in the middle of the jungle, feeling that it is the perfect place to build her new witch's hut. All she needs now is plenty of wood which she can get easily in the jungle.
"Okay, now that I found myself a new place to call home, let the logging begin!" she yelled as she raised her right arm. Using only her thought, she summons a dark cloud which forms the shape of a logging ax.
She moves to the closest tree and says, "This looks good. I'll start with this one." The dark cloud then becomes solid, and she prepares herself to chop down the tree. The Witch Princess smirks as she pulls the ax back to cut down her first tree in the island. However, a whirring sound distracts her, and she quickly looks back. From the corner of her eye, she sees a boomerang fly towards her.
She jumps out of thee way instinctively nearly getting hit by the flying boomerang. She then looks back to see where the boomerang went to, but it had already vanished into the foliage. The Witch Princess knows that trees or animals do not throw things at others, especially a man-made weapon. She can clearly tell that she is not alone in the island, and that person is not too happy to have a new person around.
"Who goes there!!" yelled the Witch Princess looking for the person who threw the boomerang. Sooner than later, she hears the sound of rustling leaves to the side of her, She quickly turns and finds the person responsible for the attack on her. A young man in a yellow and black striped leotard stands on some branches holding the boomerang that was just flying only moments earlier.
"Who may you be?" asked the Witch Princess.
"Me Shiba!" he said in a broken English dialect. "Magic woman leave now!"
His English is poor, but the Witch Princess can understand him well enough to know that he wants her out. But rather than meet his demands, she just laughs out loud with confidence, and says, "I don't know who you are, or where you came from. But I suggest that you pack up! This whole island now belongs to me, and I am not planning to share either!"
Shiba frowns angrily and threatens, "If magic woman no go, then Shiba will make go away!"
The Witch Princess takes his words as his way of challenging her. Before picking up her broom, she considers her odds. Shiba is a native of the jungle, so he knows how to maneuver through the trees better than she can. But even with such an advantage, the Witch Princess knows magic, which can counter any of his advantages. She may need to burn a few trees, but she is more than willing to waste some of her resources to get what she wants.
After a moment of thought, she mounts on her broom, and flies into the trees to meet face to face with Shiba. But even after showing that she has the advantage of flight, Shiba doesn't even show any sign of worry. But that doesn't concern the Witch Princess either. They both are confident that they can beat one another.
She then flies back a few feet, and begins chanting a spell summoning a fireball in the palm of her hand. She then grins and says, "If I were you, I would run away right about now. Trust me, I would rather not burn the jungle trying to get rid of you. So I'll give you to the count of three to get lost!"
Shiba takes a battle stance and says, "Magic woman stupid! Magic woman wants fight Shiba! Magic woman will not win!"
Shiba's stubborn behavior irks the Witch Princess. This is not the first time she had threatened someone using magic. Everyone else runs in fear at the first sight of a witch, let alone while casting a dangerous spell. But Shiba is different. He appears as if he is naive, because he lives in a jungle wearing animal pelts. But even after a display of dangerous magic, the look of confidence doesn't leave him even for a second. This bothers her.
With an angry tone in her voice, the Witch princess yells angrily, "Fine! Don't say that I didn't warn you!! HAVE SOME FIRE JUNGLE BOY!!!"
Without hesitation, she tosses the fireball to his direction. Grinning as if she had already won, she watches the fireball, believing that Shiba will burn to a crisp. However, Shiba does not move an inch. He just waits for the fireball to get close. As soon as it does, he grabs his dagger that is strapped to his waist, and swings it at the fireball. The Witch Princess' jaw drops as she witnesses her fireball just vanish just before her eyes.
This makes her even more furious. She claps her hands together, and chants a slightly more complicated spell, summoning over a dozen fireballs around her. In a more serious and angrier tone and look on her face, she says, "That was pretty good, you were able to cancel a simple fire spell using only your weapon. But can you handle a few more at once?"
She then raises her hands in the air, and the fireballs circle around them. Throwing her hands down, she hurls the fireballs at Shiba's direction. But the Witch Princess is unaware of how fast Shiba is. He moves around the flames quite easily. However, Shiba is not dodging them. Just as he did with the first fireball, Shiba uses his dagger to cancel out every single flame before any of them touches any of the trees.
"You're pretty fast," said the Witch Princess after Shiba has extinguished the last ball of flame.
He then looks at the Witch Princess and yells, "My turn!" Using the branch below him as a spring board, he launches himself towards her direction. With his dagger drawn, he aims to end this fight with only a single blow. However, the Witch Princess waves her hand, and summons a magical barrier. As soon as Shiba touches it, an electrical shock sends him flying back into the trees. Like a cat, Shiba lands on his feet over a nearby branch.
"Did you honestly think you can hurt me?" asked the Witch Princess. "With this magical barrier, I can cast as many spells from this side, and there will be nothing you can do about it. Give up now, and I'll let you live."
But even then, Shiba refuses to give up. He was already trained and prepared to defend the jungle, even against people who can use magic. In order to break through the Witch Princess' barrier, Shiba places his hand over his dagger, and concentrates very hard on it. The Witch Princess has no idea what he is doing, until his dagger starts to glow a black aura. Moments later, shiba throws his hands to the side, causing his dagger to grow into a three foot long black energy sword.
"What? But how?" asked the Witch Princess before Shiba jumped up a few branches higher, and springs towards the Witch Princess again. She casted her barrier again, hoping that it's strong enough to block Shiba's surprise attack. But as Shiba's weapon touches the Witch Princess' barrier, Sparks of dark lightning bolts flies in all directions struggling against one another. The Witch Princess tries her best to keep the barrier stable, but she can see it crack slowly.
After a minute of struggle, the barrier shatters, leaving the Witch Princess vulnerable. She uses her arms to shield herself, knowing that it'll probably do nothing to help her. As she braces herself, she waits blindly for Shiba to strike her. But after a moment, she notices that nothing happened.
She moves her arms away from her face, but she doesn't see Shiba in front of her. She then takes a look around, and finds him behind her with his dagger sheathed. Confused, she checks herself, but finds no injuries. She can only assume that either Shiba's attack either failed, or missed.
Feeling confident, she sticks her tongue at Shiba, then yells, "Ha! Your attack didn't do a thing to me!"
Before the Witch princess realizes anything, her broomstick snaps, and she falls straight to the ground. Luckily, branches and foliage breaks her fall. But she still lands pretty hard on the ground, causing her a lot of pain. As she gets up, Shiba looks down at the Witch Princess and yells, "Stupid magic woman! You leave! No come back!"
He then jumps into the trees, and vanishes. Even though the Witch Princess is sitting up, her head still hurts her for a while longer, and she feels dizzy from the fall. It takes her a while before she comes to her senses. She then takes a look around for her broomstick. She finds it broken in half stuck in some bushes not too far from where she landed.
"My flying broom!!" she yelled as she runs to it. Picking it up, she notices that the broom is cut halfway. Remembering how Shiba broke through her barrier, she imagines him intentionally missing her, so that he could destroy her broom. Without it, she cannot fly, and could not win the fight.
"Why that little. . ." the Witch Princess said to herself. "That little jungle boy beat me! What a cheap trick, breaking my broom so that I couldn't fly."
She then thinks about it for a second before continuing, "On the other hand, I would rather be my broom, than me.” But she shakes a fist anyway, and yells into the trees, “But still, nobody beats the Witch Princess, and gets away with it! Mark my words Jungle Boy! I will be back, and I will have my revenge!"
Taking her broomstick with her, the Witch Princess leaves the jungle peacefully. She is worn out and injured from the fight to cause anymore problems. But she has not given up on the jungle just yet. She'll have to settle for another place for now, then she'll take over the jungle as her own later.
To be continued.
^Chappie is a bit late, isn't it? I'll work on it soon 
Gotta finish Blueberry pie though