Match of the Millennium

Description: Neo-League: Stray and Aaron Fang go fist to bow in Venice, Italy, along the scenic canal as day turns to night. Will the Stray Cat, veteran of pit fights since his early teenage years, succeed, or will Aaron Fang's pure heart triumph?

The evening in Venice was so beautiful.

The calm waters of the Grand Canal glistened with the setting sun. The neo-League fight was planned to take place as the lights of the city brightened. The battle field was to be on the canal its self. Several degraded barges and boats were laid out near on old dock that reeked of cat urine. This would serve as a battle field.

After his two loses in a row Aaron was hoping this next fight would bring better luck. He gazed out of the calm beauty of the still canal. He kept his bow tightly strung waiting for his opponent.

There's a slow, dragging shuffle of boots from an alley, as the Stray Cat walked along, weight on his feet from his footwear's steel toes. His green trench-coat hiding his hands as the Russian mob lieutenant approached Aaron, he slouched forward, untrusting of this new place so far from his typical territory, but exploring it nonetheless, all its smells and sounds and sights and the backdrop of the emotion here. He arrives alone, not wanting to disclose his gang affiliation to the world by bringing thugs. Still, he's well known in underground fighting circles from his days as a youth in various Russian pitfights, so he would not be unknown to people. He was taking a risk by fighting, but he needed something to burn off the tension. Better get involved in fighting again than make a reckless move for Skull Cross. A broken face was better than a broken back.

Stray stopped before Aaron on the dock, pulling his hands out of his pockets and revealing gloves with spikes built into the knuckles. Long, thin purple hair hangs from his head, thinned prematurely by a heavy smoking habit, black sunglasses hiding his eyes. He makes an inhuman snarl with his upper right lip, as he observed the prim and proper opponent before him. "Is this a joke?" he asked, in a Russian accent that betrayed him as a high bred individual rather than the krysha leader he appeared to be today. In another world, a world where Lenin ruled politics still, he would be a computer scientist for the Soviet Union. Instead, he finds this bleak faith for himself.

COMBATSYS: Stray has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Stray            0/-------/-------|

Aaron turns to face the filthy degenerate to look him in the face. In an upbeat and friendly tone the scout speaks. "Ah, hello there good sir, you are the Stray I heard I was fighting this evening. Correct?". The Eagle Scout puts out his hand to shake. "I am Aaron Fang, it is a pleasure to meet you".

COMBATSYS: Aaron has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Stray            0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Aaron

Stray slowly looks down at the offer hand, momentarily incredulous, frowning as if he has just tasted something unpleasant. He chooses to ignore the handshake, not out of any honest dislike, but for psychological advantage. His father was a chessmaster, raised in the Soviet style. His gaze slowly moves back up to Aaron's face, as he lifts his hands and drops into a fighting stance, right arm held forward and up, left arm held back and down, right leg forward. "Yes, I am Stray. Word to the wise." His hands slowly ball into fists. "You better drop that honor for this fight. I will offer you no mercy." He bares his teeth briefly. "I am not one of the blessed." He waits quietly, for Aaron to strike.

The scout takes the clenched fist in stride. Reaching his bow out like a hook, Aaron pulled himself up to the top of an old boat. In a solemn voice, he tell Stray. "Sir, I have experienced things that gave no mercy, monsters that slaughtered people with no restraint. You are no beast, I do not believe you can give no mercy."

Above the dock were the cat stood, Aaron had his hand feel the boat gently bobbing under his weight. He stood upright , and delicately pulled back his bowstring. With no arrow in his hand, his fingers glowed like the light glimmering off the waters of Venice. He released the string, and a beam of light was unleashed upon the feline.

COMBATSYS: Stray dodges Aaron's Arrow of Light.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Stray            0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Aaron
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Stray's jaw steels, muscles clenching on either side of his Slavic face as he grinds his teeth at Aaron's speech. It's a show of displeasure he does not give often, his type preferring to hide themselves behind a veneer of control. His anger runs deep, and he's spent his entire life controlling it. As the arrow comes whipping in, Stray spins around to his right, his green trenchcoat catching the arrow as it flaps behind him. He turns about to right himself and face Aaron again, fists unclenching into open, loose grips, his trenchcoat smoking from the chi arrow.

"Monsters are not visible from appearances, and they are not born that way."

He runs forward across the dock after the retreating Aaron, leaping into the air to land on the boat beside Aaron as he twists in the air, swinging his hand out as it clenches into a fist once more, his opposite hand spreading out reflexively as a counterbalance. The knuckle spikes glissando through the air.

"And our crucible forges us into steel."

COMBATSYS: Aaron dodges Stray's Aerial Slash.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Stray            0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Aaron

The bright claws shined in Aaron’s eyes. He ducked under the flying feline’s fearsome fist. Still calm, he speaks, "The iron cannot say whether it is smelted or not. And you have not seen the black smith." Raising his bow like a club, Aaron runs towards Stray’s boat. "I have, and he only makes thing used for one thing..."

Aaron jumps with his bow being wielded as a club. Aaron screams as he brings down the Eagle’s beak on the Russian. "Pure torture!"

COMBATSYS: Aaron successfully hits Stray with Medium Strike.

[     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////// ]
Stray            0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0            Aaron

The eagle head comes crashing down on Stray's crown, smashing his head forwards as he falls to his knees, his sunglasses thrown askew. He looks up between strands of purple hair, readjusting his sunglasses as he sneers wordlessly. With them now toe to toe, backs up, hunching his shoulders as if a real cat as he makes a throat clenched growl.

Stray suddenly surges forward off his knees at Aaron with two steps and then a glide, spiked fist flying forward at Aaron's chest as gracefully ballets forward across the rocking boat.

COMBATSYS: Aaron blocks Stray's Sliding Punch.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Stray            0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0            Aaron

The metal knuckles were coming straight towards Aaron. To protect against the impact, he held his bow out in front of himself. The hard Ironwood stopped the fist, and even dented the spikes. It did not stop the rest of of his body though. Aaron was impacted by the full body of Stray.

both knocked down, Aaron went back to his feet. He took a moment to spot Stray’s new location. In the growing darkness, Aaron pulls out 3 arrows. The notches all three at once, pulls the sturdy bow back to his shoulder, and fires.

COMBATSYS: Aaron successfully hits Stray with Fleur De Lis.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////////     ]
Stray            0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0            Aaron

Stray is caught by all three arrows that triad across him vertically, finding himself stuck thrice. He grunts and stumbles backwards against the narrow lip of the gondola, looking down as he clenches his hands around thin air, fingers trembling in clawed shapes as he grits his teeth. He reaches for one, snapping it, then the other, then the other, knowing enough about basic puncture wounds with weapons not to pull them out. He'll have to talk to a local Mad Gear International handler and hook up with a street doctor for that.

Stray lurches forward, his shoulders knitting together and upwards as he appears to be a monstrosity, his true posture rising out of all his calm and control, thanks to the intense pain surging through him. "<It is time for you to sleep,>" he says in Russian, before he charges forward with a reckless swing of his right fist in a hook, not bothering to raise his guard and putting everything into the assault. He does, however, remain light on his feet.

COMBATSYS: Aaron dodges Stray's Hook Punch.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////////     ]
Stray            0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0            Aaron

Aaron ducks under the hook. His reflexes were sharp, and so were the Stray’s fists. To keep distance between them, Aaron jumped onto a nearby gondola. The boat’s ties broke and it drifted away from the dock, but was still contained by two larger tug boats.

Aaron was separated from the Stray by water. Water was guarding him. Aaron felt the water melting in a far off glacier. He felt to rushing stream flow into the mighty river. He experienced it flowing into the ocean and then rising into the sky. He felt it fall down onto a quite farm. It finally flowed into a canal and down to an old dock with aging boats, and a cat and Eagle fighting.

COMBATSYS: Aaron gathers his will.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Stray            0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1            Aaron

Stray whiffs the punch and turns into his miss, allowing Aaron to get away as he reacclimates and backpedals with agile grace across the deck as it shifts from the Eagle Scout jumping off. He drops down, right knee on the ground and right hand down, watching him. If he closed the distance, there would surely be a counter attack. If not from an arrow or chi, then from a physical blow, and he'd be in the water. And Stray is not a fan of the water, unless it's a tropical beach. Then, a look that is terrifying on a face like Stray's appears. A smile.

Stray reaches into his green trenchcoat, withdrawing a black canister that is about hand sized. He pulls a round loop attached to a pin, then hurls it in typical grenade fashion, a looping through from behind his back. It sails through the air, before hitting Aaron's gondola and exploding in a ball of phosphorous.

COMBATSYS: Aaron blocks Stray's Special Delivery.

[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Stray            0/-------/-------|=======\====---\1            Aaron

The grenade lands in Aaron’s boat. Panicked, the scout grabs a moldy canvas to protect himself from the blast. When the ball of light subsides, the boat is empty.

All is quiet for a moment. The silence is broken by the Eagle Scout jumping out out the water with his bow in one hand, and 3 arrows in the other. He swings the bow like a club in a wide reach so the cat could not escape. He would then follow up on the swing by throwing 3 arrows at point blank range that would scatter in a wide range.

COMBATSYS: Aaron successfully hits Stray with Scout Salute.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Stray            0/-------/----===|=======\=====--\1            Aaron

Stray slowly rises from his kneeling position to regard the burning boat as it sinks to the water, noticing that Aaron is not there. His chin tilts up as he looks past it, to the nearby plaza on the other side of the canal, to see if he's been blown backwards. But as Aaron comes surging out of the placid waters of the Venice waterways, Stray takes a step back, before being knocked to the side by the swinging bow. One of the arrows catches him directly in the shoulder, producing a pained, "AUGH!" He doesn't have time to break it off, instead forced to engage rapidly.

Stray reaches out for Aaron's clothing with his left hand, attempting to pull him sideways as he swings around to pull the archer off balance. He then closes in rapidly for a headbutt, attempting to slam his forehead into Aaron's nose in a practiced streetfighting maneuver.

COMBATSYS: Aaron fails to interrupt Headbutt from Stray with Order of the Arrow.
-* CRITICAL FAIL! *-

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////                  ]
Stray            0/-------/----===|=======\======-\1            Aaron

As the cat came in, Aaron tried to draw an arrow quickly. Before he can fire it, Stray’s head was already on him. The arrow misfired and stabbed Aaron in the nose right as it was getting head butted.

Aaron now had a new nose piercing.

Stray's hand snapped out, wresting the bow from Aaron's grip as the arrow misfired. He grinned at Aaron, a savage grin, as he began to whip the bow back and forth with one arm, replacing Aaron's technique with sheer primitive anger. After at least seven lashes with the bow, he relents, breathing slowly. His hand opened, and he dropped the bow to his own feet, daring Aaron to try and retrieve it.

COMBATSYS: Aaron blocks Stray's Light Random Weapon.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Stray            0/-------/----===|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2            Aaron

Aaron knew his own bow and he would not take a beating from it. Because he knew that thing was nasty to get hit with. The quick strikes did not directly hit Aaron but still sliced him quite a bit.

He did dare to grab his bow, and imminently scrambled onto a tug boat. He was bleeding and in fear. Then he thought of how Stray avoid the water. Aaron could feel the raw power the water held. The power to make mountains crumble, to wash away cites. The power was under Aaron, and the power was his!

COMBATSYS: Aaron charges his next attack!

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////                   ]
Stray            0/-------/----===|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2            Aaron

[STRAY]
Stray slowly backpedals as Aaron gathers his strength, right side of his mouth tugging downwards as he raises his fist and watches the Eagle Scout draw his energy. Stray reaches the back of his gondola, before he goes sprinting forward, running up to the peak of the boat, where the navigator usually stands with an oar, and goes leaping off. He sails through the air, arms up as his green trenchcoat flaps in the air behind him. He lashes out with a falling punch as he lands on the ground before Aaron, his teeth clenched and bared, upper body flexing taut.

COMBATSYS: Aaron endures Stray's Leaping Punch.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Stray            0/-------/---====|>>>>>>>\>>>>>--\1            Aaron

[AARON]
Aaron takes the fist dead on, knocking him back a few meters. Little did the Stray know, he had walked right into a baited trap.

Aaron drew his first arrow and released with with incredible speed and power. Each of the twelve arrows were being let loose like a water jet, with a trail of Scout Spirit following each.

Stray was now high up, it looked like the criminal had been sentenced to a firing squad. Then as the last arrow flew, the sun’s last glimpses died away.

COMBATSYS: Stray blocks Aaron's Empowered Scout’s Law.

[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Stray            0/-------/-======|>>-----\-------\0            Aaron

[STRAY]
Stray lands from the downward punch in a crouch, frowning as he looks at the recalcitrant Scout. Then, as the volley of arrows comes in, he rises and smacks one aside with his hand, and another, and another. His hands and forearms are sliced to pieces by the volley of chi-infused arrows, but at the end of the barrage, he is dripping with blood and grinning. He reaches to the arrow, still protruding from his shoulder, and snaps it. He dashes forwards and aims to grab Aaron's shoulders and jump backwards, dragging the Chinese/Jewish American with him and putting his leg on Fang's pelvis, extending his leg and giving him a quick toss.

COMBATSYS: Stray successfully hits Aaron with Tomoe Nage.
- Power hit! -

[                    \\\\\\\\\\  < >  /                             ]
Stray            0/-------/=======|>>>>>>-\-------\0            Aaron

[AARON]
After Stray flails his arms around, looking both impressive and silly. He came in and threw him around like a rag-doll. He could feel the hairline fractures forming in his bones. When he was finally released, he knew he could not make it.

He might not be able to win, but he could still deny the criminal that win. Aaron leaped up in a final assault. He swung up his mighty bow, and brought it straight down at the cat’s head. He screamed as he came down, and stopped when he fell back down to the deck.

COMBATSYS: Aaron can no longer fight.

[                    \\\\\\\\\\  <
Stray            0/-------/=======|

COMBATSYS: Aaron successfully hits Stray with EDGE Method.
- Power hit! -

[                         \\\\\  <
Stray            1/-----==/=======|

[STRAY]
As Stray stands from the Judo sacrifice throw, twisting to face Aaron, he feels the bow slam down onto his crown, dropping onto his knees and hand. The world around him wobbling, he stumbles back up to his feet, breathing heavily as he puts his hand on the edge of the boat to prop himself up. He feels centered, now. It's good to be back in the ring.

COMBATSYS: Stray has ended the fight here.


[AARON]
The unconscious Aaron laid out on the deck of the old boat. He was alone once Stray left and it was before the medics could come in. As we was a slumped over pile, there was a glint in the darkness. Then, there were several. A dozen green glints in the shadows walked out towards the unconscious Aaron, circling, meowing. The boots of the medics were heard rushing down the docks, but the six still walked closer, and closer...

Log created on 13:00:33 06/05/2016 by Stray, and last modified on 21:47:11 06/07/2016.