Match of the Millennium

Description: London Bridge is... not falling down. Not this time. Despite the best attempts of fighters who decide to have a World Warrior match on top of the walkways.

[BAIKEN]
After her last battle against Geese, Baiken went back to traveling. She had no particular targets marked out for herself, but she wasn't going to give up her World Warrior position; there was always time for another match.

But, having no immediate target, she'd resumed her wandering ways.

At the moment, Baiken is on London Bridge. Literally on it; she is sitting in exactly the place you're not supposed to, on top of the guardrail overlooking the river. She has no fear of falling, and the view /is/ excellent; midevening is a good time to be up there.

She has a jug of sake and her kiseru and is looking at not much in particular. For her, this is a good night, or at least a not-bad one.

[ABIGAIL]
How quickly can peace be disrupted. Baiken's solitude is soon shattered. The very structure of the bridge itself seems to tremble."Yo! What the hell you doing all the way up here!"

The speaker, one Abigail, crouches low near the opposite edge of where Baiken sits, having just scaled the exterior of the massive structure like some imported version of King Kong.

Pinched between two meaty fingers is one of those tell tale watches. The beeping honing right in on Baiken's position while Abigail himself just grins broadly, the high winds at these heights starting to whip around the long dreadlock esque hair that's been growing on the mechanics skull due to his lack of grooming since the tournament began.

"What you some sorta cosplayer or something?" he rumbles, "Japan's that way! You must be friends with Katana.."

[BAIKEN]
"I'm visiting," Baiken says, without looking up at Abigail. She exhales a long line of smoke.

She can hear the beeping without needing to check her own watch, which is on her only hand; it's not beeping, but that's only because she figured out how to turn it to silent, and she can feel the faint buzz instead. It's legit.

Baiken turns the kiseru upside down, taps out ash over the water (she does not think she can make the Thames any dirtier than it already is) and grinds it out against the ankle of her boot. Only after that does she tuck it away in her robe, then takes a long swig from the jar of sake. She isn't even bothering with a cup.

/Then/ she looks up at Abigail. Big bastard, she thinks to herself, a little blearily. She's been drinking a bit... or maybe more than a bit. "Let me guess," she says. "You want a battle." They're on top of the upper walkway, so it's plenty wide enough, though it's a long way to fall... not that that bothers Baiken, at least.

[ABIGAIL]
"Bingo!" rumbles Abigail who flicks the watch up into the air and then snatches it into his boulder sized meat-mitten as it falls back down. "It's Abigail's European Tour, still goin' full throttle!"

The goliath pauses and then rumbles, "Hrn..although the last few fights..didn't go so well..but that's the past, baby!"

He begins striding forwarding, huge foot falls rumbling the foundation of the building and causing those within the towering structure to likely look up in curiosity as to who ordered the local earthquake.

"Whoa, hey girl. You're lit up! You always like this? You sure you want to fight? I don't wanna hear any complaints about you bein' drunk off your ass and all that. Or wait.." he snaps his huge fingers, "you're onna those...drunken master types? I loved that movie!"

[BAIKEN]
The prospect of a fight is fine by Baiken. Attractive, even. She was kind of at loose ends. She sets the jug of sake down with surprising delicateness, rolling her neck left to right to stretch it out.

"It won't slow me down." Baiken seems steady enough, and honestly she's fought worse off before. She knows that the adrenaline will burn off what there is of the haze, but it takes a lot to get her drunk nowadays and she wasn't trying to get /really/ drunk. She hasn't had a bad day in a while.

Baiken hops down from her perch to land on the slightly sloped roof of the walkway. She walks a few steps to find her footing, nods, and then turns back toward Abigail. "Just so long as you don't expect any mercy, either." If Abigail wants to fight with the big boys and girls, she's going to push herself just as hard as she did against Geese or Jubei.

COMBATSYS: Baiken has started a fight here.

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

COMBATSYS: Abigail has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Baiken           0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0          Abigail

[ABIGAIL]
"Let's rev it up!" responds Abigail while also slamming his huge fists together, producing a thunderous boom that echoes across the top of the bridge and rumbles its way through the area to cause various motorists, bystanders and other assorted types to pause and look up as if wondering where the explosion just came from.

Abigail for his part does not gingerly step but begins pounding his way forward across the slope of the rooftop. Each footfall increases in force as he settles into a jog and it's only the reinforcements done over the years to the bridge -likely due to fighters using it more often then not-that he avoids crashing right through the roof itself. Time will tell if it holds. It's one thing to reinforce the bridge. It's another thing to Abigail it.

He's suddenly upon Baiken, lunging in with a gigantic fist that compresses the air infront of it like a shockwave due to the force of his swing. "KABOOM!"

COMBATSYS: Baiken dodges Abigail's Dynamite Punch.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////// ]
Baiken           0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0          Abigail

[BAIKEN]
Given most of the supports are made of stone, and the ones that aren't are made of steel, Baiken is pretty sure the bridge itself is Abigail-resistant - except maybe the roof they're on, of course. But she doesn't really care if Abigail falls through the roof onto the walkway. It's not like that'd kill him.

Baiken holds her ground against Abigail. She doesn't even draw her sword as she watches him barrel towards her, judging his movement and speed. He's not very fast, but he's got momentum on his side - Baiken is pretty sure he outweighs her a good five times over, and when that much mass gets going it's not going to stop without some serious force being applied.

So she doesn't try to stop him. She suddenly darts forward, into the movement, and rolls. Abigail's fist flies overhead; the shockwave from the compressed air blows her hair back as she comes out of the roll into a rise, delivering an open-palm strike toward his back to keep him moving along. She might've been drinking, but she was right - it's certainly not slowing her down.

COMBATSYS: Abigail auto-guards Baiken's Medium Strike.

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Baiken           0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0          Abigail

[ABIGAIL]
@emit
She can be forgiven for not knowing that Abigail crushes cars into small cubes with his arms and causes earthquakes just by walking. He's not exactly well known aside from the waves he's begun making in the tourney. Either way, for now, it's a moot issue as the roof holds and the bridge itself is seemingly in no danger.

Abgail goes barely past her and skids to a stop, attempting to restrain his own momentum and turn his vast mass on a dime. Her strike slams into his physique and his body just absorbs the blow like a mattress taking the impact of a marble against it.

His arm raises and whirls around with him, huge forearm spinning to try and catch Baiken with the sudden force of its arc. Abigail keeps on turning, completing his rotation and bringing his other arm around in a follow up upper cut. Again the very swing shaking the structure and rocketing a shockwave off around both fighters.

COMBATSYS: Abigail successfully hits Baiken with Swift Backhand.

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Baiken           0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0          Abigail

[BAIKEN]
Baiken paid moderate attention to the less popular fighters in the tournament, but she doesn't know much about Abigail beyond 'he's big', 'he's strong', and 'he likes cars, or at least tires' - and she could tell all of those things just by looking at him right now.

She mutters a curse under her breath when her open palm hits Abigail with little effect; she lets the impact push her away slightly, but it doesn't really matter when he whirls around and delivers a bone-shaking backhand to... well, pretty much her entire upper body, given the size of Abigail's hands versus the size of her.

Baiken does not go flying because she had the presence of mind to brace herself against the roof and she's being pushed up the slope instead of down it. She does skid several feet with a grunt as it rocks her along, and she staggers while she regains her footing. All right, she thinks, don't take him lightly.

Roaring wordlessly, Baiken stomps her foot, and a pillar of pink-white chi erupts from the ground around her in a shockwave. The biggest blast is in front of her, rising to her chest, while behind her it's much shorter, more like shin-high. At least it's good (hopefully) in keeping Abigail off her for a moment!

COMBATSYS: Baiken successfully hits Abigail with Tetsuzansen.

[    \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////////     ]
Baiken           0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0          Abigail

[ABIGAIL]
It works somewhat. Abigail attempts to bring both of his arms infront of him to blunt the incoming wave of chi but it's to little and to late. The blast rushes into and through him, burning chi blasting at his body, whipping his hair around and dragging his hulking physique backwards by a few paces followed by a few heavy footfalls as he seeks to get some brief distance between himself and the swordswoman.

"Hrgh!" he grunts unintelligibly before crouching low and then leaping straight forward into the air. At the height of his arc he dares to even flip and then falls back downward towards Baiken with both of arms upraised and fists clenched together, fingers interlaced to produce a boulder dwarfing double fisted assault.

His landing is appropriately momentum but even more violent will be the impact of his fists as the arms come falling down and the huge fists lunge in, attempting to flatten Baiken beneath them.

COMBATSYS: Baiken blocks Abigail's Giant Flip.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Baiken           1/-------/=======|===----\-------\0          Abigail

[BAIKEN]
Good, she got him off her. That's what Baiken was hoping for - she can fight someone Abigail's size (she's done it before - though the last being she fought his size wasn't human) but she needs room to maneuver.

What she was not expecting him to do, afterwards, is jump. Baiken's eye follows Abigail as he tenses and leaps, and he makes remarkably good height for someone his size - he's pretty good at throwing himself around, apparently. This time, though, Baiken is prepared - she's not going to take /that/ blow solidly if she has anything to say about it.

Baiken's dart backwards, accompanied by raising her hand, keeps her partially but not entirely out of reach of Abigail. He clips her arm, raised defensively, and threatens to knock her off balance because of it, but he doesn't flatten her, and that's what she was counting on.

Her empty sleeve flicks out, whip-like, toward Abigail's leg. 'Empty', as it turns out. A four-'fingered' claw snaps out on the end of a chain as Baiken tries to clamp it around Abigail's leg firmly, then pull the chain hard with her free hand. With most people, she'd actually be trying to pull them over to her; even her strength has limits, and with Abigail she's mostly trying to yank his leg out from under him and pull him off-balance so he's an easy target for the inevitable follow-through.

COMBATSYS: Baiken successfully hits Abigail with Kabari.

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Baiken           1/-----==/=======|=====--\-------\0          Abigail

[ABIGAIL]
his time a depression does appear in the roof as Abigail's vast back goes slamming down into it and his huge arms splay out to the sides, practically covering the entire roof up from one end to the other. The chains entanglement such that he's briefly caught and thrown off guard. Not expecting this at all, nope. Baiken is proving to be a unique type of challenge.

But one he gladly accepts. His eyes hood a little bit and he makes a grumbling sound that sounds..not to distant from the sound of a massive engine idling? Strange..

COMBATSYS: Abigail focuses on his next action.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Baiken           1/-----==/=======|====---\-------\0          Abigail

[BAIKEN]
And down. Baiken generally does not smile, and she doesn't know, but there's a somewhat satisfied look as Abigail crashes onto his back, stalled out for an instant.

With a shrugging motion, Baiken dislodges the clawed grip from Abigail's leg. He's on his back, and that gives her a moment of opportunity; she snaps the chained claw upward, and then downward. This time it doesn't catch Abigail - it catches the roof next to him, 'fingers' digging in deeply as she gets a good grip. When she pulls this time, she does not pull anything over to her. She pulls herself to the anchor point, and she draws her sword en route, finally unsheathing it from her side.

Baiken roars as she slashes at Abigail, putting the full strength of her arm and all the momentum of her flying grapple behind a single rattling blow. As she touches down next to Abigail, she unhooks the claw from the roof with a toe kick, withdrawing it back up her sleeve; it's served its purpose for the moment, giving her a much faster, stronger slash than she otherwise could manage.

COMBATSYS: Abigail interrupts Metsudo Kushoudou from Baiken with Abi Lift.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////             ]
Baiken           0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0          Abigail

[ABIGAIL]
Like a stalled car suddenly roaring back to life, Abigail kippups to a crouching position and actually yanks on the chain, pulling Baiken in even faster and right towards a clenched and waiting fist. This arcs up in a blurring burst of speed that swipes at Baiken with a violent rush even as Baiken's sword scores purchase against Abigail's superhuman physique and darts along the muscles of his belly.

"Ho! You're the first I've seen with a weapon!" he declares, managing to hide the grimace caused by the swipe behind a full toothed grin, "Let's see how it compares to my fists!"

[BAIKEN]
Plus side: Baiken got the speed she wanted.

Minus side: Hello, fist. Nice to meat you. (Pun intended.)

When she's in the air, it's hard to maneuver. Baiken manages to slash despite the change in velocity, but she does not manage to avoid the mighty blow, and this time it /does/ throw her; with her claw still hanging onto the roof, she's not likely to fall off it, but she does go flying about five meters before she touches down... on her back. She didn't manage a landing on her feet.

Baiken manages to rise quickly, ignoring the ache from her landing. If she had any lingering haze left, that knocked it out of her. "Your first, huh," she says, as she withdraws the claw and leaves the missing arm's sleeve hanging slack and apparently empty again. She keeps her sword in her hand, though.

"Then let's show you how it's done!"

The other thing about Baiken is that, once she gets going, she doesn't really slow down. Baiken charges, a flat-out dash toward Abigail, and as she reaches him she slashes; a single upward diagonal blow as if she was unsheathing it (though she kept it out the whole time). But as she does it, the tip of the blade dances with pink chi, leaving a trail behind it like a banner that takes several seconds to fade, breaking up into cherry blossom-like sparks and drifting on the evening breeze.

COMBATSYS: Baiken successfully hits Abigail with Rokkonsogi.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////                  ]
Baiken           0/-------/-======|=======\=------\1          Abigail

[ABIGAIL]
Apparenlty the sword compares pretty good.

Abigail squints his eyes and frowns lightly. More of that chi stuff. The energy is tell tale to him but he doesn't -quite- have it in him to bolster his aura and build his body to be capable of easily blocking such things. He's a rooted and grounded sort of guy. To grounded. SO much so that as the attack passes into him and the cherry blossoms sparks flutter around him, he belts out a grunt of displeasure and is again driven back.

But not far. His massive fist hurtles around like a bolt of thunder, a loud *BOOM* piercing the air as it rips through it to try and slam into Baiken's midsection before the samurai can rebound away.

Should the fist hit he attempts to lift her skywards with it while his other fist comes around and then another strike and then another in a rapid succession of machine gun blows that happen so quickly it looks like the titan is blurring his movements. He finishes with a double fisted upward swing, once more arcing his full strength into the blows as he roars, "Abigail PUNCH!"

COMBATSYS: Abigail knocks away Baiken with Abigail Punch.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////                  ]
Baiken           1/----===/=======|-------\-------\0          Abigail

[BAIKEN]
Baiken can feel that she's getting some damage through. It's hard to fight someone built like Abigail for the same reason it's hard to fight a wall; you can keep hitting it with light blows all day and it won't even flinch. You need to find the weak point and hammer in - and in this case, Baiken is pretty sure she's located one.

Not that walls flinch. It's a figure of speech.

Unfortunately, while she might have found a point of vulnerability, she left herself open to do it. Abigail smashes Baiken upward hard enough to elicit a yell from the samurai; the pain isn't the issue, but the moment when /she/ is vulnerable is. She curls up to try to absorb the machine gun-fast follow-ups.

The net result is that the barrage sends Baiken rolling wildly away. This time it looks like she /is/ going to go over the edge, except she manages to hook her sword through part of an exposed girder, catching herself before she tumbles over. Not wanting to damage her sword, Baiken pulls herself back to her feet.

She looks a little less stable now, but still able to fight as she advances on Abigail, eye narrowed in focus. He may seem like an idiot, but he's legitimately skilled.

She's a little more careful about her approach this time, and though her horizontal slash looks wild and uncontrolled, it absolutely isn't - Baiken is testing his reactions, seeing if he's starting to tire out after blows like that. Lots of fighters would be.

COMBATSYS: Abigail blocks Baiken's Random Strike.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////                   ]
Baiken           1/---====/=======|-------\-------\0          Abigail

[ABIGAIL]
As Baiken approaches, so does Abigail. His huge arms are upraised slightly to his sides, hands open and fingers grasping at air like some sort of exaggerated Frakenstein's Monster sort of walk. He bears down on her, looking to continue to press the offensive but she's on to something as well because he is indeed feeling the pressure of her previous attacks as well as fatigue from his continual forceful assaults. Thus when she blurs into action he's forced to pull into a defensive turtling position, bringing his massive forarms up to bear the brunt of her assault against his hardened limbs.

He uncoils from this to send a single palm hurtling at Baiken, literally attempting to slam atop her and drive her to the roof thunderously like a construction site piledriver attempting to pound a peg into the ground.

COMBATSYS: Baiken dodges Abigail's Palm Smash.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////                  ]
Baiken           1/---====/=======|-------\-------\0          Abigail

[BAIKEN]
Baiken is a hunter. A predator. She can tell when her target is starting to wear down, and her endurance is such that she can often keep going after they can't - though it's half actual endurance, and half sheer bloody-minded stubbornness that keeps her going long after normal, sane people would have called it off or passed out.

She's getting that feeling from Abigail. Which is good. She thought the titan would never wear down.

Baiken strikes Abigail's guard twice before she has to deal with the palm strike. It's coming from high (of course) and almost vertically, to slam her down; her response is to circle around Abigail, forcing the bigger fighter to turn and move to follow her.

The palm strike misses her by inches as Baiken stops her slow circle and practically throws herself sideways instead; her empty sleeve billows, her hair spreads out behind her, and Abigail's mighty palm actually touches both of them, so close does he comes to her. If Baiken actually /had/ both arms, he would have probably broken her right arm, judging by how much force he applies to that empty sleeve.

But she doesn't. There's no right arm there, and Baiken is not adverse to using that to her advantage on the rare occasions it can be.

Taking advantage of what she feels is an opening, Baiken grips her sword more tightly, causing the pink chi to dance along the blade again. She slashes, horizontally, with all the force in her body, holding the blade reversed, like a giant knife - then spins it in her grip, slashing horizontally the other direction in a more orthodox grip. Raising the sword overhead, the chi shines brighter as she brings the blade through a dramatic circle, slashing down diagonally with a mighty "OOOOORYAAAA!" and a blaze of pink.

COMBATSYS: Abigail barely endures Baiken's Tsurane Sanzu Watashi.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////                         ]
Baiken           0/-------/------=|====---\-------\0          Abigail

[ABIGAIL]
Pink. Again!

Abigail grunts at the tell tale glow of chi beginning to build up once more and he pivots, attempting to bring his body around into a better defensive stance to try and weather the assault. His immense physique swells, muscles bulking up gigantically and flexing like hardened stone as he lurches into the brunt of the assault, allowing blade to pass along his body and chi to burn though it explosively. He -almost- endures and tanks it..but when all is said and done, Baiken's dramatic assault burns through him and the giant's defensives are shattered.

He staggers backwards, nearly tumbling off of the bridge as he teeters to the side only to regain his balance and at the last second, lunge into the air with his legs curling up towards his chest. It seems he's not quite done yet! A two legged drop kick that can probably burst through vault doors, hurtles at Baiken in a counter strike.

COMBATSYS: Abigail knocks away Baiken with Ontario Drop.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  ////                          ]
Baiken           0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0          Abigail

[BAIKEN]
Baiken honestly thought that had taken Abigail down. Just goes to show: you should never count the big guy out.

The drop kick doesn't hit Baiken so much as squash her. The impact crumples her to the roof, half-pinned under Abigail's big boots after he slams down too; she doesn't fall off the side because it's hard for her to go /anywhere/ for a few moments, including stand up at all. If she was sane, she'd probably give up; her everything hurts.

But Baiken does not like to give up. At all. Even in a match like this.

Baiken plants her hand against the rooftop and practically pries herself out from under Abigail, vaulting into the air in a single-arm handspring. It's more than a little awkward given how squashed she was, but she manages to flip around in midair and 'stomp' on nothing at all, sending her springing away from Abigail to land on the rooftop. "TATAMI GAESHI!"

Where she stomped, a green block of chi forms. It falls straight down after Baiken springs off it, dropping onto Abigail. It looks dismissive. It isn't. That's a complicated trick to do, after all, even if she's using it as much as a springboard as an attack.

COMBATSYS: Abigail blocks Baiken's Tatami Gaeshi.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  ///                           ]
Baiken           0/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0          Abigail

[ABIGAIL]
It's another dead heat it seems! That's how Abigail has found his matches. Either he's dealt with some overwhelming monstrosity of nature or his matches have been down to the wire with both combatants pulling neck and neck towards the finish line. A burst of energy has kept him on his feet but when the chi slams into him again, he is once more threatened with toppling over with his limbs dangling off the edge of the rooftops.

But he pushes through. Quite literally. His massive body lunges after Baiken, spreading arms wide and pushing his chest outward as he tries to slam his prodigious bulk into her.

COMBATSYS: Abigail can no longer fight.

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

COMBATSYS: Baiken dodges Abigail's Hungabee.

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

[BAIKEN]
It's the distance that saves Baiken, this time.

When Abigail lunges at her, she gives up ground, again and again and again, bounding backwards with what remains of her strength; she seems content to let him lunge as far across the length of the walkway as he can. If the fight was continuing, this would be /horrible/ tactics; she's letting herself be cornered, and for what?

But the fight isn't continuing. Abigail slumps, and though Baiken is feeling the burn too, she remains standing. She keeps her blade out, pointed at Abigail for a few long moments, before she is pretty sure it is being counted as a win; then she resheathes it.

"Damn," she says to herself, voice raspy. "I need a drink."

COMBATSYS: Baiken has ended the fight here.

Log created on 20:22:09 02/22/2018 by Baiken, and last modified on 23:49:51 02/24/2018.