Match of the Millennium

Description: In which Haruna, who is attractive and cool, is defeated through the deceit and treachery of an evil lolita.

[AMANDINE]
SOMEWHERE IN ILLYRIA

"UTENSILS MY ASS!" shouts Amandine, clanging another pot into another. "Stupid shitty mobile kitchen. If it wasn't for that fat-assed Frenchie and her SABOTAGE I'd be back in the MAIN KITCHEN like a PROPER chef, not confined to some shitty expedition camp like some PITIFUL REJECT!" Clang.

The banging of pots and pans continues inside the makeshift mess tent before a very short young woman with black, red, and white hair tromps out on platform heels. She is dressed in a perfectly groomed mess of black and white frill: a poofy-shouldered dress, corset, and wide bell skirt with knee-high laced up boots. She looks like the fifth member of some death metal idol group.

Despite her fashion sense, whatever she's cooking on in the stainless steel pot hung over an open campfire smells absolutely divine. (The combination of smells implies some sort of of meaty stew.) She works a small paper fan, wielding it deftly despite her floofy sleeves to get the fire under the pot just a little higher and hotter. She hops up, lifts the lid, and tosses in another handful of spices.

Mysteriously, a much larger cauldron that looks like an antique sits a little ways away.

[HARUNA]
THE STORY SO FAR, IN AUDIOLOG FORM:

"So, it came to this.

"I came to Europe. Not the fun part of Europe. No, I only saw Paris through an airport transfer, because the Sacred Order needed to connect me through Atlanta - that's a city in America, apparently. Instead I came here, to Albania. To Illyria.

"I had to fight some kind of a banshee. It was terrible. I thought I'd get a skin infection...

"Everyone here is so handsome. So beautiful. I can't handle it sometimes, but I'm trying... trying to overcome this disgusting sense of being a country mouse among elegant gazelles... Their ancestors were crapping in buckets when Abe-no-seimei was serving the court, damn it! Ugh.

"And what made everything worse is when I followed that trail and met everyone already there. No, I'm lying. That was worse... but what I found when I went to get something to eat... that was the worst."

NOW, IN ACTUAL REALITY
(this is my story)

"Are you kidding me," says Haruna Abe, her lip curling up in a sneer as the fluffy-skirted confection of a girl stands in front of her, even as she releases the fragrant and alluring aroma of stew. Haruna is wearing hip-hugging jeans, expedition boots, and has hung up her jacket to leave her in a button-up blouse in a nebular purple which she sort of thinks flatters her eyes and is, at least, not shapeless.

"YOU'RE the cook? You? You look like you belong in an elementary school for vampires," Haruna continues. She continues, perhaps eloquently. "You're here in the middle of this reliquary site and you're shouting vulgarities? Did you run your staff off or did they have to go home for naps?"

Haruna presses a hand to her forehead. "UGH. At least tell me that you're not going to be serving that on a paper plate like some kind of American cousin festival."

I should walk this back, Haruna thinks. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "--I've been..." she begins, pausing at what is probably, legally, the worst possible time.

[AMANDINE]
Amandine is in the process of trying the stew when Haruna arrives. She eyes, closed in a moment of deep contemplation, suddenly snap open when she's addressed. The sound of grinding teeth is almost audible over the crackle of the fire and the sizzling bubble of the stew. Her head turns, inspecting Haruna for a moment. When her mental inventory seems to be complete, she speaks up.

"Who the HELL are YOU again?"

She swings the spoon sharply, shaking off any remaining residue before clacking her heels around to look (up) at Haruna. The wooden spoon remains firmly clutched in one hand. The other rests on her hip as she stomps over, standing face to chest with the other woman.

"Do you work hard to be such an ASS or does it come naturally?" She seems have cranked up the vulgarity out of spite. "I am a GROWN-ASS woman, and THE BEST CHEF IN THE NOL!!!"

"I'm out here because SOMEONE had to make sure everyone is fed, and some FAT-ASSED FRENCHIE sabotaged my cooking and they blamed ME for it? CAN YOU IMAGINE???"

The Romanian audily huffs, raising her nose and closing her eyes in the most noble way she can manage. "PLEASE. Paper plates are for SAVAGES and INBREDS! *I* packed some decent ceramic even if some of the BUMBLERS can't be trusted with proper china."

[HARUNA]
Haruna looks down at this little spaghetti.

"Wait," Haruna says, "This is the NOL camp? I didn't know they"

no don't say it"

"used"

stop

"child"

is this how Spider-Man feels? ugh I wish Toby MacGuire had answered my letter in middle school.

"labor."

i said it. good job, me

COMBATSYS: Haruna has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Haruna           0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Amandine has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Haruna           0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0         Amandine

[AMANDINE]
For a moment, Amandine seems content with little tirade. She stands there smugly, sure of her own superiority and that she has corrected this newcomer regarding the way of thinks.

And then she says it.

Amandine opens her eyes and they slowly roll to look at Haruna. Her right eye twitches.

"RAAAAAAH!"

It's not really a word so much as angry howl as Amandine rears back and throws a haymaker.

A hellaciously strong haymaker for a kindergartner.

COMBATSYS: Haruna parries Amandine's Medium Strike!!

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Haruna           0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0         Amandine

[HARUNA]
Haruna's entire world crackles into crystal clarity at about the point where Amandine acquires the killing intent and comes for her. She doesn't, exactly, see everything slow down like that Jim's Big Ego song, but she does see Amandine in finer detail, as much as she may hate it.

good job, she thinks to herself, even as she steps to the side and forwards. Yes, it's the "Way of the Intercepting Fist," an excellent concept which Bruce Lee popularized but did NOT invent - obviously, Japan did it first. Haruna weaves her right arm up to try to hook Amandine under her tiny but probably stinky armpit, the other snapping out to hit her in the ribs, right on a pressure point that would take the strength out of Amandine's fluffy doll-like arm.

After that she attempts to leverage her height to keep her in a stress posture. "Oi!" is Haruna's incisive remark... so far!

COMBATSYS: Amandine barely endures Haruna's Celestial Prison EX.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Haruna           0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0         Amandine

[AMANDINE]
Amandine's eyes widen when her first is redirected, but she doesn't immediately stop. Instead, she powers forward, her will apparently set on hitting Haruna excessively hard. The blow impacts the little Romanian's ribs, but it feels a bit like hitting a like a tree or a pillar. Why is she so solid, she doesn't look like she SHOULD be.

And then there's the rattle of chain. This is likely when Haruna would notice a second important detail: mixed in with Amandine's gaudy decorations are a length of metal that is wrapped through her ornate clothing and literally tying her to that massive cauldron of a cookpot sitting a short distance away.

But in the next moment: Amandine plants her heels on the ground enough to pivot forward and try to smash her bony (?) hip into Haruna's stomach like a cannon shot. (It's honestly hard to tell with the floofy skirt.)

"BITCH!!!" Amandine proclaims defiantly.

COMBATSYS: Haruna endures Amandine's Tuxedo Bombe.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Haruna           0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0         Amandine

[HARUNA]
Haruna narrows her eyes at the sight of the chain. "Are you on a LEASH?" she asks, but then she is being given an abrupt and brutal hip-smash into the stomach. She makes another statement then to the effect of "gkrgh!" as spit flies from her mouth, not yet joined by blood, but -

Her arm's crooked upwards and she is able to, briefly, hold Amandine aloft despite this.

A good person might have some kind of a systematic insight moment here and wonder if the NOL is practicing child slavery. Child cook slavery. Haruna does not do that.

"I should stuff you in your own pot," Haruna says, her voice rising in irritation. "But I don't want to get your filthy gothloli microbes on something that other people might have to EAT!"

And so instead she twists round to - with great speed - huck Amandine right square at the side of the cauldron itself!

COMBATSYS: Amandine blocks Haruna's Power Throw.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Haruna           0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0         Amandine

[AMANDINE]
"It's a TETHER, you ignorant savage!!" Amandine objects, shortly thereafter finding herself dangling in Haruna's grasp. With her distinct height disadvantage, she gets bodily picked up for a moment, tall-heeled boots kicking as she dangles there.

"Are you THREATENING me??" Amandine volume decreases only marginally. "I am NOT for EATING and I don't appreciate the implication that I'm somehow BITE SIZED!!!"

It's then that she gets chucked, clonking against the cauldron with a heavy thump. She braces herself against it, landing upright and dusting herself off.

"Or GERMY! I practice proper procedures!! Do you KNOW how HARD it is to get that certification!!"

And then, Amandine grabs hold of the mouth of the cauldron. That thing must weight two or three times what she does, what is she even...

She throws it overhead and one-handed, hurling the giant piece of cookery like a man-sized flail. As it soars, she grabs hold of the chain, whipping it with an expertise that only implies one thing:

Too much practice.

COMBATSYS: Amandine successfully hits Haruna with Mix Stir Beat.
Grazing Hit

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Haruna           0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0         Amandine

[HARUNA]
"Same thing!" Haruna objects even as Amandine keeps on shouting. Haruna's eyes roll at the rest...

But then Amandine can fly.

Or let's put this to music:

AMANDINE, SHE CAN FLY
AMANDINE, SHE CAN TOUCH THE SKY

As she strikes the cauldron, Haruna seems about to answer something about certification but she is thrown into a disarray suitable for a political headline when the huge kettle is thrown right straight square for her. Haruna throws herself forwards, to the ground, and is thus only BRANG!'d with the huge piece of iron; she lets out a gasp of pained breath, especially as this puts yet more strain on her core, but she isn't killed instantly or disabled!

She's like Chang Koehan, Haruna thinks with desperate insight. (How does Haruna know about Chang? Well, leaving aside the class PSAs about Chang and Choi... she has a Youtube account, and he's been in front of a camera.)

Brilliant thoughts sparkle through her mind like light refracting through a crystal.

How would I beat Chang Koehan?

I could offer him an opportunity for crime. No, that won't work.
I could offer him an underage child to - no, I'm thinking of someone else.
I could use his superior mass... no; I've left things larger than this girl in the toilet.

In this moment Haruna has been skidding closer to Amandine and she is running out of time to think about matters. So, she punts! Handspring on the ground, do a backward somersault in the air and aim to donkey-kick off the flat, rigid surface of Amandine's chest.

"Do people threaten to eat you often?"

COMBATSYS: Amandine endures Haruna's Hidden Virtue.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Haruna           0/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0         Amandine

[AMANDINE]
Barely a moment after the pot collides with Haruna, Amandine snaps the chain back with a jerk, tugging the massive implement back with a simple flick of her wrist. It slams down with a clang, rolling once on the rim before settling back onto its feet. For a brief moment in the exchange, Haruna may pick up on something dark, even sinister about the thing. Is it LOOKING at her? Does it have EYES?

No, no, surely a figment of the imagination.

And while she may seem downright Whovian, Amandine is not. She seems to kick up and pull herself toward the kettle to close the gap with Haruna once more, barreling down her like some sort of tot of terror.

"Not," a pause, "No, not really," Amandine says matter of factly, but with enough hesitation to case a shade of doubt.

"Do YOU threaten to EAT people often?!"

But there is a donkey-kick. It slams into Amandine's chest with a sturdy impact that'd be enough to bowl most people over and possibly even crack a rib. By contrast? Amandine sets herself like a sumo wrestler, her platform heels clacking on the ground as she braces herself.

And she takes the mule kick head on and barely yielding an inch. Haruna can certainly feel the give there, but it's not what it SHOULD be. Not with this little gremlin.

And yet, it gets worse. Amandine tries to grab hold of Haruna's legs and flapjack her up into the air. If she succeeds? Well, she then inverts the larger woman, throws her own feet out from under her, and drops into a seated piledriver.

COMBATSYS: Amandine successfully hits Haruna with Medium Throw.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Haruna           1/------=/=======|======-\-------\0         Amandine

[HARUNA]
Being flapjacked is never fun, especially when it's coming from the Living Pancake here. Human Pancake? It's not clear if either apply to Amandine in the eyes of Haruna, but she is given a brief and shocking introduction to the ground. When Amandine disengages, Haruna flops over.

Oh no! What's in her future now? A spinal surgery and a heartwarming narrative in the Hallmark Channel's "Home for Mutilated Street Fighters"?

No.
(this time)

A pop accompanies Haruna's toppling forwards, and she says, "I can - assure you, my diminutive foe," ooh, DIMINUTIVE, what a fancy word, "that I don't like to eat poison."

She's like Chang AND Choi Bounge, Haruna thinks from the ground. Owie jesus, she thinks (approximately - she doesn't think of Jesus): She really could have gotten me good. This is worse than that banshee.

If I lay here she's going to pound me out like mochi, Haruna decides, and at THAT point she slaps the floor, spins round with a faint hazy afterimage on her heels, and aims a rising kick - a sort of inverse dive - at the approxiate center mass of the little poofball! Let her deal with her anchor in her own way, Haruna thinks.

"So WHY, exactly, are you cooking in the middle of a massive confluence of sorcerous energy!?"

COMBATSYS: Amandine blocks Haruna's Diving Kick.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Haruna           1/------=/=======|=======\-------\0         Amandine

[AMANDINE]
"Oh, HARSH," Amandine says, "but I'm sure I would taste DELICIOUS!!!" Amandine says this and then, parsing what she said, pauses for a moment.

"Actually nix that, that's weird. MY COOKING IS AWESOME!!! And you have VOCABULARY! I'm AMAZED!!!"

But before she can speak further, there's a dramatic aerial dive kick (inverse dive kick) to deal with. Amandine sweeps a floofy-sleeved arm around to intercept, crashing against the blow with a grunt. Dimunitive she is, but she does at least seem to know how to fight a little.

"A what?" she says, her head tilting in genuine confusion for a minute. "I just set up here because of the ventilation! All these little CORRIDORS are AWFUL for the smoke of the campfire! PLUS MY HAIR AND CLOTHES GET ALL SOOTY! IT SUCKS!"

And with this latest volley of yelling, Amandine reaches to try and grab hold of one of Haruna's legs, swing her back around and into the ground, and then slam her into the ground with a miniature explosion of chi! But is that all--?

COMBATSYS: Haruna blocks Amandine's Daily Special.

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Haruna           1/----===/=======|=======\-------\0         Amandine

[HARUNA]
"Yes, I went to school," Haruna says as she lands back on her feet. "You should try it sometime, you will probably get complementary cookies and naps!" After a beat, she says, "Why are you talking about the taste of human flesh?"

Amandine declares that she's here because all these little corridors are awful and so is fire soot. Haruna can't really argue with this. She purses her lips and shifts back even as Amandine comes to grab at her leg. Is she about to argue, perhaps debate with her, perhaps resolve this idiocy before it gets any further?

She was about to.

BUT... sometimes the stars just align. The complex swells with sudden ethereal energy; lights rise, crystals shining with a luminous glow usually only seen by Ralf and Clark in the throes of a mutual charge-up session. It is perhaps not as blatant or as brazen as you would expect from popular media and multiplayer RPGs, but it is real nonetheless.

Real... and pouring now onto a central point! Actually it's kind of moving around because the ambient feng shui is a little messed up, between the presence of Amandine "at all" and the presence of other structures including a large piece of cast iron. (Haruna herself tends to avoid anything larger than a cell phone herself for this reason. She even takes out her earrings! And Golden Angel proved she doesn't have other piercings!)

Power runs up Haruna's back. Her eyes glow for a moment. Her awareness briefly blossoms from a conventional state into a glimmering crystalline purity that even transcends into a galactic all consuming knowledge, wisps of nebular light coming from her body as she says, "You--"

"-- Are --"

Haruna rides the wave forwards, the surge propelling her as her head comes down and a forward driving punch is aimed straight square at Amandine's sternum.

"TWELVE!!"

COMBATSYS: Haruna successfully hits Amandine with Four Advisors.

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////              ]
Haruna           1/----===/=======|=======\=------\1         Amandine

[AMANDINE]
"I went to MILITARY ACADEMY!" Amandine objects. "I AM AN ADULT!!!!" She doesn't comment further on the last part, well, mostly:

"SHIT. A NAP really does sound kind of nice right now. Maybe after I KICK YOUR ASS!!!"

Then there's a great shifting of energy. Amandine blinks, noticing the swell as things move that were not there before. Was she just unaware? Maybe something was blocking her perception. In any case.

"Oh, damn. You were right about the weirdness, huh?" she asks, looking around. But then as she turns to look at Haruna again something has changed.

"F-"

Amandine is nailed in the sternum, launching her backward in a tumble. She skids on her bottom, clonking against a short pillar as her chain rattles. She groans for a moment, then stands up and dusts herself off.

"Well, SHIT. You're CHANNELING this? Did you have something to DO with it?" Amandine pats her rear end, dusting her skirt off before she smooths it out. "I BET that's why you're HERE, huh? You want this power for yourself, don't you?" She breaks into a haughty fu fu fu of laughter at her own cleverness, raising the back of her hand to her face when she does.

"Well don't worry, I still have a few tricks left!" Amandine tromps over to the pot where she was cooking earlier, moving to hoist it out of its place. Afterwards, she lifts it up, turning the thing up and--

Guzzling it right out of the pot? That's certainly not sanitary. At least she seems to be trying to empty the whole thing? ... that's a lot for someone her size.

[HARUNA]
"The NOL is hiring child soldiers? Unforgivable!" declares Haruna.

Does she mean it? Is she just being an asshole to this little spaghetti? Is she deluded by the release of cosmic forces, backwashing into her body thanks to the intervention of one Anji Mito somewhere else in this complex?

"I would assure you that I am only here for research and to prevent your estimable post-soviet child-soldier-hiring hell hole of a nation from suffering the same fate that Japan did vis a vis the nuclear annihilation of your land marks," Haruna answers as Amandine moves round her, staying clear of her immediate counterstrike range. "I would do that... and it is somewhat true. But at this point, I -"

There is a beat.

Haruna tilts her head back. Her lips curl up into a half sneer.

"Are you eating? Really now."

And then Haruna - what? She threw a fifty-yen coin she had in her pocket at the side of Amandine's neck! Without a lot of force behind it, even. That was just some money she had there. And why at the side of her neck? Is that how she shows her scorn?

No.

COMBATSYS: Amandine blocks Haruna's Judgment of Nobility.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////                 ]
Haruna           0/-------/----===|=======\==-----\1         Amandine

COMBATSYS: Amandine successfully aids herself with Soup du Jour.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Haruna           0/-------/----===|=======\===----\1         Amandine

-- well, 'too slow' and all that...

But what Haruna had aimed for was a meridian point which controlled the peristaltic flow of the throat and face tissues.

In short, something that would cause the natural flow of face-related humors, juices, and passages to back up and pour outwards, possibly inexplicably and certainly uncontrollably.

Haruna looks extremely smug, the slim knowing smile of someone who has successfully "Owned" a small child. Inwardly she's counting down to the explosion she expects in three and a half seconds. That part, well... she may have to wait a little while longer.

[AMANDINE]
Amandine continues to chug the enormous pot of soup in an entirely unhealthy and vaguely disgusting way. In just a few moments, she finishes the entire portion and lowers the pot with contented sigh.

Or she would, were she not suddenly faced with an incoming coin!

Instead she raises the pot in an attempt at deflection, instead bouncing the lethal currency off and into its intended target. With a thump, it sends her staggering back, coughing for several moments before she looks up.

Her nose is running furiously and she has way too much spit. Are her eyes watering too?

My word, she really does look like a spoiled child, now more than ever.

"WHAT. THE. SHIT. WHAT DID YOU DO!!!" she says through a mouthful of saliva. "You...NASTY, ILL-MANNERED WITCH!!!" Amandine rubs her nose with her sleeve, dirtying the puff even further. "I SWEAR I'LL--H--" Amandine trails off, thumping her chest with her fist. Is she choking? Did Haruna's chi realignment mess something up seriously?

But then, Amandine lets loose raucous belch, both unbecoming of her appearance and completely unnatural considering the woman's size.

It brings with it a massive gout of fiery chi as large as she is. That ... that can't be healthy??

COMBATSYS: Haruna manages to escape Amandine's Tarte Flambe!

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Haruna           0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0         Amandine

[HARUNA]
Haruna's eyes close and she half-turns her head, reaching back to - is this for real? Yes - she tosses her hair with one hand, letting out a theatrical sigh~ as she does. "Such language; you dress like an elegant noblewoman and you act worse than a menial cook might. For a cook has pride in his work... even if that work is coarse, you can achieve a certain purity in coarseness."

Her arms fold. "Do we not feed on plants that grow in swamp and field? Upon bean and fruit and tuber? Do some of us not collect the milk and flesh of others? It's hardly elegant to say 'I will let this milk rot in a cave, just so, and then spread it upon a crispbread when--'"

Haruna's eye opens.

Amandine lets loose an extremely unladylike belch and it is only by the fact that she can topple backwards away from the comical effusion of superheated mouth/digestion gas that hasn't yet found its way through that Haruna is able to avoid being ignited. She lands on her palms and avoids cracking her head open again, staring at Amandine as the echoing resonance keeps going.

And...
she...
*laughs*

"Oohohohoho! Where's your pride and dignity now!? I'll explain if you like, but I won't hold it against you if you're too choked on your own tears and snot to listen," Haruna says, rising upwards and raising her hands up again as the fireball clears the area. "You know full well if you've studied anything that the body of your frame and many others has subtle veins and arteries of power - even if science barely comprehends them by the exoteric methodologies of the European imperialist ideology, that does not mean they aren't REAL! What I've done to you is no different from taking blood or massaging a lymph node to encourage drainage..."

"Except of course that you're weeping in admission of defeat," Haruna says. "Ohhhohoho~!"

At this point Haruna sweeps a leg round to try to hook out Amandine's leg from underneath her, presumably to send her toppling to the floor where she can look down her nose with proper sloth. Alternately, she may be overestimating just how bad the lachrymoise induction of unnatural chi flows will affect someone who has chopped as many onions as Haruna's--

We stop this metaphor now in deference to the peace and safety of the world.

COMBATSYS: Amandine Toughs Out Haruna's Light Kick!

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////             ]
Haruna           0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0         Amandine

[AMANDINE]
"RAAAH!" The yell isn't really words so much as much as verbal noise. She is still struggling with the snot and tears and spit and frantically trying to sniff the air and pull some of it back in. "THIS IS DISGUSTING! You should use chakra points for like...EXPLOSIONS or JOINT BREAKS or SOMETHING!!! NOT FAIR!!!"

"Of course I know about that," Amandine says, likely being serious but sounding instead like a sobbing child due to her present predicament. "You'd KNOW if you weren't an ASS! I COOK FOR IT! TO UNLOCK YOUR CHI OR SOME SHIT!!" And then, a momentary pause.

"TANTALUS!" the cauldron almost seems to come with called, though Amandine also tugs on the chain. She takes hold again, swinging it overhead in a massive downward stroke like someone trying to break a shield with a flail.

Except the shield is Haruna's whole person in this case.

"I am VERY CLASSY!" Amandine objects.

COMBATSYS: Amandine successfully hits Haruna with Crushing Strike.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////             ]
Haruna           0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0         Amandine

[HARUNA]
"Don't you judge me on what it is that I'm allowed to do with my knowledge," Haruna retorts even as

oh no, she thinks

it's fading

i'm losing it

the pulse of the world

noooo

we gotta stop the reactor, cloud

Haruna shakes her head for a moment, tuning back in. "You cook to unlock people's chi?" she asks Amandine, before she puts out a call to TANTALUS. And then she swings round the cauldron, which, Haruna is wondering abruptly, may or may not be filled with actual soup... but with the soup of the world! If she's being so cruel here, she thinks, is she -

No, she thinks. The power leaving me. I have to focus. I have to FOCUS -

D O N G

Focus THIS, woman.

Bodied emphatically, Haruna makes a noise that's half wail of fury and half screech of frustration and which is, in any case, muffled by the gasp of her pain from being hit by a huge piece of crushing metal.

I can't let her win, she thinks with a vicious determination. She pivots one leg around, drawing it back even as she falls - landing on her side and shuddering as Tantalus rolls off of her. Dazed, she can't gather her thoughts, can't gather her wits...

And so she instead uses her head.

To execute the world's most emphatic sit-up and head-butt at Amandine's abdomen!

COMBATSYS: Amandine barely endures Haruna's Female Protocol.

[                    \\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////                 ]
Haruna           0/-------/=======|=======\-------\0         Amandine

[AMANDINE]
Having properly bodied Haruna, Amandine is immensely smug. Her eyes may be watering and her nose running, but that's finally starting to calm down. In any case, it does not keep her from trotting over toward Haruna with big, arrogant steps.

"You," sniff, "didn't like that HUH? That's what you get for starting a fight with ME!" Amandine stands over Haruna in a straddle, raises the back of her hand to her face, and does it.

"Oh ho ho ho h-" WHAM.

Amandine, being so short, gets a headbutt to something slightly than the abdomen. The color suddenly washes from her face and her legs give out as she drops stumbles backward and drops onto her knees.

"That," she stutters, face full of tears again. Are those REALLY still from her chi points, "That was a cheap shot!!!"

But then she tugs Tantalus and starts winding up a spin again as she stands back upright, make-up running while she's ugly crying.

I'm going to SMASH you!!!"

She swings down once, snaps the chain back to get a huge amount of height, then brings it back down with an eruption of chi.

This might be worse than the NOL hiring a literal child. What IS this woman?

COMBATSYS: Amandine successfully hits Haruna with Get Out of My Kitchen.
Grazing Hit

[                        \\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Haruna           1/------=/=======|-------\-------\0         Amandine

[HARUNA]
Haruna pushes herself upwards, slowly, after her lethal headbutt to the mean Amandine machine. She doesn't seem to answer clearly, or be able to. But the world's coming back into focus, even as Amandine makes her declaration.

Haruna lunges forwards. The first strike misses her. The second.

The second...

KTANG!!!

Not so much. But it clips her back as she throws herself forwards, a look of furious determination on her face.

I'm not going to lose, Haruna resolves. I'm not going to let myself lose. I'm not going to be beaten. I won't give up. I won't -

"I won't give the pleasure of victory to a sassy lost child like you!!" Haruna shouts with unwonted effort. This is a last ditch shot on which everything rests! Her final act! Perhaps her last moment before she is chopped up into chunks and parboiled for NOL BBQ by the cruel acts of their child slave!

"Even if you've been bound to service by some child mercenary corps in this forsaken hillock country, cold and bereft of anything but sullen smoking, I don't expect to dishonor the inheritance of my family with defeat to you. Lay back and clench your teeth, short round! Once you're defeated I'll liberate you! In the Vatican City --"

Her hand swings forwrds into a glittering violet-sheathed straight punch right at the left side of Amandine's chest, with a followup at her right. "You'll be safe and free!!"

Don't tell her.

The blows are aimed to hit parallel meridians, producing a brief congestion and then an explosive dual eruption of energetic flow, intent perhaps on sending Amandine flying backwards, ideally hard enough to make like California state and TAKE HER POT WITH HER.

COMBATSYS: Haruna successfully hits Amandine with Sombre Lance.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  ////////                      ]
Haruna           0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0         Amandine

[AMANDINE]
Missing Haruna with flailing of the kettle only seems to fill Amandine with more tiny anger. She swings the second time and grazes Haruna, which cause her to puff out her cheeks.

"HOLD STILL AND LET ME SMASH YOU!!" she protests, completely disheveled by now.

"Wait," she says, "do you REALLY think I'm some CHILD SOLDIER??" she asks. She does not have time to wait for an answer before she's trying to block. Trying to block, but getting tangled up in her own chain, that is. The first hit collides with her stomach, and then the right catches her in the jaw. She staggers back three steps, but then stands firm.

For a moment.

An explosion of chi that would please Kenshiro follows, and it launches Amandine backward like a rocket. Tantalus drags after her. This is unfortunate because Tantalus is presently behind Haruna. Perhaps the pot is not all she will take with her.

COMBATSYS: Amandine successfully hits Haruna with Random Strike.

[                            \\  < >  /////////                     ]
Haruna           1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0         Amandine

[HARUNA]
And so Haruna ends up in the stew pot.

Well, on its outer edges. "Hngh!!" she says as she's struck with black iron for the third or fourth time, her vision bluring as she's thrown forwards. She does not have it in her to cry out or perform a final technique, merely to thrash -

- to push herself forwards -

And to body-check the miniscule opponent! Tantalus comes behind her, perhaps to consume them both in its cookery maw!?

COMBATSYS: Haruna can no longer fight.

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

COMBATSYS: Haruna successfully hits Amandine with Medium Kick.

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

[AMANDINE]
Amandine crashes into a wall some distance away. She smashes into it quite soundly, lingering there for a moment in a cartoonish fashion before peeling off to land on her feet. It is at this time that she looks up and sees Tantalus tumbling toward her with Haruna in tow. Or perhaps Haruna with Tantalus in tow? In either case, the reaction it provokes it's quite similar.

"Well," Amandine says, eyes going wide.

"Shit."

Tantalus smashes into her knocking her flat on her back. It balances precariously on its edge for several agonizing moments before falling forward on top of them both, its feet in the air. What fate awaits them from here? Could it be true terror? Could it be--

Sharing a room in the medical tent???

COMBATSYS: Amandine has ended the fight here.

Log created on 23:12:09 04/08/2018 by Haruna, and last modified on 18:52:46 04/20/2018.