Match of the Millennium

Description: The path to the Season 6 Championship for Olivia and Aranha starts with a fight at Stonehenge. Olivia aims to settle the score with a capoeirista who bested her on the path to get into Top 8 and Aranha is just aiming to be taken seriously. It is a strange fight with both fighters displaying abilities not shown in their previous bouts. (Winner: Olivia)

[OLIVIA]
It's a clear, crisp afternoon in England. The sun shines down upon a sea of green grass just west of Amesbury, where an internationally renowned landmark rests beneath the blue sky. A semi-circle of standing stone slabs cast ancient shadows across the ground, harkening to times immemorial, before the subjugation of nature and the advent of empires. And standing in the shade of these faceless colossi is a young woman who would surely be transfixed with awe...

If she weren't busy carrying on a video call on her smartphone.

"Ola, mamae!"

Clad in a brightly-coloured scarlet macaw-themed carnival costume, Olivia stands out against the neutral tones of the stone circle like a sore thumb. She waves a red-feathered wing at the phone.

"Olivia? Is that you? I can't see you," a middle-aged woman remarks from the phone's screen, furrowing his brow.

"Did you close the app?" Olivia asks, sighing and rolling her eyes.

"Nao, minha filha, but all I can see is grass," the woman says.

"O-oh! Desculpa!" The brunette laughs awkwardly, then presses the button on her screen to switch to the selfie cam. "There, is that better?"

"Sim," the girl's mother replies. "Where are you?"

"I'm at Stonehenge!" Olivia says, turning around and holding her phone out so that it can capture her against the backdrop of the monument. "Look! It's way bigger than it was in that movie about the rock band!"

"Ah, nossa! You be careful that those rocks don't fall on you! Are you sure that you're okay fighting that man again?"

"Of course, mamae!" Olivia says with a warm smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Oh, I just know how you feel about capoeiristas, after what happened that one time," Olivia's mother remarks, trailing off.

"Capoeiristas? What does that have to do with anything?" Olivia asks with another awkward laugh.

"Oh, didn't you know? The Aranha is one of the most famous capoeiristas in the world!" Olivia's mother says. "Don't let me interrupt your match, anjinho! Que saudades!"

As the call ends, Olivia is left staring up at the stones of Stonehenge with an expression that slowly shifts from blank to simmering.

[ARANHA]
Aranha had finally made it into the Top 8 for the 6th Season of Neo League. Although he'd faced some legitimate competition, the real difficulty was in finding opponents who weren't Daniel Little. There were stretches of time where he would put feelers out for opponents and there was no response. His upcoming opponent was the first to answer his call and finally end his dry streak of no fights. Unlike the other brackets, Aranha would have the benefit of having already fought his particular opponent and information was usually one of his strongest weapon during a fight.

When the Dancing Spider approaches the circular rock formation, he's quiet as he gets ready to fight. The usual pre-fight information gathering is skipped completely. He's already gotten her physical measurements down and so he takes a moment to take stock of the environment instead. The grass, the ground, and if there are environmental hazards that may not have been accounted for.

"I guess we're fighting again."

He nods towards Olivia and stretches for a bit.

[OLIVIA]
Olivia is still glowering up at one of the stone arches when Aranha's voice cuts through the relative quiet to reach her ears. Her head turns, a hurt and angry look in her hazel-brown eyes that contrasts with the perpetually blank look in the beady eyes of the parrot-like headdress that's perched on her crown.

"You!!"

The girl's tone is accusatory, as if Aranha has done something deeply upsetting to her. She whirls around to face him, folding her wings beneath her blue and green bodice and stamping one of her golden high-heeled sandals into the dirt with a huff - before shivering as an English wind blows across her bare skin, causing her teeth to chatter.

"You didn't tell me you were a capoeirista!" Olivia declares with angst. "This changes everything!"

To be fair, Olivia has had ample opportunity to find out that Aranha is a capoeirista. She's even fought him, after all. She's a stray soundbyte and upload away from earning the nickname 'Oblivia' for her failure to realize Keith Mason's martial identity.

"I won't let myself be bullied by another capoeira-kicking babaca!"

Her wings fling wide now, arms stretching as she limbers for what's sure to soon become a fight. She lowers them down at her sides and rolls her shoulders and neck.

"I won't suffer a humilia-ai!"

As she's about to step forward, the heel of the foot she'd stamped the ground with earlier turns out to have stuck itself in the dirt, causing her to trip and fall forward, landing on her face in the grass. She lifts her head up, grimacing as she dusts a few flecks of dirt away from her face with a wing and sputters.

The Neo-League cameramen manage to catch all of it from several different angles.

"As I was saying, I won't be humiliated!" she insists, before pulling herself up to her feet and scuffing her sandals against the ground. "And this will be for everyone who's been bullied by capoeiristas before!"

Olivia lifts up her left leg, swiveling on one foot so that her side is facing toward Aranha and raising her wings at either side as she adopts her usual unusual crane style stance.

[ARANHA]
The accusatory tone causes the American of African descent to raise an eyebrow. He would expect that type of tone due to his outcast status because of becoming a darkstalker and all of the unfair advantages it would provide. The look on his face just takes on long suffering appearance that just seems to say, 'Oh shit... Here we go again,' without him having to verbalize it. The source of the anger makes his jaw drop in surprise.

"I didn't think I had to. I mean between having been runner up in a previous Neo League season, posting fight blogs, and fighting you using capoeira, I thought it would've been obvious."

He facepalms and shakes his head letting out a sigh. This fight wasn't going to be fun for anybody except maybe the audience and only because of how much trolling material was being accumulated in the opening moments.

"First of all, you came to one of my open challenges so I wasn't bullying there. Second of all, I don't have to humiliate you. You're doing a pretty good job of humiliating yourself. Lastly, I was just trying to prove myself but now if you want beef, you can catch these feet.

He beckons her to come forward before dancing in ginga.

COMBATSYS: Aranha has started a fight here.

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

[OLIVIA]
The strangely surly birdie-girl lets out another huff of indignation as Aranha fires back at her.

"I know you weren't bullying me there, but that doesn't mean that you aren't a bully por associacao!" she replies, her normally cheerful chirp still seeming childish in spite of her anger. "And I don't want your beef feet, either! If I was looking for beef, I would be back home at Restaurante Ribeiro, having a plate of Papai Ribeiro's World Famous Churrasco!"

As the bell goes off to signal the start of the match, Olivia hops forward on her foot, a flap of her wings carrying her as she closes the gap between herself and Aranha.

"Esta pronto?"

(Subtitles: 'Are you ready?')

The question is more of a rhetorical challenge than a request for information, as Olivia thrusts her leg out toward Aranha's midsection.

"Combo..."

The kick is intended as a feint rather than an attempt to cause damage, as she almost immediately reverses out of it and instead aims to catch Aranha's legs from behind and take them out, scissoring with her other leg to try and catch between her thighs and slam him down on the ground.

"Numero quatro!"

If she can manage to do so, she'll try and keep a grip on Aranha's midsection between her legs from the side to pin and crush his ribs.

"Extra Spicy!" she'd add with a wink to the camera as she snaps a wing up in salute toward it.

COMBATSYS: Olivia has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Aranha           0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0           Olivia

COMBATSYS: Aranha blocks Olivia's Combo #4 - Chute e Tesoura ES.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Aranha           0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0           Olivia

[ARANHA]
Aranha takes a step back in response to the feint. It is was part of what allowed the Dancing Spider to respond to the scissor leg takedown that apparently capoeira has in common with her martial art. Being familiar with that particular move, he turns his feet outward so that instead of catching him behind the legs, her legs clamp down on his shins and move absolutely nowhere as a result. He then peels her legs off and then steps back.

Now that he was free from her takedown attempt he still had to deal with a still prone Olivia. He looks down upon her not even bothering to dignify her irrational hatred with a response. He's just tired of it.

He reaches down to the ground with one hand and flips over to drive his heel down on the grounded Crane stylist. Au Chibata.

COMBATSYS: Olivia blocks Aranha's Heel Kick.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Aranha           0/-------/-======|==-----\-------\0           Olivia

[OLIVIA]
As Aranha's foot descends toward her parrot-capped cranium, Olivia's mind flashes back to where her hatred of capoeiristas all began...

==*== SIX MONTHS AGO ==*==

On a particularly sultry afternoon, Olivia stood outside Restaurante Ribeiro, dressed in the same skimpy parrot costume that she would later be found wearing in front of Stonehenge six months later. A group of capoeiristas walk by, and -

==*== PRESENTLY ==*==

Realising that she doesn't have time to reminisce because she is about to be kicked in the head, Olivia reflexively snaps a wing up in a swift semi-circle, catching the kick with her forearm and fending it off while she kicks her legs backward, rolling headdress over tailfeathers back to her feet.

"Nice kick," Olivia compliments Aranha with a flinching smile, forgetting her deep-seated enmity for a moment before she catches herself and re-affixes her scowl, simultaneously raising her winged arms at the sides of her head and lifting her left knee up.

"We'll see how YOU like THIS kick! Combo...!"

She snaps the toe of her elevated sandal toward Aranha's chest before dropping it to the ground and spinning forward, rotating on her left heel and aiming to reverse her right heel into Aranha's shin as the tailfeathers on the back of her skirt swish past.

"Numero...!"

From there, she'll continue to follow through, aiming her right wing to smash into Aranha's upper body in a backhand blow, then returning to her original stance but closer as she swings her left foot up again, aiming higher for Aranha's chin this time.

"...Sete!"

As she attempts the chin-crushing kick, her foot likely ends up extended high enough for her to nearly be doing the splits vertically. As she holds the pose briefly afterward, she raises a wing in salute, locates the nearest available camera, and winks for it.

"Extra Spicy!"

COMBATSYS: Aranha parries Olivia's Combo #7 - Golpes de Pe e Pulso ES!

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Aranha           0/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0           Olivia

[ARANHA]
Olivia's first kick, while Aranha is seated on the heel of his foot while the other leg is extended, doesn't have to travel particularly far to reach his chest. In fact, Aranha is pretty much forced to spin to the side and back up to his feet to avoid it. He then has to perform an aerial to avoid the shin kick. He doesn't have enough time to do anything more than a small hop backwards to avoid the backhanded strike which unfortunately put him in range for the chin crushing kick to catch him. His hand shoots up outward aiming to gently redirect the kick as well as mess with her balance.

Aranha goes into a spin as his hand becomes engulfed in flames. Not blue chi that Olivia might have been familiar with in their previous fight. His arm lashes out towards his adversary as a spider web formed from molten lava chi flies towards towards her.

A confused, "What the hell," leaves his lips as his jaw drops from shock at what he just did.

For a few moments, his hands continue to burn before the fire goes out, leaving a hand deformed from burns. And then, his darkstalker biology goes to work fixing the burn that he seemed to inflict on himself.

COMBATSYS: Olivia just-defends Aranha's Web Shot EX ES!

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Aranha           1/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0           Olivia

[OLIVIA]
The skillful thrust of Aranha's hand redirects Olivia's uplifted leg, and even with all of the training and practice that the Crane style kung fu fighter has put into mastering the poise to stand on fight with half the footing most fighters afford themselves, she wobbles, wings flapping to keep from losing her balance.

"Ouah!"

She's still nearly falling over as Aranha's hand comes around, and with it, molten lava chi - unexpected, deadly, perhaps indefensible.

It almost feels like she's been here before. How is she going to be an optimist about this?

It reminds her of...

==*== POMPEII, 79 A.D. ==*==

A young Latin teenager, in the middle of reading an article about a stone Druidic monument found in the isles of Albion on her smartphone, looks up at the sky as it turns to ash, a hot wind blowing through her hair.

"Eheu!"

==*== THAT'S NOT HOW IT HAPPENED, IT WAS LIKE THIS ==*==

The kitchen of Cafe Ribeiro was inundated with steam as Olivia, having been given nothing better to do, had taken it upon herself to clean the floors. Down on her hands and knees in jeans and a bright green t-shirt, she was listening to Bastille's Pompeii on headphones.

"Eh-eh-oh, eh-oh, eh-eh-oh, eh-oh..."

Coming around a corner through the heated fog while carrying a large, piping-hot pot of red moqueca, Mrs. Ribeiro couldn't see the wet patch on the ground next to where Olivia was working.

"Nossa -- !!"

"Eh-eh-eu, eh-OH!"

Olivia looked up just in time to see the burning red deluge sloshing toward her. Instinctively, she closed her eyes and twisted away, an untapped power surging from her palm in her time of need --

==*== STONEHENGE, NEO-LEAGUE SEASON 6 QUARTERFINALS ==*==

As she twists away, an imperceptible gathering of chi surges in the palm of her right hand. Nothing would make what she's about to do seem consciously like a good decision, but as with many things in Olivia's life, she decides to do it anyway. Whirling back around, she snaps her right hand directly toward the course of the molten spider-web, delivering a crane-style block to the lava-like mass with her -bare palm.-

As she does, the invisible wind energy gathered reflexively swirls from her hand, narrowly cushioning her against the scorching heat and dispersing the magma web - splattering it around the area as if she had simply slapped the liquid mass with tremendous force. Patches of grass and scrub start to smoulder as droplets of the lava chi touch them.

Olivia blinks a couple of times, nose twitching as what's happened dawns on her. Then, abruptly, she sneezes.

"Eheu!"

==*== RESTAURANTE RIBEIRO, FIVE SECONDS AFTER THE PREVIOUS FLASHBACK ==*==

Olivia and her mother looked around at the moqueca splattered all over the kitchen walls before both looking down at the untouched teenager.

"(We are going to get you a hobby,)" Mrs. Ribeiro said in Portuguese, before adding after a beat, "(And we are never speaking of this.)"

==*== BACK IN THE QUARTERFINALS MATCH ==*==

Recovering from her sneeze, Olivia sweeps her wings up, using a motion that is cleverly disguised as a dab to make sure that her nose is clean before bringing them back around to her sides and lifting her left knee up, posing like an airplane.

"Legal!" she says, seeming to forget all of her vehemence for capoeira as she enthuses in the near-destruction posed by the newly-revealed lava powers and her success in averting said destruction.

"Looks like I'll have to turn the heat up, too!"

She spins forward in a wide, smashing backhand blow that aims her left wing at Aranha's chest, but it's largely a feint - intended to bring her closer so that she can deliver the follow-up kicking combination from close range, striking at Aranha's shin with the sole of her elevated left sandal before aiming another two quick kicks at his midsection and groin region.

"Combo! Numero! Um!" she shouts as the kicks are delivered, sweeping her wing up to salute.

"Extra Spicy!"

As she turns away from Aranha to wink at the camera, she throws in an extra improvised kick with the back of her heel aimed at the capoeirista's knee.

COMBATSYS: Aranha fails to interrupt Combo #1 - Tres Patadas ES from Olivia with Dead Man's Hand ES.
CSYS: This exciting moment brought to you by Cafe Ribeiro's Spicy Moqueca Vermelho!!

[        \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Aranha           1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0           Olivia

[ARANHA]
As shocking as the creation of the lava web was, Olivia's response to it moreso. He can only watch as the fiery liquid sploshes to the ground leaving singe marks in its wake before fading. There's a raised eyebrow, a few moments of silence and then a frown. In his head, the anger wells up inside him because a part of him wonders if that lava web was a legacy of Tessitore.

Thinking about Tessitore, the Mortal Kombat tournament, the torture he endured at the hands of Daniel because he killed her, all put him on tilt against his current opponent.

Aranha tries to rush in with a powerful swipe delivered from a blue chi covered hand but before he can even make contact, his leg gets buckled. The kick to the mid section folds him and then the kick to the groin sends him crumpling to the ground clutching his family jewels.

He rises to one knee, flings his shades to the side revealing blue glowing eyes. Where before there was just annoyance, there was a glare of hatred.

[OLIVIA]
Whirling back around and into her crane pose, Olivia is greeted by the glowing, hateful eyes of Aranha now revealed to her. The sight causes her own eyes to go wide, but not to glow, because she can't do that.

"Nossa," she says half beneath her breath, before calling out in a tone that's more tactful than taunting: "Tudo bem?" (Subtitles*: All good?)

Her white teeth nip lightly at her full lower lip for a moment with concern as her body tenses, but then, it hits her:

This must be the true face of a capoeirista.

Horror and melancholy seize at Olivia's heart as she realises that all of the indecency that she has suffered at the hands of past capoeiristas, what she believed to be a human indecency, must have been because of this: that beneath the face of every capoeirista is a monster, hidden away, revealed only by their actions, a part of them that they cannot escape.

"Eheu!" she says, sneezing again.

It is then that she realises that she cannot hate a capoeirista, anymore than she can hate Blanka, the beloved Brazilian icon who even now faces brutal repression by Professional Fighting Worldwide for a nature that he cannot suppress.

"Tudo bem," she echoes her own words, now a statement rather than a question, her expression setting with fiery determination.

She cannot hate a capoeirista.

She can only play her part in the destruction that a capoeirista must crave.

"Vamos!"

Hopping forward like a flamingo on a pogo stick, Olivia whirls her wings around in a vaguely ninja-like pose, pressing in to get close to Aranha as her wings wind around, then uncoil violently, becoming a blur of scarlet and emerald and sapphire as she attempts to drive into the capoeira fighter like a feathered propeller top.

"Especial de Papagaia Voadora!" she calls out as she spins up toward the air, lifted on the mystical breeze produced by her technique -

"Extra Spicy!"

- before attempting to deliver a flying side kick to send Aranha back down to Earth, should she have succeeded in knocking him airborne in the first place.

* There are subtitles for the English broadcast. It's a Neo-League match, after all!

COMBATSYS: Olivia successfully hits Aranha with Especial de Papagaia Voadora ES.
- CRAZY Hit! -

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////////     ]
Aranha           1/-----==/=======|=====--\-------\0           Olivia

[ARANHA]
Aranha is still too busy clutching his cajones to mount any sort of defensive. As a result, the capoeirista is smacked airborne as strike after strike lands upon him and when the final kick sends him back down.

"I tried..."

He gets back to his feet slowly once more. He takes a deep breath.

"I tried to be gracious. I tried to be polite and respectful to you. All I received in return were insults and a kick to the balls. If you want me to be an asshole, fine. I'll be an asshole."

He dances in once more in ginga, swaying to and fro as he moves closer and closer. Then he shoots out a palm to her face. This initial strike is harmless. The problem it presents is that he holds it there to block her vision of the kick that he's following up with.

COMBATSYS: Olivia instinctively dodges Aranha's Change-Up Kick.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////////     ]
Aranha           1/--=====/=======|=====--\-------\0           Olivia

That follow-up kick is a quick snap kick between Olivia's legs. Even though the plumbing isn't external, it should still hurt the same if he could land it.

[OLIVIA]
Exiting from the leg-flaunting leap-kick pose with a twirl, Olivia glides back down to the ground, alights once more on her right foot before shifting her stance so that she's standing on the left sandal and lifting her right to take over crane-bending and kicking duties for the time being.

"Comprendo," she says with a knowing look as Aranha tells her that he tried to be gracious and polite and now he's going to be an asshole. Her head dips once beneath the beak of her parrot headdress, causing the feathers of the enormous plumed crest to wobble.

"It is in your natureza," she starts to say as he dances in, "You can't help - ehh!"

The palm comes at Olivia's face, and her initial instinct is to try and bring her hand up to take the strike. However, something causes her to instead sway backward - an act made slightly precarious by her single-legged stance, resulting in her headdress falling off to the ground. With her side-swept shoulder-length brown hair now loosed in the breeze, she pivots around one hundred and eighty degrees, narrowly averting a painful impact of Aranha's leg between hers as she shifts to her right foot once more. The dance-to-danca sequence results in the brown-haired battle-harpy standing with her hip nearly against Aranha's thigh, her side facing his front.

With the intimacy of their positioning, it's a natural position for Olivia to express her feelings for Aranha and his condition -

"Combo!"

- starting with a cross elbow strike toward the chin with her right wing -

"Numero!"

- followed by a rising left elbow to the chin that places her left hand near her ear as she twists around the opposite way -

"Dos!"

- continued by her drawing her left arm back and firing a side elbow strike toward Aranha's diaphragm -

"Eheu!"

- then flinching with another one of those strange sneezes as she reaches her left wing up and, assuming she's managed to pressure or daze him enough, attempts to use her palm on the back of his head to double him over before bringing her right elbow down on the back of his neck to try and drive him down to the ground.

Strangely, around the time that she sneezes, a flurry of what appear at first to be green feathers from her costume but closer inspection would reveal to be wispy green leaves bursts into the air. Closer inspection would also reveal that her naturally-green veins appear for a brief moment to be unnaturally-green as the last elbow strike is directed, and a prickling cluster of green spines like fledgling wood burst out from the point of impact to accompany the blow!

COMBATSYS: Aranha blocks Olivia's Combo #2 - Quatro Cotovelos.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////////     ]
Aranha           1/--=====/=======|====---\-------\0           Olivia

[ARANHA]
"Natureza?"

Aranha doesn't have time to continue his thoughts considering that he has to deal with her cross elbow striking. He covers up with a motion similar to brushing back one's hair with their hand as he intercepts the attack. He deflects left elbow as he shifts to the side and thus out of the way of the elbow to the diapragm. And that is when the sneeze comes. Oddly enough, the leaves and spines become less of a surprise to him than when he released the magma web. His keen eye detecting a faint green ripple just before that happened.

"I suppose it would be in my nature to respond in kind to asshole behavior."

Capoeira hadn't been working out for him thus far in this particular fight and so, at least for now, the ginga is abandoned as he runs up one of the stone structures and kicks off of it launching himself, leg extended, towards Olivia aiming to connect with her head.

COMBATSYS: Olivia endures Aranha's Sky's the Limit.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Aranha           1/--=====/=======|=======\-------\0           Olivia

[OLIVIA]
'I suppose it would be in my nature to respond in kind to asshole behavior."

These words echo in Olivia's head as she shifts back into her monopod stance, wings raising at her sides, a distant look entering her eyes. Asshole behaviour? Had she really been treating the capoeirista like a babaca when all along the babaca was her?

Finally, she is beginning to see this incongruency between her actions and her usual light-hearted and kind nature for what it is. Never again will she treat someone as lesser simply for being what they are - even if they are a capoeirista.

*THUNK*

The epiphany monopolizing Olivia's mental faculties immediately vacates the premises as Aranha's foot comes crashing into the side of her head. She stumbles backward, knocking her head into one of the other stone pillars and slumping against it.

For a moment, the lights go out.

When they come back on, everything has changed.

Darkness has swept across the reddening sky as thunder crackles through the cloud-filled firmament. The shadows of Stonehenge stretch toward the horizon, and as she struggles to straighten up, Olivia can hear the sounds of a rock band playing.

Looking up, she sees a white-haired man, a woman with an eye-concealing fringe and a young teenage girl each playing instruments atop the standing arches.

'And oh, how they danced, the little children of Stonehenge, beneath the haunted moon... for fear that daybreak might come too soon," one of the trio intones ominously.

And then, as the world seems to warp in an unnatural haze, little men appear, dancing around Olivia as the pagan metal begins to intensify. Swept up in the madcap dancing craze, Olivia starts to mosh with the men, bouncing back and forth, rebounding off of the walls as more and more of the strange fellows appear.

Suddenly, breaking free from the dwarven flash mob, Olivia catches sight of Aranha, and the manic smile on her face disappears - before reappearing with twice the intensity.

"E ai! Vamos, meu rei!"

(Subtitles: Hey! Let's go, buddy!)

The buxom brunette battle-bird bounces wildly toward Aranha, simply trying to crash chest-first into the other martial artist mosh-pit style!

For those observing from outside Olivia's fever dream, of course, none of the previously described events are visible aside from Olivia moshing around like a maniac before throwing herself at Aranha.

COMBATSYS: Aranha fails to interrupt Aggressive Strike from Olivia with Bad Beat.

[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Aranha           1/---====/=======|=======\-------\1           Olivia

[ARANHA]
Aranha's foot connects with Olivia's head. The oddest thing about it was the fact that she made no move to defend against it. Or at least, that would've been the oddest thing if not for the fact she suddenly became a one woman mosh pit. Bouncing off of invisible people, slamming into other invisible people. The beginning of the fight had him questioning her sanity, this moment sealed the deal.

Eventually the moshing ends and Olivia dives towards him. He repositions, he readies himself to slap her out of the air. It's an obvious attack, the opening is just too wide to pass up. And then it happens. A Restaurante Ribeiro flyer carried by the wind covers his face, blocking Olivia from view and with her not being on the ground, he can't quite find her while blinded.

The capoeirista ends up pancaked on the ground and then wind carries off the flyer as quickly as it came. The Dancing Spider finds himself staring at the sky in disbelief.

[OLIVIA]
The cushioned impact as Aranha hits the ground beneath her draws a grimace from Olivia. Groaning, she places her hands on the dirt on either side of the capoeirista, screwing her face up and shutting her eyes tight.

"Eheu!"

The sneeze - which, at this point, one can only assume is some sort of allergic reaction - jolts Olivia back to her senses, and her eyelashes flutter rapidly before parting with two blinks.

"Desculpa," she apologizes as she uses her wings to push herself off of Aranha, apparently forgetting that this is still a fight and she could be pressing her advantage. Her eyes follow the disappearing flyer, and she snaps her fingers.

"Obrigado!" she calls to the vanishing piece of paper as she spins up to her single-sandal stance and starts to swing her hips from side to side.

"If you're in the mood for panqueca now, why not stop by Restaurante Ribeiro in Salvador de Bahia, where you can get six kinds of panqueca with unlimited syrup? Now that's what I call a sweet deal!" she says, holding a thumb up and winking toward the camera.

==*== RESTAURANTE RIBEIRO, SALVADOR DE BAHIA, BRAZIL ==*==

Watching the match on an old television set, a portly middle-aged Brazilian man with a moustache frowns as he polishes a glass.

"(Did she say six types of pancake?)" a woman's voice calls from the kitchen.

"(Yes,)" the man calls back to the kitchen. "(We'll have to come up with four more recipes...)"

==*== NEO-LEAGUE QUARTERFINAL MATCh, STONEHENGE ==*==

Olivia gives a winged salute to the camera before turning back to face Aranha. A faint breeze swirls around her bare legs, ruffling the feathers of her skirt.

"Pronto?" she asks the capoeirista as she lifts her left leg up White Crane-style.

COMBATSYS: Olivia takes a moment to appeal to the audience!

[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Aranha           1/---====/=======|=======\====---\1           Olivia

[ARANHA]
Aranha can read the situation. Not only has he failed to apply pressure, he was so inept at applying pressure that she had the freedom to advertise the restaurant. He rises to a single knee and takes stock of his situation.

He looked at Olivia who he hasn't managed to land many strikes against. He had to look at himself and his body which while healing wasn't going to heal fast enough to turn the fight around. Continuing to struggle would be inefficient. And most importantly, he can see a faint ripple coming from Olivia indicating something weird with energy that would be coming his way.

"I'm done. I haven't done enough for you to take me seriously as fighter or anyone else for that matter."

To punctuate that remark he slaps the ground three times and rises to his feet and turns away to walk away.

COMBATSYS: Aranha decides that discretion is the better part of valor.

[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Aranha           1/----===/=======|=======\====---\1           Olivia

[OLIVIA]
As Aranha starts to speak, stating that he's done and that she hasn't taken him seriously, Olivia cups her feather-crossed fingers to her lips, eyes widening with shock. She only stands there for a moment as he turns to go.

"Eheu!"

Another sneeze rocks Olivia's frame as her verdant veins pulse visibly for a moment.

"You don't think - eheu! - that I think you are serio?!" she shouts incredulously, before doubling over in a fit of two more flinch-inducing sneezes.

"I am seria como a morte!"
(Subtitles: serious as death!)

"Or at least pretty close, anyway! I remember how bad you kicked my bunda before! Estou dando tudo que tenho!"
(Subtitles: I'm giving everything I've got!)

"But if that isn't enough for you to think I am seria, then take this!"

A whirlwind picks up around Olivia's feet, kicking up dirt and tossing bits of scorched grass around. Starting forward, she bends over to pick her headpiece up off of the ground and sweep it onto her head while breaking into a run.

"My most powerful technique!"

The cyclone carries her off of her heels and into the air as it builds, sending her spiralling above the standing stones of the ancient monument as a flurry of red flower petals scatter into the sky around her and start to drift slowly around the circle.

"Especial da Casa!" she shouts as she breaks out of her spin, her scantily-clad limbs stretching in a cross shape that creates the shadow of a great bird over the area below her.

"Cometa Vermelho!"

Trails of red petals follow in Olivia's wake as a second gust from above drives her down toward Aranha in what is her most formidable technique, an attack that is the creative production of her own heart and mind.

It is also basically a glorified belly-flop. But it's a belly flop from her /soul./

So focused is she that she forgets to announce that it is, in fact, Extra Spicy, in spite of the potential for litigation should Aranha find out the hard way.

COMBATSYS: Olivia successfully hits Aranha with Especial da Casa - Cometa Vermelho ES.

[                            \\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Aranha           1/--=====/=======|=------\-------\0           Olivia

[ARANHA]
As the capoeirista walks away he barely registers the words Olivia was saying. On the other hand, he does register the rapid foot falls of Olivia coming for him. He has just barely enough time to turn over his shoulder to see her launch into the air as spiralling red flower petals follow her into the air. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid when he attempted to tap out and walk away.

He attempts to put on a burst of speed but it's a case of too little, too late. As the shadow falls upon the capoeirista, all he can do is sigh and resign himself to getting pancaked once more with feeling.

He eventually manages to scramble out from under Olivia and rises to his feet with modified physiology doing just barely enough repair to keep him standing on his feet. It felt like a cruel joke to the capoeirista to even remain conscious when all he wanted was the fight to be finished.

"I said, 'I'm done.' It's over. You win."

He then keeps walking, past the cameras and video drones, past the crowds, to the medic tent so he can lay down, rest, and heal up faster than he would be able to while in combat.

COMBATSYS: Aranha has left the fight here.

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

[OLIVIA]
Olivia rolls over as Aranha pulls himself out from underneath her, propping herself up on one elbow. The camera shows a close-up of her gaping after the departing form of Aranha as he slinks off toward the medical tent. Two words blink on-screen beneath her bemused face:

OLIVIA WINS

As the video changes to follow Aranha's path off of the stage, Olivia's face crinkles.

"Eheu!"

A flurry of red petals erupt from around Olivia's face as she sneezes, her veins going green again for a moment.

"Eheu! Eheu!"

Again and again she sneezes as green vines start to sprout from the ground around her, curling around her wrists and ankles and sides as she shudders in the middle of the circle of Stonehenge, the leylines of her body shifting in viridian hues as it struggles to reject the foreign chi invading her system.

"Ah... merda," she says weakly as she rolls into the fetal position and shivers, clenching her teeth as she looks up at the reddening, crackling sky and the fading shapes of the little men looming over her...

COMBATSYS: Olivia has ended the fight here.

Log created on 15:41:27 03/11/2021 by Aranha, and last modified on 19:11:25 03/12/2021.