Match of the Millennium

Description: Victoire, a professional fighter from France, makes her international debut against an unknown high school student. It's fair to say that things do not go as expected for anyone concerned.

[AHMYA]
EARLIER

In her bedroom of her family home, Ahmya slaves over the sewing machine, stitching together dark colored fabric just so. The whole time, she's muttering to herself.

"Rebellious peasant," she scoffs. "I'll show her how the Japanese do rebellious peasants."

NOW

Inside the Gold Lounge, some space has been cleared for a fight. Tables and chairs shoved aside to do a makeshift arena. Camera drones flit around the perimiter to catch the impending action. On one side of the space, Ahmya stands in a hooded cloak, an ornate and very old wooden box about three feet long tucked under her arm under the cloak. Her face is shadowed, but what's under there is hard to say.

[VICTOIRE]
Victoire's arrival in the Golden Lounge is a matter of great fanfare. Literally. A man dressed as a footman arrives and blows a trumpet to herald her approach. The woman is dressed in some truly extraordinary finery. A brilliant white silk dress studded with pearls, her hair hidden beneath a tall beehive wig - none of this looks like it will be particularly comfortable to fight in, but she had been given her remit and she needed to ensure that her first appearance in the Neo League was just as elegant, beautiful and glamorous as she could possibly make it. Truth be told, costuming was far from her usual area of expertise -- but fine dresses? Those she could do.

The woman steps up to the cameras as though she were born for it; positioning herself so that as many as possible would have a good view of her before she addressed them, and completely ignored the girl she had challenged. Had she even noticed that she was there at all?

"Yes, yes! It is I, Victoire Invaincue! Here to, at last, grace the Neo League with my presence. I know that my fans have been aching for me to participate for some time now, and it is truly a delight to be able to share the dazzling nature of my spotlight with a fellow, ahem."

She snaps open a fan in white and gold, emblazoned with a series of Vs across the middle, and wafts her face a couple of times before using it to hide the chuckle in her voice.

"~First Time~ competitor. I am certain that the generous Neo League audience will be kind to we novices, hm?~"

As she's saying this to the cameras, her entourage moves to engage with the League staff, smoothing over all the fiddly details. The man with the trumpet actually -- leaves? Did she really pay someone just to do that one thing?!

[AHMYA]
Ahmya silently watches Victoire peacock for the cameras and crowd. She says nothing, drawing slow, calming breaths. All the while, in her mind, she is focusing all of her willpower on being in control. On not fading out to let something else run her body. She draws one more deep breath and reaches her free hand out to grasp the hem of her cloak. With a flourish, she tosses it away.

Under the cloak, Ahmya is dressed in a long black dress. It's technically a dress, anyway. The top has a tight bodice with a haltar neck, leaving her arms bare. The edges of the haltar and down her sides to her hips are trimmed in purple scrolling. From her hips down are three nearly floor length panels, one in the front and two in the back, also trimmed in the purple scrolling. This leaves her legs bare from the top of her ankle length low heeled boots to her hips. On her face is a mask of what looks to be purple silk, covering her from nose to chin. Her mismatched red and blue eyes seem focused.

She sets the box on a table and opens it, pulling two short, single edged blades free, both with a vertical ring where the handguards should be. Her breath catches when she touches them. Faintly, blue markings begin to bloom slowly on her left thigh.

"I am ready," she says, her voice a little tight.

[VICTOIRE]
Victoire turns her head to regard the younger woman when she discards the cloak, and she smiles. "Oh, excellent!" She declares, "It seems our other competitor has arrived after all, and in quite a -- fetching, outfit." The fan SNAPS shut, and she carelessly flings it towards one of her entourage - who grabs it out of the air easily.

For all her faults - and they are many and myriad - Victoire is nothing if she is not professional about her fighting. She steps around to stand facing the swordswoman, and cracks her neck. She meets the girl's mismatched gaze, and then she raises her hands. The dress is too long for it to be clear what she's doing with her footing - and it is likely to get in her own damned way as things progress - but with her hands up in front of her in a grappler's stance, it's clear that she's taking this quite seriously.

"I hope that you know how to use those things." She says, her voice just a little too loud to be intended entirely for her young competitor's ears. "But then, I suppose the Neo League does have medics on hand, so if you hurt yourself there will be help in short order, no?~"

And she smiles, offering just the lightest twitch of her fingers to indicate - if those words hadn't been enough incentive - that she too is ready to begin the battle.

COMBATSYS: Ahmya has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Ahmya            0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Victoire has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Victoire         0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Ahmya

[AHMYA]
Ahmya breathes again, her expression unreadable behind the mask, her eyes flat. This showmanship is not her thing at all. Then again, until recently, fighting wasn't her thing either. 'The Wanderer In Red', she was called. Seize the power. The moment.

Fingers through the rings, she spins both blades, catching the right in a standard grip and the left in the reverse grip. Her voice is less tight, but seems more distant now. Disassociated, almost.

"Good luck, Miss Invaincue."

She moves like the wind, the tails on her dress fluttering out behind her as she charges the grappling noble. The edges of her blades glitter violet as she lashes out with them in a quick, testing strike. The arcs leave sparkling motes of dancing purple energy in their wake.

COMBATSYS: Victoire blocks Ahmya's Quick Strike.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Victoire         0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0            Ahmya

[VICTOIRE]
"Luck is the province of beggars and fools, but I thank you anyway Shiki-chan."

If there was any hesitation in Victoire dealing with the blades, she doesn't show it. In fact, she steps into the motion, and as the blades swing around in their swift arcs, her hands move in rapid response, slapping aside the metal with a palpable ~ring~ as she does so. The energy is an interesting thing she had not anticipated; it is a rare fighter who is both a novice and adept enough to bring the power of the spirit to the fore from the very off, but it isn't enough to throw her off her game.

Instead, she aims to reverse the motion she had just used to slap the swords to the side, and grab the girl about the waist. If she can get that grip, Ahmya will find herself being born high up into the air as Victoire jumps - up, up into the air, dress skirt fluttering up wildly about her - to drive the girl into the ground back-first, hard enough to shake the floor.

COMBATSYS: Ahmya dodges Victoire's Supreme Powerbomb.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Victoire         0/-------/------=|==-----\-------\0            Ahmya

[AHMYA]
Ahmya's eyes widen slightly at the very audible sound of her blade being parried. That wasn't expected. She opens the door in her mind just a little more, letting the knowledge and skills flow into her from wherever they come from. It's why she expected the follow up. What she does about it is ... Weird.

Victoire certainly gets ahold of her, wrapping strong arms about her waist and hefting the girl into the air. What likely wasn't expected is Ahmya literally vanishing from the grapple. The air audibly ripples as she teleports, her boots clicking on the floor as she reappears. As Victoire falls, Ahmya jumps, spinning. She lashes out with her leading hand first and then her trailing once each before she lets gravity take control, using her momentum to try and buy some breathing room.

COMBATSYS: Ahmya successfully hits Victoire with Evasive Strike.
-*- DEVASTATING HIT! -*-
~~ Alluring Hit! ~~

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Victoire         1/-------/=======|===----\-------\0            Ahmya

[VICTOIRE]
All at once, Ahmya doesn't exist any more.

Tangling in her own skirts as she falls, Victoire isn't able to offer any defense whatsoever from the sword strikes. The first carves a deep slash across her back, the second a shallower one across her front. There's an audible gasp from the audience - made primarily of Victoire's entourage - as their champion falls to the ground in a bloody heap. Red now stains that pretty white dress of hers quite copiously, and for an awful moment it looks like it won't be Ahmya who needed the attention of the Neo League medical staff after all. Not exactly an auspicious beginning to Victoire's debut!

But the woman doesn't stay down for long. Instead, she rises up to her feet, and then takes a firm grip on the hem of her dress. The material is torn away easily, revealing the far more sensible black slacks beneath - it seems that the woman's patience for the inconvenience of the costume play has reached its end.

"It seems you were holding out on me!" She chides, as she reaches up to pull off the wig, as well, and discard it to the side. "You are no novice. Quite clearly you have undergone some significant training, and I have underestimated you, to my cost!"

She's still smiling, but there's something behind that smile now - her anger has been roused. "It is not a mistake I shall make again, Shiki-chan."

COMBATSYS: Victoire will be with you in one moment.

[         \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Victoire         0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0            Ahmya

[AHMYA]
Ahmya's boots scrape the floor as she lifts her weapons to the ready. She blinks once, tilting her head. "No training. No practice." The girl's knees coil as she makes ready to press her advantage. "All I know comes from ... Elsewhere."

Meanwhile, the blue on her leg has filled out, a coiled serpent spiralling up her thigh and disappearing under her clothes.

Her eyes flash, and her blades erupt in violet fire. Wordlessly, emotionlessly, she throws herself at Victoire, swinging the weapons in tandem and separately. The swords flicker like the tongue of a snake and glitter like the fangs of a viper.

COMBATSYS: Ahmya successfully hits Victoire with Charged Combo.

[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Victoire         1/----===/=======|===----\-------\0            Ahmya

[VICTOIRE]
"Lies will not get you very far in life, Shiki-chan."

And the girl's continued assault confirms to Victoire that she IS lying. The way the blades rip into her and completely throw off her attempt to even position herself correctly through it is the kind of thing she has experienced only at the hands of fighters who are at least as skilled as she is. But she pushes down those thoughts, because to linger on them would be to allow the possibility of defeat - and in doing that, to make her loss an inevitability.

But she isn't done yet.

She lunges, suddenly, into motion - and her left leg comes up startlingly high now that the dress is out of the way, to slam into the side of Ahmya's head. The right follows a split second later. And should she have succeeded in pinning her between her boots, Ahmya will find herself swung up and around as Victoire twists her into the ground for a heavy crash and a resounding cry of:

"VICTORY! SLAMMER!"

COMBATSYS: Ahmya blocks Victoire's Victory Slammer.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Victoire         1/----===/=======|=====--\-------\0            Ahmya

[AHMYA]
It's hard to tell what Ahmya feels when she's called a liar. Annoyance, probably. It seems that it put her off enough that she doesn't try to move. She instead brings the blades up crossed together to catch the foot swinging for her head. The raw force of it slides her across the floor a bit. As the second comes up, she twists her left arm, shoving it into the other boot coming for the other side, rattling her cage.

She gives a shove to the feet and skids backwards, freeing herself from the attempt to, in simple terms, ruin her day. Her eyes flash a little, and her body language shifts slightly, the tension flowing out of it. Her voice changing slightly.

"Oh, I'm not lying. This power is old, so very old. It belonged to my many generations ago Great Grandmother. And now it belongs to me." The swords spin on her fingers, leaving trails of violet fire. "It's just that the other part of me is afraid of it. So afraid. This part isn't. Want to see?"

Ahmya(?) charges Victoire, a brazen and blatant move. She comes closer and closer, the tails of her dress fluttering, the snake on her thigh almost seeming to glow. She lifts both blades as if to strike head on and--

The air ripples with blackness as she vanishes.

She reappears back and to the left, swinging both blades down from overhead with a burning twin contrail of violet demon chi. The air itself, the world, seems to protest as it flares up. Unnatural. Wicked.

COMBATSYS: Ahmya successfully hits Victoire with Setsuna.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Victoire         2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0            Ahmya

[VICTOIRE]
Victoire doesn't seem particularly interested in Ahmya's explanation. She frowns as the girl starts moving, though, staying as on her guard as she can. These kinds of opponents are always the ones she dislikes the most; teleporting around breaks the rhythm that she relies on to get her momentum going. There were still things she could have done to rectify this, to prepare for it, if it weren't for the fact that she had discovered this was how Ahmya fought after she had taken two deep strikes. That had cost her badly - but as she had said, it wasn't a mistake she would make a second time.

This time, as the swordswoman blinks out of existence, she moves. Victoire had very little talent with energy; the world might protest, but she could sense nothing of it. She just had to choose a direction to dodge into if she were going to weather the storm.

She chooses the left.

And the blades cut in deep, knocking her down to her knees where she crumples and collapses.

Immediately there is shock from the entourage, confusion reigns supreme - and as she had mocked the 'novice' with, she is taken by the medics for care.

COMBATSYS: Victoire is daydreaming about the upcoming victory speech.

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

COMBATSYS: Victoire can no longer fight.

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

[AHMYA]
Victoire falls before her. It was a solid, but not lethal, strike. Blood does spray a little, though, coating Ahmya's torso and right thigh with a line of blood spatter. She stands above the fallen noblewoman and looks down at her, red eye almost glowing as her swords ''burn''. Blood boils off her blades in the fire of demon chi.

"So you see, Miss Victoire, this power is otherworldly. It comes from another realm and flows through my veins."

The glow becomes more pronounced, and she lifts both blades high, much to the shock and horror of the onlookers. Her voice still lacks feeling. It's cold and far away. "This isn't personal. I hope you understand from the afterlife."

The blades start to drop, and Ahmya stumbles back, the violet fire winking out as she writhes on her feet, struggling internally. Emotion comes back as she screams to everyone and no one.

"No! No killing!"

The girl sags, the snake on her thigh fading rapidly. She stumble-runs back to the wood box and stuffs the swords in it, slamming it closed. She turns to stare at Victoire as the medics tend to her. "I-I'm so sorry. I...You fought well, I never should have tried to let more of it loose!"

The girl bows respectfully at the (probably) unaware woman and runs out of the building. Fleeing in existential terror of herself.

COMBATSYS: Ahmya has ended the fight here.

Log created on 13:41:06 06/19/2022 by Victoire, and last modified on 06:48:20 06/20/2022.