Match of the Millennium

Description: Lyraelle's meddling leads to a lovesick ogre coming around to serenade Team Frost with the dulcet belly-bashing of his people. Unfortunately for him, Juri is not a morning person. She's even less of a morning person when it is the middle of the night. Fruit, flab and feet fly in a ferocious fight for the fancy of Frost's female fighters!

[ZOG]
Zog the Hammer was a wildcard thrown into the New Fighting Generation's sponsorship at the last minute to work for Team Blaze. Zog was never any more clear on how the rules of the competition were meant to work than the Powers that Be behind the NFG were clear on what Zog was all about. Lyraelle vouched for him, though, because he ticked a few boxes when it came to representation:

1. He was a darkstalker.
2. He was an Outworlder.
3. He was entirely technologically unsavvy.

Of course, she had made sure to give him a smartphone and teach him how the messaging app on it worked. She had even made sure that he had a friend list full of the members of the New Fighting Generation.

2:00 AM: CUTIE AYALA

Hey Zog, I'm feeling frisky. Want to come over and see me? :heart:

2:02 AM: Zog the Hammer

:confused:

2:03 AM: CUTIE AYALA

Oh right, you can't read much, can you?

2:04 AM: Zog the Hammer

:shrug::heart:

2:06 AM: CUTIE AYALA

:wink::heart:

2:07 AM: Zog the Hammer

:grin::muscle::wink:

2:08 AM: CUTIE AYALA

:heart_eyes::kissing_heart:

2:09 AM: Zog the Hammer

:nod::eggplant:

2:10 AM: CUTIE AYALA

:peach::eggplant:
User has shared their location.

2:10 AM: Zog the Hammer

:thumbsup:

As far as Zog knows, a catfish is either a fish that looks like a cat or a cat that looks like a fish. He was obviously woefully underprepared for the world of online dating.

==*== 2:55 AM, OUTER SUNSHINE ==*==

Zog has prepared appropriately for his journey to the location of CUTIE AYALA. Stripes of dark mud provide him additional camouflage against the night sky. He is dressed in his traditional garb - the furry loincloth-slash-kilt that he usually wears is around his waist, his barrel-flask is slung over his shoulder and freshly filled for the evening's proceedings, and he has his compass around his neck, though he's not particularly concerned with where it may be directing him at the moment. His magical talky machine has provided him with the map to the location of his forthcoming liaison, and it only took him ten minutes of walking around the block to figure out how it worked.

He's also brought his club and a basket of fruit looted from the Team Blaze pantry, including an aubergine and a few peaches.

Setting his basket and club down as he reaches the fence around the outside of the warehouse being used by Team Frost, he checks that the coast is clear before rubbing his hands in a circle around the area of his belly button and sides, wiping away the mud masking his presence in favour of improved acoustics.

After all, he's sure that Ayala, being a fellow tribal citizen, will be familiar with the mating ritual of ogres.

He takes a deep breath, settles his belly into a firm but relaxed state, then begins.

*THUMP BADABUMBUMP THUMP THUMP DADUMP*

*THUMP BADABUMBUMP THUMP THUMP DADUMP*

*THUMPDADADUMPDUMP THUMPDADADUMPDUMP*

*THUMP BADABUMBMP THUMP THUMP DADUMP*

The belly-thumping of the ogre sounds like wardrums being played in the night to disrupt the morale of Team Frost, or perhaps an impromptu rave that's broken out after the Noise Factory shut down for the night. In any case, it's sure to draw attention. After all, that's Zog's intent.

Of course, it might not be the attention he's looking for.

[JURI]
Juri had been in a bad mood when she's gone to bed. This is not an uncommon occurance. In fact, these days, it happens more and more.

Once upon a time she had it all. The luxuries and privilege which came from being one of the most feared lieutenants in the world's premier terrifying private army. She slept in the finest beds, ate the best food, drank as much as she wanted, killed underlings at will. That was the good life. But for months now she's had none of that. And to make matters worse, her eye hurt.

It turns out that jamming an experimental psycho-power engine into your eye socket and hoping for the best, without the legion of tech-heads necessary to keep it running, is not, maybe, the best idea she's ever had. The thing had been buzzing when she went to sleep. A whine that rattles through her skull and just caused constant, low-level pain.

Then the thumping begins.

At first, as she returned through the groggy world of sleep, the taekwonda menace had thought that it was her eye. Rattling around in her socket, thumping and banging and refusing to just, let her sleep. Eventually, though, it penetrates her consciousness that, no, that's not the buzzing. The buzz is still there. Which means that thumping...

The front door of the warehouse is flung upwards with a squeal of rattling metal. Apparently, Juri doesn't care about the sleep of her fellows any more than Zog cared about hers. She is a frightful sight. Dressed in a loose white nightgown with her wild black hair down and, mostly, covering her face - no eyepatch at night, so there's an eerie purple glow just barely visible through the strands of inky darkness. It would be easy to mistake the hunched Korean woman as some manner of vengeful ghost, especially when she sees what is actually happening out here, and begins to laugh.

It is not a pleasant sound.

"Ha, haha... HAH! HAHAA! You actually, you think, you can, in the middle of the night?!" She shouts, "You stupid--" A smattering of gunfire drowns out the exact epithets that Juri hurls at him, but not the last of her words.

"You picked a REALLY painful way to commit suicide, you know that?! I'll send you back to Hell in pieces!"

Enough of this! Juri has made compromises, she's played nice, she's offered support to people who don't deserve it and she hasn't killed anyone in months. She has just about reached her limit. It's time to have some FUN.

[ZOG]
Lurking silhouetted by the light of one of the few functioning streetlamps on the row as he pounds his rhythm out with alternating open-palmed and closed-fisted strikes against the drum of muscle, flesh and fat that serves to insulate him against the night air, Zog would be an impressive and perhaps even intimidating sight if he weren't so ridiculous. Ridiculous, as it stands, is probably the only thing that Juri is getting from the spectacle, what with Juri being, well - Juri. When she emerges into the night air with the sound of screeching metal, the ogre quickly crescendos -

*THUMPADATHUMPADATHUMP THUMPADATHUMPADATHUMP BRUMMP BRUUMP BRUUMP BRUUMP*

- and then finishes his inviting mating song with a flourish, slapping both hands in syncopation against his sides to generate maximum power.

He looks entirely pleased with himself as he rests his hands on top of his belly.

"Hey, there, cutie!"

The sound of gunfire causes Zog to flinch - or maybe it's a reaction to Juri's words. It's probably the former, considering that they don't have guns where he comes from, and getting screamed at by women, on the other hand, is something with which he's both familiar and comfortable. The way that Juri's speaking to him does give the ogre pause for thought, though, as he leans his head forward to see past the glow of the streetlight and adjust to the darkness.

"Oh, hey! Wrong cutie! That beat was for Ayala! Can you tell her I'm out here? And I brought the fruits she asked for."

He holds the basket up in the light so that Juri can see, then tilts his head thoughtfully as he considers her appearance.

"But, I mean, first come, first serve. You're pretty cute, too, and I got plenty of fruit to go around, if you know what I mean."

He plucks the eggplant out and holds it out enticingly as he winks at Juri.

COMBATSYS: Zog has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Zog              0/-------/-------|

[JURI]
It's true that there are probably not many women - not many people in the world full stop, really - who would come across Zog even in his most ridiculous and not at least hesitate when confronted by the sheer mass of bulk that is the enormous ogre. Juri, though, is one of them. And maybe that's fortunate for Ayala, because it means that at the very least, if he wants to make good on the pot-stirring that Lyraelle has started for them all, he's going to have to go through her first.

She's almost half his size, and yet as the ogre makes his offering of eggplant, the teenager's only response is to sneer. "Oh. I see the game here. It's like that, is it?" She cracks her neck, straightens, and that sparking purple orb swivels madly in its socket as she focuses it in on the outworlder. The readouts make no sense. They rarely do, these days. But she can see him, outlined in all his impossible-to-miss 'glory'.

"Well. If you want to PLAY, you've found the right ~cutie~."

Zog won't have long to bask in his success, though. The very instant after she's said it, the woman is rushing in across the intervening distance, her figure cutting a wildly zig-zagging white silhouette as she charges right at Zog.

In the last moment, she leaps into the air, and brilliant white power surges around her leg, mingling with dark black which is somehow even more stark in the dim night; as though her hungry darkness devours the lesser gloom to carve out its own void as she aims to hammer her heel down across Zog's shoulder, his belly...

... and right into the offering of food, fully intent on pulping the entire treasured gift before it can even come close to its recipient.

COMBATSYS: Juri has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Juri             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0              Zog

COMBATSYS: Zog endures Juri's Ryodansatsu!

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Juri             0/-------/----===|======-\-------\0              Zog

[ZOG]
The expression on Juri's face is hard for Zog to make out, so the ogre instead relies on the words he hears.

'Well. If you want to PLAY, you've found the right ~cutie~."

An instant is all Zog needs for a broad grin to spread across his face, prominent lower canines flashing in the darkness.

"Well, al-RIGHT! Come and get some, sweet ba-oh, hey! Talkabout wantin' it!"

The ogre is both encouraged and caught off-guard by the speed with which Juri is zig-zagging toward him, his beady eyes straining to follow her movement. Like a swimmer in the ocean mistaking a shark for a dolphin, he opens his arms, offering himself to the predator openly, the fruit held just high enough that the agile minx will certainly have to ascend him to receive his bounty. He's a clever ogre, after all, and entirely feeling himself and his luck at the two-for-one Love Warehouse.

Right up until the moment that energy-laced foot crashes down on his shoulder.

"Whh-whoa! Damn, you're rough -"

His grip on the basket loosens, before breaking entirely as the blow crashing into his belly topples him over like a collapsing elephant.

"Graaaugh!"

The murder of the fruit basket is as swift as it is brutal, the remains splattering across Zog's face and chest like so much gore.

"Hey! I think I'm bleedin'! ...I ain't sayin' I ain't into it yet, though," he says as he runs the fingers of his right hand over the mango-stained pain centre burning in his upper belly from the psycho power-fuelled blow. Rolling over like a boulder, he gets his trunk-like legs back under himself and pushes himself back upright.

"If you like to play that way, Zog can do it too!" he bellows with disquieting excitement, before swinging his arms back, heaving his center of gravity backward before reversing the motion to launch himself forward, arms outstretched, in a prodigious leap - blotting out the stars above with his form flying overhead in the night before plummeting back into the artificial glow, descending toward Juri in a belly-first tackle-attack!

COMBATSYS: Zog knocks away Juri with Zog-a-Pult.

[         \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Juri             0/-------/=======|=======\-------\1              Zog

[JURI]
"Oh, don't you worry, we're ~just~ getting started."

There's some delighted gloating in Juri's voice. She's too caught up in the exclamation that the huge man is bleeding and the knowledge that she's ruined his present to really notice that the enormous bulk hasn't, actually, moved, in the way that most things do when she kicks them. Where's the reeling and the disbelief? Tch. Well. She'll just have to hit him ag--

Juri's entire body is smashed into the concrete with enough force that she feels bones strain. For a horrible moment she's buried back underneath the ruin of the Shadaloo base, and then she realises that, no. She's surrounded by dirt and concrete, with the hot, sweat-moist mass of disgusting ogreflesh pinning her down into the wreckage of the street instead. A very different circumstance. Albeit, not one she likes any more.

"Hnn...!"

That, really hurt. A lot. One hit and she's already feeling like her head is going to fall off? Being weak sucks. But she's far from down and out. Within the confines of her shallow grave, the woman gathers her strength...

And then she's erupting out of the ground like a buzzsaw in a spray of dirt and debris, sailing upwards in a circular trail of white and black energy that carves a beautiful pinwheel into the air - hopefully directly through Zog, but, frankly, in the moment, she's really not that picky about whether or not she lands a clean hit on the big guy. What she wants is to get OUT of there before the claustrophobia sets in too badly.

This is ... already quite the show for the gangs of Sunshine City. Juri fighting in her nightclothes is one thing; Juri fighting in her torn, ripped, dirty nightclothes is, well, another thing entirely.

COMBATSYS: Zog fails to reflect Tensenrin from Juri with Belly Bounce EX.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////                  ]
Juri             0/-------/=======|=======\=====--\1              Zog

[ZOG]
"Gotcha!"

Zog pants as he manages to tackle his feisty prospective paramour, his weight settling on her as it has little elsewhere to go after his exertion. Such close proximity will allow her to appreciate his natural pheromones and aroma, one curated by the ogre through careful lack of bathing except by the light of a full moon. The combination of that pungent smell with the fragrance of fresh fruit is truly a unique experience.

"Alright! So... I get what you were doin' with the fruit, now. You wanted an excuse to clean it up, huh?"

He starts to shift his weight, easing it off just enough to give Juri room to position herself to fulfil her obvious wish.

For some reason, she decides to do something else entirely.

"Whuh?"

He can sense the pent-up energy suddenly surging into his belly - and he tries to focus his will into the markings that cover his body beneath the muddy camouflage, but her buzzsaw motion is too swift and sudden, the repellent power of the mystical marks broken through as she foot plows straight through the mass of flesh and fat and muscle to batter the soft tissues of his insides.

Perhaps, in this moment, Zog learns a lesson about underestimating the power of a cutie.

"YeeaaaarrRrrRRGGGH!"

Zog rolls over onto his back, flopping around and clutching at his stomach as if trying to hold his guts in after a particularly brutal evisceration - but he isn't disemboweled in flesh so much as in spirit.

"I'm gonna get you back for that one!" he declares, though his usual velvety bass tones seem to have shifted up to the upper baritone register, and shows no signs of immediate execution of his declared intent.

[JURI]
Juri lands, crouched, after her flight into the air, and has to spin back around to face the downed ogre. What she sees draws the first real smile she's had in ages across her lips. Oh, yes. This was what it was all about. Big guys like him are always so satisfying when they hit the ground. That's the trouble with relying on bulk (and mystic shields, not that she knows about those). Against the malevolent Psycho Power that burns through her, well, there's just not much that can be done to prevent it physically or mystically. It's all about power of will.

And thankfully for her at least, Juri's will to inflict pain and suffering - for the moment - seems to be outweighing Zog's drive to have a nice date with a cute girl.

"Aw, what's the matter?" She croons, "I'm not too much for you to handle now, am I?"

Oh, that really does feel so much better. She walks over, hips sashaying as she takes her time, letting him writhe and clearly enjoying the fact that she can, for a brief moment, look down on the unfortunate man.

"I'm not done with you yet."

Three in the morning. THREE.

Trying to seduce her boneheaded student.

... not that she cares about that ...

Honest.

"Get UP so I can knock you DOWN again."

The demand is coupled with a hard kick aimed right into the poor guy's belly. No energy this time at least; just trying to 'help' scoop him back up onto his feet by spearing her heel into his injured guts and twisting.

COMBATSYS: Zog blocks Juri's Medium Kick.

[         \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////                   ]
Juri             0/-------/=======|=======\======-\1              Zog

[ZOG]
Zog does manage to loll his head over to watch Juri as she croons her comment at him. Her words are particularly biting for the ogre; he tends to take pride in thinking of himself as too much for a girl like Juri to handle. Or at least, a girl like he might have imagined Juri to be, which is another thing entirely.

"Hey, I ain't sayin' that!" he protests through strained lungs, wheezing as he tries to roll himself back over. "So, when're we gonna move on to the fun part - whoof!"

Zog manages to at least shift his weight enough that Juri's foot lands less harmfully in a blubber-like fatty deposit instead of finding his more vulnerable innards, setting his girth to jiggle as he rolls heavily into a sitting position.

"Hold up! I need a drink b'fore we keep goin'!" the ogre announces as he staggers up to a knee, slinging the barrel on his back around into his grasp and removing the stopper with a deft tug. A quick knock back sends a litre or two of the red liquid within down his throat, and he lets out an 'Ahhh' and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as he starts to lift himself off of his almighty backside and upright.

"Wanna sip?" he offers, holding the barrel out toward Juri. Apparently, he's still somehow construing all of this as some kind of romantic warm-up.

COMBATSYS: Zog takes a long swig from his cask.

[         \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////                   ]
Juri             0/-------/=======|=======\======-\1              Zog

[JURI]
Ugh. That's the downside to dealing with huge guys like this. Sure, it was satisfying when they cried out in pain... but they were also extremely stupid.

So stupid that they don't get that this IS the fun part for her.

Juri's expression goes from one of disgust as the ogre guzzles down what definitely smells like one of the foulest concoctions she could imagine, to a broad smile when the barrel is offered over to her. "Aw, thanks." She says, taking a firm grip...

And then yanking with all her might to try and snap the straps holding the barrel to the ogre, so that she can then hurl the oversized flask into the ground.

"... you shouldn't have!"

And follow up with an overhead kick to splinter the wood and send the precious contents flooding out over the broken ground.

If she can't get physical pain to stick, maybe some serious emotional damage will do the trick.

COMBATSYS: Zog interrupts Weakened Heel Kick from Juri with The Hand of Ignarok.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Juri             1/----===/=======|======-\-------\0              Zog

[ZOG]
After his encounter with a certain French fashion designer, Zog really ought to have known better than to trust his favoured vessel to this clearly much more vicious and fickle (if also confusingly flirtatious) female. The leather straps holding his barrel in place snap loose, worn as they are with the constant weight of the cask-flask's contents and faced as they are with the fury of a sleepless Juri, and she manages to smash the cask into the ground. Realising the betrayal as his eyes fall on the barrel and the foot descending on it, he moves swiftly through the stages of grief:

"You didn't - why?! - don't! - damnit...!! - FINE!"

Though the spiritual damage inflicted upon Zog by the psycho-prodigy is once again undeniable, he is swift enough in processing his emotions on the matter to already be reaching for whatever limb or handful of nightclothes he can grasp by the time that she's finished brutally bisecting his barrel with her heel. Perhaps he catches her off-guard in a moment of gloating, or perhaps, as he might have suspected before the red mist descended, this was her plan all along (it almost certainly wasn't), but the Taekwondo fighter is grasped and flung across the ogre's extend knee as he drops onto the other as he winds up one of his massive hands while holding her in place with the other.

"NEVER..."

*SMACK*

"SPILL..."

*SMACK*

The first two blows ring out in the night, punctuating the ogre's shouted denouncement, and as he raises his hand one more time, it starts to glow red-hot with the volcanic fury of the ogre's patron deity, mighty Ignarok.

"...MAH GROG!"

*SMACK*

As the blazing hand metes out Zog's fiery justice, the ogre releases Juri, the third and final blow hard enough to send her tumbling off of his knee.

[JURI]
Juri had indeed been caught in the moment of gloating. It seems to be the pattern here, and one she will doubtless never learn. A brief moment of triumph, and then she's punished for it ruthlessly. The ogre's ability to grab her is startling, and though the ferocious woman is struggling like a wildcat too much for there to be any real sense of the 'discipline' that he'd no doubt like to inflict on her involved, the blows nevertheless strike true enough that she feels them. One of these days, she's going to have to stop playing with her food.

It's only fun when she's the one giving pain; receiving it? Not a fan.

Twisting free at last, the taekwonda's now-burned nightgown adds an even more unhinged quality to her as she throws her head back, staring at Zog with those wild eyes of hers. The Feng Shui Engine is a tiny purple star; the buzzing pain that had been singing in her skull for days now demands that she unleash it. This much pent up negative energy, well... it's just not healthy for anyone.

Least of all for Zog.

"You still don't get it, do you? You're just another insect, and no matter how big you are... it's time you learn what happens when you step into the spider's web!"

All at once, her entire body pivots, trailing purple energy this time as she doesn't use her own power; she uses the sick, evil energy that she stole from Shadaloo directly. The force there is leagues beyond even the earth-shattering strength she'd displayed earlier, though that fact itself disgusts her. She played Prometheus for a reason; what would be the point claiming this strength if she weren't willing to use it?

Should that initial kick fling the ogre into the air as she wishes, what follows is a veritable ballet of violence. Juri erupting from the ground in a swirling tornado of kicks to chase him, smash him back to earth with her heel, somehow teleport below him, and for one moment, support his entire absurd mass on her upraised leg in a physics-defying move only made possible by her utter hatred. Of this ogre. Of the restraint she's had to show for weeks. Of the 'team' in the warehouse. And of herself.

But there's joy, too. Sadistic joy which would ooze out of her in the words:

"Now THIS is the fun part."

Before hammering him face-first into the ruin of his own barrel.

COMBATSYS: Zog fails to reflect Kaisen Dankairaku from Juri with Giant Belly.

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

COMBATSYS: Zog can no longer fight.

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

[ZOG]
The delivery of his fury was a small victory that Zog, for his part, was far too incensed to take any greater joy than simple catharsis. It's one of the first signs to Zog that this date isn't going well.

Actually, it's one of many signs, but as established earlier, Zog can't read very well. This one, helpfully, was bright red, and filling his vision completely.

He's back on his feet at the same time as Juri finds hers, the violent haze fading as he pants for breath heavily.

"I ain't an insect, lady! I'm an OGRE! And when ogres step in spider webs, spiders get squished!"

Suddenly concerned that he may be standing on a spider without realising it, he looks down at his feet, raising one so he can see the sole, then puts it back down. "Hey, that's a nasty trick! There ain't any spiders -"

His grasp of metaphor revealed to be less solid than at first glance, Zog is cut short by the sudden violence of Juri's wheeling forward. There is no mistaking the kick for further flirtation, and seeing that sinister purple energy, he instinctively calls out in his mind to the wards that cover his body, which begin to shift from their natural red to a supernatural blue glow. The kick lands, striking him like an oversized beach ball into the air - an incredible feat even more novel and impressive to the ogre than to any who might witness it - and as he's sent higher and higher, the shamanic wards struggle to absorb the psychic energy. He strains, trying to force the energy back out as he pushes his gut out, but the markings flare purple as they're overwhelmed.

"GYYAAAAHHH!"

The ogre falls back to earth like a meteor as he's kicked from above, then, just as he's about to create a large crater in front of Villa Frost, he finds himself impossibly perched on top of Juri's leg. His eyes, previously clenched shut from pain and fear, peek open.

"Oh, ha! You almost had me there. Pretty hot, actu-"

Then Zog, master of misinterpretation, is smashed face-first into the wreckage of his grog cask.

"Guhhh..."

The ogre groans as he rolls onto his back, senselessly staring at the sky, his face a mess of mud, gravel, fruit, blood and splinters.

[JURI]
Juri has absolutely wrecked the front of house, no doubt about that. Though, in her defence, Zog is responsible for at least half of the devastation. The massive crater he'd made using her body to open the fight is going to make it hell to get Abigail's monster truck in and out for a while, combine that with the sheer amount of broken concrete and debris now littering the lot and its difficult to see how they could use this space for training the newbies. It isn't as though most of them could take a fall onto regular concrete, let alone the new shard-strewn arena.

But hey. Maybe they can clean it up. It isn't like Juri is going to take care of her own mess.

She looks down on the unfortunate ogre, the battle rush of adrenalin finally starting to die down. With the release of all that Psycho Power, the blazing light in her eye has died away to nothing; and with it, the constant buzzing pain that made it so difficult to concentrate on anything else. That HAD been fun. She could have done without the parts where he hit her, but... hell. It's the first real fight she's had since her recovery. And as her body starts to let her know that, yes, she's still exhausted because she hasn't slept at all, that thought draws a smirk on her lips.

"... I guess Professional Fighting Whatever would get difficult if I finished you off." She muses, "Tch. Oh well. You just wait here."

She saunters back into the warehouse and a few moments later is back, with her phone. Which she uses to snap a photo of the downed ogre laying in the mess they'd both made.

Which then gets posted to Team Frost's socials with the caption:

:snowflakeemoji: :footemoji: Round 1 to Team Frost! :spideremoji: :demonemoji: Time to put Blaze on ice, permanently :purplelipstickkiss: :footemoji: :snowflakeemoji:

Log created on 12:29:43 06/13/2023 by Juri, and last modified on 09:05:38 06/14/2023.