Match of the Millennium

Description: While Arisa comes fresh off of a victory over Homura, she's only got a short time to build synergy with the burly bestial brawler in Braun. Meanwhile, water enthusiast Chevelle Beaumont and self-declared lifeguard Tanwen are here to send these poolside troublemakers to the depths. Or is it keep them out of the depths? Let's be honest, they all just want to win.

[CHEVY]
What started off as a fun trip has transmogrified into something... different. It's still 'fun' by some measures: there's no stipulations on anything that -needs- to be done. But the very act of survival has hit some harder than others.

Chevelle Beaumont has just taken it all in stride. The island may be bereft of essentials like food, but it's fully stocked with amenities like air conditioning, running water, and a decent supply of travel-sized toiletries to keep the city folk feeling like city folk.

Much of her time has been spent in practice with Tanwen -- mostly the basics, as she can't fly like a dragon, and waterbending isn't exactly in the Welsh fighter's wheelhouse. The rest of her time has been spent catching fish, cleaning fish, cooking fish, and teaching other people how to fish. It's busy work -- but it's a good, honest kind of busy that's been keeping the hayseed's endorphin levels high.

Chevy's also been, well, taking regular dips in the pool. So she's not really -needing- that right at the moment; she's dressed mostly the same as she was on the boat ride over. Her long-sleeved white shirt is rolled up to her elbows; a pair of short-cropped denim shorts hugs the curves of her hips. Each is doing a sub-par job of concealing the teal bikini she's wearing underneath -- though, as the sun's rays have been beating down pretty hard, that's probably to be understood. She's also wearing a blue baseball cap emblazoned with the scarred face of the Muay Thai Emperor, and a pair of white high-top sneakers that could probably use a good wash.

For the moment, though -- she is reclining on a lounge chair, and sipping from a water bottle. She's keeping her blue eyes in the shade, and conserving energy as best she can... as she's looking at a single piece of paper with a lot of writing on it.

"So like, Evie doesn't -get- to put on heavy armor? I mean, not like -clanky armor- or anythin' noisy, but like, what about a good heavy Pirates sweatshirt or somethin'?"

She blinks for a moment, then shakes her head. "Oh, wait, yeah, they don't have sweatshirts in this game, right?"

[ARISA]
Well... an unexpected outcome of Arisa's battle with Homura is that her outfit -- the only one she arrived in! -- had some serious damage problems, because sword. Thankfully her shorts escaped pretty much unscathed, but her tank top and fleece are basically goners. This precipitated a post apocalyptic video game-esque search through the eerily quiet environs of Zack Island looking for either clothes or, barring that, salvagable cloth. It took a bit, but eventually she... well.

What would you expect to find, clothes-wise, on HORNY ISLAND [frantic backspacing] TROPICAL ISLAND?

And then there's the additional 1-2 punch of her erstwhile mentor being... to be honest, as she said to Chevy not long ago, Arisa has long ago stopped trying to understand Tom or Lou. The probability that Genie Bouvier opted out of the tournament for a lack of cake feels extremely low, but the result is the same either way: she's now been paired with Braun, the lion? wolf? cat?man she knows effectively nothing about. But, it's probably better than the alternative of going it alone, right?

It is thus that Arisa shows up at the designated time and place for her second match: the pool and/or waterpark, trudging around on her own, wearing what she was able to find and/or put together: her typical denim shorts, a black sports bra, and a gauzy camisole in cobalt blue that is split down the center, making it equal parts camisole and vest. The color helps keep it vaguely opaque, but the material isn't doing it any favors.

Anyone meeting her gaze as she arrives in said top will receive a facial expression that conveys, with no ambiguity whatsoever: 'Don't.'

[TANWEN]
For her part, Tanwen has been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster since arriving on Zack Island. She's been pelted with mystical snowballs, got in a tug-of-war with a meerkat over a fake gold coin, and chased by a giant snake, but things haven't all been great. Growing dragons don't do well on rice-based diets, and unlike the NFG's other metabolical marvel, Max, she doesn't do well with palm fronds, either.

She's at least found (or traded for) a nice indigo bucket hat that definitely clashes a little with her natural colouring, which has gotten a little more coppery (no fake tan needed; a weird permutation of being actually a red dragon) during her hours in the Isla Zaca sun. She's wearing a white Lifeguard uniform tank top with her Welsh flag-themed bikini bottoms for the time being.

"Heavy armour isn't very good for sneaking, and Evie won't be having the proficiency for it unless you make her a fighter as well," Tanwen is instructing Chevy as she sits sideways on the lounge next to her mentor's. "I think a sweatshirt would be padded armour, it would. You'd probably rather be wearing leather armour, though. Or studded leather. Or maybe a mithril breastplate, but you won't be starting with one of those."

She looks up at the approaching form of Arisa, her face lighting up at the virtual stranger. "Oh, hello! Are you from Big Game Hunters? Your outfit is amazing! Is that how they dress in Texas?"

Arisa's expression may be unambiguous, but unfortunately, Tanwen is only used to reading signs when they're in Welsh.

"I should get ready for the fighting, I should," she continues, standing up and reaching up to pull her tank top over her head. It turns out that, unsurprisingly, her bikini top matches her bottoms, the top half of the garment white with green across the bottom half and red dragons on each of the cups.

"I'm Tiptup - I mean, Tanwen - and this is Chevy. We're Team Atlantis, because Atlantis is under the sea and it's full of dragons. Your teammate is Mister Braun, isn't he?"

[BRAUN]
"Heeey...a waterslide! I didn't know there was a waterslide!"

Braun's heavy deep voice booms over the pool, preceding his arrival to the area with remarkable cheer that seems to burst forth in stark contrast to the less then ideal circumstance of their stay on this island. He looms there, wearing naught but a pair of colorful shorts loudly patterned with stylistic palm trees and ocean waves but otherwise his vast physique is exposed down to his bared clawed feet. Oh, and a bright yellow rubber-ducky innertube that encircles his waist and really would be utterly ineffective at doing anything for him in the pool given its size and strain to accommodate his dimensions.

He treads forward towards the pools edge, resting massive hands against the sides of the tube as he tilts his head up and peers over the entire waterpark with a bemused expression writ clear on his bestial features. "I shoulda spent more time relaxin and less time wandering around this dump. Clearly I been missin' out...."

After a long visual survey he begins stepping forward, heavy steps their usual lumbering prowl as he draws nearer towards the ones already present. Chevy gets a two fingered wave and a slight curling of his mouth into a bemused smile. Tanwen receives a more studied once over however. His direct interaction with many of the newcomers to NFG has been fairly limited after all, but he does recall her from the very first meet and greet.

It is Arisa who finally gets his last and longest look. Not exactly a stare but a very clear look to her, then down her frame and then back up again to her face as he studies her and her outfit in a sort of once over that would make for a perfect Miranda Priestly impression.

"...Nice." he finally decides, voice drawling out in a sort of deadpan delivery though it's followed up by another lazy smirk as he draws nearer. "Whelp, we aint here for no fashion show. Let's kick their asses and then test out that waterslide!"

He gives her a fingergun gesture, the faintest hint of red-and black chi crackling about his clawed finger and up and down his massive arm before he turns towards Chevy and Tanwen and calls out cheekily, once more grinning, "I dunno what gives with puttin' us up against a water-bender at a -pool- of all places but maybe they think you're gonna need all the help y'can get, eh?"

[CHEVY]
For Chevy, working on her sea elf character appears to be a labor of love. She wants the character to be just perfect -- mostly because her agent had regaled her with many, many horror stories about campaigns where players didn't put enough thought into their character builds. (Dev really ought to have known better than to give the anxious farm girl something *else* to worry about.)

Still. It certainly doesn't hurt to give Tanwen an experience to share wit hher. This way, each of the two can share their expertise with one another in a way that feels less like 'teaching' and more like 'cooperating.'

Chevy is, at the moment, feeling pretty good about the character. "Oh, naw, Evie's not a 'fighter' really." She shakes her head -- but then flashes an enthusiastic smile. "I'll just stick with leather!" she says, with the confidence of someone who has no idea her voice could be taken out of context by anyone, especially not the NFG recording crew that's just getting into position.

She then finds herself seguing from a conversation about her character's attire to a conversation about Arisa's attire. And, gauging from Arisa's 'don't' expression, she decides to just roll with her impulse to blurt something out.

"Not... -really-, Tan, but it's a cute look! Besides, we cain't be too picky out here, it ain't like we got an Old Navy just 'round the corner."

Old Navy's a clothing store. The Farmville native just assumes everyone knows that.

"Hey, Arisa. Good job on your fight with Homura!"

Baby blue eyes then cast over to see the burly cat-man making his not-quite(?)-a-stare at Arisa's attire. She fixes him a skeptical look.

"Y'all... -are- a team, now, right? I mean, you're s'posed to be makin' her wanna fight me and not you."

She can't help but meet Braun's smirk with one of her own, there.

And... she eyes that onyx-and-crimson chi with some amount of trepidation. She slips the character sheet onto her chaise, draping her blue ballcap atop it as a paperweight as she stands up.

Stretching her arms side to side, she answers with a chirp: "Well, honestly, I just figured I was due, on account'a them writin' me in as the bad girl in all them Odyssey matches."

She hops over to one side of the pool's fighting ring -- it's a bit more fair to everyone involved, after all. That's where she'd left the pole and buckets that Coco and Kenzo had found for her. And besides, it'd just be -rude- to fight at the pool's edge with her powers and all.

"Seriously now, y'all... best of luck to you! And let's -try- not to ruin any more of our clothes, alright? I'm kinda hopin' to be wearin' more'n just leaves and vines to our next match, alright?"

She grins, waving her partner over. "Okay, so, what's this part comin' up? Is this where we gotta roll for initiative?"

[ARISA]
A Tanwen is kind of a lot to deal with all in one go, as it were, and Arisa seems ABOUT to comment, in a sort of dazed way, about the probability of finding near-lingerie bikini wear on the regular in Texas when Braun makes his appearance. Her teammate, supposedly! Who says and does, well... that.

Very real annoyance is extremely plain on the Texan's face as she says, point-blank, "If that was your attempt at making a friendly first impression, bro, you uuuuuuuuuuultra failed."

It's the presence of Chevy, who both had the conversation with Arisa that helped her decide to stay in the NFG AND who expresses some subtle vocal support here too -- for which the Carolinian gets a grateful half-smile from Arisa -- that seems to calm the Texan down long enough to turn back to Tanwen and respond to her. "Yes, no, and... apparently?" Arisa says with a grin, ticking off her answers to Tanwen's barrage of questions on her fingers, turning and giving Braun an appraising look for a second on the last one. "And thanks," she adds, turning to Chevy. "It was, uh..."

How do you describe or even summarize her fight with Homura?

"...it sure happened!"

[TANWEN]
"Hello, Mister Braun! Yesss! There's a waterslide! It's even better than a powerslide, it is!" Tanwen enthuses along with Braun about the attraction, running around the pool to greet the new arrival. "That's a lovely ducky. Did you get him out of the machines? Would you like to trade for a purple fishing hat?"

The hat is more indigo than purple, really.

Braun soon reminds Tanwen why he's there, which sends the dragon girl scurrying back wide-eyed to her mentor's side.

"I guess they don't care about choosing armour very much. Mister Braun said it's not a fashion show and he'll kick our bottoms!"

She looks a little bit confused about her mentor's next comment. "It's too bad. Maybe if we had an old navy instead of just one boat we could have sailed away while Junko was trying to blow us up! A new navy would have been even better, though; then we'd have anti-aircraft guns and we could shoot her out of the sky."

Following her mentor's lead, Tanwen puts her own hat on her own character sheet so that the others can't sneak peeks at them to figure out their weaknesses. She then fetches her own equipment, which appears at first to just be a weather-resistant tropical beach umbrella, but is in fact apparently a large shield, and the treated wooden pole it was originally attached to, which is now to be put to use as a sword. Or a spear. Or something. It's got a pointy end for sticking in the ground, and Tanwen brandishes it as if intending to find out if it sticks in people too.

She nods along with Arisa's answers, although she's already forgotten the questions by now.

"Is ultra-failing like, even worse than a botch? Is it like where you roll all ones?" Tanwen wonders, before turning to Chevy. "Oh! Well, we could roll for initiative, if we had any dice. But some of the people don't even use dice. They just see who's fastest. Maybe one of the people with the cameras can tell us when to start?"

Because, of course, there are camera people around - two of them, in this case, along with a boom operator. Their numbers have been stretched a little thinner with the different directions that some of the fighters have gone, and some are mysteriously unaccounted for, but the fights are still being given priority coverage in Tom and Lou's attempt to stick to the script in the face of catastrophe.

[BRAUN]
Braun's nostrils flare abit as he considers Chevy's words, "When'd you get so stuffy? Tth. Shame."

He then turns to eye Arisa after listening to her. Disappointment is writ clear on his face and he clucks his tongue against the roof of his mouth a few times before musing.

"It wasn't an attempt at anything darlin'. It was a test at seeing how thick or thin skinned ya were if we're partnering up. I don't walk on egg shells around folk and expect to get as good as I give. I push to push ya over the line and to hit the eleven and expect th'same in return. Sarcasm and self deprecating is how I roll. Ease up. I aint necessarily walkin' no runways myself am I? We're all jacked up in this cracked out scenario..."

He smirks mildly, "A test for synergy. But anyway, I'm sure you can fight better then you can sass and from what I gather, our particular talents should line up pretty well there, mmm?"

Beastman from The Makai. Demon Huntress Trainee. That -should- workout, right?

The matter is forgotten swiftly enough as he makes a vaguelly dismissive circling gesture with his arm as he walks forward.

"Alright, alrighty then. I guess you ladies at much for the bantering then so...let's go.. We got a show to put on, right?" He stretches his arms and then grins again, "It's a fight, yeah? Let's just see who is fastest..."

COMBATSYS: Chevy has started a fight here on the left meter side.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Chevy            0/-------/-------|

[CHEVY]
Chevy pitches forward in a laugh at Braun's response. "Ha-ha... 'stuffy?' -Me?- I'm just sassin' you, Braun, lighten up a bit!"

The hayseed wasn't entirely sure of the relationship between Braun and Arisa before. But as she watches the two bicker, it seems she just finds the exchange to be more amusing than anything else. She waves her hand side-to-side as Braun seems to be getting more and more agitated.

"Braun, my man! Just take you a deep breath, alright?" She grins back at Tanwen, nodding with encouragement. "Well, he can -try!- But we're all good here -- it's just gonna be a fun little match, right?"

The hayseed seems more or less unfazed by the rising tempers. And why shouldn't the waterbender be relaxed at the start of a fight next to a large body of chlorinated water? ... She may have been more bothered by it -last- season, but right now she's fine.

It does take Chevy a moment to realize that Tanwen didn't fully understand her, though. One hand snaps to the back of her head as she laughs softly. "... Oh, I'unno about a new navy doin' all that good, Junko was tossin' Fulgore units 'round like they was rag dolls. But, nah -- 'Old Navy' is the name of a clothin' store back home. It's about as far from an actual military as you can get."

She laughs softly, testing the weight of the pole she was found. It's aluminum, and not the galvanized steel she's used to -- much, -much- weaker. But as she loads the buckets up on either side, she frowns as she sees how much give there is to the replacement materials.

As for the comment about Homura, she offers another laugh. "Wow, like, *every* fight with that guy just looks totally insane. I cain't even make hide nor hair o' how he *moves*..."

She steps into the boundary of the fight ring, taking a brief look around at the environs -- taking careful note of the positions of the other fighters and the NFG staffers.

"It -does- sound like a 'botch' to me, yeah..." she notes with a wry smirk -- though she's looking back at Braun and not Tanwen for that. "But it's just -one- roll. There's gonna be plenty more where that came from, ain't there?"

Once the fighters get into position, -someone- with and NFG badge gives a sound...

And Chevy starts spinning her pole, a broad grin on her face as she starts to prowl towards Braun. As she spins the improvised weapon, water begins to spill out of the buckets, spinning faster than the weapon itself, resulting in a menacing torus of whirling water.

"So do you really think you're gonna be the ones doin' the kickin', Braun? 'Cause I got *thoughts* about that."

Chevy grins as she advances steadily towards the burly cat-man. It's as plain a dare as she could hope to make. But if it goes uncontested, a trip to the waterslide might be sooner rather than later!

COMBATSYS: Chevy gets ready to turn the tide!

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

COMBATSYS: Braun has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Chevy            0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0            Braun

COMBATSYS: Tanwen has joined the fight here on the left meter side.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Chevy            0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0            Braun
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Arisa has joined the fight here on the right meter side.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Chevy            0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0            Braun
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Tanwen           0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Arisa

[ARISA]
"It's legit like you read out the exact responses redditors with personality issues give when they get called on being jerks!" Arisa says, looking genuinely floored, shaking her head in surprise a bit. "'I'm just honest, can't you take a joke, it was just a social experiment, I'm not here to make friends'... not to get all social media about it but okay boomer." Maybe Chevy's pep talk back on the Mermaid was more effective than she'd intended, or maybe after her last encounter with someone talking down to her, the Texan had simply Had Enough.

Tanwen's enthusiasm, on the other hand, gets a much more genuine-seeming response. "Haha. Nat ones all around, baby," she responds with a grin to the dragon's question about what constitutes 'ultra failure'. After the comment, the demon hunter's daughter suddenly looks reflective about something. "If we ever get back to the Mermaid I gotta finish my Dark Urge playthrough," she says, aloud. Yes, please introduce Tanwen to Baldur's Gate 3, Arisa. That absolutely can't go wrong in any meaningful way. "I rolled a WILD bunch of fails early on and I had to kill Lae'zel! Which sucks! She's green and hilarious!" Okay what?

But then there's the signal from the NFG folks, and Chevy starts getting her fight on in earnest. As someone who watched the first season, the blonde can't NOT be excited to see Miss Beaumont in action for real, all things considered... but the dragon in the room demands more immediate attention, going by the structure of the tournament matches. "Alright. Ref's a little dated but since you're into dice, may the odds be in your favor, I guess?" the Texan says to Tanwen with a grin. "Or some suitably fancy version of 'good luck'."

And then she produces... a large sheet of sky blue paper, basically out of nowhere which, given that outfit, is saying something. Is she going to make a character sheet right here and now?! Has Tanwen found another player for her table?

Nope, somehow Arisa just makes the land speed record for folding AN ENTIRE NAGINATA out of paper, before leaping forward and making a trio of sweeping blows with the thing at Tanwen, who will find that the onmyoujutsu-reinforced origami hits just as hard as any other weapon and is about to give the mother of all papercuts!

[BRAUN]
Ah, now that's more what he was looking for. Arisa's wit and annoyance flashes out at the beastman with a scortching rebuke and Braun also gives Chevy a glance as she redirects his jibe at her back his way.

He then just roughly laughs. "Hah. I'll give that a B+ on the comeback scale for both of ya." He seems unbothered by the roasting from the two ladies ultimately lacing his fingers together and cracking his knuckles with a sound like tree branches breaking.

"Aaaaaanyway, yeah, yeah, reddit, blah blah. Save it for yer next Fighttube rant."

He grins again, big fangs showing as he bounces up and down on his feet, building up energy and coiling up his large physique in anticipation of the signal to begin as his attention returns towards Chevy. Anticipation and curiiosity is writ clear on his features. He faced her in a startingly close match during the last finals so the anticipation of what has changed since then is quite clear within his gaze. .

Once the motion to begin comes, he lunges forward, turning into a blur of motion that flashes across the distance between himself and the waterbender and sends him into a spinning leap. as she begins gathering her essence.

He whirls out of the jump, a large leg whipping around in an arcing lightning fast kick for her flank.

"Here we go, babe!"

COMBATSYS: Tanwen blocks Arisa's Touten Jutsu - Shoukou.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Chevy            0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0            Braun
[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////// ]
Tanwen           0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0            Arisa

[TANWEN]
Tanwen's attempt to barter for the ducky innertube fail for the moment, but her spirit remains undampened by this setback as she assumes her battle stance, shield raised and sword - er, stick - resting on one shoulder. She looks back and forth between the other two girls and Braun as they banter back and forth, cocking her head to one side as she tries to follow the conversation.

"You shouldn't walk on egg shells anyway, Mister Braun. There might be babies inside. It's not very nice," she throws in her bit to the conversation.

Then, to Chevy's explanation, she asks, "Is it as far as Australia?"

Then Arisa speaks up, and Tanwen gasps. Somebody else in the NFG speaks her language!

Okay, so it's not Welsh, and not Sindarin, but Tanwen is more fluent in 'D&D nerd' than either of those anyway. Except that she's not really sure...

"What is Dark Urge? Is it a campaign book I've not heard of? It sounds spooky!"

She quickly shifts from ':o' face to ':I' face when Braun, Chevy, and Arisa prepare for battle, though, raising her shield and holding her sword at the ready. The amicable well-wishing from Arisa causes it to turn briefly to a ':)' face, though.

"Oh, thank you! And good luck to you, today and every day!"

She gasps audibly as Arisa fashions her naginata out of paper. Others might see a paper weapon and assume that it poses little threat, but the dragonette is accustomed to treating apparently harmless accoutrements as deadly weaponry. She turns her umbrella-shield against the blows, stepping backward with each hit. Slash marks mar the fabric, and the weapon's blade manages to nick the dragon girl's hand, causing her to cry out as she pulls the shield away.

"Watch out, Chevy! He's trying to kick your bottom!" she calls out as she hops back toward the edge of the fighting ring. Her grip shifts on the umbrella's head, fingers clasping the edge like an oversized frisbee.

"Can you teach me how to do that, Miss Arisa? It would be amazing for larping, it would! And by the way - MAGIC MISSILE!"

There is nothing magical about the umbrella-shield-discus that's being flung Captain America-style toward Arisa beyond the magic of a young girl's imagination - or at least, a forty-seven-year-old dragon's imagination, which seems to be equally robust. But what worldliness she may lack in proportion to her age she makes up for in strength in proportion to her physique - which is to say, getting bonked may not be guaranteed, but it will likely deal more than 1d4+1 damage if it does connect.

COMBATSYS: Chevy blocks Braun's Light Kick.

[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Chevy            0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0            Braun
[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////// ]
Tanwen           0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Arisa

[CHEVY]
Is it as far as Australia? Chevy wrinkles her nose. "Is -what- as far as Austra-- oh, oh." She coughs lightly; it's hard for the hayseed to speak without deploying *some* of the conversational pitfalls that Tanwen keeps seeming to stumble over. She settles with: "-- You can get a sailor uniform there, I think?"

When Tanwen starts to correct Braun, though -- she laughs, deciding to leave him to answer that one for himself. But then he... deigns to give her a grade on her comeback.

"Now see, I done finished school, I ain't got no use for gradin' systems..."

She does find herself a bit out of her element as Arisa starts talking about Dark Urges and whatnot. Cluelessly, she turns to Tanwen for guidance -- and then soon finds herself looking back to Arisa with a hopeful look.

Luckily, there's the whole matter of a team battle to keep her from feeling too out-of-place. "Yeah, good luck, y'all!" She may be lost in the nuances of Baldur's Gate, and throwing verbal jabs at Braun, but the fact remains that the Carolina girl is still in a fairly good mood! "Oh wow... that's pretty cool, Arisa!" she notes, even as Braun is starting to close in.

The pole she's twirling is on the opposite side from his attack target. Blocking with the pole would be a bit too slow -- but Chevy instead uses the spinning momentum as an anchor, stepping around it as she swings to a more tactical position. When the lightning-fast kick closes in, Braun will feel it make contact -- proving Tanwen's prediction to be 100% correct -- but due to her sideways pivot, the kick will be robbed of some of its impact as Chevy pulls her Daisy Dukes out of his way about half as quickly as he strikes.

The hayseed stumbles forward, keeping her balance thanks to her spinning pole. "Haha, I knew I'd get -somethin- outta watching Coco's keijo match..."

Catching her protege's response to Arisa, she calls out, "Oh, good one, Tan!" But while she's doing that, Chevy's also working on a response of her own, snapping her pole into a horizontal attitude. She then steps in close, aiming to -lance- one of her buckets onto Braun's arm! Her goal, if she gets to close her bucket around Braun's hand, would be to -freeze- the water inside, locking it into place as she pulls her pole free of the bucket. Further -- if she gets that opportunity, she'd spin the trapped limb around as she gets behind Braun, and suddenly vaults forward, locking her arm behind his neck. Braun would then find himself hurtling face-first towards the fighting ring floor -- and his hand still frozen in a deeply chilled bucket!

COMBATSYS: Arisa blocks Tanwen's Magic Missile!.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Chevy            0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0            Braun
[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Tanwen           0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0            Arisa

[ARISA]
Every word out of Braun seems to make his teammate more contemptuous. "'Oh I was just TRYING to make you angry that's the spirit'? Whatever, dude," the Texan says with a roll of the eyes, hopping backwards from her combination attempt on Tanwen and replying without turning her eyes from her opponent. "I hope your fighting skills are better than your interpersonal ones."

The question of whether or not weaponized origami folding can be taught has to be temporarily put aside, however, as an umbrella/shield/discus(?)/etc. combination comes flying her way. Thankfully, the orgiami naginata is just as good now as it was a couple of seconds ago, unlike SOME impromptu weapon users can claim. Twisting it at a diagonal angle, there's a... well, not a clang, since it's paper, but definitively a meaty *WHMP* as the shield smacks into Arisa's improvised guard. Still... there WAS a lot of force behind that throw, and the demon hunter's daughter feels it in aching muscles up both arms.

Tossing the weapon aside, Arisa grins at Tanwen, but makes no offensive moves just yet; instead, she shakes out her hands, cracks her neck a little bit, and concentrates. One might imagine that this sort of focusing technique is something she learned from her onmyouji oni father; in fact, this is all her mother's doing. Sometimes drawing on inner reserves is all about getting into the right mindset.

"Actual speed origami folding, absolutely! Actually making it usable in combat... not entirely sure," the blonde replies, as honest as she can be. "Plus you know, I think they use non-sharp boffa stuff in LARP for a reason, right?"

COMBATSYS: Arisa gathers her will.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Chevy            0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0            Braun
[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Tanwen           0/-------/------=|=====--\-------\0            Arisa

COMBATSYS: Braun blocks Chevy's Battleship Chains.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Chevy            0/-------/-======|=------\-------\0            Braun
[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Tanwen           0/-------/------=|=====--\-------\0            Arisa

[BRAUN]
Under different circumstances, Braun would actually continue needling Arisa. It's hard to resist the urge given her reactions to his less then smooth social graces and rough housing intentions to color this affair. Plus the cameras are on them all and a little spice to the team ups is exactly the sort of thing the NFG promoters would zoom in on. A blessing and a curse really but something he knows all to well. .

Nevertheless, she's on -his- team after all and now that close contact engagement is under way. distracting her further would simply not be wise. Chevy, however, can easily see his sideways glance towards Arisa after her remark and see the sly bemused smile on the beastman's face. He's clearly enjoying this even though perhaps it's not exactly 'positive role model behavior'.

To that end, he tosses a wink at Chevy, even as the impact of his leg slams against her pole and sends a vibrating shockwave up through its length and into his body from his legs up against his torso. In the space of a heart beat he pushes back off, attempting to spin his large and yet monstrously fast and agile frame back away from her as she brings the buckets around and sends water cascading for an outstretched arm. The ice begins to form --

And then shatters as red energy boils up along his arm - pushing back against the elemental power as Braun lands hard against the ground whilst dragging that burning red and black chi along with his movements.

An instant later and he's lunged for Chevy, dragging that arm behind him and then swinging it around and forward in a defiant, wide, arcing slash of crimson energy that follows in the wake of the swipe of his large hands and rakes across the air in a burning scything motion for the elementalist.

[TANWEN]
Tanwen's umbrella-come-shield-come-frisbee deflects off of Arisa's weapon to circle back to her through the air, and she leaps up to catch it - with her teeth. Apparently, even in human form, some natural draconic urges can't be ignored. Luckily, her teeth seem to be fully capable of withstanding several pounds of metal crashing into them, and she quickly transfers the item back to its proper slot in her off-hand.

"It's not as tasty as it looks," she comments ruefully before brightening at Arisa's offer. "Oh, you're right. I was getting the larping confused with fighting again," she concedes. The distinction is an ongoing struggle for the young dragon. "But I was mostly talking about the folding, anyway! I'm supposed to be proficient with all the martial weapons, but I only ever have a sword. Imagine if I could fold up a ranseur as easy as blinking! I love blinking, I do."

Tanwen blinks once, either for emphasis or the sheer love of it, before coiling her legs under her and leaping forward, aiming a quick cross slash (cross bash?) at Arisa, swinging overhead then across. Even simple attack combinations have been elusive for the instinctively brawly dragonette previously, but some guidance from her mentor and a bit of advice from Henry have inspired her to give it a go.

COMBATSYS: Chevy counters Beast King's Decree from Braun with High Tide EX.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Chevy            0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0            Braun
[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Tanwen           0/-------/-------|=====--\-------\0            Arisa

[CHEVY]
As a 'neutral' observer in Arisa's and Braun's battle of words, Chevy grins as she spots Braun's teasing for what it is. Considering how long Hawksley's much-more-obvious teasing had held her interest, she can't really dispute its effectiveness. She -is- glad, though, that Braun is taking -her- seriously... no matter what he'd just ended up kicking. It may have been a while since he was an underdog who nonetheless pressed her to the brink of a high-profile loss -- but there's no way she's going to let her guard down against him again.

Which means that she isn't counting her iced-up chickens before they've, uh, hatched? As soon as she can see the crimson-and-onyx flames flare up, she's taking contingency measures, lancing the loosened bucket's handle onto on the empty end of her pole. She steps with the motion, spinning about the pole in order to place a bit of distance between herself and the much larger cat-man.

"I should'a known better'n to try *that* again, I s'pose..." The trouble with practicing a limited repertoire of attacks is knowing that, eventually, some folks might catch on. But what else can one do? Make up new attacks every fight?

Even while she's keeping up the banter, she's got her blue eyes locked on the brawler's font of energy. And when he starts to lunge at her, Chevy just... steps back, slamming her pole into the floor with such force that the lower bucket seemingly rebounds -upwards-. That's what it -looks- like, but the fact is that she's relocating her chi foci using her hydromancing skills.

When Braun's hand reaches in, he'll find the pole smacking alongside his wrist at the instant before impact. And in the very next moment, a fearless Chevy will be leveraging his own arm as part of her counterattack, as she wraps one arm around his leading arm, and folds herself tight against his chest as she uses her pole to 'guide' him right off his feet, and slam him back-first into the floor!

"Let's go for a ride, big man!"

... Why -fearless-, though? Mostly because the sudden motions also drenched her with water -- which hisses into steam upon contact with Braun's attacks, but otherwise dissipates a lot of the built-up heat.

Of course, that also means Chevy's white shirt is sopping wet when she pries herself free. The gauziness of the drenched fabric probably makes it a very good thing she's wearing a bikini underneath.

As Chevy rises back to her feet, a quick twirl of the staff serves to funnel much of the fallen water back into one of the two buckets. Pacing a step back to give Braun a chance to recover, she spares a glance to Tanwen and Arisa for a moment.

Chevelle Beaumont asks, simply: "... What the heck is a 'ranseur?' Is that French?"

COMBATSYS: Arisa interrupts Crushing Strike from Tanwen with Tequila Sunrise.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Chevy            0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0            Braun
[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////        ]
Tanwen           0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0            Arisa

[ARISA]
"Takin' the whole D&D thing pretty seriously, huh?" Arisa asks, unable to suppress a little grin at that. "Nothin' wrong with that. I can't tell if you and Al-kun would get along like a house on fire or be natural enemies," she says to the dragon as both fighters return to earlier positions, recovering the distance between each other. Al seemed like he had some internalized shame over the idea of 'cosplay', whereas the Texan has a hard time mapping the CONCEPT of shame onto Tanwen in any meaningful way (complimentary).

There's no time to debate that any longer, however, or to consider the national origins of polearms, because Tanwen is back on the offensive. It would make sense that when your opponent puts themselves in a defensive position, an aggressor should make a move that will encourage them to regret it afterwards... that's just sound tactics. The problem is that right now, Arisa is using what her demon hunter mother taught her, and when it comes to big bold Texan women with shotguns, all bets on 'sound tactics' are off.

Case in point: the first part of Tanwen's combination attempt goes smoothly indeed, her weapon slamming into Arisa's shoulder, the blonde wincing at the resulting pain, which is not inconsiderable. HOWEVER: a vertical strike means there's some windup involved in the followup, and when Tanwen circles around for the second half, what she will find -- instead of Arisa -- is a sparkling blue mist of SOMETHING coming from a bottle in Arisa's hand, a short, thick glass container with a stopper shaped like a cross. That's right, folks: it's good old Holy Water(tm, Konami) -- and on contact with air and a little push from Arisa's own energy, it IGNITES into blue-white holy fire, which is EXACTLY what Tanwen finds herself leaping into.

[BRAUN]
The beastman lets out a loud grunt as he slams hard into the ground of the combat zone.

The impact also has the unfortunante side effect of rupturing his rubber ducky inner-tube. An unfortunante demise puncutated by him grunting out, "Awwww!" As annoyed by the slam down as he is the destruction of the piece of Zack Island peraphenalia he'd come across.

He'd been considering letting Tanwen get ahold of it in the end as well. Now it's just wet yellow rubbery ribbonsx spiraling off into the air as Braun recovers, recoils and rebounds up from the attack that had slammed him so forcefully into the ground.

"Now I'll have t'kick it into a higher gear to avenge it..." he snarls out as he skids backwards a few paces, a growing grin on his face and that blasted energy still crackling from his eyes.

"Still. Hn. Nice one ladies..." he offers, giving a glance towards Arisa as well but refocusing his attention back to Chevy.

His eyes have barely landed on her and he's off again, leading in with another massive swipe that sends an arcing blast of energy following behind him and this time it rips and roars across the short distance between him and the water bender.

The shockwave lights up the area as it ripples out towards Chevy but Braun is not far behind it, seeking to close the distance once again the wake of his roaring assault.

[TANWEN]
"Oh, yes. I think it's only natural, being one of the Ds in D&D," Tanwen manages to quickly comment as she's making her first overhead smash at Arisa. "Do you mean Albert? I would never set his house on fi-"

Tanwen's eyes go wide as the blue jar suddenly appears in front of her before exploding into holy fire.

Fun fact: Tanwen means holy fire. So Tanwen is now on Tanwen.

It's fun for everyone but Tanwen, anyway.

"-fiIIIRE!"

Tanwen starts flapping her burning arm frantically in an attempt to put out the flames, her skin taking on a scaly red texture where they touch her. Fortunately, despite appearances, it's not third degree burns - it's dragon scales, along with possibly second degree burns. She tries to blow on the fire to put it out, but, being a dragon, it only makes matters worse until she stops panicking and realises that the fire is going out on its own.

"I wouldn't set his house on fire! I thought we would be nemeseses, because of Saint George, but we decided we are friends instead."

She brings her armaments back up as she focuses her attention on Arisa, though, as a lover of piggybacks, overhearing her mentor's words causes a slight pang of envy to flood her chest. As she concentrates, a long, red tail slithers out from the base of her spine, sweeping along the ground before lifting in lizard-like fashion. "Let's not go for a ride just now," she says to Arisa. "We'll have to wait until after we're done fighting."

She lunges forward, her shield arm covering her advance this time in hopes of avoiding recklessly hitting a trap in the same manner as last time. She aims to smack it into Arisa's face with a spinning strike, following up by subtly trying to sweep the Texan's leg with the assistance of her prehensile tail on the follow-through.

COMBATSYS: Chevy parries Braun's Shockwave Claw!!

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////        ]
Chevy            1/----===/=======|===----\-------\0            Braun
[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////        ]
Tanwen           0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0            Arisa

[CHEVY]
Chevy had never really thought about that before. Getting along like a house on fire... that sounds like a -bad- thing, but it's always been meant in a -good- context, right? She doesn't really have time to think about that topic, but as it was an overheard statement and not one directed to her, she doesn't feel bad about keeping her thoughts to herself here.

Especially as her mentee gets set on -fire-. Well, it's kind of like fire, but not the kind Chevy is particularly able to -help- with. But as Chevy is maneuvering about, she happens to catch notice of Tanwen taking care of it all by herself -anyway-, which is good! "Attagirl, Tan! Keep it up!"

She doesn't have long to cheerlead for her fight partner, though, as old man Braun is lamenting the loss of his ducky and clambering back to his feet. Chevy flashes an exasperated half-smile back at Braun. "Aww, I hate that happened for ya..." She may say that, but the hayseed doesn't feel -too- sorry though. There's a reason she and Tanwen left their exclusive vending-machine hats on the lounge chairs.

She sees Braun winding up, though. And she -thinks- she has an idea what's in store for her could mean -- considering the -first- time he'd hit her with that attack, it was at the very start of their fight -- and it had swept her right off her feet and left her panting for breath against a turnbuckle.

"Ain't gonna catch me with that again!"

The best way to deal with that attack is, quite simply, -not- to get hit by it. And that -seems- to be Chevy's plan, as she suddenly dives to get -around- the shockwave, reaching out to grab hold of Braun's wrist at roughly the same time as the shockwave would blaze past her!

This, by itself, is a gutsy maneuver! And she can feel the heat off the swirling vortex of ebon and crimson energies, threatening to blister off the drops of moisture clinging to her skin and shirt. But her grab for his wrist is only -part- of the problem he's up against.

Because she'd left her water buckets in the path of the shockwave. With her left foot acting as a pivot, the shockwave's fury would propel her into a counter-clockwise spin...

"Hrrrr-aaaah!"

Meaning that if she -is- able to catch hold of Braun's wrist, he might just find that he's flung off his feet, and hurled shoulder-first into the floor!

Though. He might remember -that- attack from their first fight, as well...!

COMBATSYS: Arisa counters Armed Combo from Tanwen with Chouten Jutsu - Hakkekyou.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////        ]
Chevy            1/----===/=======|===----\-------\0            Braun
[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////        ]
Tanwen           1/-------/=======|=------\-------\0            Arisa

[ARISA]
If Arisa Hawkins has learned anything in the brief rounds of this fight so far, it's that she has absolutely Zero Interest in getting hit by any of Tanwen's sweeping physical attacks. Physically, she takes after her father, who... yeah, is an oni, but is also like, a NERD oni. Beatrix is the beefcake in the family, for sure, and her daughter didn't inherit it. "Good to hear!" is what she shouts, in response to the idea that Tanwen and Albert became friends. She has no idea who St. George is; apparently demon hunting and dragon slaying do not share cultural ancestry.

On the other hand, a dragon is currently looking to DO some slaying (metaphorically), so someone with demon hunting training is gonna have to learn how to deal with it in a hurry. She could try and take it head on again, absorbing the blow with some sort of weapon, but honestly... the fight's just started and doing that ONE time hurt like hell. No, this requires digging deep into the tactical well and trying something... drastic.

As Tanwen starts charging her way, Arisa brings up a hand in front of her and, like a gambler showing their cards, lets ofuda fan out between her fingers.

So her plan is... more paper? Sure.

"Lake Shinji reflects the moon; the kami read the flow of past to future," Arisa intones aloud, sounding like probably so much gibberish to the people around her... but notable, in the sense that as she speaks (and Tanwen draws closer), the charms in her hand start to glow with a silvery faerie fire. "Descend here from the mirrored lake! Kyu kyu nyo ritsu ryo!"

Then she throws the paper charms in the air, mere seconds before Tanwen might connect, and the result is, well. 'Arisa' becomes 'Arisas', plural. The mighty dragon crashes right into one, which suddenly ripples and then vanishes in silver light.

Problem: there's four Arisas left, and one of them -- the 'real' one -- does a swift set of three mudra before pointing at Tanwen. Blazing with silvery light, the illusory shikigami Arisas she conjured converge with extreme haste on Tanwen before bursting into silver light themselves.

Now, if Tanwen were, let's say, a being that needed exorcising, she would probably be in BIG trouble. As it is right now, she is probably just finding that even if you're not an evil demon, exorcism arts can still hurt!

COMBATSYS: Chevy successfully hits Braun with Riptide EX.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////             ]
Chevy            1/--=====/=======|======-\-------\0            Braun
[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////        ]
Tanwen           1/-------/=======|=------\-------\0            Arisa

[BRAUN]
Things are indeed heating up for this match now! It's certainly a good combo of combatants. The NFG coordinators know their stuff, that's for sure. The right mix of fighters, personalities, abilities and tenacity can make for quite the visual spectacle and the elemental magic, dragon magic, demon hunting magic... it's all providing dazzling displays of color, movement and sound.

And then there's Braun. His swiping attack gets parried by the ever ready water maiden and the scoring energy blasts of his sweeping strikes are sent cascading in various directions along with a rain of rapidly dissipating sparks as Chevy's defenses carry her forward.

His attacking arm is flung upwards as the momentum of his attack is re-directed andseized by the rapid moments of Chevy and next the world becomes a blur of movement for him. Spinning in a wild rotation as she successfully spins his large frame into an out of control tumble that sends him slamming once more to the dampened surface of the combat arena. This impact is more thunderous then before and his eyes squint shut and his teeth bare into a pain snarl as his massive frame rebounds and painfully twists into a tumbling roll to try and right itself once more.

He does indeed recall that manuever.

"Tth. Hell." he manages to grunt out, clearly annoyed and more then a little battered and bruised. He's not -utterly- unflappable after all and there's a clear sense of deja vu here with their last match still fresh in his mind.

But though he hits the ground, he doesn't stay down there long. Faster then a body his size has any right to be, he's suddenly pushing up from his hands and then into a crouch - and then once more he's lunging at her as a blur of browns and golds. Her fighters eye-sight can see his attitude flashing back into being as he launches for her. His aura blazes and then seems to internalize, wrapping about and then into his massive frame as he brings a massive leg up and attempts to slam his knee powerfully into her torso with near wild abandon to its momentum..

[TANWEN]
Unfortunately, even with the to-hit bonuses that faerie fire is supposed to provide, Arisa's mirror image spell counters Tanwen's melee attack, causing her shield to spin unopposed through the artificial Arisa and, in the absence of anything to stop it, continue to spin, performing two more revolutions before Tanwen ends her arc in a daze, face to face with the other three Arisas and looking totally flummoxed. One could easily imagine a question mark appearing above her head in the moments before the shikigami constructs explode in silvery light around her.

"OHHHH NOOO!"

The explosive jutsu is painful, but, as with the previous attack, not as damaging as it would be if Tanwen were aware that these techniques were intended for use against unholy creatures. The conclusions to be drawn by a girl whose understanding of such things is entirely filtered through the rules of Dungeons and Dragons would likely be catastrophic. For now, the only conclusion she's drawing is:

"I want to know how to do real magic, too!"

That's the takeaway - Arisa is obviously an arcane caster, since she knows how to cast mirror image.

Righting and steadying herself, Tanwen takes on an expression of concentration, narrowing her eyes at her opponent.

"But, a wizard can only cast so many spells per day," she reasons aloud as a pair of leathery red wings sprout from between her shoulder blades and a pair of ruddy-brown horns start to curl out from the sides of her head like Princess Leia hair, "and I can keep trying to smash you in the face as long as my HP is above zero!"

As she completes her anime powerup sequence, glittering red scales covering her neck and shoulders, she raises her shield once again - lunging forward with added propulsion from a beat of her wings as she tries to smack the real Arisa with her rainbow buckler. Should she manage to do so, she'd use the opening to grab Arisa by the shoulders and pull her around to double backward, keeping a grip on her as she'd swing a leg over to trap the demon huntress's head between her thighs and ensuring she's secure before dropping to the ground, aiming to smash Arisa's head into the ring floor the way that the wrestlers Winn likes to watch on the telly would!

COMBATSYS: Chevy blocks Braun's Aggressive Strike.

[     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Chevy            1/-======/=======|======-\-------\0            Braun
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////        ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|=------\-------\0            Arisa

[CHEVY]
There was a time in which Chevy had spent -forever- trying to get her previous attack just right. Weeks of devoted study allowed her to work out all the little nuances and get them to work together just right. All the prior preparations had come together, then -- but something's different now. As her attack sends Braun to the floor, she finds the balance of her pole a little... off. Her attention snaps to the plastic buckets dangling from her pole, now looking a little worse for wear after their encounter with Braun's superheated shockwave. The plastic is warped; those buckets can still hold water for -now-, but who knows how long that will hold out? The hayseed sighs lightly.

"Hey Braun, you said you'd wandered around this 'dump' a bit, yeah? Did you come across any -metal- buckets?" Weird thing to ask when her opponent is grumbling, but... the hayseed's still striving to keep things light-hearted, here. Kinda.

Chevy wriggles the pole a little bit, walking the distorted buckets back to their 'standard' positions on either end of the pole. But while she does this, she happens to overhear the incantation taking place in her periphery -- and looks over to see four times as many Arisas as before! Tanwen -does- defend her choice of a melee class over the Wizard class, though, bringing a smile to the Rogue player's face. Gauging from the shouting, Tanwen's been having a bit of a rough go against Arisa, so Chevy slips in some brief words of encouragement: "That's the spirit, Tan! You got this!"

That's... all the time she's got though, as the lion's share of her attention is still focused on her own opponent. Her eyes widen as Braun suddenly lurches into a knee strike -- and Chevy realizes there's just no worming out of it! She turns sideways, folds up her arm, and brings her shoulder to bear against Braun's incoming knee. The hog wrestler thankfully still has some meat on her bones, thankfully -- but even then, the force knocks her off the floor, and carries her backwards a few feet! She's able to land in a low crouch, the moment punctuated by the sounds of escaped water slapping across the deck.

Undeterred, she swings her pole in front of her, gripping it with both hands in a wary stance. "See? I just cain't let my guard down 'round you, Braun." She grins back. Though, it might be easier for Braun to -feel- that the air between the two is starting to get a little... chilly. "So you get the full Chevy experience!"

That's all the warning Braun will get, before Chevy suddenly leaps upwards at him, aiming to slam her staff right into his massive chest! If it connects the way she wants to, though, the water will spill from those buckets, and instantly flash-freeze into place -- more or less gluing the staff into position just below his chin. The farm girl would then continue to rise upwards, flipping into a somersault over his head while still holding onto the pole! Which means that if all goes according to plan, she'll be -behind- him one moment, and hauling him into a flip over her own head in the next! This is another of the techniques she'd spent several weeks developing, thanks to her Team Thunder mentor, Ichijo-sensei -- and she's hoping it does the trick against Braun!

COMBATSYS: Arisa blocks Tanwen's Arch Dragon.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Chevy            1/--=====/=======|======-\-------\0            Braun
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|==-----\-------\0            Arisa

[ARISA]
Tanwen's good-naturedness and enthusiasm go a long way, and Arisa's got a personal policy of not trying particularly hard to harsh someone's mellow overall, but the dragon's intense commitment to the D&D thing is starting to make the Texan wonder -- and the suddenly quizzical expression on her face makes this pretty apparent, or should anyway -- if in this case, it might not be going a little TOO far?

As the dragon (real) starts her power up sequence, Arisa brings up a finger and scratches behind her ear a little bit. "I dunno if that qualifies as 'magic'," the demon hunter's daughter says, sounding more confused than anything else. "And even if it did, I'm not sure it... you know what, forget it," she says, with a shrug, coming to the conclusion that following this line of thought is probably the path to madness from the jump.

And then, of course, once Tanwen is properly glowy and puh-syked up, she's coming in for another one-two(-three?) combination of blows and grapples, but for Arisa, her previous successful tactic seems to hold out here too. The buckler blow does slam into her, but with the expectation that more is coming, the blonde goes... well, not limp, but allows herself to simply be carried by the force, rolling with it, so that when the grappling part of the entire situation is about to start, the nimble Texan is simply no longer there, having slid to (relative) safety.

But that 'relative' safety is her in a crouch, gripping the shoulder that got shield bashed and gritting her teeth. That would be not particularly fun to experience a second time. Slowly getting up, she grins, shaking out her hands. "And maybe that's true, about wizard spells, but..." In practically the blink of an eye, she's suddenly holding a pair of SMGs, each with a charm -- a blue topaz star and a yellow quartz rose -- danging from the grip, which Arisa trains on Tanwen with a grin. "...SOME of us took some additional skills." Then she takes off at a run, parallel to Tanwen's trajectory, opening fire on the dragon. Will dragon scales stand up to bullets?! We'll find out!

COMBATSYS: Chevy successfully hits Braun with Marsh Slam.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////              ]
Chevy            1/=======/=======|=======\=------\1            Braun
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|==-----\-------\0            Arisa

[BRAUN]
No words of immediate encouragement are offered to Arisa from Braun though he remains aware of her actions on the peripheral of his senses. It's not for lack of interest in his new partner, however, it's simply due to lack of time.

Chevy's counter assault against him is near instantanous and as he rebounds backwards from the impact of his massive leg the pole lands home and immediately achieves her desired effect.

"Whulgh!!!" he rumbles out, words seized from him by the flash freeze that takes place and then immediately afterwards he finds himself hurtling overhead and then back down again with a spray of ice accompanying a violent cracking of the pavement and a spray of rubble as the ground sunders and shudders from the force of his fall.

He manages to grit his teeth enough to avoid a rumbling roar of pain but the warping and breaking of the landscape alone should give clear indication to the force of that hit.

And yet, Chevy's right, she can't let her guard down for an instant as the large Beastman rolls over rapidly, down on all fours now and sliding out of the dust cloud caused by his thunderous fall.

Chevy might catch the after image of his grinning visage ..and then he's suddenly flashed into movement - faster then before, lunging at her with a full on corona of energy that enflames about his figure and rapidly enlarges his physique. His hair becoming a full on bright red burning mane, a tail sprouting forth and his garments shifting and warping with him as well as he looms into his full on battle-shifted form.

'Battle-Cat,' as Buford once nicknamed it.

She might have picked up on this by now but to some degree he'd been holding back. His movements fast and violent but more measured up until now as if he'd been building up energy and willing to risk her violent counters until the right time. Hopefully for him, that time is now! He crashes towards her, using both his speed and newfound size in an attempt to throw off her sense of spacing as he thunders in for a tremendous energized shoulder tackle.

Hit or miss - and a hit would surely drive her backwards violently, he skids to a stop and flashes into another move - suddenly spinning his enlarged body into a violently rising windmill like uppercut that trails gouges of energy through the air behind him and seeks to bring both of them several yards off the ground from the force of the blow should it land.

COMBATSYS: Braun blitzes into action and acts again!

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////               ]
Chevy            1/=======/=======|=======\=------\1            Braun
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|==-----\-------\0            Arisa

COMBATSYS: Tanwen parries Arisa's Blue Topaz and Yellow Rose!

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Chevy            1/=======/=======|=======\-------\0            Braun
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Tanwen           1/------</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

[TANWEN]
As Tanwen's audition for Saturday Night Slam Masters is cancelled, the winged warrior lass stumbles, her tiny claws latching onto only air. "Not magic? But there were four of you, there were!"

Tanwen may find it difficult to forget it, because she's very good at remembering things, but there are other things to be thinking about at the moment anyway. Like the fact that Arisa has just pulled out a pair of submachine guns. Those aren't in the Player's Handbook, but it doesn't mean she doesn't know what they're for.

"Oh, dear," she says, quietly trembling, until the moment that Arisa starts her strafing run. As the first bullet lets loose, Tanwen leaps off of the ground, using her wings to execute an evasive maneuver. The bullet rings off of the metal rim of her umbrella-shield, sending Tanwen into a spin.

"Eep!"

Tanwen flits into a barrel roll, barely avoiding the bullets as Arisa tracks her trajectory. Shots embed themselves in the wall of the poolhouse behind her. Two ricochet off of the Zack-in-the-Box, leaving it seemingly undamaged.

<< Whoa, there! Let's be keeping things civil! Maybe try taking a soak in the pool! >> the vending machine implores with Zack's voice.

Tanwen swoops upward before reversing her roll, spinning over the spray as she continues her elusive efforts.

"But I'm an endangered species!!! AHHH!!!!" she cries, a trail of tears glistening in the air as she emerges from the second spiral to dive toward Arisa in a desperate attempt to close the gap and put a stop to the Big Game Hunter's brand building.

"AHHHH!"

As she hits the ground, she spins, whipping her tail toward the Texan's midsection, attempting to wrap it around Arisa before continuing her twist, using her core to try and fling the gunslinger up toward the sky.

"AHHHH---FWWOOOO!"

If she gets that far, she'll suddenly let loose a furious gout of flame, directing it toward the demon huntress while she's airborne!

COMBATSYS: Chevy dodges Braun's Chimeric Crash.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Chevy            2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\1            Braun
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

COMBATSYS: Chevy parries Braun's Whirlwind Fang!!

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Chevy            2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\1            Braun
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

[CHEVY]
As her bodyslam left her crouching, Chevy swings her pole wide to her right side, her left hand directing the ice-cold meltwater back into her buckets as she rises.

Two increasingly sad looking buckets.

"So I guess that's a 'no' on metal buckets...?" she asks tentatively. "Aww..."

Her attention is, momentarily, pulled away by the sounds of gunfire. This is... well, a *surprise*. The sounds of backfiring engines are nothing unusual to the Farmville mechanic, but hearing so -many- of them in short barrages is enough to draw her ear...

But the crackling energy of Braun's transformation demands her -full- attention. Sorry -- no time for snappy comments on the protege battles this time!

"AHHH!"

Chevy can't even put her finger on what Braun's about to do. So she just... *moves*, abruptly diving into a tumbling roll to his right. She can smell the burning scent left in Braun's wake as he thunders past!

"Ahh, almost caught me..." she stammers while righting herself -- only to cover her ears in a wince as her partner breaks out in her own bursts of agonized fright! She takes heart in knowing that, well, the screams aren't, like, full of blood-curdling pain...

But, this is normally a time to recover. Chevy starts to rise, swinging her pole and buckets around. There's usually enough time for a witty comment or two, right?

But Braun doesn't seem to think so. He's charging right back at her again.

And Chevy's eyes widen, as she twirls her pole before her, water streaming from her buckets into a semi-transparent shield, not unlike a standing floor fan.

"AHHH!?!"

The first windmilling punch slams into a bucket. Water splashes free, and the hydromancer is too distracted to deal with that right now!

A heartbeat later, the -second- bucket explodes, shattered plastic shards flying every which way with the impact. The pole itself is bashed free of Chevy's loose grip -- and it's beyond her reach, now that there's no mass of water in immediate contact. Bits and bobs of plastic streak past Chevy like needles, snipping a few trace lines of red across her cheek and midriff.

Flying backwards, now unarmed, with a windmilling Braun just inches away, the hog wrestler just does what comes naturally: she reaches out to grab hold of Braun's extended arm. If he's spinning, he's spinning -- but he would no longer have his great *reach* as an advantage.

And she'd also seek to wrap her insoles about his waist, digging the treads of her high-tops into his beltline. Here -- she'd try and -streeeetch- him, and in the process, steer him into landing within a place of her choosing!

COMBATSYS: Arisa dodges Tanwen's Dragon's Embrace EX.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Chevy            1/-------/<<<<<<<|=======\-------\1            Braun
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

[ARISA]
This might take some doing.

Whatever powerup she gave herself, Tanwen is apparently showing plenty of increased strength and spirit. It means that any sort of defensive maneuver Arisa tries is going to require all that much more creativity and chutzpah... but if there's something the Texan has to spare, it's chutzpah. "Of course she can fly," the blonde says, stowing her guns to... okay, she's in a swimsuit. Where did the guns even come from, let alone where did they go to? How is she doing that?! That's a trade secret.

Ricochets can be a danger, of course, but Arisa's marksmanship is nothing to sneeze at; she was trained by the best and can absolutely use guns to hurt fighters that might otherwise scoff at small arms fire, after all. She puts that same hawkeyed perception to work on the defensive; as Tanwen Aznable red comets her way to the ground and tries for the heave of her tail, Arisa's arms cross in front of her and she's suddenly holding two things: a paper charm, and the chain of a... grappling hook?

The charm is thrown up into the air, toward the far end of the pool; with a swift mudra from Arisa, it suddenly freezes there, as if held by some invisible force. With only seconds left to avoid what will almost certainly be catastrophic damage from Tanwen's tail, her OTHER hand lashes out and the grappling hook flies out, snagging on to -- in defiance of physics -- the charm. The result is a very Batman, very action movie-esque slow-mo tableau as Tanwen's mighty tail scythes through the air, missing the heading-upwards Arisa by mere inches.

Finishing the arc of her jump, the grappling hook disappears back to wherever, and the ofuda loses its midair rigidity, slowly falling down like a leaf. Arisa ALSO falls, but turns her sudden descent into a diving kick aimed straight at Tanwen's back. "SORRY BUT I DIDN'T REALLY WANT TO GET HIT BY THAT!" she shouts, trying to be polite.

COMBATSYS: Braun blocks Chevy's King Tide EX.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////                   ]
Chevy            1/-------/<<<<<<<|=======\==-----\1            Braun
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

[BRAUN]
"Urgh - dammit...."

Braun manages to growl out under his breath as he misses Chevy like a passing comet. He twists from that into his spiralling upper cut while roaring out, "Looks like I came in with a big mouth this match but I'm under performin'!"

Indeed, his tactics change up didn't yield the results he wanted and as his spinning upper cut manages to shatter her weapons but fails to land cleanly upon her, his grimace only increases and his eyes hood in the first real signs of frustration at it all. Losses are a fact of these things. For someone to win, somebody has to lose - but he's not so laid back and disconnected that an -embarrassing- loss is something that'd sit well with him. In comparison with Arisa and Tanwen's duel - matters aren't even close between himself and the water maiden given the incredible defense she's mustering against him.

Thus when Chevy reaches for the counter, he does indeed seem open to it. Her grip grabs his powerful figure and sends him twisting and then back down towards the ground as she pulls him towards the landscape below -- only for him to twist again, reacting on instinct and his powerful oversized limbs seeming to expand along with his contortions to push himself free from her grasp.

He still goes crashing down to the ground, thundering into it with a shaking of the earth but as the dust clears he seems to have braced his impact with both of his arms and is now pressing upwards in a tremendous handstand. "...But I aint done yet!"

Still wreathed in his blazing energy and his enhanced form, he vaults upwards and pushes from the ground - twisting in mid air to once more go slamming towards Chevy in an attempted reversal of her previous effort. A violent thunderous attack that, if he lands, will hopefuly bring her down towards the ground with his crushing weight slamming behind her..

COMBATSYS: Tanwen fails to interrupt Medium Strike from Arisa with Dragon Crown EX.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////                    ]
Chevy            1/-------/<<<<<<<|=------\-------\0            Braun
[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

[TANWEN]
The synergy between Tanwen and Chevy is clearly on display as the teammates put the 'AHHH!' in 'AHHHTLANTIS.'

Tanwen can certainly fly, but the effort that it takes is significant when she's in her present hybrid state. It's a lot easier for her when she's in her housecat-sized true dragon form. It's why she doesn't just do it all the time. That, and the rules of shounen drama, which seem to apply despite the fact that she's a Welsh D&D-style dragon. She twirls around as her tail once again finds nothing to latch onto where Arisa was a moment ago, teetering as her balance is set wildly askew. Sadly, this means that she doesn't get a chance to appreciate the grappling technique demonstrated by Arisa.

"Umm, me neither! Should I be apologising as well??" Tanwen shouts in confusion, turning around just in time to see Arisa descending toward her foot-first. She's taken aback. Using an aerial attack against a dragon? They literally named the most famous anti-air technique a 'Dragon Punch.' Arisa might as well be starting a land war in Asia. Confidence swells in Tanwen's chest and across her lips as she crouches. She might have been having a hard time dealing with Arisa's unique blend of offense and defense so far, but she has a perfect technique for this situation. It's in her blood.

"Here I go," she murmurs under her breath as she closes her eyes. Then, with a beat of her wings, she launches herself up toward Arisa, closing her eyes as her curved horns prepare to punish the demon huntress's audacity -

- only to have Arisa's foot split the proverbial uprights, smacking into Tanwen's head between the horns and sending the dragon ass-over-teakettle back down to roll across the ring.

"Chevyyy! Nothing is wooorking!" Tanwen whinges to her mentor as she ends up in a sitting position, rubbing her head with her sword hand.

COMBATSYS: Chevy blocks Braun's Predator and Prey Collision.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////                    ]
Chevy            1/-----<</<<<<<<<|=------\-------\0            Braun
[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

[CHEVY]
'Sorry, but I didn't really want to get hit by that!'

Chevy fights back a laugh as she hears Arisa's words. It's hard to really offer -more- than that, though, as Braun is busy pushing back against her grappling at that moment! Sure enough, he's able to wriggle out of the hog-wrestler's pull, breaking free just before she's able to complete her full -- if somewhat improvised -- maneuver!

As Braun crashes down in a loud clamor, the hayseed tumbles free, slinging her pole to the opposite side as she leaps to a ready stance. She extends her left hand before her -- and the water splashing around her slowly begins to whirl into a ring around her.

"It's all good! Let's keep this thing rollin'!"

Braun readies himself. And Chevy grins back at him, holding one hand out, ready to meet his charge. At least, she -thinks- she is: when she sees just how blisteringly fast he's closing the gap to her, she starts to second-guess that.

She has just enough time to whip her pole in front of her -- though, there's not much it can do as the blazing-hot cat torpedo is slamming into her raised forearms! Knocked off her feet, she starts to fly backwards... Griting her teeth, she holds on as long as she can!

With the ground rapidly approaching, she hears her protege cry out, 'Chevy! Nothing is working!'

And -that- gives the nimble hydromancer the motivation to resist the irresistible force, press back against him with all her might, and shove herself to safety before she can get sandwiched against the deck!

... Of course, she didn't account for the two lounge chairs in her path! The two chairs go flying as Chevy hurtles past, clanging and clamoring to the side! Miss Beaumont incurs a few bloody scrapes in the process, but those aren't too obvious until she stands back on her own two feet a moment later...

Panting for breath, she calls out to Tanwen: "Don't sweat about the little things, Tan! Take your time and think... "

The scrapes and bruises are stinging like crazy. Chlorinated water is not helping. Shoving that out of her mind is part of the lesson she's trying to share with Tanwen, too. She may be staring back at Braun, and talking to Tanwen -- but she's also, in a way, reminding herself of what's important....

"Arisa's usin' her skills to take control of the situation. But you got your own ways a-doin' that too."

Chevy then... winks back at Braun. He'd mentioned that water was on her side -- and she's about to make use of it. She gets a running start -- but before long, a wave starts to ripple up under her feat. She starts to surf towards him, the wave pushing her along faster and faster. And as she gets close, she'd lean down low, tilting forward as she tries to wrap an arm about his waist. And if she manages that, she'd twist a sharp turn in an attempt to give -him- a chance to see what it's like to slam into those lounge chairs, back-first! She's also hoping to set up the battlefield for the next exchange... But how that plays out that will depend on Braun!

[ARISA]
'Martial arts' was not necessarily heavily on Arisa's training, per se; rather, like many such pursuits, if your demon hunter mother and your onmyouji father are teaching you those SPECIFIC skills, learning to do things like front flips and flying kicks is more byproduct than goal. 'Also,' in the words of Beatrix Hawkins, 'you ever kicked a zombie in the head? I hope you got good boots, darlin', considering.' Thus in some ways, Arisa's nimble fighting gymnastics -- like the rebound she makes off Tanwen after her kick, to land in a crouch -- are surprising.

"Nope, nopenopenope," the Texan says, however, as she gets to her feet. A hand clutches her side, and the lull in the action makes it apparent that in fact, she's got plenty of bruises and such. "Gonna have to disagree on 'nothing is working', thanks." The line is delivered in good humor -- it's a fight! people are gonna get hurt! -- but the POINT of the statement should, ideally, come across.

And while everyone seems to think Arisa's 'in control' of the situation, she hardly LOOKS like it, for sure. Tanwen is very, very strong (well, you'd expect a dragon to be strong), and being 'in control' is about the only way Arisa has of not being pancaked by her, effectively. A flick of the wrist brings the grappling hook from before out, the weighted end twirling a little bit in Arisa's right hand. "Can't let you get your bearings again, dragon lady!" she says, half-turning and flicking out her right hand, the hook traveling a short distance to snag Tanwen -- an arm, a leg, any other relevant draconic body parts -- and drag her off her feet. "I don't have a backup swimsuit!"

COMBATSYS: Chevy successfully hits Braun with Mudskipper EX.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Chevy            1/---====/=======|====---\-------\0            Braun
[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

[BRAUN]
Tanwen is clearly not the only one dealing with things not working!

Again, Braun finds his tremendous attacks failing to connect and as he recovers from the tremendous momentum put forth by his energetic assault, it's just in time to turn to see Chevy manage to get ahold of his enlarged frame and the power of water to drag him up from the ground and send him flying.

Lounge chairs are ripped and crushed to shreds as he tumbles backwards and flattens through them, rolling over several times in a wild daze to finally skid to a stop by using his massive hands to dig large grooves into the ground to arrest his movements.

"Oi..." he rumbles, grunting abit and frowning more deeply. The problem is severe now as far as he can tell. Even if Arisa manages to maintain her lead and take down Tanwen, if she's left to deal with a nearly fully energized Chevy that is a massive failure.

"Tth...shoulda done this sooner.." he grumbles as he pushes up to his feet. "Looks like you been hittin' the proverbial gym, Chevy. Gotta admit, I under estimated ya. Almost like I forgot you were nearly the victor of the last tourament or somethin'.." he grumbles while rubbing his mouth, still in his energized state. That he's maintaining it is telling as in hte past he'd only been able to do so for short bursts but here he is, still a towering beastial monster albiet one that is clearly disadvantaged.

He holds his ground, beckoning for her.

"Let's try one final rodeo..."

COMBATSYS: Braun focuses on his next action.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Chevy            1/---====/=======|====---\-------\0            Braun
[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

COMBATSYS: Tanwen dodges Arisa's Mix-Up Throw.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Chevy            1/---====/=======|====---\-------\0            Braun
[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Tanwen           1/-------/<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Arisa

[TANWEN]
Chevy's advice reaches Tanwen, reassuring her, but also imploring her to take her time and think. This recommendation directly conflicts with Arisa's insistence that she not be allowed to get her bearings - an insistence backed by a grappling hook aiming to snag her and yank her off the ground!

"Eee!"

Tanwen plants her hands and weapons against the ground and dives like a cat out of the hook's path, allowing it to carry on its path and latch onto a deck chair instead. As she pushes back up to her feet, the wings on her back, now starting to become more burden than advantage, start to shrink and fold back into her spine.

"I don't have a back-up swimsuit, either," she mentions, looking a little uncertain as to what that implies. Then, she smiles. "But I have a shirt you can borrow if you like! It says 'Lifeguard' on it."

The horns and tail are retained by the reptilian-mammalian hybrid as the scales crossing her skin also start to fade in density. Nevertheless, the loss of her super-dracojin form doesn't spell the end of the fight for Tanwen. She takes a run toward Arisa, leaping off of a piece of overturned furniture to add extra height as she spins toward the monster hunter, aiming a head-height tail-smack at her opponent en passant! Tail-whipping is a skill, right?

[CHEVY]
Chevy barks out a laugh as Arisa delivers her own answer to Tanwen's 'nothing is working' gripe. "I ain't gonna lie -- it's a little hard to keep focused in a fight like this! Y'all are both doin' great!"

It's probably a good thing she stuck with a general-audience compliment, considering that Arisa seems to be taking her -prior- advice to Tanwen as a suggestion for what -not- to let Tanwen do. The hayseed might start to feel bad about that -- you know, if not for the veteran brawler occupying the bulk of her attention span! And, well, vinyl and tubular metal being hucked every which way from the two taller fighters charging this way and that! Chevy grounds one end of her pole like a paddle as she skids to a halt atop her wave.

"... Well, yeah! Thanks for noticin'!" She allows herself a moment to smile at the compliment. "Aww -- don't write yourself off yet, big guy! Best lesson -you- taught me was: it ain't over till it's over!"

She stares back at Braun's beckoning gesture -- and starts to worry. She'd been lucky enough to have ways to deal with the burly brawler's charges up until now -- but to rush headlong into his den, knowing that whatever he has in store is sure to be plenty painful?

But then she hears Tanwen offering away her shirt. And snickers. Her eyes light up with inspiration.

The water at her feet begins to churn, as Chevy grins back at Braun's challenge. The hayseed balances her pole between her thumbs, levelling it before her. And then she begins to roll it in her hands, as if she was pedaling an upside-down bicycle.

"... Oh, don't give it away jus' yet, Tan -- y'all might -need- a lifeguard here in a moment...!"

Her buckets might be kaput -- but she can still wield her mastery over water somehow. A column of water rises from the puddle at her feet, surging up towards the center of her pole -- and as she spins faster, she begins to lob a series of fist-sized orbs of water out of the funnel! Each chi-saturated blast packs a punch on its own -- but Braun is going to have to ward off as many as a -dozen- of them in rapid succession if he's hoping to close the gap to Chevy!

COMBATSYS: Arisa just-defends Tanwen's Evasive Strike!

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Chevy            0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0            Braun
[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Tanwen           1/-------/=======|===----\-------\0            Arisa

[ARISA]
Discovering your grappling hook overshot and snagged a deck chair instead of your opponent: not great.
Realizing you are about to need an impromptu shield because of said opponent: admittedly, better.

Arisa goes a little wide-eyed at Tanwen's evasion, but all things considered she's not slowing down for ANYONE today. Without missing a beat, the Texan hauls backwards heavily on the grapple, dragging the deck chair *back toward her* at a particularly high rate of speed. In an ideal world she would try to direct it right into Tanwen, but as far as Arisa's concerned right now, that would just be greedy.

Instead, Arisa yanks the thing UNDER the dragon's aerial path of attack, then lets go of the grapple entirely at just the right moment, yanking it upwards. The result is that as Tan's tail flips around for a decptation (not really) strike, it instead slams into the deck chair, splintering it in a hail of wood through which the dragon might see the demon hunter's daughter retreating a step or two to safety.

"Lemons, lemonade!" is all the blonde has time to throw out, before resuming her assault. With her hands free, the Texan produces a sheet of sky blue paper which is folded, excellently and with great swiftness, into... an adorable penguin?!

The paper arctic bird is thrust at Tanwen's personal space, which seems silly UNTIL it starts emitting an aura of bone-chilling cold that will, in fact, freeze the young dragon in place entirely if she doesn't do something about it!

COMBATSYS: Chevy successfully hits Braun with Rinse and Repeat.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >                                ]
Chevy            0/-------/---====|=======\=------\1            Braun
[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Tanwen           1/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0            Arisa

[BRAUN]
"Who's countin' themselves out? Just statin' facts. Besides, most fun getting my butt handed to me in a good while." remarks Braun as he begins pacing, circling Chevy and considering her carefully while still grinning. Bruised, bloodied, clearly by virtue of Chevy's sheer skill and fate itself, on his last legs. So now he has to make a choice in the interests of giving Arisa a fighting chance.

Versus pressing the attack he waits as if attempting to bait Chevy into the offense and as expected she surges in.

When it roars at him finally, a rapid fire volley of high pressured elemental blasts, he attempts to bring his arms up in the defense and starts to barrel in towards her, dashing from side to side to side but ultimately his massive feet slip and his guard is broken leading to a torrential pressure blast erupting into his body violently.

But he still presses in, somehow twisting and managing to allow the momentum of the blast to lift him upwards but not backwards, spinning him into a rough turn that ends up with him landing into a crouched position - shaking the ground - and from this he lunges at her with a burst of strength and speed that may very well be his final effort to try.

"You might get me here but lemme try and give my girl a fightin' chance!" he roars while bearing down on her, crackling in energy that burns away the water clinging to him . Both of his arms come hurtling around in a series of rapid fire strikes, some of which cut through the last of her volley of water blasts, in an attempt to combo her with a series of blistering attacks. The entire setup, including the expectation that he might take the hit, a gamble to give him the boost needed to hopefully leave Arisa with more of an edge to work with.

His thundering strikes end with a final spinning upper cut attempt and then, if she is indeed sent airborne, a grasp for her head by his meaty palm for an attempted violent slam back down, head first, for the ground!

Should the attack hit or not, upon landing he staggers, as if a machine strugglng to not power down but inevitably having run out of the juice needed to keep it going.

COMBATSYS: Braun can no longer fight.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Chevy            0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0            Arisa
[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           1/-------/=======|

COMBATSYS: Tanwen blocks Arisa's Hokuten Jutsu - Hyoubaku.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Chevy            0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0            Arisa
[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           1/-----==/=======|

[TANWEN]
Tanwen lands on the far side of Arisa with a slight grimace on her face, reaching back to rub a hand along the scaly red length of her tail.

"Oh, I think I've got a splinter," she says ruefully, pulling her tail around to examine it for a moment before looking up to find herself confronted with...

"Oh, hello, Mister Penguin," she says as she bends down for a closer look. Her eyes flit up toward Arisa. "Are we stopping to play dolls and drink lemonade?" There's definitely a hopeful note in her tone as she asks the question.

Fortunately for Tanwen's sake, she detects the tell-tale drop in temperature almost immediately, being particularly sensitive to the cold. She sneezes as frost starts to form in her nostrils. "Mister Penguin! I didn't think you capable of such treachery!" she gasps as she backpedals in horror. She sneezes again as her draco-humanic immune system takes action to try and expel the offending magical ice from her body.

"Ah-choo!"

And then, because sneezes hunt in threes, she closes her eyes one more time.

"AAAHHH--FWOOOOO!!!"

By the third sneeze, the girl's draconic sinuses have decided more extreme measures are needed to re-establish nasal thermodynamic equilibrium - and the sneeze is accompanied by a massive jet of flame emitting from Tanwen's mouth, scorching a line straight toward Arisa by minor coincidence and likely annihilating the treacherous yet adorable Mister Penguin for his transgressions in the process! It's probably the most impressive display of dragon-breath anyone has seen Tanwen put forward.

*FWOOOOOOOO*

COMBATSYS: Braun successfully hits Chevy with Beast Roar's Impact.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Chevy            1/------=/=======|===----\-------\0            Arisa
[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           1/------=/=======|

[CHEVY]
Chevy doesn't think ahead very far in her fights. She just kind of... wings it, really. If she seems conservative about expending her energy, it's not because of any conscious thought, it's just because she knows what exhaustion feels like and she just innately paces herself to avoid it. If she seems like she's reading Braun's mind when she responds to his attacks -- well, no, she's just taking wild guesses that happen to pay off. Even when she decided to launch a barrage of watery missiles at her opponent, it wasn't out of any -conscious- thought -- she just hadn't hit him with a pure water attack in some time and decided to change that.

She's been lucky this fight, in other words -- much like she'd been -unlucky- in her finals match against him.

But if there's something Braun is known for -- it's beating the odds. As he charges headlong towards her, Chevy starts to wonder if -maybe- she shouldn't have anchored herself into one place with this particular attack...

As the ebon-flamed Braun charges closer, breaking through the steam remnants of Chevy's artillery onslaught, the waterbender realizes that the clock is ticking. As she squeezes in one last shot, she starts to turn to her side to avoid the freight train thundering towards her...

She doesn't account for the fact that her last shot won't be enough to derail that train, though.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! *clatter*
The waterbender is slammed backwards with the successive strikes!
And her hollow pole clatters a good distance away...

Clouds of steam erupt, making it a bit harder for the cameras to see any specifics -- at least, until Braun's last strike punches Chevy -out- of those clouds and sends her soaring into the air!

And then as he sails up to grab hold of her head, it seems he's dead set on evening the score -- on ensuring that the brawler -does- get a clinch in.

Chevy makes eye contact with Braun for that one tense moment in mid-air, barking out a mirthless laugh -- as if to say: yeah, I probably had this coming!

The very next moment happens in a flash -- and Chevy is slammed down into the deck! The lounge chairs and tables shudder from the ground-shaking impact -- and a momentarily stunned Miss Beaumont tumbles around on the deck for a few full revolutions, arms curled tightly around her head.

"Haah... haah..."
Her eyes squeeze shut, as she pants for air.
She's trying to make that pain go away.
She's trying to think of something to -say-.
But first, she groans.

"Oooogh..." Tumbling forward, she plants her hand on the ground for support. She starts to rise -- and when she opens her eyes, she sees Braun, woozy and starting to power down.

Southern hospitality routines kick in. "... Ugh... Anyone get the number of that chopper that just like to run me over?" She musters a grin as she pushes to her feet. "... You did good, Braun, I give you that..."

She turns her attention to Tanwen. The mentor -could- just... take a breather. But that thought just doesn't occur to her at the moment, now that she realizes she can now give her full attention to Tanwen! And... Mister Penguin.

"Hey yeah... Good thinkin', Tan!" She smiles as she retrieves her pole, bringing it up to her side. And, leaning upon it with one hand, she starts to summon the excess water left around the battlefield into a ring around her feet. The water that hadn't already been turned to steam, of course!

COMBATSYS: Chevy gets ready to turn the tide!

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Chevy            1/--=====/=======|===----\-------\0            Arisa
[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           1/------=/=======|

COMBATSYS: Arisa dodges Tanwen's Dragon Breath EX.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Chevy            1/--=====/=======|===----\-------\0            Arisa
[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           1/------=/=======|

[ARISA]
What do we say to dragon breath, children?

CHORUS OF SEVEN-YEAR-OLDS: No!

Actually, more accurately, staring down the maw of Literal Dragon Fire Breath, Arisa Hawkins says "NOPE!" at the top of her lungs before frantically looking around and seeing what her options are, other than 'be roasted alive'. Dive behind a table? No way. Tanwen's flame would just roast one of those things instantly, never mind that it seems EXTREMELY unlikely that Zack Island got even 'good' tables for this place.

Jump 10' straight up in the air and just, you know, float over it? Unli-- and then she literally says, "OH RIGHT."

Shortly before jumping INTO THE POOL. If you need to be the heat (that can melt steel beams) then the pool is just the thing. But there IS a great slow-mo still captured later from this VOD of Arisa tucking and pseudo-cannonballing into the pool as Tanwen's stream of fire LITERALLY clears the top of her head by mere centimeters.

It's a moment or two later when the thankfully-wearing-a-swimsuit Texan emerges from the shallow end, dripping wet and heaving big heavy breaths. "Ha... ha... okay... let's not... do that... again... thanks..." she pants out, looking around to gauge her surroundings. Chevy and Tanwen, still standing. Braun, her (supposed) teammate, out cold. Hmm.

"Right," the Texan says, gritting her teeth and preparing for the worst. "Just gotta take out a season one semifinalist and a literal dragon, on my own. No pressure." Her eyes unfocus slightly as she once again attempts to center herself and her energy. Normally taking so many breaks in the action in a single fight would be unthinkable, but these are hardly normal circumstances!

COMBATSYS: Arisa gathers her will.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Chevy            1/--=====/=======|=======\-------\0            Arisa
[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           1/------=/=======|

[TANWEN]
"Oh, thanks, Chevy!" Tanwen calls back as she wipes the back of a forearm across her face after her sneezing fit finally dies down and her vision returns. "What was I thinking about?"

Her bemusement fades as she turns to where Arisa has emerged from the shallow end of the pool. "Oh! Are you alright, Arisa? Did you fall in the pool?"

She overhears the Texan's words of encouragement to herself and joins in, waving her arms inspirationally. "You can do it, Arisa! You can do magic! I believe in you, I do!" She stops bouncing up and down after a moment as she considers the greater context. "I mean, I don't want you to win, like, but I bet you could!"

She holds her weapon and shield up with determination.

"But I bet we could, as well! Alright, Chevy!" she calls out, strain visibly on her face as the wings burst out once more from her back. "I bet I can hit her this time, if you help!"

And then her wings carry her up, and up, while Arisa is centering herself. She's a good eight to ten Tanwens in the air or so by the time that she stops ascending and hovers, waiting for Chevy to act as her ATC, before she'll finally swoop down into a dive, heat building around her. If all goes according to plan, she'll be crashing down on top of Arisa with assistance from her mentor! And then she'd try and bring her heated 'shield' smashing down on the demon huntress, unleashing a fiery blast that would send Tanwen herself tumbling away!

[CHEVY]
Chevy draws in her breath. Not only is she exhausted from her duel with Braun, she's also quite a bit banged-up and bruised from his last attack. Using her abilities to churn the water into a torus around her feet has acted as a sort of meditation.

But, she is of course fascinated in the combat between Tanwen and Arisa. She owes it to her student to pay attention -- and to try and help where she can! Especially as it seems Tanwen has been having some trouble.

When her name is called, Chevy perks up a bit. "... You want me to *help?*" she asks, her voice rising up inquisitively.

She twirls her pole around. And she nods with purpose, once she sees Tanwen starting to fly up. "Okay, got it! You'll go high..."

Chevy smiles back at Arisa -- with a hint of remorse, as the Texan -has- been doing so well so far. But with one more hop, she takes off running at Arisa, hoping to use her pole's wide range to her advantage. Chevy leaps into the air -- but lands -much- lower, swinging her pole at Arisa's ankle. If she catches hold, she'd aim to sweep the pole upwards, pulling Arisa's leg up in an attempt to set her up for Tanwen's divebomb attack...

But she's -also- making use of the water she'd summoned -- in this case, using it as an icy blast shield!

"Let's gooooo!"

COMBATSYS: Arisa blocks Tanwen and Chevy's Steam Sale.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////              ]
Chevy            1/--=====/=======|=======\===----\1            Arisa
[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/-------|

[ARISA]
Her fighting partner is down; that's not ideal. Chevy and Tanwen are now able to gang up on her; also not ideal. But Arisa Hawkins was trained by the best, her wise and long-lived father instructing her in the mysteries of the supernatural, and her brassy, indefatigueable mother explaining that sometimes what the mysteries of the supernatural need is a kick to the goddang face.

She can handle it.

Still dripping from her impromptu, life-saving dip in the pool, the Texan hunkers down and watches both Chevy and Tanwen, fingers flexing briefly, before she suddenly takes off at a run before the two can even prepare their attack, circling the pool and then, mysteriously, dropping into what looks like a baseball slide across the ground -- something she's gonna feel tomorrow with those bare legs -- just in time to stand up and see the two of them coming right at her, the Atlanteans having time to set up their attack while Arisa was repositioning herself.

Getting out of the way of Chevy's pole flip is unthinkable; there simply isn't enough time. Instead, the blonde tries to let herself roll with it, keeping her body from tensing up so that she can do what she realizes she NEEDS to do, as she looks up at the approaching Tanwen.

Chevy, being closer to the ground, may then realize WHY Arisa repositioned to where she is now: it's where her grappling hook was lying on the ground from before.

As Tanwen descends, with a wordless "YAAAAAAAAA!" Arisa swings out the grapple even as she RISES, snagging an umbrella similar to Tanwen's own from a nearby table, letting the momentum provided BY CHEVY help pull it into her hands.

The result is that the flaming, steaming descending dragon meets an ascending impromptu shield. The two fighters clash in a brilliant burst of scarlet and steam before Arisa, by any visual reckoning smacks down onto the area around the pool in a huge cloud of dust and a loud, LOUD sound.

For a bit, the dust cloud obscures everything, and even the cameramen/drones can't tell what's happened.

Until.

"I think you were trying to be encouraging in your own way," comes a hoarse voice, as the silhouette of Arisa emerges from the debris, cut and bruised but definitely not out yet. "So thanks for that. Because yeah... I DO actually think I can."

Her arms come up, crossed at chest height; in each hand is a sealing charm. The Texan gives a wild grin. "And I'm not stopping while I'm still on my feet!"

In an absolute flurry of movement, the two talismans are folded, orgami-wise, into what is now recognizable as the curse bullets she's used in every fight in the NFG so far. Tossing them into the air, the demon hunter's daughter's voice rings out clearly as her hands come up, each one holding her mother's custom SMGs: "Let you who preside over warriors descend here swiftly!" What makes the guns custom? For starters, SMGs don't typically load ammo this way... but both of THESE have a top-loading slot for those moments when you absolutely need a bullet made of something crazy to handle a particularly fancy undead.

Without missing a beat, the orgami curse bullets slot cleanly into both guns from their fall, with Arisa pointing one at both Tanwen and Chevy.

"The lone star shines the brightest!" Arisa shouts, before pulling the trigger, a silvery-blue-purple shot heading for each of her opponents. "Kyu kyu nyo ritsu ryo!"

COMBATSYS: Tanwen dodges Arisa's Hybrid Jutsu - Tansei Overdrive.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////              ]
Chevy            1/--=====/=======|-------\-------\0            Arisa
[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/-------|

[TANWEN]
In the aftermath of her cataclysmic descent, Tanwen is left sitting dazed on the concrete several yards away, fortunately free of the dust cloud (nobody wants her to have another allergy attack here) and left to observe the outcome from a cinematic perspective. Her mouth drops open, lower lip quivering and voice quavering as Arisa emerges from the cloud.

"Cheeevy! It still didn't work again! And that was my second best move!" she says in a trembling, high-pitched voice. Then, with deep concern and shame, she asks, "Was I too nice?? I'm sorry, Chevy!"

She has the dramatic sense to be quiet and shudder as Arisa pulls her submachine guns back out. She doesn't know what Arisa's talking about, exactly, but Tanwen is used to that when it comes to dealing with people who aren't Winn. She understands perfectly when the gun is pointed her way, though.

"Ahhh!!"

Hiding behind her umbrella, Tanwen closes her eyes and silently prays to the dice gods.

*PING*

The cursed bullet slams right into the cap of the umbrella, sending the makeshift shield loose from Tanwen's grip to spin away into the air like a frisbee - this time with no intent of returning to its wielder.

"Chevy! I'm going to need a new shield!!" Tanwen shouts as she watches the umbrella disappear over the poolhouse, before turning back to Arisa and hesitantly adjusting her grip on her 'sword' (more of a wooden pole, really) to a two-handed one, the same trepidation on display in her stance as Luke Skywalker facing Darth Vader in the depths of Cloud City. She hardens her gaze as she sucks in a deep breath.

"Okay. No more Miss Nice Dragon! But only for now!!"

Leaping forward, she aims a swift overhand smash at Arisa!

COMBATSYS: Arisa successfully hits Chevy with Hybrid Jutsu - Tansei Overdrive.

[                      \\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Chevy            2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|-------\-------\0            Arisa
[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/-------|

[CHEVY]
Chevy isn't really thinking about the higher-order effects of her attack. She knows that if she can harry Arisa, she can make it easier for Tanwen to land. The possibility of -aiding- Arisa just isn't one that springs to mind.

But then... Arisa emerges as something other than a charred wreck -- causing Chevy to gawk with wild-eyed amazement.

Tanwen's complaint has her 'big sister' wincing a just a bit. Rising and readying her pole, Chevy notes, "It's fine, Tan, we'll talk 'bout that later..."

But, there's not much time to expound upon that. Because Arisa's got a cool reveal to bang out first! Which... Honestly, has Chevy's eyes widening a bit. She'd seen Ayame bust out her onmyoujutsu in a fight -- but to see it coming from the college student she'd been reassuring on the Mermaid is... well, it hits a bit different!

Particularly when -guns- are worked into it all. A fact which... actually causes Chevy to freeze up a bit. She'd thought those were props before. But they really -do- seem like legit firearms, don't they??

A bit slow on the draw, she starts: "... Now, I'm all for the Second Amendment, but--"

She doesn't have time to finish that statement -- much less, raise her hands as a sacrifice -- before a cursed bullet nails her right between the eyes. Chevy's head flies backwards sharply -- and her body trails along behind like a party streamer.

She sails right backwards until her body slams into a pool chair -- which ends up making for a picture-perfect shot as her pole lands in her lap, and her head slumps forward a moment later.

Her eyes are still wide from shock -- though it isn't until a good four seconds later that she takes another breath. And then, that breath is followed by the battlecry of Team Atlantis as the reality of what's coursing through her finally hits home.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH"

In a flash, Chevy bolts to her feet, one hand rubbing her forehead. "Ahh, ahh, ow, ow... This... " She starts to say more, but Tanwen is telling her about the need for a ... Shield?!

Pant, pant. Even with that... she hadn't been really -frustrated- up until this point. But it's starting to show that she's been out here in the sun for a bit too long.

It seems like the waterbender has decided it's time to cool off. The dust kicked up in the last exchange of attacks begins to settle down -- though closer inspection would show that it's being suppressed by the calm pitter-patter of raindrops.

"Aye..." starts Chevy, quietly. And with all her focus on maintaining the rainstorm, and in setting one foot in front of the other to approach Arisa, certain things begin to slip in the process.

"Wull, it's hoi toide nah, Arisa, and you're 'bout to get drug at to sea!"

The pole drops; its hollow structure is revealed by the sound it makes clattering upon the deck.

But in that same moment, Chevy is suddenly moving -blindingly- fast, cutting a swath through the falling raindrops as she streaks towards Arisa. She'll lean low -- and seek to slam her shoulder into Arisa's waist while wrapping her arms about her!

If she manages to grab hold, the rain-soaked hog wrangler would spin Arisa around in place once, before using the fallen rain to geyser herself and her opponent upward into a dizzying spiral! At the apex of their leap, a determined Chevy would then twist her grip around on Arisa, bringing her down for a bodyslam onto the pool deck!

COMBATSYS: Tanwen successfully hits Arisa with Power Strike.
- CRAZY Hit! -

[                       \\\\\\\  < >  ///////////                   ]
Chevy            0/-------/<<<<<<<|=====--\-------\0            Arisa
[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/------=|

COMBATSYS: Arisa counters Sound Side from Chevy with Chouten Jutsu - Mitsuboshi.

[                           \\\  < >  //////////                    ]
Chevy            1/-----<</<<<<<<<|======-\-------\0            Arisa
[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/------=|

[ARISA]
It feels a little unfair to Tanwen, in some respects, but between the two people angling to put her in the dirt this very second, Chevy is the one who demands immediate attention... and with her back to the wall, Arisa is about to attempt to pull out every possible stop she has because if she DOESN'T, between the two ladies, she is going to be unconscious in short order.

It's the little grapple escape she made before that's the key, here; an outside observer might notice that Arisa's jutsu can temporarily give paper the solidity of metal and as a trio of paper charms suddenly appear in her (also suddenly gun-free) hands, it's clear that's her intent. One charm is suddenly pressed forward with the tips of her index and middle fingers at waist-height; the other two blaze with flame-like silver light into vague, bird-like shapes.

The solidity of the charm doesn't last long, but it's long enough so that Chevy's shoulder ram impacts THAT instead, the energy field around it on impact pouring some of that purifying energy into the waterbender before the two shikigami birds divebomb her, tacking on even more of that energy and ideally putting a stop to Chevy's string of attacks.

Heaving breaths, Arisa has enough time to say "Can't stop won't st--"

Then Chevy gets to see some comeuppance in real time, as Tanwen -- who's had MORE than enough time by now to make her approach -- quite literally Smash Bros hits the Texan right off the map. As in, she literally gets hit hard enough to go flying, even farther than she did after taking that meteor dive a bit ago.

When the demon hunter's daughter finally claws her way out of the tangle of chairs, a table, and apparently some swim floaties she landed in, looking back at Tanwen and Chevy, she groans and bites out, "Again, gonna have to take issue with this 'nothing is working' framing, guys."

[TANWEN]
In her aspirations to emulate the dragons of myth and yore, it can be said that Tanwen often comes up somewhat short. It's hard to command that level of respect and majesty when you spend half your time cosplaying as a human teenager and the other half as a chibi artist's rendition of a dragon.

Sometimes, though, a bit of that draconic strength shows through. The hit that sends Arisa flying is one of those times. She straightens from her landed leap with her weapon against her shoulder, gawking at the carnage. When Arisa emerges, she offers an apologetic smile and wave in acknowledgement that she hasn't inadvertently murdered a human in her moment of dragoniness.

"Well, it wasn't working before, but I supposed it worked that time!" she calls out, before taking off into a light run around the pool, clearly signalling her intent as she brandishes the wooden weapon once more. Once she's closed to melee range, she shouts, "Okay, Chevy! I think we can get her, now!"

She hasn't noticed quite how hard that reversal might have hit her mentor, instead focusing entirely on Arisa as she looks for what seems like an opportune moment before charging in with a quick horizontal double-swing of her weapon!

[CHEVY]
When Chevy had tucked her head down, she'd expected to collide with a nice warm body, not an unyielding paper wall with the resilience of steel. Between that, getting shot in the head by a weird curse bullet that has given her the mother of all headaches, and having been tackled by Braun earlier... Well, the fight turned sour for her -real- quick, didn't it??

Repelled by the wall, she splish-splashes backwards through the rain-soaked deck, both hands reaching up to steady her ringing head. And then, hearing some kind of danger, she looks through her fingertips to see two birds birds dive-bombing her -- which is sure to give the hayseed something -else- to talk about with her animal-shapeshifting boyfriend come nightfall!

"AHH AHH MAKE THEM STOP" she howls, flailing and swatting ineffectually at the energy-bird things until they go back to shikigami-land for the next time. At one point she loses her footing and tips over, falling onto her duff and letting the remnants of her miniature rainstorm wash away the blood from her recent injuries as Tanwen clobbers Arisa right off the map(?)

It isn't till Arisa returns with a sassy comment that Chevy remembers she's still -in- the fight. No one called her out, so according to the landmark decision of Coalbridge (2023), she's still in the fight! Wiping her rain-slicked forelocks out of her face, she pushes back to her feet...

"... Well, yeah, fair -- -something- worked." She wobbles listlessly to one side, grimacing. The bruises don't look -as- bad now that she's sopping wet; her wet shirt does even less for her modesty then her cropped denim shorts. A slight breeze could probably knock her over.

But even with blackness crowding in on her vision, Chevy manages to flash a smile -- wiggling her fingers as the rainwater sharply reverses direction, running -up- her legs, rather than down...

"Yeah, Tan. I reckon we still got us a shot at this!"

Before long, the water dripping from her fingers seems to be making them look as huge as baseball mitts. It's not just an illusion, though: Chevy suddenly strides across the water-slicked deck, clearing the gap to Arisa lightning-fast! She's hoping to bypass the paperwork this time as she reaches out to grab Arisa by the shoulder and hip with her watery mitts -- and if she manages that, she'd use the aid of her water 'gloves' to swing Arisa up and overhead in a judo hold, slam her down into the deck -- and then lift her up for a second slam! She looked like she was down before...

COMBATSYS: Chevy keeps on fighting!

[                          \\\\  < >  //////////                    ]
Chevy            0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0            Arisa
[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/-------|

... But she's not ready to call it quits just yet!

COMBATSYS: Tanwen successfully hits Arisa with Medium Strike.

[                          \\\\  < >  /////                         ]
Chevy            0/-------/--=====|=======\=------\1            Arisa
[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/-----==|

COMBATSYS: Arisa blocks Chevy's Spout Toss.

[                          \\\\  < >  //                            ]
Chevy            0/-------/--=====|=======\===----\1            Arisa
[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/-----==|

[ARISA]
The spirit may be willing, but there is simply no way the flesh can handle fighting 2 on 1 when Arisa had a plenty grueling fight beforehand, no matter how many times Tanwen claims the opposite to be true. Too many attacks from too many angles; there's swings of the not-exactly-a-spear, Chevy's judo shenanigans... the Texan tries to move her body out of the way but it simply isn't meant to be, and she ends up in a sprawl on the far side of the pool.

Reaching out an arm, she slowly hauls herself to her feet... or tries, anyway, fingers splayed and scrabbling a bit on the ground before she manages to get at least to her knees, one eye shut (and a little bruised, so maybe not just shut for dramatic effect). Does she have one last strike in her? One final attempt to make this all work?

'The thing is,' her mother had said to her once, 'most people don't know 'bout the stuff I see. So I gotta keep going no matter how bad the situation gets for me, 'cause who else is gonna stand up for them?'

This is hardly that kind of situation -- neither Chevy nor Tanwen are threats to humanity -- but the principle remains the same: you keep getting back up and doing what you can until you literally can't, because who else is going to?

"I know you didn't mean anything by it, Tan-chan," Arisa says, voice a little hoarse. "But a little tip from me to you: talkin' about how nothin's working for you in a fight you're winning isn't your best claw forward."

And then, with a heave of her whole torso, she is shouldering... well. An old-school and small but still distinctly rocket-firing quad rocket launcher.

Sighting as best she can with blurry vision, the blonde singsongs, "The stars at night, are big and bright..."

FOOM! FOOM! FOOM! FOOM!

"...even outside-a Texas."

What actually gets fired are not explosive mortars -- if the NFG balked at live bullets instead of blanks, *rockets* is probably a lot -- but instead ninja-esque fireworks bombs. They still have plenty of concussive force when they explode, it's just that they explode into bright, disorienting fireworks displays instead of blowing up everything in sight.

Whatever happens to them, however, Arisa topples forward on said rocket launcher, unconscious. She did all she could, until she couldn't anymore.

COMBATSYS: Arisa can no longer fight.

[                          \\\\  <
Chevy            0/-------/--=====|
[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/-----==|

COMBATSYS: Arisa successfully hits Tanwen with Big and Bright.
-* CRITICAL HIT! *-

[                          \\\\  <
Chevy            0/-------/--=====|
[                            \\  <
Tanwen           0/-------/---====|

[TANWEN]
Tanwen may be on the enthusiastic side, but she can see that Arisa is struggling to stand up after the flanking maneuver that Team Atlantis performed on her, so she hesitates to approach, gripping the handle of her glorified stick with both hands.

'I know you didn't mean anything by it, Tan-chan...'

Tanwen's lips purse up and her brow furrows at Arisa's words. It's not the first time that the Texan has tried to spin Tanwen's lived experience in this match as some sort of fabrication. She's not really sure what to do about it at this point, so she turns to her mentor, who is 28 human years her junior but probably about ten human years her senior in terms of traditional human maturity milestones, for guidance.

"Chevy," she says, reaching up to scratch her head, "Do you think Miss Arisa is angry with me for saying nothing was working? It's just that, I only said it because first she blocked my Magic Missile, then she set me on fire when I tried to hit her, then she did magic when I tried to hit her again, and then she tried to jump kick me and even though I was sure I knew what to do, I just got kicked in the head. So I'm not sure why that means I was winning. I thought she was confused, but she keeps saying it, so now I'm wondering if I'm the one who didn't remember it? Also my name is Tanwen, not Tan-Chan - but maybe I'm wrong about that too -"

***KAKAKABOOOOOOOM***

"CHEEEEEEEVVVYYYYYYYYYyyyy"

Tanwen's crisis of confidence is interrupted by the cluster of rockets all slamming into her full force, the concussive flashes sending her flying blinded and deafened and screaming on just about the same trajectory that the umbrella-shield took about a minute ago, disappearing to the other side of the poolhouse before there's a loud crash a few seconds later.

COMBATSYS: Tanwen takes no action.

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

COMBATSYS: Tanwen can no longer fight.

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

[CHEVY]
It's frustrating, in a lot of ways. Chevy gets along with just about everyone. She's been frustrated at Junko for effectively stranding everyone together on this island, yet there's room in Chevy's heart for even -her- to be redeemed. Somehow, the hayseed had even managed to make a believer out of her first and largest rival, Constance Coalbridge -- so she's apt to believe -anything- is possible if she just wills it into existence!

But... right now, this is the -start- of a rift she's not sure she can heal: an apparently irreconcilable difference between the student she was paired with and the student she'd convinced to stick around in the NFG.

Not to say Chevy doesn't try to start it before it begins. As Tanwen starts to ask her questions, pleadingly, Chevy's busy gesturing to Arisa with both her index fingers. Pointing! Madly! "Tan -- please! Please -watch out! This..."

The Carolina girl keeps turning between Tanwen and Arisa, alternating between pointing a little and pointing a whole LOT.

"Tan, you cain't just look -away- from your opponent! The fight ain't *over* yet..." She pleads with Tanwen to take her expert advice in this matter!

But all that takes place in the fractured seconds before Arisa can work the trigger on her rocket launcher. Once it's squeezed...

Well, to be fair, there -is- a moment where Chevy is frozen in disbelief. Where the heck was Arisa carring -that?!-

That moment of indecision costs her the chance to spare Tanwen from her own soliloquy-induced state. And Chevy's eyes go wide as Tanwen is blasted off into the horizon! ... Or the other end of the poolhouse. One or the other.

Chevy bares her teeth, looking first at Arisa -- in what -looks- like an apology, but the Texan could be forgiven for thinking otherwise -- and then at the NFG tech crew member standing in as an official.

She gives him an imploring look. "Bell? S'cuse me, sir, there's a -bell- in your hands, right? Could you just--"

"Oh. OH! Right!" The stand-in official rings the bell three times. "The winner is -- Team Atlantis!"

A sopping wet Chevy flashes an all-too-saccharine smile, giving a little hop -- and a perfect camera-ready moment for the Chevaliers back home -- and claps her hands once in a cheer. "All right!" She also gives one quick bow in the direction of Arisa and Braun. "Thanks for the fight, y'all -- but I gotta check on Miss Tanwen!"

And without a moment to spare -- the mentor is dashing off towards her distant student!

COMBATSYS: Chevy lets the tide wash out.

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

[BRAUN]
"Yoooo---WOW! M.V.P.!"

To hear Braun's delighted and impressed roar you'd think that The Big Game Hunters had taken the match ... but in some ways through Arisa...they did just that. Chevy might have found a second wind and managed to pull back to her feet at the end, which is exactly what happened when she and Braun faced off in the last tournament so..ironic there--but that Arisa had managed to capitalize on his last desperate assault on Chevy to try and give her an edge and put the NFG fianlist down to begin with while also still facing Tanwen -and- putting the dragon down...?

Well needless to say, Braun's impressed.

"Man, that was wild!"

The burly beastial fighter had managed to pull back to his feet mere moments ago and thus had caught the tail end of these exchanges with wide eyes. His regenerative abilities had long ago kicked in though not fast enough to keep him in the fight against Chevy but fast enough for him to actually see how this all panned out and after the explosive finale of Arisa's last attack has settled down - he's leapt over towards her unconscious form to check her over, beating any of the NFG officials in the process.

A quick glance is given towards Chevy who is undoubtly rushing towards her own partner but his attention returns towards Arisa immediately afterwards.

"I don't think we coulda predicted exactly how this one turned out, eh Chevy?" he yells as shes off and then with a slight pained smirk to his voice, "...Congratulations!"

Log created on 11:51:13 06/19/2024 by Chevy, and last modified on 11:16:44 06/27/2024.