Description: Flying the Unfriendly Skies: Brian fights Hotaru. Hotaru may have won, but is likely traumatized forever. (Winner: Hotaru)
Every once in a long while, the organizers of the Neo League decide that they need some new, interesting venue to have one of their fights. And while having a live audience is usually preferred, sometimes the locale just doesn't quite allow for such. In this particular case, both factors are in full effect.
[ Brought to you by DHL ] flashes across screens at home, just before the fight venue is shown on camera... And DHL, the parcel delivery service, has definitely more than just the sponsor. It is here, inside the belly of an Airbus A300-600 Beluga Super Transporter Cargo Jet, the cameras slowly pan around the cargo hold before zooming in on the first of the two combatants.
Brian Battler sits on a crate of cargo, wrenching his hands quietly. The turbulence at thirty thousand feet has the Texan a little concerned... He's not really a fan of flying. As the turbulence at thirty thousand feet begins rocking him slightly, the Texan frowns.
"Tonight! Inside the belly of a cargo plane, from Los Angeles, California to Atlanta, Georgia! Two fighters... Who will be shipped off to loserville? Find out, as we present... NEO! LEAGUE! FIGHTS!"
It's been a few weeks since Hotaru has shown up in a Neo League match. Last time she wore herself out to exhaustion facing one of the toughest teen fighters out there, Sakura. And since then, while there have been occasional invites, she hasn't been in a position to accept them. With pressing matters like recovering from injuries incurred with her rampant school-yard fighting of late, or being kidnapped, or having scheduling conflicts with Saturday Night Fight appearances, it's taken a while since she could accept an invitation to appear.
Flying doesn't bother her at all, but at the moment, as she stands near one end of the bay, her hands clasped behind her back, Hotaru eyes the space she has to work with. It's a large plane to be sure, but she's a fighter that enjoys the liberty of free space within which to maneuver. Though, she might be able to take advantage of the walls in other ways, she ponders.
Dressed as she always is for fighting appearances, she has on her white, short-sleeved blouse and blue Chinese styled vest. Her hair is done up in the two long, perky pig-tails near the back of her head that one would expect if they'd seen the girl enough. Idly, she tightens one of her red hair ribbons, mentally preparing herself for this match against an opponent she hasn't been able to find out much about except for one undeniable fact. He's BIG. Opponents like that can be rough - but they also lend themselves to underestimating her. Sometimes it works out to her advantage. If she's nervous, she hides it well, her expression quiet and neutral. She moves away from the edge of the bay, cobalt blue eyes focusing on Brian, wondering what it is that prompts the uneasy expression on his face.
The former NFL linebacker isn't one to disguise the emotions on his face, but there is one other thing he's concerned with... Explosive decompression. If he's to be flinging himself and this young girl around, he really hopes he doesn't put a hole in the hull and send them both into the stratosphere. Because a long freefall with a hard stop at the end doesn't really sound like a fun thing to do right now.
The yellow hazard lights inside the cabin begin to flash, prompting the mountain of a man to stand and eye his opponent a little more thoroughly. Short, cute, Asian... From his experience, this likely makes her far more dangerous than a stampede of longhorns. Life is not going to be easy, these next few minutes... But, well, he's getting paid to do this.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls," the prerecorded voice says through the internal loudspeaker on the plane, echoing in the vast emptiness of the cargo hold. "Our first contestant... Formerly of the Dallas Cowboys, this man broke records and bones in his six year career in the NFL before becoming a stock car racer... He also fought in the 2001 King of Fighters tournament alongside Heavy D! and Lucky Glauber... The large, the mean, the daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaangerous... Briaaaaaan Baaattler!"
With his introduction, the Texan tips his hat towards his pigtailed opponent, and prepares for battle to commense.
COMBATSYS: Brian has started a fight here.
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Brian 0/-------/-------|
"And facing Brian Battler is a familiar face in the League. Getting back into the swing of things after a year long hiatus with a number of close matches and even a surprise harrowing Draw against a top tier fighter, it's our very own swift, high flying, acrobatic fighter herself, HOOOTARUUUUU FUUTAAABAAAA!"
The teen fighter smiles faintly at the introduction. They always sound rather silly to her. Maybe she should write something and submit it herself to give them something to say. But the information on Brian is useful. She should have gone back further in her research. A King of Fighters participant, eh? That means he's far from a nobody, that's for sure.
As he tips his hat, the smaller fighter bows her head, hands steepled in front of her in a very traditional gesture. Given her style of dress and mannerisms, Brian might be able to expect to have a very defined martial art style to deal with.
Turning her side toward him as if to offer a small target to aim for, she holds one arm out in front of her, other arm bent and higher up, prepared for stronger attacks most likely. "FIGHT!" The instant the call is made, Hotaru is sprinting toward Brian with the speed she relies on. It isn't a blind, suicidal charge though. She'll try to weave around a counter attack if any. But her goal is to secure a grip on his large arm, giving her the leverage she needs to launch into a sequence of stomps as she'll run right up the front of the massive opponent like a flight of stairs, only to backflip off his shoulders to give her room afterward.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru has joined the fight here.
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Hotaru 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Brian
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits Brian with Shin-Jou Tai.
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Brian
Yup. She's fast. And dangerous. And her feet surprisingly hurt quite a bit as she runs up him, then bounds off his shoulders like a springboard. Stumbling forward a number of steps, the large man regains balance and footing, turning around to glare at the blue-haired girl.
God, this professional circuit shit sucks sometimes.
Planting a foot hard on the floor, the giant launches, sending himself flying towards the young woman. His feet stayon the floor for a moment, sliding along the surface, until his feet get bound up in some netting and take his feet out from under him... but the lack of traction doesn't seem to be enough to take the momentum out of the attack. He's lost his footing whilst going for quarterbacks before... Tackling whilst off-balance is the forte of defenders, after all.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru blocks Brian's Hyper Tackle.
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Hotaru 0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0 Brian
Just bunkering down and weathering out the incoming attack may not seem like the smartest move, but Brian reacts so quickly that he's able to catch up with Hotaru even as her feet are barely touching the ground. No time to press off to make it back into the air like she would have preferred, all she can do is bring her arms up to protect herself from the worst of it. Even still, she's sent reeling backward, her blocking position completely shattered by the man who dwarfs her easily.
"Wow! That hurt about as had as most people's clean hits!" she calls back, sounding a little bit awestruck. Why the League saw fit to pit her against such a bruiser is beyond her. She's not backing down from a challenge now, but she would like to buy a little space and a little time. Rolling her arm backward, her forearm becomes awash in a deep blue aura, the small statured fighter focusing energy into the palm of her hand until a shimmering sphere conjeals. Judging by how hard she's focusing on this feat, it isn't something she can do easily like many fireball chuckers.
Once she's satisifed, the girl swings her arm forward, flinging the chiball from the ends of her fingers, "YA!"
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits Brian with Hakki Shou.
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Hotaru 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1 Brian
God dammit. While pulling himself back onto his feet, he glances up and finds himself sucking face with a big ball of blue energy. And it hurts. Oh, does it hurt. He can feel the nerves all along his face scream. His hands skid along the floor from the impact for a moment, before he shoves up hard and pushes himself onto his feet.
"Well, goddamn," he mutters, rubbing his nose and trying to get his nosehairs to straighten out. "You're just a bundle of surprises, ain'tcha, missy."
Brian, on the other hand, is a one trick pony. Mack trucks don't do a lot more than hit you like a ton of lead... and that's what the Texan is aiming to do. Taking two steps before leaping, the linebacker suddenly starts to pivot on his beltbuckle like a top, attempting to crash down on the young woman like a sack of bricks.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru fails to interrupt Screw Body Press from Brian with Tenshin Shou EX.
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Hotaru 1/-----==/=======|=======\=------\1 Brian
At his comment about her surprise, Hotaru actually breaks her serious expression to smile back at Brian. Somehow, she doesn't expect that he'll need to rely on surprises himself. When he takes to the air though, she's a little surprised at the height he's able to get.
It takes a moment to pump herself into trying to intersect his trajectory with her own body. Jumping into the Texan is pretty much jumping into his game. But maybe that's a surprise of its own, right? Maybe she can pull it off? No time to doubt! Hotaru crouches down then leaps up, trying to strike Battler with her shoulder right in the stomach.
Sadly for young Futaba, all she manages to do is get herself stuck to him and driven right back down into the ground with his full on body press. She wheezes as the air is forced out of her, eyes widening from the pain of being crushed beneath the massive fighter. And really, there's nothing else she can do for the moment. If he was a wrestler type, he'd probably be able to just hold her down indefinitely now.
Well, technically, Brian is kinda the wrestler type. And while holding her down would be something he might consider, it's not what's on his mind.
There are two reasons for this. One, it's on an international television broadcast. Two, Hotaru's underage.
So, Brian peels himself up off of the young woman, mentally smirking to himself after squashing her flat onto the ground. But the big man isn't gonna let the girl rest there, no. He's gonna be chivalrous and give the girl a hand up. Actually, two. And actually, it's not so chivalrous, as he's trying to pick her up at the hips and raise her onto his shoulder. You see, there's a shoulder-mounted gutbuster and backbreaker, a piledriver and a leaping powerbomb in her future, should he actually get his huge mitts on her.
Does she have tickets to the Pain Train? Toot toot!
COMBATSYS: Brian successfully hits Hotaru with American Supernova.
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Hotaru 1/-======/=======|=------\-------\0 Brian
Peeling Hotaru off the floor doesn't end up being much of a challenge as even before Brian gets his hands on her she seems somewhat out of it. There's nothing to stop him from putting the smaller fighter through the punishing sequence of attacks, one after another. But by the time he hefts her up, Hotaru seems to at least be cognisant of what he's going to do to her and she doesn't just limply get manhandled.
Her lithe, flexible frame helps her better weather the attacks that could crack a larger opponent, and even when he pile drives and power slams her into the floor of the large plane, she manages to move herself around enough to avoid getting crushed as much as one might expect. By the time he drops her, she still looks way worse off than when he started, curling up on the ground as she lies on her side for a moment. She needs to do better than this, she tells herself, getting back up to her feet, looking a little bit wobbly.
She should stop and catch her breath, maybe back off a bit. But she's looking not just frazzled but panicked. It's with sense of focus that Hotaru blitzes forward again, diving into a roll that brings her to Brian's feet. There is a split second pause as she comes out of the roll, her arms out at her sides for balance, and then the next instant she's pushing off the ground into a powerful flip kick, a fount of blue energy trailing behind her entire body. "Ten-shou..." Whatever she's done up until now is nothing in comparison to what she's putting into this next assault.
COMBATSYS: Brian fails to interrupt Ten-shou Ranki from Hotaru with Samurai Bomb.
- Power fail! -
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0 Brian
With the force behind the powerful flip kick, she would normally launch opponents into the air. Not so here. Even catching Brian offguard and delivering the strongest kick she can manage wouldn't be enough to budge him. She expected that though, so that even as she reaches the apex of her trip into the air, Hotaru flips in place, changing her trajectory to spear right back down into Brian to knock him the rest of the way off his feet right through a large, empty wooden shipping crate.
By the time the sides collapse and the cloud of splinters come to rest, Hotaru is sitting atop Brian, kneeling on his stomach, her palms pressed against his chest. The charge up of energy in the air around the girl is swift, the time to act to get her off is preciously brief.
The energy she controls takes on the form of a blue whirlwind around the two fighters, ruffling hair and clothing. But the vortex is only a buffer, a temporary place storing the energy until Hotaru can build up no more. It's that instant that she pulls it all back in through herself, acting as a conduit as she funnels the energy directly into Brian's chest, "AAAAYAAAA!"
There is an explosion of yellow light, delivering one final punch, and then Hotaru exhales, slumping forward, still kneeling on the large fighter as debris settle down around the cargo bay. Whatever that was, it took just about everything out of the girl it would appear.
Why can't he fight someone like he's used to? A drunk kid in college whom thinks he's hot shit, or some lame duck lineman who needed to retire a year or two back. Instead, it's this young thing that hits like a freight train and...
And...
Wow, that's one hell of an attack.
Blasted through a shipping container. Sat upon. And, uh, that's an interesting way of blasting one's fighting spirit into someone. The mountain of a man is impressed that she's taken him off his feet, given that he weighs about three times as much as she does. After being attacked like that, though, there's not much the man can do to react to it. He'd tried to pull her out of the air before the attack went off, but now... He's actually kinda glad he got hit.
"Damnation, darlin'," he says, reaching up to scratch his head... Noticing that his hat is missing, anger stirs for a moment before dying down quickly. Normally, losing his hat's enough to really piss the Texan off, but not in this case. "Make sure and call me when you hit 18, a'ight?"
Eventually, Hotaru will get up off him. But for now, Brian isn't going to force the issue.
Panting after having poured everything she had into that attack, Hotaru is slow to move or react to Brian's comment. But she finally regains awareness, opening her eyes to look into the ex Football player's face. Why do people look at her like that after that attack? They're supposed to be writhing in pain, not looking like they're torn between smirking and laughing!
"Hmph!" Cheeks blushing red, Hotaru pulls her arm back and aims to sock Brian right in his own cheek, trying to finish the job that her all out attack didn't seem to be able to do. "Ya!"
COMBATSYS: Brian endures Hotaru's Strong Punch.
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|=======\-------\0 Brian
Ha ha ha ha.
As the young woman begins to blush, Brian starts to laugh. Even as she cocks her fist back, he continues to laugh. He even continues laughing as the blow flies, angling his head so the blow hits the side of his skull instead of his cheek. It stings, and he feels a little woozy, but it's not enough to actually knock him out. At least, not quite yet. Maybe.
"You're a doll," he says, reaching up with his treelike arms to try and wrap around Hotaru's waist. If she's blushing now, he'll make her blush even more as he tries to grab her and squeeze her hard against his body, thus making the somewhat lewd contact even moreso. Because Brian excels in moves that shock and embarass, and he's not currently packing any chaw.
COMBATSYS: Brian can no longer fight.
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|
And, after that is done, so is Brian. He lays his head down and starts dozing. Perhaps with Hotaru tucked under his arms.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru blocks Brian's Medium Throw.
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Hotaru 0/-------/----===|
Having delivered her punch, Hotaru pulls her hand back, still propping herself up with her other palm. At this rate, it looks like she's going to just sit there on him and try to wear him down unless he ends up knocking her off.
Which is why in the end when he reaches up to embrace her, she isn't quick enough to roll away in time. Thick arms wrap around the girl, squeezing her against him. "What? H-hey, wait a second, I-" As the squeeze forces the air out of her lungs, Hotaru makes a single cute squeak, her protest cut off, her cheeks oh so very red now.
And when Brian closes his eyes? Hotaru is still stuck in his arms, but conscious. The League officials are rather stumped as to how to call it at first, and for several seconds there's just silence. Well, he's out... but the small female can't seem to pry her way free...
Finally Hotaru starts to twist and wriggle, slowly prying her way out of Battler's arms and rolling off him in the end with an exasperated gasp of relief as she finally gets her breath back, panting desperately for air now as she sits kneeling on the floor. That makes it easier for the officials to call the match in her favor.
"With a victory via... well, we don't know what that was... the winner is Hotaru Futaba!!" comes the announcement.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\ <
Hotaru 0/-------/----===|
COMBATSYS: Hotaru has ended the fight here.
Log created on 01:58:36 06/02/2007 by Brian, and last modified on 21:33:51 06/07/2007.