Neo League 426 - #450: Makoto vs Tran

Description: Makoto and Dr. Tran have their obligatory rematch after both of them power up. This time...IT'S NOT A DRAW. (Winner: Makoto)



The trees are still. Silent sentinals, watching and waiting, never acting. Wholly undisturbed by the little goings on of nature around them. The adorable squirrel, dashing from branch to branch. The noble fox, dashing about with a gleam in its eye. It's idyllic, a scene of pure tranquility.

"ALRIGHT! WHO'S READY FOR SOME ACTION!?"

Then Dr. Tran has to come and fuck everything up. Followed by a small Neo League Camera crew, and an eager representative of the Japanese Lumberjack Union (they pulled some strings to set this up), you better believe he is /psyched/. Twice before have he and Makoto dueled: once, they tied. Once, he can't really remember what happened. However, each time was a battle with a weaker Tran. And simpler Tran. A Tran who could not Tran half so hard as the Tran of today!

Who will reign supreme in this battle of man versus mangirl!? Only time will tell!

For the record, they tied that one too.

Makoto has not been in a Neo League match for far, far too long. It didn't take very much (any) convincing for her to ruin the tranquility of the countryside in a very personal and very violent way. She needs to prove that she can defeat Tran, and she thinks she can after her additional training; she isn't aware that she is about to fight more Tran than ever before.

She drops out of the tree she was in - why? The world may never know - and lands, kicking up leaves and forest debris as she does. "ME!" she calls back, not quite as loud as Tran but working on it. "We still need to finally find out whose style is superior!"

COMBATSYS: Makoto has started a fight here.

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Makoto           0/-------/-------|


Yes! Here we go! This is it! "Alright then, kid!" Note the careful use of gender-neutral terminology! Tran may not be /entirely/ convinced of Makoto's sex...or gender, whichever it is, but he's not gonna push the point today. At least, not for a while. Control, Doctor. Control. For now.

Stepping forward and pulling his elbows in tight and his fists held outward to either side, Tran assumes a battleriffic pose. "Prepare yourself for the unstoppable crashing wave that is Doctor Tran!"

From there, he brings his fists in, looking somewhat like a boxer in his form, and dashes forward at Makoto. A quick series of jabs spring forth, as Tran starts things slow, testing the young girl's defenses!

COMBATSYS: Tran has joined the fight here.

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Tran             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0           Makoto


COMBATSYS: Tran successfully hits Makoto with Dr. Tran's Buttle Punch.
- Power hit! -

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Tran             0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0           Makoto


Makoto was absolutely not unprepared. She was just...biding her time.

Yes.

The series of punches catches Makoto in a sensitive spot; the first one knocks the wind out of her for a moment, leaving her more open to the other followups. She recovers fairly quickly...just not quickly enough to immediately defend herself.

Reaching through the punches, Makoto attempts to grab Tran by the shoulders, rear him back slightly, and then yank him forward to the waiting impact of her (very hard) head against his. It worked last time. "Unstoppable? I don't think so! You're just...a guy! I bet you don't even practice for hours."

COMBATSYS: Tran blocks Makoto's Tacchuu.

[    \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Tran             0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0           Makoto


No man can bide his time against Dr. Tran! And, evidently, no girl can, either! With a short, barked laugh of success, the doctor is almost caught off guard by Makoto's grab and bash. Not quite, though, as his arms are still up in that loose boxing position. He shoves them forward, so when Makoto drags him toward her, the speed is greatly reduced. Still hurts, though, her head's gotta be made of bricks or something. Bricks made of steel.

Pushing off again, harder, Tran takes a step or two back, and then points forward. "If you're the result of practicing until the cows come home, then no thanks! I do just fine without!"

Taking another step in to reclose the distance, Tran tries to use that momentum to his advantage by throwing an underhand fist forward toward Makoto's stomach. "Hah!"

COMBATSYS: Makoto interrupts Quick Punch from Tran with Hayate.

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Tran             0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0           Makoto


Makoto closes the distance to Tran at exactly the same time Tran closes the distance to her - two steps forward, fist lancing straight out toward his chest.

Her arms are long enough to stop Tran's own punch from hitting quite as solidly as he might have wanted; it did hit her, but she barely seemed to notice, absorbing the impact with little difficulty. More importantly, /she/ gets to hit /him/ with a good deal of force behind the blow, ideally pushing him back slightly so she has some breathing room.

"Practice," Makoto lectures, "makes perfect! Without it, how do you know whether what you're doing is right? I wouldn't be anywhere near this skilled if I just sat around all day!"

"HOORG!" Makoto's punch catches Tran right in the stomach, bodily flinging him backward a yard or two. Doubled over, Tran regardless manages to stay on his feet, though his teeth are gritted. Somehow, he'd forgotten exactly how hard she punched. Not a good mistake to make.

"I know what I'm doing is right because it feels right, duh! I don't need to spend time doing shit I already know how to do!" To prove it, Tran backs over another step or two, and then relaxes a bit, shoulders slumping. The air around him wavers ever so slightly as internal force builds, invisible save for the rippling air. "Let's see if you're really as skilled as you think you are, huh?"

COMBATSYS: Tran gathers his will.

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Tran             1/----===/=======|===----\-------\0           Makoto


Makoto almost falls out of her combat stance when Tran keeps his distance. It looks as if she's leaving an opening, although she is not; the hands near her navel are still high enough to be brought up quickly, and her legs are braced just so to absorb incoming impacts.

"Rindoukan has nobody better!" Makoto declares, which is absolutely true; it would need students to have anyone better at it. She has one or two, but they don't exactly take it as seriously as she does... She takes one cleansing breath, then another, bringing certain mental exercises to mind and channeling her strength just so.

COMBATSYS: Makoto gathers her will.

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Tran             1/----===/=======|=======\-------\0           Makoto


Tran's not just gonna let that one go. "If you're the best it's got, then..." He struggles for a moment, looking down at his feet, trying to think fast. "Then it really sucks, boy!" Oh, that's right. He went there.
Of course, even as he says it, steam begins to shoot out of the doctor's body, sporadically. A quick jet here, a brief puff there...It's like he's having trouble holding it all in at this point. "Prepare to get served!" Tran raises an arm to point at Makoto, and a burst of steam shoots forward from his finger, dissipating well before it even nears her, serving only as emphasis of some sort.

COMBATSYS: Tran focuses on his next action.

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Tran             1/----===/=======|=======\-------\0           Makoto


This is more like the Tran Makoto remembers - the steam. She was kind of worried; if he wasn't using it, that means he had NEW TRICKS. Now that he is using it, she expects the same old stuff as before.

Her eyes narrow at the 'boy'. She hears that more than she'd like to. Makoto tenses briefly, stepping back into the stance that she is more usually in - and then she breaks it by charging at the good Doctor, a fast low dash that often catches people by surprise.

Makoto swings herself downward, planting both palms on the ground and thrusting forward with the front of her foot. It looks more awkward than effective, but Makoto does it with enough force to cause her foot to actually blur with the force of its blow. "Haaaah!"

COMBATSYS: Makoto successfully hits Tran with Medium Kick.

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Tran             1/=======/=======|=======\-------\1           Makoto


Dr. Tran is unsurprised that Makoto has failed to respond to his mockery of her and her style. After all, he is as witty as he is dangerous, and he is assuredly quite dangerous! Don't think so? Bad choice.

Though he tries to dash to one side, Makoto's foot simply comes out too fast, striking the doctor right in the shin. He completely loses his footing, as his leg is more or less driven out from under him, causing him to stumble a few steps forward and to the side. Recovering as best he can, despite how his shin feels like it's going to snap momentarily, Tran tenses up. The steam that's been gathering around him coalesces, forming twin balls of roiling white power.

Makoto should know what's coming next - Dr. Tran lunges forward at the girl, screaming at the top of his lungs. He ducks down, then pushes up, leading with his fist, to give the mother of all explosive uppercuts to Makoto. If it hits, it's hard to imagine her not getting lifted off her feet - and when she comes back down, Tran will be waiting to hit her with the /other/ fist, straight across. Watch out, trees. This is where it gets dangerous.

COMBATSYS: Makoto dodges Tran's Here Comes Dr. Tran!.

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Tran             0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1           Makoto


Dangerous indeed - except for one thing that makes this different from the last time. Last time, Makoto was in the middle of an open area, with lots of room in all directions and nothing nearby.

This time, Makoto is about ten feet from a large tree. While normally having obstacles might make you /worse/ at dodging, that doesn't take into account Makoto's propensity for going straight up vertical obstacles, in this case by leaping, catching a branch about ten feet up, and swinging herself into the canopy.

She looks down to the ground, standing on the branch, as Tran trails steam beneath her. It hides him, a little, but she can still tell where he is...

Makoto jumps down a moment later, yelling the whole way, in an almost perfectly vertical kick. Springing away from Tran only a step or two, she follows it up with a flurry of arcing kicks at about chest level - except for the last, which is aimed to launch Tran upward. This looks familiar.

On his way back down, if in fact he went up, Makoto ducks down and rises up underneath him, fist-first.

COMBATSYS: Makoto successfully hits Tran with Abare Tosanami Kudaki.
- Power hit! -

[                         \\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Tran             1/-----==/=======|-------\-------\0           Makoto


Up, up, and away! But Dr. Tran is no superman today, no! He is merely a punching bag! His initial punch cleanly misses, the steam going undetonated, when Makoto makes her unlikely evasion. He staggers a step or two forward, clearly off-balance after the whiff. Then Makoto comes in to make everything even worse, and Tran can't even start to put up a defense she's on him so fast. Crack! Pow! Biff! It all ends with Tran flying upward through the air, feeling himself losing it.

There's a weird feeling of deja vu, too. Silence prevailing across the woods once more. Is Tran ever coming down? How hard did he just get punched? Is he...is he in orbit!?

The answer comes in the form of screaming. Faint, at first, but gradually getting louder, as Tran plummets down to the ground in a suicide dive, fists held in front of him, the twin spheres of chi merging together. Hit or no, Tran's not getting up after the mess he's about to make.

COMBATSYS: Tran can no longer fight.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Makoto           0/-------/-------|


COMBATSYS: Makoto endures Tran's Here Comes Dr. Tran!.

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


This time, Makoto does not move.

Well, she moves a little, if looking upward counts. She just stands there, though, tensing her legs as if she was about to jump.

At the last moment, she chooses not to. She just grins wildly as the spheres of chi strike her, causing her to vanish from view in the massive cloud of steam. Those cameras aren't picking up /anything/ for a few moments.

Makoto walks out a few moments later, slightly punch-drunk but still definitely standing. "This time," she says to nobody in particular, "I showed him who was tougher! Nothing stops Rindoukan!"

COMBATSYS: Makoto has ended the fight here.

Log created on 21:38:39 07/31/2007 by Makoto, and last modified on 06:01:08 08/03/2007.