Description: Soma and Segrio have a showdown on the Metro City Bridge. Will the Interpol agent put a quick end to Sergio's career, or will the newcomer prove to be more than a simple European playboy? (Winner: Sergio)
After a talk with a certain pigtailed schoolgirl, an Italian newcomer to Southtown has learned that the Neo Leauge is a great way to get into fighting circuits. While she offered two other methods as well, this was the intermediate one, and thus the first to be tried. Little did he know, however, that it would send him to far off and exotic locations, such as Metro City, USA. This turns out to be a blessing, as Sergio, our subject, is the type that prefers to move around rather than stay in one place for extended periods of time.
He was expecting something a little more permanent in a fighting location, like a Neo Leauge arena of some kind, but instead he finds the car taking him to location stopping in the middle of the Metro City Bridge. At first he thinks they need to change a tire, but when he's shuffled out everything becomes obvious. The two center lanes have been cordoned off for about a hundred feet, and camera and medical crews are already set up.
"Wow. Didn't expect anything this fancy!" A few cars wiz by, "Hey, this isn't bad..."
Considering the number of times his cover was (necessarily) blown during the whole Thailand affair, Soma is beginning to have some pretty deep suspicions about the Neo League fight bookers. When he was in Singapore, they knew where he was. When he was flying not into, but THROUGH, Korea on his way to Thailand, they knew where he was. In fact, just about every time Soma Travedi heads off on some Interpol-related affair -- this time, coming to Metro City to do some investigative work -- there is, when he gets off the plane, a voice mail or text message from the Masters Foundation wondering if he'd be free.
As his cab wanders through the streets of Metro City, the undercover agent wonders, and not for the first time, if that Koganei brat supplied his name to lots of major organizations, like a telemarketer.
Coming to a halt at the staging area, the cab deposits Soma on the bridge, the black-and-silver-haired man handing in his fare and then turning to look at the arena. Lanes of irritated commuters flit by on the outside lanes, while camera crews get set up. "A city with a perfectly good sport arena, and they pick the middle of a *bridge*," he mutters, before walking toward the center of the 'ring' and espying Sergio, who he nods at.
One might wonder if they'd stop asking him if he started telling them that no, he wasn't free. Whatever the case with that is, it's likely that the arena is being used for something more important. This is only a single match, after all, and with one person that's a complete newcomer to the League. Not something to rent such a large venue over. Why they chose the bridge instead will remain a complete mystery, however.
As Soma gets out of the car, Sergio begins sizing him up. The suit gives him the idea that he's the fairly straight-laced sort, while Sergio himself is a cocksure playboy. The tall Italian walks over and holds out his hand, "Name's Sergio, nice to meet you. I take it you're here for the Neo League fight?" Not much chance he's just a random person who asked his Taxi to stop him at a place like this.
Despite his lean rather than muscular frame, the ICPO agent has a firm handshake. His dark violet eyes give Sergio the practiced once-over of the trained detective, trying to puzzle the man out. He's *dressed* like a European playboy, but in a world where schoolgirls can throw flame anything is possible. "Soma Travedi," he responds, taking his hand back. "And yes."
He pauses, taking a moment to look around, particularly at the river as it flows up the side of the island city under the bridge. "These people never cease to amaze me, when it comes to strange venues. I believe one of my last League fights was in the Seoul airport." Stepping back a few paces, he turns and shakes out his hands, not... getting into a stance, per se, but very much adopting a shift in physical posture that suggests readiness for the fight to come. "I'm ready when you are."
Likewise, the Italian's handshake is equally firm. He takes a quick look around, "Yea, I wasn't expecting it to be near as public as this. I'm pretty sure I can keep from getting hit, but isn't this going to make traffic a mess?" He gives a quick shrug and an easy grin, "It's their problem though, not ours, right?" He ponders over the idea of a fight in an airport, and then takes a couple steps back as well.
"I think I'm ready enough." He stretches his limbs out quickly and then drops into what is easily recognizable as a fighting stance, of the type that's developed from years of brawling, rather than any disciplined style. "So do we start now?"
That comment gets a faint grin from Soma. "I've learned that an attitude of trying not to think about it too hard is usually the best way." Says the man who spent much of his trip here wondering if the Masters Foundation was spying on him? Perhaps policemen are all, by their nature, a little bit paranoid. "But yes. If they want to hold it here, well... annoying Metro City's commuters is their problem, not ours."
For a moment, the ICPO agent glances at Sergio carefully, taking in his stance. It's not a 'martial art', or at least not one Soma recognizes; usually rote forms have their own distinctive stances that others with the know-how can detect. Of course, Soma himself specifically chooses NOT to use the form stances of Varma Kalai to better obfuscate his style from his opponents... so he might be in for a surprise. "Whenever you're ready, let's go. And good luck."
COMBATSYS: Soma has started a fight here.
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Soma 0/-------/-------|
"I'll keep that in mind." The entire fighting circuit is pretty new to Sergio, so he tries to take the oddity of fighting on a bridge in stride. After all, from what Soma just said he's going to have to get used to such locales. On the matter of Soma's fighting stance, Sergio wouldn't know Varma Kalai or any other martial art if it came up and bit him in the ass. This could probably go either way on whether it gives Soma an advantage; on one hand he's inexperienced against the more practiced fighters, but on the other hand he isn't expecting anything one way or another about the way he fights.
"Alright then, lets do this. And good luck to you also." That said, Sergio moves, running forward and jumping up into the air and kicking out with his leg, trying to knock Soma backwards so that he can land and deliver three strong punches across his body before sending a right handed palmstrike to his chest, stopping just before it hits and unleashing a blast of chi in the form of a stream of water at point blank range. "Haah!"
COMBATSYS: Sergio has joined the fight here.
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Soma 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Sergio
COMBATSYS: Sergio successfully hits Soma with Breaker.
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Soma 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Sergio
A strong, slow, complex attack to start with... showy, Soma thinks. And this is very much contributor to the fact that as Sergio's attack comes in he attempts to do something flashy himself, flipping back out of the way in a highly acrobatic maneuver. That had been the *plan*, anyway... sadly, that's not 100% how things work out. Instead, the kick knocks him out of the air, such as it is, and the remainder of the attacks hit cleanly, sending him skidding across the bridge to land in a crouch.
Alright... showy, and strong, the undercover agent thinks.
Flexing his fingers, he throws his hands out. In a flicker of light, two 'daggers' form of silver energy, their jagged edges limned with crackling black, appear, one in both hands. "Not bad," Soma admits, before rushing in and attempting to slash both 'knives' across the other man's chest. Being energy, they don't exactly 'cut'... but they sting all the same if they connect.
COMBATSYS: Sergio interrupts Gemini from Soma with Old Faithful.
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Soma 1/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0 Sergio
Sergio moves back into his fighting stance once his hits land, the back of his mind taking note of the aerobatic maneuver that was attempted, even if it wasn't successful. The well dressed man seemed to take the hits rather hard, but that's just filed into Sergio's impressive ego rather than thought of as a weakness. "Thanks."
There's something about those energy knives that Sergio just doesn't want to deal with head on, call it instinct. As the Interpol agent comes rushing in, Sergio thrusts his right hand up quickly, a surge of water suddenly blasting up from the ground and catching Soma as he comes in. The blades reach in quickly enough to graze him, but the brunt of the attack is kept from landing fully as the water knocks his opponent away. "That looked like it would have hurt." His attempt at being polite?
It doesn't work. Well, not the attempt at politeness, anyway. Knocked through the air by the impromptu geyser, Soma only succeeds in keeping himself from falling into traffic by flipping in midair and snagging one of the suspension cables sweeping down between pylons and snagging it with one hand. Spinning, he falls to the ground in a crouch.
If Sergio wanted to blunt the ICPO agent's desire to rush in and attack a second time, he succeeded beyond expectation; Soma takes a moment to step back and gather himself for a moment. Just because someone makes a strong early showing doesn't mean the fight's over just yet... but it often suggests a change in tactics is in order. "Yeah... that tends to happen, in martial arts fights," he bites out at Sergio, keeping his face impassive for now.
COMBATSYS: Soma gains composure.
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Soma 0/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0 Sergio
The recovery from the attack was definitely impressive, Sergio himself would be hard pressed to do anything but fall to the ground and get hurt even worse were he to be blasted into the air like that. "Haha! I'm sure it does. Never thought of it that way." What might be intended as a minor insult is taken as sage advice, if only because it's true enough. An attack doesn't come from Soma, which gives Sergio pause for a moment. But he isn't the type to stand around and do nothing for an extended length of time, and so he moves in to attack.
He moves carefully forward towards Soma with medium paced steps, and then drops into what looks like an impromptu karate power stance, legs wide in a crouching position, pulls his right arm back, and then takes one large step towards his opponent, his right palm flying forward towards the chest, water rushing from his shoulder up to his hand for a slow but obviously powerful strike. "Hyah!"
COMBATSYS: Sergio successfully hits Soma with Fierce Punch.
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Soma 1/----===/=======|===----\-------\0 Sergio
He'd *intended* to just roll with it, but in point of fact it doesn't work out that way. Perhaps it's the late-game addition of the water to the attack, but what should have been an iron-stanced refusal to move against the punch ends up in Soma skidding across the ground once again. Boy, he sure is a loser, ain't he, folks? The crowd is booing him... or perhaps the traffic. Maybe both. Getting up, he wipes a trickle of blood from his lip and sets his jaw. "Funny how that works out."
With a roll of the shoulders, he sets one foot back and then dashes forward with as much speed as he can muster, the index and middle fingers of his right hand extended. Once Soma gets close to Sergio again, he lashes out with that hand at snakebite speed, intending to jab it at a point on the Italian's collarbone... one of the more accessible nerve bundles on the human body.
COMBATSYS: Sergio interrupts Quick Throw from Soma with Medium Kick.
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Soma 1/=======/=======|=====--\-------\0 Sergio
Sergio picks himself up out of the improvised stance into his regular one, and watches Soma for a moment, and suddenly cracks a grin. "Maybe I'm better than I thought..." While it's spoken quietly to himself, Soma might be able to hear it if the traffic is low enough at the right time. The cocky grin on his face, on the other hand, should be pretty obvious whatever the case is.
Then, confidence nearly oozing from him, he moves to meet Soma's attack with one of his own. As the agent dashes towards him Sergio jumps, his body twisting halfway around in the air and his previously back leg swinging up to kick Soma in the side of the head with a trail of water following quickly behind, the positioning of his body sending the nerve-jab slightly off target in the process.
The booing intensifies! Looks like it wasn't for the traffic after all. Soma's body flies through the air like a rag doll's, which is basically what he's been this fight. At least he's getting to show off his "ninja acrobatics after being punched in the face repeatedly" skills, right? Case in point: flipping in midair out of being knocked back by that blow, he lands on a support pylon of the bridge. And *stays there* somehow, as if he simply made it so it's okay for him to be perpendicular to everyone else.
Then he vanishes.
When he next appears to normal vision, it's as he lands *past* Sergio on the ground, the hilts of two knives in his hands... but the blades, and hopefully the wires attached to them, may just be somewhere else. If he's lucky, they'll be wrapped around Sergio's torso. Of course, as the booing crowd is testament to, he's not lucky at all...
COMBATSYS: Soma successfully hits Sergio with Orihime's Loom EX.
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Soma 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Sergio
...or maybe just this once, he is. Securing a grip on the Italian with both wires, he suddenly screams inarticulately and swings both arms forward, retracting the wires at the same time and sending Sergio flying through the air... where Soma, apparently having traversed the intervening distance instantly, is waiting for him with *another* wire grab that sends him flying in an entirely different direction. The chain of throws and catches repeats four times before Soma appears *above* Sergio, a glowing lance of silver energy held in both hands as he descends, cutting through his opponent's body as both descend to the ground.
Uh oh. Everything seems to be going perfectly for Sergio until Soma vanishes. The getting kicked away, the landing on a pylon, all that seems at least relatively normal to the Italian. But then everything gets weird. "What?" It's stated rather blandly, with slight confusion. He turns his head when Soma suddenly appears behind him and prepares from an impact, attempting to whirl around and meet an attack. That, however, is a mistake, because the attack is coming from in front of him, and not behind.
The wires wrap around him easily, and he's held securely by the wires as Soma begins tossing him around, despite his struggling. Then the lance of energy comes, thankfully with no physical presence, and tears through him. "Augh!"
Once everything's over he struggles out of the wires, not an easy prospect, and stands up. "Now /that/ was fancy! Didn't see it coming at all." He doesn't intend to simply stand around and wait for another one of those, however. Instead he begins reaching inside of himself and drawing out his power, one moment standing as if everything's normal, and the next unleashing an insane torrent of water. It flows out of him in every direction, gushing out with geysers firing into the air, the sheer volume of energy flowing forth becoming a nearly impossible prospect, enough to completely inundate the surrounding area of the bridge, and causing quite a traffic jam in the process. The water is only chi, however, and will quickly evaporate as if it was never there, but for the moment there's suddenly a new ocean on the map.
COMBATSYS: Sergio successfully hits Soma with Forty Days and Forty Nights.
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Soma 1/------=/=======|-------\-------\0 Sergio
What the nifty teleporting move Soma did was, it was clearly his last gasp. When he lands, he sees the incoming tide and makes a... half-hearted attempt to get out of the way, but even he is effectively quite tired from being beaten bloody at this point. His body flies through the air to smack into one of the support pylons so hard it actually cracks the stone a little bit... not exactly comforting to the people on the bridge, now is it?
When the smoke (well, water) clears, however, there's... no body left in the 'crater' on the pylon. In fact, Soma's nowhere to be found period. All that indicates he was ever there is the bloodied impact crater Sergio left behind. If there were any doubts about the newcomer's strength, this has certainly dispelled them. It would appear his last attack completely disintegrated his opponent.
COMBATSYS: Soma takes no action.
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Sergio 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Soma can no longer fight.
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Sergio 0/-------/-------|
Sergio lets out a breath when his attack is complete, and then sucks another big one it, the body of water evaporating so that soon it's as if it were never there. It took a bit out of him, but he's recovered from it after a few moments, when Soma fails to show up anywhere. He takes a look around, finally spotting the bloody crack in the pylon, and realizing what must have happened. "Wh... where'd he go?" He looks around some more, half expecting more wires to shoot out of nowhere and wrap around him. They don't come, however.
Soon enough, a Neo League official, who's far more experienced in these matters than the new combatant, proclaims his victory. The worry and puzzlement about Soma quickly disappears, and a grin appears on his face. "So I won? Guess I can hack it in this league after all!"
Log created on 05:56:44 08/08/2007 by Soma, and last modified on 09:46:28 08/08/2007.