Description: Of course, if Frei is going to have a reunion with a friend who's a schoolgirl, some sort of snack food must be involved.
It's days like these that Southtown Village seems practically built for. Although the sun beats down pretty hard on the city today, there's a nice breeze coming from the ocean that's keeping things, if not cool, then at least comfortable enough to be outside. The small shops and restaurants of the area are taking full advantage of it, too. Tables with sale items are lined up outside all sorts of local stores, while cafes and coffee shops have brought out the patio tables and chairs for outdoor dining. Performers with guitars and street plays add to the noise and bustle. A perfect day to be outside.
See this little place over here? This shop is called "The Whole Scoop" (with a second line of "And nothing but the scoop" under it on the sign). It is home to some of the most famous ice cream in all of Southtown; it's actually frozen custard, the kind made with egg whites that has a slightly creamier texture. And one of their most famous gimmicks is an ice cream version of that 42oz steak you get for free if you eat it all at most steakhaus places. It's called "The Everest" and is an absolutely GIGANTIC sundae, made with scoops of at least 12 different flavors and covered in all sorts of toppings. If you eat it all, it's free. Plus you get your picture on the wall and everything.
Such a challenge cannot go unanswered.
Thus it is that Frei is at one of the outdoor tables surrounded by a bunch of local students either cutting class or off for lunch, spoons in both hands, facing down... The Everest(tm). He is going to eat that damn sundae if it's the last thing he does. And hey, around here this is practically street theatre.
The Everest is a mountain for some, for Hinata it's a mid-afternoon snack. The challenge has been taken on ten different times and each one she's beaten it and asked for more. She's actually been banned from any chance to get the free sundae, a great disappointment to the Sunshine Girl and enough to usually send her across the street to The Whole Scoop's biggest competition, Kaiju Ice Cream. While it's ice cream is actually ice cream, it's main draw is the gimmick of the place being plastered with tons of different Kaiju on the walls, and their novelty sundaes named for some of the more famous Kaiju. Of course their answer to the Everest is the Neo Super Kaiju Battle Sundae, just as large as the Everest but designed to look like an errupting volcano surrounded in buildings with Kaiju battling it out all across the surface, ignoring the strawberry sauce 'lava.' It's main benefit over the Everest for most people is that you're allowed to share, and without the challenge aspect the store keeps its price a little lower.
It's after yet another successful battle with this beast of an ice cream mound that Hinata finds herself stepping out onto the street, the Kaiju Ice Cream's door letting out its trademark roar as she does. It doesn't take long for her attention to be drawn over toward the opposite side of the street where a small crowd has formed.
It's getting sort of tacky now. People are making BETS.
"Twenty bucks says he stops right before the Pistachio Peak!" a girl in a Pacific uniform says, waving her bill in the air, and a Taiyo guy scoffs. "I doubt he'll even make it past Fudge Ripple Ridge." None of this appears to bother Frei much, however. He is simply staring at the sundae with a beatific :) on his face, spoons at the ready. He has faced bigger challenges, after all. And besides, he has his highly developed chi powers which will totally not help him to do this at all, but they may alleviate the probability of a headfreeze.
The shop clerk overseeing this hands Frei a clipboard, containing the liability waiver. That gets a raised eyebrow from the monk but he signs it anyway. If being hit with a nuclear explosion at point-blank range wasn't lethal, ice cream sure won't be.
Once everything is signed an in place, a hush falls over the crowd. The clerk raises her hand... then drops it. "BEGIN!"
The first layer of scoops -- butter pecan, it looks like -- is almost gone before she can get her hand back up to her chest. The crowd STAYS silent... mostly out of shock.
The sudden silence among the crowd is a dead give-a-way that something interesting is going on over there, and given that the only thing that draws a crowd at an ice cream shop is someone taking on a mammoth collection of flavor, it's definately the Everest. To be quite honest, it's main draw was it's size, the bowl's shape and the formation of the scoops all designed to make it look more massive than it actually was. It also wasn't designed around making it the most delicious sundae possible, another reason that lead her off toward the competition. Regardless, it was a little bit of fun to see someone else take it on.
Using her smaller size and agility to her advantage, Hinata is quick to slip on through the rest of the crowd in an attempt to get a better view of the action.
The silence doesn't last long. In fact, soon people start cheering (and those two kids are out their $20, too). What Frei lacks in speedeating technique he more than makes up for in sheer, stupid gusto. At first he was using one spoon to keep from eating too much but found that it wasn't working. Then somewhere around the Caramel Cone Cliff the second spoon came into play in order to get larger scoops in his mouth at one time, kind of like a crab. THEN he started using the spoons independently.
By the time there's only a few scoops left in the bowl, the monk has abandoned spoons entirely and just ducks his face into the bowl, scarfing up entire scoops of ice cream like he's bobbing for apples. In fact, the *last* scoop -- plain old vanilla, so you know you hit the end -- he brings up, somehow holding it in his maw for a moment, before opening wide and snapping it up in front of the whole crowd.
Which goes wild.
That was quite a good show and Hinata joins in on the cheering (although not nearly as enthusiastic as the guy who got those kids money). It was a rather interesting technique, if a bit messier than she personally cares to use.
Of course, he also looks a bit familiar now that he's not stuffing his face full of ice cream, a nagging sense that she's met him somewhere before and that if he didn't have a bunch of melted ice cream stuck to his face she'd be able to figure out who it was. In an effort to get a better look at the guy, she walks right up to him and slaps him across the back, "That was pretty good for an amateur."
Well, we all know how that's going to end up, don't we?
Frei isn't paying attention to what's going on behind him, though he is exchanging greetings and thank yous to the people around him, shaking some hands and saying a few words. Then Hinata smacks him across the back and he predictably goes face-forward right into the now empty bowl with a loud *CLANK* of glass shifting on a hard tabletop. Everything stays frozen in that tableau for a moment, until the monk suddenly leaps up and turns around like the (sort of :)y) wrath of God, pointing one finger accusingly. "WHAT THE HEoh, hey, Hinata."
Hinata's well known around Southtown as one of the many high school students to get into fights on a regular basis, and while not a Southtown resident, a number of the spectators know Frei's face from his SNF matches. There's little doubt that there's about to be a fight and the crowd starts to spread out a bit more.
The sunshine girl herself doesn't seem to be all too threatened by the sudden spinning, pointing finger, simply responding with a great big smile and two fingers spread out into a 'V.' "Ohayou, Frei! I didn't recognize you at first, with all the ice cream on your face."
"Really?" the monk responds, curiously, before turning back to the table and picking up... well, a packet of wet wipes and a beach towel, actually. With the Whole Scoop logo on it -- they've done this enough times to know what people want. Swabbing his face with the wipes to get the sticky ice cream off, the monk then towels off the stinging alcohol and dabs at his chin for a second before turning back to Ms. Wakaba.
"I haven't seen you in a dog's age," the redhead says simply, and it's the truth; the last time he saw Hinata was... many moons past, and a lot has happened since. "But it looks like you've been taking care of yourself in the interim." Behind him, Whole Scoop staff are clearing out the tables, the giant Everest(tm) bowl, and chairs... if this IS gonna devolve into a street brawl, they'd rather not forfeit new furniture as well as $12 worth of ice cream.
There's a small shrug of the girl's shoulders, "I've been on vacation for awhile, I just got back a little while ago. Honestly, it was pretty boring, there wasn't anybody to fight out where I was." That's a pretty serious thing for the fight-obsessed girl, it would be like any of the many sports-themed fighters of Taiyo High not being able to participate in said sports. "I caught you on the SNF Review this week, but I missed the actual match. What was it like going up against that Guile guy?"
SNF? Oh right. That thing he signs up for every week and gets money for sometimes. Frei scratches his head for a second, then shrugs and reaches into his pocket, withdrawing the Sakura-style long orange-brown headband trimmed with gold he typically wears and unfolding it. "Alright, I guess. He uses sonic chi... pretty rare stuff. I dunno, he didn't strike me as being too different from most fighters otherwise. Though he and that... Reed guy had some sort of... I dunno, I wasn't really following."
Pushing the headband against his forehead, he pulls both tails back and knots them before adjusting the entire affair just under his dark red bangs to his satisfaction. "Have you said hey to Sakura yet? She, uh..." He pauses, not really sure how much of what went down in Thailand he thinks is his place to share with the Sunshine Girl, and decides not to go too far. "I'm sure she's got plenty of things to talk to you about."
"Oh yeah, we got to talk the other day. Apparently everybody got into all sorts of depressing things while I was gone, which just goes to prove that I can never go on vacation ever again." Even through all of this she has her usual wide smile.
Well this discussion isn't going on in the best of the directions, and it's honestly not that engaging for the audience, who's starting to look a bit disappointed at the fact that what appeared to be about ready to turn into a full on brawl has turned into nothing more than old aquaintences talking about things. Sensing this, Hinata asks the question on everyone's mind, "So are we going to fight or what?"
That news heartens Frei a bit. He likes Sakura, but the truth is she's a teenage girl and he's a 26-year-old man. Their social congruencies are sort of limited. Hinata, on the other hand, probably understands her pretty well... and that comment about how depressing things got is certainly proof positive that they didn't just have some girly surface conversation. "Oh, good. And yeah... it hasn't been all happy rainbow sunshine lately but really, unless you've done a lot of meth, when IS it happy rainbow sunshine time every day?" A few of the school-age onlookers stare at Frei, confused by that perhaps poorly-chosen remark.
The monk, however, just looks over his shoulder and finds everyone and everything having given the two fighters a wide berth. He turns to Hinata and nods, getting into the loose posture he considers a 'stance'. "Oh, for sure," he says glibly, grinning at the Taiyo schoolgirl. "I just wanted to get the headband back on. It's kind of a good luck charm."
COMBATSYS: Hinata has started a fight here.
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Hinata 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Frei has joined the fight here.
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Frei 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hinata
As Frei pulls himself into his own ready stance, Hinata jumps back into her's, practically hopping back and forth with her arms held up in a guard position. With Frei pulled up into position, Hinata is quick to lunge forward, extending both of her hands in front of her at full length as a small spark of bright blue chi forms that quickly begins to grow until it reaches about the size of a basketball and then goes flying right toward the monk, blossoming out into an impressive sunflower that draws cheers from the crowd as it comes close enough to Frei.
COMBATSYS: Frei fails to slow Kikou Shoutei from Hinata with Hadou Souran.
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Frei 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Hinata
Well, if it's iconic fireballs to be tossed around, Frei has one of his own! Unfortunately, gathering the energy to pull it off takes more time than it looks like, so even though he gets the windup on it down, the familiar-ish sphere of energy swirling between his palms, by the time the monk get the "Haaaadooooou--!" out the sunflower has just smacked him in the jaw, proverbially speaking. However, in the end the monk looks more confused than injured, slapping himself in the cheek a couple times. "Oofdah."
"Ooo, that was a good try, just needed to be a little bit faster!" Her words aren't really mocking so much as they are... genuinely attempting to be helpful. It's a friendly battle after all. Of course telling people what they already know usually doesn't help them out to much.
Regardless, Hinata's quick to press her advantage by rushing across the distance between them and attemping to ensnare Frei's arm with both her hands, twist around on one heel and then toss him over her shoulder and slam him into the ground. That is if she succeeds.
COMBATSYS: Frei just-defends Hinata's Shoulder Throw!
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Frei 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Hinata
Ask and ye shall receive. When Hinata attempts to put all hands on monk, he suddenly reaches out with both hands as well and grabs hers, dancing an impromptu tango with the girl before spinning away from her toward the crowd and doing a little bow. Besides keeping him from a painful meeting with the ground, it also puts a little spring in the monk's step. You'd be surprised how physically refreshing self-confidence can be!
"Duly noted," he replies with a grin, cracking his knuckles. "Just so you know, though, I've been doing some improving of my own since you left!" Ducking forward, he snaps a kick up toward Hinata's shoulders... but the end of the physical attack is accompanied by a sudden burst of ice that sparkles in the air around Frei's sandal-ed foot as the kick nears its destination.
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Hinata with Light Kick.
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Frei 0/-------/------=|===----\-------\0 Hinata
The strange dance throws Hinata rather firmly out of her groove and partially manages to replace the usual smile with a look of surprise that she doesn't quite manage to come out of before the monk launches his follow up attack, the kick taking her shoulder with the chi dulling the senses in her arm enough that the pain doesn't actually last too long. It it, however, uncomfortable.
"That was real good, I'm impressed." It's definately not your standard fight dialogue, there's no comment tacked on about how he's about to face something tougher, just a simple compliment. Of course this doesn't mean she doesn't launch her own strike. Launching herself up into he air with one kick, she starts to swing her other leg around, fully extended, the length of it from her foot to just past her knee getting sheathed in chi as it turns into a quick hurricane kick.
COMBATSYS: Frei fails to interrupt Enbukyaku from Hinata with Hyoushou Rengeki.
- Power fail! -
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Frei 0/-------/----===|=====--\-------\0 Hinata
How do you fight fire? With ice, naturally. And Frei's already in the mood to use chilly chi -- the kind with which he is often the most proficient, after all -- so this seems like a natural way to fight back against Hinata's assault. However... as before, the timing is just a LITTLE bit off. In fact, he suddenly spins and hurls a burst of ice crystals... past Hinata's spinning leg, which he failed to take into account. He actually has enough time to mutter, "Oh... *damn*," right before the fiery kick smacks him in the jaw.
Wincing a little as he stumbles backwards, the monk puts a hand to his cheek and rubs it for a second. That stung... quite a bit more than the sunflower, in fact, but it's nothing that the surprisingly hardy monk isn't used to taking. "Maybe I should have waited a half hour before going in," he jokes, grinning.
"Why would you want to wait after getting yourself an energy boost?" The concept of being slowed down by consuming massive quantities of dessert is an alien one to Hinata, who there is a theory about that she may in fact have the same sort of metabolism as a hummingbird.
Questions aside, this is still a fight. This time Hinata launches a somewhat quick roundhouse aimed right for the monk's side.
COMBATSYS: Hinata successfully hits Frei with Medium Kick.
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Frei 0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0 Hinata
Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men, right? Hoping to use his own sturdiness to his advantage, Frei just sort of... walks into the kick, hoping to use the close quarters to his advantage against the smaller, nimbler fighter he's facing. Sadly, he forgets that she can kick rather harder than you might think. Well, that and he slips on some ice cream left on the ground, turning a kick to his side into a kick to his *stomach* instead.
Wincing, the monk steps back and frowns. That stung. "Okay... okay. I'm doing something wrong here." Taking a deep breath, he pauses... then strikes a powerpose, the wind kicking up around him as he gathers chi. "Not through yet though... gotta hit a little harder than that!"
COMBATSYS: Frei gathers his will.
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Frei 1/------=/=======|=====--\-------\0 Hinata
Hinata manges not to break into laughter as Frei's attempt at being tough is ruined by a bit of ice cream, some of the audience fails at that, though. So far things are going fairly well for her, which is a nice change from getting hit in the head with her own shoe. "Well, if that wasn't hard enough I guess I can try something else."
The sunshine girl whirls around the monk as he gathers a new strength, attempting to wraps her arms around his waist, haul him up off the ground and then slam his head against the street in a rather plain german suplex.
COMBATSYS: Frei blocks Hinata's Strong Throw.
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Frei 1/----===/=======|======-\-------\0 Hinata
This time, Frei appears to be ready for Hinata's attack. He doesn't bother to get out of the way of the grab -- he doesn't have the speed to do that, and it probably wouldn't work anyway -- but he does go slightly limp in Hinata's grip, so that instead of landing on his head, he catches himself on his hands, doing a sort of impromptu handstand. That still stings a little bit -- after all, he has to absorb the whole force of Hinata's throw -- but it could be worse.
"I didn't mean it as an insult, sorry," Frei admits, still in his handstand. "I just don't wanna get kicked in the jaw anymore." Hypocrite that he is, however, the monk suddenly leaps out of his handstand by swinging himself around almost 360 degrees in the air, bringing one leg up to kick Hinata in a rising crescent slash kick, a blaze of flame erupting in the path of the blow.
COMBATSYS: Hinata endures Frei's Kouen no Tsurugi.
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Frei 1/---====/=======|=======\-------\1 Hinata
The attack seems to be blazing fast as it comes in, and after having put so much effort into the failed attempt to make head meet pavement, she doesn't quite have the time to get out of the way, instead taking it full in the chin and knock her back into an backflip that would be impressive if she didn't slam down onto her knees rather harshly, scratching them up on the rough street.
"Ooo, I see what you mean, that really hurts... but I don't think I can give up now knowing your weakpoint!" In a flash, Hinata uses her already prepared position to launcher herself up off the ground into an impressive spinning uppercut, her fist blazing with chi as it comes up in an intercept course with Frei's chin. "Shouyouken!"
COMBATSYS: Frei endures Hinata's Shouyouken.
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Frei 1/-======/=======|=======\=------\1 Hinata
"Well..." Frei begins... and then he's being punched. But that's okay, because being punched is what fighters do. The monk learned that secret a long time ago, in fact, and using it to his advantage is usually pretty easy. After all, most of the time all you need to do is... get punched. Case in point: Hinata's fiery uppercut goes without a hitch. But at the same time, Frei has her by the hand... and is yanking her up with him...
...even as his other hand is dropped to his side in midair, glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. "The problem is, telling me you're going to attack my weak spot ruins the effect!" As the two fighters begin their descent, Frei suddenly whips his hand forward, palm outward and facing Hinata, and unleashes a massive forceblast at point-blank range, the invisible shockwave causing the air to ripple like water that's had a pebble tossed in.
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Hinata with Fukami Reikai.
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Frei 0/-------/-----==|=======\======-\1 Hinata
The sunshine girl's eyes go wide as she finds her hand clamped down upon and being pulled up along with all the force put into the knock-off rising dragon. Then there's the sudden surge of brilliant chi and moments later it's slamming into her chest and sending her crashing into the ground so hard that she cracks the pavement with all the combined force of the fall and the energy blast. When she finally manages to push herself back up, she actually coughs up a little bit of blood.
This time she says nothing, her eyes narrowing a bit as her (flat) chest heaves with each breath. Every inch of her oozes with concentration before she suddenly lunges forward with loud 'HAAAAAAAAAAAA!' kicking up into the air and starting to bring her leg around, instantly bursting out into brilliantly colored flames of pure chi the entire length as she starts yet another hurricane kick. This time she moves even faster, the chi pulling down around her like a whirlwind, each rotation bringing her up higher and higher into the air until the final kick comes in at head height.
COMBATSYS: Hinata successfully hits Frei with Rasen Enbukyaku EX.
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Frei 0/-------/-======|==-----\-------\0 Hinata
In actuality, Frei kinda knew he'd more or less lost his bout with Hinata by the time he threw out his own strongest attack. Still, it was worth it for the nice dramatic moment he has getting to use it. When the sudden spiral of ascending kicks comes in he makes a... minor attempt to get his arms up in the way, but it doesn't really work. The spinning, chi-powered blows send both combatants higher and higher, until Frei just can't fight gravity anymore and starts sailing downward...
...but Hinata might be surprised to find, coming up at her as *she* descends, a wave of ice crystals from the monk's outstretched hands. He's certainly out of the fight, but only just barely... and he definitely has the presence of mind to throw out on last attack before landing in a crouch, and then flopping over on his back, staring up at the sky and moaning. "I shouldn'ta eaten that entire damn sundae," he mutters.
COMBATSYS: Frei can no longer fight.
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Hinata 0/-------/----===|
COMBATSYS: Hinata dodges Frei's Hyoushou Rengeki.
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Hinata 0/-------/----===|
The attack comes in just as Hinata's touching back down with the ground, but still on a high from the previous assault, her movements seem to be exceptionally speedy. In a flash she simply spins out of the path of the ice crystals, leaving them to do little more than look pretty for the crowd, although the previous minute or so of incredibly awesome attacks doesn't make it seem especially spectacular.
Seeing Frei not getting back up, Hinata drops out of her fighting stance and leans in to offer him a hand and a great big smile, "That was a great fight! It was really cool how you used my shouyouken against me."
The monk gives Hinata a faint smile as she offers a hand, but he waves it away. "Thanks. That last kick of yours was brutal. You haven't lost your touch while you were gone." Squinting his eyes shut for a second, the monk clears his throat. "I think I'm just gonna stay right here for a bit. If anyone ever tells you that fighting on a stomach full of ice cream is a good idea, punch them in the face." He groans and puts both hands over his tummy.
Right as the staff start putting the area back together. One of them slides a table in place right above where the monk is lying, obscuring him from view.
That last bit of advice is a little confusing to Hinata, herself having done a spectacular job after engourging massive amounts of ice cream on the other side of the street... but Hinata's weird like that.
With Frei seeming content to lay in the street like a Ryu, (err, bum), Hinata simply sets off down the street, off toward ADVENTURE!
Log created on 15:52:18 08/10/2007 by Frei, and last modified on 18:32:29 08/10/2007.