Description: A fight on a roof. With smokestacks. And wind. And steam. Nobody breaks the roof, though. (Winner: Tran)
The Neo League is reborn, and yet it is still incomplete. What is the Neo League but a hollow shell, when bereft of its most fabulously famous fighter, battling his way to the top with a flawless record of victory? Truly, when lacking the daring Dr. Tran, it's just not even worth it.
And so, because he does enjoy a good random fight for no real good reason, here is the man himself, standing atop a smoggy factory-top, leaning against one of the big metal smokestacks. Kind of nasty, but really, everything else here is. If you're going to get dirty, one might as well dive right in!
Nadine does not like it here.
The height is nothing she cares about. Nadine actually likes heights. It's the smog and smoke that gets to her, which is why she is fanning in front of her face with one hand as she walks away from a different smokestack. She has gone to great pains not to touch it so she remains moderately clean.
"Ugh," she says, disgusted. "Did it have to be up here?"
"Yes." Tran pushes off his smokestack, and cracks his knuckles. "It's all for dramatic effect. It might not seem like all that much right now, but..." He turns around and punches the hell out of the protruding tube just once, and prompty a wave of black, flaky...crap comes out. "It's dirty, but hell if it won't look good once it comes back down."
Turning back to Nadine, he takes a couple steps forward. "So, are you ready for round two?"
Nadine rather deliberately steps back, away from the floating black junk in the air. "Quite," she says, still distasteful, and doing a bit to blow it away from her.
The wind chi helps. It's a tiny gust, but it guides it away from her.
Without much in the way of preamble, Nadine draws her knives, bending slightly to reach them. This may give Tran the slight opening he needs.
COMBATSYS: Nadine has started a fight here.
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Nadine 0/-------/-------|
"Good." Tran's looking forward to this: she didn't exactly beat his ass the last time they fought, but she still won...and after all his big talk, it's a little embarassing. It's time to settle the score, except this time, it's personal, and he's letting out all the stop, and getting it done, and, and, and...!
Ahem. With a quick battlecry, Tran charges forward at Nadine, hand held up and forward to grab her by her scrawny schoolgirl neck. If he does grab it, he'll heft her up, give a quick squeeze, and then kick her right in the goddamn stomach.
COMBATSYS: Tran has joined the fight here.
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Tran 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Nadine
COMBATSYS: Tran successfully hits Nadine with 3 2 1...Dr Tran.
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Tran 0/-------/------=|===----\-------\0 Nadine
Nadine's neck is in fact kind of scrawny, because she's skinny.
She is also pretty easy to kick, having not managed to free herself ahead of time despite having a knife in each hand. When the boot hits her, though, she twists just so and stumbles backwards, out of Tran's grip.
Nadine brings her own foot up as well, kicking it in a high snap kick toward Tran's face. It doesn't connect, because she's moved too far back for it to. The blast of wind following that presses backwards may work a bit better, however.
COMBATSYS: Tran blocks Nadine's Gale Press.
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Tran 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Nadine
Nadine's kick does, indeed, work. Kind of. It blast upward into Tran, but he seems to be fairly prepared for the upsurge of chi that accompanies it, even goes beyond it. It crashes into one arm held over his chest, breaking over it like surf on the beach, before Tran takes a step forward and keeps at it.
"Not good enough, girl!" Keeping up his assault, Tran drives his fist forward toward the center of her chest. It's simple, but that doesn't mean it can't be effective.
COMBATSYS: Nadine dodges Tran's Quick Punch.
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Tran 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Nadine
Nadine has already started to move backwards, away from Tran and unfortunately toward one of the smokestacks. "Hands off," she says, absently, as she feels the fist come close but not touch her. There's a limited amount of room up here, something that she has to take into account; she's used to either having overhanging things to move around on, or a larger floorspace. This is a big roof, but it still has edges.
"Is this better?" Nadine asks, switching her grip on one of her knives to rest the blade along her arm before swinging it in a wide arc. She lets go about halfway, and the palmed knife flies toward Tran at a slightly unusual angle, point-first toward his torso.
COMBATSYS: Nadine successfully hits Tran with Medium Fling.
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Tran 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Nadine
The knife is a bit faster than Tran expected - he starts to move out of the way, but then SUPRISE! It digs into his chest, with enough force behind it to knock him back a step. It takes more than that to keep Tran down, though. He's done his fair share of throwing himself upon and through pointy objects. Not this time, though. This time, Tran's content to give Nadine a bit of space.
"Better, but still not good enough." He reaches down and yanks the blade out, tossing it carelessly back to Nadine. The first few flakes of grit start to arrive, and as Tran stands there, motionless, it actually looks like they're kind of parting to either side of him, never falling directly upon him. Go figure.
COMBATSYS: Tran gathers his will.
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Tran 1/-------/=======|===----\-------\0 Nadine
Nadine scoops up the knife almost absently as it bounces across the roof back to her. "All right," she says, before she smiles. It isn't terribly broad, but it is a smile.
She mimics Tran's stance, standing there, knives at the ready. Air does not pulse around her, because she isn't reaching for her chi; she just watches Tran, prepared for him to come at her. She does not blink, although her eyes narrow just a little as she tenses, ready for him to act.
COMBATSYS: Nadine focuses on her next action.
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Tran 1/-------/=======|===----\-------\0 Nadine
Is that how it's going to be, then? Fine by Tran. There's another reason he likes this spot for a battle: a plethora of fightin' objects around him that aren't immediately obvious for purposes of fightin'. Specifically...let's go back to one of the smokestacks. Tran sidesteps and then, with a grunt, drives both of his fists through the thin metal. With a moment of strained effort, he rips out an entire long, jagged, grime-encrusted sheet of metal. More crap goes flying upward, but Nadine probably has more than that to worry about.
Specifically, the fact that the chunk of metal is spinning through the air toward her, like some kind of weird boomerang.
Tran, meanwhile, spends a moment wondering. She's smiling? What the heck? Maybe he's doing this wrong somehow.
COMBATSYS: Tran successfully hits Nadine with Large Thrown Object.
- Power hit! -
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Tran 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\0 Nadine
Nadine's smile vanishes when the enormous chunk of metal comes flying at her, and she does the very first thing that comes to mind: she throws herself flat on the ground.
It would have worked had it been a regularly-shaped chunk, but the ripped-out piece is not regular. It slices into Nadine as she throws herself down, leaving a long rip in her shirt and a long gash down her lower back and planting her face-first again. This coincidentally muffles the startled and somewhat pained sound she emits when it does.
Afterwards she picks herself up again, holding one of her knives loosely. Air forms around it, made visible by the chunks of ash and grime in it; there's a visible greyish shell by the time she throws the entire thing at Tran, overhand, a contrail of wind whipping behind it and accelerating the knife.
COMBATSYS: Tran dodges Nadine's Zephyr Lance.
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Tran 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\0 Nadine
Still next to the now-busted up smokestack, Dr. Tran just tilts to the side, letting the knife skim just by him, smacking into the grime-spewing edification. Coming back to a more reasonable angle, he smirks a bit. This is more like it - how their last fight SHOULD have gone, according to him.
Still, maybe he learned a lesson from last time. He hasn't really been taunting Nadine all that much. In fact, this is decidedly quiet behavior for Tran. Maybe an encounter with an even bigger braggart than him was enough to get him to be a little more humble, a little more considerate to his foes.
"Yeah, not so hot now, are you girl? If you wanna go cry and write a weepy MySpace post, I'll completely understand!" Or maybe he was just waiting until he was winning. Whatever. Regardless, he moves ahead again and tries to bury his knee in her stomach, leaping upward like he was some kind of Muay Thai kitty warrior.
COMBATSYS: Nadine blocks Tran's Light Kick.
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Tran 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\1 Nadine
Tran's knee doesn't hit Nadine's stomach. It hits her waiting hand instead, striking with a heavy smack. Nadine feels her fingers tingle, but at least she doesn't feel a desire to lose her lunch.
"I don't believe in that MySpace junk," Nadine says, stepping back. It looks as if she may be about to throw a knife again. "I also don't believe that I've lost...yet. We'll see."
She either changes her mind or, more likely, was just feinting before; this time Nadine rushes forward, gripping at Tran's arms, one per hand. If she manages it, Nadine immediately begins to spin, slowly at first but picking up speed, at the same time a whirlwind springs up around her; she can't lift Tran on her own, but she can with the aid of a solid mass of wind moving very quickly.
Eventually, she lets go. The wind keeps spinning for some time before ejecting anything caught in the windstorm directly at one of the smokepipes, at high speed.
COMBATSYS: Nadine successfully hits Tran with Twister Hurl.
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Tran 1/----===/=======|-------\-------\0 Nadine
The moment Nadine grabs his hands, Dr. Tran feels that he knows what's going to happen. In fact, it feels kind of familiar, all told. However, even as he sets his feet, he knows he's a bit too slow this time - in a strange way, he's prepared and not prepared at all. It's very zen.
The end result is Tran smacking into a smokestack, sending another shower of shit skyward. He falls to his hands and knees, but despite just getting thrown hella far, well...the doctor is still in pretty good shape. Standing up, in no particular hurry, he just grins.
"You don't? We'll see about that, I'm thinking." And then, something else that should be familiar, is an outpouring of steam. It's a slow, steady sheet billowing forth from Tran's back, pushing the falling grimeflakes away from him. "Your move, girl."
COMBATSYS: Tran takes no action.
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Tran 1/----===/=======|-------\-------\0 Nadine
Nadine, after letting go and after the wind dies down, breathes heavily. That tired her out more than she wants to admit.
Still, she can't let him do...whatever he's doing. Nadine is vague on what it is, but doesn't want it to go unopposed. She flicks one of her knives at Tran, letting it tumble end over end through the air so he won't know if it's going to hit point-first, hilt-first, or with the side of the blade.
The answer is hilt-first, right between the eyes. It's a great distraction.
COMBATSYS: Tran dodges Nadine's Sudden Fling.
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Tran 1/----===/=======|-------\-------\0 Nadine
Nadine doesn't have to admit it - even though he's not quite as good at it as some other people, such as Nadine herself, Dr. Tran can tell when an opponent is getting worn down. In this instance, he fully intends to help that wearing along. The steam, a constant around him, will surely only aid him in this goal.
Bunching a fist up, Tran dashes forward toward Nadine, so low and fast that he simply ends up going under the knife. It brushes his hair, but that's it. With an exultant cry, Tran gets up close, and then...then he stands up and straight and pretty much just goes to pop Nadine right in the nose. Quick, easy, relatively soft.
COMBATSYS: Nadine dodges Tran's Jab Punch.
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Tran 1/----===/=======|-------\-------\0 Nadine
Quick, easy, relatively soft, and not there.
Nadine ducks low and forward, trying to lever the back of her shoulder under Tran's stomach before abruptly standing up, using her hands to guide him in a flip over her back. The steam is annoying, and ruffles her hair irritatingly as she does this; the proximity is enough to make her feel like she's in a sauna, no matter whether she actually touches him or not.
The real trick was this: Nadine was standing directly in front of one of the smokestacks. If she manages to flip Tran into it, she follows it up with a backwards kick to press him against it, and she grinds her heel; it would be worse if she wasn't in sneakers.
COMBATSYS: Tran interrupts Savage Grapple from Nadine with Oh Shit It's Dr. Tran.
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Tran 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0 Nadine
If she thought the ambient steam was bad...
As soon as Nadine comes in, Dr. Tran is prepared. Is he going to jump away? Is he gonna try to weather the assault? No! He's going to be a man about this, and just beat the shit out of her. She rolls him, flipping him up and yanking his shoulder pretty hard, but at the same time he pushes off of her, vaulting up so that his feet come to rest on the smokestack. He is essentially standing on it, except sideways.
Then he lets loose, sweeping his arm downward, throwing out a half-circle of chi, compressed down into a cutting edge. The force helps keep him in place, especially when combined with the next one. And the next one. And then several more, followed by one last extra-big one, all of them slamming directly into Nadine.
At last, when they finish, Tran easily drops down from his now physically unpossible perch, waiting to see if she can give him a last hurrah.
Nadine vanishes in the cloud of steam, the blades slashing into her painfully. She does not give Tran the satisfaction of her screaming, though - although she does make a somewhat startled sound from somewhere behind the blades.
The cloud eventually starts to vanish, drawn into a small tornado Nadine is creating at her feet - not fast or strong enough to absorb the blades, unfortunately, which is why she is bleeding and looking rather red-faced from heat. The tornado wavers for a few moments before blasting toward Tran.
That's all she's got, though. Controlling the tornado takes everything remaining out of Nadine, and she slumps against the smokestack later, heedless of the black smudge now down her side.
COMBATSYS: Nadine can no longer fight.
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Tran 0/-------/---====|
COMBATSYS: Tran reflects Rolling Storm from Nadine with Dr. Tran Doles Out the Harshness.
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Tran 0/-------/---====|
No no, Dr. Tran is not done yet. He needs to prove the point. Well, he probably doesn't /need/ to, but it'll make him feel better. The moment he lands, he actually does see the tornado whirling toward him. Well, he knows how to deal with that, too. Ducking down, he slams a palm flat on the roof, and more steam erupts forth, a billowing wall of steam that snaps tight, forming a thin, flat barrier. The tornado hits it, and then inexplicably bounces back off toward Nadine.
His superiority asserted, Dr. Tran takes a step to the side, and then flicks at a little bit of dirt on his shoulder. "Told you it was over." Then he heads for the stairwell. Mission accomplished!
COMBATSYS: Tran has ended the fight here.
Log created on 21:40:04 09/18/2007 by Nadine, and last modified on 21:10:16 09/20/2007.