Description: Don't you just love the classics? Timeless tales of history and mythology, glorifying all the virtues the ancient world held dear. And foremost among them, Homer's "Odyssey", the subject of a full musical production by the Seijyun High Drama Society! Well. At least it /was/. The show's over now, but...it looks like a couple of budding thespians haven't gotten the message. Break a leg, girls. Break a leg. (Draw Match)
Seijyun High is renowned for it's large theater, which has enough room to seat an incredible number of people in comfort while sporting a massive stage to go along with it. It could easily hold any Broadway production that decided to come to Southtown, or just about any other play or act that can fit actually fit on a stage. The students at the all female high school have just finished up with a two week play adaptation of The Odyssey, and all the sets are scattered about as the post production wraps up.
That's where the Neo League comes in. Nothing in the set is to be reused and it simply has to go. What better way to help take everything down than to unleash two powerful fighters upon the stage and let whatever chaos they can create help to bring everything down? Perhaps they might have chosen a pair of more destructive fighters for such a task, but the stage itself and equipment is to remain unharmed.
Both fighters have been informed of this, and the match is scheduled to start very soon. Not being ones to miss a free show there are quite a few students filing in at random to take seats and watch what's to come, though they're by no means enough to fill the theater.
Ingrid is, as usual, early in arriving. Normally she talks with the production crew while they're setting up, but the theater is such a good location all the cameras are being setup overhead and not on the stage itself. So instead of her normal chatting she's simply exploring the set, currently behind a large model of Odysius's ship. The way things are strewn about it's almost like a maze, but she luckily has a way of dealing with it- simply jumping up to land on the model itself and scout from above.
Which is when the backstage machinery starts up.
A cloud of fog billows out, quickly engulfing the stage. Swirling, rising, wisps of dense white smoke drifting through the auditorium. Through the theater's speakers, an orchestral theme begins to swell, rising to a dramatic crescendo - a storm, with drums as the thunder.
And from above, then, descending from the sky, suspended in the air over the ship that occupies the stage...is a figure clad in long white garments, fabric whipping round in the artificial wind. She hovers over the scene, supported by gossamer threads of fine wire, her robes twisting in the breeze.
She raises her arms, gesturing at Ingrid, down below.
"Odysseus," she cries, "I am the witch-goddess Circe!"
Thunder rumbles through the stage.
Ingrid is destined to be the tragic hero? Perhaps if she'd known what Riko was up to she'd have been a little more prepared, but then there might not be quite the dramatic impact as the teenage ninja suddenly descends from above with orchestra blaring. The cameramen almost choke as they rush to get the cameras running in time to catch the dramatic entrance. Darn ninja.
As the fog sweeps around her Ingrid looks about, her eyes finally raising slowly skyward as Riko begins to descend, taking in the sight of the slowly descending 'witch-goddess'. Then, a moment after the declaration her head tilts to one side, hair moving a little with it, "Really? For the daughter of Helios and master sorceress I expected someone a little... taller." A vague hint of a little smile forms on her features.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid has started a fight here.
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Ingrid 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Riko has joined the fight here.
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Riko 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Ingrid
Up above, the classically beautiful face sets itself into a classical mask - that of the traditional pout. She raises a hand to her pinned-up hair, rests her other hand on her hips..and purses her lips at 'Odysseus' down below.
"Ooooh," the costumed Riko complains, "that's what -everyone- says! It's not like Daddy is THAT tall."
She stamps one delicate sandaled foot. Stamps it on empty air, because she's still suspended high above the stage, hanging from a hidden harness of wire. Streamers of cloth flowing from her costume swirl as she makes the irate motion.
"Just for that," she declares, pointing a finger imperiously, "I'll turn all your nasty crew into pigs! And you're NEXT!"
She throws her head back, cacklingly grandly.
And true to her words, a rain of pigs falls from the sky.
It seems pigs really do fly. In one direction, at least - straight down.
Well, admittedly these aren't actual pigs. The SPCA might complain, and can you imagine the outcry from PETA? No, it looks like Riko's found some way to booby-trap the rafters with piggy bank launchers, breakable bright pink pigs crashing down into the stage, shattering in a hail of money-box shrapnel.
PIGS AWAY!
COMBATSYS: Riko successfully hits Ingrid with Sudden Fling.
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Riko 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Ingrid
"No- you're just that short." Probably not the best thing to say to an angry goddess, /especially/ when she's already in the middle of turning your entire crew into piggy banks and having them hurled down at you from above. Odysseus in the form of Ingrid tries getting out of the way as they all begin to rain down on her, but there's far too many and before you know it she's being pelted with shattering ceramics. Luckily for her they didn't seem to be full of pennies!
"Turn my crew into pigs, will you? I hope you know that this can mean nothing less than war!" She may as well play the part as best she can, right? But there does seem to be the problem of Riko being way up there and her being all the way down here. But once again, Ingrid can jump. So rather than staying down on the ground she leaps up into the air, rising up towards Riko to try and latch on, quickly detach the line that's holding her up, and let go to land back down on the ground. "You won't be so tough once I take care of your magic!"
COMBATSYS: Riko dodges Ingrid's Quick Throw.
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Riko 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Ingrid
But the witch-goddess has powerful magic indeed. Powerful powerful magics. She has delved deep into the forbidden arcane arts passed down through the centuries, mastering the mystical knowledge under the tutelage of her dread master, the...er...wizard-ninja Seishirou? No, that doesn't really have a good ring to it, does it? Oh well.
But anyway, yeah. Arcane knowledge of forbidden laws and stuff.
Namely, the laws of Physics.
And pendulum motion.
As Ingrid rockets from the stage, jumping into the air, Riko -swings- to the side. The wires holding her up creak and strain, the harness buckling with the stress. It was designed to gently lower a performer, possibly haul them up again - it wasn't built to be part of an impromptu circus act. But the wires hold, all the same, letting Riko fly completely out of Ingrid's path.
Still swaying up there high against the scenic backdrop, Riko points an accusing finger at Ingrid.
"FOOLISH MORTAL," she shrieks, "YOU DARE DEFY MY POWER?!"
COMBATSYS: Riko focuses on her next action.
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Riko 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Ingrid
That leaves a certain problem of the ground coming up to meet her, since she can't grab onto Riko. But luckily the island of Ithaca is below her, so rather than making a hard impact she lands on and crushes a large mass of paper-mache. Of course this doesn't bode well for Odysseus's home and kingdom. "Agh! Look what you've made me do! I've destroyed my own home, and with it Penelope! With nothing left to lose this shall surely be a battle to the death!"
She holds her hand out and points up at Riko, "And why should I do anything but, Circe, when all you've proven is that you can warp the minds and bodies of weak willed crewmen. You've yet to prove you can do even a single thing to me, the king of a now destroyed land!"
COMBATSYS: Ingrid focuses on her next action.
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Riko 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Ingrid
Over head, Riko spins back and forth, her wire harness looking increasingly precarious. It gives dangerous twanging sounds as she makes another pass. She looks down at Ingrid, frowning faintly.
"Well," she says, tapping her cheek with one slender finger, "okie. You asked for it."
On cue, the lines holding her up choose /that precise moment/ to give way, parting with a loud snap. Riko drops from above, falling like a human missile from the rafters, the long robes enshrouding her body fluttering as she falls. Down down and down, speeding towards Ingrid. And as she falls, her form erupts with crackling arcs of azure, lightning surrounding her like an aura - her eyes blazing with power. Overhead, spotlights shatter, as light fixtures are destroyed by the sheer electrical power radiating from Riko's form.
And she drops down at Ingrid. The goddess unleashed! The power of the heavens revealed!
COMBATSYS: Ingrid dodges Riko's Light Fantastic EX.
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Riko 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Ingrid
From the looks of it things are far more dangerous when Riko's Circe is quiet and contemplating compared to being screaming. As if everything had been planned this way there's suddenly a streaking meteor of ninja goddess crashing down towards Ingrid from above. And if that wasn't bad enough her entire form is suddenly surrounded by electricity, enough so that even lights above start to explore. It's definitely quite the show of power, and something that backs Ingrid into a corner.
Given little time to react due to the speed Riko is coming down, Ingrid pulls her feet from the paper-mache and then pushes off and throws herself forward with all the power her legs can muster, managing to fling herself out of the way moments before the ninja crashes into her, her hair frizzing a bit giving notice of just how close that was. But as awesome as the escape was that alone isn't going to do much of anything, so she hits the ground and rolls forward a little before stopping her momentum and then immediately turning about and rushing back towards Riko with that same speed she used to escape, lifting her hands in the air and sweeping them down once she starts to near to unleash a barrage of golden energy upon her. "Now it's my turn, Circe!"
COMBATSYS: Ingrid successfully hits Riko with Sunbeam.
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Riko 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Ingrid
"Owwwww," Riko complains, from her new position in an actual honest-to-god (or possibly goddess) /crater/ in the stage, a shattered blast zone of wooden splinters and fragmented pieces of scenery. She hauls herself upright, chunks of wood and paper mache flaking off her formerly pristine white robes. She takes a step forward, almost tripping on trailing lengths of fabric.
"Barbarian!"
She glares at Ingrid, huffing with indignation.
"You will pay," she shrieks, "for your insolence!"
At that, she suddenly charges straight at Ingrid, rocketing across the stage. Her robes billow behind her like streamers as she rushes forward, quick, quick, quick...before thrusting a hand straight into Ingrid's face.
A hand clutching razor-sharp shards of broken piggy-bank.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid counters Quick Strike from Riko with Sun Upper.
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Riko 0/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Ingrid
"Call me what you will, but with this anger that I hold I shall strike you down with a vengeance for what has become of my home and my love!" Ingrid crosses her arms and turns away from Riko, "Too long have the gods meddled in the lives of men, using the Earth as the battleground for their petty feuds." She turns back to look at her with a sweeping gesture, "No more! We will reclaim our lives as our own, even if we expend them in the process."
And then the angry goddess rushes to her, wielding a broken piece of bank to try and cut at her face. In a quick maneuver Ingrid takes a step forward and dramatically points forward, a shield of energy forming in front of her for the hand to crash into, another sweeping motion the moment it does as she flings her arm into the air, Riko/Circe being tossed high up into the air, "Back to the skies with you!"
"H...hey, no -fair-," Riko complains, her voice a little shaky. She is indeed in mid-air, spread-eagled high up against the rear wall of the stage, her back to the large blue-painted backdrop meant to represent the sky. Having been thrown aloft by the heroic efforts of the protagonist, she's now just barely clinging on to a three-dimensional cloud, weakly gripping the fluffy white shape with her fingertips.
"Air travel -sucks-, okay," Riko retorts, "it's not fair you mortals get all the nice luxury cruise ships while we get teeny tiny seats and horrible food!"
Well, that's probably departing from the script. Just a fair bit. But this is more improv than classical theater anyway.
That's okay. Riko likes improv.
Lifting her head, she studies what remains of the scenery and props on the stage. Her eyes settle on the broken-off wires dangling from the rafters above, the lines that used to be attached to her flight harness.
Appropriate enough.
Riko flips herself up and over, such that she crouches on the cloud, treating it as a makeshift perch. Her hands come together, flowing from the robes of her sleeves, fingers settling into a well-practiced pattern. She gathers her energies, using them to subtly influence the chi flow of the environment. Focus, focus, and...
"SO CIRCE SHALL SMITE YOU!"
...release.
Blue arcs of electricity begin to flow down the wires, growing in intensity over the space of a second. Until a veritable thunderbolt leaps down at Ingrid. The foolish mortal.
COMBATSYS: Riko successfully hits Ingrid with Metamysticparallectrolysis.
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Riko 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\1 Ingrid
This time there's not going to be any quick escapes for Ingrid. It doesn't matter much that she's moving rapidly the moment she sees the power begin to build. She has so little natural resistance to the type of energy that Riko sends her way that she acts like a lightning rod, the ultra quick strike of lighting blasting her and flinging her through several sets, a final one being sturdy enough to actually catch her and stop her from continuing on further. A moment later she begins moving again.
"Ah, the thunderbolt! Always the first and final answer gods have for the unruly mortal! Don't leave them be, strike them down with godly might! But know that the mortals have power too, for Prometheus has given us fire!" Despite her big words, she's not feeling up to the task of blasting energy up at the rafters. Instead she moves back to that boat she was on before and hops up it, and then jumps up to the top of the mast to gain height before finally leaping once more, flying high up in the air towards Riko before twisting around and swinging both of her legs out wide, attempting to kick the evasive teenage hard while she's actually got the altitude to do so. "Yaah!"
COMBATSYS: Riko interrupts Heavy Kick from Ingrid with Dragon Seal Blue EX.
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Riko 1/-------/=======|=======\=====--\1 Ingrid
The defiant blazing feet of heroic power crash into the sorceress' stomach, producing a rather undignified 'whuff' of escaping breath. Not exactly the sort of elegance they favour up on Olympus. But the witch-goddess doesn't go flying. No, even as our protagonist's feet dig into her torso, burying themselves in folds of heavy cloth...
...she uses her considerable celestial agility to /twist/ her body, arching her spine, bending with the impact. And Riko's arms shift forward, her fingers grasping one of Ingrid's ankles. Closing around the limb.
Glowing briefly with blue light.
Then they break apart, Riko flying with the imparted velocity from the kick, flying through the air, flying through empty space.
But she doesn't seem concerned about her landing. Rather, her eyes are on Ingrid, as a grin flares across her face.
"THE FIRE BURNS!"
With that shout, a blue mark flares to life on Ingrid's leg. Burning through the fabric of her stockings, down to the skin and flesh beneath. A tightly concentrated node of chi, shaped into a ritual seal. Building power as it draws in elemental energies from the environment, ionizing the air, shifting charges and electrons...
...then, detonation, in a powerful blast of searing blue.
Ingrid seems to have made a terrible mistake when she thought she could get away with using such a slow move against Riko. She's only attempted attacks like this a few times, and about half of them have ended up in severe pain. With the few powerful moves the ninja had already pulled off it shouldn't come as any surprise to Ingrid what happens.
Though she tries to land solidly on the ground it's of no avail, because as she nears a seal of blue flame forms on her leg, and then burns down through it before detonating. It's something that she's felt before, and in a much stronger form... but that's no comfort to her now. At least the detonation has enough force to stop her from crashing into the ground immediately, but the pain that surges through her is enough that she can't recover quickly enough even though she's tossed back into the air, and she falls to the ground in ragdoll fashion.
A few moments she picks herself up, but with a noticeable limp in her right leg. It doesn't look like the mortal has any smart words for the goddess now, instead drawing in power to fire off a shot that'll hopefully either stop her cold or slow her down enough for Ingrid to recover further. The attack comes in the form of a flash of energy around the Norwegian, who lifts her hands to her chin as a small, dull little sphere of energy forms in her hands. She blows on it and it begins floating towards Riko in a rather slow and innocuous manner, though there's quite a bit of power packed inside of it.
COMBATSYS: Riko dodges Ingrid's Sun Burst.
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Riko 0/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0 Ingrid
Hopefully. Hopefully. But whatever Ingrid might have planned, it would seem the fates are not smiling on her. The favour of heaven, it appears, is not with our young protagonist this day. No fortune, no divine grace...only wrath.
The brilliant orb of power detonates, filling the air with awesome spiritual power. It tears into the robes enshrouding Riko's form, blasting into her body in mid-air. Strips of white cloth flutter to the ground as the light fades, trailing the battered body of the witch-goddess. Her limp form hits the stage, bouncing against the wood floor before tumbling to a stop, limbs askew.
Then her head pops off and rolls away.
Not Riko. A wooden dummy. One of the production props, left behind by the Seijyun Drama Society.
"Oooh," lilts a high soprano voice, "you're quite something, aren't you, Odysseus?"
Riko sits atop the mast of the large model ship, the one parked upon the waves over center stage. Clad in a much lighter inner tunic, leaving her legs and arms bare, she kicks her heels against the sails. Her tongue flicks out, wetting her lips.
"Maybe," she murmurs, "we can come to an agreement, hm?"
As she speaks, she reaches up, her hand closing around a crossbeam of the prop ship's rigging. With a loud -wrench- she pulls it free, screws popping.
"I'll just need your manhood in exchange!"
With that, er, interesting offer, the witch-goddess sends the chunk of wood flying straight at Ingrid's forehead.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid overcomes Medium Fling from Riko with Sun Burst.
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Riko 0/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0 Ingrid
That's certainly an interesting technique. If the fact that she used a seal technique that was oh so familiar wasn't enough, the dummy taking the blast in her place is easily enough to convince her she has to have some kind of affiliation with a certain Ninja. ...no, she doesn't do very much studying of the other fighters that are about, does she?
Still on the ground and hobbled, Ingrid looks upwards towards Riko as she sits on the mast, looking all the world like the goddess she's playacting from the position the Norwegian is in now. "An interesting proposition- but not one I'm about to consider!" And then a large hunk of wood is thrown down towards her, and Ingrid suddenly becomes a broken record. Just like before a flash of energy surrounds her as she digs inside herself for more of the power that she holds, forming it into a compact little bubble of energy that she sends on it's way up towards Riko. This time it has something to contend with, but when the two entities impact the crossbeam simply bounces off and lands beside Ingrid harmlessly, leaving Riko to deal with the blast of psionic power- not that she hasn't proven easily capable of dealing with those.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid successfully hits Riko with Sun Burst.
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Riko 1/----===/=======|==-----\-------\0 Ingrid
Or maybe not so capable. The psionic orb crashes into the ninja girl with deceptive speed and fury, knocking her clean off the mast. She makes a distinctly uncomfortable landing, crashing through the deck of the ship stage-set, crunching plywood and styrofoam panels into so much debris.
A low groan filters out of the wreckage as Riko crawls out from the rubble, her hair in a state of disarray.
"Owie," she moans.
She glares at Ingrid.
"Hmph, you really -are- a pig, then," she concludes, pouting.
Then, without warning, she flexes both her hands, fingers spread, and slams them into the stage.
There's something that should be noted, about auditoriums.
There's an awful lot of metal.
Obviously so. There's cabling and jacks for microphones running beneath the stage, hinges and mechanisms to open the trapdoor set into the ground, to raise the platform beneath. There's the levers and pulleys in the wings, the catwalk up above, the spotlights, the speaker stacks... and the camera crews in here to film this match just contribute to it all. An awful lot of metal. An awfully small space.
Something Riko realised, when she arrived here /long/ before the Neo League film crew, long before Ingrid even set foot in the building. Obviously she was there before - she wouldn't have been able to make the entrance she did if she hadn't spent time rigging the flight harness, or setting all those piggy banks in the rafters...
But she also prepared the stage.
Previously invisible lines flare to being, sketching arcs of azure across the ground. Focal seals, spidery traces of arcane writing, letting Riko direct and channel chi through all that interconnected metal...
Turning the stage into a shooting gallery.
Of thunderous fury.
COMBATSYS: Riko successfully hits Ingrid with Level 360.
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Riko 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\0 Ingrid
Ingrid manages to pull off a powerful attack against the young Ninja, but then the tables are immediately turned as the lines of power begin to form along the ground. "A pig? I hardly think so." There's little time to respond any more as electricity suddenly begins raging all around her. Like when the pigs rained down upon her she makes a valiant effort, but there's simply too much energy being flung around for her to be able to escape it all. And like the lightning bolt that struck her before the energy seems to seek her out, as is likely intended, and blasts into her, knocking her every which way before it's finally expended all it's power.
At this point she's unable to summon enough strength to pick herself up off the ground, but there is at least one thing she can try. Oh, she could fire off another ball of energy at Riko, but that'd be a little dull for the audience. Rather than that she pools all her remaining energy and prepares her most powerful technique, managing to at least climb to her knees before reaching her hand out and pointing towards Riko, a small triangle of energy forming in front of Ingrid and acting as a power amplifier as an incredibly large disk forms where Riko's standing. If it connects it'll drag Riko up into the air and then drop her back to the ground, and even if it fails Ingrid will slump back down into a sitting position, unable to complete the follow up she normally does if the attack succeeds.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid can no longer fight.
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Riko 0/-------/----===|
COMBATSYS: Ingrid successfully hits Riko with Sun Delta.
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Riko 1/-------/=======|
The moral of the story.
What goes up must come...
...back...
.../down/.
As the dust clears, the camera crews are treated to the sight of Ingrid sitting motionless on the stage. But across from her, Riko's equally still, lying face down in an impact crater of destroyed wood flooring, broken props, and miscellanious bits of debris too finely pulped to identify with anything short of forensic science. She twitches faintly, barely managing to prop herself up on one elbow...and glares at Ingrid through blurred and unsteady vision.
"Okie," Riko slurs, "not a pig..."
She points with a shaky hand.
"Cow, then."
Which is about when she flops forward, out of breath.
COMBATSYS: Riko takes no action.
COMBATSYS: Riko can no longer fight.
Log created on 10:16:41 11/11/2007 by Riko, and last modified on 09:47:05 11/12/2007.