Description: Objective: Money and nicknacks from random folks. Obstacle: An enigmatic, strangely powerful foreign girl. Alias: Naline. Summary: Spreading holiday anti-cheer, Ayame is up to her usual tricks when she finds her antics being out maneuvered by a girl who isn't so easly fooled by a friendly smile and insincere words. A public spectacle ensues, leaving Ayame confident that she made her point loud and clear in the end.
Who doens't love the holiday season? People are more upbeat. Less suspicious. Feeling more charitable with a higher tendency to forgive. A giving spirit pervades the air... In other words, people are bigger suckers than usual. Just how Ayame likes it.
The girl is situated at a street corner near a small hub of shops in Southtown Village. The signs are obvious at a glance. The pot hanging from a chain attached to a stand at her side. The ringing bell in her hand. The red santa hat with a white poofball on the end of it. The red and white top with accompanying red and white skirt to go with it...
A sign next to the girl reads that she is collecting donations for the Preservation Squad, an organization dedicated to sending aid to troops locked in a vicious battle in... Dutchland. Not that anyone really reads the sign seriously. Ayame simply waves her hand at it vaguely whenever someone slows down enough to get drawn into the con game, convincing them to make a token donation before letting them continue on.
Of course, she's shaking hands a lot, stealing watches, rings, bracelets... and adding them to the black pot at her side as unsuspecting folks continue along their way, only to realize items are missing later on. Ah, it's SantaAyame, spreading anti-cheer to anyone who gets in range of her! One wouldn't be able to tell at first glance. After all, her smile is absolutely beaming with Christmas joy...
The season of giving has arrived, and that means for certain people it's the season of taking. Though in Japan it's best known as the season of romance- the Japanese aren't known for the perfect translation of foreign traditions. It matters little, though, as they seem to get along just fine as is. Ayame must be awfully out of place, but at least this is a western city even if it is in Japan, so it's not quite as bad as all that. Maybe she'll just strike a lot of people as a novelty.
She seems to be raking in quite a many donations though, either given from the goodness of their hearts or taken out of the greed of her own. Walking down the street, a potential sucker approaches. This one isn't a native however, but a foreigner hailing from Norway. The red and white outfit is instantly recognized for what it is, and draws her attention. The blonde stops when she comes close to Ayame, and unlike many people takes a moment to look at the sign.
Unfortunately for Ayame, this specific young woman is onto her before she so much as has a chance to flash that Christmassy smile. The young woman happens to be no other than Ingrid Holmann, empath. All the little emotions of elation when someone puts in a significant amount of money, or when an expensive watch is removed, any distain or humor at the suckers, and very much the intent to rip people off is felt by her in full. Of course she's not going to just up and say as much- what would be the fun in that?
Reaching into her pocket Ingrid produces about twenty dollars worth of yen and puts it in the pot. "It's so good to see someone doing something for the troops," she begins with a sincere voice, "It must be very hard for them to be away from home, especially around the holidays." No hint of the amusement she's feeling is betrayed on her face.
Ayame turns on Ingrid immediately. If she was any less experienced at this, her eyes would light up with uncontrollable exuberiance at the sight of the foreigner. They're even easier than the natives. The locals get the gist of the charity attempt, and tend to pay into the pot quickly just to get the bell ringing girl to leave them alone so they can continue on their way. But someone from the West? Well, well!
Resting her left hand at her hip as her bell ringing arm hangs at her side, ready for a break from making the incessant noise, Ayame smiles brightly at Ingrid, giving her an agreeable enough nod of the head. "Well, it isn't just me doing something. Everyone who donates is as well. Your help is appreciated." the girl remarks cheerfully. Ingrid looks not just to be from out of town, but to have money at that. Well dressed with expensive, custom tailored clothing.
Her white gloves conceal any rings that might be present, but Ayame doesn't let that slow her down as she reaches out to try and take Ingrid's hand in hers. Her other hand flips the bell upside down so that its handle hangs between her fingers as that hand reaches up to try and grip Ingrid's forearm. Her target? The golden cufflinks on Ingrid's jacket. "Thank you again, Miss...?"
"Holmann, Ingrid Holmann." When her forearm is reached for she does the same to Ayame- minus stripping the cufflinks, of course. "I suppose you're right, but it's much easier to give money than it is to stand out in the cold and ringing a bell. Especially in clothing like that." Not that she isn't wearing a rather short skirt herself.
Though she notices the removal of the cufflinks she says nothing of it at the moment, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. The kind girl so selflessly collecting money for those in need would probably like some company, after all. "Would you happen to know how the money is being spent? But then I suppose you're simply a collector and probably wouldn't know about all that."
A moment later, Ingrid reaches up to brush her hair back behind her shoulder. Rather mysteriously, the arm on her jacket decides to fall down. "Oh my, I think I've managed to lose my cufflinks! Would you be a dear and help me try to find them?" She gives Ayame the sweetest smile she's capable of producing and begins to search the ground.
"Only out for a little while," Ayame replies to Ingrid's concern for her well being in the weather. Which is pretty much true. She can't stay in one place for too long. Someone invariably comes back after a while, looking for something gone missing...
She doesn't seem to mind Ingrid hanging around though. The cute foreigner is a great for drawing attention to the little corner sham as people passing by glance over the two and then tend to toss some yen in as of to provide a reason to stick around a little bit longer before moving on. "Pleased to meet you Miss Holmann. My name is Naline."
Her hands release Ingrid's arm, the cuff links slipped into her sleeve ever so carefully. "This time of year, likely small gifts of appreciation is where some of it will go. And winter coats." the girl grins, hugging herself as if to sympathize with the poor, frozen soldiers abroad. But then Ingrid notices the cufflinks have gone missing and Ayame's eyes widen just slightly. "Oh? That would be a shame, that's such a pretty jacket," she remarks. Mn. This one noticed a little too fast for comfort.
Well, there's nothing she can do, she decides, crouching down to run her hands along the ground, eyes scanning back and forth as if making a serious effort to aid Ingrid with this distressing problem. Maybe she'll move along to go search somewhere else, Ayame hopes.
"It wouldn't do for you to get a cold when you're doing something like volunteering your time." Ingrid states, when Ayame says she isn't going to be out for long. "So I'm glad you won't be stuck out here for too terribly long." A warm smile comes from her, "I'm pleased to meet you, Naline."
Searching around on the ground, Ingrid just can't seem to find her cufflinks, as if there was ever any hope of it happening. "This really is distressing, I know they couldn't have been missing for very long..." Around this time a handsome young native approaches, and sees the two attractive ladies looking for something that's lost, and takes interest. He approaches slowly, and looks around himself to see if he can see anything without saying something to them just yet.
Ingrid stands up, "I suppose if I haven't found my cufflinks yet I'm not going to. Maybe I dropped them back at the store..." The young man, not wanting to look like he's only interested in the girls, which he is (though who can blame him?), takes a look at the little donation box and gets out a small wad of money from his wallet and puts it in. Seeing this, Ingrid smiles to him, "It's nice to see that people here are so generous." Pause, "I must say, that is a very nice watch, you have excellent taste."
Naline stays crouched, glancing back and forth, hands resting on her knees. She shouldn't have to put up with the act for long, she muses in her mind. After all, surely the light haired girl can't possibly suspect a thing! Who KNOWS when she lost those cufflinks, /anyway/??
She only becomes vaguely aware of another joining the duo; a young man thoroughly unaware of the trouble he's walking into here. But Ayame ignores him for now, deciding to not waste her time trying to finagle anything else until Ingrid moves on her way. But as seconds pass, those cufflinks are starting to feel real heavy in the small sleeve pocket they're tucked into. Maybe she should roll one down the sidewalk aways and then split when Ingrid's back is turned...
But then comes mention of the young man's watch and Ayame's ears perk up. Rising slowly to a standing position, the red and white clad girl studies the local up and down with a very experienced, cursor glance. Ding! That IS a nice watch. Ayame takes a step toward the young man, taking hold of his hand in much the same way she had Ingrid's earlier. But she doesn't go for the watch... too much attention on it, as both the young man, perhaps pleased at the attention of the expensive arm bling and Ingrid both are looking at it.
"Thank you for your donation," the girl states, eagerly pumping his arm with her one hand. Her other hand reaches up to rest against his shoulder, acting awfully forward to throw him off a little bit more. "Sorry for not noticing you at first, we're looking for a couple of cufflinks that have fallen off of Miss Holemann's lovely jacket..." The hand at his shoulder slides down his side... Ayame gives his hand one last squeeze before releasing and takes a step back, her left hand that had reached behind moving quickly behind her back, the man's wallet held between two fingers. Two backward steps are taken before the girl releases the billfold into the pot and brings both of her now empty hands forward, clasping them together. "But I think it might be that they fell off earlier. No sign of them!" Ayame chirps, glancing back and forth between Ingrid and the young man.
Unfortunately for Naline, Ingrid isn't going anywhere. No, she wouldn't be so mean as to leave the poor kind girl alone in the cold with only people just passing by to keep her company. She really doesn't seem like the kind of person who would like to be alone for such long amounts of time- she's so friendly!
But then, finally the illusion of the perfect kind girl is shattered for poor Ingrid, as she's witness to a most heinous crime of lifting a wallet. Perhaps going for the watch was a bad idea, but going for anything when Ingrid was already focusing her attention on the young man was equally bad. Especially when she just happened to walk to within a few steps of both of them.
A gasp comes from the Norwegian, "Naline, how could you!" She proclaims, pointing as she goes to drop the wallet into the donation pot. "I know those poor soldiers need all the help they can get, but stealing isn't the way to go about it." Suddenly, another gasp! "You didn't steal my cufflinks too, did you?" She looks at her with a hurt expression, "And here I thought you were just being friendly. I don't think those men would want those care packages if they knew how you were paying for them, Naline." She then holds her hand out expectantly. "Now give us our things back, please." A little sigh goes along with it, "I'm going to feel bad, dragging those poor policemen out into this awful cold weather."
ERK. So focused on the wallet likely to provide access to a fair amount of money given the quality of the young man's watch, Ayame hadn't really payed too close attention to Ingrid, thinking the girl's mind would be too centered on her missing cufflinks. But now Ingrid is calling the slightly taller girl out on her antics and Naline freezes, glancing back and forth between the two individuals. The young man certainly has just cause to look rather confused at first. He hasn't quite figured out the gig. He will in a bit no doubt.
The cheer slips out of the girl's expression as she begins trying to figure out how best to play this. "Y-you're... right," she admits, shoulders slouching slightly. She's made a fair amount of money thus far, no need to stick around any longer. But just taking the pot and running for it doesn't promise the best results. Best to create a diversion first!
Her right hand slips into her left sleeve, coming out with /one/ of the cufflinks. "It's just... I felt that... a-ah, well... I mean..." she stammers. "Sorry." comes the sulking apology. Taking a step forward, she holds her right hand out in order to try and hand it over. The moment she's close though, her hand snaps out for Ingrid's wrist in an attempt to shove the light haired girl into the young local with enough force that it's possible they'll both fall over!
If successfull, she'll return to the pot in order to unhook it from the stand. There's a white sack on the ground next to the stand as well, though what it contains isn't obvious at first glance. Hint: It isn't presents for all the good little kids of the world!
COMBATSYS: Ayame has started a fight here.
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Ayame 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Ingrid has joined the fight here.
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Ingrid 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Ayame
COMBATSYS: Ingrid endures Ayame's Quick Throw.
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Ingrid 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Ayame
The jig is up, and Ingrid stands there with her hand out waiting for Naline to hand her a cufflink back. The fact that she looks like she's going to should be the first warning sign, as most thieves aren't going to feel any kind of remorse over what they've done unless they're caught. "It's alright, as long as you give everything back. It'll probably be very hard to find the people you took things from but I'm sure you can manage it. Maybe you could just change your sign?"
Things go awry for Ingrid quickly, as rather than handing her her cufflink back, Naline decides to shove her away and make a clean getaway. At first it looks like it's going to be easy, Ingrid is shoved right into that young man, but then things go wrong. She trips, but in a very curious manner, bouncing off of him and falling right into the donation pot, ill gotten gains suddenly spilling all over the sidewalk.
The young woman pops back up to her feet with agility that would be utterly shocking for any normal person to pull off, "Oh, and here you were just going to trick me again. You're just too much, Naline, really!" And with these words she pulls back her hand and aims a sharp slap right across the face of the red and white clad con artist.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid successfully hits Ayame with Quick Punch.
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Ingrid 0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0 Ayame
*SMACK* Ayame's hand comes up to rest against her cheek, brown eyes wide as she watches all of her collected stuff go spilling to the ground. Bills, coins, watches, rings, bracelets, a necklace, wallets... Ayame has been busy the last hour, and now all her HARD work has been dumped out by Ingrid's obviously /accidental/ flailing about.
Rubbing her cheek for a moment, the girl stares at Ingrid. The foot traffic comes to a screeching halt at the sound of metallic objects spilling onto the ground. Mumurs begin, heads turn, fingers point, attention focused on the two girls as everyone begins trying to speculate as to what could possibly be happening here.
Ayame glances down over the spilled stolen goods, mind working fast to try and figure out how to remedy this disaster in the making. Ingrid will pick up the sense of uncertainty from her. The strawberry blonde is a little confused, caught off guard. But then there's a shift as she comes up with a plan. When in doubt? Fall back on tried and true tactics of playing off of people's assumptions. "Stop, theif!!" the girl exclaims, pointing at Ingrid in a desperate ploy to get the crowd on her side as quickly as possible. Naturally, there is tons of evidence to prove Ingrid isn't the culprit here, but a girl like Ayame /thrives/ on stirring up confusion and commotion.
And of course she needs to keep Ingrid from defending her honor in the face of such a bold accusation... Hence the step forward Ayame takes, her left palm slamming out in an attempt to strike roughly at the best of Ingrid's neck while at the same time she turns her body to the side and attempts to sweep her right leg in behind the other girl in order to trip her down to the ground.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid fails to interrupt Light Kick from Ayame with Quick Throw.
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Ingrid 0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0 Ayame
Ingrid simply waits for a response from Naline as she realizes all that's been done to break up her little plan, even if much of it was 'accidental'. The way she suddenly deals with it is a humorous surprise, for Ingrid. She can certainly think on her feet very fast. "Theif?" She begins, and then abruptly stops as the palm strike is suddenly sent for her neck. Her arms come up to intercept the attack, but not in a simple deflection. She tries to grab the wrist and twist it hard to try and pin the thieving santa's arm behind her back, but the speed of the attack causes her hands to slip on the wrist, and subsequently she's jammed in the throat hard and knocked to the ground before she can pull it off.
This gives her a bit more trouble than she was anticipating, for when she attempts a witty retort after picking herself up the only thing that comes out is a slight choking noise. She's going to have a hard time defending herself when she can't breathe, let alone try and retaliate. Luckily her windpipe isn't exactly crushed and she'll recover, but for now all she can do is hope the young man sheds some light on the situation, he stands there dumbly thinking that girls fighting is rather hot, and attempt to interpose herself between Ayame and the fallen loot.
The moment she has Ingrid down, Ayame leans low to speak to her quietly, her tone threatening, but soft, her words clearly not intended for anyone else. "You're a clever girl and I got careless. But... you should know, I'm not a pushover. Back off and you won't make me hurt you." More than she already has, in any case.
Her accusation definitely gets the crowd riled up. Maybe it's a tinge of nationalism that has them taking 'Naline's' side at first glance, the murmurs and head shakes and hand clenching not boding well for the red eyed girl. But the sight of the two teenaged girls in short skirts fighting certainly catches a lot of attention. Attention Ayame can use, or maybe it will end up costing her if this drags on too long. After all, Ingrid's movements certainly draw attention to the loot pile and the spilled pot. Those don't LOOK like typical donations... "H-hey, wait a second..." the young man muses, maybe... just maybe managing to think with his brain for a moment and put things together!
Ingrid is back on her feet with the warning Ayame gave her, but now she's in the /way/ and the sense of annoyance building in the Santa girl would be impossible to miss. No one really seems to be moving to get into the middle of the altercation though, perhaps too many are undecided at just what it is they're seeing happen. Someone starts yelling for another to round up one of the village officers to come sort this mess out.
Breathing in then exhaling, Ayame charges Ingrid, leaning forward, attempting to right out and out tackle the slightly smaller girl to the ground by driving her shoulder into Ingrid's stomach and following through with the momentum into a very basic takedown. If she succeeds or she ends up getting past Ingrid anyway, the girl will make a grab for the white sack instead of the upset pot...
COMBATSYS: Ingrid interrupts Medium Throw from Ayame with Sun Burst.
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Ingrid 0/-------/------=|=======\==-----\1 Ayame
The words 'Naline' speaks can do little more than seal the deal. How could anyone who could adequately defend themselves stand by and let themselves be talked to in such a manner without wanting to prove their worth? A short inward gasp comes from Ingrid, but it's not in shock. Finally, her airways have opened back up, and she can breathe once more.
Maintaining her position between Ayame and the stash, she takes a moment to catch her breath, and then speaks up what she was going to say before. "Theif?! I've never been so insulted! Why here I am just trying to help those poor soldiers and now I'm being accused of robbery." Funny, that's something that Naline could say to try and cause more confusion, isn't it? The people that begin to take more interest are all but ignored by Ingrid, though the young man is a bit of an acception, "Don't worry, everything will be fine. Why don't you take your wallet back now?" He had yet to do so, and there it was laying on the ground.
Someone decides it's time to get the police involved, and that's about when Ayame charges Ingrid. This turns out to be a large mistake, however, as there's suddenly a bright golden flash about the Norwegian, and her hands lift up to her chin where a small dull golden sphere forms. It's deceptive though, and that much becomes clear as she blows on it towards Ayame and it detonates in a large explosion. It's not enough to completely stop the girls charge, and she ends up crashing into the young woman as intended, though with a much lessened force. With a little bit of a flourish, Ingrid states, "I'm not exactly a pushover myself." Her amusement is finally allowed to creep into her voice, and perhaps Ayame will realize she's been had.
Half a block away, Ayame's little santa hat falls out of the sky and lands on top of some kid's head. From this range, even his delighted "Wai!" would be impossible to hear. Having collided with Ingrid with no where near the strength to knock her over, Ayame slumps sideways and drops to the ground, propping herself up with her hands, gasping for breath. Her emotions are jumbled. Fear mixed with a struggle to stay focused, a conscious effort to detatch herself from the agony that racks her nerves and concentrate on how to escape. No effort is made to keep the young man from reclaiming his wallet, as Ayame remains seated on her side, not moving for a long moment.
What /was/ that? At first glance she had thought the foreigner was preparing a chi blast and had begun to focus her own aura in defense against it. But whatever that was just ripped right through any defense she could have hoped to muster. She certainly can't handle something like that a /second/ time. In spite the cold, perspiration rolls down from her temples and her supporting arm trembles a little.
Hissing, Ayame's right hand slips into the right pocket of her skirt, sliding back out with three cards between her fingers. About the size of normal playing cards, they're decorated with a all kinds of fancy holiday symbols and even have a pithy message on each of them. But as she flings all three of them directly toward Ingrid's chest, the white haired girl would do well to not miss the fact that the edges of the cards are razor sharp.
The odd attack hurled, Ayame begins to crawl rapidly toward the sack she was making her way for moments ago.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid fails to interrupt Thrown Object from Ayame with Sunburn.
- Power fail! -
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Ingrid 0/-------/----===|=======\===----\1 Ayame
An impressive display of power on Ingrid's part for sure. Don't tell Ayame it's not something she can't do constantly at will though, because that's half the fun. Ingrid is the type of person who, if at all possible, enjoys teasing her opponents in combat. Perhaps it's not always direct, but usually there's a hint of this in her actions that can be found. Ayame's startled reaction and seeming desperation to delay Ingrid is little more than she could have hoped for, and should allow her to play off of it very well.
With this in mind she rushes forward, and falls prey to one of the most dangerous faults one can make in combat: Overconfidence. She can tell that those cards are going to do -something- harmful to her when they strike, but she doesn't figure they'll pack as much punch as the palm to the throat she took earlier. But they do. They slash right through her expensive jacket, and the sharp pain catches her off guard, and she flinches. While running. Predictably, she falls to the ground, this time not getting up quite so nimbly as she had before.
At least she can see the humor in her own hubris, however, and there's a light laugh that comes from her and her smile remains on her face. She won't say anything though- that could ruin the fun!
The theif definitely has gotten way more than she bargained for. Expecting the prissy looking moppet to run at the first sign of real trouble, instead she's gotten a girl that can nuke her to high heaven if she gets the chance to. Leaping into a forward roll to close the last bit of distance before she can get her hands on the white sack she was aiming for, Ayame doesn't even realize just how effective her little weapon trio proved to be as the do-gooder takes a spill to the ground.
Fishing her hand into the sack, the girl produces her most trusted weapon, a collapsed staff that she wastes no time expanding into its full six foot length while simultaneously pushing herself to her feet. Though her right hand rests against her knee for a moment, the self-proclaimed Naline is standing up straighter a few seconds later, starting to feel a little bit better after running face first into a tactical nuke.
"Okay..." the girl breaths out between gasps. "I gave you your chance, but you're not so weak as I thought." she allows begrudgingly. In fact, the girl packs one of the hardest hits Ayame has ever taken outside of what the world famous psychic, Rose, did to her in a SNF bout. That alone leaves her making a mental note to research the girl /when/ she's finished dealing with her here!
Narrowing her eyes, Ayame begins to concentrate, sending chi coursing along the length of the weapon in her hands. Orange in hue, it flickers out along the weapon almost like an electrical charge ready to leap to anything that gets remotely in range... And then Ayame tries to put Ingrid in that range by stepping forward after the girl.
A swift, sweeping horizontal strike is followed by a vertical, upward swing with the other end of the staff, finishing with a final far reaching, extremely swift but powerful horizontal strike intended to knock Ingrid back for the powerful hit she had landed with that strange power of hers. If the poor girl isn't so fortunate as to avoid the strikes, each swing is accompanied by a somewhat eletrical-liek discharge of the orange colored chi in a shower of sparks that fill the air around the two girls before falling toward the ground and vanishing.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid fails to counter Requiem For Fallen Blossoms from Ayame with Sun Upper.
- Power fail! -
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Ingrid 0/-------/-======|=======\====---\1 Ayame
Perhaps if she spent some time thinking on it, Ayame would find that the power she was assaulted with was rather similar to what Rose had used on her. Not the same, but very close to it. "I'm not? I'm glad to hear that, though I do find it a little sad you underestimated me when you were trying so hard to get others to underestimate yourself. You should be more careful, in the future."
And then comes the sweet irony, because just as Ingrid warns her opponent not to underestimate she does just that, once again. That orange glowing energy is trouble, and she knows it. Chi is very much the bane of her fighting existence, and she would do well to avoid it whenever possible. Instead of simply avoiding it, however, she's going to try to deal with that pole Ayame has suddenly produced. She smiles slightly, leans forward... and gets smacked in the head with an energy imbued pole.
Ingrid doesn't weigh very much, and when attacks like this one contact her humorous things result. Case in point, she's literally thrown to the side by the force of pole on skull damage, hitting a storefront and falling to the ground limply. For Ayame, who apparently doesn't know her fighting style, it must have looked as if she stuck her head right into the path of the weapon on purpose. Humor is gone from her face and replaced with a look of pain. Heck, she's not even getting off the ground, this time!
Poor girl can't get a break it seems. Ayame's falling back on one trick after another. There's a lot of reasons she's gone this long with her antics without getting caught. And one of those really big reasons happens to be the polearm she's now drawn on Ingrid. Custom made and engineered, the light weight but sturdy titanium staff serves as the prefect conduit for Ayame's finite chi control to operate along. And of course, she's packed a lot of unpleasant surprises in the thing as well.
As Ingrid drops, Ayame shakes her head slowly. The chi continues to flicker along the weapon as Ayame doesn't stop channeling it quite yet. The advice offered just before the chi laced attack provokes a thin smile from the unpleasant mannered girl. "I already gave you your warning, so I won't bother giving one now. Besides, it's too late. Though I suppose a piece of advice for the future: When someone swings a titanium pole at your head, try getting out of the way next time." Smirk. A glance over her shoulder and Ayame watches the crowd tighten in on the spilled pile of stolen goods. She'll have to chalk it up to a loss or fight back the entire mob.
The girl sighs, shaking her head. "Well, there's only one thing left to do here..." Her voice is calm, the pain from before having subsided enough, leaving only a lingering headache that doesn't seem likely to diminish any time soon. "...and that's to teach you a practical lesson in not butting in on something you can't handle!"
And with that, Ayame is back on the offense, charging the girl, her staff flaring a violent red instead of the orange hue it was a moment before. As she gets within a few yards of Ingrid, she swings one end of it up to point at the light haired girl. From the hollow tip a cloud of smoke explodes outward, partially concealing the girl and making it harder to predict the directions from which her attacks are going to come.
Stepping out of the small smoke cloud, 'Naline' unleashes a relentless attack intended to make sure Ingrid never forgets this little encounter between them. Vicious, chi-laced strikes, one after another as Ayame tries to tenderize the poor girl a bit... About the only thing one could muse is that at least Ingrid is lucky she didn't extend the long blades the staff also houses... Five strikes total, one targeting each of Ingrid's limbs, and the final one a vertical smack on the top of her head to put her down for good if she isn't fortunate enough to avoid the violent combination.
If successful, Ayame will back off, breathless but otherwise not too bad off, bracing with her weapon just in case that combination didn't finish the job.
COMBATSYS: Ingrid fails to counter Final Solstice from Ayame with Sun Delta.
- Power fail! -
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Ayame 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Ingrid can no longer fight.
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Ayame 0/-------/-------|
Ingrid hears Ayame's words about what she's gotten herself into, and they register. The fact of the matter is, though... that Ingrid knows she's better than this. She knows that she's been failing miserably, when the truth of the matter is that she should be putting Ayame through the ringer, considering how vulnerable to her power she seems to be. Because of this, she remains undaunted. Perhaps not confident, but sure that the result so far is due to mistakes, and not any lack of skill on her part.
Thus, as Ayame rushes towards Ingrid intent on giving her a very solid beat down with an energy laced titanium pole, she stands in place and prepares to bombard her with psychic energy. The smoke bomb goes off. ...annoying. That messes her up a bit, but luckily she has a sixth sense that is undisturbed by the device. However Ayame is too fast for her in the end. As the first swing comes in a powerful flash of energy surrounds Ingrid the very moment the pole makes contact.
Ingrid is beaten down, and hard. She's knocked to the ground by the first strikes, and the one to the top of the head crushes her to the pavement. Again, aside from the flash it must have looked like she actively stepped into the path of the weapon. And she was just warned about that! For the moment, the Norwegian is doing nothing more than holding her head, that last hit really having gotten to her. She pulls herself into a seated position a few moments later, and lets out a little sigh. "You're quite right, I'll have to be much more careful, from now on. You can have my cufflinks, I suppose you've earned them."
The combination delivered, Ayame braces behind that formidable weapon of hers. She calls it Anathema, though she's never told anyone that. Likely a loathsome thing to those she fights, it's her pride and joy, the sum total of all of her creative brilliance. The smaller girl seats herself but she looks to have been effectively persuaded to not continue fighting this Naline character.
Taking another step back, Ayame collapses the staff and backtracks. The gathered crowd looks rather aghast by now, having basically watched the santa-theme dressed girl smack down a nice enough seeming foreigner with a metal pole. "Heh," she grunts as she's told she can keep the cufflinks. A nifty prize for her trouble, though she finds herself feeling a little unsatisfied at Ingrid conceding them to her willingly.
After all... now that she actually has a paying job, she doesn't need to rob for money. It's a sport to her now. And having someone just acquiesce in the end, even after a brief, violent altercation, leaves her feeling kind of unsatisfied. Ingrid might pick up on that, if she's not focused on her head hurting. Now she knows how Ayame's head feels after that giant Sun Burst! "I suppose I have," she states. Earned them, that is. Though her tone has changed some.
"Next time you feel like losing money to me, we'll try this again," she states, her right hand coming up to brush her hair back over her shoulder before she turns around to regard the crowd. Brown eyes fixate on one middle aged fellow who is holding the white sack that Ayame had pulled the staff from. Wide eyed, the individual is staring at the contents of the bag. Knives, whips, other various weapons. What the hell is all this stuff for??
"Hn." Ayame charges him, slamming her shoulder into the man while snagging her bag out of his hands. Sent stumbling, other individuals begin to close in around the girl, wanting to pin the theif down for the arriving police. But a second explosion of smoke goes off, causing some folks to cough and almost all of them to close their eyes. Using the window of opportunity, Ayame hops up and runs across the shoulders of the crowd to get past them all before hurrying on down the street with enough speed to leave just about everyone convinced there's not much hope in catching up with the little miscreant. Exeunt: Santa Ayame.
COMBATSYS: Ayame has ended the fight here.
Log created on 23:38:36 12/19/2007 by Ayame, and last modified on 13:05:47 12/20/2007.