Description: Objective: Having an axe to grind. Obstacle: Aranha's own abilities. Alias: None. Summary: Ambushing Aranha while the young fighter is in the midst of searching for teammates, Ayame catches him off guard with a vicious surprise assault. Though the violent exchange ends in Ayame's favor, it's unlikely that this is to be the last time the two clash.
Aranha has been attempting to recruit fighters for an upcoming tournament once again and once again he's been doing his recruitment in the form of street fighting for money. At this point though, he's only going through the motions. He doesn't have faith in being able to find people. The fighter pool is getting a bit shallow.
Aranha at the moment is finishing off his current opponent and doesn't seem to break a sweat. "Dammit... Not enough." His lips turn downward in a frown. It's odd to see such a sour look on someone who just won some more money for himself.
Picking fights for money is definitely something Ayame has a history of doing. Of course, she usually makes sure to rig the fight somehow as well when taking such chances, since she's not at all interested in the challenge of a fair match so much as she wants to make an easy buck. With her ear to the ground for such opportunities, she picks up a stray rumor about a fighter taking on some challengers in a corner of central Southtown. Word had it money was on the line...
Slipping out of her usual haunt of southern Southtown, the street rogue finally manages to locate the place where the fights for money are taking place, coming to a stop a little ways off as she scouts out the area to make sure that it isn't some kind of set up. She can't help but be paranoid, after all, the list of enemies the girl has is hardly trivial!
But then her eyes come to rest on the victor of the last brawl as Aranha finishes off another hapless foe that didn't stand a chance against the experienced Capoeira artst. "Well, well, of all the faces to see," she muses beneath her breath. But with Aranha winning a match, money exchanged hands, which means his pockets just got lined a little bit in spite the sour expression on his face. What a weird way to react to a win, she ponders. Maybe he's just bored. She could certainly cure that problem - but that probably won't help his /mood/ any...
Slipping through the crowd with ease, Ayame works her way closer to the street fighter. Part of her ponders how she really shouldn't be messing with him. She has work to do in Southtown with the assignment she's been given, but on the other hand she doesn't feel like business between them has been satisfactorily concluded. And now's as good a shot as any. Making sure the crowd doesn't take his side right off the bat, Ayame leaps in with a shout, "You have a lot of nerve showing your face after the money you stole from me!"
Ah, nothing like a completely fabricated accusation to get the audience confused. Ayame doesn't waste the moment, making a lunge toward Aranha, attempting to grab his arm and twist him down to the ground, slipping her legs over his chest and trying to pry back his limb painfully with an armlock. Surprise ambush from no where from crazy girl!
COMBATSYS: Ayame has started a fight here.
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Ayame 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Aranha has joined the fight here.
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Aranha 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Ayame
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Aranha with Medium Throw.
- Power hit! -
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Aranha 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Ayame
Aranha didn't even have a chance. Everything happened so quickly that he didn't have a chance to gather information about the sudden change to the environment. First there was the accusation and then the sudden attack. And it does confuse the spectators considering the fact that Aranha has been nothing but fair with how he had been handling the fights.
Aranha goes up and over finding his back on the ground not being able to put up any type of defense against it. "That's actually funny considering that it was /you/ who broke into my house!"
With his arm trapped he can't really do much until she let's go and to encourage that, he borrows a move from Blanka's book in the form of a savage bite down on Ayame's leg. Of course this raises eyebrows considering that Aranha hasn't really fought dirty either at this point but there are some that feel it completely justified. One dirty shot deserves another.
COMBATSYS: Ayame parries Aranha's Strong Throw!
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Aranha 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Ayame
Getting him down on the ground, Ayame wrenches Aranha's arm hard. She knows from way too much experience that his arms aren't his primary means of striking others, but his agile style does depend on them for some of his acrobatic flips, tricks, and handstands, and the more she can eliminate that option the more restricted he'll become. "Heaping more lies onto your list of crimes won't help any, little spider!" Ayame grins through gritted teeth, intent on keeping the crowd from turning against her if she can help it. Though that might change once weapons start coming out, by then she hopes to have scared them all into leaving her alone /anyway/.
But Aranha doesn't want to chat, he wants to bite! And from Ayame's perspective, she's able to see the attempt coming in time to do something about it, kicking back into a roll to get away just before the young man's teeth get a chance to clamp down on her exposed leg. By the time Ayame is back to standing, she's already slipping off one of her belts, holding the few yards of leather as a whip in her hand, smirking back at the youth as he thinks he's gotten a break.
And it's in that moment that she lashes out with the weapon, attempting to ensare Aranha by the neck and yank him forward hard, trying to pull him back down toward the ground so that she can slip in behind him and stomp his back with her foot. Brutal, unfair, cheap tactics seem to be the name of Ayame's game right now!
COMBATSYS: Aranha interrupts Blackmail EX from Ayame with Bad Beat.
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Aranha 0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0 Ayame
It would appear that cheap tactics would appear to be the order of the day for both fighters. The capoeirista isn't quite able to do anything about the belt lashing his neck pulling him downwards. Aranha is, however, able to to do something about the attack the moment that she gets behind him.
He turns around before she can get her foot up to stomp his back and darts head first for Ayame whipping his head upwards to crack the other thief in the chin before dropping low to the ground and slamming the crown of his forehead into Ayame's stomach before pulling both legs from under her.
After pulling her legs from under her Aranha backs away from Ayame cranking his arm a bit trying to atleast get it suitable working order. Ayame is right in that he does depend on them not just for his more acrobatic moves but he needs them to move about the environment.
Caught in the chin, the girl staggers, losing her grip on the whip and finds herself an easy target for the follow up headbutt to her stomach that crumples her forward with a surprised gasp of pain. When he goes for her legs, she tries to get a grip on his shoulders to put a stop to the combination attack, but she's too slow to pull it off and the girl lands on her back a second later with a grunt.
As he backs up to work his arm a bit, Ayame props herself up on her elbows for a moment, shaking her head to get her hair to fall back over her shoulders and out of her face. "I would say that's a bit fresh for a first date, but I guess we've danced enough that I can't claim that anymore, can I." the strawberry-blonde remarks, slipping her feet under her and rising up to standing, hands brushing at her skirt for a moment.
"There was way too much interference the last time we fought - I like it this way better," the girl smirks. No Kyle or Marise. No blackmailed traps to drag him into the arena. Just him and her, one trying to escape the life of crime, the other reveling in it without remorse. She wouldn't have it any other way. "I always knew I'd catch up with you again. Guess it's my lucky day."
Stepping in forward, Ayame feints a very telegraphed kick toward the young man's groin, but it's merely a setup to try and draw his defenses low as she stomps her foot down early instead and spins forward, a knife slipped from its sheath as she attempts to slash him across the torso in the midst of the hoped for confusion. Of course, pulling the knife costs her much of any sway she had over the crowd that had been watching Aranha fight. Only one of the two fighters has stooped to drawing arms, after all.
COMBATSYS: Aranha blocks Ayame's Quick Strike.
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Aranha 0/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Ayame
Aranha was hard pressed to see through the crotch shot feint which was somewhat unusual for Aranha in that he usually can see through bluffs. As a result he twists and spins away from the feint avoiding the potential low blow. His response to the feint in turn seems to help him in responding to the very real knife attack.
He rocks away from the knife slash catching the blade on his arm before spinning around with an outside crescent kick, using the momentum of the first kick to launch a spinning jump kick off the other leg.
As for Ayame's barbs, he doesn't respond with anything but silence. He'd rather let his feet do the talking for him.
COMBATSYS: Ayame fails to interrupt Change-Up Kick from Aranha with Dream Crushing.
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Aranha 1/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Ayame
Completing the spin, Ayame takes a step back, flipping the knife closed and sliding it back into its sheath. If she's disappointed that she was unable to connect with a clean hit, she doesn't show it, her expression one of faint amusement at the disturbance in the crowd around them as everyone tries to make sense of this seemingly random violence.
"Don't run away, I have so many wonderful new things to show you since our last time together." There's definitely no sense of him running as his next attack comes in quick, the wide kick keeping him back out of obvious stabbing range... but there is the /non-obvious/ stabbing range, which Ayame attempts to introduce the youth to, slamming her right arm forward.
From beneath the black and red cloth that covers her right arm a spring loaded, foot and a half, narrow blade shoots forward, attached to her limb like a short sword. Charged with white, electric-like chi, the girl makes a clear attempt to skewer the young man with it as he kicks, willing to trade blows - confident hers will hurt far worse than his...
But his swift conversion of momentum into a second spinning kick leaves him safe from harm as Ayame's blade slashes out right alongside him, carving nothing but air and leaving her all the more vulnerable for the second kick that clocks her hard in the head. Staggered by the blow, she stumbles back a step, dropping to the ground, catching herself with her left hand but finding it awkward to move much at all with her right hand due to the blade sticking out over it. "...okay, not quite like that..." she mutters.
There were a few new tricks he had added to his arsenal. Bad Beat was something he had when he fought her the second time but didn't use. He used Malicia when he fought her then but there was one more thing that he didn't show off then that he has used on another Blackjack member.
If she watched those particular fights she'd recognize the spinning motion and the blue glow coming from the back of his hand as he whips it around but no glowing spider web chi comes out. Instead he goes into a cartwheel-like motion but it stops in a handstand before he snaps out a rapid series kicks down on the weapons master's head. But even the way the attack that's delivered seems slightly different.
COMBATSYS: Aranha successfully hits Ayame with Inverted Flurry.
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Aranha 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\1 Ayame
After being knocked to the ground, Ayame was only just starting to push herself back up to standing, the weapon on her right arm retracting back into the device that holds it tightly against her forearm. Brown eyes shift to watch his hand, noticing the chi that builds up and expecting an attack of that nature.
It's with unpleasant surprise that he catches her with the shift to a flurry of rapid kicks knocking her against the top of her head, nearly forcing the hellion back to the ground again as she staggers backward to get out of range of further strikes for a moment. Growling, Ayame's hands tighten as she glares back at Aranha, feeling the aches of the strikes against her head starting to call her focus into question.
"That's it, you've had it easy so far, but now I'm going to destroy you." Ayame snaps, left hand slipping down to pull open the pouch affixed to one of her belts, fishing from it the collapsed staff Aranha knows well enough by now. And then she holds her ground, gripping the weapon in front of her. In their previous fights, the chi she displayed had always been somewhat constrained and controlled, but right now the energy that builds up around her is anything but restrained.
Swirling, angry red whisps of energy build up around her feet then continue on up, encircling her body and curling over her shoulders as she pulls heavily from the world around her. "No more holding back," she snaps as the power builds up, the young fighter picking up on techniques she's seen others she's fought utilize.
COMBATSYS: Ayame gathers her will.
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Aranha 1/------=/=======|=======\====---\1 Ayame
Aranha doesn't have the ability to sense chi. He doesn't need it when his sharp eyes tell him what he needs to know. First there was the obvious. There was the angry wisps of red energy gathering around her and billowing up from the ground as she draws in chi.
The overt display isn't exactly what interests him. It's the internal. He can see that she's breathing much more easily than she had before. That's part of his cause for concern. The other part is the knowledge of what's to follow after such displays.
With this in mind he tries to apply continued pressure on the weapon fighter by thrusting out with a front kick to her abdomen.
COMBATSYS: Ayame blocks Aranha's Change-Up Kick.
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Aranha 1/-------/=======|=======\======-\1 Ayame
Wordlessly he charges in on the girl, once again avoiding taking her bait in exchanging barbs back and forth. It's a good idea, avoiding her tendency to try and distract her opponents with verbal jabs every bit as effective as her weapon strikes when it comes to debilitating their power to fight her at their best. But he knows better than that by now, much to Ayame's chagrin.
The energy swirling around her begins to slow some as the young man steps in with an attack, driving his foot up and out toward her stomach. Shifting her staff into the way, Ayame takes the hit from behind the protection of her titanium polearm, grunting a little as she's forced back a few feet, her shoes slipping from the pressure of the agile youth's strike.
"Nice try," Ayame growls, "But now your time's up. I'm through with you." As she speaks that energy that had started to fade builds back up, swirling around her staff every bit as much as it is around the girl herself. Violent, angry red in its hue, it flickers and dances like red fire eagerly seeking a target to savagely burn. To make matters worse is the three blades that extend out of one end of Ayame's staff before sliding into positions at ninety degrees from each other, forming a small, bladed cross on the tip.
"This is it!" she snaps, swinging out with the staff back toward Aranha, moving it so fast that the air seems to blur behind the trajectory of the chi-laced, sharp, metal weapon. Spinning around into further strikes, Ayame begins to attack Aranha with a series of jabs, stabs, bashes, slams, pokes, and crushing blows, each potential hit of contact accompanied by sparks of chi exploding into the air around them. One after another Ayame tries to strike Aranha, and all around him people begin to flee in every direction, not wanting to be caught up in the wake of Ayame's fury.
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Aranha with Final Solstice.
- Power hit! -
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Aranha 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|==-----\-------\0 Ayame
Aranha wasn't able to draw his leg back in time. His recoil just too slow to get out of the way. He becomes little more than a hapless victim as strike, stab, poke and chi burst after the next inflicts damage and fills his world with pain.
Aranha's body is batted around like mouse after coming across a sadistic cat. When the final attack knocks him away and sends him crashing into a car putting a huge dent in the side door and setting off.
It takes awhile for him to get up and some may question whether he was knocked out before the move to get up. When he gets up, a maniacal smile appears on his face. Taking deep breaths as he moves in closer to Ayame.
COMBATSYS: Aranha gains composure.
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Aranha 1/=======/=======|==-----\-------\0 Ayame
Ayame runs herself ragged with the all out assault; the last slam to knock Aranha away more to buy her distance than anything else. Still, she's among the many that assume that's all the young man could take. He must be out by now. There's no way he could handle more than that. As the car alarm echos up and down the street, Ayame stops to catch her breath, putting her staff up against her shoulder as the red chi that was coursing over it begins to fade away entirely.
"Let that be a lesson to you," Ayame smirks, leaning her head to the side, perspiration running down her cheeks as she begins to recover from the effort made to take the young man out with the savage attack. The three blades on the end of her staff fold up and retract back into the polearm. And then Ayame starts to turn away, deciding to book it before she pushes her luck any further...
But it would appear that chance isn't to be, as contrary to expectations Aranha has it in him to get back up. Glancing over her shoulder at the vague sound of movement barely audible over the screeching car, Ayame freezes, eyes coming to rest on Aranha as he advances on her. Frowning faintly, she hides well the uncertainty the strange smile brings her, "Now, now, you should just stay put. You're only going to make me hurt you worse." the girl states.
Yet as she talks, she's backing up, step by step, seemingly quite interested in putting space between her and the young fighter that she has tormented time and time again. Perhaps that look on his face reminds her of a time he felled her in a bloody pit fight. That time Marise had been there to make sure he only got so far, but this time she's alone. Lifting her right hand and waving it back and forth in front of her as she takes another step back, the girl tries again, "I think we're finished here. You really should just walk away..."
COMBATSYS: Ayame focuses on her next action.
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Aranha 1/=======/=======|==-----\-------\0 Ayame
Aranha continues to smile as he approaches her, slowly walking in as she backs away, a crazed look appears on his face as he approaches but then he stops and looks at Ayame before something strange happens. He suddenly disappears and in an instant he's right in front of Ayame.
There's no build-up of chi or any type of to herald the teleport. It's done with pure speed and in fact, it's a trick that he picked up in the one-sided beat down he received from Chris.
It's only when Aranha is in her face that chi comes into play. Aranha spins around whirling an outside crescent kick trailed by blue chi to catch the weapons fighter in the side of her face.
COMBATSYS: Ayame counters Royal Flush EX from Aranha with Bright Renewal.
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Aranha 0/-------/-======|===----\-------\0 Ayame
Setting herself up to be ready is the only thing that saves the girl as Aranha suddenly moves faster than she's ever seen him go before. She'd fought Chris in the past, and the way the young man literally seems to traverse space in an instant almost secures Aranha a hole in Ayame's frightening defenses. It's almost more from panic than real skill or timing that she reacts, her mind filled with images of when she was pinned to the floor by the dancing spider in another place at another time.
His foot comes up, trailing chi as he attempts to deliver a stunning strike that would surely be the first hit of the end of what the teen fighter could take in punishment before collapsing. And Ayame retaliates in an instant, her own movement the result of no small amount of innate reflexes moreso than intentional timing.
The staff she depends on so heavily comes up, catching Aranha behind the knee with a preemptive slam, Ayame pushing into the attack with both of her hands, using all the strength in her body to stop his strike short. And then she steps /into/ the attack, spinning around such that her back ends up to Aranha and her staff slams downward, aiming to take his ankles out from under him in another attempt to drop him to the ground.
The taunting is gone from her voice now, her lips tight, her jaw set, and her face just a little pale. "You're not getting me like that again," states the girl without saying anything to indicate what it is she's referring to. Weak from the effort of the adrenaline driven reaction, she starts to take a stumbling step away, trying to get distance between herself and the nearly entirely unpredictable young man.
Aranha was almost certain that he had her the moment he saw the panic in Ayame's eyes not realizing that it was that desperation that would actually save her. As his leg is stopped he's put in quite a vulnerable position and there's absolutely nothing he can do to save himself from getting the only foot he had remaining on the ground taken from under him.
This time Aranha doesn't stay on the ground for long and he is quickly back on his feet with a spin. While spinning to his feet his hand begins to glow with blue energy. This time it isn't a feint. He is actually sending a projectile of blue chi formed into a spider web right for the Blackjack operative.
COMBATSYS: Ayame parries Aranha's Web Shot!
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Aranha 0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0 Ayame
Backing away from Aranha, however unsteadily she does it, proves to be exactly what Ayame needed in order to defend herself, the girl having just the space she needs attack offensively rather than passively defend herself. Bending down for a moment at the same time Aranha is kicking back up to his feet, her right hand clasps hold of the whip she had dropped earlier...
And then comes his chi web hurlting toward her and Ayame spins up to respond to the energy attack in kind. As she turns, her staff glows with a pulse of deep blue at the same time Ayame slams it right through the side of the web. The reaction of chi against chi seems almost to tear the spider web asunder almost like it was made of real silk.
The swift discarding of the web gives the long haired hellion the chance to continue on into a second spin - and this time lashing out with the whip from its maximum range, attempting to wrap it around Aranha's ankles from a distance, both entangling him and making it easy for her to pull on the whip and drop him to the ground once again. It seems her interests in keeping him well grounded are based on her experiences with how agile he is in just about any environment.
WIth a crack the whip lashes out with blinding speed as the girl makes a focused attempt to take the fighter down. "HAH!"
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Aranha with Hijacked EX.
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Aranha 1/------=/=======|=====--\-------\0 Ayame
Aranha's eyes widens as she bashes apart his energy web like it was nothing. It's at this point that the maniacal smile completely vanishes. As a matter of fact it is once again replaced with one of disbelief.
What's even a bigger surprise to him is the whip that wraps around his ankles. He finds himself gasping as he finds his legs taken from under him again. He works quickly to get the weapon off of his legs and then he begins to run at the weapons fighter a trail of blue chi shadows following him before he jumps at Ayame feet first.
COMBATSYS: Aranha can no longer fight.
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Ayame 0/-------/-======|
COMBATSYS: Ayame reflects Joker's Wild from Aranha with Midsummer Fantasy.
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Ayame 0/-------/-======|
The girl is out of control now, it seems, as if pushing her into a panicked state has only made her even more bewildering to fight than before as she reacts on adrenaline driven speed rather than her normal cool and collected tactics. As Aranha starts to free himself from the whip, Ayame releases her grip on its handle, tightening both of her hands around her staff instead.
And then in he comes, one more time, trying to land a blow on the girl that always seems to have just one more trick up her sleeve for fending him off, and this moment is no different. He leaps, feet slamming in toward the girl, aiming to soften her up for more abuse from both chi and kicks.
But it is in that moment that the tricky fighter slams her staff upward, a massive pulse of chi blasting out from it in a radius from around the weapon, overwhelming Aranha's chi laden kick and keeping Ayame safe from harm as the cool, chilling blue aura expands out. But such defense comes at a cost and the moment she has deflected the young man's strike, the girl lowers the staff, dropping to a knee against the pavement as she exhales, gasping for breath, sweat rolling down her cheeks and jaw as she glares back toward the spider.
Too breathless to say anything more, and too fatigued to strike out further, the girl merely stays in place, one knee against the ground, both hands gripping her staff tightly, using it for support. He's beaten, she believes. She could get her revenge right now. The revenge she feels she's owed after what happened before. But as her brown eyes scan the crowd around her, she realizes that as much as she is owed this chance, now is not the time...
Slowly Ayame pushes herself back up to standing, gritting her teeth tightly. And then lifting her staff up so that she is no longer leaning against it, she presses a button near the center, releasing a smoke bomb from the bottom end of the weapon. By the time the obscuring screen fades the young rogue is gone. Along with the money Aranha had made from his street fights this afternoon. She had said that things were concluded between them, but could this fued ever really be over?
COMBATSYS: Ayame has ended the fight here.
Log created on 00:04:03 02/22/2008 by Ayame, and last modified on 12:25:07 02/22/2008.