Aranha - Overdue Duel

Description: Aranha is once again hanging out at Pacific High, thinking things through while Vince finishes up fencing practice. Aranha gives Vince the fight that he was owed though it wasn't on TV like they originally planned. The Dancing Spider manages to confound LaRose with his evasion ability and manages to put him on the ropes before Vince makes a comeback of his own.



Another busy day at Pacific High. At least for those who actually care about their studies and how they fare. Vince is one such student, but he thrives in a hectic lifestyle. A busy Vince is a happy Vince!

And Vince has been quite happy lately.

Next up on the schedule is fencing practice. Suited up and on the field, Vince spars a fellow teammate as per usual, and the match is winding to a finish. The other members are standing on the sides, masks off and held in their offhand as they spectate.

A foil flashes.

A strike connects.

The spar is called to a close by the coach, and both parties stand down. The one whose foil struck the winning point upturns the buttoned weapon to slide it into a sheath. Not regular equipment for Olympic-style fencing, but neither are the ornate stilettos lining the belt. Hands lift, and the mask is pulled off, revealing Vince's face. He gives his head a quick shake to let his hair fall into its rightful place, then tucks the mask under his left arm and extends a hand to his opponent.

And this is shaken.

Such is how practice tends to go. Always in the afternoon. This one just so happens to be cloudy, but breezy and cool.

And up in the bleachers is someone who doesn't go to Pacific. In fact Aranha is on another one of his tours. It's what he does when wonders what could've been, had life been different. If he hadn't made the decisions he made and actually stayed in school.

Well he wasn't a fencer but it was something different and he was off from his current job of fight hustling. He had made enough things shouldn't be a problem.

As soon as Vince takes off his mask, he waits for the moment for Vince to look his way and lifts his chin in an informal manner of greeting.

And then he sits down as he pulls out his mp3 shades and puts them on as he watches the rest of the practice, making a note to talk to him afterwards.

Cordial handshake complete, Vince turns to join his comrades... when he spots a familiar face. It's that chap from the woods, he believes. That -is- where he thinks he met him. Though he tends to meet many, many people from that area. Go figure. Still though, he has practice to finish up.

Right?

Well, not really.

The coach eyes his watch and promptly calls it quits. According to him, they've "put in enough hard work to call it a day", and they're dismissed. Convenient enough, Vince supposes, for his curiosity has him drifting towards the dark-skinned youth on the bleachers. Mask still tucked under his left arm, he offers his right hand up in a wave of pleasant greeting.

"Salutations! You look... quite familiar," Vince says conversationally, eloquently smooth voice spiced with a hint of wear from the training.

Vince may not be certain about meeting Aranha before but Aranha is sure beyond a shadow of a doubt. The face is part of the reason but the main reason are those rosettes. He has seen them before. When they first met, and he has yet to see a fighter who uses those besides him. "I believe we've met before. Vincent LaRose, right?"

He steps forwards as Vince makes his own approach hand extended for a handshake though his left is held up high near his own body as well. One of the quirks he has.

"I wasn't certain until I saw those." He keeps his hands right where they are but he tilts his head towards the rosettes. "I go by Aranha."

Vince takes the hand to give it a light, but firm shake, smile never losing a beat. Though when his hand is recalled, it drifts to the pommel of one of the sheathed daggers, feeling over the vibrant red blossom. "Ah.. yes.." His gaze lowers to it a moment, then back to Aranha. "Oh! I remember now, I think! You were... training, I believe." His head inclines, bangs drifting out. "What brings you to our illustrious facility this day, Aranha? Considering enrollment?"

Aranha ruefully shakes his head. "No, unfortunately." Aranha's hands draw back and seem to almost automatically to his hips as he looks at the fencer. "Once upon a time, I considered it but I'm not exactly sure I'd fit in."

Aranha sighs as he glances at the facilities and all the equipment. "Actually I just occasionally show up to think about what if things were different." Aranha doesn't seem like he plans on elaborating any further than that and so he changes the subject quickly, "As I recall, I still owe you a fight."

Vince withdraws slightly at the declination and apparent self-reflection, tapping a finger to his lips. "Oh. I highly doubt anyone minds your presence, so I'm certain you're free to contemplate and meditate as much as you like here. These are good grounds."

And then the subject changes. Abrupt, but interesting. And Vince definitely perks. "Ah! Excellent! Yes, that -was- our parting words, wasn't it? If you feel up to it, we certainly may!" He gestures broadly out to the side. "This field has seen more duels than anything else, I believe, and I've been.. lacking.. in -real- duels for a while. This is most welcome training!"

Beat.

"Would you prefer I fence with foil or blade? I could send a friend to fetch my actual weapon, if the idea of being struck with a buttoned tip insults you. I just prefer to give my opponent the option of drawing blood or not." Vince's smile takes on a more sheepish element. "Listen to me, rambling..."

Aranha stops to contemplate it for a moment before making his decision. There are a lot of factors to consider. The fact that he's not unfamiliar weapons cutting into him, and the fact the people he hates the most use weapons.

"Well it wouldn't be the first time a live blade was used on me. I'll take the blade." He needs to feel the sense of urgency of a real weapon plus it's nothing new to him. "I'm already covered in scars. What's a few more?"

A finger moves to his sunglasses to turn on the music and then leaps down onto the field before dropping into a roll upon touching the ground to distribute the impact. Most efficient way down.

"I can respect your decision." Vince turns his head aside and draws out his foil. "Alberto, would you mind?"

And up steps a hulking fencer, who takes the foil and turns to run back to the main building.

Vince's icy blue eyes return to Aranha, an anxious glint quite discernable in them. "He won't be long." After a moment, he adds, "To be fair, I haven't any dull replicas of my rosettes. Regardless of what I use, people run the risk of being cut when fighting me."

Aranha nods in reference to rosettes. He doesn't seem to be too overly concerned with the idea of being cut. At this point, Aranha might be desensitized to idea of being cut. He can name a few people who'd happily cut him and a handful of people in Metro who have attempted to wield broken bottles against him.

On the other hand feeling Hyo's sword or Kurow or Raizo's claws may be a reason for healthy respect. But Vince is just coming into the fighting world. He wouldn't be that good would he? Well only way to proceed is to likewise treat his blades with a similar amount of respect until proven otherwise.

Though to reassure the person he's fighting he says, "It's an acceptable risk."

"That's good," Vince says.

And about that time, Alberto returns with a far more elegant weapon. Vince turns and holds his hands out, which the blade is placed along laterally. The handle is then gripped and the blade flashes upright in a fencing salute. "I encourage you to do your best. That is the greatest training to be had."

The blade is then flashed downwards at his side. The mask is placed back over his head, and he enters his stance. "En garde."

With a few adjustments to his shades he then smiles as he slips into his stance. Or rather his dance, the ginga. Swaying to the music in his sunglasses he gives a nod and is ready to go. Dancing closer and closer before suddenly tilts into a cartwheel pushing out with his foot. It's nothing major, just something to test Vince's reaction.

If Vince should move out of the way, he'll cartwheel right by, if his foot catches something, he'll just move in the opposite direction and go right back to his feet. En Garde? A Capoeirista always has to be on guard. People just like to deliver sneak attacks for fun even in the classes.

COMBATSYS: Aranha has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Aranha           0/-------/-------|


COMBATSYS: Vince has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Aranha           0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Vince


COMBATSYS: Aranha successfully hits Vince with Light Kick.
- Power hit! -

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Aranha           0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0            Vince


The bobbing, weaving dance-ish movements Aranha has taken are quite odd for Vince. He isn't sure how to handle it. Immediately, he misjudges the angle of the attack, and the mask is struck soundly on the side, staggering him aside a step. "Huh! Interesting!"

But Vince is immediately attempting to give him a taste of his own style, blurring into motion with a leap to close the short distance between them. The movement lands him in a deep lunge, bladetip thrust squarely for his opponent's chest - ideally to stab directly through him and push all the way to the hilt of the weapon.

COMBATSYS: Aranha dodges Vince's Balestra.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Aranha           0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0            Vince


Aranha bounces back from the delivery of his kick. And it would appear that he might've put more oomph into the cartwheel than he originally planned and suddenly he sees a blur out of the corner of his eye of Vince moving in to pierce his chest. He doesn't have time to pick up what exactly he didn't like about the attack but he knows that he probably doesn't want to be there when it comes.

Even as Vince extends the point of the blade towards his chest, Aranha remains poised as he practically moves in towards it and just as the blade is about to touch, he drops his entire body under it with his knees pushed forward as he reaches back with a hand while the other is raised to guard himself if worse came to worse.

A quick spin brings his body facing downwards while he looks between his legs to look at his target before pushing a foot upwards to his chest if close and mask if he's back a bit further using the momentum of the kick to spin him back to a standing position.

COMBATSYS: Aranha successfully hits Vince with Medium Kick.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Aranha           0/-------/------=|===----\-------\0            Vince


Struck in the chest and unprepared to really move out of the way, Vince staggers back a step with a grunt. This isn't going well so far, he feels. He needs to pick out this guy's movement patterns and quick, otherwise this will be a desperately pitiful display. And -that- does the LaRose name, nor Rose Dansant any honor whatsoever.

So to test the waters to a degree, the swordsman maneuvers in close and whisks the blade in an upwards diagonal slash from hip to shoulder, followed by a sharp thrust for the torso.

COMBATSYS: Aranha dodges Vince's Medium Strike.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Aranha           0/-------/------=|===----\-------\0            Vince


Unfortunately, Aranha proves to be quite a slippery individual. As the slash goes upwards Aranha's entire body tilts to the side, just barely under the blade. He's about to rise from the evasion of the first strike when the thrust comes in he drops to one knee to avoid getting impaled.

Quickly Aranha spins back up to his feet. But he already knows what tends to happen when he proves to be more evasive than he would appear due to his scars. In an attempt to squash that before it can start he whirls around with a glowing roundhouse, following it with a spinning jump kick which is likewise glowing with blue chi before driving a third chi engulfed kick upon the head of the swordsman.

COMBATSYS: Aranha successfully hits Vince with Aggressive Dance.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Aranha           0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0            Vince


The way Aranha moves is truly difficult to predict, Vince has found. It's very different from anything else he's faced.. and it's definitely good target practice. A bit unfortunately humbling insofar, though, since he fancies himself a sort of marksman with the blade, but still. He has little time to consider this, though, as the mask is struck again ringingly. The energy bleeds through the material to strike the head underneath, getting a pained grunt from him.

"...Alright... a little change, perhaps," mutters the swordsman.

The blade whirls back towards his body, and a swirling wreath of smoky gray energy forms along the length of the steel. In a sudden blur of motion, the sword stabs towards Aranha's chest, aimed to impale clean through... along with the smoky energy cascading towards the tip of the blade in a funnel to drill clean through the torso.

COMBATSYS: Vince successfully hits Aranha with Venteuse.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////             ]
Aranha           0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\0            Vince


And this time Aranha sees something he doesn't quite like and had no clue as to what it was but unlike the time before, Vince this time is going to pierce him. Blood pours from the wound created by the marriage of chi and edged metal and causing pain for the capoeirista.

At this point, because of the attack making contact, Aranha has a good idea of why he didn't like it but it's all conjecture at this point. The fight would have to go further before he could say for sure. While he's figuring that out, he pulls away quickly spinning away and respecting the wound but then he goes back in with another cartwheel but instead of kicking he uses this one to close before scissoring his legs about Vince's and performing a take-down.

COMBATSYS: Vince blocks Aranha's Medium Throw.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////              ]
Aranha           0/-------/-======|=======\-------\1            Vince


Behind the wire mesh mask, Vince smirks to himself. Finally, a solid stroke from his blade - and with his specialized energy, at that. Nice. But then Aranha is attempting to shift the momentum back over, and Vince finds his legs scissored. Again, not what he's particularly used to.. but on the way down, he twists his body over to hit his elbow and tumble over in a smooth roll. In the end, he winds up on his feet again and in his ready stance.

After a mere moment's consideration, Vince skips into the air in a quick twirl. When he lands on the grass again, his arm is extended out at Aranha... and a rosette is in the air, twirling like a disc at Aranha's torso.

COMBATSYS: Aranha overcomes Medium Fling from Vince with Web Shot.
- Power hit! -

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////              ]
Aranha           0/-------/-======|=======\-------\1            Vince


When Vince rolls out of the attempt to drop him down Aranha makes no move to keep him from getting away. In fact there's not really much Aranha can do about it anyway. Of course, the fact that Vince is moving away gives the capoeirista more time to think things through.

Planning gets put aside as he spies a rosette spinning towards him. He spins away, perpetually dancing as his left hand glows blue. As he spins though he whips that same hand around flinging a blue spider web of chi at the edge of the spin causing the web to knock the thrown weapon aside as it continues for Vince's shoulder.

COMBATSYS: Aranha successfully hits Vince with Web Shot.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Aranha           0/-------/=======|=======\==-----\1            Vince


The webbing was completely unexpected as well. Really, Vince -must- be getting quite rusty. His teammates are starting to get impatient with his performance, at that. It's disheartening!

But Vince is far from ready to just give up. The webbing has struck his left shoulder, stinging and getting a hiss. The sword lifts again, and Vince closes in quickly to attempt whisking the blade horizontally across his torso.

COMBATSYS: Aranha blocks Vince's Quick Strike.

[        \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Aranha           0/-------/=======|=======\==-----\1            Vince


Aranha's body rocks away from that horizontal cut but he's not quite able to get away from the slash unscathed either. All he can really do is move his arm in the way cover it up but that's better than letting it go through completely.

Aranha moves carefully swaying to the beat of whatever song is playing in his sunglasses. And then all of a sudden he leaps forward his feet shooting forward to push Vince in the chest before dropping to the ground and then quickly backflipping to regain atleast a bit of the distance he had from before.

COMBATSYS: Vince dodges Aranha's Light Kick.

[        \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Aranha           0/-------/=======|=======\==-----\1            Vince


Vince's blade fails to really sink in, but it's still struck -something-. So that's a little bit, if nothing else. His blade sets at the ready to press the attack, only Aranha is launching himself forward.

This time, Vince catches onto the approaching attack. He ducks low and weaves around to Aranha's side, letting it swing past him harmlessly. At that moment, his boot thrusts out just beside Aranha's head, then hooks back with the heel aimed to strike the face.

COMBATSYS: Aranha dodges Vince's Light Kick.

[        \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Aranha           0/-------/=======|=======\==-----\1            Vince


The distance that Aranha had gained with that flip backwards serves to help his cause. It just takes Vince just that instant longer to move to Aranha's flank and gives him that precious time needed to react to the back heel kick by falling into a back bridge and letting the foot pass over his face.

Aranha plans on giving Vince a little something extra to think about. To do that, Aranha throws his hips up and over so he's in a handstand and once there he begins snapping kick after kick down on Vince's head. He seems a lot more relaxed at this point than he did at the beginning since he seems to have found his flow. Though truth be told he was pretty relaxed at the beginning of the fight as well.

COMBATSYS: Vince parries Aranha's Inverted Flurry!

[         \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Aranha           0/-------/=======|=======\==-----\1            Vince


Vince certainly is not relaxed, however. He's grown a little irritated with himself. He feels he's definitely losing face with his team, and his coach has taken to facepalming.

So Vince has decided it's time to really give his best performance. When those feet begin hammering at him, the sterling blade flashes in a blur of motion, swiping each kick aside in a series of precise parries. At the final kick, the deflection is much more severe - hard enough to knock Aranha aside, hopefully prone. His left arm rips free from the ethereal webbing that was encasing it, hand thrusting into the air.

Immediately following this, a swirling torrential tornado of smoky gray energy explodes from beneath Aranha, swirling high into the air to blast him off his feet, shredding him...

COMBATSYS: Aranha blocks Vince's LaRose Storm EX.

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Aranha           1/------=/=======|-------\-------\0            Vince


And with the first step taken care of, the swordsman leaps into the cyclone, himself, riding it to meet with Aranha in the sky. Once even with him, his blade flashes rapidly in a series of thrusts and stabs. The movements of his arm and the blade gripped is far too swift to be followed, blurring out of sight, the number of strokes immeasurable by amount and speed. They cover everywhere over Aranha's body from torso up, ending with a sharp, solid thrust intended to forcefully blast him back down to the ground.

Which Vince will land near a couple seconds afterwards, cyclone dying down until gone completely.

Or at least, that's how he intends it to go.

But as he's lifted up Aranha is forced to adapt. The wind takes him on a ride and there's way too little he can do about that but the sword strikes that Aranha /has/ to deal with to maintain his dominance of the fight. Though it's hard to track with the eye, Aranha's instincts completely take over causing his hands and legs to deflect and cover up protecting the various locations that the swordfighter goes after in the attack.

The final thrust is intercepted but he's driven to the ground all same but his parkour training comes to the fore as he drops into a roll, the same roll he drop into before the match started.

He brings himself to his feet, his arms bathed in blood. New scars forming to join the pre-existing scars. And then instead of dancing he walks in a circle around Vince. Watching, studying, and plotting out the end game to this match,

COMBATSYS: Aranha focuses on his next action.

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Aranha           1/------=/=======|-------\-------\0            Vince


When Vince lands, he already knows his best hasn't really done as much as it could. Not even a fraction. This is becoming a bit on the frustrating side, but.. again. He's not going to just call it quits because of it. That would be most dishonorable to his name, and really, it wouldn't be fair to Aranha. Even -if- he's performed lousy insofar, in his mind.

Vince stands his ground as Aranha circles, hidden gaze watching him with a hint of irritation. In the blink of an eye, his left hand has extended out to Aranha, and another rosette is airborne. This one simply travels on a direct path for his torso, aimed to imbed into him.

COMBATSYS: Vince successfully hits Aranha with Sudden Fling.
- Power hit! -

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Aranha           1/----===/=======|-------\-------\0            Vince


The rosette is flawlessly tossed at him and Aranha just doesn't have any hope getting away this time. Before he even can think about dodging the rosette is already planted firmly in his

The rosette is flawlessly tossed at him and Aranha just doesn't have any hope getting away this time. Before he even can think about dodging the rosette is already planted firmly in his side but he doesn't pull the weapon out of himself.

Aranha suddenly moves faster than he had been all match, in terms of attack speed, clearing the distance between them whipping a fast and powerful roundhouse across his head and then spinning around to perform a hooking back heel to the back of sword fighter's head and using it to pull Vince face first to the ground with a slight grunt.

COMBATSYS: Vince blocks Aranha's Face Down.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////                    ]
Aranha           0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0            Vince


The feet meet with the flat of Vince's blade, though the impact pushes squarely against his torso through redirection... and harshly, at that. Nevertheless, Vince retains his footing, even if particularly winded and wound down at this point. He hops back from Aranha and the left hand thrusts to the sky again.

But there's no cyclone this time.

Instead, a flickering image cuts through the clouds above, careening in a broad, swooping arc. As it draws close, it lets out a shrill avian cry and swoops just over Vince's shoulder. At that point, the entity is clear - a smoky gray falcon with eyes of an opaque obsidian, talons curved over for impact and raking against Aranha's face. Hit or miss, the falcon swoops upwards towards the sky again.

COMBATSYS: Aranha dodges Vince's Spirit Falcon.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Aranha           0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0            Vince


Aranha by rights should've been the Falcon's Prey. Because of the brazen and aggressive nature of his attack he should've been too slow to pull away, but Aranha developes a sense of urgency, dive rolling forward and just under the diving falcon.

He's back on his feet again and breathing heavily as he moves in to attack again. Pulling up into a front flip, Aranha brings his heel downwards with a powerful kick. Perhaps he's trying to end the fight.

COMBATSYS: Vince dodges Aranha's Strong Kick.

[                \\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Aranha           0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0            Vince


The fact that Vince has failed to strike so many times is very much disheartening... but interesting at the same time. Perhaps Aranha will make excellent target practice in the future. The way he moves -is- quite unorthodox. Or at least, that's how it seems to him. So his extreme weariness, the hurting.. it's worth it. It's been good training, one way or the other.

The flip and heel-kick is instantly evaded, swordsman ducking low and weaving around to get in behind Aranha. From this position, Vince shifts his weight onto his back leg, sword drawing in closer to his torso. The stance suddenly deepens, bladetip thrusting out at Aranha's torso.

COMBATSYS: Aranha interrupts Medium Strike from Vince with Change-Up Kick.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////                         ]
Aranha           0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0            Vince


And Vince's sudden speediness had forced Aranha to look into other options as far how to deal with him. As a result, the Dancing Spider does something different from what he's been doing all fight long. Instead of avoiding the attack Aranha moves into it dropping forward as the blade cuts into his shoulder. He knows he doesn't have much time left before Vince recovers and so he drops to the ground with his hands planted on the ground.

As Vince draws his sword back, Aranha whips his heel over his own back striking the swordfighter in the mask with it. It looks like a tail of a scorpion.

And it dents the mesh in, smashing against Vince's face. And now Vince is bleeding. He staggers back from the hit, teeth gritting. Though he's very obviously weakened, even without seeing the swordsman's face, Vince continues on. He closes in immediately and pivots over, aiming to thrust a sidekick into Aranha's face squarely with his heel.

COMBATSYS: Aranha dodges Vince's Light Kick.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////                         ]
Aranha           0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0            Vince


Aranha quickly is up and just as quickly is back down to the ground again this time avoid the side kick to the face. Aranha must really want to protect his sunglasses this afternoon. He still has a fight to finish and so he's back up to his feet leaping as he performs a spinning jump kick. The thing about it is that Aranha's first never lands. Instead it's phantom kick used to position himself for the powerful spinning side kick with a burst of blue chi to aid the impact delivered right to the torso.

COMBATSYS: Vince dodges Aranha's Malicia.

[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////                         ]
Aranha           0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0            Vince


Worn and hurting as much as Vince is, both in pride and physicality, he's still trying to turn this back around on Aranha. The kick.. is remarkably slow, for what Vince has been dealing with from Aranha insofar. The feinted jumpkick is weaved past, though it seems incredibly lazy in comparison to Aranha's other attacks. And the reason why immediately becomes apparent when he's throwing the spinning sidekick. Vince leans his body back heavily, tilting just out of the reach of his foot. As the leg is drawn back, Vince leans in again - this time with a quick, stinging pierce from his rapier.

COMBATSYS: Aranha fails to interrupt Quick Strike from Vince with Light Kick.

[                     \\\\\\\\\  < >  /////                         ]
Aranha           0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0            Vince


Aranha was obviously fatigued. Possibly more than Vincent was. He just didn't have it in him to make that one last dodge and so he doesn't move out of the way. As a result he waits for Vincent to come in, inviting him with a trap but his blade is just fast enough that the trap is dealt with before it even has a chance to spring.

Aranha stumbles backwards and then begins to dance once more, though now the dance is more lethargic. It seems as though Aranha doesn't have much energy left either. And his ginga proves it. "This might be a bit more brutal than a birthday roda."

Vince sees some weakness in his opponent. Some wearing down. That's definitely pleasing for the swordsman. Perhaps he wasn't performing as badly as he thought?

He'll give it more thought when he isn't, you know, in the middle of a fight.

Vince whisks his blade over, scattering a few droplets of blood from the steel. "You're good training," he lauds behind the dented mask. "I should like to fight you more often. But... roda?" No, he didn't really understand that.

With that said, he's decided he's wasted enough seconds. He shifts to the side, then in towards Aranha again, this time flashing the blade in a smooth moulinet circle in front of him before plunging it towards Aranha's torso.

COMBATSYS: Aranha blocks Vince's Medium Strike.

[                       \\\\\\\  < >  /////                         ]
Aranha           0/-------/---====|=====--\-------\0            Vince


Just as Vince sees a weakness in him, Aranha sees a weakness as well. In the moment that Vince strikes he notices he's going for the kill and depends on his speed to overwhelm opponents, but there's a problem. Often in using that speed offensively, it makes it harder for them to recover and although Vince is faster than most who use that tactic, that vulnerability is still there.

And so Aranha moves in with arm in the way of the quick sword strike to the arm before dropping down to ground and then throwing himself up into the air in a one handed back hand spring while snapping an incredibly fast kick out with his closest leg.

COMBATSYS: Aranha successfully hits Vince with Light Kick.

[                      \\\\\\\\  < >  ///                           ]
Aranha           0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0            Vince


Aranha's tactic pays off, as Vince's worn out state really doesn't warrant him the mobility or speed he needs to recover from that fast enough. So he's hit, and while it isn't a necessarily pulverizing hit, it's enough to pull out the remainder of his energy, it would seem. So Vince drops to the ground, then pushes himself up to a knelt position, tip of his blade planted into the grass. Oh, he recognizes the mistake he made, for certain. Next time he'll do a few things differently. But for now...

Vince suddenly springs back up to his feet, blade wreathing itself in swirling smoky gray energy. The weapon is stabbed severely towards Aranha's torso, and like earlier, the wreath of energy funnels into a lance, ideally creating the entry wound as well as exit.

COMBATSYS: Vince can no longer fight.

[                      \\\\\\\\  <
Aranha           0/-------/---====|


COMBATSYS: Vince successfully hits Aranha with Venteuse.

[                           \\\  <
Aranha           0/-------/=======|


Aranha on any other day probably would've dodged that final gasp. Unfortunately the war of attrition between these two had finally taken its toll on him in such a way that he just couldn't move out of the way. The lance of energy and steel piercing him once more and knocking him from his feet.

Aranha barely brings himself to all fours panting and gasping for air. "Man... That... was awesome." Aranha can't continue though the same can be said for his opponent. It'll take a few moments before anything else can come out of his mouth. He's busy swallowing air... Oh sweet sweet oxygen.

Following the stab of his blade and Aranha's backwards flight, Vince collapses to a knelt position again. Left hand weakly keeps himself propped, right hand planting the sword's tip into the grass still. He, himself, can't even speak just yet. He just stays as is.

But hey, it seems he's endeared himself to his teammates again. The large one, Alberto, stalks up to the captain's side. All Vince can manage at that point is, "Mask." The teammate reaches down to remove it for Vince, who's head hangs. He now has a fair amount of bruising on his face from the mask's denting. It really would've been much worse, had he not worn that.. so in retrospect, thank God. He doesn't usually wear that apparatus when actually dueling someone!

After a few more moments of nothing but panting from Vince, his head lifts, sweat-soaked bangs hanging before his eyes. His left hand raises to give a thumbs-up. "You're excellent. It's been my pleasure."

Aranha doesn't respond for awhile. His lungs finally fill back up with air and that's when he rises back up to his feet though he's a bit wobbly from impact, fatigue and a bit of blood loss. He regards the fencer with a nod before removing his Oakley Thumps and slipping them into his pocket. It was a miracle that he managed to keep those intact.

"We defintely have to do this again." And those are his last words before he leaves the Pacific premises. First thing on his agenda, clean up. Second, rest... For a good long time.

Log created on 22:59:23 05/01/2008 by Aranha, and last modified on 08:41:34 05/04/2008.