Description: A water user and ice user are staged to battle in the middle of a river on a raft. Sergio is presented with a perplexing problem when it becomes clear that Kula is able to keep twisting his chi to her whims to use back on him, forcing the Italian to try and think his way through the problem! ( Winner: Kula )
A Neo League match, scheduled at an abnormally early hour, has the fighters gathering on a small, old wooden dock on the edge of a wide, deep, slowly flowing river. The opposite bank is only barely visible through the morning mist that hovers over the gentle current.
However, the two fighters aren't really being staged to fight on the dock itself, but rather a long, flat wooden skiff. Also made of wood... when the match begins, it will be untied from the dock and left to start drifting along the river. Being knocked off the thirty foot raft is not an instant disqualification, but it might be rather inconvenient to deal with!
A second raft is being readied off to the side to carry the cameras and their crew, with a small crowd gathered on the shore simply to see what the early morning hubbub is about. Anticipating the match moving along the river, some of the audience has already moved further along the banks themselves in hopes of being better situated to see later moments of the fight rather than the beginning.
Young fighters are hardly unheard of these days. Some just breaking into the circuits, putting their childhood training to the test. Others doing well, taught by serious parents or trainers to push them to great heights. Others are simply prodigies or naturally gifted with talent. Kula Diamond, however, was engineered for this. The waiting girl appears to not even quite be sixteen years in age, hands clasped behind her back. She is clothed in distinctive attire. A form fitting body suit is covered by a leather jacket and chaps over her legs - highly durable, flexible armor, just another product of NESTS science.
Long brown hair rests against her back as she stares quietly at the skiff that is to serve as the fighting platform. Occasionally, she takes to glancing up and down the length of the wide river, violet eyes blinking once or twice, before staring back at the raft. Another day, another training exercise as far as her handlers are concerned. She has had a tendency to secure stable footing in her fights as of late. Now they want to see how she does fighting atop something as unreliable as that old wooden floating platform.
Abnormally late hour? Sergio'd love that. He stays up and parties all the time. It'd be perfectly fine for him to set something up at midnight, or two in the morning and have a great old time of it. He'd probably be great if he'd just had an all night bender and walked in to the fight drunk. However, he was a complete idiot. He went to bed early (1 AM), and ended up having to get up in time for the fight. As such he's feeling like complete shit. "Ugh."
He smacks his lips to try and get the bad morning taste out of it. He's late, but not too late. He'll make the scheduled start time if they push off immediately, but that's probably not likely, with how sluggishly he's moving today. There is some spring in his step, however, because as he approaches he sees... a hot auburn haired chick in a leather bodysuit? Oh hell yes, he thinks to himself, this is the kind of fight he needs. But as he gets closer things start going wrong. The body is petite and lovely. ...but the face... It's not that he dislikes 'cute' women, it's that he dislikes /young/ women. Mainly because they're not even women yet. Not to the law, and not to him.
So the fight starts out with a pick up and let down right from the start. She might have seen the grinning look in his face when he was further off, but once he's up close it's a rather glum greeting she gets. "Hey. Looks like we'll be throwin' down today. You got some school friends here to cheer you on or somethin', or are they back in bed where we ought to be?"
"Good morning," the young fighter remarks cheerfully, the early hour seeming to do nothing to dampen her mood. While NESTS hasn't managed to gene splice the need for sleep right out of her (yet), they do control when she sleeps, when she wakes, and where she is supposed to be most of the time. Which meant that when it was time to make an appearance at a scheduled place and time, she would be there and she would be wide awake for it.
"I don't have any school friends," she answers his question, not sounding depressed or down about such a declaration, merely describing her circumstances accurately. Closer inspection reveals that with the body suit she also has on a pair of insulated yellow gloves and matching insulated shoes. It seems whoever dressed her was worried about her being out in the morning's chill! "I did bring my doctors though," she remarks, sweeping her hand out to the side toward a tightly clustered group of men and woman off to the edge of the gathered crowd. They don't look dressed like doctors, clothed in fairly normal street attire, but as Kula draws attention to them, they collectively begin to look uncomfortable; one fidgeting and looking away, another turning around to stretch, another couple pulling their hats down over their faces further... nope, nothing shifty there.
A glance at Sergio then back and forth at the dock around him, "Did you bring some of your friends to watch? Or are they back home in bed like you'd rather be?" she asks, bringing her hands forward to brush at her jacket idly. The two are swarmed by the League officials eager to get the match started, however, and the fighters are told that they will be fighting atop the skiff as it's let loose to drift along the river. At the fight's conclusion, they will be retrieved as necessary!
Already having been briefed on the scenario, Kula barely listens to the explanation, merely taking a long step to the side to get her foot on the skiff before pushing off with her other foot to get on it completely. The raft is a good few yards wide, so it doesn't wobble drastically as the girl steps onto it, but it does give a little. Tapping one foot against the raft, Kula frowns a little. It doesn't seem all that sturdy to her. "Be careful," she advises Sergio.
A deep breath is taken, followed by a slow exhale, and in the process a shimmer passes over the girl. Her red-brown hair becomes a pale blue rivaling that of the early morning sky and immediately around her, small particles of crystaline ice begin to swirl, perhaps providing Sergio a hint as to what is likely to come. "I'm ready," she notes, even if her being 'ready' amounts to her just standing there, her arms resting against her sides, her hair seeming to move in reaction to a localized breeze only she feels.
COMBATSYS: Kula has started a fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Kula takes no action.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|
The Italian quirks an eyebrow at the response, "Really? That's hard to believe." He then gives a shrug indicating that he doesn't care either way, but simply finds the fact to seem off. She did, however, bring her doctors. Wait what? He looks over to them and gets a very queer look on his face. "Those are your doctors?" Pause, "You aren- Y'know what, nevermind. You wouldn't be here if you were too damn hurt to fight. It's none of my goddamn business." It'd hurt his head too much in this early hour trying to figure out what the hell that meant.
Her mirrored reply gets a laugh from him, "Hah! No, I didn't bring any friends. They'll probably just see this on TV anyway, so why haul their asses up at this ungodly hour?" Hearing the guy speak, one might hope that Kula had been given at least some cursory explanation of cursing- he seems to do it quite a bit. Case in point, "Wh- FUCK!" He nearly falls on his ass when the skiff is released from the dock. So that's what that guy was saying. He's really not paying very good attention today, is he?
"...yeah, you too." A rickety raft, in the relative cold, over water. If he didn't fight with water himself he'd probably be rather pissed, but as it is he's probably going to be getting wet anyway. And then after a few moments Kula goes from an innocent teenager to a murder machine. Though that's not horribly apparent to Sergio, the ice crystals do at least give him some hint. He seems most taken by the changing hair color, though. "Hey, that's pretty neat. Cool trick you've got there, bet the fanboys love it."
Kula's ready, and states as much. Well, guess that means he can go ahead and get this thing started. "Alright! Good, lets get this going so I can warm up some." Hah. There's a moment when he considers going in for a quick, fast punch. Girls like her are usually pretty quick on their feet. However, that's just not his style. Instead he opens up by stepping forward and dropping his right fist, and crouching down low. He then rockets upward, leaping into the air with a quarter twist, his fist aiming to smash her full force under the chin, a stream of chi in the form of water flowing out from the fist and leaving a long twisting trail into the air. An excellently stolen maneuver. "Water Dragon Punch!"
COMBATSYS: Sergio has joined the fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Sergio
COMBATSYS: Kula dodges Sergio's Strong Kick.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Sergio
Kula takes a moment to wave to the 'doctors' who don't seem to want to be noticed, offering them a cheerful smile before shifting her attention back to Sergio. As it so happens, Sergio's colorful language doesn't have too much of an impact on the girl. Standard swear words she's been introduced to thanks to routine chats with Angel. It's only the... ah... creative ones she tends to get confused on.
As she watches him with eges that seem a bit more red now, perhaps in contrast to that icy blue hair, Kula chirps, "I don't know. I never asked them." in response to the observation regarding her hair. Awh, she seems so harmless, hanging back, small flurries of ice swirling about her now and then, arms resting against her sides... But when Sergio comes in for the big stuff, Kula slips to the side easily, the rising uppercut taking him up into a risky trip into the air.
The trailing water captures her attention, however and the girl responds in a way that would almost definitely not be expected. Her right hand reaches out, fingers entering the end of the trailing water as the older fighter ascends bravely. The moment she touches it, however, the entire stream of water begins to solidify into an icy slush. Waiting until just before Sergio's feet would connect with the raft, Kula clenches her imersed hand and all that slush begins to constrict right back in on Sergio with crushing force.
"Neat," Kula observes as she turns the excess water into a serpentine deathtrap, "I have never fought someone who could manifest so much water before besides myself!"
COMBATSYS: Sergio fails to interrupt Medium Throw from Kula with Medium Throw.
- Power fail! -
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Kula 0/-------/------=|=====--\-------\0 Sergio
"Well, just take my word for it, then. I'm sure you'll be a hit with all kinds of fans in no time, if you aren't already." He responds to her comment on the fanboys. The footwork on the skiff is rather tricky, but Kula seems able to skip out of the way with little to no trouble at all. "Ngh, fast one!"
He's still rising into the air when her hand moves inside the stream of water. Suffice to say, he hasn't a clue why she's doing such a thing- not until she actually goes about freezing the water solid. "What the-" The water freezes rock solid around his arm, leaving it high up into the air, with his feet barely touching down.
Considering himself the master of his own chi simply pumps more our, intending to crack right through the ice to reach out and grab Kula in order to reverse her reversal technique. However the only thing he manages to do is put /more/ water around the ice, which just makes a larger prison for him. "Wh, gh- b!" He his at a true, honest loss for words, unable to even exclaim foul language for a few moments. "Lady," He finally begins, "How the /hell/ did you just do that?!" Says a man practically hanging from a pillar of ice by one arm frozen inside of it. An arm being numbed and crushed by the force of it.
Kula takes a step back to admire her handywork as the skiff begins to... dip a little at the sudden massive increase in weight on the end occupied by the frozen Sergio. The smile that crosses her youthful face suggests she's highly amused by the outcome. Not for the miserable position it's put Sergio in, but just because it's one of the funniest things she's ever seen in a fight.
Her right hand comes up, finger resting at her chin, "If I had known this was going to happen, I would have brought a carrot to finish making the snowman." she notes solemly... before finally responding to Sergio's question, "In much the same way you can bring water springing from your fist like that... I don't know how you learned to do it, but it's how I was trained."
She really should give Sergio a break after a catastrophic opening such as that, but it seems she's going to put his fixed condition to good use, leaning forward to plant her hands against the surface of the raft. Emanating out from her hands a significant portion of the skiff around becomes covered with a thin layer of highly slippery ice. Kula, for her part, seems to have no trouble standing on it as she rises back up into an upright position, leaning her head to the side a little as she merely watches Sergio contend with the predictament he's found himself in. Mercy isn't exactly a trait NESTS has ingrained her with in any significant quantity... but she can't help but watch the show!
COMBATSYS: Kula focuses on her next action.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|=====--\-------\0 Sergio
Yes, smile at the funny man encased in the ice. "Rrrgh..." Sergio growls as he tries to free himself, even now being unable to break the solid eyes from the raft. From the looks of it he's not mad at Kula just yet, but more at the situation he's in. It's decidedly uncool. The snowman comment stops his struggling, and he simply frowns, and lets out a sigh. Good god, he's being teased by a little girl. Oh, the humanity.
He half frowns at her explanation and shakes his head in a confused manner, "I wasn't taught. I didn't train to learn to do it or anything, it just happened and I started using it. Somethin' I was born with, probably." Heck if he knows, but he's sure put it to good use.
Things go from bad to worse as Kula freezes the floor of the skiff, causing the man's feet to slip out from under him. It'd result in painful splits... but instead it results in a painful hanging from his shoulder. "RRRRGH!" He stomps his foot onto the floor of the skiff several times angrily. Stuck in his position he can't think of much that he can do while he's stuck like this. So he does one thing he thinks can't possibly backfire on him. He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a length of rope, which he tosses in a haphazard manner towards Kula. At first the rope sails normally, but soon water swirls around it, turning into a miniature tornado of water that hauls it across the distance towards her, rope at neck height so it can strangle when it makes contact. And hey, with Kula around it's got a cool snow effect whipping around as well as bits of the water freeze!
COMBATSYS: Kula dodges Sergio's Whirlpool.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|=====--\-------\0 Sergio
Poor Sergio. Never knows what he gets into when he enters these league matches. Maybe it's facing off against a rich, eccentric crime lord of ridiculous power. Or maybe he finds himself having to battle wrestlers, crazy doctors, or frightfully dangerous little girls. The red-eyed child watches Sergio try to work his way free of the ice sculpture he's becoming a part of, but it seems he has other ideas on how to deal with her for a little bit.
Or perhaps he's stalling. Out comes the rope and Kula just remains where she is, standing atop the frozen field of ice, some the edges beginning to thaw. It's difficult to maintain an expanse like that indefinitely. The rope comes hurtling her way and Kula ducks beneath it, standing up straight and looking over her shoulder to watch it go flying. A curious attack, she muses, noticing the water that was propelling it.
If Sergio was a mark she was assigned to eliminate on behalf of NESTS, she likely wouldn't have so much paused for a second. But a fight with a certain famous ex-school girl taught Kula that fights should be fun for both people involved, and right now Sergio doesn't seem to be in a fun predictament at all.
Time to help Sergio out! Kula slips forward over the ice with the greatest of ease, drawing her right hand back. She comes to an abrupt stop just shy of the ice sculpture before her right hand comes forward, fingers extended, freezing for a split second just as they come in contact with the ice. And then her hand collapses into a fist and crushes into the entangling ice monument with far more power than the small little punch seemed like it should be packing. It will shatter the majority of the ice with ease... of course there's the issue that Sergio is stuck being in the path of the strike as well!
COMBATSYS: Kula successfully hits Sergio with One Inch.
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Kula 0/-------/-----==|=======\-------\0 Sergio
The attack spins off away from Kula, exiting the skiff and scooting off along the water, ending up god knows where. The Italian is rather used to fighting people vastly stronger than himself by now. He's taken on Rugal, he's taken on Kain... neither alone, but he still had to face down their power. But this... somehow this is worse than even that. It's not just that he's being completely shut down, it's that he's being /humiliated/. His own water turned to ice and crushing his arm- how can it get more humiliating than that?
And when Kula comes and shatters the ice, the only thing he can do is stand there and take it. He clenches his teeth, and the punch hits the ice, the shockwave that broke it going straight through his bones as well, sharp shards of glass cutting into him. He ignores the blood produced by it, and considers his predicament. Several moments of deep thought come down to a single statement. "Bah. Fuck it."
Next comes the even less understandable, "EeeerrrraAAAAAAGH!" as he lunges at the small teenager, turning sideways and lashing out with a hard side kick, trying to mash the bottom of his foot into her as hard as he can manage. He's a bit wiser about the water this time- it'll come as an eruption of chi upon contact.
COMBATSYS: Kula interrupts Fierce Punch from Sergio with Behind Slash.
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Kula 0/-------/--=====|=======\====---\1 Sergio
Sergio was given a demonstration of how hard Kula is capable of punching. Where that kind of force comes from in a girl that small is anyone's guess. But by now he's probably getting used to things like that. Kula draws her hand back, then skids back along the icy surface of the boat, her feet sliding almost as if she had skates affixed to the bottom even though she doesn't seem to.
Red eyes inspect the condition Sergio is in and Kula asks another point blank question, "Are you having fun? Fighting is supposed to be fun, you know. Or, well, it can be. Unless you just fight for money, then maybe it's not so fun?" She sounds a little uncertain on the last point. She hadn't thought that out yet.
Determined to get a hit on the swift moving girl, Sergio's charge across the ice is met with powerful force on the part of the small fighter as Kula punches into his kick with her right hand, slowing it significantly before it impacts her. The chi blast that comes afterward, however, is caught with her left hand, her fingers stabbing into the surge of water and drawing it out long and thin in the process of freezing it, turning it into a lance affixed to /her/ hand now.
A lance which she unfortunately introduces back into Sergio's chest with a very direct, straight forward stabbing gesture. For someone concerned about his fun, she sure doesn't seem concerned about his /well being/!
Sergio is caught off guard by the question. It's not one he'd been considering, and is something he actually has to think about. That makes the answer somewhat predictable. "Eh... I wouldn't really call it fun. I'm too busy tryin' to keep myself from getting a coffin of ice to have fun!" A shrug of his shoulders is given, "It's pretty challenging though. Don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do against someone like you."
The direct, powerful attack is turned against him, his kick being met with the bone-shattering force of one of Kula's punches, which is quickly followed by a lance of ice that spears into his chest. Everyone knows you don't eat yellow snow, but what's up with red ice? Kula probably knows all about that subject by now.
For his part, Sergio simply staggers backwards, holding his hands to his chest once the ice is removed from him. "Christ, if I'm not careful you'll outright kill me with that shit." An odd frown forms on his face, and he shakes his head. "That's it, I give up." What! Is he throwing the match? "I just can't keep runnin' at you and trying to hit you. It just won't fuckin' work. Goddamnit." What the hell do you do when your Plan A fails, when you don't have a plan B? Hastily make up a plan B, obviously. "I seriously hate people who fight like this." He means how he is, right now. Actually /thinking up a plan/. Something is seriously wrong with the world, right now.
COMBATSYS: Sergio focuses on his next action.
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Kula 0/-------/----===|=======\====---\1 Sergio
"That sounds like me before I fought Sakura," Kula responds to Sergio. "She taught me some things about fighting though." the blue haired girl continues, sliding back a little. The ice she painted over the surface of the raft has all but melted away now, leaving a slushy mess in the portions that are curved downward. "Maybe you should meet her sometime."
The girl swings her left hand out to the side, tossing the bloodied lance into the river with a splash, "I won't kill you. It's against the rules for me to use my skills to take a life in a sanctioned fight." Comforting that someone will slap her wrist if she kills someone, right?
When he says that he gives up, however, Kula stops short, her hands going to rest against her sides as she blinks quietly. "Are you ready to stop- oh! I see." she realizes he isn't giving up the match so much as he's no longer going to keep flinging himself into her water-twisting ways. "That makes it my turn to come at you then. Right!"
And attack she does, springing forward into a pirouette through the air, one leg kicking out as she twirls. A trail of sub-zero chi springs up in the wake of her foot as she attempts to kick into Sergio's chest upon landing. If she gets the chance, she'll finish by spinning into a second snap kick straight up, a second surge of chi that takes on the form of brittle ice slicing through the air in the wake of the maneuver.
COMBATSYS: Kula successfully hits Sergio with Ray Spin.
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Kula 0/-------/--=====|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Sergio
"Sakura? ...Oh, you probably mean Sakura Kasugano. Yeah, she's a pretty tough fighter from what I've seen. I'd like to have a chance at her some day. 'd be fun to see how her Hadouken's stood up against my Whitewater!" Probably a lot of evaporating or Red Sea style parted water, but don't tell him that.
The fact that she won't kill him gets a short laugh from him, "Hah. Yeah, they don't take too kindly to people turning their sport into a /real/ bloodbath. You want that kind of shit you go to Seventh Circle." He doesn't know if anyone's ever been /killed/ in the ring, but he's seen some stuff that'd never fly on above ground leagues.
Kula comes to him, and Sergio seems intent on stonewalling her. He just stands there and grits his teeth, waiting for her to get in close. The foot mashes into his chest, staggering him backwards, and then the followup comes, knocking him in the chin, the ice shards slashing into his midsection on the follow-through. The successive blows are enough to destroy his balance, and back he goes. He can only stumble so far, and with a loud splash he falls into the water and floats away as the skiff slowly moves downriver.
The judges are about to call the fight for the time that passes, when it happens. At first it looks like a trick of the light, but after a moment it's clear something is flat out not right with the water in the river. A bulge forms and begins moving towards the skiff. It speeds up quickly, and before long it can be seen that it's not water from the river, but water from Sergio. Soon he's fully out of the water, rushing towards Kula at breakneck speed, completely engulfed in a gigantic wave. The thing is? If she's not careful she might fail to notice the second wave of water, about to scoop her up right off of the skiff and hold her within itself as it rushes onward, the two massive waves heading on a direct collision course.
COMBATSYS: Sergio can no longer fight.
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Kula 0/-------/--=====|
COMBATSYS: Kula fails to interrupt Unrealized Potential from Sergio with Ice Coffin.
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Kula 0/-------/=======|
The attack connects, and Kula is torn from the skiff by the huge wave and dragged out into the river. The two waves rush together and connect, and as they do Sergio pulls both of his fists back and then slams them into Kula's stomach as hard as he can manage. All the while the water swirls and eddies around them, the meeting of the two waves causing an upsurge that shoots high into the sky, the powerful currents assaulting Kula while Sergio remains unharmed within.
It is, however, the very last bit that the man could muster, and the chi water all evaporates almost instantly, dropping the pair of them rather unceremoniously towards the river only a few feet below.
A solid pair of ice laced kicks and then off the raft Sergio goes! Kula certainly doesn't intend to go jumping into the water to take the fight off the boat, which means she simply stands still, arms swinging a bit at her sides as she glances toward the judges for instruction on what's supposed to happen now. It seems they might be about to call it, but a flurry of motion disturbing the river causes everyone to hold their breath to see what is going to happen next!
Sergio comes charging back atop a tidal wave of his own making and Kula simply holds her ground. Her left hand waves forward, creating a barrier of thick ice in front of her. That should buy her the time she needs to seize control over that new onslaught of watery chi, she decides. As the first wave crashes against the barrier, the girl reaches through her own ice and begins to freeze the wave solid.
It's the second wave that catches her, however, sweeping into her from behind and launching her off her feet with a gasp of surprise. Out over the water with no promise of relief in sight, the girl merely focuses on protecting herself as best she can in the midst of the clash of powers. Eyes narrowed, she catches sight of Sergio coming in to slam his fists into her and she quickly waves her hand in front of her again, freezing a portion of the water into ice. It's enough to take some of the sting off his punches before the waves toss her up into the air.
Rising up into a spinning flip, Kula regains control over her descent, drawing her arms in and and spinning vertically back down. The surface of the river freezes into a floating ice drift seconds before her toes touch down on it, and for a moment, the girl spins as if an ice skater coming out of an impressive stunt.
Coming out of the the spin, Kula is left to simply stand on the small, flat ice drift that floats along the river, the water from Sergio's assault evaporating off of her. "Hm..." she muses, "It's a good thing my trick didn't work." Had she frozen more of the water around her at the start, she quite likely would've trapped herself every bit as bad as Sergio, and that would just be embarassing!
The 'doctors' watching from the shore start waving their hands to the officals to call the match and retrieve the two fighters. The sooner they get them to shore, the sooner they can start checking her vitals and testing and prodding her to see how the battle affected her! Kula relaxes a little, not switching off her icy control so that she can keep her replacement raft afloat. But it does seem that fighting Sergio has had an unexpected affect on her. The girl's finger comes up to rest across the base of her nose as she suddenly releases a squeaky sneeze! It looks like all that water mixed with her cold power has given her, well, a cold.
Log created on 23:24:35 05/22/2008 by Kula, and last modified on 12:53:26 05/23/2008.