Description: King's popular Bar & Grill serves as the stage for a Neo League bout between the 'creepy' NESTs assassin, Kula Diamond, and the inebriated ninja, Mai Shuranui. While both fighters bring remarkable speed to the fight, their evasive reflexes are negated by each other's remarkably fast and tricky attacks. ( Winner: Kula )
A cozy bar and grill settled in a busy district of the world famous Southtown is a popular hangout amongst fighters looking for a break between their busy life of fighting, sanctioned or otherwise. Old brick columns and corners abound, with tables set throughout the large, high ceilinged lounge. A bar to the right of the main door allows patrons a place to socialize and drink to their heart's content.
The windows are open, allowing late afternoon, gradually diming sun light to pour into the dinner, drawing some longer shadows that melt into the warm lighting that fills the interior of the structure. Even with preparations underway for a Neo League bout, the place is alive with quiet murmurs, occasional louder laughter, and a cheerful, homey feeling of good friends getting together to enjoy a nice dinner on the cheap.
The establishment of a well known fighter, today it will serve as the venue for an exciting match. An area of the dinning portion of the room has been cleared of tables, leaving people to hunch up in the more limited space remaining around the edges. Occupying a portion of that open space is one of the combatants. Clearly young at a glance, she stands up perfectly straight, arms resting against her sides. Long locks of auburn hair spill over her shoulders and along her back and her body is almost entirely covered with protective violet leather body armor.
Kula Diamond - a young girl with a reputation for frightening ice control and an equally daunting track record, she doesn't seem to be at the site alone. Gathered in one corner of the more cramped space remaining for customers is a small gaggle of people that arrived with her. Handlers, researchers, scientists, they're only conspicuous because of how hard they're trying to NOT be. Often glancing around with furtive glances, some clearly clad in wigs or fake facial hair, the group keeps looking toward their young experiment. Another match, another chance to monitor her progress.
For the young girl standing next to one of the sturdy brick columns, it's just homework. She needs to do good because she gets scolded otherwise. But Neo League is just more homework piled on top of the endless training she's constantly having to undergo. Thus it is that one might even get the impression that she's just a little bored, her expression quiet and neutral, calm as a glacier as she stands alone in the busy diner.
Mai Shiranui was told that her scheduled Neo League match begain approximately four hours ago.
Three hours ago, she started playing darts to kill time.
Two hours ago, she began drinking.
One hour ago, she gave up on Kula appearing.
Now, she's too drunk to have any regrets. She sloshes out of the back room by sneaking out one of the back room's windows and then sneaking into the main diner area via another window, and though she's wobbly on her feet, she's still silent as any true ninja should be, and she's even opted to wear her /blue/ whoroichi outfit for maximum stealth, inasmuch as one can be stealthy in what amounts to a vest, a loincloth, and tails. "So you're the famous Kula," Mai says, standing atop a table that two people happen to be eating at. Her voice is slightly slurred. "I've been waiting for you!" She leaps to another table, skidding and knocking someone's steak onto the floor. "You've got an impressive buzz on you, kid, but I've got Shiranui ninjitsu -- and an impressive buzz going! I move like the night wind and am numb against both physical pain and clear, rational decision-making!"
Mai assumes a fighting stance. "So show me what you got!"
As her opponent announces her presence from atop the table of a pair of customers, Kula remains amazingly docile. Covered from head to toe in leather, even her hands are concealed by a pair of yellow gloves that look to be thickly insulated at that. Whoever dresses that kid must really be worried about her coming in contact with anything unpleasant! Violet eyes shift to focus on the girl, head canting to the side just slightly, mouth fixed in a bit of a neutral expression.
"Shiranui ninjitsu..." she echos back, her voice contemplative as if she's trying to decipher just how worried she should be about such a bold claim. "Isn't that a fashion style?" she finally asks back, one eyebrow slightly quirked as if having finally placed the reference as being something not entirely related to fighting. "I don't think I'd be allowed to wear something like that." she concludes.
A breath is taken in followed by a slow exhale as a shimmer of white energy courses over her from head to toes, leaving in its wake frosty blue hair and a small spiral of drifting snow flakes that seem to drift on air currents local to the girl. "So you practice a drunken style of martial arts?" she asks following her rapid shift to combat readiness. "I wonder if being numb to pain means you can keep fighting longer than you should."
Stepping away from the column and facing Mai directly, her arms continue to rest against her side, "Make sure to not fight too long. I will not stop until the match has been ended one way or another." she warns, though her voice seems to lack much in the way of compassion about whatever harm she could possibly end up causing the other girl. With the officials getting the cameras rolling, the time to fight has come, but Mai's young opponent seems content to simply wait, standing calmly in place, staring back with eyes that seem crimson hued in contrast to her bright blue hair.
COMBATSYS: Kula has started a fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Kula takes no action.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|
"Shiranui ninjitsu is a /lifestyle choice/," Mai says as if this was somehow an all-encompassing answer. "And normally it's relatively sober but I dunno why, I'm feeling pretty good about my chances of making drunken style work." (The 'why' eluding Mai is 'because she is drunk.')
The patrons and customers clear away, leaving a sizable circle of space of Mai and Kula to square off -- they clot around, cheering one fighter or the other, although because of King's standing as a longtime ally of Mai's, the crowd does seem to be a tad more in favor of the drunken kunoichi. "Wow," Mai says, shifting her weight to another foot as she peers at Kula's stare, "you're really creepy. Sorry! Sorry, I shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But your cover is super creepy, I'm sorry, but I mean I gotta say." Mai leaps to the bartop, and assesses the situation via telegraphed 'look left, look right' motions, complete with narrowed eyes.
"Speakin' of not stoppin', though, kid, for one of us to stop, one of has to start, so... CHO!" Mai springs from the bar, twisting in mid-air, attempting to somersault and grab Kula by her crazy-colored hair -- that she may flip her into a throw!
COMBATSYS: Mai has joined the fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Mai
COMBATSYS: Kula interrupts Quick Throw from Mai with Light Kick.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|==-----\-------\0 Mai
As Mai declares her Shiranui ninjitsu a lifestyle choice, Kula's eyes widen just a little. That's quite the claim and not one she's heard from other opponents she's faced. But as she adds that it's normally not a drunken style of martial arts, the young NESTs project just blinks. Never having so much as tasted alcohol, she only knows of the reported impact imbibing has on a target's capacity to think clearly. But Mai already declared herself beyond rational decision-making, so that isn't too terribly new for Kula to digest.
With the fight starting up, her mind begins to fall back on a vast array of combat algorithms ingrained in her sub-conscious via very deliberate engineering since the day she was born... created. Mai declares her creepy and Kula blinks, caught by surprise by the comment. Maybe the blue-clad ninja has really good instincts to sense the assassin's training in the innocuous young fighter. Or maybe it's the freaky crimson eyes. "Is it this jacket?" she asks, looking down to brush at her chest, indicating the violet leather garment curiously, "It's to protect me." Maybe pink would be better than dark purple.
Mai isn't offering fashion sense just now, however, as she darts in, flipping over the just slightly distracted Kula in a bid to seize her long hair. But the young thing retaliates swiftly the instant her hair is gripped, kicking up off the ground into a spinning kick targetted at knocking Mai back a little ways. The kick itself packs some force, coming from the insulated boots that cover her feet - but the real menace is that thin edge of ice that juts out from her toe, adding a slashing nature to the blow.
Her strike delivered, Kula lands lightly, stands back up straight, and goes back to standing rather still.
The back of Mai's cute little costume rips as deadly ice cuts it. Mai is sent hurtling as her mid-air flip is disrupted -- she tries to roll with it to minimize impact but isn't quite able to, and her spine takes another blow as she slams into the edge of one of the diner's tables, knocking it right over. "Ugh!" the ninja barks, pushing herself up from the ground and flexing just enough for her lower back to make a pleasant popping sound. "That was pretty intense!" she says, though, with a grin. "Not bad for someone in a snowsuit!" Mai does not seem to notice that the outfit is more akin to motorcyclist padding.
"Still, maybe that was the wrong approach, yeah?" Mai's chattiness cannot be blamed on drunkenness, unfortunately. "I know if someone went for /my/ hair first thing, I'd flip out! So let's try a different way of going about it. Do you arm wrestle? I think we could settle this via arm wrestling and maybe start up like the Neo Ladies' Arm Wrestling Task Force Squad Extreme League, and I know this graphic designer who could do a logo and everything and--" Mai has kicked a metal napkin dispenser up into the air, and promptly spins in place sharply, to roundhouse the dispenser toward Kula's skull.
COMBATSYS: Mai successfully hits Kula with Thrown Object.
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Kula 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Mai
By the time Kula's foot touches down against the floor, that jagged edge of ice is gone, shattered into tiny fragments that scatter across the wooden boards. Mai's commentary provokes a little bit of a smile as she describes the exchange as intense. Perhaps it was. "Actually, this is body armor," Kula corrects, not seemingly too upset at having her NESTs engineered outfit called a snowsuit.
The Shuranui ninja continues to speak, enjoying her distance it seems, and Kula doesn't give chase, still trying to get a sense of how the thus-far unpredictable girl operates. Her combat algorithms struggle to make sense of Mai's approach to ninja'ing, which leads to the young girl looking just a little distracted on the surface.
"Arm wrestle? I've never done that." she declares quite openly. "But I do know how it works. I'm not sure that it merits a-" *CLANK* The metal napkin holder catches her on the side of the head, knocking the girl silly as she stumbles one step to the side. Shaking her head, her eyes unfocused for a moment until she whips back around toward Mai, she looks a little uncertain as to whether or not the attack actually /came/ from the self-proclaimed ninja. There aren't any people in the audience trying to tip the fight, are there?
Breathing in then exhaling, the girl finally begins to move, darting toward Mai. 'I should focus on the fight more,' she reminds herself mid-stride. Her feet slip over the wooden surface a bit too easily, as if they hold almost no friction for her. A shimmer of white courses along her right arm, culminating in a sphere of energy that collapses into a thin, icy layer over her clenched leather glove. A small spike sticks out over her center knuckle and it is with that ice covered hand the girl strikes out for Mai's torso. The first punch comes swift, straight forward, but she steps in, spinning on her toes into a second strike - more of a backfist, attempting to bludgeon the talkative girl against the side of the head.
COMBATSYS: Kula successfully hits Mai with Medium Punch.
- Power hit! -
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Kula 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\0 Mai
Mai smirks triumphantly as Kula glides toward her. When the punch rears back, though, the flash of white energy catches her attention -- yeah, okay, chi stunt, Mai knows that drill -- but then the /spike of ice/ gives her significant pause. Thankfully, she swerves her stomach out of the way just in time with some nimble footwork--
--but this in effect causes her to lunge right into the backfist, which cracks Mai in the temple so hard that her proud kamikaze-pilot ancestors collectively wince in the afterlife. The sound of the impact is /loud/, too, and as Mai is physically /spun/ by the force of the blow, blood rockets out of her nose. "Auuaaagh!" she cries, slumping against the wall and gripping her head, eyes shut tight to try and power through the intense pain. "You're fast," she grumbles.
Mai shakes her head slightly. "So -- ice, huh." She opens her eyes and glares at Kula, perhaps a touch sobered by having her skull cracked. "There's a couple ways around that one," Mai says, crouching and tensing her long, powerful legs. "My favorite is -- FIRE!" Mai /launches/ into the air, kicking off of the wall and hurtling toward Kula, chi manifesting as whirling flame. "RYUU ENBUUU--!"
COMBATSYS: Kula blocks Mai's Ryuu Enbu.
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Kula 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Mai
As she draws her hand back, ice fragments fall to the floor as that deadly shell over her hand fractures from the impact and flakes off like shed skin. Mai acknowledges her speed and Kula merely smiles back. Maybe a little creepily at that. "You are too." she observes, "But you were trying to beat me with cheap tricks and that isn't going to work. I have been well trained."
It's time for that training to come into play the instant a menacing amount of flame is send spinning her way from the other girl, eyes widening just a little. She folds her right arm in front of her, her left arm extending, palm forward as the girl closes her eyes and braces for the exchange of power. A shimmer of white passes over her forearms and gloves at the moment of impact, diminishing the contact, but the young fighter is pushed back a little all the same. Opening her eyes to the sight of her leather sleeves smoking, she waves her hands a little, making sure that there isn't going to be a lingering effect from the flame.
"I have been trained to deal with fire too," she adds, her voice a little less certain. With every turn Mai has demonstrated a new trick or a new angle of attack and it's throwing the girl's sub-conscious combat routines for a loop. Exhaling with a soft huff, her breath visible in the air as vapor before it fades, the chilly girl darts forward again, both hands aglow with white energy waiting to be made into some other form of attack.
With a certain level of ruthlessness, her right hand goes for Mai's neck, trying to grasp the equally tall young woman by the throat with a tight grip and introduce her head to an icy blast. Her left hand slams forward second, going for Mai's stomach, palm first, intending to deliver another punishing icy blast before releasing her hold and skipping backward to avoid instant retaliation, her right hand raised to keep her hair from dropping back over her face as she moves.
COMBATSYS: Mai blocks Kula's Medium Throw.
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Kula 0/-------/---====|=======\=------\1 Mai
"Gurk," Mai says as her throat is seized. She makes a scrunched face as her hands come up to grab at the wrist of the offending grip, and sputters, "Not cool, I've got singing lessons tomorrow!" She doesn't, but it's historical fact that Hanzo Shiranui invented the tactic of claiming to be a hemophiliac mid-fight in order to capitalize upon an opponent's moment of shuddering disgust, and Mai continues these deceitful traditions proudly. Her head is then blasted, and she blinks a lot from the brightness of it, trying to speak nonchalantly: "You just need to -- HAA-AH!"
The fist comes forward and Mai manages to snake her body back a bit, still in Kula's grip, to swing up her leg and, in an astonishing display of close-quarters flexibility, slam her bare heel into Kula's palm. This, of course, still hurts like hell, because Mai isn't wearing any damned shoes, but it's enough to capitalize on Kula's moment of release, as Mai spins her body upward, attempting to come correct up the side of Kula's head that got dinged with the napkin holder in an enzi guri kick.
COMBATSYS: Mai successfully hits Kula with Strong Kick.
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Kula 0/-------/-======|=======\==-----\1 Mai
Mai proves resourceful in her defenses as Kula tries to get a tight hold on her. Seeking to choke the fight right out of her opponent if it means cutting the bout short so she can get her pat on the head and go home, she finds herself thwarted by her opponent's remarkable flexibility. Her left hand stopped, Kula lets go with her right, deciding that backing up to get a better picture of things would be prudent. She doesn't get that chance, however, as Mai doesn't even need to gain distance to retaliate.
Caught too close to fend off the strike, Kula tries to slip back even as that foot comes swinging in from the side with one punishing blow to her head. This time she's knocked sideways hard, reeling from the punishing impact delivered to the side of her head. Seeing stars, she's only vaguely aware of the trickle of red rolling down her neck from beneath her hair from a gash left by the hard hitting impact. "Che."
It takes her a moment to regain her focus on the blue-clad ninja, crimson eyes narrowing just a little. Deciding that her opponent is a lot of trouble in closs quarters combat, the girl takes a different tact, bringing her right hand to her mouth, palm up, fingers toward Mai. It might come across like she means to blow her opponent a kiss, but there's no friendly intentions behind the exhale that follows.
A swift wind carries shards of ice, needle-edged fragments, and rings of frozen matter and sleet swirling toward the young woman. Lowering her hand slowly, her glove is encrusted with risidual ice from the point blank blizzard she just sent Mai's way, eyes never taking their focus off the other fighter.
COMBATSYS: Mai fails to slow Diamond Breath from Kula with Kachou Sen.
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Kula 1/-------/=======|=======\======-\1 Mai
"Wha-- ice breath?!"
Yes, Mai, ice breath -- shot right at her, no less. Caught on the recovery rolling out of that kick she just sent Kula's way, Mai doesn't have time to properly leap out of the way of nothing less than a localized, directed blizzard, and so she does what she thinks is her one chance -- producing one of her steel fans hidden in genuinely horrifying places, Mai flings one, hoping it will weather the storm and maybe crack Kula in the head again.
Shockingly, throwing a weapon meant primarily to direct a breeze at the user fails to conquer polar wind, and the fan is simply hurtled out of the way, covered in a layer of frost -- as is Mai, when the blizzard blast is done with her. She opens her eyes and she's on the floor, knocked upside-down against a wall, shivering and chattering her teeth. "M-m-maybe this outfit was mistake," she finally admits.
More ice falls to the ground at Kula's side, dislodged from the insulated leather glove as she resumes flexing her fingers as if keeping them moving just to keep them from getting too cold. She doesn't press the attack immediately as the ninja finds herself caught off guard by the blisteringly cold assault, but rather holds back. Last time she got into grapple range with the tricky girl, she got a mean bare-foot to the side of her head!
Speaking of which, the young fighter brings her right hand up to the side of her head, resting it there for a moment as a white chill flickers beneath her fingers. The blood on her neck freezes solid as well as the injury on the side of her head. The cheers for Mai haven't subsided throughout the fight as the locals freely share their bias for the famous Shiranui ninja, but Kula doens't seem too ruffled by having the crowd against her.
Brushing at her jacket, knocking away some black dust left by Mai's flame attack earlier, the girl notes, "It's good to fight with something that protects you. There aren't any rules against it and it means you don't get hurt as much!" She's full of so much useful advice it seems! With the pain in her head dulled slightly by the cooling energy she put to use, the girl steadies herself, arms back to resting against her sides. "As long as it doesn't slow you down, of course!"
Having been watching Mai for a while now, the NESTs assassin has started to key into some of the other girl's style of fighting. Full of quick thinking, intentional distractions, and the ability to attack from unexpected angles and with any type of strike - The girl's mind profiles Mai as unpredictable and recommends caution. Which is why the young fighter draws upon one of her more difficult to crack attacks.
Leaning forward, planting her hands against the ground, little Miss Diamond suddenly begins to charge with a whirlwind of brilliant, white energy. All the scattered ice from around the room closes in on her, gathering into a fine shell encompassing her body. Armor of some kind, it would seem. But a weapon too. For after a few seconds of building up, all that ice suddenly explodes out from the girl in a mixture of solid fragments and a massive sphere of blindingly bright white energy. It endangers a table that's too close, but also explodes toward her opponent with extreme speed, making it difficult to avoid!
COMBATSYS: Kula successfully hits Mai with Diamond Shell.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Mai
Mai is at first confused by Kula's icy coccoon -- glaring in confusion with a quip of "Wait, you're not going to come out of that a rampaging space alien, are you?" Then, as it all explodes, Mai, already poorly dressed for winter, is cut into by an arctic assault that chills her to the bones. It takes a half-second for her to move, but she knows she's desperate because she can feel her sweat freezing against her skin. "ONE SHOT!" she screams, and leaps /into/ the breach.
Diving directly into the sub-zero siege, Mai evades most of the larger ice chunks, but there's no dodging the fact that she's quite simply hurtling headlong into insane white energy that will hurt her. She lands in a handspring and comes back up, body tensing even before she connects with the energy sphere, putting all of her weight and momentum into a fiery elbow blast front-loaded with burning chi: "HAAAAAAIIIII!"
Whether it even connects or not, Mai is still repulsed backward by the force of the energies at play, skidding across a table and knocking all of the dining equipment off of it before hitting the floor, where an antique cognac poster in a terrifically heavy frame falls onto her. She is too unconscious to get out from under it.
COMBATSYS: Mai can no longer fight.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Kula fails to reflect Chou Hissatsu Shinobi Bachi from Mai with Counter Shell.
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Kula 0/-------/-----==|
Her wide spread attack unleashed in a flash of blindingly bright white, Kula slowly starts rising back up to standing. Having determined that there was a high likelyhood that her opponent wouldn't be able to continue after taking an attack like that, she is, perhaps, a bit lax in her motions. Letting her guard down proves to open the door to a lot more pain than she might have need suffer as Mai proves to have one last punishing assault up her... non-existant sleeves!
The last thing she expects is someone to brave diving into the remnants of her wide spread attack, but as the frosty girl glances up, crimson eyes come to rest on the blue ninja girl speeding at her with nigh reckless abandon. Releasing a gasp of surprise, her left hand comes up, painting the air in front of her to create a shimmering barrier of ice intended to stop Mai's assault cold...
But for all her talk about being trained to manage fiery attacks with expert skill, she doesn't stop the incoming, flame imbued elbow strike in the slightest. Mai crashes through the barrier, shattering it and sending melting fragments skipping across the floor while Kula is left completey defenseless. Struck hard, the featherweight is knocked off her feet, her back hitting a column hard, her body encased in a surge of those Shuranui flames.
She crumples as Mai falls across a table, dropping to hands and knees against the floor, breathing hard. Worried about being counterstruck, the young fighter leaps up into the air, landing on her feet, arms raised, palms forward, waiting in a defensive stance... only to find that her panic just made her look a little silly because the fight is quite over.
Blinking, the girl lowers her arms and exhales softly, shedding the icy power she was controlling throughout the fight. Her hair takes on a damp auburn hue and the crystals that were swirling around her fall to the floor as melted drops. She pauses, staring toward where Mai fell, as if trying to decide if she should check on the condition of her opponent. See if she's conscious. Maybe talk to her a bit. She seemed to have a curiously interesting personality, even if she wasn't entirely sober. But before she can even take a step forward, her handlers rush out into the open space and start inspecting her, taking her temperature, checking the bad bash on the side of her head, and injecting her with needles to take blood samples. Unable to resist the unwanted 'loving' care and attention of the NESTs employees, the young test subject is escorted out of the bar without anything in the way of cerimony now that the fight is over.
COMBATSYS: Kula has ended the fight here.
Log created on 23:11:15 09/17/2008 by Kula, and last modified on 11:19:26 09/18/2008.