Description: A false Neo-League challenge in the arctic sets the stage for a trap to be laid by the head of the G-Project for Shadaloo's Zero Doll. With his pride on the line, will Urien wipe away past transgressions, or will Cammy find a way to leave he and his vengeance out in the cold?
It sure is cold... in the arctic.
There are all the things that there are meant to be in the arctic on this patch of god-forsaken ice. There are a few penguins, a lot of ice, and... well, more ice. There is even something that there shouldn't be in the Arctic. A large, pissed off Greek man.
Urien stands, unfazed by the cold, and daring the penguins to come closer. A fake challenge has been thrown down, a gauntlet, if you will. He has challenged Cammy to a battle for the 'Neo League', and has, of course, ensured that no such camera would be anywhere nearby. He even used a fake name, a new up and coming fighter who would no doubt have been glad for the publicity, and flattered to have been noticed by someone as powerful as Urien.
He would be kidnapped shortly.
Urien has his own motives for this battle, of course. In the last fight he had with the woman, he had barely managed to down her before he himself was unable to continue. Frustrated by this, and unwilling to let the record stand tied- worse even than a win or a loss, to a man who saw the world in terms of betters and subordinates- Urien could NOT simply leave it be.
Soon, she would be here. And then... he would demonstrate precisely what he was capable of!
There are so very many penguins, walruses, seals, bears... really, the Arctic may be a wasteland for humans, but it's teeming with its own brand of wild-life, living and feeding and mating and dying in a steady cycle that the actions of man for the last several decades has threatened.
Two of these noble creatures are not what they seem.
Penguins typically don't grow to slightly over five feet in height, and yet there is one of about that size doing rather an admirable job of fooling the animals into not rejecting it outright. Off on a floe of ice, a large and oddly patchy walrus is doing a far less apt job of blending in; call it the obvious stitching on its outside, call it the constant sound of chattering teeth, but for whatever reason, it's mainly been doing its best to stay the hell away from the other walruses to avoid being savaged.
Receiving /actual challenges/ is sort of foreign to Cammy, who so far has relied on utter shock and awe to conduct her Neo-League business. Even now, with an actual official summons at hand, Shadaloo has decided to do things in its own way, and so armed with knowledge drawn from the 'P' section of her A-Z animal dictionary, she's doing some combination of marching in the life-like costume provided to her and slipping behind sheets of ice for concealment.
It was a very informative book, really; the pictures were also bright and gorgeous.
The massive Greek man who she spots several days into her vigil is yet another unexpected turn, but Doll Zero is barely capable of true surprise; Urien's presence is merely something to account for, not a cause for panic.
So she continues her march, doing as the others do and remaining well away from the would-be god. Her eyes -- visible through the perpetually opened mouth of her costume - flick towards him now and again.
Urien doesn't even bother to turn around. His skin is already dark. Standing there, in a loincloth and nothing else, he cuts quite the impressive figure against the bright white. Of course, amongst the numerous things Shadaloo don't know about Urien, one of them is apparently that he can sense metal. And, after his recent clashes again and again, he's also learned to be... on guard for the strange feeling of those teeming with psycho power.
He senses both. Narrowing his eyes.
The camera that the unconvincing walrus had brought to bear suddenly smashes itself, a crunch and sheering of metal as the expensive gear turns in on itself, and is destroyed utterly in the space of a few moments. The ball then propels itself to his palm, and he catches it easily.
"I would prefer." He says, simply, "For this to remain private."
Slowly, he turns his head to regard the 'penguin', his face drawing itself into a very serious look. Lips draw tight and blank eyes glowing with inner power.
"Please. Tell me you do not intend to wear that ridiculous outfit. Crushing you is going to be embarrassing enough for both of us without the embellishment."
Large words for a man who had barely been able to keep up with her last time, but Urien certainly -seems- confident enough.
A very large hole is punched into the side of the 'walrus'' flank to allow the ball-o-camera to zoom out through it. Inside, the man is trying to decide whether he's presently more worried about freezing to death without being properly insulated, having the walruses pounce on him now that it's even /more/ apparent that he's a phony, or, you know, having his mind broken and his job description changed from 'camera man' to 'punching bag for Mike Bison'.
Cammy, meanwhile, ceases her movement to regard the large brown man addressing her. A little flap on the bottom side of her right fin allows her to take hold of the front of her costume with a hand that's protected by a heavy red gauntlet.
"It is warm. It is composed of an advanced synthetic rubber to mimick the feel of penguin flesh," she notes just loudly enough to be heard before ripping it away to reveal a brown fur coat beneath.
"It is not 'ridiculous'."
COMBATSYS: Cammy has started a fight here.
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Cammy 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Urien has joined the fight here.
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Urien 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Cammy
"It is ridiculous."
The words are a sneer, Urien is no longer interested in the trials and tribulations of the unfortunate cameraman, whose imminent death by Walrus might well be more pleasant than whatever hell the head of the G-Project may have been ready to inflict upon him. Now, his wrath is focused entirely on Cammy. This woman just looked so... brittle, but she'd proven disturbingly capable in the past. He had no intention of allowing himself to drop his guard. After all. If he crushed Cammy badly enough, he wouldn't just salve his bruised ego. He might send a message to Vega.
If only he knew what sort of message.
The ball is dropped, hitting the ice heavily, and, in the same instant, Urien is surging forwards, bare feet slamming heavily into the ice as he sprints across the intervening distance like a very angry, very heavy Greek man.
The intent is simple enough, anyway. He swings his entire weight forwards behind the attack, aiming to plough his fist up and into Cammy's gut. Fur coat or not, all the synthetic rubber penguin flesh in the world wasn't going to be enough to lessen Urien's wrath in the slightest!
COMBATSYS: Cammy dodges Urien's Fierce Punch.
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Urien 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Cammy
Urien's massive, muscled arm... also happens to make for a very stable platform, or so it would seem. Because that's where Cammy is standing, leaving his fist hanging in empty air.
"It is a tool. It allowed me to survive these temperatures and pass as a member of the native creatures. That is what matters," she says from her perch. "You are not my opponent. Perhaps Splendid Lord Vega will accept the offering of you with open arms."
She refrains from tacking 'and a smile' to the end of that statement, because such wonders are reserved only for those deserving of them. She does shudder just slightly to think of it, though.
She also crouches momentarily before springing from Urien's arm, tucking into a tight ball as she creates distance from the leader of the G-Project, and moreover subjects him to study, examining every muscular striation with the watchful eye that was bred and beaten into her by years of intense training.
COMBATSYS: Cammy calculates her next move.
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Urien 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Cammy
And then Urien is on her.
He moves so... -fast-. For someone so large, such a blur of motion is almost impossible to conceive. In an instant, he's coming at her, his foot whipping around to lead the way. Urien had been humiliated enough by this woman, the further shame she had just inflicted on him was only fuelling his hatred.
Urien's foot aims to snap into the side of Cammy's head even as she unfurls from the ball she had tucked herself into. He has no intention of letting up, even for a moment, and, hit or miss, his words are practically shouted. Despite the cool ice of the Arctic wastes, Urien was, it seemed, getting pretty hot-headed already.
"Vega is a relic of a bygone age. He's irrelevant, and you are the best thing to come out of his failed little science projects."
There's a moment, where he starts to recover from the momentum of his kick, where he does seem to calm down just a little. "Impressive, but not impressive enough to justify his existence."
COMBATSYS: Cammy blocks Urien's Stab Kick.
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Urien 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Cammy
It should be no surprise at all that Cammy is fast for someone who is /alive/; her arms are there to catch Urien's kick against those heavy red bracers as she unfolds, and without some truly intentful observation, it might be difficult to tell that there was any movement in them at all. One moment, they were against her chest; the next, against Urien's shin.
"Lord Vega is the rightful god-king of this world," she evenly says as she pushes against Urien's leg to help him in taking it away from her. Her voice, unsurprisingly, has quite a lot in common with these frigid environs.
She seeks to punctuate her words by darting towards Urien's back so that he can be taken by the waist, hauled upwards, then slammed back onto the top of his head and shoulders in a picture-perfect suplex.
COMBATSYS: Cammy successfully hits Urien with Hooligan Suplex.
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Urien 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Cammy
Urien grunts, the force of the impact sends a shock up his spine, but, of course, he is nowhere near ready to give up just yet. Certainly, the attack had hurt rather more than he had expected, and more, in fact, than he would care to admit. But never let it be said that Urien is a man who learns his lesson after just one savage beating. No, no, it'd take rather more than that to lay him out for good.
Picking himself back up, he draws his hands to the sides, power gathering there for a moment, before he brings them together in front of him, narrowing his eyes as he does so. "Vega is no God." He snarls. "He is a man. And one who has had his day. There is a new age dawning, and your precious dictator has no place in it."
Without any further ado, he pitches his hand forwards, a rush of metal and electricity tearing up in its wake as an orb of metal forms itself from his motion, shooting towards Cammy in a sudden blast of power.
Urien, meanwhile, works his shoulder back a little. Gritting his teeth. That had hurt more than he would like to admit, but, surely, this woman couldn't actually have grown -more- powerful since their last conflict... could she?
COMBATSYS: Cammy dodges Urien's Metallic Sphere EX.
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Urien 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Cammy
"You are correct," Doll Zero says as her eyes drift to the nascent ball of destruction forming beside Urien. Rather than run or hide or duck for cover or something, she simply lifts her chin slightly towards him, defiant of the power being expressed.
"Potent, Venerable Lord Vega's place is not 'in' the coming age. He is that time, and that time is of Him; its dawning light will be that which is shed by His glory."
And then she is gone, the crackling ball of metallic doom passing through the space where she was to no avail. And then... then she is directly before Urien, eyes locked on his in spite of the hard tilt of the head required to maintain such contact.
"Will your place be at His feet?" she questions before again vanishing, this time to run a few feet beyond Urien. She comes to a hard stop, then turns to leap towards the would-be deity, limbs tucked in tightly as they were when they first encountered one another. Rather than an evasive action, however, she is coming in for a direct landing upon his divine shoulders, seeking to extend both legs so that they are coiled powerfully around his throat.
"Or will it be in the mass grave that He will burrow across planet?"
COMBATSYS: Urien endures Cammy's Flying Neck Hunt.
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Urien 0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0 Cammy
Urien's lip pulls into a nasty growl as Cammy simply evades his attack. Angry beyond belief, he simply allows the legs to wrap around his neck. This might, at first, seem like a rather suicidal thing for a man like him to do.
But in reality, there is a very simple reason for it. Though the attack was painful, he was well positioned to simply reach up, and drag Cammy off him.
If he can just get his hands on her, he'll extract some measure of payment for the damage she's inflicted on him so far. The large man simply aims to plough directly into her, his shoulder leading the way, he has no intention of stopping until he's battered her directly into the walrus that had been her erstwhile ally. If he manages to land the blow, he will make sure to take advantage of this moment to press his face into hers and snarl.
"I'm going to enjoy making you pay for that presumption."
Of course. This does rather assume that he manages to slam himself into Cammy at all. Something which, to date, does not have a very high track record of success.
COMBATSYS: Cammy blocks Urien's Chariot Tackle.
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Urien 0/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Cammy
To Cammy's credit, her guard is once again up as soon as an attack that can't be so easily dodged is brought to bear.
To Urien's, however, it's a truly vicious attack that takes them skidding over not only ice but water to reach the walrus-suited camera person. He goes flying when Urien - just Urien, for Cammy /finally/ manages to free herself from the trap of Urien's deadly momentum and her awkward, unbalanced position when the poor man's ice floe is reached - slams into him, sending him sailing into the distance to land in the ocean with a little splash.
Cammy's landing isn't as smooth as she would like, either; she is on her knees and pushing herself up to her feet rather unsteadily. Her first few breaths after standing are quite heavy, thanks to having had the wind driven from her lungs, and yet, implacable creature that she is she's already rushing to again try and mount herself on Urien's body so that her limbs can be wrapped around his neck.
This time, however, it is her arms instead of her legs, and rather than an actual choke, should she make contact she will immediately disengage, swing herself towards his left and push off to force his back into the ice.
COMBATSYS: Cammy successfully hits Urien with Medium Throw.
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Urien 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\0 Cammy
Once more, Urien finds himself used as an impromptu launch pad, and once again he finds himself hitting the ice.
This time, however, Urien erupts back up with a roar that can only be described as bestial. "ENOUGH OF THIS FOOLISHNESS!" He thunders, "PREPARE TO -DIE-!"
Apparently, he intends to make good on this promise, given the sheer power that he throws himself forwards with. There's not much strategy to Urien's approach, now. Just raw, uncut fury. He leaps at the woman, his knees leading the way with as much momentum as he can pack behind them, and--
COMBATSYS: Cammy interrupts Tyrant Slaughter from Urien with Spin Drive Smasher.
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Urien 0/-------/----===|=======\=======\1 Cammy
--and Cammy's face is turned to to the side by the impact of Urien's knees hitting her along the side of her head. And she is treated to a number of strikes direct from Urien's legs to her face afterwards, giving colour to her pale face. Red, purple, black and blue colour.
And then she flips an arm up to block a roundhouse, breathing heavily as the assault is halted.
"Lock--lock on," she exhales through laboured breathing, arm shaking with the effort of holding the Grecian giant off. A new well of vigor is seemingly found, because after those weakly delivered words she shouts, "Spin Drive Smasher!"
Her feet /barely/ leave the ground in a small hop when she yells... and then they are driven towards Urien's got as she spins at impossible speeds to become an organic drill carrying the two of them back towards the sheet of ice from which they began this little encounter. Flashes of harmless purple light flicker and flare all along her body - her legs in particular, and the markings along her legs more specifically than that.
With a grunt, Urien hits the ground, ice cracking with the force of his impact.
Then, slowly, he rises. Picking himself up from the dirt, he exhales slowly, taking a moment to allow his body to heal. The regenerative capabilities of his augmented form were quite impressive, but even so, he was beginning to doubt his capability to end this as he had hoped.
This was... -angering-. How could he possibly hope to maintain the goals of the G-Project if some pathetic assassin from Shadaloo or NESTS could match him in battle? The sheer fury he feels is evident on his features, but there are no words now, no banter or casual declarations of superiority.
There is only a single minded focus. A knot of hot rage in his guts that bubbles up inside him and causes his feet to sink into the ice below, the frozen wastes melting as his power is turned inwards, his eyes flaring furiously.
One hand finally raises from his side, beckoning to the Doll. Oh yes. He might be hurt. But Urien was most certainly not finished -yet-.
COMBATSYS: Urien gains composure.
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Urien 0/-------/-----==|=====--\-------\0 Cammy
Cammy's feet slide along the ice and send shards of it flying in a fine, arcing spray. She stands /right there/, almost as if she is taunting Urien as he recovers, in spite of her bruises. She is wordless as she watches him focus himself, and seemingly unconcerned with the ice melting away around them and leaving them to possibly drift on their own little frozen island.
Her attention is more on watching him, examining his rage, considering her odds for the rest of the encounter.
Well. Perhaps not /entirely/ unconcerned with the ice; she does carefully lift her coat to keep the bottom of it from getting too wet.
COMBATSYS: Cammy calculates her next move.
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Urien 0/-------/-----==|=====--\-------\0 Cammy
Urien snorts, and narrows his eyes. The man crosses his arms across his chest, apparently pausing to take stock of the situation as well. His entire attention now focused on Cammy. He had learned from his mistake, and had no intention of charging recklessly in a second time. No. If he was going to recover this fight, he needed to wait for his opportunity.
"As I said. You are impressive. Probably the best thing to come out of Vega's fumbling experiments. One has to wonder. What is it which draws you to a man such as him? His power is faltering. He has failed and fallen time and again, and he is certainly no God. A strong man, yes, but not divine. With skill such as yours, you could be working for a far more impressive side."
It is left to the imagination quite who Urien is talking about. Given the ease with which Cammy has been beating the crap out of him, surely, he couldn't seriously be attempting to make out that he would be a better boss than her current... Lord and Master.
... could he?
COMBATSYS: Urien focuses on his next action.
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Urien 0/-------/-----==|=====--\-------\0 Cammy
"None is more deserving of my love than he," is Cammy's cold response as she stiffens a little at the implications being made. She releases her coat to allow its hem to graze the waters, for now she has more to concern herself with than her appearance. Somewhere off in the distance, her camera person is swimming for his life to escape the jaws of hunting polar bears, but /that/ is less of a concern.
"Who would you suggest replace him, Urien?"
When those words are spoken, she leaps for his neck again, legs outstretched to take hold of it in vice-like fashion. This time, she is facing his front, and should contact be made... she will flip herself down to fling him right back onto the ice through the strength of her lower body alone as she finishes her inquiry: "You?"%r
COMBATSYS: Cammy successfully hits Urien with Frankensteiner.
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Urien 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Cammy
With a sudden grunt, Urien twists up from the ground. The repeated impacts to his head were starting to wear on him, and honestly, Cammy's sheer speed was proving to be a decisive factor.
There is no response to the question. No, there is no need. Cammy was clearly speaking rhetorically, and he had no intention of wasting his time. No. Better instead that he simply -show- her what he meant, rather than attempt to talk her around to it.
Again, there is a bright charge of electricity. Metal bursts into being, thundering towards her. Slower, this time, yes, but, he truly hoped, just maybe, she was slowing down enough that he might be able to force it to connect. The metal rips through the air with all the unstoppable power of a train, burning brightly with energy, and packed with enough force to more than replace any words he might have chosen to waste on the Doll.
COMBATSYS: Cammy blocks Urien's Charged Metallic Sphere.
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Urien 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0 Cammy
This time, when Cammy puts her arms up to defend herself from Urien's onslaught... the combination of charged metal and her gauntlets results in metal being ripped mercilessly away from her forearms as she's shoved progressively backwards along the thawing ice. Chunks of the crimson plates are attached to the freight-like ball of death, even after it continues past her when she /finally/ manages to break its inexorable magnetic attraction.
She comes down in a crouch with her nearly bare hands pressed against the ice. She's panting softly to catch her breath as she looks up at Urien thoughtfully, and after noting, "You are a powerful man," she leaves the ground in a diagonal leap.
"But only a man."
She twists her body so that her legs can extend towards one of his arms in order to trap it as she grabs for the wrist; all of this is intended to make it possible for her to pull him down so that his wrist and elbow can be subjected to horrible, wrenching pressure for the second or two she might have a shot at holding him before bounding away to safety.
COMBATSYS: Urien interrupts Strong Throw from Cammy with Violence Knee Drop.
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Urien 1/------=/=======|=======\===----\1 Cammy
COMBATSYS: Urien can no longer fight.
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Cammy 1/----===/=======|
Urien's response is immediate.
Cammy come in, and for a moment, his arm is wrenched to the side. However. To maintain such a hold, it does tend to help to be stronger than your opponent. Or at least, not be fighting someone who, frankly, doesn't particularly care about the way his body might shout 'no, don't do that'.
There's a sickening crack from Urien's shoulder as he simply wrenches Cammy around in front of him. For a moment, though, he doesn't care. In that moment, he ploughs through the slender woman, his knees leading the way, and then... he takes stock of the exact state his shoulder was left in after such an attack.
"The title God." He states, calmly, "Is not to do with power. It is to do with destiny. My power is great, but my destiny is stronger. Your Master may be able to beat me, at the moment, but, make no mistake, in the eyes of destiny, his time has come."
Of course. His /arm/ doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get back to work. In fact, it is stubbornly refusing to knot back into place. Dangling limp at his side.
And in a sudden, hard motion, he stamps down on the ice. It cracks, and Urien allows himself to be swallowed up into the dark and the cold. Naturally, Cammy could choose to follow him; the icy depths of the Arctic would probably not prove fatal to -her- either, but... it is dark, and it -is- cold.
Quite how Urien intends to return to safety, especially swimming with just one arm, under a sheet of ice... well, that is a question that is unlikely to bother her, right?
Log created on 17:03:29 06/22/2009 by Cammy, and last modified on 11:39:37 06/23/2009.