Description: In a filthy, smoke factory chimney, Ayame and Brian fight over the SNF Title Belt held by the weapons afficianado. Tricks and frightful forces abound as the two fight to finish the other before the smoke threatens to overwhelm them entirely! ( DKO )
"Toxic smoke fumes, eh?" the petite strawberry blonde female weapons prodigy had muttered when the circumstances of the match were explained. "Are you /sure/ I'm not fighting that washout Vyle? That sounds like his kinda thing."
But no. Vyle, the first to challenge the teenaged fighter and current title belt holder in the rebooted SNF franchise, never made an appearance after issuing his challenge. Unfortunate, Ayame had declared, because he was due a sound trashing.
Instead it seemed that the second in line to step up would get his shot and the site for it is within a very large, very smokey, chemical furnace exhaust chimney. "Swell." the girl had observed upon stepping onto one of the metal platforms welded against the circular, drum-like interrior of the structure. A titanium staff is gripped in her left hand, resting lazily against her shoulder as she taps one of her loafer-clad feet against the metal plank. "Hmph."
Smoke billowing up from furnaces blow doesn't make the breathing situation all that promising either. "If I wanted lung cancer, I'd just pick up smoking. Jeez." Her right hand brushes at her black and red plaid skirt idly. "Ah well. The things one has to do for their art." Or a buck. Really it's about the buck.
"You've got to be shitting me."
The second person to challenge the belt holder is about as interested in this particular fight as it seems the champion herself is. Even as a regular cigar smoker, this kind of toxic event is not exactly what he had in mind when he told his agent that he wanted to stomp the tar out of the girl. And he's not exactly happy.
See, this venue wasn't entirely explained to him by his agent, a very typical maneuver by the shady bastard that has Brian's contract in a death grip. Stepping into the circular death chamber which is this smokestack, the former linebacker and rancher is glad he's in his Carhartts. He runs a finger down the side of some dirty brickwork, a disgusted look on his face. "Really. You have -got- to be shitting me. Seriously." With a grunt, he cracks his neck and turns to Ayame. "This is gonna suck, girl. You ready to get this crap over with?"
And then arrives the competition. Ayame's sharp, brown eyes snap to Brian the moment he speaks up, her expression shifting into a faint smirk. He's big. Giant even. Just the opposite of the original contender or even the chi-infused boxer she had to defeat to get this belt in the first place. "All right," she replies, a faint smile crossing her lips as if contemplating a secret known only to her. "You can stop it any time just by giving you know," she finishes with a wink.
Whatever shenanigans his agent pulled to convince the mighty brawler into the match go unbeknownst to Ayame. She gunned for the belt because it was there. Having to /defend/ it is a pesky matter, on the other hand, and one she hadn't really put a lot of stock in until now. At least she has the chance to annoy someone a bit. And, if she plays her cards right, she might be able to hold onto the belt a bit longer and squeeze some kind of lame product endorsement out of someone. She huffs, smoke billowing around her as she shifs her staff off her shoulder and begins to idly spin it. "I need an agent," She muses thoughtfully to herself.
As if seeking a quick end to the fight wasn't motivation enough to crush his opponent, Brian will have more motivation in a second. "Oh, by the way, I took the liberty of..." Ayame takes a step forward. "Making some adjustments..." She hefts her staff up and springs into the air, heaving the weapon up over her head as if holding a two-handed axe... "To the platform you're standing on."
Brian's only warning of the treachery will come with the sound of creaking steel before his platform begins to tilt dangerously in one direction all together as if the welding had broken loose under his significant mass. The same moment this is happening, he has Ayame bearing down on him with her titanium staff, aiming to crack him across the top of his head as she slams it forward at the last second!
COMBATSYS: Ayame has started a fight here.
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Ayame 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Brian has joined the fight here.
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Brian 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Ayame
COMBATSYS: Brian interrupts Fierce Strike from Ayame with Hyper Tackle.
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Brian 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Ayame
You wouldn't think that Brian could move quickly, given the overall mass of the human obelisk. But when confronted by both incoming attack and the possibility of falling several stories? The man moves. And, probably, not quite the way the champion was expecting.
Eyes going wide for a moment, the monolithic man immediately crouches for a half second before exploding upward, which is certainly not an upward angle anymore. As the flooring gives way, his trajectory is now firmly towards the incoming Ayame... and his years of football training come very much in handy. Even as the titanium rod cracks him against his back, Brian wraps the staff fighter up... and lands on top of her as he crashes onto a much more secured platform.
Rolling off the girl as soon as he can, Brian regains his footing and smirks. "Nice. Deceit, wanton destruction, extremely hazardous situations. If you were older, I'd be interested."
Now she knows what the typical football feels like out on the playing field. Her staff smacks against Brian's upper back to little effect as he plows into her and reverses the trajectory of the feather weight without much trouble. "Hrgk." A vain attempt is made to wriggle free from his brawny arms before the moment of impact, but the gasp of air being forced from lungs not up to this kind of pressure is audible proof enough that she didn't manage.
The ex-football player rolls off and to his feet on the neighboring platform, leaving Ayame to roll in the opposite direction, shaking her head as if to clear her mind of the unexpected retaliation. The guy is tough, she muses, but she's faced down brutes before. One eye narrows, her mouth curling into a faint smirk at his assessment of his younger opponent. "Save it. You haven't seen anything yet."
She crouches for a moment, her left hand gripping that polished staff, her right hand resting somewhere near one of the multiple belts around her waist. She needs to give this guy some distance while she catches her breath and figures out how better to deal with him. When she springs back from the current platform, she lands on a neighboring perch just a little bit further up the smoke stack.
But from the place she sprung from, however, fly two throwing daggers spin through the thick fumes to try and imbed themselves in Brian's chest for good measure.
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Brian with Medium Fling.
-* CRITICAL HIT! *-
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Brian 0/-------/-======|===----\-------\0 Ayame
"Good!" he says, nodding appreciatively. "Looking forward to it." Little does he know how soon he'll be seeing it.
Like, pretty much immediately. As Ayame lets the blades go, a puff of the noxious smoke gets right into Brian's face, hiding the incoming missiles as they streak in, one deflecting off his sternum to great pain and bleeding, the other slipping between a rib and stopping just shy of his left lung. Dropping to a knee and taking a deep breath, he chokes on both pain and the toxic gas before doing something he really shouldn't... and pulling the knife out of a chest wound. Grunting madly, he forces himself back onto his feet. Oh, she's going to get it now.
Through the haze of darkness and pain, Brian's gone into a very animal mode... He catches a glimpse of strawberry-blonde hair, and his hand shoots for it, trying simply to gain a hold of it and tear as much free as possible. Pain begets pain, and Brian would like to share a little.
COMBATSYS: Brian successfully hits Ayame with Quick Throw.
Grazing Hit
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Brian 0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0 Ayame
The throwing knives were dead on as she had intended - perhaps even a bit more so with the way that second blade managed to dig in a bit deeper. "Hm," is the only audible response she makes to the observation - a mixture of satisfaction and smugness, as if she had been certain of her accuracy in the midst of the less than hospitable environment.
She wastes no time the moment it seems Brian might be somewhat incapacitated by her attack. He crouches to one knee, staggered by the sharpness of the drive-by stabbing, and she interprets it as a moment of weakness. Ruthlessly, Ayame darts forward, intending to capitalize on this opportunity with another vicious attack designed to reduce the capacity of her opponent to keep on fighting. Her staff ignites with a flare of crimson hued chi coursing along its length but the energy seems to pose no threat to her hands.
She's in close when Brian makes his move - his hand darting out, powerful fingers seizing long strands of her hair. It's a liability - that hair of hers - but pride keeps her from cutting it short or tying it off like she really should. "Ow!" Several strands are left in his hand as she springs forward, pulling herself free, twisting in the air as she lunges into a flip, attempting to land behind Brian... in a sense.
The truth of her attack becomes clear when she drops down behind Brian but tries to bring her staff down in front of him in order to lock it in under his neck. If she secures the position, the mighty brawler will be subjected to a choking, chi charged jolt to his throat. Of course, given the... significance height discrepency, Ayame can't really entirely land behind him but rather simply dangle behind Brian, her feet kicking in the air well over a foot above the metal platform!
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Brian with Nocturnal Solitude.
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Brian 1/---====/=======|=====--\-------\0 Ayame
Hair get! Hulk smash!
Woman pull away. She get away. Jump over Hulk. HULK IN PAIN OH GOD OW.
Brian may have succeeded in yanking away some of Ayame's hair, but his grasp did little else. And apparently, it also pissed her off even more than he is. He kinda gets this idea when that titanium rod of hers becomes one with his windpipe, and then the extra sensory joy of having chi-based electroshock added to the mix means that OH SHIT OW OH GOD. Stumbling, Brian manages to pry the bar off his throat and drop Ayame to the metal patchwork until he trips and falls.
Has the great beast been felled? Already? No, of course not.
His right hand extends, slamming into the metal like a mechanical stabilizer. His left hand follows suit moments after. Right foot. Left foot. Like a robot, the enormous Texan raises himself to a fifty percent extension, head slowly raising to lock his gaze on the champion. For a brief moment, Brian's eyes seem to crackle with Dallas silver and blue. He leans back, backside raising as he chambers himself to attack. Ready. Aim. FIRE.
Bursting out of the gate like a greyhound, Brian charges at Ayame with the intensity of a man posessed. Before colliding with the staff fighter, though, Brian's right arm and shoulder become sheathed in flickering blue and silver chi as he swings it up and under the champion, hoping to liberate her feet from her shoes should he send her up the smokestack as planned. Four steps past Ayame, however, Brian plants his foot into the smokestack wall, reverses and takes another pass, crashing in towards his target a second, a third, a fourth time before his fifth pass... Which, should his quarry be taken in by, will involve the same pop-up maneuver, followed quickly by Brian himself taking to the air, slamming a fist into Ayame to spike her to the steel plating... and then a 335lb Texan falling out of the sky and flattening the straberry blonde with an elbow drop to the small of the back.
COMBATSYS: Ayame blocks Brian's Big Bang Blitzkrieg.
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Brian 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\1 Ayame
The moment Brian applies his hand to Ayame's staff, he'll have no time prying the featherweight free. She expected as much, however, and made sure to spring to the side, pulling the long reach weapon with her as she slides to a stop near the edge of one of the soot covered platforms. Stuck in a precarious position, her eyes widen for a moment as if she began to worry about trying to fend off his next attack with nothing but open space behind her. With the kind of strikes he is capable of, she /needs/ room to manuever and slide...
But the giant falls and Ayame blinks, the flash of nervousness slipping from her expression. Whew. Is the fight over? She did peg him pretty bad with that throwing knife and while the choke hold wasn't long, it did induce a fair amount of jolting chi to go along with it. That could be enough, right? Right?
The movement of Brian Battler's hand suggests otherwise. With a methodic, purposeful application of force, he begins to rise. Ayame begins to run to the side, staff held out along under her arm as she repositions into a long enough section of the platform to form a sort of 'runway' behind her. She only gets four steps in before Brian launches. It isn't enough time to get out of the way! Whirling to face him, Ayame brings her staff up, gripping it tightly with both hands, giving him a thin pole of titanium to collide into with all of his frenzied power.
The force of impact is plenty enough to send her reeling - but not tossed - along the metal floorboard. "The hell-!" she starts to exclaim, her arms already aching from the power behind the blow. But before she can get any further, he's already returning with all the determination of a raging bull slighted. Ayame's footing is, by necessity, better for the second and third passes, and the lithe fighter manages to barely slip out of the way of each of those passes. It's the fourth that catches her one step too soon, launching her into the air before he follows with a punishing blow to slam her back down.
The ringing of metal suggests she intersected his punch with her sturdy weapon just in time. But the way she crashes hard against the platform leaves it somehwat hard to say for sure. Gritting her teeth, Ayame kick-rolls sideways, ending up in a crouch just left of where Brian himself impacts the platform with the kind of elbow drop that careers can be ended by. "This guy isn't screwing around!" she yelps, as if appreciating the danger of her opponent with heightened awareness.
"Now or never-" she whispers, spinning her staff around over her head once before resting it on her right shoulder like some kind of narrow cannon. An explosion of smoke issues from the hollow tip of the staff... but it's what was launched from that detonation that Brian needs to worry most about. A webbing of wire-thin cable netting projects for him from nearly point blank range with Ayame bolting right along behind it.
Should the mighty Texan be caught by the impact, he'll have to struggle against possibly flesh-cutting netting while his assailant spins around him, dishing out a frenzied storm of blows with her staff from all manner of angles and various strengths. The frantic motion is enough to kick up a storm of breath-choking soot and dust, hiding perhaps a degree of the assault. But if Brian ends up subject to the full fury of the attack, there will be no mistaking the weapon user's determination to knock this mighty goliath out cold!
COMBATSYS: Brian Toughs Out Ayame's Entrapment!
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Brian 0/-------/-======|==-----\-------\0 Ayame
Rolling back onto his feet, Brian grunts as he exhales deeply, his voice now deep and gutteral. The injuries he's sustained have all affected his breathing and vocalizations, which has turned giant Texan into demon on earth. The blood seeping from chest wounds, mouth and nose only add to the effect. The SNF organizers are loving this, knowing ratings are soaring. Brian's agent is cackling all the way to the bank, knowing merchandise that the fighter himself is unaware of is now flying off the shelves. Brian is reveling in this, for different reasons. Masochism and sadism tend to work hand in hand.
Brian's eyes have not opened since he'd stood, and as Ayame rushes forward, they still do not open. Not after the razor-thin netting impacts his skin, cutting him further do his eyes open. Not even while Ayame lays into him with everything she has does the mountain of a man budge, like a golem locked into place. It isn't until a good five seconds after Ayame's final blow does the giant finally move... to crack a smile; a wild, insane smile of someone whose sanity hangs on by a single spider's web thread. There's a small cackle that starts in his throat, deep and raspy, blood dripping between his teeth. Oh, the insanity. And in a flash, the man goes from stone pillar to hunting cat, dropping low into a four point stance and running forward a few steps on all fours before coiling up at Ayame's feet. Like a gunshot, he launches himself upward, his shoulder aimed directly at the champion's chin; he seems to be placing the entire weight of his body into the single act of taking Ayame's head clean off.
Some of his fans compare Brian Battler to Ryuji Yamazaki. It's times like these that they use as proof of concept.
COMBATSYS: Ayame endures Brian's Rocket Tackle.
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Brian 1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Ayame
There is a moment in the midst of that flurry of blows that Ayame begins to wonder if he is even fully concious. Any normal man would have reacted to the crushing, smashing strikes, or the flesh-tearing netting designed to cut all the deeper the more one struggles to escape it. But this man - this golemn of muscle and bone - doesn't budge an inch. With one final helicoptering spin of her staff, she attempts to drive the end of her weapon into his temple with the kind of force that could kill someone that wasn't so obviously made of as tough stuff as this man.
And it lands with enough force to send her reeling from the counter-force of her own strike, leaving the teenaged fighter looking just a little bewildered as she stumbles back and catches her balance. How is this even possible? There's a crack of a smile - the smile of a madman. "...Uh..." Ayame looks uncertain. Right about now she'd like out of this smokestack. "...ready to give up?" she tries hopefully followed by an almost sheepish "Eh heh..."
The cackle is the only clue she needs to know that he isn't stopped yet. The waifish fighter had been brutalized by Ryuji Yamazaki in the past. She had seen crazy made manifest. And right now she was seeing it all over again. She has to keep her wits about her. This she knows. Giving into the panic encroaching on her heart is guarenteed to result in not just a defeat, but possibly a severe trashing by this beast of a fighter. She glances up quickly as if assessing options - and that's when he makes his move.
"Sh-!" she starts to exclaim when he moves with inhuman speed, digging in close before launching his body up with more than enough force to send the smaller combatant fighting. Launched up with vision-blurring pain, Ayame's staff flares to life with the same spirited dark crimson chi she had exhibited earlier. Teeth gritted in pain, blood seeping from the corner of her busted lip, the girl flips, driving her feet into the bottom of one of the platforms two stories higher up in the dark chamber.
Smoke clouds her already blurred vision and makes it hard to breath. Fighting in a veritable hell is no idea of a good time in her book. But below her - she pauses, knees bending, her staff growing brighter by the moment - is the man she needs to drop. No time for questions, no time for second thoughts. Ayame launches right back down at Brian, both hands gripping her staff before she tucks herself into a ball and spins. The energy in her weapon illuminates the chimney for a split second as the flipping smash is brought screaming down through the chamber as Ayame tries to drive her weapon into the top of Brian's head with all the force she can muster with a single blow. "HAAA!"
The impact of metal alone would be significant - but to it is added an intense amount of chi as it detonates with a precision force right at the point of impact. The blastwave would be enough to send Ayame flipping backward before recovering her landing some feet away. With any luck on her part, her fearsome opponent will cease to be an issue at that point.
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Brian with Harvest's Reaper.
-+- CALCULATED HIT -+-
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Brian 1/-======/=======|=====--\-------\0 Ayame
COMBATSYS: Brian can no longer fight.
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Ayame 0/-------/--=====|
Bloodied beyond all belief, Brian prepares for the incoming assault, only to have that blood drip into his eyes and blur his vision before Ayame comes flying in, detonating his skull and sending him back to the metal flooring. The end... it is nigh. Hell, a sight like this might make even Rugal take a step backward.
Like a ghostly afterimage, horns seem to erupt from Brian's head. Long horns. A ghastly white billow of air cascades from his nose. He stomps a hole into the metal with his back foot, giving him a better grip to explode out of stance as he rises once more onto his feet. Launching forward, he again makes launching passes at Ayame, dropping his shoulder and launching it, and his forearm, towards her gut as he charges through, attempting to take her off her feet and keep her significantly airborne.
If the current champion does take air thanks to Battler Airways, the landing will be far rougher. For Brian would launch himself into a tight spiral, landing his head right into Ayame's spine, grinding it there until landfall. And with over 330 lbs of Texan landing on your lower spine, there's a great deal of potential trauma that could occur. Even more trauma could occur after Brian gets to his feet and jumps on the back of your head.
This is not a happy man.
Of course, there's something else about to happen which'll make him a less happy man in the long run. See, there's this hole in the ground that Ayame made earlier. Also, there's the panel that he dropped his elbow into before. The combination of structural integrity losses has brought about an interesting side effect... Mainly, the giving out of a major panel of metal under Brian Battler as the second incarnation of the Big Bang Blitzkrieg comes to an end. Off the metal the giant slides, and for a moment, he manages to grab some measure of purchase. Like Gandalf at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, he scrabbles for a moment, then, upon realizing he's about to fall, he spits out one phrase... "God fucking dammit."
And then, into the darkness... he falls.
COMBATSYS: Ayame fails to reflect Big Bang Blitzkrieg from Brian with The Sunrise Of Broken Dreams.
[ <
Ayame 1/------=/=======|
COMBATSYS: Ayame can no longer fight.
It takes Ayame a moment to fully right her balance after trying to basically crater Brian into the metal platform. Chi continues to course over the surface of her staff as she catches herself and shakes her head, trying to clear her vision. What little she can make out just can't possibly be right. The horns, the roar. None of it makes sense. She was fighting some ex-football player, not some demonic hellbeast from Texas. Maybe she's seeing things? Maybe he hit her chin harder than she realized and her brain hasn't even caught up with reality yet?
Her right hand lifts to rest against her jaw, applying some pressure before a popping sound suggests that something just got snapped into place. For a moment. Still she boggles. Does this man not have pain reciptors? Does he not know he should have already quit?!
Apparently not, because the pain train comes charging through again. And this time, Ayame knows she doesn't have it in her to withstand it unless she can deflect herself away from it all together. Her right hand reaches to her staff, pulling the gathered crimson chi from it before waving it in front of her and leaving a semi-translucent, almost pink barrier of energy in its wake. Always thinking, even against El Diablo here, she intends to let the barrier absorb the worst of it and let herself be flung in a controlled trajectory to land elsewhere.
That would require that Brian not just smash his way right through the barrier with all the precision of a man hurled through a bar window in an old Western brawl. The featherweight goes flying, launched up by the impact into an entirely /uncontrolled/ dive. He meets her up there to, taking the teenaged weapons user back toward the metal platform with his head in her lower back. Recognizing the danger but unable to do anything about it, Ayame flails before impact.
As if she hadn't been through enough already, she immediately starts to try and push herself back up, as if on reflex, hands planted against the iron now sporting a dent roughly her size. "Ugh..." The stomp plants her forehead back against the metal, blacking the calculating fighter out, arms sprawled at her sides. It looks like the titan of men has it; a victory over the champion. Ayame isn't moving at least.
That's when the panel he stands on betrays the giant in the end, sending him falling into the chimney stack. Ayame lifts her face just long enough to crack one eye open and see his hand drop out of sight. "Well..." she grunts, "Sure hope hell is glad to have him back..." she murmurs before dropping her face back against the platform.
Log created on 22:00:20 01/19/2010 by Ayame, and last modified on 13:53:42 01/23/2010.