Description: In the Galactic Library, Bears are Not Allowed. Thus it falls to Mizuki, head librarian, to eject the ursine. Forcibly, if necessary.
In the library, tranquility reigns. The only sound is the faint rustle of pages, and like the pleasant murmur of a creek it prevents the silence from being deafening: this is a peaceful, welcoming place, its towering shelves, carved of warm-toned shiningly polished wood and filled with books of all imaginable sizes and hues, forming an infinite expanse. Yet though it does not seem a lonely place, anyone entering through the vast double-doors -- always open, never shut -- can see straight away it has only one lone visitor.
A great and mighty brown bear sits contemplatively on a huge armchair, a book held somewhat awkwardly in one large paw, a pair of spectacles perched upon its furry brow.
Occasionally it huffs loudly, as though pondering deeply.
Its book appears to be upside-down.
Ah, the galactic library. A great place, designed to look exactly like the New York Public Library. A nice little illusion, one that is useful to the head librarian, Mizuki Kamigawa. She is the most common sight at the library, of course--long red hair braided, oval-shaped, horn-rimmed glasses, tight white shirt and black miniskirt and boots. The sound of her booted feet clicking on the beautiful Rigellian marble tile flooring has a timbre and resonance that makes the place feel like home.
Except to bears. Said bear might find itself being stared at, from maybe ten feet away, Mizuki's blue eyes piercing and intense. "Excuse me," she says, in a civil but chilly tone, as she gestures with her left hand towards the prominent sign hanging above the information desk. "BEARS NOT ALLOWED INSIDE GALACTIC LIBRARY FACILITY" is what it reads.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
This discrimination has gone on for too long.
First the bear got chased out of Moscow. Then it couldn't purchase a plane ticket to Japan in order to further its training. And then, when it was blasted into space as part of a bizarre Russian science experiment, it got blamed when someone was found to have rifled through the garbage, which had absolutely been the orangutan's fault.
Enough is enough.
The bear peers down at Mizuki with its beady black eyes for several long moments, before calmly removing its spectacles from its brow, opening its jaws to begin an eloquent monologue expounding upon the rights of bear and the harmony of all living creatures, a persuasive and passionate defense of its own right to exist here. Unfortunately, its paw promptly and gracelessly crushes the spectacles it attempts to remove.
"HNNNAAAARGGHHH!"
Overcome with frustration, the bear rises onto its hind legs and smashes the table in front of it, tearing its book asunder, and swings one paw about in a fearsome swipe, rearing toward poor Mizuki as it attempts to grapple the girl in the beginnings of a, well, bearhug, only to then emulate one of the techniques of its formidable once-rival: piledriving her into the remnants of the table, thereby reducing the rest of it to spacedust.
COMBATSYS: Bear has started a fight here.
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Bear 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Mizuki has joined the fight here.
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Mizuki 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Bear
COMBATSYS: Mizuki effortlessly dodges Bear's Polar Meltdown.
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Mizuki 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Bear
"Listen, I sympathize with your plight, but the rules are--" Oh dear. Mizuki is far too young to be bearhugged and piledriven! And she proves it, as she suddenly switches gears, cutting herself off in mid-apology. She was going to be (relatively) nice to the bear. But now, oh dear no. Oh dear oh dear no. But she'll play, just a touch. Letting the bear's paws -almost- touch her, she slips past the ursine at the last moment. Fortunately, the path between the table and the door is -relatively- clear... her goal seems simple.
Get the bear outside.
"And I'll thank you to -KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN!-" she snaps, as she sweeps her right hand forward, sending a jagged triangle of ice energy slashing towards the furry bear. Of course, it's used to the cold, but... this is something -special-, isn't it? As the ice-spike forms, she says, her voice not raised but still quite audible, "Please obey all rules and regulations of the Galactic Library! Of course as you are a -bear-, I will be asking you to -step outside-!" She is quite fearless in the face of a big space bear, isn't she?
COMBATSYS: Bear blocks Mizuki's Hyouryuu no Kiba.
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Mizuki 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Bear
Although the bear is immediately distracted after missing Mizuki by how entertaining it is to smash the table, and is caught in the middle of stomping amidst the wreckage by the icy wave, it is still able to raise its furry paws in the semblance of a guard. Clearly, this is no ordinary bear. Space bear. Ex-spectacle-wearing space bear.
Nevertheless, having flown into a bearserk rage is no reason to flout the rules.
"hnnnaaaarrgghhh," it huffs through its snout, in a much more subdued roar than before.
Whereupon, having been forced farther up onto its hind legs than is comfortable by the force of the librarian's chi blast, the bear attempts to regain better positioning by lurching forward and quickly slashing its paw along Mizuki's midriff, ducking a bit low to rake its claws through her tight white ensemble even as it keeps one paw up to defend itself.
She may be studious-- but has she studied enough to overcome Bear Style??
COMBATSYS: Bear successfully hits Mizuki with Kodiak Moment.
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Mizuki 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Bear
Her -shirt-! Mizuki stumbles back, her beautiful, Denebian-silk shirt shredding explosively, as if she'd just been defeated in King of Fighters '95, revealing the lacy black bra underneath and her taut stomach. Her blue eyes -flare- as rage enters the occasion.
"You -beast-!" she fumes, angrily, her lips pursed into a tight line. "I spent six months' salary on that shirt!" And she settles into a new stance, left hand leading, knees bent slightly. "That's it," she half-snarls.
"No more Ms. Nice Librarian. I was going to use that shirt to -finally- find me a guy... but instead I get -you-! KYAAAAAAAH!" And she leaps, springing forward, kicking outwards for the bear's chin and gut with a rather impressive triple-kick combination--a flying front kick from her left leg followed by a pair of flying side kicks to the gut of the bear.
Unfortunately, she herself has forgotten the rules somewhat... but her -shirt-. It's to be expected. No jury would convict!
COMBATSYS: Bear fails to interrupt Fierce Kick from Mizuki with Grizzly Fate.
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Mizuki 0/-------/----===|=====--\-------\0 Bear
For all that the bear has studied mankind in a desperate effort to acquire its strength, it has never understood the function of clothing. Indeed, the man that defeated it long ago never seemed to require it beyond the sparsest red accountrements. Thus does the bear have difficulty respecting this particular social phenemon.
But in so doing, it is brought face to snout with its own bestial nature.
Mizuki's rage seems to startle the bear out of its own animal fury, and it cowers for a moment, reaching up with its paws to cover its face -- not at shame at what it sees, for that it doesn't understand, but that once again it has proved its distance from humanity, and provided yet another counterexample that it deserves to live among that species.
So it only manages to flail somewhat haphazardly in response to the librarian's miniskirt-enhanced (?) flying triple-kick, stumbling back wildly, its paws akimbo, from the force of the blows-- and into one of the bookcases behind it. With a tremulous and foreboding groan the sheer mass of the bear sends the giant bookcase tilting backward. The bear has only a chance to blink after it recovers itself and glance over its shoulder before, like a tree after the fateful axe-blow, the bookcase creaks and falls, slamming onto the tile in an explosion of dust and loose pages, the fine wood shattering like a child's toy.
Paws half-raised, eyes darting, the bear manages to look a little awkward.
The miniskirt is the latest from Dolce & Gabbiana, and includes integrated antigravity and kinetic force redirectors--usually used to keep the skirt looking great and never falling out of position, but also excellent for kicking things up a notch when the time is right. The landed kicks give the librarian a bit of a reprieve on her anger--at least until the bookcase falls.
She doesn't consider that the event... is -her- fault. No, no. That isn't right. That isn't true.
"Don't you see now?" she asks the bear, almost conversationally, "why we don't allow bears in here? You can't be trusted!" Crouching down she picks up the Solar Sun Times, a gigantic newspaper, and rolls it up into a tight, cylindrical bundle.
"So why don't you -get out!-" she snaps, swinging like a pro, aiming for the bear's nose, something more than a little swat to the snout to surprise him. Of course she's swinging so as to knock him away from other bookshelves, but it -is- a library, and so, there's really no escaping the books... the -books-! Everywhere.
COMBATSYS: Mizuki successfully hits Bear with Random Weapon.
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Mizuki 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Bear
What! That was totally her fault!
The bear is so overcome with ursine indignation that it does not properly defend itself from the newspaper swat, and it yelps in pain and surprise at the swinging newspaper stinging its nose. This is simply too much. Railing against the injustice of the world -- er, the galaxy -- the bear rears up and roars mightily, ignoring noise rules all over again as it waves its paws intimidatingly. Of course, by this point, the librarian does not seem terribly intimidated by anything.
And so, kicking up fallen books everywhere, the bear defies fate and Mizuki's pronouncements of its own limitations by, despite resorting to bestial violence, nevertheless doing something decidedly unbearlike: rearing far back and lashing out with a wild Bear Kick, aiming to knock the girl back and her abominable newspaper too.
COMBATSYS: Mizuki effortlessly blocks Bear's Medium Kick.
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Mizuki 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1 Bear
She's still got the newspaper; she uses it to deflect the kick, though the bear's claws still sting a little, drawing thin lines of blood on her arm. She drops the newspaper, which falls open to a picture of one Alma Towazu, Intergalactic Man of Mystery, a clearly-candid shot showing him surrounded by any number of alien women, with the face of Jiro in a corner of the shot, looking furiously morose.
The headline reads, "Alma Towazu and Jiro Kasagi -- Broken Up FOREVER?", the byline "by Yurika Kirishima". But that's not relevant. What is relevant is the here and now, librarian vs. bear.
Reaching down, she traces her fingertip along one cut, gathering some blood, then tasting her own blood. One again, her eyes glint.
And she lunges again, hands aglow with blue chi, as she chops at the bear, three slashing attacks alternating right, left, right, two horizontal chops followed by the last, an uppercut-styled chop, leaving streaks of blue energy in their wake.
COMBATSYS: Bear endures Mizuki's Kouryuu no Renda!
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Mizuki 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Bear
It's a good thing the bear can't read, or else it would be truly shocked by the contents of that newspaper.
As it is, this time, the bear has prepared itself, and braced for the impact of the mighty librarian's punishing strike-- and, having absorbed the damage with its furry hide, pushes through, seeking to plunge directly through the slashes of chi and collide bodily with the petite redhead, attempting to wield to fullest effect its much greater bulk and mass. If it can successful knock the girl awry in the midst of her attack, the bear may have a chance to turn the momentum of this fight around -- and the subsequent aggressive eruption may do the trick, a flurry of vicious and unrelenting claw strikes that may very well trace the librarian's entire body with those fine cuts, slashing high and low, from legs to shoulders, as it charges. If Mizuki is caught in the storm, the final strike will be the bear bodily slamming her against the bookcase on the other end of the room, having plunged unstoppably across the battlefield. (If it misses, it may not notice, and just end up attacking the bookcase instead.)
The assault is a truly terrifying display, though not quite as terrifying as the prospect that it may knock Mizuki's glasses off. That would be a true crime.
COMBATSYS: Bear successfully hits Mizuki with Unbearable Assault.
Grazing Hit
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Mizuki 0/-------/-======|=======\=====--\1 Bear
Tactical error, that--it left her too close to the bear. She twists and turns, avoiding as many of the cuts as she can--but the bear's claws are still sharp. The final slam, at least, she avoids--the bookcase going down in a resounding crash. She is cut fine, a network of crosshatching cuts opening up... still mostly superficial damage, and a good day's work at the treatment center'll get those knit up right nice, but...
But. But now she's been -hurt- by the bear. This just got more personal than if the bear had taken her Coach bag from her. She screams, a loud, sharp kiai, as she rushes the bear--aiming to grab him by an arm, to use centripetal force and her heels to hurl him towards the door, a modified hammer throw of sorts--and if she does, she'll be hurling herself -after- it, aiming to shoulder-block it right out those brass double doors!
COMBATSYS: Bear blocks Mizuki's Hyouryuu no Koki.
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Mizuki 0/-------/=======|=======\=======\1 Bear
Oh no, you don't.
Even though the bear cannot seem to overcome its fearsome librarian adversary, all its training in preparation for facing Zangief once again has not been for not -- and it has reached the limits of its willingness to be excluded from human society. It is now or never for the bear. If it cannot be welcomed into this world, it will carve a place for itself with its mighty claws.
Thus will it not be thrown, the pads of his hindpaws sliding with a comical squeaking along the tiled floor, managing even not to stagger as it slides past piles of fallen books, digging into a particularly large pile to prevent itself from being flung out those doors. They loom forbidding behind it-- the prospect of its being barred at last.
No! This cannot be!
Having long ago lost its opportunity to plead its case (lost with its poor spectacles), the bear can only express its defiance with an all-too typical roar and a not-quite-so typical counter-grapple, lunging suddenly to reach its paws up and push Mizuki's head down at the final turn of her own attempted check and grab-- whereupon, if it succeeds, it will rear up again and hoist the redhead up upside-down. Roaring again once more in triumph and fury, with all its might the bear will attempt an ultimate technique, carefully gleaned from its own rival: it will leap with surprising strength off its hind legs, manage to twist its huge bulk once in midair-- and spinning piledriver Mizuki into a dusty pile of books.
Will the bear, at last, succeed with its magnificent copied technique, the pinnacle of Bear Style? Is this the beginning of a new... bera?
COMBATSYS: Bear successfully hits Mizuki with Just Play Dead.
Glancing Blow
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Mizuki 1/----===/=======|===----\-------\0 Bear
She finds herself bent over. By a bear. This is particularly humiliating... or it would be outside the context of the fight. Fortunately she just doesn't have the time to pay this mind--she's busy being manipulated by the bear, hauled into an unceremonious position for a most unceremonious end. But that end... she does not accept it!
Her struggle is epic, almost legendary, and it's only at the very last moment possible that she manages to break the bear's hold. It won't stop her from being smashed into the books--but it does let her get away from the majority of the impact, thrown clear of the bear to fetch up against yet another bookcase, which drops a few of its books on impact.
And she rises. Her clothing is dusty and torn, her glasses askew (quickly she fixes that)... and she's staring at the bear. Slowly, she manuevers around the book-strewn floor.. and then she stops. She stops, and she stares. "That's it," she says, to the bear. "You're -out of here-."
And then she winds up, drawing her hands back, arms fairly glowing with that blue power... until she hurls them forward, launching a cresting wave of icy chi along the ground, flaring and growing as it goes, leaving a slick trail of glassy, frozen moisture in its wake as the wavefront streams straight for the bear.
COMBATSYS: Mizuki successfully hits Bear with Hyouryuu no Arashi.
Glancing Blow
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Mizuki 0/-------/------=|======-\-------\0 Bear
She almost ends it.
Even the bear's ultimate technique was partially foiled. Truly, it has not come nearly far enough in its training to defeat its loincloth-clad rival: this it now knows undeniably. Truly, it must continue to train harder. There are other libraries, in other galaxies-- in these, it will find perhaps less formidable librarians against whom it may duel. But in the face of this wave of icy chi, its back to the open doors, the bear can only flinch, feeling that its time has come.
--No! No!
%"HHNRNNRNNOOOOOOHH!"
Roaring out with the last of its defiance, in the name of the dignity of all bearkind, the giant space bear hurls itself to the side just in the nick of time, the wave of chi slamming into its side and sending it spinning wildly through the air, spiralling into a fallen bookcase and sending books flying everywhere as it lands in a big bear heap. Slowly, laboriously, it gets back up onto its hindpaws-- but it gets up. And with one last choked roar it plunges forward, lashing out with a fierce paw strike to Mizuki's now bared and vulnerable midriff, seeking to knock the wind out of her and more besides as it rebels against its bear fate.
COMBATSYS: Mizuki interrupts Fierce Punch from Bear with Hyouryuu no Fuki.
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Mizuki 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Bear
Suddenly, a voice from the crowd. "STAND TALL!" it shouts... sounding a little squeaky, and not very adult. The crowds turn, and part, to reveal... a little Chinese boy!! How did he get out -here-?!?
Nonethless, the librarian takes the words to heart--even as the bear comes charging back in, she doesn't flinch, but builds power again. The wavecrest she hurls, this time, is a bit late--the bear's paw impacts her right where he wants it to, but it has to contend with that wave of power--not as tall, or as strong, but still plenty of punch in it, abbreviated as it is by the impact, which sends Mizuki stumbling back, clutching at her bare midriff. She hasn't said much of anything but, after she knocks the bear away, if not, perhaps, out just yet...
She turns and flashes a big thumbs-up to the Chinese kid, who responds with a big cheesy grin and another thumbs up, before disappearing into the crowd, his work done.
Thinking the fight over, she turns back towards her quarry, looking past him at the information desk. "Get the janitors up here... we're closing the library... so we can clean up." But is the bear truly done?
Alas, poor bear, your time has not yet come.
A great and mournful howl escapes the mighty creature as the final blow impacts against its great furry frame. It teeters dangerously atop its hindpaws, swaying miserably as thoughts of long-lost red-loinclothed adversaries flash back in its diminutive brain. Defeated by this powerful and alluringly studious foe -- if only a bear could appreciate this more -- its only recourse is--
"HAAAWUUUOOOOOOHHH!"
--collapse.
As Mizuki turns to face the information desk, there is an off-chance she may not notice her plight until it is too late, a shadow passing over her as the enormous creature 'bears' down upon her, reaching out its paws to fall dramatically -- and in so doing may very well catch her as it goes, to bury her beneath it and the great pile of fallen books it is sprawling into.
So ends the tale of this great creature, its dream unrealized.
And as for the librarian?
COMBATSYS: Bear can no longer fight.
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Mizuki 0/-------/---====|
COMBATSYS: Bear successfully hits Mizuki with Pandamonium.
Grazing Hit
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Mizuki 0/-------/=======|
Fortunately, she's just stepped forward, to begin to direct the janitors. Unfortunately it's not -quite- far enough. But the shadow looms, and that's nearly impossible to miss; she takes another step and turns, bringing her arms up, grunting as the bear impacts at an angle, basically throwing her forward to slam into the information desk. She rebounds off the desk, and hits the floor, to the surprised, shocked and dismayed gasps of the onlookers.
Just as a couple of people arrive at her side, she stirs, and looks up, her glasses broken, dangling precariously. And she puffs her cheeks, blowing a gust of air out. "... definitely closing... and I'm going to go home... and have a bath... and a bottle of vodka..." Then she lays her cheek down on the floor. "... afer I rest a little while longer..." zzzz...
COMBATSYS: Mizuki has ended the fight here.
Log created on 18:19:49 04/18/2010 by Mizuki, and last modified on 12:47:26 04/21/2010.