Description: Shun Himura makes her NDP debut against the explosive Zach Glen. The fight is surprising on several levels. (Draw Match)
Kenya
6:30 Local
NDP Matchup: Zach Glen vs Shun Himura
Zach slowly walks onto the satge. He looks around, fighting down memories of the /last/ time he was at this arena. When Zangief nearly put him through the floor. Twice. He shudders, recalling the chain of horrific events set in motion by that match.
But that is not for now, he thinks to himself. Now, he thinks as he eyes the young lady across from him, is the time to fight. He has a project, a life's work in front of him, but there are things he needs to do for that. He needs to build a reputation. He needs to get himself out there.
He also needs about a butt-ton of money, as he is about to put himself 50 million in the hole to Ken Masters. Which is why he is here; the fight money isn't /much/ compared to that debt. It is, however, a start.
Zach gives the young lady a short nod, and takes up a boxing stance to await the start of the fight.
COMBATSYS: Zach has started a fight here.
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Zach 0/-------/-------|
How (un)fortunate that Zach's opponent for this fight also has reasons related to Ken Masters for doing what she can to win. Shun Himura has recently been told by the Ken in question that he's taught her all he can teach her, and that she needs to walk her own path from now on. He's even told her to enter the NDP, and so Shun has taken his advice and is here.
As she walks onto the stage, in her more feminine version of the traditional gi associated with the big names of her style, Shun looks at her opponent and offers a polite bow. "May the best fighter win." She offers in collected and calm tones, before grinning and adding a few words in a more cheeky tone, "Which would be me." The gauntlet is thrown!
Shun drops into a stance similar to Ken's combat stance. Hands balled into fists, she is ready for a fight. She looks like she was born ready, even though this is her first time competing in any of the major global tournaments.
COMBATSYS: Shun has joined the fight here.
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Zach 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Shun
Zach, for all of his outwardly youthful appearance, simply rolls his eyes and gives a light snort of laughter. "Kids," he says lightly as a faint golden light sheaths his lower arms. The bell rings.
The tone of the bell hasn't even faded yet before Zach is dashing in close to the young lady. Zach slides to a stop, snapping out a flickering left jab from the shoulder, aimed right at Shun's nose. Clearly, the psion has little compunction about fighting girls and striking faces.
Some of that energy he wields gives a light popping burst of energy at the end of the punch, buying Zach time to leap clear of Shun's physical reach. He doesn't know much about the girl, aside from the outfit indicating some form of Karate.
COMBATSYS: Shun parries Zach's Jab Punch!
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Zach 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Shun
While Zach may wish to strike Shun, she does not just evade his attack, but ducks below it so she can make her attack, as she moves past the man she's fighting, she looks at him and finds a way to potentially take advantage of this turn of events. "Adults." She counters in a semi-mocking tone, clearly meant to be a counter to his statement of 'Kids.'
When she is where she wants to be relative to Zach, she jumps up in a spinning motion, her left foot circling around to hopefully hit Zach several times in this barrage of kicks. While not as powerful as similar moves from more experienced users of her style, it should be a solid tipoff to what style exactly she's practicing.
After all, Ken Masters uses a move quite similar to this.
COMBATSYS: Zach dodges Shun's Senpuu Kyaku EX.
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Zach 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Shun
Zach backpeddles calmly, slipping each kick as it tries for his face. Another one?, he thinks, trying to get a read on not only Shun's style but also her state of mind. So far, the only thing he is picking up is a certain amount of cheekiness.
If Zach hates anything, it'd have to be cheeky girl fighters. He's run afoul of far too many of them.
Zach waits for her to finish the last kick before trying something unorthodox: he reaches for Shun's leg. If he makes the grab, he pulls hard on the limb, pulling her into a shoulder block. The check is followed up by a twisting of the hips to slam her to the ground. Zach doesn't finish there, summoning up a mass of Soul Power about the size of a sledgehammer head, which he will promptly smash into the Shotochick.
COMBATSYS: Shun dodges Zach's Charged Combo.
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Zach 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Shun
Unfortunately for Zach, Shun is good at the best defense. That being the defense of absense. When he tries to grab her leg, her leg quickly pulls back and the girl lands on the ground. She smiles faintly as she lands, maneuvering quickly to attempt to confuse her opponent before she makes a strike in retaliation.
When that strike comes, she drives one heel in the ground before going for a rapidly turning kick, her leg aimed at Zach's face. It's what in common parlance could be called a variety of roundhouse kick. When she lands her foot again, regardless of hit or miss, she has her eyes settled on Zach, trying to read his next movements so she knows what to react to.
Biggest problem is that she has no experience fighting psions.
COMBATSYS: Zach endures Shun's Inazuma Kakato Wari.
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Zach 0/-------/------=|===----\-------\0 Shun
Zach is about to illustrate why that might be a problem. He /allows/ the kick to strike the side of his head, rolling with the impact not so much as to lessen the impact as to increase the motion of his next gambit.
Zach rocks to his right, bringing his right fist in close as he steps in. Golden energy solidifies into a hefty-looking armored glove. Before the young lady can settle down enough to get eyes on the psion, Zach is firing a thunderous right straight at the girl's chest!
COMBATSYS: Shun fails to interrupt Haymaker Punch from Zach with Giji Shoryuken.
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Zach 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\0 Shun
Shun tries to intercept the strike, she even goes as far as getting her fist wrapped in initial bits of chi energy as she rises her fist skywards, but in the middle of calling out her attack's name...
"GIJI S--"
The haymaker lands in her chest and throws her backward, hurting far more than she expected it would. She coughs up some blood as she rises, looking at Zach with the words 'that hurt' right in her eyes. There's a bit of anger, a bit of malevolence showing. Perhaps it's the initial signs of the Satsui no Hadou, or perhaps it's something less corruptive.
Either way, she doesn't get much of a chance to do anything else right now, giving Zach the opportunity to keep up that all-important momentum of a fight.
Zach is not at all surprised to feel the wave of frustration off of Shun, even without seeing her expression. He felt that punch all the way up to his shoulder. He doesn't grin. He has the momentum for the moment, but he also know what a fickle thing /that/ is.
Zach seizes the chance, and the distance between the two. The mistake he made against Intan was to deny himself the thing that he excels in far beyond most people in his proverbial weight class.
He takes a single step towards Shun, throwing another right stright. The gauntlet blurs, launching off of Zach's closed fist to rocket towards the young woman!
COMBATSYS: Zach successfully hits Shun with Blast Punch.
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Zach 0/-------/---====|=======\=====--\1 Shun
Pain. So much pain. Shun is blown back once more by the force of Zach's attacks, and as she gets up again, she knows she's in a really tough spot. With her lack of momentum and her lack of experience fighting psions, she really needs to figure out a way to turn the tide in this fight, but hasn't yet figured out what this way is...
So she circles around Zach, breathing in and out as she attempts to figure out what the best way not to lose here actually is. Staring at Zach to try to figure out his movements, his patterns, the way he strikes so she can react appropriately. She needs to turn this fight around, but so far she has yet to find the way to do that...
COMBATSYS: Shun focuses on her next action.
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Zach 0/-------/---====|=======\=====--\1 Shun
Zach keeps his eyes on the young lady. He has a faint grin on his face now. So serious, this one. He knows that this is generally the point in which many fighters will pull out a showstopper of an attack. The psion is usually on the other end of this, though.
It is kind of a new experience for him, really. There are, however, conventions for this kind of thing.
Zach lets Shun line up her next attack. For his part, Zach simply plants his feet and straightens his back. More of that bizarre golden energy wraps around his frame, shoving some of the loose dust on the stage away from him in concentric circles around him. "Stop trying to hit me, and hit me!" Zach challenges.
He's really asking for it.
COMBATSYS: Zach gathers his will.
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Zach 1/-------/=======|=======\=====--\1 Shun
"Very well." Shun responds to Zach's challenge, rushing towards the man she's fighting in preparation for her next move, instead of merely making a simple kick or punch however, she really does try to pull out her showstopper of an attack. It's not hard to see coming what she's doing, if you're remotely familiar with the style she practices.
As she approaches, she lowers herself briefly before rising in a spinning kick, using one of her legs as an axis to spin around, the other leg is meant to make a barrage of several kicks to Zach's body and head, and while she did something similar early in this fight, this time it's both faster and stronger, truly an attack to rightfully fear...
...if it is not deflected effortlessly.
COMBATSYS: Zach interrupts Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku from Shun with Gazelle Punch EX.
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Zach 1/------=/=======|======-\-------\0 Shun
Zach drops into a crouch as the familiar attack comes for him, charging a fist with Soul Power. The first kick catches him in the right shoulder, forcing him a down and bit to his left...
...which is right where he wants to be, actually.
Zach launches from that crouch, throwing a left uppercut at Shun's body. This is not like the legendary Shoryuken, with its largely vertical launch trajectory. This has more horizontal movement, like a gazelle springing into motion.
"GAZELLE PUNCH!" The uppercut slams into the young lady, throwing her across the ring once more.
And Shun is thrown across the ring. This really is not a good way to make your debut into the world of international street fighting. Kind of makes you look like a loser in over your head, and that's not a reputation you want to have stick around. So she pulls herself up and tells herself to keep on fighting, she has no reason to consider this a loss yet, no matter how much she may be hurting.
The logical thing to do when you don't want to lose is of course to keep fighting. It's for this reason that Shun keeps fighting, she doesn't have quite a lot of confidence in her offensive power right now, feeling the pain of being hit /hard/ thrice in a row quite clearly. So there's only one real solution. Make a half-hearted seeming punch that is aimed for Zach's belly...
...and hope she has the energy to remain standing after this.
COMBATSYS: Shun has reached second wind!
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Zach 1/------=/=======|======-\-------\0 Shun
COMBATSYS: Zach fails to interrupt Quick Punch from Shun with Heartbreak Shot.
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Zach 0/-------/------=|======-\-------\0 Shun
Zach, on the other hand, has /plenty/ of confidence in his offence. Offence was all he really had, to be honest. So when Shun staggers to her feet, and makes an attempt to extend the fight just a bit more, Zach responds to her strength of will with his own strength.
He pulls his right hand in, rotating the clenched fist inward as he charges it. He steps in, and finds out the hard way he botched the timing. The corkscrew fist, and the spiralling mass of Soul Power, screams by the young lady's head.
Zach, for his part, takes a punch in the gut. Could this be the turning point of the match?
As she watches the power go widely past her, Shun realizes and acknowledges that she got lucky. The important thing however is that she's not only still standing, but she has the momentum right now, and she would let Ken down if she didn't use that. Whispered softly, she makes a promise. "I won't let you down, Ken." Of course, the microphones likely pick this up easily.
Her next attack is a combination of a few punches and kicks, it's nothing truly special but it really does the trick. Or at least it very well could do the trick. Shun's attacks aren't meant to be the most awesome strikes in the world right now, but if they work they work, right?
So let's hope they work...
COMBATSYS: Zach blocks Shun's Combo Attack.
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Zach 0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0 Shun
Even if the microphones don't pick that up, Zach's ears definitely do. Her drive, her desire to put up a good showing not only for her own sake but for Ken's is palpable. Zach gets his arms in front of them, stopping each punch and kick just before its intended point of contact. He frowns a bit, considering.
She seems like she's running on fumes. Time to finish, then. Zach weaves to his right, bringing his right hand low and away from Shun. Another charged fist, fired in a thunderous three-quarters punch. "DYNAMITE PUNCH!" There is a detonation of force at the end of that punch that knocks away the dust from around both fighters.
Zach lost in this place once before, despite his best efforts. He'd be damned if he let that happen again.
COMBATSYS: Shun dodges Zach's Dynamite Punch.
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Zach 0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0 Shun
Gone. Out of the way, the punch and its explosion go wide, allowing Shun to survive longer this fight. She's speeding up again, apparently more than ready to re-enter the fight at full force. She increased the distance between the two of them with her evasive movements, but it doesn't look like she particularly minds that right now.
She gathers chi in her hands, it's that blue-white chi that is known to those who have faced Ansatsuken before. It looks like a smaller amount than what the big names gather, but then again, she's much less experienced than those big names.
"GIJI HADOUKEN!"
She calls out as she throws the, relatively modest, blast of energy, aiming right for her opponent's chest. She's not planning on letting him win this fight too easily, and so she's not making this attack too easy either.
COMBATSYS: Zach overcomes Giji Hadouken from Shun with Pile Smash.
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Zach 0/-------/------=|=====--\-------\0 Shun
COMBATSYS: Zach successfully hits Shun with Pile Smash.
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Zach 0/-------/-----==|=======\-------\0 Shun
"Yeah," Zach says slowly, "I don't think so." He'll ALSO be damned if he lets someone out-blast him. Zach brings a single hand to the sky, fingers crooked as if grasping something. "PILE SMASH!"
Zach sweeps his outstretched hand downward, and a second later, a trio or razor-sharp planes of Soul Power rip into existence and slash into Shun's projectile. Chi and Soul Power give up a dazzling display of light. Some of the Soul Power, however, slices towards the Ansatsuken fighter!
And as she tries to move out of the way, it's clear Shun's not fast enough to avoid the remaining soul power. At least it doesn't hurt too much this time. She's definitely been hit by worse this fight. She balls her fists and shakes her head angrily as she looks at the man she's fighting. The whole nearly losing thing caused her to forget about what she noticed of Zach's style...
So it's time to relearn that lesson. Eyes narrowing in studious movements, she is clearly making note of Zach's every step, every move, every twitch of a muscle. She can't fully understand him, the soul power is just too alien to what she's been fighting before, but she feels she can still remain in the fight if she pays enough attention and analyses Zach's patterns.
COMBATSYS: Shun focuses on her next action.
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Zach 0/-------/-----==|=======\-------\0 Shun
Zach, apparently, is not in much condition to press his advantage. He is starting to breathe hard, and is definitely looking a bit winded. Zach simply follows Shun with his eyes, turning to face her when the positions require it.
During all of this, he is slowing his breathing down, taking in more air with each inhalation. Soul Power courses through him, restoring small amounts of stamina while smoothing over some of the pains in his body that the fight as built up.
COMBATSYS: Zach gains composure.
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Zach 0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0 Shun
Shun appears to be ready to take the fight to her hand if Zach isn't ready to do it himself, rushing towards him, she does not wait long to make her move. It's a not very simple move, and not very elegant either, but it might do the trick she needs to take control over this fight for real. She bites her lip slightly before she makes it, knowing that failure could leave her open.
At first, it looks like she's trying to use Shoryuken, her hand moving down and going upwards, but there is no chi, and rather than punch Zach she attempts to grab him by the chin before making a backflip, clearly intending to take Zach with her and throw him down to the ground in one quick movement. Nice? Nope, but it's a change of tactics that may save her hide! That's more important than being nice, right?
COMBATSYS: Zach blocks Shun's Jigoku-Guruma.
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Zach 0/-------/-----==|=======\-------\1 Shun
Zach rolls with the throw, landing on the ground with his shoulders hunched to avoid cracking his head on the floor. He looks up at Shun before rolling to his feet. He circles the girl warily as he reads her posture. She is clearly grasping at whatever she can to swing this fight back in her favor.
Zach, for his part, feels like a closing pitcher that just needs to finish the game with the lead intact. "Your will to fight is pretty strong," Zach states simply as he keeps a careful eye on Shun. "It's palpable."
COMBATSYS: Zach focuses on his next action.
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Zach 0/-------/-----==|=======\-------\1 Shun
Shun doesn't answer Zach's words, instead she takes a step back. If there's any kind of answers, it's a quiet nod to the man she is engaging in combat. She pauses, looking at him without taking too much effort to study him, just preparing herself for what she feels is the inevitable attack to come. Breathing in and out, in and out, she hopes to regain some of the energy she's lost fighting Zach.
After a short period of quiet, she says softly, "I can't afford to lose this fight, sorry." And no more.
COMBATSYS: Shun gains composure.
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Zach 0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0 Shun
"Neither can I," Zach says. "And that's how it is."
With the pause over, Zach launches back in, throwing a high-low combination. Charged fists smash towards Shun's head and abdomen. Each punch is accented by a small, stuttering burst of Soul Power.
The bursts seem to be aimed at utterly disrupting the younger woman's breathing patterns. Zach plans to dismantle the young woman as quickly as possible.
That is, after all, his job as a fighter.
COMBATSYS: Zach successfully hits Shun with Charged Combo.
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Zach 0/-------/------=|=======\=------\1 Shun
Trying to move out of the way, Shun simply lacks the speed to really do that. She's being hit hard, and while she's still standing, she really doesn't have the energy to attack, she has no other choice than to, once again, pause to regain her energy... or does she?
She actually does have the energy to launch an attack, and while it is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, it's fast enough to make it worth taking into account. "I would let Ken-Sensei down if I gave up." She tells herself, and simultaniously the audience and her opponent. Thus, she moves. Her strike made, she gets ready to prepare for another attack aimed in her direction...
COMBATSYS: Zach interrupts Quick Punch from Shun with Stopping Jab.
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Zach 0/-------/-----==|=======\===----\1 Shun
Zach throws his own fist out, snapping the charged fist into Shun's jaw with surprising force even as her punch smacks into his left shoulder. He winces a bit, trying not to gasp for air like a landed fish. He brings the hand back, taking a step back.
"I wouldn't asking you to do that," Zach says honestly. He keeps a wary eye on her. She got up from the Gazelle Punch, even though he felt the weight of that punch in his own arm. The jab did not have a whole lot on it. She might get back up again, at which point Zach was going to have to scramble to recover for a bit.
Shun gets hit and stumbles back, but the force isn't enough to make her fall down. Not quite, she is trying to scrape together all her willpower to finish this fight, to win. And as she scraped together that willpower, she moves to make another attack, gathering white-blue chi in between her hands again, she concentrates briefly.
"HAAAAAA-"
"DOOOUUU-"
"KEEEEEEN!"
And this time, it is the real deal. A much larger chi blast is thrown towards Zach, in the hope to take him out whether or not she can scrape on the willpower to keep fighting this fight. If she loses, she hopes she's shown a level of bravery and talent that might make her seem like a good fighter anyway...
... but she doesn't want to give up yet!
COMBATSYS: Shun can no longer fight.
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Zach 0/-------/-----==|
COMBATSYS: Shun successfully hits Zach with Hadouken.
- Power hit! -
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Zach 1/-------/=======|
Zach feels like he has a grasp of Shun's fighting style now: 'smaller' variants of the more traditional Ansatsuken techniques for mainstays, with the actual techniques for her 'big moves'. So when that Hadouken comes screaming in, Zach feels like he is ready for it. He brings up his hands, Soul Power spinning up in an attempt to throw a barrier of willpower between himself and the incoming blast.
The second clash of chi and psionic energy does not go nearly as well for Zach, the explosion of force throwing Zach to the floor. This is, Zach thinks before he blacks out, almost worse than the last time he was here. The count goes quickly, the match ending in a surprise draw.
COMBATSYS: Zach takes no action.
COMBATSYS: Zach can no longer fight.
Log created on 18:32:32 04/16/2012 by Zach, and last modified on 10:27:49 04/17/2012.