Description: The Noise Factory plays host to an intense, short fight between two rhythmic fighters. At first it seems the Psycho Soldier's psionic assaults are going to completely overpower the agile Capoeira user, but Aranha refuses to fall without dishing out some solid damage of his own. (Winner: Athena)
She had been at the appointed venue. The crowd was pumped. The officials were busy putting everything into place. But there was a key component missing: her opponent. Athena was never told why the mysteriously named Whip never showed up. After time went by and the tournament staff got fed up, the match was eventually cancelled and the young pop idol was told she would be advancing in the tournament. The girl wasn't sure what to make of it, never having heard of the Ikari Warrior prior to the scheduled match. An opportunity lost, perhaps, but she'll never know.
The unexpected free win brings the girl to the semi-finals. It's a familiar feeling. She made into them in the last tournament she entered as well. Whether she can improve on her performance from that event remains to be seen! The nightclub is all set to host one of the final three matches of the charity tournament, and Athena is there plenty early to take in the atmosphere.
The stage is where the fight will take place and a wild assortment of colored spotlights dance over its surface in the moments leading up to the battle. The dance floor proper is jam packed with those who got tickets for the event, allowing for standing room only. Athena stands ready in one corner of the stage. Dressed in a red thigh-lengthed tunic with a pink bow-tied ribbon belt, she has on black bicycle shorts underneath and red fingerless gloves on each hand. Her violet hair is allowed to hang down her back, kept in check only by the red star-decorated hairband that seems to work its way into all of her fighting attire.
She knows her opponent has to be quite capable to have made it this far, though she is unfamiliar with him as an individual. With the clock ticking down, there isn't much time left. A hush has already fallen over the audience as the announcer rattles of names and facts in machine-gun fashion. Athena, herself, is tuning it all out, however, eyes closed for a moment, a soft breath released, as she taps into her inner fount of incredible psychic energy.
When she opens her eyes, nothing is visibly different about the young idol fighter. But those who are paying attention will swear something has changed - there seems to be more energy in the air. It's as if everything within the Noise Factory has become more 'alive' than it was merely seconds ago.
COMBATSYS: Athena has started a fight here.
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Athena 0/-------/------=|
Aranha on the other hand, he had to scrap for his place in the semi-finals. At first Aranha was written off as a first round exit since while he was good and while he had some good showings against upper echelon fighters like Eiji Kisaragi and Adon, nothing in his fight resume gave any indication of what he was able to do in the first round of the Test of the Dragon fighting Andy Bogard to a draw. If not for the play back that showed Aranha's heel making contact just before Andy's foot connected with him, Aranha probably would be watching the rest of the tournament at home.
Second round was a brutal fight where Aranha had to justify his place in the next round an extremely game boxer by the name of Rick Strowd. The battle scarred capoeirista barely came out the victor in that.
Now Aranha is now about to take part in the Semi Finals against Athena and now he's once again being written off. Most of the bookies seem to think that Aranha is going to come to the end of the road against the Psionic Idol. The thing is, Aranha tends to be at his best when facing adversity. If you need more proof, look at how Aranha did in the second round of the King of Fighters 2k11 tourney. Which is why not all of the bookies seem willing to write him off completely.
When he shows up, he immediately feels the change in the venue but not knowing all that much about psionics, he's not equipped to figure out the whys. Besides if the fans are having a good time, he can have one as well.
Aranha steps up a few steps and kneels down to touch the ground with his hand before rising once more. The officials give the word to start the fight, and Aranha is off with a start, immediately leading out with a blue glowing roundhouse, followed by a similarly glowing spinning jump kick, before finishing with a backflip kick engulfed with even more blue chi driving down upon the top of the pop star's head.
COMBATSYS: Aranha has joined the fight here.
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Athena 0/-------/------=|======-\-------\0 Aranha
COMBATSYS: Athena blocks Aranha's Aggressive Dance.
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Athena 0/-------/-----==|=======\-------\0 Aranha
That Aranha is completely focused on the fight stands out immediately. Admittedly, even trying to speak over the volume of music being pumped through the mega-loud speakers throughout the establishment would be quite the endeavor. As such, the girl settles for giving the young American a friendly smile and acknowledging nod as the two of them settle in for the match at hand. Her own stance is simple - right foot slightly forward, arms raised, palms open. Her left hand is out further, more for warding attacks, while her right is held back slightly, positioned better for striking. A basic Kung-Fu stance that belies the flashy arts the girl can actually execute in the midst of a fight.
Her grounded stance serves her well when Aranha makes his move. Whether she hesitated out of not understanding his style, or she legitimately felt it better for her to see him act first would be hard to say, but the reformed cat burgler is out to demonstrate his Capoeira in fine fashion with his opening attack. Shifting her stance a little, her hands come up to intersect with his powerful kick with a cross-arm block. The force behind it sends her sliding back a little, feet not finding the necessary traction on the stage to stay entirely in place.
The jump kick almost knocks her overall together, the girl beginning to regret not trying harder to get out of the way. And by the time he backflips, she's reeling, siding to a stop near the edge of the stage, gritting her teeth. The chi-infused kicks left their mark, the girl biting back pain from being exposed to the emissive energy. His track record says that he shouldn't be underestimated, and she's determined to not make the same mistake of his prior opponents.
Adopting a solid stance, one foot forward, the girl swings her arms back, rose-hued energy surging along her limbs. "Psycho-" When performing for an audience, one must always make sure to give them what they expect, even if calling out the names of signature techniques does little to ensure their success. "BALL!" Her arms swing forward, the energy gathered at the ends of her fingers slammed together to form a large sphere of that crackling energy!
If he wondered about the nature of the pop idol's brand of energy, he need wonder no longer. He has, by now, fought plenty of psionics to know there is nothing pleasant about getting hit by that attack! Should he avoid it, the projectile will continue on some distance, harmlessly over the heads of the audience (Fortunately for them), before fading from sight just like one of the many other psychedelic lights flashing all over the place.
COMBATSYS: Aranha blocks Athena's Psycho Ball.
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Athena 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\0 Aranha
Aranha has studied tapes of Athena's fights in preparation for this match and he thought of many ways to respond to Athena's Psycho Ball attack. He thought about dodging it. He thought about sending his Web Shot at it in an attempt to either stop it or to plow right through it. Seeing it up close and personal changes everything. He can't spin quickly enough to Web it. And he couldn't risk trying to get the hell out the way. He's only left with the option of desperately throw up his hands and try to stop it.
Aranha is forced backwards in a skid and the ground gained from the opening attack is lost. His arms sting and while Aranha hasn't faced many psions he does indeed remember the pain that came from that energy. He already knew it was going to be an uphill endeavor. Aranha is now realizing this hill got steeper.
Aranha dashes in, hoping to make up the ground that he lost in getting bashed backwards by the Psycho Ball. Once within kicking distance, Aranha tilts over, orienting himself into a handstand and then delivering multiple snap kicks towards Athena's head and shoulders before finally relenting.
COMBATSYS: Athena interrupts Inverted Flurry from Aranha with Psycho Sword.
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Athena 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0 Aranha
His defense proves to be the right choice in the end, taking the safe route rather than risking getting caught by the bullet-fast energy exploding his direction. The other advantage is that his method of defending against her attack tells Athena almost nothing about how he fights. Is he fast and evasive or is he going to be a slower opponent against whom she can lean more heavily on her own speed? Violet eyes stay focused on the projected underdog. To take down someone like Andy Bogard is no small feat. She was warned to not underestimate anything he did.
At the sureness of his defense, the girl smiles a little. This young man is no slouch. Of course not, to have made it this far. His earlier chi-laced kicks were a legitimate threat and now, as he rockets back onto the offense, the girl has to be ready for another onslaught from the unpredictable fighter. But she isn't going to just weather the storm of kicks this time. She has to get the edge on Aranha's tricky approach to engagements quickly.
Her right arm is lowered, fingers out straight, as if preparing for a knife-hand strike. But it won't be that simple, unfortunately. More of that dim-pink power courses down her limb as Aranha closes in with his kicks. At first it seems to be going well for him. As he flips forward, he'll find Athena's expression showing mometary surprise. It seems her experience against Capoeira practitioners is limited! His first snap kick catches her in the side of the head as she tries to turn away. The second clocks her hard on the shoulder...
The trouble comes when his foot swings out a third time and the girl is simply not /there/ anymore. A flicker of her image lingers and whether or not he realizes in time that she's now at his right flank, there's no time to do anything about it. "Psycho Sword!"
Her right hand swings up just shy of connecting with him, the energy around her hand sharpening into a bladed point. Pure Psycho Power rips through Aranha as Athena leaps up adjacent to him. For a moment, his nerves might feel both on fire and as if they've all been severed simultaneously, but the overwhelming sensation will pass before too long. A physical inspection will reveal him to not having been outwardly cut in the slightest.
His opponent lands a few yards away in a sliding crouch. Relaxing her fingers, she flicks her right hand, allowing the painful energy rippling over it to fade quickly.
Aranha's eye catch sight of the glowing hand however he attempts to keep his focus on her eyes. The eyes usually reveal intent and after the first kicks connect, he sees something in her eyes that tips him off and at that moment, he knows he's screwed but doesn't know how screwed he is until hears her shout the name of her attack. After that, he screams as his world becomes nothing but agony. There is a short list of people that have put through that much pain or more in one go.
In just an instant, Aranha finds himself out of his element. Aranha usually starts out slow, as he attempts to get into the heads of his opponents and get a general idea of how they'll react to his attacks. He relies on both his reflexes and relative toughness to allow him to last long enough to gain that bit of information on them. Athena in one pass renders him vulnerable, keeping him from being able to rely on that strategy. He's immediately put on the ropes and has not a single bit of information on how she would react to him. As a result, Aranha is forced to wing it more than he normally would and as a result, she's not going to get anything remotely approaching his normal fighting MO.
He doesn't so much get back up his feet as send a scything kick to Athena's foot before lifting that same foot upward in the opposite direction which while it doesn't connect provides momentum for the other foot to swing across in a roundhouse and hit her body. This is not the strategist seen in the fights against Andy or Rick. No this is more wild and desperate.
COMBATSYS: Athena instinctively blocks Aranha's Fierce Kick.
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Athena 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 Aranha
Any chance of getting a prolonged engagement against Athena might have been dashed by her last powerful counter attack. Just as the Dancing Spider has the ability to get into the rhythm of the fight, so too does his opponent. And at the moment, she seems determined to keep him from easing into that groove of peak performance with surges of that painful energy she can unleash.
The girl's style isn't too difficult to read, from what little of it he has seen thus far. At the root of it exists fundamental elements of Kung Fu. Her stance, the way she guards against attacks. But whenever she taps into that well of Psycho Power, all cards are off the table and it's anyone's guess. It's as if she has the capacity to break the rules, existing in two places at once, and inflicting massive amounts of pain without leaving so much as a scratch.
She also seems dangerous at any range. He has no choice but to close in on her again, finding that sweet spot where his own skills are at their most effective to keep out of range of her shorter limbs yet too close for her to get away with her range-enhancing energy attacks!
His next assault is certainly a valid attempt at it. The time for trying to read her tactics is over. But the girl is ready, her stance shifted, arms raised, palms open, focused on Aranha's every move. He rockets into the offense immediately, eschewing petty concerns such as 'getting up first.' Eyes widening, the girl looks about to try and weave out of the path of his swift kick. But she's reacting to his /first/ sweep, and as she plants her foot hard after weaving, she realizes she's caught flat footed. There will be no avoiding the real threat.
Resorting to tactics based more on instinct than foresight, the girl turns into the crushing roundhouse, arms raised, bracing against it as she deflects as much kinetic energy out of his kick as possible. It may not have been a clean hit, but he definitely staggered the girl all the same.
Teeth grit, she sucks in her breath, lifts her arms up behind her head, another surge of that flashy, rose-hued energy racing down her forearms into her palms. "AaaaAAH!" The speed at which she builds the energy makes it seem effortless, but there's no doubt about the threat it represents. A half step forward is all it takes for Athena to bring a collosal sphere of Psycho Power crashing down toward Aranha. The attack is large enough to fully encompass the young man if he is unfortunate to be caught in its path!
COMBATSYS: Aranha dodges Athena's Round Psycho Reflector.
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Athena 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0 Aranha
Continuing upon that theme of desperation, Aranha practically throws himself out of the way of the energy sphere in a technique that doesn't seem all that refined except in the fact that he manages to catch himself mid dive and lowering himself at an angle so that his side rests on a single elbow for just a moment before he raises himself back onto his feet.
Aranha knows he needed a performance of a lifetime to just get away from that energy ball. If he needed that, just to avoid just one of Athena's attacks, one could only imagine the performance he would need to score yet another upset. It's enough to boggle the mind, truthfully.
The capoeirista dances in with a swaying dance as he slowly moves back in trying to find his range and then all of a sudden he's a burst of motion. He drops low planting not only both hands on the ground, but a single foot as well as he swings a heel upwards. That first kick wouldn't touch, he's simply not close enough for that and it's true purpose is to get him in close enough to drop downward once more to deliver the same kick. This time it will connect if she doesn't defend against it.
COMBATSYS: Athena interrupts Heel Kick from Aranha with Super Phoenix Infinity.
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Athena 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\0 Aranha
Even though her vision is blocked by the attack, she knows that somehow her opponent has escaped it. If not, she would know - spike in pain produces a backlash of emotions gifted empath is accustomed to sensing from most people she fights. She releases the Psycho Power, allowing it to scatter the moment she is no longer focusing on it, giving her an unobstructed view of Aranha. The escape from her attack leaves Athena expressing a moment of surprise. The nimble spider's burst of evasive speed put him on par with her own speed; a feat few in the world can claim to accomplish.
Still, he is fighting an incredible battle and whenever she attacks him directly, he finds ways to survive. It seems she's only having much luck when she takes the fight directly to him, colliding with the fighter in an exchange of forces, risking harm for the sake of retaliating with something more devastating. And it seems to be the tactic the girl takes again when Aranha closes in on her.
He can get a sense it's coming with the way Athena turns her shoulder to him, not looking to escape or ward off the attacks. But the real red alert is when power courses over her, sheathing her whole body with incandescent light. Unlike the rose hued energy of before, this one is a bright, shining pink. And the second Aranha comes in for the heel kick, Athena is launching into the strike, taking the blow to her collar bone.
In exchange, she collides with Aranha, a teenaged-missile of Psycho Power and one hundred and eight pounds of girl. The flash of light is so bright that those in attendence are left blinded for several seconds when the nightclub returns to its colorful illumination!
The girl would pass him by after the staggering impact, reaching an ascent in her upward climb, then, arms out at her sides, drop back down to the stage, the summoned energy washing over her like a blanket that diffuses seconds later.
If it was just that one hundred and eight pounds of girl just by itself, Aranha wouldn't be in so much pain as he is right now. He finds himself screaming once more as he finds himself smashed into by the pop idol psion before he can completely follow through. The impact is major, and there's no way he can stay on stage when by an attack like that. Aranha's sent flying off stage, narrowly missing an audience member.
In Aranha's heart is the heart of a fighter. He staggers towards the stage bruised and battered his body wobbily from all the high powered hits he had been on the receiving end of. He rolls in not willing to waste what precious little of his energy remains just getting back on stage. The dance is gone, all that is left is eyes of someone backed into a corner and refusing to give in without giving it his all. To do otherwise would be an insult to the fighters he beat to get to this point, and to fighters like Takako who find themselves facing long odds just so they can improve.
Sense of strategy is practically discarded, Aranha's movements are simplistic in nature, a powerful roundhouse to head then whip the same foot in the opposite direction to hook his heel right around the back of Athena's neck and pull her face down to the ground as hard as he can.
COMBATSYS: Athena dodges Aranha's Face Down.
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Athena 0/-------/-======|===----\-------\0 Aranha
Athena waits on the stage as she rises up out of her attack, her focus in the direction where Aranha fell. There's always that sharp twinge of worry that maybe she's gone too far against an opponent - a concern only exacerbated after what happened in her fight against one Kaiwei. But she also knows better than to run over with open concern to check on the condition of those she fights in her sanctioned matches, no matter how much she might want to. It would be an insult to their pride as a fighter.
Thus she waits, focused on the direction where Aranha will have to return from. She's understanding him a little more now. Or, more accurately, she understands how he fights in desperation rather than his normal tactics of slowly psyching out his opponents and dismantaling their techniques. She expects him to attack back with something decisive - he would need to at this point, and he'd know it.
Thus it is that she's ready when Aranha springs back onto the stage and bolts straight for her. Eyes widened slightly, she shifts her stance a little, being ready on her feet. She can't keep weathering his attacks. Doing so may have gotten her this far, but her arms hurt, her shoulder aches, and the power Aranha brings to bear with his next assault seems likely to disorient her with the power behind his kicks.
The girl ducks the roundhouse, right foot slipping forward, making it easy to lower her center of gravity. And then when his foot hooks back, she rolls to the left, getting around and under the attack without giving up ground. It's a sequence that reveals her nimble nature for what it is, the girl narrowly escaping the combination attack. "Remarkable," she whispers to herself. Aranha is keeping up with her nearly every step and that is not something to be taken lightly.
But having rolled to his side, it's her chance to try and attack him back. Her left foot would slide out, aiming to clip his foot and shake his balance. And then the girl would spring up to standing, twisting her body around for a solid roundhouse with her right leg, aiming to clip Aranha with the back of her heel if she can just catch him in the side! "YA!"
COMBATSYS: Aranha interrupts Combo Attack from Athena with Joker's Wild.
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Athena 1/---====/=======|
COMBATSYS: Aranha can no longer fight.
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Athena 1/---====/=======|
Aranha at this point has nothing to lose. His strategy has gone by the wayside. His body and battered and he's barely holding onto consciousness. He knows his moments in this fight are numbered. While Aranha may be an impressive fighter when backed into a corner and when faced with loong odds, when he can't see himself winning, he tends to seek out the moral victories instead. Ayame found this out when she made the mistake of attacking him while he was bleeding his way to unconsciousness. Adon found this out when Aranha diss rapped him into oblivion while administering his final gasps of an attack.
Athena will find out when he starts glowing blue just as her foot clips his. His balance however isn't shaken. He jumps into the roundhouse kick feet first as he delivers a chi enhanced drop kick to her stomach. "The better fighter won, but there's no way I'm letting you move on without landing at least one clean shot on you."
That drop kick is only the beginning. Aranha bounces around on stage using the lighting, the rafters, the speakers, and various props on stage to deliver kicks from various angles until lungs burn and his muscles give out. He drops to his knee and gasps out, "Welcome to the finals." And with that he falls over as the combination of fatigue and pain take him off to the land of unconsciousness.
She should have known better than to trade kicks with a fighter like Aranha. From what he has demonstrated, he knows more about kicking than Athena ever will. Her technique is valid and her striking power is nothing to dismiss... but in terms of martial prowess with pure physical arts, Aranha has her beat. Maybe not by a ton. But enough. When she kicks out, she thinks herself safe enough. She's attacking fast and using the length of her legs to buy her distance. It turns out not to be enough. Not at all. When the Dancing Spider launches his counter attack, it becomes clear beyond all doubt who between the two of them is the better kicker.
He leaves the ground with a dropkick that looks every bit as painful as it feels when on the receiving end of it. The blow to her stomach nearly folds the girl in half as Athena gasps, feet skidding, hands reaching to her abdomen, violet eyes widened by the staggering blow. She starts to recover - or so she thinks - when Aranha explodes into a frenzy of action, pushing past the speed of normal human limits.
From every direction he springs and while Athena keeps reeling, trying to bring her guard up in time to defend against one angle or another, he's always moving in from a completely opposite direction, as if the stage just became his playground and she's an uninvited guest. The chi lacing the attacks crushes through her weak aura, the girl having few if any defenses against that kind of energy much like most other psions.
With his final kick, he drops her to the stage floor, the girl landing hard, face down. She starts to push herself up, not wanting to get clobbered any further, but she's just in time to hear her opponent's parting remark. Blood trickles down her temple from one of the kicks she took to the head as she stares back at Aranha. With some more effort, she pushes up to standing, head bowed in thought. She's made it to the finals, it seems. The tournament may not have the same magnitude of importance as what she thought the Devil's Tournament had behind it... but it's still quite the accomplishment.
"Thank you," the girl states, though he might not her her at this point, let alone the noise of the crowd drowning her out. "It was..." she exhales softly, hand over her stomach. "An honor to face you."
The match is over, the announcer cutting in past the loud music to resume his machine-gun like rapidfire speech, and Athena lifts her eyes to the darkened ceiling above. Another impressive match against a powerful contender. People never cease to surprise her with their potential. Even if she is psychic!
COMBATSYS: Athena has ended the fight here.
Log created on 21:46:52 07/03/2012 by Athena, and last modified on 09:48:08 07/05/2012.