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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jun 28, 2016 6:17:30 GMT
Suffice it to say, Aegle ate the kick to the face like it was coated in chocolate. Before she even had a chance to guess what Sky's response would be, though she certainly suspected a counter attack, her head was whipped back with all the force of a hammer blow spread out across her face. Her aura absorbed most of it but, due to Aegle's own predilections regarding aural protection, not all of it. What she allowed through still had enough force behind it to strain her unbraced neck and squish or crunch the squishy and crunchy parts of her face. Still, despite all of this, Aegle stood her ground and did not shift so much as an inch from where she stood. The telltale glow of her semblance, already brightly furnishing her exposed skin, redoubled once more, flashing up before the deleterious effects of her injuries could keep her from responding.
Thus, with static and stars in her eyes, the taste of blood on her tongue, and the alarming popping of her neck, Aegle retaliated without so much as a hint of hesitation. Just like she'd done moments before when Sky had struck her across the chest, Aegle weathered the attack without flinching and then responded in kind. Her free hand, the one not presently extended into some part of Sky's lower body, swung forth to chop brutally down upon whatever was before her. This was what truly made Aegle dangerous. While her Oupis gave her strength and deceptive speed, it was her endurance and stamina that truly won her fights for her. A lot of it was her semblance, and the way it let her weather anything that didn't straight up knock her our, and a lot of it was her truly impressive aural reserve, but there was also an indomitable spirit within Aegle Vitus. It was a tenacity which had caught many an opponent by surprise and which Sky was surely becoming inured as well. It was a never say die attitude, combined with a brazen, some might even say crazy, stubborn refusal to back down. So long as she had the strength to stand, she would never relent, never give an inch, and never retreat. It was a tenacity which had caught many an opponent by surprise and which Sky was surely becoming inured to right then. It was the reason that, despite weathering three disastrous blows in quick succession, Aegle kept purposefully swinging, confident in each punch and its capacity to bring the melee to a close.
Which is certainly not to say that Aegle was unhurt. She'd allowed a lot of harm to bypass her uncommonly light aural protection, and while this meant she still had plenty of aura to spare, it also meant her injuries were stacking up. Usually she could rely on her semblance to mitigate such resultant injuries, letting her ignore bruises, lacerations and even fractured bones. Sky's attacks had been relatively concentrated, however, and her chest ached and burned with each breath she took as a result. It wasn't just bruises, but deep tissue contusions, accompanied by fractures that threatened, with one more hit, to become breaks. Aegle, had she the time to notice these mounting problems, might had shored up her defenses and bolstered the invisible shield that ran off her aura. Instead, she was focused on attacking. She focused on doing what she did best, going all out on an overwhelming assault, trusting that she could outlast her foe.
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Post by Sky Richardson on Jun 28, 2016 16:23:37 GMT
Sky saw the chop coming for him, he couldn't stop it. As the fist descended, he had enough time to lament, but he could hardly be angry at Aegle for it. She didn't know that his weakness was earth. Rocks, dirt, sand- if he would take damage by ground, that damage was effectively doubled. Sky couldn't take very much more punishment. He wasn't a head-on fighter so much as he was a float like a butterfly sting like a bee kinda fighter,. Whereas Aegle relied mostly on her strength and remarkable tenacity, sky usually relied on his agility and versatility. The blow caught him in the gut, forcing most of his air out. However, one of Sky's favorite ways to train was in the swimming pool, he knew how to fight without air. As the blow drove him towards the ground he curled his body around her arm, if he took another full force impact against the ground or a rock wall he was done for. As Aegles chop reached its lower threshold he pushed off her arm with his arms, and used the electricity beneath his feet to aid in bringing his legs under him, using the sparks to avoid breaking his legs and to spring back up.
But not away this time. This was it, he felt. He had just about reached his upper threshold, what he didn't know was Aegles. Skys hope was that aegle would expect him to follow the precedent he had set during the entirety of their battle and try to put some distance between them. However, it was skys turn for an insane manuever. As he jumped up of the ground he spun around, his swords whistling as they came in for Aegles midsection, two slashes as he jumped up and began the spin, two more if he was able to complete the spin. Truth be told, however, sky didn't expect to be able to finish his spin, fully expecting another vicious chop to descend on his crown, where he sent the final remnants of his aura.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jun 29, 2016 1:38:28 GMT
All things considered, Aegle had performed admirably up until this point. It hadn't been an altogether typical confrontation for her, and she had made more than one questionable decision, not the least of which was talking her opponent out of forfeiting. Still, as she would later reflect, she thought she'd done a pretty well. She'd managed to not just keep in the fighting after being blinded, but had even managed to go on the offensive. Granted, she had done so by leaving herself entirely open to injury, and those injuries were approaching Pyrrhic levels of concentration, but fighting blind and winning had to count for something.
Not that she had won...
Yet.
Aegle grinned savagely, showing off teeth outlined in blood, as she felt the shudder of impact race up her falling arm. She had gotten him and, unlike previous hits, this one had not been a glancing blow. Though she'd certainly felt something of a kindred connection with Sky in the opening skirmishes of their match, those fond feelings didn't keep her from putting all her strength into the thunderous blow. That was why she was surprised when she felt all resistance against the downward stroke of her fist suddenly evaporate. Though her eyes remained next to useless and barely registered a few flickering suggestions of motion, they flicked urgently about in search of her lost quarry. It was then that Sky's hope that Aegle would incorrectly predict his movements turned out to be in vain, because Aegle rarely, if ever, attempted to predict her opponents movements. Some fighters were smart enough to do that sort of thing, and lethal because of it, but Aegle was not one of them. What defensive technique she made use of relied on muscle memory, reaction speed and training rather than trying to guess what attacks she would need to dodge. So, rather than suspecting that Sky would try to put some distance between them, or expecting that he would at least try to re position himself, Aegle instead sought out stimuli before reacting to it. It was the very same thing she'd done every other time she'd been attacked that fight. In this case, the stimuli she reacted to was, in order of appearance, the sound of rustling cloth, the whistle of bare steel as it cut through the air, and the white hot jolt of pain as that steel connected. And again, as with every time before, Aegle reacted, not by flinching or shying away from the pain, but with an attack of her own. Unlike previous times, where she had been attacking from an awkward position or at the very last second, this time Aegle was poised and ready. She wasn't on her knees, unbalanced or electrified, and Sky was not attacking from above her. The attack had not come from over head, and the sounds preceding it had come from beside her, not above her. This time, Aegle was ready even before the attack landed, and when the searing flash of pain finally reported its location, it served to complete the firing solution on the one who'd caused it.
Turning sharply into the twin swords before they had even concluded their cut across her side, cocking her left hand back before her cracked ribs finally gave up and broke, Aegle jabbed her fist upward in search of her opponent's stomach. The uppercut was only a range-finding measure however, a quick precursor to the main course. Because, as Aegle swung upward, driving skyward with every muscle in her body to achieve a connection with as much alacrity as possible, so too did she cock back her free hand for the second step of the combination, which would be a brutal haymaker. Like the closing combo which she'd first struck Sky with, Aegle's movements flowed into one another with the seamlessness of long, arduous, bordering on obsessive, practice. This was that first combination's equal number, except where it was meant to close distance and pressure opponents, this combination was meant for one thing, and one thing alone. It was a finisher. Because once Aegle's uppercut landed, it would continue to drive upward, uprooting her opponent, until all of her weight was shifted behind her remaining fist. At that point, as she dropped her uprooted foe, so too would she scythe downward and forward with all the weight and momentum her standing body and their falling could deliver, and with every muscle and every motor behind that one punch.
Aegle screamed as she threw the uppercut. It was a primal, savage sound, tinted by triumph and pain in equal measure. The glow that surrounded her flashed as she swung and it seemed for the moments that followed that she was truly the heart of a raging inferno, for which her body and soul were kindling. The aura radiated the same stalwart confidence she'd shown through the whole fight, but burned coldly with something else as well. Saturating the world around her, flowing out from Aegle in waves, was the implacable, indomitable and unflappable determination that governed her life. And even in the lights of the arena, it burned impossibly bright.
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Post by Sky Richardson on Jun 29, 2016 2:52:28 GMT
Sky saw the uppercut coming. He grinned wryly, even winking at Aegle as if to say "See? Told ya:P" His eyes sought Aegles, even as her punch connected directly with his stomach, a smile of content upon his face. He had made a lot of mistakes, mostly due to letting his mind get in the way. As the uppercut picked him off his feet, he felt, for the first time, a fiery determination kindle within his heart, lit by the very flames that Aegle radiated. He would get better, No Matter What. It wasn't an expression of desire, or of hope, though those certainly had their place, but rather a statement of Fact. He was going to do, Whatever it took to catch her, he determined even as her haymaker landed at the crown of his skull. He registered dull surprise at his own surprise, how was he even breathing, let alone conscious. He crumpled to the ground like so much dirty laundry, the only thing he was aware of as the darkness encroached upon his vision was Aegle, standing victorious with monumental glory, before that faded and all he was left with was darkness, his newfound, and rightly treasured determination, and his exponentially oncreasing affection for Aegle. Hang on a sec... He rallied mightily, marvelling at how all of himself was channelled through his determination into the very essence of power, with which to fight. He blinked the darkness out of his eyes, unable to move, his body in shock but his mind still alert.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jun 29, 2016 3:34:31 GMT
Aegle held onto her pitched as she carried through her punch, feeling the hard cap of her spiked fist thud as it struck home. She felt Sky's body, initially tensed against he blow, grow abruptly slack the moment after impact, just before her hand fell away to let him drop to the ground. What followed was a heaped 'whumf' like someone had just dropped a huge pile of laundry at her feet. She blinked uncertainly, and heard only her labored breathing and the indistinguishable hush of a stadium filled with staring eyes. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, wherein Aegle barely moved incase she missed some vital sound, the buzzer sounded all around them. "And there we have it, folks!" A voice thundered into the arena, catching Aegle off guard. "Syne Academy's Sky Richardson has been eliminated; Victory goes to Aegle Vitus of Titan Academy!" More words followed, but they were nearly universally drowned out by the sudden, uproarious cheering that boomed from the stands. Almost immediately, the glow surrounding Aegle's body vanished in its entirety, before the mechanized girl slouched heavily forward in her harness. She blinked a few times, willing some manner of sight back into her emerald eyes as she mentally cataloged her injuries. Her face was throbbing where Sky's had kicked her, and she thought she might also be burn around her nose and lips from the sparks that had surrounded his feet at the time. Similarly, her hands and forearms burned incessantly, as if each were submersed in boiling water. Then there was the throbbing in her side, which rose to a stabbing agony each time she took a breath. She'd had enough broken ribs to recognize the feeling. Her mental checklist complete, Aegle delicately and a little shakily slipped her hand out of its gauntlet and brought her fingers up to the side of her throat. Though her vision hadn't yet returned, she closed her eyes and quietly counted, before a faint grimace moved across her face, one which even her prevalent physical discomforts had not managed to produce. She'd let her heart rate rise to much, and she could tell that her blood pressure was dangerously high. Finding the buckles by memory, Aegle carefully extricated herself from the Oupis and, half stumbling, crouched down in front of her suit.
After a moment, still blinking to try and get a little bit of her sight back, the orange haired girl reached out and patted searchingly across the ground. "Sky?" She asked uncertainly, her voice raw and unsteady, but not worried or distressed. "I didn't knock you out, did I?" From the way she asked, it was pretty clear that Aegle was somewhat used to accidentally knocking people out. "I guess I musta smashed your aura, huh?" She winced as he hand alighted on something soft, which still felt like searing sandpaper on the electrical burns that coated her fingers. She looked a little worse for wear as she cautiously moved towards the crumpled figure and, after some indelicate inquiry through touch alone, determined where his head and shoulders were. Shapes and outlines were beginning to return to her vision, but they remained faintly obfuscated by the plum-purple snap shot of Sky's smiling face, which his flash had burned into her retinas. After finding Sky's shoulders, Aegle, with a bit of difficulty in relocating her stiff, unresponsive body, knelt somewhat awkwardly beside his head. "Sky?" She asked hopefully, smiling despite her split lip and bloodshot eyes. "I guess they'll come and get us..." Aegle mused after a couple of seconds, her shaking growing worse as the adrenaline wore off. Despite how banged up she was, and despite obviously being unable to focus on anything, she looked very content and happy. "That was a fun fight." She remarked absently, her smile briefly becoming a bloody grin, "You sure can do a lot of crazy stuff with that lightning... S'that a dust trick, or just your semblance?" Whether or not Sky was capable of answering didn't seem important to Aegle as she spoke, "S'pretty neat..." as she spoke, Aegle lowered her head and slowly let her body relax, though she did shift her burnt hands a little to get them comfortable.
After a few more moments of silence, Aegle perked up again and looked, somewhat nebulously, down at where she reckoned Sky's face to be. "Ya put up a real good fight, you know?" She said happily, sounding sincere. "I'm real proud of you~" Then, showing that she still couldn't quite see where he was, she reached down and clumsily found his shoulder, before giving it a light pat.
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Post by Sky Richardson on Jun 29, 2016 4:21:30 GMT
Sky lay at peace, if he had been able to make the effort he would have been smiling from ear to ear. He was really thankful that, thanks to the immense amount of pain he was in it didn't actually hurt though he was aware it was there. He heard Aegle call out his name, and he tried to respond,his lips moved a fraction, and there was the slightest grunt, but nothing past that. He closed his eyes, somehow even more at peace for hearing her speak to him. He would have laughed heartily as the thought hazily came that he was gonna hurt like a train wreck when he awoke. His heart swelled and felt as if it would surely burst when she told him she was proud of him. when she patted his shoulder, he managed with the mightiest effort to make his shoulder twitch, the effort too much and sending him plunging fully into the darkness.
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Post by Event Admin on Jul 3, 2016 12:51:16 GMT
Aegle Vitus moves on to round 3
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