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Post by Event Admin on Jul 21, 2016 11:27:18 GMT
Contenders: Aegle Vitus (RLR) vs. F.A.T.E. (RLR)Arena:Half Snowy Mountain, Half Stormy PlainsRules: Each participant has 10 posts each to prove their skills as hunters, less if one participant has no way to escape a certain loss. Stats, HP totals, and MP totals do not exist. Dust is provided. The arena environments are not affected by Semblance. There will be no Godmodding, Metagaming, or Powerplaying, every action made must be reasonably justified. Participants have 24 hours from the time of their opponent's last post to post or themselves or face possible disqualification. DQ can be avoided by alerting either site's staff about a valid reason for one's absence. Final posts (the 10th post for each contender) must be an exit post that includes the bell that ends the match. The match MUST begin by tomorrow, July 22nd 2016. For every day the match doesn't start thereafter, both participants will lose one post each.Battle Start!
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Post by F.A.T.E on Jul 22, 2016 1:57:41 GMT
Fate walked into the arena, staring around at the roaring crowd. It would seem the semi finals had everyone excited, Fate included, and now every person in the arena-field or otherwise-was itching for the fight to get started. When her opponent walked in though, Fate's eyes widened slightly in shock before turning into a large smile. "Aegle?" She didn't need an answer, the announcer called out their names shortly after. "Aegle Vitus from Titan Academy, vs. Omega Fate also from Titan Academy!" Fate laughed, continuing to grin at Aegle and bowing slightly. It would be good to have a nice friendly bout between two friends, and their previous encounter had shown a few core things about Aegle. For one, she was very energetic and tenacious, not letting anything stop her. Another key thing was there was some sort of mechanical enhancement that caused her to whir like a motor when she was extremely active. Fate watched as the terrain randomizers started spinning, nodding towards the orange haired girl gently. "It is good to see you again. I look forward to this, it will be fun." One side of the arena settled on a snowy mountain, the familiar peak raising from the arena floor. It seemed the place was undamaged from her first fight, which meant they either had people repairing them after each battle or they used different fields. The second terrain caused Fate to curse internally, and the storming field only forced her to restrain herself from glowering at it. She had to avoid fighting there, the storms could easily impede her systems and a direct lightning strike, even through aura, would likely spell the quick end of the fight.
The announcer called out "begin!" and Fate was off, claws shooting out of her fingertips and the smile returning to her face. "May the best fighter win!" Fate had watched the first of Aegle's fights, after that busy recovering from being impaled by a sword, and knew that her primary fighting means was a mechanical exosuit. So she would give her opponent time to set up, after all it would be no fun if Fate struck before her opponent could fight back. So the robotic faunus sprinted behind Aegle towards the snowy peak, entering the mountainous region and turning to await Aegle's move. She enjoyed letting her opponents make the first move, mostly because it was easier to set up an unstoppable offensive after a counterattack. Overheat clocked up, her heat sensors rising and the snow around her beginning to melt and evaporate as her skin started glowing red. Her claws emitted a shimmering white, the heat both visible and palpable off the natural weapons. She placed her claws before her and assumed a fighting stance, ready to respond to anything and calmly beckoned towards her opponent. Her sprint was impressive, and for most people that would've been at least a little exertion. Fate's following words however showed no sign of losing breath, and there wasn't any sweat on her skin or steaming off it. "Your move Aegle."
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jul 22, 2016 2:49:54 GMT
Aegle didn't so much walk into the arena as she did lope, carrying herself in the uneven but strangely smooth way which was her custom. Her excitement was practically electric and lit up her face more brightly than the heard of a lightning bolt. Her previous two bouts had been intense matches, the last one having driven her quite near her limit, but both had been exceptionally fun in their own unique ways, and she had nothing but high hopes for this match. Those hopes only redoubled in their assurance when she spied the figured entering at the far side of the stadium and recognized it as belonging to Fate. Aegle laughed with delight, and sped towards the arena's center. "Aegle?" Fate said in similar surprise, her voice just barely audible over the aural maelstrom which swirled down from the stadium's packed stands. "Yooo~" The orange haired girl called back jubilantly, answering Fate's demure bow with a wave that made Aegle seem as though she were trying to swat something very big and very angry out of the air over her head. Her grin, which had been wide before, stretched her lips more in an honest attempt to show off every one of the pearly white teeth within. "It is good to see you again." The feline faunus continued in her reserved, scarcely loud enough voice, as the terrain began to shift around them. "I look forward to this, it will be fun." "This is gonna be awesome!" Aegle agreed as she swung the heavy attache case she'd carried in with her, her secret Oupis, up and over one shoulder to let it plunk to the concrete behind her. "I didn't know if I'd actually get to fight you!" Scrunching up her crooked body in what was plainly an attempt to contain her explosive excitement, Aegle let out a squeal of pure delight. She bowed her head and stamped her feet, and wrung her hands in almost cartoonish glee, then kicked back at the Oupis, causing the case to unfold into its true form. "Oooooooooooh, this is great!" She exclaimed, practically shrieking, and barely giving the Oupis enough time to finish unfolding before she was pulling herself into it. "I can't wait to see what it's like, fightin' you when you're all steaming and stuff!" Aegle continued excitedly as she slipped her hands into place and let the greaves of the Oupis clamp closed about her shins. Her eyes found Fate again as she was reeled back and locked in place, and they settled upon her with all the weight and intensity of emerald supernovas.
She watched Fate streak towards the mountains, and her grin took on a more wolfish gleam. She would have preferred it if Fate had gotten right into things right there in the arena's center, but was unperturbed by her friend's choose of arena. It didn't matter to Aegle where they fought. Which was not to say that certain terrains would not give her certain advantages or disadvantages, only that Aegle didn't care. She would have fought Fate in the center of an active volcano if that were the venue the faunus had picked. She watched Fate turn as she entered the windswept peaks, but had already sprung into motion herself. She thundered ahead and there was no attempt to conceal the intentions behind her headlong sprint, which bore all indicators of a full on frontal assault. The Oupis provided only minimal protection to the wearer, effectively armoring only Aegle's forearms, hands, shins and feet, but it more than made up for all defensive shortcomings in speed and power. Before she'd even taken two steps, Aegle's powerful strides had achieved a truly alarming top speed which, if not capable of matching Fate, would still let her keep pressure on the fleet footed faunus.
Aegle tore through the snowy drifts like they weren't there, kicking aside great plumes of powdery white while trampling any snowflakes unfortunate enough to have not been kicked out of the way. Her heavy footsteps left deep footprints that reach almost all the way to the craggy rock beneath, and she didn't even slow as she steamed a path directly towards where Fate had stopped. She came upon the faunus with alarming alacrity and, the instant she was within striking distance, attacked. To say she attacked without warning would be fallacious, as Aegle's thunderous charge had made her intentions to attack quite obvious. It would have been more accurate to say that the attack itself had no warning, as it was preceded by nothing even resembling a telegraph, as Aegle funneled the natural motions of her sprint into a sudden, two pronged strike. As her feet planted, Aegle swung wide with a backhanded left that swiped suddenly before her. The backhand was dual purposed, meant to apply immediate pressure to her target at the furthest range possible, while simultaneously distracting from the right hand she loaded to follow it up. The right, a cleaving hook, was more singular in its purpose. Using the motion of her body and the sweep of her backhand to conceal her wind up, she would launch the hook to punish any attempts to evade the backhand. It was a brutally simple combo, but one which Aegle had practiced to the point of mastery, and one of the corner stones of her offensive arsenal.
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Post by F.A.T.E on Jul 22, 2016 5:15:29 GMT
Fate stood against the charge, ready to retaliate as soon as the inevitable attack came. Said attack, while expected, still took all her effort to fully perceive. Even with all her sensors and systems she still barely caught the backhand and incoming hook. So she couldn't go backwards, or she would take the hook to the face. But if she advanced forward or sideways the backhand would catch her instead. So she advanced in the other direction, the only one that would successfully evade both attacks, up. As Aegle's armor clad hand came close to impacting with the backhand Fate grabbed the wrist and jumped upwards, using her grip to propel her over the right hook. On the way down she spun, sticking both feet out in splits and spinning to deliver a kick to her head with both feet. After the second impacted her legs spun under her and she landed deftly upon her bare feet, diving straight into another attack chain. Heat radiated off her in waves, the kicks both showcasing her blistering hot skin and surprising strength. In fact, the strength of her kicks was not dissimilar to the sheer power of Aegle's own punches, though her claws were a little less strong in sheer destructive force.
However that was not to say her claws were weak, something showcased in the aggressive and quite literal dive at Aegle. Pushing her body down and forward she lunged into Aegle, left claw stabbing forward in a jab while her right swung at Aegle's knee. Following that she pushed both claws inward, slicing effectively through Aegle one way and crossing her arms, before pushing them outward and performing the same attack in reverse. She highly doubted the string of attacks would be simply taken, after all Aegle was an experienced fighter and simply letting those superheated claws impact would've been terrible. Not only were they very devastating from the sheer heat, but their sharpness and the strength behind them make them just as devastating as any hunter's weapon. Just in case though, she lifted her knee in a sudden jab towards Aegle's chest, intending to knock the wind from her and reassert her advantage if she lost it, or simply assure it otherwise. The string of attacks showcased her personal fighting style perfectly, very quick, very aggressive, and very deadly. The whole time there was a calm smile on her face, and it was clear she was enjoying it so far.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jul 23, 2016 0:27:32 GMT
Aegle gritted her teeth instinctively when Fate vaulted her punch, a last second reaction to the unthinkable unfolding before her. Her closing combo was one of the most well honed tools in her arsenal. Hours upon hours of obsessive repetition had broken the two stage strike down and rebuilt it as a single attack, before even more practice had ingrained it into Aegle to the point where she could perform it as easily as blink. It wasn't flashy, it wasn't particularly technical, but it was perfect. And it had missed. In her previous three fights in the tournament, and in countless other fights before, Aegle could have counted the number of times her closing combo missed on one hand. It wasn't uncommon for an opponent to avoid one of the two strikes, either because they were baited by the backhand or had already been trying to avoid it, but for both to miss, and miss so completely, was remarkable.
It would have been wrong to say that Aegle saw Fate's counter attack coming, because she didn't. The fleet footed faunus was too fast for her to make an conscious observations about her movements. In Aegle's experience, the close quarters she favored often made it difficult, if not wholly impossible, to be entirely aware of what one's opponent was doing, even when directly facing them. Things simply happened too quickly for the conscious mind to recognize. It was for this reason that Aegle tried to think as little as possible when she fought. A wise huntsman, taking full account of the situation, might have been able to undertake a tactically sound and informed course of action, but Aegle had never so much as presumed herself to be anything approaching wise. In fact, she had learned early on that she was particularly poorly suited to tactical analysis and forethought. Rather, Aegle fought on an instinctual level. Her actions and reactions were driven less by conscious awareness of her surroundings and the actions of her opponent, and more by muscle memory and deeply ingrained behavioral training. So when Fate leapt Aegle's fist, Aegle didn't respond in expectation of a kick. She responded before she even consciously realized that a kick was incoming. In fact, her reaction was nearly immediate. With one hand in penultimate extension of a hook and one pulled back at the ultimate extension of a backhand, Aegle disengaged. She wove back and interposed her armored hand, the very same which had recently tried to backhand Fate, between her head and the faunus' forthcoming kick. Much like the closing combo which had kicked off this whole engagement, Aegle's defensive movements were refined and ingrained and capable of interjecting on a situation well before her waking mind knew they were necessary. The blows struck with the force of an explosion, like two colossal hammer blows on the anvil of Aegle's forearm. She felt one of her ears pop with the pressure wave, while the other reported a dull groan from the Oupis' straining frame. It was designed to weather far heavier attacks, but that did not mean it did so happily. Fingers tingling, bicep aching, Aegle moved with her opponent, though not in expectation of additional attacks. Rather, she did so with the instinctual intent of launching a counter attack of her own.
As Fate landed on the other side of Aegle, Aegle was already swinging around with a scything haymaker. She did so just in time to intercept, though not entirely halt, Fate's diving strike. Aegle felt something like fire rake across her hip, followed by a similar searing sensation on her knee, though neither strike so much as slowed her swing. With all her weight behind it, which, thanks to the Oupis, was a great deal of weight indeed, Aegle's swinging arm brought her spike fist thundering down upon Fate. It carried with it force sufficient to shatter an oak tree at its base, and swept downward in a deliberate arch, as if her intention was to hammer Fate into the ground like a cat-eared nail. Faint wisps of light sparked across Aegle's bare skin as she swung, born from the still smoldering swipes in her side and knee, and coating her face and scalp in an effervescent suggestion of orangy light.
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Post by F.A.T.E on Jul 23, 2016 14:52:37 GMT
Fate took one look at the impending punch and instantly realized she was in trouble. She was already committed to her attacks, and when they completed Aegle didn't even react to them, the spiked fist still flying towards Fate. So she turned, presented her shoulder to the punch, and slammed the entire weight of her body against it. Her body gave its own mild whirring sound, as all her mechanical muscles braced against the hit. This sound was mostly drowned out, as the impact made a rather loud boom. Fate stayed locked there pushing against the blow for a second, teeth gritted as she shoved against the force of it, before Aegle's strength overpowered her. Fate went sailing to the side, slamming into the mountainside and making a small hole in the massive rock. Snow rolled down into the sudden hole, covering the faunus in a sudden snowdrift. Fate didn't wait though, she didn't groan in pain or move sluggishly, instead she dove out of the snow, melting it and barreling out steaming, and charged once more at Aegle. She didn't waste time on a direct strike, instead wrapping one hand around Aegle's forearm. She then spun and placed her back to her opponent, her other hand pressing underneath Aegle's upper arm and kicked out on of her knees. Utilizing that she pressed up on her arm and flipped the girl, Oupis and all, over her shoulder and threw her with impressive force into the mountainside. Despite lifting the full exosuit's weight, with the ease of which Fate threw her she may as well have been throwing a baby, and it all happened in just under a second. The movements were practiced and precise, meant to have the most effect in the least amount of time, just like all of Fate's actions. Of course, Fate knew better than to make an opportunity and then fail to capitalize on it, so she jumped into the air to slam back down onto her target. One claw outstretched, still steaming from the melted snow, she plummeted down towards the thrown Aegle, intent on landing with all the force of gravity and then proceeding to tear in with her claws. The previous blow had taken a decent chunk out of her aura, though Fate still looked in tip top shape despite it, and the small laugh she had as she was falling showed that she was still quite enjoying this.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jul 23, 2016 21:05:53 GMT
Her smile taking on a hungry, nearly predatory aspect, Aegle whooped loudly as her fist connected, filled with absolute assurance that the blow would be devastating. She was, however, quite shocked when her punch did not wholly flatten Fate the way she had expected. While she took no relish from causing others pain, even in the highly competitive setting which she presently occupied, there was a certain expectation of deleterious injury when one of her punches connected, especially so solidly as this one. Though, as has previously been noted, she tried to keep expectations firmly separated from the objectively plain reality of combat, Aegle was none the less surprised to find Fate actually resisting the impact. More over, the orange haired girl was surprised to hear the Oupis straining against the faunus' opposing strength, and actually groaning with the exertion of the impact. Aegle had felled creatures of Grimm eight times Fate's size, punching through bone as much as four inches thick to do so, and she had crushed a fighter twice her own size in a contest of strength, so her surprise was not unreasonable. At the last moment, sensing that she would be unable to pummel the faunus fighter as she had initially intended, Aegle altered the trajectory of her punch before she lost all her momentum, such that, rather than forcing downwards, she instead twisted all her remaining power into a side long swipe. Without the ground to brace against, the effect was immediate. All the power, briefly muted by Fate's shockingly solid frame, acted upon the light weight faunus and sent her flying, straight as an arrow, into the nearby cliff face.
Aegle, numbed by the surprise of having anyone, unshielded, weather her blows in such a direct fashion, was forced to take a look at the tip of her spiked fist, almost expecting to find that it had been blunted by her attempt to strike Fate. This hesitation, so unlike the orange haired huntress, was the opening which Fate needed. Before Aegle had quite overcome her shock, Fate had burst from the shallow hole and thick drift of snow where the aforementioned punch had sent her, and wrapped up Aegle's forearm tightly in her grip. Aegle's reaction, unlike before, was nowhere near immediate, as there was slight delay as her mind switched gears from slack jawed surprise to instinctive self-defense. This was how Aegle performed the cardinal sin of any boxer, in that she allowed herself to be uprooted by her opponent. In her defense, the sheer physical might necessary to pull her off of her feet without some of her momentum to help in the exercise was dubiously great, but there was no excusing the fact that she actually allowed Fate to do it. Though the Oupis' reinforced joints kept Aegle's arm from being wrenched from its socket by the truly titanic amount of strength needed to send her flying, she was sent flying none the less, and found herself rapidly approaching the very same rock face she had just slugged Fate into. "Whaaaat?" She managed to exclaim, right before impact. Aegle was far from acrobatic. Her fighting style practically revolved around having at least one foot firmly planted at any given time, and she was about as out of her element while airborne as she would have been on the surface of Remnant's shattered moon. Thus, she lacked the fundamental skills which might have made her impact with the mountainside any less graceless and complete. She struck it bodily, like a great hand had slapped her against cliffside, and splayed out flat across the its craggy face. Though, what Aegle may had lacked in aerial grace, she more than made up for in strength and tenacity. Incongruously, between the to slashes she'd weathered to land her previous hit, and the subsequent face plant against solid rock, her aura had registered only minimal injury, considerably less than she had already inflicted upon Fate. As she peeled off the cliffside, one other fundamental difference made itself apparent. Aegle had used less aura defending herself because she had actively used less aura in her defense. Blood trickled out of her nose and her lip was split, while small nicks and bruises had already begun to make themselves apparent on her face. Other injuries remained hidden beneath her mutilated and oft repaired hoodie and cargo pants, which each concealed a landscape of bruises and abrasions from her impact with the rock. The pale glow which had previously danced almost imperceptibly across Aegle's countenance now bloomed with an easily perceived orange light. In an effect not unlike the waves of heat which radiated off of Fate's bare hands and feet, Aegle's exposed skin sparkled in effervescent radiance that flowed off of her like wisps of steam.
Sensing an attack must be forthcoming, Aegle utilized her colossal might, which surpassed even Fate's inconceivable strength, to force herself back from the cliff face, turning her flying body into a wrecking ball. She shot, past Fate, missing the leaping faunus by a considerable margin, but was not done. As she fell, her legs braced for impact as her hands slammed loudly together. In a fraction of a second, the segmented plates that made up her intimidating punching spikes flowed onto her left arm and rearranged themselves in the form of a massive tower shield, as tall and wide as the girl holding it. As she brought the shield up before her, Aegle's right hand, now entirely unarmored, reached behind her to the base of the Oupis' powerplant housing. From it, she extracted a cylindrical canister about the size of a soda can, which had a small cap on one end and glowed faintly with its own interior light. Aegle wound back and, as her feet struck the ground and her momentum cut two furrows in the snowy earth, threw the powercell with all the force with which she was capable. It whizzed through the air, not aimed at Fate, but at the human shaped depression which Aegle, herself, had left in the stone. When it struck, thunderous impact cracked its outer shell, and the lightning dust within exploded in a brilliant corona of crackling blisteringly bright electricity
Skidding to a stop, Aegle thumped her fists, one steel shod and the other only bandaged, re-armoring and rearming the latter in the blink of an eye. Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Aegle then dashed towards the spot at the foot of the mountain, beneath where her improvised grenade had exploded, her vicious claws clanking together into large, armor piercing spikes. She would keep the pressure on Fate, and continue to fight the only way she knew how, with ferocity, determination, and absolute abandon.
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Post by F.A.T.E on Jul 24, 2016 21:23:10 GMT
Fate smirked as she felt Aegle went flying from her grasp, confident enough in her strength to follow it up with a jump. She quickly realized how terrible overconfidence was, as Aegle pushed up and went sailing through the air, straight past the falling Fate. She thought she was in the clear, until she saw the glowing canister thrown at her destination. It took the thundering sound for her to realize the full depth of her folly, and at that point Fate's green eyes went wide and she curled into a ball. The force of the explosion rocked her frame, but she continued hurtling downward unimpeded. Straight into the crackling electricity, the true danger of the device. Electrical current coursed through her systems, wracking her body with spasms and causing Overheat to fluctuate wildly. She impacted the mountain, not even registering the impact or the snow which rolled atop her as she continued simply trying to recover from the electrical overload. Her skin's glow pulsated randomly, the snow around her erupting into puffs of steam at sudden intervals. Fate's vision was first rendered useless, then filled with spots and finally simply extremely blurry. Her ears rang and her skin tingled, all of her senses out of whack from the overload. Without her aura, that pulse may well have rendered her completely unconscious, and even with it, the effect was still extreme. As Aegle began charging, Fate just barely managed to get herself back on her feet, sluggish, clumsy and with impaired perceptions.
That didn't stop her from trying though, and seeing Aegle's charge sharpened her mind enough for her to come to a conclusion. She had to run, had to go on the defensive long enough to fully reacquire her senses. So she sprinted away from Aegle's charge, not nearly as fast as before and more stumbling then running, but still going away from the charge. The slope however, didn't seem to affect her much and her movements carried her rapidly towards the top of the mountain. Then her bare feet got caught on a loose rock, and she had recovered just enough to realize the impending fall. Her leg rolled out from under her, and Fate was sent tumbling back down the mountainside, an unintentional side effect being the sudden feline projectile rolling towards Aegle. It took only one full revolution for Fate to fully reacquire control of her systems, and another half to stabilize herself in the fall. She braced against the mountain beneath her and pushed upwards, turning her tumbling fall into a vaulting kick towards Aegle, hoping beyond hope that she'd be able to wrap her legs around Aegle's neck and drag her to the ground. The move was desperate, and the best she could make out of a bad situation. It seemed her weakness to electricity was becoming more common knowledge, which meant she now had to do something about it. Either that or Aegle had just gotten very lucky in her choice of offense and simply happened upon the best one. After all, a metallic body and electrical circuits to power it fall prey to electric bursts far easier than skin and bone.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jul 24, 2016 23:10:24 GMT
Aegle really had not idea how badly she had hurt Fate with her improvised explosive. For most huntsman, while not especially pleasant, exposure to lightning dust would not spell immediate disaster. Aegle herself had endured numerous electricity based attacks during her second match and the worst she had suffered was a few second degree burns and temporary blindness. Lightning dust wasn't pleasant, but it was far from the most destructive thing a huntress could be exposed to. Or so Aegle would have assumed, before Fate broke cover and showed just how severe her reaction to electrocution had been. Though her killer instinct, necessary of anyone who hoped to be a successful hunter, drove her to capitalize on Fate's perceived weakness, another part of the orange haired huntress registered that something was a little off; That Fate was just a little too badly stunned by the blast, despite still possessing a suitable buffer of aura. Much like she had during her fight with Jet, Aegle felt minute reluctance at the idea that she'd actually succeeded in hurting her opponent, though it was mixed with confusion as to how she might have accomplished it. While Jet had muted his aura defense in a manner similar, though not nearly so extreme, as Aegle, Fate had just plainly displayed that she negated all damage whenever she could.
Aegle, by no means an intellectual girl, was still wondering what she had done to hurt Fate, and her confusion was rapidly transmuting into concern as she followed her feline friend up the snowy slopes of their mountain arena. While vertical climbs were not something the Oupis was suited, she found herself actually gaining on the fleet footed faunus, despite Fate's previously displayed abilities to well outpace even the mechanically enhanced Aegle. Remaining surefooted as she ascended, Aegle grudgingly made sacrifices to speed and grace in order to remain firmly rooted and ready as she closed in on her opponent, though her emerald eyes continued to regard Fate with open reservation. She had begun to wonder if she had actually really hurt the brunette above her, if somehow she had wounded her severely enough to hamper her efforts. She still fully intended to pummel Fate, so long as the faunus had aura to deflect the blows, but she meant to be careful not to actually cripple her friend. Then, with a dozen or so feet separating them, Fate fell, and all bets were off.
Things had not gone well for the feline faunus up until this point, and they were only going to get a whole lot worse as she tumbled towards the oncoming human tank that was Aegle Vitus. Feet firmly planted, posture prepared and eyes watchful, the orange haired huntress had just about every advantage over the falling faunus which she could ask for. Thus, when Fate sprung toward her, legs poised for some manner of attack and body straight as an arrow, Aegle registered an attack and her ingrained training took over. Taking only one final step towards the flying faunus, Aegle brought her left hand upward in a sharp hooking uppercut, timed to connect just as Fate, legs spread to grapple her upper body, came into range. At the same time, in the very same motion, Aegle loaded back her right hand in the unmistakable windup for a haymaker. In a fluid motion which transferred all the momentum from her upward swing into the subsequent downward blow, Aegle was prepared to both arrest Fate's flight and then hammer her savagely into the mountainside, and she couldn't have been better prepared to do just that.
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Post by F.A.T.E on Jul 26, 2016 18:42:05 GMT
Fate had recovered enough from the electrical attack to notice the impending counterattack from Aegle. But her course was set, and all she could do was prepare for the fist to hit. Aegle's spiked fist cleaved into Fate's hip, but she didn't buckle or bend, instead she wrapped her legs around the arm now in contact with her body. Seeing the arching attack set to slam her into the ground, Fate clenched her hips around Aegle's arm, overheat turning up to cause them to become blisteringly hot. Fate reached up with her hands to intercept the blow, her claws meeting Aegle's spike with a loud screech. The sound of metal scraping along metal blared through the arena, and Fate grit her teeth against the blow. Of course, all of the force was transferring through Fate's body and into Aegle's, as she was currently wrapped around the armored arm quite tightly. After a few moments though, Aegle's sheer power won out again and sent Fate into the ground-though not quite as heavily as intended. Fate was once more in her element, up close, personal, and with as much brute force as possible. She impacted the ground and rolled backwards, flipping quickly over her head and landing back on her feet. "Wonderful!" Fate's words were loud and filled with joy, punctuated by the smile on her face and slightly maniacal laughter following it. Fate was a fighter through and through, and combat was quite literally what she lived for. It only made sense for her to enjoy it, perhaps to an abnormal degree.
Now was her time to counter attack, and it wasn't something a one track aggressive mind like Fate's would pass up. So she once more charged in, trying to not commit to any one action fully again. A swift slash to Aegle's arm with her right claw was rapidly followed by a harsh kick to her knee. Her stance had changed slightly, taking on more defensive properties as she shuffled her feet along the ground cautiously and always had one hand ready to defend. After the kick to Aegle's knee, Fate jumped up and kicked as hard as she could with both legs, shoving them at Aegle's torso with enough force to send both a good distance backwards. Fate flipped in the air, coming down quickly and gracefully landing on her feet, snow melting to water and flowing down the mountain under her. So far so good, Fate's aura, while damaged, was not in worrying levels just yet, and her systems were still running strong. At least that was what she thought, as she was bracing to charge again she felt her leg lock up, the motor clicking in place and her leg losing its heat. She quickly shut overheat completely off, and passed it off as a defensive stance as she instead waited for her leg to start responding again. The upside of her perceived semblance not being an actual semblance was it didn't take aura, the downside was that it instead directly strained her systems. When Fate wasn't taking such a beating she was usually fine, but Aegle's sheer strength was, to say the least, surprising. Even still Fate's smile had grown wider and more insane looking, and the faunus was giggling constantly as she stood ready for combat.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jul 27, 2016 3:49:24 GMT
Fate's durability was turning out to be a real problem for Aegle. Packing as much power as she did, the orange haired huntress was well used to people evading her attacks rather than letting them land, and that had conditioned her to expect dramatic results whenever any of her attacks landed, let alone landed solidly. Fate, however, had now managed to soaked up two blows which would have driven other huntsman to extreme lengths to endure. If Aegle had been more consciously aware of Fate's aura, if she had been more cognizant of how much energy it was taking the faunus to absorb those impacts, then she might have been a little less perturbed. As it stood however, Fate had weathered two crushing blows, each strong enough to warp steel and shatter stone, and seemed none the worse for wear. Then again, Aegle was also comforted by the sight of Fate springing back into a fighting stance after her haymaker strike, glad she hadn't outright incapacitated her friend as she knew that blow might have. When her emerald eyes alighted upon the feline fighter's smile, a similar grin stretched itself across Aegle's lips. Anyone who could smile like that must not have been in any danger, or so the mohawked girl assumed.
Clashing again, Aegle felt white hot ice searing her forearm without ever seeing the blow which caused it. She did see the knee though, and allowed the joint to relax and roll as the impact landed. With as important as staying stable and rooted was for Aegle, she was good at absorbing blows to the legs. Fate was very quick, Aegle had decided in a fashion wholly disconnected from the minutia of actually defending herself. Yet, unlike most quick fighters Aegle had fought, the faunus possessed the strength to do some real damage with her lightning fast blows. Indeed, much of Aegle's body, bruised and scraped beneath her clothing, could vehemently attest to this fact. Her reflexes had kept pace with Fate for the time being, and Aegle remained confident in her abilities to outlast the fleet footed brunette, but she still privately marveled at Fate's capabilities. She was even a bit envious of them. Fate possessed all the strength and speed to do what Aegle did and, while Aegle never felt as though her reliance on machinery was anything to be ashamed of, she could not help but wonder what it would be like to be so naturally fast and strong.
On its own, Aegle's body moved. She'd spotted an opening. The symphony of motion which was required to jump was one of the most easily noticeable telegraphs there was, and there was practically no risk of mistaking it for anything else. Fate had already displayed a predilection for going vertical, with a propensity for staying light on her feet which was nearly antipodal to Aegle's own rooted fighting style. And while it would have been wrong to say Aegle had been expecting another jumping attack, for Aegle had neither conscious expectation nor anticipation for the events unfolding around her, she had been ready for one. Thus, as Fate's body twisted and coiled up in the air, broadcasting her intentions more clearly and effectively than if she had shouted out her attack as she did it, Aegle brought her hands up to defend. Before she could even consciously recognize what was happening, before she had even realized what she was doing, Aegle's course was set. She intercepted Fate's incoming kick in a classic guard, ducking behind her arms as she did so to position all of her body weight behind them. Then she absorbed and controlled the impact by slowly relaxing her arms as Fate struck, letting the kick push her gauntlets back and towards her body. Then, when her arms were out of space and there remained force, and a considerable amount at that, to disperse, Aegle swayed back with the blow as well. When even that was insufficient to absorb the blow in its entirety, Aegle trailed back her leading foot and let the force of the blow force her back half a step without ever lifting her feet from the ground. Thus, as Newtonian exchange finally began propelling Fate away from her, Aegle had lost almost no ground in the clash. The whole clash had taken barely a second to play out, with all of Aegle's movements performed with the lighting fast action-before-thought that was her wont. Then she went on the offensive. Aegle's arms ached and her fingers tingled as she threw herself after Fate, with intensity sufficient to make the pins and needles and general throbbing perceptible over the assorted mixture of other lacerations and contusions that dotted that limb. If she'd had more time, if she hadn't been on the attack, she would have shaken them out and tried to get more blood into them, if only to suss out precisely what kind of damage Fate's kick had dealt them. Being that she did not have time, however, Aegle instead clenched her scarred hands as tightly as she was able and prepared to strike.
Aegle could not run as fast as Fate could jump. She could rapidly achieve her maximum speed, true, but that speed was not nearly sufficient for catching the fleet footed faunus in flight. Which is why Aegle wasn't aiming for Fate while she was still in the air, but charging head long towards where she would inevitably land. When her opponent landed, barely three strides separated them, and Aegle closed those three strides in about as long as it takes a regular human to blink. She swung hard with her left hand, hewing the air with a sudden cleaving back hand practically identical to the one she'd thrown earlier in the fight. Much like that previous back hand, loaded behind it was a right hook, or at least that was how it seemed. In reality, the right hook was simply a feint, indistinguishable from the real thing up until the very moment Aegle failed to throw it. Much like the backhand, it was a movement meant to draw attention, to capitalize on an opponent's expectations, and to mask the true purpose of the attack. For as the backhand completed and the right feint looked as though it were going to be thrown, Aegle dropped her left hand, reversed all of her momentum, and brought her left whistling back up in a stone shattering uppercut which carried behind it the strength of every muscle and motor on and within Aegle's blurred frame.
It was at that point that the true effect of Fate's previous attack became apparent for, as Aegle's hands moved, they trailed after them a pinkish mist which glinted redly in the stark lights of the arena. Aegle's blood, aerosolized by her preternaturally quick movements, stained her sleeves down to the elbows on both arms, and leaked fitfully from the deep cracks left in her plated forearms where Fate's feet had connected. Both oblivious and wholly unconcerned by the ruination of her arms, the only other indication of injury which Aegle gave was that of the glow which had surrounded her before hand intensified to nearly blinding brightness. Orange coils of mist, of such brightness and brilliance that they made her hair look drab and dull by comparison, roiled off of Aegle's exposed face and neck like dry ice immersed in boiling water. Even her clothes, previously thick enough to contain her effervescent aura, seemed to writhe and glow with their own light, as though the brilliance beneath them were infusing them with some portion of its radiance.
Aegle laughed as she swung her back hand and as she planted her feet, and laughed as she felt her heart thunder within her, louder than life and stronger than death. She laughed and glowed as she brought her hand back up with all the strength and power she had at her command, strength enough to topple mountains and displace oceans, for in that moment, at her most brilliant, there was nothing Aegle Vitus was not capable of.
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Post by F.A.T.E on Jul 28, 2016 2:31:09 GMT
Fate swore under her breath as Aegle rapidly closed the distance, her left leg still locked when the backhand was swung. So she couldn't do her previous evasion tactic of going up, nor could she go backwards-a fact further complicated by the impending follow up. So she pushed her torso backwards, her hips bending in a way that was the envy of limbo players everywhere. As she did so her unlocked right leg shoved forward while her left remained perfectly upright, causing her body to twist to the left and slide around the backhand. This maneuver also put her in the perfect position to duck under the hook that inevitably followed it, however said attack never came. Instead Aegle dropped her hand in preparation for an uppercut, and Fate had only a moment to prepare. Lucky for her, the motors in her leg shot to life at this moment, and she took the stroke of luck and moved with it. Springing her whole body upwards from her bent posture and kicking off with her left leg, she sent herself almost floating over the ground towards Aegle. Rapidly closing beyond the effective range of either of their fists she slammed into Aegle with about the force of a slow moving car, enough to hurt but not to seriously injure. The impact was followed by a quick raising of the knee, attempting to push Aegle away from Fate and farther down the mountain, which they were now both just a little bit above. "Sorry about this." The words were genuine, and quickly followed by rapid leg movement. This was because Fate utilized the little distance created by her knee to extend her leg into a full kick, propelling off Aegle and far into the air, coincidentally shoving Aegle faster towards the ground.
Fate soared through the air, gaining a good deal of height before angling back down towards the mountain. Tucking her arms in and pointing herself towards the bottom of the mountain, hopefully underneath where Aegle would land, the faunus dove at the ground with all the force of gravity helping her speed up. She felt the air scraping past her skin, heard the wind roaring in her ears and saw the mountainside racing up to meet her. Just before the impact she spun around and planted herself into the ground, one knee, one foot, and one fist all hitting at the same time. The stormy field to her side boomed with thunder, and the sound was hard to differentiate from the massive roar of Fate's impact. The robotic faunus utilized the cacophony to stand, motors clicking and whirring under the cover of thunder and vibrations as she rose. Snow began slowly rolling down the mountain, it seemed it was more tightly and securely packed on this peak and wouldn't cause an avalanche this time. Even though the part of the mountain Fate had landed on wasn't previously at ground level, it most assuredly was now. She was standing in a crater, a little bigger then the girl herself and riddled with cracks and loose rocks. If she had hit the peak with that much force, it may well have stopped being a pointy mountain and been replaced with a plateau, and Fate laughed at the sheer display of force she had just pulled off. It was good, she wanted to show most everything she had, wanted everyone to see that just because she was faunus didn't make her weak, or fragile, but instead only accentuated those qualities. Well, at least that's what she wanted everyone to believe, the truth was that the robotic parts helped quite a bit.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jul 29, 2016 2:14:23 GMT
Aegle pressed on undeterred, even when yet another of her attacks was evaded. She even laughed. Laughed hard and laughed loud and laughed with pure and simple delight at being alive and being active and being in a brutal and bloody fight with a girl she considered to be her friend. She kept right on laughing as Fate recovered her footing following her hasty retreat from the killing zone of Aegle's fists, purely delighted by her opponents speed and tenacity. Confidence and power and vitality flowed through her, as a lake flows through a burst dam, filling every aching fiber of her being with purpose and determination. She felt alive, better than alive, she felt unstoppable, as if there were not anything in the whole wide world that could stop her or keep her from achieving her dreams. Then Aegle, wearing a grin which would have unhinged any other girl's head, cheered ecstatically as the fleet footed faunus doubled back and resumed the attack, wordlessly encouraging her friend as excitement and exultation flowed off of her in frothing waves of blinding light. Being near Aegle at that moment was to have the sum total of her being, everything that made her who she was, forcibly inflicted upon one's self. There was no mistaking how Aegle felt, as she raised her hands to defend Fate's incoming charge, because it was written on her face and broadcast in her lilting voice and redolent in the very air that around them. Aegle's aura surrounded her, not as a shield, but as a vibrant expression of who she was. It made her stand taller, it made her smile wider, and it reinvigorated her flagging muscles and it hardened her metal clad body.
Aegle lunged forward to meet Fate and when they clashed, they did so with such force that the world around them shock with the impact. Shrieking in unrestrained glee, utterly uncaring of the thick bruise she'd just earned by tackling Fate, Aegle locked two emerald eyes as bright as supernovas with the feline fighter. With reflexes utterly unconstrained by anything even resembling doubt, she effortlessly muffled the forthcoming knee which her foe attempted to throw. While she had not gotten faster, her movements had become effortless to the point of being perfunctory, as though she no longer perceived Fate as a threat worthy of her full concentration. Despite this fact, it was also very clear that Aegle had remained quite conscious of her opponents actions and movements. Following the knee, when Fate's eyes met Aegle's, and the faunus apologized, genuine surprise, rapidly followed by childish amusement, washed across Aegle's glowing countenance. "Don't be sorry~" She told Fate who, by that point, was winding up for her kick. A kick which Aegle spotted, but made absolutely no effort to avoid. In fact, she actually moved into it with all the self assurance of a swimmer treading shallow water.
Fate's leg landed with all the force of a red-hot bulldozer, striking Aegle just under her arm and impacting with sufficient force to deafen them both with the resulting shock wave. It also didn't make Aegle move so much as an inch. It wasn't that Aegle didn't feel her ribs bend and creak and crack and break, but rather that she simply didn't care and that her feet simply refused to move from the ground upon which they were planted. As half the air in her body violently expelled itself in one bloody gust, Aegle's arm snapped forward and, claws spread, went to clamp around Fate's ankle. Snatching ahold of the faunus girl, Aegle would rapidly yank her back, bringing Fate's captured leg tight to Aegle's aggrieved side. Then, with enough force to press the cracked ends of her broken ribs into the faunus girl's thigh, Aegle would reaffirm her grip around Fate's leg and violently twist to put her opponent's back to the nearby rock wall. Smiling a smile made bloody by the kick in her side, Aegle would raise her free hand, cocking it back in the same motion that put the cliff face against Fate's back. "No regrets~" she'd tell Fate, beaming brightly with happiness both savage and innocent, shouting the words as loud as she could so that she could hear them over the thunderous hammering of her heart. Aegle would scream those words with everything she had, emptying her remaining lung of all the air it contained. She would shout loud enough that the whole world could hear her and know that Aegle Vitus was here and happy and alive...
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Post by F.A.T.E on Jul 31, 2016 1:24:36 GMT
Fate honestly didn't expect her kick to land after her knee was blocked. But when it did, she felt it land hard, even flinched a little as she felt Aegle's ribs crack under the blow. Truly she had expected more aura used to protect Aegle from the blow, or at least some form of attempt to dodge or mitigate it. Instead she was caught wholly off guard when not only Aegle took the foot to the chest, but didn't even react. So when her opponent reached out and grasped her leg, Fate had no time to react to it. Yelping loudly and uncharacteristically, she was ripped through the air and slammed into the rock beside Aegle. The impact knocked the air from her lungs, a loud cough coming from the faunus as rock flew from the sudden Fate sized indent in the mountain. Luckily, the air in her lungs did nothing, so the air being knocked from them didn't truly have an effect. So when Aegle cocked back her fist to strike, still gripping Fate's ankle in a shockingly tight grip, she didn't see many options available. There was one, and it didn't seem like it would be a fun time for her at all, and so she sighed as she reached her hand out in a windup as well. But instead of swinging at her opponent, Fate swung instead at her own pinned leg. Crack! Fate grit her teeth at the pain surging through her nervous system at forcibly dislocating her hip, but she didn't have time to react to the pain. So she utilized the sudden and massive increase in mobility to turn away and step to the side of Aegle, her hip bending in unnatural ways without the joints connected. More pain roared from her hip as it moved, the grating metal sending a loud screech through the arena as she shot her hand out again and knocked the leg from Aegle's grip. It flew up and hit Fate in the shoulder, and she used that to hobble away from Aegle a little. Upon the dislocated leg landing again she gripped it and made a precise and practiced movement. Pop! Fate growled as an almost unbearable amount of pain surged through her as her leg was snapped back into place. Even still, she stood and went right back into a fighting stance, claws outstretched and feet placed right back into proper stance. Her face, while clearly showing pain, still held a smile as she beckoned to Aegle once more.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Jul 31, 2016 19:02:19 GMT
Much as there was very little time for her to actually think about a situation as it unfolded, sometimes things happened too quickly for Aegle to even realize what had actually taken place. That was what essentially happened when she found that, instead of landing a fight ending punch on Fate's pinned face, she'd instead planted a steel fist twelve inches deep in solid stone, from which had grown a beautiful spiderweb of cracks. Plucking her hand free with perfunctory effort, Aegle looked to the hand which had been holding Fate's leg, then to Fate in a sequence that took about a second and a half. By that point, the fleet footed faunus had already popped her leg back into place and resumed her fighting stance, with no apparent evidence of the self mutilation her daring escape had necessitated. Grinning broadly to match Fate's smoldering, pain worn smile, Aegle didn't question any of it. She just went on the attack once again. This was how she liked it, how she trained to fight, constantly on the offensive and never slowing down to defend herself. She had learned that if she could just be fast enough and relentless enough that her foes wouldn't even have an opportunity to counter attack, and while that belief had been proven patently false when Fate's incredible speed was involved, Aegle also didn't care about getting hurt. It was a self evident fact that, no matter Aegle's course of action or chosen attack, Fate would undoubtedly throw and land some manner of retaliatory strike. So Aegle had shifted gears and abandoned all pretense of defending herself. She grinned her wild and savage smile, her own blood glinting redly upon her white teeth, and threw herself heedlessly after her opponent with absolute assurance that her determination, tenacity and brutally overwhelming fighting style would be enough to overcome Fate's proficiency for self defense and evasion.
To this end, Aegle struck.
There was at least one very specific reason that Aegle limited her closing combos to two strikes. There was an obvious flow to boxing, and the conservation of momentum necessary to land ringing blows meant moving from left to right to left in a fairly predictable fashion. And while Aegle could southpaw just as effectively as she could standard, there was no avoiding the inherent predictability of moving from one hand to the other. Admittedly, such sequential strikes also had the benefit of just getting faster and harder as the combo wore on, but at the cost of anything even resembling defensive posturing. It was extremely dangerous to leave one's self entirely open with a full out attack, and yet that was precisely what Aegle did. In predictable, flawlessly executed fashion, the glowing beacon that Aegle had become once again executed her two hit closing combo, back hand into hidden hook. Except, where she would have postured up to defend, bringing her left hand up to intercept any counter attack, Aegle instead pressed her gambit. She swung again with her left, stepping with the strike to deliver a straight armed jab, aimed at Fate's chest. It was a deceptively quick attack with a great deal of reach, and while it lacked the power of her devastating hooks and haymakers, it was very easy to aim. Then she twisted into a right handed uppercut that brought her spiked fist cleaving towards Fate's midsection, and swung her into southpaw. From southpaw, Aegle's left hand became capable of hooks and haymakers, which could have been mirror matches to their right handed counterparts. She swung hard, threatening a full 110 degrees with the swiping left hook, and loaded her right and for a pop-up kidney shot which raised out as quickly as one of her jabs. With each swing, she took a step forward, switching smoothly between stances and guards in a pantomime of practiced boxing that didn't care if it hit anything or not. She might have been fighting her own shadow for how much the connecting blows slowed her down, and her swings only came faster with each attack she made. Uppercut into haymaker into jab into hook into backhand into straight into uppercut.
Against a slower opponent, the hastening and unending barrage of attacks would have been enough to stifle any counter attacks, which was clearly what the heedless assault counted on. It overwhelmed those it was launched against, forced them to back up without giving them space or time to disengage, as Aegle always moved up to close the distance made. To turn ones back on Aegle in that moment, to try and run, would have been tantamount to trying to outrun a gale, because it was only through the judicious application of dexterity and speed that one might avoid the metal storm of blows brewing in her lightning fast fists. Fate, with her speed, was not like other opponents though. She was quick enough to penetrate the onslaught, though doing so would also leave her open, but it would have been an especially neat trick for her to disengage entirely without first striking and at least slowing Aegle down.
As she unleashed herself upon her feline foe, Aegle huffed loudly with the effort. Pink foam began to froth up at the corners of her rictus grin, visible as stark and almost glowing bubbles against the backdrop of her growing skin, and her urgent breaths quietly wheezed as one lung attempted to do the work of both. Her heart was pounding in her ears, so loud that she could scarcely even hear the banshee wail of the Oupis, as she taxed even its optimized systems with the fury of her attack. She swung as if Fate were not there, as if she meant for each punch to cleave right through her friend like so much tissue paper. There was an intensity bordering on madness in her green eyes, a force of will that broiled and raged just beneath the glow of confidence and self assurance that bubbled off of her in wakes of fizzy light. She looked hell bent on victory, as though no price she could possibly pay would be too high to achieve it, as if she'd gladly sacrifice more of her body than she already had, if she could only win. It was clear at that moment, as Aegle fought with almost half her aura still remaining, that the only way she would let up was if she were wholly incapacitated.
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