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Post by Event Admin on Aug 9, 2016 16:34:52 GMT
Contenders: Amara Reedman (RLR) vs. Aegle Vitus(RLR)Arena:Unaltered ArenaRules: 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, August 10th 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 Amara Reedman on Aug 9, 2016 21:36:03 GMT
This was it - the final match of the tournament!
Excitement was now her fuel, a tightness forming in Amara’s chest as she rinsed soap from her hair. She had taken a quick shower, wanting to be clean and presentable before for the fight. Her mother and father were sure to be present, their eyes among a sea of many that would be glued to her and her opponent. Dripping wet, she raised her head to look at herself in the mirror, peering through hanging bangs with her garnet eye. Turning the faucet off, she vigorously shook her head to dry it as much as she could, then hung her head under an air dryer. She absolutely detested using towels on her hair. No way in hell she was going to look like some unkempt fool for such an event. After she was free of dripping water, Amara flicked her hair once last time before tying it up in her signature ribbon.
It was time to get out there.
Her weapon equipped and ready, Amara made her way to the entrance of the arena. Her heart pounded heavily, the pulse slamming against her eardrums like a loud fanfare. A drawn out sigh was the most she could do to ease her bit of anxiety. ‘This is it,’ she thought to herself. ‘This is the day you’ve been waiting for. All your hard work is finally gonna pay off.’ She glanced around, trying to catch sight of the recent competitors or her opponent, but didn’t immediately see anyone. There was no need for the usual roulette of portraits of the contestants now - there was only Amara and her opponent for the round, Aegle Vitus. She knew little of the girl apart from what she had observed in recent matches, and what she saw played as much a role in building up her hype as simply making it this far. Amara had to wonder how this fight was going to go, given the infamy her prior opponent had based on his fighting skill alone.
With a heavy puff of breath, Amara looked up at the cheering crowd and waved. She didn’t feel the need to energize them as she had in previous matches, the energy of the final round was enough for that. This way, she could save her energy for the fight. It was all or nothing, now - and Amara had no intention of losing. If all else failed, speed would have to serve as her primary offensive skill. It had saved her in many fights and, in some cases, helped her secure her victories. That said, she was in no way trying to underestimate the power of Aegle’s own weapon. Such a thing would have been foolish for the young girl from Haven. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE GIVE YOU YOU’RE FINALS CONTESTANTS!” A voice rang from overhead. “AEGLE VITUS OF TITAN(ATLAS) ACADEMY, VERSUS AMARA REEDMAN OF HAVEN ACADEMY!”
Raising her hand over her head, Amara waved to both the crowd and Aegle (wherever she may be) before skipping confidently to her end of the battlefield. Having no environment meant the fight was one based off pure skill, and Amara felt more than confident of herself in that regard. “CONTESTANTS HAVE UNTIL THE TIMER RUNS OUT TO REDUCE THEIR OPPONENT’S AURA LEVELS TO AS CLOSE TO ZERO AS POSSIBLE!” The voice rang. “CONTESTANTS, READY YOURSELVES!” Amara took her usual ready stance, dancing in place as she worked on building up energy and momentum. ‘This is it, Amara,’ she said to herself once more. ‘You’ve got this!’
The time was now.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Aug 10, 2016 22:35:30 GMT
The air roared past Aegle's ears as she sprinted through the stadium's tunnels, winding this way and that in a mad dash for the maze's exit. The loud, howling shriek of the Oupis filled the featurless halls with the sound not unlike the world coming to an end, and the small girl earned more than one shocked stare as she passed those occupying the stadium's access ways. Unlike previous fights, where Aegle had waited until the last possible moment to put on her rig, the events at the end of her previous match had made doing a quick systems check all but necessary. While she might not have possessed her older brother's technical aptitude, Aegle still knew what felt right and didn't with respect to the Oupis. Calibrations had been necessary, and time had been short; Aegle wasn't wholly certain she'd managed to iron out all the metaphorical kinks.
Kinks or not, Aegle had just barely had the time she needed to run through her usual pre-fight warm up, and had almost completely forgotten to have lunch before her match. That was why the orange haired girl burst onto the field at a full sprint and why, gripped indelicately in her mouth, was a half eaten piece of sour dough toast."M'here!" She called out, her usually piercing voice muffled by toasted bread. Assuming more of a lope, Aegle slapped the Oupis' massive claws together and transferred all the armouring from one arm to the other. She mostly ignored the shield that formed from the relocated metal, and instead snatched the toast out of her mouth. Then, with ravenous haste, she completed the noisesome task of eating it. Like in other matches, Aegle was dressed in her well worn and poorly loved hoodie, though the voluminous orange garment more resembled a disorganized collection of rags, some of which weren't even the same colour anymore. Scorchmarks and tears and stains of dubious origin had turned the hoodie's, once eye gouging, orangeness to a shade somewhere between yellow and deep burgundy. Gulping down the last of her toast without relish, Aegle next fished into her hoodie and, from somewhere within its ragged confines, produced a clear plastic water bottle. There was a brief moment of indecision as the orange combed girl clearly tried to determine how to remove the cap with one hand completely encased in steel, before she simply took the cap in her teeth and unscrewed the bottle from it. Spitting out the cap, Aegle then proceeded to guzzle the bottles contents with every appearance of someone who hadn't seen water in years.
She gagged at the last drop, and was quickly doubled over by the ensuing hacking cough, though she recovered quickly. "Wrong pipe, wrong pipe." She squeaked between coughs, before suddenly straightening up and, with minimal further after shocks, wiped off her lips. "Alright, I'm ready!" She shouted brightly, her words punctuated by one last quiet cough, as though she thought the whole world had been waiting on her or something. Her emerald eyes found Amara across from her, and her cavalier grin redoubled in size. "Heeeeey~" Aegle called out to her, suddenly the absolute picture of enthusiasm, as she waved her bare hand high over her head. She knew next to nothing about her latest opponent, which put her pretty much on par with the last three people whom Aegle had fought, with the possible exception of Fate. Aegle didn't tend to do research before a match, and typically trusted in her own superior training and abilities to see her to victory. She'd been mostly successful in that regard too, again with the possible exception of Fate. "My name's Aegle Vitus! S'a pleasure to meetcha~" She beamed brightly, and slapped her shielded hand against its bare mate. In the blink of an eye, the metal which had built her shield slid smoothly back where it had come from, leaving both hands shod in steel and tipped by brutal, segmented spikes. Aegle grinned wolfishly, her emerald eyes dancing in delight."I can't wait to see what you can do!"
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Post by Amara Reedman on Aug 11, 2016 21:23:21 GMT
Amara smiled, certainly excited, as the other girl introduced herself. “Nice to meet you too, Aegle!” She called back, still keeping her position. “My names Amara! Good luck in the fight, kay?” The countdown for the match began, and the crowd grew louder and louder. This was it. The last fight. Whichever of the two won this match was the champion, but regardless of the outcome, Amara considered both of them to be winners. BING! The counter went, followed by a second, then a third. The match sounded with a loud buzz, almost drowned out by the ruckus created by the spectators.
No time was wasted after that. Putting as much effort as she could into her feet, Amara bolted forward in Aegle’s direction. Finding a good way around the girl’s odd suit would serve to be her greatest obstacle, but she was in no way willing to not give it her all. Her heart raced, a combination of sheer exhilaration and adrenaline, still beating at her ears like a drum roll. She kept her eyes fixated on Aegle, trying to anticipate what her first move would be. She didn’t want to get too close for launching the first attack, instead opting to use range to her advantage.
Once she had closed the distance between them to about forty meters, Amara dropped her heel before firing off a quick flurry of explosive rounds in Aegle’s direction. One targeted above her, one to each of her sides, then following up with another straight down the middle. “Cleanup on ISLE ONE!!” Amara cried out, activating the Lightning Dust on her necklace. Another round fired, timed with the other explosions to drown out the sound. This time, it was imbued with electrical properties, streaking at Aegle from behind the center explosion with a peal of thunder.
For Amara, it was time to go hard or go home - and she didn’t plan on going home.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Aug 12, 2016 19:34:58 GMT
With a twist of her wrist and a roll of her shoulders, Aegle was ready for the ensuing combat. While she didn't know anything about Amara, her weapon or what her fighting style might be, she at least understood the level of competence that must have been present to bring her opponent this far in the tournament. The two of them were in the finals for a reason, and Aegle had really been pushed to win most of her matches, to the point that she'd even burnt out the Oupis in the last one. She wasn't expecting this to be easy. Then again, Aegle hated easy. Easy was boring.
When the buzzer sounded, Aegle did the same thing as Amara and burst forward in a surprisingly sudden sprint. It was a mistake to assume the Oupis slowed its user down in anyway, and Aegle could bring herself to a full speed charge in as little as two strides while wearing it. That being said, it was immediately obvious to the pint-sized pugilist that her opponent was quicker than she was. This didn't come as too much of a surprise, honestly. Most of Aegle's opponents, and most hunters in general, were more quick footed than she was. Her speed was in short distance sprints the implacable pace of her running speed. She couldn't outrun most of her opponents, but she could usually keep on the move far longer than they could. A broad grin, savagely unrestrained, spread across Aegle's lips as the two girls closed in on each other, and, for a second, she thought that she might be able to get into a close quarters brawl immediately off the bat. That was a turn of events which Aegle would have certainly preferred. What actually ended up happening was that Amara, without breaking stride, launched into a flurry of attacks, seemingly aimed at severely injuring the thin air that stood between them. It was at pretty much that exact moment that, as was often the case when she fought, Aegle's intuition wholly overrode her conscious mind. Because, while it may have looked as though Amara was suffering from an acute absence of depth perception, ingrained training had taught Aegle what to expect when an opponent did something so incongruous as to attack the air. With barely enough time for Amara to conclude her combo, Aegle once again struck steel shod claw to steel shod claw and, in the blink of an eye, reassembled her tower shield on her left arm. It was just about when she brought the shield to bear that Aegle's ears confirmed the conclusion her instincts had already reached, and she heard the distinct crack of gun fire. The four reports from Amara's weapons were rapidly drowned out by a new, much closer and much louder noise, which was almost immediately swallowed by the resultant ringing in Aegle's ears. Just as she brought her shield up, intent on defending anything fired directly at her, the air directly to Aegle ignited in a brilliant, blinding blast of broiling heat and kinetic force. It is a credit to Oupis' construction and Aegle's own preternatural resilience that the first explosion did not immediate send her prostrate and prone, even as it detonated in the middle of one of her loping strides. Instead, the blast forced her downward like the malicious hand of some invisible giant, causing her armoured foot to crash into the ground hard enough to spray up sparks, before the leg connected to it pistonned her forward in a remarkable display of strength and determination. The subsequent explosions followed far too quickly for Aegle to make any alteration to her plan of attack, with two more going off on either side of her before one struck the flat of her shield and detonated with all the force of a meteoric collision. She was thus bounced from one side to the other in rapid succession, before losing some of her momentum in a forth and final impact that strained the arm supporting her shield. But she didn't stop running. Aegle barreled straight through the explosions and resulting dust cloud, not as though it were not there, but with far greater tenacity than should have been credible given her proximity to the blasts. Like a streak of lightning breaking free of a thunderhead, the orange clad huntress burst from the smoke screen, having closed the distance between herself and Amara by as much as twenty five percent. Her ears were ringing, her clothes trailing smoke, and her hair softly smoldering, she charged blithely ahead, her raised shield doing nothing to slow the alarming inevitability of her thunderous strides.
It was only when the fifth and final cartridge Amara fired finally struck home that Aegle's head long charged looked as though it may actually be halted. While it was a clever trick, to time her final shot with the explosions, it proved wholly unnecessary, seeing as Aegle, at that moment, couldn't have heard the world ending.However, unlike the final explosion, which had been muffled by her interposing shield, the orange and black metal drank in the ultimate shot's electrical charge. It raced through Aegle with effects both immediate and violent. It seared her armored forearm and tightened each muscle it passed through with painful alacrity, locking her into an awkward, half airborne stride that caused even more sparks as her armored heels grazed the ground. Yet, even as the electricity abated, causing Aegle to briefly fall limb as, in unison, every muscle in her body relaxed, it was still not enough to wholly stop her. With a grunt that was barely audible over the accompanying shriek of the Oupis' motorized joints, Aegle caught caught herself on the edge of her shield, which had remained in front of her even as her body was wracked by lightning, before she could fully lose her footing. Her thoughts were scattered and confused, her brain pummeled by explosions and scrambled by lightning, but her body still knew what it had to do. She forced herself forward, using her shield as a crutch for the first clumsy stride, then drained the debilitation out of her joints and muscles by forcing them into motion. Small tremors, the after shocks of electrical trauma, continued to run through her, but they scarcely affected the power of her charge, which resumed with all its prior intensity. Aegle finally dropped her shield and took in Amara with eyes somehow unfazed by the treatment which had successfully blackened both of them. A faint glow seemed to trail off of her exposed and faintly scorched face, causing an orange tinted, fizzy streak to chase after her as she closed in her opponent, and her smile was wholly unaffected by the success of her opponents prior attack.
With the distance between them nearly closed, Aegle's bare hand fell back midstride and snatched free a small, faintly luminous cylinder that was just large enough to fill her palm. As she closed in, she overhand pitched the powercell with force sufficient to wholly shatter its metallic housing. Her throw was not aimed at Amara though, but rather the ground at her feet and, as it struck, it burst in a brilliant corona of coruscating brilliance, lashing the air with tongues of lightning as much as two meters in length. Aegle, wholly heedless of the danger her own previous attack posed her, then slapped her hands together and reformed her brutal punching spikes before she let her momentum carry her into the arching field of electricity. At the last moment, she leaped, loaded back her right hand, and sailed towards her opponent like some shrieking, orange combed comet. The brilliant blue tongues assailed her too as she crossed through them, but the immediate tensing and untensing of electrical shock seemed, suddenly, far less pronounced than it had been when Amara's own lightning round had struck her. In fact, as Aegle closed in on her target and swung with all her weight and momentum behind her haymaker punch, she hardly seemed affected by it at all.
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Post by Amara Reedman on Aug 13, 2016 21:37:38 GMT
As the booming of her explosive barrage echoed through the air, Amara found herself grinning. It sounded like she had hit her mark, but that said, she wasn’t ready to call it a wrap just yet. If the tournament had taught her anything, it was that her opponents grew stronger as she progressed through the rounds. Aegle was certain to be one of the toughest adversaries she had been paired against - outside the Grimm, of course. She kept her guard up as she watched the dust settle, her eye catching her opponent, who was currently suffering from the effects of the Lightning that had been sent her way. ‘At least something hit its mark.’ She thought proudly.
Watching as Aegle staggered to her feet, Amara’s grin shrunk to a slight smirk. It looked like she had taken a heavier hit than Amara had intended, but the duo-tone eyed girl wouldn’t be phased. Opponents had tried, throughout the course of the tournament, to perform feints effectively against one another. This was no different in Amara’s mind. Taking in a quick breath to settle her nerves, she exhaled slowly as her sight narrowed in on her opponent. As Aegle’s weapon screeched, seemingly overcome by the effects of the Lightning Dust, the proverbial light bulb went off in Amara’s mind.
'Bingo.'
Her thoughts, however, were cut short when her opponent dropped her shield. Amara’s fists tightened, keeping her arms in position to block - and counter - if need be. Her garnet eye hovered over the racecar-red painted features of her weapon, regarding the number of course she had left in each gauntlet. She had used five, meaning she had nineteen in total remaining on the current belt. Nine in one, ten in the other. Her boots remained fully loaded, and if need be, Amara was decked out in enough ammunition on her person to reload each piece of Lacrimosa twice.
A feint glow from Aegle’s end of the arena then drew her attention away from her weapons. It was time to get back to fighting. Her opponent was dashing at her, seemingly with the intent on making a good comeback. This was what Amara wanted - a challenge. Someone to throw her their all, not hold back. Someone willing to get down to brass tacks if need be. Bracing for an attack, Amara instead watched as Aegle reached for a small cylinder before throwing it in her direction. There was still considerable distance between them, meaning this wasn’t a direct attack in the slightest.
Chuckling under her breath, Amara kicked up with her boots as the object landed beneath her feet. The force of Lacrimosa’s Pink-Wind Dust mix pushed her into the air, in the direction of - but a few feet out of the range - of Aegle’s small explosion. That said, some of the energy that pulsed through the blast as a result caught Amara’s leg, sending a jolt throughout similar to it falling asleep. A slight cringe, but Amara kept her trademark smirk on her face. With a quick flex of her spine, Amara spun to face back towards the battlefield as Aegle lunged through her own small explosion. It looked like the girl had tried to use Amara’s own maneuver against her.
Using her unaffected boot, Amara thrusted herself towards Aegle, her Kinetic Dust choker glowing as it increased her momentum by almost double. As a high-speed projectile, she channeled another bit of electrical energy into her fist - intent on driving it into Aegle’s back. Where she to miss, Amara also prepared to fire off two rounds from her gauntlets in an effort to “spray” an explosive blast at the red-head. Her other hand remained at the ready, prepared to throw up a small Aura barrier in the effort of a counter or to mitigate the backlash of her explosion.
Things were getting interesting.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Aug 15, 2016 19:05:12 GMT
The coruscating blue energy burnt into Aegle's body where it connected, but her body was left relatively unaffected by the flickering corona of lightning, save the faint intensification of the glow which had already begun trickling off her exposed skin. It was mostly for this reason that Aegle was entirely aware of Amara's avoidance of her attack, despite the fact that she'd quite literally just leapt through electricity to strike at the faster girl. Not that it helped her any. Committed to an airborne attack as she was, she could do nothing other than watch helplessly as her opponent jumped clear of grenade and haymaker alike. Aegle couldn't help but observe the inhuman quickness at her foe's disposal, seeing as she had waited till she had nearly closed the gap between them to throw her grenade, and Amara had still somehow had time to get out of the way. Were she at all disposed to tactical considerations when she fought, she might have made mental note of Amara's seemingly impossible reaction speed. Given that she wasn't, however, Aegle instead did what she always did when confronted by surprising circumstances: She fell back on training.
Aegle landed with a thunderous slam less than half a meter from where Amara had been standing, right as the last of tongues of lightning grounded themselves on her hazard marked Oupis. She had maintained a subconscious awareness of her opponent's location relative to her inevitable destination, and it was for that reason that she was turning to face the plummeting commit Amara had become when the airborne girl inevitably made a connection. Aegle was not caught wholly off guard by the suddenness of Amara's counter attack, even if she'd had to defy certain expectations of gravity's pull to accomplish her rapid reengagement. Despite hours of practice to shorten her reaction times, Aegle was still used to fighting opponents who, if not outright faster, were at least more mobile and versatile in their attacks than she was. Thus, even if not consciously, Aegle had already been prepared to be struck when she concluded her attack, even if she had been uncertain of what manner of attack it would be. It turned out that Amara's chosen tactic was a preferable one for Aegle. If the girl had chosen to once again put distance between them, she might have forced Aegle to weather another barrage of explosions. Instead, she had opted to engage Aegle at the range where the pintsized pugilist was most comfortable: Hand to Hand combat.
Lacrimosa slammed into Aegle's shoulder as she turned, her rapid pirouette placing the crooked joint where her back had been only a moment prior, and connected with all the force one would expect from the alarmingly quick descent Amara had affected to inflict it. Pain radiated out from the impact, as cartilage and tendons both strained to keep Aegle's arm in it's socket. The orange haired girl scarcely had time to grunt her discomfort before the additional insult of electricity spread across the tapestry of pain spreading out from her shoulder. She had a special way of regulating the amount of damage she received, one which set her apart from the fair majority of her peers. Where most huntsman made the wise decision to deflect the lion's share of harm directed their way, mainly through the use of aura protection, Aegle got by on mitigating the absolute bare minimum of the damage inflicted upon her. It was a ludicrous technique which frequently resulted in attacks that others would shrug off instead inflicting quite apparent injury on the petite pugilist. The only conceivable benefit to such a tactic was that it allowed Aegle to stretch her, already considerable, aura reserves even further, which was obviously the whole point. Where others would weather a succession of attacks unscathed at the cost of a sizeable reduction in the strength of their aura, Aegle opted to let herself get hurt in the interest of being able conserve her own. As a result, she was very, very, very well acquainted with powering through pain and discomfort, and could retaliate nearly instantaneously to any attacks made against her. Which was what she did to Amara. Shrugging her pained shoulder aside, gritting her teeth against the searing current coursing through her, Aegle swung hard with her unassailed arm. As effective a south paw as otherwise, her spiked fist rose to meet Amara before the other girl had even followed through on her punch. As she did it, however, she felt something finally give in the shoulder that Amara had struck, and heard the stomach turning percussive pop of cartilage giving way. Dislocations were another thing hunters with typical aura protection did not frequently need to worry about...
None of this affected Aegle's ascending punch, however, not even as the electrical charge grounded itself in the metal of her Oupis. That she'd been hurt was blatantly apparent to anyone who had eyes or ears, but Amara's electric punch might as well have been a friendly tap for how little the rest of Aegle's body cared about it.
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Post by Amara Reedman on Aug 16, 2016 17:04:55 GMT
Her first punch had landed, exactly as Amara had intended, slamming into the petite redhead’s shoulder with a great deal of force. She could almost feel the smaller girl’s tendons strain to keep her arm in place, while the subtle popping of cartilage chimed like a sweet symphony between the two of them. Amara, of course, was not done there. With her arm drawn back after the punch, she swung the second as she prepared her free hand to throw up an Aura shield - just as she had intended in the event of a counterattack. However, Aegle spinning to meet the duo-tone eyed girl with her own punch was something the latter of the two did not expect.
Their fists met mid-swing, the spike of Aegle’s fist digging into the metal housing of Amara’s fist. It was for this reason that Lacrimosa was built in a manner reminiscent of a boxing glove - to mitigate the damage to Amara’s hand. Six inches of metal shoved itself into her fist, and with a bit of quick thinking, Amara used their combined momentum to cause the two colliding metals to stick together. There was only one thing to do now, and it wouldn’t be exceptionally difficult at this range. With her Aura shield still ready, Amara wasted no time as she unleashed three explosive rounds from her gauntlets at Aegle at this intimately close range.
As intended, her Aura barrier absorbed most of the blasts force, forcing Amara several feet away from the redhead. A plume of blackened dust and smoke filled the immediate area, slowly fading to reveal Amara, scuffed up and grinning proudly. This was the kind of fight she had been waiting for. She laughed excitedly, quickly swapping out the ammo belts in her gauntlets. “You’re doing a pretty good job, Aegle!” She called out with a wide grin. “You’re from Atlas Academy, right? I might have to visit and see about getting into some of their training programs. You’re definitely the strongest opponent I’ve been up against!”
Returning to her combat ready stance, Amara’s expression changed from one of pure joy to one of mixed emotions. The jubilant smile was still there, but her eyes raged with extreme determination. The clicking of Lacrimosa arming for combat echoed through the arena as the crowds continued their raving. The finals were turning out to be a lot more than Amara had expected. She was having fun, meeting so many interesting people. She hoped, if possible, that many lasting friendships would come out of this too. For now, though, it was time to focus on the matters at hand. They were in the middle of a fight - one that Amara intended to win.
She still had a few tricks up her sleeve. Hopefully that would be all she needed to secure her victory.
If not, at least she had a blast.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Aug 17, 2016 18:24:41 GMT
Without the benefit of foresight, nor the practiced muscle memory to raise an aura shield on reflex, Aegle was pretty much at Amara's mercy when her fist improbably made contact with her opponent's. Further more, given that she had traded versatility of her weaponset for straight up stopping power, Aegle was not at all used to having one of her blows land, seemingly, without effect. In fact, every instinct she had told the smaller girl that, when she landed a punch, it should immediately leave her opponent unable to immediately respond. She was used to her blows sending grounded and rooted foes, even those many times larger the Amara, reeling and open to a follow up attack. Deprived of one arm as the orange combed girl presently was, that ingrained instinct to build some kind of combination from her successful strike was thwarted before she even fully realized her attack had, despite obviously striking Amara's hand, incongruously been ineffectual, in so far as preventing a counter attack. Thus, it came as a bit of a surprise when she not only failed to break Amara's arm with the comparatively greater strength of her punch. Though not quite so big a surprise as when, a split second later, the world exploded in light and noise just a little in front of Aegle's face.
The fireball, originating from Amara's free hand, consumed Aegle nearly entirely, with only the smaller girl's feet managing to go unswallowed by the trio of successive explosions. As it has been previously noted, Aegle did not mitigate the entire brunt of the attacks leveled against her, using her aura. Most of the time, the minimal shield she did maintain was sufficient to render most incoming damage down to a level where it wouldn't be debilitating. Sword slashes still cut her, but not deep enough to sever tendons or arteries, small arms didn't penetrate deep enough or with enough force to cause significant internal injury. Even certain environmental concerns could, with the assistance of her unusual semblance, at least be weathered for a limited span of time. One thing Aegle remained especially vulnerable to, however, was catastrophic shock. Her eyes snapped closed just a little too slowly to avoid the expanding heat wave that burst off of Amara's weapons, while her jaw clicked closed with painful force sufficient to crack at least one tooth. Her face blistered almost instantly, while the ensuing pressure wave forced every bit of air out of her lungs when it collided across her chest. Last on the list of immediate effects the explosions had was the piercing ringing sound in each of Aegle's ears, accompanied by a near total lack of balance. It felt, for the instants directly following the explosions, like gravity was pulling her in every available direction at once, before her sense of weight finally rallied to inform her that left was the new down.
It is to Aegle's credit that, given her particular method of damage mitigation, she did not immediately keel over like an especially metallic sack of potatoes. Excepting her unusual approaches to aura defense, however, she weathered the impact quite a bit worse than a typical huntress may have. Though she had taken more than enough blows to the head to resist the very immediate and urgent desire to collapse onto her side, even instinctive reactions could not keep her from slumping slowly down to one knee. The explosion, having succeeded in so much else to make her life especially unpleasant, hadn't quite been sufficient to uproot her, but it had come very close. Aegle blinked twice, the only indication to her rattled sense that they were watering being the saline sting as salty tears trickled into scorched conjunctivas. She attempted to rub her eyes on the back of her sleeve, an act which almost certainly would have done more harm than good, but the resulting report of pain from her shoulder reminded her of that particular arm's incapacitation. Gritting her teeth, Aegle began the practiced efforts she'd taught herself for dealing with previous instances of utter discombobulation. First, she actively willed the strength back into her body, instructing bludgeoned muscles and disorientated synapses alike to get off their butts and get back to work. The Oupis groaned quietly as she worked herself back to her feet in one, not so fluid motion. Her head was swimming in a daze of delirious dizziness, while the beginnings of what may have been a concussion throbbed somewhere behind her squinting, scorched emerald eyes. She couldn't hear anything over the high pitched whine presently buzzing inside of ears, and could just barely make out Amara's blurred silhouette in the foreground of her aggrieved vision. Concentrating, Aegle focused her aura into not defending herself, but healing. If nothing else, she needed to be able to see. Her aura control, while impressive, was not quite so fine tuned as to let her specifically heal her eyes. It would accelerate her overall recovery, however. Not that Aegle actually waited for her vision to clear, though. Even crippling injury wasn't enough to dissuade her from going on the offensive.
A pungent orange flash, swirling off of her face in motes of effervescent light, was the only warning Aegle provided to preempt her charge. At so close a range, her ability to nearly immediately attain her top running speed was much more of an advantage, one which Aegle's instincts meant to make use of. Within the first two strides, she was already clearing about eight meters each second, and while that was not too fast when compared to fellow hunters, it was still alarmingly fast for something as obviously heavy as the Oupis to be moving. With only one arm available, Aegle couldn't make use of her usual two hit closing combo. Instead, she waited to get within striking distance of Amara, lashed out at her with the back of her armored hand, then loaded her fist on the back swing, and lanced forward for a straight armed jab. It was a technique not wholly unlike those employed by spear users, where a sweeping strike was employed to put the opponent off balance, before following up with a long reaching lunge. It was an attack pristine in its execution, which looked more like a single strike than the two swings it actually was. This particular lunge also had the benefit of coming at the end of a bull rushing charge, which meant it packed considerably more power and arrived quite a bit more quickly. It did, however, lack the reach of an actual polearm and, in fact, put Aegle back in intimate range of Amara's retaliatory strikes. Also working against Aegle was the fact that her vision, while slowly clearing, still failed to broadcast the many finer details necessary to enact an accurate combination strike. She couldn't actually track Amara's movements, only trust in muscle memory and ingrained reflex to shepherd her into the appropriate place for the lunging strike. Also, while Aegle's own quickness in reference to her body movements was exceptional, the necessity to perform both strikes with one arm rendered the combination much slower than the attack would have been, had it been performed with two independent fists. Two hands also would have been able to conceal the lunge's necessarily overt telegraph much better. Still, it was all Aegle had, and she wasn't about to back off and lick her wounds, even if that would have been a much better decision. The folly of this tactic made itself abundantly clear just as Aegle concluded her second swing. The sudden halt forward motion, accompanied by the exertion of the charge which had preceded it, along with several other factors less significant but no less relevant, all conspired against Aegle. It felt to her as though the entire world had suddenly tipped and as though gravity itself had redoubled its previous efforts to pull her to her knees. In reality, both sensations were illusions of Aegle's inner ear, which, in its injured state, had taken the girl's sudden changes in momentum to mean some very strange things. A confused grunt exited Aegle's mouth at the conclusion of her charge, right before her leading leg buckled and let the remainder of her stored momentum tip her unceremoniously onto her face. Aegle fought it; She willed her muscles to be strong and fought down the resulting disorientation and nausea, but the damage was done. Assuming some manner of counter attack didn't intercept her, it became immediately and painfully apparent to Aegle that she was going to slam right into the ground, whether or not she'd successfully struck Amara.
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Post by Amara Reedman on Aug 18, 2016 19:14:17 GMT
Her efforts to make a bit of small talk mid-battle were fruitless, with Aegle putting all her focus into recovering from the blast. This was good. This was very, very good. The way the smaller girl appeared to struggle to compose herself after the explosiveness of Amara’s attacks were a clear indication that overwhelming her with such attacks were the way to go. ‘Good thing I’m locked and loaded.’ Amara thought to herself with a grin. ‘I know just where to go from here.' Her eyes remained locked on Aegle, showing no sign of releasing their apparent death-grip on the girl. Amara’s eyes flicked over to the timer, taking advantage of the redhead’s staggering response - or lack thereof. In her head, Amara pondered more on her next move.
Lacrimosa was fully loaded, her Aura reserves still in good shape. The issues she faced, however, was the damage to her right gauntlet and boot. While the gauntlet was in working shape, issues came up whenever Amara had thought about activating her boot for a boosted jump. Sure, she could very well rely solely on one leg, but having that extra little kick missing was more than enough to require Amara to alter her game plan - perhaps even turn things up a notch. It was in this slight daze that she hadn’t noticed her opponent recover, and soon she was barreling down in Amara’s direction with extreme speed. To Amara, however, this only appeared as a flash. There was really nothing she could do leading up to the impending strike, lest she took the blow and went from there.
This was going to hurt.
When her petite opponent flexed her body into a spin, Amara tried fruitlessly to regain control of the fight. Her quick hop backwards was met by Aegle’s followup attack, the small girl’s fist ramming against Amara’s face with a slight crack. She could feel tears swell in her eyes almost instantly as Aegle’s fist cut into her cheek. It was probably the second-most painful experience in all her life - losing only to the day she had been wounded, leaving the scar that was now covered by the heart-shaped tattoo on her face. Her weight dropped into her right foot as her assailant continued moving, as dictated by the latter’s remarkable momentum. A split second passed, with Amara letting out a tired sigh as she closed her eyes.
Her choker still glowing, accompanied by an explosive sound, Amara’s knee drove itself deep into Aegle’s core, sending both of the girl’s upward about two feet. Dropping to the ground, Amara again activated her boot to propel herself backwards a few more feet. ‘Two more shots in this one before I gotta reload.’ She reminded herself. ‘If I’m lucky, this’ll all be over before I need to do that.’ Her eyes remain locked on Aegle, ready to fire in the case of another counterattack. She wasn’t one to attack an enemy while they were down, so as she observed the girl in silence, the crowd did so as well. The final match of the tournament, as far as Amara was concerned, had ended up becoming far more intense than she ever imagined.
Blood trickled down her face, the wound remaining unhealed by her Aura solely because she wanted to feel it. If this is what it took to be the best, she wanted to experience it all. The pain and the suffering - the blood, sweat, and tears. These were the things that had allowed her father to become a powerful warrior and leader. As the leader of her own team, Amara had every intention of following as much in his footsteps as possible. She’d show her parents - she’d show everybody. Amara Reedman wasn’t going to settle for less, she was going to push herself above and beyond to come out on top. Nothing could stop her. Not the criminals or the racists, not her peers or professors - not even her own parents could stop this from happening.
She’d be damned if someone else managed to get the jump on her after years of hard work - especially a first year. Never…
Never.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Aug 18, 2016 21:41:34 GMT
Aegle doubled over as Amara's knee drove its way deep into the softness of her stomach. While the majority of her body was a bony collection of hard edges, and a small amount was even covered in heavy metal, the concessions of defense in Oupis' design were flagrantly apparent. While a more rugged design might have provided the small girl wearing it with a modicum of additional protection, its creator had prioritized offense in all its forms. Which meant there was nothing to absorb Amara's rocket propelled knee, other than the softest part of Aegle's body. At the peak of their ascent, Aegle, who accrued considerably more momentum in flight than her lighter foe, continued to ascend for another couple of inches. What followed was the only the second instance in the tournament, up until that point, that Aegle Vitus had been taken off her feet. She groaned quietly, and unfolded with an unceremonious creaking sound whose precise origins could not be placed. She still felt dizzy, and being kneed in the gut had done her growing sense of nausea no favors. Aegle got her knees beneath her crumbled body, an impressive feat given that she only had one arm to work with, and rapidly staggered back to her feet. Instincts overrode her thoughts, which remained fuddled and muddied by her injuries, and reminded her that being on the offensive was the only way she was going to stay in the fight. It may not have been a true belief to hold, but Aegle was disinclined to argue with it, especially considering her mistreatment over the past thirty seconds or so.
With a quiet, wheezing breath to refill the lungs that Amara's knee had emptied, Aegle blearily reoriented herself in her opponent's direction. Her vision, while not pristine, had cleared a tiny bit in the interim, but the pain in the back of her head and the unwieldiness of her heavy body remained. At least her ears had stopped ringing. With one arm hanging limp, Aegle's eyes once again settled on Amara. There had been more than enough time for the other girl to pick up the fight while Aegle was on the ground, and she distantly wondered what had stopped Amara from doing just that.
"I hope y'not holdin' back..." The smaller girl intimated, though her voice was quite a bit more quiet than the booming shout she'd intended, forgetting that there wasn't enough air in her lungs to support her usual, piercing volume. Still, Aegle was relieved to actually hear her own voice when she spoke; It meant her body was recovering. Additionally, and despite the rather severe collection of injuries Amara had visited upon her, Aegle also felt no shortage of energy to continue the fight. Her body was being especially uncooperative at the moment, but that didn't necessarily mean she didn't have plenty of aura to spare...
Well, she wasn't critically low, at least.
Without waiting for Amara to answer, or even acknowledge, what she'd said, Aegle lunged towards her opponent. She was acutely aware of a stab of pain from somewhere in her midsection, as the muscles across her abdomen tightened in preparation for a renewed offensive. Aegle had had her ribs broken enough times to recognize the sensation, which had only escaped previous notice thanks to the plethora of other injuries flooding her synapses at that moment. She grit her teeth.
While it might not have been common knowledge, the effects of Aegle's semblance were observable to those who paid attention during her fights. Her capacity to endure catastrophic injuries, undeterred, was one of the corner stones of her fighting style after all. But It wasn't just her semblance which Aegle relied upon to weather injuries sufficient to put much stronger fighters on their backs. There was a certain risk inherent to utilizing her semblance, and while that might be true of most semblances, it was especially acute with regards to Aegle's. In her previous fight in particular, Aegle had shown what was almost the ultimate capacity for her ability, when she'd stood up, wholly unassisted, after being struck by lightning. The demonstration, while impressive, had also nearly cost her a lot more than the fight. More than that, she'd reached that limit in nearly every single one of her fights, thus far. It wasn't just her rig which had needed to recover after the bout with Fate, and the Oupis' power supply was a lot easier to repair when compared to Aegle's heart. That was why, despite a dislocated shoulder, burst ear drums, a probable concussion and at least two broken bones, Aegle had yet to use her semblance at even half its capacity. It was why she could still feel pretty much every blow Amara dealt her.
Still, even the threat of further injury, and an evident inability to go on weathering Amara's blows the way she had, weren't enough to make Aegle second guess herself. As gruelling as the tournament had been for her, and as tired as her frail body was from the trials of combat, she meant to go down swinging.
Aegle lead with haymaker, swinging without breaking from her sudden sprint. It took a lot of skill to deliver a punch while running, which was why Aegle typically stopped to engage a combo. Without the ability to effectively combo her attacks, however, the orange haired girl defaulted to her next preferred tactic. As she swung, throwing her spiked fist forward in an over hand arch aimed somewhere at Amara's torso, the smaller girl did not slow. She aimed herself just to Amara's left, so that she might charge right past the quick girl at the conclusion of her swing. While it would have been fallacious call any of Aegle's attacks clumsy, given the apparent time and training which had gone into honing them, this particular attack was the sort no true boxer would have been caught dead making. It was imprecise, though Aegle's exceptional muscle memory might have made up for that if she'd been at all capable of aiming. As things stood, she had to target Amara's body instead, just because she needed something big to swing at if she wanted any hope of making a connection. Had she been able to see more than a fuzzy blur, Aegle might have opted for the more pressuring headshot. Then there was the fact that it left her completely wide open. Admittedly, any attacks made against her would need to risk the getting in the way of her fast moving body, but that was a trick that Amara's previous feats of exceptional alacrity already suggested were well within her power. Still, if the punch did connect, even glancing, it would have all of Aegle's body weight, Oupis included, behind the already sizeable strength of her swing, plus an extra helping of undiluted momentum to boot. It was a punch that, when Aegle had previously employed it, had been used to cleave entirely through the truck of a sizeable tree.
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Post by Amara Reedman on Aug 20, 2016 22:22:01 GMT
"I hope y'not holdin' back..."
Amara chuckled under her breath, her arms still raised as she kept her eyes - and her attention - solely on Aegle. The girl had gotten up, much to Amara’s surprise. Part of her felt like the girl, by now, would have called it quits. She was happy that this wasn’t the case, or so it seemed. This fight had ended up being much more than the young woman from Haven could possibly imagined. It was, unexpectedly, one of the greatest challenges she had ever faced. Despite being quick on her feet and holding true to her nature as a fighter, the fight was beginning to take its toll on her as they progressed. She was growing tired, frustrated by the determination her opponent had displayed this whole fight.
‘No matter.’ She thought to herself, clenching her fists tight. ‘We’ll just have to end this a little earlier than initially planned, I guess.’ The girl was, in an instant, on the move. Amara’s lips curled at the end, staring her down as she led her first attack with a haymaker. Time, in those moments, seemed to stand still for Amara as her brain coursed the proper response throughout her body. These punches weren’t rocket science. In fact, as far as Amara was concerned, the haymaker was a rather messy move. Effective, absolutely, but messy nonetheless. As Aegle made the swing, Amara took a deep breath as she took a step forward. It was like crashing into a wall, sure to put both girls in a world of hurt as a result.
With a large smirk, her eyes began to glow - almost gold in color. This was it. This was Lacrimosa. Raising her hand in tandem with the smaller girl’s movements, Amara snapped her hand around Aegle’s wrist, stopping her mid-punch. Having put herself in a better position with her step, her free fist moved through the air in time with the quick grab, driving itself up under Aegle’s jaw. Her feet followed suit, using the discombobulation such a strike would ensue to sweep under her closest leg, thus throwing her to the group. Her retaliation ceased with a heavy punch directly in the girl’s face, before finally releasing her grip on the girl’s arm, which had since been held in a way that locked the joint.
A major outer leg reap in response to the haymaker of her opponent. It was the only appropriate response to her opponent's will-intended attack.
The few seconds that had passed had flown by almost instantaneously, both putting considerable strain on these girls as they fought. Amara, however, was done. Whether Aegle rose to continue the fight or not, she felt as if the two would only clash until they both fell. If that’s what it came to, then so be it, she supposed. Nevertheless, she had experienced the time of her life. To her, this fight was over. To her, they both had a great story to tell. Panting, clearly tired, Amara began walking towards the side of the arena she had taken when the fight started. Not particularly far, but far enough to put a great deal of distance between her and the red-headed girl. During this walk, however, she never took her attention of Aegle.
If there was one thing this fight had taught her, it was to expect the unexpected from this first year.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Aug 21, 2016 8:41:16 GMT
To those watching the fight, and whom had seen any of Aegle's previous matches, it became especially evident that Amara had not. After all, had the mistralian seen the remarkable power at her opponent's disposal, Amara almost certainly would not have tried to grab Aegle's wrist. As it was, Aegle barely had time to even register the older girl's grip on her armored gauntlet, before the sheer force and strength of her charging swing tore her wrist from Amara's grasp. Even the older girl's attempt to interpose herself in the charging pugilist's path amounted to little more than a minor inconvenience, and spoke of a grave miscalculation on Amara's part. As the golden eyed girl tried to rally for her uppercut, Aegle crashed bodily into her. Three times heavier, many times stronger and moving at fullspeed, the Oupis had no trouble knocking Amara violently aside with all the force of a car wreck, before continuing blithely on its way. It wasn't even a near thing, either. There was no sense that Amara's attempt so much as slowed Aegle down. This came as no real surprise to those in the stands, least of all those who'd watched Aegle's fists tear through a living tree with a single swipe in pretty much the exact same way during her fight with Sky. These people had seen Aegle run straight through dens underbrush and waist deep drifts of snow unhindered, so it came as no surprise to them when a girl with nothing but the ground to brace herself against was thrown aside like a rag doll. Now they watched as Aegle, her progress unhindered, powered past Amara and knocked aside the far lighter girl's attempt to mount some sort of counter attack, before concluding her charge a little under ten feet past her opponent. None of them had seen the uppercut land, and all might have been forgiven for thinking it had missed entirely, from the way that Aegle brushed past. For Amara, the situation was sure to be a lot more confusing. After all, she'd had the benefit of actually feeling the blow connect, only to feel it do precisely nothing to Aegle, just like everything else she'd done to try and stop the smaller girl.
Ignorant to what had just taken transpired and her opponent's ill fated intentions, Aegle rounded on the spot where she presumed Amara to be without more than a second of hesitation. With one arm still hanging limply at her side, and her jaw suddenly feeling far less functional, the orange haired girl abruptly reversed direction and screamed after Amara once again, and once again loaded her fist for yet another stone shattering swing. Once again, she achieved her top speed in under two vaulting strides and closed the distance between herself and Amara in under a second. The haymaker punch that followed could have been an exact duplicate of the one that came before, and carried with it just as much forest leveling force as it predecessor. The only difference was the intensifying orange glow which had surrounded Aegle's exposed skin, the one concession the orange haired girl would make to Amara's attack, and the one indication she gave that it had hurt.
A fierce look of determination had settled on Aegle's pain reddened face, one which seemed to mirror the implacable inevitability of her mechanized movements. Though her injuries were both apparent and numerous, and had even forced her to adopt less conventional tactics in her pursuit of victory, it was plain from her expression that Aegle wasn't going to let anything stop her. While Amara had been able to shrug off the explosions from her own weapon as though they were nothing, explosions from which Aegle was still recovering, and while Amara had proved faster and more versatile, Aegle was undeterred. She'd come to this match, not hoping, but assuming that she would be the victor, and that presumption had not changed. It would take far more than a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, two broken ribs, and bruises and burns too numerous to count to convince her that she wasn't going to win.
Aegle swung for the fences again and, though her vision had cleared just a little more since her previous attempt, once again trusted in her training and instincts to get the blow to connect. She tried not to feel the prickling of pains too abundant to separate, and instead focused all her strength and power into the explosive force of her swing. Her fist whistled as it scythed through the air, the piercing note so sharp as to make itself audible even over the banshee wail of the indomitable Oupis, before it drove downward into Amara's torso with enough force to pulverize stone. Like before, it was a mean and brutal attack, as inelegant as it was loaded with dumb force, but Aegle managed it while running at a full sprint, which was a feat few other pugilists could match. While she might not have been the most graceful, nor even the most dignified, any sensible opponent had to at least respect the levels of obsessive skill, self destructive determination, and just flat out ignorant strength which Aegle possessed.
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Post by Amara Reedman on Aug 21, 2016 17:32:35 GMT
What a miscalculation on her part.
Aegle’s speed, mixed with the sheer weight of her weapon, sent her plowing through Amara’s attempted counter with brute force. The girl from Mistral was thrown back by the collision, most of the damage that would have been sustained being mitigated by her mostly untapped Aura. With Lacrimosa being interrupted by the surprise of the small girl’s strength, Amara’s eyes had instantly returned to a normal color before the impact. She landed on the surface of the arena with a heavy “Oomph!” as she scrambled to get back onto her feet. It was becoming more and more apparent that, if she wanted to win, Amara would have to focus her efforts on ranged attacks - only following up when she knew there would be an opening.
She knew where to go from there, she just had to be sure her opponent wouldn’t see it coming.
With cautious eyes, she kept her attention on her small opponent as she looped around. It was time for another attack. Amara’s fists clenched tight once again, but this time she did not stand still. Her choker, which she had relied on a couple times already, began to glow. Her speed increased as the Kinetic Dust pulsed energy to the boots of Lacrimosa, pushing her faster and faster until she was moving twice as fast as she could without. If this was what their battle came down to, then so be it. Her body was still rocked to the core from the Aegle’s impressive tackle, but the joys of Aura did its part to assist her in not feeling like death. If not for that invisible force imparted to all of them, it was likely that this fight would have been over.
Their combined movements cut the time between their inevitable clash to far less than a second, with both girls seeing a different path when they met. Aegle threw another haymaker, much to Amara’s surprise. The young woman from Mistral, still reaping the benefits of her Kinetic Dust, ducked down and to the side of Aegle’s limp - and dislocated - arm. It was no longer a matter of strength, which no doubt played its own role, but a matter of speed. Amara grappled rightly onto Aegle’s flopping arm with both of her own, constricting it with every ounce of muscle within. Firing off her undamaged boot, Amara thrust forward with explosive force, using all but one available round - for a total of five. Even without her Semblance active, the force of her boot with her already impressive speed was - in her mind - more than enough.
Amara would continue this counter by slamming her foot into the ground, performing a quick no-handed cartwheel and twisting the dislocated arm in the process. Landing just a foot behind Aegle, Amara channeled the last bit of Electrical Dust from one of her earrings into her first, using the small girl’s new backwards momentum in tandem with her now electrified fist driving heavily into the center of Aegle’s back. If Amara was to win this fight, she would have to wear down her opponent’s exoskeleton-like suit to bring her down to par. As long as she remained light on her feet and out of the way of her destructive haymakers, such a feat shouldn’t prove too difficult.
She just had to make sure she didn’t wear down her ammunition supply until then.
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Post by Aegle Vitus on Aug 22, 2016 18:58:59 GMT
Aegle's reaction speed, wholly independent from conscious thought as it was, could be measured in the fraction of seconds. Often times, when the right stimuli was applied, the orange combed freshman could react before she'd even realized what she was reacting to, all because her body didn't need any conscious input to defend itself. That was why it surprised Aegle nearly as much as everyone else when, following Amara's sudden burst of speed, the crooked girl attempted to counter. She had no actual hope of succeeding, of course. Amara was simply far to quick. But Aegle did try. As Amara moved around to her undefended side, Aegle dropped the sweeping swing of her haymaker and attempted to put her shoulder into the faster huntress' side. It was a split second adjustment which, had it been successful, would have sent the taller girl sprawling in a manner eerily reminiscent of just a few moments prior. It wasn't successful though. For as fast as Aegle was moving, she was already at her top speed and there was no extra oomph for her to close on Amara before her arm was grabbed. Pain burst across her like a fireworks display when Amara inevitably coiled around Aegle's limp limb, and confusion and concern quickly followed. She pressed down the pain reflexively, and tried to turn and grab her foe and deny whatever plans Amara had for her dislocated arm, but she was two slow. It was a credit to the Oupis' solid construction that, in the moments that followed, Aegle's arm wasn't torn entirely off by what Amara did next.
The yank was bad, with the grinding cartilage and straining tendons it caused, but Aegle had been braced for that. Amara could have literally broken every bone in Aegle's arm before the latter so much as slowed. The explosion was worse. Braced as she had been, even Aegle's remarkable fortitude couldn't weather numerous grenade sized blasts as close range with her usual heedless demeanor. In fact, it was the explosion more than anything else that allowed Amara to arrest Aegle's efforts to intervene on her arms behalf. Her vision clouded and shook while her head became filled with the same nauseous ringing which she'd only just rid herself of, and before Aegle knew it, Amara was twisting over backwards while still attached to her arm.
All at once, Aegle's skin exploded into light, as a palpable sense of stubborn resolve radiated out from her. She abandoned her aura protection entirely, and felt the bones in her arm finally break from Amara's mistreatment, but both the sickening cracking and the taller girl's attempts to wrench Aegle off her feet were met with a steely refusal to allow anything further. Already turning as she was, Aegle snatched a hold of Amara's ankle just before it swung out of reach, and clamped down on it with claws strong enough to rend steel from steel. She twisted her wrist viciously, slammed the foot Amara had managed to unearth back down on the ground, and then used all her strength to swing the airborne girl down onto the arena floor like an oversized sack of grain, tearing her off the mangled remains of her arm if necessary. She slammed Amara again and again, beating her into the earth with all the brutal simplicity of her overbearing strength, all while glowing like the surface of the sun. Following the third body slam, Aegle then reeled back, half turned and threw Amara, by her ankle, towards the edge of the arena with so much force that, were the force field not in the way, she might have landed amongst the audience.
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