Duelist League: Vertina vs Goldenblade

Goldenblade is, as is typical lately, hanging around her training academy, training. It's taken a lot of her resources to put together these few buildings and the grounds, she, at least, is going to get some use of it. Pretty much anyone as knows her knows to look for her here, and it's pretty close to both Rylen's Peko raising and training farm, Uta's slime lab, and the Marina, so it's preetty centrally located. It's not far from the Crescent Moon HQ, also, if that's a better landmark.

It's not hard to find and being a place for training and dueling is the perfect location to track the warrior of gold and blades down. Not long into the late morning that a familiar tall blonde-haired Salamander jogs onto the training grounds, having used the short trip as a bit of a warm-up. "Aha! Good morning Goldenblade." She trotted to a stop, not wanting to immeadiately interrupt in case Goldenblade was working on something. "Knew this would be the easiest place to find you."

Goldenblade is, in fact training, working on one of her moves. She slides sideways with a deceptive speed, leaving flames in her wake that burn briefly on the broad open ground that she affectionately calls The Grinder. When Vertina arrives, she stops, though, and smiles. "Good morning!" she calls out, and bows, "How are you this morning?" she asks. It's mostly cloudy, so the heat of the day has not manifested yet. "What brings you here?" she asks.

"That's a pretty hot move you've got there." Yeah, the pun is entirely intentional. Vertina strides up to the general midst of the training ground and bops from one foor to the other in place that way atheletes are often seen doing as they warm up. "I was hoping maybe you'd be interested in doing some of that training against an actual opponent, since we're both members of the Duelist League." She settles into a ready stance, though even then she's rarely completely still. Even if it's just the flick of her tail to help manage her balance.

Goldenblade smiles to Vertina, and says, "I'd love a real spar, that sounds good." She looks the lizard up and down, asks, "Er, it's cool if I use my swords? I don't know much unarmed combat. Though the game seems about the same for martial artists as weapons types..." She'll move to the center of the training ground, so we both have a bit of room to maneuver, and she smiles widely as she drops into a ready stance, her blades held en garde.

"Oh, by all means, do. There's some minor exploration somewhere on how a Godhand's body in itself counts as a weapon." Vertina smirks a bit as she clenches her fists and bends her wrists in a little as she does so, which shows the claw-like blades on the back of her gloves for what they really are and not just some fanciful reinforcement. "I'm not -completely- unarmed, anyways. After a few boss fights I realized that just punching and kicking things with fire was too one-track."

Goldenblade nods to Vertina. She leads off then, with a thrust of one sword towards Vertina's center body mass, more of a testing sort of a thrust, though she puts some stregth into the thrust. She's quite fast, it seems, though she hasn't gotten up to as fast as she was going when Vertina arrived. Apparently that's a special move.

Vertina channels some protective aura along her arm as she thrusts it down at an angle to intercept the incoming blade. It succeeds in deflecting it from her midsection, instead cutting a red gouge across her side to partially minimalize the damage done. "Good, good! I prefer opponents that get right down to business." With the other arm she makes a short jab with such speed her motion is briefly blurred, then follows it up by twisting around and swing one of her ki enhanced kicks at the warrior right after it, hoping the sudden combo will be enough to put her sparring partner off their footing.

Goldenblade's guard is solid as Vertina counterattacks, though it cost her a bit if initiative. She parries the jab with one blade, the other sword comes around to block the kick. The impact pushes her back, and her feet skid on the turf before her stance solidifies. She smiles, spins around to deliver a sweeping blow at shoulder-height with one sword.

Vertina quickly brings up her arms in a X formation, flames igniting around them to help force back the blade swung at her. She grits her teeth in a hiss, as the strike to her side is trying to hinder her defensive movements. She doesn't let it slow her down too much though, as she forces back the sword, and takes a couple of quick jabs before backing off from her opponent.... Only to channel some sort of ball of glowing energy and, true to her form, use one of her strong legs to kick it at Goldenblade! Think of it as a reminder that she's not the kind of martial artist you can play safe by keeping out of melee range from.

Goldenblade backflips away as Vertina presses her, landing on the earth of the training field and briging her blade up to parry. A quick chant has it glowing for a moment, to stregthen her defense, sliding backwards as the blow lands, and flipping up one sword into the air. It does a slow, lazy rotation as she reaches down to her waist and plucks something small from a pouch at her waist. She hurls the object, it's the size of a small shuriken, toward Vertina, before reaching out to snag her sword from the air.

While she didn't score a direct hit with her flurry of blows Vertina did put her opponent on the defensive. Hopefully that's something she can capitalize on. Her legs flex, arms tense at her sides as she seems to focus on something. Focus on it so hard that she barely more than flinches a moment when the throw object hits her upper arm. Did she.. not even try to defend against it? There's got to be a reason. She's never that still without a reason...

Then the moment of stillness is gone just as quick as she bursts into motion, the Salamander crossing the distance between them with abrupt ease. Those glove claws she displayed earlier come into place as she makes an arcing slice with one, then in the opposite direction with the other.

And with the twisting motion also brings up one of her legs, a glorious surge of flame igniting around her foot. Just before she brings it crashing down in a blazing axe-kick towards Goldenblade while she's hopefully being pressured farthered by her previous strikes. "Ragnarok Axe!"

Goldenblade had been playing it cool, defensively, as she dueled Vertina, blocking and parrying effectively for the first few tentative strikes of the match. She figures she might have, if not a chance of winning, then at least a chance of not looking too useless. All this ends as Vertina attacks.

Goldenblade acks as she sees Vertina's ferocious moves coming at her, and she deflects and dodges the damage she can, though her HP are falling hard as she tries to recover. It's not easy for her. She looks up, thrusts with both swords, which burst into flame as she attempts a counterattack.

Smoke hisses briefly as Vertina's foot drops to the floor of the arena to smother the remaining flames. She's grinning though, and not just at the damage dealt. "Well done, Golden! You at least countered some of my moves!" That deserves to be appreciated, even if it didn't entirely negate her assault. "But don't let your guard down yet!"

There's a faint crackle of static charge as Vertina draws on a different attunement. When Goldenblade comes after her Vertina spins around in place, and sparks fly from her tail of all limbs as it whipcracks towards Goldenrod! The whirl of motion helps Vertina maneuver away from the blunt of the flaming blade assault... Then like a t dervish spin right back towards Goldenblade once more, fiery kick turning it into a blazing twister. "Pyre Cyclone!"

Goldenblade is still reeling from the massive attack she'd just weathered, and she had no intention of letting her guard down. She smirks wryly at the praise for surviving Vertina's alpha strike. It hurt pretty badly, and she's slower, though she was pretty fast to begin with, so slower is relative.

She manages to dodge most of the incoming attack, though the damage she takes, plus the lingering DoT from the previous attack saps her life even as she tries to fight back. This time, it's a much subtler attack, shrouded in darkness, hopefully harder to avoid.

Vertina manages to intercept the strike with the blades of her battle glove, though she can't do anything about the darkness leeching off of it and still seeping around her arm even as she pushes the weapon aside. "Keep it coming Golden! I've still got plenty to give for this fight." She clenches the other hand into a fist and draws geokinetic energy into it, then steps in to swing a brutal uppercut at Goldeblade with it. "Stalag Spike!"

Goldenblade takes Vertina's uppercut on the chin, her defense not completely effective. She's still learning what works and what doesn't in this game. Note to self. /That/ move doesn't help much. She rolls with the hit, which glows briefly, noting Vertina certainly does have plenty to give, and no mistake. Goldenblade's not giving up, though, both swords flashing out, seeking Vertina's blood.

Goldenblade thrusts one high and one low, attempting to skewer the fighting woman one way or the other, though the attacks have left her weak and slower, despite herself.

Vertina is doing one thing she does very well, keep the pressure up regardless of scoring big hits or not. "Shifting sands!" she calls out, slamming a foot into the ground and causing it to vibrate unsteadily beneath Goldenblade's feet even as the warrior is coming after her with a dangerous high-low combo. It's followed by the low rumble like thunder as Vertina manipulates the air pressure beneath herself for additional thrust to launch into the air over the dual strike with little more than a glancing hit. Then the Salamander twists in the air to bring both feet down in a spinning motion reminicent of the 'drill kick' moves you'd see in various fighting video games. Except her version is on fire. "Dragon Auger!"

Goldenblade grunts as Vertina's pressure continues. It's a matter of time til those big attacks come again, and she dreads them. But she does the best she can, putting up a solid defense against Vertina's drill kick, stepping well clear and jumping past the shifting sands beneath her feet. She's not slow, for all that her health bar is below 1/4, she's fighting on with all that she has. She looks around, jabs her blade point-first into the earth, and draws another shuriken from her beltpouch, hurling it at Vertina before scooping up her sword again.

Vertina has no intent on giving Golden any more space or time for a reprise than she can spare. She launches herself into the fray, creating her own projectile out of ki energy and throwing it ahead of her to intercept the shruiken, and then charging through the resulting collision with little concern for her own collateral damage as she flings a second minature aura sphere at Golden, and follows it up by rushing in and trying to thrust one of her knees into the warrior's midsection.

Goldenblade is pressed hard, indeed, and activates her best evasive maneuver, dodging away so fast it leaves flames in her wake. Sadly, that doesn't keep her safe from the second miniature sphere Vertina throws at her, and it saps nearly all her health. She's hanging on by a thread as she tries to get out a deperate attack, a penetrating thrust and followup with her second weapon, trying to impale her skillful opponent.

Vertina jerks back with a yip of surprise at the flames snapping at her as Golden bolts away from the physical part of her combination. "Whoa!" Even though she'd seen the warrior practicing the move when she came in, she kind of forgot about it in the heat of battle until that was applied directly in her path. And it stung, even to a Salamander. They're not flameproof, after all. "That -is- a nice move." She might have to see if she can learn that technique some time. But first, on with the fight.

Instead of dodging the incoming charge she channels what remains of her protective aura around herself, and then lunges forward to meet Golden's attack head-on with her own, even as the blade forces it's way through her aura to cut her she's throwing one of those hefty earth-empowered punches at the warrior in return!

Goldenblade has too few hit points to really do anything about Vertina's attack. So she does nothing about it, attempting an all-out offensive strike. She leaps forward, blades gleaming, but she's a bit too low even for a last ditch attack now, and Vertina's lunge takes her down, rendering her overwhelming attack moot.

Goldenblade sighs and sheaths her swords, smiling grimly. "Well. At least I got a few hits in, I guess. But I've got a lot to learn before I can start playing in the big leagues, I guess." She bows to Vertina, as she's seen done in martial arts tournaments. "Well fought."

It was the right idea, to throw down a heavy offensive at a time Vertina isn't in a position she can adopt to defend against it. But at this point it was too late a move, as her own attack lays the warrior out before her assault can strike the Salamander down.

"Now that's what I call a workout!" The tall tomboy returns the polite bow. "Hey don't take it too hard, you fought well! Kept me on my toes." She then walks over and gives Goldenblade a pat on the shoulder. "And that dodge move of yours is pretty sweet!"