Duelist's League - Uta vs Vertina

With the Duelist's League giving good public promotion to the combat arts and competitive fighting Breg Epona has little problem with their gladiator arena being used on occasion. Plus it meant a lot of room for two highly mobile combatants to utilize. Even if the Landers don't understand the underlaying workings of Root Town protections against accidental mortal injuries. Adventurers bounce back from harm quickly after putting on a battle and that's all they really care.

As usual Vertina is already at, having run a few laps around the arena to warm up, and was now taking a break with a flask of liquid to cool off while waiting for her opponent to arrive.

    The match between Vertina and Uta, within a root town no less! Vafrum normally didn't care much for these types of fights. They were a little out of his interest. Even before the expansion the game was for research, meetings, and finding means to play /his/ real end-game; The Market.

However, here he is. Sitting amongst the crowd. It was a boring crowd really. No bets. No wagers. Then that is when the idea hits him, a sly grin crosses his face as he waits for everyone to gather.

That slow narrowing of his gaze as a smile slowly crawls over his lips. It wouldn't be long till the Were Fang hiding in human form slides over to a obsever, "I'll make a bet with you, if you care to make a dare." He then shows the man a gold coin. "That Uta will beat Vertina."

And slowly person by person, Vafrum starts to make a betting pool up in that audience. He honestly, just, can't help himself!

Thud.

Bang.

THUMP. Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-GONG... rattle rattle *rustle* tap-tap-tap- *increasingly loud panicked screaming*

*crash*

Silence.

Strange noises can be heard coming from the large wooden door that is normally used for the entrance of the carts or beasts, and that has the crowd in the vicinity to look with curiosity.

Something odd seems to be going on.

The door is finally kicked open, and Uta appears in all her majestic glory, her white and cerulean outfit popping out of the black background, panting with the energy who's full of adrenaline and might or might not have discovered she was late, rushed through the corridors, stumbled through an obstacle course of random arena equipment scattered through the corridods, and tripped on half of the items.

But the audience doesn't know that part.

A few, though, give curious glances at her nurse's cap, and this is not lost on the Spriggan. She takes it, looks at it, turns it around, puts it back right side facing front.

"Hello, Audience!", she exclaims, as she walks into the arena, white caduceus-inspired staff held high over her head. "I wouldn't have missed this for anything in the world!" She notices Vertina, and bows to her. "It is an honour to be your opponent, today."

She is a little late, but at least she didn't forget and show up after the appointed time, so Vertina will take it. She presses palms together to return the bow with her own. "Likewise." Then stands, takes a half-step back, and pulls the sweat rag from around her neck and gives it a dramatic toss off to the sidelines. "But don't think that just because this is a duel I am going to go light on you!" She shifts into her usual beginning stance, one arm up and ready to block, the other back and ready to go on the offensive, specks of light glinting off the claw-shaped blades of her battle gloves.

"That is the good thing about a duel," Uta replies, after standing up from her bow. "Getting to go all out and practice one's combat techniques in a controlled environment."

Despite the "Kung-Fu" in the "Musical Kung-Fu Nurse" moniker, her tehcnique is rather unpredictable, syncretic at times. Her opening move, today, seems to veer a bit towards a softer flavour of karate: arms are brought together, and one follows the leg that's slid back, while the other sweeps sideways to end above the opposite knee, bent.

Her black belt flutters in a passing gust of wind, as does her equally black pixie-bob. "May the better fighter win. And today I mean it."

Vafrum might not agree with that sentiment, but, hey, in her defense, Uta didn't hear that he has special stakes in her winning.

And she didn't hear that she's getting a cut if she wins, otherwise she'd have wished for herself to win, rather than the better fighter.

Vertina tilts her head a little to the side, but by this point Uta's style being anything but recognizable is about what is to be expected.

There's the brief countdown of 3.. 2.. 1.. and then the signal to begin! Almost immeadiately Vertina lunges from her position. She darts closer to Uta, disruptive sparks crackling around the claws of her glove as she thrusts with the right directly for the Spriggan's center of mass. When she said she wasn't holding back for a duel she was clearly meaning it!

    Once Vefrum gets all the winnings together, he makes note of who goes to what and how much. Somewhere it went from a simply I bet you, to suddenly a betting pool with an agreement that part of it goes to the betters who win, section to the winner--- aaand if he, himself, bet correctly; To himself as well.

Now with that done, the charismatic gentleman sits down and yells out easily across the audience, "Give them hell, Uta! Show them the might of Olympus!"

Uta is quick to raise her staff, but not quick enough. Vertina is a demon of speed and might, and the ripping impact of her electric claws sends Uta flying backwards, a crackling ball of lightning, tumbling, glowing claw marks visible on her chest when the audience finally get a clear view of her front side after she lands supine with a loud thud.

She props up, trembling, with the help of her staff, those gashes still pulsating.

"Poison...", she says.

She bites her lower lip, and does what anyone whose guts have been just ripped open would do.

She begins singing.

It's a circular song, with a call-response structure, which starts slow and accelerates. It might be that the song simply gives Uta the rhythm and energy to run back at Vertina, but the handle of her staff and her gem flash in different colors in sync with the melody, the magic within it growing in intensity, and as uta grows closer and closer, she weaves even more complex passages into it. The song turns more oppressive, and the strange lights gain darker tendrils weaving into the gem.

By now Uta has leaped to strike down on Vertina. She starts with a feint, then swings her staff, gem-first at her opponent, blasts her with the charged beam of magic, then follow up with a rapid flurry of punches and kicks.

Vertina is quickly back on the defensive as soon as she strikes. She kippups away from Uta, bringing up one of her arms with her quick movements to deflect the staff strike. But the angle she swats it away at doesn't stop the bolt of magic it spits, and she stumbles backwards a moment. Blinks. "That was... huh." That effect was different. "You're full of tricks, intentional or not."

Tail swipes behind her to regain her balance, and Vertina grinds a heel into the ground not just to brace herself, but to draw upon it for reassuring strength. The surge of energy is brought forth, using it to amplify her other abilities as she spews out a gout of flame and ash from her mouth at Uta. Salamander fire breath in action!

The dark components peel away from the blast of magic Uta shot at Vertina, and with those gone, the true nature of the technique is revealed: red tendrils of magic reach to the Salamander, flaring into a red enveloping aura which keeps sucking away at her energy, guzzled toward the gem, where the beam turns green, and flares to envelope Uta, whose HP bar grows instead. "That was a nasty cut," she begins. "I'm going to need to borrow some of your life force for myself. Hope you won't mind. I'll give it back once you're KO."

Well, seems like sneaky techniques isn't the only thing she's learnt from Kauchemar. She's started taunting her opponent too! Granted, extremely mild taunting, for now... but baby steps.

"I'm teeming with tricks!", exclaims Uta.

Fire in the hole! If, that is, you can consider the arena a very fancy hole? But we digress. Uta spreads her wings and leaps away with the help of a blast of air magic (it's not flying, it's just giving a little boost to a powerful air current strong enough to lift an iman being anyway), getting away from the core of the fireball.

The attack is so massive, however, that she can't help getting singed a little. Flames linger on her, as the red/green magical link seems to persist a little longer.

"...I'm gonna need to borrow a little more of that sweet, sweet HP...", is what she announces before running for Vertina, intoning an aria while she swings her staff at her...

The blazing attack was also a bit of a defensive tactic to force her opponent back. That gives Vertina a precious few moments to focus some of her ki inward and disperse part of the debilitations Uta had tried to stack on her. The HP trickle, she's just going to have to deal with, and make sure her opponent takes as much hurt as she's patching up. Simple strategy.

"You want it? Come get it!" Her response to the taunting is to tell her opponent to bring it on, to the surprise of no one. She throws up her arms in a X formation as a fiery aura sheaths them, intercepting Uta's strike and sending hot embers hissing back at the Spriggin. "Cuz I'm just getting warmed up!" She whips her arms apart with enough force to push off from her opponent "DRAGON TWISTER" and then spins around rapidly, like a mini tornado of flames coming off her hands and feet.

You're supposed to fight fire with fire, but if you don't have the Fire concept, store-bought is fine.

I mean, air. Air is fine.

The tornado of fire is countered by a tornado of air, with Uta taking advantage of her wind powers to create a larger tornado around Vertina, who would be at the center; the Spriggan would be spinning around her opponent with the help of her wings once again. The air tornado spins in the opposite direction with respect to the fire one, so Vertina can't easily keep her eyes on the nurse, but Uta gets to keep an eye on the Salamander, and try and smack her at each revolution, her blows guided by the magical insight granted by a chant she's intoning.

A bigger tornado spinning counter around a smaller fire tornado gets a lot of oos and ahhs out of the crowd for the spectacle.
Vertina on the other hand finds it impressive, but an annoyance as she can only partially deflect Uta's flurry because the cyclonic force is drawing away her protective flames.

But fire isn't the only force of nature she can play with. Vertina slams her feet into the ground as her fire spin is drained off, and launches herself -into Uta's own tornado-, hoping to catch the Spriggan offguard by being in her personal space so abruptly and trying to punch her right back out of the whirlwind.

    The battle continues to rage on. The gentleman invited by Uta watches the two go at it with magical, weapons, and fire. There was a ton of fire from that one named Vertina. Which perhaps one could sum up as 'Salamander things'.

As he sits there, he materializes a bottle of wine, along with a wine glass from his inventory. Opens said bottle, pours himself a glass of wine, then puts the bottle away, as he takes a sip from it. Vafrum continues to watch, not only cause there are gears turning in the gentleman's head-- but there was also profit on the line.

The tactic is effective, and despite Uta's best effort to glide and dodge while flying around, Vertina's martial arts just have that edge that gives her the upper hand. The Spriggan is sent flying through the arena. She spins in the air, lands chin-first, and digs a shallow trench in the ground. She pushes herself up to stand again, and spittles out bits of dirt. "Ptoo, ptoo! Why couldn't /this/ taste like soggy crackers!?"

She shakes her heads, and stands again. A battlecry, an Uta rushes for her opponent, staff in hand, and as the battlecry evolves into a war song, charging the gem of her staff with a blinding white light ready to be discharged, she also prepares to slice at Vertina with the fangs of the snakes engraved in her caduceus.

Vertina takes back to the ground much more gracefully out of the whirlwind, nailing the three-point 'hero landing' almost perfectly. Which gives her plenty of time to get back to a ready stance by the time Uta is back on her feet and charging. "Oh no you don't... Dust Devil Style!" A few quick hand gestures and some geokinesis kicks up a brief swirling cloud of sand and air around her. The moments of obscurity make it harder to Uta to land her hit directly, instead just grazing the Salamander's bicep with the toxic fangs.

Vertina retorts by whipping around to swing, of all things, her tail at Uta. Though that tail is gleaming with the same ki aura as many of her other moves.

Martial Arts is about using your body. That means ALL of your body.

"Hi!", Uta greets, suddeny at Vertina's left side. "How's it going?" Wait, now she's at her /right/ side? "Nice day for a fight!" -- okay, the acrobatic backwards tumble-jump over Vertina, with sudden flaring of the wings to catch the air and brake instantly, then feather falling to the ground was just showing off. "I thought we could-"

And there she's gone again; if her special technique wasn't already erratic and unpredictable enough, she's throwing the innate kind of Dark and Sneaking skills Spriggans are infamous for.

Two can play at the game of using /all/ of your body, it seems.

"I was thinking that-" Vertina might hear that on her right side, but the devastating swing of a staff about to strike her, well, that's coming from the /left side.

    Vafrum is still observing the fight, sipping from his wine glass with one leg crossed over the other. His golden eyes watching as they trade blows. Including just how stealthy Uta seems to be with her attacks.

A gentleman comes up with a rough exterior; Perhaps another adventurer to Vafrum's side. "You watching to learn their moves? Your like a mage right?"

Vafrum cuts a glance over to the man, before looking back to the fight. "I have no interest in battles, only in profits. Fighting is a barbaric profession, but," He grins; It was predatory. "It does make great money when the right crowd can be found."

"And I do love money." His eyes narrow slightly as he takes another sip of his wine. "Now go back to your water hole, dear sir, unless you want to add your funds to the growing betting pool." It seems the man decides to pass, leaving Vafrum to continue to watch the two women go at it.

For all Vertina can tell Uta stumbled out of the way of her attack by accident... which would admittably be a pretty Uta thing for Uta to do. "I'm the one that's a brewer, why are you using Drunking Fighting Style?" she cracks. She can't quite keep an eye on the shifty Spriggan... and that is probably why she closes them. Using that sixth sense that is neither sight or hearing to filter out the erratic movements and rambling comments. Her left arm comes up abruptly to deflect the staff swing with her battle glove, followed by a twisting motion as she kicks off the ground to part some distance between them once more and finally reopen her eyes. "Sometimes you just can't trust what you see or hear.. but the inner spirit never lies."

She scraps her foot on the ground to kick up some dirt and embers, which quickly consolidate into a glowing ball of burning ash. It's not as big as it usually is because she's still slightly off her game from that weird technique, but kicks the ball of flame at Uta all the same. "Pyro Striker!"

"Inner spirit? Is that a brewer thing?", asks Uta, who has done another of her showy acrobatic tumble-leaps backwards, and added some wing-spreading-and-fluttering flair to her landing.

Wait, was that another taunt? Hard to tell, with Uta.

While Vertina coalesces her embers, Uta begins her chanting, both hands grasping her staff. Darkness seeps out of the enchanted item, and twines around her hands, forming a pair of dark Overgloves over her regular nurse's gloves.

When the ball is kicked, Uta throws her staff up in the air like a majorette's baton, spins on one foot, Karate-style, does a 270 degrees backwards turn, lowers her stance, slides one leg backwards and extends her Dark-gloved hands forward, center of mass shifted appropriately.

The ball SLAMS against Uta's hands, and she has to close her eyes. The momentum shoots her backwards a long way, her feet planted into the ground leaving streaks in the dirt, her face a mask of sweat and concentration that is allowed to relax only once everything has stopped.

Smoke raises from where her soles have dragged against the ground, the inert sphere can now be left to drop to the ground with a thud while her magic gloves dissipate in the air, leftover tendrils blown away by another gust of wind.

Uta calmly walks to where she was before, and as she passes that exact point, without breaking her stride, she raises her hand to catch her staff, which has completed its descending arc.

The moment the staff is caught, even before she lowers her hand, she intones a powerful aria reminescent of a hymn, and the gem, now thrusted towards Vertina, glows lighter and lighter, ready to blast...

"Well that -was- an impressive recovery," Vertina remarks on the baton tossing skills. You give an opponent credit where it's due.

Then she kicks up sand in her wake as she breaks into a zig-zagging motion, not wanting to run directly -at- her opponent. Which proves to be a smart move as the holy beams are unleashed. She manages to duck away, but the second pulse slams into her, forcing her to skid to a stop and brace herself against the intensity. She grits her teeth, toughing through it. While building up from her own reserves.

"Have a taste of this... LIGHTSPEED STRIKER!" It's probably not literally that fast, but it's fast enough it's hard to see the speeding ball of light that's sent hurtling at Uta with one of her kicks.

Uta leaps sideway this time. This has the advantage of avoiding a far more devastating blow to her face, but the downside of hitting her shoulder. Her HP bar lowers while she falls knee first to the ground, and rubs the glowing point of impact. "Good shot. We should play billiards together some time or other." Again, she props up with her staff, and the singing begins anew.

It's that crescendo. You know the one. The operatic aria that gets more and more intense, stronger and stronger, louder and louder, it always seems to reach a point past which it's not possible, or sane, to proceed, and it DOES.

And finally, Uta launches into the final note, a sonic blast that causes the air to ripple, a shockwave that washes over the Arena grounds, disrupting all it touches, with the power to devastate glass objects.

Hope Vafrum's bottle and glass weren't too expensive...

    Vafrum was enjoying their wind when something caught their attention. His eyes snapped quickly to the field. Their pupils almost thinned to a very narrow point; almost slits.

Just as the harmonic moves across the field, the man stands up, takes one step back and watches as the harmonic wave passes over just where they were standing. Enough to flick the vest's collar up and ruffle his hair a little.

He takes another sip from his wine glass finishing it off. "Well, that would have been a terrible waste of wine." Before letting it go back into his inventory and fixes his vest, then runs his hand through his hair to place it back to where it was. "Hmm."

Some women behind him may have just swooned; or maybe it was the fight. Who knows!

With the pitch of Uta's shattering scream it's unlikely anyone heard the crack of thunder as Vertina leaps into motion, though they might see some of the electrical sparks trailing her up until the sonic shock blasts up dirt as it rips through the spot she had been standing in. But she is no longer standing there, it seems.

Nope, as she's moving, and fast. Fast enough to leap into the air, and come down at Uta in a fierce one-two slash with her clawed gloves with all the force of a landside behind the blows.

The opponents have started to learn each other's movements by now. There is chanting, dodging, staff blocking incoming blows, lacerations of Uta's arm, with corresponding glowing streaks. The semi-chaotic approach of Uta at the beginning of the match is settling into a steady routine, and this time, it begins to feel like a dance...

...there even is the musical accompaniment...

Vertina sucks in a few deep breaths. The fight is going on fine, it's the side effects that Uta keeps throwing at her that is wearing her down. Normally poison wouldn't be an issue, but she hasn't had a break in the fighting to try to counteract it. Like what she's going to do now. Vertina is quick witted enough to recognize the faint hints of what's to come... and knowing it's something she can't entirely counter act, just lives up to her motto of going big instead.

She hurtles herself towards Uta, charging up her protective aura as much as she can with the blitzing assault, to at least soak some of the damage. It's just the dots she can do much about. So she runs headlong into the attack, in order to unleash a combo of punch and kicks at the spriggan.

And there it comes again! The red/green beams of energy connect again, seeping HPs from Vertina while Uta is almost never to be found whenever a hit comes close to her. "Nope," comes her voice from the left, or the right of Vertina. One moment later she's nowhere to be found, only to reappear above her. "Don't you agree that getting just to feather fall and not to /fly/ is totally unfair for Spriggans? I mean, you guys get to breathe freakin' /fire/ for the goddesses' sake!"

It... it semems like she isn't trying to distract her opponent. She's just... enjoying herself immensely at the moment. "Oh, hey, I have a question. Does it hurt if I do this?"

That said, she'll leap *straight down* to crush Vertina's tail beneath her soles. Possibly leaping atop Vertina's head as an intermediate step, a little flourish of acrobatic virtuosism if she so manages.

    Vafrum is sitting once more to continue to watch the fight that seems to be maybe coming to some conclusion. By the looks of things, also a bit of coin to his coffer and unknown to Uta, her's as well.

Though her tactic of stepping on Vertina's tail makes him wince a little instinctively. Perhaps his 'other half' instinctively understanding how much that would really hurt.

Uta get's her answer, when Vertina bellows hard enough to spew smoke from her mouth in doing so. Pain and adrenaline overwhelm common sense in the moment, which is why she turns around with igniting flames to just flat out FALCON PAUNCH Uta for stomping on her tail! It's a good thing this fight is almost over because now she is mad enough to live up to the 'Dragon Girl' aspect!

Uta parries that punch!

With her face.

Okay, that is not parrying. She, as the ancient martial arts expression goes, 'gets her face punched in real good'. Tumble backwards. Land sprawled on the ground.

"I'll write that down as yes."

Up to her feet she springs, grinning like a madwoman, and rushes for Vertina. Seems like all the martial artsing has been thrown to the wind, and this has degenerated in a good ol' fashioned bar brawl. Just two people having a game of fisticuffs.

Well they're not in a bar but Vertina is a Brewer so close enough for a brawl. Unfortunately for Vertina, all that rage and adrenaline also pumps the poison through her faster as well. There's a throwing of fists and flames and it probably looks like one of those big balls of violence you see in old cartoons as they kick up smoke and dust... but the negative effects finally catch up to Vertina and in the end her tantrum burns out, and she ends up just sort of slumping over the shorter Spriggan. "Can't.. stoke.. more fire..." Yep, she's out. Might have to push her off to fall over to proper trigger the end of Duel Mode though.

    When Uta is declared the winner, Vafrum is quick to collect the bets, and making sure people paid up with a look that was perhaps threatening more than just 'death'.

It be not shortly after the first row cheers went out, that the business man walked toward Uta and Vertina, "Bravo! Bravo!" he says to them both. "What a wonderful match to watch."

He looks over a coin between his fingers, before placing it in a bag. "Here you go, my dear Uta. A suprising gift for a well fought battle between two spectacular fighters."

The young woman would find a bag of coins tossed in her direction. "Don't spend it all at once!" Before he then goes to walk away.

"Aw, c'mon! Right now that *pant pant* it was getting fun *pant pant*", Uta replies, her whole body dotted with glowing points, gashes, her outfit and hair set on fire, and displaying the elusive ETO 'glowing eye' (it's the new world equivalent of a black eye). "You're going so well! I think you... can... *pant* still manage a... *pant*"

Her knees eventually give, and she'll probably fall sideways, letting Vertina slump over on the opposite side. "...okay, I guess I need a little rest myself."

"...I have no idea why, but I'm the mood for a beer. Do you have any?"

She turns as the bag lands next to her, with a jingle. "Oh, hey, look. They're tipping us already."

"That's a dumb question."

Vertina retrieves a flask from her inventory and passes it to Uta. "I'd be a terrible brewmaster if I didn't." She gets a second one out for herself as she sits up after having the moment to recoup herself. Eyes the bag of gold Vafrum tosses over, but shrugs and starts drinking. If people have to bet on fights to enjoy them, that's their choice.