Duelist League: Ayame vs Uta

Ayame vs Uta

Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Uta stands in a corner of a square, sitting on a bench.

Staff in her hand, she's foregone those menu-crafted peasant's dresses that formed the staple of her strange mood wardrobe to go back to her regular hand-crafted nurse's-outfit-slash-gi-combo (by Gwen Pendragon of "The Chain Mail Bikini +1" fame, of course).

She does not smell offensive, looks well-rested (no trace of bags under her eyes), and overall in nice shape.

Well, mostly.

Despite the relaxed and relieved, some might even say excited appearance, there is a hint of confusion in her features. "Ok, hm. Important questions first."

She inhales. "One, what was /that/? Two..." She frowns. "...what was I supposed to do again before I was interrupted? I think it was something about a duel?"
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

"I think we were planning on it" Ayame says with a note of restrained humor "And certainly, your actions over the last few weeks have intimated to me you might be needing to offer such to a number of individuals. Besides, we're all very fascinated about the insights you've arrived at"

This is a polite way, of course, of Ayame asking for a reason to release some of the irritation Uta raised in her over the past month.

She smiles nonetheless, brushes a speck of dust from her fitted skirt, and hefts her shield "Still, I'm quite agreeable to the idea. As for what you did - I really don't know, but seeing you bounce your way through a slime ballet is a memory quite unlikely to fade from my mind anytime soon" With just a hint of amused malice
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

"I did /what/!?" Uta yells back in shock. "/Ballet/? When? HOW? I- I don't even /know/ ballet!" There is a hint of panic. "Oh goodness I'm never going to live that down!"

If Ayame's intention was to discombobulate her opponent, that seems to have hit the mark. The fact that a small crowd of Landers and Adventurers alike is gathering to spectate does not help the matters.

"...Everything is still a blur," she says with another frown, rubbing her creased forehead. "I'm... slowly piecing together what I did that was not about slimes. I have a /full encyclopedia/ about those now." She sighs. "Oh, well. At least I'm fed, and while I'm not at my best, maximum HP-wise, I'm on my way to recovery, I'm clean and- oh, oh, that reminds me."

She turns to the small crowd and announces, "See, I am /so glad/ I am a customer of Starlight Trading! Thanks to the fantastic COFFEE beverage for sale there, I am awake and ready for this fight!"

Staff in hand, she jumps to stand from her bench, and walks towards Ayame. "COFFEE! Try it today! A jolt of energy for the ever-increasing demands of modern Yamato life!"
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Ayame just looks at Uta, grinning ever so faintly as she stands, and plucks her wand from her hair, twirling it in a gloved hand. Then she takes a stance, hefting her shield, and she comments sweetly "I'm sure if you check your inventory, you'll find the tutu. It was adorable. You should wear it more often" With a little laugh; before she opens up the menu and offers the duel across to Uta.

And then waits, as the timers begin to tick.

Dabedaaaa daa da daaa.

There's even a tumbleweed.
Merek
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

    Merek looks to be in the stands to watch while Uta and Ayame will duel, taking the time to listen to her offer interesting produce placement. The man claps a bit while he waits.
Setsuna
Dun Loireag - The Peaks


    Setsuna had heard the rumors, and the rumor was that the slime princess of wherever the slime lab was , was dueling. It was a tad bit serendipitous that he was in the region but well he was trying to teach Demon how to kill rats and kobolds. The poor puppy needed to level and well thelast time he had tried to take the puppy on a hunter quest to level, they both neearly got wiped by a giant bunny. So here he was , sharing some smoked meat product with his three headed garbage disposal as he looks into the dueling arena. They were just standing there it seemed. Finally he just shouts, "FIGHT!"
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Uta accepts the duel. "Why would I want to wear a tutu!? It's not like I'm some sort of /musical/ nurs- wait, no, I technically- That is not the point!", she complains, as her coloration begins to veer towards the red.

She rushes to her opponent with a yell, staff raised, but stops and turns halfway there. "Ooooh, tumbleweed. I wonder... if I fed one of those to a slime-"

Without warning, she swings her staff as if it was a golf club, singing a breezy melody, and knocks the tumbleweed right at Ayame. As the song finishes, a blast of magic leaves the staff, headed for the Sylph as well, as a secondary attack...
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Ayame ducks immediately behind her shield as the timer hits zero; the Sentinel taking a moment to study her opponent via a summoned and very surprised eye, peeking away at the Spriggan, only to blink and flee under the barrage of attacks!

"It totally is the point, Uta!" The Sylph says in a singsong tone, before her heels clatter on the stone as she rushes at the blushing spriggan, to swipe away the tumbleweed with her shield and sneak in a tiny blast of magic of her own "You need to show Gwen your new fashion choices!"
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

"Choices?! Since when do I have a choice in such matters?!", Uta retorts, the redness meter dipping a notch or two as she rushes within melee distance.

First things first, she raises her staff and uses the pointy end to try and /poke/ at the eye, all while singing an aria which causes tendrils of light to flow from the gem of the staff towards her, replenishing her HP. Once the health-restoring flow has been established, she will continue, "Gwen gets enough ideas on her own, last thing we need is for her to get more!"
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Ayame laughs as fire flickers into being around her shield and the watching eye before it vanishes under Uta's assault, being battered back by the the flowery display, before she digs in her heels and swipes at the staff with her shield

"Oh, I don't know. Sounds like you were preparing to give her all the ideas. Want to model it for her when you lose?"

Ayame does not know the meaning of 'play fair'.
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

"What? How? Why- No. There are many things I am still not sure of during the last month, but no matter what, I am pretty confident that giving Gwen ideas was not on the men-"

The shield swipe is well placed, but Uta seems to see that coming: both hands hold onto the staff, and she perform a neat block; her weapon of choice might not have been knocked away, but this came at the cost of the flames scorching her gloved hands.

Her lips quiver, but she does not give Ayame the satisfaction of yelping in pain. "Besides, who said I am going to lose? This fight is still long..."

She leaps back, and intones a funky J-pop tune, which lights up the floor of the square with polkadots of light. As she hits the first notes of the chorus, she slams her staff on the ground with a catchy "SE-WER-CALL!", and slimes pop out from all the polkadots, and bounce towards Ayame from all directions. She segues her chorus into an alternating high and low pitched call-and-response melody, which causes two beams, red and green, to shoot at Ayame and Uta respectively, where the red one saps HP to feed it back to Uta.
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Ayame glows under the strange magics; a flicker of light of her own sends it rising and tapering away from her, but it still leaves her open to the assaulting slimes. Nooo! She manages to find her feet after a little, batting them away, and she sends a blast of light against Uta in return; before stepping smartly out of the way, confusing the little slimes. And oh look, a new target for them!

"Do you know what else you got up to?" She manages with a strained chuckle "A lot. An awful lot."
Setsuna
Dun Loireag - The Peaks


    Setsuna wathes as he whispers things to the puppy. Though when Uta summons the slimes, the puppy only seems friends and tries to take off running to go and play. Fortunately Setsuna swoops the puppy up before he gets to the actual stage. " Hmm perhaps a leash for you." Looking in Ayame's direction Setsuna offers some advice, "BOOP HER SNOOT!" It is frienddly, non berserk inducing advice. Really.
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

"Well, that part I knew. You'll have to be more specific!", Uta grumbles at Ayame. "I usually do fifteen questionable things before breakfast... just ask Setsun- welp!"

The combined onslaught of a bright flash of light and barrage of confused slimes pound on Uta! The first thing she does is-

-sheath her staff on her back?! And then- uh. Is she... is she... /juggling/ the slimes as they come at her? It would appear so. It's like those martial arts movies where the blindfolded hero learn to sense the presence of their opponents, and strike based on their other senses -- except that here it's juggling instead of striking. And some strange juggling it is: she proceeds towards Ayame, as if she was walking against the wind, catching and juggling slimes as she proceeds, and when the mass of monsters to be juggled becomes too unwieldy, she tosses some behind herself, accumulates new ones, and so on.

At this point, she's pretty close to Ayame, and she attempts tossing a few of the slimes /at/ her. Blinded as she is she might not be that effective, but...
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

"I'll ask after you finish kicking me about" Ayame notes, though there's a tiny amount of exasperation as she blasts the slimes out of the air with flicks of magic from her wand, and then looks at the Spriggan with a frustrated air "Would it kill you to take this seriously?" She asks, somewhat pained, letting off more flares of magic, and bouncing one off the stunned eye above, shaking it awake with a frantic blinking
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Uta looks honestly puzzled. "...what? I /am/ taking this seriously?"

Yup. This is /exactly/ how Uta normally fights. Ask anyone around. "It's my fighting style. All based around unpredictability," she begins to explain as sight slowly teturns to her. "For instance-" When the summoned slimes disappear, she is quick to grab the staff again, and handle firmly grasped in hand, she darts to cover the last bit of distance between her and Ayame. She zigzags to avoid the Sylph's magic attacks, but some of them do impact. When she's close enough, she leaps, wuxia-spins in the air, and with a yell she dives down on Ayame, to slash at her with the wing-shaped decorations around the gem.
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

The cut is mostly deflected, as Ayame punches the shield up, though the second blow tears through her defences and her shirt. She staggers back, as her hit points tick down, and she lets out a small hiss "Well, at least that's taking it seriously" She scowls
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Uta keeps the pressure up. She keeps her punches and kicks coming, dodging left and right, and on that rhythm, she vocalizes a song which makes the gem on her staff shoot more blasts of magic.
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Ayame retreats under the pressure - and then lets off a blast of light right in the spriggan's face.

This is necessary, as it hides the sudden flare of flame around her, as she lets Uta assault it, weathering the attack and chuckling ever so slightly
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

If it works, you don't change tactics. Uta keeps doing more of the same: punches, kicks, dodges, blows with her stick, and singing.
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Ayame continues to be beaten back. There's not much in the way of sarcastic comments now, as she makes short range blasts with her wand, her HP bar flicking and ticking down
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Time to go for the kill! Or, well, the non-lethal blow. But it's a big blow. Telegraphed, if you will, but Uta swings her stick to hit Ayame.
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

It takes most of what Ayame has to block it, in turn, but she makes a small face and pushes back, snapping a quick blow back
Setsuna
Dun Loireag - The Peaks


    Setsuna grins and looks at the two before turning and walking off. " Come on Demon, we have a train to catch. " With that said he looks back and tsks for a moment before shaking his head, " Should of gone for the boop." With that said Setsuna makes his way towards the docks.
Uta
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

After much punching and kicking, and a LOT of Slime summoning (Seriously. So much summoning!) Uta eventually manages to make Ayame's HP bar cross from the yellow into the red. A fanfare announces the winner, and the crowd cheers.

Uta stops, fists clenched in her martial artist's stance of readiness. Still panting because of the effort, Uta finally smiles and reaches over to offer Ayame a hand. "...that was a good fight."
Ayame
Dun Loireag - The Peaks

Ayame nods painfully, wincing and taking the hand, to be helped up "Thank you. It's good to see you in better shape, Uta" With a flicker of a smile "And somewhat more self possessed than you have been"