Tournament Battle - Jurou vs Syx

"HELLOOOOOOOOO EAS LANDS!" A familiar voice booms over the area set aside for the tournament. But not from the field itself, as being an entrant in the event hasn't stopped Kauchemar from also doing what she does best and put on a show as an announcer as well. "ARE YOU READY FOR ANOTHER RUMBLE?!" Cue tremendous roar of cheers from the crowd. "That's what I thought."

A pause as she flicks open the roster list with one hand, the other holding the magic microphone that she's not even using. She just holds it so people recognize her as the MC, her voice is plenty powerful enough on its own. "And aren't you in for a treat tonight! For we have not one, but TWO Salamanders about to throw down against each other, who also happen to both be Scale Emblem members as well. Scale vs Scale! Tail vs Tail!" She pauses to check again. "Badass sword against someone that's just badass!" She flicks the list back into a roll, and uses it to point. "On one side, we have a pro in the ring, who puts the drive in piledriver -- SYX." She turns to point it in the opposite direction. "And on this side, we have the Odysseia Knights own Justicar.. but not of the peace because she'd rather leave her foe in pieces -- Jurou! Get in the ring and lets get this on!"

Looking a bit uncomfortable at the audience and attention, Jurou waits at one side of the ring, frowning at the glaring midday sun overhead and balancing her greatsword on one shoulder. "I'm not sure this was a great idea..." she says to herself, waiting on the announcer to give them a cue to begin.
The salamander girl eyes up her opponent, another salamander like herself, but less armoured and unarmed? "Uhh, hi!" she calls out across the open area, holding her sword up in salute as she approaches.

Syx loves to make an entrance, and that much is true by the fact that there is a massive explosion from his side of the ring. From the explosion, Syx emerges, raising both hands up to the sky and shooting firework-like fireballs from them which burst in the air above him.

He moves to the side of the ring, high fiving a few Landers and Adventurers who are in the crowd, and mingling with them for a few, before he eventually does get into the ring, "Hey." He says to Jurou, looking across at her.

He doesn't appear to have any weapons, though he has those gauntlets around his scaled hands that have metal plates on the knuckles. That may be his idea of a weapon, "So you know the rules right? I figure you do you signed up. So lets do this!"

"And people say I like to make an extravagant entrance."

Chuckling to herself Kauchemar looks between the two. "Right, the rules. Fight until one of you can no longer fight, but no PKing. This is a competition, not a blood bath. Other than, you know the saying." The Were Fang seems to disappear in a sudden swirl of eerie mist, then is standing off to the sidelines once more after she shadow stepped out of the way. "The only rule of war is there are no other rules... FIGHT!"

A voice rings out from the crowd, "You can do this!" It's owner, of course, is Kita. The girl had traveled halfway across Yamato to support her girlfriend in the tournament. The darkly dressed mage waves from the sidelines, trying to make sure that her encouragement is heard over the roar of the crowd.

"Yeah. I'm good." Jurou says, and then the booming voice calls out over the two of them, and Jurou readies herself to fight, shield on her left, oversized sword in her right hand. There's a little smile and a glance aside as that other voice cheers from the crowd. "Let's do this." she repeats in a lower voice as she hefts the weapon up into the air, holds it high, pointing straight up, and then flames spiral up around and through the blade, engulfing it in fire, and she twists and brings the blade crashing downwards, trailing red and yellow tongues of heat behind the blow.

Syx is going to get his work in, as he waits for Jurou to come in and attack him. As the attacks come in, he feels the flames building around himself. At first it's just heat, blistering heat that builds around him, and then it bursts into flames. He drives forward, rolling with the flames around him in order to try to evade her blade, but still manages to catch the strike across his back.

Never the less, he starts to attack once he's in range, his gauntlets channeling his flames into the metal plates as he strikes, raining blows towards her with flaming bursts on each impact.

"And despite that initial uneasiness Jurou comes into the fight fast and swinging hard. The flames on those sword aren't just for looks tho... wait a minute." Kauchemar glances off-sides, lowering her voice to mutter to one of the guards. He shakes his head. She nods and stands back up. "Right! Despite their perchance towards fire Salamanders aren't necessarily resistant to it! That's still a solid open... I mean, besides, there's still the fact that it's a -sword-."

There's an audible wince from the crowd as the blow connects, which turns into cheers when Syx recovers. "Syx doesn't let Jurou bringing a sword to the gun show slow him down though! He takes the blow like... shoot, I can't make that joke..." Kauchemar makes a face as she reminds herself to keep the more colorful commentary to a minimal. "Anyways, he takes the blow and comes back fast and furious with his fists AND ALSO WITH FIRE! Seriously. So much fire. I can feel the heat from here."

The waves from her blow flare out and disappate, though a few flickering flames still cling to the clothes, refusing to go out yet. Jurou reacts quickly to the return blows, bringing in her small shield to absorb some of the punches, but at this close range it's unavoidable to let a few slip around and catch her on the unshielded shoulder and side. She jumps back, swinging her sword in a wide low arc to put some distance between them once again, her blade tip drawing a wall of fire between them, and then with a gesture from her shield hand, the flaming grasses erupt into a a wall of fire, giving her a moment to resettle her stance.

With a matchup such as this one, there is little surprise that it is often a battle of fire versus fire. Kita leans over the railings on the sidelines, trying to make sure she has a good view of the impending inferno. At the same time, she can't help but appreciate the fine services of the resident bardic nightmare, "Kauchemar is /way/ better of an MC than I am." She admits in an undertone, pushing her glasses up on her nose.

Then, focusing back on the fight, she calls out, "Don't let him break your defenses!" Kita knows very well that what Jurou is best at, is defense, so it is a matter of seeing if she can hold out over the long term.

"Damn you're good!" Syx says, as he hops back after failing to get through her defenses with more than a few hits, "I barely even touched you!" Never the less, he's going to try to get in there again. He pushes past the attack, vanishing with a blast of lightning and appearing right behind Jurou, "This is one of my special moves! There's no game mechanic to counter this!"

He moves to grab her around the waist and then haul her through the air and slam her head into the ground with all the force he can muster. Folks have seen this move crack stone before.

Don't sell yourself short Kita! Kauchemar just has experience running a show and engaging the audience that's all.

"These two are wasting no time bringing their top tier techniques to the table! Jurou weathers the assault with a combination of footwork, bladework and magic... And Syx leaps right through that defense like a stuntman, braving flame and sword strikes to..."

Kauchemar pauses, eyes going up and then down to watch Syx do what one would expect of a wrestler.

"Holy shit, I know this guy has done his time in the squared ring but I was not expecting to see him get all Summer Slam in Jurou's face!"

"Yeah, that's one thing I do well." Jurou agrees, her defense had been her focus when she started playing the game, to partner well with her squishy mage, Kita. Then the other Salamander rushes towards her, and Jurou's shield flares, sending gouts of flame which don't seem to slow him much at all, and he grabs hold of her, she's powerless to do much once she's grabbed and lifted off the ground, except brace for the impact with the ground with a heavy crash, flopping down onto the ground when he lets go. She groans, pushing herself dizzily back to her feet and sweeping with her blade, trying to force him back as she wobbles, holding her head, her vision spinning.

Syx manages to get caught by the sword as it swings at him, having managed to bring up a shield of light from his gauntlets to absorb most of the hit, as he stumbles backwards, "Man this one is just a battle between your defense and my attack huh? We'd make a hell of a team!" Syx is taking the fight seriously, he always takes every fight seriously, but since this one isn't life and death like a fight out in the wild, so he can talk and have fun during it.

Speaking of which, this time instead of going for a bunch of rapid strikes, Syx hops back a couple of steps, and then pushes off with his foot, throwing himself through the air and swinging a massive superman punch towards Jurou.

"That did not look like a pleasant way to be reintroduced to the ground. Faceplants are ten times worse when someone else is planting your face on the ground for you! Jurou is back on her feet, but looks like she got rocked a bit harder than she'd like. She's still at it though, trying to turn the tide of the fight back in her favor."

Kauchemar pauses a moment to summon her Tabby Slime, plop a few gold coins in it, and send it off to fetch her something to drink. To fight off both a dry throat from commentating and the heat of the fight.

"Syx just refuses to back down though! Though she's forced him to step off a bit and defend himself, but he's right back on the offensive afterwards, and some friendly combat banter besides! He's going to make his fans proud."

Kauchemar stops again after a brief confusion, and puts one hand over the magic mic as if to muffle it even though she's not even actually using it much thanks to her own projection abilities, then leans aside. "Anyone know what to call his fans? Syxamaniacs just... that's too easy for someone to pronounce -wrong- and there's probably kids watching..." The people in the crowd near her just look confused, not getting all the references.

The red skinned girl shakes her head, clearing some of the blurriness from her vision, and the ground stops swaying back and forth. "Sure, I'm sure Kita and I could find use for a third player on some of our explorations. How are you with angry wyverns?" As he launches himself towards Jurou, the girl drops to one knee and plants her sword into the ground, bracing against it with her body and her shield to form a near impenetrable wall against his attack. As soon as he stops, she reaches a hand over the wall and lets a white hot flare loose from her palm at his chest.

Kita winces at the sight of her girlfriend being slammed into the ground quite so brutally. However, she knows that Jurou can handle more than that on her worst days. "Get up, get up!" She calls out. Thankfully, the Salamander girl does just that, managing to throw up yet another powerful defense.

Her eyes flick over towards Kauchemar, unable to quite hold back a smirk at the suggestion for Syx's adoring fans. "Hang in there!" She calls out, "And Syx, try not to maim her face too much, will you?" It's a silly request, but hey, it's worth a shot.

"I suplexed a wyvern once!" Syx responds to the question about how he handles wyverns. That should cover the question pretty well he thinks.

He manages to do what he can to defend the blow with his gauntlets, but the flames flicker around him, not his own this time, and leave him with the burning status.

He glances over at Kita and gives her a thumbs up, "No promises!" He replies to her, before he turns to face Jurou once again, "Been waiting to bust this out for a while now. I've actually been working on this just for the tournament." He rushes forward, ducking down to try to take her legs out from under her. As flames swirl around him, he moves to haul her up into the air, and once he has her up, swing her around on his shoulders and slam her down into the ground while also on fire at the same time.

Kauchemar chuckles a bit at the exchange. "That's Adventurers for you. Love to exploit Talking Is A Free Action." Most of the Landers in the audience stare blankly at the somewhat meta joke, but some of the other Adventurers can be heard snickering when they get the reference. "And Jurou gives Syx the--" She stops and squints "--Nevermind, that was just more fire, and not the gesture I thought it was." Kauchemar achems softly. "Syx just eats those attacks like they're a box of wheaties though! He's going for another grapple... And he's taking her for a spin! He's really on fire now. Literally!"

Jurou tries to sidestep out of the way of the sweep, but is grabbed once again, it seems she's not encountered many grappling opponents so far. In response to being swing around on his shoulders, she bashes at his head with the base of her shield, trying to loosen his grip. With her hands free, when the slam comes, she's able to aim her shield at the ground, and it lets out a forceful blast of flame, pushing down at the ground and absorbing some of the impact as she comes down, blasting a halo of glowing dirt around the pair. Jurou takes a second to catch her breath before rolling back to her feet, grabbing her sword that was dropped during the grapple and aiming the point of the blade at him, ready for his next move.

"Jerk!" Kita calls out in reply, but it's obvious that she actually isn't upset at all by Syx's lack of any such promise to leave her girlfriend's face in one piece. Let's be honest, she knew what they were getting into coming out here.

"Keep chipping away at him, Jurou! You can do it." She offers by means of encouragement, waving her witch's hat over her head to cheer along with the crowd.

Since Syx seems to be doing a hell of a job, even if Jurou manages to deflect most of the impact from his move. He's actually surprised at her inginuity. No monster would ever figure that kind of thing out!

Fighting Adventurers is a whole other ballgame. But with her having to focus entirely on defense, Syx takes a couple of moments to step back when she points the blade at him, "I am honestly impressed. I've been working on that for weeks and you figured out how to counter it in a couple of seconds!" Never the less, without having to worry about defending, Syx throws himself fully into attack, slamming one foot into the ground to send a shockwave through the ground towards her, before following up with what's best described as a missile dropkick, trying to throw her off balance with the earth shaking stop, and then kick her into the wall of the arena.

"I was getting a bit dizzy just watching him take the poor girl for a spin! But Jurou isn't giving up, she manages to get creative with her defenses to lessen the impact with the cold unforgiving crowd, and try to get herself back into a ready position." Kauchemar's head turns to watch the action. "Looks like Syx is giving her no chance to recoup though, he's putting his foot down on the matter! Literally! And on Jurou for that matter!"

Kauchemar pauses at the rubbing against her leg, stooping down to collect the bottle resting (slightly depressed into) the Tabby Slime's forehead. "Thank you." She drops it a bit of jerky to nom on, and stands up to uncork the bottle and gulp it down.

"This isn't working..." Jurou mutters to herself as Syx continues to push the offense, if this pattern continued, she was going to run out of steam first. She readies herself for another attack, but as the shockwave comes on, she charges back into Syx, abandoning all defense to catch him off guard as he's attacking. The shockwave hits her hard, causing a stumble, but she pushes on and brings her greatsword swinging upwards in a high arc, trying to land a simultaneous smashing counterstrike as his kick lands hard and sends her skidding and rolling along the ground, leaving a tear in the earth in her wake, and her sword, flies loose and lands point down in the earth.
She lies there for a long moment, still, before pulling a shoulder up and replying "Heavy weapon users are kind of slow. So I've been working on compensating, using salamander fire to give me the speed I miss having." Jurou climbs back to her feet, clearly hurt by the heavy blow, but she uses her empty hand to dust off the side of her outfit that ate all the dirt and digs her feet into the earth, eyeing her blade between the two of them.

Syx is still very clearly feeling the effects of the burning attack she hit him with earlier, and when he manages to land his strikes, he begins to back off, but he has decided he's too dedicated to the attack now. It's all or nothing at this point!

He presses the attack, forcing his way forward, managing to deflect one of the blows that she swings his way, but taking the other with full force which manages to refresh the burn on him.

None the less, it looks like he's going for his finisher once again, aiming to haul her through the air once more! This time he hopes that she won't be able to counter the move a second time!

Kauchemar winces, ears laying back to the point they're almost lost in her midnight mane. "That exchange was -brutal-. Both fighters have decided to favor offense over defense, trading blow for blow! I know I said no blood baths, considering Adventurers don't really bleed anyways, but this is definitely leaving a mark on both of them! Jurou is landing blistering strike after blistering strike, but... Oh, oh no, Syx is going for another Driver! This is insane! Good thing we don't have a table out there for him to throw her through, but still! The humanity of it!" Long pause. Then a somewhat flat, "Yes, I know they're both Salamanders, not Humans. ITS A FIGURE OF SPEECH"

She doesn't try to evade the grab this time, seeing the same movements that lead up to it, and he grabs her and gets a good grip and begins the spin once again, she kicks out a little, but most of her attention is in keeping herself oriented for the splash.
When it comes, she arches her back as she's thrown down, and the shield slams down, taking the initial hit and letting her roll with the blow, pushing off the ground into a backflip that throws her near where her sword had landed, and she lands on both feet, looking tired but stable. "You know you shouldn't use the same special move twice." she says with a slight smile that's only partly deflated by her rapid breathing.

Jurou reaches over and grabs her sword, tugging it from the ground with a little effort.

She does have a good point actually, as Syx has to admit the fact that she's able to counter his move again with that move. He just hopes some of the other fighters aren't watching how she's doing it. If he wins he'd hate to have others counter that move in the same way!

"You're good!" He calls out to her, as he takes a few moments to dust himself off, and then he pops his neck by twisting his head with his hands for a second, "But you can't win a fight with defense alone!" He rushes in again, driving towards her to deliver a combo, multiple strikes, kicks and punches, focusing the fire through his gauntlets again, and for good measure he throws in some feints to make her try to block one and open herself up to another.

"You are correct" Jurou agrees, pure defense will not win, and as a fellow salamander, there's only so much her flaming guard will do to wear him down. So it's her sword she must rely on, in the end. She takes a deep breath as he rushes in, and there is a furious exchange of blows. He swings in with a flaming punch, and she blocks it with her shield, his follow-up punch slipping past her guard and landing a solid blow. She swings the crossguard of her sword at his head, trying to bludgeon him away as he comes in with a kick, she takes it with a twist of the body, so the blow lands but not as hard as it might, and she pulls back and sends a heavy kick at his chest that could send him tumbling backwards onto the dirt.

One of these days Syx is going to learn to not talk shit when things start to get serious. Because it seems she's decided to take his advice and go full offense on him, forcing him to go into a defensive stance and try to fend off the attacks that are raining down upon him. He manages to fend through a few, though from the looks of it his defense is wearing thin. Syx is nothing if not persistant though, as he weathers the storm and moves in to slam her to the ground once again. He doesn't know if he'll be able to take her down with that move, it's coming down to the wire, but he has to at least give it his all!

If Jurou's earlier hit hadn't weakened him, she wouldn't likely have been able to break free of his suplex. But as he raises her up and prepares to slam her down to the ground, she pushes out with her arms, and kicks free, slipping out of the slam in time to land on her back, she scrambles into a spin, getting only to one knee before she draws her sword around, pushing a spiral of flames down and along the blade as it arcs towards him with dangerous intent.

All or nothing! Syx immediately lands from his attack and then launches into another one, throwing himself at Jurou with everything he has left in the tank. There's no finesse to the moves, no subtlety. It's just a powerful spinning kick with the intent of taking her down with the last bit of energy he has left. He knows he'll burn down from her latest fire attack if he doesn't take her out first, so there's no point in trying to defend!

Jurou too, sees his sliver of health draining away, and she only has to put out a tiny bit more damage, and weather his attacks to win the battle. She's tired, and her own health bar has only a sliver remaining before the match would be declared over. She throws herself back as the spinning kick comes at her, the kick brushing through her red hair, and she aims her sword at him as she falls, pouring a gout of fire at him as she lands in the dirt.

It seems that it's a terrible idea to try to bum rush somebody when you're at super low HP, because as all of Jurou's fire rises up around Syx, he never quite makes it to her before he collapses and his HP hits red, triggering the end of the duel.

Looks like in some cases defense can in fact win out over offense.

Cue the end of duel alerts going off just to make sure no one accidentally throws one more attack than needed with there being no Root City protections here. "Talk about bringing the heat! Neither opponent was willing to let up, but in the end Jurou's defense manages to squeak her past Syx's intensity! That's the end of the match," Kauchemar turns and waves her hands up in order to get more cheering going from the crowd, "but let's hear it for both of the fierce fighters for that show they gave us!"

Jurou would offer to help Syx up, but she's so exhausted, she plants her sword in the ground and kneels down to rest, her hand on the hilt. "Good match," she says, breathing heavily, "I thought you had me, twice."