Scene #2319: Memorial Day Throwdown

Owner	Pose
Serori	The Field of Trials is a technomagical wonder capable of providing any setting and any challenge the Confederacy requires to reach its training goals; today, however, it's no more than a bare earth ring surrounded by tall grasses and tall boulders. The ring itself is probably twenty feet across. Its grassy perimeter adds another ten feet on all sides. The boulder blockade is mostly there to provide a barrier between the ring and any prying eyes, but each is uneven and rough enough to permit climbing, and broad enough at their tops to allow for fighting, should the spar go all elevated. Serori stands in the middle of the ring, wearing gi pants and belt, a tucked-in t-shirt bearing a fat pink cat on its front, and fighting wraps around her knuckles, wrists, ankles, and feet. Her tail hangs free going swish-swish-swish.
Makoto Kato	It hadn't been entirely easy for Makoto to get into the Citadel, but with a personal invitation from Serori, it wasn't exactly hard, either. The citadel itself was a total marvel, but the sights that were within it - slavery, and oppression, and the powerful oppressing the weak, didn't move Makoto Kato overmuch. She was worried mildly as to why. Not because of the people suffering, but because she didn't really find herself moved overmuch - and THAT made her worry. But the dark-gi'ed girl with her taped feet and hands and flowing pale-blue ribbon arond her neck that falls easily to her ankles, breezes in over the boulders and lands in a crouch in the Field of Trials. "I'm honored, by your willingness to fight me. To be honest, I was going to try to ask you, once you returned. The last time I fought someone like you, it was a fantastic fight. Carrot? Kakarot? Something like that. Barely survived." She grins fiercely, looking over Serori and nodding. "I'm Makoto Kato, of the Rindoukan school of karate. I'll be your opponent." She notes formally, saluting and bowing, before adopting a stance. "I'll not hold anything back - please don't take it personally. I heard some people got very mad about someone trying to kill you. That's... just how I fight." She notes, before settling in and scooching her feet in the dirt, setting her stance and preparing. Her heart started to thump, the smile slowly melting off her face as determination set in. Hopefully Serori wouldn't take 'all out Makoto' personally, even past her words.
Serori	"You don't have to hold back here. The systems put in place prevent death on this training field, under most circumstances. If I die, whatever magic works here will bring me back, so if you kill me /here/, the most retribution you'll face is perhaps needing to buy me dinner afterward." Serori offers a toothy little grin as she returns Makoto's bow. Though not a gesture traditional to her own martial training, she does want to show respect, so why not do so on Makoto's own terms? As she straightens up, she takes on a loose stance, limbs cocked but graceful and relaxed, fists coiled but not too tight. Her right foot slides back through the dirt, and Serori puts her left hip forward. "It must have been somethin' else to fight King Kakarot. I'm not to his level of competence and power. I hope I don't leave you disappointed." Like such a thing is even possible. Serori's tail flicks, and the saiyan pushes off her toes, feet blurring across the ground in a hasty charge. The initial attack is simple: right jab, left jab, right feint, pump the left fist in low and hard for the gut. What makes the combo dangerous is the speed and force behind every blow. The air hums as Serori's limbs shoot forward in a snapping rhythm.
Makoto Kato	"Oh. There's nothing bad that can happen?" Makoto asks, taking a quick glance around the stadium. "Well that takes out /some/ of the rush." She sighs, before the question of King Kakarot came up. "He was the strongest fighter I've faced. Perhaps my teacher is stronger, perhaps weaker, but I'm not strong enough to know the difference. He defeated me without entering his highest power, firing a... beam that I could not deflect at my full power. It was... Exhilarating." She breathes, before shaking her head. "I don't go into fights with such expectations. Hopes, yes, but not expectations." The beribboned girl sees the flash of speed, the pushing off, and brings her hands up open-palmed. A simple one-two? Well, it's a decent opener. She brings her hands forward and 'slaps' the fist, a flash of purple sparks and a light 'pah!' sound as she simply 'negates' the first swing in a flare of energy. As she moves to do the same - ki parrying - the second... she has to instead duck the feint, and a fist drives into her gut, sending her skidding back and a grimace on her face. She resettles, her expression neutral. She draws her right fist back, and there's a gust of wind around her sleeve and her legs, before she simply disappears from where she was standing, to right back in close with Serori, leading with a hellish right straight as she comes out of her own beyond-blur of speed. Just one attack, with all her speed and force behind it. Good, if she can land it, and poor if she can't. Thankfully, Serori is well-versed in zwee fighting, but Makoto... Is a totally normal human girl. And she didn't zwee.
Serori	What a satisfying strike! Serori's left arm shivers at the blow thumping into Makoto's stomach. The grin she wears takes on a broader angle, gleaming and pleased. "Good defenses!" The saiyan steps backwards in anticipation of the coming counter-attack. It might have been a good, safe move to make had Makoto not also anticipated the fight's flow, and planned for it. Okay, maybe all that 'planning' isn't true -- does it matter? The results are the same whether or not Makoto's got tactical foresight on her side. Serori's body crumples into a pained hunch as Makoto's fist plows into her side. The momentum propels the saiyan into an out-of-control sprawling bounce. After the first faceful of dirt, Serori turns the fall into a twisting roll across the dirt. Several feet away, she kips back up to her toes, crouches, and springs forward, rushing toward Makoto again. The dust kicked up by her feet creates a small cloud marking Serori's advance even after her body blurs from sight. Zwee, indeed. The saiyan leaps into a forward handspring that flings her body javelin-style, both feet aimed together to smash Makoto.
Makoto Kato	Makoto draws back as her Hayate connects, resetting her stance and standing there, leading left hand open, drawn back right closed into a fist. She doesn't speak now, a hardness in her eyes and an intensity to her gaze. She hadn't really planned to send Serori sprawling, but sprawling she did. That power and intensity was, in essence, her style. No holding back. She prepares for a counterattack from the ground, and is punished. The double dropkick javelin dive comes in straight for her, and she is forced to simply lean into the attack and fall with it, slamming into the dirt and being driven, on her back, along the loose soil as the attack connects with her chest dead on. It's easy to parry a fist. It's hard to parry a full person - there's very little to 'negate' there. So, in this position, driven into the ground and her whole torso alight with pain from two monkey feet driven into her soft bits, she wraps one arm around the offending legs planted in her gut, fulcrums up and rolls, to lock Serori in a temporary ground pin, and wail on her. Licks of purple power begin to roll off her as she does, trying to drive fist and elbow into rib, nose, center of mass, or any part of the Saiyan she can. After a moment - or if her pin fails to settle, she shoots off the ground, back to her feet, resuming stance and distance.
Serori	"That's...augh! That's a DIRTY MOVE!" Gritted teeth make Serori's accusation into something of a growl, and her approving laughter much the same. Most people wouldn't try to deliver a compliment while all twisted up like a pretzel and at their opponent's mercy. Serori is not most people! The same intensity sharpening Makoto's eyes can be found in the saiyan's own, along with a kind of glee that's borderline not-very-sane. Any other words are cut off by the snap-crack emanating from Serori's rib cage, then her nose. Though neither injury stops Serori's defensive writhes and attempts to control the grapple, the way she sucks in breath speaks to her pain, and the blood from her nose quickly streams into her vision and makes it very hard to see. The world gets kind of a red film to it as Serori continues to try and fend off Makoto's blows. Serori arches her hip off the ground, and the momentum abruptly shifts in her favor. Saiyans have an advantage -- an extra limb. That tail Serori's got is incredibly powerful, too. One good thwack could pulverize boulders or knock down ancient redwood giants. In today's application, it becomes the tool for separating Makoto and Serori. The tail winds tight around Makoto's waist, and FLINGS. If that's not enough to separate the fighter, Serori augments the snatch-and-toss with an invisible pulse of ki power that acts like a shockwave. Once she's free, Serori somersaults backwards, kicks back up onto her feet, and tosses a low-powered energy blast in Makoto's direction like an exclamation point to that unspoken 'get offa me.'
Makoto Kato	Makoto breaking off from the pin was already planned - she had been backing off - but Serori wanted to make double sure she had been gone. Makoto, for her intuition, had written off the tail as a vestigal appendage. When she's tossed in the air by it, she has to refigure her entire strategy. Sometime between being tossed into the air and landing on her back again, her entire body erupting in searing pain from her smashed insides and ground-raw back. She kips back up all the same, landing in a different stance - a broad horse stance. "Kakarot said that I was strong, for a human. I thought it was a little insulting, at the time." She notes, as those licks of purple power that curled about her like cinders or flames, erupted in a flash. A roar ('uryaah!') of focus, and as the energy blast soared in, a crimson red hand moves to 'grip' the blast, scorching and burning at her now much more 'charged' skin. The smoke and kicked up dirt and dust clears, revealing a 'transformed' Makoto, her weak purple aura still fluttering about her as she stands there with a smoking hand. "Do you have a golden form, too?" She asks, 'seething' slightly with her words. The intensity there in her eyes seems to have only increased as she entered her second state. As she leaps off, the ground spills backwards in her wake, her shallow arc twirling into a flash kick, harbinged by another purple flash as ki erupts along the heel of her axe kick. Simple, direct, no-nonsense. Makoto is not a tricky fighter.
Serori	"Most humans I've worked beside and battled against are on a level or two above their peers. Looking at you, I'd say you're no ordinary human, yourself." Serori drags her left foot through a semicircle until it's planted forward of her body's center. The pressure exerted through her toes digs a shallow furrow into the arena floor. Any plan to spring after Makoto is thwarted by the purple aura's sudden existence. Serori eases back again, cautious now that Makoto's revealed another aspect of her power. "A golden form? Super Saiyan. I do!" The saiyan hops back two feet as Makoto leaps forward trailing pale blue ribbons; it's not an evasive action, however. Serori lands hard and digs her heel into the thick thigh-high grasses. Offering superior traction over bare earth, the grass allows Serori to better brace herself against Makoto's oncoming kicks. The first kick crashes down to meet Serori's steel-like forearms; the saiyan yells out in surprise and pain as the kick blows her defenses apart. In slow motion, the second kick comes crashing down. Serori's stance sinks, knees bending. Power whips around her feet in a sudden vortex to flatten the grasses she stands among. Golden light starts to lick up her body like flickering, half-seen fire. Gusting winds whip at her black hair. Serori brings her forearms up again, and lets out another shout, a more furious cry that echoes across the Field. As Makoto's leg crashes into Serori a second time, the saiyans transforms, empowering her body in a powerful rush. The impact between purple aura and gold results in a loosed blast, energy rushing out in all directions. The closest boulders are uprooted and fractured. The opposite end of the ring shudders, too, and the boulders go cockeyed. Sure, Serori ends up flat on her ass and out of breath, but her bright emerald eyes still shine with joy.
Makoto Kato	The crash, the clash, and the explosive meeting of auras sends Makoto sailing. Serori is the more powerful of the two, unleashed, and throws her counterpart clear into the surrounding boulders with a sickening crack of meat and the resounding crack of stone. Makoto falls to the ground, insensate for a few moments. Then she draws herself up with her hands and feet, clawing at the ground, as her purple aura gutters around her. "Super Saiyan. Simple. And powerful." She groans, moving up to a kneeling posture, then wobbily to her feet. "This is the Tanden Renki - a refinement of internal chi. And this..." She draws back, exhaling a breath as something like hate fills her eyes. "Has no name." She explodes outward with purple flames, now bleeding off of every part of her body, as if she un-dam'ed a great waterfall. Something internal, some block, was released. And it was, sheerly, pure killing intent. The energy of hard competition, of clawing for victory, of destroying ones opponent. The 'Dark Hadou' poured off Makoto as the sclera of her eyes leeched out into black surrounding the now-icy blues of her eyes (which were once brown). She takes her stance with a slam of an injured foot, and a straightforward charge that blurs into a low weave towards Serori, before leading with her elbows and knees, moving to get her hands around Serori's neck and choke her briefly. Not chokeslam, not choke out, just stun long enough for what she had planned next. She had to go all out now. That golden power meant she was finally outmatched.
Serori	Makoto becomes hateful. Serori becomes exultant. To be Super Saiyan is to embrace all saiyan traits to the maximum degree. Cruelty, rage, and bloodthirst become second nature instead of momentary temperamental indulgences. Joy for the fight becomes an overwhelming euphoria. Pain and weakness are forgotten. As her physical strength reaches new heights, so does her mental and emotional investment. It's like the floodgates have been opened. Power pours through her body with the same heart-stopping ferocity. The energy crackling around Serori's form is brighter and more dangerous. The light dancing inside her glare is comparable to a bonfire's heart. She is as powerful as she is proud. And no mere /choke/ is going to slow Serori down! Makoto's Dark Hadou has no trouble punching past Serori's defenses; the Super Saiyan, reckless, permits the purple-wreathed warrior to get too close. "What kind of power is that?!" Half-incredulous, half-awestruck, Serori laughs. Teeth flashing in a snarly grin, she reaches forward to ball her hand up in the front of Makoto's shirt as Makoto's hands close around her throat and start to squeeze. The breath feeding her wicked glee is cut off; her laughter dies on a squeak. Serori's eyes start to water. Capillaries pop out in the whites of her eyes, giving her glare a bloodshot intensity. Serori tugs Makoto closer. Serori starts to pummel the Street Fighter's stomach. Once, twice, three times, her fist slams in hard and fast, delivering merciless blows in a test of Makoto's resilience. If she can resist the pain and hold on, maybe she'll get to do what she wants. If it's too much, though... If it's too much, if Makoto falls, it's Serori who'll go for the kill.