Me and Andrea made it to the platform. We stood ten feet apart, locked in each others glare. The only word we were waiting for from Papria was "begin", and then her voice would no longer be of any meaning. I scanned Andrea, Andrea scanned me. I had already decided that I would use my speed as an asset this battle and overpower her with quick physical assaults, but I also had to remember Andrea's great physical attack strength. One powerful blow could leave me stunned and wide open.
"Okay fighters! Ready? Begin!"
I flew forward, leaving the rest of the world behind me. The world I was in now only contained two beings; myself and my opponent Andrea. Nothing else mattered.
My body soared at breakneck speed towards Andrea, and I noticed amazingly that she had accepted my joust and was already flying straight towards me. I was moving faster, no doubt, but Andrea was heavier and probably boasted greater defense than I did. Still, the impact could hurt us both considerably, but it wasn't worth it.
Originally my body was aimed towards her head first. I was going to fly forward and nail her with Rocket Punch, but I could see now I wouldn't get the chance. So instead I switched from head-first charge to feet-first charge.
The change threw off Andrea a little, but she was ready. The distance between us closed within half a second, and when I impacted I could feel that my kick hadn't landed the way I wanted it to.
Actually, it didn't land at all.
Somehow, Andrea caught my legs. And the impact of our bodies slowed us both down to a stop. But Andrea wasn't going to let me get the chance to break free.
Andrea flapped and lifted me high into the air, swung me around, and threw me hard. I was flying headfirst towards the ground and my wings were useless to stop my momentum.
Masterfully, I extended my right hand in front of me and began to charge a Pyrosphere. When I got within five feet of the ground I fired, praying I had timed the attack correctly.
The attack detonated into the ground and blew outwards with force. As I had anticipated, the force of the explosion slowed my fall enough for me to land safely onto the ground. I ended up in the crater I had created, staggering to get up.
Without even having the chance to recover my balance fully, I heard her above me diving down with incredible speed. I was forced to jump blindly to the right away from the edge of the platform as I saw Andrea a split second later swooping past and raking the area I stood in only moments before. But now I had a free shot.
I lifted my hand again and fired Pyrosphere. Andrea was still ground-level in the air because she never got the chance yet to rise back into the air. And unfortunately for her, there was no way she was going to be able to dodge my attack in time.
Amazingly, Andrea spun around to meet the new opposition, anticipating my move. How was she doing this?
With one backhanded blow, she smacked away Pyrosphere. Just smacked it away. It flew up and hit the audience shield with a loud boom. I stood there, calculating my next maneuver. Andrea landed daintily on her feet instead of rising back into the air, and I could tell she was also trying to figure out what she would do next, too.
Our eyes locked again. I could feel her determination to beat me flowing out of every corner of her body; she stood tall and confident, ready for anything. I was only playing games right now, though. I didn't want to boost to maximum until I was positively sure I needed to. Of course, it was also possible that Andrea had been playing with me, too. I would find out soon enough.
After a few moments I decided that land would be my vantage point; after all, Andrea seemed most capable while in the air. On the ground I had excellent speed and great maneuverability. In the air, however, it was apparent that Andrea had the greater speed. With one tremendous burst I leaped clear across the ground towards her, making it all the way up to her with one stride. As I expected, she immediately took straight off into the air, attempting to avoid my direct physical assault, but I was ready because a direct physical assault wasn't my intention. I stopped on a dime and jumped straight up, flying past Andrea in the air. Then with both hands folded across the other, I bore down my fists on her head like a sledgehammer.
The maneuver surprised Andrea quite a bit, but she was still able to block my attack with her right arm. There was a loud impact, and Andrea flinched with pain. I knew then that I had hurt her arm pretty badly, but I also was smart enough to know it was still plenty usable. With that attack blocked, I immediately switched to plan B and kicked hard with my left leg, attempting to deliver a powerful kick to her face. But she was ready for that, too, and she blocked that assault with her left hand. I could feel that she was attempting to toss me again like she had before, but it was I this time who had the most leverage on the other. Now with no other appendages to protect her, I lashed out with my powerful right leg, saving the best for last. The blow caught her full force in the face, and she plummeted down right to where I wanted her; the ground.
Andrea landed on her back with a loud thud, and I landed like a cat silently onto my feet. As soon as I landed, though, Andrea was already on her way back up onto her feet. I was impressed. She just took a direct blow to the face and fell from about ten feet in the air and she was shaking it off like it was nothing. She was a real trooper, all right; her face wasn't even bleeding in the slightest.
I applauded Andrea's endurance, but there was no way I could afford to let her get her advantage back. With one pulsating blast I fired another Pyrosphere directly at her, and she had to hold her ground and deflect it instead of flying safely back into the air. But as soon as she got rid of that problem there was one trailing along right behind it. I had jetted towards her right behind my own Pyrosphere so that I would be fully ready to take advantage of her completely open defense. Andrea didn't see that one coming in time, and she had no time to block my attack or brace for impact.
I unleashed a flurry of blows upon her, striking nearly every area of her midsection. She was trying desperately to stop my assault, I could see it in her eyes, but with every hit sending a paralyzing spasm through her whole body she was unable to.
After bashing her insides in enough I charged back my fist and powered a Spiking Strike attack, an attack that focuses energy power into a single point and fires. Spiking Strike for me is unleashed straight through my fist.
My fist launched forward with tremendous power. There was no way she would be able to block my attack with her hands or arms so I was pretty much --
"Stop Wind!" Andrea yelled.
-- home free?
Andrea flashed her wings towards me with incredible force. I was confused; she certainly couldn't hit me with her wings from this distance. But that's when I noticed that my body nor my fist were moving any closer towards her. Of course! The wind was so powerful it stopped me in my tracks.
Andrea moved blindingly quick from the range of my attack just as I was released from the powerful wind. I hit absolutely nothing but air, and I felt that Andrea had appeared to the right of me, the part of my body that was now caught off guard.
Andrea clenched my arm with her powerful hands. The talons bit down hard, and I could tell she was planning to hurl me. I made a note to myself to ask Andrea afterwards why she liked throwing people so much.
But I wasn't about ready to let her do that to me again. Using the spin of my unsuccessful attack, I used that momentum to grab the back of her hair with my left hand. Awkwardly, we now both had hold of each other. Andrea couldn't throw me because I was at a terrible angle, and the only thing I could do was hold on until an opportunity presented itself.
We must have looked like idiots as we stood there, straining against the other's grip. She still tightly gripped my arm, and I still gripped her hair with my left hand. Then, like a feathery bullwhip, I saw her left wing spread out, whip around, and strike me hard on the hand restricting her hair. The pain hurt tremendously, and I marveled at how strong Andrea's wings were. I couldn't take another blow like that, but if I let go I would be taking some major damage if she hurtled me. But then I had an idea.
Andrea's left wing arched up and over and slashed towards my hand again, but this time I let go of her hair and attached that hand right onto her wing. I gripped tightly, holding her wing in place, keeping perfect alignment with the ground as to not lose balance. In reflex action, Andrea began to flail with her wings, and somehow, someway, through some strange flow of movement, we both threw each other, my grip and her grip torn from each other with force.
I managed to skid away into an attacking stance, but Andrea didn't adapt well to the throw. Ground wasn't exactly her specialty when it came to tactical fighting, so as long as she was there, I had a pretty good advantage. Without hesitation I struck out at her again, speeding my body across the ground like a bullet. As I leaped forward to deliver a powerful kick, Andrea had already recovered enough balance to stop my attack effectively this time. While blocking my blow with one hand, she swung a powerful, massive sized right arm at my face. Because of my angle I couldn't dodge, and the blow connected solidly, sending shattering signals of pain throughout my head. My vision warped slightly, then returned to normal, but I was beginning to feel really dizzy. Andrea's punches packed one hell of a punch, that was for certain. I couldn't afford to get hit by that too many times.
That's when Andrea landed a second one on me.
I was so dizzy from the first blow I couldn't even see the second one connecting with the other side of my face. This time she used her left arm, which I was beginning to feel was her more dominant arm. The pain was shockingly more intense this time, and I flew back at least five feet, landing with a thud on my backside.
I lay there for a few seconds, and I could tell that Papria was beginning to start the count. After a few seconds I felt fine. Any damage she had caused to my head at all from those assaults had already regenerated. The plus side of this was that Andrea did not know I could heal so quickly, so if I did decide that I would get up, Andrea would be expecting a weakened opponent. I would use that deception.
I got up, slowly, as if I was still in pain. My head did still throb a little, but nowhere near the intensity as when the blows first connected. Then without warning, I jumped up and charged right at her with Spiking Strike.
Andrea was stunned, then took an immediate defensive stance; there was no time for her to pinpoint my attack for a definite block. My attack struck right where her arms crossed in defensive stance. She slid back several inches, holding her stance, but painfully. I wasted no time and began to barrage her with rocket punches, the first three hitting consecutively and the rest of them, barely, being blocked. Andrea was good on offensive and defensive, and amazing at speed in the air, but on the ground she was just a downgraded version of me. She could block all she wanted, but I was much faster and could easily wear down her defenses in relatively little time. A few times she got cocky and tried to deflect one of my rocket punches by diverting it with another one I was firing with the other hand, and then she would try to smack me around with her superior upper arm strength. But I would always dodge just out of range and swarm her again before she retreated back into the air.
I dashed, punched, was blocked, punched again, was also blocked, wind blast from the wings held me stable for a second or so but I was beginning to adapt, attempted claw slash from behind, dashed to the left to avoid and then began to go back and pummel at her again, with her struggling to keep up all the while.
Then she pulled something fancy.
Her defense was gone; she could no longer hold up against my assault. She began to wince when I landed another Rocket Punch blow on her, even though she blocked, and the next one sent her toppling over. I was preparing to finish this battle when I saw her wings expand to maximum size.
"FALCON FLASH!"
The wings exploded with tremendous force.
I was blown back. Way back. In fact, I had to smash my fingers into the solid platform to avoid sliding off. Pain racked my body, and when I looked down at myself I saw to my amazement that some of Andrea's feathers were actually embedded into my skin. The bases were syringe needle sharp, and every time I moved it felt like tiny pin-needle points of pain jammed their way through my body, over and over again. Andrea hovered in the air, fatigued, sweating; just plain exhausted. Understandable. I realized dismally that I was only standing about a couple of inches away from the edge of the platform. The slightest force could send me toppling off.
I also noticed dismally that Andrea seemed to have the same idea in mind.
"This has been an amazing match," Andrea called out to me from above. She was pointing two fingers at me, aiming an energy attack. "Normally this really isn't my style, but I don't have enough strength left to come down there to attack you and I can't be certain as to how damaged you really are right now. So I guess this is the way that it will end."
I verified that she was using the White Laser attack, a simple chi move.
"What makes you think that I'm just gonna sit here and let you hit me?" I asked her, staring her straight in the eye.
"Well... it may have something to do with the fact that you can't move." Andrea responded.
I was about to show her just how much I couldn't move when I realized, humorously, that that's exactly what I did; I showed her just how much I couldn't move. Because for some odd reason, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't manage to move any appendage of my body more than an inch or so. I was confused, perplexed, but then I understood.
"Harpium feathers contain a very potent chemical," Andrea explained. "It's designed to paralyze upon contact. A very effective self-defense mechanism."
I looked back down at myself and cursed myself for being so careless. Even still, it was a maneuver I couldn't have suspected. I looked back down to where the feathers had penetrated. It was clear that the bio-chemical responsible for my paralysis was released through the quill of the feather. Of course, that was information that was not currently helping me.
I thought desperately of a plan. I could try to power up like I did in the holloluse, but I wasn't sure if it would eradicate the effects of the toxin in time. Another reason, deep in the back of my mind, was that I wanted to see if I could finish this without powering up. But if that was what I wanted to do I had to think quickly of an alternative.
Andrea was charging the laser even more. Evidently it was clear she wouldn't be satisfied--nor would she be completely sure of-- shooting me with a low powered attack. I had to think of something to do. A Pyrosphere idea popped into my head, but I disregarded it; she still had use of her other hand and could easily block my attack and continue to charge.
Hyper Beam!
No, too long. About time I got that attack actually ready to launch I would be knocked out of the ring already. I needed something quicker, but at the same time powerful enough to overcome even Andrea's defense. But even at my power level I did not have a wide range of attacks at my disposal.
Then a crazy idea came to me.
I started to think about my MegaFlare, even though I knew it was only a multiple version of my Pyrosphere. A rapid fire Pyrosphere burst would still be ineffective, and a wide range collision MegaFlare most likely wouldn't work, either. But what if I synced them all up? Combining all of the individual Pyrospheres in my MegaFlare attack could be powerful enough to take Andrea down. But did I have enough time?
I wasted no time; I charged immediately. But as soon as I got it half power (which took maybe two seconds), Andrea already fired. But I wasn't ready yet!
With my body powering, I had no choice but to fire a Pyrosphere to deflect the attack, while I was charging MegaFlare. I could feel the energy reserves in my body plummeting already, because I was already using most of my energy to maintain my posture fighting the toxin, some of my energy charging MegaFlare, and some more to deflect White Laser.
The sphere flew up and impacted White Laser with a loud boom. Andrea wasn't surprised though; she was already charging another, this time with more rapid succession. This White Laser was being charged much more quickly with the same amount of power. Andrea was desperate, I could tell. She wasn't big with energy attacks, and using the attack like this over and over again was putting more of a toll on her body than me.
But now it didn't matter anymore. My attack was ready.
"MegaFlare!" I yelled, just to sound cool, I suppose. I couldn't spread my hands in the stance that I would usually do, though, but as long as the attack served it's purpose I couldn't have been any happier.
Andrea was ready to block with her dominant left hand, still charging White Laser with her right. And that's when I managed to surprise her.
I fired the attack in a spread-fire style, fanning the spheres of energy out to all collide at a dead center point at Andrea's body. Or at least, that would have been a normal tactic for this type of attack. But I was planning for the spheres to collide before they actually hit Andrea. Confused? I know.
So was Andrea.
The spheres impacted a long ways away from her. After looking in confusion, her confidence immediately bolstered again; I could tell she figured my attack failed because of the paralysis. Then her mistake came; she dropped her guard and lowered her blocking hand, steadying herself for a final White Laser assault.
But the attack hadn't failed at all.
The spheres collided, but did not detonate and disperse. Instead, with the angle that they hit at and at the speed they were going, they simply partially fused into one attack and continued to power their way through the air towards her.
Andrea realized her mistake too late; she had already dropped her defensive stance and did not have enough time to try to prepare for a defense again. Had this been the beginning of the match, she would have been able to avoid the attack with ease, even if she didn't have enough time to put up any sort of defense. But now, in her weakened condition, she no longer had the energy left to flit or dodge away.
Andrea tried one last ditch attempt to screw up my plan by firing White Laser point blank into the combined MegaFlare, hoping to disperse or reduce the damage. It was going to cause a pretty severe amount of damage anyway; the attack was already literally on top of her. But I couldn't afford to let her escape the full blast. She could easily catch me off guard after the explosion if she made it through and knock me straight out of bounds. I couldn't let that happen; I was not going to lose because of lack of forethought.
Using the power of my mind guiding the attack, I forced the flare spheres to detonate immediately.
Without actually hitting her, the MegaFlare attack exploded with force directly in front of Andrea. Her body wracked in the air as if it were hit by a giant shockwave; the White Laser attack fired off aimlessly into the air and hit the safety shield with hardly any noise at all. Her body seemed to hang in the air, slowly preparing to plummet to the ground.
But it wasn't finished yet.
I struggled to bring my hands together. The paralysis was wearing off a little; I could sense that in a way my body was fighting to create some immunity to it. I needed to hit her one more time; I needed to get Andrea out of bounds. I knew in my heart Andrea was not defeated yet. She could take some hits, that's for sure. And although she was definitely going to hit the ground at tremendous force, she wasn't staying down for the ten count. I would still be stuck here, trying to move, and with one last burst of energy Andrea would be able to easily overtake me.
I needed to push her out of the ring. She had no strength left to stop her fall, so if I could do that, this match was mine.
I managed to bring my hands together, but I already felt energy fatigued. I didn't know if I could pull of my Pryobeam; a move I was neglecting this tournament because it took more power than the Pyrosphere. But I needed it know more than anything. Andrea was already descending faster to the ground; if she hit before I pulled my attack off everything I was attempting up to this point was useless.
I could feel the energy welling up in my palms through my arms. It's amazing to be able to actually feel the cells in your body alive with the energy emit so much power. I could feel high degree temperatures soaring up from my body, ready to incinerate anything around me. But I needed control now. Control into a single, continuous beam.
I fired the Pyrobeam.
With shocking force, the attack erupted from my palms like a river of burning fire. In a spectacular beam, it lanced through the air and impacted Andrea's right side, sending her spinning and flipping through the air like a propellor. It didn't hit directly, but it was enough. Andrea flew straight out of the ring and landed with a thud right outside onto the ground. The cement on the ground ruptured slightly; Andrea had hit the ground back-first at tremendous speed. I relaxed my arms, feeling exhausted. Victory was mine. And I was very satisfied with the outcome; it proved that I was powerful enough to participate in this tournament without going full-force just yet. It was only the second round for me and already it had taken a toll on my body. I could only imagine what the next few matches would have in store for me.
"Andrea has fallen out of the ring!" Papria called out. Already medical staff were rushing to Andrea, seeing if she required any attention. "The winner of this match is Amarene!"
My body was finally beginning to douse the paralysis Andrea had placed on my body. With a little difficulty, I hopped out of the ring, landing on the ground below. Andrea had no more strength left to even stand up; medical staff had her on a stretcher. As they rolled by me, I looked at Andrea, looking to see if she was okay. Although we had been opponents, I still didn't want it to be that I had actually caused any severe damage to her.
I saw Andrea look up at me from the stretcher. Surprisingly, she was smiling.
"You... you held back." she said with a grin. I grinned back at her; it was an awesome match and we both knew it. I just hoped she wasn't mad at me because I did hold back; she was right, I didn't go max for this battle.
Then again it was possible that she held back, too.
"The next match will begin in two minutes!" Papria called. "Are you ready?"