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Description: To debut the opening of the new Beach Selena, which sits on the western coast of the GTB plot of land, Midus has decided to host the second round of the tournament in this lovely place. The sun is shining brightly as the warm breeze blows gentle waves along the clear crystal waters. Boats, surfers, and ski boats trail the waters as a large crowd of spectators gather around a single large wooden platform situated out in the middle of the water. This platform will serve as the fighting ground for both fighters as they are transported out here, either via boat or by their own creative method. The platform itself is made of wood, but contains a solid slab of stone underneath it that is four feet tall meant to keep the platform from being destroyed. Though you may think you can destroy rock with your attacks, this stone is extra tough, meaning knocking chunks out of it will be your only capability, so don't expect to punch any holes through it.

Field Measurements: The platform is a square shape, with the distance measured from one side to the other merely 15 yards, which equates to 45 feet. You won't be able to run around this thing as freely as the last arena. The platform is raised a foot above water, so if you fall off, you can still simply climb back on. The platform is rooted underneath with a four pillars of the same stone at each corner, so it will always remain stationary. The pillars are ten feet long each (and quite wide), touching the sandy floor underneath.

Ten Count Boundary: Falling into the water begins the ten count. If the other fighter goes into the water, too, or makes contact with the fighter in count-out in any way, the count resets. This does not apply if both fighters are in the water. Only when a fighter has both feet on the platform does the count stop for them.

The flying rule remains in effect.

Other Penalties: Do not attack spectators or attempt to destroy the platform's rooting underwater. Doing so will result in a DQ.

Fight Ends: On July 9th, at 9 PM Central.

The steady thrum of the cutter's engine provided an undercurrent noise to the sound of the boat's keel scything through the waves, the water lapping at the hull as it passed. A mustached man drove the boat, while the larger, black-leather-garbed form of Shinji's opponent sat in the back, stretched out across the seating.

"Why are they always changing the location? It's really a pain in the a**, eh?" the boat's pilot called back as he steered the motorboat towards the designated platform, where they could see that Deitric's opponent had already arrived. Another boat trailed behind the first, with what looked to be a camera crew along for the ride.

"Just a bit," the tribesman responded, but his mind was elsewhere, as were his eyes. Deitric was peering down into the dark water around the boat. He felt calm and looked the part; a few years of guerrilla warfare had bled the nerves from him, leaving his psyche hardened and safe from any pre-fight jitters.

Deep in thought, he considered the previous round, having watched himself fight on television more than once. He hadn't suffered a terrible amount of damage at the hands of his opponent, indeed, he felt that much of the pain (and subsequent healing) he had to go through had been self-inflicted. Something about the fight displeased him, but he couldn't discern what that something was.

The sleek cutter began to slow, its engine sputtering and becoming silent when the pilot killed it, letting the boat's momentum carry it forward until they had almost reached the platform. The anchor splashed into the water, rope spooling out until it caught on something in the depths, stalling the boat to a stop a few feet short of the platform's edge.

The brave stood up on the rocking vessel and jumped across the small distance between the boat and the platform, managing to land on the platform without falling back into the water. Just like the previous round, the dark-skinned tribesman was dressed in black denim and leather - boots, jeans, and a tight fitting leather jacket that had been zipped and strapped closed. Someone had apparently attacked his clothing with the inventory of a piercing salon; enough silvery spikes, studs, and bolts were embedded across and into the leather to make any old school London punk proud. As always - the occasional fireball-induced haircut notwithstanding - his hair was shoulder length and worn freely.

The tribesman was armed, that much was clear - twin tomahawks sat in what looked like modified pistol holsters, and a small, hand-held, ball-headed club of some sort was between the two belts he wore just behind one of the tomahawks. He looked over at his opponent, but didn't immediately move to take up arms. He just scuffed his boot against the wood, as if to make sure it was sturdy.

"You don't have any weapons?" he asked curiously, his arms crossed loosely over his broad chest, which was about as much of a greeting as one could manage from the fighter. He gave a nod of his head towards the pack of what Deitric only assumed to be supplies that Shinji had brought with him, as if asking if his opponent had anything in the bag he would fight with.

Deitric made a "tch" sound and shrugged. His gloved hands reached down, pulling free his tomahawks. Instead of throwing them at his opponent, he threw them aside. Both weapons flew to opposite sides of the platform, the gleaming axeheads biting into the hulls of two different boats.

THOCK - THOCK - CLUNK

And were quickly joined by his war club, when he threw behind him, the club landing with a dull, metallic thud in the boat he had rode in on. For all intents and purposes, Deitric had just disarmed himself of any visible weapons he might have had, for whatever reason.

"Fair enough," he said with unnerving casualness. It was astoundingly rare for the tribesman to ever put his weapons to use anyways; outside of chopping off a hand, tomahawk fighting tended to be fairly brutal, and most often fatal to the losing participant. If his opponent hadn't brought any weapons, he didn't see the need to bother with his own anyways. That much was only fair, after all.

If you don't want to fight, that's OK with me, man.

Deitric laughed, reaching up to take off the opaque sunglasses that had been hiding his eyes, shaking his head as he tucked them away into some pocket or another on his jacket. The sound was short-lived, but a grin tugged at the dark-haired fighter's lips afterward while he spoke.

"You must not know who I am. That's good, though," he retorted, almost light-heartedly. In many fights, he had been recognized, and that always lead to challenges, expectations, things the fighter felt only got in the way. An opponent who had no idea who he was would be a much more honest one, an idea he thoroughly enjoyed.

"Sure," he smiled, the color of his eyes fading in the sunlight to a hazy whiteness, "Let's get started."

The brave and his opponent appeared to be roughly the same size - both were within an inch's height of each other, and Deitric's boots made their height nearly identical. With his close-fit clothing, and his opponent's rather lack thereof, Deitric only seemed to be a little bit more heavily muscled than Shinji.

The tribesman walked toward his opponent, raising his left hand out the air in front of him, his fingers straight and splayed towards his opponent as if he were going to sling some sort of spell or magical attack at him. Nothing deadly or pernicious flew from the outstretched palm. It was just a hand.

It seemed as though the tribesman was challenging his similarly-built opponent to a game of mercy, of all things - where two people locked hands and squeezed, trying to force the other to concede when the pain proved to be much. His other hand hung at his waist, but from the slight bend at his arm and the way it was clenched into a fist, he was ready to defend himself.

It was a strange game Deitric played, and whatever notion or agenda drove him to - by all appearances - leave himself relatively unguarded in order to challenge his opponent to what amounted to a game of ego was obscured behind the hint of a grin and glowering eyes that served as a mask all the same as his stoicism had in the past.

Let's play.

Well, this isn't quite as bad as I had thought... the monk would ponder to himself. He maintained his grip, rather effortlessly for now, his own hands having been strengthened through countless hours of training, toughened against harm and pain by being constantly exposed to it. The life of a monk was a simple one, for sure, but the harrows of training one's mind and body to the peak of perfection carries benefits at the cost of much pain and anguish. A young Shinji would have been accustomed to striking hard wooden boards, and eventually stone slabs, until his fingers and knuckles bled as the skin was gradually ground away. Such training wouldn't directly prepare him for this particular challenge, not entirely, but hand and finger strength were things he had actually put some considerable amount of effort into. Martial artists of his particular discipline, or disciplines rather, used the fingers as well as the fists to dole out damage. That being the case, fingers and hands were trained in the aforementioned manner to create sturdy, toughened extremities. Countless microfractures in every facet of the finger bones would heal in time, and each time they healed they would achieve a new level of toughness as the newly recovered finger bone bore a meager excess of new bone. In this way, Shinji's hands were both dulled to pain and strengthened against harm. Of course, not supernaturally so, or it would have been listed as some sort of special ability or technique. No, his fingers were simply strengthened by way of his lifestyle, a minor advantage, but one he used now to remain resolute in his opponent's game. Though he couldn't be sure, the monk figured that his opponent, this tribesman, hadn't endured the same finger and hand training that he had, and in that regard the monk had an advantage. His opponent was relying on brute force and his ability to ignore pain, whereas the monk had actually trained his fingers and hands to achieve new levels of strength and toughness. He needed to put fourth little effort in this game, for now, toughened hands held firm against the pressure his opponent applied steadily, while the monk applied pressure of his own.

Shinji retained his usual mellow gaze, if he felt anywhere outside his comfort zone, he wouldn't' show it either. Pain was a side-effect of his training, something he had learned to live with. For now, this minor level of pain-tolerance would be his best bet for surviving in this game. Therefore, the monk would continue to meet the strength and pressure of his opponent, never seeking to outdo him in this regard, but always providing a stalwart resistance to his opponent's efforts.

"I suppose we should be punching each other in the gut right now, huh? Or headbutting one another 'till one of us keels over, right?"

The phrase "keel over" would be a bit of a exaggeration, since if either of the combatants were to die his opposite would win the match. Regardless, Shinji figured sooner or later he would have to give a punch or take a punch. This fight was slowly ascending beyond a contest of strength and pain-tolerance. The men seemed evenly matched, and something would have to change with one or both of them, in order for the fight to progress beyond this stage.

The monk paused, then, for a moment.

"The crowd must not be enjoying this as much as you are, friend-o..."

Though he had never really fought to entertain a crowd before, the monk felt somewhat obliged to do so, to do something. Therefore he resolved in his head that if this stalemate persisted, he would do something about it. He wasn't sure what. But he'd figure something.

"Well ********, I didn't want to have to do this, friend-o. You seem like a nice enough guy..." the monk would grumble under duress as his opponent strengthened his grip. Still smiling, though visibly strained now as his opponent's vice-like grip shifted the balance of the game in his favor, The quip about the tribesman being a nice enough guy was seemingly a bit of a joke, which the monk managed to sneak in at his own peril, even as his hand was threatened to be crushed. Even at this juncture, as his opponent enhanced his strength, the monk maintained his small, coy smile.

In response to the brave's strength enhancement, the monk would figure a way to do the same. The tribesman would find that as he applied further strength to his own vice-like grip, his opponent's grip would similarly increase in strength and force. It were as if Shinji's strength grew to match that of his opponent, regardless of the amount of superhuman strength the tribesman poured into the effort. Unbeknown to Deitric, metaphysical energies within the monk had begun to manifest and surge fourth, empowering his body with a healthy dose of chakra, which flooded fourth from the expansive Chakra Circulatory System of his body, which had been trained specifically for this purpose. While the chakra, composed of equal parts physical and spiritual energy, was formed within and then disseminated out throughout his entire body, the focus of the metaphysical energy would eventually emerge to be the hands of the monk, the left in particular. This upwelling in internal energy would be invisible outwardly, to his opponent, unless he possessed an ability to perceive metaphysical energies such as ki and chakra. Without such special sight, the tribesman would find that his opponent, this monk, had inexplicably found such strength to match his own.

Shinji would maintain his smile, as he now chose to implement the gathered chakra to preform a simple but particularly potent technique:

Deitric would find that as he attempted to crush Shinji's hand, that the monk's fingers and hand now possessed such strength and durability as iron, making them highly-resistant to even his strength-enhanced efforts to crush them under pressure. A handy trick, given that the iron-strong fingers created by this technique are generally used as support for the motion of punching through an opponent's body. Here and now, the iron-strong enhancement was to be used simply as a form of armor, or defense, making Shinji's hand supernaturally tough, now, and allowing him to relax his grip and focus his strength elsewhere, for as his opponent did battle with the literally iron grip of the monk, Shinji would focus now on the leverage his opponent was trying to gain by bending his wrist.

"I suppose we should get serious now, huh?" the monk would grumble once again, his voice retaining that mellow, lazy undertone which seemed entirely unfazed by the current situation. Although his hand had suffered minor damages, his timely use of chakra and technique had saved him from further harm. Now, he and his opponent would be locked in stalemate, as long as Deitric was unable to crush iron with his finger-strength, Shinji's hand was safe.

The phrase, "get serious now" would resonate, because as they were spoken the monk's free right hand would suddenly lurch forward, fingers all neatly lined up to create a spearing motion with his hand. He was fueled by chakra, whereas his opponent was fueled by his CNS enhancement technique, and so the effectiveness of this jab would be up in the air, though Shinji figured he would have a small advantage now, because simultaneous to his right hand extending outward with surprising, Bruce Lee "one-inch punch" speed, his iron left hand now sought to turn the tides on his opponent. The monk would take a step back with his leaf left leg, creating some small amount of space between the opponents, before tugging with his left hand upon his opponent, utilizing what superhuman strength he could muster to yank his opponent forward. If he didn't fall, perhaps he would falter, and in such an instance, the monk's attack might find the time to sneak in successfully. The overall effect would be, hopefully, that the sudden forward tug coupled with the rapid extension of the spearing, Iron Finger attack would be sufficient to pull the tribesman off balance and directly into the monk's extending hand, which was directed to pierce the brave's chest on the right side, opposite his heart.

The spearing hand possessed reinforced, iron-strong fingers to support the piercing blade of chakra energy which surrounded and encompassed the hand. Though the chakra would be invisible, unless his opponent possessed such a technique as to view the metaphysical energy, the effect of the physical/spiritual energy combination would be felt with great effect. The chakra would, in theory, pierce leather, cloth and flesh in a rapid, piston-like jab which would be enhanced if the brave were indeed tugged forward and off balance. If he fell completely forward, Shinji's hand would have a great chance of piercing the chest of his opponent, opposite his heart, but still able to dole out a significant amount of damage.

If this attack were successful, the brave would be hurting.

"Let's call 'yer game a draw and settle this the right way."

An interesting turn of events, to say the least. Both men seemed to be thinking in a similar manner, as each lashed out at the other there was little time for any manner of thought or planning. With each man's left hand well out of the way, the exchange of right hands would be particularly hard for either man to avoid. And, in that regard, each man was successful. To a certain degree.

As his hand landed undeterred against his opponent's chest, Shinji smiled. "Well, that was easy, I gue-" The monk's thought process was interrupted, rather abruptly, by the forceful right hook of his opponent. "FFFFFFF-"

The monk would suffer considerable damage, but perhaps less than what his opponent had anticipated, or planned for. Shinji would stumble to his right, following the momentum of the crushing hook he would roll with the blow as best he could, taking a long step out to the left in an attempt to both brace himself, preventing his body from being flimsily tossed aside, while also giving him some leeway with his pseudo-dodge. As far as preventing himself from falling, he still had his hold on his opponent, and therefore the chances of him literally flying away with the force of the punch were rather slim. His widened stance allowed him to take the impact without tumbling off balance, his face and head would crack back and down along with the direction of the punch, but by moving his head in that same direction at the same time, he rolled with the strike to prevent too much harm. That being said, he was just punched in the face by his more muscle-bound opponent, and therefore, he was in pain.

In effect, each man's attack had proven somewhat less severe than either man had anticipated. Shinji's fingers had failed to pierce his opponent, entirely, and by subtly moving in the direction of his opponent's punch, Shinji had negated the most significant amount of damage the brave could dole out. For now, at least. At the moment, each man stood not completely unfazed, but still well enough for the fight to continue.

Leaving his right hand exactly where it was, somewhat embedded in the brave's chest, the monk wasted no time now, fighting more fluidly now that his regard for the brave's little game had diminished. While his left hand remained locked in a stalemate with his opponent's own hand, the monk's right hand would likewise remain in its position, fingers dug partway into his opponent's chest, following the limited success of his initial Iron Finger. The knife-hand would be retracted, but so subtly and on such a minute scale that it would be near-impossible to note. The fingers moved to rest directly against his opponent's chest, rather than in the small indent in his armor. From there, a mere split- second later, the monk would utilize that same chakra, called fourth from within once again, and force it outward through the focus-point of that right hand, the palm in particular. He had now, in effect, utilized a variation of that famous one-inch punch, using a palm strike rather than his fist. However, this was no simple palm strike. Switching from the knife-hand to the palm-strike within that short one inch distance would seemingly lack power, but by putting the force of his body weight behind the palm, he could further enhance its power. And then, there was his chakra.

The Iron Finger technique remained active, the monk simply devoting an additional reserve of chakra to keep it active for an additional amount of time. Renewing the Iron Finger and focusing that chakra into his palm, he allowed that palm the limited capability to punch through flesh and, perhaps, dent that armor even further. Although the palm had much more surface area than the finger, and therefore considerably less piercing strength, the monk would couple the palm with an additional, supplementary technique in order to ensure that, if successful, Deitric would most surely feel the force behind it.

Utilizing Uraate, a simple but handy technique used to enhance the force behind a strike, Shinji had further amplified the strength of the simple palm attack. Simply put, any and all force applied to the attack on his part, through his own strength, forward momentum and body weight, as well as his chakra, would all be transmitted directly to the very center or core of his opponent's being. In this way, rather than wasting some of that force in an attempt to "blow through" his armor, all that energy would be transmitted directly to his core, his solar-plexus. If successful, Deitric would suffer the enhanced force of an Iron Finger one-inch palm-strike amplified through chakra and momentum and transmitted using Uraate directly into his very center mass.

If successful, such a blow would resonate through his opponent's body, carrying with it harm to his insides, more than his outsides. Though obviously not enough to dole out any considerable internal organ damage, with the one-inch palm strike not truly able to match up to the force of a true punch, the blow would still hurt. As strong as the brave was in body, he couldn't train his internal organs to resist pain and damage.

This fast, precise infighting was a characteristic of, decidedly, ancient Chinese martial arts, Kung-fu/Wushu in particular. He wasn't sure if this man, Deitric, had ever fought such an opponent, but Shinji was confident that if he remained in close like he was now, those looping power-punches would loose most if not all of their strength. He was, after all, a true martial artist. No Muay Thai or Judo, as it stood now, his chosen fighting was Xinyi Liuhe, or the "Heart and Mind Six Harmonies Style."

This blow would resonate through the rest of the fight, if successful. Shinji was already planning his offensive, and if his opponent should falter, even for a second, he would utilize the full strength of his Xinyi Liuhe training to surge forward and steal the initiative, and perhaps even the fight. As it stood, the monk could find little fault with his attack, his aim, speed and strength were true, and the distance between he and his opponent, not only in inches but also in time between one strike to the next, was quite small. His first spear-hand flowed directly into this second attack, with only a short interval given for his own pseudo-dodge of his opponent's fist. This somewhat more potent blow and the fluid, graceful movement of his Wushu was a sign that the monk was beginning to unravel some of his higher focus, the true strength of an entirely unfettered mind. But, for now, he was simply "going with the flow."

"Let's see if you can maintain that grip now, big guy..." the monk thought to himself, smirking the entire time, while his technique was executed. Though his smirk said, "I got this" the swelling had already begun upon his cheek, a fracture at the very least, while a significant black-eye could be seen already taking hold upon the ever-so subtle dent in the monk's face. Hopefully, the dent in his opponent's chest would be worse. Otherwise, he might come out on the losing end of this exchange.

( Or, in small paragraph form: Shinji stepped out to the side, rolling with the punch as best he could to avoid significant amount of hurt. Keeping the fast pace up, his right knife-hand remained on Deitric's chest, then combo'd into a supercharged one-inch palm strike. That's about it.)

Deitric felt his gloved, metal-capped knuckles smash headlong into his opponent's face, but he had been fighting long enough to understand when someone had or hadn't punched completely flush. He had gotten close though - close enough to considerably 'ugly' up Shinji's smirking face with some bruising and bone cracking.

Despite what it must have seemed, Deitric wasn't quite the brute some of his opponents made him out to be in the past. Some of what he did relied on brute force, but that didn't mean he was doing it simply for the sake of using force. Somewhere in the midst of his actions was a method to it. Maybe not a plan, or a strategy, but something that drove him to fight the particular way he did.

Like his opponent, he had been gathering energy, burning off only some for the use of jump-starting his CNS for muscle-fiber recruitment. Unlike his opponent, it was not chi, qi, prana, or chakra - these things Deitric actually lacked; his body had no such "life force" or the like to speak of although he was obviously a living, breathing creature. If anyone tried to "watch" him gather energy with some sort of metaphysical vision, all they would see is the impulses of his nervous system.

Electrical impulses.

With his hand pulling back from trying to collapse the side of Shinji's face, the Khasmin man did something that was painfully simple in its execution, and more than likely simply painful - for both of them.

Emanating from his withdrawing hand, there was a KRAKK and THOOM of a thunderclap accompanied by a flash of light as Deitric essentially "cast" a bolt of lightning into the side of his opponent's face nearly point blank. If the hook had hurt, the lightning was going to be even worse, and it didn't seem to leave its thrower unscathed either; his glove had burst into flame around his fist.

That had been the reason he'd wanted to punch Shinji in the face. Not just for the sake of smashing his opponent across the teeth, but to get his hand close enough to the man that he would have had a much, much smaller chance of missing with the lightning blast.

Despite the impressive sound and fury, it wasn't nearly as powerful as the sort of thing Zeus might have thrown down on the Greeks, or what Mother Nature liked to conjure up during storms, but it had similar traits. Severe burns where it made contact, blinding light, deafening sound, extremely fast movement from the point of origin to the point of contact, and a potent, albeit entirely nonfatal, electrical discharge. The head also happened to be a good target - sensitive sensory organs like the eyes could be seared, and the central nervous system could be addled from the electrical discharge.

In short? Pain for both parties, because the leather-clad brave couldn't escape the blinding light or deafening sound, and his hand was on fire, but Shinji was probably in a lot worse shape, as the lightning-charged tribesman had just loosed a lightning bolt point blank into the man's face - not exactly easy to miss, or easy to get around.

Both of which described Shinji's own attack, which had still struck in some manner or fashion. When many people fought, or watched fights, they moved on the idea that it was constantly attack, respond, block, counter - back and forth. Neither the monk nor his long-haired opponent were fighting on those terms. There was no give and take, there were two men attacking each other; no reacting to the other's actions, just parallel attempts at striking each other down.

However, Deitric had encountered such a technique before, and in fact, had suffered a much worse variation of it in the previous tournament. In the match for the finals, his opponent had delivered a similar blow to Deitric's side, where several more organs lay than in the right side of his chest. It had certainly put a dent in him, but it hadn't stopped him from continuing the fight.

That didn't stop this iteration from being any less painful, though, as the force traveled through the corded muscle of his chest, the bone of his rib-cage, and caught his right lung, forcing all the air to expel violently from it at the same time he would be (presumably) burning the side of Shinji's face black with his bolt of lightning.

Assuming his opponent wasn't going to be paying much attention to their game of mercy after getting a stroke of lightning to the face, Deitric would do the pertinent thing and momentarily back away several meters, his breathing audibly wheezing and rattling while his injured lung tried to recover from the blow that had knocked it off its rhythm, bruising the tender organ tissue. The fire on the brave's right hand had burned away, leaving his skin charred, the nerves in momentarily shot, leaving the hand balled in a numb fist.

Given the exchange, however, the chances were that neither fighter, monk or tribesman, wanted to stay in close range with one another at that exact moment. Standing point blank with someone who could hurl a bolt of lightning from his body wasn't anymore tactically sound than doing the same to someone who had just tried to jam their fingers into your chest and had somehow struck an organ inside your body.

It would seem - in all likelihood - that the first exchange had ended, leaving both fighters to try and gather themselves for the next clash, the smell of burnt ozone and charred flesh hanging acridly in the air around them.

[Summary: Deitric didn't really "move," he just uses the proximity (~inches) of his fist to Shinji's face post-punching to throw a lightning bolt, and doesn't block/dodge the palm attack. Tries to back away afterward, assuming neither is really in a position to continue attacking until they get their bearings again.]



[Note: Just using MM's damage quote and summary to make sure everything is easily found, since there's a lot of information in the meat of the post itself.]