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 Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 4:46 pm
  Setting:Yue Lao and Kiran meet again... this time, on the battlefield. They have no choice but to fight on through, even though it seems like this conflict is punctuating Yue Lao's doubt about her own abilities as Captain. On the other hand, how will Kiran take the fight?
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Face your demons generated a random number between
1 and 3 ...
1!
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Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 4:49 pm
• [ THE OUTCOME OF THIS BATTLE: ] •
Legion Win.
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Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 5:01 pm
Through the heavy, choking smog, Yue Lao could barely make out her own hands, much less the opponents she was trying to fight. There was a shock of orange hair, but she couldn't see-- was it her own fighter, or the Nobles'? This was just a small skirmish, but because of the fact that someone on one of the sides had abused smoke bombs and tried to play the ninja, her eyes were being seared by the environment and she was cursing quietly under her breath, in the name of the Emperor.
Her foot slipped as she took another quick step, and she pinwheeled her arms to try to keep her footing. Or re-obtain it, rather. She was glad Hime-san didn't come to the battlefield with her, because even though he was now much better behaved, this was no place for her beloved battlemonkey. More like an irritate-the-hell-out-of-people monkey, really.
Sara had trained the worst out of him by now, though. Yue Lao tried not to think of that, as she shouted out orders to her fighters. What was she doing? She'd only ever fought to protect what she thought was right, to preserve this ideal. Did she have a right to tell others what to fight for, though? Because it was all on her, now, commanding these fighters.
And as she emerged through the worst of the smoke, trying not to lose her footing again, she thought she recognized a face in the smog: it couldn't be him? What kind of cruel force would make Yue Lao face off against a dear friend? But it was possible, after all... this was a war.
Yue Lao raised her meteor hammer, spinning the bladed edge above her, trying to concentrate. This new weapon was made to kill, but she missed the ones she'd used before. Capture, not kill, had been her mandate. Especially if it was Kiran, how could she go about fighting the man without risking slicing him up like a vegetable?
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Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 10:12 pm
Kiran cursed whoever had decided to throw the smoke bombs onto the battlefield. No matter which side that person was on, he felt determined to find who it was and give the person a sound smack to the head with one of his tonfas. He ducked as someone tried to slice at him with a short sword. Twisting around behind the attacker, he landed a hard hit to the man's back, sending him face first into the ground. The smoke was much to thick, and it clogged up his lungs when he tried to take a breath. What fool thought smoke bombs would be wise in a battle like this? His vision was impaired, the smoke too thick to see those around him.
Somewhere, he could hear captains calling orders to their fighters. His captain was among them, but Kiran couldn't tell where his captain was at that moment. He focused on his attention on what was happening around him. If he went against orders and lived through this battle, his captain could punish him anyway he liked. But at the moment, Kiran couldn't spare any thoughts of second guessing his actions simply because he couldn't fully hear his captain's orders.
He was thankful to all the night training and lurking in shadows that he did. He couldn't see, but his other senses were attuned to this kind of situation. He dodged attacks as best he could while countering with quick, hard strikes. Blood was already dripping down his face from a cut across his forehead, and bruise was forming on the back of his right shoulder. He swung his arm upward, smashing his tonfa into some poor man's jaw, then sent the man away with a kick him in the gut. Spinning around to look for his next opponent, Kiran halted as he caught sight of magenta colored hair.
He swallowed down his feelings as he raised his arms, settling into a defensive stance. They had fought once before, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Yue had beaten him then. He had grown and gained more experience with ranged fighters. But Yue had also grown, and that bladed edge on her meteor hammer looked deadly. "I see you made Captain," he said. It was a taunt or a jeer. He was genuinely proud of his friend. But this was a battle, and they were on opposite sides of the war.
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:24 pm
A knot formed in Yue Lao's throat. The doubt she felt about being a captain was offset only by her knowledge that she was competent in combat, but... Kiran's voice, then, had so much of the edge to it that she had heard once. It broke something in her face-- that had been the shadow of a smile, the hint of a friendly reply. Kiran was a Fighter, no longer a student, and Yue Lao was a captain... but was he no longer her friend, because of that?
It was true this was a war. And they were on the battlefield. Yue Lao couldn't hold back, could she? Or risk appearing weak, not only to her opponent, but to her fighters. There was no room for weakness on the battlefield. Yue Lao had once thought that love made people weak, that it made them incapable of the kinds of decisions that needed to be made. That it made them incapable of observing unfettered. In this case, caring for someone seemed to follow that logic exactly, even though she had learned to care with such effort in the first place.
Yue took a deep breath, and swung her meteor hammer overhead. "Yeah. I did. Got a new weapon, too," she said, her eyes flicking up to the bladed whirl of metal, as it cleared some of the smoke away. "Bet you've gotten stronger, too." She didn't know how to wield it without cutting him.
As a half-hearted warning, Yue Lao hooked the meteor hammer overhead and towards one of his ankles.
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:09 pm
The air wasn't clearing very fast, or perhaps the idiot had thrown out a few more smoke bombs. Kiran really wanted to know who that Lunarian was that thought it was a brilliant idea to use so many smoke bombs at one time. His eyes were watering from the stinging sensation brought on by the smoke. But dealing with that idiot would have to wait until later. Before him stood a strong fighter.
"So I see," Kiran said, watching the meteor hammer with some trepidation. If he wasn't careful, that blade could slice him up and leave him laying in tattered shreds and bleeding to death. He swallowed and set his jaw with a determination to make it out of this fight alive. The corner of his mouth twitched in a partial smirk. "Of course I have," he responded with a cocky air of someone who thought too much of himself. "I haven't been sitting on my hands this whole time."
He saw the meteor hammer coming and leaped back to avoid having that sharp blade slice into his ankle. He relied on his legs for speed to jump in and strike quickly then move away again to avoid counterattacks. If one of his legs was taken out, he would be greatly handicapped in a fight.
Fighting a friend wasn't pleasant for him. But Kiran knew he couldn't simply go easy on her because of their friendship. They fought for opposite sides of the way, and they stood on a battlefield. Whether they liked it or not, they had to fight. Wary of the blades on the meteor hammer, Kiran hoped the fight wouldn't be to the death. He launched toward her, thinking to bring the battle to close combat before Yue recovered from that first attack. Part of his attention remained on the location of the meteor hammer as he brought his right arm around, aiming his tonfa to strike at her ribs.
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 11:38 pm
[[OOC: Sorry it took me so long ; A; <3 So sleepy orz]]
It was extremely possible that someone had merely thrown more smoke bombs. Yue Lao, for her part, wished she had some kind of guard to filter out the smoke. Mental note: bring some kind of mask to compensate for this kind of idiocy on the battlefield. Still, at least they hadn't figured out how to light it on fire, or something equally unpleasant, yet.
Yue Lao wielded her meteor hammer, blade and all, with the knowledge that Kiran wasn't weak enough to just lose to its sharp edges. He was a Lunarian whom she respected enough to know that he could hold his own. That was what it came down to, in the end: Kiran was strong, she didn't need to worry. But she did, not with the warrior part of her mind, but with the part that identified his face as a friend. Even if his current expression made their days as students together seem so far away. Sorry I shortened our childhoods, she whispered in her mind, thinking of the night she'd forced him to fight her.
Her smile, as he replied with a haughty or overconfident air, was cold, but pleased; if this is how he wanted to be, then so be it; that would only serve her purpose better. And yet, he was as she had always remembered him. "Oh, really? You seem like you got pudgy, though, so I don't know if I believe you," she answered. Part of her rejoiced at joking around with her friend-- that part was quashed by her need to maintain the air of competition.
The reason Yue Lao had chosen the meteor hammer was because it had use as a melee weapon on top of a ranged weapon. One side, the one she had swung at Kiran and retracted, was bladed for ranged attacks. The other side, however, constantly hanged close to her body: it was a heavy, weighted thing, which resembled a lantern. She brought it up quickly to block the strike, but slipped in the mud and had to drop her meteor hammer to recover.
Silently, she cursed this battlefield. There were a lot of factors in real combat that no studying had truly prepared her for.
Ignoring her weapon on the ground, because those seconds recovering it would mean precious time wasted in vulnerability, Yue Lao took a defensive stance and prepared herself for any further tonfa attacks.
This was probably going to hurt.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 1:51 pm
The smoke wasn't clearing quickly, or possibly it was thickening. If that idiot kept tossing out smoke bombs, Kiran wished even more to give that person a smacking, if someone didn't beat him to it. The smoke wasn't settling well in his lungs. Breathing through nose or mouth didn't matter when the smoke twisted unpleasantly inside him.
Kiran gasped in mock shock and hurt at the comment and tried not to cough upon the intake of more smoke. "I'll have you know, this is all muscle," he argued, jutting out his lower lip in a pout. But it was clear that he wasn't being serious in being offended at the teasing comment about his weight or in his response. Bantering with Yue came naturally, even if it had been quite some time since they met.
His only wish was that they weren't meeting again on the battlefield.
A moment of hesitation came when he saw her slip, dropping the lantern end of the meteor hammer that could have easily blocked his attack. But the slip had been enough that his swing hit not her ribs but her shoulder, the impact far less than it would have been if he hadn't hesitated.
The clangs and shouts of other battles surrounded them, smoke masking the fighters. The mud underfoot was slick, and Kiran had to be careful of his footing least he too took a slip in the mud. With an eye on the bladed end of the meteor hammer, one slip could be very deadly.
His grip tightened on the holds of his tonfas as he held them up to guard. He watched Yue, gauging her movements for where that dangerous meteor hammer might be swung next. Then he struck out, thrusting his tonfa forward at her. If he could keep this battle close range, maybe he wouldn't have to worry about the blades on her meteor hammer.
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Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 6:10 pm
Yue Lao smiled to herself, though she could not and did not answer his teasing aloud. Perhaps... were they to meet off the battlefield, they could talk and catch up. Perhaps he would allow that. Yue Lao was well-suited to the war in that she was fast, determined and loved to fight; she was ill-suited to the war in that she was too eager to set aside her own political differences in order to be friends with the enemy in her personal time. To Yue Lao, it was divided neatly down the middle: she would protect the Emperor's reign, but she did not want to lose her friends, or her half-brother, because of it.
Yue Lao tried not to slide in the mud again as Kiran hit her shoulder. She rolled it out, trying to suck in a gasp of pain, gripping the muscles with her spare hand and kneading them quickly. She stooped down and recovered the hammer, raising its heavy shielded lantern end to block Kiran's blow. It still hurt, to brace for the blow, but she used the momentum of whatever blow he struck in order to swing the hammer melee-style at his gut: the heavy metal lantern side, as opposed to the bladed end.
There wasn't time to keep lingering. She watched her fighters slip out into the smoke, worrying for their safety. None of them were trained in conditions like this. For better or worse, her skirmish with Kiran needed to end, so that she could carry on overseeing her fighters and making sure none of them got overwhelmed or placed in a situation they couldn't handle.
Enveloped by the smoke, it looked as though Yue and Kiran weren't in war, so long as no one else came into their line of view: it felt like it was a battle alone, just the two of them, for purely personal stakes. Yue Lao aimed one of her tight sweeping kicks at his ankles.
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 11:35 am
Even before becoming an official fighter in the war, Kiran had always been eager for a fight. Most of the time, he claimed that it was in protection of his sister from bullies. But he had enjoyed getting into those fights, even if he lost most of the time at first, before he starting training under Uncle. Being naturally swift and nimble, he took well to the style of fighting that Uncle mastered, and it made dancing out of the way of slower opponents' attacks all the easier.
But here, now, facing off against Yue for the second time, he became aware of one of the downsides of fighting in this war. Yue was his friend, and not the only Legionnaire that he thought of as a friend, or had conflicting feelings about. He hated to be pitted against her in a fight, but he had little choice in the matter. They couldn't be the only friends forced to fight against each other in this war because they had chosen different sides. Even families probably had members facing off against each other.
His tonfa slammed against the lantern end of Yue's meteor hammer. It made a very effective shield. He jumped back, putting space between them, but it wasn't enough room to avoid having that heavy lantern end slam into his gut. Though he saw the attack coming and he tried to twist into the attack, bringing his tonfas up to block, his reflexes weren't quick enough. The force of the blow sent him reeling, skidding back several steps in the mud. His heel knocked into something - a log, a rock, someone's prone body; he couldn't be sure - and he nearly knocked him off his feet. But he found his balance, his feet squelching in the mud. His ribs ached fiercely from the blow, and each breath felt sharp and painful. At least, he didn't get his nose broken again, but a few ribs may have been.
He pushed through the pain and saw the kick coming. With the slick, muddy ground, he wouldn't be able to maintain a firm stance when that kick struck and would likely end up on his back in the mud. So he moved in, closing the distance between them before her kick took him out, and leaned in close. His hand tightened its grip around the handle of his tonfa as he brought it back then drove it forward to repay the blow to his gut. There was about an even chance that his punch would connect before her kick dropped him. If he was fast enough.
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Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 5:24 pm
The recoil of collision between tonfa and lantern did not go unfelt: it shook up into the bones of Yue's arm, making her skin crawl. She tried to shrug it off, but the feeling remained, a sort of ghostly tingle. In the poor visiblity, with the mud all around, Yue couldn't see what had happened to her opponent, merely that he'd vanished back into the smoke.
He was, indeed, fast enough; along with a gasp of pain, Yue thought Damned quick strikes. And she, like Kiran, had to learn how it felt to try to keep balance in the mud once her kick followed through, toppling her over. She would be nursing this wound for a while. Through the pain, jaw clenched, picking herself up and preparing to use her meteor hammer to ensure that he couldn't get his balance back, Yue Lao managed: "If it wasn't for you being here, I think this would have been in the bag." She smiled wryly, coughed, and sucked in another breath.
That was one interesting impact. With faltering, but determined effort she watched and prepared to use the chain to sweep him off his feet. She needed to return to her front lines, and help with the assault; maybe if she could sweep him down at least once more, she'd have an opportunity to get back.
But part of her worried about Kiran's state in battle. If she'd wounded him (he'd certainly wounded her) she didn't want to leave him down in the mud. Maybe they wouldn't notice in the smoke if she checked on him...?
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Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 10:15 pm
The attack hit. That much he could be sure of in the chaos of the battlefield. She was down for the moment, but Kiran knew she would be back on her feet in moments. The blow would hurt, maybe bruise or break some ribs. He couldn't be certain how bad the damage was to her. But it wouldn't be enough to keep her down. If she was anything like him, which he decided she probably was, she would fight through the pain and continue with the fight.
Kiran took a deep breath, distancing himself from her. Breathing hurt! It made his chest explode with pain, a piecing agony that kept trying to blind him. Teeth gritted, and hands grew white knuckled around the handles of his tonfas. He couldn't fall here. If he was beaten here, who knows what might happened to him? Smoke covered the battlefield, and those that already fell were probably being trampled on as the fight continued. The battlefield was a truly terrifying place sometimes.
He didn't wish for Yue to fall on the battlefield anymore than he wanted to be taken down right now. Even if they fought on opposite sides of the war, he couldn't bear to watch Yue, a friend, possible be killed here. He knew that was a foolish notion, wanting to be sure an enemy lived to walk away from battle, but he didn't care about following what was considered normal. He gave those on the Legionnaire side a chance and some became friends. He didn't wish to lose them.
He would have laughed at her comment if it didn't hurt some much. "What can I say?" he asked, searching through the fog of smoke for a sign of an oncoming attack. "I live to be the wrench in people's plans." Well, not really. He never really planned to mess up other people's plots. Somehow, it just tended to work out that way.
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Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 9:59 am
The pain was blossoming nicely. Definitely bruising, she sincerely hoped nothing was broken, but it would not be the first time. The conditions on this battlefield were terrible for having met an opponent she was so very fond of. Time was running out: she needed to get to her fighters and keep the front lines together, but she was beginning to lose stamina and the will to fight. And she couldn't afford to hurt Kiran more than he already was.
"You're gonna be okay?" she asked, with a jerked nod at the place she'd struck him. Her face seemed strangely serious, for a moment.
Of course he would be, right? He was not going to be killed here today, not even a chance. Especially not by her. She smiled, faintly, even thinking of how ridiculous that notion was. She'd disarm, she'd wound, but she would never try to take his life. That day would be the day she stopped being Yue. And she was done with channeling that darker influence.
"Because, you know, I think we've both got prior arrangements to make, but... hey, I'll see you again soon, right? We can get better together," she joked, trying not to laugh. It also hurt. "And I'm gonna have to do this, now!" Yue used her good hand and pulled a little round, paper-wrapped object out of her bag, struck a tiny flint against its tiny steel bit and lit the fuse.
She tossed it at the ground, but if Kiran waited to see what it did, it wasn't exactly a bomb in the conventional sense. Apparently she'd somehow rigged it to produce a peppery cloud that stung the eyes... and a lot of confetti. He certainly had ruined her plans; when drawing up the tactical advance for this combat, she had never thought to factor in: dear friend interrupts, must fight but do not want to kill or maim or be maimed; after all, he could hold his own, and that kind of sucked for her right now!
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