Shuai Taidan Vs. Jorie Ngo
Fighting class, huh? The cheery senior flicked back a few strands of his silky hair, now dyed a glossy silver. Taidan had, since the end of Aura Control class, changed up his style quite a bit, now clad in a garb that could barely be considered a school uniform. As a self-proclaimed "master of disguise", it would be totally boring if he were to wear the exact same thing all the time, and so military dress-esque outfit had been replaced, switched out for a tight, hooded and orange blazer, as well as grey jeans with hems that had been tucked into his boots. And it would be this new set of clothes that he would be wearing into the fight he had been assigned.
He didn't (to much disappointment) know his opponent too well, though from his vantage point against the railings of the arena, he could see that Jorie Ngo (located on the other side of the field), was a Faunus girl with a ... oooh, giant claw arm. He'd never seen something like that before. Would really be exciting to check out.
Fire lit beneath his boots, and Taidan ascended over the rails, his wind and fire wheels carrying him onto the battlefield. He wasn't the big fighty-fighty fellow on his team, but he was going to do well! Maybe. Possibly? He was going to have fun at least! Not every day that you fought someone with a giant claw arm. Was she a squid? Or a kid? A kid that was a squid.
He pushed the rambling thoughts out of his mind. What type of character was he today? A punk? Some other type of weirdo? It was always hard keeping in-character with new and original costumes.
But that was the fun of it.
"
Hello there!" he said in greeting, leaving the questions of identity while in costume to a later date. "
Shuai Taidan, nice to meetcha!"
Jorie was feeling anxious, there weren't too many places to hide within this area, and fights with other people wasn't her specialty. She preferred to stick to the back, allow her teammates to distract the monsters and fire at the most opportune times. Fighting other people, or fighting alone did seem to negate her strategy as the little shrimp would be the only target. She moved her tongue around her dry mouth, Jorie wondered who her opponent was supposed to be, she hoped it was someone that fought far away as well.
The shrimp continued to look around, and at a distance, her eyes seemed to catch somebody at the railings! Jorie tried to determine the far away person, but her eyes couldn't focus too far without her glasses. The girl always tended to dislike her glasses due to the constant struggle to not accidentally break them with her other arm. She tried peering closer at the distant image, and was that... A human? Jorie let out an exasperated sigh, it seemed that her glasses were necessary for this difficult situation.
Making sure her normal arm was the one that was moving, she reached inside of her deep pockets within her large hoodie to pull out a large pair of glasses, the frames colored to a dirty white with the lenses fairly thin. Placing them on her face, she looked up to find the person flying in the air, that was't normal! Jorie quickly flipped over her hood, the piece of clothing enveloping her entire head.
Left in the darkness of her hood, she was feeling pretty nice, her little hiding place always seemed to calm her down, and it was always fluffy and warm! A few seconds passed, and in those few seconds her heartbeat stabilized as well as her breathing. It didn't take long for the other person to greet her, Jorie guessed that the person managed to find her hiding spot, so she had to reveal herself to the open once again.
Lifting up her hood slightly, the first things that popped out were her antennas. The paper thin appendages swinging randomly around the air trying to see if there was anybody close enough for them to feel. She continued to slowly lift up her hood, revealing her eyes to Taidan with a light pout to her face.
"Hello," Jorie mumbled,
"I'm Jorie Ngo, its nice to meet you as well."Ah, so she was the shy type of person. That explained the hoodie and general awkward demeanor. Taidan fired off what he considered to be his most dazzling smile, gleaming white teeth almost radiating light and cheer at his opponent. Hopefully it was reassuring? Nice? He didn't know, but he was already sorta feeling bad about fighting this girl. Especially with the antennae. They were adorable-looking! Like a shrimp's! No wait was she actually a squid?
The ponytailed Hunter peered closer, leaning his body over. Yep, squid! Claws, check. Antennae, check. And ... didn't shrimps like the dark? Check?
He was going on tangents again. Needed to fix that.
"
Looks like we know each other now," he chirped, posture springing back up as so to ensure that his back was ramrod straight. He crossed his arms together. "
Awesome, sooo ... wanna get this shebang started?"
Taidan paused. Wait, he was forgetting something.
What was it?
Ah right, the gas masks!
With a grace that was most definitely brought about by practice, he slipped a gas mask out from his jacket, sliding it over his face. The nature of his weaponry meant that it was best to keep such things on-hand; aura was snazzy, but it was always better to be safe than sorry and rely on more than just the natural healing powers of his soul.
"
Take this," said Taidan, voice tinny beneath the mask as he threw another mask towards Jorie. "
It'll keep out the carbon monoxide."
The shrimp started to pull upon the excess fabric of her clothing as Taidan seemed to get closer into her personal bubble. Jorie wished that she wasn't alone in this fight, she always seemed to be the worst in these types of sparring matches, but at least it wouldn't hurt too much... Right? Jorie, still petting her clothing, looked over towards Taidan to find that he was smiling with quite a grand smile! Although, that wasn't reassuring at all, in fact, it most likely made her more anxious to get in this fight. Smiling before a fight? Do they like fighting a lot? Am I going to get beat up? The Shrimp lightly groaned, she didn't want to do this, not one bit.
She lowered her head down as soon as her opponent started to lean towards her, most likely inspecting her strange parts around her body. Jorie was fine with people looking at her, but if the person was someone that was going to beat her up, she was less gung-ho about the entire situation at hand.
"Uh... I guess... soon." She mumbled once again, Jorie has always had the problem of being awkward when she was born. Her entire family was like this, and even though she knew that being sent to a school full of strangers would just make things bad for her, she thought that meeting new people would cancel that effect... It didn't. The Shrimp began to aggressively pet at her hoodie before her eyes caught some kind of sudden action by Taidan.
Looking up at the floating person, she found that his face had changed as well! She had half the mind to just hide again, but she managed to stop herself after realizing it was simply a mask. However, she didn't exactly know what type of mask that was donned upon his face. It looked slightly spooky, but kind of cool at the same time? She didn't know much about fashion, hence why she wears mainly just clothes that comfort her rather than trying to look better. Suddenly, in the middle of thought, Jorie had been tossed another mask in the same design. Fumbling to grab the mask, she managed to get a tight grip and hugged it to her chest. Tilting her head at the design, she looked at Taidan to discover that it was supposed to protect her from something, carbon monoxide? Sounds very dangerous... Jorie doesn't pay attention in school very much, it's a wonder how she had made it so far.
"... Thanks." The Shrimp said, failing to mumble this time. She donned on the mask, her face slightly uncomfortable due to her glasses pressing against her face.
"Do we start now?" She shall regret saying those words.
"
Sure. Early worm catches the bird and all."
Or was it the opposite? Taidan wasn't actually a Valian native, so his grasp of the more unfamiliar idioms was a bit lacking. Still, it didn't matter, because the ponytailed Hunter's wind and fire wheels activated once again, sending him rocketing upwards into the air. The rush of ascending was always so exciting. The feeling associated with flying even moreso. It was the adrenaline, maybe. But irregardless, he was in a fight now. An assessed fight. No recreational flying unless his grades kept up!
"
Here I come!" he called out, the tinnied voice echoing across the arena.
His spear snapped to attention.
Huojian, his mighty, dignified qiang of nearly twenty feet, seemed to glow blood-red and silver in the light of the room. This was his instrument of war. This was his beauteous tool of battle. And it was one with him. They were one. Their blood was burning, a crescendo of noise and heat that had reached its tipping point. The blade of his weapon
shifted.
Chongli had arrived.
And the napalm began to fall.
"Huh?" Jorie questioned, right before Taidan blasted off into the sky. She instinctively held her arm against the wind to protect her face, even though it was already covered by a mask. When she lowered her arm realizing that putting it up was useless, she looked up to find her opponent high in the sky rather than standing on the ground. She fidgeted nervously as Taidan kept on rising, she wondered what kind of attack that this guy was going to bring into this arena.
She would figure out soon enough as Taidan yelled out something to her, and she stood to attention, the fight was going to get physical now. Jorie watched as the rather long polearm started to shine in a rather worrying manner. Was it always supposed to look this intimidating? The Shrimp swallowed her spit as the pitch from Taidan's weapon started to get higher and higher. Jorie should have already been on the move, but she was quite frozen in place, and things began to fall from the sky. That shook Jorie out of her shock.
The Faunus looked at the gelatinous falling down beneath her, assuming that the stuff was bad, Jorie instinctively yelled out her move, mainly due to the pressure surrounding her.
"Bubble Shield!" Jorie cried out, covering herself with both of her arms as the napalm was dangerously close, and right as they were about to hit her... They stopped in mid-air. Frozen for barely a second, yet another high pitched sound entered the fray. The globs of napalm almost as quickly as they fell down, went straight back up towards the sender. This was due to the high pressure bubble surrounding her, causing all projectiles to fling off of the shield.
Jorie, still rather nervous, uncovered herself to find that her shield had worked, and it was time to do the second part of the move. Raising her claw towards Taidan, the shield composed of tiny bubbles of pressurized air could only last for a few seconds, and she wasn't going to waste them. Opening her claw, she aimed at the flying opponent.
ClickIs what the sound made when Jorie closed her claw with blinding speed, a shock-wave combined with the force of pressurized air popping to give it that extra power to shoot down almost anything. It was a risky tactic blasting apart her own shield, but one on one fights needed to be ended quickly or Jorie would be overwhelmed. She opened her claw once again, opening took longer than closing, anyone could see that, and she fired yet another invisible shot towards Taidan.
The first lesson that Taidan had learnt back in his toddler days, flying on a magic carpet he'd stolen from ol' Kibro, was that getting out of the way of anything that looked like a projectile, whether it be invisible or not, was a really good idea. So it was with good cheer that he rocketed from spot to spot, his qiang continuously dropping waves and waves of napalm down below, the sizzling liquid burning away with great intensity as they crashed down into the arena. The presence of his opponent's shield ability meant that he'd have to change up his tactics, now seeking to flood the battlefield with as much fire as possible. At temperatures of over a thousand degrees Celsius, the mixture was already burning through the ground, flowing through the grooves and gouges to encircle Jorie in a ring of fire.
Smoke was already beginning to fill the air, the light of raging flames all that was visible through the clouds upon cloud of grey and black. Even from his position so far up in the air, the flying Hunter could feel the heat radiating from the ground. Hopefully Jorie had put on the gas mask properly. He didn't want her to asphyxiate in the CO-rich air down below. Oh yeah, and the fires. Getting burnt by napalm was really painful. He still had burns from the accidents.
Jorie was panicking, none of her attacks seemed to connect with her opponent and this stuff that keeps pouring down from the sky was starting to become even more troublesome than it first appeared. When she finally noticed the material starting to burn into the ground the heat was starting to become unbearable, and as her breathing become ragged from the blistering heat, the gas-mask that she wore seemed to only inhibit her breathing as the vision around her started to blacken. However, the darkness that was covering her eyes was the smoke bellowing from the fires, rather than her vision blurring from the lack of air.
Panicking, Jorie gripped at her mask, the fires raging outside of her decaying shield as her vision started to get even hazier. The idiot, without putting anymore thought into the action, tore off her mask, hoping that her breathing regulations would calm down the frenzy beating through her heart. However, when she took a big gulp of the tainted air, the soot that she greedily sucked in was viciously coughed right back up. Jorie soon realized her almost fatal mistake, and she stopped breathing all together.
A few seconds passed, the shrimp was just delaying the inevitable. Her mind was unable to think properly from the fires, the burning throat, and her burning lungs only added to the confusion raging through her mind. She had no where else to go.
Dropping to her knees, she looked at the ground, her eyes burning at this moment with her lungs unable to keep hold of what little air she had inside of herself. Suddenly, Jorie's mind came up with an idea, either from the large amount of adrenaline rushing through her veins or the oxygen deprived brain, her mind had come up with an idea.
In the sky, Taidan would watch the fire raging down below, a few seconds have passed after Jorie had fallen to her knees within the thick smoke covered area. The sound of fire burning through the field was the only thing to be heard, but as the seconds continued to count down a single snapping noise was heard.
Jorie, her face and clothes covered smoke came bursting out of the sea of the dangerous element. A look of fear and panic still etched on her face, she took a deep inhale of air as oxygen seemed to be rich out of the sea of death, and the Shrimp almost reaching the point of altitude turned towards his direction. And just by the look of her face, Jorie was still afraid, but at this point, all could see it in her eyes that it was her pure determination that made her get this far.
Just as she reached the vertex of her blast, Jorie and Taidan face to face in the sky, she leveled her claw straight towards the man, and fired.
Eh?!Picture the situation. You're a pretty awesome guy, floating around in the air and setting the entirety of the arena on fire (hopefully the faculty wasn't going to get angry again). You're a bit worried for the safety of your opponent after that massive torrent of napalm you threw down, but the fight seems essentially yours. Nothing super rad is gonna happen. The cat's in your court of the bag.
And then to your shock, the girl's suddenly rocketing up at you like speeding bullet.
That was how Shuai Taidan was feeling.
Taidan could only gape at the sight, his expression of surprise hidden behind the gas mask still affixed to his pretty boy face. She'd ... she'd shot herself up after him? That was ...!
Her claw was aimed directly at the centre of his mass.
The hunter
pushed, fiery aura rushing through his entire body to concentrate at his front. Jorie's blast slammed into him in an instant, and there was
pain. It felt as if a typhoon was seeking to churn his insides into mincemeat.
He hadn't expected that. Even as he spiraled away from the explosion, frantically attempting to exert control over his wind and fire wheels once more, he had not expected that shy shrimp girl to be so awesome.
He staggered, body rerighting itself as the rockets on his boots regained functionality. Taidan's entire body hurt real bad, but it was worth it. And the soreness was something he'd felt before. But man, that Jorie had- wait, where was she?
His answer came in the form of a falling crustacean, descending at a rapid pace towards the smokey earth. A lot like what he'd just been doing, albeit without any way to survive a fall.
The wind and fire wheels kicked into high gear. And Taidan was already in motion, closing the distance to catch Jorie in his arms.
"Yea- AHHHHHHH!" Jorie screamed out, her mind finally able recognize the trouble that she in after the rather dangerous stunt.
She looked up towards Taidan, he would save her! However, she realized that her previous attack had caused his flight pattern to spiral out of control, leaving Jorie to continue falling towards her doom.
His figure started to appear smaller and smaller, she was falling to her death and it was her own fault. Jorie was too tired to use her semblance at full power again, creating the shield and enough bubbles to blast her into the sky was hard enough, so she grabbed her hood and pulled it around her head, she wanted to feel safe.
The darkness didn't help her, the smoke had made her clothes smell horrible, and the soot still stuck inside of her hood started to fall down onto her face as she felt the wind on her back, continuing to descend. Well, it was a good run. Jorie closed her eyes, the darkness was starting to feel better before she lurched in mid-air.
The shrimp gasped, coughing once again as the soot latched onto the back of her throat. She thought hitting the ground would have been more painful, or maybe this is the afterlife? Jorie wondered if she would be able to see her family again as she started to slowly lift up her hood. Once again, her little antennas poked out first, they were just a little crisp from the fire that had surrounded her, but it would still be able to work. The two started to move around randomly, trying to feel the surroundings before hitting something, it was actually really close to her! Pulling up her hood fully, her eyes being blinded by the light for a moment, she realized it was Taidan... Oh.
Jorie stopped moving her antennas over his face, and started to rub her hands nervously. Her face was covered in soot as she tried to look down with her face flushing from somebody touching her.
"Thanks," she hoarsely mumbled, almost forgetting that she was going to die without Taidan's assistance.
"
You're welcome," replied Taidan with a sincere smile, though he was doing his best to hold in a few giggles (the antennae had been ticklish!). "
I couldn't let you just fall, could I?"
The screen displayed the results of the round, and Ms. Goodwitch, writing quickly on a pad of paper, nodded her approval of the match whether someone was watching or no. However undignified or unprofessional they might have seemed at individual moments, Goodwitch did not fault them for it. By now, every senior had settled into their own style and knew what they were doing, after all.
He carefully and gently adjusted his hold onto Jorie, doing his best to ensure that she was at least somewhat comfortable as they descended down towards the benches. The arena was ... still covered in smoke thanks to his efforts (not that it wasn't awesome or anything) and also on fire, so the only place that they could safely land would be out of the bounds of the field proper. With extreme attention to their safety, he maneuvered them over a set of chairs, gently placing his opponent down upon it.
A second later, he too landed, the rockets of his wind and fire wheels deactivating.
