[center][color=darkgreen][h3]Ryu vs. Linkle[/h3][/color]

[color=darkgreen][b] Level 5[/b][/color] - (26/50) 

[color=darkgreen][b]Location:[/b][/color] Lumbridge
[color=darkgreen][b]Word Count: 2881[/b][/color]

Collab with [@Lugubrious][/center]

[hr]

Though not a long-standing face at Lumbridge, Ryu boasted a name well-known to the general populace, and it took just minimal inquiry for Linkle to track him down. Sitting alone in one corner of the guild hall, no doubt position to attract the attention of potential challengers, the white-clad martial artist watched the girl approach. 

Everything about he man screamed ‘fighter’, almost to a fault. His gi was dirty and stained, his feet calloused, his skin and muscles hardened by endless battle. One had to wonder, just looking at him, if he did anything but wander around on foot and fight. Yet there could be little doubt his chosen lifestyle made him a formidable warrior.

He seemed to understand just why Linkle had come. “Good evening. Are you prepared to face me?”

Linkle kicked one of her new boots against the other as she stood in front of Ryu. "Yep. Nice to meet you, Mr. Ryu. I'm Linkle." She said, infectious peppy. Her old boots were swung over her shoulder like a soldiers knapsack. They were much longer than the new pair, but somehow lighter, and she had to hold her crossbows in her hands because there was nowhere to holster them. 

The only weapons Ryu looked like he had were those huge calloused knuckles of his. She held up her crossbows. "What are the rules?"

Pausing for a moment, the martial artist considered Linkle's question. Evidently not many prospective opponents really asked him for terms of engagement. "Not much," he replied after a short time. "I'd like to see you fighting at full strength, but you can set the pace for our battle. Whatever your methods," he said, acknowledging her weapons, "I will rise to meet the occasion. I prize the fight itself, but I fight to win as well."

Linkle grinned at that confidence. "Okay, so long as you don't mind." She said. "Just promise you'll tell me if I nick a vital spot. So, where to?"

Ryu inclined his head toward the door. "Outside. The street will serve as our arena." He led the way out of the guild and outside the castle grounds. Despite his assurance that any old street would be fine, he went an extra distance to make sure that he and Linkle would not be situated in a dense, highly populated area. While the man showed nothing but politeness, an air of tension arose as the pair's footsteps brought them closer and closer to fierce confrontation. After what seemed like seconds, Ryu turned about. He tightened his headband and assumed a fighting stance, bouncing in place. "I am ready."

Linkle took a deep breath, bouncing from side to side herself. She felt out the weight in her new shoes. She wouldn't be able to move as fast in these, but she bet they would make her kicks harder. She laid her other pair on the ground beside her. Then, deciding to lighten her load as much as possible considering the circumstances, piled most of her equipment on top of them. The bow, the orange swords, anything she had stuffed into her shorts, everything except the shield. 

She turned back to Ryu, rolled her shoulders, raised her crossbows, and said. "Ready."

She waited but a moment longer, for the words to register, then dashed forward toward the man. She'd been right, she was definitely slower than before. As she ran she threw both of her arms forward, blasting a pair of bolts at Ryu as she closed the distance.

Ryu's breathing changed as he focused. The girl would be keeping her projectile weapons, but how many projectiles had flown his way in his life? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Her bolts moved swiftly, but he determined how long it would take them to reach him and moved appropriately. As the first bolt came his right arm flashed across, striking with the back of his knuckle. His parry sent the bolt spinning off to the side. The next second his other hand swerved to the left, deflecting the second bolt, and after that Linkle arrived. Ryu chose to meet her headlong rush toward him with a sobering donkey kick. He cannoned forward the weighty side kick, exploiting his range advantage over his much smaller opponent to its fullest.

"That was so cool!" Linkle said. Now she didn't feel bad at all for bringing her weapons. As he rushed forward to meet her she spun, fire erupting from her boot as she brought it around in a counter kick looking to lock heels with the man and see if that extra weight was worth anything. 

The two kicks struck and clanged off one another. Had the archer's boots been any lighter, Ryu's mighty donkey kick would have powered straight through and struck her square in the torso, but instead he was forced to spin. Working with the cards dealt to him, he pivoted deftly, and span back into his normal fighting stance with his hands nearly clasped by his side. A brilliant blue orb of spirit flame whirled to life between his palms, and the next second he thrust them forward. "Hadoken!" he called, as the fireball flew Linkle's way.

Linkle knew she wouldn't be able to get out of the way in time. As Ryu had been setting up to cast his blue sorcery Linkle has been trying to regain her balance, the unfamiliar weight causing her leg to land awkwardly after the deflection and throwing off her stance.

She's already learned how to deal weird projectiles though. The tips of her crossbows flashed red and she fired off a pair of bombs at the Hadoken ball.

The short distance between Linkle and her opponent meant that her bomb arrows barely got to travel before they hit the Hadoken together and blew up in both fighters' faces. Neither received much injury given the bombs' relatively small blast radius, but the smoke left behind obscured the sightline between them for a brief moment. In that instant Ryu launched himself into the air, hurtling around with one leg outstretched in an incredible hurricane kick. It blew away the smoke in dramatic fashion, offering Linkle a fleeting glimpse of the coming storm as Ryu yelled, "Tatsumaki senpukyaku!"

All Linkle could do as the fighter came spinning out of the smoke was defend herself. She got her footing and then turned, putting her back and the spider shield on it in the path of the mans kick. She braced herself.

The kick impacted, striking again and again. Pain spread across her back like the pounding of a drum, but the full power of the kick was spread out by the shield and the weight if the boots kept her from going flying, though the power of the kick did send her stumbling forward. 

Linkle turned the stumble into a roll, getting some distance on the man and spinning to face him as she rose. She pulled up her bows and fired off a few bolt, to punish him if he'd tried to chase her too close.

It had been a while since she fought a human sized opponent one on one. Well, technically one on one. The smaller enemies that had usually surrounded them were never much of a factor, save to let her build up her momentum. You could go at them like you would a horde, but sometimes it was better to bait out an attack you could dodge then punish when it left them open. She was getting a good look at Ryu's moves, and that spinning kick was deliciously punishable if you could bait it out of him at the right time.

Even as Linkle rolled away, trying to get some distance, Ryu did not let up for a second. He executed a strange maneuver, dashing forward only to crouch and immediately stand again. Somehow, the crouch carried his momentum forward while also allowing him to dash again, and when he did it over and over he practically slid across the floor after her. When she fired some bolts his way he opted to crouch while blocking, creating a defense that almost completely negated the bolt's damage. Still, it gave Linkle the chance to slip away again.

That suited him just fine. Linkle's attacks from any range dealt little damage, and she couldn't pick up momentum in a fight like this. Ryu began to gather energy, warning her, "You will not be able to zone me out. Shinku..." Another Hadoken blossomed between his hands, but this one grew explosively. It swelled up to the size of a wrecking ball, forcing Ryu to close his hands and compact it back down, but it swelled up yet again. "Hadoken!" When he thrust his hands forward, a giant beam of blue energy blew into Linkle in an instant. Ryu adjusted his aim while firing to track attempts to evade, too. It lasted only two seconds, but those seconds were more than enough to convince any foe that Ryu should not be underestimated at a distance.

Linkle again had no choice but to rely on the spider shield, but this time she had to drop a crossbow to use it. She whipped the shield off her back and held it in front of her, her entire body shaking as the beak impacted. Her guard only held for a second, her arm buckling as the beam engulfed her. The shield went spinning off her arm, landing a good ways away as the beam bowled her over and sent her rolling even further away scorched and throbbing all over. 

Linkle pulled herself up off the ground, shaking her head. Well, she definitely didn't want him doing that again. 

Her crossbow lay on the ground between the two of them. She had to have that back anyway. She dashed forward at Ryu again, the tip of her bow glowing red as she waved it in a little circle in front of her. Bombs flew in a general bombardment, looking to dissuade the fighter from using those strange crouch bursts of speed he'd used to chase after her earlier. As she reached the other bow she rolled forward so as not to lose her momentum, scooping it up in her other hand and adding a shower of normal arrows to her bombs as she closed the distance.

A volley of explosive arrows sailed Ryu's way, and he jumped. Though high for a human, his jump did not reach high enough to evade the blasts, and the force flipped him end over end as he fell. Linkle's arrows caught him before he hit the ground, comboing him until he hit the dust. It took only a moment to right himself, but the fighter had taken a good hit. He stood back up and, as Linkle drew near, threw out a quick low foot to try and catch her off guard. His legs and arms were visibly tense with muscle.

Linkle saw the leg coming and hopped into the air over it, bending her knees and lifting her legs up before suddenly stomping down to they and catch his foot.

Stone-faced as ever, Ryu watched Linkle fall for it as she tried to punish his crouching light attack, one of the fastest-to-recover techniques in his arsenal. The answer was obvious.

"Shoryuken!"

Ryu launched into the air in a rising uppercut, putting the strength of both his legs and arms into it. The invincible technique blitzed straight through Linkle's kick to dealt her a solid blow. As she sailed away, Ryu landed and, after resuming his fighting stance, started moving toward her once more. When she hit the ground, she would have to wake up, and Ryu already had his next move in mind.

Linkle saw fairies on the insides of her eyes as she sailed thought the air. Was this what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a weak point smash? Yeah, it must be.

She couldn't even see him as she stared up at the orange sky. It was peaceful for a second, all oat a chance to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her, then gravity took hold again and started to bring her back down to the street.

She didn't that. She spun herself, holding in the air and shooting bolts in vertical circle around her, more to arrest she fall and try to regain her balance than anything. 

Her knees almost buckled as she landed on the ground, unsteady but on her feet.

Ryu moved out of the way of Linkle's spray of bolts, preparing to strike after she hit the ground. When she landed, however, she looked only a few taps away from hitting the ground. He stopped for a moment, wondering if she could take another blow. He let his muscles slacken a touch, and asked, "Are you able to continue?"
Linkle had been starting to raise up her bow, but stopped in kind as she saw Ryu's tension slack a little.

"Are you kidding?" She said between deep breaths. "I could keep...I mean I could go......no." She let her legs slide out from under her and collapsed onto her butt. "You're really something."

This time, Ryu allowed himself to smile. "You did well. Keep training, fighting, and growing stronger. That is all I have done to become 'something'." He approached Linkle and held out a hand to help her up. Once he did, he walked over to where he left his bag and knelt to rummage inside. When he returned to his challenger, he presented to her two spirits resting on the palm of his hand. "This is for your earnest effort. Take one." Inside one’s core was a [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/snk/images/f/fe/Heroine-kula.png/revision/latest?cb=20180705200609]young woman[/url] with sparkling blue hair. The other harbored a [url=https://giantbomb1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/scale_medium/8/82962/1908435-paul_phoenix.png]burly man[/url] with a shock of blonde hair, rising like a pillar atop his head. 
Linkle stared down at the girl with the icy blue hair, carefully reaching down and plucking the girl from his hand and holding her up to her eye. "She's pretty." She said absentmindedly. It was surprising that the spirits were actual people and not creatures like she was used too. She looked up at the warrior curiously. "If you wouldn't mind talking about it, where did you get these?"

Her question returned Ryu's face to it usual steely composure. "We met. We fought," he said, in a low, matter-of-fact tone. "None of them would admit defeat. If I did not destroy them...they would have destroyed me. It seems to be the way of this world. But I do regret it." He briefly examined Linkle's face, her eyes in particular. "I have felt the urge too. To attack and attack, heedless of the outcome. I suppose I am fortunate to have fought back violence for so long, and attained the Power of Nothingness. I am glad that you and your friends, too, seem free of it." Since his new acquaintance had selected her spirit, he went to put the last one away.

His words made her think back, for the first time, to her time under the lord of lights control. She wondered if it had been fun, hunting down that height pink little thing that had used the last of his strength to free them? The thought made her shutter, but at least she didn't think she'd been aware of it. He'd not only knew something else was in his head, he was fighting it.

She went through the familiar motion, holding the heart on top of the spirit she'd accepted from Ryu. As he rose from his bag she held it out to him. "Here." She said. Looking over the arrow shafts still sticking out of the man. It was more than Geralt at least. Maybe enough. "Take this. It's what kicked him out of my mind. You'd be able to make them too, if you worked at it."

Ryu, engaged in the messy and painful activity of removing bolts and then tightly binding his wounds with bandages from his bag, paused to consider the heart in Linkle's hand. Spiritually attuned as he was, he could still feel the touch of Galeem in his core. Anything to give his heart some peace was worth a little risk. Gingerly, the martial artist accepted Linkle friend heart, and was immediately restored. He closed his eyes and breathed deep of the cool evening breeze, a free man at last. "Thank you," he told her, plain and simple. "You've got a good spirit, miss. Take care not to give it all away." He held his hand in the direction of the Adventurers' Guild. "We should eat before it's gone."

Linkle just nodded, happy to have been of some real help. She went to gather her things, pulling on her regular boots so her legs didn't feel quite as heavy as she slowly followed the man back, heavy boots dangling from one hand and the blue spirit in the other.

Along the way she held it up to be face and spoke intimately to it. "Hi. I'm Linkle. Nice to meet you....whoever you are. Sorry I don't know your name. Would you still be friends with me, though?" She glanced wistfully at Ryu. "It turns out I could still really use the help."