[center][h1][color=a187be]Shifumi Ushiyama // Ushi-Oni[/color]
VS
[center]Marionetta Molly[/center][/h1][/center]

[color=#A9A9A9]Molly also took up position once her training partner had been announced. Ushi-Oni was her favourite of the newcomers hands-down, she was happy to get to do this with her. Conversely, niether Hades nor Dealer had made a particularly good impression, and she felt a little bad her two other favourites were going to have to deal with them. As she stood across from Ushi-Oni, listening to her state her intentions clearly, Marionetta's smile widened. She really [i]was[/i] as charming as she looked! 

In response, Molly used her threads, unseen and stuck to the ceiling above them both, to lift her arms, while a few of the threads from her hands wormed their way into the white sash around her waist. From Shifumi's viewpoint, a pair of large, wooden knives levitated out from the sash and into Marionetta's palms, pointed downward as her fingers wrapped around the handles. [/color]"In that case, I'll extend the same courtesies to you. Apologies for bringing weapons to a fistfight, but I don't quite have the musculature for martial arts..."

[color=#A9A9A9]Marionetta turned her wrists, pointing the knives upward as she dashed forward, heels clacking on concrete as she bent forward with her arms outstretched. She approached Ushi-Oni, her body still lowering closer to the floor. By the time she was within range to attack, her body was so low she might as well have been laying down, her feet still planted on the ground despite her body being at an almost 180 degree angle. Her arms shot up over her head and her body suddenly swung itself upright, the tips of the wooden knives aimed right between Ushi-Oni's legs - Marionetta, for all her ladylike demeanour, was not above hitting below the belt.[/color]


Shifumi cursed herself in her head as she noticed Molly pull out two, albeit wooden, knives. This was why she wore armor; she had raw strength, but her skin was no stronger than a quirkless human's skin, perhaps even more sensitive due to the self-induced chronic inflammation. But more than the knives, it was Molly's attack trajectory that really took Shifumi by surprise. When the knives floated out of Molly's pockets, Shifumi assumed some sort of telekinesis quirk, but if that were the case, then Molly didn't need to literally fling herself like a ragdoll at Shifumi. Fortunately, Shifumi had taken a boxer's stance and managed to sidestep the lunge in time not to get stabbed. Shifumi considered kicking Molly; the only part of Shifumi's body that was currently 'armored' was her foot, since her leather shoes were the hardest part of her ensemble. Given Molly's frame, Shifumi didn't want to start her time with the League with the stigma of having broken a comrade's bones, but when someone was trying to stab you in the grundle, it was sort of a no-holds-barred situation. Shifumi thrust her foot forward in a front kick aimed at Molly's midsection, but given Molly's atypical movement patterns, Shifumi fully expected her opponent to be more slippery than expected, and upon pulling back her kick, hopped back a few explosive jumps to make distance between them. Being in a warehouse, Shifumi scanned for heavy objects, crates, car parts, anything that she could throw or wield so that she could apply her strength from range. Seeing a three-foot long wrench, Shifumi picked it up effortlessly and chucked it at Molly, sending the wrench spinning through the air.

[color=#A9A9A9]Indeed, Marionetta was just too slippery for the kick to land; her body bent sideways at the waist with her planted feet and raised hands not moving, seeming to curve around Ushi-Oni's foot thrust the way play-dough curves around a finger pressed into it. She straightened back out when Ushi-Oni pulled her foot back, but wasn't quite quick enough to counter before Ushi-Oni got out of melee range. Molly planned to give chase, but stopped herself at the sight of Ushi-Oni taking her eyes off of her in favour of exploring her surroundings. Molly instantly anticipated she was planning to use her surroundings somehow, which would undoubtedly make for a better show for Noxious, especially if she could thwart the attempt. It only took her opponent a second to decide what to use, and Molly's vision was locked on a large, steel wrench heading right toward her.

Her left arm fell to her side as the threads being used to support it were redirected into the path of the oncoming tool. At the same time, Molly held her right arm forward, fingers splayed as if channeling some power through it - the knife she'd been holding with that hand now left suspended in midair by a thread. Just before it struck her, the spinning wrench stopped. At the same moment, a soft twang sounded from near Molly, and the assured, relaxed smile that seemed a permanent fixure of her face faded for only the briefest moment as she resisted a wince from the pain of one of her threads snapping from the force the wrench had behind it. Depending on how good her senses were, Ushi-Oni might not catch one or both of those events from that distance away.[/color]

"I know I just did a melee attack, but did you forget the sight of my knives floating out of my dress? I meant it as a clue, darling, as to the nature of my quirk..."

[color=#A9A9A9]The fingers of Molly's right hand closed into a fist, then flicked open with force. At the same time, the invisible threads holding the wrench tensed, slingshotting the object back at Ushi-Oni with just as much force as she'd used to throw it.[/color] "I'm telekinetic! Physical projectiles won't work!"

[color=#A9A9A9]To follow up, Molly raised her left arm and threw her left hand's knife, followed by the one suspended to her right at Ushi-Oni as well, both aimed to the same side of the wrench, as Molly anticipated Ushi to dodge that way based on the hand she'd used to throw the wrench.[/color]

Though Shifumi didn't notice the twang, the slight fading of Molly's smile and the amount of time it took for the wrench to stop moving was information Shifumi could use. The fact that the wrench didn't stop immediately indicated that Molly wasn't a 'perfect' telekinetic; inertia still mattered, and inertia was a property of mass. Given the mass of the wrench, there was some 'windup' time before Molly was able to throw it back at Shifumi, giving Shifumi the opportunity to dodge it. But Shifumi was unable to anticipate the knives, and was only able to slightly turn her body at the last moment to prevent her vitals from getting hit, as one knife embedded itself into her shoulder and the other into her calf.

[color=a187be]"FUCK!"[/color] Shifumi called out in pain. Fortunately, the knives were wooden, and therefore not as sharp as steel, so they couldn't penetrate as deeply, and this wasn't Shifumi's first knife fight. Pulling the knives out, she stabbed them between the wooden slats of some nearby crates, lodging them in, and making them harder to retrieve. She had considered smashing them on the ground to shatter them, but wondered if these were handcrafted. If so, Shifumi didn't want to destroy her future ally's precious handiwork. Dark, diseased-looking blood oozed from Shifumi's wounds. Though she wasn't wearing her signature armor, she remembered that her costume had a cape for a reason. Reaching for the buttons of the coat of her nice suit, she ripped the coat off, Superman-style, causing buttons to fly about. Holding the coat in one hand in front oher like a bullfighter, Shifumi hoped to obscure her own silhouette from Molly, making it more difficult for Molly to aim ranged attacks at her, while sidling around towards some more piles of junk.

[color=a187be]"Well-played, but you're not telekinetic,"[/color] Shifumi taunted, before reaching around to grab a dismantled engine block, significantly larger and heavier than the wrench she had first thrown, and chucked it at Molly, wondering if her quirk, whatever it was, had the power to stop something this massive.

[color=#A9A9A9]By no means did Molly have the strength in her muscles to lift something like that, much less stop its momentum toward her. Ushi-Oni clearly had strength to spare. Luckily, Molly had no need to do so - she avoided the engine block by detaching all of the threads holding her upright from their anchor points in the ceiling, causing her body to collapse into a jumbled heap on the floor, the engine block passing overhead and hitting the ground behind her with a loud clatter. 

Deciding there was no point in continuing to try to decieve Ushi-Oni about the nature of her quirk, Molly decided to change how she was using her threads for a bit, and try something fun. Ushi-Oni would be able to see something begin to form from the top of Molly's head and begin extending upward as she weaved her threads together, layering them like the muscle fibers they were. The now inch thick weave, tinted reddish in the light, reached up to the ceiling and latched onto one of the rafters, pulling Molly up by her head, leaving the rest of her slack. She looked no worse for wear having had her body crumple the way it did, owing to the flexibility of her body.[/color]

"Awww, what gave it away? It was the name, wasn't it? "Marionetta" [i]is[/i] admittedly a little on-the-nose," [color=#A9A9A9]Molly said, counting on her gentle voice to keep Ushi's attention for a moment. The threads from Molly's arms and legs were still unseen, moving to latch onto the heavy junk and crates Ushi-Oni was standing in front of.[/color] "After we're done, maybe you'd be kind enough to workshop a new one with me? If "Ushi-Oni" is any indication, you've a knack for wordplay that would assist me greatly."

[color=a187be]"It was actually the momentum,"[/color] Shifumi explained, [color=a187be]"The few telekinetics I've met can stop a projectile dead in its tracks. The fact that the wrench had to decelerate made me think it was something different. As for the name, it actually hadn't crossed my mind until you pointed it out. But on-the-nose is good. While appearances are important, nobody should try too hard to be something they're not. Like, I understand when you need to send a message, but we're not heroes, we're not here to change society, just profit off of it."[/color] It seemed as if Shifumi was questioning the way villains operated. [color=a187be]"Still, I'm curious about the League, but deep down, I'll always be a mobster."[/color]

[color=#A9A9A9]Assuming her words had succeeded in keeping Ushi-Oni's attention and stopped her from making any more moves, Molly immediately followed her request for assistance with the weaving of the threads that had latched onto things behind Ushi, creating four inch-thick weaves, two on each side of Ushi-Oni. She wouldn't be able to move either direction without getting tangled in them. With her threads woven together, Molly could move her limbs by contracting her muscles in specific ways, allowing her to adopt a dynamic pose with her right leg raised and her torso twisted so that her right arm extend forward even though it was behind her back, looking like she was rearing up an over-the-top haymaker punch. She then used the four weaves to pull herself toward Ushi-Oni at high speed, now thrusting her right fist forward.[/color]

"Ah you okay?!"

[color=#A9A9A9]If her fist connected with Ushi-Oni, the threads of her right hand and its fingers would latch onto Ushi's face and weave together as Molly raised her right fist over her head. Then, in one motion, her arm's weave would pull her fist down, while her hand's weave would pull Ushi-Oni's face into her fist, creating a hard collision while Molly's left hand held her right forearm to brace it for the impact.[/color]

"Bustah Wowf!!!"