[center][h3]Esaka - Pools Tier[/h3]
[b]Yayama Yama[/b]
Status: Successful
LV: 5, EXP: 44/50
Word Count:  3334 (+4, then +10 for match completion)
Ft. [@Lugubrious] as Ferra & Torr[/center]

After Yayama and Primrose went their separate ways, the former met up with her fellow diminutive knight at the stage for their next bout. She was grateful for the distractions that the crowds provided; weaving through people’s knees without annihilating any shins or thighs with her sword by mistake took enough focus that her mind couldn’t wander back to topics best left off the field. Similarly, her match coming up so soon after her previous one was ideal. A later one meant that she’d have to contend with ever-increasing fatigue through the day first, not to mention needing to warm up again. Shouldering her way forward, Yayama stepped out past the crowd and onto the stage, just a few minutes before her next match was set to begin.

It was another minute before she spotted an unusual figure lumbering along one of the nearby wooden walkways, the timber straining and creaking with every step as bystanders shifted out of the stranger’s way. Improbably muscular men, the sort who made even male Au Ra look like shrimps, were rather common in Esaka, so even new arrivals tended to get desensitized to the sight fairly quickly. Every so often, though, there came along a specimen of such outrageous proportions that he was beefy even by Esaka standards, and this appeared to be one of them. The absolute gorilla of a man, with trunklike limbs and enormous hands, was bare except for bits of hide and bladed armor draped across his form. Red eyes shone from inside the scrap of red cloth that veiled his face, and he seemed to be headed Yayama’s way. As he got closer, though, she could make out one more interesting detail: a diminutive figure riding on the brute’s back, clothed in a similarly aggressive fashion and armed with two-clawed gauntlets.

“There they are!” Yelled the little one in shrill, snarly voice as she tapped at her mount’s shoulders, then pointed at Yayama and Charlotte. “Move, Torr!” The hulking man beneath her obeyed without question. He approached the stage for the two teams’ imminent kombat, leaping down onto the [url=https://i.imgur.com/lUEhzwh.png]long, narrow arena[/url] elevated just above the water’s surface by two rows of trapezoidal stone wedges. Thin as it was, the platform shook slightly beneath the weight of the duo known as [url=https://i.imgur.com/lUEhzwh.png]Ferra/Torr[/url]. Once he came to a stop, his rider leaned over his broad shoulders, smirking at the opposition. “Hah! Enemies even littler than me is! This easy for we - maybe more easier than stupid undie-pants man last round!”

Yayama looked the duo up and down, assessing the mass of muscle and the brains running the operation. After her analysis, she declared a resounding “Eh” as she hefted her sword. “Fought bigger. Of course, I know better than to judge the amount of fight in someone by how tall they are.” The dark knight held her sword off to one side to free up her left hand. She pointed it at Torr, then crooked one finger in a “come at me” gesture. “Let’s see what you’ve actually got.”

The dark knight waited for the Principles to call the start of the match proper. Of course, she wasn’t planning on charging in immediately; in fact, that was what she was hoping her foes would do, with the rider seeming lulled into a false sense of security by her stature. She watched both Ferra and Torr for signs of an incoming attack, not wanting to let the small one return the favor Yayama was about to do the pair. 

With little sense for what the kombatants might call ‘dramatic timing’, it took a few more moments for the Heavenly Principles to take action. A nasty, expectant grin spread across Ferra’s face when golden light finally welled up from the arena’s surface. [b]ROUND ONE: FIGHT![/b]

“Haaaaah!” The second the battle began, Torr reached up, grabbed Ferra off his back, and hurled her through the air. Her bladed claws gleamed in the morning light as she flew in a high arc, flipping fast enough to resemble a large buzz saw. At the same time, Torr ran forward a few steps, then slowed to a stop as he reached melee range, the reach of his burly, long arms much larger then Yayama’s. He did not attack immediately, but waited to see what would come of his human projectile, ready to pile on. It was a decent opening gambit to apply offensive pressure, somehow achieved without the use of any communication that the Lalafell could identify.

Yayama brought her greatsword up defensively, forming an improvised rampart between herself and the whirling blades before they struck. She stepped backward as she blocked, not wanting to open herself up to a potential grab from the giant this early in the fight. Once Ferra exhausted her momentum, the dark knight launched a quick thrust forward with her blade, aiming to catch the next assault before it began with its deceptively long reach. 

With an annoyed grunt, Ferra bounced off her opponent’s guard and grabbed onto Torr’s shoulders as she sailed away, resuming her normal place. Torr crouched down as Yayama’s thrust jabbed toward him, his armored shins and forearms a strong bulwark as he blocked. Once her blade’s tip glanced off his metal braces, the brute tried a couple lumbering swats of his own. She easily spaced the attack out, deftly hopping backward such that Torr’s arms swung through the air just inches away from her.

Yayama began her reprisal with a leaping, overhead slash, collapsing the distance between the two at once with a plunging blow. The maneuver was risky, leaving her exposed in the short time between the start of her leap and the beginning of the actual strike, but the sudden close caught her foe off guard. A loud [i]clang[/i] sounded as her blow struck home, followed by a metallic [i]thump[/i] as she drove her armored elbow into Torr’s head. In the additional air time landing the hit gave her, she unleashed a wide slash angled down toward her opponent, striking once more before her feet touched the ground. 

Although the Dark Knight could still reliably land combos on her target despite his size, Torr’s weight -and the fact that he hadn’t been juggled yet- did factor into what hits could link into one another. In the midst of Yayama’s descending slash, the brute recovered just fast enough to block. She landed the next second of course, ready to stuff any swings he might attempt with a much faster attack of her own, but rather than deal with the pressure Torr simply leaped up and back.

The next moment he was out of range, or so it seemed, for once again he grabbed Ferra off his back. With one massive mitt clamped around her interlocked hands, he swung his straight arm in a downward arc, nearly doubling his range. His overhead’s reach managed to take Yayama by surprise as it bounced her off the ground, giving Torr the moment he needed to dash forward once, then land a couple slugs, the last of which knocked Yayama up and out of his reach. It was then that Ferra interceded, stabbing Torr with her claws. “No pain, no gain!” The sharp jab not only angered Torr to boost his damage slightly, but jolted him out of his recovery, allowing him to dash forward again sooner than he would have been able to otherwise. It wasn’t enough to continue the combo, but it allowed him to get right on top of Yayama after she landed, at which point he went for a grab.

What Ferra didn’t anticipate was Yayama calling for her assist. Torr landed his grab, but before he could actually do anything, Charlotta appeared and hit the giant with a series of three rapid slashes before disappearing. Dropped from the impact, Yayama was now free to jab him twice in the gut before ramming a shoulder into him and following with a horizontal swipe of her blade. Living up to one of her many titles, her assault was unrelenting; it continued with an Edge of Darkness, a swift and harsh downward slash that wreathed her blade in roiling, purple-and-red aether. She completed her combo with a thrust, chained into an uppercut, chained into another downward chop before she kicked Torr away from herself. 

Wanting to capitalize on her advantage, she closed the gap with another plunging slash. It missed Torr, but put Yayama within her blade’s reach as the brute was standing up. She aimed another long thrust at him in an attempt to stop the duo from responding with anything but a desperate defense.

By now, both her opponents had gotten a taste of the alarming power their pint-sized opponent wielded. Once Torr fell prey to her combo, Ferra fell off him and went sprawling on the ground. Even once she got up, she didn’t dare try to attack Yayama on her own, but instead darted back and forth in a panic. The moment Yayama’s kick rolled him away, though, she made a beeline for Torr and climbed back onto his shoulders. With their foe already stabbing at them, the pair had no time to breath, but they did have one defensive option the Lalafell hadn’t seen yet. Torr let loose an armored command grab, shrugging off Yayama’s thrust in order to snatch her like a ratshaker rat. When he held her up, Ferra hopped onto her partner’s arms in order to puncture Yayama with her claws. After two jabs, she jumped back, and Torr turned and tossed his foe away. She fell just short of a ring-out, her boots just a few feet away from the water’s edge, as Torr lumbered forward.

The dark knight dragged herself back to her feet, using her sword to push against the ground. “You scratched my bloody paint, you runt,” she growled as she held one hand palm up, charging a Jolt. Yayama waited for Torr to get a bit closer before she put her plan into action. A few more steps, and she threw the gathered aether at him; under the Principles, it zipped out to a fixed distance then burst. The attack was easy to block, but while it flew, Yayama darted forward. She swept her sword low across the ground, slashing at Torr’s ankles, then followed with another Edge of Darkness overhead. Rather than continue, however, she deployed the secret weapon of all lalafells: her jump. 

Her leap took her over Torr entirely. She delayed until just before the apex of her jump, kicked at Ferra to force her steed to block, then fired her Dualcast second spell directly at the ground. The Impact exploded in a burst of dust, launching Torr a perilous distance in the direction he’d previously thrown Yayama. She sprinted after him, then threw a vicious shoulder check as a follow-up; the angle was awkward, but the hit was enough to send the duo skidding off the edge of the arena and into the water below.

[b]YAYAMA WINS,[/b] declared the Heavenly Principles as the brute thrashed in the water. Ferra, who’d landed on the stage by the edge, whirled toward Yayama with a snarl on her face. “Pushing Torr out bounds is cheating, no fair! Only weakling needs water!” She kept her distance, though, and when Torr floundered over to haul himself up, Ferra leaned over the edge to try and help him. Of course, Torr did all the work, which left him arguably more winded than the fight itself. Once back on the stage, he replaced Ferra on his back, then stomped over to a position opposite Yayama, growling unintelligibly under his breath.

These two were definitely an odd duo, and not just because the main fighter seemed to be subservient to his rider. Throughout the first round, Ferra had involved herself constantly, much more than it seemed a Kameo fighter should be able to, and yet the Principles did not intervene. Whatever they technically were, these two were an exception to the established format. Once Torr shook himself off like a stray dog, Yayama’s opponents were ready again. Due to the ring out, Torr wasn’t especially wounded, so he’d have plenty of energy for the next bout.

[b]ROUND TWO: FIGHT![/b]

This time, Torr seized Ferra and slung her underhand like a bowling ball across the floor toward the dark knight in a high speed slide kick. He followed after his rider with an armored shoulder charge, tough enough to soak up one hit and probably big enough to catch Yayama even if she jumped. The twin assault left the dark knight with little choice; she planted her feet and prepared her guard, crouching to get as much of herself hidden behind steel as she could manage before Ferra and her thundering giant slammed into her. She grunted with the blow, the hit hurting even through her iron defense. 

While Ferra scrambled to climb back atop her partner, Torr pressed his advantage to beat against Yayama’s block and see just how sturdy she really was. He swung his arms twice, then launched a knee. At that point, Ferra interrupted him with a stab that boosted his damage, at the cost of some more of his vitality. “Pain and gain!” In that brief moment he shone yellow, betraying his momentary armored state, and afterward he continued to attack. Once again Ferra jabbed him. “Pain and gain!” Then Torr tried to grab Yayama once more.

Not wanting to be manhandled again, and starting to get familiar with how Ferra and Torr fought, Yayama took the brief opening the duo’s little ritual gave her to hop back, keeping as low as she could such that the giant’s arms went over her head. Making no assumptions about her foe’s capabilities, she threw out a long thrust of her blade once again to make it difficult to follow up, but made no attempt to convert it into further damage on the off chance Torr simply powered through while she recovered.

The thrust landed the moment after Torr’s clutching hands grasped nothing, and it elicited a grunt of pain. He stepped back, then hopped forward to perform a double overhead smash, just high enough to clear and then crush low attacks. Once more, the lalafell matched his distance, swiftly stepping backward as he wound up his strike.

Aware of her increasingly perilous proximity to the edge of the ring, Yayama knew she needed to do more than defend and poke. That, and a part of her was begging to be let off its leash. There was an almost palpable shift in her demeanor as she wound up her blade for a punishing strike. “Now you’ll see why they call me the Warrior of Darkness!” The dark knight swung Shadowbringer like it was an oversized baseball bat and Torr was a fastball thrown dead center.

The attack would normally have been risky, with a long windup and leaving Yayama wide open once it finished. What she had, however, was her greatest asset: teamwork. As Ferra spurred her steed forward to exploit this obvious opening, a war cry and a swift triple strike of another blade met his legs. The final hit landed just in time for the arena to ring with the sound of Yayama’s greatsword crashing into Torr with full force, sending the giant careening away toward his own edge of their stage. The lalafell sprinted forward, winding up another sweeping blow - this time an uppercut - without fear of reprisal. She just managed to catch the duo on the tip of her blade before they landed, stopping them from hitting the ground and recovering for another precious instant.

“This ends now!” Two voices called out in unison, as Charlotta came in for another assist. Her whirling charge turned that instant into a second, giving Yayama enough time to land another plunging blow. Torr bounced against the ground, into another “EDGE OF DARKNESS!” that she called out loud. She swiped her blade low, then made another, shorter uppercut, following her foe into the air as the dark knight continued to juggle her foe. Leaping past him, she threw an aerial punch, followed by her flying elbow, followed by a downward cut covering a wide arc below her. By this point, her repeated strikes had worn out her ability to follow, so as Torr flew back toward the center, Yayama landed and began to charge a full-fledged Impact in case that wasn’t enough.

Torr hit the ground and rolled on his back to his feet, while Ferra tumbled sideways in front of him. “Ugh-guh-huh!” Her mount looked down at her, then up at Yayama as she charged her ability. Even winded and separated, the symbiotic duo were of one mind. Torr grabbed Ferra, tucked her under one against his chest, and charged like a linebacker. Yayama’s Impact struck him head-on, and for a precarious second his armored tackle seemed liable to power through the attack, but just before reaching the lalafell Torr slumped to his knees and skidded, headfirst, to a stop at her feet. Ultimately, he didn’t have enough vitality to make use of his armor, so the gruesome twosome were down for the count.

[b]YAYAMA YAMA WINS![/b]
“Hells yeah! I’ve still got it!” Yayama called triumphantly, posing with her sword once more. After a moment of this, the thrill of the fight started to wear off, and she turned to her downed opponent. “Good match, you two,” she said diplomatically, despite the little one’s poor sportsmanship earlier. She offered a hand for assistance, ignoring the size disparity between her and the one who would be doing most of the getting up. 

Ferra, though partially trapped under Torr’s limp weight, was the much more conscious of the two. “Pah!” With a dismissive noise she batted away Yayama’s hand, then continued to try and pull herself loose. “Urk! Move, big ugly! Let Ferra out!”

Yayama rolled her eyes. “Pride doesn’t look as good on the loser.” She ignored Ferra’s swat, circling around Torr a bit until she had a decent place to grab on and roll the enormous man off his partner. That accomplished, she channeled a spell for a moment, then cast two in quick succession: a Vercure to patch up the worst of the damage Ferra had suffered, and a Verraise to rouse Torr back to full consciousness and functionality. Without another word, she turned and began to walk off the stage.

Thoroughly baffled by, and more than a little suspicious of, Yayama’s actions, Ferra could only watch the winner leave until Torr stirred. “Torr!” She then climbed up onto him as he rose to his full height, putting a hand to his head. Then both spent a moment gawking at Yayama, very much unused to such sportsmanship, especially shown to them. Ferra’s face tightened as she looked away. “Grr, okay. Now we in Losers. Gotta fight harder. Smarter. Ferra not want Torr die.”

The brute grumbled in agreement, and the pair turned to head off and find a bulletin board in order to learn the particulars of their next, far more dangerous match, as well as someone who could read their listing for them.

[i]Here’s hoping they remember that,[/i] Yayama thought to herself as she watched the two amble off. [i]I sincerely hope I didn’t just set them up to die.[/i]

[i]They were clearly murderers anyways. Why concern yourself with their fate?[/i]

[i]Because that’s what we do.[/i] Shoving the other presence to the back of her mind, Yayama turned to Charlotta. The two bid one another farewell for the day, agreeing on a meeting place that would hopefully result in less public embarrassment for one of them - no names specified of course - before going their separate ways. “I need a gods-damned nap,” Yayama grumbled to herself as Charlotta left. 

Despite everything else, she had her life, a purpose, and success in that purpose so far. She’d just have to content herself with that.