Esaka, the Tiered City - the Pools
Setting: Drizzly Friday Morning
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (267/150) Level 11 Big Band (209/110)
Amaterasu’s @DracoLunaris Roland’s @Archmage MC Pit’s @Yankee Sakura & Juri’s @Zoey Boey Captain Falcon’s @Double Yayama’s @Chevaleresse Grima’s @Goggy
Word Count: 1674 / 976
In the few seconds given to her before the start of her third qualifier match’s final round, Nadia took a few deep breaths to calm her pounding heart. The adrenaline pumping through her veins had her feeling like a live wire. It allowed her to hit harder, move faster, and think better, but with too much juice she could just as easily overdose, and once the wildfire burned down she’d be left burnt out. So much exertion and split-second decision making took a toll on the body, and she’d have broken a serious sweat if not for today’s weather. The cool breeze and light drizzle felt paw-sitively heavenly on her skin now that she’d shed her coat. Around her island battlefield, various spectators cheered on the two teams, low in number but highly motivated by the dueling catgirls. Some even seemed to be cheering for her! Nadia licked fresh rainwater off her lips and smiled as she blew kisses to her few fans. Today, she truly was in her element.
Opposite her, Bullet helped Taokaka to her feet. The other catgirl looked a little woozy from the beating Nadia had given her in round two, but with a vigorous shake of her head Taokaka was looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed once more. “You’re so mean, Big Sis!” she complained. Nadia instinctively bristled at that nickname -it felt so weird!- but at least it beat ‘Blue Eyes’.
“What, never taken a good hit be-fur?” the thief called back, her hands on her hips. “Gonna have to get used to it real quick. Losin’ just ain’t within my purr-view!”
Bullet played it cool with a smirk. “You already lost once. So we got knocked down…so what? Now we’re motivated, that’s all.”
Taokaka giggled excitedly. “Yeah, you tell ‘em, Butt Floss! Let’s kick these kitties to the curb!”
While Robo-fortune didn’t deign to add to the conversation, as per usual, Nadia could tell that everyone was ready to settle this once and for all. She sharpened her claws and got ready to fight, a smile on her face. Her opponents had scared her at first, but she’d proven they could still bleed, and if they could bleed, she could win.
ROUND THREE: FIGHT!
Taokaka sprang forward as Nadia unleashed the pressurized blood in her legs to superjump high into the air. “Robo, cross them out!” At her call, her Kameo leaped up after her, then paused to fire the pink X-ray of her Variable Cutter downward. It was easy for Taokaka to dodge, but it took her focus off Nadia as the feral flipped high overhead. “Thunderous…” Narrowing her eyes against the sky, Taokaka stood her ground and blocked high. Dissolving into pure electricity, Nadia streaked downward with Charge and rematerialized just in time to smash down into the ground in a mighty stomp of her Mantreads. “Ap-paws!” The resulting shockwave hit Taokaka low, and with a yelp she lost her footing.
Too pleased that her gambit paid off to register the pain, Nadia pivoted forward with a light low kick, then planted her hands to strike with her disjointed leg, then tail. “One, two!” From there she pulled her head off and thrust it forward to pierce with hardened ears, launched with a light Fiber Upper, and snapped up to continue the combo. At that point, knowing how long Nadia’s combos could be and how early in the round it was, Bullet made an executive decision. She ran in to break the combo with a wild uppercut followed by all-out high kick: her trademark Cutting Sheer.
Knocked backward, Nadia flipped and landed on her feet just as Taokaka pushed in with a claw dash, now at advantage. She knew a blistering blockstring was on its way, but with no tension there wasn’t much she could do. The feral deflected her foe’s first hopping swipe, then crouched to guard against the follow-up low, then rose when Taokaka hopped again, only for it to be an empty jump as she landed without attacking and went low again. Her low sleeve swipe started a combo involving slide kick, rising knee, jump cancel into airborne swipe, double claw slash, and claw dive. Unable to call upon her own Kameo for a combo breaker, Nadia grit her teeth and bore an onslaught of slashes and kicks that carried her across the stage, closer and closer to the water.
Taokaka’s combo finally came to a close with Cat Spirit One. When Nadia hit the sand, her foe went low with her to force her to rise with jagged clawblades. Nadia pushed herself into a low block, then pushed her opponent away with a couple light swipes. The two traded jabs in a quick, tense exchange that ended the moment that Nadia could call in Robo-fortune. “Death from above!” Her Kameo jumped and opened her chest as pink energy welled around her heart, only for Nadia to dash forward and grab Taokaka before she could even block the downward Theonite Beam. “Psych!” In a flash she pulled out enough muscle fiber to wrap Taokaka in a visceral yarn ball, which she toyed with for a moment (“A purr-fect plaything!”) before she slurped her fibers back in and started a combo.
Knee, heel, tail, and nail–Nadia assailed her foe with a flurry of blows in her creatively segmented style. Early on it looked like she’d knocked Taokaka too far away to continue, but after using Fiber Upper to get some height, she spent her Tension on Feral Edge to plunge downward, slash Taokaka upward, and then sneeze her own head off to bash her rival even higher. “Comin’ achoo!” After that she struck a couple times, then spiked Taokaka downward into her own head for the juggle. Without any Tension she couldn’t finish with Furserker Purrage, but a brief unchain combo worked well enough.
Finally, Taokaka rolled to her feet a little older but not even a little wiser, now behind the headless cat burglar on life. Nadia dashed to the right, then sent her head blasting toward her foe. Taokaka gleefully let loose a wicked hooked slash that caught Nadia’s head and cut deep into her cheek. “OW!” she yowled as her body ran up to take full advantage of the distraction. “Butthead!” She jumped and landed bottom-first on her foe’s exposed noggin, burying it in the sand. Taokaka flailed helplessly, trying to pull free as Nadia slashed her back again and again. After a moment the feral backsprung off, but as soon as her foe pulled her head out and started spitting sand, she found herself yanked off the ground by her leg, whirled around luchadora-style, and flung straight into the stage’s horizontal tree with a CLONK.
Landing in a heap, Taokaka cried out. “Heeeelp!”
In reply, Bullet vaulted over the tree. Nadia steeled herself, but even she wasn’t ready for the full-force explosive blast of Bullet’s Rage Aggressor. “You’re HISTORY!” The huge explosion, so loud that even the spectators could feel the aftershock, guard crushed Nadia, and thanks to her poor stance she flew backwards and went tumbling across the sand.
By the time she recovered, ears ringing, Taokaka was already zipping across the stage in a lightning-fast zigzag. She then sprang over Nadia’s head, bounced off another palm tree, and shot toward her from behind. The feral turned to block in time, but Taokaka bounced upward on hit, dropped a bowling ball that landed with a painful crack on Nadia’s shoulder, and airdashed away. “Aaaaaagh,” the thief groaned, clutching her broken bone.
Taokaka landed a short distance away and turned to take advantage gleefully, only to realize something was off. “Hang on, where’s-?”
“Lookin’ for this?” Nadia’s detached heat sank her teeth into the bare calf of her opponent, who screeched. She performed a manic side-to-side dance, then unleashed Imma Beat the Crap Outta You in a desperate -and perhaps foolish- attempt to close out the fight. She missed as Nadia’s body jumped, landed right beneath her in a kneeling position, and received a counterhit Flying Screen Door right to the dome. It left her stunned, a sitting duck as Robo-fortune came in to bail her exhausted partner out with Catastrophe Cannon Alpha. Two gigantic pink beams, brilliant enough to draw eyes from all around, blasted Taokaka into unconsciousness.
ROUND THREE: MS FORTUNE AND ROBO-FORTUNE WIN!
Amidst the cheers and boos, Nadia numbly stooped to pick up her detached head from the sand, careful not to hurt her poor shoulder. “We did it?” She stuck her head back on, wiped as much blood as she could from the huge cuts in her cheek, and sprouted a wide smile. “I mean, of course we did it! Score one for the Fortunes! I mean, more like score three or somethin’ at this point, but who’s countin’?”
Her Kameo stared at her. “An adequate performance. I have several pointers.”
“Can it wait?” Nadia sighed. After massaging her shoulder, she waved at the crowd, then raised and shook her fist in victory. “Yeah, I better hear some cheers! Make some noise for the future champion of Mortal Kombat, people! Shao Khan? More like Shao Khan’t! I ‘Shao’ defeat him!” She continued to showboat and egg on the spectators until Robo-fortune pulled her, yowling, from the stage.
Once the dust settled, Big Band found himself a stone bench among the tier’s walkways, surrounded by ongoing pools matches, and parked himself there to catch his breath. No matter which way he sliced it, he’d been thoroughly outclassed by Potemkin. He wasn’t about to obsess over his loss and let it get to his head, since he’d known his limits from the start and there were always bigger fish out there, but it didn’t hurt to mull over what had happened in hopes of learning something.
The second round had been a blowout; that much was obvious. Unaware of just how scary Potemkin’s grab game was, he’d made the wrong choice a few too many times, started to panic, and paid the price. Not much more to it than that. In the future, he would simply have to be more careful around grapplers and fight from a greater distance, despite his own distaste for projectile-happy zoners. Band focused more on the fight before that. The first round between the two giants had been explosive, but competitive. Each traded a few hefty blows, with Potemkin’s shorter, harder-hitting strings comparable to Band’s longer combos.
If the detective had to hazard a guess where he went wrong, it might have been his choices on defense, especially against that brutal cannon blast that Potemkin called Garuda Impact. Even when it struck his block, it left him so discombobulated that his foe practically had free reign to walk up and either continue his pressure or go for a throw. It was a simple but fearsome game plan: Potemkin inspired fear with the raw destructive power of his grabs, applied oppressive blockstun, forced foes to scramble to avoid said grabs, hit them during their evasive actions, then grabbed them when they second-guessed themselves.
Well, Band reasoned, Chances are I won’t run into him again. Every cloud had its silver lining, he supposed. Even dropping to the Losers bracket.
Band had never labored under the delusion that he’d be the one taking home the gold in the World Warrior tournament, especially not with Sakura as the team’s natural ace-in-the-hole, but he’d still wanted to pull his considerable weight. The Pools might be clean and clear in the beginning, but in the Losers’ bracket was shark-infested, with plenty of blood in the water. Everyone would be desperate. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he flunked out, so his own survival would be his primary concern. Sure, fatalities were ostensibly a Mortal Kombat thing, but in Galeem’s world the only constants were death and Moebius.
Once he finished reflecting, Band continued to rest. Although Potemkin had done a number on him, his outer shell could take a lot of punishment, and he didn’t see any lasting damage that would impair him in future fights just yet. That meant he could devote his full attention to nearby matches, scoping out potential future opponents and maybe learning a thing or two via observation.
His attention first landed on the bout with the most spectators, so many that the detective could only see the action thanks to his remarkable height. It involved a stern, traditional-looking martial artist in a white gi and a lean, blue-and-white werewolf. Despite the wolf’s savage claws and teeth, the fight seemed to be a straightforward (but intense) clash between karate and kung fu, with the werewolf even wielding nunchaku here and there. Band gleaned the combatants’ names from the onlookers’ cheers and jeers: Ryu and Jon Talbain. Both sounded like fighters of some renown, but the paradoxically plain-looking Ryu seemed to totally eclipse his opponent’s popularity. His was a no-nonsense, rock-solid all-rounder fighting style, with some technique for every situation backed up by surprising damage. Jon’s mobility and blazing strikes gave him a potent bag of tricks, but in the end Ryu was just too experienced. He came back from an initial disadvantage to take the match two rounds to one.
There were more matches practically everywhere Band looked, and all offered their own brand of entertainment. Nearby, a Losers match was ongoing between a burly blonde lady wrestler and a jacked brawler with orange garb and stylish red sunglasses. Both looked like skilled grapplers, so their bout was essentially a bombastic wrestling match. Their fight went fast and messy as they traded high-damage throws, with both constantly jumping to evade their opponent’s grasp, and Band gradually lost interest. By the time he looked away, Orville had gained a substantial lead.
A much stranger clash garnered the detective’s attention next: a mad scramble that pit a cheerful hamster scout and an edgy ninja against one another. It was a game of cat-and-mouse game between an obligate zoner and obligate rusher, with the speedy Chipp Zanuff chasing his opponent down while the wily Teemo fled and kept him at bay with his slingshot, poison blowdarts, and explosive mushrooms. As amusing as their antics were, they did not offer much in the way of instructional value, other than teaching Band that he really didn’t want to fight either of them. But especially not Teemo.
According to a nearby tournament board, it would be a little longer before Band’s next match, so he could continue to conserve his energy while watching other matches. It would be nice if a fellow Seeker happened upon him so he’d have someone to talk to, but Esaka was a big city, and there was no telling who might cross his path.
Maybe Bartholomew and Marguerite reminded Asuka of Lili. They were all snotty blonde rich kids in their own right, after all. At least Lili had, over time, built up something of a friendly rivalry with her old nemesis, but Asuka had no intentions to extend these two the same courtesy; she had a match to win, and their gimmicks were starting to grate on her nerves.
“Ikuzo!” Fully recovered from the chip damage of the twins’ Shot Loaded Right, Asuka charged. She dashed forward, then channeled her momentum into a spinning hook kick to catch the Bogards’ attempt to sidestep. Without Fortified Wager, after all, they stood to gain little from blocking. A sidestep of her own led into a dangerous advancing palm that just barely whiffed. She recovered fast enough to guard against Bart and Marg’s own kick, then ducked as they followed up with punches and lashed out with a revolving elbow strike.
This time it connected in a skull-rattling counterhit, and the pink flash ignited into a fiery blaze as Asuka’s Heat Mode engaged. “Here we go!” As Asuka sprinted forward, bluish-green lights flickered around her forearms like firefly swarms. The twins barely blocked her revolving hook punch, only to be opened up as Asuka dealt them a reckless overhead hammerfist. A one-two slug into uppercut sent the pair spiraling into another revolving elbow, after which Asuka spent her Heat to rush forward again for a thrust kick to extend the combo further. A spinning kick-punch-punch-kick chain knocked Bart and Marg further and further back, but in a stroke of luck Asuka’s uppercut finisher fell short at the last second, and the twins hit the ground a few paces away from the stage’s edge.
“...Ow,” they groaned, now aching all over. They felt like they’d been hit by a truck, and with that firefly-like aura still around her arms, Asuka wasn’t done yet. As they rose their foe pushed forward, determined to not give them any chance to fight back. They blocked for their tournament lives, then managed to get a crucial sidestep to Asuka’s blind side as she pressed the attack. Before she could round on them with a strike Marg managed to grab hold of her for a second while Bart got behind her. When Marg gave her a strong push, Asuka tripped over Bart’s leg and stumbled several steps before she fell flat on her back.
The twins made the most of the opportunity. “This one’s on me!” they echoed as they used Cornerstone Deluxe to replenish their amber shields. As they caught a much-needed breath, they briefly glanced at their teammates. Jun had disappeared, meaning that Amaterasu had probably knocked her into the water already, while Lei and Captain Falcon were fighting tooth and nail. Then, to the twins’ shock, the graying supercop managed to turn the tables on Falcon and flip him off the stage. In an instant, the situation had changed. They were no longer fighting for their pride as fighters or Lost Numbers–the team’s position in the tournament depended on them. And here they stood, panting like dogs and barely standing as Asuka got to her feet, not even sweating.
“Do we gotta, already?” Bart sighed.
Marg reached up to her collar, where a half-amber, half-aventurine broach glinted dangerously. When her hand closed around it, light shone from between her fingers. “We gotta. It’s go big, or go home!”
Asuka paused as her opponents tore off their half-and-half brooches, their fine clothes billowing in a sudden wind as light suffused their bodies, their voices synchronized. “Witness the power that was granted by THEM!”
When the light died down the twins were gone, replaced by a single entity. They floated half a foot off the ground, a featureless ink-black mannequin clad in an exquisite but almost comically elaborate brown suit and longcoat studded with amber and accented with gold, including gold longclaws, plus a peacock turquoise highlight. A fluffy white fur collar led up to a full-face peacock feather carnival mask and knee-length blonde hair, topped with a bowler hat with both peacock feathers and an amber crystal. This being had four arms, two buried in their coat’s pockets while the other two stretching out in a basking gesture.
Though taken aback for a moment, Asuka scoffed. “Am I supposed to be impressed?” She launched forward with a flying side kick. Bart-Marg lifted their two free arms to block it, and when the kick made contact, seven golden gems popped out. The deluge distracted her for the fraction of a second Bart-Marg needed to get beneath her guard and nail her with a low kick, then pivot around into an upward turning high kick. A somersault axe kick led into an upside-down upward corkscrew, an approximation of their grandfather’s Rising Tackle made possible by this form’s limited flight.
Asuka sailed high, hit the ground after Bart-Marg did, and rose with gritted teeth to see four giant dice get flung into the air. After a brief pause, the four dice shot down like meteorites, forcing Asuka to block while Bart-Marg stockpiled ambergold. “All in!” Poker chips rained down, chewing through even more of Asuka’s strength. She knew she needed to make a move, and charged in. This time she attempted a judo throw, but whether out of perceptiveness or sheer luck Bart-Marg floated back just enough to escape it, then pulled back their arm for a Burn Knuckle.
Time seemed to pause as Asuka canceled her throw and flung her arms in a circle, her hands splayed in an aggressive pose. “I’ve got a present for you!” A terrifying strength filled her as she pulled her arms back for an armored blow to start off some kind of super move. Bart-Marg had only a split second to act, and they put it all on the line.
“Big Spender’s MAD PARTY!”
Canceling their own attack, Bart-Marg disappeared as four dice appeared around Asuka. Her attack hit a die instead of her target, and it popped, displaying the golden number four. Behind Bart-Marg, the characters 4/9 flashed. Confused and anticipating more projectiles, Asuka held back for two more seconds, at which point the dice disappeared and the number display flashed red.
“Ooh, that’s too bad!” Spotlights shone down on Asuka from above, paralyzing her, as Bart-Marg’s true super activated, tearing open a rift through which heaping piles of poker chips rained down. “The winner takes all!” Unable to block, Asuka took the full brunt of Bart-Marg’s attack, and when the chips disappeared the girl lay unconscious on the arena’s floor.
BART AND MARG WIN!
In a flash of light, the twins returned to normal. All eyes were on them, astonished at both the sheer spectacle and the fact that two unknowns had beaten a seasoned favorite. Angry spectators grumbled about Low Tier fighters, cheap gimmicks, and so forth, with many invoking the Heavenly Principles by name.
“The hell was that? Never seen anything like it.”
“Low Tier trash! Low Tiers shouldn’t be allowed in tournaments, period.”
“That shit was mad busted! How do the Principles allow that?”
“I thought these tournaments were about fighting, not playing dice games!”
“Yeah, if I wanted crap like that I’d throw a Mario Party!”
“The Principles are gonna have a field day with those two.”
“Can’t believe she got knowledge checked again…”
Bart and Marg’s hearts were pounding, not just because they’d almost lost disastrously, but also because they’d revealed a core part of themselves in order to pull off the win. Turning to Amaterasu just after the Lei Wulong helped fish Falcon out of the water, the kids urgently beckoned them to follow them and abscond from the arena in a hurry. “C’mon, let’s get out of here!”
