[Thread] Gonna fight all night long, bb

[consideritmine]

Characters: OU!Rouge, OU!Shadow
Where: Mui-Enas roof
When: Late afternoon
Summary: After Shadow's request to spar, Rouge heads up to the roof to oblige him.
Warnings: None

Comments

[bowyourheadslow]

It wasn't just the irritation at the Warden's location being withheld that was bugging him. It was annoying, to be sure, but Tohru was working on it, which was helpful of her. If she wasn't able to come up with anything soon, he'd take matters into his own hands, but he'd give her a bit more time, first.

But no, beyond that, it was this whole place. It had been slowly doing its best to drive him insane for over a year, now. And with the Warden in the compound, the Indigeo missing in action, and more and more people disappearing daily, there was clearly something going on with the Keepers, of a nature that hadn't happened before. Between being slightly stir-crazy and a good bit bored, on-edge due to the general atmosphere of the place and feeling rushed to find the Warden before some lunatic offed him, a simple sparring match wasn't exactly going to set things right but it would be a step in the right direction. Hopefully. He'd have to be careful with Rouge, for as much as he wanted to go all out, to do so with her would be unfair. To say the least.

Shadow dropped his arms to his sides and turned his head to face her, hands forming fists. "We'll see if something comes up," he replied, ignoring the teasing tone of her question.

[consideritmine]

"Did you want to break tradition and attack first this time?" she asked, slipping into a more defensive stance. Per usual, she was ready to shoot into the sky at a moment's notice as that was normally where she started off in these matches.

Offensive maneuvers had been the main focus of their last workouts and she couldn't help but think that learning to dodge an intelligent opponent would be a worthy challenge. The only problem was that she wasn't sure where she'd use such a skill once they got out of this place since her main opponent in their world was Knuckles. Maybe something would pop up that'd require her to take on a more battle-oriented role in a mission and their time spent training wouldn't go to waste.

[bowyourheadslow]

"Hm," he huffed, a faint smirk lifting the corner of his ever-present scowl. Sure, alright, he'd start them off. Why not. He'd been reluctant to do so previously because it somehow seemed more fair to let her move when she was ready. Ladies first, after all. But if she wanted him to go instead, he would.

Really, the way it should have happened was that they would both size each other up and the first to spot some sort of weakness, some gap in the defenses, would strike. They were too unbalanced for that to be a viable option, though. And the specter of what he'd done to her while not quite in his right mind still hung over the both of them. He wasn't about to forget that.

Abruptly, he spun and struck off toward her right, light flaring out the soles of his shoes, before cutting across to her left at the last second and throwing a punch at her chest.

[consideritmine]

Whatever direction he had decided to go in the end didn't matter much to her. All it took was a split second of her seeing how fast he was coming at her and she bolted straight up and back into the air. It was on pure instinct that she had bent her legs upwards as she flew to avoid his fist and it was that same instinct that made her jab both her feet, point first, towards his head.

While it may have been unfair if Shadow used every advantage he had, she didn't plan to keep her wings out of any fight she had with him or hold back. Anything to help close the difference in their strength was something she would take.

[bowyourheadslow]

That she'd gone up was no real surprise, and that she then kicked right back down at him wouldn't have been much of one either, except that he hardly noticed as he passed right by before her feet could touch him, as he was still moving quickly.

Shadow doubled back, kicking hard at the ground to accelerate toward her, then leapt up to grab for an ankle, hoping to pull her out of the sky. His hand extended out to the side to do so - he'd placed the jump so as to hopefully keep his face away from those steel-toed boots of hers.

[consideritmine]

One of her ankles may have been grabbed, but that still left another ready to retaliate. She resisted as he pulled her down to slow the progress and with her free foot, she attempted to smash his hand to get him to let go. If he got her on the ground for even a second, she would be at an even greater disadvantage and she wasn't going to let that happen easily.

[bowyourheadslow]

Shadow hissed sharply as the metal sole of her boot came down on his fingers, and fought what would have been his immediate reaction to direct a large quantity of Chaos energy to his hand and burn right through her boot. Having to second-guess what would have been split-second decisions was bizarre, and most of all, much too slow for his taste.

Ignoring the sharp pain in his hand, Shadow grabbed on with the other just above her ankle and began to pump his legs and thus swing himself back and forth, knowing that flight was impossible if the center of balance kept changing. Hopefully, though, her efforts to avoid an ugly crash-landing would at least keep her from kicking at him for a bit.

[consideritmine]

With his movement and weight combined, flight was becoming difficult. There had to be a way to get him off of her. Right now, an emergency landing to regain her balance was necessary.

A sudden and fast landing had the chance of harming him, if he didn't Chaos Control away first, anyway. He seemed to be avoiding that, thankfully. Instead of attempting to slow down her descent, she suddenly gave up resisting and bent herself backwards a bit. As they sped downwards, her free foot went to smash down on his hand again. All he would need to do is let go and she could use her hands to catch herself.

[bowyourheadslow]

One hand - the one that had been hit twice in a row now - let go as he winced slightly, not really appreciating the feeling. His right hand still gripped her leg, however. And the ground was fast approaching.

Well, it should have been, anyway, because they hadn't exactly gotten very far up before he'd started to pull her back down. But at this rate, he'd end up hitting first, and she would land on him soon after, and that wasn't ideal. So he brought the rate of time's passage down a notch, allowing just enough time to jerk sharply down on her leg and accelerate her fall, then let go and curl. Time resumed its normal rate, and he hit the ground rolling and was soon back on his feet.

[consideritmine]

The ground came faster than she expected and she landed hard on her back. She was only down for less than a minute, though it had felt like several. If he had planned to hit her while she was regaining the wind that had been knocked out of her and standing back up, she wasn't sure how well she could defend against it.

[bowyourheadslow]

Normally he would have planned on that, yes. But he knew that if he did that, this would be over much to quickly. He was bored, damnit. That's why he'd asked if she was interested in this. If she wasn't able to continue, he'd have to go right back to his boredom. He was so goddamn tired of reading and sleeping and running circuits around the wall, and it was a wonder he was still in shape.

So instead he coasted around the rooftop in a wide arc, watching the bat to make sure she got up alright and wasn't too dazed to go on. Hopefully she hadn't hit her head or anything.

[consideritmine]

Idly she watched him, giving herself a few extra seconds to recover. She was grateful he had chosen this route; he wasn't the only one that was bored and she didn't want to be too terribly hurt after this. Once she deemed her condition to be okay, she returned to the skies. This time, however, she maintained a lower altitude, not so high that he couldn't reach her with a good jump. Practice handling enemies in situations where she couldn't fly to a safe distance wasn't easy to come by and she was interested in seeing what he would do next.

[bowyourheadslow]

Why, how thoughtful of her to stay relatively low. He gave her a half-smile as his circling brought him to face her, somewhat amused by this odd new definition of teamwork. Then, kicking into a faster pace, he rapidly built up speed, before turning sharply toward her and jumping into the air, with a kick aimed at her side.

[consideritmine]

Even with such a simple attack, he was so fast. If this had been a real fight, she knew full well that she would have been overwhelmed by now even if he relied on his speed alone. Thankfully, he was her ally and it didn't look like that was about to change anytime soon.

Rouge narrowly dodged the attack and as he was going past her, she sent a swift kick towards the back of his head.

[bowyourheadslow]

To Rouge's credit, she was quite fast, herself. And without wings of his own, aerial maneuvers were slightly more complicated for Shadow than they were for her. At least, that was the case when intentionally limiting his own abilities. He jerked his head out of the way as best as he could manage, trying to duck under the kick, and hoping gravity would work in his favor. He wound up lucky - he felt her toe smack across his ear pretty hard, which wasn't entirely painless but better than if she'd landed a direct hit.

Before he could fall any farther, and before her leg made it back around and out of his reach, the jets in his air shoes flared to life and held him in the air while he reached up to grab for her retreating ankle in an attempt to jerk her closer.

[consideritmine]

Again, he had grabbed her and this time she allowed herself to be pulled a bit closer before jabbing her foot down at him. If she weren't focusing so intently on what he was going to do next, she would have made a teasing comment about the situation. It was strange not saying anything during a fight, since she was used to that being part of a typical battle with her hot-headed rival, but words seemed out of place with Shadow.