ToC:Fabula VS Ayden

[Lira Dajenn]

The sounds of buzzing words and sparking conversation could be heard in a low rumble in the gladiatorial arena known as The Cauldron. Thousands of people lined balconies, stadium seating, and individual boxes granted to VIP's. The audience lined a large ring in the center of the stadium sheer walls surrounding it and confining anyone who would be trapped inside. Six gates lined the inner walls of the Cauldron, each a heavy durasteel that dropped down from above, each carved with intricate pictures of Gladiators and Beasts alike. The arena itself was nothing but sand, rock, and and small clumps of recently coagulated blood. It was a harsh unforgiving arena, the perfect place for the first round of a tournament.

Dead silence reigned within the crowd this time as the two competitors that were slated to fight next entered the arena. The crowd dared not make a peep as a man stepped onto the sands and opposite a woman. The man of course was Ayden Cater, Lord protector of the Omega Protectorate and Titan of the force. He stood a league in his own, his hat and signature duster scurrying about slightly as the wind in The Massive Gladiator pit swayed it about. Opposite him stood Fabula Cavatatio, a woman who in her own right stood even with the strongest of force users. A tension seemed to hang in the air for the briefest of moments until finally the two competitors broke into massively overwhelming cheers.

They called for blood, roared for it, yearned for it. Their roars drowned out all sound and this time neither of the Queens made any attempt to speak or have an announcer speak. They knew that it would be a wasted effort. Out of all the great fights that had happened today, and out of all that would still happen, this was one of the ones that was clearly looked forward to the most. The two titans stood squarely facing one another for a few more minutes, loud cheers ravaging anyone with open ears.

Finally Ilyena stood once again, her lips twisted in a smile. “Begin!”

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"] @[member="Ayden Cater"]

 

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

Standing across from his opponent, Ayden immediately began noting rock placements. None were so large as to provide proper cover, or even half that. Combined with the utter unknown factor that was his opponent and Ayden visibly frowned. 'This is not ideal at all...' He turned his attention from the field to his opponent and began to scrutinize her. She was shorter than he was, easily more than a head and a half shorter. He could see that she looked plenty fit, but didn't have any excessive muscle definition that he could spot at this distance. Even so, the back of his mind was screaming at him to not get close to her. This was not a tournament that let in push-overs, and with as calm as she seemed, he knew that she was confident in her abilities.

When the signal was given for the match to begin, Ayden wasted no time. Reaching out with both hands, Ayden called several fist-sized rocks to hang in the air in front of him before he hurled them forward with tremendous speed and practiced gesture. At the same time, his mental probing found something peculiar about this woman. Though she was clearly a mature adult, her mental age clashed horrendously. It was like having a wild vornskyr over for a formal dinner party. It was a peculiarity that would be an unsolvable mystery, unless one already knew what the signs were. Unless one had spent lifetimes studying and painstakingly countering such symptoms. She was a clone, like he himself was. This made Ayden grin. The tournament was about to get very interesting.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Blood on the sand. Blood on the rocks. And soon, blood in the air. Fabula's attachment to tournaments, to tests of skill, was eternal. She'd never grow tired of them. She practically fed off the energy of the crowd, her smile growing a little wider with every second. Such a soft, delicate-looking creature to find in a place like this. Fabula herself was immune to the irony of her aberrant existence, and simply savored the anticipation of what was to come.

If it hadn't been obvious from the get-go, the moment her opponent started lifting rocks and touching her mind Fabula was quite alerted to the fact that he was decently strong in the Force. Even so, she didn't worry. She'd faced stronger beings relatively regularly as of late, and was decently confident in her chances. She refused to be careless, but her confidence was one more terrific defense against fear and uncertainty.

As the rocks started towards her, Fabula brought her hands up in a tight little prayer stance, the same one she used almost every time she invoked her Matukai techniques. The spark of her Force energy leaped within her, multiplied quickly with the muscle strain she forced with that sort of movement. And, in the process, her skin instinctively hardened. Matukai iron skin. When the rocks eventually collided with her, she flinched back slightly, but her skin remained unbroken. The sound that they made when they smashed into her body wasn't unlike the sound they made as they dropped to the sand beneath her feet: a dry, soft thud.

Fabula narrowed her eyes struck what looked to be an amateur's boxing stance, then moved her fists outward, stretching herself the whole time. It looked very innocuous, but such little movements were the way a Matukai martial artist built energy. Built force...and Force. When she moved again, she was faster than was humanly possible. Her sprint towards him took seconds, the likes of which a champion athlete would pout at in envy. Fabula's sneakers smashed into the sand and left little geysers of dirt in the air in her wake, but in the space of a few heartbeats, she'd gone from across the arena to in her opponent's face.

And then her fist followed suit, punching at his chin with the force of a scattergun blast.
@[member="Ayden Cater"]

 

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

For a heartbeat, Ayden considered snatching the rocks from the air as the woman seemed unable, or perhaps unwilling, to block them. But then they broke against her skin like it was iron and he realized; though he was not familiar with her stance, she was using the Force. If he doubted the physical effects, he only had to read her presence in the Force to see the truth. Her aura was massive. Whoever she was, she was not someone to be taken lightly. And that made him grin inwardly.

Instinctively, he reached within and centered himself within the Force, using his talent and work at Battle Meditation. Without the meditation chamber onboard the Starfall to amplify his power, Ayden doubted he could do much to hamper the woman mentally, nor would he really have the time to attempt so. He was only recently comfortable with the idea of using the talent while moving; he wasn't about to risk destroying his mental balance by trying to mess with another. Besides, if he played his cards right, perhaps he wouldn't need to. His eyes remained locked on her as she stroke what he did recognize as a crude boxing stance. Despite the relative simplicity of it, Ayden tensed himself. She was not an amateur.

The spray of sand and subtle trembling of the ground gave testament to his suspicions as she shot forward at him with impossible speed. And yet he reacted calmly, without shock on his face. Images and memories of a formerly Force-dead man played in his mind as his body reacted. With the grace of the Force and old muscle memory of fighting with Sarge, Ayden slid his left foot back and turned sideways, leaving scant centimeters of open air between his face and her fist. Next, his left hand shot up to clutch her wrist at the same time as he placed his right palm against her midsection. Leveraging her position and utilizing her own momentum against her, Ayden acted as little more than the fulcrum and hurled her into the air, away from him.

It was not a lethal move, or even one that would likely result in damage. There was far too much space in the arena for her to hit wall just yet, and the lack of any large rocks with plenty of sand meant she would, at worst, receive a coarse, embarrassing landing. But she was more skilled than that. Reaching up to settle his hat back upon his head, Ayden called out to the woman. "You move well for a tank-born. I've fought a number of clones in my life, but you're certainly at the top." He slid his left foot back, turning his body to the side once more before stretching his right arm out and gestured for her to attack once more. "I wonder if it's the tank work singing, or your own work. Perhaps we'll find out."

 

[Fabula Caromed]

And then she was flying. Fabula didn't have to work terribly hard to right herself into a proper flip and land with the grace of a hunting cougar. She stood from her crouch without a word, using yet another simple movement to light her blood on fire with the Force. Her muscles cried out for release like a choir of battle-hungry angels, and she couldn't very well deny them. It wasn't like anything he could taunt her with would be interesting enough to pay attention to anyway.

Well, until he said "tank-born." Fabula's face registered shock for only a moment. A moment where her entire life, if it could even be called that, played out in front of her eyes. Waking on a cold stone bed and coughing the liquid out of her lungs, being guided through the simplest uses of the Force, and attempting to overcome the limitation of spellcraft her mother had imposed on her. ...'Mother.' If she was even that.

But that lasted for no more than a single space in time. Fabula quickly recovered, her hands tensing with what could only be termed as forcibly suppressed anger. She came at him again, this time curving her approach to the side as she did. The trail of knocked-up sand lingering in the air behind her feet slanted into the shape of credit symbol, angling back on him quickly as she curved her charge to come at her opponent with a quick punch at his face once again, from his flank.

As she did, she used the momentum of her superhuman charge and hopped off the ground, sailing into the air and into a spin. She knew how that was going to work. Her leg extended as she whirled past him, and just as she felt his heat behind her back, she kicked out with the force of a ballistic round. Her leg whipped about her in an almost instantaneous semicircle, roughly at the level of his waist. If it stopped, it would be on his body.

Regardless, Fabula recovered from her movement into a quick backwards handspring and landed again. The wind seemed to remember that it was supposed to be moving a few seconds later, following her in a great gust that left the sand billowing past her. She stood and gave her opponent what might almost be termed a sad glare, with the adrenaline in her system dying down to make room for the thoughts he had brought to the surface.

"You should get out of my head unless you want me to reciprocate." Back straightened properly, and she punched her open palm for emphasis. "Which will be messy, because I'm not telepathic."
@[member="Ayden Cater"]

 

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

'So she knows she's a clone... and she hasn't resolved that identity crisis yet, it seems...' Ayden noted to himself. That would give him a crack to push on, force her to break down. Part of him felt bad about entertaining the idea, but he quickly got over it. In the end, if he was right and she broke, it would ultimately be a good thing. Better she break against him, when he had no intention of killing her, than against some malicious Dark Sider. He doubted she'd ever thank him for it. If they ever crossed paths after this match, he imagined she'd punch him for it. Oh well.

He watched her impassively as she began her second charge. This time she had the sense to begin by circling around him. Rather than follow her physically, Ayden simply stretched out his mind through the Force and followed her that way. Against someone else who used the Force to fight, and with such power, he would only handicap himself trying to follow her movements with his eyes. Each step she took sent up a shower of sand that rang like a symphony in his ears. When the tone shifted, he could practically see her muscles tensing and stockpiling all that energy into a spring to launch herself at him.

When she jumped, Ayden hesitated only a split-second before he jumped himself. Taking that split-second pause, he made it so that instead of connected with his midsection, she connected with his calves. The transfer of kinetic energy sent him into a furious backflip even as the plasteel covering his calves groaned ominously. His duster slapped at the wind, indignant that it was disrupted so viciously, while his left hand never left his head. It seemed as those he valued the hat a great deal, even resolving to keep his hand there as the energy from her kick bled out and he stalled in mid-air.

Planting his right hand against the ground, he did a quick-and-dirty back handspring before sliding backwards to arrest his momentum. His calves ached and he suspected that he had microfractures all long the calves of his armor. More and more, he was learning about her. She was physically very strong, easily stronger than he was. She was fast too. But she still had that crack in her mental barrier. That was where he would have to strike. In a straight contest of strength, Ayden had no illusions that she'd win hands down. As the wind blew across the arena and tugged at the duster, it was made blatantly apparent that Ayden was wearing armor beneath his duster. He knew his limits. And now he knew hers.

"Actually there are very few Force-users in the galaxy that are truly telepathic. I just happen to know the flags for what makes a clone." He stated matter-of-factly, even as he began to draw a number of rocks to him once more. "I just have to look at you and I can see it. Your body says one thing, your Force presence says another. And you hate that." The rocks began to orbit him, not at all unlike moons orbiting a planet. "So how old are you? Really? I mean you look to be in your early twenties, but you're far younger than that. How long has it been?" And as he spoke, his sleeves shifted ever so slightly.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Talk, talk, talk. This jester certainly did love the sound of his own voice. Fabula preferred silent combat. She wasn't blessed with the rapier wit needed to come up with ripostes like "Did your original wear the hat to cover his receding hairline, too?" or "I wonder if your friends enjoy being tugged about like rocks in the air." She simply saw a face, and the need to punch it. There was nothing more complicated going through her skull most of the time, and yet that was enough for her to win most of her fights. Lynn had once called her a "lazy battle goddess." Fabula had no reason to argue it.

But it was difficult to stay "lazy," stay focused on turning her enemy's face inside-out, when she was continuously reminded of her origins. Unhappy origins. Dangerously unhappy origins. Most of the time, she maintained the delicate focus required to use anything resembling her Matukai practices by intentionally ignoring outside thoughts and focusing on her body instead. If she listened to him, she would be distracted. She knew that. Some part of her realized that hearing out his taunts would be the recipe for her own defeat. But she couldn't this time. She knew the answer to his question so well that she had to rant it off.

Fabula's stance shifted maybe an inch. Not enough to matter at the distance he had put between them, but enough to give her the muscle tension necessary to charge herself with her own burning Force power. She tensed again, then dashed in at not an inconsiderable fraction of the speed of sound. Her acceleration into a full-speed sprint was almost immediate, and she had no doubt in her mind that as she neared him and leapt into a quick rotating somersault that the momentum would carry over. She directed it into a kick, aimed at one of his orbiting rocks with the intent of propelling it as a spiked Huttball at his face.

Sticking her landing with what the average athletic judge would probably decree about an 8.5, Fabula stood and twisted on her opposite foot to bring her right leg up into a roundhouse kick directed at her opponent's thigh. She didn't wait for a follow-through, instead stepping back and resuming her amateur boxer's stance with that same "sad" grimace on her face. "Fifteen months, three weeks, five days."

But that had been plenty of time to form new memories, more than many people would ever make in their lifetimes. Memories of encountering the Forest Ghost of Dathomir and all manner of legendary beasts. Memories of meeting people who cared about her, like Alna Merrill and Lynn Caromed, and those who she respected, like Spencer Jacobs and Ember Rekali. Fabula had no lack of self. So she was a copy. So what? Even if her soul didn't fit right, her life fit perfectly. Nothing he could say could take that from her.
@[member="Ayden Cater"]

 

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

The Force sang in his ears as she tensed. It warned him of her next move even as she made. In the backs of his mind, he recognized the tell-tale signs of mental fatigue that came with holding on to the Force for Battle Meditation for too long. Add to that how deeply he was having to draw on the Force to keep up with her speed and Ayden was already seeing the signs of his defeat. This was not a level of fighting he could sustain for long. And yet as she came flipping towards him and kicked one of the rocks at his face, Ayden weaved around and left open air for the rock to slap through.

He circled around, stepping and pivoting with one foot, then swinging the next around and pivoting off of it. As she lashed out with a roundhouse kick, Ayden jumped and fell forward into a flip, rolling across the sand, before swinging his body around with one hand clawing at the sand and hurled every rock at her. At the same time, he reflexively let go of his grasp on the Force and his Battle Meditation fell away. He panted lightly but quickly brought his breathing back under control. It was too much to try and hold on to Battle Meditation while simultaneously augmenting his body with the Force. It was gonna have to be one or the other, and she was going to force him to do the latter.

If that was the case, he was just going to have to improvise. Ayden was beginning to notice a pattern in her attacks where she seemed to telegraph an attack with some little movement before hand. It didn't always correspond to the limb she attacked with. Was there a deeper pattern there, or was it something less? He had no time to stop and think about it before her answer reached him. "Wow. That long? I guess I shouldn't antagonize my older tank-sister then." It was such an innocuous comment that he wasn't at all sure she'd pick up on the implications.

Deciding that he'd have to take this duel absolutely serious, given her overwhelming strength advantage, Ayden let slip a single cylinder from his right sleeve. The hilt of his lightsaber fit perfectly in his hand as a viridian blade snapped to life with an audible hiss. He brought the hilt up to his face and sliced openly to his right before sliding his body to the side and extending the blade outward towards the woman. His muscles coiled like a sand panther, his eyes drinking in her every detail with a radiant intensity. Clearly, he was ready to fight seriously now.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Once again, like the most frustrating pack of human-shaped jelly she'd ever seen, he squirmed out of the way. Once again, Fabula caught a skull full of rock. A wave of them hammered down into her, knocking her into the sand and giving her a mild sore spot on the back of her head. Fabs spent a few moments eating dirt, then stood up and rolled her shoulder, cracked her neck, and directed her energy towards healing the minor wound on her skull. She was right as rain in not a couple of seconds...which was good, because what she heard next made her pupils dilate.

Entirely out of reflex, she dropped her hand into the toolbelt Alna Merrill had let her borrow, retrieving one of her orange lightsabers with less flourish than one might expect. The leather grip, worn from constant use over a year of traveling the galaxy and fighting all manner of beasts and warriors, felt like a second skin in her hands. An old friend, finally returned. She echoed the snap-hiss of her opponent's green blade, and struck the most obvious Ataru ready that had ever been seen by mortal eyes. Her position was immaculate, the structure perfect: left foot forward, right knee bent, lightsaber gripped with both hands behind her body and over her rear leg. But with this came concessions. She had fought on loose dirt before, in the roaring wastelands of Metalorn and the wet soil of Felucia, and she knew the amount of compensation she'd need. Her toes dug in, and she angled her blade just a half-inch down.

It was all calculated, but in the blink of an eye. Between heartbeats she had instinctively determined exactly how much give the sand would have beneath her sneakers, which angle would be best to attack from on uneven ground. And as she did, her eyes locked on her opponent. The environment was her weapon, but the target was more important. She could make any leap, any dash she needed to when that moment arrived. What was less predictable was what he would do. ...And what was more predictable was that Fabula's response to (and indeed, ability to even register) his comment was overwhelmed by the aggression that came with the mind of Ataru. The Hawk-Bat did not wait. She sized him up only for a moment, attempting to determine the obvious attack angle, and how to exploit it.

Then, without any of the tension she tended to use, she exploded into motion. Her legs carried her three healthy strides forward directly towards him, her lightsaber held in one hand on her left side and near her ribs, but she re-angled her momentum as she approached. Forms III through V were all about momentum, how to achieve it, how to maintain it, and how to use it against your enemies. Fabula had practiced Ataru for so long, and at such a high level, that she had simply felt out every necessary eventuality. In this case, she had felt out long before she reached him that she would need to grind herself to a momentary halt as she neared. She "slashed" out at his right side, which would obviously be the weakest on a sideways fencer's stance...but the attack didn't land.

Her feint carried her to the ground, in a shoulder roll. She came back up on the left, her lightsaber moving in an immediate uppercut as she shot to her feet. She kicked out wildly in his direction as she did, giving no hesitation to any aspect of his defense, and re-set her stance in a the backswing of her attack. When closer, she held her blade to the front of her body, to assist with defense, but otherwise kept her weight and legs positioned the same. The entire maneuver took less than four seconds, and left a the hum of lightsaber and a burnt orange glow in afterimage behind her.

Clearly, she was ready to fight seriously now.
@[member="Ayden Cater"]

 

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

He watched her as she slipped into the unmistakable ring of Ataru. Ages ago, he had dabbled in it but found the style to be ill-suited to his own. It relied too much on constant movement. While that gave it potentially lethal limitations indoors, in an open arena like this, it was going to shine. She was going to have a decisive advantage here. Part of of him thought about simply remaining on the defensive and to let her tire herself out. Ataru was not passive form of lightsaber combat after all. But given her stance and what he had observed of her so far, she was more than physically up to the task of fighting a long duel with Ataru.

This time, he had no visual warning of her attack. Instead of making a visible gesture, she just exploded forward. In no time at all, she was nearly on top of him. Reflexively, he took a step back as she planted her foot into the ground to arrest her momentum. Her speed was such that he didn't even have time to capitalize on her potentially dangerous oversight before she had tucked and rolled away. He instinctively took a second step backwards as he turned to meet her blow. He didn't have the stance or power to right-out block it, so he instead crashed his saber into hers hard enough to bat it away from his body. So focused was he with stopped the lightsaber that he didn't see the wayward kick she threw his way.

There was a definitive CRACK this time as the plasteel casing in his right leg fractured under her kick. He couldn't be sure how bad the crack was, only that it was probably his saving grace that it had been more of a haphazard kick than one with her true power behind it. As she came up and fell back into her stance, he threw our his left palm and summoned a violent wave of Force to throw at her before jumping in to close the distance between them. He could not let her escape blade distance, as that let her build speed and power. If he was going to be able to defeat her, it would have to be at close range.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

When her attack wasn't as successful as she wanted it to be, Fabula would have normally recoiled back around and continued her assault from the other angle. Never give up momentum, never cease movement. Unfortunately, she didn't have much of a choice. As many times as she could take a rock to the face, or throw someone across the width of an arena, she couldn't do any more than resist telekinetic attacks. No hope of a riposte, no ability to control or parry them.

Telekinetic force collided with her body after her enemy parried her attack, and suddenly Fabula was flying through the air. Again. This guy liked sending her airborne. It was actually not as bad for her as it might have been for someone who relied on having a more solid grip on the ground, since she probably would've leaped back anyway, but it gave her less control over where she landed. Fabula righted herself in midair and landed in a basic Ataru stance, feet wide apart and 'saber grasped firmly in both hands. She was ready to dart, ready to jump at any min-

And then she was under attack. Fabs' breathing shortened as she swung her lightsaber immediately out in a backhand slash directed at the more common paths used to attack. An attempt at a preemptive parry was basically all she could manage from a recovery, and she stepped back as she did to attempt to give herself a bit more breathing room. She'd need space to start up her swings, and if she couldn't build up the proper amount of speed...well, that wasn't a realistic problem. With just foot or two for a gap between them, she'd easily be able to pick up to a full jung su ma.

On her second step back, she spun on her heel, one leg kicking off the ground at the same moment. Her lightsaber spun about her body fast enough to leave an orange streak in the air behind her. In just a moment, her weapon came slicing back in front of her, swinging at chest level and with all of the speed and power of a proper Ataru cut. A counterclockwise jung su ma crashed into his right, threatening to smash his guard or bisect him from the shoulders up.

Her spin finished, Fabula's leg planted itself firmly on the ground again, redirecting her momentum from rotational to aerial. She leaped with as much power as she could manage, her form shooting over his head as she parted with an idle cut. Granted, an "idle cut" with all of the kinetic force needed to separate oneself from the ground. Fabula didn't pay much mind to how he protected himself, instead forcing herself into a rotating foreflip in the air to properly land in Ataru neutral, her legs spaced and her hands gripping her lightsaber tightly in preparation for whatever defense or offense she'd need to perform.
@[member="Ayden Cater"]

 

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]
(( Read the results. Don't care. Gonna take this one to the end. ))

Sweat began to run down Ayden's temples as landed and was met with a harried backswing slash. It didn't have the same power that her other blows had had, which was good and confirmed Ayden's suspicions that she built a lot of her power from movement. However, that did not mean that she had no other ways to generate her force. She spun on her heel, bringing her lightsaber around at near beheading level. Too high and too fast to jump over. Instead, Ayden dove to his right and rolled shoulder first along the ground before popping back up in time to see her jump into the air and sail over him. Had he had a more substantive footing and not been under attack, he might have throw her about with another wave of Force. Instead he batted her attack away and got ready for his next surprise.

Again leaping to the offensive, Ayden's left sleeve shifted as a second cylinder fell into his palm and ignited as the same time as he lunged forward, coming in high with his left saber before pulling it back in the same step as he stabbed forward with his right. He was going to deny her attempts to create space between them, and now he was going to deny her reprieve. Defense wasn't going to save him here. He had to keep her off balanced and on the defensive if he was going to wear her down and capitalize on her mistakes. And that also meant more chatter. "So where'd you leave to fight like this? Not from the tank, that's for sure."