Round 4: Kayla Croft vs. Preston Andrews

No way. No fucking way. She flexed her hands, staring hard into the ground, her shoulders heaving. Electricity crackled around her fingers. Breathe in, breathe out... They just couldn't give her a break, could they? This tournament was her escape. All year, this had been eating away at the back of her mind. All week, he'd been her tormentor, a spiteful specter in her own fucking dorm, and just for this small window, she thought she'd be able to forget him and focus on just this one thing. But it wouldn't make sense for things to be that easy, would it? No, he had to be the one. Of course he had to be the one. The one last person standing between her and her final goal. It couldn't be anyone else.

She hadn't been expecting to even hear about him. They'd been in the last two tournaments together, but they'd never been swept together. Not this year. Just one glance at the bracket and she'd been prepping herself to face the blond, Fawkes or Hawke or something. Her mind had glossed over his name as one more annoying detail. But somehow, through some stupid impossible coincidence...

Kayla clenched her jaw so hard it felt like her teeth could shatter. Electricity flared around her, snapping and cracking all around her, filling the medieval courtyard with a droning buzz. It couldn't be him. Why him? How did he even make it this far? The handful of times she'd seen the aftermath of his fights, he'd been chewed half to death by a deer, and had his arm pulled off like a doll, and been laid out in a cot with his leg in a cast. She'd never been able to put him together in her head as a fighter, and maybe she still couldn't, but now she had to dissect him as a threat, from his power to his stance to the way he held his glaive.

She raised her head, lightning reflected in her irises, fighting to keep her face still. "Just give up," she seethed, her fingers twitching, "you fucking idiot, just give up!" Electricity surged out of her bangs, snapping down to strike the earth between them.

Preston must not had looked like much standing there, hands shoved in his pockets, weapon resting through the loop in his arms. If anyone asked him how he made it that far, his guess was as good as anyone elses. He was never on of the serious gladiators; holding no dreams of bloodlust and glory. His first few years, he considered the tournament simply some way to pass the time. They were put through hours of rigorous training with the blonde bitch and the big bear, why not put that shit into some good use? It wasn't a bad way to catch the ladies attention either, show off your muscles and prove yourself as a guy able to throw his life on the line for you. The tournament definitely had it's merits.

Yet, there was indeed something different this year about him. All the pain and agony and rush of every battle leaving him reminiscent on one evening in the snowstorms. That person in black from then, he might has well have been kiddy meal in comparison to what that asshole could do. Pres was supposed to be some big bad guardian someday, protect the school, and his family, but how was he supposed to guard anyone when he couldn't deal with a big fucking pussy of all things?

Shit. At the end of the day, maybe he had gotten this far on sheer dumb luck. In any case, he wouldn't let it hold him back. He wouldn't let his oh-so dear roommate slow him down either...

The young man blinked, watching as her body trembled and lightning shot out from every direction. She looked furious with him, but then he hardly saw her any other way lately. He tilted his head thoughtfully, not tearing his gaze away from her. How long had it been since they actually said something to eachother? Days? Weeks? Through the rush of the tournament, it was hard to think of the time flying by, almost every thought and worry numbed out by adrenaline. Another perk of it all, he supposed.

Sparks flew out from the center of the field, bounding from her strikes and harmlessly past his way. "Now, Pikachu..." His voice held a strangeness to his words, dull and teasing, matching with his empty smile. "Where would the fun in that be?" Lazily, he straightened himself, drawing out his glaive and pointing the sleek blade her way.

That was it. Him and his stupid smirk, him and his stupid jokes, him and his stupidity. Didn't he know this was to the death? Did he really think he could beat her? She curled her fingers into tight fists, almost shaking from the lightning swelling through her in a hot torrent of anger and adrenaline. Sparks and moonlight ran down that glaive that she didn't think she'd ever seen him even carry around before now... Kayla stared at him in a completely different way in this silver light. Blue light lit up her features in flashes, half her face dripped in shadow.

She couldn't calm down. She couldn't even look at him. Kayla could feel it all bottling up inside her, and with a burst of lightning, it all came spilling out. "I told you not to fucking call me that!"

Kayla slashed out her hand, lightning arcing along the stone walls, finding a steel shield blazoned with a gray wolf running on a snowy field. It detached from the bulwark with a crrreeaaak and went rocketing into the air, ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet, dents forming along the surface, spinning, before it leveled like a frisbee and came shooting back down toward him from an angle. Electricity trailed behind it in a streak of sparks like a comet's tail.

Preston wasn't as quick to move as she was, if only because he knew how quick she would be to jump the gun in her state. He knew her that well enough, at least. The Autumn raised up his free arm, shielding his face from the gust of gravel and dirt kicked up by her sudden storm. His other hand gripped tightly against his glaive, ready to lash back at any moment, expecting the curve of lighting to come swinging his way - not that it would do much shit to start with. She should have known better than that, he thought, narrowing his eyes.

Instead, the attack followed up the side of scale of stones, grabbing onto the first thing it could grasp. It soared and crinkled and came flying his way like a rocket. Fucking hell. At the speed it was coming at him, he knew there was no time to run or dodge or shit.

With a quick tap of his weapon against the ground, the space around him blazed to life, snakes of white and blue curving over his body. The boy dropped down to his knees, raising his glaive above his head, palms flat under the sleek metal. He gritted his teeth and ducked, focusing all his energy upwards. The metal came soaring in, crashing in crookedly against his power and ringing against his steel with a terrible clang. A shower of sparks swept over, a deafening echo roared through his ears, and the malformed shield was gone, skidding across the rough floor.

He didn't move at first, blinking, having to take a moment to register exactly what had just happened - and that what he had did actually worked. A smile cracked again at the edge of his lips. "How about that shit?!" He grinned triumphantly at himself, pulling himself back up and pulling his glaive down. There was a dent it in, but fuck it, whatever. He just survived a killer aerial hockey puck.

Pres reached one arm out, reaching his gift out towards the shield and pulling it back towards him with a quick flick of his wrist. It must have been obvious what he was doing then if they were going to be playing frisbee. As the hot, crushed metal skidded across his hand, he twisted his body around, sending the old disc soaring back towards her.

CLANG!! Kayla almost flinched at the sound as it rung out across the clearing, sparks flying from the impact. She grit her teeth as the shield went sliding away, a word away from stamping her feet like a child. "Shut up! Just shut up!" she screamed. Christ, just the sound of his voice made her want to tear her hair out...! The shield, glowing with heat, rounded around him in a looping circuit and went flinging back toward her. Kayla leaped to the side as it came flying toward her, twisting in the air. It shot past her, streaking red and blue, and smashed into the wall with a thunderous CLANK. She landed on the balls of her feet, her sneakers skidding through the gravel as she held out her hand in an open palm. A ball of electricity formed in her fingers as she thrust her hand forward, and the shield, mangled and crushed into a steel spear from its collision against the stone, went barreling back toward him.

Her shrill voice made him flinch almost as well as the sounds of the near-molten metal crashing against the elder castle walls. Preston had half a mind to shoot his glance across the rest of the arena, pin-pointing the other shield, the beams, anything that he could use or would at least prove more useful than this poor mangled weaponry at that point. The two of them couldn't keep playing catch forever. "Why don't you make me?" He taunted, taking a hearty step forward and staring the shape of the girl down, his grin growing for her sake. He was brash, headstrong, and there had to have been someway he could have used that to his advantage.

Before he had the chance to do much else, the now-spear like metal came back for him. Again, he stood his ground, this time instead of focusing much of his power into the air around him, he sent the power to his glaive - an almost constant blue flare turning the blade of his weapon an unruly, bright red in a heartbeat. As the old shield came back for seconds, he took a step aside and swung, slicing through the steel with a horrifying creaking sound. Preston held fast, letting the mangled metal split into two. It wasn't perfect as he might have liked, a newly jagged edge cutting cleanly through the side of his calf. It was nothing to worry about, though. He couldn't afford to care for it.

He let his glaive take to the air then, hovering a safe distance close to his back as he raised his two new slices of steel up along with it, wisps of electricity traveling between him and his magnets. "Don't fuck up now," he muttered, clasping his hands together. The shields went flying again towards her, one at each side. Pres didn't stop there, breaking into a run after the large bullets, limping slightly onto his good leg. Adrenaline thankfully had stolen most of his pain.

Damn it, damn it, damn it! He was going to eat those words. Sooner, or later, she was going to make him fucking regret that stupid fucking smirk on his face! The two slabs of steel went tearing through the air, zipping toward her from two different angles, and Kayla charged forward down the middle. There wasn't any time to think about it. All she could do was act on the rage and adrenaline surging through her veins as she dove forward, the shields bisecting and crossing in the air behind her as she hit the ground in a somersault, rolling into a graceless crouch. She knelt in front of him as he rushed forward, one hand balled into a fist, the other pressed against the ground, electricity flaring down her shoulders.

His lips stretched further out into a smarmy grin, lashing his arm out during his run. His glaive soared past the surface of his skin and reaching out almost as if it were an extension of his limb. The end of the silver metal rested at the tips of his fingers, drawing the lightning away from him and enveloping it's whole in a magnificent show of glaring bolts. The Autumn wasn't sure how much his power would do on it's own against her. Probably wouldn't amount to shit, but it wasn't as if he had many other options.

"I'd always thought you were better than this," Preston shouted, taking a great leap forward. A few memories flashed through his mind, mostly physically painful ones on his behalf, freeze burns, bruised arms, and foreheads to the counter. He'd always supposed if he had gotten the chance, revenge would have been sweet, but despite his haughty exterior he only felt anxious. For the sake of whatever relationship they had, strange or old or whatever you could have fucking called it, he aimed to make her death a quick one.

With a low grunt, he swung at her, his blade slicing through the air and aiming to bite through her neck.

The glaive cleaved through the air like a comet, glowing with heat and light, whistling as it sliced through the air. A death knell. One blink, one second, one cut, and it'd all be over. No. Unthinking, she sprung up and forward, thrusting herself to her feet with all the strength bunched up in her limbs. Kayla plunged her arm forward, her mouth gaping open in a silent scream as the blade caught her under the arm, biting a shallow cut into her flesh. It should have hacked straight through her, but her fingers wrapped around the haft just under the guard, electricity surging down her arm to mix and clash with his. It stopped in its tracks. "Don't fuck with me," she panted, blood dripping from the wound, as she pulled on the steel with a sharp movement.

In the short moment before she jumped, he could feel the bile rising up in his throat. Already in his mind, he could see the splatter of red against the dark pavement, sleek against the dull moonlight. The promise of victory had seemed so close, yet the illusion was shattered in an instant. He could sense his glaive wavering as it was caught in her grasp, stuck between the two opposing currents. Preston gritted his teeth together, dully reminded of the growing pain in his leg, the fabric of his pants now sticking uncomfortably against his skin. After all the bullshit he'd been through in the tournament before, he supposed he was stupid for getting his hopes up it'd end so soon.

Pres let loose his grip on the weapon for the moment. Chances were, she didn't know how to work jack shit with it, and so for the moment he cast his worry aside. He took a good step forward, brushing the metal away and raising up his free leg, ignore the pulsing pain and aiming a swift kick at her side.

She was sent tottering off balance as he let go, and the sharp kick to her side sent stabs of pain through her fresh wound and sent her flying to the ground, the glaive flying out of her hand to tumble to the floor. Kayla dragged herself to her feet, hacking up blood that went dribbling down her chin, turning on Pres with wild eyes and unsteady footing. Every breath shot needles into her heart, but she still found herself charging, electricity surging down her legs as she lowered her shoulders and leapt, trying to barrel into him in a full body tackle.

Preston found himself reeling back, instinctively moving his hand towards his leg, running his fingers over the source of the sharp pain. He could feel the muscles tear further and it hurt like a mother fucker, but hell it might have been worth it. The Pikachu seemed to be finding trouble with her own feet, looking more ragged and wild than he'd ever seen her. He sniffed, looking past her sharp glares and reaching out instead - attracting the fallen glaive back to the palm of his hand. It jerked and dragged itself around, uncertain from Kayla's own messy field of electricity. As soon as he thought he had a good enough grip to pull it in, she had sprung, barreling into him. Pres, off-balance as he was from leaning heavily on one leg, went to the ground easily.

The wind was knocked out of him and the back of his head fell against the stone slabs, leaving him in somewhat of a daze, a sharp ghastly light taking the center of his vision. But fuck if he laid there and took that shit. She was still on him. He threw his elbows around, rolled, kicked, whatever he could try to do to get her the fuck off of him - messy of a spectacle as it was.

Kayla flinched under the barrage of knees and elbows as she fought to stay on top of him, even while he writhed and kicked and flailed. There wasn't anything pretty about this, not the kind of fight that people sat in to watch. No clean choreography, no twirls or acrobatics, no fire or lightning or bursts of light. This was the kind of fight made for back-alleys and parking lot concrete, grappling and scratching and dirty slugs to the face. She wasn't going to let go, no matter what. Her hat had long disappeared in the struggle, and she was aching in more places than she could count, but still, she didn't let go, balling up the fabric of his collar in her hands as she pulled herself into a straddling position, squirming to stay on. "Give in!" she screamed through bloodied teeth, pulling back one of her fists and slamming it down toward his face, electricity cracking down the length of her forearm.