Fisticuffs Fundraiser! (IC)

[Dariusprime]

Yeah, he is just pulling my leg.

Although she looked a touch disappointed, Fulcrum turned her attention to the match. Clapping along with the spectators, "That's the stuff! Float like Mothra and sting like the Scorpion King!" Bad parodies aside, Grim and Colt did make for exciting entertainment. She didn't come out and say it, but a nod signaled her agreement with Atlas' assessment. Those two were quick and wiry.

"Why thank you, sir. You're a scholar and gentleman," complemented Fulcrum as she took the proffered peanuts and cup, "Next round is on me."

[Geez3r]

"I done zank you kindly sir." said Atlas to Colt, doing a rather poor impersonation of a southern gentlemen. Atlas downed his drink in short order, his mouth being a little dry from all the commotion today. However, after half a handful of the peanuts he wished he had saved some of his drink as his mouth was dry yet again. "Hey, don't be using all of ze names of ze big monsters. Vhat vill zey use ven out match is up?" said Atlas to Fulcrum in a mock scandalized tone.

[quotemyname]

"Reckon I wouldn't worry too much, ol' buddy." Colt smiled at his big red friend. "Y'all still got king kong an' all them, don't'cha?" Colt took a sip of his drink as he sat back in his seat and popped a peanut into his mouth. He continued counting on his fingers a number of giant monsters, starting with Godzilla. After prattling off a few more he concluded, "Y'all got nothin' ta worry 'bout." And waved his free hand dismissively.

[Heritage]

Placing his gloved hands behind his head, Jack emoted boredom as he casually stepped around Grim's random swings then ducking under her real attack. As his opponent recovered from her vicious uppercut, the swashbuckler straightened and shook his head. "Grim, c'mon," he said softly, his tone carrying exaggerated disappointment. "We're trying to put on a good show for the kids. Work with me here."

Leaping backward, backward before she could respond, the blindfolded man landed easily atop the ropes surrounding the ring and began to pace along them like a tightrope walker, while turning to face the other heroes in the stands. "Hey now, guys, I don't know how you were raised, but Mama Blades always told me, 'Jack,' she'd say, 'if you're going to take a lady out, take her out dancing.'" Reaching one of the corner posts, he turned to address the rest of the audience as he continued to walk along the quivering ropes with an alarming lack of concern. "Honestly, it's almost like my pals up there don't want me to win. Which is crazy, obviously, 'cause I'm pretty much terrific. Have you seen these abs? Seriously, we're one washtub bass short of a jug band over here." So saying, he tossed his arms in the air and undulated his stomach in an exaggerated belly dance.

As his antics drew forth another round of applause and laughter, he hopped down from the ropes back into the ring, the crowd's noise covering the light sound of his landing. From there he stood perfectly still, moving only to put a finger to his lips, miming a call for silence with a shameless grim which only brought on a greater cacophony.

Despite her best efforts at self-control, Jack's cheerful barrage of quips got under Grim's skin, and she started to have flashbacks to the half hour bus ride from hell she endured twice a day back in high school, when they called her 'Scary Sherry' and much worse; her older sister rarely did anything about it, and actually joined in once or twice. She could feel the blood rushing into her head as she started to visibly shake.

Okay, no time for another pity party, Lynn; c'mon! Let's focus on taking Jack's head clean off!

Suddenly there's no sound of the annoyingly agile swordsman, but the crowd starts laughing at something that's just plain hi-larious.

Great, he's gone all sneaky on me and/or is making jerky faces; my own damn fault for letting him dictate the terms of the fight. :evil:

It's not easy for her to slow her breathing, and she's not entirely successful, but soon she has him placed on the canvas; he was right over there. Once again Grimalkin starts moving, her lithe body shifting and sliding, at bit more aggressively this time. She throws a few punches, some that are fairly wild, but others get very close. Finally it looks like she loses her balance, practically falling to one knee, but then she shoots a left straight at Jack's gut.

[Gizmo]

Things weren't going quite the way Jack had expected. He'd assumed Grim would spar with him verbally as much as physically; she was one of the few heroes he'd worked predisposed to the same kind of constant banter he favoured in his own confrontations. Instead, the petite woman had been silent but for a series of almost feral grunts and snarls, and if her roiling energy aura was any indication, his antics were beginning to legitimately get under her skin. The swashbuckler felt a momentary pang of guilt. In the Espadas household, playful jabs had been a sign of affection; he couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten through a conversation with his sister without one of them making a joke at the other's expense. He realized that he'd made a foolish assumption believing that Lynne would take his admittedly abrasive behaviour in that spirit.

His attention was snapped back to the fight as Grim's body language calmed and she suddenly launched a battery of blows against him. Yow! Self-preservation now, apologies later! The blindfolded hero struggled to remain a step ahead; what the attacks made up for in finesse they made up for in power. Letting even one punch land could seriously ruin his day. He dodged a blow more easily than he should have and alarms blared in his head, not from his energy sense but from his instincts as a fencer. She's maneuvering me, came the shocked thought. His training afforded him the split second needed to compensate, rolling into the space she was telegraphing her next sloppy punch for instead of away from it. As expected, a brutal haymaker flew into the empty space she'd expected him to dodge into. Jeez, who's playing who, here?

Jack realized that his feelings had been misplaced. Grim was a big girl, and entirely capable of being just as crafty as he was, with the benefit of greater experience. The moment he began to take his control of the bout for granted was the moment she would down him with a single punch. No time to get fancy, he resolved. Snapping back to his feet to Grim's left side, he blew a loud but thankfully dry raspberry directly into the shapeshifter's ear, then immediately vaulted into the space behind her. From there he circled around as silently as possible, hunching over comically and stepping gingerly on the tips of his toes, to the audience's delight. Okay, so maybe a little fancy.

[Dariusprime]

Munching on a handful of peanuts, "See, Atlas? We don't have a thing to worry about. As long as I'm not King Kong, I'll be happy," she joked. Fulcrum chuckled as she too settled back to watch the acrobatics, sipping her drink and devouring the peanuts in a most unlady-like fashion. Like the big man beside her, a normal serving just wasn't going to last long.

As for the fight, Grim was really getting into the match. Maybe a little too into the match. Then again maybe Jack was just that aggravating. On that point she could sympathize. She leaned in toward Colt and Atlas, "Is it just me or she really trying to slug him good?"

Noting Atlas' discomfort, she offered him her drink.

[quotemyname]

"Na! Reckon she's just concentratin'. Grim's got killer hearin', but she's probly just gotta ignore what he's sayin'." Colt drawled, taking a sip.

[Dariusprime]

"Easier said than done. I'm sitting here on the side lines and I want to punch him," joked Fulcrum as she continued devouring the peanuts. Between mouthfuls, she shadowboxed a counter punch as if Jack were sneaking up on her.

"These things are addictive. What is it about movie theater popcorn and stadium hot dogs and peanuts?"

[quotemyname]

"Reckon they must be laced wit the tiniest bit'a cocaine're somethin'. Sure'as hell ain't the salt that makes'em so good." Colt replied popping more peanuts into his mouth. "Speakin'a hot dogs, I haven't had me a good one'a those in a while. Grim doesn't like ta see'em around cuz they ain't kosher, but hell. It's fer charity, right?" Colt once again flagged down the stadium vendor.

[Heritage]

Grim felt Jack's breath in her ear, and suddenly her body went rigid with rage; behind her mask, she squeezed her eyes so tightly shut that purple spots danced in the blackness, and the roar of the crowd become muffled, like her head was wrapped in cotton. Jack was humiliating her in front of thousands of people, people she'd sworn to protect; would anyone be able to take her seriously after this? She had no idea where the hell he was anymore, and part of her didn't even care.

If I could use my glamour, this fight would already be over, but we're not playing by those rules.

But rules can change... :evil:

[angrydurf]

Ace watched the match cheering along with the crowd. Jack was certainly providing a good show though if he didn't know better he would say the barbs were digging deeper than intended with Grimalkin.

"Well it seems Jacks wit is as sharp as his blades. Hopefully he doesn't forget that in order to win he'll have to throw a punch not just avoid hers." Ace said with small laugh.

[Gizmo]

Jack came to the realization that he may not have thought things though all of the way. The plan for the bout had been to joke around, put on a bit of a show and see how things played out, like a sparring match with an appreciative audience. And everything is better with an appreciative audience. Instead, Grim had gone all, well, grim. Which, y'know, obvious in retrospect. By this point in the fight he'd managed to paint himself into a corner, leaving two options. A) Continue to dance around, evading attacks and making his opponent look foolish until Grim ripped out his larynx, or attack in earnest, in which case either Grim would cream him anyway or he'd win and Colt would be obligated to pummel him on her behalf. Darkstar may have had a point with that whole 'violence is bad' thing. Wait. Mr. No Joke, have a point? That can't be right.

Regardless, the decision was taken out of his hands as the black and blue-clad heroine responded to his latest round of irritation in a way that left her wide open. There are those who believed that, when they died, they would be punished for every drop of good alcohol they'd wasted in their lives. Fencers held a similar philosophy regarding openings. Jack sighed mentally. He was almost certain he was going to regret what he was about to do, but sometimes a man just has to sucker punch a five foot three blindfolded Jersey woman in the stomach. I think Descartes said that.

Snapping forward, he lashed out with his right glove, driving at Grim's midsection with a guileless but powerful blow. He immediately followed with a left hook aimed at her shoulder; he expected her to dodge it, but the second attack would keep her too preoccupied to launch an effective counterattack. His bandanna moved up and down as he waggled his covered eyebrows and smirked. "Finally, the good stuff, amirite?"

[Heritage]

"Finally, the good stuff, amirite?"

After this whole song and dance, it was almost a relief when Jack finally punched her in the stomach, if by relief one means 'shooting agonizing pain', but at least the wait was over. How the hell did this day lead to having her teammate punch her in the gut with a blindfold on? What universe were they living in?

This damn charity better cure cancer or something, or I'm gonna be so damned pissed. :x

Of course, she'd felt much worse pain than this in her crimefighting career, but it was the current circumstances that made it burn more intensely.

You have to drop him, Lynn; you have to drop his prancing, smart-mouthed ass now!

Despite the twinges in her side, she was moving again, bobbing and weaving with a savage grace that mirrored the swirling emotions in her belly; she could feel her teeth growing longer, and the tips of her ears becoming more pointed. Inside her gloves, her claws bit sharply into her palms. She was snarling like a caged beast, the hurt and the anger combining to make her blood boil.

Drop him! Drop him!

And now she invading his space, her hot breath scorching his cheek as she darted in, again and again, like a shark rushing a diving cage, only to veer off at the last moment, her gloves whistling past his ears. With a feral grunt she finally launches a rocket of a left towards his jaw.

"Eeeyah!"

[Gizmo]

"Holy nertz..." As Grim began her assault her bubbly aura shifted to hard prisms filled with crimson quantum argyle. The air around Jack's head filled with afterimages of kinetic energy, building to reverberating power chords. The snarling fae was everywhere at once and the swordsman stuggled to jerk away from the flurry of punches. A grunt heralded a streaking comet trailing mystic and mundane energies headed straight for his face. Caught off guard, Jack did the only thing he could think of to get out of the fist's path: he dropped flat on his back, hitting the mat with a thump.

Even as he touched down, the swashbuckler's feet were under him, launching him back up. A cautious swing sought out the same place he'd just managed to strike as Jack tried to regain control of the bout's momentum. "So, if this like a regular crazy-lady-pantyhose moment, or like a feral, snikt-snikt-bub-bub danger-to-yourself-and-those-around-you berserker thing? Or is that personal, like asking a lady's age?" Jack wasn't trying to make his movements look easy anymore; he responded to Grim's vicious attack with his full abilities as a duelist and gymnast, feet barely making contact with the ring as he spun and leaped over and around her swings. "I gotta tell ya, though, this explains a lot," he admitted, keeping his voice low. "Some of the sounds coming out of your room in the middle of the night...! I love you and Colt like family, for reals, but all of this..." Jack indicated his face with a gloved fist, "requires beauty sleep to maintain, y'know?"

[Heritage]

He never shuts up. I could kill him, chop off his head and drop in the sea, and he would still be talking! All the way down to Davy Jones, yappin' his freakin' trap!

Grim is starting to get dizzy; for some stupid reason, she's still blindfolded, and the verbal barrage plus her own anger and power of her last assault are starting to take a toll. For the first time in the fight, she actually stumbles; her head feels so hot she's sure astronauts can see it from space. Yet still she bobs and weaves, though some of the anger is gone, replaced by bewilderment and confusion; she's yanked to and fro like a toy, jerked this way and that by some unknown impulse.

I want it to be over. I want Colt to hold me while we eat ice cream. I want to be able to breathe.

She hears rather than feels another hit connect; she must have twisted out of the way instinctually, reducing the force of the blow to a mere slap. She continues her odd little dance, an unpredictable set of dodges and thrusts. Lacking the power of her earlier strikes, she makes a jab at Jack's belly, hoping to touch him just once this whole fight.

[Dariusprime]

Fulcrum leaned back over to Ace to reply, only to find that superfluous. She grimaced as Jack popped Grim. By this point she was absolutely sure that Grim was taking the match just a tad too seriously. Really though, Jack's demeanor aside, feeling sorry for Grimalkin was far more important than any pseudo-lesson for Jack-of-All-Blades.

So instead of responding to Ace, Fulcrum turned back to Colt, "I recommend, as a woman and warrior, nothing less than cuddles and a gallon of her favorite ice cream." With that nugget of advice invested to Colt, Fulcrum turned back to the fight and yelled, "You can do it, Grim! Ignore that baloney and slug him one to that pretty face! Girl power!" She even cupped her hands around her mouth to make her voice travel, despite the fact that the thousands of screaming fans drowned out even her booming voice.

What a great day. Of course that didn't stop her energy emissions from flaring up from the excitement. If anything Jack may notice the blip of energy from her was slowly creeping upwards in magnitude as she got more excited.

[Gizmo]

Jack's heart honestly wasn't in the fight anymore as he twisted around Grim's attacks. He might not have been a boxer by specialization, but he was a precision fighter, and he knew he hadn't struck his opponent nearly hard enough to account for her response. At what point did putting on a show for charity turn into bullying a friend in front of a stadium full of people? Weak sauce. He took a feeble swing at the shapeshifter as Fulcrum shouted from the stands. Jack managed a wry smirk as he raised his voice. "Well, you heard her! Can't let us chauvinist pig dogs get the upper- hijo de...!" For a split second he thought Grim had managed to land a blow to his head. He quickly recognized the sensation as a spike in the energy radiating from the paragon in the audience. Feels like she's going to explode... either her or my head. One thing at a time...

[Heritage]

He's not having fun anymore. I can here it in his voice.

This very simple revelation is a splash of cold water on the furnace of Grim's anger, and at long last a glimpse of sanity peeks through the stormclouds. Jack is a teammate; of course he doesn't want to beat up a fellow teammate, a friend, a co-conspirator of malicious mischief. This whole thing was like a huge cosmic joke, and somehow she'd been missing the punchline.

Why do I even care who wins this damn thing? Those little orphans are all that matters. Oh well, at least we gave 'em one hell of a show.

A crazy grin spreads across the shapeshifter's face for the first time in what seems like ages, and she actually stops to bow to her oppenent.

"A merry dance we've had, good Sir Knight, but I fear I tire of the steps! What say we end this contest of arms, the sooner we may be deep in our cups?"

Yeah, she's still a little punchy

And now, the fury is gone; she no longer cares who wins. Though there's still a touch of heaviness to her limbs, her moves once again have a simple grace to them. Not that she's letting Jack of easy, though! Soon she's coming at him, heedless of her own well-being, leaping forward to assault him with a whirling wall of blows, and for the first time during this match, a whirling wall of words.

"Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!"

And with that last exclamation, she launches a right straight at his kisser.

[quotemyname]

So instead of responding to Ace, Fulcrum turned back to Colt, "I recommend, as a woman and warrior, nothing less than cuddles and a gallon of her favorite ice cream."

"Well, I reckon that's a mighty fine plan, not matter how this ends up." Colt sat, sipping from his cup, glad his own bout was over with. "Would it be too much ta expect them ta carry Rocky Road round in'at there cooler the salesmen's got?"

Colt sat, watching the bout. He winced every time Grim took a hit like it was Ace punching him in the gut again.

[Gizmo]

Well that's more bloody like it! Jack grinned broadly as he ducked under Grim's strike. Taking a playful jab of his own, he clasped his gloved fists behind his waist and continued to move casually around the shapeshifter's blows as though he were avoiding bumping someone's shoulder on a crowded sidewalk. "Woah, there!" he exclaimed cheerily, "I don't think Colt would stand for me getting 'deep in your cups'. And thrusting, now? Grim, you're going to make me blush!"

[Geez3r]

Atlas was pretty quiet during the last few exchanges. He was quite literally on the edge of his seat, watching the fight unfold. This is straight out of the movies. he thought to himself. For a moment there, he thought the fight was going to get really and truly serious. But then Grim cracked a joke, and it was as if a weight was lifted off Atlas' shoulders. "No guts no glory!" roared Atlas at the dueling pair, encouraging them to even greater heights.

[Heritage]

"Woah, there!" he exclaimed cheerily, "I don't think Colt would stand for me getting 'deep in your cups'. And thrusting, now? Grim, you're going to make me blush!"

Grim laughs wearily as she vaguely indicates her chest with a wave of her gloves as she sucks down a breath.

"Dude, have you seen my 'cups'? They ain't...they ain't all that deep, buddy! Well, y'know...most of the time they ain't." :twisted:

This is it, her last chance; she can feel herself going in and out, like a car radio going under a bridge. With phenomenal effort, she goes into her dance once more; it ain't all that pretty, but it still kinda works. Her body is made of lead; lead bones, lead muscles, lead brain. Her tongue, however, is still pure silver.

"Whatcha goin' to do about the crazy feet, huh? I'm a blur, buddy boy! I'm lightning! My lightning's all blurred! I am the finest lightnin' you ain't never gonna taste, boy-ee!"

Fist. Face. BOOM

[Gizmo]

Jack hesitated as Grim babbled all but incoherently. "...what does that even mea- ouff!" Despite the manic randomness of her movement, or perhaps thanks to it, one of her fists connected solidly with Jack's face. Rolling backward instinctively, he snapped back up to his feet a few meters away, rubbing the bridge of his nose through his bandanna. "Aw man, not the moneymaker... Grim...?" It took a moment for him to find the fae lying face down on the mat, the mystical energy surrounding her defusing to a pale green gossamer shimmer. Twisting his mask back around so that he could see normally, Jack discovered Grim apparently passed out from sheer exhaustion. Dropping his hands to his sides, he looked from his unconscious opponent up to the audience, nonplussed. "Uh... That wasn't my fault."

[Heritage]

".........."

Inside her head, there was no more pain, no more fear, no more struggle; for a little while at least, Grim was at peace. The ringside medics sprang into action, leaping up onto the canvas to quickly check the fallen competitor's vitals (thankfully, everything was normal), and splash some water on her face, but the poor girl was out.

[angrydurf]

Ace had actually rather enjoyed the match, two skilled competitors in a delicate dance of pugilistic pride. When it came to its crescendo, like most of the audience he was on his feet cheering them on.

As Grim hit the mat he glanced around quizzically, "Did she just ... pass out?" he asked no one in particular as the medics quickly determined she was basically uninjured.