Colors of Remnant

Kailyn didn't get nervous very often.

Big tests? Either she studied enough to be confident or didn't study at all and thus didn't have anything to be nervous about because she knew going in that it was going to be a train wreck.

Dates? She didn't do those. She preferred the classic time-honored tradition of hanging out with friends and realizing that nobody had eaten anything all day and proceeding to find the nearest restaurant that was still open and wolfing down food.

Public speaking? She was an extrovert, for Brothers' sake!

This fight, though, had her feeling nervous. She was about to enter a ring with Lin's big sister, and they were going to beat the snot out of each other. Plus Ela was bigger, stronger, and older than her. Anyone who wasn't nervous was either really strong or really dumb, and Kailyn was neither.

Standing in the middle of the ring, she waved weakly at her opponent. "Don't go easy on me," she said with a weak smile, "but please don't hit me too hard in the face."

Ela was nervous about a lot of things.

Her studies?
She'd never forgive herself is she didn't do her best on a test, she owed this prestigious academy that much effort, otherwise she'd be smudging the good name of Beacon.

Social interactions, by the brothers, her anxiety would kill her if she slipped up and embarrassed herself somehow in front of others.

But this, a duel she was not sweating it, Kailyn was a good friend of Lin and an associate of hers, she had no fear of messing up in front of her since she knew her and what she was capable off prior to this, plus, Kailyn was just really nice, Ela had never once felt her anxiety spike up around the serpent faunus.

So, when she approached the ring, Ela had a relaxed smile on her face, doing a little last touch up to her poncho and fixing her belt, as well as doing a few stretches to loosen up.
"I promise I'll be nice."
With that comment, Ela took her battle stance, confidently and calmly, giving Kailyn the chance to make the first move as the gong signaling the start of their fight rang.

Kailyn wasn't small, but compared to Ela EVERYONE was small. Based on what she knew about Ela's fighting style and Semblance, Kailyn was confident in being faster as well. She was less confident about winning a melee brawl, though - not when she had better ranged options than Ela did.

No time like the present to test her opponent's formidable defenses. As soon as the gong rang, Kailyn's knives, each one imbued with Gravity Dust to enhance their speed, shot out toward Ela, targeting different vital points - jugular vein, femoral artery, back of the neck, armpit, navel. At the same time, Kailyn lowered into a slight crouch, assuming a classic quickdraw pose.

Let's do this.

Ela knew that Kailyn was a smart girl, and she also knew her preferred form of attack, so unless Kailyn had spontaneously decided to throw the match she'd fly backwards and attack with her knifes.
The knifes would not do much in terms of damage, not against her armor, but Ela needed a few seconds to get that going.
As soon as the gong rang, Ela's lower arms and legs were quickly engulfed with rock, taking a low stance with her arms covering most of her torso and head, leaving very few weak points.

The gravity dust infused knifes mostly hit her rock chipping away the rock to a barely noticeable degree, but one did manage to hit her shoulder, which, stung and depleted her aura bit, but Ela barely reacted to it, as the knife was soon pushed aside by her rock armor climbing up to cover her chest, which along with her head was the only thing left not protected by rock.

That armor was no joke. Kailyn knew Ela didn't have many ranged attack options, but if she couldn't land any damage from range the point was moot.

Thankfully, throwing things from range wasn't Kailyn's preferred method of attacking. With a thought, she launched herself at Ela and drew her sword, closing the distance in just over a second and aiming her strike at Ela's chest. Her armor was closing that vulnerability quickly, but not quickly enough that she couldn't get in a strike there and at her head before she'd have to figure out a different way to fight Ela.

Ela, while slower than Kailyn, was still no slouch, she couldn't run as fast as her, but she could see a telegraphed attack like this coming, while her armor was of course the reason she could defend so well, her mind was still what truly made her defense as hard to crack as it was.
So when Kailyn raced toward her, Ela ducked further down, her torso only being partially covered still allowed her to duck well enough, so Kailyn's swords just cut air, with the redhead so close Ela raised herself back up, using her whole upper body to launch a punch that impacted with Kailyn's gut with Ela's....not full force, she'd feel bad if she'd hit Kailyn's stomach with her full concrete crushing power after Kailyn had asked for her to go easy.

Speaking of full power, Ela turned back to where Kailyn was, as with a stonie crunch her armor had finally fully formed around her chest, as it was now her head that was the only thing uncovered.
Stone already crawling up Ela's neck as her hair, tied in a ponytail, was tucked under the armor.

Ow.

Ela's punch lifted Kailyn into the air. Rather than fall, though, Kailyn continued to drift up slowly as the knives that had fallen to the ground after bouncing off Ela's armor all rose into the air to shoot back toward her unprotected head.

This fight was going to be a slog, she knew that. Ela wasn't going to go down easy, and Kailyn was going to have to keep her distance. Hopefully her knives would carve their way through Ela's Aura before Kailyn's own ran out.

"Ready for round two?" she asked her opponent as she settled once more into a crouch, this time while in midair.

Oh, Kailyn's control of her weapons was very impressive!
Ela quickly lifted her arms to block the incoming blades, but to her surprise she was being attacked from all sides, lurching forward a little as two of the knifes found the back of her head.
"My haiir..."
Ela complained, as she grabbed the blades tangled in her black locks, then tossing them to the side and lodging them in the arena wall.

As Kailyn spoke up Ela looked a little surprised, then to the aura gauge counter that made the difference in their defense very clear, Ela's punch had done much more damage than any of Kailyn's attacks.
She did not want to insult Kailyn, though, so she just nodded.
"Ready when you are, though, you may want to hit me just a bit harder from now on."
Ela advised with a smirk and a wink, before her face was enclosed in rock, only her eyes and mouth partially visible now.

Ela once again took a combat stance, though this was much less defense oriented, instead having her arms in a lowered boxer stance to capitalize of any opening Kailyn may give her.

That armor was tough, and apparently didn't cost Ela any Aura to maintain. Rip. Kailyn's only choice, then, was to smash a hole in the armor with one big hit, which Ela confirmed for her as her face became encased in stone.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Kailyn's focus zeroed in on her target area: the small of Ela's back. After taking another few moments to stare her opponent down, she shot off to the side, using her Semblance to carry herself in a wide circle around Ela. She didn't have much choice but to put almost everything she had into this attack, so she was really going to put her Semblance through its paces. Making sure to keep her senses focused on Ela in case the girl had a ranged attack option she didn't know about, Kailyn gradually accelerated as she made circle after circle around the arena. She might even manage to make Ela a bit dizzy from having to track her movement, but that was a long shot.

Once she reached top speed, Kailyn kept going a few more times around the circle before abruptly slinging herself into a spiral charge in the opposite direction of rotation toward Ela's back, taking a single reversed-revolution to arrive. Her sword sprang from its sheathe, Kailyn not even having time to actually look at her target as she crashed into Ela with as much momentum as her Semblance could currently muster.

Ela, was happy to see that Kailyn took her advice as the red head started flying around the arena at impressive speed, gathering her momentum, but what did she intend to use it for?
Was she going to pass her momentum to one of her knifes for a devastating throw?
No, a throw at this speed was unlikely to properly translate momentum and still lacked enough power to hurt Ela due to the lack of mass of Kailyn's knifes.

The answer finally clicked when Ela turned just in time, previously having stood still due to the futility of trying to track Kailyn's fast movement, there was a loud sound of impact as Ela felt a blade in her side only having managed to turn about halfway around before Kailyn hit her.
Her armor around the knife impact was heavily damaged, and the impact had even made it through depleting some of Ela's aura, but Ela had taken worse hits and while this one definitely hurt, Ela could ignore the stinging feeling in her side as her armor regenerated, enclosing Kailyn's blade into the stone as Ela herself quickly took Kailyn into a headlock, her stone covered arm still allowing for enough flexibly to close around the red head's neck as with a grunt of exertion Ela pulled herself and Kailyn down onto the floor, with her elbow on the floor and Kailyn beneath Ela's massive body, with her weight on Kailyn, Ela kept the actual headlock rather loose, not seeing the need to hurt Kailyn any further.
Ela did not want to sound cocky, she'd let Kailyn do all she could to try and escape her grapple, but she was fairly certain that Kailyn didn't have many options right now.
"I'd be happy to let you go, if you surrender."

Damn.

“Yeah, you got me,” Kailyn admitted.

The blow she’d landed probably would have killed any Grimm outright, but Ela was just about the worst opponent for her to have drawn. Older, more experienced, tanky as hell, and able to armor up without burning through Aura. Kailyn definitely needed to find a way to deal with people like her sooner or later, but for now she’d just have to hope that Ela won out.

Ela took this as a surrender and so did the referee as the battle was called with a loud buzzer, she stood up, pulling Kailyn with her as she then took a step back.
Her armor slowly started to crumble away and turn nothingness as the very heavy stone hit the floor, the sound of which made it evident how much weight Ela was carrying, especially as her chest plate fell off causing a few small cracks to spread on the floor, the second her helmet was undone Ela also untied her hair, shaking her head to free it, possibly to Kailyn's disappointed, it was dry, Ela had not begun to sweat, though she could also see Ela briefly holding her side, with Ela wearing only a poncho to cover her torso, there was a noticeable bruise where she rammed Ela.
"Good fight Kailyn, I hope you're okay?"
Ela reached a hand out to Kailyn for a handshake.

Kailyn smiled and grabbed Ela's hand. "Yeah, I'm good," she confirmed, shaking her hand firmly before taking a few steps back and glancing up at her Aura meter on the wall - the barest sliver remained, which explained her headache.

"I am completely out of gas, though. Whadya say we go grab some tacos or something?" she asked her tall upperclasswoman. "Invite Lin, too, we can make an afternoon out of it."

"That sounds delightful."
Ela replied as she dusted herself off and then turned to the crowd, as she looked for a certain individual, there she was, she waved Lin to come downward and her sister promptly followed.
Floating by her side.
"Come on, we'll grab Taco's."
Ela said as he followed Kailyn out of the arena and floated along with a smile on her face, happily singing away to Kailyn about how she knew she'd get her butt kicked by Ela and a bet she made.