Tournament Arc! Ela Motley vs Hyacinth Bordeaux

[Ela Motley]

It was this time of year again, whether it was for the legitimate reason of preparing for the Vytol festival, all the students getting a good feel for where they stood in regard to their training or simply because the professors were bored and wanted to see for themselves how their new students would fare.
It was time for the Beacon Pep Rally.

While Ela was reluctant to join, knowing full where her flaws lay and what she had to work on, as well as not caring to know how much weaker or stronger she was than her peers, she had other factors moving her to join, that being her sister who wanted to see her big sister kick ass and also use this as a good opportunity to make some lien via a betting pool.
Ela looked up to the seats, where the floating little girl seemed to be running a good business.
And the other was Professor Copperfield, his reasoning was something Ela could agree with more, he simply wanted her to try and see how far she had gotten and test herself for a more scientific analysis of her semblance.
Ela, while previously not enthusiastic, would give it her all for a performance test and in the interest of scientific research.
She spotted the professor in the commentator booth, giving him a small smile and wave.

Yet, her first fight wasn't starting how she had imagined, Ela was simply seated on the arena floor, one knee pulled to her chest allowing her to rest her head and hands as she watched her competitor enter.

[Hyacinth Bordeaux]

The click of Cinth’s heels, only just barely noticeable above the general base level din of the audience, announced her presence as she stepped into the ring, activating Aria Major as she did so. Sliding her headphones on over one ear, Cinth surveyed the area, noticing in order the audience, the commentator, her opponent. Ever the performer, she couldn’t help but wave to spectators as she stepped forward. She traced her gaze over her opponent—Ela, if she remembered the bracket label correctly—who was sitting on the floor across from her, as though bored.

“Damn, I’m not even a minute late,” she commented, settling into a fighting stance.

Even sitting on the floor, Cinth could tell Ela had the clear size advantage here. The girl was built like a goddamn tank, there was no way Cinth would be making any dent in her aura with strength alone. A build like that probably meant Ela was a brawler, which on the one hand meant she could definitely throw Cinth out of the ring without breaking a sweat, but on the other it meant Cinth was safe as long as she kept her distance. While Aria Major worked best as a melee weapon, it still had plenty of functions for ranged attacks, so as long as Cinth stayed away from Ela’s fists and wore her down with bullets alone, the match shouldn’t be too difficult. Thus, as soon as the start signal was given, Cinth quickly shifted Aria Major into its ranged, rifle form, fired a quick burst of three shots at Ela, keeping light on her feet so as to move if Ela attempted to advance towards her.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Copperfield made sure his camera was recording both the normal spectrum and temperature, adjusted the zoom a tad, and set it going. He may want to examine the data to give Ela pointers in the future, but he wouldn't be watching this match through a screen or lens. His eyes would observe better than the technology anyhow.

Ela waved at him from below and he waved back, mouthing the words: "You got this" And gave her a thumbs up. The sound of clinking heels announced the second contender's presence. "And here we have the second fighter in the other corner- ugh, it's a circle they don't have corners, who wrote this?- Hyacinth Bordeaux! Standing at 5 feet 8 inches, she's got abs as hard as her music. Ela Motley on the other hemisphere, standing at 7 feet 2 inches, an Icy Mountain of a student! The two powerhouses are set to face off, place your bets who's going to win! Both of you, play it clean. Remember the rules, but don't be afraid to be creative. The match will start with at the explosion."

He smiled wickedly at that last line. His students in the audience would get nervous at that, with how explosives in his class tended to get out of hand. He leaned back, took a long sip of his coffee, savored the flavor, then snapped both fingers.

A small block of ice formed in the air via his Semblance and some Ice Dust, and then immediately exploded into fire and tiny slivers of glittering cystal.

The match was on.

[Ela Motley]

Her opponent, Hyacinth Bordeaux, while not nearly as tall nor muscular looking as herself still seemed to be quite strong, looking at the weapon she was wielding, had Ela brought Lovetap a clash between the monstrous guitar axe and her own mace would have been interesting, yet, this was still just a duel, Ela had her principle's and would stay true to them.

As the admittedly fancy, if unnecessarily, pretty, starting signal was given, Ela noticed immediately that her opponent was taking a defensive approach to this.
No problem, this wasn't the first time she'd have to close in on a target.

Ela, dodged the first few blasts, the extra range gave her plenty of time to react and also time to get her own semblance up and running.
While her semblance wasn't the slowest, the time it took for her armor to grow was precious in a fight, first Ela would quickly generate armor around her hands, lower arms and up to her thighs.
Tucking her head low and raising her arms to cover her face and torso, Ela now began her charge at Cinth.

[Hyacinth Bordeaux]

Abs as hard as her music…? Cinth had heard a lot of random comments about both her body and her music, what with her previous profession, but that certainly wasn’t a comparison she’d encountered to before. Though, she supposed, she hadn’t exactly had the cut figure she now possessed when working for Volcan, visible muscle didn’t fit the aesthetic he was going for. Regardless of the absurdity of the commentator’s remark, Cinth payed a short flurry of notes to go along with the mention of her music. Again: performer with an audience. What else was she to do?

The sudden explosive ice that sprouted from the center of the ring startled her, but she couldn’t help but grin at the glitter that floated down. What a nice compliment to the sparkle of her makeup. It’d been a while since she’d worn body glitter, and what better place to revisit the style than a show?

Ela dodged her first round of fire- shit, she was faster than anticipated. Cinth took note as a rock-like armor began to spread up Ela’s limbs. That was either some type of weapon, or her semblance, either way it was going to be an issue.

With another blast from her rifle, Cinth propelled herself up and over her opponent, landing on the other side of the ring. She immediately fire several more rounds her opponent, aiming mostly for her still-exposed torso, but also a shot intentionally toward the armor on one of her legs. She needed to test how well that stuff stood up to projectiles.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

"And we're off! Cinth opens up with some shots from her rifle and the beginning notes to the song, while Ela dodges and blocks with her natural armor! Both ladies are plenty strong, but it seems like speed will be the factor that changes the key!" He tried to put in a music pun. "Like a key change?" He said to someone else in the booth with him, his voice still carrying through the microphone. "Like a shift in the battle! Don't you shake your head at me."

[Ela Motley]

Both the fight and Professor Copperfield's commentary had Ela rolling her eyes.

Hyacinth, as expected, was faster than her, but much faster than Ela had hoped for, with a quick jump she was on the other side of the arena and out of Ela's reach, the music puns didn't help her frustration, but Professor Copperfield was right, speed was the factor.
A Factor her opponent excelled at and wanted to take away from her with that shot at her leg.
Ela, while having seen it coming, yet purposefully took the hit, wanting to see how well her armor could hold up to Hyacinth's projectiles, the bullet damaged her armor, digging a noticeable hole into it, but it didn't reach the woman underneath, Ela smiled, relived that her armor held up, as the hole then closed, a minor amount of new dust being used to cover it.

The pod shots had also given time for Ela's armor to complete its growth.
With a rocky crunch, Ela's face was hidden behind a visor, only her hair sticking out of the bottom of her helmet.
Ela righted her posture, going from her boxer stance to an upright one, she stood confident and went from dashing to jogging towards Hyacinth.
This wasn't intimidation, Ela was simply taking her time inspecting the weapon her opponent wielded, it was complicated and while she had seen it in its inactive state its capability to shift modes just added to its complexity, it was very impressive even at first glance, another thing worth noting was the fact that Hyacinth was listening to music during a fight, that seemed like a severe limitation, unless...this was her semblance ?

But, the upright stance also served a purpose, as Ela was ready to try and grab Hyacinth once she would try and jump over her again, that should cement her advantage.

[Hyacinth Bordeaux]

So the armor wasn’t completely impervious, Cinth noted. Though it looked like it didn’t slow Ela down in the slightest, keeping her free of injury even if the rock itself was now dented. Yeah, definitely going to be an issue, especially now that it was covering almost her entire body.

Cinth brought up her headset’s HUD, her let’s fucking Bounce_115-120bpm already picked prior to entering the ring, and hit shuffle. She grinned at the song that came up, this was a fun one; she’d only performed it a few times, but those few times were certainly memorable. Cinth circled the edge of the ring like a leopard stalking prey, keeping her distance from Ela as she waited for the effects of the song to kick in. When Ela rose to her full height—fuck, she was tall—Cinth shifted Aria Major back to it’s base form. As Ela began to approach at a jog, Cinth moved. With the electric guitar playing in her ear, Cinth could jump from her near-stagnant position to being able to keep up with cars on a highway. She met Ela in the middle of the ring, zipping just passed her and pivoting to swing her axe at the back of Ela’s knees, trying to knock her off balance. If successful, she would add a few more rapid blows before jumping back out of range of Ela’s fists.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Copperfield squinted at seeing Ms. Bordeaux's HUD come up. Those headphones, her Semblance... She was selecting a fast paced song, and what he'd just said was about to come true. Speed. He could comment about those headphones and her Semblance, but Ela had told him before that she wanted no help. As fun as putting a slow classical song on his scroll and holding it up to the mic would be, Ela would never forgive him if he came to her rescue in this duel.

Plus, he wanted to see if his pupil would be observant and smart enough to figure Hyacinth out. There were many dreadful things about being a teacher, but seeing your student excell was a joy greater than almost anything he had felt. So he said nothing. Other than, of course:

"Look at that kitty cat go!"

[Ela Motley]

Ela was still steadily approaching Hyacinth, her fist at the ready to punch or snatch her opponent, especially as she saw her weapon switch back to what looked like a melee mode.
She was quite confident in her capabilities in a melee bout, and Hyacinth was strong, but going melee would severely lower the advantage she got from her speed.
Yet, Ela could also see the headset HUD; was she worrying about her choice of song in the middle of a duel ? Ela was a bit confused, as she didn't notice any immediate change in Hyacinth.

That was until it hit her—well, more so her than it, Hyacinth had shot forward at incredible speed, and her axe cleaved into Ela's armor with great force.
Ela was caught off guard and had no time to react as she was busy catching herself when she fell forward.
She grunted as more slashes came down on her. The heavy slash at her leg hurt, having cleaved clean through her armor; the fast ones luckily did not cleave, but the impacts still left a dull ache in Ela's spine.
Getting up quickly, Ela swerved around a fast swipe being launched behind her, yet Hyacinth was already out of range.

Ela steadied herself, taking a breath to soothe her leg, while she took a quick moment to regenerate her damaged armor.
Hyacinth's sudden increase in speed was impressive and troublesome, yet its source was easy to decipher; her semblance seemed to depend on the song she was listening to.
As things were, Ela had no chance of victory. She sighed, looking up at Professor Copperfield. Suddenly, Ela felt very happy that the professor had persuaded her to practice the other part of her semblance recently.

Ela assumed a boxer's stance, waiting for Hyacinth to approach again, as she readied her next play.
Her arms and dark hair hid what was going on well; that was the charge-up of ice dust being prepared to be shot at the path Hyacinth would take to attack her, in hopes of getting her to slip.
Ela herself was preparing for that too, with spikes growing out of the heels of her armor, making for another distraction.

While Ela was caught of guard at first, the next time she would see Hyacinth's assault coming.
Once she approached, a blizzard, howling wind carrying ice and frost with it, was unleashed, sweeping over the floor and covering a good 30ft radius surrounding Cinth, in coarse yet solid ice.
With her opponent trapped Ela approached, the spikes on her armor allowing her to move freely.

[Hyacinth Bordeaux]

Cinth took note of which of her hits made any dent in Ela’s armor and which barely left a mark at all. Good to know. Aria Major was built for heavy hits, after all. All she needed was the right song and the right strength and the right opening and-

Aria Major flew from her grasp as she was brought to an abrupt, unplanned halt. She audibly gasped at the sharp pain that shot up her legs. Even with aura protecting her from actual damage, going from 65mph to 0 via ice encasing her ankles was not fun for her shins. Her weapon bounced and skidded across the ice, sliding out of reach.

Cinth cursed quietly, straightening up as soon as she got over the shock of almost snapping her ankles. She hadn’t even seen the ice coming, too preoccupied by the spikes Ela had been growing from her armor. For a moment, Cinth attempted to free herself from the ice on her own, though even with her semblance active—her song was ending too, shit—the action was futile.

Cinth’s gaze flickered between Ela and where her weapon lay. Okay, if she timed this right… As soon as she judged—hoped, really—that Ela was in the right position, Cinth stretched her arm out and increased the pull of the gravity dust paired between her arm guards and her weapon, summoning Aria Major back to her. If she timed it right, her weapon would smack into Ela’s feet and knock her off balance as it flew back towards her hand.

[Ela Motley]

Ela had not planned for her frost breath to be this effective, she had attempted to make Hyacinth trip and fall, get her opening that way, but freezing her calves was much better...even though Ela was not one to wail on a defenseless opponent, but she had to capitalize or else Hyacinth would free herself and her chance would be wasted, Ela sprinted forward prepared to attack Hyacinth, should she grapple her to immobilize her, punch her to deal as much damage as possible or...
Ela's gaze went from her opponent to the weapon she had dropped and the way Hyacinth was unable to free herself from the ice.

This sounded like a much better solution.
Ela changed her course to the weapon instead and saw it just as it began to move, she saw Hyacinth's outstretched hand, was she pulling her weapon towards herself ?
No time to figure it out.
Ela threw herself on the dropped weapon, pinning it to the floor with all her weight and strength as another frost blast was charging up, she looked to Hyacinth, Aria Major now firmly pinned under Ela.

With another blast of frost and cold air, the guitar axe was encased in a block of ice, Ela wrenching her hands from the ice by shedding her stone gloves in it and then getting up, her hands were already being covered in a new layer of armor as she approached Hyacinth now.
"You have fought well so far, but I would much prefer it if you surrendered."
Ela said, hoping her opponent could hear her through the music.

[Hyacinth Bordeaux]

Cinth’s eyes widened in proper panic as Ela covered Aria Major in ice. But not because of the tournament, no, her panic was born solely from the fact that encased as it was, Aria Major couldn’t vent properly. And sure the fact that it was encased in ice was probably helping but fuck neither the fans nor the exhaust pipe could work all covered up like that and Cinth was not about to let her pride and joy explode because of some random little tournament!

“You don’t even know what you just did, do you?” She snapped, still working on freeing herself from the ice as she glared at Ela. Bringing her HUD back up, Cinth switched playlists to oh shit things are getting serious_150-155bpm and selecting the first song she saw. She needed to stall a few seconds while she adjusted to the change in bpm; even though her semblance hadn’t been active during the switch from her last bpm to her current one, so there was a lessened risk of side effects that way, it was still quite a short time between tempos, and she needed to let the 150bpm settle in first.

“Surrender means leaving Aria Major like that and I won’t be letting some cheap trick destroy her mainframe.” Cinth had finally managed to free herself from the ice. Sort of. She had sacrificed her boots, leaving them behind encased in the ice and she pulled herself free, leaving her barefoot on the ice—her socks got caught somewhere in her shoes, sliding off as she had been attempting to wiggle her feet out of boots that usually needed to be unzipped to come off easily. Not ideal, but she wasn’t trapped, and that was all that mattered. That meant she could reach Aria Major, free it from its ice prison where the ice was starting the turn grey with the stain of the weapon’s exhaust fumes.

Her gaze flickered between Ela and her weapon, calculating. Feeling the effects of her chosen song settling over her, Cinth braced her feet against where her boots were still firmly encased in ice, and used them as friction to push off—the ice may be coarse, but staring to move wouldn’t have been easy without something to brace against. She didn’t bother with any type of attack this time, she didn’t care about Ela right now, what mattered right now was her weapon. So, much like her previous move from a standstill to a speed boost, Cinth dashed passed Ela to her weapon, using her momentum paired with her enhanced strength to catch the edge of the ice encasing Aria Major and rip the top of its ice prison away, gripping the area where the heat of the exhaust pipe had thinned it ever so slightly. The ice broke away in shards like splintering glass, revealing enough of her weapon that Cinth could grab it and wrench it free of its prison. The sharp scent of exhaust filled the air around her as Cinth pulled her weapon free, she coughed lightly at the stench.

Cinth spent a quick second—and it really was quite a quick second, given she still had a 150bpm song playing—to make sure the body of her guitar wasn’t overheating, before turning her attention back to Ela. Right. She was barefoot on ice in the middle of a tournament. Behind Ela, Cinth’s boots were still stuck in ice. Yeah she really wasn’t going to have the time to put those back on, was she? At least she could do something about the ice. Cinth loaded a fire dust crystal into the port on the body her guitar that, when deactivated, functioned as an amp port, but when set to combat served a whole different function.

“You’re lucky you didn’t cause her any harm,” Cinth said as the strings of her guitar began to glow red. She played a quick flurry of chords, releasing a wave of fire from the strings to spread across the arena and melt the problematic ice.

[Ela Motley]

Ela wasn't sure how to react to this. Yes, yes, she knew what she had done; she had disarmed her opponent instead of wailing on them, which was a more direct and less barbaric way to win.
But she was getting yelled at instead, and for good reason: was Hyacinth's weapon really at risk of breaking?!
Ela had not intended for that to happen, and she turned around, half inclined to break the guitar axe out of the ice herself.

But then Hyacinth rushed past her, barefoot, breaking the ice in only a moment and freeing her weapon. The fact that she immediately used it to attack Ela again made it clear that both weapon and user were in good shape, Ela immediatly rushed at her, feeling frustrated at her own failure and that Hyacinth had no qualms about using her hesitation.

But fire dust was a bad choice, as was not moving.
As the blast was fired and the ice melted, steam rose up in the arena, both of which Ela simply moved through, her stone armor unfazed by the release of fire. Even with her opponent's speed, Hyacinth was still in a stance to play, not run, and Ela got a grip on her opponent's weapon again.

This time pulling it forward and Hyacinth with it, right into a gut punch, Ela knew music raised Hyacinth's speed and strength, but she hoped it also raised her defense.
With Hyacinth still reeling, Ela leaned back, still holding Aria Major, and cracked her armored skull against that of Hyacinth, concluding her combo with another rough tug at Aria Major and reaching for her opponent's headset, which would she choose to protect ?

[Hyacinth Bordeaux]

The good news: no more running around barefoot on ice. The bad news: steam. The rapid swell of steam filled the air, providing a rather unfortunate smoke screen. Cinth blinked, activating her prosthetic eye’s thermal vision, but the heat of the steam around them paired with the natural coolness of rock still made it difficult to make out where her opponent was. Not to mention she only had thermal in one eye, so depth perception really wasn’t her strong suit like this. She barely had a chance to make out Ela’s figure in the haze before her opponent was barreling into her, sending them both careering backwards several steps as Cinth gasped through the punch to her stomach. She felt Ela give a tug to her weapon, and quickly increased the strength of the gravity dust’s pull, providing much higher resistance against Ela’s attempts to disarm her once again.

The steam finally finished clearing in time for Cinth to get headbutted. Ouch. Cinth may be a melee fighter, but this was not the type of tussle she liked to be a part of. She blinked her thermal vision away as she stumbled from the blow, though she kept her grip on her weapon secure. She twisted some more to get Aria Major free, and saw her opening when she felt Ela’s hand close around her headset. Since that meant Ela only had one hand on her guitar now, it was easier for Cinth wrench herself free, finally moving several feet to the side, regaining her footing and backing away from Ela, closer to the center of the ring, giving herself a second to recollect herself. Her headphones were left in Ela’s hand, along with a few strands of Cinth’s hair.

“Hair pulling? Really? Are you twelve?” Cinth laughed as she slipped her scroll into its port on the face of Aria Major. She no longer had her HUD to switch playlists, but that was fine, she could work with the playlist she currently had running. The change from her headset to plugging her scroll into her weapon, at first, didn’t seem to do anything, until the next song on the playlist started up. Through the speakers built in to the face of Aria Major, the song began to play, and in sync, hardlight dust began to pulse around the edges of the axe blades in time with the music, giving the weapon a jagged, shifting edge. A light show with music. Again: former performer. Cinth was nothing if not eccentric.

Playing music from her weapon wasn’t as perfect as having music playing right into her ears, but music was music, and it could still give her an edge.

“Now we get a proper soundtrack,” she said with a smirk as she rushed Ela. She started a series of attacks similar to what she had done before, heavy slashes with her axe, this time a bit stronger than her attacks from before had been—not as strong as they could have been if she’d had her headset, but still stronger than what 120bpm had given her. She kept her attacks fast and hard, not giving Ela a chance to grab her weapon again as she attempted to force her backwards towards where the boundary of the ring was, with the goal to simply shoving her out of bounds.

[Ela Motley]

Ela was growing tired of this, she had expended her ice dust with those two blasts and while her composure was firm Ela's patience was slowly but surely running thin, Hyacinth's brash attitude was one thing but her needing to put on a show at every opportunity, the musician was lucky she was slowed down with her armor on, giving her plenty of time to perform, her unsportsmanlike behavior was the other part, Ela wanted to retort but...couldn't think of anything, she simply thought to herself that perhaps her opponent should choose something more practical than headphones of all things...like her guitar, great she could play music on it too, at least the song wasn't too bad...fuck she actually kind of liked it.

Back to the fight though, disarming Hyacinth had not worked, well it did, but Ela was unwilling to destroy someone's property over a sport event like this, she was also much faster than Ela so ringing her out was unlikely... Ela then saw Hyacinth charging at her, a good old-fashioned brawl it was, Ela was happy Hyacinth wanted to face her on Ela's preferred terms.

Ela braced herself, arms raised defensively, letting Hyacinth wail on her for a bit, while her attacks did definitely damage her armor, even cutting through it in places, Ela could bear it, easily, she had felt much worse and the cuts quickly regrew, Ela was good on aura and earth dust, the cuts weren't depleting either supply very quickly.
But she sensed herself being pushed, a ring out was what Hyacinth was aiming for, not happening.
Using her own strength and that of her opponent's swing, the spikes on Ela's soles planted themselves firmly in the ground, forming cracks in the floor, yet stopping her movement.

At this point Ela had also gotten a rhythm for Hyacinth's swings, maybe it was in her nature to do things by a rhythm, maybe it was just her style, but Ela lowered her arms, the next strike hitting her head, while she did budge Ela didn't flinch, the crack revealing a focused yet entirely calm eye looking at Hyacinth, before the crack closed.
As then Ela returned the favor, as Hyacinth had swung at her Ela swung back, a surprisingly quick three hit combo was launched, possible as Ela was focusing her aura on strengthening her upper body and arms, allowing her to attack quick and hard even with her armor weighing her down, she could afford to not focus on her shield after all.
The first hit found itself at Hyacinth's chest, hoping to knock the wind out of her opponent, taking the split second she had to wind up a mean left hook, aimed at Hyacinth's cheek and if she could manage to squeeze it in, using the moment from the hook to land another gut punch.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Copperfield watched as Cinth wailed on Ela near the start of the fight. Ela gained some distance and glanced up at him. He raised an eyebrow and a smile at her, wondering what she was thinking. Then her posture changed into something he had tested with her not long ago. His eyes widened. Was she really going to use it? Finally?

The floor became a sheet of solild ice, locking Cinth in her place. "Yes!" Copperfield leapt in his chair, voice coming over very loud through the speakers. "Yes! You see tha- Oh, right," he cleared his throat. "Ela has frozen the battlefield solid and, and trapped her opponents weapon with the ice! Cinth dropped her axe and now it's frozen! Ela calls for her opponent to surrender! Oh this is getting good, nothing like seeing your student go to work, am I right?" He was a tad dissapointed that Ela didn't take advantage of the trapped faunus and wail on her, but it seemed her humanity was still in play. That was something he could respect. In a duel like this it didn't matter too much, but if this was life or death he'd be screaming at her.

Cinth wiggled free and leapt for her axe, breaking the ice and checking it over. "Woah! Kitty is nimble on those feet of hers, and despite losing her shoes she's still in the fight! No cold feet here!" Cinth melted the ice and created steam, Ela rushing in.

“Hair pulling? Really? Are you twelve?”

"I don't know what your teachers tell you about handeling fights, but I teach my students to never fight fair! " He responded to Cinth, his voice excited. He was far too into this fight.

"Ooh! And now Ela goes in with some strong hooks! She keeps closing the gap! But wait, Cinth was waiting for that! She's pushing Ela to the edge with a flurry of attacks! And Ela's not having it, she's fighting back! The end is near, I can feel it!"

[Hyacinth Bordeaux]

Cinth stumbled back a step from the punch to her chest, narrowly dodging the punch that came straight after—the rock still scraped against her cheek, but at least it wasn’t a direct hit. She could see the finale of the three-strike combo coming, however, and was quick to rotate Aria Major in her grip so the punch instead connected with the solid back of her guitar—on the side away from the fan vents and generator, of course, she was still a little concerned about how being smothered in ice had affected the ventilation system, after all.

The hard-light edges of her weapon that had been pulsing in time with the music cut out abruptly as the song ended. Though the playlist was still running, and soon the glowing edges started back up again with the new drum beat playing from Aria Major’s speakers, Cinth’s strikes still slowed. She couldn’t hold her semblance for longer than one song at a time, so even though music was still playing, she was, unfortunately, back to her baseline levels. That didn’t deter Cinth, however, as she kept up her attack, spurred on when she briefly managed to crack Ela’s stone helmet. She continued to both take and dodge Ela’s attacks, not letting the hits cause her own assault to falter. This would be ending soon, she could feel it; they were so close to the edge of the ring, she just had to push Ela back a little bit more she'd come out on top.

[Ela Motley]

She couldn't help but feel just a little impressed by Hyacinth's pure determination driving her forward.
Her opponent had tried all the other options and was now dead set on out boxing Ela like a woman, possessed, one that was also pushing her further towards the edge, despite Ela's fortifications.

So, now Ela was mostly busy trying to land a hit on Hyacinth now, but her opponent was still quite a bit faster than her, she did land a few good ones but nothing that would impact Hyacinth's assault on her.

Yet as her back was coming closer and closer to the wall, she noticed that the guitar flickered and Hyacinth was slowing down, wait, she didn't hear a song for a few seconds, if her theory regarding the workings of Hyacinth's semblance were correct then this was her chance!

As another axe hit found her shoulder, now just scratching the rock, Ela stopped her defensive stance and instead surged forward.
She tackled Hyacinth, her hands roughly grasping Hyacinth by her shoulder and waist spinning her around with brute force, as her arms then locked around Hyacinth's stomach, with her grasp secured Ela grunted in exertion as she lifted her opponent off the ground.
Arm's still locked tight Ela leaned back, bringing Hyacinth's entire weight with her as Ela blew away her armor, the rock now crumbling to dust, to allow Ela the needed agility to finish this move.
"Raaaaah!
Ela yelled in extortion, as both she and Hyacinth were lifted backwards.
Yet while Ela could slam Hyacinth's head into the pavement now, as was the intended use for this suplex, she let go of her opponent at the apex of the move, flinging Hyacinth out of the arena with incredible speed.
Ela herself fell on her back, slowly turning and then getting up as she looked to see where Hyacinth had landed.

[Hyacinth Bordeaux]

Her blows were doing next to nothing now, scraping at the aura-enhanced rock with little effect. Cinth’s only hope now, really, was to keep up her flurry of attacks, keep moving, keep pushing Ela back. She was in the process of quickly switching her hold to go for a few harder, two handed strikes when Ela moved. Without her semblance to giver her the upper hand, Cinth didn’t have time to get out of the way before Ela tackled her.

In a futile attempt to keep Ela from tossing her around like a ragdoll, Cinth increased the effects of the gravity dust in her weapon, hoping to turn it into an immovable object she could cling to. Unfortunately, her immovable object was, alas, no matching for Ela’s unstoppable force, and all Cinth succeeded in doing was getting her axe ripped from her hands, where it hung suspended in the air as she was tossed backwards.

Cinth hit the wall with a loud thus, dropping to the ground where lay stunned for a second before climbing to her feet, her tail acting as a feather duster to brush her off. She didn’t have to look to know she was out of bounds, she’d been focusing on that tiny, single line for the past four minutes, after all. She knew exactly what side of it she stood on.

Not one to be a sore loser—not in this, not now, not when she was trying to be someone other than who she used to be—Cinth took the loss in stride, merely summoning her weapon back to her hand as she gave a bow to the crowd.

“That was one hell of a fight,” she addressed Ela. “We should spar some time.” She twirled Aria Major in her hand once, before removing her scroll from its port and deactivating her weapon.

[Ela Motley]

Ela grunted, surprised at the last bit of resistance that Hyacinth offered up against the throw, a smart use of the gravity dust in her weapon made throwing the shorter girl much harder than it should have been, but alas, Ela pulled trough, without her semblance enhancing her grip strength Hyacinth was sadly too weak to resist Ela.

Ela, got up, watching Hyacinth hit the arena wall, luckily in an ideal enough manner to not make Ela regret doing this, promptly followed by the buzzer announcing the end of the match.
She saw Hyacinth getting up and was about to grab the girls weapon, which was still floating in the air, but then it flew away back into its owner's hand, truly a marvelous piece of technology...she should get Lin in contact with Hyacinth the two would surely make for interesting conversation partners.

Ela stepped forward, the rest of her armor clattered to the floor, turning to dust and promptly disappearing into nothingness, Ela swept her hair out of her face as she arrived where Hyacinth stood, a smile on her face.
"Very impressive indeed, your semblance and weapon are really something."
Ela said as she and Hyacinth walked to leave the arena floor.
"And I'd be glad to take you on for some sparring."

[Professor W B Copperfield]

"HA!" Copperfield yelled into the microphone. "That's my grosshopper! Ela Just suplex-threw that cat right out of the ring! Ela Motley wins and moves on to the next match!"