Tournament Arc! Azoireda Ikteris vs Vert Yule!

[Vert Yule]

Vert was ordinarily not one to care about the fights and "pep" of others. The assembly call had detracted from time she could have spent doing other things that would have taken up her interest. This was not one of those times that Vert could simply focus on some unrelated matter however. Even for the green-haired female, there was only so long she could go before the lack of teams, Grimm, or other events began to wear away at her.

She was growing restless.

Still, Vert did take note of a few points within the announcement made. There would not be restrictions on the school years paired against one another? It seemed someone was a bit eager to see fights regardless of how potentially one-sided they ended up becoming. Or perhaps that in itself was meant to reflect the Vytal Festival's Tournament. Either way, Vert decided that she would throw her lot in the ring, as a change of pace and to prevent potential skills from atrophying from lack of use otherwise.

---

If not for the fact Vert's trademark scowl was her neutral facial expression, she may have appeared to have a deeper one at being denied the option to wear one of her costumes into the match. Regardless of that, the green-haired female walked down to the arena in her casual attire, hands tucked in her pockets, until she got to the appointed position. Her "weapon" was worn underneath her outfit, given that it was just Dust-infused clothing in essence. All she had to do now was simply wait for her opponent, whoever they were, to meet within the ring. Whenever that was going to be.

[Azoireda Ikteris]

She'd entered the tournament at Lauren's suggestion: when she'd asked why Lauren hadn't entered herself, as the blonde still had the better of her every time they sparred, her friend had just shaken her head and said "that shit's not for me, girlie" with no further explanation forthcoming.

Az could fight, she knew that. She could even win, she knew that too - in the Mantle underground, no less. After coming to Beacon, though, and seeing how... free people could look while fighting, she'd begun to doubt herself. It was only after she'd managed to land a hit on Lauren that was so solid the blonde couldn't just turn it into some ridiculous gymnastics move to cover the impact, yesterday, that she'd realized that her friend wasn't pulling her leg - she really could fight well enough to potentially not be a disappointment to the audience in this tournament, friendly or no.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of the assembled student body as the call to enter the ring was presumably answered by her opponent in a timely fashion.

The combatants had been supposed to walk in together, but alas, that was probably never going to happen so long as one of them was Az Ikteris. With a sigh and a shrug, her swords sheathed on her back, she walked in to meet her opponent.

[Vert Yule]

Vert kept her posture the same as she waited for the prolonged period of time for her opponent to enter the ring. It appeared that the committee had opted out of providing their sparring bout a commentator, leaving Vert standing in just about silence for the time between. The green-haired student crossed her arms in front of her chest when she did see the approaching opponent. She made mental notes to herself on a few of the immediate details, namely the difference in height and the length of the weapons Az carried. Vert may not have been one to plan overmuch on a fight, yet that didn't mean she didn't go into one blindly.

"I suppose they're expecting the two of us to do the commentary portion." Vert shook her head a bit but gave a shrug of her shoulders. "Vert Yule. Five feet five inches. Atlas-born. Some other interesting fact or whatever." The shorter female stated as though it was a class bonding exercise speech. Regardless, she did bring her bare hands up in a more readied position than they were previously. She still appeared to lack a weapon at present but it was in the talking portion of the round. She didn't have to rush headfirst into the fight, unlike rushing into volunteering into a match.

[Azoireda Ikteris]

As Az entered the arena, her mind slipped into analysis mode automatically.

Shorter than me, no visible weapon - Semblance-heavy style? Dust infusion? Fisticuffs? Transforming weapon that's tiny when sheathed? - confident but cautious air, sharp eyes, stands like an Atlesian. I'd put us about even out-of-the-box: I know my staying power is good, if she has good sustain this might turn into a slog.

Her opponent's voice brought her focus back to the present. A rather... spartan introduction, though the Atlesian blood in her could be responsible for that. Az suspected it was just an affinity, though.

She wasn't sure about them needing to provide their own commentary, but introductions seemed customary here.
"Azoireda Ikteris. Five nine. Mantle-born, Atlas raised. My favorite food is pizza." That was a fun fact, right?

Vert brought her hands up into a ready position. Okay, either Semblance-heavy, fisticuffs, or Dust, unless her weapon is REALLY weird. Az reached up to stretch lazily before grabbing her swords off her back and assuming {Ready One}. "Let's see what I've got," she said, a grin creeping its way onto her face. Words could fail you (and often did), but her blades hadn't let her down yet.

[Vert Yule]

Vert took note of the confirmation on her height and reached for a small pouch on her belt, pulling out a small crystal of Ice Dust. Her hair and eyes got a soft glow like Hardlight projections as she created a spear of at least seven feet, with the crystal being used in an infusion to create the bladed tip. She was no fist-fighter, though she did clearly have a good grasp on the utilization of a longer reach advantage. The shaft of the polearm matched the color of the glow on her features, appearing to indicate the color of her Aura itself.

"Really, you'd think a practice Vytal Tournament would have some type of commenter. Guess they ran out of volunteers."

The passing remark was given a shrug before she twirled the spear into position, giving a few initial jabs while maintaining her starting distance. She may have revealed a few of her tricks from the start but she did still have others up her sleeves, quite literally in certain cases. "Seems like we'll have to make our own commentary."

[Azoireda Ikteris]

Ice Dust. Spear. Conjuration Semblance? Dust-infused clothes highly likely. Distance will be a problem. I'll have to take some risks.

Az parried or sidestepped Vert's initial probing, careful to maintain distance, neither advancing nor allowing it to be increased. "Maybe they're just late," she joked, grin only growing wider at her words. "I'd rather let my blades do the talking anyway," she added. Az was no good at combative banter, nor did she want to waste brainpower thinking of what to say during a fight. Stopping midway through to provide commentary would only help her opponent, and Az did not want to give her any advantage.

She slowly circled left, waiting for Vert to make the first move.

[Nova Starr]

'Late. Late. Late!' Those words raced through Nova's mind on repeat, occasionally spilling out through her mouth as she sped toward the commentator booth from backstage. The reason for her tardiness? It was best left undivulged. Though, a curious soul could probably spot a smudge of mayonnaise in the corner of her lip and the crumpled sandwich wrapper in her fists. Relief swept through the girl when she saw that the fighters weren't having it out with each other just yet, though the tension in the room was unmistakable. They were ready to go.

"Kept you all in suspense there, huh?" she started, the headset only covering one ear as she panicked to get everything set up quickly. The cameras were in position, the monitors were looking good, and with the live feed displaying Aura levels against each fighter's headshots, she was satisfied that everything was ready to go. With the push of a button, the protective barriers around the Amphitheater whirred to life. "We'll skip the pleasantries this go around but take my word for it, folks; you don't want to miss a single second of this! Fighters, the duel will begin at the sound of the buzzer."

[...]

"Go!"

[Vert Yule]

With the arrival of the late arrival in the form of a commentator, Vert let out a click of her tongue and backed off at the mention of a starting bell. "Oh good, here I was thinking we would have to make our own starting bell." With the fight officially started, Vert kicked forward with an upward swipe of her spear construct a bit to her right, as she had seen Az moving to her left at first. Following through, she shifted the weapon quickly to take a downward stab. For someone who seemed to not be a formal spear-fighter, she appeared to have a good grasp on how a spear should work, given there was a noticeable lack of flex on her construct.

"I'll stick to my talking doing the talking." Even if she looked like she had openings, her Aura was strong enough to form a decent shield, given her outfit was otherwise casual attire.

[Azoireda Ikteris]

Their commentator arrived, and Az stood stock-still as the female voice announced the start of the fight. She had never been less late to something this important than someone else before, and it felt... wrong, somehow. She'd made a joke about it, but she hadn't expected it to actually be true.

She snapped back to the present as Vert launched into an attack.

Intermediate or better spear training, adapted to an inflexible pole. Reach-around attacks less likely due to its rigidity. Dust attacks more likely given her Semblance.

The spear came down sharply, and Az swayed to the side in a dodge, halting her circling movement. She needed to learn more about her opponent's style before she tried countering anything, especially since Az sincerely doubted that her opponent's Semblance could only conjure one weapon at a time.

"Suit yourself," Az shrugged as she again assumed {Ready One} and waited for Vert to make the next move.

[Vert Yule]

"Really, we're starting with a stare-down? What an engaging thing to commentate on, two Huntresses sizing the other up for an indefinite amount of time." Vert remarked in her trademark sarcasm, adjusting the polearm in her hands. "Fine, if we're doing this the non-spectator way."

Vert made a motion to throw the weapon in a sweeping motion, though she channeled a slight enough bit of Aura into the Dust-crystal head. The attack would have seemed careless and easily deflected, though when it did get close enough the construct dispersed and the Ice Dust exploded into a cloud of icy mist. Vert backed off a step and used her semblance to create a projection of a blade with a revolver-like chamber near where the blade met the hilt, like that of a weapon out of a game. Using both hands on the gun-blade, Vert utilized a touch of lightning dust and launched an electrified Aura-slice into the dispersing mist.

[Azoireda Ikteris]

Az knew enough to know that a seemingly-careless opening move was anything but; however, lacking any knowledge of her opponent, she chose to take the bait anyway. The spear tip was easily deflected, only for it to explode into a cloud of obscuring ice fragments. Az immediately froze, knowing that an attack she couldn't see would be coming, and braced for impact.

Sure enough, a sweeping arc of lightning came rushing through the cloud, blowing away its remains and hitting Az square on.

Dust attacks confirmed, elemental affinity will be useful.

Az smiled as she regained eye contact with her opponent and licked her lips, completely unharmed. "You'll have to do better than that," she taunted.