Takeshi Iori v. Second Meijin
On one side of the huge arena, stood Takeshi Iori with his clearly well used and loved Perfect Gundam. On the other was the Second Meijin, giving off a killing aura that would terrify lesser beings, holding his Red Banshee.
And Takeshi Iori was laughing. Laughing despite the audience, despite the aura, and despite giving the Second Meijin his most serious challenge yet. As the particle effect started to kick up fully, he stopped laughing and grinned from ear to ear, his eyes gleaming, enjoying the moment to its fullest.
Takeshi Iori, that magnificent fighter, had bothered to do things his way, yelling out that he was launching, rather than go all out from the moment the interface worked, which the Second Meijin did. Takeshi was ambushed right out of the gate for his trouble. His response was graceful, clean and dignified, dodging the brunt of the kick while moving to better position.
The Red Banshee was already prepared, and met his counterattack by activating its right beam tonfa in attempt to win the match immediately or at least put the Perfect Gundam back on the defensive. The Perfect Gundam responded by somersaulting around the tonfa and then slicing it off. The Red Banshee just led right into a kick to distance the two units, which were uncomfortably close.
The particle feeds read 90% on the Second Meijin's side and 95% on Takeshi's side. The two fighters kept that intensity up the entire match.
After both machines distanced themselves so that they weren't at grappling range, the Red Banshee started firing the moment its gun had a chance of hitting the Perfect Gundam. The Perfect Gundam waited, alternately dodged the beams with minimal movement and glancing the shots off his shield until he was about medium range, returning fire alternately with his beam rifle and beam cannon. He never turned away.
The result was a whole lot of red beams from the Red Banshee, not a lot of pink returning fire from the Perfect Gundam. But both suits were damaging each other, as the scorch marks on the Perfect Gundam's shield and the shin missing from the Red Banshee could attest to. The stray fire was also creating a spectacle that no one was watching, pulverizing the asteroid field around the two fighters.
The Red Banshee then boosted right back in, saturating the space between and around the Perfect Gundam. The Perfect Gundam blocked most of the gunfire with his shield and dodged the rest, but the Red Banshee's goal was accomplished; having closed the entire distance from medium range, he cut down with his left beam saber to slice the Perfect Gundam's shield in half.
Takeshi Iori, grinning wider, bashed the half of the shield still attached to his arm into the head of the Red Banshee. In response, the Red Banshee rolled with the hit while trying to slice back up and slice the torso clean in two. The Perfect Gundam stopped the maneuver by blasting the beam cannon at the Red Banshee's right hand, blowing both of them back enough to separate the two machines yet again.
Both machines flew away with scorch marks on their machines, but the fight wasn't even close to over. With a moment of peace, some screens flipped back to the particle level display. The Second Meijin had only 60% left, while Takeshi was still running a comfortable 75%. The Perfect Gundam flew behind an asteroid, which the Red Banshee promptly went over. For a few tense seconds, no one person in the audience could see both fighters on screen.
Contact. Takeshi sprung his trap, revealing that he had circled down and around the asteroid to appear directly behind the Red Banshee, firing with both his beam cannon and beam rifle to try and catch him off guard. The Red Banshee ejected the right arm back at the beams rather than take the brunt of the attack, and then used the explosion as a smokescreen to close in to the Perfect Gundam, turning on a dime to attack him. His beam magnum flashed from his left arm, shredding the beam cannon mounted on the Perfect Gundam's shoulder in a hail of beams, before switching to his beam saber. The Perfect Gundam immediately jettisoned the beam cannon and boosted forward, using the explosion to give his lunging slash extra power and speed. The Red Banshee then turned off his beam magnum and mirrored the Perfect Gundam's position.
The two machines raced towards each other in an incredibly fast game of chicken. At the last second, the Red Banshee turned away and tried to get a slashing cut at Takeshi's backpack. Key word being tried. Takeshi immediately saw what the Red Banshee was doing and used his right hand beam saber to deflect the attack upward, which the Red Banshee immediately followed into a downward cut. The Perfect Gundam responded by pivoting its body to bring the left hand beam saber to block the cut, stopping the Red Banshee's attack.
The Red Banshee then deactivated his beam saber for just a brief moment, long enough to drop it past both of the Perfect Gundam's beam sabers and end up point blank to his chest. That decided it. The Perfect Gundam immediately cut downward on the Red Banshee's right hand, but not fast enough to prevent the Red Banshee from finally cutting a hole into the Perfect Gundam. It was fast enough to prevent the Red Banshee from bisecting the Perfect Gundam. Without hands, the fight was almost decided. But not yet. The Red Banshee fired its 60 mm Vulcan cannon in Takeshi's face, trying desperately to gain some space. Takeshi wasn't having any of it, and decapitated the Red Banshee.
It wasn't enough. The Second Meijin had one final trick to rage against the dying light. With the Perfect Gundam's back turned for just a moment, the Second Meijin boosted into him. He was in superclose range, burning particles at an insane rate, dropping from 40% to 35% then 30%. The Second Meijin was redlining his Red Banshee, with nearly all systems suffering damage from the maximum thrust output. It was working however, as Takeshi couldn't do anything to stop the Second Meijin as the Red Banshee slammed him into the surface of the asteroid, shredding the outer layers of his armor, damaging the components around the hole in his chest.
Takeshi didn't give up. Both machines were redlining now, but Takeshi saw a way to win. He fired his beam rifle one last time, creating a massive dust cloud in front of them. The Second Meijin realized, but believed that so long that he kept pushing, that the Perfect Gundam wouldn't escape. He needed that more than anything, because his particle count had dropped to 20%, nearly fully depleted.
The two machines reached the dust cloud. Takeshi then reversed the thrusters in his legs, slamming them even harder into the ground while finally pushing all thrusters to maximum power, pivoting his machine's torso up and his legs down. The Second Meijin wasn't prepared for this move, and was blown back just enough for the Perfect Gundam to spin its torso. The Perfect Gundam's legs had suffered critical damage, but it didn't need them. The Second Meijin quickly reacted, intentionally overdriving his thrusters. The thrusters exploded, providing him just a little bit more forward motion.
The Second Meijin was milliseconds too late. Takeshi had spun enough that the Red Banshee's last desperate attack had actually pushed the Perfect Gundam into a position where he faced the Red Banshee, and that was it. There was nothing that the Second Meijin could do.
He decided to spite Takeshi by kicking the Perfect Gundam in the fork of the legs, which caused them to blow up. But now they showed that when the Perfect Gundam had rolled around in the dust cloud, it had detached his legs. The explosion blew the Perfect Gundam upward, but it could still fight. The Red Banshee, however, had run out of particles and limbs to continue the fight with. He shot his Vulcan cannon for only a few seconds longer, only in the general direction of the Perfect Gundam, before he finally ran out of particles. With sparks flying out of its thrusters, the Perfect Gundam finally boosted back to the Red Banshee and bisected him.
BATTLE ENDED, the mechanic announcer said.
The whole stadium was silent.
Clap. Clap Clap. The clapping rippled across the audience, soon becoming a deafening roar, thundering through the stadium.
A new age of Gunpla Battle was starting.