[X] At the start of the fight, so I can write the whole thing.
Spear in hand, Pyrrha waited for the gate to fall.
The crowd outside the area was excited, waiting for this. Of course they where. They were always excited, for one of Pyrrha's fights. Her opponent this time was another popular fighter.
She'd never gotten a good look at her opponent, unfortunately. She always wore armour into the fight. Heavier stuff then what Pyrrha relied on. Though, in her case, the armour was more of a way of making a marketable outfit. While her opponent's armour certainly was marketable, it was also much heavier than Pyrrha's.
Not that it slowed her down in any way. Whatever her opponent's Semblance was, she had been using it more and more every round. She was slow the first round, but only the first. Since then, her every action was faster, her every move stronger, that red glow left in her wake glowing brighter each round.
There was something going on with that. Pyrrha couldn't rely on what she had seen in the last few rounds to assume she had a handle of her opponents abilities.
Especially when you take into account how powerful her family had been shown to be. She had fought her next opponents brother in the last round, and his Semblance had been...
Well, in his case, his Semblance had been easy to bypass. He needed the light of the sun to replenish his immense Aura, but kicking up enough dust to obscure the arena had put a stop to that. Not that the battle was easy. It would be a foolish assumption, thinking that someone with a situational Semblance would rely solely on it.
But he had at least announced his Semblance to every foe he fought, out of some form of honour. Pyrrha's next opponent didn't agree with that concept. Maybe it was situational like her brother. Maybe it was something completely unrelated.
Even if this was Pyrrha's fourth tournament, even if she'd already won the Mistral Tournament three years in a row, it wouldn't do to underestimate anything at any point. She wouldn't want to ruin her perfect record because she got careless. It'd been difficult enough, earning her current reputation. If she threw it all away because she wasn't cautious enough...
The crowd outside quieted down, and an announcer started speaking. Shifting her spear to sword throne and putting it at her side, Pyrrha straightened her back and waited for the door to open.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!" Declared the fast-talking announcer. "This is your host, Johnny Flamewhip, bringing it to you live from the Mistral Regional Tournament! And what a show we have for you this year, ladies and gentlemen. Nobody can deny that this year has been one of the most intense in recent memories. But finally, our two strongest competitors have stepped into the ring."
"For our first competitor, we have a three times champion of this very tournament. The invincible girl, who hasn't been touched once in all her years as fighting! The one, the only, Pyrrha Nikos!"
The crowd screamed, and Pyrrha could hear her name being chanted outside her small room. The gate before her rose, and Pyrrha stepped out.
She had been informed she needs to keep a good image about herself, on the battlefield, in order to maintain her reputation. She was allowed to give the crowd a small wave as she went in, but for the most part, she had to maintain the image of an invincible warrior, focused on the fight and nothing else.
Walking a great distance to the centre of the arena, Pyrrha took a moment to observe the arena.
It was a modular thing, with parts of the arena that could be exchanged back and forth for different environments, but in this final round, it was simply a level dirt area. Nothing to hide behind, nothing to catch Pyrrha or her opponent off guard. Just one girl fighting the other. Nothing more to it.
"With our second competitor, we have some of the fiercest competition this tournament has ever seen! We all overlooked her in that first round, we all let her brother overshadow her, and now here she is, having clawed her way to the finals in spite of the initial poor showing."
The gate opposite Pyrrha opened, and the girl inside stepped out, clad in silver armour marked with red.
"She's mean, brutal, and willing to fight tooth and nail for her victory-"
The girl started walking out, her face covered by her helmet and her footsteps loud. She looked down at Pyrrha, silver sword drawn and raised to the side, a sinister red mist being left in her wake.
That was new. Usually, her Aura's little trick with the red light didn't start until the fight did.
"-Mordred Gwynarian!"
Pyrrha drew her sword and shield, holding them close to her as she stared off against her opponent.
"There can only be one winner, folks. Gwynarian has only gotten more impressive with every fight, and Nikos has been skilled enough to win three tournaments in the past without a demonstration of her Semblance. Will this change anything? Who will win? Win or lose by the sword, the power in their hands will decide..."
Pyrrha looked at her foe, and her foe looked back.
"Ready?"
She calmed her breathing, looking over the reach of Mordred's sword. It was fairly long, at least one hundred and thirty centimetres in blade. Long reach.
"Let's go!"
Mordred charged at Pyrrha, slower than she was in the last round of the tournament, and Pyrrha blocked with her shield. A moment later, the force bearing down on her shield doubled as red light flew off of it, while Pyrrha closed her eyes and focused her Semblance.
Reaching out with her polarity manipulation, Pyrrha tried to magnetically pull at Mordred's sword, forcing it away from her and lessening the force so she can deflect the constantly downward pushing, intensifying force of the sword.
Nothing happened.
Pyrrha opened her eyes, picked up her sword, and stabbed upwards at Mordred's armour. Her concentration on her shield wavered, and Mordred batted it aside, blocking her sword with her armoured forearm, and reached for Pyrrha.
The red-haired girl leaped back, avoiding the attack, twirling her sword as it turned into the javelin version. She watched Mordred approach, still at a slower base, and Pyrrha jabbed out at her. The armour seemed to be well designed to keep Mordred's Aura reinforced, making her stronger, but was heavy enough that without her Semblance it'd slow her down. The streaks of red light left in her wake made it obvious her Semblance was in play, at least.
But why wasn't Pyrrha able to effect her sword?
As her spear struck at Mordred's armour and dented her Aura slightly, Pyrrha circled around, drawing her spear across Mordred's armour as she did so. Mordred twisted her sword, and Pyrrha ducked under it, again trying to push up at the sword to no effect.
Out of curiosity, Pyrrha went on the offensive, pressing up close to the girl, slamming her while spinning her spear around, shifting it to sword form in the process, and firing the rifle aspect mid-transformation to put more power behind the blow. As her sword struck Mordred's gleaming silver armour, Pyrrha pushed back with her Semblance again, trying to get any effect.
Nothing. Her Semblance wasn't having any effect. Why? Mordred clearly didn't have a nullification-type Semblance, so there had to be some reason Pyrrha's Semblance wasn't working on Mordred's armour or sword.
...Her silver sword.
Silver. A metal that was non-magnetic.
"What's the matter?" Mordred asked. "You're starting slow on me, Nikos? Trying to figure me out?"
"You got me." Pyrrha replied.
"Stop being a coward about it." The armoured girl demanded, her voice muffled by the silver on her head. "You've never been hit before? Don't care. Come at me with all you got, or I'll tear you down before you can find out what I can do."
Pyrrha ducked under another sword swing, then dodged to the side as Mordred suddenly kicked at her, her leg moving upwards in an unnatural movement that caused Mordred to start flipping despite going right into it from a standing position. Her speed was faster than before, more in line with what she had been doing recently.
"You're holding back too." Pyrrha noted. "You expect me to believe you've built up more and more every round, but then backslide in the final?"
Mordred's fist came flying, and Pyrrha tilted her head, allowing it to just barely miss her. She let go of her weapon and shield for a moment, grabbed Mordred's arm, and threw her opponent over her shoulder and into the ground before she could react. Just before she hit her opponent into the ground, Mordred let loose a red light that quickly formed into a bolt of red lightning shooting outwards, into Pyrrha's hand.
The red-haired champion let out a cry, as her Aura took a hit, and Mordred ripped free from her grasp and slid into the distance.
Quickly catching her weapons out of the air before they hit the ground, Pyrrha looked back at Mordred, who ripped off her helmet just to show her bloodthirsty grin.
"So much for the invincible girl." She declared. "So, looks like the myth around you can be proven false. Now let me tear it apart and destroy the legend."
Holding her sword in both hands now, Mordred Gwynarian let red energy gather around her, red bolts of energy flowing up and down her sword while she ignored the sweat on her brow. Pyrrha took a step back, shifting her spear into rifle form, and threw her shield. Mordred raised one hand without her sword and caught the shield in her palm, but the girl with red hair dashed forward, grabbing the hand holding her shield and pulling it forward, pulling at her shield at the same time to pull Mordred off balance and knee her upwards.
Striking the armour around Mordred's stomach, Pyrrha didn't deal much damage to her opponent, and then backed off to avoid getting any more hurt by the energy cackling around Mordred.
It was unfortunate, that she'd been hurt. Her Aura had taken a decently heavy hit. Not a thing she was used to. The arena was designed so nobody on the inside could hear what was happening on the outside, so she couldn't hear what the audience reactions were, but she could guess that people were talking about the invincible girl getting hurt. The scanners would read her Aura dropping. Her reputation was lessened. She-
-Couldn't think about it now. She'd deal with it later. She wouldn't be one of those fighters who caved as soon as they got surprised. She couldn't be invincible forever.
But the question was, how was she going to beat Mordred?
Her weapon in rifle form, Pyrrha opened fire, shooting at Mordred. Her bullets were doing barely anything, as Pyrrha ran around Mordred in a circle. They just bounced off her armour without doing anything to her Aura. If she hit Mordred's now exposed head, maybe it could do something, but Mordred was actually bothering to deflect those bullets.
She had to get that armour off, somehow. There was an opening at the neck, she had to pry it open to rip off the torso armour, give herself more of a target. If she-
In a burst of speed far faster than anything Mordred had displayed at that point, Pyrrha's opponent was in her face, slamming a fist into it. Pyrrha barely dodged, and this time wasn't able to stop Mordred grabbing her face, before throwing her into the distance into a wall. The champion braced herself, hitting the ground just before the wall and regained her footing, and looked up just in time to see the sword spinning in the air in front of her.
Raising her shield and forcing it out with a sudden amount of force with her Semblance, Pyrrha slammed her shield into the sword, bouncing it away. The sword flew into the air, spinning around and landing to the side of the warrior, and Mordred rushed towards her in a sudden burst of speed.
Pyrrha shifted her rifle into a spear, running to meet Mordred's charge, stabbing forward while firing the barrel at the back of the spear to move it forward with even more force. She approached Mordred, and a second before she came into reach of her foe, she slammed the javelin into the ground, vaulting upwards above Mordred as she charged, and quickly raised and slammed back down her spear again, right down Mordred's back, in the gap between her armour and whatever padding clothes she had underneath it.
As she slammed into the ground behind Mordred, twisting her spear around under the armour, Pyrrha allowed her weapon to transform, increasing the pressure on the back of the armour until eventually it started cracking despite the Aura reinforcing it.
In a situation like this, metal reinforced with Aura against metal reinforced by Aura, Pyrrha would usually be risking her weapon with a manoeuvre like this. But silver was a soft metal. It needed more Aura to strengthen. It wasn't a commonly used metal in armour and weapon for that reason. Perhaps Mordred had her reasons for using it- There was no way she knew about Pyrrha's Semblance, so it was probably a personal matter- But it meant that in a situation like this, the Pyrrha was in the advantage.
She ripped back and tore through the protective layer of plated armour, ignoring the red electricity flowing through her and ripping the back armour away. It pried at the joints, the natural connections falling away, as the metal is torn through, and as her weapon finished transforming, Pyrrha pried off the back of Mordred's armour, leaving a gaping weak point in her back.
Dashing away before Mordred could retaliate, Pyrrha dashed away, firing her rifle behind her to hit Mordred's exposed back. The girl cried out, then dodged out of the way before she could get hurt further.
"Clever girl." Mordred grinned. "Look at that. I finally hit you, and you start pulling out the good shit with that. Keep it up!"
The red energy around Mordred intensified, growing brighter, the red lightning arcing further and further away from her as she picked her sword up.
"Show me everything you got!" Mordred declared. "I'll face it all, tear you down, and show you just how strong I really am!"
And then she moved, a red jet of light being left in the trail of the burst of speed so fast that by the time Pyrrha realised she was moving she was halfway between the two of them. The red-haired girl lifted her shield to block, just as Mordred struck, and stabbed outward with her spear in the process, hitting Mordred's side as she dashed around Pyrrha. The champion stabbed her spear downwards again, vaulting upwards, and dodging into the air to avoid the counterattack.
Mordred paused for a moment as Pyrrha landed, panting heavily. "Why are you still running?"
Looking at her foe and preparing for another attack, Pyrrha planned out her next move.
[X] She needed more areas to attack. She needed to pry away more of Mordred's armour, then she could just fight head-on while still doing good.
[X] She had an opening. She just needed to bait it out, abuse it, deal as much damage as she could. A few good hits should finish this.