The following is a co-post between Beta (Vincento) and LStorm (Brett)
Unlike many of the other fighters, Vincento spared no expense in his Tournament preparations. Well, really it was his father's idea. Show off the family wealth, intimidate people a bit, show them he was top dog, etc. But it had worked to an extent. As he walked into the ring, the video screens that were tuned to the matchup of Vincento vs Brett would start
blaring a tune and show an overblown and even slightly cheesy video that stank of professional wrestling. Still, it worked the crowd a bit and hyped them up to cheer for the young Italian fighter. Personally, Vincento thought it was a bit silly... but then, he DID like being the funny one often enough.
His opponent was not one to scoff at, however. Vincento was a C1-Rank, cream of the freshman crop, and he knew that all too well. But Brett Elspeth was a C2-Rank, just barely below him. It'd be an interesting fight, to say the least. To make things worse, Brett was far more physically imposing. Vince was toned and incredibly fit, sure... but Brett had arms like tree trunks. This would certainly add more oomph to his strikes compared to less bulky students. Still, Vincento had the advantage of knowing most of the ins and outs of Kickboxing at this point. It was almost like the finals were taking place too soon in the tournament, really.
This tournament had been bad enough so far without his brother, but this made the metaphorical veins pop on Brett's forehead. What the fuck was this guy's deal? Brett had been looking forward to a normal fight, one where he had to win without his other half, yet it seemed that his opponent was intent on turning the whole thing into a showmatch in the style of professional wrestling. Not only was the music Vincento used absolutely dreadful, but the video that went with it made Brett swallow the building bile in his mouth. This was an absolute insult to the way sport should be handled... But at least it was not as bad as american professional wrestling. Seriously, fuck that thing which pretended to be an actual tournament.
As such, Brett decided that he would take extreme pleasure in handing Vincento's own ass to him on a silver plate. His opponents so far had been decent enough, but this guy had the gall to turn an already showy event into nothing more than a glorified notch on his belt and a celebratory event for the entire crowd. So Brett would show him that tricks like these were completely meaningless in the arena and that he better had to bring his best with him, otherise he would be bent into a ball-like shape and thrown into the trash. The mere thought of that made Brett smile, which looked more than a little creepy on the huge teenager.
Well, that smile said it all... Brett was not impressed one bit. Stepping into a fighting stance, Vincento cracked his neck a couple times before speaking.
"Blame my father for the ceremony, signore. So shall we get this started?" Judge Mia Ballard-Sandoval was watching over this match, and would be quick to stop it if anyone was in severe danger or badly injured. Given that there were two top-tier freshmen about to duke it out, that was a very real possibility. With that in mind, Vincento kept his eyes on his opponent at all times... not letting ANYTHING distract him. If he lost here, he'd never be able to live it down.
"Don't blame me if you get your death wish, twig." If Brett was lacking confidence, he was not showing it at all and before Mia could even finish calling the fight, he started and quickly crossed the distance between them. Though he was not graceful or very fast, the force behind his charge more than made up for the lack of finesse. The sheer momentum behind him would cause trouble for anyone who tried to catch him... and for those who did not, he would be quite pleased to see that his fists would find a target that they could punch. If Vincento dodged, a follow-up attack would be flying right at him and if he did not, then things certainly did not look up on the ground.
A charge attack? Before the 'bell' was even rang? While Vincento was surprised that Judge Mia didn't reprimand his opponent, he was more concerned with the raging bull heading his way. Normally, this sort of thing would be easy enough to counter. However, Brett's sheer size caused Vincento to hesitate for the briefest of moments and miss his chance to do so. Instead, Vince would have to be content with simply defending rather than ending the fight quickly. Standing his ground, the Italian boy tensed his muscles and braced for impact. This wouldn't be pleasant... for either of them.
Vince was slammed into with the force of a small car... or that's what it felt like. But rather than fight all that force, he let it knock him to the ground. He wasn't about to fall alone, though. Grabbing tightly onto Brett's shirt and rolling with the fall, Vincento planted a foot right into the larger boy's abs and attempted to
toss him away in the same direction he had been charging. It was flashy, but it was not without cost. For a moment, Vincento had to bear the entire brunt of that charge... and that was enough to send a lesser fighter screaming for a nurse.
What the fuck! Instead of buckling under his charge or dropping to the ground like the little thing he was, Vincento actually bore the blunt force of the impact, then he simply pulled Brett down with him. The huge teenager was so surprised that he could not even defend against the next attack and he found himself completely winded. He had been completely unprepared for that blow in his stomach and though he had taken on greater hits before, it still made him grit his teeth to bear the pain. Then he was suddenly lifted into the air and for a second, all the training he had went through fled from Brett's head.
He had to stop himself from being slammed into the ground, but for one, he was out of breath and two, he was out of position, so he did the only thing he could think of: he grabbed hold of Vincento's hands and squeezed. It was absolutely not a kickboxing move, nor it was anything that he should have been doing, but Brett had panicked. And without his brother to back him up, that seemed to be his only chance.
Just as he let go of his opponent to toss them away, Vincento felt a hand clamp down on his forearm. This was about to be more unpleasant than he initially thought. While it wasn't particularly damaging, Vincento's arm slammed into the mat along with Brett's body. It'd leave a nice bruise, but little else. Stung like hell, though. With the amount of force he'd been charging with, Brett skidded a few feet after landing... dragging Vincento along for the ride. However, this played to Vincento's advantage.
Yanking his arms as hard as he could, Vince used the momentum of himself AND of Brett to roll backward and land atop his opponent like an MMA fighter. A most precarious position for Brett, to be sure. Not taking any chances this time, Vince planted a knee on one of his foe's biceps to take out that arm... but couldn't position himself in a way to pin down the other arm. Still, one was better than none... and Vincento started to rain down blows on the bulky Englishman.
The landing was not pleasant to say the least, but at least Brett felt the arm of Vincento coming along with him, which was a plus given his current situation of being on the ground and skidding along the floor of the arena. It did not hurt particularly badly, but the feeling of skin straining against any surface was never pleasant, then to make matters worse, the little fucker actually landed on him! At least Brett did not panic right now, even if his arm had been pinned and he was being punched repeadetly.
Not that did a whole lot against the simply huge Englishman, who was prepared this time. Therefore, he focused on getting out of this situation instead and in an opportunate moment, he punched straight for Vincento's jawline while pushing against the ground with all of his strength. Though the resulting attack was not as dangerous as if he had momentum, he was sure that it would at least disrupt Vincento's position and from there, he and his brother could press the advantage easily. Except he had forgotten that he did not have Matt with him right now.
Several solid punches hit home on Brett's face, one of which split his lip pretty badly. Despite the bad situation, the tanky teen showed little in the way of wearing down. In fact, he retaliated with a powerful punch right to Vincento's jaw. Closing his eyes briefly and reeling from the blow, Vincento actually got up and walked over to the ropes to shake it off.
"Colpisci come un carrello, l'uomo.", said Vincento as he wiped a spot of blood from his mouth. The punch had caused him to bite his tongue rather hard, and the taste of copper filled his mouth as he bled.
Still, this fight was certainly more entertaining than his last four. two of those had been ended in under thirty seconds. Having shaken out the cobwebs, Vincento smiled and stepped back into a fighting stance. He'd given his opponent enough time to recover as well. The crowd was eating up this fight like an American child eats Twinkies, and they were cheering as hard as if they were watching the tournament finals. The two young warriors were back on their feet and ready to strike again. It was time for round two.
Finally, Vincento was feeling the pain! Now it was time for Matt to... Where was Matt? Oh, fuck, right, this was a singular fight and by waiting on his non-existant partner, Brett had just given his opponent enough time to shake off the force of his punch. That had been his advantage, damn it! At least it seemed that Vincento was kind enough to let Brett scramble onto his feet as well, a mistake that would surely come to bite the Italian kid in the ass as the huge teenager prepared another attack.
Ignoring the cheers and jeers of the crowd, Brett slowly advanced towards Vincento as he had learned from his previous mistake, then he closed the last metre or so with a huge step that anyone other than him would have had a hard time performing. Then, he pressed the attack with a flurry of punches that he would finish off using a powerful kick, provided that the momentum of his attack was not broken by the bullshit that Vincento was pulling.
The stance Brett momentarily stepped into before advancing... that was something Vincento was familiar with. He couldn't quite place it just yet, but the following volley told him everything he needed to know. A barrage of in-close punches, some that were not blocked or deflected and managed to hit home against Vincento's torso (and one to the head), followed by a high kick? This guy fought just like Dan Williams. This was Americanized Kickboxing. Ducking under the kick, Vincento delivered his own kick right to the side of Brett's knee. Being on one leg... then being kicked in that leg, there was only one result possible... and it wasn't fun.
It looked that at least some of his punches connected, which would no doubt cause trouble for his opponent, however, before Brett could celebrate his victory, the world was swept out from under him. A powerful kick to his knee made him buck under his own weight and he landed on the arena floor with a hard slam. It was at times like these that his stature was a disadvantage, because something that heavy was bound to leave some marks. In this case, he was lucky to land well and have the presence of mind to try and roll away. But there was no way in hell that he was standing up and attacking right away; his knee hurt like hell and he felt as if his leg had been set on fire.
Mia walked over to Brett and kneeled down beside him. She looked briefly at the teen's leg before asking if he was able to continue. Obviously, Vincento had to back off while Brett was being checked on. He used that time to shake out the cobwebs again and lean against the corner to catch his breath. Brett hit like a truck, and had all the subtlety of one to boot. Still, Vincento now had the upper hand. He knew Brett's fighting style, was very familiar with it, and had even taken one of the bigger teen's legs out. It'd probably all be downhill from here. Still, the fight was NOT over yet.
Of course he was able to continue, but he needed at least a little time before the pain went away and he could stand back on his feet. Even then, he could feel the pulled tendons aching, screaming at him that there was something very, very wrong with him standing on that leg... So pretty much half of his moveset was out of the question when it came to fighting. Either he would be too slow or the pain would be too much for him to carry through, so he would have to decide the match really quickly, with a single attack.
"Come on! Let's settle this like two men," said Brett as he attempted to taunt Vincento into attacking so that he could catch his opponent unawares.
So he was able to stand after a crippling strike like that? Damn, Brett certainly earned his ranking, that was for sure. He was tough as nails.
"Like men, you say? Isn't that what we've been doing? Or are you saying you've been fighting like a toddler this whole time?" Vincento shrugged his shoulders and pushed off of the ropes where he had been resting.
"Si, we can settle it 'like men', Brett. I just hope for your brother's sake, he isn't my opponent in the next round."
Yeah, Vincento had paid attention to the brackets. Match 8 of Round 1 was between some kid named Ciel and Matt Elspeth, Brett's brother. That meant if he managed to beat Ciel, Matt would advance to the next round and face either Brett (and the two would likely just decide for one to forfeit...) or Vincento, who would likely dominate the match. But really, it was more of a jab to anger and/or frustrate Brett. Vincento took a few steps toward Brett and smiled confidently. He'd taken out the big teen's strongest weapon... his kicks... and was now poised to take the match.
When he was about three meters away (about halfway between the corner and Brett), Vincento burst into a sprint before leaping into the air. Brett wanted a final clash? He'd get his wish. But what would he do against a high-impact
aerial spin kick?
Fighting like a toddler? That insult almost made Brett roar and charge his opponent again, but he bit his words back before he could enrage himself too much and lose the fight because he was thinking with the head of a bull instead of a head of a human. Making that mistake would have been really painful at this stage, so instead, he nodded in response to the taunt.
"I don't think that Matt has to worry about anything, because I'll be the one to beat your ass!" And even though Brett sounded confident and cocky, he knew that this fight was far closer than it had any right to be.
Then all of a sudden, hell was unleashed on the big teenager. He had been watching Vincento closely, but then the damn Italian decided to do something that he did not expect. Instead of coming at him from the ground, Vincento leaped up into the air and as soon as the movement started, Brett realized that he was doomed. With his leg hurting like hell and out of commission, he could not back off in time, nor could he counter that kick and by the time that thought reached his mind, it was already too late. The best he could do was to square his jaws and bring his arms up to defend himself from the attack.
Then the force of the kick hit him like a truck and pain exploded from his palms as at least one of the bones in his hand broke and the rest of the momentum got transferred to his body. Sharp pain ran through him, but before Vincento could continue his one-sided beatdown, Brett had the presence of mind to shout
"I forfeit!" at the top of his lungs.
After landing from the first kick, Vincento was already continuing the spin and about to deliver another kick to his opponent. However, Brett admitted defeat and Mia rushed between the two teenagers and grabbed Vincento's leg mid-kick. She would then call in a medical team to look at the two fighters and tend to their injuries briefly before calling them both back to the center of the ring.
"The winner of this match is Vincento Sarconni." said Mia as she held the victor's arm in the air while patting Brett on the shoulder.
"You made him work for it, kid. Everyone here knows it. You gave as good as you got, and you should be proud of that."
For a moment, Brett thanked everything that he knew that Vincento stopped in time to let him forfeit without getting the snot beaten out of him, but then the big teenager realised that he just threw a match. Shit. He just threw a match! Though if he had been thinking rationally, he would have realised that it was the best decision he could have made in the heat of the moment. At least this way, he managed to save some face, not to mention that he saved at least some of his bones from breaking into tiny little pieces, yet that did little to console him. Even as Mia told him that he did his best, Brett could not help but scowl at Vincento with a threatening expression.
"Next time, you won't be so lucky, punk." he said as he rolled his shoulders in an attempt to return some life into them.
Wow. Even after taking a lot of punishment and receiving such encouragement, Brett was intent on playing the tough guy. If nothing else, it showed he was able to take a beating and keep his outlook intact. Vincento merely rolled his eyes in response to Brett's threat as the two were escorted out of the ring and to separate medical stations for a full treatment. The two had given each other hell, though Brett was in worse shape overall. Scuffs and scrapes were treated in a couple minutes, Vincento's jaw and arm were healed up in about ten minutes, and Brett's leg was good as new in about an hour. His broken hand would take about a week to heal, but that was still much quicker than normal.
All in all, the fight had been one hell of a crowd-pleaser. Everyone was cheering and excited. The New Peaks Holiday Tournament was in full swing at this point, and it would only get more exciting.
