World Refugees Final Mix

[Hercules wins. ~~As if you expected anything different.~~]

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Hades watched the participants enter the arena. This was going to be a quick fight--even just Cloud against this string bean of a girl wouldn't be a match at all. But hey, he hadn't drawn up the tier himself; he'd had Pain do it. Whatever. The little girl would die, Cloud and Tifa would move on.

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So much for sleep.

Auria shuffled across the stony floor of the Underdrome with a bitter taste in her mouth. Up until now, she had been comfortable in her ability to survive this tournament. Then she had seen the roster.

Cloud. And Tifa. Together. Against her.

Not fucking fair.

At the very least, she had her bracelet. It would probably not come in handy, but just having it made her feel better.

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Tifa was adjusting her gloves as she entered, a subconscious frown lingering while deep in thought. Auria verses the two of them. It wasn't a fair fight no matter how you looked at it.

Without a doubt, she knew Hades had most likely had a hand in doing that. Still, the question was to fight at full strength or go easier on her. Though that would all depended on how this would go. She slid into a neutral pose, ready for however this would play out.

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They waited. Auria adjusted and readjusted the grip on her hammer. She occasionally wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. She redid her bun. She breathed.

Nothing happened. Hades never started the fight.

Auria started to relax, and then she got bored. And then she thought of a plan. She calmly walked toward Tifa, ignoring Hades for the time being.

"Hey. I have a plan for getting us both out." Without waiting, she went into detail. "I think Cloud's a no-show. Either we fight each other and one of us dies, or I use my bracelet to be Cloud for the next few days and everybody lives. We need to distract Hades, though, so I can change."

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By the time five minutes had past, Tifa had clearly begun getting visibly agitated.

Cloud had left her hanging again and even worst, right during the tournament. She muttered a few choice words she'd picked up from her customers and Cid, her leather gloves creaking as her fist tightened.

She was startled however, as Auria came to her with her plan and nodded, a flash of ~~worry~~annoyance crossing her face at Cloud's no-show. "That could work." She replied, trying to think of a method to distract Hades. "I'm sorry...nothing I can think of might be of help." Or... at least nothing that she would actually do, such as unzip her vest for a bit.

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"What could work?" Said a familiar male voice behind Auria and Tifa.

So Cloud was a little bit late. He had delt with Hades before, he knew he couldn't be trusted.
He certianly wasn't gonna leave Tifa hanging at a time like this

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At first, Auria was extremely surprised. Then her whole body went icy cold when she realized that her plan for staying alive was null and void.

They. Are going. To kill me.

"Please go easy," she whispered. "I only have, like, three potions."

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Tifa let out of a soft sigh of relief at his voice, glad that he did actually manage to show. It didn't mean that she wouldn't be unhappy later with him for being so late but for now... "It's about time you showed up." She teased instead.

She did give Auria a concerned look, worried for the younger girl. There was a limit on how much she could feint her attacks but the rest was all up to how the battle would play out. "We were trying to figure out how we could manage to do this without hurting her too badly." She replied to him softly. "This is a rather unfair battle after all."

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Oh, screw this. "THE FIGHT BEGINS...NOW," Hades declared. He was not the most patient of gods. That had run out when his nearly twenty-year plan to overthrow Zeus had failed. No more really long, complicated things like that fiasco.

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'Unfair' was putting it mildly.

"So any ideas?" Cloud asked Tifa, he didn't want to hurt Auria either, but they had to do something, to make it look... convincing. Or else Hades would probably be even more pissed off.

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Auria jumped a mile as Hades's voice boomed through the arena, and she skipped several feet back from Tifa and Cloud. Her palms were sweating worse than ever. It was getting extremely difficult to keep a good grip on her hammer. If she tried to use a potion, she would probably drop it.

Fuck.

She was going to have to stay on the defensive, for the most part. Wait for them to make the first move. It would be up to her very scary opponents to keep the fight safe but convincing.

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Even Tifa has slightly jumped at Hades booming voice, from not expecting it all of a sudden. She bit her lip, mind racing furiously.

There was... nothing she could come up with that wouldn't give them away easily. "I....don't know." She replied back, "Do you? We're out of time and we something fast."

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No, he didn't, which is why he had asked her in the first place.

"Then we... improvise" Cloud said and he got into a fighting position, "We can't just stand around talking, or else Hades will be onto us"

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Okay, make it convincing, Auria thought. Hades doesn't know me, so if I attack first, he won't think it suspicious, even though it's totally against my intentions of...living. And if I attack first, I can set the intensity of the fight and keep us all alive.

...Right?

Auria shifted her hammer, clenched her teeth, and threw herself forward.

It was sort of like a drop tower--the moment you strapped yourself into one of those, you knew what would happen. Charging forward against a sentient opponent more skilled than yourself is much the same, with your stomach dropping out and your palms sweating and wondering why the hell you agreed to this.

Except that here, Auria didn't really know if she would, or expect herself to, survive.

Her hammer arced upwards, aimed for nothing in particular but close enough to hit.

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It wasn't hard to guess what Auria was planning and Tifa was ready before she even started running.

She took shorter strides than she normally would have meeting Auria halfway. Waiting for the very last moment, she quick-step'd out of the way of the hammer, feigning a a slight wince. Without another second, her leg came up and she kicked the Hammer staff in hopes of dislodging it from her grip.

It seems the only way to get though the match was to disarm her and knock her out as quickly as possible to Tifa and she was determined to do so without causing too bad of a injury to the other girl - unless she provided at least a bit challenge to make things more interesting.

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If it wern't for the fact that Hades already knew how Cloud fought, he would have just forgone using his sword and fought barehanded like Tifa. But the god was watching, so that plan was out of the question.

Cloud hoped he just be able to let Tifa deal with the girl, because he could probably kill her without even trying.

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Auria's hammer briefly flew from her grip, but she caught it...after a lot of fumbling. She turned on her heel to face Tifa again, but now her stance was all wrong. She would either have to run at Tifa, regaining her balance as she closed in, or waste time trying to right herself.

She chose the former. Realigning her grip, Auria charged Tifa again, but this time she skipped to the side at the last minute and swung her hammer at the other woman's side.

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The hammer just grazed Tifa's side and her eyebrows rose slightly in approvement.

That, however didn't stop her from grabbing the Hammer and pulling Auria closer, Tifa's other fist ready to strike her stomach.

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"Shi--" and then the fist connected, knocking the wind right out of Auria's lungs. Her grip weakened and her hammer left her hand as she crumpled, vision turning black at the edges. She stayed there, wheezing.

Don't go down this easily! What the fuck is wrong with you?

Auria forced herself to lift off the ground. Her ribs bitched about being moved so soon--she had to get her hammer. Where the hell was her hammer. It was there, at the edge of her sight. She rolled her eyes up and lurched forward, still wheezing.

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