Clash Of Frost And Flame

Some larger and actually reasonably competent warriors soon blocked Budoshi’s forward charge, but the plucky Tuffle had only one thing to say to this as they all inherently underestimated him. “Oh, please you can’t stop me now!” Budoshi smirked, and in the blink of an eye, Budoshi conjured a thin layer of ice under his feet as he slid directly between the legs of those in his way. “I got somewhere to be anyway, so... Keep it frosty, yeah~?” He snickered, having cleared past them now, and with a click of his fingers the trail of ice he left behind rose and partially encased them.

“Whoo!” Budoshi cheered as he kept skating forward with increasing speed. It was quite thrilling to weave between all of these other battles as is, but he couldn’t trust himself to just do that all day— if there wasn’t someone else that had his sole attention as a rival he would have joined another battle already.

Budoshi just had to find her, not that it’d be difficult. Ki swirled around his eyes, before being mixed with his affinity for the power of ice, creating semi-solid Ki goggles. Hell yeah, mixing techniques was the bomb! Speaking of bombs, a plume of fire drew Budoshi’s vision even before he heard the voice of the one he wanted to fight. “There you are.” With a sharp turn, a blast of ice erupted from Budoshi, forcing fighters away from himself as well, had they not already taken the hint to not get in the way.

“FLAMBÉRAAAAAAAAA!”

The Tuffle let out a bout of excited laughter as he charged forward, his arms reeled back at his sides as ice covered them in the form of a pair of gauntlets as he launched a series of palm strikes and jabs Flambréra’s way.

Budoshi had himself a little giggle at hearing Flambréra’s friend groaning from the stands. Actually, Budoshi couldn’t exactly call them ‘friends’. If anything, Dahlia was around Flambréra begrudgingly for some reason. Sure, she probably had her reasons for that, but Budoshi couldn’t relate, he thought Flambréra was awesome. Nothing less than a perfect rival.

Reaching Flambréra finally, Budoshi let loose his technique, peppering her with a bit of damage. He slid backwards a bit after landing the last hit. In true Flambréra fashion, she responded with something explosive. Her flames burst to life and were enhanced to the point where they even managed to hurt her, the master of said flames.

Budoshi’s aura burst forth as his body was coated in ki-infused ice, wherein he did his best to reduce the incoming damage— he did quite well all things considered, almost managing to halve the power of what Flambréra had dished out, but that wasn’t enough to escape unscathed of course.

Heated flames coming into contact with freezing ice caused a plume of steam to blast up and outwards, shoving a lot of other fighters away in the process. Within the misty steam, a flicker of Ki swirled to life, shining through the mist as Budoshi dashed out of it towards Flambréra again, a dopey smile still plastered on his face despite the burns and bruises he had just now suffered. “As if that was gonna be enough, hotshot!” Budoshi declared, raising his hands upwards to try and freeze the free moisture and humidity in the air above them, then bring it down as snowballs and hail aimed at Flambréra!

Budoshi tensed up a bit after making such a rough movement after nearly being boiled, jeez that hit did kinda sting, but if Flambréra was right about anything it was that Budoshi didn’t know when to quit, and it was true, he really didn’t in a lot of ways. “Yeah well neither do you!” The Tuffle grinned wide, dispersing a cold wave across his body to soothe the feeling of the burns, cuts and bruises as best as he could; he would get used to moving with them soon enough.

As Flambréra descended upon him, Budoshi jumped forward as well to redirect more bolts of hail and snow to try and get in her way. Soon after, the Zoanthrope conjured a crackling ball of concentrated flames, and in the moments she used to create it, Budoshi slid backwards, keeping an eye on her. “Duh! Of course that wasn’t enough!” A bit of his aura flashed off of him as his muscles visibly strengthened. He too began to conjure a densely packed ball, both made of his Ki and considerable amounts of cold force from his cryokinetic abilities; frosty electricity danced around this ball and up his arms.

The ball of flames was launched moments later, “Catch? Well, if you insist!” Budoshi fired his own technique, and at first it looked like that the burning fireball would blast right through and hit him, then for a moment it looked like the two techniques would equalize— that was, until the fireball eventually died out only a few centimetres from Budoshi’s outstretched hands. “Get ready for this pitch!” The Tuffle let out a yell and thrust forth the remaining energy that he had to spare in Flambréra’s direction!

Budoshi had a smirk for a moment, that was a great exchange in his mind, but Flambréra doubling over wasn’t what he was expecting. Usually she would fire right back up even if she spent a lot of her energy, but something about this wasn’t right. In truth, Budoshi was kind of concerned. “Hey, you good?” He quirked a brow, casually backhanding some random dude that tried to jump him from behind without even looking, and casting ice off to the side at some lady that tried to throw something, causing her to slip and club someone else in the head.

As Flambréra writhed on the floor, more fighters took the shot to try and have a go at Budoshi, but he wasn’t having a bar of it. He snarled at them, cold air escaping his gritted teeth. “I’m not playing with you smallfry right now...” So, he summoned a mighty cold wave to push them all away. “So get lost!”

Most other fighters got the picture by now, though there were still some rowdy folks approaching... At least for a short moment before Flambréra herself had a growl at Budoshi, declaring that she was not going to go down without a fight. “We’ll see about that one...” Budoshi still wasn’t sure if everything was okay, and he was right to be unsure as Flambréra began to change. Dahlia recognized this instantly, and right after her, Budoshi figured it out as well.

These other fighters were in danger, so they had to be blocked off from here... However, this still did excite him, and he wanted this fight all to himself. His aura flashed around him, turning semi-solid with chunks of ice flowing off of him as his power rose. With a flash of his ice cold stare, Budoshi stomped a foot down and sent an empowered wave of cold magic swirling outward in a circle, finally pushing all other fighters away from himself and Flambréra— just in time too as she had finished transforming.

Flambréra charged towards Budoshi, who was now gathering every mote of low temperature that he could get control over. He created giant ice gauntlets empowered with extra ki to reinforce their structure as he matched with Flambréra’s searing claws. “Okay then, Dynamite Gal, let’s see how well this goes for ya!”

Several of the fighters that got shoved out of the way beyond the thick wall of ice started complaining and causing a fuss. A few of them tried to hit the wall to no avail. Budoshi yawned with disinterest at their attempts. How ungrateful they were, to not see that he was quite literally taking the heat for them when he could have just as easily beat down the lot of them instead! “S-nore”

Whatever, their whining didn’t matter, his focus should be on Flambréra. The flaming cheetah Zoan had managed to leap up and reach near the top of the ice wall, it was obvious that she wanted to escape. Budoshi held up a finger towards her and waggled it disapprovingly. “Nuh-uh!” He focused some power toward that point of the ice wall to slow Flambréra’s ascent. Moments later, Dahlia had contacted Budoshi telepathically. ‘Alright, one super ice dome coming right up!’ Without a second to waste, Budoshi pulsated further power up into the barrier, thickening the already dense wall and raising the top of it into a dome as best as he could.

Dahlia gave instructions on how to stop Flambréra’s rampage, and it was as straightforward as it could be. Put out the fire. Budoshi didn’t need to be told much of a reason as to why he should do that either. ‘I’ll do it.’ He responded with determination.

Now, the question was, how to get more of Flambréra’s attention. Perhaps intentionally exaggerating his normal antics with her would annoy her enough? Worth a shot! “Hey, you kerosine kitty-cat! P^spsps_psps^psps! I’m not done with you! You want out of this arena, you gotta get through me first!”

Budoshi’s taunting did indeed annoy Flambréra. Yes, good, perfectly executed, flawless. If she wanted to leave she had to kick his ass, but he wasn’t going to let her do that so easily— he never did, neither of them did really— which was what made their rivalry the absolute best at least in Budoshi’s opinion, a thing that he was often very vocal about to basically everyone he knew especially Flambréra.

The Tuffle had moved himself towards the center of the dome while taunting her and as soon as she came straight for him, Budoshi fluidly adopted a defensive stance, he wasn’t going to get out of this immediate exchange unscathed, sure, but that happened all the time in the path he chose to walk as a warrior. He could at least minimize the amount of damage he took, almost slashing it into a third with his stance-work, at least her bite wasn’t going to be as fierce as it could have been! She wanted to latch onto him? That was fine with him since he wanted to keep her in place right then and there as much as possible. To aid in this, Budoshi tried to conjure icy binds around himself and Flambréra.

Being in this clash with Flambréra gave Budoshi some good perspective on her techniques— he knew this one well, it was almost her go-to, strong and reasonably efficient, and Budoshi was starting to see the principles of it much clearer with such up-close experience. He could probably pull off something similar if he tried, right? The guy just needed a good opportunity to do it!

’Her attention is squarely on me. I almost have her where I want her.’ He responded quickly to the voice that had instructed him moments prior. ’If she wastes energy on me, I’ll get her when she’s stunned!’ Budoshi grinned, trying to goad Flambréra more as he exuded low temperature in contrast to her high temperatures, even steam began to form. “You gonna hit me with that again or what?!”