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<01/16/1972 – 17:15 | Gross City, Gulop Region, Sprawn Valley>
The city folk passing by were gathering around. They knew exactly what this setup was all about after witnessing it so many times. Jessica's crew is prepared to film and broadcast their battle live on the air for entertainment. The battle is going to be between Jessica's battle assistant and Jane. After everyone took to their places, Jane and Selina lined up on opposite ends of the sectioned square. The barricades around it were only decorative, a sense of a do not cross line. The battle will still commence with a Siriean dome within the section. But that means the battle area will have less room to move around in than standard conditions. Jane and Selina were already standing only thirty-five meters apart. Their backs were almost at the edge already.
After Jessica gave the word and activated her camera, that was Selina's cue to start the battle officially. Selina looked up, aiming her hand into the sky. "I happily announce that the battle between Jane and Selina will now commence!" Selina needed to project her voice loud enough to reach the microphone behind her, but her hand was also devoted to the creation of the Siriean dome. To initiate the battle, Selina helped create that shield in the small area, setting the radius and height factor. For a good moment, the Siriean dome was hard to see through with the glowing effect in the bubble itself. After it was fully established, the shield tried to fade into the surrounding area again, becoming almost totally transparent. The shield only covered Jane and Selina, not dragging anybody else into the battle, and since this was official, it counts on both parties' licenses.
Jane quickly noticed that the holographic text to show the reward spoils and bets appeared in the center, only to die out a few seconds later.
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The text was displayed differently for a reason. Jane did not have an Emire spell bomb to part with should she end up losing. So if she does lose, she would have to give up something different instead. Selina already agreed to those terms, and so the rewards were going to be conditional for each person. But Jane was quickly distracted by a familiar face behind the text. It was Taylor, waving her arm to get Jane's attention. How did she find her so quickly?
"Hey Jane! When did you start battling?" Taylor didn't expect Jane to already be caught up in another fight, but she was glad for her. This means that Jane isn't feeling the defeat from the last fight she took part in anymore.
Jessica noticed the girl screaming at Jane from outside of the dome, and got her crew to focus in on Taylor. Taylor began staring in their direction curiously. "And it looks like Jane has a few fans already."
"Ah!" Taylor freaked out, hiding behind Danny quickly. She had never been on TV before, and just now realized that this place was being filmed for a live audience. "I'm not ready to be on film." Danny was confused, but Taylor was immediately embarrassed for drawing that much attention to herself. She had not fixed her hair or dressed properly for the occasion. She didn't look bad, but it wasn't something she wanted to handle until upgrading her appearance further. Of all things, her reaction made Danny chuckle too.
Jane laughed briefly. Taylor must not be used to a camera in her face. It was more humorous since Danny's stance and expression screamed how much he didn't mind. She saw that Jessica returned the camera back towards her and Selina. The battle has officially begun, but Selina wasn't willing to attack Jane just yet. More people gathered around, cheering on the fight just because it would be interesting to watch. Danny was now hollering words towards Jane, but the increased noise level blocked out his voice.
Selina took notice of the pause between each other, and then decided on how to begin. "Jane? You may have the first attack."
While telling Jane how to battle first, Selina initiated her energy scope for the fight. Jane already did the same while she was talking to her.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/tCt1HS2h/S2-Selina-N-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/02dvNLgy/S2-Jane-N-000.png]
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Chapter Theme Shift: Knock Out! ~ FFXIII-3 OST
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"Thanks." Jane smiled with confidence. Not only would she go first, but she had been training for battles like this in the past. Feeling as ready as ever, she began with one of her attacks that never failed her before. Jane began immediately, charging her MP into the next magical skill strongly. Jane pulled out her daggers, now glowing with the magic aura infused within them. Jane then jumped up slightly, throwing her daggers with the full weight of her arms. "Flying Guillotine!"
Jane's spell and knife toss turned into the powerful Flying Guillotine most people knew by heart. While both two daggers flew in the air with a horizontal spin, they generated a large magical circle between them, fixed with a damaging aura that gracefully drilled through the air until they slammed into Selina. Selina became stuck in that circle as the daggers continued to travel around her, cutting up multiple sections of her body in the process. In the same instance, Jane's blades ended up turning around completely, forcing the guillotine attack to head in her direction. Just before it hit Jane, the circle disappeared, and Jane was now in the process of collecting her daggers as they spun in the air, fresh out of magic.
Selina wasn't expecting a powerful hit right off to start. She had no way of dodging the attack given that kind of speed, and the sensation of sharp cutting blades remained all over her body after the blades left her. The energy scope above her responded immediately, reporting the damages.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/K8G1cPHC/S2-Selina-N-001.png]
Selina retained the glint in her eyes. Jane was truly impressive, dealing that much damage with a power level 4 attack, but now she wanted to return the favor. Despite the pain from Jane's attack, Selina was capable of handling it well, standing tall to prepare herself to return damage. Pulling out daggers much similar to Jane's, Selina chanted the name "Shadow Knife!" while throwing all three of them towards Jane. Her daggers did not glow while flying vertically and spinning through the air. Still, Jane reacted a little too slowly, and took two hits out of the three knives thrown her way.
The pain was instantaneous, but faded quickly too. Selina only dealt normal slashing damage towards Jane, while Jane's last attack did that with the combined force of magical damage onto Selina. While both of them were wearing less protective dress spheres for the battle, Jane nearly took the same amount of damage.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/ZnSgt55F/S2-Jane-N-013.png]
Jane could not blame herself for failing to dodge. Shadow Knife still has the power to make the knives thrown transparent as they fly through the air, so she really didn't see anything just before getting hit twice. Her random movement let her dodge one of them regardless. Now it was Jane's turn to strike back.
Jane immediately charged up her next spell, forming an orange glyphring in front of her with her arm in the center of the glyphring. The battle was traversing quickly right now, with neither side taking any time to recover from their damages at all. At the moment Jane's magical spell was ready to cast, she shot the dozens of shooting stars from her hand well before chanting the name aloud. "Radial Stars!" Even though everybody knows it is the weakest kind of spell there is, Jane was sure it would amass a fair amount of damage while keeping her MP levels up as well.
Selina didn't move. With so many Radial Stars shooting her way, there was not a method to try and dodge the attack entirely. She simply braced herself as the sharp edged magical stars dug into her skin repetitively. The effects were very painful, like being pricked with a bunch of needles, but Selina knew she was okay, taking worse attacks before. As soon as the Radial Stars stopped and Jane's glyphring faded, Selina gave Jane a very quick moment to realize how insignificant her attack was. Selina was confident to know it wasn't worth checking her energy scope. Radial Stars barely does damage no matter what the situation is.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/nh3CXs8r/S2-Selina-N-002.png]
"Ha!" Selina was feeling just fine. She knew how much pain she could tolerate in a battle, and getting slowed down by such feeble attack patterns was not her style. The many people surrounding them doubled in population and in volume. Things were already heating up, and now Jane had expended her turn for nothing. Selina wasted no time in creating her next glyphring, a powerful red disk that rotated around her wrist. After taking aim at Jane, she immediately had the chance to fire her spell, chanting the name as well to help her focus. "Triple Fire!"
Jane gasped, quickly switching her stance to try and block the damage. Just like she remembered Eliza's stance, Jane copied what was in her mind, bending her knees down a little while using her arms and fists to block her front side from the oncoming attack. Jane knew it was better to dodge this entirely, but without an actual wall to run to for a jump kick evasion, blocking was the only thing she could try. The dome shield would not let her just bounce off either. From the center of Selina's glyphring, she shot out three Fire Bolts consecutively. Each of them had their own damage level and homing properties, following behind each other to make dodging physically impossible by all means. Jane knew this was going to be a devastating attack, so she took the chance to try and block the fiery spheres.
Though blocking attacks is supposed to slightly improve damage resistance for most kinds of hits, the spell cast of Triple Fire shot off three Fire Bolts towards Jane at the same time in just one attack spell. Once those Fire Bolts slammed into Jane's stiff body, there was no way for her to fully block the effects. As a result, most of that burning and fiery pain was shifted towards her arms and legs, making it a little more tolerable. At the same time, Jane immediately felt drained from HP reduction. Her earlier attempt to use Triple Fire in training was never successful, but here it was, complete with the added effects of massive damage to her HP.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/2y7tzNqp/S2-Jane-N-014.png]
"Ah! What attack was that?!" Taylor clinched.
Danny was still in charge of reading back to himself and Taylor what new kinds of spells and skills might show up unexpectedly during battles. Of course, he was only capable of analyzing these spells when observing a battle, but this was as good a time as any other. After flipping in his small guide book over to the T section, he found the spell known as Triple Fire, and read back the descriptions. "Triple Fire or Tri-Fire. Power level is improved to 5.5 as it shoots out three Fire Bolts in just one invocation, conserving some MP in the same process and making the ability more devastating for damage."
Taylor was immediately impressed with the way Selina executed that spell against Jane. "You see how fast she invoked that spell? Jane has her work cut out for her alright."
"Not this time. You can do it Jane!" Danny was sharing the role Taylor had previously served for Jane the last time they watched her fight. Jane could use some encouragement for this one fight. She might be arrogant to annoyance, but after all of today, after all Jane put herself through with the intense training, she has to win this time. "Fight back!"
Jane could not hear Danny or Taylor in all the noise, but she knew from experience that they had to be cheering her on anyway. Man! Selina knows powerful skills too. Seems she is more experienced. But she isn't the only one... Jane charged the MP into her hands like before, causing them to glow with a yellow color without the appearance of a glyphring. She immediately released that energy, while imagining that time she was in the forest, training with Danny to improve her ability and output level. "Earth Glave!" Jane's invocation time was instantaneous. The cement ground shifted upwards in a growing wave as it traveled towards Selina.
Selina had no choice this time but to try and block the attack too. Earth Glave is hard to avoid, unless one can somehow fly in the air. After covering her body with her arms like Jane had done, Selina braced herself for the Earth Glave attack. It slammed into her with an uplifting power. Selina almost completely lost her balance with the initial strike, and then felt the hard hit in her chest from the earth based attack. Blocking it didn't do all that well to help either, but she was still ready to recover from the attack and keep going. As soon as the ground returned to normal from the after effects of the spell, Selina readied her next attack while ignoring the bruising sensation now in her chest, preventing her from inhaling properly.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/tg77WXy5/S2-Selina-N-003.png]
Selina's transformation from blocking to magical execution was so quick nonetheless. Her hands were glowing blue just before she threw her arms outward in Jane's direction. "Shadow Wave!" Another earth bound wave of dark black color haunted the trail and rushed in towards Jane.
This time, Jane was ready to counter anything thrown her way, and she already charged the energy for this moment as well. In a quick reaction to Selina's Shadow Wave, Jane launched one of her own in the direction of Selina. "Shadow Wave!" Jane's Shadow Wave now traveled from the ground, heading straight for Selina's Shadow Wave. Both were not that easy to see, though they were visible in the failing daylight. Shadow Waves look a lot like spiky black auras that slide on the ground, growing in their size as they travel. Normally, two attacks like these against each other cancel out, but when both of these Shadow Waves crashed into each other, they were trapped from moving any further as they fought against each other by damage and momentum. It was as if one attack wave was pushing against another in opposition, but after just one second of time, Jane's Shadow Wave forced Selina's to explode and fade out before itself. As soon as that happened, Jane's Shadow Wave totally recovered its momentum, undefeated by the other wave of opposition. It was clear that Jane put a lot more power in her Shadow Wave, enough to cancel out Selina's and then continue to head towards the opponent. Selina was both surprised and frozen in fear by the development. She really thought two Shadow Waves would both be even. Not only was her attack made useless, she now had to deal with a quick and powerful spell like this one.
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Selina had no chance of getting out of the way in time. She was so surprised, she could not fully processes what was happening once that wave slammed into her body for damage. The Shadow Wave was pushing up against Selina in the same way it was against another Shadow Wave. This time, damage was constantly being dealt to Selina while she was stuck in place. After that short time, Jane's Shadow Wave exploded as well, fading from existence in a dark mist.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/TPS1cZ3X/S2-Selina-N-004.png]
Jane was too focused to check out Selina's energy scope, already charging in towards Selina. Jane knew that if her Shadow Wave managed to surpass her opponent's, she would have an upper hand for another attack, and this was it. One of her best known tactics for causing a lot of damage was her close combat. Jane was already close, drawing her daggers and running her legs in while Selina was still feeling the effects of the Shadow Wave damage.
Selina didn't know what to do. She tried to move out of the way, but was immediately attacked anyway by Jane's incredible speedy close combat sequence. Jane didn't let up for a moment. She was shifting her combination attack from punches to daggers slashes to kicks and dodges. Even though it was quite impossible for Selina to interrupt Jane's movements while being attacked, Jane made sure that was hard to do as well, performing side steps and backflips in the middle of her combos to avoid taking any hits during her cycle.
Taylor watched as Jane dominated her opponent like she was Swiss cheese. "That's how to do it. Jane's winning!" It was clear from any angle that Selina was now in trouble. Of course, Jane had already taken significant damage herself, but she was still in the lead by a long way.
Jane finally finished her combination after tiring out. She jumped away backwards over and over to gain some distance, and now she had the chance to look at Selina's energy scope too.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/cHnHkXvt/S2-Selina-N-005.png]
Selina managed to get back up and regain her balance, but she was already feeling drained from taking all of those hits. Jane sure was fast. She could feel the cut marks and brutal kicks she endured that whole time, and though she was hurting badly, it wasn't enough to stop her from going on. Selina thought to herself for a moment. Using normal attack spells one after the next isn't going to cut it this time. She had a few more tricky ways to get the upper hand, but they are risky in themselves since her HP was already low.
Selina began her next move, her body glowing with the slightest hint of purple while she lifted her arms up and down in the form of a spell cast. "Dualcast!" she yelled. Selina did not wait for Jane to try and pick up on what this spell meant. Most people starting out do not understand what Dualcast is or how it works. As soon as she used that spell, Selina charged up another attack. A red glyphring appeared in front of her, larger in size than twice her own body mass. "Crimson Flare!" Selina unleashed a powerful attack towards Jane, a massive fiery ball of energy the size of a small home shot through the glyphring. The ball was a perfect sphere burning bright and yellow. Though it traveled much slower than a Fire Ball attack, the massive size made up for the shift in speed. Jane was still trying to figure out what Selina was up to, when she failed to get out of the way of that Crimson Flare attack, having stood too close to Selina when she unleashed it. The bright ball of energy zoomed right through Jane as if she were a ghost, but the damage and pain had been dealt to her immediately. Jane felt her entire body heat up really fast, her skin receiving first degree burns. At the same time, there was a hint of sharp pains hitting her everywhere. It was enough to send Jane to the ground after passing by her, Jane balancing on her knees. "Nargh!"
Taylor winced at how much damage that single sphere did to Jane. Selina used some kind of chant before switching into that Crimson Flare attack. Danny was trying to figure out from the book what was going on, but he was also taken by the sight of Jane going through so much trouble. It was too much to keep up with this time.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/QNQwg1f6/S2-Jane-N-015.png]
Selina was not done yet. The purple aura around her body pulsated once more, and she quickly shifted from using her last skill into using another one. "Doom Shield!" Selina targeted the top of the dome, and fired some sort of blue energy bolt towards it. It was the same spell Jack used against Jane to prevent the fight form ending too early. As a response to Selina using Doom Shield, the Siriean dome became less transparent, turning to a darker blue color than its original state was. The shield eventually became more transparent again, but the factor difference still made it difficult to fully see through the dome as it intensified.
"She just used Doom Shield!" Taylor announced. Selina just used three different Leray spells consecutively, too fast to be considered normal.
"Dualcast! It's a support aura spell that enables you to quickly congregate your next two spells together. Even though attacking without letting up is possible anyway, it just sped Selina's powers up by reducing invocation time of the next two spells. And then she used Crimson Flare..."
Taylor didn't understand. Dualcast makes one use more spells than one in the same instance? It simply looked as if Jane's opponent was just being harsh with the attacks. According to the description in the book, it enables the user to use two spells closely together by reducing the invocation time required. Taylor glanced over at that book. Danny was getting to Crimson Flare, but Dualcast was just on the next page. At last, she understood. Dualcast is designed to let a mage attack twice in the time it takes to normally attack in one turn, and if they use Dualcast, that skill alone does not count as the two extra abilities they get to speed up. How did Selina know how to do that?
"Crimson Flare is very powerful, but it's easier to dodge. The problem is, Selina modified hers. Crimson Flare shoots out a very large fire sphere of energy, but it's supposed to shoot out three at the same time, not just one."
Selina modified her Crimson Flare intentionally. This way, it saves her a lot of MP in the process. The only reason it normally fires three at once is because Crimson Flare is unguided and slower. Dodging it can't be easy when three come out of the glyphring at once, all heading in different angles to confuse the opponent. However, given the reduced arena size of the area, just one single Crimson Flare sphere would be enough to nearly envelop the entire battlefield. It worked out well in the end. Though Jane now managed to get over the pain of Crimson Flare, her damage taken was quite significant, while nobody will be able to forfeit from the match anymore thanks to Doom Shield.
Jane took a heavy breath, preparing herself to fight back against her opponent. Selina does know some powerful take back spells, but that alone isn't going to be enough. Jane began charging at Selina again. This must have given Selina the impression that another close combat attack was coming, but Jane had something different in mind. As soon as she got close enough, Jane's entire body began to glow with a white aura. "Uppercut!" Jane flew at Selina, nearly at the speed of light. Once Jane was right up in her face, she delivered a powerful uppercut with her fist. Even though it was just a normal punch, Jane delivered it as best as she could, assisted by additional kinetic Leray magic that managed to launch Selina six feet in the air. Jane used that moment to get away from Selina too. It wasn't a strong attack, but Selina wasn't expecting it either.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/Wzc4BgZW/S2-Selina-N-006.png]
It worked out best in the end. Jane obtained her distance again, and Selina ended up taking a little extra damage from smacking back into the ground from that uppercut. It's only a non-magical blunt attack (magic used only to add force instead of damage), but Jane had plenty of other ideas on the way. For now, she braced herself for what was going to happen next.
Selina had no trouble getting up. Though her HP was already low, Jane's last hit only gave Selina the feeling of a bruised chin. In total, it has only been a few minutes, and the battle was coming to a close fast. Selina knew that she needed to defeat Jane. After fighting so hard and using Dualcast like that, it was one of her best secrets now exposed to her opponent. Jane is fast too, so she can dodge most attacks heading her way. "Hellfire!" Selina initiated a powerful attack spell, one of which she knew was hard to avoid. After unleashing the energy, the ground below her bulged as though something was traveling Jane's direction underground. Jane didn't know how to dodge this attack since Hellfire was unknown to her. At the last second, the ground suddenly exploded with fiery beams of light which were actually barrages of Fire Balls. Much of those spheres slammed into Jane from below, heating her legs to a boiling temperature while knocking her down from the pain of the attack as well. Jane was already down, but the attack kept on going, shooting fire out from the ground in multiple locations. Most however were meters away from Jane; this means it was an area attack.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/WbsK5zKs/S2-Jane-N-016.png]
Area attacks are special abilities that enable the user to attack a very large portion of the battlefield. They have no direct aim at an opponent, but the radius is often too large for the enemy to get out of the way. As a result of energy conservation, damage is generally a bit less in area attacks. Otherwise, the user of them ends up consuming a whole lot of MP energy.
Jane wasn't feeling high spirited anymore. With a lower HP count, she was already feeling lightheaded and drained, but she could still think and fight. Jane so far had not used that much of her MP, and with critical health, that goes a long way to enable her to keep moving around well at the same time. Jane had no problems getting back up from that brutal burning barrage, though her entire body felt like it had first degree burns everywhere. At least now it was her turn again. If only there was an attack easier to try and dodge...
"Aero Blast!" Jane's hands managed to glow with less intensity than they normally do. This was because Aero Blast is a rather weak kind of spell in general. Because it deals wind elemental damage, who knows how the opponent might react to such the hit? Jane however threw the Aero Blast three times. She simply switched to her other hand to throw another, and then the other hand for the next. Jane threw three total Aero Blasts at Selina.
Selina was forced to take damage from the three Aero Blasts attacks. They are one of the fastest traveling projectiles anybody can use in a battle. Though she didn't feel all that much pain from the blasts, her face became surrounded by a very high-speed gust of wind. The air spun around her head, dealing small amounts of damage while making it hard for Selina to see anything. Her energy scope still showed a decreases in HP, but it was only minor.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/6qVQtqL9/S2-Selina-N-007.png]
Selina ignored the sensation of dizziness and exhaustion for now. Jane was making it hard to see her on purpose, so Selina immediately reacted with another attack swiftly. "Bullet Mirage!" After pulling a pair of submachine guns from yellow summon glyphrings behind her, Selina aimed randomly and held down the triggers to shoot her guns at Jane.
Jane knew something like this was coming, and she used that Aero Blast to make it happen on her own schedule. Since there were a ton of bullets heading her way, Jane knew normal evasion would not work well, so instead, she ducked down as low as she could get, narrowly evading all of the spinning blades. Bullet Mirage is an attack that actually shoots out spinning bladed pellets instead of real bullets. That way, the damage is slashing instead of piercing, but the projectiles are still the same size. Jane's attempt to dodge worked out perfectly. Selina must have thought only to aim high and not at the ground, so Jane evaded the entire magazine of shots her opponent fired.
In the same instance, Jane jumped back up to her feet, charging her energy into another new glyphring again. This time, a jade colored glyphring formed around her right wrist as she took aim at Selina. Selina looked as though she was ready to dodge it, but Jane knew it was a worthless attempt. "Lightning Strike!" Jane's glyphring shot a Thunderbolt from the center, immediately holding Selina in place for a lengthy electrical shock. Selina's HP declined in intervals each fraction of a second. At the same time, she was forced into the painful sensation of an electrical shock and tensing nerves. As soon as the attack ended, Selina felt much more drained than before, her entire body tingling with both pain and numbness.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/nVqrvS86/S2-Selina-N-008.png]
Selina got a hold of herself once more and used her next spell. "Dualcast!" Her body once more acquired a purple aura around it, while she continued casting more spells shortly after wards. "Crimson Flare!" Selina shot out another massive sphere of energy and fire towards Jane from her oversized glyphring. The stress of the magic sent her MP down to four percent power. In the same instance, she regenerated just 1% out of a normal interval, but Jane had a large crimson sphere heading her way again.
Reacting quickly, Jane rushed far to her left to try and get out of the way this time. She remembered how it felt to get hit from one of those. Somehow, the non-elemental magical damage amplified the effects of the thermal energy in the sphere. Luckily, Jane dashed out of its way in time. It really doesn't move all that quickly compared to other attacks. The sphere simply floated on towards the edge of the Siriean dome, but now Selina was using that Dualcasting aura to spam another attack spell.
"Sphere of Might!" This time, Selina's MP levels had shot down to absolutely zero percent capacity. When she used that spell, Jane could do nothing when a large red spinning sphere of magical damage spawned partially inside of her body. As it formed and spun around, Jane took damage immediately, but the pain factor was surprisingly lower than other attacks. That was because the damage was purely magical based on a lower power level. This still left Jane totally drained from her incredibly low HP levels, but she was still hanging on after being blasted back by the force of the red sphere.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/4Nw0qZkV/S2-Jane-N-017.png]
Selina was now at zero percent MP, and this was Jane's chance to launch all out attacks. Selina weakened herself because of her poor strategy, and the exhaustion was so obvious now. Selina was hunched down; she appeared to have used up all of her physical and magical stamina. Jane went with another combination attack, this time at a long range. "Magical Blitz!" Jane formed two bright blue energy balls in her hands, and threw them both towards Selina. Before waiting to see if she scored a hit, Jane formed the last Magical Blitz energy ball in her right hand, and chucked it at Selina again. It took time for Jane to process this, but the first two energy balls she chucked were dodged by Selina's quick movements. It seemed that her opponent still had enough energy to move around some, but the last one Jane threw hit Selina in the chest, nearly knocking her down. She seemed even more tired now, the reaction to a lower base HP immediate.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/tCyTDdp7/S2-Selina-N-009.png]
Selina knew she was up in a corner, but in an odd way, so was Jane. Jane looked much more energetic, but that was only her MP talking. One can have low HP and full MP and still move quickly and think normally. It will still force them to go unconscious and lose the battle if the count goes to zero percent though. There was at least one more trick she had. Selina pulled an object from her pocket. Jane was too far away to notice what it was, but Selina knew that certain items are allowed in battle with a limit on the amount per fight. "Hand grenade!" By expending MP, one can summon a hand grenade into battle with no cost to their credits. But in Selina's case, she bought the item version of a grenade, allowing her to carry it into battle with her along with her main weapon. Using it this way does not cost any MP, but since she bought it in the first place, it does consume credits before it even gets used. Selina pulled the pin, and chucked the heavy metal object under Jane's feet.
Jane realized too late that Selina just threw a hand grenade her way. Jane didn't know what to do but try and get out of the way. Nobody truly knows the timer on those things in a Leray match. After beginning to sprint way from the object, the explosion caught up behind her, knocking Jane down and blasting her with metallic shrapnel. At first, the blast didn't seem like it would have been enough, but from the perspective of the crowd, Jane had been caught in the explosion. Upon the smoke clearing, her body was face down on the cement following the damage, and she was no longer moving around.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/t4TcHfpf/S2-Jane-N-018.png]
Before anybody could process that Jane truly fainted from the grenade attack, the locked dome shield disappeared slowly, allowing access into the battle area. The holographic text appeared again to declare the victor. The crowd was calming down momentarily to learn who had just won.
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Chapter Theme Shift: Requiem For A Saint ~ Star Ocean 3 OST
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Jane was out for sure. Sometime following the delay, Taylor and Danny rushed in to help her. "Oh no! Jane!" Danny caught up with Taylor, but this was unbelievable. Jane fought so well this time, despite Selina's tricks, but she lost again! It happened so fast and unbelievably too.
"And there you have it!" Jessica announced into the camera. "Selina is the victor of today's Leray match. Both sides fought really hard today. What a wonderful display of sportsmanship! I'm Reporter Jessica, and you're watching SN Live! I hope you all enjoyed watching the true trials of fierce Leray combat! Tune in tomorrow for another exciting Leray match!" Her energetic voice proved she was well trained in talking to television viewers, who likely had a strong passion for these events.
Taylor hunched over beside Jane's body. Despite there remaining no residual physical damage anywhere on her skin, some of the black powder from the grenade seeped onto her arms and the back of her head. Jane was just lying there face first into the cement. It was a repeat of what happened back in Blue Port Town. Taylor felt Jane would have gladly given up had Selina not used Doom Shield like that again. Taylor got Jane to lay in her lap, wiping off her face from the dirty ground. The only thing left to do right now was go get checked into the hotel. Jane will need a shower after this. What's worse is how Jane will end up reacting after realizing she lost for a third time. The way things were going, Jane had the entire upper hand, but Selina ended it with some cheap throw of a grenade toss, just like that!
Danny helped Taylor carry Jane for her, but Taylor only let Danny support Taylor's balance when needed. She wanted Jane to just wake up so that they can use the healing orb on her like before, but it would be crazy to just wait in the streets where people walk. These lowly barricades would be removed soon enough. Taylor knew which way the hotel was, but the sky's sudden darkness was making it harder to see. The sun decided to set already, forcing the city lights to replace it. The battle only lasted for about eight minutes, but the time of day seemed to advance further than expected. The city lights were coming on one by one, but it did little to light up the traffic of people in the current area.
It seemed that Jessica's crew might have wanted to interview Jane some more as soon as she wakes up, but Taylor was having none of that. Losing a battle was already hard on Jane. Losing a battle while being shown to the world on television would be even more devastating to her spirit. Right now, Jane needed to rest up before she could use another med kit orb on her.