Round 1: Arbor Banks vs. Diana Grivence

Arbor walked out into the desert, fighting the shifting sands that softly collapsed under her feet with every step she took. The change in her pockets jingling violently, pennies and nickles and quarters in the dozens. The girl looked looked around and wiped her forehead, shielding her eyes as she brought them up momentarily to the beating sun. The heat was pretty intense, the long-sleeve shirt and vest she wore pressing hard against her skin. She knew those who lived in the desert thrived with long sleeves and a shroud to stay out of the sun, but how could they possibly stand the heat that came with it?

Arbor decided to ignore it, flexing her fingers and focusing on the task at hand. There was a fight to be had. The girl withdrew a rustic penny from her pocket, and looked over to her challenger. She looked like nothing. Arbor had fought worse. Still, another drop trickled down her forehead, and she wiped it off with a brief twitch of her lip, re-positioning herself on the unsteady sand. There was not going to be much running on the surface. Perhaps she wouldn't need to run; that honor was for her opponent.

Diana saw the other person just standing there looking as dead serious as possible and stared. With her sword and the sheath located near her back so that it would seem invisible for anyone standing in front of her she looked around to see if there was any decent cover. Nope. Cactus and more cactus. Wiping sweat of her face she was glad she picked one of her more revealing clothes as to deal with the heat. 'A coin of some sort?' Confused as to why her opponent would just be holding a coin she tilted her head then shook her head to get her into focus. "Well, may the best girl win." Diana changed her stance so that it would be easy to go into a running stance once the match started.

Arbor balanced the penny on her index finger, putting her thumb behind it so that it rested upon it in a slant. She smiled. She only smiled when battling, when she could interact with people in the only way that was at least semi-enjoyable. When she could put their life in her hands. May the best girl win. She would be winning.

The girl closed her eyes, and focused her energy to her thumb. The charge switched suddenly, and the penny exploded from her hand like a bullet from a gun, moving straight in the direction of Diana. As it left, however, a puff of sand exploded from the ground around Arbor, blinding Arbor for a moment as it swirled around her, having been thrown up momentarily by the force of the blast. No, wait, it was not the force. Arbor looked down to see tiny specs of gray interspersed in the beige material. There were bits of metal in the sand, dots of iron and cobalt and such. She'd have to get careful about that.

Paying close attention to the person in front of her Diana decided to move as soon as the opponent did anything. It was hard to pay attention due to the heat of the sun coming down semi-distorting the image. Seeing as her opponent closed her eyes she made a run for it, but not directly towards her trying to closing the distance but in a weird pattern. This was the plan until the force of the projectile knocked her to the ground. Due to her getting ready she managed to avoid direct contact but she now know to be weary. Standing up she raised her hand and turned parts of the air into an opaque white colour. The winds would quickly move and remover her temporary smokescreen so she had to get ready. Grabbing her sword Betrayal she turned the sword completely invisible and extended it to a whip. 'What the hell was that! I guess I can't get close.' Using her golden eye to spot her opponent through the smoke she swung.

Arbor coughed. She coughed and rubbed her eyes to keep the sand from her face, still blinking it from her eyes as she looked upwards. Her opponent was surely alive; Arbor frowned at that, but she had her arm out like she was holding something. There was nothing there. What was she up to? The randomness of the brackets made her unable to research her; was she charging up her power or something?

As she sand cleared, Arbor took out another penny, but as the smoke thinned, something slashed her vest. She fell backwards in the sand, looking up to see the girl there, still holding nothing. She started to clamor back, pushing against the sand, grabbing hold of one of her pennies that fell into the dusty terrain. A thin pool of blood waded in the wound she sustained, a wound minor enough as to not bleed a trail down to the sand, but a wound major enough to have been made through two layers. She grit her teeth, and as a distraction, shot the penny at the girl's eye. It was not near the speed of the first one, nor was it half; she had a split second to react or be pinned. In the weakness of the shot, the sand until went up in a pathetic ploof.

Seeing the blood splatter had confirmed to Diana that her attack actually got through. Although she was glad she could actually hit her she felt the need to take a deeper breath. She saw Arbor do the same thing aimed directly at her eye. She managed to react in time... or saw she thought. Changing her weapon invisible and creating the puff of smoke had taken their fair share of energy so she only barely dodged it leaving a seared mark on her face and sending her down. The pain surged through her body as she fell on the sand. She had to quickly stand up or else this would be game. Now manually breathing she stood up with some of the sand still stuck to her arms since there would be no time to get them off. 'Coin manipulator? Static shock manipulator?' Whether it was one or the now I now of a way to attack.' Diana stood in the open waiting for Arbor's next move. She retracted her weapon into a sword and hoped it would go to plan.

She stood open. She didn't try to slash or anything with that invisible weapon or hers.
Invisible. Maybe it was invisible to her wielder as well. Arbor thought of fishing fore another coin, but instead changed her direction, and while still on the ground, the small girl leapt at her opponent's legs, hugging them close and barreling her over. There was nothing better than a good tackle when all was said and done, especially for dislodging a dangerous weapon from an enemy's hands. If she couldn't see it, she couldn't retrieve it.

ooc; i know how your power works but arby's doesn't.

Wait until she did that rail-gunshot again and then charge in as fast as possible and end the fight quickly. That was Diana's plan but Arbor had changed attacked and went in closer. Being absolutely unprepared for her opponent to chuck themselves at herself Diana did not react at all. Dropping her weapon somewhere else she had panicked and just attacked Arbor with her bare hands. 'There is no time to get the weapon, just keep her busy' Diana clearly had the height advantage and so she hoped that she could just purely over power Arbor and stop her from pulling out any more coins or using whatever her ability was. Exhaustion from turning her weapon transparent and the cloud of smoke had taken most of her energy so she needed to end this quickly. She probably only had enough energy to create one puff of smoke and continue but even that was pushing it. She hoped this barrage of attacks would be the end.

Arbor was something of a fighter. She stayed grappled on her legs as blows came to her head, and did so much as to bite at her leg, trying to stop her from attacking her for a brief moment so she could get a penny and finish it. All the while, the coins were coming lose from her pocket. She braved the shaking and attacks long enough to pull out two pennies, until a harder knock to the face forced her to shuffle back and make it to her feet. She had her weapon, though. It lay nestled in the palm of her hand. She uncurled her fingers, wiping Diana's blood from her teeth as she threw it up. Prompty, the girl punched it, and it flattened like a pancake, thinner than a pancake, a long circular blade. It stuck to her fist like a magnet. Her fist was a magnet.

With her other hand she unzipped her vest, all the while holding the second penny in the palm, pulling it over both arms and around the blade, where it ripped a little. Her undershirt was white, clinging to her skin, especially where a long slash lay in her abdomen, softly blossomed with blood. She threw the vest to the ground.

Sadly for Diana it seemed like Arbor knew how to fight and how to take punches. As Arbor attacked Diana's attack slowed down due to the pain surging through but managed to hit her off once more. Seeing Arbor fly off she made a dash for her weapon but was cut short due to the pain in her leg from Arbor's bite. She barely managed to pick up the invisible weapon and stand straight. Looking at Arbor she saw the girl with the shield and her vest taken off. 'Metal manipulation, Great'

Betrayal was not meant to protect and so it could not help Diana against one of her rail gun shots. With shaking legs and heavy breathing she quickly tried to find a way to turn this into her favour and end it. She couldn't attack with the whip due to the shield but she doesn't have the capabilities to dodge the railgun AND attack. Her vision got more disoriented as she stood due to the sun's intense rays. 'Absolutely nothing i can use for cover, Why did this have to be the desert.'

'This ends NOW.' Adrenaline pumping in she realized there really is only one way she could win right now. Arbor messing up. She was going to bet everything that Arbor would mess up and then get impaled by the sword. Creating white opaque smoke again but this time it was on a bigger scale engulfing even Arbor due to the wind. Doing so made Diana fall down to her knees unable to feel anything from her chest down, she sat there like a soulless doll. Due to her power being only things she touched she had roughly 5 seconds before the smoke cleared and she would be found. She gathered what ever energy she had left and threw the sword in her general direction then fell backwards awaiting the result. 'Hmph, I guess this was fun. She closed her eyes as she lie in the uncomfortable sand.

Her smoke bending power was something. Arbor felt the brief butterflies of panic dance through her stomach as she tried to see through the smoke, tried to perceive what was to happen next. She put the small shield to her face, anticipating an attack to her head. Instead, she felt the pressure of a blade entering her stomach with a numb thud. She gasped at its suddenness. She did not expect it. It almost seemed random.
To be dying was a scaring, yet weirdly normal feeling. Perhaps it was due to the length of time it took to die from the wound Arbor received. She felt normal and live but awful and dead, all at the same time. A pressure crept up her stomach the jaws of a lion closing in on her. But she stayed standing. When the smoke cleared, Arbor limped over the sand, but she stayed standing, seemingly nothing jutting from her stomach but clearly something at the same time. Blood hit the sand in steady drops, like a faucet left unturned ever so slightly. She shakily moved her hand to where her wound was. Her finger caught something sharp. It was no doubt an invisible blade. This girl wielded an invisible blade.
Arbor staggered again, but looked down to see the girl lying limp on the floor. Her eyes were closed, and she almost looked dead already. However, the simulation hadn't stopped yet. She needed to finish the job. Taking the penny still in her hand, bloodied from feeling around at her stab wound, she gathered all her energy, aimed at the girl's head, and shot the penny point-blank.