Karina clenched her fist as Fang called her tiny again before disappearing, but in the end she found herself smiling a bit. It had been a good fight after all. From that fight however came another more difficult fight as suddenly her and Kel were placed in the same Arena. Karina sighed as she rotated her head, cracking her neck. She had beat a version of Kel in her mark, but Karina wasn't stupid, she knew that Kel by all means was technically better than her. She had seen him fight and it bothered her immensely that she was always just that one step behind. She couldn't let that stop her now however as she stared down Kel. "Know that I am not here to lose. Despite whatever our power differences might be, I don't plan on losing." If there was anything she had compared to Kel, it was passion. She knew she had to win and she had a feeling that Kel was there to be there. Hopefully that determination would be noted.
Karina barely managed to roll out of the way as Fang crashed down on her. Thankfully for Karina, the crash caused Fang to be a bit off balance. "OH you are going to regret that, little one." Fang threatened as she tried to recover, but Karina didn't give her the chance. Sweeping her legs out, she made sure that Fang was down on the ground as she positioned her keyblade over her. "I am not so little anymore." Karina stated as she prepared to attack, only to be swatted away by Fang's spear. "I wouldn't get too cocky yet girl." Fang managed to get to her feet and fend Karina back a few steps, even taking the upper hand. "Looks like you are as small as ever." That comment set Karina off. Instantly she moved off of defense and put up an impressive offensive front. Step by step Karina forced Fang into a corner. "Time to see just how much I have grown." She stated as she kicked her leg up, catching Fang in the hand to disarm her, before pointing her keyblade straight at Fang's heart. "I win"
"Oh, and one more word of advice Fang." Light shimmered and Karina's black coat disappeared, a set of armour shimmering around her took it's place. "I don't lose." She stated as she launched into a series of offensive attacks. Now that Fang was distracted by the fact she threw her keyblade earlier and would be watching for those tactics, Karina pushed on her real strenths. Her shear power and number of attacks where her real specialty, and while she still had other surprises up her sleeve, they weren't ones she was ready to share yet. "You can't scare me Fang, and you can't make me feel small. There is only one person who can manage that, and even then, not anymore. You are nowhere near as terrifying as he is, no matter how hard you try. But now you will find out just the kind of strength one gains from living under the same roof as that." Fang wasn't going to belittle her, she wasn't going to let that happen. Karina believed every word she told Fang as she pulled on what inner strength she had to help her win this battle. Losing was not an option.
Crap, having trouble getting things uploaded and linked http://slickpic.us/2178904g2Om Let's try this
"I am a bit bigger than last time." Karina smiled at Fang. "Good to see you again Fang. I won't lose, I hope you know that." Kari a steadied her keyblade for launching a series of attacked at Fang, ending any small talk they were having.
Here have a picture of Rhodes. I am here today.... Or never mind, picture uploads are going slow on this wifi... Never mind again https://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo/full?photo_id=502239798946
So the castle was cleared out and Mickey was there. That was interesting bits of information that Karina didn't feel like commenting on. She watched as Stratos interacted a little bit with Vincent and Laguna, happy for him to lead the conversation before finally deciding it was time to head over to registration. "Feeling wrong or not, I just came here because I have some steam to blow off." Karina gave a bit of a glare to Beuce before walking straight up to the registration. "I want to register for the tournament, as well as these two I guess." Karina jerked her thumb over at Stratos and Beuce. She then turned back to them. "Well with old familiar faces here we aren't too alone, at least we have back up when things inevitably go sour. And lets face it, we know they will because we are here and when do things ever go nice and simply when we are around. I honestly don't know if we save worlds or curse them at this rate."
Psh odds mean nothing to me, I beat the odds. I am Aelin Ashryer Galthynius. Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows, Blessed by the gods. I am the Fire breathing B*tch queen . I am Aelin Ashryver and I will not be afraid.
Yeah not going to happen. It's my job to stop you
As the awkward situation continued a couple more beats, Stratos ran up to great them. Karina found herself relieved to have a bit of a distraction from the current conversation. "Oh, hey Stratos." Karina casually stated. She couldn't agree with his sentiment about time flying, but each to their own she supposed. "You aren't interrupting too much, just ran into an... old friend." She didn't know what to call Vincent, especially after what had happened in the visions of her world. "Stratos, Beuce, meet Vincent. Vincent, Stratos and Beuce." It was only thanks to Stratos running up that she even bothered to pretend to be polite, and that was mostly to avoid too much questioning that might go too deep. "He was back in... Beast's Castle if I remember correctly." Karina found herself a little saddened realizing that she was the only one who remained of that original group that first met Vincent, but everyone had to go their own way and she couldn't fault them for that.
Karina walked ahead of Beuce to the tournament as a man came towards them, greeting Faust, the Traveling Magician kid that was with them. She didn't recognize him but she watched the interaction for a moment. The man seemed a bit weird, but not in a bad way, just in the way she couldn't quite put a point on him. He seemed a bit too cheerful in her opinion. No wonder he knew Faust. The man pointed out the opponent to beat, and Karina eyed him up. He was sporting his muscles, but she grinned a bit to herself. She knew she was strong, but thanks to her average height and slightly baggy clothing, no one would really know just how strong she was. She could probably use it to her advantage to get the upper hand on the man. Before that thought could go too much further then, a familiar voice cut into the conversation, and Karina looked up shocked. Walking towards the group was a tall man in a red cloak. Her mind flashed to the cloak that Ananta tried to give her after the trial, the one she failed. Quickly Karina looked away, she had to remind herself that that Vincent wasn't real. Her eyes darted to Beuce, looking for help before remembering the awkward conversation earlier and backing off. She didn't know how to face Vincent, but couldn't ignore him either. "It is good to see you too..." Karina tried to make nice as she shifted her weight awkwardly under his gaze. "A lot has happened since last time we saw each other, not all good, but I managed. As for changes, it is a work in progress." She admitted. She was trying but she often found her anger and desire to win beating out over her own thoughts and desires for growth.
Musical Missions here I come! With Counter point, in total that would be 10 crowns -> 300 crowns 900 munny -> 16,780
Karina wasn't good when it came to matters of love or people in general, but she could see that Beuce was getting a bit flustered, and Karina knew that she had just made a huge mistake. "Well there is a tournament happening. I am going to fight some shit, come if you want to, or find the others, doesn't matter to me." She shut down any emotions again, figuring that anger was just the easiest one to deal with. She got angry, she punched something, she became moderately monotone. It was an easy enough cycle to handle. While Beuce's response wasn't really mean or confrontational in any way, she didn't know how to feel about the response. Embarrassed perhaps by her own ineptness in situations such as this. Unable to read the sign doing something stupid. Perhaps it wasn't that bad, but she let the anger at herself for doing something stupid grown and provide her with the power she would need to take down anything as she walked out of the ally, head still held high as if nothing had happened. She set her eyes towards the stadium with only one goal in mind. She was going to win this tournament no matter what.
No raids. Get out of here you filthy pirates.
Karina, the one who could stand up to almost anything without batting an eye seemed shaken. She was ready to raid a Nequa base as clones came after them and she wasn't this unsure. Karina just looked down at her hands trying to figure out how to explain things, by she asked. These generic answers were somewhat helpful, but she didn't think that Beuce fully grasped that she didn't even have the experience of seeing other people in love. "Where I come from, love doesn't matter. You don't love your spouse, at least not when you get married. Marriages are just what pairing would be best to benefit both families most, or in some cases, who would be able to handle the wind non-conformist daughter of the general. Who cared if you loved them, as long as the wife would listen and respect her husband that was all they cared about." She sounded very bitter and resentful when she spoke of the process of marriage in her world, her knuckles were white as she gripped her hands together. "You should know by now there is far and few times where I can say that I am truly happen, much less wanting to share it with someone. Those don't help me, but..." Karina trailed off for a moment. She wasn't naturally a bashful person and would rather just get the words out, but even as Karina wanted to be blunt, she found herself blundering a bit, tripping over her words as her chest squeezed tightly. "I haven't stopped thinking about you since you stopped me from leaving so you guys could give me my keyblade back. No one has ever done as much for me as you have Beuce, no one has cared. I doubt most people trying to figure out if they like someone approaches that same person and asks them about the emotion first, but I can't think of another person here I could ask. It is sad I know, but I am not good at this people stuff, so there you have it. There is why I keep getting distracted and what I wanted to say. And for the record now that it is out there, I still don't know what to do about it, but whatever. I will deal with that later." Karina's voice turned to her normal, slightly annoyed voice when she began talking about other people and her inability to talk with them. She still wasn't letting herself get too soft, just enough to get things off her chest, an experience that was rare for her and Beuce was the only person here that really helped with that before.
Karina wasn't really in the mood for Beuce's joking, but mostly because she was trying her best to stay determined and not come up with something else to do instead. Karina waited until they were well out of the way of anyone who she cared that would listen. The random people that paced through Olympus didn't bother her as much as the thought of any of their comrades hearing. Ducking into an ally she scanned the area nervously before deciding it was completely safe to speak. Taking a deep breath and just blurted out what she wanted to say. "How do you know if you like someone? I mean, like, like. I mean love. How do you know if you love someone?" Karina asked sounding near desperate as she did. More desperate than Beuce likely ever heard her sounding before, even in her worst state of health, when she was nearly unconscious from a beating she took. Losing her keyblade had made her desperate, but that form of desperation was something different, she shut down more when that happened. Now she seemed to be reaching out. "I keep getting distracted with trying to figure it out and I can't. I can't help but think about it and it is distracting. I can't be bothered to even pretend to care about the worlds we are in when all my mind wants to do is sort this out." Karina did her best to explain her reasoning before continuing. "And if you tell anyone about this I will make sure you can't speak for quite a while." Karina threatened Beuce as she fought blush down and did so well.
When a wise man claims that
And here I am soaked to the bone working in the rain
