It had happened just as fast as his own attack. He felt his keyblade connect with her as he caught a glimpse of her striking his keyblade towards him. At the time he'd figured that he'd be finished with his attack before she could finish hers. Now, however, he was lying on the ground in an immense amount of pain. "Ow. Okay, what the heck was that?" Kel wasn't even trying to hide his confusion as he slowly worked his way to a sitting position. He may have had the strength to get back on his feet, but to swing his keyblade was a different matter entirely. Kel soon saw that Karina was still standing and sighed. "Guess I'll take this as a loss, but only this time."
Both of his attacks had hit their marks and yet Karina didn't do anything in response. No witty remark, not the counter-attack of her own, nothing. She just stood there, staring right at him with a roaring fire in her eyes. That and the growing power coursing through the arena were both reasons keeping Kel from immediately attacking. Whatever she was doing, it was gonna be big and his instincts were telling him that it would be best to stop her now before it could go off. Kel adjusted his footing and held his keyblade to his side, taking in a deep breath he vanished. Leaving a trail of cherry blossoms behind him as he intended to end this with a Zantesuken of his own.
Fortunately Kel was able to adjust his hand to block Karina punch, fighting through the stinging that followed through his arms as he was knocked away from her. Before he was able to prepare a counterattack of his own, the spot Karina had punched soon detonated and while all his limbs were still intact, it definitely hurt, to say the least. "Good move, but try this one." With keyblade in hand, he stuck it into the keyblade calling forth a torrent of waves that surged towards Karina. Even if she should manage to avoid this attack, the ground around her would still be wet with water, making it the perfect conductor for the electricity that shot forth from his keyblade.
Kel had briefly thought that things were going exactly as he thought they would as he saw Karina prepping for her next attack, but that illusion came to an end when he recognized the attack that she was preparing as Zantesuken. This revelation greatly limited what he could do to feasibly prepare for this strike. His keyblade was still away from him, leaving him wide open even if he took the time to call it back to him. Time was running out and Kel did the one thing that he could think to do and brought in his arms to defend himself against the blow that had connected moments after the decision was made. It was a strong hit, one that had knocked him back, but fighting through the pain in his arms Kel's ice-coated keyblade returned to him in time for him to make a strong leap towards Karina as a barrier formed around her. The barrier crashing into her was sure to do some damage and he had every intention to follow that collision up with a strike from his keyblade while he was that close.
Kel had kept a close watch on Karina as she circled around him, not taking his eyes off her for a second. One of the two things that had been successfully beaten into him, both figuratively and literally, was to not take your eyes off your opponent lest you give them an opening to attack. He remained on guard, keyblade in hand, waiting for her to make the first move. It became clear that Karina wasn't going to be the one to make the first move, leaving that up to him. There were a number of ways that he could go about that and most of those definitely left him open for a counter-attack. This is where lesson two came into play, be one step ahead of your opponent, which made him wonder if he could bait out Karina's attack and respond in kind. Kel waited until Karina had walked in front of him again before leaping back and tossing his keyblade at her. Midflight the spinning blade was coated with a thick sheet of ice as it drew closer to its target.
Given that Vincent had been one of Kel thought looked on the stronger side of things, he was quite surprised when the fight had ended in one blow from him. It was short and he did win, but it didn't really feel like he had earned it. His next match would not have the issue as he was paired off against Karina. "And whatever those differences maybe, I won't go down without a fight. So may the better man win." This seems to fit within his general luck, somehow manage to get an easy win in the first round, then get put up against someone that will make him work for a victory. He held no complaints though as while he held no real drive for the tournament's prize, his competitive side was looking forward to this match.
Kel shall attack, with Vorpal Blitz
I am uncaged...I CAN use my turn to unlock Beuce
Kel did the only thing he really could do an attacked.
Kel used Fist Bump and Splattercombo on the cage
Seeing Vincent avoid his attack with ease, it was a pretty quick indicator on how he should approach this fight. Range would not the best against someone who could just easily outclass him in it. He avoided the bullets until the next time Vincent had to reload before beginning his charge, covering his approach with a burst of thunder as he further moved to closed the distance between the two. With one more step, Kel's offensive had begun with three consecutive upper slashes towards Vincent.
Kel had just enough time to wonder why he was given the unlucky number of 13 before being whisked away by black smoke to where he assumed he would be fighting. It was much smaller than he was expecting, especially considering that they were fighting in a coliseum. He'd thought that they would have the entire arena for their fights. Oh well, there was still enough room to move around. When the intros came rolling, he was confused by Vincent more so. Did he really look gloomy and creepy at all right now? Seeing Vincent hang his head though, Kel opt to not question that any of that any further and instead whispered back "And I don't think you're spooky either." The fight soon began and so did the rain of bullets from up above. Dodging out of the way, Kel responded by launching his keyblade out towards his cloaked opponent.
Kel listened to what AJ had told him and the whole curse that would make them younger made him feel somewhat better about ending up in space with a bunch of space pirates. When it came to everything about Hades though, that was a different matter as he didn't really know who that was, so as far as he knew there was no reason for him to be suspicious of anything regarding this tournament. Least for right now as given their general luck, something could easily come up and change that midway through the competition. "I've been alright considering that I got spat into space and met some less than friendly space pirates." He chose to leave out the fact that he nearly died twice, once cause of Castur pushing buttons and another when an entire planet was rigged to explode.
I too shall sign up for the Iron Imprisoner
Admittedly Kel was a bit curious about why Karina had dragged Beuce away and thought about it slightly as he walked. It wasn't on his mind for long, mainly due to his level of curiosity, but long enough for the rest of the walk to coliseum gate to be over a lot faster. By the time he had gotten there, there were already some of the other presumed participates. He didn't know what to think of them at first glance. He wasn't the best at gauging one's strength at a glance, but the man with the tattoo looked to be fairly strong. The same could be said about the cloaked guy that Karina was talking to. Speaking of, the more he looked around, the more spotted people he did know, Like Karina, Beuce, and Stratos. And people he knew to varying degrees, this being AJ and...Faust? After taking a quick headcount Kel ended up walking over towards AJ, waving once he got close enough, and asked: "How have you been since getting out to that whale?"
View attachment 50403
Down below is the truth
Kel got the feeling that Karina was even more unimpressed with him, but at this point, the only thing that he could do was stick with this decision of his for now. That lead to him being able to see the two other pirate ships appearing overhead. From where he was standing it was nice to know that the others had gotten to this world safely, even if he couldn't confirm for sure. Technically the only one he did manage to see Beuce, though it was more him being dragged away by Karina and the apparent sheer determination in her eyes that he truly witnessed. Well okay then, that was likely his cue to actually go the right way to where he had originally intended ongoing and he did just that.
Kel had gotten the tone pretty loud and clear thus why he didn't immediately say anything back. Just immediately turning around and going the other way would do, so it seemed like he would have to play through this situation for now. Fortunately, she'd given him an out to this small conundrum. "The whole tournament sounds interesting so I thought I'd tag along with you until I could just break off and go there myself." No sooner than he said that though, two random people walked past them, talking going to said tournament right now while walking in the complete opposite direction they were currently going. "And I now have the feeling that I'm going the wrong way."
Once back on the ship, Kel couldn't help but sigh in relief. Not because of the highly impromptu plan of literally kicking the ship through a gateway, but how they had managed to do so before the explosion of the planet caught up to them. The was much rejoicing following and they were even given a ship of their own to use to leave. Kel didn't have a whole lot of say regarding Ignis's decision to stay with the pirates so he merely gave her a wave as they left. "I suppose I'll follow her, maybe check out this tournament along the way." The people walking around, talking to themselves about said tournament and various things that they had seen at the marketplace vaguely reminded him of his own home, which led to a reminder of the bread seller who he always ran into at the market. More than enough reason for him to check out the tournament first even if he didn't have some actual interest in it. Kel managed to weave his way through the crowd, catching up to Karina to hear her mumblings. On the one hand, he could comment on that now, revealing that he both decided to tag along and hear her. Or he could keep that to himself till a later point as it wasn't his place to pry into this sorta thing. Especially not with his own limited knowledge on the subject. "So who do you think we'll see first?"
