2022-03-06: Challenge From Tokyo-3!
- Log: 2022-03-07 Challenge From Tokyo-3!
- Cast: Yoko Nakashima, Asuka Shikinami Langley
- Where: STORAGE HQ, Tokyo
- OOC - IC Date: 3 March 0096
- Summary: After ongoing antagonism, Asuka challenges Yoko to the latter's strong suit: Arm Wrestling. Yoko hopes this might be the end of it. (It isn't.)
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Nakashima has posed.
STORAGE HQ is, as ever, busy. Kaiju may sleep, but not all at once. Yoko walks down the stairs from Windom's cockpit, to meet the head technician. "Bako-san!" She says, with a happy nod.
The older man gives a nod, with a small smile. "Yoko, how's the shakedown?"
Yoko takes a moment to think. "I think one of the jets in the right arm is underperforming, and turning speed is off. And the left ankle feels slightly unsteady."
Bako san gives another nod. "Alright, I'll look into it. Let's get started!" He yells out to his mechanic team, and those not working on Sevenger (really, Haruki) move to get to work. Yoko starts moving towards her office, only to be stopped by one of the newer members of Security. He's quiet, tall, a little older, and decently built. Yoko gives him a once over. "Yes?"
"Ma'am. I'd like to challenge you."
Ah. Of course. Yoko smiles. "You know the terms?" The security officer nods. She looks over the table set up for lunches. It'll do.
A few moments later, a small crowd has formed, a mix of security and mechanics. Bako is conspicuously absent. As is Watahiki. Everyone else, though...
They're watching the match. The security officer is strong but... He's only shifting Yoko a little. She's watching his eyes, while he's watching her hand. And then the flow changes, and suddenly the Security Officer's hand is arcing towards the table. He puts up a valiant last stand, but there's a firm slam of hand on table, and he pulls it away trying to shake out the pain. Yoko smiles. "Good effort. But I don't think it's going to work."
He nods. "...Thank you, ma'am." He walks away, not a sore loser but someone who doesn't want to be at the site of his loss. Yoko starts stretching, as she looks to the team. She knows there's not going to be another challenger, but...
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Asuka Shikinami Langley is in Tokyo today, taking a tour of the STORAGE facilities. One of the few good points she appreciates about Japan is its infrastructure, the high speed trains meant that day trips are not ruled out on school days.
As a result though, she's here in her school uniform, her coat having been checked at the front. A NERV ID Badge clipped to her collar. When the sudden cheers of the crowds draws her attention. A security officer and Yoko in the midst of combat of a different sort.
Slinging her bag over her shoulder, her face taking on a look of casual disinterest, she moves to the edge of the crowd. Watching the Security Officer's valiant last stand - against Yoko Nakashima.
The disinterest seems to fade, as a sort of intensity grows upon her youthful visage. Given the relative age range of the people watching, one might wonder if she's someone's daughter who's been let in, if not for the interface headset and the badge. Yet she doesn't push her way to the front aggressively.
It's only after the security officer walks away respectfully, that she speaks up, and takes a step forward, still holding her bag over her shoulder, "What? No other takers? Is that really the best challenger you've got to offer?"
Her glare as she sweeps the crowd feels razor sharp, contemptuous, like she's got not one iota of respect for anyone here. Before she looks at Yoko off to the side of her, "Hey Ultra Fangirl." Asuka jeers, emphasizing her disrespectful nickname, "Here's an idea for you. Feels like a one and done exhibition match is an anti-climactic way to end the show. Want to put it all on the line against an actual contender for once?"
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Nakashima has posed.
There's a brief silence over the crowd as Asuka declares the lack of challenge. The NERV Pilot makes a hell of an entrance. Yoko narrows her eyes slightly, watching the teen. "Pilot Langley." She responds, to Asuka's taunting nickname.
And then the challenge comes and Yoko's eyes widen in surprise. "Eh!?" Murmurs break out in the crowd.
"What, she's way too young!" "Would Nakashima even take a challenge from her?" "I can't believe even kids like her are interested." "Wow, Yoko-chan even gets to that sort." "What is that kid thinking even?" "Maybe she'll be a surprise."
One of the techs sneaks back to grab a radio. "One the NERV pilots just challenged Nakashima! Yeah, I'll get the camera.
"Eh!?!?" She verbalizes again, as the crowd now means neither of them can back down. If Yoko backs down, she feeds Asuka's ego and makes things worse. And even if Asuka would have backed down, she can't now, her pride won't allow it. So they're both stuck in this now.
"Fine. If that's what you really want, we can do this. But you get one shot, and if you lose, you drop it." She's serious. Very serious. She plants her elbow on the table, waiting for Asuka to meet her. The crowd start gathering. She looks around to the crowd. "And you all keep quiet. This is important."
She can't afford to lose this one. For her pride, and also... She really doesn't want to deal with the consequences. It'd be too weird.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
The comments on her youth causes a twitch of her eye, as her gaze sweeps the crowd with a brutal efficiency, and as she utters her annoyance. "What's your problem!? A challenge is a challenge right? Who cares about my age!?"
Which... doesn't at all clear up her motivation for issuing this challenge. It might just confuse people all the more.
"That's fine by me. One shot is all I'll need to claim victory."
Asuka drops her bag, and suddenly takes her seat at the table, leaning forward to put her arm on the table and her hand in Yoko's - squeezing her fingers against the side of her hand as the two hands interlock.
Yoko seems to have the advantage in actual muscle mass, if one is actually gauging the contest that way. Though Asuka definitely doesn't look like the average teenager in this realm either. In fact, her face sports an almost wolfish grin at this moment.
Like she expects people to underestimate her based on such factors.
"Ready? You sure you don't need more time to rest, 'Ace of Nightmares'?" As she drops the title used in the latest Wanzer Derby after the commission posted results. It's interesting though, despite her bringing it up - she hadn't to the other Eva pilots, like the normal methods of teenager humiliation of circulating such things around just aren't something that occur to her. To her it's more a face to face thing (And the people surrounding them right now, just don't matter), "I won't have you claiming later that you were worn out from your last match." Assuming Yoko, doesn't object, she adds after, "Someone count us down."
Someone in the crowd clears his throat and says, "Counting Down from Three. Three. Two. One. Go-!"
Asuka's initial burst of strength might be surprising, partially from her good genes - being a 'Coordinator' after all, and partially from her single-minded focus on training to be the best, enough that she'll probably at least move Yoko's arm, just enough that it might make her look like she indeed, has the advantage here.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Nakashima has posed.
The two are positioned and the camera is filming- STORAGE are aware of Asuka's tendency to talk shit. They're not meanspirited, but people are going to want to watch. And have proof. "We'll see," Yoko responds.
Yoko actually... rolls her eyes at the title. She's trying mindgames, and Yoko has no interest. This is a test of strength, skill and experience. She looks Asuka in the eyes, and says, with deadly seriousness. "A warrior doesn't go back on their word." Several of the crowd suddenly draw breath. The last time Yoko said this, she almost broke the guys hand.
Lots of people underestimate Asuka. Yoko doesn't, which is probably what stops Asuka stealing an early victory. She uses the first push to gauge Asuka's strength and stamina, and has to save herself with a strong push at 60 degrees. Yoko's eyes are purely on Asuka's, using only feel and touch to feel the fight. A push that strong can only go so long, even for a coordinator. Yoko waits for that moment, and pushes back hard. Should she get that far, she stops a little past the midpoint rather than expend everything on one push. She can make subtle shifts to her angle while keeping to both letter and spirit of rules, give Asuka a bit of a harder pushback.
It's likely to go on like this, but Asuka gets her close to the mat more than once. This is the longest such a duel has gone. Things have changed from excited silence to deathly silence, and the crowd has grown significantly. Sweat is on Yoko's brow, as she watches Asuka. Her endurance has to be waining. She just needs to see that moment of weakness where she can strike.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
"Good." Is Asuka's only response to that statement. Apparently self-confident all the same.
Asuka does overcompensate in her push for an early, overwhelming victory, but that costs her in the long run, as Yoko waits, and pushes back.
Putting her on the defensive though, the teenager's face turns into a frown as she tries to lock her elbow for long enough to recover. Asuka's arm wrestled of course. Plenty of men in the AEU, but she hasn't actually arm wrestled someone who's taken her seriously enough not to drop right away - which turns this into a contest of skill and stamina. Stamina she has, skill she does not. As she's never been seriously challenged before in this realm.
Thus Yoko makes small - inexorable gains with less energy expended, and each time Asuka rallies back - she can never manage the final push.
Still, stamina she has. And stamina she expends, stubborn and prideful to a fault. She keeps going... and going...
The pace of her breathing picks up, sweat beads on her forehead and gets in her bangs. The look on her face is furious, but despite her boasts earlier, she's been mostly silent since the match first started.
Inevitably though, while she keeps hanging in there, the amount of energy she's expended has just outpaced Yoko's from the veteran pilot's greater experience allowing her to conserve, to do more with less. It's enough... that eventually, Asuka's arm finally hits the table, seemingly holding out in that final push as long as she did only out of pure willpower and spite.
And only a single word is uttered from her lips, between the tired intake of her breath, "Scheibe." In that moment, the anger seems gone - driven out of her in tired defeat. And it's been replaced by something else. She's not even looking at Yoko, in this moment she looks like she's sulking.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Nakashima has posed.
The final push is less of the decisive slam watchers are used to. That makes it more interesting, and the crowd erupts when, after what seems like forever, Asuka's hand is forced to the ground. It's a few loud moments, before Bako's voice echoes across the lab. "Hey! Get back to work!" The mechanics go rigid, and disperse. The others slowly spread away, as Yoko...
Offers her hand to Asuka in a handshake. "That was a good effort. You're strong, and your technique is solid. But you rely too much on surprise and a decisive first strike. You don't always have that edge."
She's not really expecting Asuka to accept the hand, or the advice. But she's going to try anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Out of the corner of her eye Asuka looks at the hand offered for the handshake, not even looking at the enthusiastic crowd as they started to disperse.
"Don't patronize me." She says low, and a touch breathlessly, "Acknowledging my talent after you've won... I don't need your pity."
Instead of accepting the handshake, she points at her...
... careful observers might note it's with her other hand. As her other arm has a tremor running through it at the moment and she can't stand more humiliation by trying to use it. "But even though you've won. I haven't lost to you yet."
A sore loser? Though it sounds like she's not in DENIAL about the fact that she lost that match. Simply that she hasn't lost in a more general sense.
"And since I told you I'd drop it - we need another kind of challenge. You have your pride as a warrior right? That's why you were brought on to STORAGE."
It's perhaps shocking enough that she even remembers, given how she's treated Yoko, like she was beneath her notice - easily dismissed. Her eyes however have taken on a competitive gleam.
"Well... show me."
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Nakashima has posed.
"I was offering advice to help you improve." Yoko sighs deeply. "Your skills aren't what I have a problem with. It's your attitude. There are battles you can't afford to lose, and there are battles you can lose and learn from. This was one of the latter."
Yoko just sort of stares at Asuka, declaring she hasn't lost yet. That match would beg to differ. "...You're not going to stop until I do, are you?" Pride is what this was about, of course. And Yoko has wounded Asuka's.
"We have the dojo," Yoko says after a moment. "If that's what you're looking for. Unless you want to set the terms. But if we do that, it'll be after an hour or so. I'll need to clear it with Captain Hebikura. And I'd say both our arms need a rest." She's letting you save a little face, Asuka. She's giving you that opportunity. Please notice it for what is is.
The look on Yoko's face indicates she doesn't expect that to happen.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Asuka looks at Yoko like she just said the stupidest thing she's ever heard. Whatever anger and contempt she's had before within them is nothing compared to the look she gives now. Like she's trembling from sheer rage. It's a moment where it looks like it's simply a problem of her attitude, and it is.
Unfortunately, she can't know that Asuka was conditioned to believe that a loss - no matter how small, might actually be the death of her. There is no learning from loss.
Tearing her gaze to look away, she actually says nothing. She doesn't say 'What are you stupid?' because there's no way she can tear that apart without leaving herself vulnerable. The best defense is silent rage.
Even as Yoko stares at her. "No." She has to correct this matter right away, "I won't."
Immediately she turns and sounds like she's going to say 'right now' - her lips are already forming the words. However, she says she needs to clear it with Captain Hebikura. And that stops her... not even seeming to realize Yoko is trying to let her save face.
"Fine. Clear it with him first."
Yoko might be perceptive enough to notice by now that Asuka seems to at least obey the Chain of Command when one is acting as within a command position. Just not other pilots in the field, even when authority is delegated. It's a paradoxical sort of attitude problem that is in no way okay - but at least offers some insight into her competitive mindset.
"An hour from now. As for the terms... none. A win is a win."
Asuka picks up her bag, and strides out of the room, waiting until she's FAR out of ear shot to ask someone where the STORAGE Dojo is because she's too prideful to ask Yoko herself.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Nakashima has posed.
The sheer rage in this girl is palpable, and if Yoko were a newtype instead of 'just kinda observant' it would be overwhelming. Instead it's merely blatant. Great. Now she's dealing with someone who won't give up.
So she'll respect command off the field, just not if they're on the field. This is ridiculous. "...An hour, I guess."
An hour later, Yoko is waiting in the dojo, doing her stretches. She's dressed in her training gear- a light storage t-shirt, comfortable easy to move in trousers, and her hair in a bun rather than her usual ponytail. If a win is a win, she wants to be ready for Asuka.
Off to one side, there are water bottles and a few energy drinks. They're out of the way, but this may take a while.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Asuka meanwhile, is already warming up when Yoko gets there. Her arm at least - seems fine, though she doesn't seem to be favoring it in her stretches, probably giving it time to rest. Asuka, having come in her school uniform, also means she had a gym bag all along, she'd left it at the front but... it's come in handy apparently.
She personally is in an elastic tank top that she uses when she's around the NERV base, and a pair of athletic shorts. She has a Leotard in her bag for gymnastics too (Her actual favored type of workout) but she's not exactly going to use that for a fight.
Surprisingly, she has her interface headset off for once - and her auburn-brown hair... she too has put it up, though her bun is much messier, like she's not actually used to putting her hair up like this.
"I assume the Captain was fine with it?" Asuka stretches out her arms above her head for one final stretch, "You wouldn't be dressed for this if he wasn't."
Whatever the answer though, she positions herself just across from her. "Anyhow, let's get this over with." Despite her training, Asuka isn't used to most of her fights having rules at all. Or a countdown. If not for having just lost the arm wrestling match, she'd turn her back and tell Yoko to come at her first. "Three. Two. One..."
Instead, she moves sideways, bouncing on the balls of her feet, one arm up higher, while the other is down low. She's apparently taking this more seriously. It's easy enough for Yoko to tell that, because she can see the desire to simply rush Yoko immediately, and yet...
... Asuka's actually waiting for her. Maybe she can learn from loss after all?
... Or maybe she just thinks she can't afford to lose this one.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Nakashima has posed.
"He was." Yoko's fairly comfortable, for the moment. "He said it would be a good training exercise." This is going to happen anyway, she may as well get it over with. And then she blinks. "My thoughts exactly."
Yoko drops into a mid-height stance, and watches Asuka. The fact that she doesn't charge is a good sign. She could wait this out, test Asuka's patience, but that's doing things dirty. And this is a match.
She opens by testing Asuka's range with some quick kicks, getting idea of the speed of her defense. She has an idea of how hard she could hit from the armwrestling. The strength of her defenses, too. In fact a lot of her early attacks ranging and testing, working out how Asuka fights.
When things get going properly though, regardless of how hard Asuka goes at her, Yoko doesn't use any more power than necessary. She saves her strength for her defenses- because that's where she knows she'll need them. The goal isn't to *hurt* Asuka, it's to put her down. And if Asuka gets close enough to try and grapple her, that's when her throwing skill comes in. She's very hard to lock up or lock down.
This is what it is to fight a black belt in her element.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Asuka blocks the first few kicks without doing anything flashy, before trying to catch one of Yoko's kicks between her elbow and her knee. She doesn't quite land it, the kick slipping through just in time.
She quickly shifts from defense to offense, as her foot rounds up and over from an almost impossible angle, while she stays perfectly balanced. She reveals that she's fast too.
Very fast.
Yoko's fought fighters who are both fast and strong though. What Asuka lacks is discipline. While she doesn't charge in, she doesn't really... go back on the defensive.
She throws palm strikes, she tries to grab Yoko's strikes out of mid-air, she goes low and tries to charge in before she can respond, then backfisting while she's whirled around mid-charge. (Yoko would note that she used the arm she used to wrestle with and - it didn't hurt quite as much as expected blocking that one.)
Attempts to grapple are common, though Yoko manages to reverse all of them just in time.
At one point Yoko might swear Asuka tries to head-butt her mid-reversal, just to try and thwart it.
She gets her pretty good, multiple times, but at the same time she gets struck several times for each time she manages to land a clean hit rather than just a graze. Eventually, she's on the ground in a way she can't easily get up from sucking in a breath, panting - as she looks up at her, as she wipes away some blood from the corner of her mouth.
"Well...?" She's not delusional after all, she knows when she's outmatched, and she has been. "... go on then."
She's always had a certain expectation of what the outcome of loss might be. If she's lucky, it'll be an infirmary bed this time...
... but she has no expectation of staying that lucky forever, if she doesn't start winning again.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Nakashima has posed.
Honestly, with formal training rather than whatever she got, Asuka would be a legitimate terror instead of 'merely' a serious threat. She might also be a lot better off mentally, too. Yoko is definitely sweating, and she's gonna have more than a few bruises after that. But it *was* good training. That headbutt, though... Asuka really does only fight to win.
Slowly, calmly, Yoko catches her breath. She looks at the struggling Asuka. The blood from her mouth, though, that's harder than Yoko thought. Uncontrolled. She'd have to do better next time.
And then Asuka tells her to 'go on then' and Asuka furrows her brow. "...Huh?" Does she mean gloat, maybe? That's not her style. "It was close." She walks over to the bottles of water, picking up a towel for herself, then singing it over her shoulder, before grabbing another towel and two bottles. She then walks over to Asuka and places a towel and a water bottle comfortably in reach, before stepping back to open her own water bottle and start drinking. "How serious is that, just a cut inside your lip? Should I get medical?"
Yoko sounds concerned... but she's also trying not to agitate Asuka if she's actually hurt. She's also relaxed significantly. As far as she's concerned, the match is over. That's that. She doesn't revel in victory, or taunt Asuka. She's recovering. That's a wrap. She lets out a sigh. "If you really want a rematch, though, I'd rather it wait a little bit." She sits on the spare mats piled to one side. She's just... resting, now.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Asuka is a bit dazed from the blow to the head, but she'd swear Yoko walked away to get a sip of water? The teenager looks distinctly confused as she remains in position, just concentrating on that. Honestly, the hit to her ribs is hurting her far worse, though they're merely bruised, not broken.
'Should I get medical?'
'If you really want a rematch.'
"Don't... mess with me. 'Rematch'?" Asuka just stares at her, her expression full of naked shock. "You couldn't have thought this was just some... sparring match."
And it occurs to her half a second later, that she did. Were they really on such two different wavelengths? Asuka is a pilot who's always undermining Yoko, insulting her, competing with her. And yet the opportunity came with her at her mercy, and she just didn't. It's so jarring that it hits her like another blow in the match.
She doesn't laugh, or smile that kind of revelation. She isn't that kind of person for such things.
"I don't know if you're stupid... or just soft." Asuka sucks in a breath, as she forces herself to stand back up, bracing against the pain in her ribs as she climbs back up to her feet, "Rematch? You didn't... end the first one." And starts to force herself back into a fighting stance again.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Nakashima has posed.
Yoko takes another sip of water. "I told you when walked in it was a training exercise." She's calm. Cool. Professional. "Captain Hebikura wouldn't have approved a fight, and I wouldn't have requested one. We don't have the pilots to spare or the funding to train new ones, unlike NERV proper." She doesn't speak about the seemingly disposable way NERV treats pilots.
She doesn't actually rise to Asuka's aggression. She takes the towel and uses it to wipe her first. She is now hydrated, calm and looking at Asuka deadly serious. "Not everything is life or death. If you treat every situation like it is, you end up dulled when it matters, because it doesn't feel any different." She's so calm, so quiet. "You can't treat three Zeon remnants in half-repaired Zaku II's the same way you treat the Devil Gundam. They're both dangerous, but it's not the same danger. If you treat sparring like a knife fight..." She trails off, and lets Asuka fill it in.
But she sighs. "I think you can surge through the pain of those ribs. You can easily close the distance. But you can't get off a hit strong enough to actually finish things, even if I don't react in time. You're overspent. And then it would be a decisive loss in a fight, rather than a close sparring match." That might be speaking Asuka's language. "And no one else here can gainsay you but me." She takes a nother drink, finishing the bottle. "And there's no point in doing that, for either of us."
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
"And I'm supposed to just take that at face value?" Asuka says right away, already far too used to people saying one thing and having seven different ulterior motivations. This day's commendation could become tomorrow's brawl. What she says next, makes a certain amount of sense.
Not because the idea of funding persuades her, or training new pilots, or staffing. Because it just screams that Yoko's a person. And ultimately, despite Asuka's distaste for her. Her honest preference is that each and every pilot at NERV that's an actual person would just retire... tomorrow.
So they can just enjoy their normal lives, so she could just get to performing her purpose. It's supposed to be an uncomplicated purpose. Killing monsters so that actual people don't have to. So they can sleep soundly in the knowledge that events like Second Impact just won't happen again.
And yet, every, single, person just complicates it. By trying to draw her into their normal lives. By trying to make her their friend. By admonishing her to play by the rules of normal people. She just hates it. She hates it so much.
She's a thing, meant to kill other things. A weapon. A doll.
And none of them can possibly understand that.
"Maybe you can't." She says of the idea that she can't treat everything as if it's life or death, "I've never had the luxury."
And yet she's being given it now, or so Yoko seems to say with her words. Yet is she really? What happens if she keeps losing, and losing? Already there are pilots who are just as talented as her. One that's even moreso. If she's not the best, then will the day come when she's disposable too? Just as disposable as any of her 'sisters'.
She can't help but still be paranoid about the idea that that day could be TODAY. How many times did she see one of them get dragged off never to be seen again for the smallest of failures, the most incomprehensible of perceived errors.
There's a sharp breath which probably hurts her ribs, and it's clear that she's still considering it all the same. The idea of springing across the gap, taking this to it's inevitable conclusion. She should have already lost. The fact that Yoko couldn't do the obvious could turn it into her win though.
"Don't be stupid. Of course there's a point - whether you can see it or not." Asuka says with a sort of brutal succinctness, before the tone shifts, and her stance shifts to a more relaxed one, as a hand moves to hold her side, and she looks away. "But it doesn't matter..."
In the end, Yoko is a person, she can hate her, insult her, hurt her - but in the end her purpose is to protect her.
"... STORAGE can't spare a pilot, apparently." She says, as she starts to limp over to the side of the Dojo.