Big Guns For Bing-Gan

[Kwokinator]

About half an hour later, the would-be bride appears.  She has jet-black long hair that flows freely down to the small of her back.  She is rather slim, and not broad-shouldered and does not look muscular by any means.  With large, deep brown eyes that seem to sparkle with mischief or playfulness and a pair of seemingly inviting lips, she would, by most people's definition, to be very hot.

The turn out for the tournament should be quite good.

[Corwin]

"Seems like we're in for a good show," Bing Gan commented to her escort.

[Kwokinator]

Bing-Gan's comment is met with kind of an awed, silly, far away look in Hao Long's eyes.

[Corwin]

As long as he isn't babbling to her like a fool, she doesn't really care. In fact, she does her best to forget about him.

[Kwokinator]

After about half an hour, an older man walks onto the stage. Looking to be around 30 years old, he seems to be still muscular and strong despite being middle-aged, obviously a result of being a martial artist. The man looks to be a competent martial artist, and not many families hold these marriages tournament if they are not martial artists themselves, since the would-be groom would definitely be one.

"Thank you for your attendance, everyone," the man broadcasts in a  loud, but gentle voice, betraying his somewhat gruffy beard look. "Today I'm holding a martial arts tournament, and the winner will the hand of my daughter," he pointed to the girl that came out earlier. "Li Ting, in marriage. May I have the first two challengers please?"

Two men steps onto the stage, carrying weapons.  One is a burly, gruff man, wielding a dao, who looks to be packing a lot of power in his wide, muscular brame; and the other is a slim young man, who looks to be educated or refined in his posture and look, and carries a jian.

"On this side," the host announced, leaning close to the older man to ask for his details. "A local martial artist, Xia Long!"

"And on this side," the he leans close to the young man and did the same. "Also a local martial artist, Cheng Wen!"

"We're not fighting for life or death here," he added. "So stop if you find you're outclassed, or if first blood is drawn."

The two men bows to each other, then slips into their respective fighting poses.  The older man has his left arm extended and his right arm, the one carrying the dao, held backwards, and his legs mirror that position.  The younger man, however, simply has his arms confidently crossed behind his back.

The young man extends his arm in a "come on" gesture, inviting the burly man to strike first.  And strike he did, he launched xa fury of slashes at the younger man, all aimed at or above chest height.  Cheng Wen calmly parries the slashes with the edges of his jian.  Xia Long increases the speed of his attacks, but it doesn't seem to be able to get through Cheng Wen's steel wall of defense.  Visibly frustrated, Xia Long starts attacking with larger and larger movements.  Sensing an opening in the wideer and increasingly more unfocused attacks, Cheng Wen simply thrusts his jian forward and stops it just short of Xia Long's throat, who halts his slash in mid-strike in surprise, then threw down his dao in frustration as he knows he wouldn't be able to win even if he persists.

A new young man steps onto the stage, about the same age as Cheng Wen, and is announced by the host to be Sheng Bao, and also carries a jian.  This time, Cheng Wen doesn't cross his arms behind his back after bowing, sensing his opponent to be harder than his previous one.

Cheng Wen takes the initiative and flies towards his opponent with his jian extended.  The intended recipient of said move immediately turns around and then half-flips to go into a handspring facing forward, then unleashed an upside-down soccer-style kick to the flying man's chest, the sword narrowly missing his leg by inches.  As Cheng Wen falls to the ground on his back, Sheng Bao pushes off the ground with his arm and performs a 180 and double sommersault, his sword extended, as if he wants to cleave Cheng Wen in half.  Rolling horizontally out of the way, he sweeps out Sheng Bao's legs from under him as he lands from the flip, then jumps backwards to put distance between them.  As if thinking deeply, Sheng Bao stops all movement, and instead taps his chin in thought.  Insulted by such blatant disregard during the fight, Cheng Wen flies towards Sheng Bao again in a duplicate of the opening move.  However, at the last second, Sheng Bao avoids the blade by performing a bridge, putting his sword just high enough to draw blood from the airborne Cheng Wen's chest as he flies over Sheng Bao.

"And first blood goes to Sheng Bao!" the host announced. "Who's next?"

Another man steps up to the stage.  And the next few fights progresses in a relatively predictable way, with new challengers every one or two fights, and no one winning for a long period of time.  That is, until a good-looking young jian user, looking to be around twenty years of age, steps onto the stage and clearly outclasses his opponents by winning five matches in a row.

"Damn, he's good, isn't he?" Hao Long comments to his lovely companion.

[Corwin]

Bing Gan contemplates the young man's skill, before she can answer.

[Kwokinator]

As the young man has just won five matches in a row, it is obvious that he has a great deal of skill.  The first two or three fighters are still a match for Bing-Gan, but the majority of the recent opponents that the young man has just defeated clearly outclasses Bing-Gan in terms of skill.  There are a few along the way of the tournament that Bing-Gan knows she can defeat, but judging from the last few opponents that the young man has just defeated, Bing-Gan knows that the young man is clearly beyond her league.

[Corwin]

"Yeah, he's cool," she finally says. "I'm kinda jealous. Not sure if it's of the bride or him."

[Kwokinator]

Hao Long simply looks at his companion with wide eyes, a hurt expression on his face.

[Corwin]

Taking pity on the guy, she says casually, "Probably of him, after all."

[Kwokinator]

"See?  I'm-urk!" Hao Long begins to say, but whatever he has in mind is cut off when he slams and slouches over the stage.  If anyone cares to look back, they would notice someone from the very back of the ground pushing forward, causing a domino effect that ends in Hao Long getting slammed into the stage.

"And it looks like we have another challenger!" the host announces in his loud, clear voice.

"No, no, I was pushed!  I'm not a challenger!" Hao Long waves his hands frantically in denial.

"Ah, such shyness!" the man teases. "He obviously wants to try winning the hand of my beautiful daughter, and is just too shy to say it!"

"No, no I'm no-AAAAAAAAHHHH!" he cries as he is physically thrown onto the stage by a large, burly spectator.

Hao Long lands on the stage face-first, narrowly avoiding breaking his nose from the stage floor on the landing.

He gets up and immediately tries to run off the stage, but his way is blocked by several mean-looking spectators whose looks promise pain if he tries to leave.  

"Look, this is all a mistake," he waves his hands frantically and tries to explain as he backs away from the opposing young man. "I'm not a fighter, and I definitely don't want to fight someone like him."

The young man's features begins to cloud over as Hao Lao tries to talk his way out of the situation.

"Look, I don't mean anything bad," he tries to appease the other young man, Ao Ba. "But I just don't want to fight you.  It's not like you're not good, or anything..."

Ao Ba's features clouds over a final time, then with a loud growl, runs forward with sword extended in an effort to impale Hao Lao where he stands, despite the host saying it is not a life or death tournament.

"No!  Don't hit me!" Hao Long panicks and squats down, holding his head under his arms, making himself almost a ball.

Unable to stop his run in time due to anger, Ao Ba trips over the human ball and lands flat on his face, at which point the entire crowd erupted in laughter.

Even more angered and embarrassed, his face is twitching as he gets back up to glare at the cowering Hao Long.

Since Hao Long is still on the floor, Ao Ba begins to thrust his sword downwards, trying to impale Hao Long into the ground.  The latter man begins to backpeddle desperately, much to the chargrin of Ao Ba, since he keeps backpeddling just mere inches away from being stabbed.  Frustrated, Ao Ba begins to increase his stabbing force, but to no avail.  Just as it seems that Ao Ba may be able to stab Hao Long, his missed stab accidentally gets his sword stuck into the wooden floor of the stage, and loses his balance and topples forward, just to slam face-first into the retreating Hao Long's knee.

"Err... are you okay?" Hao Long asks as he gets up, apologetic.  His opponent answers with a loud growl, and gets up, wiping his now-bleeding nose.  He charges at Hao Long again, who seems to have finally run out of luck as he blindly charges into the direction of the sword, flailing his arms and crying "don't kill me!"

His leg, however, accidentally gets caught in the small hole created by Ao Ba's missed stab, and trips, falling face-first onto the floor with a loud thud.  Again unable to stop his momentum in time, Ao Ba trips over Hao Long's head and falls on top of him, and ends up slamming his head onto the floor and becomig unconscious.

Noticing a lack of movement from his opponent, Hao Long crawls out from under Ao Ba and stands up, at which point the host walks over to Ao Ba and checks for his health, and he is still alive, just unconscious.

"And we have a winner!" the host announces. "Who's next?"

"No, no, no!  This was all a mistake!" Hao Long tries to explain again, desperately flailing his arms. "I was thrown on here!  I, err, already have someone I love!"

Abruptly jumping down off the stage before anyone can react, he lands beside Bing-Gan and looks at her, desperately winking in an effort to convey the message "help me out here!"

[Corwin]

"Well," she muses out loud, "I could probably challenge you and win, but wouldn't that mean I'd then have to marry that nice girl?"

[Kwokinator]

"Err... just admit you love me out loud and then we get off!" he whispers urgently. "Hopefully..."

[Corwin]

"I'm not sure we're at a stage where I'm supposed to get you off," she says, frowning. "If you want me to help you with the fight you won, I suppose I could... but it would cost your manly pride." Bing Gan shrugs. "Up to you."

[Kwokinator]

"That's not what I mean!" Hao Long is almost at the point of tearing out his hair. "I meant we can just get away!  And what do you mean by costing my manly pride?"