Aerith & Tifa

[Tifa Lockhart]

Zack regarded Leon silently for a moment, eyes admiring the engraving on the Gunblades side. It seemed they had a lot in common... he was quite intrigued.
Flexing his arms and jumping up ad down on the spot Zack made his decision.
"Up for a round?" He asked, stretching his arms, "It's been a while since i've done any proper fighting, i fear i might be getting a little rusty."

Tifa had been paying attention to her own affairs until she heard Zack pose his challenge, she peered over at the two of them, wondering if Leon would turn him down or accept the challenge.

[Elario Luminus]

Leon cocked an eyebrow at the SOLDIER. This wasn't in arrogance, but apprehension. Okay, sure he was good, but he was just human. Zack, like Cloud, was Mako enhanced, maybe doubly so. Leon sighed and grabbed his gunblade and shouldered it.
'You're on. I won't expect to win, though I will try.'
He brought his weapon to his front and stood ready in a battle stance.
'Your move.'

[Tifa Lockhart]

"I'll be gentle." The SOLDIER said with a wink to his now-opponent. His tone was not cocky, despite the statement seeming to be one of ego. He was in fact, just joking around. Zack had long learned to be humble about his abilities because they were afterall, not all his own.
He reached up and unsheathed the buster sword, bringing it around and holding it upright, pressing his forehead against the blade and closing his eyes.
He concentrated.

For a long moment the SOLDIER stood motionless, finding his center, the level on which he was completely in his zone. Finally his eyes opened and he stepped forward, swinging widely with the buster sword.

Tifa immediately relocated to an area further away, near Sora at the console.
"This could be interesting.." She said with a smile.

"If Zack beats Leon, i might have to have a go at him myself." Sora said, his eyes serious as he watched the ensuing battle.

[Elario Luminus]

Leon dodged back and dashed in with a short lunge as a counter attack, then swung upwards.

He wasn't fully concentrating, but he still attacked with enough strength to knock a Sorceress around.

[Tifa Lockhart]

A swift elbow movement allowed Zack to block the counter attack from Leon and then return with a broad swiped of his own starting from his left shoulder and working down across his body, he then brought it up towards his right shoulder in a cross-like motion, finishing this attack off with a horizontal slash before backpeddling and sizing up his opponent.

[Elario Luminus]

Leon blocked these attacks and took a step back. He gripped the hilt of his gunblade tighter, focusing more on his opponent. The engraving on the blade glowed red slightly, and he charged forward, swinging up to his left shoulder, then down to his right hip, and followed it up with a downwards slash, pulling the trigger as the gunblade hit the ground. He quickly lifted his weapon again and back-flipped to his original spot.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Zack took the brunt of the gunblades trigger attack and grunted, straightening again and brushing himself off giving a small laugh.
"I'll never get used to that." He then lunged forward, showing no signs of injury despite being hit directly by the Gunblades trigger attack. His buster sword swung in an arc back and forth once before he jumped back and brought the blade up, pointing the point at Leon, surveying the man down the length of his sword, sizing up his next move.

[Elario Luminus]

Leon chuckled.
'Like I said, it's hard to use at first. Imagine how annoyed my enemies are.'
He brought his gunblade down to his right hip and charged forward, bringing his weapon up his his right shoulder and slashing downwards, pulling the trigger again. He span around and slashed close to the ground, quickly bringing it up in an arc. He took a step backwards, out of reach of the buster sword, circling Zack slowly.

[Tifa Lockhart]

This time Zack dodged the trigger attack to, feeling quite happy with himself for evading it so quickly.
He took a step back, noting his opponent had quickly stepped out of reach. Once in position he jumped up into the air, thanking Sora for the high ceiling and hovered their briefly, spinning the sword above his head. It began to glow yellow and he then jerked it downwards as if in a slash, from it rained a barrage of fireballs, issuing downwards towards Leon.
Zack would then land and run forward to attack while Leon was hopefully distracted by the meteors.

[Elario Luminus]

Leon acted quickly at the use of magic, and focused his own stocks. His gunblade glowed a bright blue, and he pointed his free hand at Zack, launching a series of ice shards back at his meteors. His gunblade shimmered back to its steel colour as he saw Zack coming for him, but far too late. He span out of the way, but the blade managed to catch his shoulder as he did so.
Leon grunted in pain as blood began to pour from his wound. He focused again and his gunblade glowed green, and streams of energy swelled around his shoulder, closing both flesh wound and clothing tear.

((Cause Cure is that awesome.))

Leon looked at Zack, focusing on the battle more now. The engraving on his blade glowed a brighter red and kept that steady level of brightness. He charged at Zack again, dragging the tip of his gunblade across the floor. He swung upwards, then left, right, and across. He flipped backwards and held his weapon like a lance, seeming to fly across the ground and lunging out at Zack, pulling the trigger another time.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Zack blocked the upward, left and right swings, but took the horizontal one across his chest, the blade slicing across his length lightly, the wound began to bleed, but Zack ignored it.
He could cure it later if the need arose, but his Mako treated body would begin healing it soon anyway.
Zack dodged the triggered lance style blow by rolling sideways, a motion that threw him a little askew.
This was glorious! He could feel the sweat building up in his hairline and so shook his head to clear it, save it running down into his eyes and blinding him.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd met someone this challenging, who wasn't souped up with Mako anyhow.
"Nice magic work there." He commented as he feinted from the left and then swung heavily downwards from above, his movements becoming blur-like as he really found his zone

[Elario Luminus]

Leon knelt down and held his gunblade across the flat of the blade to block the swing, then used the recoil to bounce up and swing down from above at Zack, grunting as he attacked.
'Not too bad yourself, Zack.'
Leon quickly focused fully, and dashed backwards away from Zack. He held his gunblade straight up in front of him, and a golden glow span and shimmered around his feet. Leon charged forward at Zack again, sprinting at full speed. He pulled the hammer back on the gunblade and raised his weapon just in time to swing downwards at Zack, pulling the trigger harder, giving the bullet more velocity. Leon swung left, across to the right, up, down to his left again, span around and slashed across a second time, each swing swiftly followed by a heavy pull of the trigger.

Leon jumped into the air and slashed downwards, pulling the trigger one last time. He landed where he started, and held his gunblade above his head, blue and brown streaks of energy flowing from the ground around him. Leon ran at Zack again, cutting a gouge in the ships floor. He wrenched upwards with his weapon, sending himself in an arc back to where he started charging the gunblade.

The ground around Zack exploded with magic as Leon pulled back the hammer again, so ready to try again.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Zack's eyes widened as Leon charged at him and executed a massive assault of powerful simulataneous attacks. Surprised and somewhat unprepared on his side, Zack took the brunt of every slash Leon threw at him, grunting each time the brunette pulled the trigger.

Watching from the sidelines Tifa flinched.
Ouch Zack... you really ARE out of practice. She thought, holding out an arm to stop Sora, who had made a move forward, eyes wide with alarm.
"But he didn't even BLOCK that!" Sora cried.
"Chill Sora." Tifa said with a smile, "Zack's pretty tough... but that WAS a bit odd for him."

Next moment Zack began to laugh from somewhere inside the cloud of debris caused by Leon's attack. Slowly the dust settled, revealing Zack, down on one knee, his sword embedded in the floor for him to lean on. He was still laughing whole heartedly.
Slowly the SOLDIER pushed himself to his feet, brushing his dust covered clothes off, ignoring the multiple bleeding wounds on his arms and torso. He reached up to wipe some blood off of his lip.
"THAT, was AWESOME." he said, wrenching his sword out of the ground and sheathing it.
"Truely AMAZING." He couldn't stop himself from laughing as he walked forward and offered a hand for Leon to shake.
"I think i'm done for now, i've learned enough for one day." the SOLDIER was grinning from ear to ear.

He was cut across his shoulders on both arms, a diagonal cut had clipped his chest and a small slice had caught his forehead. They all bled lightly but the previous wound across his chest was already scabbed over and healing.

[Elario Luminus]

Leon laughed with Zack, and shook his hand.
'That's something I forgot to mention to you; the harder the trigger's pulled, the more power the shot has. Glad you enjoyed yourself.'
Leon walked over to a large area of the ship and swung his gunblade left and right, getting it to rest finally on his shoulder. he glanced at it, noting that it was now clean, and sheathed it. He walked over to lean against the wall, breathing slightly heavy. His necklace glowed a slight shade of green, and Leon felt some of his energy come back to him.

Leon looked at Zack, suddenly realising that he's probably cut him up something dreadful, but was shocked and intrigued when he saw that Cloud's best friend was already healing.

[Tifa Lockhart]

"Tch." The SOLDIER clicked his tongue as he inspected his clothes, mourning the tears in the fabric. "I wanted to leave the cuts there so i'd remember to block next time..." he grumbled as he reached into his pocket and produced a small green sphere, which glowed as he held it in the air above his head, and showered him in green light, what was left of his wounds healing, the tears in the cloth fixing up as well.
((Yay! XD))
This done he looked up, and noticed that Leon was looking at him strangely, realizing it must be in relation to his quick healing (Without the cure materia).
"Ever heard of Mako?" He said, walking over to the Brunette who leaned against the wall.

Sora was gabbling away with a myriad of questions to Tifa, who was answering them as patiently as she could manage.