It was with gritted teeth and a strained smile that Aegle regarded her friend. Her posture had deteriorated, and her body trembled occasionally with the throbbing of her injuries, but the crystalline focus of her emerald eyes had not diminished. Throughout their fight, Aegle had kept those eyes on Lily, watching every movement, absorbing everything she could about the way her friend moved, and those eyes shone brightly still. She might not have made the magical connection that would let her tell a feint from an earnest punch, but that had not made her stop trying. That was why she found Lily's hesitation so vexing. Why did she have to stop and talk? This had been her idea, hadn't it? Rather than point that fact out, however, Aegle decided to take a more proactive approach. She could tell Lily wanted to stop, but she was by no means ready to let her. 
"You said six hits." Aegle said firmly, her smile broadening to show off her pearly white teeth. Given just how good she was at taking a punch, it was a real wonder she wasn't missing more of them. "You haven't won till you hit me six times."
Drawing as deep a breath as she dared, Aegle made herself stand straighter and pulled back her shoulders as far as they might go. Then, with a bit of effort, she brought her hands away from their respective guards and cracked her bandaged knuckles loudly together.
"I get six tries to stop ya!" Aegle all but shouted, before she brought her hands up in a half guard like what she'd shown Lily before. "I've had four, that means I get two more!" Her aura, not her semblance, swelled out from her as she spoke, and her eyes sparked, dangerous as verdant flames. Immediately, with force and range dwarfing Lily's own display, Aegle bathed those for dozens of yards in either direction and filled them with the determination to defy reality itself. For an instant, golden waves radiated off of her in all directions, creating a vibrant corona with Aegle at its center. 
"Stop treatin' me like I dunno what I'm doin'!" she yelled at Lily, the sheer volume and outrage she managed to inject into her words sufficient to draw glances from all around them. Then the glow vanished and left behind only a shadowy after image of where Aegle had been standing. Meanwhile, the orange haired boxer threw herself towards Lily. It was an awkward, limping stride that carried Aegle towards her friend and foe, and it was an awkward and wounded attack she made, for she moved without her semblance's help. It was only Aegle's inherent determination which could account for the sudden ferocity with which she acted.

Sweeping left with a wild backhand that swat beneath Lily's guard, Aegle followed up with a unbalanced jab that made her cringe even as she threw it. Yet throw it she did, right at Lily's face.
"Shut Up!" she snarled as she swung.
"Put 'em up!" she continued, forcing each word out despite the pain in her chest and side, "Show me what'cha got!" Throwing herself forward, Aegle followed her jab up with an ambitious haymaker. Too ambitious as it turned out, for her stance was already over balanced by the preceding jab, and the haymaker went wide of Lily's jaw. Trying to catch herself, Aegle slumped over one knee and nearly lost her footing entirely. Yet, with resolve, she forced herself up again and drove a rising cross into Lily's stomach to fend the faunus girl off. Then her legs really did give out, and she stumbled back from her opponent, plainly in no condition to throw the frenzied combos for which she was known. Breathing raggedly, she half stumbled and half stepped back into guard, with one hand before her face and the other before her waist. Her head was swimming, her lungs and sides burning, but none of that kept her emerald eyes from glaring at her friend, nor her thin lips from sneering their savage grin. And then she launched herself towards Lily, ready to do it again. 

"Bring it!" Aegle shot back shortly. Though she gasped out each word, that hardly diminished the fierceness in her tone nor the lambent light in her emerald eyes. Even the faint trembling that wracked her body seemed more the result of nervous energy than actual physical debilitation. Her passion, now roused, would not be so easy to balm as Lily's had proven to be. While what she felt in that moment couldn't be described as anger, there was a sharpness and intensity to her attitude which was still quite unlike the affable young girl. While she was plainly in no position to defend herself, struggling to stand as she evidently was, she maintained every impression of one from whom indolence should not be mistaken for passivity. 

Aegle made good on that very threat when, as Lily flowed in to resume the assault, the smaller girl contested her charge and lashed viciously out at her. As Lily positioned to take her first false swing at Aegle's arm, Aegle, without hesitation, answered with a shotgun jab aimed right at Lily's cheek. It was only the faunus girl's quick movements and her failure to commit to her first strike which saved her from catching a few scarred knuckles on the chin, but the moment it took for her to re-position and throw a second fake punch was all the time Aegle needed to correct her aim and crack her directly between the eyes with a follow up jab. Before her second punch, certainly not a feint, had even finished colliding with Lily's brow, Aegle brought a third around and slugged her friend solidly across the jaw as well. It was in this fashion that Aegle made her point to her friend, by landing two solid blows in the same time it had taken Lily to fake as many. Yet, just in case she hadn't been clear enough, Aegle drove her point home by driving a third punch into the faunus girl's gut. At this last blow, Aegle's posture finally collapsed as her legs, tensed to put a little force into her gut punch, and already wobbly from the preceding abuse she'd received, gave out beneath the strain. Stumbling back a couple of steps, it took an evident exertion of her formidable will for Aegle to bring herself back into stance. No single hit had been strong enough to penetrate a readied aura, let alone drive Lily from her feet, but she had made her point.

For, while there could be no denying that Lily was the faster, stronger and more graceful of the pair, there were three things Aegle did with unfaltering efficacy. These things were to counter, combo and endure, and her abilities in each field, through sheer determination and mindless repetition, far outstripped the faunus fighter. Shuddering faintly, Aegle brought her trembling hands back into guard and glared her challenge at her friend. Even if she did not come right out and say it, such a look was very suggestive of what the orange haired girl must have been thinking; This was why she hadn't been defending herself, because defending herself would have meant active interference in the goal of their contest.
"Kay." She said, terse with exertion and discomfort, "Now shut up and hit me."

Like the throwing of a switch, Aegle's profound and nearly irresistible compulsion to counter was mastered and the small boxer answered her friend's attacks with what appeared to be little more than the utmost antipathy. Again, she responded to each threat Lily made and every suggestion of a strike she inferred by simply watching the faunus girl and moving to always keep her in sight. Gone was the affability and innocence, and in their place remained determination of a singular quality. It was shocking to see such passion as Aegle commanded honed to so fine a point, and it gave her usually expressive features an almost inhuman stiffness. Aegle was not an overly proud person. Life had dealt her a losing hand too many times for even her atypical sensibilities to mistake her overall worth as a person or fighter. If anything, nearly a decade of difficulty had taught her just how worthless she, and by extension every other living person, was in the grand scheme of things. So no, she was not proud. Yet she still had some pride, and any amount of pride could be wounded. For, as different as Lily was when compared to most people, she'd shown herself to be entirely too much like everyone else in how she regarded Aegle. And that was not something Aegle, for as simple and oblivious as she typically was, could entirely miss. Lily still doubted her, still assumed she was too dumb or too weak to do the thing she'd dedicated most of her life to doing. And that was not something Aegle could just forget. She might forgive, but not until the fighting was over, not until she had won or lost. Until then, she wouldn't forgive that Lily still did not trust her. Indeed, this whole match had resulted from the fact that Lily didn't think Aegle could defend herself. Nevermind the fact that Aegle had been fighting, successfully, against other hunters in training and Grimm alike for nearly five years. Nevermind the fact that she'd been learning how to fight since the time she relearned how to walk. Nevermind that, no matter what anyone said or thought, she was just as good a huntress as anyone else in her class. Aegle wasn't the kind of person who dwelt on things such as these, but how could she not think about them when Lily was constantly rubbing her face in it? How could she not get angry that the faunus girl, despite saying she was sorry for what she'd said the first day they met, clearly still thought of Aegle as little more than a particularly tall child?

Aegle would show her. Aegle would show them all. She wasn't some dumb cripple who couldn't or wouldn't defend herself. She wasn't some worthless invalid, fit only for being taken care of. She was Aegle Vitus. She was a fighter, and she knew just how tough and just how strong she was, and she wasn't ever going to let anyone think otherwise. Not if she could help it. 

Not one of Lily's fake punches threw Aegle off, nor did any movement she made so much make Aegle flinch. Lily might have been a wisp of smoke, harmless and insubstantial, for how Aegle's posture and stance regarded her. It was only her eyes, twin emerald lights of smoldering, wounded determination, that said otherwise. It was Aegle's eyes which seemed to regard Lily for the threat she truly was, and they watched her as intensely and closely as if the faunus girl were armed and aimed to kill. The first punch that Lily actually landed did manage to make Aegle cringe, but not from anything other than the blunt impact, for Aegle gave no sign that the punch had actually surprised her. Nor did she betray anything more than the most visceral aversion as the second blow landed and drove her a half step back. Injured as she was, it was beyond her powers to stand up to such treatment with her usual indifference, but there was no sign that it was anything other than brute force which had made her give up ground to her friend. 

Cringing as Lily withdrew, Aegle breathed through gritted teeth and wavered upon shaking legs. Her spirit remained unbroken, but it was painfully apparent that the same could not be said for her body. Still, her emerald eyes found Lily again, and a moment's expression of will was all she needed to bring her trembling under control. Shuddering quietly, she pulled her hands up into mixed guard once more. 
"One left," Lily told her.
"I can still count..." Aegle answered. Rolling her shoulders, she popped her knuckles by doing no more than curl her hands into fists, then gave a perfunctory bob of her head. 
"S'that really as hard as ya can hit? Not hurtin' yer hands on my crippled body, are ya?" though she spoke with a quaver in her voice, Aegle delivered her taunt with her trademark solemnity, even if it was a bit more barbed than usual. 

If Aegle felt at all abashed about her snipe at Lily's expense, she didn't show it. And if Aegle didn't show something, it was a pretty safe bet there was nothing to show. She was angry at her friend. Furious even. For a girl where ninety percent of her world was on the surface, actions spoke to her far, far louder than words. A person could say just about anything, and Aegle would usually give them the benefit of the doubt, but she couldn't help but notice when their actions and words didn't equate. Lily was one such case. She kept telling Aegle how strong she thought Aegle was, how she wasn't underestimating her, and then she pulled punches, threatened to stop fighting, or asked Aegle to quit. At least, that was how it seemed to Aegle. But she would show her. She'd show them all. Aegle was done being treated like an invalid. She was done being treated like some pathetic cripple who couldn't take care of herself. Nobody knew better the limitations of Aegle Vitus, so who better to push those limits? That was what Lily didn't get. That was what none of them got. She knew what she was doing, she knew where to push and how hard to do it, because she spent every moment of every day figuring it out.

It would have been wrong to think that each one of these thoughts and fine impressions occurred to Aegle in the fractional instants in between Lily's attacks. The fact was that she barely thought at all whenever she fought, and the majority of her mental powers were bent towards keeping her own ingrained instincts leashed so that her friend could attack, unmolested. Yet Aegle was never without these thoughts and these fine impressions, for they served as some of her strongest motivations. They were, in part, the driving force behind her indomitable will and unparalleled determination. They were a the fire which her exceptional and personal hardship and built, as well as the bellows which tended that ever burning blaze. They were one of the cornerstones of who and what Aegle Vitus was.

What Aegle was actually consciously thinking as Lily came in for her final barrage, was that quite simply that this would be Lily's final barrage. That fact impressed itself at the forefront of her mind, ahead of all other considerations and concerns. For, while this whole contest had started as a way to humor Lily and maybe develop in an area where she was apparently lacking, Aegle never met any challenge with anything less than one hundred percent effort. Given all her shortcomings and evident weaknesses, she simply couldn't afford to tackle obstacles in any other way. And it was now, during her last chance to prove Lily wrong, that all the indolence and counter-intuitive inaction potentially paid off. She felt all the familiar urgings, all her cultivated responses and fine tuned reflexes, pluck at her as Lily threw her next punch, as they did when Lily followed up with kick. And each time she held back. Because it was no longer those acute instincts which she wanted to listen to, but something finer and more minute. Something which, up until this very match, hadn't even been there.

Another fake jab rushed towards Aegle's face and, in the briefest of instances, she realized it wasn't going to land. Well, realized might have been too strong a word. What Aegle realized was that her friend was throwing a punch, with every indication that it was aimed for her face. The impression which accompanied that realization was far more fine and minute. Yet, like a piece of grit in a slice of bread, it stood out to Aegle as something which didn't belong. Nearly as soon as she recognized the inconsistency, Lily's fist sailed harmlessly past her face, and then something happened which Aegle couldn't have wholly explained. Lily's claws sank suddenly into the back of her head as the slender feline yanked Aegle forward with the very hand she'd failed to connect a punch with. The sudden pain took Aegle by surprise, which was saying something given that few things ever surprised her in a fight. Even Lily's prior feints and fake punches had failed to actually surprise her. In order to be surprised, one's expectations needed to be subverted and, for that to happen, one needed to have expectations which could be subverted. Which was exactly why Aegle prepared for anything and expected nothing. Yet she had been surprised. Before she could even recover from that surprise, Lily's forehead came crashing down upon her own, and Aegle did exactly nothing to stop it. 

The sudden, bony crack shook through Aegle like the tone of a bell. Her exceptional and unnatural constitution faltered for an instant as everything shook in the violence of that blunt connection. When reason returned, Aegle found herself staring through misty eyes at her friend's aghast features. A new, fresh hurt throbbed and seared at front and back of her head, and the faint trickle of blood was felt to be flowing down both her cheek and the nape of her neck. Lily had evidently pulled back, but the two still stood close enough to touch and, as Lily examined her bloody claws, Aegle, battered, bruised and bleeding, took account of her own body. She hadn't moved. She hadn't countered. She'd just stood and taken the hit. She'd lost. It took a moment for it to sink in but, when it did, the effect was profound. Wordlessly, Aegle dropped her hands and let her fists uncurl. The fire in her emerald eyes, half glazed with her own tears, abruptly sputtered out, and the full weight of her injuries seemed to settle upon her all at once. Confusion, bare and naked and raw, spread across her bloody face, followed shortly by profound disappointment. A mixture of emotions, too varied and voluminous to be parsed by so insensitive a girl, flooded into Aegle and set the world spinning about her. Closing her eyes, she grit her teeth and briefly gave in to the most easily identified of these emotions, that being anger and frustration. Both, rather than being directed at Lily, were directed at herself. Aegle turned away from her friend, pulled a fist as tightly as she could, and let that anger surmount absolutely every other emotion, till it was all she could feel.
"You win." She said, defeated. Then she limped way from the arena, Lily, and the utter humiliation she'd suffered at the hands of both.