Description: Mysterious inspiration leads Rose to lay in wait for an agent of Shadoloo. Unfortunately for her, it's Cammy. | The orders of Lord Vega send the Killer Bee out to disable a troublesome local law enforcement official. Unfortunately for her, it's Rose.
12:45 AM - Goa, India.
Goa was a smaller state in India - and it had a fairly robust tourist trade. So, it was fairly safe - at least compared to many other locations in the world. There was still the threat of harrassment, of theft, of robbery...
And sometimes even murder.
Rarely of police, however. Corruption was rampant in some provinces of Goa - men and women who had no qualms about what they did so long as money exchanged hands readily. Not so Vidya Balan. A female beat cop - her devotion to the ideals of justice and fair government threatened a great many criminal interests in the area. That included those belonging to Shadaloo.
Vidya lived in a fairly average home with her husband and children, and at this time of night - all were sleeping. Or so Cammy believed. Dressed in a crimson cloak worn over her Doll uniform, the Doll swung through an open window in the fairly humid, but slightly cool (for Goa) night, landing in the living room of the place. Cammy lands in a squatting crouch, one gloved hand extended before herself. And slowly - slowly - she rises to her full height, form still cloaked by what she wears.
The living room is modest but well appointed, with couch and a small entertainment center. The lights are off, of course, but why wouldn't they be?
After all, everyone's asleep.
Laying in bed in the master bedroom, a figure stirs. Rolling onto its side, it lets out a small sigh. To the alert attentions of one who is listening carefully for everything, this sounds wholly as planned. Someone shifting in their sleep.
Inwardly, Rose pouts, just a little bit. She had done several clever things after misrepresenting herself as the agent of a documentary crew and giving Officer Balan and her husband a significant chunk of what she had just won at the Saturday Night Fights for three days' rental of their home.
And then that man's agent swung in through the DOWNSTAIRS window!
Cammy always preferred - when doing home invasion missions such as this - to enter somewhere innocuous and approach the bedrooms from inside. Surprise worked as a factor in many things, but Cammy trusted in her ability to stay silent, and her ability to stay undetected by a great deal of people.
And, after all, this was just a woman and her family. If she could work silently enough, she wouldn't have to kill any... innocents. Not that she should care about such things, the mission was foremost in her mind.
But she still... would... prefer to do things cleanly. At least, that's what she told herself.
And so, with whisper-quiet steps, the Killer Bee makes her way into the bedroom proper, her eyes narrowed as she eases open the door to the same, a crimson shadow against the night.
But something was already wrong. There was only one form in the bed. There should be two, but...
Perhaps that would help keep things clean. It was fast - lightning fast. Cammy lunges forward, and hopes to drive a curled fist into the head of the figure, her cloak catching the breeze from the movement and snapping behind herself.
Laying there, sprawled out in a chemise - and Cammy, if she is prone to observe such things, would probably notice that if she had approached from the window of this bedroom, she would have seen a rolled over form, composed of pillows, but perfectly shaped to resemble a husband of the proper size.
But that's not what she gets.
The fist slams down towards that hidden head - and a hand comes up, catching it in one well-manicured grasp, holding still. Muscles tense as the force of Cammy's cop-killing blow is dissipated, and there's a bit of effort in the voice of the woman, still otherwise feigning sleep.
"My, my... How direct of you."
Her fingers tap for a moment on Cammy's knuckles -
And then Rose vaults upwards, lunging past her, towards the master bathroom's doorway! Whereupon she pivots around, reaching in - to pluck a yellow scarf off the towel rack.
"A cape... how dramatic. But you'll have to forgive me, dear. You see, I knew you were coming -- but we haven't been introduced..."
COMBATSYS: Rose has started a fight here.
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Rose 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Cammy has joined the fight here.
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Rose 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Cammy
That initial blow was intended to stun - to disorient.
In Cammy's mind, as she lunged forward, she was already planning her next motions. To fling off the bed sheets and intend to entangle the other form - the husband's form in the same. And if she were lucky, she might have been able to deliver the death blow before he could see anything more than a shadow in the night.
But... life... was always complicated.
Cammy - the force of the blow disappated entirely - Cammy just blinked down at the bed, stunned. Stunned as her plans fly out the window, stunned as her mind adapts to the changing circumstances. It was fast, lightning fast, that switching of her mental trains.
But fighters have lost matches in less time. Whirling around, both of her gauntleted hands leave her cloak now as she assumes a more dramatic fighting stance, both of her fists curling as her eyes narrow in a steady gaze on the other. Mind roils - shifts, attempting to match this situation to some protocol or another.
But the mission takes precedence. "You will tell me where Vidya Balan is, or you will be terminated," says Cammy, her voice a monotone - even if her expression was warring between blankness and an angry focus.
COMBATSYS: Cammy calculates her next move.
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Rose 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Cammy
"Rather a long name, I'm afraid," Rose replies with a smile as her scarf whirls its way down her arm. "Do you mind if I trim it down a bit? Let me see -- you don't seem like a 'Euell' to me..."
Rose taps her lips for a moment. She takes a leisurely step towards Cammy
"Or a Ted," Rose says, as she whips one leg forwards at the side, aiming to snap the ball of her foot forwards, right at the side of Cammy's jaw!
This would be bad enough, and Rose's leg is certainly not one that is weak. The real problem, of course, is that there is a sort of light gleaming between her toes. In a certain context this would be faintly ridiculous - literal twinkle toes! But Rose is not in her habitual red pumps, having been, of course, in bed (and dear Vidya not being the sort of woman who wears heels to bed).
That touch of glittering Soul Power is like a crystalline shard of quartz sparkling gorgeously in the sunlight, and also being driven invisibly into the skin.
COMBATSYS: Rose successfully hits Cammy with Light Kick.
Grazing Hit
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Rose 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Cammy
The joke seems to fall flat on the Doll's features, her head quirking a bit to one side as those wide - emotionless blue eyes focus in on Rose's face. There was something... off about the woman. Moreso than the fact that she seemed to be standing in the way of her mission like this. Something... ...
Familiar?
Cammy twists to one side, cloak snapping still as that kick comes in. Fast fast. It was very much so - and perhaps it was her cloak in the way that saved her from something even more damaging.
There was something familiar about the other woman. And that was felt in the rush of energy that coincides with the kick. In fact - most of the damage of the kick was felt in those glittering sparkles - sparkles that seize her heart and warm it.
Warm hearts are a good thing, except when one expects their heart to be ice.
Cammy - with a sweep of her arm, divests herself of her cloak, tossing it to one side - those wide, open eyes still upon Rose. Even if her brow was furrowed. "Identify yourself - have you hidden her?" she asks then to the quipping Rose, ducking low.
Leaping high then, Cammy digs her hands into the ceiling, dust and spackle falling as she seizes handfuls of the roof - and uses it to swing forward, snapping her legs at Rose proper.
COMBATSYS: Rose blocks Cammy's Cannon Strike.
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Rose 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Cammy
This woman is no fun at all, thinks Rose, still innocent perhaps of what has happened to this woman and her blank expression. Cammy snaps aside, leaps up, and grasps the rafters before aiming a kick at Rose.
No, one HUGE kick with both legs!
Rose raises her arms before her, crossing them and taking the blow and taking another step back, neatly negating everything she accomplished with stepping out of the bathroom. Still, it is perhaps not the first time she has been forced to yield in the face of that man's minions - at least for now.
"What a ridiculous question to ask," she states. "If you will stop and consider, you will see that there is no possible scenario in which I would give you useful information in reply-- unless you assume I am a fool."
Hopefully, this will baffle Cammy enough for Rose to complete her next moment's assault. Her scarf whips out, wafting through the air - but it sparkles with auroral light as it does, its lengthy cashmere expanse undulating under Rose's guidance and easily making up that pace or so she's yielded to Cammy. Hopefully the sheerest soul-jarring shock of contact will stun this assassin, Rose thinks.
Then she might get some answers.
But, of course, it won't be that simple - is anything ever, really?
COMBATSYS: Rose successfully hits Cammy with Aura Scarf.
- Power hit! -
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Rose 0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0 Cammy
Cammy was the very avatar of no fun.
Well, Cammy considered Satsuki to be that way - but Cammy adored her fellow Doll for that very reason. Releasing her grasp upon the ceiling, Cammy does a quick flip in the air to land again in a squat, tumbling forward once to bring her nearer to Rose.
She was hoping to keep the psychic off of her feet - prevent her from gathering her wits.
Of course, that proves to be a ridiculously terrible move on Cammy's part. Rose might be surprised that when her scarf whips out - it has Cammy rolling into it. /Rolling/ into it. Bathing her in that psycho power. For a single, shocking moment, Cammy feels...
Beautyfearhatelovepeacedesirehopedespairregretregretregret.
Unseeing eyes snap brighter, and the Doll ends up being knocked away from her, her little hat knocked off of her head, and tumbling to the ground below. Extending her arms behind herself, Cammy backs up against the wall like a spider recoiling from an enroaching foot as each heartbeat... slowly... brings the comforting deadness back to her soul.
Another moment still, and whatever emotions might have danced through her spirit fade away entirely, leaving the face of the Doll again. "You are a fool. You will give me this information, or you will be destroyed," says Cammy at that. A short hop upwards, and powerful legs strike the wall, one foot punching through it entirely, although the other seems to find something solid enough to kick off of. Twirling in place, she spins, her feet pointed earthward - and when she lands again - she lashes her forearm out, hoping to smack her glove across Rose's features.
COMBATSYS: Rose fails to deflect Axle Spin Knuckle from Cammy with Soul Reflect EX.
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Rose 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0 Cammy
Rose sweeps her scarf forwards again on its backstroke. "Now that is hardly accurate," she chides lightly. "You will probably try to kill me even if I DID answer your question, isn't that so?"
Of course, she swings that scarf forwards and sends a rippling crackle of Soul Power through it. She had been aiming towards Cammy's legs. Understandable: they're quite impressive, and that's where most of her attacks have originated thus far, when she has not been trying to strike 'a sleeping woman' but rather 'Rose'.
Of course... well, that has its problems, doesn't it?
Cammy's swung forearm smashes Rose in the side of the face, making her stagger back fully again with a cry of dismay. This time she DOES enter the bathroom fully - what an undignified place to perish!
And after the assault - Cammy had played a part in avoiding it as well. She twists her torso out of the way of that scarf, bending into impossibly contorted shape to finish her attack and avoid that scarf so much as touching her. She did not... enjoy the way that that energy had affected her heart.
Breathing out in a long sound, Cammy snaps back up again, holding both of her hands in front of herself, both hands curled into fists. That attack seemed to go better than they had been so far.
Cammy lowers her fists to hold by her sides, standing up straight like the toy soldier that she was. "Negative," says Cammy. "If you divulge the information, I will have no reason to terminate you," says the Doll.
It was a lie. That might be difficult to read - everything about the Doll was difficult to read from facial expressions alone. Cammy bends her knees then, spreading her legs to brace them against the jambs of the door leading into the bathroom. It was a short, intense jump forward - Cammy tucking herself into a tight ball, braids flailing as she leaps forward. If Rose remained still, it would be terrible. But Cammy was anticipating her rising.
Rising enough for Cammy to explode her legs outward in a sudden kick to the face - a kick that Cammy would begin not a foot from her features (or stomp on her, as the case might be), and either trip her or kick her into the sink, or bathtub - hoping to batter her head against it.
COMBATSYS: Rose endures Cammy's Hooligan Combination.
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Rose 1/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 Cammy
Rose would say something in reply, but of course she has other problems. The leap forwards on Cammy's part propels her forwards (kind of a tautology there, don't you think?) and Rose, of course, is rising up and moving backwards.
Another kick to the face, hard enough to put an abrasion on one cheek and place a future mouse underneath one eye. How declasse! Rose raises an arm to block, but then she takes another kick in one thigh, with a sound like an axe hitting a stout young oak.
Rose topples forwards into the tub. She smashes an elbow against the spigot as she does, and with a creaking gush of force, water splashes out, steaming warm but neither too hot or too cold, thanks to an equal-opportunity devastation of the plumbing.
Rose lays there.
For perhaps the space of a breath.
Then she speaks, her voice echoing strangely off the tile. "How courteous of you, my mysterious and pigtailed assassin. You've put me in a place I genuinely love. Is this where you intend to murder me?"
Her cashmere scarf had been soaking up water - but now it lashes upwards, towards Cammy's wrist, as if under its own power. On its own, this is merely a problem - more or less harmless, not something that should distract her from her duties.
Rose pulls herself up with a surging splash of water. Also not itself a problem -
What is more of a problem, unless Cammy can elude the grasp of that yellow bolt of cloth, is the sudden shocking ripple of green-pink-violet-yellow-blue energy that surges from Rose herself and hopefully into Cammy's very core!
"Now, since you have demanded answers from me... you must agree that I have every right to ask you for my own answers, yes? It is only fair."
COMBATSYS: Rose successfully hits Cammy with Illusion Spark.
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Rose 0/-------/-------|=======\=====--\1 Cammy
"Termination will not be needed if you comply," says Cammy, twisting her form towards the fallen mystic. "You will be given one final opprotunity," says Cammy, ignoring the quips as she steps forward towards the tub proper - picking up a boot to push a quick kick against the porcelin beside Rose's head.
Intimidation, however briefly done.
Briefly, as Rose was picking herself up - briefly, as her wrist was seized by that scarf, and honest fear touches her eyes as she wrenches her arm against it, her passive face filling with the unfamiliar emotion of fear once more.
It was ample distraction for the spark that followed. A rolling stream of memories - of feelings, of thoughts - of emotions roil through her like a burst dam - an anaesthetic against the suffering it did against her core, her heart, and her body and mind.
Slumping against the sink, Cammy was unsteady on her feet. Unsteady as she lunges first one way, and then another, striking the jamb with her shoulder. She was moving quickly - perhaps a little too quickly - judging by the way that she slightly damp self tumbles back into the bedroom proper.
Cammy fights to right herself, braids flopped forward over her shoulder as she assumes a upon the ground, her fingers digging into the carpet before they slowly - slowly start to relax as the programming takes over again. Cammy gives herself up to that programming.
Cammy dives into its comforting embrace as her mind roils with calculations and considerations. With interpretations and estimations. If Rose were to follow her into the bedroom again, Cammy would tense up. Otherwise, Cammy would lunge back into the cramped bathroom.
"LOCK ON!"
Cammy would lunge for her, then, using her powerful legs to kinda strike Rose in the center of her form. It was a simple, straight kick. One that Cammy would lead into a forward lunge, bringing her other foot up as if to kinda drill Rose against a wall. But before they would strike a wall...
Cammy would let gravity take her down again - and with a burst of inhuman speed, dart behind the hopefully backwards tumbling Rose - only to rise with a cannon spike against the back of her head.
But that combination may never come to be.
COMBATSYS: Rose fails to deflect Killer Bee Assault from Cammy with Soul Reflect.
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Rose 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Cammy
Rose feels... something.
What is it? she wonders. This woman pulls into herself when she's touched. Normally she is used to screams or babbling, whether of pain or pleasure. She steps out of the tub, but not all the way out of the bathroom. This will be her undoing.
Or will it?
She stares in shock as Cammy bellows "LOCK ON!" and storms forwards, smashing into her gut. Rose does not defend herself, and this may tell Cammy a vital tidbit: Rose is not really a trained fighter in the classical sense. She has, perhaps, taking some courses, but her maneuvers rely upon her power. Will this be her undoing?
Probably. Cammy swerves behind her, rises up, kicking her in the back of her head - and sending Rose staggering out into the bedroom again with an "ohhh!" She is pushed forwards enough to slam face-first into the bedspring again, though fortunately for her she is able to roll off on the rebound.
"Well!" she says, then, for lack of anything clearer to say. "I see I have taken you lightly, and that is not to my credit... but who are you?"
Who was she? Cammy would have - Cammy should have lept after the fallen Rose - but with the conclusion of that Cannon Spike, when she less focuses on numbers and more on presence, Cammy rises up slowly from her kneeling landing to level her gaze on Rose.
Cammy? Audrea? The Killer Bee?
Foremost of the Dolls? Who was she?
Cammy stands there for a moment, her eyes turning down from where Rose lay - which might give Rose time to get up - or prepare a countermanuever, her eyes seeking across the ground as if the answer might be written somewhere in the carpet. Cammy tended to always speak in a monotone, and right now was no different, her gaze lifting up to settle upon Rose's features. There was no emotion there.
"I am no one."
Leaping forward, then, Cammy's arm lashes out, fingers held wide - hoping to grasp Rose's throat within them, and just... squeeze for as long as she can, tossing her away if she manages to hold on long enough. "I am no one."
COMBATSYS: Rose blocks Cammy's Flying Neck Hunt.
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Rose 0/-------/--=====|==-----\-------\0 Cammy
Cammy's arm smashes out, fingers wrapping around Rose's dismayingly swanny throat. They curl there, and they squeeze. Rose chokes - and her eyes turn down towards Cammy then as she raises up one hand, to try and wrench Cammy's wrist off.
But this close contact...
Rose has no real better option right now. Well, she does have a better option, but she does not, yet, exercise it.
That first option extends a ripple of Soul Power out. Into that nervous connection. A tiny shiver of warmth into the depths of -
a-
Mind?
Rose feels the cold harsh touch of something, a machine stamped horrorscape. It is beyond easy comprehension. To touch it too deep, this unprepared, would be like swallowing acid, ingesting virus-laden fluid. Rose sees something she can't compose in words. In the future it will be vital. For now it does nothing. Further -
Into something precious, something secret. A hidden indulgence. A surge of emotional contact, a digital brainwave that's escaped total control by the dark forces of Psycho Power?
This close, she can speak directly, although Cammy may perceive her voice as strangely androgynous. Authoritative. Backed by the steel-blue flash of eyes and the warm embrace of a powerful figure who knows what he - or she, in this case - wants.
"Listen to me."
"You aren't 'no one,'" comes this, free of Rose's characteristic floweriness. It's direct. Gruff. One could hear the stubble in it. "No matter how many times you say that, how many times you repeat it, I won't accept that answer. You could say it a thousand times a thousand times a thousand times, and I'll be there to ask each time: Who are you? Because," and here there is a non-verbal /push/, the mental image, the complex psychoglyph that forms when you know a face and a personality and an image and a style but don't know a /name/, "you are not 'no one.' You are 'some one,' to me. And you always will be."
Of course...
From Rose's perspective she's sent a firm moral assertion into the killer bee. She is still getting choked out. Her conclusion in this world, where the pulsing heart of passion is not a key factor, is much simpler; she swings a knee up to try and jam Cammy in the solar plexus.
COMBATSYS: Rose successfully hits Cammy with Fierce Kick.
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Rose 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\0 Cammy
Unaware of Rose's meddling, Cammy's fingers quiver. Once she had even the slightest of holds upon that elegant throat, Cammy's other hand was coming up. Cammy was hoping to grasp, to stretch her fingers around, bring her other hand up to tighten the death-hold. The psycho power that slept within the young woman - while not as immense as Vega's or Rose's own, no doubt - was substantial.
And it was weakened - weakened by the grip the programming held upon her. It was leashed, along with her mind and spirit.
And there might just be something familiar feeling about it all.
'Listen to me'.
There wasn't a verbal conformation after Rose's speech. There wasn't even a slackening of the emotionless mask that Cammy held.
But her fingers ceased to squeeze. It was perhaps, like someone had flicked an off switch somewhere in the back of her mind. But the programming would eventually reassert itself, would eventually...
The knee strikes the slight form of Cammy, lifting the young woman up off of the ground with the sheer force of the blow, her eyes widened, braids snapping back with the rocking force of the thing. Cammy had excellent abs - that was the only thing that saved her from doubling over and vomiting there on the spot. The only thing that saved her from blacking out, and...
In spite of the fact that she couldn't breathe, the Doll's training takes over - lashing out a quick backhand against Rose's face, that same hand hoping to snatch Rose's own wrist, and use it to kinda quickly spin her around and away from herself, Cammy moving drunkenly. The final motion would be a hop upwards and a kick to Rose's shoulders to knock her away from herself, but Cammy's goal wasn't to kill Rose, or extract information anymore.
It was to escape. Escape and get away before the darkness at the edge of her vision threatened to overcome her. And she was hoping that even if what she was hoping to do wasn't enough - that it would distract Rose enough to give her a head start.
COMBATSYS: Cammy can no longer fight.
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Rose 0/-------/--=====|
COMBATSYS: Rose dodges Cammy's CQC.
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Rose 0/-------/--=====|
Rose steps back a pace as Cammy doubles over. She hesitates. This is not something she enjoys doing. In a sense, what she hopes to do is a violation - even if it is a minor one, to encourage words, rather than a dire one, to force out truths or steal them, that does not make it 'good'.
Of course, if she stalls for time, the problem will resolve itself. Cammy's sudden grasp and twist pirouettes Rose around; Cammy's kick sends her staggering against a wall, if unharmed. From here, there's the bedroom balcony window - which had been left unlocked, to entice the attackers.
Rose has no words.
She exhales, in the aftermath. A failure.
Or was it? That woman and her family are alive and safe, for now. And if you have 'now' go on long enough... why, it becomes a life, doesn't it?
COMBATSYS: Rose has ended the fight here.
Log created on 20:22:51 12/16/2014 by Rose, and last modified on 01:43:28 12/17/2014.