Description: Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.
"No-- no, you're not listening to me," Dr. Richard Tran is telling the announcer of the day's fight, a particularly vapid woman with long bleached hair and enormous fake breasts. "He's not going to be here. We were horsing around on the boat--"
SOME TIME AGO
Dr. Richard Tran hits Dr. Richard Tran with an enormous german suplex, smashing the back of his head through a metal railing and sending him tumbling into the ocean.
"-- and we had an accident and he's still recovering from a head and neck injury."
"You were supposed to do this before the yacht party anyways," complains the woman.
"Yes, I know that," Tran explains patiently. "We were supposed to fight on Wednesday, but we had to reschedule."
SOME TIME AGO
Tia is in the elevator up to the suite she's scheduled to fight in, when suddenly her flesh pales and her eyes widen.
"OH, MY PERIOD!" she squeals, doubling over and clutching her stomach.
"Well, I don't know what I'm supposed to tell my boss..." the announcer says, looking skeptical. "Should we just DQ you both?"
"No, I'll fight alone," Tran says, still a paragon of patience. "The show doesn't air until next week anyways, so they'll have plenty of time to slip it in."
"Well..." The woman still looks skeptical, but after a few moments eyeballing Tran's abs, decides, "I guess that's okay." He's a lot more handsome in person than he has been on the TV in the past, she thinks to herself.
Meanwhile, as Tran turns to survey the expansive, luxurious room the fight will be taking place in and carefully adjusts his hot pink board shorts, the elevator behind him slowly climbs towards the floor the room is on. The room, being an exclusive Super Deluxe Zack Suite*, has elevtor service right to it.
* Every room in the Gemstone is a Super Deluxe Zack Suite.
LAST TIME ON DR. TRAN'S MAGICAL CRUISE BOAT ADVENTURE EPISODE 29
A BOAT
Dr. Richard Tran gets three concussions in a row and almost drowns.
AFTER THAT
"Is he...he's gonna be OK, right?"
One of the many Zack Island fight coordinators (a woman in a sexy one-piece fashioned after a business suit) is speaking to one of the many Zack Island medics (sexy nurse swimsuit), receiving a detailed medical report on the small brown man who is /supposed/ to have a fight, if only he weren't so unconcious.
"I don't know. Maybe? I mean, he's a fighter anyway, right?" The highly trained medical professional shrugs, giggles, and bounces. "They've got skulls like bowling balls, he'll probably be fine!" The x-rays behind her showcase a skull that appears to have been conquered by a spider with extreme diarrhea.
RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW
THERE'S NO PLACE THAT I'D RATHER BE???
The man wakes up. "Wha...what? I don't..." He sits up, only to discover that he's...in bed? In a room with...some chiseled lookin' dude in shorts talking to a cat-girl.
"Uhhh...excuse me?" He politely interjects, looking between them. "Could either of you possibly tell me where I am?"
=NOT FUCKING NOW=
"M-M-Miss Langray, the good news is--"
"Ugh, you idiot! There is no good news! There's never any good news from you! The GOOD NEWS, Jack, is that I got to work over that jumped-up kiddies' entertainer so hard she won't be able to jack it in San Diego. Her tournament's over, her career's over, and I pulled in a shitload of ratings. THAT, Jack, is the good news."
"W-Well, yes, but... the polls h-have seen your market value skyrocket after last week's match - t-they really liked your partnership with Sergeant Delaney, and the extra footage we were able to shoot a-at the party--"
"Wait, what? Who? They actually LIKED her? I mean, obviously they liked me, but you're saying that they liked me MORE because she was around? Really? What has she got that I haven't, Jack, tell me ONE GODDAMN THING and I will give you a payrise RIGHT NOW."
"W-W-Well..."
=FUCKING NOW=
Er.
=NOT... *FUCKING* NOW, JUST FUCKING *NOW*=
The outside of the illustrious Gemstone Hotel has been primed, a large section of the wall laced with highly-concentrated plastic explosive, concrete scraped clear in the dead of night and replaced with what can only be described as a catastrophic accident waiting to happen. A wire runs through the building's ventilation system to the outside, well away from the blast zone, where pudgy, long-suffering Jack Hammond awaits with his finger dribbling sweat onto the all-too critical switch.
Further up the length of the building, above the scheduled BATTLE ZONE, Tia from Breakers - who's suffering only completely profusely from period pains, don't believe the hype - hangs by a tactical safety harness and a length of bungee cord, squinting with fierce hazel eyes down at their destination. Beside her - for once, she's deigned to actually arrive WITH her partner - is, or should be, Caoimhe Delaney.
If she's not there, then Tia's probably going to be talking to herself and not even noticing because she's a self-absorbed witch, but let's not ruin a beautiful moment.
"Alright, Delaney, the suits reckon you did alright last week, but you're not quite up to Langray snuff yet. We're in this tournament to WIN, not play second fiddle to a bunch of hacks and hasbeens! I saw how starstruck you were out there, and we haven't got time for that bullshit. So let's go in hard, fast, and keep hammering it into these losers until they lie back and call us their queens! Got it?!"
She has about zero point four seconds to respond to that.
As Talking is a Free Action, this equates to approximately an infinity. Regardless--
"Light 'em up, Jackie! WOOOOOO!!!"
We should briefly mention that Tia is clad to brave the elements way up in the air, here, her crotch area covered by the spread wings of an imitation gold vulture, an Egyptian flag emblem stamped into its front and three strands of cheesewire-like floss running around her hips and up through the crack of her famous posterior. Her treasured chest (wait, this isn't the pirate battle, shit) isn't actually covered by any fabric whatsoever. Zack Island has already had a double eyeful, so why bother? Though, each breast has been daubed in camo paint with a sort of terrible-but-vaguely-accurate-if-you-squint-and-turn-your-head-sideways Eye of Horus emblem. The pupils are her nipples.
This battle rated PG--
Oh wait, fuck that. Riddle me this: what just exploded?
=FUCKING SHORTLY, OR NOT, DEPENDING=
A: The hotel. The hotel just exploded. Let's GO!
Caoimhe Delaney may well be a saint.
Not that it's hard to look like one next to Tia Langray. She's been keeping a level head about the fact that she's been put up to this deal with Tia Langray in the first place. And there's even a faint smile on her face as she hangs from her own bungee cord beside the hazel-eyed reality television starlet. Unlike Tia, the soldier is dressed. Specifically, she is dressed like... well... a soldier. She's in an olive tank top, safety goggles, combat helmet and desert camouflage combat pants, and velcroed to her tactical harness are several pieces of tropical fruit - mostly pineapples and coconuts - along with a firework launcher on her back, a satchel slung over her shoulder and a flare gun hanging at her hip.
So why is she smiling, anyway?
==*== AT THE YACHT PARTY, EARLIER ==*==
"The only bomb I care about around here is you... and the only waters I want to sweep are yours."
==*== BACK TO THE PRESENT ==*==
Maybe it's best not to get into that. The point is, she's in a good mood, and not just because the building is about to -
*BOOM*
Make that 'has just' exploded.
"Understood! Breach and clear, Langray!"
Kicking off of the hotel wall, Caoimhe swings down on her cord, tearing one of the pineapples from her harness, pulling the leaves from the top with her teeth, then finally blind tossing it through the open space in the side of the hotel.
"Fire in the hole!"
The pineapple bounces a couple of times along the hotel room floor, landing smoothly on an elegant rug.
And then a moment later, it explodes, sending shards of citrus flying violently in every direction. Just after it does, Caoimhe swoops in through the hole, boots first, detaching from the cord and flipping down onto her feet, immediately rolling for the nearest cover - which happens to be the television stand.
"Yippie-kay-ay, mother-fuckers!"
COMBATSYS: Caoimhe has started a fight here.
There's that derided, nagging part of Tia Langray that has to admit, once again...
This is essentially the most fun she's had in a long time.
Unleashing her own bungee cord to full extension - she's been wisely and in all respect for health and safety legislation holding it bunched up above her right hip - the Muay Thai superstar is quick on the trail of her partner-in-violence. Truth be told, she's trying to overtake Caoimhe and be the first into the shattered confines of the once-opulent hotel room, but with the inferior versing in both breaching AND clearing...
...and anything else that isn't better suited to a stripper or Adon...
(Wait, is there a difference?)
Tia is the second one through by a second or so, and fails to detach her harness at the pivotal moment. Basically topless and barely-bottomed, her stupidly-athletic form ends up richoeting off a wall, right into a falling rain of citrus chunks, and then she promptly headplants into a grotesquely expensive velvet couch. "You--"
Snarling, and flushing head to toe, she finally disengages the cord and is released to rather vigorously sluther and *thump* onto the floor of the suite, at the last managing to get an elbow underneath and come in a halfway-gainly crouch, her chest profoundly jiggling with the flurry of momentum. Wild eyes roam the room for a target, any target... swiftly realizing she's not being given A WHOLE LOT OF TARGETS TO CHOOSE FROM. Oh well, work with what you've got. She's used to doing that. Some guys just can't-- that is to say... and premature ejaculation is a...
Yep, this sure as hell beats scraping by in cheap pornography betwen proper jobs.
Speaking of, didn't they have a job to be doing here? WHY is she dressed like Osiris' shamelessly slutty senior handmaiden? It dawns with a fierce grin, and Langray bounces to her feet in a Muay Thai stance, stinking of lemons and yelling brash lemonade:
"What's brown, white, a total shortass, and red in the goddamn FACE?!"
COMBATSYS: Shelly? has joined the fight here on the left meter side.
COMBATSYS: Robo-Tran brings his battle systems online.
COMBATSYS: Tran has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
When Dr. Richard Tran sits up in bed, Dr. Richard Tran(?)'s head snaps around to face him, his eyes going cold. There's no one here except the camera crews, the announcer, and the Other. It would be a small thing to--The outside wall of the suite explodes.
The vapid fight announcer (who is totally dressed as a sphinx, did we mention that) immediately begins screaming and crying. This wasn't part of the plan! By the time Caoimhe's literal pineapple grenade explodes, she's pretty well swooned, and Dr. Richard Tran(?) is nowhere to be seen.
ELSEWHERE
"I told you it was a bad idea to let him loose," bemoans Adam Devine(?).
"Shut up and plug the controller in," snaps MMA superfan and Talking Dead enthusiast Phil Brooks.
HERE
As Tia turns her back on the couch she landed (to use the term generously) on, Dr. Richard Tran(?) rises from behind it, his bare chest splattered with chunks of pineapple. He lifts his arms, draws them both back as if he was rowing a boat, and then thrusts them towards Tia's bare back.
The room fills with a shrill whistling, and steamy chi(?) erupts out of the good Doctor, boiling in a thick, scalding cloud over Tia's mostly-exposed body. It is the worst.
As the blast of steam recedes, Tran(?) fixes his eyes on the bedridden Tran and commands, "Fight for what's right! /Fight for your life!/"
COMBATSYS: Tia dodges Robo-Tran's Dr. Tran?'s Scathing Yelp Review.
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Caoimhe 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Tran
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Robo-Tran
Still looking mildly confused but not very upset, the man in bed tries to continue his line of questioning, having received only what appears to be surprise at his presence.
And then things start exploding.
"JESUS CHRIST! What are you /talking/ about?"
There's a very clear emotion visible on his face: /fear/. "I don't...I can't...what!? What is happening? Are you talking about..." His face scrunches up, as while he has no idea what anybody is talking about, he feels strangely compelled to provide answers himself. "...some kind of snowcapped dwarf volcano?" He begins to panic as things make less and less sense, scrambling across the opulence of the bed, its value somewhat ruined by raining chunks of delicious tropical fruit and possibly a little bit of fearpee.
But something in Dr. Tran(?)'s rich, masculine voice stops him short. Fight for what's /right/. Certainly, there's a whole lot of wrong here, so maybe that's the only way out of this situation. Grimacing, the small, decidedly unsexy man throws off the sheets, revealing his attire. It appears to consist solely of a bright yellow speedo with an artful rendition of a hammock across the crotch. He does not seem to notice.
For instead he is far too busy rushing into glorious battle, closing his eyes and charging wildly - right into the TV stand, which through sheer crazed momentum he manages to knock over, screaming as he does so.
"WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?"
COMBATSYS: Tran successfully hits Caoimhe with Random Weapon.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Caoimhe 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 Tran
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Robo-Tran
Tran's words reach Caoimhe's ears over the sudden cacophonous din and the faint ringing in her ears from the previous explosion. Her eyes narrow, as if she were being subjected to some kind of ruse. Leaning around the side of the television stand, she yells a quick response.
"I am Sergeant Delaney of Team Going Commando! Our mission objective is to eliminate you from the -"
Feeling the television stand suddenly shift, Caoimhe tries to roll out of the way. It was a trick after all! She gets clear of the stand, but the television set still comes crashing down on her leg. Grimacing, she yanks it free, kicking the television set to one side before wheeling backward and up to her feet. Reaching for her tactical vest, she wrenches another pineapple loose and yanks the leafy 'pin' free from its socket. Hefting it, she pulls out a slip of paper with her free hand, and begins to recite the riddle she's meticulously planned in advance.
"Alexander is stranded on an island covered in forest. One day, when the wind is blowing from the west, lightning strikes the..."
Her eyes flit to the pineapple ticking in her hand, then back to the paper. The latter is tossed away.
"Fuck it! What's a fruit and also a bomb?"
Without further ado or bluster, she leaps onto the overturned television stand, spiking the pineapple grenade right at the Tran in the Banana Hammock.
There are certain memories that stick with a girl.
Back when she was working an internship for a small, family business that definitely probably wasn't pornographic in nature and almost certainly does - in a single parallel universe - get a mention on her resumé, Langray found herself forced to run errands for an old-fashioned Turkish bath in Bangkok. The thing about Turkish baths...
...is they're not entirely for taking baths in, but there IS a lot of steam, and oh man the things an ancient, greasy, baby's fuzz moustached Thai gentleman can find to do with clouds of steam and supple, young, desperately-willing bodies.
Tia's bare back would still bear the marks, if she wasn't the kind of dumb tramp who covers that sort of thing over with a combination of fake tan and concealer. On her back. Yes. She has people for that, though, it's not as if she--
--hold on, she's burning alive right here! Or not, as with a pathetically wimpy *squeal* she takes a few panicked steps forward and spins around with all the grace of an expert martial artist in a cutting-edge tournament battle for the ages.
"Uhh, no," sasses Tia 'Too Sexy For Your Steaming Bullshit' Langray to Robo the Tran as she comes out of her abrupt and only somewhat-intentional spin beside one of the luxuriant suite's four mini-bars. Mounted on a slender, hi-tech 360-degree rotational bracket above the overpriced gins and tomato juices of the bar is one of the suite's sixteen television sets - well, soon to be fourteen, but did we mention it's a REALLY SWANKY suite, for REALLY SWANKY people? Well, it is, and even a celebrity as enormohuge as Langray feels a bit guilty...
When she sets to trashing the room within seconds of arriving, ripping the little HDTV off its mooring and hefting it above her head before she bends forward with a yell and launches it directly at the probably-not-a-robot's eyes. For the sole reason that they're looking at something that isn't her. Fucking cheek.
"The answer is! YOU!! When you're bleeding from your lousy, two-bit SKULL!"
The wordplay, it is both cunning and thrilling! Like Tia's linguistic abilities!
She learned those on her internship, too.
COMBATSYS: Tran blocks Caoimhe's When In Doubt.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Caoimhe 0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0 Tran
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Robo-Tran
COMBATSYS: Robo-Tran reflects Thrown Object from Tia with Dr. Tran? Screws the Pooch.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Caoimhe 0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0 Tran
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Robo-Tran
Dr. Richard Tran(?)'s attention snaps around when Tia hurls a television at him in a fury. Steam boils anew out of his skin as the monitor arcs through the air... and then, as it nears Tran(?), it begins to slow. By the time it actually reaches him, it's drifted to a stop. Carefully, Tran(?) reaches out and gingerly touches the tip of his finger to the television--
-- and it goes rocketing back through the air towards Tia, spinning like a shuriken.
Oh, right, he realizes suddenly. Riddles. He's supposd to pose a riddle. Uh... Tran(?) pats his bare chest searchingly, and then moves his hands to the pockets of his board shorts, as if searching for a riddle. Eventually, he apparently gives up, because he looks back to Tia and posits, "What've I got in my pocket?"
ELSEWHERE
"That's not even a real riddle," complains Adam Devine(?).
"The Hobbit rules, shut your mouth," says Marvel writer and friend of the Nerdist Phil Brooks.
Adam Devine(?) looks briefly put out, and then looks over at the controller and asks, "So wait, how did you make him do the reflect?"
HERE
Having successfully vandalized a television set (which appears to have been looping clips of girls in bikinis posing suggestively near other televisions), the MYSTERIOUS STRANGER stands still for a moment, panting after the pure adrenaline rush that comes from property destruction and life or death battle. It takes him a moment to even parse that somebody is /actually/ bothering to respond to his queries, and not just senselessly doing more and more weirder and weirder things. Then he's asked a question, and the desperate hope for just one sane person to talk to goes straight out the window.
"Lightning strikes the fuck it? What? Oh, uh..." The man who looks exactly like Dr. Tran(?) but somehow less attractive closes his eyes to concentrate on the question, plumbing the depths of his brain.
His brain tells him that purple am best sound.
Opening his eyes again immediately, he finds a pineapple going straight for his junk. The man desperately covers up with both hands and then, at the last second, seems to get it.
He screams like a girl as he's showered with tropical flavor and concussive force, directed right as his man-package.
"What is WRONG with you?" He continues screaming in a somewhat unsurprisingly high-pitched voice, charging forward again without moving his hands away from their protective positioning, instead repeating his previous maneuver of blindly charging forward with no regard for strategy or consequences. "Why do /I/ have to be here?"
COMBATSYS: Caoimhe fails to interrupt Strong Punch from Tran with Pull!.
-* WILD HIT! *-
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Caoimhe 0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0 Tran
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Robo-Tran
Rolling behind a coffee table to duck both the tropical explosion and flying television sets, Caoimhe reaches into the back of her belt, pulling a bright orange flare gun from its holster. The questions being screamed at her by Tran actually give the redhead pause. What is wrong with her? Is there something wrong with her? There might be. It would explain the devastation that's followed in her wake over the past couple of months. The meerkats, the... other incident. Furrowing her brow, she pushes the thoughts away.
"The first question is too subjective to be a riddle! As for the second, it depends on your view of determinism versus free will! Personally, I believe in fate!"
Caoimhe pops up from behind the coffee table just as the man who looks exactly like Dr. Tran (?) charges headlong at her, bringing the gun up and levelling it toward the little man's head. He's coming at her faster than expected, though - and when his head collides with the barrel of the flare gun at the same moment she's about to pull the trigger, the barrel ends up being smacked into her face.
"Argh!"
Yelling out in pain as the side of her face is scorched by the burning flare, the brightness blinding her, she staggers back into one of the mini-bars, tumbling back over it and landing on her helmet, boots in the air.
"Sierra Oscar Bravo! Mike Foxtrot!"
Either she's spouting off the names of doctors she'd like to request the presence of, or she's spouting off random military phonetics. Whatever the case, she seems pretty upset about the events transpiring.
COMBATSYS: Robo-Tran successfully hits Tia with Reflected Thrown Object.
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Caoimhe 0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0 Robo-Tran
Steam doesn't work like that! Tia is almost entirely sure that it doesn't! She'd pause and rifle through her physics textbook if she had one concealed behind the uncomfortably-jagged eagle mounting her best-selling honey pot, but she has to settle for staring slack-jawed as the vigorously-hurled television comes roaring back toward her. Flickering images of her own low-budget porn career. Wait, who...? What?
They say Tia Langray's paranoia grew two sizes that day.
"Delaney!" She growls in alarmed, desperate disapproval a half-second before she's beaned in the scalp by the corner of an HD screen, the fourteenth remaining display shattering into a thousand pieces indistinguishable from the chunks of her skull and icky bits of brain that explode into the general morass. "STOP GETTING HIT!!"
With the roar on her lips, Tia *explodes* through the whole bloody mess, hazel eyes blazing and jugs bouncing friggin' everywhere as the eagle gives a silent roar of defiance. "And--" Gritting her teeth, Langray puts on a turn of speed enough to tear up the carpet beneath her feet, leaving jagged furrows in the swanky decor as she closes upon Robo-Tran's awful board shorts... drawing back a fist to her hip...
"Start! SYAA!" An elbow flies up to poke for the mouth, but she's not really bothered about landing that part - it's just sort of there, like, hey, look I'm an elbow. Better do something about me. What's the word? Feint. One of those. More importantly. "HITTING BACK!!!" Crotchpunch, baby. Her chambered fist just rockets forward, first two knuckles slamming for exactly the point that any normal man's pulsating member would be.
Her breasts jolt together with a slightly wet slap.
"Let's see what it's got in it's pocketses..."
She hisses, attempting to just punch clean through whatever she finds.
This is going to end well for everyone!
COMBATSYS: Tia blitzes into action and acts again!
COMBATSYS: Tia successfully hits Robo-Tran with Strong Punch.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Caoimhe 0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/---====|=====--\-------\0 Robo-Tran
COMBATSYS: Robo-Tran fails to deflect Strong Punch from Tia with Dr. Tran? and the Pickle Gambit.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Caoimhe 0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\0 Robo-Tran
As Tia comes diving in, Tran(?) strikes a particular pose, a sunburt erupting behind him as light, filtered through the steam pouring out of his skin, gleams off of his chiseled abs. They draw Tia's attention, like an eight-pack of hypnotoads--
-- but not enough to draw her eye away from the true prize, as her fist slams in between Tran(?)'s legs. The entire scene plays out in slow motion; Tia's face contorted into a mask of rage, the blow, the impact, Tran(?)'s complete failure to react as if anything has happened to him.
For several beats, Tran(?) just... stands there, looking down at Tia. He glances up at the cameras in the room, and only then realizes that, oh, right, 'it hurts a lot', right, right.
Tran(?) lets out a strangled gasp and falls to the ground, clutching his groin. If he ahd known about the obsession women would have with that particular equipment, he muses, he would have requested its removal long before this operation. Although, he does have to admit he thinks Tia may have shattered his entire pelvic area...
'Personally, I believe in fate!' In the wake of yet another unpredictably successful attack, the scared, confused man stops again. Anger contort his features ever so briefly. "Ffffffffuck, fate!?" By the end, however, he just appears to not know what's going on even more than before.
"I mean, uh?" Somehow, this man is turning everything he says into a question, too unsure to even man up and make an straight-forward, honest-to-god statement. He turns away, gripping at his head as he's seized by a wicked migraine. "Nggggh....What's...what's wrong with me?" And then he's got the fear again, too.
Stumbling to one side, he steadies himself on yet another TV (playing a non-stop 24 hour Weird Al polka for charity marathon). "God, I don't even...no, wait, no." Now desperation fills the man's eyes, driven mad with pain and the knowledge that's he has been subject to the stupidest thing imaginable.
"Who...WHO AM /I/!?"
Amnesia.
With a scream of incoherent rage, the MAN WITH NO PAST lifts the TV and charges at the minibar, tripping on his way and going into an awkward vertizontal 540-spin-jump that sort of winds up with him dunking the entire goddamn thing right where he saw Caoimhe go over.
It immediately explodes for no discernable reason.
COMBATSYS: Caoimhe interrupts Large Random Weapon EX from Tran with Hello Time Bomb.
*KNOCKED AWAY*
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////// ]
Caoimhe 1/------=/=======|=======\=------\1 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\0 Robo-Tran
==*== JUST NOW ==*==
At least, the reason for the television suddenly exploding may not have been discernible to anyone who couldn't see what Tran saw in the moments after he toppled past the mini-bar - a satchel beeping with a noise that sounded much like an alarm clock going off lying beside the Special Forces sergeant as she desperately tried to pull herself away, fingers clawing at the floor.
==*== JUST BEFORE JUST NOW ==*==
Having pulled the flare from her combat helmet, Caoimhe had, in her blind haste to treat the burning sensation, reaches for a first aid kit on her harness and instead come up with the satchel charge that she'd built earlier. She hadn't become aware of her mistake until she'd heard the beeping, at which point she'd tossed the satchel aside and started scrambling away.
==*== JUST AFTER JUST NOW ==*==
As the satchel charge explodes in a fiery conflagration, Caoimhe is pelted by shards from the television set, leaving shallow gashes along her arm and side and causing her to grimace. "Langray! I think that that may have caused structural damage! Look out for -"
And then she's cut off by a chunk of the ceiling crashing down beside her, slamming into the already weakened flooring and causing it to collapse downward. Caoimhe finds herself slipping through the gaping void left behind and into the room below.
"SHIIIIITE!"
There's this seemingly-infinitely-long moment where Tia stands there with her fist hyper-extended, arm way too straight to be remotely advisable in a violent situation and somehow having *actually* gone clear through her target's junk.
"That..."
She wets her lips, struggles not to grin ear-to-ear because honestly this is quite a humbling moment and probably a little troubling to those watching at home. At least those able to tear themselves away from Tia's hyperactively slapping puppies. Tentatively, she meets Robo-Tran's gaze and speculatively raises her eyebrows.
"That's never happened to me before."
As if she's asking, how about you? She's been involved with some interesting guys, to say the least, but though her fist admittedly hurts like holy hell it's the *good* kind of pain that just keeps reassuring her, over and over, that yes she's really just pulled that off. It only takes a moment longer for her half of this crazy, identical - oh hey she just noticed - posse to collapse, and then it's split-second for Tia Langray's absolutely committed delusional state to reign supreme. Of COURSE she just did that to someone-- she's Tia 'effing' Langray, future Empress of Muay Thai!
She bets Sagat couldn't punch that Ryu guy's dick off in a single epic collision. Maybe if he took a few running starts and got the Tiger Uppercut to snag juuust right on the tip, a few degrees twist to the right and then a direct elevation from the legs... but no. No! Nobody's as talented or incredible as she is! And now she remembers why!
"YEAH!" She yells, brash and jubilant even as - behind her - Caoimhe shouts a warning that goes completely and utterly unheard. "Ain't nobody like a Langray!" Ka-BOOM. A second mighty explosion rocks the luxurious hotel suite, and half the ceciling falls inward, the rolling wave of debris encompassing the dramatically upright figure of Tia and dashing her against the far wall. As the dust begins to clear, though, she's revealed to be standing still - and boy is that a shit-eating grin she wears, preening back her hair with both hands. One continues onward to run the length of her dust-covered, but still rockin', body, as the other is thrust toward the grounded Robo-Tran.
Who's presumably looking somewhat the worse for wear.
"You can't imitate us!!"
Oh, the irony! Because... because he's an imitation? Or is he?! It doesn't really matter to the half-nude reality star, whose Eyes of Whorus pop and jiggle like rubble-strewn fried eggs as she runs across the room and performs a tight front flip, a long, powerful leg arching overhead only to crash down toward her shattered victim. If her heel connects, that's just the start; she's got MOMENTUM, baby, and she means to ride him like the world's most painful surfboard, turning the flipping kick into a friggin' skid toward the hole in the floor... where she'll fall with, and land on top of, R-T.
"On top is *where we belong*, Delaney! The HELL are you doing down here?!"
COMBATSYS: Robo-Tran endures Tia's Air Soul Spike.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////// ]
Caoimhe 1/------=/=======|=======\=------\1 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////// ]
Tia 0/-------/=======|=======\==-----\1 Robo-Tran
Tran(?) stays down, selling like a champ, all the way through the abrupt explosion and Tia grinding him like he's a skateboard right into the hole in the floor stage transition. But something magical happens when the two hit the ground below; Tia lands roughly on top of Tran(?) and bounces, and the good Doctor's pelvis lifts up, his back arching--
-- and then his legs snap out and entwine themselves around Tia's neck, as Tran(?) grabs her right arm and wrenches it through the rapidly closing hole in his own legs. Before the dust has even settled, Tran(?) has transitioned the fall and landing into a simple (but theoretically effective) triangle choke.
His arm, still clutching TIa's, yanks up, torquing the elbow and pressing the woman's arm harder against her carotid artery. Tran(?)'s free hand, meanwhile, reaches out and grabs a fistful of Tia's hair, yanking downwards roughly on it.
"I do not believe you ever answered my riddle," he notes aloud, voice completely casual.
NOW
The TV explodes for a /highly/ discernable reason. So does the person who was holding it.
FIFTEEN SECONDS LATER
The man with amnesia, looking almost cartoonish with his hair blasted back and his entire front reddened, blackened, and burnt, screams non-stop as he plummets down from the floor above in an elegant, elaborately styled bathtub with a huge, gaping hole in the bottom.
FIVE SECONDS AFTER NOW
A SHOWER
A portly, stereotypically greasy Italian man merrily sings opera to himself as he shampoos for the third time. "MI AMOOORE PORTABELLLLLLLOOOOOOO~~o/~" Then a head explodes through the bathtub and they both start (continue) screaming. The head is joined by two fists, which the Italian takes as his cue to scurry with surprising agility to a safer part of his suite, where he will presuambly eat a comfort lasagna.
TWENTY SECONDS AFTER NOW
Still screaming, the amnesia man continues to plummet, clutching both the side of the tub for dear life and also a lasagna that he just has now, /deal with it/. Together, they plummet directly downward in the /incredibly nonspecific/ vicinity of Caoimhe, mostly on accident.
"FUUUUUUUUCK!"
COMBATSYS: Tia interrupts Dr. Tran?'s Game of Thrones Podcast from Robo-Tran with Lightning Upper EX.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////// ]
Caoimhe 1/------=/=======|=======\=------\1 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //// ]
Tia 1/-----==/=======|=======\=======\1 Robo-Tran
COMBATSYS: Caoimhe interrupts Huge Random Weapon from Tran with Super Bazooka.
*KNOCKED AWAY*
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////// ]
Caoimhe 0/-------/-----==|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //// ]
Tia 1/-----==/=======|=======\=======\1 Robo-Tran
==*== THE OTHER DAY ==*==
A bikini-clad Caoimhe wiped the sweat from her brow and let out a contented sigh as she finished measuring and packing some powder into one of her rockets. It wasn't enough to be truly dangerous, but it would make the firework launcher a reasonable self-defense weapon. Fatigue was wearing on her from having been up all night, though. Before she knew it she'd dozed off.
==*== AN HOUR LATER THAT DAY ==*==
Caoimhe woke up with a yawn, then looked down at the rocket on the table beside her and the gunpowder next to it. Tilting her head, she gave a little shrug and started measuring out another unit's worth of powder. "Hate it when I fall asleep before I'm done loading one of these..."
==*== I LIKE TARANTINO MOVIES ==*==
Having landed on a bed in one of the suites below, Caoimhe pulls herself up into a crouch. Moments later, Tia lands astride Tran (?) on the floor nearby. As the man shifts to try and choke out her partner, Caoimhe whips the firework launcher off of her back, ignites the short fuse, and levels it toward the pair.
"Shit. Langray, clear the firing zone!"
Just as the weapon is about to fire, a crash from overhead is audible. Looking up, the soldier sees the small, now burnt man descending on her in the tub at hellish speed. Without a second chance to think, she swivels the launcher upward. The rocket would carry the man up and away from the tub as it crashes into Caoimhe.
==*== THREE SECONDS LATER ==*==
Yet another explosion rocks the hotel as the overloaded rocket explodes, taking out another sizeable chunk from the upper part of the building.
Well, this is awkward.
Determined to make a picturesque landing in front of the reassuring presence of Zack Island's stalwart shinobi camera crews (at this point it's probably fair to assume they're all just Ryu Hayabusa), Tia finds herself cruelly seized and hauled inward by her strangely-tenacious and apparently indestructible foe. Hazel eyes snap wide, her ludicrously overly-feminine AND unreasonably-muscular frame suddenly firmly under somebody else's control for a couple of seconds. That, she decides, is quite enough--
"Oh, HELL no!!"
--of that! Though she makes a sort of pathetic little 'ghrknghl!' when suspiciously unyielding legs clamp about her throat, she does immediately note the advantage in having her arm extended right up in her foe's business. Their landing is brutal, and she feels like she's drowning, but one does not become the Empress of Muay Thai without having a) serious grit and determination and b) a completely shameless ripoff of VICTOR SAGAT'S mighty Tiger Uppercut. With her feet on the ground, Tia pushes and pushes until her muscles bunch up and she feels like her legs are going to fucking explode... chi explodes into life around her feet and whiplashes up her frame...
And then she ROARS, breaking free of the choke with a wilful frenzy of motion, closing her extended hand to a fist and allowing that gathered will to stream into it, using every last twitch fibre of her enviably athletic body to power something that only be described as incredible. Or Langraytastic. Oh, it's time. It's time. It's Tia Time!!!
"Answer *this*! What's smooth and soft in the morning...!!"
'Langray, clear the firing zone!'
"...huh?!"
Fucking kaboom. Before she can throw the rest of her counter-riddle, Tia - and the atmosphere around her - explodes into an unruly, unbelievably violent expulsion of physical force. Suddenly she's punching all the way through the apparently-snug hold, her arm bulging free from control and her fist careering into Robo-Tran's chest. Like a rocket, and aided by the very literal MOTHERFUCKING ROCKET (woah altdrop! For shame!) above, they're both launched downward through the 'v' of Tia's arched body.
"CHAFED AND BLOODY IN THE AFTERNOON...!!!"
With the bizarrely-effective culmination of what can only be called the Tiger Downercut, Tia's feral and roaring as they pound through floor after floor with the sheer, ridiculous momentum driven by all these explosions, tearing through carpets and bathtubs and beds and chambermaids and wealthy foreign businessmen out for a good look at some tits. To be fair, they're pretty much rewarded with that. Blink and miss it.
In way too short at a time, Tia is landing - still on top, skin flushed and filthy and sweaty and by GOD she's horny right now, ultraviolence is so hot - atop Robo-Tran in the hotel lobby. It's built on hard stone, and it's into this that she craters her opponent, chi exploding in a warmly destructive swathe as Langray practically gives herself an orgasm and goes flying back head over heels, barely tucking into a roll to come up on her feet, leaning against the reception desk as hotel staff stare mutely.
Heaving in a few heavy breaths, she tosses her hair, then shoves a finger in her mouth and bites down on it, gasping and shivering for a few seconds before she catches her composure. Straightening up, she swaggers toward the impact crater.
"And hard as FUCKING nails in the evening? Riddle me this, you dickless wonder, or I'll take what's in your pocket and ransom it to your family when they ask for something - anything - to remember you by. Of course," all of a sudden, outta nowhere, she's smiling like the most coquettish little flirt, tugging at the tiny bits of floss running below her abdominal v-cuts. The golden vulture strains, barely holding back what's beneath. "Bamboozle *me*, big boy, and I'll give you what's in mine."
Or you know, he could be dead. He's probably dead. Right?
Well, that's bananas.
When all is said and done, Tia is left flirting with a crater, still entirely hidden by smoke... and then a silhouette appears in the smoke, slowly growing in clarity as Tran(?) emerges from concealment.
He's in remarkably good shape given that particular assault; although covered in bruises, and bleeding cuts of various sizes, he's moving with only a small limp. His flawless skin and muscular frame gleam with sweat, and his eyes are fixed right on Tia's. It's super intense and passionate, you guys. Just, super duper.
SSlowly, he draws up to the woman... and then embraces her, wrapping his arms tightly around her.
"What was born in Japan, lived in America, and has come to Zack Island to ruin you?" Tran(?) whispers breathily into Tia's ear. Tia has about three seconds to contemplate the potential meaning of this riddle--
-- and then Tran(?)'s grip tightens to uncomfortable levels, and he pops the woman into the air, drawing her across his shoulders in a fireman's carry. As instructed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Tran(?) rotates to face the nearest camera, and then roars and pops Tia up off his shoulders and over his head, to drop down in front of him. As she falls, Tran(?)'s right knee rises up to slam into Tia's face, her beautiful, beautiful face.
Upon impact- or, indeed, upon the move's completion evne if Tia writhes out of Tran(?)'s grasp, the ground underneath Tran(?) suddenly buckles, cracks, and breaks, dropping the man into an unfathomably dark pit, down to the cavernous reaches of Zack Island's Double Undersewer.
ELSEWHERE
"I don't get it," Adam Devine(?) complains. "Is it him? He wasn't made in Japan. Was he made in Japan?"
MMA superfan and Talking Dead sensation Phil Brooks glares at Adam Devine(?). "Do you even know who I am?"
"Duh," Adam Devine(?) says, rolling his eyes. "You're Channing Tatum, right?"
"Jesus Christ," sighs Phil Brooks, husband of AJ Lee.
HERE
COMBATSYS: Robo-Tran has suffered catastrophic damage and fallen offline.
COMBATSYS: Tia endures Robo-Tran's Dr. Tran? Can't Feel His Legs.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////// ]
Caoimhe 0/-------/-----==|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Tia 1/=======/=======|
INSIDE A BATHTUB ON FIRE
LIKE THE BATHTUB IS ON FIRE BUT SO IS EVERYTHING INSIDE IT
ALSO LET'S BE REAL SO IS EVERYTHING ELSE PROBABLY
A man who doesn't even remember yesterday is easily having the worst day of his life.
FIVE SECONDS LATER
OUTSIDE
Though in incredible pain, there's something soothing about flight. The feeling of weightlessness, if you just close your eyes, you can imagine you're in a better place, floating on the clouds, not a care in the world. Not like reality. Reality sucks. There's almost nothing good in this world, nothing but pain and misery and people blowing you up all the time. It's brutal and unfair.
"But at least," Amnesia Man, "I've still got my lasagna."
Opening his eyes with a faint smile, he sees the shrapnel that's peppered his delicious pasta dish, in several places having holes blown clean through it.
And abruptly, he feels something inside him, something delicate and pure, /snap/.
A SURPRISINGLY LONG HANG TIME LATER
BACK AT THE SUITE
The smoldering remains of a bathtub crash down like a comet, sending even more dust and debris flying into the air. The cloud is ominous, and it appears to be /hissing/, which is no surprise since god knows how many pipes have been broken at this point. But no, it's not plumbing of inferior strength that is the source of this mystery noise.
"Who," questions the man standing there to nobody in particular, bloody and battered but still standing, still burning with inner spirit and also a little bit of exterior fire and what might be steam(?), "Who swears to god that he's going to destroy this entire stupid FUCKING island for being the WORST vacation he's ever had?"
COMBATSYS: Tran takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////// ]
Caoimhe 0/-------/-----==|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Tia 1/=======/=======|
Caoimhe is standing agape at the edge of the shaft left behind in the wake of Tia's descent with Dr. Tran (?) when the remains of the tub crash down across the room. Immediately, her hand goes for the gun substituting for her shotgun - the flare gun from before - only to find that it was abandoned during the scuffling upstairs. She herself has been bloodied and burnt, her clothing shredded in many places by the repeated explosions. She raises her eyes to the man that resembles another man who may or may not be in a crater on the hotel's ground floor.
"Tran -" she murmurs in response to the riddle. Then she thumps her fist against her chest as she coughs up dust from the cascading rubble.
"- transfer? Maybe you should consider transferring to another vacation destination."
Her hand wraps around one of the coconuts hanging from her chest - a literal coconut, mind - and starts to shake it as she stares the man down.
"Here's my riddle. What is the usual end result of a hypergolic chemical reaction?"
And then she flings the coconut, which ignites almost instantly upon leaving her hand. As does the dust surrounding the area near Tran as the fireball hits it, causing an enormous inferno to erupt almost spontaneously.
Tia's expression as she watches Robo-Tran rise from his apparent grave is...
...certainly not one of displeasure. There's a mote of fury in there as she straightens, nails raking at her thighs as her fingers curl more harshly against the fragile security of her sole, tasteful garment. But it burns quickly into a furiously-empassioned half-grin, his deceptive approach met with only an inward arching of her back, as she... essentially gives herself to this glistening hunk of manhood. Her breasts rub against his chest, camo paint streaking and smearing, her nipples already hard as they flick across his own. His whisper...
She doesn't really know what to make of it, but then it's too late to do anything about that. Her breatch catches in her throat, a hoarse and impossibly-sexual moan sounding as she's hoisted with the devastating promise of power. Her soul burns, and so do various inlying parts of her, the heat and thrill of battle culminating in this-- this gift of desruction, a gift she receives seemingly all too gladly. Is either of them human, at this point? Is there any humanity to be FOUND here?
His knee is rising all too soon, all too suddenly, and Tia just snarls into it, her mouth opening to accept the hard jolt of bone against biting, tearing enamel. She's got pretty exceptional teeth - it is, indeed, a beautiful mouth when it's not full of blood and meerkat chunks and Jezebel Faiblesse's freckled flesh and god knows what else. Or at least, it *was* a beautiful mouth. Her teeth shatter on impact, all that hard orthodontic work going to wrack and ruin, enamel chipping and flying off every which way, shards working their way with horrid fervour into gums and tongue. Tia chokes, rough parts of her own body lodging into her throat, and then she vomits from the sheer pain of it-- from taking it all, from not being wholly crushed.
And there's the rub. Destroyed, she's not.
She sells it like Rob Van Dam, jolting into the air and spinning on her impossibly athletic axis, motes of vestigial chi whirling away as she resists all she can and wraps the rest of the agony and horror around her like a blanket. Robo-Tran falls away, falls into darkness... and Tia, for all she deserves to be so much the lessened, lands in a tangle of limbs and springs back to her feet, coughing and rasping and spitting out shards of broken beauty and dignity. Swiping a hand back across her mouth, she wobbles and almost falls, then with another hawking mouthful of blood and torn skin, she straightens up and erupts into gurgling laughter.
Stepping to the now widened crater's edge, she brings an arm up, almost fainting in the process before she rallies herself and slaps at the hard tip of her elbow with the opposite hand. She's covered in her own blood and sweat, and it makes a damp, sticky noise. Over in the corner, a scantily-dressed hotel worker pukes profusely.
"The ANSTHER wasth my *ELBOW*, and thisth isth the twilight off y'r ssshhhort, pffffetic *life*."
She spares the time only for one last, cruel grin down into the gloom of the undersewers, and then whips her chin upward dramatically, hazel eyes bloodshot and blazing and neck making a rather stomach-churning crack at the sudden stress.
Way above, she can smell victory. She can smell... man. A man on the edge.
A man called Dr. Tran.
Suddenly, Langray is a blur once more, hunkering down and launching herself with a wild burst of chi that carries her right out of the hotel lobby to the first of many shattered and broken floors above. With each bound, each outflung arm, each steadying roll, she gains speed and momentum, working her way in a chaotic, tumbling zig-zag through the shaken and stirred interior of the hotel. Somewhere along the way, her desperate little thong finally gives up the ghost, catching on the edge of a ripped floorboard and ripping away with a soft *ssshshhhhpp*. It flutters back toward the lobby as Tia continues onward, her bloodlust intensifying, her ambition soaring--
--until at the culmination of Caoimhe's renewed assault on the lonely, defeated man named Tran. When the explosion triggers, Tia MFin' Langray is suddenly right there as well, a vertical leap carrying her back into the designated suite with a wordless yell that sounds a spray of blood, saliva and enamel dust through the air.
When Tran stumbles, he's met with the rise and fall of a powerful, sweat-drenched leg. Tia is slick from head to toe, reeking of sweat both stale and fresh, along with the musky, telltale scent of a woman who's far too excited for her own good or anybody else's. It's like being assaulted by a stunning, clean-shaven, butterface gorilla.
"ORRRYAAAAA!!"
COMBATSYS: Caoimhe and Tia successfully hit Tran with FUBAR.
~~ Alluring Hit! ~~
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > ////// ]
Caoimhe 0/-------/-----==|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Tran
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Tia 0/-------/----===|
Langray's kick cleaves the one and only Dr. Tran straight through the goddamn face, a late retort to Robo-Tran's demolition of her facemeats that leads directly into a landing, driving Tran back across the floor with an explosion of machine-gun kicks levelled from alternate legs, whipping roundhouse after whipping roundhouse turning the pair into a dancing blur. At some point she spares the time to flash a gap-toothed, horror-movie grin past the man to her teammate, and goes for a saucy wink that...
...even given her audience, it-- it doesn't work, and besides...
A second later, she's seizing the man by his pectorals and dragging him in close to her, an aggressive and entirely dominating action that sees the full length of her quivering, sodden frame slathered against his own form with absolutely no style or grace, and all the raw sexuality of a love-lorn rhinocerous. Her arms are intimately wrapped around his waist, if your idea of intimacy is animal stench and steel restraints.
"Ansther the nithe lady, *loverboy*!"
Her final, sibilant, blood-spraying hiss is uttered as she leans in with smoky eyes promising all kinds of carnal displeasure and sticks out her bloody tongue, dragging it from his jawline up over one half of his face to his brow, where she shifts away to chew down on an earlobe, working bits of broken tooth into the flesh but otherwise... honestly being pretty fucking good at the murderous seductress thing. A DD-movie career has done her well in this regard, but not so much having her face caved in by this same man's robo-clone nemesis. Mixed signals, there are. It's probably a relief, then...
When she rolls backward with Tran still pressed against her, various fluids dripping down their conjoined forms as she bounces off her bruised spine right back into the first of many broken holes... and all the long, long, screaming hellride back to the lobby far below. Is she riding with him all the way to Robo-Tran's resting place? Will they burn together, forever? Is she truly a demon, sent to Zack Island for him alone?
At the last, the answer to at least this riddle is given.
Tia unfolds, bucking everything from her pelvic bone up to her perfect abdominals and further to the twin peaks of aroused breasts, the Eyes of Whorus (because we had to mention them this one. last. time) smudgedly staring him to a lascivious last goodbye as Langray HURLS Dr. Tran away from her toward the double undersewer.
They hang there, in slow-motion, as they assuredly must, she completely naked and dripping, all perfect body and broken, bruised and bloody face. It's from this that she throws an ichor-spraying kiss, and it's the last sight he sees before he descends even further... but he'll hear her, at least, bidding him farewell as she lands on the other side of the crater with a huff of breath and immediately hangs her head.
Tia Langray is certifiable. She's actually grinning with, admittedly sardonic, pleasure, as she grates out, with one last cough freeing her throat of foulness:
"Bestht! Vacation. Ever."
He has no idea where they come from. He doesn't really care, either. He signed up for this dumb crap for one reason and one reason only: to have a nice, relaxing vacation after a miserable time spent on the down-low, doing whatever he could to scrape by. And all he would have to do is just pretend to fight some people and wear a bikini. It was supposed to be easy street, a deal that's too good to be true!
Which...which it was. As it turns out.
And you know something? Dr. Richard Tran has had enough of this stupid riddle /bullshit/. All of these stupid questions are just rhetorical, anyway, excuses to blow him up /more/, like he hasn't had a tough enough time with his MULTIPLE CONCUSSIONS and INSANE CLONE ATTACKS and NINJA CPR and WHY DID THAT MONKEY HAVE A TRUMPET.
Dr. Tran has left his breaking point so far behind that nothing, /nothing/, is going to stop him from having his violent, /hateful/ vengeance on /everything that exists/.
And then it gets worse because the air is on fire because PHYSICS HATES HIS LIFE. Everything is fire and burning. Dr. Tran's world is fire and burning and there's no air, but that's fine, because he hates the traitorous air too much to even /want/ to breathe it in at this point. Unable to see, unable to move, the doctor gathers his rage inward and takes a slow, unsteady step forward.
And then a naked she-gorilla starts to beat the shit out of him. Kick after kick smashes into his already shattered skull, but at this point the damage there's been done. Dr. Tran doesn't even /need/ his brain anymore. What good is it? /Clearly/ it's unneccesary in a battle, which along with suffering is the ONLY THING THAT EXISTS ON ZACK ISLAND.
As the doctor is manhandled, he receives only the slightest break when Tia purple nurples him back onto his feet and hisses with her stupid gorilla breath right into his face. He hisses right back, mouth swollen and thick.
"Ah dun gith a thit."
And then she licks him and Mike Bisons him and maybe it would be sexy if there wasn't all of the blood and sweat and lisping and pain and room in Tran's heart for only one remaining emotion.
Pure, unfiltered anger.
And then she throws him down into the inky black depths of hell itself, AKA Zack Island's Double Undersewer, Home to the Diabolical Hellmutants and their Thousand Instruments of Making Dr. Tran Personally Miserable. He plummets, steam trailing off him as he vanishes into the depths, but as he falls, he never stops staring wordlessly at Tia, the sole identifiable eligible recipient of his wrath.
TEN SECONDS LATER
A hand punches through the floor directly beneath Tia, steam rising off of it in waves. It seems to spasm, then go still, Dr. Tran's last effort simply not enough to overcome the beating he has received.
Then the /rest/ of the floor explodes, steam and rubble flying in every direction as the doctor uppercuts straight through the floor. His body arcs gracefully upward, fist aimed directly at Tia's ladyparts, blasting chi outward in every direction seemingly without constraint.
Somewhere along the way, he lost his banana hammock.
It's...it's kind of a let down, if we're being totally honest.
And then, hit or miss, Dr. Tran fizzles out like a spent firecracker, and finds himself tumbling roughly back down into the dark below.
COMBATSYS: Tran can no longer fight.
COMBATSYS: Tran successfully hits Tia with #Here Comes Dr. Tran!+#.
[ < > ////////// ]
Tia 1/-======/=======|==-----\-------\0 Caoimhe
When that fist emerges like the first flower of spring, the marbled floor of the lobby splintering and fracturing just shy of causing a genuinely-threatening disturbance, Tia doesn't really... do a goddamn thing. Hazel eyes, no longer even really identifiable as her own - what IS she? - stare downward without beginning to perceive what's going on. You see, when you visit endless suffering and pain on people, they're not supposed to pop back up and SUDDENLY IMMOLATE THE FLOOR OH GOD. WHAT IS HAPPENING.
There's really no form of rationality left with which Tia Langray can respond. There's really not much of Tia Langray left; she's given herself to the debauched Island Gods and their bizarrely twisted mythologies, lost in the riddles of the sphinx and condemned to the same feral madness of whatever that meerkat god thing was called. It would all be too much, if she was deserving of any sympathy or understanding in the first place. As it is, what occurs next, it's... retribution. Or a step toward it.
Alice's vengeful fist plunges through the walls of reality itself and straight into the rabbit hole, unleashing an unmentionable torrent that will be no further described because we have done enough here today. The avenger's graceful arc is not matched by his vanquished foe - Tia is launched a few feet, and then just sort of crumples into a sweaty, naked and no-longer-even-slightly-attractive mess, bouncing off a nearby wall and then stumbling with slow, inexorable expectation of impending doom...
...toward the same hellpit as both Trans.
There's a moment where it seems she's going to make it, that some cruel god actually has plans for Tia that don't involve any form of payment for the sins she has committed here and across the island. At the last, as if the breath of Gaia herself were making the final judgement, Langray flops over one last time in a tangle of twisted, bruised limbs, and tumbles down, down, down into the undersewer...
Where she assuredly belongs.
R.I.P.
Wait, don't they have another match scheduled for next week?
COMBATSYS: Tia graciously yields the spotlight.
COMBATSYS: Tia can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ <
Caoimhe 0/-------/-----==|
==*== AT THE END OF EVERYTHING... OR IS IT THE BEGINNING? ==*==
Several stories up, Sergeant Caoimhe Delaney watches as her partner and the last of their opponents disappear into the darkness.
For a moment, as the dust and debris slowly starts to settle, there is silence, but for the groaning protest of the hotel's structural supports.
Then, quietly, the auburn-haired woman makes the sign of the cross before turning and walking away.
COMBATSYS: Caoimhe has ended the fight here.
Log created on 17:32:22 02/11/2015 by Tia, and last modified on 03:47:37 02/12/2015.