Match of the Millennium

Description: An attempt to schedule a MEETING with ALAN R. B. fails, with sexy results. Our heroine declares she has "MAXIMUM CLEARANCE" and swears a lot. Alan R. B. zaps her repeatedly, but this use of electricity fails to improve her personality. Next stop: Probably fighting guitar witches.

[ALAN]
Cincinnati, Ohio. An old city. A loved city. Ancestral home of pork products and the Boy Scouts. In a spot of the double-fisted utter disrespect and dark humor that The Company is known for, there is a secret elevator behind a dumpster sitting outside the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

A keypad that must be revealed with a Sumerian curse inscribed with Phoenician script. Mem. Tet. Nun. He. Kap. Please keep your arms and legs inside the capsule for the duration of your plummet.

A silver bullet through the third eye of Earth, a parasite pill descending into America's capitalistic gullet to warp its bacteria to its benefit.

Welcome to the financial department of the Illuminati. We do the taxes.

--

"The jackass? Yeah he came by here about an hour ago. Had his dumb ass towel with him."

"If you're looking for the conduit, he's usually in the gym around now. I'd bring rubber boots if I was you."

<lmao u tried 2 schedule w/him??> Bright neon words on an obnoxious visor. <lololololololo>

Alan R.B., known locally as 'the' conduit but more properly simply 'a' conduit, an industry classification for individuals with a natural ability to channel chi far beyond ordinary people. He's always involved at least on the periphery of major moves by the Company, an invaluable resource of remarkable power who seems to wield it with the utter ease of a man who doesn't have to work for any of it.

Seems. The power is no good if the body can't compare.

In one corner of the bleeding-edge state of the art gym in the financial facility, Alan R.B. is alone at the heavy bags constructed of ultra-durable non-conductives specifically for him. Shirtless, with track pants and a pair of sparring gloves marked with the Illuminati's blue triangle, he is striking the bag in front of him with heavy, measured blows. The oddly echoed sounds are audible from several yards away from the gym's door.

A closer look. The bag shudders on each swing. With each punch, he strikes it twice. Sweat pours down his graven muscles, luminescent with the electricity dancing on his body. This is the only time anyone sees a serious expression on Alan's face.

(Alright, boyo, remember to throw your whole body into the hook. Like when you're trying to swing a bucket so hard none of the water comes out. Shove your back heel down into the ring. Don't punch at your target, punch /through/ it.)

Power erupts around Alan's right hand as he swings a hook at the bag, his body smearing with the speed, indistinct. Five rapid cracks like a man emptying his pistol in a panic. The bag surges to the side, straining at the chains holding it, lightning spilling out onto the mat around him.

[MERCEDES]
Mercedes Deletraz had a plan. She was going to do an efficient confab session with the man called Alan regarding his report on the guitar woman, and share ideas, having realized once she got out of Southtown and talked to a person who spoke english that "I Know" or perhaps "Eeh Now" was in fact the person known in some territories and sequences as "I-No."

Obvious, really.

She had done everything right. She had sent a meeting invite with no "No" option. She'd sent a friendly reminder email which she KNOWS was in unambiguous English. She had even attached a :-) at the end.

And then.

For forty minutes- forty precious, wonderful minutes that she could have spent not being in Cincinnati, Ohio, a town that smells like the turd of a man dead from aggravated fatness - forty minutes in the precious, singular life that is given to all of us as a present from God or fate - she had waited for Alan R.B.

She had sent four reminder emails. There were no :-)'s in them.

-=-=-=-

Mercedes looks down her nose at the man with the visor and makes herself breathe. Breathe... in... breathe... out. Breathe... in... breathe... out. It is a steady rhythm, like a church bell hanging in a metal cage because if it were in a brick structure it would be knocked over by the mistral. Without opening her mouth or unclenching her teeth, she answers him, "Is that so. Thank you. Carry on."

She stomped down the hall, fit to crack the tasteful marble tile. (Of course there's marble tile. What are they going to use, linoleum?)

-=-=-=-

The thunder cracks with that revolver swiftness which concealed a door opening and revealing Mercedes Deletraz, who is wearing the following:

* An extremely assertive power suit in a tasteful shade of puce
* A neon-teal neck tie, increasing the aesthetic factor
* A new wave hairdo that she probably got on the theory that this is how you dress in America
* Some rubber caps on the copper toes of her death stilletos
* A probably-now-permanent scowl

"You piece," Mercedes says, "OF SHIT!" she shouts, stomping then across the gym floor towards Alan and pointing out a fingernail (which matches her tie) as if she's going to scoop it into Alan's eye socket and pop out his eye and eat it. She does not get close enough to do this but the intention is there. Carry-through.

"Do you know how long you've made me wait in this miserable country for your overloaded ballsack?!" Mercedes continues to yell. "You're lucky I don't strap you into a power station and beat your - ngh - gahh!"

She raises her hands to her face, pressing fingers to her temples. Her eyes almost close but she clearly thinks better of the operation before the lashes completely interlock. Breathe in. Breathe out. The AC kicks on in the room or something.

Rocking back on her heels, Mercedes says, "If I'm not INTERRUPTING your EXTREMELY IMPORTANT WORKOUT ROUTINE THAT YOU DID NOT MENTION, perhaps we can have a CIVIL CONVERSATION about your encounter with that vinyl-wrapped sound harlot and, like two MATURE ADULTS who engage in TIMELY ATTENDANCE AT EVENTS, SCHEDULED BY OTHERS, work out a fucking STRATEGY!"

She rocks back forwards. Her hands come down from her face as if the muscles went slack.

"Oh I'm Mercedes, though, it's really a pleasure to meet you," she says in a completely normal and brisk tone of voice, extending out her right hand.

[ALAN]
While Mercedes yells, despite Alan still in his follow-through, there are three more crashing impacts - you always see the lightning before the thunder. The rest of the people in the gym - only the beautiful people get into Financial - pause their glamour workouts to stare.

After she's done, the bag swings steadily back into place, chains creaking. Sparks flutter from Alan's mouth as he returns back to stance and gives the bag one last punch with his left hand.

The boxer continues to fuck with her, stepping away to retrieve a black towel with yellow electricity, wiping off his face and swabbing at his chest. He loops it over his shoulder as he turns and meets her eyes, shoulders swelling with quickened breath. He looks brazenly down her chest before stopping at her hand.

Alan takes a step forward... and past, walking a half-circle around her, stopping behind. He stops, looking fixedly at her ass as he reaches into his track pockets and pulls out his cellphone. "Oh, shit," he says without much sincerity, "the 30th? I thought we were doing this on the 40th. Must've misread."

If Mercedes hasn't turned back toward him, he re-enters her field of view from the left, swiping one hand through his blonde hair. Fluffy steam rises from it as it is evaporated by chi, and with a shift, he pulls a lock of hair down to form a hanging lightning bolt, the rest of it staying swept back.

"Hot accent, Mercedes. If you'd set the meeting up in a hotel and not a cafe two blocks down from the Chug'n'Squeeze, I'd've probably only been ten or so minutes late." The tirade doesn't seem to have put Alan off his pace at all. He slips the cellphone back in his pockets along with his other hand and leans back against the heavy bag's frame. "But I'm kind of a my-own-schedule type of guy. Didn't anyone tell you? Must not have a lotta people looking out for you." He grins in a manner that doesn't come anywhere near his eyes.

Now, granted, Alan doesn't have a lot of people /looking/ out for him. It's more like... watching out.

COMBATSYS: Mercedes has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Mercedes         0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Alan has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Alan             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0         Mercedes

[MERCEDES]
Other people are present, in theory, but to Mercedes they are the background. Some would say 'NPCs' but only because they themselves have succumbed to the illuminati memetic virus distributed by B*th*s*d* Software. (Japanese games are fine and safe, though. Please support King of Fighters at your local Game Center. Also Sega.)

Mercedes grinds her teeth, lips parted enough to show her teeth as Alan eyeballs her. She pivots back on her heel as he rounds on her and then - he speaks.

There is a moment that Alan may glory in, a moral victory far surpassing most, where he can see Mercedes deflate. That is because for one shining instant in Mercedes' brain she has heard a de-escalation and the proffering of an original and sensible reason for the mistake. Her fingers loosely curl.

The storm clouds gather again almost immediately because Mercedes did not take long to realize he said 30th-40th, not 13th-14th. But there was that moment. That moment where Alan Got Away With It. "Oh, so you objected to the venue? Well, I will have to take that into consideration for future meetings," she says, the anger back but at a 2 compared to the 0 of her name-giving and the 8 of her furious entrance. "But you could have suggested something more to your liking..."

"Well, we are both here now," Mercedes says, hands going to her hips, "so we might as well get started. As far as I see it we have two topics. One is this woman, and I'd like you to fill in the spaces in your report, the little things that might not have come onto the record... things that can illuminate the dark spaces. And,"

Mercedes pivots around with a little skip hop that would be elegant and perhaps 'tight' if she were street dancing in Brazil. This does two things at once, creating a spurious Gemini-like theme. The first is putting her to face Alan dead on, and the second is to drive her rubber capped toe up to Alan's side at about liver height, aiming to push it (the shoe) into it (Alan's body) as deep as it can go, backed by a whip-crack rustle of fine wool power skirt.

"YOU CAN SKIP TALKING SHIT TO ME, ASSHOLE!! I'LL TEACH YOU TO IGNORE MY EMAILS!!" The anger is now back up to around '7,' and it's also amping up the accent. "Get your LITTLE THINGS out front!" Her kickin' foot comes down with a stomp onto the gym floor.

Inwardly Mercedes thinks: Miserable man, he can't do anything to me with these RUBBER SOLES on.

Other people are present, in theory, but to Mercedes they are the background. Some would say 'NPCs' but only because they themselves have succumbed to the illuminati memetic virus distributed by B*th*s*d* Software. (Japanese games are fine and safe, though. Please support King of Fighters at your local Game Center. Also Sega.)

Mercedes grinds her teeth, lips parted enough to show her teeth as Alan eyeballs her. She pivots back on her heel as he rounds on her and then - he speaks.

There is a moment that Alan may glory in, a moral victory far surpassing most, where he can see Mercedes deflate. That is because for one shining instant in Mercedes' brain she has heard a de-escalation and the proffering of an original and sensible reason for the mistake. Her fingers loosely curl.

The storm clouds gather again almost immediately because Mercedes did not take long to realize he said 30th-40th, not 13th-14th. But there was that moment. That moment where Alan Got Away With It. "Oh, so you objected to the venue? Well, I will have to take that into consideration for future meetings," she says, the anger back but at a 2 compared to the 0 of her name-giving and the 8 of her furious entrance. "But you could have suggested something more to your liking..."

"Well, we are both here now," Mercedes says, hands going to her hips, "so we might as well get started. As far as I see it we have two topics. One is this woman, and I'd like you to fill in the spaces in your report, the little things that might not have come onto the record... things that can illuminate the dark spaces. And,"

Mercedes pivots around with a little skip hop that would be elegant and perhaps 'tight' if she were street dancing in Brazil. This does two things at once, creating a spurious Gemini-like theme. The first is putting her to face Alan dead on, and the second is to drive her rubber capped toe up to Alan's side at about liver height, aiming to push it (the shoe) into it (Alan's body) as deep as it can go, backed by a whip-crack rustle of fine wool power skirt.

"YOU CAN SKIP TALKING SHIT TO ME, ASSHOLE!! I'LL TEACH YOU TO IGNORE MY EMAILS!!" The anger is now back up to around '7,' and it's also amping up the accent. "Get your LITTLE THINGS out front!" Her kickin' foot comes down with a stomp onto the gym floor.

Inwardly Mercedes thinks: Miserable man, he can't do anything to me with these RUBBER SOLES on.

COMBATSYS: Alan blocks Mercedes' Thrust Kick.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Alan             0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0         Mercedes

[ALAN]
Alan doesn't get mad. It's why people use those words to describe him. Jackass. The loudmouth. Asshole. People aren't afraid of him because they know that at the end of the day he's going to let it happen.

Even though, in most cases... he /could/ stop them.

Mercedes whips 180 degrees at him and Alan, still holding his phone as he never got around to her front, lifts an eye from it. He smears across the air with a sudden shuffle step and lifts his bare foot up. Her rubber toe hits the balls of his feet, pushing his leg back until he manages to stop it. They lock together like that for a moment.

Mercedes cracks her foot back down onto the floor. Some of the people in the background get back to their routines - others get ready to watch. Fights aren't entirely uncommon around here, but nobody picks fights with the conduit.

Shit, Alan thinks, brushing his free hand by his ear. My cigarettes are in my locker.

"Technically," he responds, "I didn't skip them. I just don't like to read - I was hoping for some pictures." He winks at her, but as some adrenaline starts pumping, the grey shades in his stormcloud eyes roll faster. Alan leans to the side and points out at the crowd. "Hey, you all saw her swing first! Nobody better give me any shit for this one!"

He pulls his other hand out of his pocket and bounces a little on the ground, getting used to having no boots, no rings on his fingers. Well, maybe she'll need the handicap. "Quick word of advice before we continue: don't punctuate attacks with such obvious fuckin' verbal tics. You-"

His left hand vanishes for a second. It doesn't travel slow enough to readily see until it's a few centimeters from Mercedes's cheekbone. "-want it to be more abrupt.

"Anyway, what's there to say? There was a witch. She kicked my ass. Weird chi. I gotta find out your clearance level before I go telling all my tales without a mattress involved."

COMBATSYS: Mercedes counters Cross Punch from Alan with Va te faire foutre!.
- Power hit! -

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////// ]
Alan             0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0         Mercedes

[MERCEDES]
Mercedes may be nobody soon enough.

"Oh, did you want a sketch," Mercedes says, swaying her head back and forth as her eyes widen. "Perhaps a sensual photostudy! Pfeh! I've read your dossier, I know of your excessive lusts and -"

"Heh! Establishing your alibi," Mercedes says with her turn at a joyless smile. Before she can say something else snappy there is a sudden swing towards her face and she leans *back* and it is rather drastic, drastic enough to make that tie bounce up and for the expensive designer silk to tangle up a little around Alan's fist due to one of those weird quirks. She seems to have cool air around her.

But then

SNAP!

Comes the counterstrike from her drawn-back hand, a full bore slap with a little nail action at the end. The recoil motion rips the tie loose or at least unknotted as she straightens up and says, "My clearance level is maximum you indigent swine! This matter is connected so intimately that it's wearing a condom! Listen, you, because I ran into some horrid woman commanding a cluster of Gear-shaped poppets in Southtown and this horrible woman repeatedly spoke *of* this witch by her accursed handle, her catch phrase, whatever nom-de-fellatio she has chosen to assume! She mentioned her BY NAME. She MISTOOK ME FOR HER!"

There may be a couple of points of similarity.

Mercedes' hands come up, a guarded posture as she stays faintly leaned back. OK, it's Savate. At least that's something to put your head around. "So in light of this exciting new fact, illuminate your memory. Open up your mind! You know the old aphorism. One is coincidence, two is conspiracy, three is *imminent death*."

[ALAN]
<Countaah!>

Alan reels back from the returned hit. Mercedes's nails leave two cuts in his cheek. The crowd starts to rumble. He looks forward and reaches up to the cuts to gather some of the crackling blood on one finger, looking Mercedes up and down again. More evaluating than prurient this time, but still without a scrap of respect. "Nah," he says.

"I-No's got fuck energy rolling off her curves. You?" He lifts the bloody finger to his mouth and kisses it off. "I bet your best move is the scoot. You know what a man's magic triangle is?" Alan sneers.

He finally pulls his other hand out of his pocket, leaving the cell phone, gathering himself up into his stance. Weight light on his feet, body compacted down, a small, bobbing target. His body relaxes, the electricity that was once just sparking around him now flowing across his skin.

A probing question. He leaves the clearance issue alone - nobody in his side of things has the balls to say 'maximum' with KG around - she /holds/ people to that kind of thing. "She say any other names? This lady happen to be looking for someone other than I-No?"

Tight quarters. The blonde's eyes shift left and right as he lays out the ring in his mind and starts stepping to the side. Mercedes between himself and the heavy bags. His left hand slightly opens. "Name woulda been around the same level. Whoever gave these things their designations was just punching keyboards and looking around their office." His hand dips. It looks for a moment like he's going into a hitman stance, like he's about to use flicker jabs.

But then he swings it up, revealing a small ball of chi cradled in his palm. Alan snaps his fingers. "Strike!" A bolt of clean yellow electricity jumps across the air - before the sizzling even leaves the air his hand is coming back around, fingers snapping again with a second crack. "Twice!"

COMBATSYS: Mercedes blocks Alan's Lightning Strikes Twice.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Alan             0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0         Mercedes

[MERCEDES]
Mercedes's brow furrows as her lips pull back. "The tip and the balls, obviously," she retorts cuttingly, at least in her tone. Alan ducks low and Mercedes hops back - not steps, hops - with her forward foot twitching slightly, as if she is looking for the optimal point to kick him in the aforementioned organs.

"She babbled something about learning about whether dancing is all about butts or not," Mercedes continues. "I recorded it under hypnosis. She attempted to defeat me in dance to gather data AND DATA FOR WHOM, I MAY - up -"

Lightning crashes. A new mother dies. (The new mother is not present. The events are unrelated.) Sizzling tension arcs through Mercedes as the backhanded gesture turns out to be a filthy god damn lie, the arc lightning hitting her on the back swing in the rib cage and affiliated reasons. She lets out a noise like 'heeeeeeeeeeh' as her lung spasms, swirling back and making a chubby-cheeked face as she struggles for breath through her nose.

It takes a moment. Afterwards, a tremble runs through her body. "I see you live up to your reputation, Mr. Conduit," she continues, practically spitting the name. "Her name was Jack-O. Babbling on about combat data, about candy... You know the fucking training, don't you? The one everyone SKIPS? About NOT TALKING ABOUT COMBAT DATA?"

Mercedes' head lashes around to stare dead-ass on at a guy doing his reps, who absolutely talked about getting combat data. He drops his bar. The clang is loud.

"And she said something about DERPOS as I was departing - referring, no doubt, to her horrible little marshmallow creatures - "

Mercedes trails off. Maybe she's lost her fight rage. Maybe now they can reconci NOPE here it comes, another of those high speed pivots, this time with her foot aiming towards the other side of Alan - more of a spleen/stomach/diaphragm shot than her prior aim at the ol' liquor remover. She doesn't scream while doing it, though.

"Did you screw that miserable woman?" Mercedes asks afterwards, baldly.

COMBATSYS: Alan dodges Mercedes' Fouette Italiene.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Alan             0/-------/--=====|===----\-------\0         Mercedes

[ALAN]
Alan shakes his head at Mercedes' misidentification of the magic triangle. No matter how the fight goes... has Alan won the battle now? He shakes excess power off his hand. "That? That wasn't shit. You really want to see something, I'll get out my lightning rod."

Mercedes pivots again. This time the boxer just steps right in.

("Alright, boyo, I saw that last illegal underground fight you did. Hahaha! No, I'm not mad, your old man's seen the seedy end of a betting purse his own fair share of times. Anyway, listen, when you fight another savate guy - step into those kicks. Don't stay in or you'll eat a knee, but as long as they miss you with those toes...")

Why do I keep thinking about him lately?

"Thanks for a whole bunch of useless bullshit! I definitely remember asking for all the inane parts of your conversation." I-No, Jack-O. Kinda similar names. Fucked up if true. His hand comes up, trying to catch Mercedes's ankle as he presses inappropriately close to her, his other hand coming up for her shoulder. "So she didn't mention anyone else. Then they might not be after the same thing. We could use that."

Then, he whispers into her ear, breathily: "Not yet." His leg slips forward, between hers. "Mood's gotta be just right."

Alan being shirtless offers the slightest advantage - Mercedes can see the flare of chi originating at his chest, running through his muscles and firing down his right arm. As he leans and tries to shove her still-grounded foot to the side, leaving the woman with nowhere to go but down, the electricity tries to go from one hand to another - through her.

Beat. "You heard mommi, mole ass. Stop talking out of class about spooky mysteries. SECRET society, SECRET!"

COMBATSYS: Alan successfully hits Mercedes with Livewire.

[        \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Alan             0/-------/=======|=======\-------\0         Mercedes

[MERCEDES]
Mercedes' face contorts into something that clearly says, even if her mouth doesn't quite catch up with it, 'the fuck did you say?'

And then he's coming in close and catching her ankle. Mercedes tries to twist round. Alan can probably guess she was about to do some acrobatic bullshit but then he got in the way to breathe sexual energy and protein breath onto her ear, making her then get slid-between in a way most unseeemly outside of the better kinds of girls' school before

Flick -

Twist -

The power arcs through her and she squeals, "Shiiiiit!!" even as she falls on the ground hard enough to hit, hard enough to thump, hard enough to bounce up. Then back down. She lays afterwards. This is probably a point where those who are in Finance expect it to end.

Mercedes is not done. She gets up to her elbows as Alan addresses the Financier. She breathes for a moment. She does not go for his balls or his penus or any other vulnerable organ, perhaps in silent appreciation of appreciation. Or perhaps her ass hurts. It is all of these and more. "It is called free association, you shit for brains," she grunts out, before kipping back up, backwards, in heels, and dusting off her skirt, which now has a tear in it.

"Hngh. Anglophonic habits of mind..."

"Use it against them? I do not even know if they are cooperating. If these are just two sisters or an old married couple split up because one of them decided to paint herself in vinyl and the other one did a kilogram of DMT and shit her bellbottoms, then perhaps we would be only increasing the amount of cruelty in the world. Though it IS fourth quarter, we ARE a little behind -"

Mercedes backs it up. In fact she backsteps so quickly that she ends up besides Mole-Ass, putting one heel up against the lift rack and leaning against it as she stares at Alan. "Motives," she says. "The Jack-O had some desire for combat data and a puerile craving for, hnf, FRIENDSHIP. Did you pick one up for the Vinyl Queen? This is where you're slacking off. She must have a reason for what she is doing. Even a stray dog has to go eat garbage and roll in its own feces and play with Italian children. These are its motives."

Mole-Ass opens his mouth and is kicked-off-of, a sudden and clearly unnatural wind rising in the gym. This is not the AC, and if Alan's electromagnetic sensitivities reveal it he would understand that she is coming from the northwest quadrant of the gym. But he may not give a shit, especially when she twists round with a "hraaaahhh--" and leaps up impossibly on the wind - but she's going to miss -

No, it's another smack across the face. But she is aiming to land PAST him.

COMBATSYS: Alan endures Mercedes' Coquin Mistral.

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Alan             1/----===/=======|=======\-------\1         Mercedes

[ALAN]
As Mercedes starts getting up, Alan freezes - and then collapses, an afterimage of tiny lightnings, revealing that the boxer had gotten instant distance with a cool flash step. "Jesus, woman, figure it out. Are you the kind of person who writes an itinerary in ten minute intervals or a manic comic working on your tight five?" He lifts a foot and taps his toes downward on the floor, an idle animation that makes a lot more sense in boots.

"Once /again/, I don't /really/ know who you are and don't /really/ know your fuckin' security clearance and your brassy-ass posh accent ain't gonna give you a free pass until I've given my full report to one of our nude overlords -"

Alan can feel the wind moving. The chi in the air has to move through him to get to where it's going, after all. He stops bobbing for a moment, focusing even though he never looks like he's taking anything seriously. "Unless."

He smears in the air as Mercedes leaps. When he stops moving, he's up - and dead in the middle of her route, guard down. Her strike turns into a spearing tackle right into his gut, air rushing out of his lungs. The clouds in his eyes are racing cataclysmically. One arm is up, hand loose.

Power surging around it.

"Unless you understand that the moment I clue you in," he grabs at her slappin' arm with one hand. "you're in, to the end, no matter how thick the swamp gets. Just because I got played don't mean I wanna pull everyone else in with me.

"Anyway, let's wrap this up."

The power in his right hand is blindingly bright, bolts of lightning jumping through the gym. People are in general panicking, getting under stuff, jumping away from metal objects. A few lights go dark as arcs shatter them. The buildup was... instant.

He drives his fist down toward Mercedes's back before they get a chance to land. The power cascades out, a semi-spherical wave erupting away from the blow with a tremendous peal of thunder that knocks over weight racks, dislodges posters, and causes the automatic door to calmly slide open.

COMBATSYS: Mercedes fails to counter Mjolnir from Alan with Coupe de pied bas.

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Alan             0/-------/-------|=======\-------\1         Mercedes
log/edit 2
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log/start 2
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[MERCEDES]
"What - do you not?" Mercedes says interstitially at the itinerary detail, but then as she lands and twists, she breathes out.

She stares at this man. This conduit.

And she turns up her face, lip curling up in a sneer that was practiced since the time of Caesar. Many a Provencal have made this sneer. It helps to have good dental when you do. "Do you think I do things only partway? Do I dress in fucking PRIMARY PRINTING COLORS because I HALF ASS THINGS, R. B?!"

She takes a deep breath and -

OH LORD HE COMIN

Mercedes' leg snaps up. Her goal is to smash the rubber-over-metal toe into the side of Alan's knee. Probably a good plan. Ground control, or possibly repeated stompings, but instead the power arcs. The power rises - no, the power simply exists!

In the sudden limited Mercedes' skeleton is, to some viewpoints, briefly visible. That makes her muscles lock. The thunder flattens her, sending her onto the ground, contorted in a rigor-mortis like version of that posture, laying on the ground, twitching, spluttering, gasping. Her eyes turn up towards him then, laden with a bestial, all consuming, irrational hate.

Finally, after enough spluttering to do a credible Daffy Duck, she says, "Here is the proof! Grind it into your brainpan!" And then she snaps up one spasming leg to try and hook his leg and pull it out from under him.

The emphasis here is on 'try,' of course, because it's a kind of frog-in-lightning thrashing. She also says about six different French cusses, several of them potentially novel.

[ALAN]
The force of the chi pushes Alan back as well, neatly separating the two of them. He does a flip in the air to orient himself and lands ramrod straight on a yoga mat.

He then has to take an awkward hopping step back away from Mercedes's swiping arms. For the moment, his body seems spent of chi. Everyone gets to enjoy a brief moment of Alan moving around like a regular boy.

The blonde shakes out his punchin' hand. "Usually do that with both hands. Got a bit of a kick to it. Well... maybe you figured that out."

Alan drops down into a squat, looking down at Mercedes while she recovers. There is a bruise spreading across his chest, but he still manages to look unimpressed. He tilts his head to the side. Then:

"Everyone kick rocks. Go get something from the canteen on me." Beat. "Now!"

The gym empties out. Alan may not have /rank/, but he has /pull/.

Craving a cigarette again, the boxer rolls his neck. Chi is starting to creep back into his body, flooding up as he relaxes as much as he can without just falling over. "I-No hit me up again while I was doing a leyline check. She grabbed my dick with a standard offer-I-can't-refuse - the location of a Command Gear, supposedly. Got no choice but to go along with it. Brass would eat my fucking skull if I turned my nose up at that without concrete proof it was false.

"She's got some kind of problem with the Librarium and as part of that wants to use us as the proverbial ten foot pole to see what happens and in exchange is prepared to make 'Dizzy' available to us."

Beat.

"See what I mean about these fucking dumb assed names?"

COMBATSYS: Alan R.B. relaxes aggressively.

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Alan             0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1         Mercedes

[MERCEDES]
The shaking tremors leave Mercedes. She rolls upwards because Alan is shooing away everyone. It's disgusting, Mercedes thinks; I feel almost thankful for him. For what he did. Feh! If he thinks he can hold this over me -

Such is the thoughts of this woman. Externally she is sitting upright and breathing heavily by the time Alan begins to speak again. Her eyes turn up to him, focused and glinting like topazzes. "Hn," she says. "Intriguing. A command Gear, and she just happens to know where it is, and she is not using it? She must be -"

Tense...

And the kip upwards is produced again! No click of the heels, of course, on gym flooring. Breathing out with force, Mercedes puts a hand on her hip, listening to the rest.

That angry face comes back.

"Dizhi? Like, Chinese? No," Mercedes says, "no, it cannot be that. These people! They are like aliens or something they loaded out of a computer! INO, JACKO, DIZZY, perhaps they ARE computer viruses or some preposterous bullshit. Well," and here she paps her fist into her other hand, "it certainly shall not be the first computer asshole, if computer asshole it be."

Alan said nothing about that!! Mercedes cares not.

"So she wants prodding at the N.O.L.? Did she specify or can we simply park bikes in front of them?"

She watches intently as the question enters the air. Then she settles back into a readied, poised posture, hand staying on her hip.

Then she takes one step forwards and leans her head down a little as her foot snaps upwards with that added bit of momentum. The upwards arc would set back a can-can girl's skirt and turns that tear in her normal-person skirt into a catastrophic, garment-write-off rend as her foot, with its metal cap distorted only by rubber sheathing, aims to clip the underside of Alan's jaw!

"This is for doubting me," she explains at the point where her foot passes above her waist, though it kind of happens all throughout the entire speed-kick operation.

COMBATSYS: Mercedes blitzes into action and acts again!

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////                      ]
Alan             0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1         Mercedes

COMBATSYS: Mercedes focuses on her next action.

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////                      ]
Alan             0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1         Mercedes

COMBATSYS: Alan dodges Mercedes' Direct Arriere.

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////                      ]
Alan             0/-------/------=|=======\-------\1         Mercedes

[ALAN]
Alan shakes his head. "Pump the brakes, if they were digital devils we'd already be at class 8 scramble and firing off treaties to the Templars." He shows a shark smile. "You do know what class 8 scramble is, Max Clearance?"

It is then, at his moment of greatest smugness, that Mercedes's foot plunges into - and through?! - his chin.

His face holds together for another heartbeat before the electrical after-image fountains upward in a satisfying shower of sparks. If she can snap her attention back into place, she might see the line of electricity arcing off to the left, the smearing blur of Alan as he loops back around.

It's like instinct. When a woman kicks, there he is. He's so close. There may be a sudden awareness that they are now alone as he catches the back of her head to control her balance, one hand sliding into her jacket, along her abdomen.

"I /still/ doubt you, Mercedes," he says, his tone briefly seeming to switch away from jeer. "I don't know you, you've barged in here like I owe you the road to some kind of promotion, you're coming at this right before I have one of the tensest meetings of my life with stakes that couldn't get any higher." His fingers trail unbidden up to her ribcage, leaving electric tingles as he puts his mouth close to her ear. "At least now when things go wrong... it'll be me... and... you."

His voice goes cold. "On the chopping block."

Alan flexes his hand. The ozone smell he was already leaving goes burnt as a spiky red electric mass erupts out of his palm, several perfect circular red rings pulsing back along his arm in recoil before they too hammer forward, impacting one after the other, each one harder than the last.

COMBATSYS: Alan successfully hits Mercedes with Sprite and Elf EX.
~~ Alluring Hit! ~~

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /                             ]
Alan             0/-------/---====|=======\======-\1         Mercedes

[MERCEDES]
The sneer that comes to Mercedes' face, as well cast as it is, does wobble slightly when she is, first, seized, and second, has Alan sliding upwards as if they've entered a zone in which there can only be B A L L R O O M. Her head tilts back, the highly teased hairdo starting to fade out as she turns her head slightly away.

"Tense meeting? I came here, asshole, we are having it now! W-what are you - talking - about," Mercedes says, her voice faltering, perhaps because seized like this, held like this, and subjected to several recent brutal rounds of electroconvulsive therapy -- she is starting to catch on.

The ego comes back easily, of course, but sometimes it does crack. Her teeth set and she shudders, not unhappily, at the finger along her ribcage. When Alan whispers she says, "Oh - ohh - aah - IYAAAAHHHH!!!"

The last scream came



from the pulsating rings of shocking force slamming into her like one-two-three, her last-moment effort to hurl herself bodily away from Alan failing as she is given that punishing hammering blast. "LAY OFF!! GAHH!! MERCY!! I'm no good to you if you fry me - ngh - glhrglh -" For some reason she thinks of that girl, Hinata, she opposed in the Saturday Night Fight, though in an explicitly platonic way.

Foaming at the mouth she passes out, eyes rolling back in her head.

Her leg hooks round the back of Alan's neck, motivated entirely by spite, as she turns her hopes to the greatest force of all:

Jesus Christ. And by Jesus Christ, read: Gravity; and by Gravity, read "she falls over and is big enough that Alan may want to let go."

COMBATSYS: Mercedes can no longer fight.

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Alan             0/-------/---====|

COMBATSYS: Mercedes successfully hits Alan with Strong Throw.

[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Alan             1/-------/=======|

[ALAN]
The two of them crash to the ground, Alan's leg twisting as he goes. He grunts, landing on a discarded 10 lb dumbbell, shifting to yank it out from under his spine.

"Man," he mutters, reaching up and touching the cut on his cheek again, stinging though the blood's stopped flowing. Mercedes's weight pins him down until he rolls slightly and uses the momentum to shift her off of him.

Ironically, it's far safer for an unconscious woman to be around Alan than a conscious one. He's nowhere near into the sleep stuff.

The gym is a mess. Panels are hanging from the ceiling, weights are scattered all over the place, and there are some melted spots on several mats. The blonde springs to his feet and collects his towel again, reaching behind the heavy bag rack for a bottle of water that he squirts into his face a few times, letting the cool water (it's an advanced illuminati sports bottle) drip down his skin, picking up static charge as he goes.

He coughs, takes a swallow, and shakes his head. "I gave you a chance, lady. Now you're in the big leagues." Alan leaves her there as he walks out, shouting down the hall, "Medic in the gym! Someone done fucked around and ruined her whole life!" He winces, wheeling his arm, stretching out his bruises.

Ambition, he thinks. Always good to have a reminder of why I threw that away years ago.

COMBATSYS: Alan has ended the fight here.

Log created on 19:56:57 11/30/2018 by Mercedes, and last modified on 03:36:28 12/01/2018.