Match of the Millennium

Description: Coco was living the high life as the villainess of the NFG until Juri arrived and revealed herself to be a bait-and-switch boss. As she's taken into captivity on the roof of the Team Frost warehouse, though, the purple-haired posh totty is about to discover a game-changing truth about her identity - and potentially shift the landscape of the New Fighting Generation's affiliations. Will the heroes of Blaze and Thunder be able to rescue their purple-haired princess before disaster strikes?

[JURI]
Well. That was certainly a wild ride.

Juri has as much respect for the rules of the road as she does the rules of the competition or, you know, any other law. Which is to say that Coco has endured a terrifying trip through Sunshine City, going the wrong way down one-way streets, weaving in and out of traffic, all well over the speed limit. It isn't until the pair had gotten to Team Frost's Warehouse that she'd slowed down at all, and then coming to a halt is almost as jarring as the rest of the journey.

The dojo that Team Blaze had been tasked to fix up is bad but, the Warehouse is infinitely worse. Team Frost don't seem to have bothered to fix it up at all; just moved in and slapped on the bare minimum for survival and training purposes. Juri is now in the process of herding her detainee up the rickety fire escape bolted to the side of the building.

The helmet is casually discarded as she does, revealing a face with a truly catlike grin upon it. "Whew, that was fun, wasn't it?" She chuckles, "Did you hear your precious lil' teamie? I hope so." Her voice takes on a mocking Irish lilt, "'Coco!' Pfft. Classic. Nobody ever knows what's important until you take it away from them."

The way she's talking... it's casual, easygoing. As though Coco is in on some kind of big joke, rather than a young woman who has just been forced through an incredibly traumatic experience.

There's something in her one good eye, though; a judging glimmer. A lot of people think that Juri is psychotic, and that might be true, but she's not stupid. If she were stupid she wouldn't be alive. There's a method to her madness... right?

[COCO]
Perhaps mercifully for Juri, Coco's screams had mostly been drowned out by the noise as she's hung onto her captor for dear life the entire ride. If she was paying any attention, Juri would have heard Coco first cursing loudly and demanding to know what she was doing, then cursing loudly and telling her she was driving like a maniac, then cursing loudly about how Chevy had deserved it and this was a massive overreaction, then cursing loudly about how she was too young to die.

By the time that the bike had slammed to a stop, Coco's voice was completely shot, and she had stumbled off of the vehicle, aiming to make an escape, only making it a few steps before her wobbling legs had given out. She'd needed a moment to hold back the urge to throw up on the ground and let the sensation in her mostly-bare skin return after being subjected to the interminable whipping the wind around the motorbike while wearing only a bikini.

She's finally managed to muster the necessary lubrication in her mouth to utter a single half-croaked word as her silver eyes stare up the rickety fire escape.

"...Why?"

At least she's had a tetanus booster before her travels. With that in mind, she conjures the courage to reach for the rail and pull herself up on the rusty metal steps.

"I mean, if that was your plan, couldn't we have used a big yellow taxi instead?"

The tone of her voice suggests that she hasn't completely recovered from the nausea yet.

[JURI]
"Would that have been half as fun?" Juri asks, rhetorically, with that wild smile of hers growing just a little more unhinged. "Anyway. I figure we've got... what, thirty minutes to an hour or two max before your boy and the small fry brigade turn up?"

It was a pity the screams were, indeed, mostly drowned out by the bike, the traffic and the helmet. The screams are really one of the most enjoyable parts! But, perhaps even more surprisingly, for all Juri had yanked the girl off her feet and given her no choice in the matter - she's not being that demanding about the pace up to the roof. She can see that Coco is struggling. Part of being the exact kind of monster that Juri is happens to be a very good sense for exactly how much a person can endure. It's difficult to prolong suffering when someone has gone into shock or passed out, after all.

Not that that's the goal here. Probably.

"Anyway." She says, "There's some sodas on the roof. We can just kick back, relax, and shoot the breeze until they get their act together. You know, really get to know each other."

A beat, and then:

"So. Where do you get your dye? It's my kind of colour."

[COCO]
"For one of us, probably," Coco answers Juri's rhetorical question as she wills herself to try and ascend the dilapidated fire escape with a little more dignity - not an easy ask, given that she's been kidnapped by an obvious psychopath, she's battling vertigo, and she's barefoot in a bikini. She does manage to straighten herself up somewhat, though, and by the time she's rounded the first bend in the staircase, she's got her shoulders back and only stumbling every five steps or so.

"I presume by 'my boy' you mean Hawksley? I think you've chosen a perfect time to kidnap me, actually. I'm fairly certain that I'm persona non grata with most of the Genners at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if nobody even came looking for me."

The way that Coco says it, she sounds as though it's the others who are to be pitied for the state of affairs. Her eyebrows lower as she follows that train of thought.

"I mostly expected this to be some sort of revenge for that perfectly legal kick. Sodas and a chat don't sound particularly vengeful, though. Unless they're off-brand."

Her expression turns into a bemused near-scowl at the question that comes next. "Oh, so the nefarious plan is revealed. You definitely did /not/ have to kidnap me to ask about my hair colour. Are you sure you're not some sort of robot or alien in human skin? Most people just ask these things."

Another beat passes, then she asks:

"Why do you want to know, anyway?"

[JURI]
"Oh they'll come." Juri says, with absolute conviction. "EVERYONE wants to be a hero. Until they meet a real villain."

Juri looks back over her shoulder, as though expecting to see them already here. But of course, they aren't. Not yet anyway. "Are you kidding?" She asks, "That kick was the first thing any of you losers have done in all this that actually impressed me. I would have gone for the head. Difficult to shit-talk with a broken jaw, but, you're new, plenty of time to learn."

And then Coco actually turns it back on her; which gets a raised eyebrow. Maybe a little more impressed at that, even. She pauses on the stairs, cracks her neck, "Okay. Fine." She says, "We'll cut to the chase. Viper was always the one who was good at talking to people."

And suddenly, she jumps, flips in the air, and comes down in front of Coco. One hand steadies the girl's shoulder. The other plucks the sunglasses from her face so she can stare into those silver eyes; her own purple one suddenly... alive.

"I think you might be worth my time. Should have looked closer at you before the draft, that's my bad, but now I've GOT to know. So think of this like an interview. You answer my questions whether they make sense or not, and if you're REAL lucky, you can learn from someone who actually knows what she's doing."

[COCO]
Coco considers Juri's first comment, silently disagreeing - she's never experienced that particular compulsion herself, but doesn't feel that arguing the semantics is a wise idea at this point. Her second comment draws a thoughtful tilt of her head. She's had to put up a front with the other competitors about her actions. She isn't particularly interested in setting the record straight with them, but...

"I think a part of me wanted her to be able to apologize after," Coco remarks coolly on the matter. "But I meant what I told Hawksley: I reckoned a cracked rib or two would make trying to have the last laugh a more painful experience."

She flinches and is about to take a step back when Juri flips toward her, but isn't quick enough to avoid having the sunglasses plucked from her face. She blinks as Juri's eye seems to bore into hers. She listens, head leaning back and slightly to one side. The two are nearly the exact same height, making the distance seem all the more small.

"Would you believe me if I said it was natural?" she finally answers the previous question.

[JURI]
Juri's smile takes on a different edge. No longer the cheshire cat, but an approving smirk. She nods her head slowly. "I can respect that." She says, "It can feel ~good~ to make them talk through the pain."

She holds Coco's gaze for a few moments longer after she says - or at least strongly implies - it is natural. And then she nods her head. "I would." She says, handing the glasses back to the Muay Thai fighter. "And those aren't contacts either. Tch. I should've stuck around after all, damnit. That's what I get for panicking about the Swiss Miss."

She turns on her heel and now she's the one leading the last little way up to the roof, waving her hand vaguely in the air as she does for Coco to follow. "I looked into you after you finally caught my attention." She says, "You like Yoga. But let me guess. It's never really made you FEEL anything. You go through all the motions and listen to all these Masters yap-yap-yapping about oneness with the world and the great unity of the self, how all life is the same and WHATEVER but it leaves you cold, right? Like, no matter how hard you try, you're always just that little bit apart?"

She seems pretty confident in this, stopping at the top of the ladder to turn around, arms crossed over her chest, hip cocked out tauntingly to the side.

"But how did it feel when you gave Pig Girl what she deserved?"

[COCO]
"Panicking about - you mean Genie?"

Coco's trying to follow along in the wake of Juri's externalization, only managing to latch onto that bit. She hasn't had much chance to get to know Genie - which feels unfortunate, since the pair seem to have quite a bit in common. Both the children of wealthy parents, both on a gap year, both with chocolate-themed nicknames... but none of that explains what's going on.

"I mainly do yoga to keep limber. I enjoy that part of it. I suppose it's... more about the body than the mind for me, though. If that's what you mean. I don't really feel the whole so-called spiritual side of it."

It feels incisive, considering that she's been trying to develop her understanding of yogic principles only this week in hopes it might somehow unlock something that she can use in her fights. She hadn't been feeling it, to say the least. And... apart? That's certainly something that she's felt.

Then, there's the other question.

"Satisfying."

The purple-haired kickboxer sees no point in being dishonest with Juri. She starts climbing up the ladder, frowning as one of the rungs gives out under her grasp and shifting her hand up to reach for the next.

"I won't say I'm personally keen on 'Pig Girl' as a derogatory, mind you. Unlike Chevy, I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with pigs."

With an effort, she hauls herself up the extra distance.

"And not that I get a particular thrill out of hurting people, generally. I wouldn't have done it if it didn't need doing. But it did, so I don't feel especially guilty about it."

[JURI]
Juri doesn't explain what had her panicking - in fact, it's difficult to see 'panic' as something the taekwonda is really... capable of. She'd seemed more pissed off than anything at the draft, and right now she certainly doesn't seem intimidated by the fact that she just pissed off two teams of people. When Coco makes it up that last little bit to the roof, she steps to the side, nods her head.

"Just satisfying, huh? Hm."

Her foot lashes out suddenly and strikes the fire escape. There's a loud squeal of shattered metal as her heel connects with the rickety structure, and the whole thing tears away from the side of the building to smash down into the courtyard below with an even louder crash. Juri doesn't even bother to watch it go, unconcerned about the debris she's added to the field.

She saunters over to the tarp and hooks the cooler there out with her foot. Good to her word, there are indeed sodas preserved amongst the mostly-melted ice. Grape, because she's evil, but one is tossed to Coco whilst she claims another for herself. Though she doesn't open it yet.

"It's different for everyone." She says, slowly. "If I'm right at all. You think Genie is the kind of girl who gets off on hurting people? No. It doesn't need that. It needs a strong sense of will. Who you ARE. You've bounced back pretty quick. You're already mouthing off to me. I could still be wrong. The talent's rare but..."

She shakes her head, and sighs, smacking her palm over her eyepatch.

"You're not going to be following this at all. Ugh. Fine. I guess there's one way to try and speed up the process."

She can't stop the smile coming back to her lips. Predatory, that's the only word for it, as her fingers fiddle with the edge of her eyepatch.

"Just go with what feels natural. The first time is always scary, but I promise, you're never going to forget this~."

[COCO]
"Invigorating. Empowering, even," Coco supplies extra adjectives to describe the sensation that her actions had given her. "Untouchable." She'd been much more paranoid of pain and injury before, yet once her actions had put her in a situation where nearly everyone involved wanted to do her harm, she'd suddenly found that she didn't care anymore.

Coco flinches as the fire escape topples over to the ground, then turns a frown Juri's way.

"Are we stranded up here, now? I mean, that fire escape certainly deserved it, but I didn't bring any sun cream, and I usually need factor fifty."

The soda tossed her way is caught; she doesn't hesitate to crack it open and take a long swig. After the ride to the warehouse, she needs it. "Thanks. I love grape. Not that it tastes like anything remotely resembling grape." She frowns again. "I hope they think to feed Morgie his grapes."

Quieting down to listen to Juri's explanation, Coco shows no comprehension on her face of the things that the other teen is describing. There's something that resonates with her about Juri's words. The sense of will; who you are. She wouldn't have thought that that really described her before, but something has definitely shifted. A confidence in her own identity. Even if that identity turns out to be kind of a bitch.

But the smile, and the indistinct allusion to 'speeding up the process,' and everything that comes after...

That causes Coco's blood to go cold, a near-squint turned toward Juri as the muscles in her body tense in anticipation. Finally:

"What the bloody hell are you on about?"

[JURI]
"Yup. Nowhere to run now."

Juri replies, easily, to the question of whether they are stranded. But there's far more pressing things to worry about, because she lifts that eyepatch away - and, well. That's so rarely a good thing.

This would be so much easier if the Feng Shui Engine actually worked anything close to properly any more. Once, she would have just been able to glance at Coco and get all the answers to the questions she wanted with the young woman none the wiser. Now, though, the damn thing is practically useless for that purpose. What it IS useful for, is power.

And letting it out, it's like a tangible force. The eye beneath that patch burns like a miniature purple star, lighting up the roof and pinning Coco with its intensity. The casual, low-level threat of violence that tends to hang around Juri...

... well. That is magnified ten times over. In a movement as simple as a step forward and a cocking of her head, Juri's body language seems to scream 'killer'. The predatory smile is impossible to ignore; lips peeled back as though she's getting ready to lunge forward and swallow the British socialite up, bones and all.

"Are you starting to get it yet?" She purrs, "How does this make you feel, hm? Are you excited? Do you want to run away? Maybe you want to take a swing at me. You can try, if you're ready to deal with the consequences~."

And that's the real point of all this. The Psycho Power she lets spill out of her and across the rooftop is a potent force. Terrifying. Malevolent. Deadly. She had been playing nice with the rest of the students; keeping this under wraps and taking on the role of the grouchy teacher (who, okay, beat the hell out of Buford but -- who wouldn't beat that guy up? And besides. She hadn't even broken anything).

But it's the fastest way she knows of to get a general idea. If the Psycho Power flowing out of her resonated with Coco half as well as her words did, that'd be promising. If she screamed and tried to jump off the roof? Well. In that case, she was probably wasting her time. But better to know that sooner rather than later.

[COCO]
As the glow of the Feng Shui Engine floods her vision, the aura of menace around Juri becoming not only palpable, but oppressive, Coco's own eyes go wide, the purple energy reflecting in the silver of her irises as her pupils dilate counterintuitively at the intensity of the light boring into them both physically and spiritually. Her posture straightens, instinctively bringing her fists up and one leg raised at the ready in a Muay Thai stance. Her head holds high, and, even as an uncontrollable tremor emanates from her core to her extremities, she remains unblinking, her gaze fixed. Confronted by this clearly deadly carnivore, the self-acclaimed herbivore puffs herself up, projecting a greater intent with her posture and stare than she's exhibited even in her fight against her newfound rival in Chevy, challenging the predator opposite her with an unfaltering gaze, flaring her will like a cobra spreading its fan as it rises from the floor to meet a threat at eye level.

"Is that supposed to scare me?"

Maybe it does. Maybe she's bluffing. The Constance Coalbridge that was trying to make anti-face-punching treaties with her opponents at the start of the tournament would almost certainly be filling her bikini bottoms about now. But this doesn't seem to be the same Coco.

[JURI]
"Ha... hahah... HAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA!"

Juri's laughter as she sped away from the beach had been mocking, but... theatrical, really. That was an act. Her real laugh, the psychotic glee that bubbles up from within her and has her throwing her head back to the sky is, terrifying. This was FINALLY paying off. Now that she'd shed that stupid half-hearted disguise and engage in a bit of kidnapping, she finally feels like herself again. And the young woman's response is just perfect. Absolutely perfect.

She cracks her neck as she closes the distance, uncomfortable close now. They're the same height, but everything about Juri makes her seem like she towers over the less experienced fighter.

"Oh, I ~like~ you."

Her hand raises up... and rather than striking, she slides the eyepatch back into place, blocking out the malevolent light and snapping her killing intent back down to ordinary levels. Merely 'unsettling' rather than actively dangerous.

"Short version." She says, "Your power isn't like most others. The training those idiots will give you won't work. You'll probably just hurt yourself if they try too hard. Our power? It'll take longer to figure out. And it'll be harder."

That grin of hers hasn't faded, though. All of this would have been far harder to justify if her hunch hadn't been correct. But now she's sure she absolutely right, and with a personality far more suited to her training style than the delicate Genie and sickly-sweet Daisuke. Whilst she should have spotted it sooner... if she'd missed it this long, so would all of the others powers in the shadows who tended to take an interest in such anomalies.

"But that feeling you had of being 'untouchable?'" She shakes her head slowly, "You have no idea how right you are. Learn to harness it, and the only limit is your own ambition."

[COCO]
'Oh, I ~like~ you."

Somehow, these words, coming from a clear maniac who's trapped her on the roof, do nothing to assuage Coco's posture, nor the pounding of her heart in her chest and blood in her ears. Her ammunition remains in the chamber as Juri approaches, and ever-so-subtly, the quaking increases at the Psycho prodigy's proximity, until the patch finally flips down to hide the hideously hypnotic light.

"So, you're offering to... train me?"

Coco's eyes narrow at the prospect.

"I'm not sure you can just... switch me onto your team, or what have you. I mean, I don't even know if you can do swapsies."

A bit of the blue-blooded toff slips back into Coco's manner as the perceived threat of spiritual (and possibly literal) devouring dims from her consciousness.

"And if I'm not on your team, how would that even work? It's not like we can really make a secret of it now, is it? We'll make the six o'clock news at this rate."

With the rush of adrenaline starting to fade, other urgencies return to the field of play.

"I hope you had the foresight to bring... a bucket, or something, when you drove me all over town, brought me up here, gave me a grape soda, then proceeded to make an aggressive effort to cause me to wet myself," she says with a tone of distaste at the prospect.

[JURI]
Juri looks genuinely baffled at the concerns. "What, are you stupid or something?" She asks, "How much do you think I care about this competition?"

She waves her hand vaguely out over the city, indicating the gangland in broad strokes. "There's always places people can meet where prying eyes won't see. Like I said. We've got a few hours max before your rescue party turns up. That's when the real fun begins. The big man has agreed to keep out any actual threats they've brought with them. Hopefully the rest can teach my idiots a thing or two, because hell, my training doesn't work for them any better than the brat's training is working for you, and whoever actually makes it up here? Well."

She walks back over to the tarp, hands tucked behind the back of her head, "I'll give you a firsthand demonstration. You just pay attention. After that?"

She shrugs as she does, indeed, hook an old metal bucket out from underneath the makeshift supply area and casually kick it over in Coco's direction.

"This is something you're going to learn real quick about the fighting world. You might wear Blaze's colours but that doesn't mean anything. What matters is making sure that we get what we want out of this, right? Same as anything else."

[COCO]
Coco listens quietly to Juri as she outlines the plan. Apparently, she's become the kidnapped princess being held in a castle, and the plan is to let the cavalry come and lay siege to the place. All things considered, this actually doesn't seem that bad. She doesn't have to do anything but chill for now and possibly get murdered by a psychopath in a dark alley later.

"Right. Okay. No problems here."

Her eyes flit down to the metal bucket as it bounces over toward her feet.

Well, she's not being treated like a princess, nor is this much of a castle, per se. Maybe if they'd send a family of Italian plumbers, she could at least get some proper comfort facilities installed.

"I don't suppose you've got any light literature for while I'm enjoying the amenities?" she scoffs as she tips the bucket upright by the handle with her foot, grimacing. Maybe she can hold it a little longer, after all. She's been kicked out for closing at more than a few London clubs in her time, and definitely answered the call of nature in worse environs, but she doesn't have nearly the same levels of social lubricant in her system as after those parties and definitely doesn't fancy holding hands with Juri till it's over.

Hopefully Hawksley and whoever else will show up soon. This is obviously all his fault.

Log created on 10:50:40 07/18/2023 by Coco, and last modified on 12:27:35 07/19/2023.