Description: After months adrift, Cody Travers climbs aboard the people's vessel... and finds a familiar face there.
Jinchuu's boat has been... acceptable, for Kyle Travers. Not quite the accomodations he was hoping for -- he thought he was done with roommates a long time ago -- but it's something. Certainly survivable conditions, at least, and probably better than the dump above the tattoo parlor that he calls home most of the time.
The one thing he enjoys the most about living here for this brief period, though, is the main deck. It's a nice, open place -- he used to think he wasn't much for the sea, but the gentle ocean breeze of where-the-hell-ever the boat has placed itself today is a pretty good feeling. It isn't often that one gets a free cruise, after all, and it's even less often that one has time during it to just laze around.
Yet, for now at least, that's exactly what Kyle Travers is doing: lazing around. He has set himself up on a deck chair near the edge of the boat, closed his eyes, and decided on a quick nap, in spite of that strange, pervasive feeling that the boat seems to put out in all directions. Besides -- maybe he can sleep through it and it'll be gone entirely when he wakes up.
Certainly much to Kyle's chagrin, a talkative, chain-smoking sailor has set up shop for his break not ten feet from where the Travers brother has chosen to nap. He's spent most of his time there sucking away at a cigarette, keeping mostly to himself, but, as luck would have it, he chooses now to begin talking.
"That's a bitch, huh?" the man spits out, glaring down at the water. Unknown to the napping Kyle, he's eyeing a lump of grey, unmoving flesh. "Poor little bastard. Looks like a seal or somethin'," he adds, helpfully. "Probably got hit by the boat. Damn thing's awful hard to get hit by, though. Don't seals eat their old or something?"
The sailor turns to the napping Kyle, ignorant or uncaring of the man's attempts to nap, and continues yammering. Phrases like 'global warming' and 'negro cyclops' come up somehow at various points, words twisting into arcane sentences from which no mortal man can discern meaning or context.
Meanwhile, the lump of flesh in the water bumps several times against the side of the boat and suddenly begins thrashing wildly. After a moment, a limb snaps upwards and crashes into the side of the boat, metal creaking and denting as what is revealed to be a hand digs its' fingers into it and hauls itself, with slight effort, out of the water, beginning to scale the boat, bypassing the sheerness and slickness of the surface by making its' own handholds really quite violently forcefully.
As the squealing of metal becomes audible, the jabbering sailor interrupts himself to say, "Damn, sounds like we're hitting all sorts of things today, eh? That or we're near a pod of them cyborg whales the Japanese government's begun seeding into the ocean to destroy illegal whalers. Secretly, y'see. Real conspiracy stuff."
Kyle groans and rolls over on the chair at first, mumbling something that sounds kind of like "piss off" but probably gets completely ignored by the sailor; the one time he wants to get away from the parts of the boat's atmosphere that aren't the cool breeze and the surf, and said atmosphere is being shoved right in his face over and over. He continues making increasingly frustrated attempts at deflecting the sailor with groaning and frustrated noises...
... until he hears that distinct sound of metal grinding and creaking. That isn't 'hitting something,' no matter what the sailor might think, and he knows that. He's busted through enough walls and cars to know the sound of a hand plowing through metal when he hears it. Instantly he's up and out of the folding chair, ignoring the chatty sailor entirely and looking over the side of the boat at that grey lump.
Somehow, in the back of Kyle's mind, the outline of that lump is familiar -- he doesn't know how, but it is. Sure, it's borderline impossible to tell what it actually is from this distance, but instinctively it /feels/ familiar, and the younger Travers is one to trust instinct over raw data ten times out of ten. He leans over the side of the boat like a man about to lose his lunch, getting a closer look at the lump; as it starts to climb closer, he says to the sailor, "Shut your goddamn mouth for a minute about cyborg whales. There's something coming up the side, and it sure as hell isn't a whale."
"Whales are master climbers," spits the sailor, indignantly but uncertainly. "Especially cyborg whales." With that, he departs with a huff, but a quickness in his step reveals it is out of a desire to not be around when the climber arrives rather than out of necessity of duty.
Even as the sailor hustles off, the thing climbing the hull begins to speed up. Ten feet from the railing, it is clearly distinguishable as a man... or at least a humanoid. Long, matted blonde hair, ashen flesh... it is devoid of shirt, showing only lean and long unused muscle, but a pair of ripped, obviously horrendously faded blue jeans covers its lower body.
It pauses, there, and takes a few deep, heaving breaths, giving Kyle a good ten seconds to stare in either horror or wonder, whichever he so chooses. Suddenly, the figure's head snaps upwards, and so it is revealed. Green light pours from the man's eyes, rolling out of the corners in waves and drifting off in small, green embers before fading away to nothing. Even so mangled and crazed, however, Kyle, if no one else, can determine the figure's identity in but a heartbeat; that of his older brother, Cody Travers.
Little time is left to gape, however, at the man gone for months and thought by many dead this time for sure, as he, with a guttural howl, rocks back and then springs forward, hurtling himself up the side of the boat at Kyle. He crashes through the railing, sending metal shards flying and one much larger chunk of metal spinning off across the deck, and undoubtedly knocking his younger brother more than a few feet backwards.
Landing in a heavy crouch on the edge of the boat, Cody rises to his feet and reaches up, ripping a large, robotic-looking armband, complete with enormous, green-stained empty container, off of his upper right arm with a spray of blood and tossing it aside to skitter across the deck and come to a halt near the newsstand.
"Come," he says, turning his gaze onto his younger brother, an inhuman reverb tinging his voice. "Come and see."
COMBATSYS: Cody has started a fight here.
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Cody 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Kyle has joined the fight here.
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Cody 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Kyle
Elsewhere on the boat, the Suiryuu's Chief of Security glances over a bank of security monitors. "That dumb sailor... why do we keep him aboard, anyway? Geez..." Sakura Kasugano scratches her cheek for a moment, upon noticing people's attention being drawn off-ship. Something she =can't= see. Mumbling something incoherently, she snags a clipboard and makes her way out of the security room.
Not that the clipboard or notepad have anything written on them, of course. Or that she even plans to write anything...
That old man in a coolie is standing outside of the security room. His coolie covers his face and his huge purple robe drapes all the way to the ground. He takes his red-tipped cane and starts to whack the door and possibly Sakura as the door opens. "YOU GET OUT OF BATHROOM. YOU BE IN THERE FOREVER! I old and have too many egg rolls! Need to crap like a cannon!" He waves the cane around. "Not enough bathrooms on this ship! Or massage girls!"
Sitting on one of the platforms chained to the hull that she climbed to the night before, and conviniently out of sight of Sakura's security cameras, Momo gapes as Cody climbs past and bursts through the railing. "Now THAT'S an entrance," she notes to herself. Come to think of it, this might be a good distraction to get off of this damned platform and sneak onto the ship proper. Significantly more quietly, as she uses the handholds built into the hull, the tennis player goes thattaway --> to a place where there'll be significantly less guards. Sneak sneak sneak~
In Cody's present state, it is difficult for Kyle to tell at first just what he's dealing with -- but as the man climbs up higher and higher onto the boat, revealing those blue jeans, it becomes more and more apparent that he is, at least, dealing with a human. As the man hurtles upward, though, Travers finally realizes whose eyes those green trails emanate from, whose body has been so destroyed by months at sea and no doubt just as much Glow abuse.
Cody crashes through the railing, knocking Kyle away with that piece of metal. The younger man is relatively unharmed, but shaken by just what hsi brother has become -- just seeing his brother in such a state is heartbreaking. This is the man he once looked up to, lacking a true father figure, and here he is, ravaged by time and Glow and God knows what else. For a second, Kyle's resolve falters, as he's told to 'come and see.'
But then he realizes. Maybe, just /maybe/, he can help Cody straighten his shit out, if he can beat some sense into him. And the sailor's gone, so collateral damage is just that -- collateral /damage/, not collateral /injury/. Your fists are the only thing you can rely on in this world, he reminds himself one last time as he looks upon Cody's bleeding visage, pulling himself up into stance and rushing forward at him. If he can put him down clean and gentle, maybe he can force him to get some help.
"Cody, what the hell?!" he asks, as he takes to the air in a high-risk maneuver learned from years of watching Mike Haggar clean house in Metro City. It's a little different from the Mayor's, focused more on punishing force than speed; Kyle wanted to learn that side of the move, not realizing that the power came more from Haggar's body than from the move itself. Flipping up, he goes for a hard missile dropkick to Cody's face, asking, "What happened to you, bro!?"
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Kyle's Drop Kick.
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Cody 0/-------/------=|=====--\-------\0 Kyle
Kyle's dropkick impacts solidly, his feet crashing into Cody's scruffy, sea-bearded face. The older blonde doesn't so much as flinch, and as his younger brother begins to drop back down to Earth, Cody snarls and takes a quick step forward, swinging his fist in an uppercut directly into the small of his falling brother's back.
There is no spin, which usually accompanies what undoubtedly follows next. Instead, as Cody's fist swerves in, he gives his wrist a slight flick. As the punch connects, an enormous whirlwind of energy erupts on deck, sickly green in color and damn near toxic looking. It fully engulfs Kyle, threatening to rip him right out of the air and torpedo him into a nearby wall. The cyclone doesn't last long. IT doesn't need to.
COMBATSYS: Cody successfully hits Kyle with Criminal Upper.
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Cody 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Kyle
The Old Man pulls away from the door and starts tapping his cane against the walkways until he finds his way up to the topdeck. Because he is very good at finding his way! It's not that hard. He starts wandering over the deck, tapping his cane against the ground.
The massive, toxic cyclone picks Kyle right up off the ground and sends him flying, aided in no small part by the punch; however, the sickly energy really is what's tearing Travers apart. He's used to pit fights. He doesn't deal with this kind of thing all the time, and it shows -- when he lands on that wall, he's already a bleeding, beaten wreck.
Still, he reminds himself in short order that this isn't just some fight for his own sake -- it's for Cody, and if big brother won't listen to him short of them beating the hell out of each other, well, Kyle's just going to have to man up. Taking a deep breath, he starts to reevaluate his options, consider every part of his tactics a little more -- Cody's way out of his league, but he's gotta try.
The other thing he needs, then, is time -- time to figure out what to do. And so, he reaches down, picking up a piece of the deck that he just cratered a little bit, and does something that, were Cody in his right mind, he'd recognize immediately. He tosses it up once, checking its weight, and then gives it a full-speed fling right for his brother's head.
COMBATSYS: Cody fails to slow Sudden Fling from Kyle with Medium Fling.
- Power fail! -
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Cody 0/-------/--=====|=======\===----\1 Kyle
Aranha has been on this boat for awhile. He had no need to sneak on he earned his way on. He was just walking along, heading up from the cabins, and mindin his own business when all of a sudden he hears the sounds of a scuffle. Being as this is a fighter's boat he sneaks up trying to see if he could either catch one of the matches or some fighters sparring.
Instead the Dancing Spider finds a fighter being thrown up into the air by a sickly green Whirlwind of chi. His mouth drops open in surprise as he looks at a bearded man with glowing green eyes knocking around a brunette.
Aranha came from Metro City. He has also fought in those same pit fights and so he recognizes him right away. He never fought Kyle but he had heard of him. The other man takes a bit more time since the beard is new. Eventually familiararity sets in... Cody was known for wrecking criminals and so he would know. "The Travers Brothers?"
Aranha is going to sit back and watch for awhile. He doesn't know Kyle is in the tournament but he still thinks that scouting them may come in handy sooner or later.
Cracking his neck lazily, Cody begins to approach the fallen Kyle, taking long, slow strides. When his younger brother merely hurls a chunk of deck at him, he sneers derisively, reaching out to grab ahold of a nearby table and hurl it effortlessly back, to crash through the measly projectile. Unfortunately, in his near-berserk state, Cody doesn't realize the table is, in fact, _bolted down._ He gives it a quick tug, more than enough to heft a regular table, and it merely squeals briefly and remains in place.
Suddenly enraged, incoming projectile forgotten, Cody turns to face the table and unleash his Glo-fueled fury upon it when he gets conked in the side of the head ball with a bit of deck and staggers to the side, collapsing briefly over the table that wronged him so.
Alan R. B. is sitting on the promenade deck, eating a delicious lobster soup while reading a magazine. He has absolutely no idea that any of this is going on, and wouldn't care even if he knew!
The page is turned. Alan snorts in brief laughter.
Seeing Cody flub up with the table gives Kyle a small window of opportunity -- not quite the one he was expecting, but hey, you know what they say about looking gift horses in their mouths. Gritting his teeth, Kyle decides to try something a little more forceful with Cody -- he seemed to take that lump on the head pretty hard... why not go for another one?
Running toward the elder Travers, Kyle grabs him by the shoulders, setting him up to be hefted off the table. "... Sorry, bro," comes Kyle's brief apology, as he rears his head back; it's one of the most basic tactics out there, so Cody probably knows what's about to happen -- but it may not matter, as knowing a man's head is about to hit yours full-speed is a lot different from being able to stop it from doing so.
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Kyle's Stun Headbutt.
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Cody 0/-------/=======|=======\====---\1 Kyle
Sakura had started to run. But really... this is a boat where only the strong survive! Who needs guards, anyway? If you got on the boat you should be able to get yourself off without the help of a medic. So she doesn't run! ... But what the heck is with that crotchety old sailor dude and some guy with a cane? Maybe they're paying guests, who knows... all Kasugano knows is she isn't about to waste energy tossing people overboard unless they deserve it.
The Chief of Security can take precautions as necessary though. That old guy looks like he might get himself hurt! "Hey there, you... uh... might wanna steer clear of those guys. They look a little..." Kasugano drifts off in mid-sentence. Is that... Cody? "... perverted..." No, that's not the word. Coughing lightly into a balled fist, she adds, "... er, =dangerous=, I mean." She takes a long survey of the other people milling about the main deck... maybe, just maybe, she won't spot Momo! And she definitely won't give a hoot about Alan up there on the Promenade deck. She recognizes Aranha though, and gives him a brief nod before turning back to the battle. She's dolled up in a ninja-ish security-like outfit with a Jinchuu armband, and even makes a half-hearted attempt to look official and stuff! Rar!
Cody's head is harder than Kyle's. He takes the headbutt with a snarl, his nose breaking under the force of the assault, and in no short order devises a plan to punish both the insolent table AND this oddly familiar meat man who has so carelessly sought his wrath. With a second snarl, he thrusts out his arms, trying to knock Kyle off of him and a bit back. In the same motion he lifts himself off the table and takes a quick step forward, hooking one leg behind his younger brother's and jerking it forward, in a rather simple sweep. The fun part is what comes next.
Following up the hopefully successful sweep, Cody lashes out with one arm, grabbing a rough hold on Kyle's ankle, two swing him up, over, and back down, into and through the unhelpfully solidly built deck table.
COMBATSYS: Kyle counters Savage Grapple from Cody with Bushin Gourai Kyaku.
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Cody 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Kyle
The old man wags his cane near Sakura as he turns around. He keeps it vaguely near Sakura, but he doesn't whack her right out. He turns back around, tapping the cane against the floor. "Gay fighters not bother me. I always wear belt!" He hums merrily, turning head back and forth. "Where are those massage girls..."
When Cody lashes out with that arm, Kyle has only an instant to think of how to deal with it. His gut tells him the best thing would be to just roll out of the way, or maybe even just take it head-on, letting the vicious grab catch him and put Cody in a bad spot. But then he remembers how Cody fights -- sometimes, he takes big, slow, dumb risks, and when he does, he leaves himself open.
Kyle leaps forward toward Cody, bringing his body above the sweep, and swinging a hand out to meet Cody's arm in a quick block he remembers Guy doing once. He lands in an instant, and that's when the real brutality begins -- stepping forward, Kyle spins and swings his arm out again in a spinning backfist, repeating this twice in an attempt to get Cody off his balance; if it were just this, though, Cody'd have nothing to worry about.
That's when the kicks start. Cody no doubt recognizes those fierce kicks from his friend Guy's repertoire -- Kyle is not /entirely/ dependent on his older brother's moves, after all. The Bushin Senpuu Kyaku comes up into Cody's face once, twice, thrice, each time shouldering past any further attempts at that vicious grapple that Cody tries. He doesn't even process the fact that Sakura's here; he doesn't have time. /Cody/ isn't seeming like he's going to let up... and to say the least, that necessitates even more concentration from Kyle.
Some distance away from the fight, Momo's head slooowly peeks over the edge of the deck, like some sort of adorible Killroy. She mentally notes who all is present, ignoring the loud, obnoxious fight between those two guys who look a little alike, and is about to drop back down again when she double-takes. What is SAKURA doing here? And wearing Jinchuu colors, to boot!? Oh, Kurow will want to know about this, for sure... but she can't expose herself yet, certainly not when Sakura seems to be the closest thing to security that's in the area at the moment. Instead, she slinks back down to the side of the boat, and makes her way further down the length to find a less-populated and less-prone-to-exploding area to climb onto.
The buffet of blows certainly does its' job, keeping Cody so off balance he can't so much as try to initiate a grapple with his brother. When the final blow of the Bushin kick connects, it sends the already tremendously off-balance Cody flying, crashing through the table that he has now sworn as his mortal enemy for life, to land on his back and skid heavily into one of the enormous, reinforced steel umbrellas giving shade to an unoccupied set of lawn chairs.
Grunting, he uses the shadegiver to haul himself to his feet, sickly looking blood flowing from his nose and mouth. Normally, if stories of Cody's past berserk incidents are any indication, this is about where he would totally lose it and go shit crazy.
This time, he doesn't. He merely stands there, leaning against the umbrella for support, staring with burning hatred at his opponent and sibling, wordlessly.
Slowly, he reaches up and gestures broadly for his brother to continue his assault. Could it be, one might speculate, that Cody longs to be defeated, to be freed from his slavery to Glow?!
COMBATSYS: Cody focuses on his next action.
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Cody 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Kyle
What does a belt have to do with gay fighters or massage girls? "... What are you talking about? Geez, at least head over to the pool area, it's got a better view..."
Kasugano scratches her cheek again, though. Something seems... different about Cody. He's not running his mouth, for one thing. She supposes she can at least wait until that other guy she's never heard about kicks his butt or something.
Something pink catches her eye off to the side though. It's a presence she hasn't felt in quite some time... a noisy and annoying one at that! Kasugano hasn't spotted Momo just yet, but she does take a few steps in that direction, while keeping some of her attention on that fight. And the crazy old guy.
Momo is smart enough not to stick her head up a second time, certainly nowhere near this area. Sakura will have to tear her eyes away from the fight long enough to look over the edge to spot her. Oh hoh hoh...
That's certainly what Kyle thinks it is. When he sees the gesture from Cody to keep coming in, he's not one to argue -- he figures Cody knows, on some level, that what he's doing is wrong and he needs a good old-fashioned ass-whooping. The fact that he isn't going batshit, like the rumors always say he does, only steels Kyle's resolve in coming in for a strike.
Looking to that initial piece of metal that Cody rammed into him by bursting onto the ship, Kyle decides that he has to put Cody down clean and quick -- keep him from getting up, and all. And what better way to do that, in the Travers school of thought, than use a massive piece of metal? "Bro..." he says, half to himself and half to the Glow-crazed Cody, as he hefts the metal. It is now that he spots Sakura, realizing that he at least has backup if this turns from bad to worse, and takes a deep breath.
No guts, no chance of survival, he reminds himself as he leaps forward, trying to snag Cody's neck with the piece of metal, trying to put him in a weapon-assisted chokehold just long enough to get him unconscious. ... of course, with a man like Cody, that is a very long time.
Aranha has been carefully watching this fight. While he's doing so his hand moves up to his sunglasses. It looks like a somewhat nervous action but there is a method behind it. He's turns on his recording device in the Oakley Thumps as he gives Sakura a nod in return.
He begins to move closer making sure no one is listening to him and he covers his mouth to make sure no one is reading his lips. "Both Travers brothers are on the ship... Cody looks like he's on dat glow ish."
Sure that information might be useless to Mr. Big but too much info is better than not enough. Especially when money is on the line.
COMBATSYS: Cody Toughs Out Kyle's Savage Grapple!!
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Cody 1/------=/=======|=====--\-------\0 Kyle
The old man starts wandering towards the pool area as instructed. He feels along the wall for braile signs that better damn well be there or else he'll sue. He taps the cane along the way, humming his merry little ditty. "It better be heated! Cold pool bad for my joints!"
Cody very literally does not move. He remains stock still as Kyle leaps upon him, attempting to choke the elder brother with a piece of railing. After a few seconds, the railing snaps, and Cody very casually reaches up, grabbing his younger sibling by the neck.
There is a blindingly bright flash of blue light that fully engulfs Cody's hand and, indeed, Kyle's head, and with a guttural scream and a burst of speed so great his motions trail faint, blurry afterimages, Cody snaps his arm forwards, attempting to spike his brother into the deck, head-first and with such ferocity that he bounces a good ten feet into the air, spinning wildly.
Should the grapple succeed, Cody reaches up, grabbing the upper mechanisms of the enormous deck umbrella, clenching his fist, and yanking downwards. More shrieking of metal, and the enormous thing shuts itself, and indeed even shears down the metal some, leaving a jagged tip on the end of the thing.
Cody crouches down, grasping ahold of where the umbrella meets the deck, and with another roar rips it from the deck, spinning the entire deal around once and jamming it forward with tremendous force, just in time to impact Kyle's abdomen as he falls back to earth. The good news is, if it connects, Kyle doesn't hit the ground. The bad news is it would be because he is impaled on an enormous umbrella.
COMBATSYS: Kyle endures Cody's Random Weapon!!
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Cody 0/-------/--=====|=======\=====--\1 Kyle
Gritting his teeth, Kyle remembers the first law of being a Travers: survive in the end, no matter how much pain you have to endure now. He knows Cody is too fast and too close for him to get out of the way of the grab; he grits his teeth and decides to take it, flying up into the air. This isn't so bad, he thinks -- he's fallen from worse heights before, usually when spying on the men he looked up to tearing through gang members.
Then he sees that umbrella. No fuckin' way, he tells himself as Cody rips up that umbrella and rears it back, there's no way he's gonna' pull that on --
Yet he does. Kyle comes mere inches from the ground, and finds himself speared through completely with that umbrella. The pain is mind-searing, and to have it come from Cody is even worse... but nonetheless, Kyle finds it somewhere in himself to keep on going forward.
He forces his body downward with a hard shove of his muscles, landing his feet on the ground. /That/ doesn't hurt too badly, at least. Even as blood starts to pour from his wound, he can tell it just missed anything too vital -- it's like even the most perfect attack in the world is cursed by the luck of Cody Travers, in the end. Staggering forward, still impaled on the umbrella, Kyle takes a solid grip of it -- and yanks it out of Cody's hands, pushing it all the way through his body in an agonizing recovery.
"... Bro..." he groans, as he picks up the bloody, jagged umbrella, propping himself up on it as he tries to draw every ounce of strength he can from every part of his body. "... Wake up, dammit! You just -- I'm your /brother/, god dammit!" With an inhuman, animalistic roar, Kyle jumps high into the air, twirling the bloody piece of deck equipment around, and flinging it with all his might right at his brother --
-- only to land on the deck a moment later, rolling around in agony.
Kasugano sticks out her tongue in disgust. Man, these guys are terrible! She quietly scribbles 'Deck Umbrella: $59.99' on her clipboard, and walks over to the side of the deck, aiming to lean against the railing as she watches the fight. Such a nice breeze...
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Kyle's Improvised Weapon.
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Cody 1/------=/=======|=====--\-------\0 Kyle
Cody is as shocked as a frenzied madman can be at Kyle's continued resistance, but he stands his ground. Anything he can do, he can survive; the umbrella-spear bites into his flesh, continuing its' flight into the ground and carrying the blonde with it, pinning him there, stuck through his side.
With a growl, Cody reaches up and yanks the umbrlla from his side, more sickly blood pouring from the wound to pool underneath him. It makes it slightly more difficult to get up, but Cody's so ravaged by the combat it's hard to tell how much of it is the blood that and how much is the fact that the blood is his.
He manages none the less to crawl to his feet, hobbling defiantly over to where Kyle writhes on the ground. He reaches down and grabs the fallen man by the neck, attempting to hoist him up and simply hold him in the air in front of him in a sort of ghetto chokehold, grip vice-tight, green eyes burning. "You cannot beat me," he snarls, weakly. "I am... I am Death."
COMBATSYS: Kyle blocks Cody's Quick Throw.
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Cody 1/------=/=======|=====--\-------\0 Kyle
As Cody grabs Kyle by the throat, his hands move instantly up to try to pry Cody's off; it takes time, and a lot of effort, and he does spend enough time lifted up that the elder Travers can give him his message. When he finally lands back on the ground, rolling to one side, he takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and trying to play through the pain like his brother taught him. "... No, you're not, Cody," he hisses, pulling himself back up to his feet and snapping his eyes open again. He starts to step toward Cody, balling up his fists and looking for all the world like he's getting ready to give Cody a taste of his own Criminal Upper...
... but it never comes, as Kyle instead bursts forward, saying, "I'm sorry, but --" His arms wrap around Cody's waist, and he takes a firm grip as he goes for a classic trick of Haggar's, his tactic appearing to be one of pulling Cody up off the ground and leaning back, slamming his brother to the ground as he finishes, "STAY DOWN, GOD DAMMIT!"
COMBATSYS: Cody blocks Kyle's Reverse Suplex.
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Cody 1/------=/=======|=====--\-------\0 Kyle
The blonde American merely allows himself to be hefted up and over by his younger brother, lifting up his arms to block the majority of the force from his impact with the deck. He twists his legs out of the grip of his sibling and rolls away, coming up uneasily on the edge of the deck, back to the railing. "Enough," he states. "You cannot win."
Eyes narrowing to slits, he lifts up one hand, green energy beginning to coalesce around it as he pushes the well of energy within him to a level he never has before...
And it fizzles. The energy sparks and fades, and though his bright green eyes remain, they flicker slightly. Heavily, Cody slumps against the railing, sucking in deep, heavy breaths. "N-no..."
COMBATSYS: Cody takes no action.
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Cody 1/------=/=======|=====--\-------\0 Kyle
When Kyle sees Cody try to summon that energy up, he actually starts to feel real, genuine fear -- his brother might actually try to /kill him/, he realizes, might actually be losing it... but then he sees Cody falter. To the younger Travers, this is both a sign that Cody's head is starting to clear up a little... and an opportunity to take him down clean.
Even as blood continues to leak from his gut, Kyle moves in toward Cody, trying as hard as he can to play through the pain. "Cody... Come on, man. Get your head together! Wake up!" As he says this, he takes two quick steps forward and aims a knee right for Cody's solar plexus, trying to knock the wind out of him as he tries so desperately hard to breathe. It's quick and brutal -- but it has to be, for Cody's sake.
COMBATSYS: Kyle successfully hits Cody with Fierce Strike.
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Cody 1/----===/=======|======-\-------\0 Kyle
~thwack~ Cody lurches forwards, being driven back by the blow enough that the railing he's staggered against bursts open, creating a gaping hole in this side of the boat's railing to match the hole on the other side. "No!" he snarls, gathering what little strength he has left to grab Kyle bodily and merely hurl him across the deck. "It has been so long... I must..."
He trails off, swaying back and forth, and then the green light in his eyes winks suddenly out and he topples backwards, right through the hole in the railing, to plummet down through the air and crash heavily into the water below, disappearing beneath the ocean surface.
COMBATSYS: Cody can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\ <
Kyle 0/-------/-======|
COMBATSYS: Kyle endures Cody's Strong Throw!
[ <
Kyle 1/------=/=======|
COMBATSYS: Kyle takes no action.
[ \\\\\ <
Kyle 1/------=/=======|
COMBATSYS: Kyle has reached second wind!
[ \\\\\ <
Kyle 1/------=/=======|
Rather than try to maneuver /out/ of Cody's throw, Kyle merely tries to direct it; he does crash right into the deck, but does so far earlier than Cody must have anticipated, and ends up a scant few feet from Cody. His body gives out -- but only for a second; when he hears Cody's voice, panicking and talking about what he 'must' do, strength comes.
Kyle flips up almost instantly, adrenaline suddenly surging through his body -- just in time to see that light in Cody's eyes wink out. Yes, he thinks, Cody's finally himself again, maybe --
Then he falls backward. Kyle runs like he's never run before, using every last bit of newfound energy he has to bolt forward, swinging an arm out to catch Cody. But it's too late. The elder Travers falls into the ocean, disappearing beneath the waves, leaving Kyle to lean over the deck with his arm extended. "CODY!" he yells, even though he knows his voice will never reach the man.
"... Bro..." he whispers into oblivion, looking around the damaged deck and seeing that umbrella -- that hated thing that embedded itself in both Travers brothers in the fight. For some reason, the sight of it offends Kyle, having been so close to finding his brother only to lose him again in that bitter fight... and he reaches down, grabs the bloody deck implement, and flings it off the ship with all of that last surge of energy.
/Now/ completely and totally spent, the younger Travers crumples to the deck, clutching his bloody stomach wound.
COMBATSYS: Kyle has ended the fight here.
Log created on 21:05:29 09/05/2007 by Kyle, and last modified on 05:50:40 09/06/2007.