Description: Cherise accosts K' just as he's walking in the doors of the YFCC. In the ensuing scuffle, K' comes out on top... OR DOES HE?! He certainly "put Cherise in TOP." Twice.
It's cold, it's wet, and it's miserable out. It's about one o'clock in the afternoon, but with all the clouds smeared across the sky, it -looks- like a particularly dark 6 PM. What little snow's fallen on Southtown has long since turned to slush and muck beneath the wheels of countless cars. The weather's too cold and awful for most people to do much of anything but drive-- thereby ensconcing oneself within the warm confines of a car-- but K' isn't most people. And he's long since become able to weather the extremes of the elements in his own way. Or NESTS's own way. Whatever.
K' is arriving late at the YFCC after another weekend spent fighting out of the country. It's a good thing the place is run by fellow fighters, he thinks, people who are best able to understand the kind of cramped and erratic schedule he keeps: else, he'd have been called into question long ago. At the least, he is punctual and diligent about the times he -does- show up; K' likes doing a thorough job of things. He's not too good at handling failure, even in the small things... though he certainly expects it half the time, after having had the word stamped all over him by his makers.
K' doesn't really have a lot of things on which to spend his fight earnings. There's just not a lot he wants or needs, and the kind of things he -does- like buying usually end up being expensive, but capable of lasting a good couple of years. And the latest of his rare purchases is what gets him the YFCC this afternoon. It's a motorcycle, but not really a flashy or pristine one with the unjointed, sleek look of untouched newness. Rather, it's an average one, one that looks like it's been neglected a while, but which is now being tinkered with: steadily upgraded and improved by hand. Apparently K' has been doing some work on it.
Every kid has his hobby, right?
Parking the thing outside the YFCC, K' grumbles-- more out of habit than actual annoyance-- as he steps off into slush. Long-leggedly picking his way through the mess, the bottoms of his jeans getting soaked in short order, K' pauses briefly at the threshold of the center to shake snow off his black motorcycle boots (and possibly, to delay entry). Eventually he just heaves a sigh and pushes through the door, already starting to shuck his leather jacket as the warmed air hits him. Might only be one o'clock, but he has this feeling it's still going to be a 'long day.'
It's cold, it's wet, and it's miserable out. Then why is the girl sitting on the top of the large storage truck temporarily parking in the YFCC's lot smiling so brightly? The weather and extremes are something that the odd silver-haired French girl has endured for longer than she can count, starting in the small house of her 'father' and watching, helping as it grew in size-- and as their small home business flourished. She spent mornings, evenings, and sometimes all night out in the mountains, the cold weather more than enough to give someone frostbite-- and she's spent more than a few times wrapped in a blanket with her feet in warm water as a child in all those years.
So times like this, they aren't so bad.
Wearing that heavy, large, weathered wool coat cut for more of a man's frame with a pale yellow scarf hanging loose around her neck, Cherise proves not to be completely foolish or oblivious to the weather; she wears a short skirt as usual, but her strong legs clad in dark tights and her boots a little heavier than the norm. There's no protection for her head and ears, but she finds warmth in the styrofoam cup of hot chocolate held delicately in her hands. Long silvery strands dangle in her bright blue eyes, but the girl doesn't seem to mind.
Because -he- just got here.
Setting her cup down atop the truck's roof, she drops from the edge with a light scoot, dropping from on high while the confused driver climbs back into the cab with his meat deluxe toasted sub and his large coffee, Cherise Bouchard moves in behind the escaped NESTS experiment with the silence of a shadow, the skill of someone meaning to do a whole lot more than just 'talk'.
Once he breaks the threshold and the door starts to close, the cold air has a slight interruption-- slight, sudden, and silent. Cherise stands just inside the door, leaning against the adjacent wall. Her hand brushes the cold gray hair from the back of her neck, speaking up in her ever-so-calm manner. "Ah, what beautiful weather outside~!" she exclaims, her accent yet still thick and rife with the amusement she draws from... well, everything.
Calm-- as calm as he can be, anyway-- and tired, taking a moment just inside the door to relax muscles that'd been tensed against the cold, K' lets go of the door without looking back, knowing it'll just swing shut by itself. What he doesn't know... is that someone else slipped in just before it clicks shut. Certainly his senses have been honed far beyond the human norm, his ability to detect others honed both by training and less orthodox means... but that's why other people develop and train -their- ability -not- to be detected. K' doesn't even hear Cherise coming.
It's why he startles when that silky little voice pipes up right at his shoulder. Whirling immediately and defensively, he snaps a harsh hand tensely shut about Cherise's wrist before he realizes who she is; he lets go just as quickly once he does, hissing out a long and annoyed breath. He can't help his skittish reaction. For a boy who plays it so rough, he still feels fear far more acutely and far more often than most people do. It's part and parcel of being hunted-- of having to be afraid that someday, one of the shadows that creeps up behind him will be the one armed with a heavy dose of horse tranquilizer (it'd take that much to put him out, no doubt) and a ticket straight back to the cages of NESTS.
"...what the hell are you doing here?" Not much for small talk about the weather, K'. He backs guardedly away from her instantly a few steps, not so much out of fear-- that evaporated once he realized she wasn't NESTS-- as out of a need to reclaim some actual personal space. He shrugs his half-off jacket back on as he goes, the gesture seeming to prove he needs as much armor as possible when it comes to dealing with people with which he's not familiar.
Strong fingers wrap around a deceptively frail wrist-- and the predatory clone would be able to feel the tension in her body, the sudden heightened alertness that only someone "like her" could have. A feeling that he may know all too well, as well as the sudden sharpness in her eye and the hand at the top of her thigh. Her already-short skirt is hiked up a bit on her right thigh, her thumb to the sturdy strap fitted around the top of her thigh-- and the glint of metal at the tips of her fingers. He reacts, she reacts. And just like he stands down, so does she; her scarred fingers pushing the object back into place and her hand falling away from her slightly forward-thrusted leg, the skirt falling back into place and coat flopping down to the original position.
For a moment, there's a distinct lack of amusement in her eyes, in her expression-- he made a move that brought her fangs to bear as well, but quickly... she's over it. Cherise bats her eyelashes once, her glossed lips pouting the slightest of amounts. "Why, if I didn't know better, I would say you weren't happy to see me. How long has it been, mm? Since that time you met Mao?"
Personal space is something that Cherise also has an issue with. Not so much a need to keep others away, but a strange need to keep someone -close-. One of the few oddities that she herself doesn't understand, or realize she does, but made all the more apparent as she moves away from the door and lightly stomps the snow off the toes of her winter boots. A funny look crosses her face, as if she only -now- realizes where she is. The couches, the cafeteria off over yonder, the stairs that go up somewhere she isn't entirely sure of. And of course, the occupants of the lobby. Reaching out in an idle gesture, the silver-haired teenager tries to hook her arm around his, to slide in uncomfortably close. Her eyebrows scrunch together, and her tone becomes somewhat pressing-- and completely confused. "Why are there so many children here?"
In an instant, K' knows it's not some NESTS hunter that's addressing him. It's just that French girl, that Cherise... the one who liked it a little too much when she bled. Rationally, he knows she wouldn't -hurt- him-- or at least, not in the way a NESTS assassin or an 'R' spy would-- but the sudden coil of readied tension in her, perceptible as a whipcord tautness that strings through her body at his touch, is hard to miss.
K' stares hard at her a second, slowly verifying her identity and coming off that surge of animalistic defensiveness. Hackles get let down. Claws sheathe. His yellow eyes briefly touch on the new position of her hand and the foreboding glint of metal there; his hand twitches more tightly shut for an instant, the movement coincident with a slight upwards quirk of his mouth, and then he lets go and backs away. He seems unperturbed by what just happened. It's just a little dance fighters go through when meeting-- a brief spark of tension, ready at any moment to ignite into violence.
But not here. K', usually so oblivious to the more social and societal aspects of the world around him, is for some reason acutely conscious of their surroundings: perhaps because Cherise looks so incongruous in them. He talks around that vague discomfort, his eyes half-lidding into a disaffected sort of look, his demeanor locking down. Not happy to see her? "I'm not anything," he replies shortly. "--Not yet," he adds after a moment, and a definite warning note sneaks into his voice there.
Slowly, he becomes aware of other things; like the way the few people in the lobby are staring. He glances at them, irritably lifts a shoulder as if he could simply shrug them and their curiosity off-- and in that moment of distraction, Cherise eases close. Apparently, she's put off by their surroundings. K' stares at her in utter disbelief and confusion as she coils around his arm; and then he pulls back abruptly, breaking contact in a convulsive movement. He's been experimented on too much to be able to tolerate physical contact much. "It's a -young- fighter's center," he grates out, retreating another step. "Of course there's gonna be kids..." He sounds aggrieved about this.
He's quiet a moment, watching her as intently as he would were they in a fight. It's almost as if he equate attempts to touch him with attacks (he pretty much does). And after this period of silence, he finds it prudent to ask, "...so what do you want? Here to check out the center?" A cutting tone enters his voice. The sarcasm it's laden with is sharp enough he could probably carve diamond with it. "Kinda doubt that... though I'm sure there's a couple people here who could hit you pretty damn hard."
A tense moment in the middle of the lobby, followed by discomfort-- discomfort of varying forms, his discomfort of her, and her discomfort in her surroundings. Huddled close to him for that moment, there's a sense of security there. Strange as it is, but it isn't restrained to him alone. Mao, or whoever's just -there-, she has an instinct to gravitate closer and closer until she's ready to come in contact. If it's someone familiar enough? Well, there's no limits or layers; the ebullient Cherise Bouchard will have no problems hanging all over them.
But then he pulls away and leaves her in the cold, so to speak. Her arms look lost for a few moments, before lightly wrapping around herself-- a sort of small self-hugging posture, arms hooked around under her chest-- not quite folded properly. "I see." Her lips purse as the confusion shifts to a state of deep thought. What train of thought Cherise rides, that's something God only knows. It's probably for the best.
But then her lips curve into a wide grin, the intense thought shifting to the Cheshire's face. Regarding him through the sparse veil of bangs that hangs down to her eyes, she responds with her same confident voice. "I saw you coming here yesterday. I had to go play somewhere, but I was riding with someone else. I was ... curious!" Again, she moves a little closer. The tip of her tongue parts her lips the smallest of amounts, eyes half-lidded. Still, there's something all about her that screams of a predator ready to strike. And... sarcasm isn't lost on her, she just pushes -past- it. "But... I'm only interested in -one- of the people that can hit me."
It's a strange person that can find any sort of comfort in standing so close to someone like K'. It's not just that the boy is so dysfunctional he's incapable of even comforting -himself- properly, much less others: not just that most people find him intimidating. It's also the simple fact that K' is just dangerous. Even a little unhinged. Moody, volatile, and violent, there's really no telling what someone like him might do if sufficiently pissed off.
Then again, maybe that's part of why Cherise wants to get close to him in particular. You never know, with someone like her.
But K' is completely uninterested in satisfying Cherise's seemingly pathological need for physical contact. He hates it, himself, and he won't put up with it for the sake of another. He's self-absorbed like that. Sure he notices her forlorn little posture, but it fails to move him. She's not touching him anymore, and that's pretty much all he cares about.
And if Cherise is now looking like a predator ready to strike, moving for the kill, K' looks like one driven into a corner: coiled in a wary, motionless stance. He holds his ground, eyes hooded, as she talks. And briefly, the barest glimmer of amusement touches his eyes for the first time this encounter. He's thinking of something he heard often from his 'mother' in NESTS, the officer who'd helped raise him when he woke up without memories and with a new fire searing his veins. 'Curiosity killed the cat.' He sort of thinks it's apt here. "...Yeah?" His eyes narrow, head tilting in a sardonic regard. "And what do you want from -him- that makes him different?"
But words can't kill her. Concepts can't hurt her. Things-- physical, real things are what hurts Cherise, or sometimes the absence thereof. Her shoulders roll back as she grins a bit more, a bit of a smile coming out of it. The smile that K' knows and loves... or at least, tolerates from afar. The look in those piercingly blue eyes that seem to percieve more than they should. The way she stands, with the slightest hints of tension through her legs, the slightest of arches in her back, the light and sensitive touch of her hands to her sides, even with her arms wrapped around her in that massive cloak of a wool coat.
"Oh, it could be any number of things. The way he walks, the way he talks. The way he fights? Biting harder, ripping fiercer."
Cherise Bouchard suddenly -moves-.
Placing herself in dead, point-blank range of the NESTS fighter, her hands grip the collar of his jacket as her nose drives against his neck, unbalancing herself to stand on the toes of her chunk-heel boots. And she inhales. -Hard-.
"The smell."
And Cherise suddenly cartwheels in place, throwing herself into a sideways flip to the right. Her legs whip up and around, looking to ensnare the former NESTS experiment between her knees and continue to swing. Swing, and use the motion to swing like a pendulum to her left, to use that momentum to throw K' at the ground.
COMBATSYS: Cherise has started a fight here.
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Cherise 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: K' has joined the fight here.
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K' 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Cherise
COMBATSYS: K' endures Cherise's Strong Throw!
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K' 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Cherise
K' watches her as her stance shifts, and her hands slide down to her sides. At any other time he might have experienced some glimmer of latent interest, a drive any teenager would be hard-pressed to suppress and which K'-- child that he still is-- still doesn't really understand or care about; but the nature of her movements kills any of that within the first few seconds of its life, instantly bringing his programming to the forefront. Her movements are hostile. There is a fight coming his way. And he can spare nothing save the rapt attention of one fighter for the motions of another. Her voice sinks to a hum, the boy registering her words but feeling no need to respond.
None of his training, none of his focus, however, could prepare him for what she does next.
It takes an instant for the sudden extremely -close-, emphatically unwanted contact to register. When finally he realizes, to his shocked incredulity, that she's smashed up against him with her face murmuring against his neck, he reacts with a sudden, abrupt, and -desperate- violence. He virtually seizes away from her, ripping away from her long and satisfied breath so quickly he puts himself off-balance. He's in no position to deal with her immediate follow-up... and so he simply goes with it, accepting the throw rather than compromising himself by trying to oppose it.
The reprisal is quick. He twists once he hits the ground, spinning back to a three-point: the low and braced stance lasts only an instant before he lunges forwards to push Cherise right... back out the door. He's still smart enough to realize that he really -shouldn't- bring a fight into the YFCC if he can help it... albeit enraged enough now that he isn't going to hold back from fighting at all. Now, the rest of what she said he can understand, but-- "...-smell-. What the fuck are you talking about..." It's an utterly bewildered question, accompanied by a vicious attempt by the NESTS experiment to seize Cherise by the front of her shirt, drag her close, and slam a knee up into her hard enough to send her slamming back to the ground on her back.
COMBATSYS: Cherise blocks K''s Knee Strike.
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K' 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Cherise
"Ha ha ha ha ha!"
The cheerful laugh rings out as K' rips away from her grasp. It rings out as he reacts so hard to her proximity, her body up against his-- and the depth of the smell as she catches the scent of man and worn leather with a hint of motor grease. But before he can get moving and formulate a counterattack, her legs are ensnaring him as she flips upside-down and throws him to the side. She twists in the air and lands in a similar stance, one knee near the ground and an arm drawn back. Cherise twists hard to get her eyes back on the prize, even as she's being pushed and slammed up against the door in an effort to get her -out-.
Cold air blasts around her one more time, the chill in contention with the fire in her spirits. Cherise's shirt is roughly grabbed; expensive fabric is handled roughly and rumpled in his grasp-- and a knee is driven in toward her gut. It meets resistance, however, colliding with her forearms as she tries to break the impact and lessen the force. The silver-haired girl's lithe form soaks the force quite well-- she's lifted off the ground, but ultimately remains within a close range to the fighter.
"Figure it out!!" she calls, arms lashing out to her sides. A familiar pair of bracelets slide out of the sleeves of her coat, wrists bared and ready. But instead, her arm hooks low-- and with a harsh uppercutting motion, her palm turned to the sky, a familiar silver energy bursts away from the tips of her fingers. As thin as the wires she wields, but perfectly flat, perfectly curved-- four blades launched at once, seeking to violently rip into the NESTS experiment... give him four violent slashes with that odd force. "Uragh!!"
COMBATSYS: K' blocks Cherise's Argent Claw.
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K' 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Cherise
To be fair, K' -is- an interesting blend of scents. Most are mundane: leather, metal, a little motor oil from where his bike refused to cooperate this morning. Soap, maybe, from the shower he took after waking up. But everpresent beneath all that is something a bit more unusual: the smell of fire, a scent so inherent to him he might as well house a perpetual blaze (he does). It's a smoky sort of smell, as pure as smoke can be. Far too clean to be mistaken for cigarette smoke.
And underlying even -that- is that ineffable 'other' scent to which Cherise seems so attracted. A sort of predatory scent, uncompromising and willfully animal: unsurprising, in one who would bear such a name as the Beast of Prey.
But of course, K' never thinks about any of this. Cherise's behavior, therefore, is completely incomprehensible to him. That bewilderment, indignation, and anger combine to form one hell of a confused K', who just shakes his head with a grimace as he forces her away with that vicious strike. Sucking in a couple harsh breaths and centering himself, K' briefly glances behind him at the doors of the YFCC. Dimly, through the frosted glass, he can make out a couple people-- students and random kids mostly-- watching dumbfoundedly. Knowing already what Cherise can do, he decides this is probably better kept outside.
The only way he can really rationalize her behavior is that she just likes getting hit. Why she likes getting hit by -him- in specific is an issue he doesn't understand and thereby just kind of glosses over. "You have -got- to find somebody else to bother," K' insists as he lifts an arm to deal with that slashing silver energy. The blades gouge his forearm, splashing a hint of blood into the snow. "'Cause I'm really lost as to what there is to like about me..." He lunges abruptly, fire searing to life in the air before him in a startling display, and cuts a punishing kick at Cherise through the flames. "And it's not a good idea to get close to me anyway!"
COMBATSYS: K' successfully hits Cherise with Second Shell.
- Power hit! -
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K' 0/-------/-----==|=======\=------\1 Cherise
Much like the children-- the children pressed to the glass, eyes wide with wonder, Cherise cannot comprehend "why." Why doesn't he see it in himself, why does he play the face of innocence and confusion? His manuvers that are almost ingrained into his very reflexes, the arcanum of those flames he wields, even the air in which he carries himself around! It's like being a wolf with no sense of self; no better than a domesticated dog.
But maybe his inability to see "himself" is part of what attracts her?
Moving in as the blades of energy lash upward and make the man bleed, Cherise runs two steps before a small skip in, her next manuver planned-- but not executed. She tries to turn to the side as the flames burst out in front of her, the kick crashing right up her front and -rocking- her jaw, sending the girl flying almost straight up-- and crashing back down to the ground in a dishelven pile, the weight of her body burdening her head, neck, and shoulders as she piles into the ground.
Her legs fall to the side, and falling still for a moment, Cherise gets a good standing with her left arm-- pushing up from laying on her side, looking up at K' through the thin sheet of gray hair hanging down in a choppy, styled manner before those frozen blue eyes. "Because it's too dangerous?" she asks, a fleck of red rolling from both the corner of her mouth and the cut on her lower lip. "Because your life is complicated? So is all of life!" Cherise gets her other arm down, pushing up from her momentary reprieve and standing-- and acknowledging the burns on her scarf, the hard rips and burns around the collar of her shirt. The coat seems none the worse for wear. "Oh, and I loved this blouse."
"You'll have to buy me another."
Springing into the air, Cherise's hips roll in a smooth manner, her body turning near-horizontal while her arm whips upward. Air whistles just beyond the NESTS experiment's ear before a tell-tale *pak!* in the concrete just over his shoulder. Cherise's fingers tighten around the length of wire she holds, pulling -hard-... and coming back down on the wielder of copy-Kusanagi flames with a brutal axe kick.
COMBATSYS: K' fails to interrupt Stiletto Axe from Cherise with Crow Bite.
- Power fail! -
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K' 0/-------/-----==|=======\==-----\1 Cherise
It's not really innocence-- but it is, perhaps, confusion. A sort of unknowing blindness to the good qualities that -do- exist in him... to all the ways in which he has developed since he broke away from the shadow of NESTS. K' is not an unconfident person in many respects, and the air with which he carries himself is certainly one of arrogance. It deceives most into thinking he's a better man than he is. But it's really just a cover. Beneath it all, K' is only half a person: without memory, without root, and without much faith in his worth or existence.
Uncertainty and insecurity are things deeply rooted in him. And he has only a few ways in which to deal with those feelings: indeed, with his feelings as a whole. One of those ways is encompassed in the violent way he smashes her away from him and into the floor several feet distant. His heel recovers, whipping back beyond his other leg to open a steadied, slack stance. It nails to the ground, and he throws his weight back on it: making his rear leg his pivot point. Shoulders loose, he regards her with head slightly tilted. His eyes narrow at what she has to say.
"I kinda attract trouble," he explains lowly, yellow gaze tracking her as she leaps in towards him. His hands coil, flames igniting about them as he judges the distance to her and prepares a counter. "I've got a lot of problems left over from my old line of work." He attacks abruptly, fire bursting in a bright arc as he tries to intercept her-- but when she suddenly yanks on that wire, it pulls her out of his path. The kick she snaps at him immediately after plows straight into the side of his face and slams down on his shoulder, knocking him to hands and knees. His fire goes out.
Standing slowly, prowling back around to face her, he thoughtfully paws a strand of blood from a shallow cut down the side of his face with his fingertips. He looks at his stained hand an instant-- and then he cuts his gaze away, letting his hand drop. He shakes his hand out once, a sharp motion similar to a blood-shedding swipe of a blade-- albeit one accompanied by a burst of fire, which sears the red liquid away. "...you keep coming to me, someday you're gonna get in trouble too."
Boots like the ones worn by Cherise don't seem like much at a glance, but rest assured they cost much more than they probably should've. Boots that look good to her, keep her feet protected and warm. And of course, boots that can take a hard blow, like the one delivered to the tanned man. The warmth of the flames doesn't go unnoticed; the proximity and the sudden extinguishing well noted.
Cherise's body arches back after the hard strike, using a precise and well-practiced backward handspring to land on her palms and push off, land in a bit of a crouch.
"Ufah! Like I care. It is like my partnership with Mao, or like a business agreement. If it ends, it ends! Life is not a peach every day. Enjoy it while you can." Her hand lifts, her wrist snapping sharply back-- and with another whistle of air beyond his ear, the wire and the small golden weight at the end doubles back toward Cherise. The line of silver doesn't retreat back into the bracelet around her wrist, however; instead the wire seems to animate with the smooth, deft gestures of her hand, her thin and scarred fingers touching it playfully. The wire spins around much like a rope master with their tool of choice, forming swaying lines that sweep in grand circles and even a classic smooth curve. "Ooo, unless..."
Her expression becomes playful as she walks closer-- but make no mistake, those eyes are keeping a firm watch of his form, making sure she captures every subtle movement he makes. The wire is snapped up, her bracelet letting out a light *ting!* as the weapon is reeled back where it came from. Stopping short, she teases the hem of her short skirt up her leg a bit. "Maybe you wouldn't be so scared if I broke you in~?"
And she waits for the reaction.
COMBATSYS: Cherise focuses on her next action.
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K' 0/-------/-----==|=======\==-----\1 Cherise
K' regards Cherise in silence a few moments after her declaration. In some odd way, he's struck by her first few words. It's not unlike something Maxima might have told him-- not unlike something the many others he's met outside of NESTS have told him. All of them have expressed a certain dismay at his singleminded, grim drive for vengeance. All of them have asked him whether he shouldn't try to -live- the life he's wrested from NESTS. Whether he shouldn't try to enjoy it. It may well, after all... end up being short.
He tries. He explores, in his own halting, stiff way, the world NESTS locked him away from. But behind his faint stirrings of interest in the random little hobbies any teenager might enjoy, behind those rare moments where he almost manages to make himself forget where he's come from and what he's lost, the thought of his past-- or lack thereof-- is always present. The anger and the pressing need for revenge is always there. He can understand Cherise's philosophy of simply enjoying life until she doesn't have it anymore... but he can't subscribe to it himself. His hatred is too deeply set.
But at the least, he understands -her- now: understands she's just a free spirit, albeit a violent one. And with that comes an inevitable admission of defeat... along with a certain sense almost of -relief-. He won't be able to chase her off-- but that just means he can stop trying and just -hit- her. She wants to make him her playmate, at her own risk? Fine. Whatever. Not like he wouldn't appreciate a little exercise. It'll keep him sharp.
"...hnn. Fine. We'll play your game." K' slides a yellow-eyed glare over to the advancing girl, watching her keenly. His right hand lifts, fingers folding shut into a fist one by one: a series of cracks barely audible through the stifling metal. It opens again, unraveling into a loose and readied claw-- and then swipes sharply, cutting the air and sending a ring of fire flaring towards Cherise. Whirling, he cuts a spinkick straight into the fire, sending it bolting towards the girl. "But if you're gonna call me 'scared...'" Oh no, K'. You really ought to have learned by now what happens when you dare a girl to do something. "Why don't you give me something to actually be scared -of-?"
COMBATSYS: K' successfully hits Cherise with Second Shoot.
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K' 0/-------/---====|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Cherise
It's true-- enjoy it while you can. Enjoy every moment, and live with no regrets. Savor the sweet taste of victory, and choke down the bitterness of defeat. All of it leads up to the end, when none of it matters and all that's left of you is a memory. But to someone like Cherise, is there more still? The violent 'guitarist' may've gotten through to the escaped NESTS project now, but will her words stick with him? Does she even really live by the words she speaks?
Playmate or pet, either term is fine for K'. But upon his agreeing to continue with this bloody, violent game, Cherise lulls her tongue to lick the fleck of blood away from her mouth and lip with a smile, removing those fingers from prying up the veil of her skirt any further. "Don't disappoint me!"
And he doesn't. His arm sweeps up and crafts the ring of fire with which she's become somewhat familiar, expecting him to bring his leg up through one more time for a hard kick-- but instead, the flames are launched toward her while she makes a misguided attempt to dodge off to one side. The flames hit-- and hit -hard- -- and Cherise lets out a short gasp of surprise that could be mistaken at a superficial level as experiencing actual pain. Cherise inhales hot air and flames, scorching her throat and lungs while she's taken off her footing and lands flat on her back. With flames licking the edge of her clothes, the French girl rolls hard on the concrete and mushy snow ground for a quick extinguishing, for all the cold and wetness it leaves behind.
Still, Cherise rolls herself up to a squat, her right arm reeling backward.
"Whatever you wish!!" she says, face lit up with absolute joy and delight. Her right arm hurtles forward, her index finger pointing dead on at K', a whistle of air and a flash of gold heading toward him. Cherise's thumb hooks around to catch the wire, and it arcs sharply in an attempt to ensnare the young man by the throat...
COMBATSYS: K' dodges Cherise's Argent Sniper.
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K' 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1 Cherise
But after K' ends, will there even be a memory? Something whole to leave behind? That's something he thinks about from time to time. Can you really die fulfilled if you're just a shell? Can you die complete if you don't even know who you are? If you never recover the memory of what you were? Some would tell him that the memories he forges for himself /now/-- both his own, and the memory of him which he leaves with others-- should be enough. But the thought he'll die a stranger to himself... it still scares him.
And there's only really one way in which he knows how to deal with that which frightens him; or anything at all, for that matter. Cherise gets a taste of it now. And it's fortunate he doesn't know Cherise would call him -either- playmate or pet, else he would have hit a lot harder. He wouldn't tolerate the term 'pet' for an instant. It's entirely too close to what he was to NESTS, and just plain demeaning besides.
Her reprisal is quick. But K' hears it coming. The whine of cut air hits his senses, and he moves immediately.
His figure blurs into blackness, and then steps entirely out of conventional sight. It twists beneath the snaring wire with the barely-perceptible speed of a near-teleport. When K' slows down enough to be seen again, he's carving a path straight towards her, his left hand snapping towards the front of her shirt. If he can get a good enough grasp, he'll take her straight off the ground by momentum and the strength of his arm, slamming her against the side of the poor YFCC building and briefly pinning her there. "I'm not feeling scared yet!"
COMBATSYS: Cherise blocks K''s Quick Throw.
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K' 0/-------/---====|=======\=------\1 Cherise
He's fast-- -fast-. The thrust of her arm, the wire snapping around in circles where his neck should have been-- and only to find him standing right in front of her, bearing down on her as if he'd finally found the fangs she knew were there. She lifts into the air a bit in his grasp, her hands wrapping around his, but ultimately is carried off to slam into the tall wall of the YFCC. Her arms move back to soak the majority of the impact, her legs drawn up and feet pressed to the wall to keep her head or neck from slamming too harshly into the building. "Oof-!" escapes her as she impacts, but nothing further from that.
"Oh, forgive me. I was not aware you were being serious, there, I was expecting something a whole lot more... brutal. You know, what I -know- you can do." Spoken with a bit of an edge, Cherise's eyes remain alight with excitement. This was what she wanted! The proximity, the harshness and heavy breathing, the break of sweat. That makes for the best memories, as personal as they come. Her hands again snare around his offending arm, but this time her legs also lift up from the ground, looking to hook her left leg up around his arm. Her right leg whips around hard and high, using the wall and K''s own force to try planting a harsh knee across the side of his head and dizzy him. "I still have more to offer you!"
COMBATSYS: K' interrupts Heavy Kick from Cherise with Crow Bite.
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K' 0/-------/-======|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Cherise
Finally found his fangs... or, more accurately, finally seen fit to -bare- them. K' is, at times, rather capricious about his violent tendencies. Like a predator too young to have attained the dour sedateness of maturity, sometimes he's hunting in complete seriousness, and sometimes... just playing with his food. "I guess you want it." His hand tightens in the front of her shirt, the boy slanting a yellow-eyed stare up at her pinioned form through his lashes. He slackens his grip, letting her slide fractionally down. "Fine."
Her lithe form abruptly comes to life. Her hands clamps about his left arm, a leg winding up to join them in order to work up the momentum necessary to crack a sharp blow at his face. K' moves with the strike as it forces his head to one side, a quiet growl acknowledgement of the kick; and then he comes ripping back in an attack, tearing his left arm clear of her grasp and bringing his right around in a ludicrously powerful, clawing uppercut. The cleaving strike comes wreathed with an arcing, searing burst of flames.
He snaps his burning arm like a whip afterwards, an irritable shake of the hand putting out the flames. With a grimace and a muted, deep grunt of relief, he slowly cracks his abused neck and settles his spine back after that kick. More to offer? "Then bring it," he tells her, lowly. A pause. A lift of the brow as he regards her. "If you -can-..."
Her left leg holds against his arm firmly; the shifting tension between her thigh and calf can be felt with the slightest of tremors, her hands clamped down like a vice. Her knee grinds in hard against his face, and yet... he rips out of it. In a moment more than she could have hoped for, the French assassin's hands lower to grip the wall and try to keep her balance while her back is nearly horizontal and legs thrust out long and wide to keep her steady. As Cherise starts to rise, his hand rips up across her chest and launches her back into the wall-- harder than she could've anticipated, slamming into the former warehouse with enough fury to make the exterior wall echo with the impact. Hovering in the air with flames fluttering away from her shirt, Cherise's arms and legs are thrown out limply, jaw hanging and eyes obscured with silver.
And then she drops like a stone.
Her legs curl in to catch her weight just in time, just as the flames putter out and leave the front of that button-up shirt in cooked tatters. Her hands hang over her head, but her head remains lowered. Almost as if they were bound above her head, hesitating there with her fingers clawed out angrily. "Why not..." she hisses, her smile fierce.
Her hands whip down hard in front of her, palms pressing to the concrete. Lines of silver burst from the ground, the wall behind her-- everywhere and anywhere, all of them shooting in a straight line, each of them trying to ensnare the man on contact. And if they do, a disabling burst of that silver force travels along the psychically-crafted "wires," intending on giving K' the jolt of his life.
COMBATSYS: Cherise can no longer fight.
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K' 0/-------/-======|
COMBATSYS: K' blocks Cherise's Argent Finale.
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K' 0/-------/=======|
The silver lines burst towards him from all directions, and his fragmented memory stirs. He remembers -this-. And damned if he'll let it hit him again. He still recalls, in more detail than he strictly desires, how much it hurt. And he remembers the strange way in -which- it hurt, that silver energy burning not only in a physical sense, but in a mental and spiritual sense as well. K' bears an intense hatred for psychic energy precisely because it is so intrusive. It touches on the mind and on emotion, both things which so easily turn against K': a master of self-castigation and brooding anger.
The lines wind about him, snaring him, and bursts of energy race down them towards his tangled form. K''s eyes narrow, his gaze unfocusing abruptly as his attention turns inwards. He seizes the fire in his blood, and he forces it to the surface. A blast of pain wracks his body as he draws and directs the stolen power faster than his glove can control it, his mind racing ahead of the glove's mechanisms. The temporarily-free flames sear ahead even of his thoughts, raging beyond his conscious commands; and they only bow to his will when his glove finally catches up enough to translate and implement the unspoken directives of its wearer.
Once the glove has calibrated to K''s impulses, his control over the fire is unparalleled in its minute fineness. It bleeds from him in a searing-hot shield against Cherise's psi, disrupting her energy and guarding him against the brunt of the force unleashed. K' breaks the lines of silver with a rush of fire: a burst of heat and flames that dies as quickly as it erupts. And then, shoving his hands into his pockets and tilting his head down, he regards Cherise. He frowns.
"That again...?" K' flicks his gaze downwards, idly settling his heel on an errant shard of ice that somehow went unmelted by this entire melee. He toys with it a moment, looking for a moment like a little boy, before he loses interest and crushes it to powder. "If you want my best," he eventually points out quietly, the beginnings of a nastily-overconfident smirk starting to pull at the corner of his mouth, "you're gonna have to make me -need- it."
A startling display of power is what awaits Cherise when her wires flare out, the silvery lines of energy trying to ensnare the man for a final, vicious attack-- one that she used on him once before, and as some manage to discover, is at times easier to avoid or destroy than she would like to admit. He tears through it with a burst of flame, leering over her while she remains half-seated on her bootheels. Her back slumps up against it as she tries her hardest to push up to her feet, even with the ringing in her ears and the pain in her spine.
Standing up slowly, her weight shifts on her legs, moving to better aquaint herself with the wall behind her back.
And he crushes ice.
Cherise pulls the flame-broiled tatters of her scarf off, flinging it off to the side in a care-free gesture. Her movements are stiff, strained-- though that should've been more than enough to knock her completely unconscious, she stands almost in defiance to his authority. Her breathing is steady, but a little on the slow side. Did he cause a few cracks in her ribs, when she was uppercutted into that wall?
Still, Cherise smiles. Still, she looks all too amused at what's going on. "I suppose I was a complete failure, there." Her thumbs slide under what's left of the collar of her shirt, pulling what's now become a rather burned, deeply-plunging V-neck a little closer to closed.
But then she -moves- again, looking to breach his personal space and press up close to him. She rolls onto the balls of her feet, and unless the former NESTS experiment is quick enough? He may feel the warm wet touch of her tongue flecking up the side of his cheek. "Make no mistake," she whispers in a harsh promise, "I'll make sure that happens next time."
Self-satisfied and smirking as only a teenaged boy can be, K' waits-- quite patiently, all things considered-- for her to get up. His heels slide apart into a more steadied, loose, and open stance with a grinding of ice fragment and gravel, his hands staying firmly shoved into his pockets and his shoulders slackening into a lazy, indolent slump. K' is rarely playful in a way that isn't blatantly, overconfidently cruel-- a manner quite reminiscent of Kyo, in fact, though he would be sent into a rage to be told of the similarity-- and even then, he doesn't show -that- save to a few people. It seems Cherise, however, has just got herself qualified.
Cherise, however, isn't exhibiting the reaction he expects. She still seems too amused, too slyly complacent. K' starts looking a little annoyed-- even wary-- as she refuses to back down He says nothing to her first statement, but his eyes do darken. Some of that playful smugness wipes from his face. It's not a word he enjoys hearing, even if this time it isn't aimed at him.
That moment of brooding distraction is what lets her in close. One moment he's sulking, letting himself mire in the sensation of that confident rush draining away into his customary grim dourness. The next he's experiencing something-- entirely different. Namely the hot, wet swipe of Cherise's playful approval along the side of his face. K' doesn't even react for a second, for it takes his mind that long to process and realize what it was that just happened. WHen it does, K' -backs- away in a hurried stumble, hands coming defensively out of his pockets as he retreats full-speed.
"--the -fuck- was that for?!" he demands rhetorically, the back of his hand coming up to try and swipe the quickly-cooling wet sensation away. He had been in control of the situation there. At least, he'd thought he'd been. What happened?!
And then, it shows thorugh one more time-- is it defiance? Or is it overwhelming confidence even in the face of loss? Is she really that detached from reality? Whatever the case may be, Cherise's smile becomes one less ridden with the layers and layers of her nigh-psychosis, her weight shifting back down to stand fully on the soles of her heeled boots. Almost ... genuine, even, eyes lit with humor and half-lidded with fatigue. Pulling the old wool coat closed and fingers navigating the thick, large buttons, her hand confidently pats the top of her chest, as if the act would excise the cold air that once hugged bare skin. "Ah, that's better."
Her hands lower again, finding a comfortable home in the pockets of the oversized coat. But why does K' react so harshly, and feverently rub his hand on his face like he'd just been given the cooties? Cherise's shoulders slouch a little, but the silver-haired girl quickly recovers with a playful grin, near-beaming. "Would kissing be more appropriate? I can remember that for next time."
Oh, she has plans. Plans for him, plans for -them-. Cherise isn't telling for now, though, and her interest has yet to die out. If it were any other person or occasion? It would be like another pair of shoes, cast off to the back of the closet to rarely be seen again. Now Cherise advances toward him in a more casual pace, pulling a small white card out of her coat's pocket and pressing the back to her lips, leaving a mixed gloss-blood kiss-print on it and reaching out to tuck it into the young man's collar. "Next time, it'll be even better."
And she lingers there for a moment, still wholly amused.
A sneer of disgust cuts his expression open once he's finished pawing his face clean, catlike, with the back of his hand. A sound of contempt hisses out of the back of his throat, the noise edged with a dissatisfied growl. It's not cooties he's upset about-- he's not quite that childish-- it's the unsolicited, unexpected, and pretty much wholly unwanted contact.
And whatever her 'plans' might be, they're doomed to encounter heavy resistance-- if not outright fail-- simply because they're -hers-. K' is a willful and rebellious young man by nature, disinclined to follow anyone's orders or bow to any authority. And as far as he's concerned, there is and -will not be- anything between him and Cherise, other than perhaps the very casual acquaintance of a young man being -repeatedly annoyed- by a masochistic girl with a strange fascination for him. Of course, maybe that is the extent of her plans, in which case he's in trouble.
And as to her playful little taunt-- 'would kissing be more appropriate?'-- K''s response... is to abruptly seize her arm as it tries to retreat from depositing that card. He tethers her in place an instant, even yanking her a little closer so she can't possibly mishear his point, and then actually answers her verbally. "Only when it's on -my- terms," he warns sharply (which could mean anything, really, from 'in some cases' to 'absolutely never') before he releases her: adding a slight shove to force her back.
One scathing look of scorn later, he does a disgruntled 360, stalking into the YFCC and ignoring the dumbfounded stares of their small spectators. One hand pulls the card from the collar, shutting around it to crush it-- but for whatever reason, he doesn't simply drop it to the floor.
COMBATSYS: K' has ended the fight here.
His grip, sudden and strong, causes her to stop abruptly. Pulled -closer-, even, it brings her a moment of surprise and a startled gasp-- pain-loving and masochistic as she is, Cherise isn't completely blind to things hurting, and what good pain and bad pain is... if there's even a difference? Her eyes seem to pulse as he issues his warning to her, the leering smile slowly returning to her face.
-Oh really-.
Uncharacteristically, Cherise stumbles. His shove is harsh, and the whole of her body from the waist-up feels like it was run through the grinder... or at least, after going a few rounds with Mao. Her head is ringing, and flames... born of chi or otherwise... still leave a lingering soreness.
She says nothing as he storms into the building, instead lingering in the moment and letting her gaze lull skyward. "I -love- it when he talks dirty."
If it weren't for the pain in her ribs, she would stretch like a cat-- but now, instead, she'll have to return to the hotel and sink into a scalding hot bath until everything settles.
Walking away from the YFCC, she may just have to walk to the bus stop and actually -ride- the bus this time, instead of stealthily climbing to the roof of it and hitching a free ride. It's much too cold, and her clothes are both damaged and soaked with slush.
But it was so worth it.
Log created on 19:23:24 01/02/2008 by K', and last modified on 21:24:54 01/04/2008.