Description: "Dear Diary, I did something terrible today. Even now, I'm not sure what it means for the future. K''s sister might be dead, and he might be looking for me to get revenge now. But I also made a choice. One that I have to keep so secret I can't even tell you. If anyone knew..."
Hunting the wild Kula can be a highly challenging undertaking. Mostly because there's no such thing. There's only the domesticated Kula to be found, and tracking that would prove to be incredible problematic as well as Whip would no doubt have quickly discovered. The simple fact is: She's hidden away at secret NESTs bases nearly ALL the time. The only times she gets to see the outside world is when sent on assignment or engaging in homework. 'Homework,' for this young teen, is different from what most kids get stuck with. Instead of English papers and Algebra, she is assigned fights to appear in to facilitate further training and evaluation. Leagues, weekly SNFs, and other exhibitions. Whatever it takes for her to continue to receive constant exposure to fighting. Outside of assignments and competitions, she's just practically impossible to find...
It is a League fight that brought her to this shrine this warm afternoon. If one had just enough contacts to find out about where the NESTs project would be fighting, they might, if quick, make it in time to even see the tail end of the fight before the ice using girl would be whisked off by her handlers back to some base where she would be hidden from that damn contanimating outside world once again. At least, that's what would happen on a outing for Kula. But today just so happened to not be normal.
What is it with this shrine anyway? Instead of a peaceful sanctuary for peaceful reflection and meditation, it seemed to be one of the hottest spots to hold fights in all of Southtown! Fight after fight gets staged at this location. So much for peace. Kula was brought out for another match. Her handlers would be standing by, recording, monitoring the challenge level of the opponent. This was supposed to be an interesting one indeed, with her being pitted up against the famous Rock Howard. Or that's what the paperwork said...
The paperwork was wrong. Instead of Howard's boy showing up to give Kula a decent challenge, the young girl was pitted against some wannabe fighter teenager with a weird fetish for cosplaying as real celebrities. Quite impressed with himself and his Rock Howard impression, the youth expected minimal challenge from the waifish girl he showed up to fight. He thought someone that looked barely fourteen could barely put up a fight. She even seemed to need protective leather armor to keep herself from getting bruised too bad! Or so he thought. HE was wrong.
"You're not very good at this," Kula had helpfully pointed out thirty seconds into the fight. "You should practice ever day like me and get better." Fourty-seven seconds later the bout was over, leaving Kula the undisputed victor. Of course it wasn't that fair. Most people could train every day of their entire miserable lives and not reach the level of fighting capacity wielded by the young thing. She had the proverbial cheat-sheet of fighting prowess, with a combination of genetic alteration, the infusion of a portion of that divine Kusanagi energy, and mental combat programming since the day she could walk...
The match was over swiftly, but with how popular the shrine was for fights, there was another one staged to take place /immediately/ after it. The League officials were in a hurry to usher the participants of Kula's shortlived NL match off the premises so that they could get setup for the next one. Kula's handlers complied, and the whole busybody bustling group of researchers piled back into the two cars that had served as their transportation to the site and drove off. The only problem is... the occupants each car thought the other was toting their charge... and all of them were wrong.
Left on the curb at the base of the shrine, the long auburn haired girl stared as the two vehicles tore off down the street, rounded a street corner, and vanished out of sight. Violet eyes blinked slowly, wondering how long it would be before they came back. Seconds started to stretch into minutes and... getting a little bored, she turned around to walk off. Stepping off t
the sidewalk into the forest that surrounded the shrine proper, young Kula Diamond, age two, proceeded to get lost. The product of over one trillion dollars in resesarch, and right now, no one in the world knew where she was. Well. Perhaps /almost/ no one...
It's ironic, for how deeply Whip hates the Cartel, and how irrevocably she regrets having murdered countless persons for their cause, she sort've enjoys getting back into old mindsets.
As much as Whip despised being an assassin, it was surprisingly easy to go back to old training, and to take on this assignment the same way she conducted countless others. Every mark only ever began with a name. She had to figure out the rest: the face behind the name, the lift behind the face, and to learn it so extensively, so intimately, that it would feel like it was her own life she was deciding to terminate. That was always the hardest part, because to be a good assassin, a smart assassin, there was no cool detachment from your victim. To execute a perfect murder, their life became yours over a stretch of several weeks, and every single time it was a twofold sensation, the thrill of having a drawn-out hunt grow slowly to its close and the nauseating knowledge of what must be done.
Whip never enjoyed the murder, but she always did the hunt. And this one is no exception. For the past two weeks, and entirely under the radar, she's spent her time learning the city and learning about Kula Diamond. She's pulled up every Ikari-friendly contact within the vicinity, digging into her own private bank account to get the smallest threads of information, and following the lines from knot to knot. It is an arduous process, but Whip was a good murderer because she was a patient murderer. The hunt was always her favourite part, the long nights and seeming forevers of gathering impossible information, always moving and never sleeping, and preparing herself for a multitude of dead ends. The weeks she spent in her lonesome was her favourite time during her career at NESTS, and Whip learned she was happiest being a solitary creature who needed only her intelligence and sense of patience to get her work done. Even if she loathed the work itself.
This particular hunt has been a difficult one, and it seemed ensconced with only two paths: one was a dead end and the other dared to lead her straight into the pulsing heart of the Cartel. Both were undesireable outcomes. So count Whip as pleasantly surprised when she was emailed anonymously to keep an eye on the fight standings. Ever since then, she's been Kula Diamond's biggest, yet most innocuous fan, collecting any and all information well in advance, planning out the girl's public life as soon as it was determined by the amateur circuits. It was becoming apparent that this public forum was the only way she could get close enough to that mysterious girl, and again, it would require an entirely new extension of her patience. Whip would have to wait for the right time, especially with so many eyes watching.
And that is what Whip does now. She watches Kula with a patience that can be easily be confused with coldness. Far away from the cheering spectators, the unsettled researchers, and the staring cameras, Whip watches all forty-seven seconds of the fight through high-powered binoculars, her own spectating self stationed far back inside the thick treeline. It ended quietly, and she assumes the rest of her day would follow in that manner; at least she'll be able to witness a taste of how the girl fights and how her small guard assembles itself, and within time the Ikari soldier may become more familiar with the algorithm. She stands back, remains quiet, and relies on her excessive patience, knowing that today may not be the day that anything happens; neither will tomorrow. It may not even be months from now. But if this girl warrants such a threat on her brother's life, Whip is prepared to spend her life waiting at the wings for her opportunity to strike.
She always preferred the long, drawn-out hunts.
...But, then again, Whip thinks, as she watches the Cartel's entourage drive off /without/ its prized girl: the quickies are also nice.
She watches every bit of what happens. And she knows this may be the only chance she'll have in a long, long time... or at all. If she wants to capi
If she wants to capitalize on a mistake, then she needs to move now.
There is only one person in the world who knows where Kula Diamond is, and it is following her at fifty yards, disguised in the thick brush and moving without sound. Whip stares at Kula as she steps purposefully, her eyes black of any emotion, an austere coldness filling her with nothing save for the duty of protecting her only brother's life. In some part of her, she finds it strange, almost unsettling, that this young girl could be capable of doing malicious harm to anything, least of all her brother, but Whip knows that within NESTS appearances can be deceiving.
Silently, Whip pulls the Desert Eagle off the holster on her back, taking the gun's familiar weight into her right hand. As she eyes Kula down the barrel of her weapon, Shurui's voice is momentarily inside Whip's head, reminding her that this Kula Diamond is something of a misguided innocent. She ignores it.
Instead, Whip makes her first sound in many minutes. It's the cold, quiet register of a firearm removing its safety. She flicks it off suddenly, declaringly, wanting the younger girl to hear.
It's the extraordinarily patient assassins who prefer to ask questions before shooting.
It's hard to say just how Kula would feel to know she had such a dedicated fan. Kept away from the press, or even the teeming masses of fighting fanatics that appeared at the various battles she attended, the girl had practically no idea what the average fight-goer even thought about her. Not did she particularly care. Having the approval of those within NESTs had been all that ever mattered to her for the longest time. Though lately that simple contentment had begun to wane. There were a few more opinions in which she found herself strangely and intensely interested in...
The information Whip would have garnered on Kula was sparse - yet perhaps enough to paint a picture she already knew the image of. A few years ago, the girl literally didn't exist. The suddenly, there she was. Looking to be around thirteen or fourteen, she was making appearances in sanctioned fights and dominating the first several tiers of fighters with seemingly little effort. Each fight she was accompanied by a small herd of protective handlers and scientists. And when the fights were over, she would vanish.
She showed up in a few other places as well. A killer. An assassin. By some standards she wasn't very good at the trade. Others within NESTs had to do the hunting for her. Skulking around, digging through files, profiling, learning every last detail of another's life... all those matters were way over her head. Perhaps in another few years, should she manage to live that long, she would ramp up to those tasks. But for now, Kula's prowess as a killer only shined when it was time to finish the job. Dropped off at homes like a schoolgirl being deposited at a friend's house, she could infiltrate, assassinate, then leave like a spectre against whom no walls were thick enough, no place safe enough. A ghost story of sorts to enemies of NESTs. When she killed, it WAS impersonal, detatched, indifferent. Lives extinguished at the behest of NESTs barely merited being considered 'real people'. Ending them was easy. She had never been taught otherwise. She doesn't even have to understand why her target's name is on some list nor does anyone try to explain.
But right now, wandering through the forest, none of those traits would be evident. Her pace is slow, calm; the long haired girl gazing over the sights, soaking in the sounds of a forest path in solitude. She has gone some distance when she pauses to look at a berry laden bush at her side. Not so foolish as to consume every color thing that grows in the wild, she finds herself curious as to how they feel all the same. The right sleeve of her violet leather jacket is unzipped, her protective yellow glove slipped off, held in her left hand, leaving her right hand bare.
An observer might wonder if she's never seen a wild berry before with the way the wide eyed girl leans forward a little, hand extending hesitantly, reaching out to caress the small red bunches nestled admist the leaves of the plant. The likely unedible fruit jostles as she touches it, running her fingers over the bumpy surfaces of the berries. Deciding that she wants to take some back just so she can ask questions about what it is and if it tastes good, her right hand reaches further into the leaves, intending to pluck a small berry-bearing-branch.
A soft, surprised gasp accompanies her drawing her hand back quickly. A small pearl of blood mars the fingerprint of her pointing finger. It's red, just like any other human being. And it serves as a reminder that all that looks harmless may yet bear thorns. Shaking her hand a little, annoyed that the plant that had provoked her curiosity decided to bite her back, Kula brings her finger up and sticks it into her mouth to suck away the blood.
*CLICK*
It's a familiar sound to one raised living admist operatives, agents, killers, and enforcers. The cold, ominous sound of a gun shifting to the ready state. And thus it is, as the naively loyal NESTs operative turns around cautiously slow to face the origin of that distinctive sound, Kula comes to f
face Whip with her finger in her mouth, violet eyes wide. If Whip wondered where Shurui got her impression of Kula as a misguided innocent, it might be easier to tell now that they're face to face.
Taking her pricked finger out of her mouth, the girl speaks, "You don't need that. I'll just go." She didn't know the forest belonged to some territorial crazy person!!
And inside NESTS, it is all the harmless things that bear the worst of thorns. It is one of their most notable, yet still traitorous, operatives that stands before Kula now and looks as harmless as an empty roulette chamber. Whip looks as ordinary a girl as any, with dark hair, expressive eyes, and a mouth that would probably dominate her face were it smiling. She is dressed in a typical way, moves in a typical way, and holds herself in a typical way, looking no more and no less than those many unimportant faces one sees every day. But she too has her hidden thorns, one of which is aimed straight on Kula Diamond, the barrel pointed with a surgical precision between the girl's young, widened eyes. The hand holding the gun does not flinch. Her dark eyes do not blink, and the look in them is dull and without reflection, only looking as cold as a dunk in a hypothermic tank. These are also thorns of hers.
Whip knows the Cartel well, and intimately so, and reminds herself again and again how they deal in dichotomies. Their worst monsters hide under a smiling daylght; their pretty faces hide ugly thoughts, with Igniz himself owning the best of both. She tells herself this because it's the only way she can gun down a little girl who looks and acts like Kula Diamond, who feels entirely the opposite of everything she was preparing herself for. But she knows she's been in the business too long to make stupid mistakes. It is not just her life on the line for this, but her brother's, and she'll do anything to protect him and his freedom.
"You're not going anywhere, Kula Diamond," Whip replies in a dark, crisp voice that enunciates as meticulously as all the stiff, clean pleats on a soldier's uniform, and she sounds much older than she looks. She steps slowly forward to the paved forest path, her gunarm unwavering. She talks as she walks. "We're going to have a conversation. I guess it's inevitable that we would. The Cartel built you, and they taught me how to kill. But I'll keep this professional. I want a full debriefing and sitrep of NESTS' intent towards the defacto operative K'. I want to know how much they know. I want to know how much you know. I want to know your present orders. Understand?"
All thoughts that perhaps this is just a simple misunderstanding bleed away quickly with each step the girl with the gun takes closer. If she just wanted to chase Kula off, she wouldn't be moving toward her with that gun held with unnatural steadiness. That doesn't change Kula's inclination to leave, however, a foot moving ot the side as she prepares to make good on her intent to simply go away quickly.
It is her name being declared that stops her short. Normally so happy to hear her full name spoken out loud, a constant reminder of just how precious she was to those who created her, this time feels quite different. The dark haired girl speaks it without the affection that anyone at NESTs adopts when addressing the child. Even Igniz's tone has been known to soften when speaking to the young operative. Instead it's spoken as a command; an order to stay put and not even think about leaving. Her right hand, bereft of its insulating glove, is raised and clenched, held over her torso in a defensive reflex.
Many have found it hard to spook the girl, especially when her combat algorithms have forced their way to the surface of her thoughts. But Whip has her immediately nervous. Perhaps it's because she knows no one is aware of her current location, which means no immediate protective help will be forthcoming. Maybe it's the graveness with which the other girl speaks and moves. Whip declares herself as taught to kill by the self-same Cartel that gave Kula life and the auburn haired girl lowers her arms to rest against her sides.
Whip's threat with the gun is taken quite seriously. If she is indeed trained by NESTs then the weapon isn't simply for show. "I am not authorized to speak about those things," the girl's answer comes as Whip draws near. Her right hand lifts, moving slowly, as if to avoid any sudden movements that might provoke attack. Of course, the action isn't exactly benign either, as she's reaching for the communication device tucked away in her right ear. A two way radio and tracking beacon in one. She left it deactivated as her handlers disappeared into their vehicles. A rare moment of peace and a chance to explore wasn't going to be passed up so easily as all that! But now all she needs to do is flick it on...
As the mysterious, nameless brunette steps forward, her slow, patient movements gradually mutate into the clipped stride of a soldier, and her altogether bearing betrays extensive military training. Out and immersed in the forest, there are many sounds around them, but Whip's attention has been narrowed into the most razored of points straight on Kula Diamond. She doesn't even tic an eye to the rest of the world around her. It may not even exist for her right now. Her heart is telling her that only one thing is important.
"You'll find I can be very persuasive," Whip replies, somewhat more conversationally than before, but with a voice that has the tenderness of cold lead. Her face, what could look very kind, very gentle were she smiling, is frozen of any humanity. If there's anything remotely human in her expression, it might be the shadow of anger that seems to haunt her eyes, that lingering ghost somehow unable to be completely exorcised by her military flatlining. As her boots step near soundlessly on the gravelly path, Whip fills the subsequent silence with frank words. "Intel informs me that the Cartel has assigned you to the traitor K'. Is the assignment a retrieval or is it termination?"
She soon stops at a strategic distance away from the other girl; too far for close combat but close enough for pinpoint accuracy from a Desert Eagle. Her dark eyes blink once and she continues, "I am here because I can't allow either prospect to happen. If I have to kill you here to ensure it--"
Kula's right arm moves. Whip goes stiller than a case of rigor mortis, her dark eyes fixed on that single movement, the look on her face betraying little. She doesn't blink. She doesn't frown. She doesn't even hold her breath.
She just turns her gun and fires straight at that offending hand.
COMBATSYS: Kula has started a fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Whip has joined the fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Whip
COMBATSYS: Whip successfully hits Kula with Desert Eagle.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Whip
If Whip had moved but two steps closer, that flicker of motion in which she took the gun's sight off of Kula's forehead would have been the instant in which she would have found herself under immediate attack by the NESTs operative. Not that Kula was watching for that precise opportunity, but her combat algorithms would have spotted it and taken immediate advantage of the chance it represented, darting forward with frightful speed to strike the other girl hard and open the way to violent retaliation.
But Whip smartly stood just outside that range, perhaps knowing too well the combat arts the young looking girl would be skilled in, and that keeps her safe from immediate counter attack. Instead the girl notices the shift in aim and simply tries to retract her hand in time. Quick, but not quick enough, the shot echoes into the forest, accompanied by a small yelp, the bullet having grazed the surface of the ice user's palm, cutting her flesh, leaving a horizontal, deep scrape across her skin.
Kept at that perfect dead zone between being able to evade Whip or attack her physically, Kula snaps her right hand down to her stomach, dropping her glove to the ground so that her left hand can clutch the injured palm tightly. Hissing at the pain of the surface wound, her cheeks tinting red. She's a little bit in shock. It hurts, sure, but she's more shocked this stranger just /shot/ her. Her mouth opens then closes again, teeth gritted, violet eyes glaring at Whip as she craddles her hand.
"Who are you? Why do you want to know?" Kula asks back, perhaps still not convinced exactly who's going to be the one asking questions here. She huddles down a little; not quite cowering, but just about. "No one told me about you." she adds, realizing how strange it seemed to her that she would be briefed about those likely to get in the way of dealing with K', but whoever this trigger happy girl is, she wasn't mentioned, as if her name existed in some file stamped 'Need to know', and Kula wasn't on the list of operatives with access.
Whip has seen her fight enough to know the key signs to know when the girl is about to unleash one of her icy attacks. That blue hair, those small crystals of ice swirling about her form... right now neither are present, the girl not even sure if she COULD unlock them without provoking another shot.
COMBATSYS: Kula takes no action.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Whip
The gun's smoking barrel returns home, aiming forward at the younger girl's forehead. Whip does not even need to say it; actions speak louder than words, and that gunshot vocalized her order plainly: don't move.
But it is a strange inconsistency in this stranger brunette, who could have chosen to immediately dispatch a more lethal shot, despite all her lingering threats. Perhaps she wants answers before she wants assassinations. Or perhaps it's something else entirely. Either way, the cold set of her face offers little explanation.
Standing there impassively, her eyes not even drawn a moment to the bright flare of blood off Kula's hand, her voice not even cracked by the deafeaning register of her firearm, Whip continues speaking in her same level tone, stiffly and mechanically as though she were reading out loud VCR instructions. Her brown eyes narrow. "There's not much about me to know, but allow me to answer your questions. My name is Whip, and I want to know your orders regarding K'," she gravels, and her cold voice violently surges with emotion, her words spit out with a sudden fierceness, "because he's my brother."
COMBATSYS: Whip takes no action.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Whip
Who is this traitor? And who is covering for her? Why has her name not been circulated along with the files on K'? Kula's mind races, finding herself pinned down from a very tricky range to deal with. Her questions voiced, Kula remains in place, simply clutching her shot hand, lips pressed together into a tight line as she keeps them from trembling. She's feeling vulnerable. She has to focus to unleash her combat level chi manipulation, and she suspects that if so much as a strand of hair on her head shimmers from auburn to frosty blue, she's going to get a bullet hurtling toward her forehead.
She stares back at Whip with a certain level of fear mingled with intense scrutiny, the questions about this brunette's interest in K''s case not making any sense to her. Who cares about K', anyway? Well... besides that Shurui girl. Kula was still trying to process /that/ incident. Her name is offered and Kula remains perfectly silent. But her tone is changing and even Kula, not particularly talented in reading people, can tell that the subject matter is about to get very... very personal.
'My brother.' The revelation is met with a soft intake of breath, a slight narrowing of the girl's eyes, and a tightening of her jaw. Here she is staring at someone who claims to be a literal blood relative of K'. "Impossible." she finally replies at last, making it a statement of fact, violet eyes searching Whip's. Her entire demeanor changes, the fear bleeding out of her expression and mannerisms as Whip so precisely treads right into territory so core to Kula's existence. "K' has no family. NESTs was his family, and he abandoned it!"
The girl's entire body tenses as she draws back just a little without actually taking a step. Little by little she tightens up. "He hurt his family when he did that. And because of that..." she continues, unclutching her hand, bending her arms against her sides, "Because of that..." Her voice lowers as she continues speaking, sharing that not so covert secret, the one that governs and defines her life, "...they made me. To kill him." She had wanted to convince him to come home. That had been what she told him to do, time and time again. But twice now K' declared in no uncertain words that he was going to kill her and now it's become a matter of him or her in the young operative's mind. It will be sad for Shurui, Kula had decided, to lose someone she claimed as a friend, but it can't be helped.
She seems to shrink back even further, coiling tightly as if getting ready to strike, her eyes shifting from Whip's eyes to focus squarely on that gun in her hand. "That's how I know you're lying. If you were his sister... if it was true... they would have told me to kill you too... Traitor." The temperature around her begins to plummet, a critical warning for the Ikari who's pointing the gun at her that this encounter is just about to become extremely deadly.
COMBATSYS: Kula focuses on her next action.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Whip
'Impossible,' says that little girl who was designed to murder her only family. Whip only responds to that claim with a further narrowing of her eyes, looking affronted by it, even offended. But the statement does not affect her otherwise. She knows the truth. Even after what NESTS did to her, took from her, and cut out her very memories, it never stole from Whip the knowledge that she had a brother. Instincts cannot be erased. She knew she had a brother out there in the world long before she ever realized the Cartel did wrong by her; long before she went out on her own to find a better life; long before she even knew K' ever existed; long before Shurui entered her life and fit two missing jigsaw pieces together.
Under diffierent circumstances, Shurui's warning would ring the strong possibility that this Kula Diamond may be the misguided innocent that she appears. Whip knows all well how NESTS has poisoned its operatives: she's seen the Cartel give Krizalid his psychosis, K' his paranoia, herself a phlegmatic ease in taking lives. Maybe that's why she cries all the time. But who's to say what's happened to this little girl Whip is gunning down now, one that looks barely into her teenage years? She looks well cared-for, but appearances can hide so much and reveal so little. Did she have a life like K' did? Was it taken from her? Were her memories erased? Under different circumstances, Whip would be feeling empathy.
But not now.
'K' has no family,' that little girl continues.
That gets a response. Her hands clench. Her eyes widen. The brunette flinches against those words, taking them like someone would a bullet. And patient, temperate, untouchable Whip... snaps.
"/I/ AM HIS FAMILY!!" she ROARS, her voice like a door slamming. Outrage delivers a sudden and vicious humanity to Whip's face, her cheeks flushed, dark eyes bright, and her mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. "He had a life. I had a life! They took it away from us!" she shrieks in a high, splintery voice. Like busted glass. Then her voice darkens into razorblades: "But fuck your Cartel; I found him again. And the only way you sons of bitches can take my brother from me will be over my dead body." That steady aim of hers starts to falter. Whip's gunhand is trembling. "Let me teach you what family really means. I'm here because I have a duty to K': to protect him and his freedom. You want to complete your objective, Kula Diamond? Kill me first."
Whip can feel the cold. It stings at her exposed skin and goes deeper, aching the knuckles in her hands, watering her eyes, and misting her last breath into the air. Her eyes slit, narrowing like a sharpshooter's, a murderous edge in them despite their distinctly wet glint. Her grit teeth flare past her lips. With no more preamble, she tries to line the barrel's sight to the girl's frontal lobes, taking a split-second to calm her shaking hand and pull the trigger. She's not going to stop until she's emptied the clip.
COMBATSYS: Kula blocks Whip's Desert Eagle.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Whip
In one swift moment, Kula Diamond confirmed what Whip had to have suspected. If there was hope that the Cartel had forgotten about their rogue project, that hope would now be in vain. If there was any question as to what NESTs scientists and operatives had been training Kula to be able to do, those doubts would have to be erased as the girl speaks her purpose clearly. It's the most important task in her life. Igniz promised her that with its completion would come acknowledgement like never before and the freedom to do whatever her sheltered mind could imagine as being her desires.
She spoke her mind, even in the face of that threatening pistol pointed her way. The entire experience is fairly bewildering to the young girl. While she had been trained to deal with being attacked, such a case had never come up in her excursions from the NESTs bases. After all, who would have cause to assault the harmless looking teen? Well, right here and now, she's managed to give someone irrefutable cause to do just that. While her words had not been carefully chosen, the profound effect they have on Whip's composure practically suggests Kula had profiled her and selected precisely the words to shake her focus.
The gun goes off, the trigger pulled, and Kula finishes hunkering down. Clasping her exposed right hand within her left hand, she brings her arms up, crossing them in front of her face, crouching down a little as she turns her side toward Whip just a little. It becomes clear, as the shots ring out, that the leather worn by the girl isn't just some weird fashion statement. The violet jacket, those matching chaps - NESTs engineered, lightweight body armor. The bullets ping her sleeves but fail to penetrate. The few that get around her blocking arms are similarly stopped short before they can hope to cause anything worse than a minor bruise.
But while Kula is still while the clip is being emptied, she isn't inactive. An aura of white, shimmering up from her feet, along her body, and vanishing after passing over her head leaves in its wake a small flurry of ice crystals circulating around her form. And as she lowers her arms slowly, her eyes becoming visible over the top of her clasped hands, her once violet eyes have taken on a red hue when contrasted against the frosty blue hair draped along her back now. The leaves of the berry bush behind her back begin to droop, weighed down with ice that begins to collect on their ridges.
Kula lowers her hands, one of the slugs falling out of the small indentation it had formed in her protective glove, and sets her eyes squarely on Whip. "Lier." she declares in no uncertain terms. "It's easy to say that you will die for him when you have a gun pointed at my head. But now that you see... that isn't enough... is it still so easy?"
Her power unsealed, Kula is ready to find out first hand how committed Whip is to the claims she makes! She crouches just a little before springing off, hoping to attack before the Ikari can adjust for having her gun's clip empty. Flipping forward, the warning of how her next attack will manifest comes at the last possible second - that bare hand of hers going for Whip's throat as Kula descends to land practically in front of her.
Seeking a neck-crushing grip to keep Whip in place, her left hand comes in secondly, emanating a halo of white, blisteringly cold energy as she attempts to literally grip the brunnette's face with her palm and unleash that energy with a point blank blast.
COMBATSYS: Whip interrupts Medium Throw from Kula with Strength Shot - Chikara.
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Kula 0/-------/----===|=====--\-------\0 Whip
That steely Desert Eagle .50 fires again and again and again. Whip squeezes the trigger until all they can hear are the harmless clicks of its empty chamber. She looks past the barrel of her gun, breathing harshly, her sharp eyes instantly observing the forest's paved path littered with deflected rounds and sheeted with ice, and the solitary girl in the heart of it all, her hair and eyes changed, but the rest of her unharmed. With an angry snarl, she tosses her useless weapon aside, the heavy steel landing mutedly into the forest's undergrowth.
Her brown eyes fasten on Kula, taking in the girl's transformation with an unreadable look, her expression coiling somewhere between rage and reservation. She doesn't seem surprised to see it; someone who has been researching Kula Diamond long enough has had the project's novelty wear off. For now she is outrage warring with thoughtfulness, one side of her trying desperately to think cooly through all her emotion. It's harder than it looks.
Fortunately, action occurs much more seamlessly to a soldier like Whip, and her muscles are moving before her mind has even finished its assessment. Setting her feet and steeling her joints, she reacts the instant Kula moves, reaching her gunarm back again for that half-hidden holster on her back. She doesn't try to avoid the attack. She doesn't try to turn shoulder against it to protect her smarter parts. The avenging sister merely holds her ground as she reflexively clenches her fist around a familiar handle.
Whip doesn't move against getting her throat grabbed. But she does move before it happens: it's a split-second flinch of her right arm, and in a blur of blue, her favourite whip has been torn from its holster and shot through the air, trying to hack a stinging groove against the ice wielder. For the heartbeat the two girls are close, the angry brunette is deathly silent, her eyes burning a murderous highway. She lifts one boot as Kula shoots forward her left hand, attempting to interject a firm crack of her foot at her stomach to try to push them apart. Either way, Whip extricates free with that blast of icy energy, but not without a parting gift of her own, as Voodoo imposes once more in one last delivering snap of leather at Kula's torso.
The chi blast knocks the Ikari soldier backwards, her boots skidding until she collapses, straining audibly to pull herself to one knee. When she looks up, her eyes bright and fierce, her face is chilled over, her skin burned with frostnip and ice clumping in her dark hair. She coughs raggedly on the spot, her voice slowly returning in a painful hiss.
"So how did they make you?" she must ask Kula, staring at the girl with eyes so furious they seem to shine black. Her scratchy voice takes on a wondering slant. "Was it like one of Krizalid's little depraved experiments? Did they grow you in a tube?" She exhales harshly, forcing herself to cough some more. "You stupid little girl. You call the Cartel a family? You don't know what family IS!"
Staggering, Whip slowly rises back to her feet, her right hand flexing against the handle of her weapon. She snaps, unable to help herself but continue, "The most they'll ever give you is PATIENCE! They're waiting for you to make a mistake and DIE. And then they'll open you up on a table and find out what went wrong. And then they'll grow a better version of you. And then they'll wait again." Her expression goes colder than the ice on her face. "You're no more than data."
The first crack of the whip slows Kula down slightly. She hadn't expected that. She expected another gun, perhaps, to replace the empty one. Or maybe a punch or kick. But a whip? Well, now she knows where the ex NESTs assassin gets her moniker from. Her bare hand gets that grip on the other girl's throat. Not having height on Kula, the long haired killer starts to lean in, ignoring the sting of that first strike, mouth closed, eyes focused on her target.
The kick pushes her away at last, just before the icy blast is unleashed from her gloved hand. Undeterred, Kula takes a step forward, relentless, intending to keep the pressure on, but that last whip strike cracking against her torso, provoking a hiss of pain, forces her to reconsider at last, the girl taking a step back to pause. Her breathing is calm, controlled as she studies Whip further.
She looks ready to advance again, body tensing, foot shifting just a little. But Whip speaks and she stays in place. The first question goes unanswered. Why should she tell? What business is it of- But Whip asks about her being an experiment; about her being born on a lab bench in a glass tube, and the girl's mouth twitches, lips pressing together tightly, giving the brunette all the answer she should need. She doesn't even have the slightest clue where her genetics came from. Considering the number of scientists that participated in altering her DNA, by now probably no one person knows for sure. The Cartel is her mother and father, the people within it adopted siblings in the only family she knows anything of.
And according to the shouting girl in front of her, that means as much as nothing. "No," Kula replies, her voice soft, troubled, her head shaking slowly. "I'm special to them. They tell me all the time." Would she ever act like this other girl if anyone else was threatened? Is there someone at NESTs who's well being she would want to protect so bad she would throw herself into a possibly suicidal attack?
She had called Whip a lier, because it was easier to believe that she was just a crazy nobody than to think that in leaving NESTs K' found his /real/ family - his sister. Leaving NESTs was supposed to be the worst mistake he /ever/ did. But now he has that grey haired Gedo girl... and this Whip person... He still has the Toy Man, Maxima, the people at the YFCC... He isn't alone at all, and the passion she sees driving Whip to fight her at all costs is perhaps proof of the ties he's been forming. And what does she have? Her room full of plastic figurines and stuffed animals.
"Shut up." she finally utters, raising her right hand, palm up, fingers toward Whip as she levels it near the level of her chin. "Shut up! I'm not data, I'm a person!" An inhale and swift exhale punctuates the exclamation, sending a burst of air blasting toward the Ikari soldier. It drives aside the dust from the forest path as it tears toward her, bearing with it sheets of sharp crystaline shards and razor edged rings of ice tumbling in its midst.
COMBATSYS: Whip blocks Kula's Diamond Breath.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////// ]
Kula 0/-------/---====|=====--\-------\0 Whip
Breathing lowly, Whip uses the back of her wrist to rub melting ice away from her eyes, giving a shake of her hair as it wings wildly around her frowning face. She stands across from Kula Diamond looking as much a photo negative of the girl as one can get; for all her unnatural blue hair and state-of-the-art, strategic clothing, Whip represents all that appears perfectly normal and perfectly underlooked, her own clothes no more than jeans and a leather jacket lightly dusted in frost.
If there is anything that contrasts with Whip's assumed normalcy, it's that unparalleled rage in her eyes, a type and depth of anger that so few people do and should ever feel. Despite her young features, there is a certain gravity about them, a wisdom there that exceeds all her few years. Whether or not she is saying the truth, she speaks as though she believes it with every last ounce of her heart. "They told you?" she implores of Kula's rebuttal, looking anything but convinced. Her expression would be inclined to border pity if it wasn't so enraged, if it wasn't preparing itself now to kill or be killed. But in the heat of battle, she feels generous enough to offer a bit of advice. "If you learn anything in your excuse of a life, learn this: talk is cheap."
And if to emphasize her point, for now Whip says no more. She has no time to, seeing Kula move, her own body tensing to prepare for the strike. K' told her himself that Kula Diamond far outclasses her own ability, and Whip is the analytical sort to completely believe him. She considers herself only a novice against chi-based attacks, and those designed from the pits of the Cartel are nothing but lethal. But she doesn't care. If there is any breath left in her body, she will spend it protecting her only family. It is the only meaning she has in her life. If she can't stand strong and defend her brother, then she is worth nothing.
Eyes slitting, Whip tenses as Kula attacks, already knowing she has little ability save for raw luck to outstep this icy chi. Either brave, suicidal, or just too furious to even care, she digs in her heels and turns shoulder against the burst of air, lifting one arm to protect her face against the attack, drawing from herself all her strength to suffer the pain. It still hurts. The deluge of shards and sharp ends cut grooves out of her unprotected body, tearing through her clothes and ripping the leather sleeves off her shielding arms, as some barbed bits streak by and stick in. She grits her teeth against the stinging.
Then it stops. Whip doesn't even wait. Covered in ice and dripping blood, she lets a vicious yell go as she lunges straight towards Kula, a turn of her arm bringing that weapon of hers back to life. All fifteen, icicled feet of Voodoo arcs into the air, sending broken icy shards through the air as it makes its fist wicked crack. She snaps her whip forward, its sharped end lashing forward and trying to grab the younger girl by the leg. If it connects, she's yanking violently on the line, all her genetically-infused strength enconsced into the pull, trying to throw the girl with little mercy. And should this occur, her line is loosening inside the trajectory, her whip guided backward by her flexing arm to try to meet her in another bloody lash.
COMBATSYS: Whip successfully hits Kula with Boomerang Shot.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Kula 0/-------/-======|=====--\-------\0 Whip
Ow. A strange, burning sensation rips down the young girl's arm draws her red eyes toward the right hand she holds at her mouth. Encrusted with a small fraction of the ice she propelled toward Whip, she experiences a sharp reminder as to why she has always fought with those insulating gloves on. As resistant to cold as she is, direct exposure to her icy attacks harms even her on some level. Quickly she bends her fingers, causing the thin layer of ice coating them to crack and fall away, providing instant relief.
The distraction is sufficent to leave her rooted to Whip attacking back so swiftly in the wake of Kula's blast of ice laced breath. Voodoo cracks to life, snapping out into the air, icicles flinging off to the forest path's floor as it fixes its grip on Kula's leg. So caught, the young teen finds her foot torn out from under her, Kula dropping to the ground to land with a surprised gasp before she finds herself hurtling through the air. She crashes into the side of a tree, catching herself with her arms, but hitting it hard all the same. Feet slipping to the ground, she's about to turn when the whip lashes her a second time, catching her on the cheek, drawing blood as it rakes across her exposed skin.
Clenching and unclenching her frozen hand to loosen it up, she finishes turning around completely, her left hand wiping across her cheek, moisture welling up unbidden in the corners of her eyes. The stinging pain of the whip, the aches of the bumps and bruises she's taken, the pain in her hand, still bleeding a little from the first bullet to be sent her way, Kula finds her breaths coming heavier now.
Whip is trying to kill her. To put an end to one menacing threat against her brother. And to top it off, she throws fierce questions, fracturing Kula's delicate grasp on what life is about and how she plays into it all. "I guess it's like said. Actions speak," she hisses back, pushing off from the tree, charging Whip again, drawing her right hand out to the side. "-louder than words." A halo of white emanates out from around it before solidifying into a sphere of translucent, solid ice. Strong as steel yet maleable as water under her control, its pristine color is tainted by swirls of red blood seeping from her hand. It's exposing her right hand to her ice once again, but right now she doesn't care. All she wants to do is put an end to this entire distressing situation. And if that means skewering Whip to do so, then so be it.
She's still a few yards out when her arm swings forward and the shape of that sphere changes. The side nearest to Whip becomes almost completely fluid as Kula forces it to bend to her will. And then come the lances. Three seperate spears of ice jutting out from the sphere encasing Kula's hand, each one varying in length, as far as a yard or less, each one threatening to tear into Whip savagely if she is unfortuante enough to be caught in their path. This is how she will prove her importance. This is how she will make sure she matters. She isn't just an experiment, she's a success. The most precious thing in all of NESTs. A diamond.
COMBATSYS: Kula successfully hits Whip with Critical Ice.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////// ]
Kula 1/-------/=======|=======\=====--\1 Whip
Whip's right hand makes the littlest of movements. But Voodoo whirls back to her as quickly and obediently as a tamed pet, its long length curling up her forearm. Her form cuts an unforgettable sight. She stands there, not tall, not imposing, and certainly not anything like Southtown's most exotic warriors and intimidating assassins, but she makes up for it all in sheer resolve. There is not much of her, but every last pound of it is cast in righteous fury. She breathes lightly, shallowly, each movement welling more dark gore out of her many cuts. Her eyes stare through the constant dripping of melting ice and her own blood. Both her hands slowly tighten into fists. Her eyes ignore everything that is not Kula Diamond.
And she waits. Perhaps she feels it is the obligation of the sister to feel the pain that Kula intends for her sibling. Every new, awful sensation gives more meaning to her lost life. It makes her feel like the human being she was supposed to be, the one that was erased when the Cartel stepped into her life.
Her eyes narrow slightly at Kula's words, but Whip is quiet. As the younger, and much more powerful girl moves forward with violent speed, the traitor agent does not move to accomodate the expected attack. She does not recoil and wait to move. She doesn't tense the limbs that should be protecting her vital spots. She merely widens her stance, the heels of her heavy boots kicking up dust and slivers of ice. And, with a solemn face and those infinitely patience eyes, Whip doesn't move away from that attack... until it moves her.
All three spears puncture straight through Whip, sheathing into her body with sharp, wet sounds. The first and only movement she makes is the way her body whips backward to absorb the power of the blow, her head thrown back and her legs buckling. She collapses to her knees, the blood pooling from her back, and she can't help herself but loll her head and throw up another mouthful to add to the red. Blood drools thickly from her gutted body, and her hands slip in the warm, greasy mess as they strain to hold her up. She breathes in and out sharply, hollowly, and her lungs are making a wet, rattling sound with every strangling exhale of air.
But she doesn't let herself fall.
Instead, slowly, agonizingly, Whip lifts her head to face Kula once more, and the pain is everywhere on her, contorting every inch of her... except for her face, which is still framed in a timeless look of resolve. She moves her lips, and first blood runs out of them. The words come second. Her voice is wet and papery, and sounds as carved up as she looks. "And what does this..." she whispers, bleeding more as she pushes her body to one leg and then the other, putting every one of her terminal wounds on display, "say to you...?"
She grabs one hand down on the first shard of ice, grimacing, then screaming as she violently pulls it free, ripping it out of her with the disturbing carelessness of someone who does not expect to survive. The second follows, bringing tears to her eyes and a half-choked sob from her throat. "I--can't," Whip is promising brokenly, but it is unknown whether she is talking to Kula or her own self, "I can't let you kill him. I can't-- I can't-- I--"
The third shard breaks off still inside of her. She howls an awful, awful sound, and then says no more. The strength that she would use to otherwise speak, to think, to... anything, Whip channels into an attack. She's not finished. She has an obligation to fulfill. She has an identity that she must finally assume. It is with that conviction that she moves, trailing blood as she focuses everything into this strike. Voodoo is not forgotten, her best friend there for there to the end; her hand tightens on its handle, the weapon curling off her arm and spreading through the air. She lunges forward, her teeth grit and her eyes blinking tears as she tries to bring her weapon down on Kula's body...
COMBATSYS: Kula blocks Whip's Sonic Slaughter KW.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////// ]
Kula 1/------=/=======|==-----\-------\0 Whip
What just happened... really shouldn't have. Whip should have tried to move out of the way. She should have tried to defend herself - to deflect one or two of those sharp, long, steel-like lances of ice at least. Instead, with an expression that indicates what is about to happen is because she wills it to, Whip is run through by the three savage spikes. The spears break off as Kula draws her hand back and to the side, leaving them stuck in the young woman's torso they just punctured.
The sight is almost sickening, even to the girl who has used that very technique to end the lives of others in the past. It's over. Whip just threw herself on the proverbial sword, and for what? What did she accomplish with that? There is one thing. The bleeding, stabbed, cut girl has proven something, beyond all shread of doubt. To the skeptic, to the most stubborn mind, she would have proven that she was, in fact, K''s sister in a method so powerful that anyone who tried to deny it would have to be decried a fool or deranged; they might as well declare with abject confidence that the Sun revolves around the Earth.
She asks what that action said and Kula stares back, red eyes wide, mouth partially agape. The girl might very well die right now, Kula believes. But she's still moving, perhaps one last shot of adrenaline preventing her from collapsing to the ground. She's doing this for K', her desire to protect him compelling her forward on this death march toward inevitable demise. "Y-you shouldn't have done that," Kula replies, her voice wavering. She just killed K''s sister. If his threat to murder her in the courtyard of Gedo High bore any shread of truth, then right now she's all but guarenteed that she's given him the same purpose she has, both of them vying to kill the other first - survival, life would not permit the two of them to co-exist. But it's not her fault, it's Whip's fault. She's the one that came here waving a gun around!
Kula shakes her head, finally releasing the ice to fall from her right hand, what's left of the hemisphere that didn't morph into the spears melting and falling to the ground. As her bare flesh becomes unsheathed, it becomes clear that she's hurt her hand worse in the process of attacking, the skin cracked and bleeding from direct contact with her blisteringly cold chi. Gasping softly, she clutches her hand again, watching Whip pull the two spikes out of her, one after the other. The third remains within her, due to melt eventually, but Whip might not live to see that happen.
The Ikari advances on Kula, raising her trusty weapon, aiming to inflict another punishing attack on the extremely young killer. But Kula defends herself, releasing her right hand so that she can wave her left through the air, creating a shimmering mirror of ice - a barrier through which Whip's crashes. But by the time it does, the NESTs operative has already followed the motion of the serpentine weapon. Her right hand snaps out, bare fingers gripping the last length of it, stopping its motion as her fingers clasp over it only briefly before letting go.
Her eyes water, the overwhelming realization that she is in fact looking at the literal blood relative of the young man she was created to kill. He has a sister. He had a family. A real family. It isn't just all a fantastic lie made up to provoke sympathy from others, to justify his irrational hatred for the Cartel that gave him so much. It's all true. "W-why are you doing this... you can't stop me. And now you're going to die. It's your fault!" She's in pain, certainly, but there's no comparing to what Whip's body has been put through. She grits her teeth as she continues, ignoring the blood dripping from her hand to the dust at her feet, "I don't have any choice. You don't know how that is!" she challenges back.
And then she steps forward, drawing upon that remarkable speed she has been gifted with, her bare, bleeding right hand slamming forward, clenched in a knuckled fist, driving for Whip's stomach. And in the same instant, her left
hand snaps out, fingers splayed, the ice lying on the ground from her previous attacks drawn up into a literal spike hovering behind Whip's back. A spike that Kula draws forward with a simple flick of her wrist, looking to add one more gashing slash to the brunette's back with that floating shard, "It's already over!!"
COMBATSYS: Kula successfully hits Whip with Behind Slash.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > / ]
Kula 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\0 Whip
Voodoo gets snatched straight out of the air. And Whip knows immediately that she has failed.
But as K''s half-conscious sister stands close, there is no trace of defeat on her tired, bloody face. There is only that resolve that refuses to give up the ghost. Her cheeks are burnt with frostbite, her flesh is scratched by razory ice, her eyes are crying, but Whip's mouth is still set with that same stern frown that she has worn since she took the safety off her gun. There are many times she could have died in her life, in all the years she remembers. This is different from them all. That was survival. This is purpose. If she could choose how she she died, Whip would want it just like this; she wants her life to end protecting something precious. For someone like her, there is little to regret now. She managed to find her missing past. She managed to find her brother and prove all her doubts wrong that she was just some empty shell denied memory and humanity. At least now, dying here, Whip knows she'll die a person and not some tool, not some weapon, not some amnesiac ghost.
But there's one thing left that has her holding on. If Kula Diamond wins this fight and walks away, she will go on and murder K'. Or worse. She'll deliver him to the Cartel. They'll rip him apart. They'll look for what went wrong. They'll get inside his head. They won't stop. Nothing will be left. She can't let it happen. She can't fail him. She can't--
--feel her legs.
The blade of ice unzips Whip's back, serrating through the flesh in one quick rip. Blood splatters the ground behind her. She makes a small, windy sound in the back of her throat; the littlest of sighs. An indescribable look touching her face, Whip merely collapses on the spot, her body heaped and her lacerated limbs sprawling askance. Voodoo's handle slips free of her opened hand. She is a vision of misery. She breathes in and out very slowly, that rattling sound getting worse. Every inhale makes her feel that shard of ice still stuck inside her chest, and as it slowly melts, her wet gasping deepens. It's drowning her punctured lung.
It's getting harder to feel her own body, and even the pain is beginning to lull away. Her clothes feel heavy and damp. She feels so cold. Distantly, Whip can hear something, someone speaking to her, and her tired, filmy eyes turn. She looks up at Kula's face, staring at the emotion inside of it, and she remembers everything. She has to stop this girl. As long as she is alive, she has to be a good sister.
One hand flexes. Then, with a crackling groan that drools black blood out of her mouth, Whip forces life back into her mangled body. Her right arm shifts. The left follows, both limbs trembling as she plants her numb hands against the ground to brace her weight. She slips many times. But Whip finds the strength from some place she's not sure exists to push her tattered, hamburgered body up. If there's still blood left in her body and pain left in her nerves, it means she's not dead. And that means she better get back up.
Rising like some corpse that refuses to believe it's own mortality, Whip lifts her head and looks Kula straight in the eye. The look in hers is no longer steeped with rage and murderous resolve, but the purpose has not left them. Her lips move. It is so hard to hear her voice, to see the words for all the blood, and only Kula Diamond in all the world is close enough to hear them. "We... all have a choice," she rasps on a strangled breath, the rattling in her lungs getting worse with each breath.
"I chose him." With no warning, she lurches forward, one bloody hand darting forward and attempting to seize a wringing handful of Kula's shoulder. Her bloody fingers leave greasy smears. Snarling wetly, Whip raises her other arm, the hand closing into a fist despite the constant trembling of her arm. She grits her jaw, recoils her arm, and then... falters. Her arm lowers once more, slowly, acceptingly. Her eyes are staring at Kula but it becomes obvious that the dying soldier can no longer see. They gaze unfocused
They gaze unfocused. Her face changes, and her gripping hand loosens and gentles.
"I... chose my... " Whip's lips move silently with words she can no longer say. The girl just lets go, slumping bonelessly to the pavement, her head flopping to one side. She goes very still.
COMBATSYS: Whip takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Kula 1/------=/=======|
COMBATSYS: Whip can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Kula 1/------=/=======|
It's over. The slashing shard of ice against Whip's back was the final blow, the girl collapsed to the ground after a final sigh. Over her sprawled out form stands the victor of this confrontation, crimson victory dripping from her damaged right hand to pool in the dust at her feet. Covered in dust, her body suit concealing the bruises she received, Kula Diamond stands perfectly still, staring at the dying girl on the ground, her own cheeks damp with melted ice and trickling tears. She knows full well that someday that could be her. A mission gone wrong, an ambush sprung, or any number of possible outcomes that would result in her demise. In her final moments, she hopes she could look half as serene with the completion of her life as this sibling of K''s.
She meets Whip's gaze when the fallen girl looks up at her, simply standing in place. She feels like she should do something. End the girl's suffering, perhaps, and put an end to this horrific sight. She should call in and report her location and condition, and what she just did. Won't they be so happy? Another traitor's life ended... But if so, why doesn't she feel happy for the anticipated expressions of appreciation? Good job, they'll say. Here, have another game. It's never felt so empty before; the aftermath of having triumphed over an enemy of NESTs.
Whip stirs and Kula doesn't budge. Her hands press against the ground to force herself up against all odds and Kula just stares, her cheeks pale, her eyes wide with shock. The Ikari is standing, her head lifting, their eyes locking as silence reigns between them. Though she sees her mouth moving, she isn't sure that anything is being communicated. She almost misses the words forced past the painful, rasping sounds for her, and only her. But it sinks in. 'We' have a choice. Whip was including her in that collective 'we'. It's something any normal person has and the thought that she too should have that power to decide, that it's /normal/ to make choices leaves her stunned, a soft intake of breath that has her staying still even as Whip's hand clamps down on her shoulder with what dwindling strength she still has.
Whip reveals her choice - as if there could be any mistake about it, as if there was room for doubt or uncertainty as to what she had made her priority. She staked her life on that choice, attacking a NESTs operative outside of her capacity to defeat because she /had/ to. Kula doesn't move to defend herself as the brunette brings her other hand up, doing what she can to clench it, her entire body's ability to stay standing dwindling rapidly.
That last attack never comes, Whip collapsing, falling to the ground. Kula's left hand comes up, making a fleeting attempt at grasping Whip before she falls, only to catch herself in the act and freeze. Why does she want to get her help? How could she, even? Her only communicator would summon NESTs handlers right back to this site, and right now they're the last people she's interested in seeing. She turns away, unable to bear the sight, her right arm coming up, rubbing her violet leather sleeve across her eyes, leaving streaks of blood marring her skin in the process.
She can make choices too. It's her right, her opportunity. She had declared definitively to Whip that she was a person, not just an experiment, a walking data set to be studied later. The idea rushes into her thoughts, a revelation like none other, blocking out everything else. If she's a person, she can decide what she wants to do, just like anyone else. That epiphany spurs her into turning around, dropping to her knees, her hands resting against the ground as she leans over Whip. Her bare, bloodied hand raises, extending slowly to touch the fallen girl on the shoulder, "You've saved him," she whispers, her voice shaking, her mouth trembling. "That is my choice."
Kula is given a few quiet moments alone with the girl she's practically killed. She's allowed her epiphany in peace. But once she deigns to look up again from her quiet words to Whip, smearing tears and blood as she rubs her face, it'll be to the abrupt shock of seeing none other than K' himself, standing not twenty feet away: having arrived, uncharacteristically, in total silence. How did he get here? That ineffable instinct that guides any brother to his sister when she's in need. That-- and a little bit of spying on her laptop.
He isn't doing anything. He isn't saying anything. He's just looking at his sister, bleeding there on the ground. From how long he stares, he doesn't seem to understand what it is he's looking at.
Knowing his nature as she does, Kula might recoil in expectation of fury, vengeance, or SOME kind of enraged attack; but surprisingly, K' barely seems to notice her. There isn't any room in his heart right now for anything but crippling fear. He just stands there, looking very steadily at Whip, and a faint trembling starts to set uncontrollably into his limbs.
Finally, in a sudden spasmodic motion, he bolts forwards; but it -still- isn't to attack Kula. He goes straight to his sister, skidding to a halt on his knees and leaning over her bloodied form. His shaking hands take stock of her vitals hurriedly, smearing blood in their haste.
K' doesn't talk. He's too busy gathering his sister up in his arms, pulling her -away- from Kula as if afraid she's just gathering herself up to finish the job. In silence he crushes Whip against him, utilizing his heat and fire to coagulate the heavy bleeding and cauterize those wounds. His face buries into her hair until only his agonized eyes are left visible, and the only sound that escapes him as he folds up around Whip is a brief and quickly-quelled whimper: the terrified sound of a boy who thinks he's about to lose the only thing he's got in the world. The only thing he really loves.
He spent years trying to find her, and finally did so by sheer chance. Now, after all that, the prospect of losing her again in the space of a single night is nearly unbearable. Hate, anger, or any of those other emotions one might have come to expect from him... none of them occur to him. Not quite yet. All he can think is that he can't lose her. Not when he's just found her again.
The sight of K', desperately holding onto his sister and trying to stanch her bleeding, is so incredibly personal that Kula-- even socially stunted as she is-- might feel the unbearable awkwardness that comes of being an outsider bearing witness to such a bond. But then again, she might be too busy wondering what K' might do to her once he finally -does- turn his attention on her-- finally does feel the bite of rage-- seeing as he isn't exactly privy to the knowledge of what's going on in her head...
Her decision whispered, Kula exhales softly. She can't do anything else. She can't heal like some fighters can. She can't call anyone besides those would see Whip dead anyway. Whip picked her fight, and this is how it ends. The sigh escapes her lips as she settles further onto her knees, "I'm sorry," she apologizes, closing her eyes, drawing her hand back from Whip's shoulder. "It's my..." But in glancing up slowly, her red-hued eyes opening once again, the NESTs operative finds she isn't alone.
She blinks once as her eyes settles on K', convinced that she's only seeing him because he's on her mind. He can't really be here. She isn't thinking clearly. She blinks a second time, but he's still standing there, frozen in abject shock, complete confusion at the sight he beholds, and Kula freezes, her heart skipping a beat. It really is him. He's going to make good on that threat he leveled her way when they last 'spoke'. He's going to kill her and leave her body here in the forest.
K' rushes forward and Kula stumbles backward into a seated position, only to scramble back further, pushing against the ground with her feet and propping herself up with her hands as she frantically withdraws without a word. Her mouth hangs open just a little, her lips coming together at one point as if she was about to speak, only to relax as the words fail to come. The look of horror in the young man's face tells her that she's done an awful thing. An unforgiveable thing. She took his only family from him. She can't undo that though she wishes she could. The tears have ceased, her face an ashen complexion.
She doesn't feel awkward though as she stares at the white haired K' hold Whip up to him and clutch her close. The entire sight a vision like she has never seen before. She had wondered what it was like to have a sibling, but in seeing this moment she learns more than perhaps she was ready for. It's /hard/. It hurts. It makes people do crazy things that are going to get them killed. It means having someone that matters so profoundly that it defies explanation. But it means mattering to someone in the same way.
She searches K''s expression, bewildered at the emotion there. She never thought she would see anything besides anger in his eyes. She's facinated, staring at this glimpse, through this brief window into the depths for which he cares for Whip, his sister. No one cares about her like that. No one would be so lost to the world if she died. Her mouth opens again as it had before, but this time she finds her voice. "S-she attacked me," she stammers, desperately trying to explain this bloody massacre away. She scoots away backward further, still seated on the ground, "She was going to k-kill me-" It was a fight unlike any other, the stakes on the table the ultimate price from which there is no recovery.
"I didn't even know who she was!" Her voice comes louder. It isn't her fault, it's someone else's. She isn't responsible, she can't be punished for this travesty. She wasn't looking for this. "Until she showed me..." Yes, showed. It wasn't by simply words Whip proved her claim of being K''s kin. She can't even figure out why she is saying this. Just days ago she would have fought him without holding back in the courtyard of Gedo, and if that was where he was to die, then so be it. "It's not my fault." she blurts out, "It's not my fault!", she repeats, shaking her head, clenching her teeth as she squints her eyes closed.
There isn't any anger in K' right now, no. None in his eyes, none in the lines of his body. There's no trace of the heartless, violent monster NESTS has painted him to be. The boy knelt in front of Kula, clutching onto his limp sister, expresses nothing but the sort of harrowing, unbearable pain that attends the loss of something unquantifiably precious. He doesn't cry to match either Whip or Kula, no wetness to be seen in his eyes; but there is an intense burn to his gaze that suggests that if he were more -normal-, less conditioned to be cold... he might have.
He does nothing but hold Whip tightly as Kula falls back and tries to scramble away from him. He does nothing as she tries to explain herself. He doesn't notice how STRANGE it is that Kula, of all people-- engineered to destroy people like him and his sister without a shred of remorse-- is trying to make him understand anything about the situation. All he does do, after a brief pause, is try to brush Whip's hair out of her face so he can see it. His hand trembles downwards when its efforts do nothing but smear the blood even more, and it shifts to hold her jaw in the cradle of his hand: tilting her head against his chest with a gentleness that-- from all Kula's heard about him-- shouldn't even be possible.
He leans his head down, his face gone out of sight amidst her hair. And for a few moments, Kula's left in peace to wonder what it might be like to be held the way Whip now is: to be -loved- quite that much.
But all reprieves must eventually come to an end. A sound finally breaks the abject silence that stretches on in the wake of Kula's stammered excuses and attempted explanations. It's not immediately clear what it is, K''s head being lowered as it is, but soon enough it becomes evident. It's the sound of K' breathing, his racing heart and building rage finding menacing expression in the seething breaths that hiss past his teeth.
Kula's sole remaining conscious company, here in the middle of nowhere, is beyond angry. He's beyond infuriated. He is so incalculably enraged that the air immediately around him has heated to a blistering temperature, what little plant life remaining in the area wilting from the fiery haze and the remnants of Kula's ice losing their shape into drips of water. He finally wrenches his eyes away from Whip, looking up at Kula, and his yellow eyes are etched with that agonized anger. Still holding Whip, he stands up. His tall frame has little problem with threatening the fallen little girl trying to pull herself away.
K' stares down at Kula, dry-eyed in that burning way that's more painful than tears, his anger smoldering as much against himself as against Kula. A few moments pass: and then his expression abruptly twitches from its steeled rage, like it almost wants to laugh. It's fortunate the sound never emerges. "...I -let- you -live-," he finally manages, sounding like the words have to be ripped out of him: sounding like he's asking himself, over and over, why it was he DID that. Why he had willfully chosen to let the girl walk out of that fight, weeks ago, when he'd had a perfect chance to end her threat then and there. And now, she's...
His eyes slit, fury branded beneath his lashes. "'Not your fault?' You -chose- to fight to kill," he grates, his voice far more calm and tempered than one might expect: save for the part where it's literally vibrating with rage. "You'd better save your breath to pray you didn't succeed, or I swear there won't be a USABLE piece of you left for even -NESTS- to take apart..."
And incredibly... K' turns away, wrenching himself from Kula with a massive effort that implies that he'd love nothing better than to stay and rip her throat out with his teeth. But he knows that with the state Whip is in, every second counts. He can't afford to stay here.
Her stammering explanation given, Kula falls completely still, making no sound other than the breaths she's taking out of necessity. The crystaline tears have stopped just as the frosty blue has melted out of her hair, leaving her auburn locks damp against her shoulders. Regret, remorse even for what she had done to Whip has been forced out of her mind. All that occupies her senses now is fear. Fear of what he'll do when he decides Whip can't be saved, no matter what effort he makes. Fear of him casting the dead girl aside like a broken thing and unleashing that churning furnace she can feel within him even from her distance. Injured as she is, could she even put up a real fight against him in his state of mind? If he lunges, how long can she hold out? Will she be able to run fast enough?
But there's another emotion she feels welling up within her as well. It's one she had never recognized having before, though traces of it had rosen to the surface in prior encounters with the renegade. She's jealous; wishing she knew that someone would hold her close like that if she were in the same situation Whip was now. She's jealous of K' for having someone he treasures so strongly that losing her would fracture his soul. Jealous of Whip for having a brother like that.
And then he stands and her thoughts of longing for what he had flee from her mind. She had never felt the flames he wields directly but the intensity they bear in this moment of duress is intimidating. For the first time the girl begins to feel hot, her own chi reserves too low to counter strongly the effects of K''s proximity as he towers over the girl seated on the ground. A glance is cast toward the form in his arms. She isn't dead. Not yet. Kula can tell that life hasn't quite yet left her. That that's the only thing keeping K' at bay hasn't quite registered in her mind.
It is with indescribable remorse that he references letting Kula go when he had the chance. What happened here would /never/ have happened if he had seized the opportunity. The violet clad girl begins to breath faster, one foot drawing in closer, getting ready to spring to her feet if he should strike out. And in that moment, he reminds her that just as she chose to honor Whip's valiant attempt to stop her, in his eyes she chose how to deal with having her life threatened as well. Kula shakes her head silently. No, no, that wasn't a choice, she was forced, Whip was trying to kill her. It isn't her fault if she didn't have the chance to make a choice!
Panicked at the uttered threat, Kula backs up further until her shoulder brushes against the trunk of the tree Whip had flung her against earlier. Her mouth opens as if to respond, but rendered speechless by the menace in K''s demeanor, she has nothing she can say. If speaking would forstall his departure as he at last turns to leave, then she'll happily stay mute, staring at his back as he moves swiftly off with Whip cradled against him tightly.
Left alone, the frightened girl pulls her legs up, resting her arms over her knees, leaning her head back against the trunk. Closing her eyes, she exhales, a final shudder coursing over her body as the dread terror that had griped her so bleeds out of her system. She's going to have to move eventually. Going to have to go home. Going to have to explain the injuries, the lashes, the cuts and tears. Someone will sample the blood spattered over her jacket, an identity will perhaps be confirmed. Half closing her eyes, she imagines all of it in her head. Going back to the routines that goverend her life thus far as if today had never happened. She wanted to exercise choice, but does she really have that power?
Slowly the girl reaches up to her right ear with her scabbed and dirty right hand, arm trembling with fatigue. When she lowers her hand a moment later, that small communicator that was hidden in her ear is held between her fingers. She stares at it silently, thoughtfully turning it over and over between her fingers.
And then she flicks it away.
Log created on 23:54:56 06/16/2008 by Kula, and last modified on 03:00:09 06/20/2008.