Description: After being moved to Vanessa's hotel room before her rescuer K' moved on to other important whereabouts, Shurui is left to get to know Vanessa, and vice versa. However, will Vanessa avoid being driven up the wall by Shurui's newfound overwhelming paranoia? Or will she find a way to breach the girl's psyche in order to get her to calm down?
Vanessa's Apartment. Actually, it's not really an apartment - it's a nice suite up near the top of one of the nicer hotels in Downtown Southtown. She isn't at the /top/ of the fighting world, but a woman like Vanessa brings in enough cash and prestige to get nice places to live in, if nothing else.
She doesn't have a home. Or if she does, she hasn't been there in a while; it might be in Metro, and Vanessa's been in Southtown for months.
Either way, however, here - in a high-class room with just enough accomodations for two, - is where Vanessa has brought Shurui, at Dash's insistence. The whole place smells like alcohol.
For now, the redhead is in the shower, cleaning off from having thoroughly pummeled two separate bunches of NESTS people. Shurui has been left to settle herself in.
Finally, silence.
.... Perhaps too much silence, after all that had happened hours before. K' sneaking by her, his scent laced with the metallic taste of blood. Kula's confused words, manipulated to and fro by Igniz's speeches. Igniz, glorious as always, but his words falling ever more like a flat notes against her ears. And this strange woman who saved them from committing to a fight neither of them wanted.
Shurui would've fought for her freedom and that of K''s, sure. But the outcome would have been set in stone the moment she drew blood; they would most likely be overpowered by the combined powers of Kula and Igniz. If Vanessa hadn't showed, it would just be an eventual outcome. They were running out of things to say and debate against one another, and Shurui was lucky that Igniz didn't simply choose to jump right in and take his prize. "Maybe that wasn't the point of all this," she says aloud. "Maybe it was just to prove something." Like what? That she can't have a normal life anymore? Sitting on the made plush bed on one side of the ritzy suite and left to her own devices while Vanessa showers, Shurui has a hard time appreciating the surroundings she usually wouldn't have a chance to ever see. Or, well, feel. It doesn't smell too nice, however- the stench of alcohol is taking a while for Shurui's sensitive nose to get used to.
But who is this strange woman who came to save them? K' seemed to trust her for the most part, and that says a lot because, for all she knows, the guy doesn't seem to trust *anyone*. But still, who is she? And what the hell is Shurui going to do in the near future? ".... Ug..." She rubs an arm against her nose. "How can someone drink so much and still be alive?"
The shower turns off, there's the rustling of clothes and a little mumbling, and before too long, the door to the bathroom swings open.
"That's what my manager asks all the time," Vanessa replies, with a smirk, the redhead clad in a casual pair of shorts and a tank top, which are presumably there mostly so that Shurui doesn't have to watch the older woman walk around naked. She has the towel hung up around her neck. "He'll probably never figure it out," she adds, walking over to the small liquor cabinet in the room. She doesn't open it up, however, just...standing next to it.
Perhaps she can absorb booze via osmosis.
Apparently seeing no pressing need to put more clothes on than she already has, she cuts to more pressing business, cocking a fine red eyebrow. "Are you alright?"
The comment, while so carelessly uttered, wasn't meant for Vanessa's ears to hear- after all, it's best not to comment on your host's drinking habits when you're currently at their mercy in terms of a place to stay for the time being. Thankfully, Vanessa proves to have a sense of humor at Shurui's blunt appraisal, leaving the short girl to look down, embarrassed that the woman heard it.
"Y-yeah." Whether or not it's due to her protector about an hour or so ago, the girl is in good condition, it seems. No wounds in sight on her body, miraculously, and, aside from anxiety at having her routine intruded upon, she doesn't seem immediately tramutized. "We didn't get to fighting. If we did, not sure if we would've made it." Her attention now directed towards Vanessa, she peering curiously at the redhead, commenting, "How do you know K'? He usually doesn't get this..." Suddenly, it clicks in. "W-wait!" She points at the woman. "You were the other name I saw listed with Whip's for that one fight. Am I right?"
She thinks. How many women fighters named Vanessa are involved enough with NESTS to come crashing in on a dangerous raid?
Vanessa just shakes her head, her grin fading to a more sober expression. "You need to be careful around him, that's true. That man is powerful." She looks more directly at Shurui as the younger girl perks up with memory, and blinks dimly as she's pointed at. Vanessa nods, that habitual smile still on vacation. "Yes, I'm the same person," she says, her voice unusually grim. "That was where Igniz found me, and told me everything I'd been trying to find out for years." She sighs. "I still don't know what he's doing, or why he's doing it."
She harrumphs, crossing her arms low, across her belly. "Dash hunted me down after that fight you just mentioned. He wanted to know what I knew about Whip, and Igniz. We spoke a bit. I'm pretty surprised he trusts me as much as he seems to." Then she pauses, looking down to the liquor cabinet thoughtfully. "Want anything?"
"He is," Shurui agrees vaguely, turning her body to face Vanessa's on the bed. "But he isn't a god. And that's what he wants to be. Or be seen as."
At hearing Vanessa's relation to the man who aspires to be a god, Shurui's dark eyes widen slightly, the angle of her face tilting just so. "And what was that? Did they brainwash you too?" Perhaps it's too hasty of a conclusion, but, in every case she's seen, this seems to be one of the clues linking it all together. "Can you remember your past at all?"
Dash. Shurui's still unsure of the nickname, even if the use of it at first would have made her laugh if it weren't for the situation they were all in at the time. "Maybe it's a case of him having to. Neither of us have any idea of what to do next." The sobering thought drains the nuetral curiosity out of her face, leaving it a blanched white as she stares downward towards her crossed legs. "I guess I could go back to school after a while, but, wouldn't that just be inviting trouble, living a normal life? I don't want to be on the run for the rest of my life like K''s been. I've just gotten a nice sort of life going after Dad died.... I don't see why I have to give it up when I'm not even sure they really want me, or if they just want to play around with me. It's..." Unfair. She wants to say it, that horrible word she hated when other kids used it to shove why they hated dealing with life's little misfortunes. It's such a selfish word, to assume the world had to cater to your needs.
"I don't know what I should do. I'll fight, but the reality is that I'll be outmatched whenever they send people after me. I'll run away, but what about when I can't?" One vague statement by Vanessa, and Shurui's already delving into a sort of over-whelming self-examination. There's no tears, nor any sobs, but the girl looks completely shocked at the possible scope of all the paths and outcomes she could possibly take from this point. All these, and the very one she *wants* to take seems to be the most illogical of them all: to go back as if it never happened.
Interrupted from her stupor and looking blankly at the fuzzy liquor cabinet at Vanessa's offer, Shurui rubs her head, hand interweaving between those grey locks of hair. ".... That's all alcohol, right? I'm too young to drink that stuff without falling over." She looks back down, mumbling, ".... gotta think this all out until I got something I can do."
Vanessa emits an unhappy hum, at Shurui's comments, and then stoops down to rummage through the cabinet for a bottle of...
...she comes up with bourbon, anyway, and digs up a glass. "You don't have to," she notes, "But just a little isn't all that bad. It can help you relax, at least, even if not everything fires right." She only pours anything for herself at just this moment, though, then moves over to a chair in the far corner of the room, flopping down. "You won't get anywhere by moping," she advises, giving Shurui a serious, piercing look. "I tried that, all I got was a bar tab big enough to fund Howard Enterprises for a month." Perhaps an exaggeration? One hopes. That's a big tab!
Either way, she doesn't immediately answer with what Igniz did to her, merely watching her drink and the ice in it for a few seconds.
Finally: "He killed my husband," she says, and downs a mouthful in a single swig.
"I dunno," Shurui sways, weighing the choices in her mind. "If I get relaxed, what if someone attacks? I have to be on my guard. I mean, you got to take care of yourself too. If I wanna relax, I'll take a nap. That's something that's safe to do." At Vanessa's assertion, Shurui's lips dip downward in a way that could only be described as a pout. "... I'm not moping. I'm being realistic. If I start thinking everything's going to be all right, I won't be prepared when the shit really begins to hit the fan." She motions to the curtained window. "There could be someone right out there, listening. Or someone outside. Someone could have seen us go here and had someone come in as a maid. Not that there is anyone right now; can't sense them at all. But there could be."
You know, K''s overparanoid attitude doesn't seem so weird anymore.
Watching the redhead flop down in her chair, Shurui leans back against the palms of her hands at the woman's immediate answer of silence. When the answer does come, it's telling in the way the short clone immediately straightens. "...." Silence follows after Vanessa reveals her reason, which, despite her earlier questions, Shurui seems to find just as legimate a reason. ".... You lost someone really important to you. Yeah, that would be something to drink over." Of course, this fact puts things in a new light for the clone- after all, all the possible things NESTS did to her were things she didn't remember, and she still has the people she's grown close to. "I don't know what I'd do if that happened to me." Looking up at Vanessa, Shurui frowns. "Was there any reason to why he killed your husband?"
"You're right," Vanessa replies flatly, setting her glass down on a coaster. "You're not moping, you're /panicking/. Listen, kid -- uh, sorry, what /is/ your name? Anyway, the thing is, NESTS doesn't actually have a whole lot of guys who can handle you and me together, even if one or both of us isn't seeing quite straight. And if they send one of /them/, we'll know waaay before they get to this room." She offers a slightly tired grin. "More to the point, if you do nothing but worry about it, Igniz has already won. You'll work yourself into such a frenzy that you'll be exhausted when he does show up."
She pauses a second, and then says, "My husband was investigating NESTS. He was part of a...mercenary group, you might say. Not quite with the Ikari, but they do a lot of business together. He learned to much, so Igniz ordered him killed. He just didn't count on me being around to jump in." She smiles, a little sadly - they are old memories, full of pain. She has had more than enough time to grow past them, but that does not make the pain of a life lost and chances stolen much weaker. "I've been following them for...years. I never expected him to just jump out in front of me one day."
"Shurui. Shurui Chiang," the girl answers sulkily, conciously using the Western practice of name placement. "Then what about Kula, that one girl? There's a few others, too." She frowns, dark eyes sitting vaguely on the curtains at the other end of the room. "And my sight is good where it counts. People behind solid walls are hard to sense unless I get up close, but if someone comes in from over there, I'll see them too." Igniz could fly, after all. Shurui could almost imagine his gleaming white aura popping in suddenly, the movement of his blonde hair curling in the wind clear as day as he blasts the glass wall between them to crystal pebbles. .... How could she relax? "..." She waves moodily to the liquor cabinet. ".... Well, alright. G-get me something, if you got something handy. Anything you think'll make me relax a little. I don't know what's what so I'll leave it to you. It all tastes gross to me anyway."
Maybe the reason K' was so happy to see Vanessa was so he could get free of this moody little guest, even if it's not like he's a ray of sunshine himself.
When Vanessa talks about her husband, however, Shurui proves to be more receptive, sincerely listening as the redhead recounts his involvement with NESTS. A man, killed for knowing too much? ".... I see. That's... really horrible. I can see why you're mad at them. When you find someone you really connect with on any level, and they're taken away from you by someone else, all you got is that rage. And even that won't get you that person back, so in the end, all you do it for is to make sure it doesn't happen to someone else. Or to you, if you try to open up again. That's what it seems like, anyway. I wouldn't really know what that's like; my dad died of a heart attack." She's silent for a while, then, shakes her head. "He was looking for information about me, but I don't think they would've killed him. He never got anywhere, even when he looked through the contacts he had."
"They would've, probably, if he succeeded," Vanessa murmurs. "Actually...no, to get to you, once they found you. One way or the other." She closes her eyes, settling back, slightly. "...that's not helping my case any, is it?" she sighs. "Sorry. I've been watching their movements for a while, but even now, sometimes it's hard to say for sure what they'll do."
And then she shoves herself to her feet with some of the same grace she moves with in a fight - quick and agile, all the time. It's how fighters like her are. You can't fight at that level without internalizing some of that fighting style right down to your bones. She steps over toeh cabinet, stooping down. "I don't have anything to make something /tasty/, I'm afraid," she admits. "I'll get some fruit, later, if you're gonna stay for a while. For now...uh..."
She leans in and produces BEER. Her hand is conveniently obscuring any manufacturer markings. "You wouldn't like anything strong," she muses, turning to present the drink. "This should help, at least. It's not that bad, go on."
"Anyway, I hunted down the group and now I'm helping them against NESTS. I'm a...specialist, of a sort. I guess even I don't know anything, but...I've got figuring out their operatives down pretty reliably. I knew about Dash long before I met him. His partner, too. They're not hard to spot, I guess. I wouldn't worry for the rest of the day. If they were going to chase, they would have by now. We should be in the clear."
They would've, Vanessa says. That's an obvious enough fact, but, for some reason, it never really occurred to the clone that were was any chance, though for obvious reasons. Shurui's silent a while, body slumped. "... Then it's a good thing he didn't, for all he'd been looking." Neither Muda or Shurui would have ever thought that the reason for the memory loss and lack of records came from some genetic lab. No, they were thinking.... tramua. Maybe Shurui was a bastard kid of some celebrity or politician, or from a family that was so horrible that she ran away and repressed her memories for good.
That's what Shurui operated under until recently. Looking over the dark circular lip of the opened bottle as it's presented to her, Shurui also peers at the label out of idle curiosity, even if she wouldn't be able to tell one brand from another. Cautiously, she takes a sip, instantly causing her entire face to pucker. "Eugh. How does anyone drink this stuff? It tastes horrible." Her lips thin. "....... I guess I have to drink all at once, right? It's nothing strong, right?"
Log created on 23:22:49 06/22/2008 by Shurui, and last modified on 20:17:39 06/28/2008.