Description: Southtown's war soon finds itself waged in the most innocuous of places: it's inside a laundromat where two criminal kingpins -- Billy Kane, the Syndicate's second-in-command, and Krizalid, NESTS' notorious third -- demand each other's blood. And, trapped between them, is a lone Ikari Warrior on a surveillance mission gone wrong. Whip's orders would command her to get out of there. It's a pity she's not keen on following them.
It's a quiet evening, despite the chaos that rippled through the underworld. Most would read the vicious gang violence as headlines in the paper, sighing at 'the state of our city today' and then go on to more aesthetically pleasing discussions, like what the local sports teams are doing, or new technology they've developed in Hokkaido, or some other thing nobody would really care about in a week.
Yeah, that's how it starts.
Though few would really understand the subtly-dressed toughs camped out in cars around the laundromat, those who dealt in that kind of thing would find their jobs painfully obvious. Bodyguards for a Syndicate front. Not that it actually was. But this was one of those situations that were delicate. After all, someone that incidentally close to the top should only be protected as a princess might, yeah?
Course, that sort of shit breaks down real fast when someone fires an RPG at the Toyota Innova half your friends are camped out in.
Things get loud fast. The sounds of automatic gunfire rip through the burgeoning night, faces and silhouettes sheathed in the bales of smoke curling into the air. It goes on for some minutes, with men dying in the streets. A man sheathed in all black falls to the ground as a tough levels an SMG on him, grinning around his cigarette. "This is for my pal Mookie, ya bastard..." cli--
whoosh.
The twin slashes of fate cut through the air, shearing automobiles in half, gutting the front of the building like a caught fish, leaving wilted steel and molten concrete in its wake, along with blood that splatters across the concrete, still boiling hot so as to be steaming.
There was a lot of blood.
Conflict Resolved. Factor.. 97.11162%.
A coat slips past the downed agent, just seconds from eating a lead salad, before a talon lights roughly into his shoulder, drawing only the slightest bit of blood. He's hefted bodily to his feet by the man in the black coat as if no more than a misbehaving kitten. All stammering thanks are ultimately ignored, silenced by a chilling glance towards the ripped up building. "Mind your post," is all he says.
Then the white-haired clone stalks inside.
Their intelligence said that Billy frequented this laundromat, mostly because of his sister. It didn't really matter which one he got at this point--either would result in Billy. But he can hope. He really wasn't interested in keeping hostages.
Data floods past his vision through the cinder-choked front, his boots crunching across glass as his silhouette draws a long shadow from the setting sun.
Behind his collar, lips twist back, revealing a white-edged snarl.
"Kane. Come the fuck out and get your throat cut..."
It wasn't too long ago that Whip regained consciousness to the frowning face of her commander. Southtown had already done a number on Leona; her friend was half-insensible with a sort of madness that her own body could attest to -- the way she would keep tasting blood if she coughed too hard, stood up too quickly, or did something rash and reckless like breathing. But would an aborted disembowelment stop Whip from active duty?
As soon as she healed enough to feel halfway human, Whip immediately volunteered herself back to the front lines, even though she long realized that this time she was alone. Heidern himself seemed very reticent to allow a lone soldier -- and an injured one at last -- back into the fallout of the crumbling city, but it was a security the Ikari Warriors could not afford to lose. The Syndicate have gone active, and both R and NESTS are confirmed inside Southtown proper. It's reason enough that the mercenary team needs eyes out there, even if this particular pair was issued strict orders that her presence would be periphery. No engaging the enemy of any sort. No fighting. Clearance issued to gather intelligence only.
Whip saluted those demands with a resigned breath that made her taste blood again.
Her specific order was to tail and document Billy Kane, a man in the higher -- if not highest -- echelons of SouthSynd. Despite her own misgivings with the criminal group, Whip has spent these last several days following orders with the intended Ikari obedience. She's been like a ghost, shadowing every aspect of Kane to glean as much information from the man as possible. Truth be told, it wasn't much. At least, it wasn't enough...
It was only a matter of inevitability that her steps would find Lilly Kane's laundromat, a cheery, homely little business that seemed the very opposite of everything she's learned and been dealt by the Syndicate. Whip spent a measure of hours simply staking out the establishment, becoming too versed with the habits of a particular group of men watching outside. That's when she started getting itchy with her orders like a traction patient would with his month-old cast. The role of simply watching and waiting was getting too heavy. She needed air.
And, two hours later, it's not like Whip is breaking any of her orders. She's technically watching, and she's technically waiting, leaned up against one washer as it cycles a load of clothing. Arms crossed, face buried in a crinkled magazine, she looks and acts the part of the everyday young woman suffering laundry day. Dressed down in jeans and an old suede coat, her dark hair ponytailed back, and her booted feet crossed at the ankles, she joins the sparse few who dare the madness of Southtown to get their unmentionables cleaned. Lilly's Laundromat is certainly suffering in business, but it's not vacant.
Not at least until the gunfire starts.
People shriek and scream and leave their baskets behind as they try to scurry free of the building, and Whip -- who was seriously only following orders -- drops her magazine. She digs into her own laundry, and pushing past clothing, pulls free her best accessory: a heavy steel gun. Quickly dashing aside, she finds a storage room to take cover, putting her back to one wall as she checks the clip in her weapon, as well as the numerous other weapons she has stored in her civvies. Her actual laundry day is a tedious task.
Her eyes steel as she listens grimly, hearing bullets, busting glass, and --
Someone speaks.
Whip's eyes twitch at the corners. Her hand tightens around her gun as she inhales sharply, and tastes more blood. This time, she doesn't seem to notice. She knows that voice. It can't be...
Although Billy has been constantly on the hunt for pockets of resistance, defending businesses and safehouses he is close enough to intervene, whisking himself across Southtown multiple times a day, he has had a deep set fear since the onset of this conflict. Lilly; she's his weakness, and it's not a particularly hard one to find out. Normally, so much as looking her up and down is liable to put you in the hospital. But the rules are broken now, and he's devoting more resources then he should to try and keep her safe and calm. A half dozen times a day he visits her laundromat, with some of the best heavies that exist in the Syndicate lingering outdoors. No strike team of chaff or mundane forces would be able to get through, at least not in time to survive Billy arriving with the rage of the gods...
And as the sharp crack of gunfire and carnage echo through the streets, Billy is glad he had kept close.
One of the men instantly contact him, beginning to comment on the attack before a sharp scream cuts him off. With a curse, the British man charges across the city, yanking out and assembling his bo staff in the same breath. If Lilly is hurt, then nothing will protect whoever dared set the chain of events in motion. The gutter would flood with their blood, and drown all of them.
Really, Whip might be surprised at what she finds. Trailing Billy isn't hard, as he seems ignorant and careless about what lies behind, and gives only cursory glances to people he deems a civilian. He is a brutal, sadistic man who unleashes his terrifying force with a proclivity that is unsettling. But within the laundromat, it is as if he's a new man. Hugging his sister, laughing, ruffling her hair, giving her treats and gifts, simply surprising her. Going to great lengths to explain that he's trying his hardest to make the city safe again for her. Touching, although if he was ever aware someone was eavesdropping, he'd tear off their head and dropkick it a few blocks. So Whip at least should not be surprised at what ensues next.
Lilly Kane had immediately fled into the back rooms, hunkering down. And only a few moments after Krizalid announces his presence, the emergency door leading into the alley is literally kicked off it's steel hinges, the metal door warped as it rebounds in a flash of sparks across the floor, slamming into a washer near Whip. Eyes that seem scarcely human settle upon Krizalid, white knuckled grip upon his bo staff.
"You goddamn son of a bitch. Who the hell do you think you are!! You want me?! YOU WANT ME?!" Billy suddenly charges towards the other man, low to the ground. Fast; incredibly fast. He swings his bo staff so hard it bows back at a sharp curve, air cracking like a whip at the violent displace. An overhead light is struck, a spray of glass and hiss of electricity accenting the hellish attack.
"HERE I FUCKING AM!!"
COMBATSYS: Billy has started a fight here.
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Billy 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Krizalid has joined the fight here.
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Billy 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Krizalid
COMBATSYS: Krizalid endures Billy's Crushing Strike.
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Billy 0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0 Krizalid
In the haze, in the din, Krizalid's advance seems just shy of subdued. The only sound the clone emits is faintly labored breath, and the juicy crunch of his stacked boots over bloodied glass, the slick sound producing ambient and somewhat unnatural squeaking to his heavy tread.
Eyes just barely above the collar of that coat glare into the expanse.
Though subdued, his voice drools with deadly intent.
Come out and get your throat cut, he says.
See?
He can taste blood too.
People scatter in all directions and truthfully are already gone by the time he breaks through the haze of smoke to enter the small laundromat. Across his vision, all manner of data floods, outlining the possible exit points of all the fleeing civilians. Data overlooked. Not his targets. Now, possible entry points, on the other hand...
He pauses thoughtfully, as a red alert blinks in a display from his suit.
/!\ UNEXPECTED INDUCTION EVENT.
He glances towards the still-running washer, with the plastic laundry basket on it.
Analyze data stream.
He squints more closely. He doesn't have to go through laundry to find out what the shivering basket contains. Gun. A knife. The tawdry weapons of just another hired hand who probably just chickened out at the direct sign of real trouble. THere's another signature though, harder to get a read on.
--It's a whip.
"...who?" he asks, his voice wavering.
/!\ ALERT--
Krizalid whirls just in time to be smashed by a blur of red staff, an accompanying crimson fountaining from his the feathers on his shoulder from the sheer weight of Kane's force of profanity and Britishness. He goes down quickly, but it doesn't stop him, part of the motion entirely too controlled to be accidental. He rolls his shoulder, dropping it at the same time he raises his leg, wind ripping open every latch on his coat as he responds in just under 0.07 seconds, his leg stretching high and tearing a vortex of charged wind into the air. On the periphery of the riposte vengeant, dryers and concrete-lined washers are blown away like toys. Closer in, the door that folds a dryer in half is ripped in two on the rebound.
In the center: Billy.
There's barely enough time for the glass from the shattered overhead lights to hit the ground.
"Look who showed up," the clone states, though his voice doesn't match the deadly vicious meter only prior, his mind a storm of thought and intervening data. It would be the death of him, if it weren't Krizalid. The ferocity of the deadly wind tears the agent's newly-opened coat wide, kicking his hair into a characteristic frizz.
Maybe he's imagining things.
Maybe the data is wrong.
Maybe he just needs to tear this asshole a new liver.
"It's the dead man I'm gonna build my new career off of!"
Truth be told, it was a test to Whip's well-trained and hard-earned military austerity to witness a different side to Billy Kane. As she assumed the careless role of a civilian, looking the part as deftly as she acted it out, her cursory surveillance seemed to be only full of affection and familial love. It was derailing to all the fury she carries for the Syndicate; despite all her penchance to cold, surgical, military efficiency, there's no denying the Ikari has a heart.
She had to remind herself that even monsters can still have their humanity. Some can play it well, and others...
Whip grimaces to herself as she shoulders against the wall and checks the safety off her firearm. Will she ever get to have one lucky day? Maybe? In her entire life? Gritting her teeth, she dares not make a move or a sound, only listening as two deadly criminal heavyweights start to close on one another. Even if she cannot see him, and wants more than anything him not to see her, Whip can't help but close her eyes and feel a pang against Krizalid's familiar voice. It confirms all of her prior suspicions about the Cartel. If Kriz is here, then they've been mobilized. And he's here to kill Kane. When she was in NESTS, she remembers various strikes against Syndicate property or territory, but to hit them in their home base? Is this a takeover? And where does R ally in this--
Whip's frantic thoughts turn into radio silence when the laundromat all but erupts into violence, and she cringes against the deafening cracks and slams and squeals of tossed and cleaved machines, though the darkened storage room saves her from the debris as much as it hides her from view. Then one half of a flung dryer pulverizes through the wall an inch from her shoulder. It makes up her mind. She should stick to her original orders and get the hell out of here. She's not sure what else she can do. She's not prepared for fighting, and certainly not to this scale. It was supposed to be surveillance. She doesn't want to get in the middle of that, and it's hardly an option that she could take both on. She couldn't. And she doesn't even want to think about fighting Krizalid...
Inching toward the still-open doorway, Whip times herself with the sounds of violence and steals a glance at the main room. She can't get a clean break to an exit now. But she needs to make a decision. Engage or wait. Engage or wait. God damnit, where's the commander when she needs him...
COMBATSYS: Billy effortlessly dodges Krizalid's Typhon's Rage - Strike.
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Billy 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Krizalid
Raw data, numbers, readouts, all those surge from Billy. But he is defying probability. There is no rational discourse. His adrenaline is nearly at his maximum. Every reflex and nuance of his brain honed to a superhuman level. His eyes, fierce, monstrous, but there is no weakness here. It would seem that when Billy wishes to protect those he loves, there is no combative advantage. Instead, he's probably operating far beyond Krizalid's expectations.
"I'm gonna fucking kill you."
This dull, harsh statement is hissed through grit teeth. In a split second, his bo staff hits the ground, and Billy vaults upwards. The wind blows into his braced weapon, scouring the ground, sending debris flying to impact the opposite wall with destructive force. Before it even dies down, the British fighter is descending, having vaulted so close to the damaged ceiling his back brushed against it. His arms rear back, going sharply tense. The grip of his weapon adjusts. And then he unleashes a titanic assault, throwing all his weight into gravity. Swinging the end of his weapon down, trying to collide it right atop Krizalid's head and drive him into the ground beneath. This exchange has taken place in a heartbeat. His first blow. His evasion. His second. Whip might of taken a single breath in the entirety.
At least it's useful information on the King of Fighter...
COMBATSYS: Krizalid fails to interrupt Flying Assault Cane from Billy with Rising Darkmoon.
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Billy 0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0 Krizalid
Impressive.
Shit--
He left only maybe a good two feet of space between the upper vaccuum edge of his ripping wind and the ceiling--normally he wouldn't have expected anyone to be able to wriggle themselves through that small opening, but Billy turns out to be some kind of salamander. A bloom of targetting reticules disperse from the clone's vision and focus on elements of the environment, outlines objects he could kick at Billy, and focusing on ETA--whichi s by the time Billy gets into range, measured in fractions of a second.
Instinct at this point drives Krizalid, the need to tear Kane's lips off for running his mouth. Like a lynx he curls to meet the threat, mid-pounce.
The seconds-long exchange is unerringly brutal, and beyond Krizalid's calculations. He attacks viciously as the body instructs, every impulse and fiber of his being driven by the blood in his veins and the heat in his limbs. He rises--but he is struck down almost immediately, his body slamming roughly into the blood-stained tile, cracking it and rolling the clone through a still-running washer, sending the thing tumbling with him as sparks fly.
It's barely begun to spin down when claws draw furrows in the appliance steel, curling ribbons of finish dragging in the clone's wake as that limb extends and flicks the wobbling thing aside, his teeth red-stained but white enough to be seen in the pitch black he entertains, beneath an overhead light that's been knocked out but backlit by the growing inferno outside.
He can't see the form of the person on the other side of that wall--there's too much interference with the running washers and dryers at that range for electromagnetic induction to be useful. ...it's roughly shoved aside. Just a distraction.
Combat data feeds into his suit quickly, the lanky man breaking into a cold and rueful smirk, his even glance nothing but the most deadly serious thing as he ruminates on the timer in the upper right hand corner of his display. Still time minus forty seven before he's able to use it again. Damn.
Data on the King of Fighters is useful.
But right now, Krizalid isn't going to settle for anything but victory.
Kill him?
"Try it.."
Even clinical soldiers can still keep their humanity, especially Whip, who has always been accused of wearing her heart on a sleeve. For all she despises the Cartel, and for her inability to forgive any of them for what they've done to her, she still reacts against that second glance she steals -- when Billy Kane's last brutalizing strike takes down the first friend she ever had. Shrinking back against the wall, she has to remind herself of her allegiances, and all the choices that she's made. She can't regret any of them, even if they've made her an enemy to some people who have only ever treated her kindly, but her heart can't seem to easily separate black from white.
Ignoring it for now, she decides she needs to move. She might be hidden, but she's also cornered herself. She needs to work on finding a way out, moving inside their blind spots when they're too busy and too distracted with their own turf war. Timing it to the best of her ability, Whip is little more than a blur as she snakes out of the storage room and takes refuge behind one discarded washer, crouched on the spot with her back to the fray, and her eyes... angled down at the dark streaks of blood greased over the chipped tile. Exhaling urgently, Whip places a hand momentarily against her forehead. As if she weren't conflicted enough already. The two, by all accounts, are intent on killing each other. It's not going to end without someone's blood. A perfect soldier would leave the two to rip each other apart, and return with reinforcements to find the pieces. But what if it's Krizalid? What if the Cartel has sent him here to die?
It's not her job to care. She made her choice, and he made his. He's the enemy. His loyalty to them is unforgiveable. But Whip wouldn't leave a stranger behind to this butchery, so what about an old friend?
Goddamnit. GODDAMNIT. Commander Heidern is going to kill her. If this doesn't. Maybe, with any degree of luck that is certainly lost on her, she might be able to dispath of Kane long enough to force some answers out of Krizalid. Defying orders might be worth returning with some useful information.
Just keep convincing yourself, Whip tells herself bitterly as she reaches under her coat and draws the heavy, bundled coils of the second whip she brought to the laundromat -- and her favourite one. The next thing that happens is without much preamble. There's a sudden CRACK of leather, as the Ikari soldier lunges to her feet the second a blue bullwhip tries to catch Billy Kane by the ankle. Hoping for the moment of distraction to catch him unawares, if the weapon manages to catch him, she's going to try to throw all her strengh into trying to pull and throw the Briton off the nearest wall.
COMBATSYS: Whip has joined the fight here in the center.
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Billy 0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0 Krizalid
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Whip 0|-------|-------
COMBATSYS: Billy dodges Whip's Zed.
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Billy 0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0 Krizalid
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Whip 0|-------|-------
Billy looms up, rolling his shoulders. Indeed, there's absolutely no other way to look at the fight thus far. A massacre for Krizalid. It wouldn't take myriad intricate machines to deduce the unscathed King of Fighter, the blood dripping from the end of his weapon, the severe wounds inflicted on the NESTS agent. The main reason Lilly has been off limits all this time during the war is simple. A calm, paranoid Billy is easy to deal with. But the horrific vengeance is another matter entirely. Krizalid might of done much worse damage then he anticipated trying to carve a name on Billy in this manner.
"So you guys went so low as to attack my sister. Huh?! You think that'd fucking break me?!" He's approaching the man, hefting up his weapon in preparation for another strike. But then he hears a crack. One foot raises, an eye glancing back. Stamping down, he catches the end of her weapon, pinning it to the ground. He doesn't have enough leverage to keep it there, but Whip's ambush failed. "...Two of you?" But then he looks closer at the girl, suspicious. Maybe a trace if recognition. Although he returns his attention back to Krizalid right after. He's had time to recover and prepare a defense, although the King of Fighter still shoots out his free hand, trying to catch him by the hair. And then begin slamming his knee into his already injured face, again and again, each attempted blow more then a little damaging. "I'll kill you both, then!! Fucking kill the BOTH OF YOU!!"
COMBATSYS: Billy successfully hits Krizalid with Armed Combo.
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Billy 0/-------/-======|=======\=------\1 Krizalid
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Whip 0|-------|-------
"Ngh---"
Despite his best attempts to a defense, Billy's knee goes off like cannonfire in Krizalid's face, the clone twisting like a caught fish at the end of a hook with each blow. Blood sprays the linoleum beneath his body as his skull is subject to stresses that would have simply crushed anything weaker or cheaper.
A fortune, then, that NESTS invests considerably princely sums in their materials.
All in all, the dance is as nature intended. Swift--taking only inside of two minutes to reach near completion, and for all of the yelling involved, all of the din, it is pure and it is fair. Krizalid has collected a treasure trove of data in those precious few moments, none so valuable as the current pain that rips through his upper body. The flickering intelligence across his display seems secondary to the litany of concerns.
Is he going to die?
Is that all?
"IS THAT IT?!"
The last mission was a success, Krizalid wouldn't fear so much so as to think his organization would just abandon him now. -- Right? So his only option here--the only possible plan of action--is to draw blood.
Between blasts of static, alerts flicker all over his vision.
He breaks away from Billy with a rolling motion, leaping back and crossing his arms, power crackling off them. But the only reason he can, he realizes, is because Billy's attention is split. His HUD merely a fiction of ??s and botched calculations at this point from the terrible damage he's taken, he has to see for himself, with his own eyes.
What?
"S--" he chokes audibly on the first name, settling for: "Whip?!"
His attention shifts easily. Gears switched from pure lustful aggression and vicious calculating of what despite all evidence to the contrary he plotted to be Billy's downfall. Even his own concept of 'fear'--for his position and his life--violently shift in the name of shock at the appearance -- and interference of that woman. Billy Kane is a problem now, a problem that Krizalid alone would have trouble overcoming. If she was here...
"Don't get involved!" he snaps off the wild order. Accustomed to people following even his slightest suggestion, it's somewhat telling that his voice is considerably less controlled now, angry and unfocused. "He'll kill you!!"
He has to do something. Following that same instinct, he breaks and whirls, claws sinking into a vending machine, and then the thing comes careening and tumbling between Billy and Whip in one smooth motion. If given factors of smooth were similar to the idea of a grand piano falling down two flights of stairs. It's followed shortly by the critically injured and bleeding clone himself, alighting on the thing like a murderous hawk to put his own body between the two. One sharp here turns on Billy.
He forces systems to boot.
And one by one, they reacquire count, and delineated targets alight on Billy's head and body like a Christmas tree. Krizalid's claws flash in the light.
Blood trails down his face like gory tears.
Your sister, nothing.
His, everything.
COMBATSYS: Krizalid calculates his next move.
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Billy 0/-------/-======|=======\=------\1 Krizalid
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Whip 0|-------|-------
Whip's already-sour mood starts to fester when Kane's boot slams down on her weapon. She's already regretting the choice she made, but even then, she widens her stance and squares her shoulders, meeting the Syndicate bodyguard and angry brother's cursory glance with defiance. She regrets her choice, but she's also not going to renegotiate it. The very reason she ever broke away from the Cartel was for the ability to decide for herself -- and anyone who's had a passing interaction with her knows well Whip's iron will. Whether or not she likes any of this, she's in it.
And she's not going anywhere.
She meets Billy's assumption that she's allied with Krizalid with neither a concede nor a denial, only suffering out this new role with unamused frowning. She doesn't have the luxury to say much here; she needs to keep her full concentration on Kane. If he's too much for Krizalid, then there's very little she can do to him. But tell that to the Ikari's less reserved instinct, that immediately balks when Kane turns away from her again to start putting his knee in her old friend's face. "Stop that!" she snaps, already deliberating to try to inject some reason in a criminal turf war. Yeah, right. Reframing her voice in a clear, harsh, military tone, she tries again: "Both of you! Right now! I'm under the authority of the--th--"
Whip's voice gets cut off in that last slam -- and then in Krizalid's sudden recognition. She freezes when she meets his eyes, and though the shocked concern is palpable on her familiar face, it's layered with a sterner gravity of her narrowing eyes and deepening frown. The order he gives her isn't helping her mood. In fact, she seems keen on plainly defying it, trying to jerk back her whip from under Billy's heel as -- a vending machine swiftly cuts off the path of least resistance.
Shocked, she startles backward, her eyes sharpening as they fix up at the sudden form that buffers her from any rage of Kane's obvious rage. Oh, he isn't...
"What the hell are you tryi--!!" she starts to shout up at him, her voice tight and incredulous. It's not tactical at all. "Kriz--"
Twisting her stance, she nonetheless prepares herself for inevitable disobedience. If she can do something as unthinkable as stray from Commander Heidern's orders, then surely Krizalid's don't rate very far on Whip's stubborn scale.
COMBATSYS: Whip focuses on her next action.
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Billy 0/-------/-======|=======\=------\1 Krizalid
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Whip 0|-------|-------
That's a bit surprising to Billy. Was that concern in Krizalid's face? He doesn't immediately resume his assault, stepping backwards and shifting up his bo staff in a warding gesture. Yet then he goes through the motions of hurling down the vending machine, and even interposing himself before the slighter female. The bo fighter circles, positioning himself in front of Krizalid, although some of his berserk rage has dulled. But then he smirks, yanking up a discarded shirt from the floor and slowly wiping away the blood from his shaft, before flicking it aside.
"You crossed a line. I considered this war a matter of business. Ain't got the right to hold a city if you can't defend it. But you made it personal. Let's see if you end up regretting it."
And with that, he spreads into a fighting stance. The bickering between siblings is over, whether they are done or not. A single heartbeat lasts, where his narrowed eyes shifts from the battered Krizalid to the mostly obscured woman behind. And then he lunges.
In a few moments he's within range of Krizalid, before he grasps his bo staff in a specialized grip. And then begins to whirl it around in a manic manner, kicking up a titanic amount of speed. And then swinging the rotorblade assault upwards, trying to slam into Krizalid and send him flying backwards, although any jostling it would inflict on Whip would be at best incidental!
COMBATSYS: Krizalid blocks Billy's Whirlwind Cane.
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Billy 0/-------/--=====|=======\==-----\1 Krizalid
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Whip 0|-------|-------
Betraying even that much weakness should be an embarassment to Krizalid. Billy can see it, he knows, and the Syndicate can make good on it, if Billy should so happen to talk. For the Cartel, showing weakness is the same as being worthless, and were his particular entourage to see this sort of thing, it might make life difficult for him at home. Difficulty in NESTS being measured in the percentage chance of being terminated and all measures of your name being erased from the doctrine.
But on some base level, Krizalid also could care less.
Fervently, the lanky youth balances atop the vending machine, his shadow falling over an otherwise aghast Whip. He knew she was a rebel. That part of her was hardly a new thing. He remembers it all too well--he still bears those rotting scars deep in him.
He starts, his voice low enough to carry only to Whip.
"...even if you left me."
"Stay behind me. I'm not going to let you throw your life away."
Speaking of scars..
Billy Kane has certainly been on a rampage. The damage report flickering past his subconscious mind on the reinitialization of his suit's sensory systems is ghastly. In a few savage blows, Billy Kane had managed to almost tear off his arm, and he didn't need data to tell him that the throbbing inside his skull was what would eventually become a concussion. One eye welled shut with blood, the clone breathes evenly, watching Billy through the flickering display.
And Billy is seeking to do a lot worse over the next few moments.
But this time, Krizalid reacts less to data than pure understanding, the focus of years of mental conditioning, and the deeper meaning of which being the one sitting behind him. The slipping of his arm in the way to catch and deflect that bo off to the side with only the most minor of shocks to his good limb doesn't fail this time, and the vending machine only rocks ever faintly. Power crackles off of his free hand.
"I don't think you really get it--"
The clone begins, slipping off the vending machine and leaving Whip to her furious thoughts. He penetrates deep into Billy's range in a moment, going through the motions--his fist snapping out once, twice--mere fients, but Krizalid advances with every one. He's trying to drive Billy back. Blows easily defended against, but well aimed in short blurring streaks. If Billy doesn't do anything about them, he'll be coughing up blood in moments, with blows seeking to slip right past his guard and land in nerve clusters at his stomach and side. Still, easily defended.
Until a hand opens and tries to rake Billy's stomach open.
"--I don't give a shit what you think is personal. Fight for your life and we'll see what that rage of yours is all about!!"
They're more similar than you'd think. See.
A lot like Billy. Krizalid doesn't know anything else.
At least. Not anymore.
"Don't--" she starts to muster.
And then Whip's impatient, indignant rage, as powerful as it is, snuffs out briefly under Krizalid's words. They shut her up.
Her jaw tenses, her entire argument derailed by a very familiar wave of guilt, one she's had to burden for quite a long time. It's never been enough to make her regret the monumental decision she did to defect from NESTS; not a moment has occurred that Whip ever doubted the first real choice she ever made for herself. But it wasn't a clean break, as evidenced clearly by that figure mantled in front of her. She still feels bad for it. And, despite her inability to forgive him for so many things, Whip still worries about her friend who she figures was all but lost in the bowels of the Cartel.
However, the effect doesn't get to last long. Especially because he decides to append it with another command.
Whip's eyes narrow all the more.
Then Billy Kane strikes. She tenses, her breath catching with both concern and impatience when she watches Krizalid receive the strike, holding his ground but not with the ease that she would hope. It's more than obvious that he's hurt -- and hurt bad -- and he's concerned about protecting her?! She already made the choice to keep him from dying in some god damned laundromat, and Whip intends to see to it.
In the end, it might do some good for her guilt.
She's quiet as Krizalid is advancing forward from his original post, his attacks orchestrated with a clear intent to drive Kane backward. Whip is already noting the trajectory, taking a moment to let her eyes take in the rest of the laundromat before she moves to clearly defy all of her old friend's orders.
Momentarily thankful that she pulled her weapon back in time, Whip moves forward swiftly, silently, lunging with one leg up on the vending machine to propel her forward. She unfurls Voodoo as she pushes up with one leg, directing the weapon to catch and snap around the very essential network of water pipes that ceiling the laundromat. With a burst of that genetically altered strength, she pinions off her weapon and twists that lithe body of hers acrobatically into the air, aiming to try to catch Billy where she hopes the last of Krizalid's attacks will place him.
And that's where Whip just descends out of nowhere, hurtling down hazardously with both boots aimed solidly down at Billy Kane's head.
COMBATSYS: Billy blocks Whip's Assassin Strike.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////// ]
Billy 0/-------/-======|=======\==-----\1 Krizalid
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
COMBATSYS: Billy fails to counter Strong Punch from Krizalid with Water Dragon Pursuit Cane.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////// ]
Billy 0/-------/=======|=======\===----\1 Krizalid
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
Really, some people see it as weakness. Yet there's an echo within Krizalid, a distant mirror that he can relate to, and it somehow disgusts him. But it also did some to abate Billy's horrific fury. He's descended from bashing in the pair's head until the skull splits to just sending them to the hospital. They might not know it, but every small improvement in life is a good thing. But he's still a brutal fighter, and has no intent of going easy. His hand rushes towards him, and he begins to move his bo staff. All of his attention is focused clearly upon Krizalid, sensing weakness, tasting blood. He can end it.
But then he can see the blur of booted feet coming towards his head, and reflex more then anything ruins his chance.
Swiftly he shifts up one end of his bo staff, catching Whip's heel. He braces hard, and manages to keep his balance. Where Krizalid simlpy intent to slap his stomach like a sissy little girl, he could of still handled it. Instead, he feels a sharp wash of horrific pain, and a splash of blood splatters on the ground. He stumbles back, hissing in pain and grasping his stomach. It's a deep wound, but not as horrific as it felt. He wasn't gutted like a fish, at least. But he's forced on the defensive at last, allowing the pair to assault at their leisure. "Tch... So ya scratched me. Think that's enough?!"
Krizalid's mind was a knot.
Though it seems only the slightest issue to Whip and to Billy, right now the aggressive clone was a stumbling mix of priorities and information, forcing sensory overload on him; pain, ambition, hate, bitterness, calculation...caring. The revulsion in it causes his count to blink and begin losing seconds rapidly. All in all, it's still only been a few minutes since Krizalid first entered the laundromat, and already the terrain has shifted irrevocably.
He senses the difference in pitch and severity in Billy. Though he might have understood in some higher fashion had he taken a moment to really think on it, he doesn't really pay attention to it. All that matters is what he needs right now. He cannot fail here, he cannot fail her. Though something deep inside him seethes, boils with enough clarity that his blood literally boils in his veins, he still is driven forward, onward into Billy.
His strikes are each in themselves calculate, faster than one would expect, and the last draws blood immediately, leaving his count at some higher rate. He's starting to feel it now.
Yeah, a lot more like it.
He's starting to lose control of his blood again. That erratic power pulsing deep inside him like a kettle drum, pounding with every toll in his heart. The moment he scents Billy's blood, his count goes to time plus. It's time alright--
But Billy's blood wasn't entirely his to claim.
He thought he told her--
That lithe form drifts overhead, held still by the sinuous red length of Billy's cane, balancing her by the heel. Fuck, with her that close, Krizalid locks up into a statue of indecision. He can't do anything about Billy, not with her right there. But if he held back any more, he was going to release it right there. That power of his.
The blood from his wounds begins to bubble and separate, twisting away into crooked trails of red steam.
/!\ CONDITION CRITICAL!
Responding, it's all he can do to literally fling one of those dryers over at Whip, lobbing the appliance like a haphazard ball at her frame. The goal is just to knock her off her lofty balance and pin her beneath the appliance's weight. His aim briefly betrays his eye, calculations taking into account even Whip's trajectory It wouldn't hold for long, dryers being the lighter of the two sets of appliances. But holding her down forever wasn't his goal. It was to protect her.
Protect her... from him.
Wings fill the entire laundromat, an epic spread of symbolics that is the systemic result of Krizalid's erratic power tearing through the roof in a cataclysmic explosion, flash-frying his coat to vapor and cauterizing every open wound shown through his battlesuit shut. His HUD is barely even active in that state, only a small notation at the bottom of his view, noting temperature.
2309 degrees fahrenheit.
And climbing.
"No..." he murmurs, his voice taking on a calm, savage quality.
"No I don't."
He swings his arms forward in a saltire cross.
And then fire rips through the laundromat, rupturing the business and scattering mortar like glass.
Stopped short from her fall, it is one-half of Billy's sheer prowess and one-half her agility that keeps Whip in the air, balanced very haphazardly by the Syndicate enforcer's very bo. Her softly-featured face is shuttered with a fierce sort of concentration, something very contrary to the usual glimpses of unmatched rage and murder seen on the faces of fighters in these turf wars. And, even as she's held aloft in the air, she retains a presence of quiet, stern dignity. She's got the way of a narc.
And she's scheming like one, especially with the reckless way she continues to perch on Kane's weapon, hooking her heel down in preparation should he try to use it again. It might be enough to buy Krizalid enough time to--
--throw a clothesdryer at her.
Call it nostalgia, or some misguided sense of sentimentality, maybe even call it something as strange as trust, but Krizalid's sudden attack on the young Ikari catches her completely by surprise in that it's almost laughable. She simply was not intending on expecting it -- at least not now. Smacked cleanly free from her perch not even a moment after finding herself there, Whip skids painfully across the tiled floor before she's all but stopped, trapped underneath the weight of the machine.
Surely, if her body had not been experimented on by the Cartel, the very momentum and mass of it would have crushed her. Whip's unnatural hardiness saves her from a handful of busted ribs and ruptured organs, but she still can't help but cry out in pain as it slams into her injury, the one care of Leona. Knocked breathless by the stinging agony, her first attempts to push it off her body are clumsy, and the young woman can't seem to budge it. Snarling in confusion and exasperation, she turns her eyes back up at Krizalid, fixing him with an incredulous look as she starts to demand, "YOU--"
Two for two, Whip gets shut up again. Her struggling to free herself from this tether goes still. She's got an idea what's about to happen. Shit. Shit. Shit--
The dryer strategically protects her as much as it traps her against the floor, angled to bear the worst of the oncoming firestorm. Whip seems to realize this, as she reflexively curls, both arms reaching up to shield her face. She ducks in behind it to the best her body will bend, closing her eyes in time for busted glass to start raining down around and over her.
COMBATSYS: Whip takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////// ]
Billy 0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0 Krizalid
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
COMBATSYS: Krizalid successfully hits Billy with End of Eden.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////// ]
Billy 1/-----==/=======|-------\-------\0 Krizalid
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
The King of Fighter was heavily staggered, that much is certain. But he breathes heavily, sllowing blood to drip between his fingers. No matter. He's fine. He can still beat them both by a large margin; the freak before him is already an inch from defeat, he can tell it. One more hit. One more. But the wisps of crimson flitting up, the sudden sense of an almost familiar chi roaring up, causes him to furrow his brow in confusion. Wariness. He slips back, preparing himself for what comes next. "...?" Then he retaliates against the person he seemed so apt to protect. What? Attacking her? Why would he do that?
No. Wait... he was getting her out of the way.
"Son of a..."
The roar of heat rushes over Billy, who brings up his arm and winces. But he stands firm, leaning forward, not allowing the other man to drive him away even then. "SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!!" he demands, all but roars. "SHOW ME WHAT YOU FUCKING GOT!"
The world is filled with a small sun.
Billy is struck, somewhere amdist that. His entire being becomes pain, fire. He feels like he's drifting forever. Weightless, insubstantial. This flash, lasting a blink of an eye in the real word, the chord of agony stretched thin in the agonized cavern of his mind.
Flames roar and burn, clothing and wood caught on fire. The roof collapses her and there. Billy is not immediately seen in the rubble. For long moments, the pair are alone. And then with a snarl, the lean man erupts upwards. Shattered timbers and support beams ripple away from him, breathing deeply in, and letting out a shuddering, oscillating breath. His bo staff shakes lightly, blood streaming down his face, one eye completely entrenched and effectively blinded.
"Lilly..." he asks, blurred vision shifting away from Krizalid, looking left. Looking right. One step is taken forward. He's down. He's gone. "Where's..."
Then his stance spreads, and he roars. Sparks crackle and pop, the smell of ozone suddenly filling the annihilated laundromat. His eyes focus through the pain, honed to a knife's edge. Debris is thrown back as more and more of his own fire is drawn out, the air shimmering beneath the veil of his monstrous chi.
"I'm not... gonna let you hurt her...!!"
It seems both are simply fighting each other for who they wish to protect. But who's will shall be stronger?!
COMBATSYS: Billy gathers his will.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////// ]
Billy 1/-======/=======|-------\-------\0 Krizalid
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
His body lurches in the aftershock. Twin trails of ruptured commercial-grade linoleum hang open in his wake, edge peeling and bubbling, a traumarized wound at the priphery for the missing wall. He breathes laboriously, forks of purple lightning trailing off his shoulders and down past his arms into the ground at uneven intervals. He twitches, dark skin raised darker purple in sections, but no more blood, not for the moment.
All the wounds have been turned into grisly patterns of sear.
His battlesuit's displays have all gone dark in the moment of release, his body having committed everything to that one event comparible to an apocalypse. His power snapping and popping all around him like a river, he steps forward. His claws tighten--enough to hear the steel seams in his hands sing, enough to draw blood from his palms, his teeth notching together in a grimace after a hiss. Pain stabs through his body, but that's not the first thing he notices, it's not even the second.
Kane had just as much guts as their data said he did.
The target was still alive, that's the first thing someone like him would notice, an instinctive recognition somewhere on the lower bases of his deeper intellect. Billy rides, and drives his body to ever greater heights--levels arguably beyond that which Krizalid's erratic power level reached even a moment prior. All in the name of that girl.
"She'd better not get in the way, then," his voice meanders out into play, cold and even as he advances.
There's no pity here, no comrade's interest for Lilly Kane or her wellbeing. Things just didn't work that way. There was his--and his own.
Briefly, the deadly threat instinct fades in rising panic.
That's the second thing he feels. His heart beating fast, eyes slip and focus on Whip's last known location. He was rough with her, but it was the only way to protect her. Eying the motrar and glass piled atop that dryer, he frowns. She's safe, but Billy--is about to go nuts.
And no matter what, she's at ground zero.
He bolts towards Kane without even a second's more indecision. He wants him riled. He wants Billy to feel every ounce of the fear and hate that he does, so that he can meet him on equal terms. Leaping into the air, the creature stretches out, flying through the new open air ceiling he made before lurching into the wind, and dropping at an unreal, physics-defying angle to Billy. He'll get him away from here--maybe give Whip the time she needs to be smart. To let him and his responsibility to Kane shine. Those words earlier are followed by a positive /shriek/.
"BECAUSE SHE'LL SEE ME TEAR YOUR ENTRAILS OUT!!"
Krizalid's mass--battlesuit and all--is surprisingly heavy when it's coming at you at 70 mph. If that guy isn't quick, he's going to blow Billy right through the flaming wreckage of the storefront, right through the flaming wreckage of what was once a minivan full of street toughs, his body briefly trailing fire as he tries to pin Billy down with sheer velocity and body weight.
And then tear him open with his bare hands.
If--if she won't be smart, there's always plan B.
Kill Billy before she digs herself out.
After many moments of silence, a particular pile of debris starts to stir. One hand cuts through the endless layers of broken mortar and shattered glass, pushing it heavily aside as an Ikari Warrior suddenly surfaces from the mess. Shouldering aside some rubble, Whip is scratched up, bruised, dusty, and wearing half of the laundromat in her hair, but she's unharmed. Coughing heavily, she gives her head a shake, making sure her face is free of glass before warily reopening her dark eyes.
The afterimage of Krizalid's fire is still burned against her retinas. Grimacing, she begins to slowly reanimate from where she had huddled for safety, not even checking herself for burns -- not even having the time to -- because at that instand her very first friend in the world is blurring as he rips forward at Billy Kane, looking like he's gonna launch them both through--
"DON'T--!" Whip's voice is shrieking, no doubt lost at their backs.
What the hell is he trying--!!
Unfortunately for Krizalid, Whip takes the time not to be smart. She's long shucked her original orders, no different to the way she plants her hands and, with a slight cry, lifts up and shucks the heavy appliance free from her body, the half-immolated clothesdryer crashing over onto its side with a metallic whine. Pushing herself to her feet, Whip needs only half a second to reclaim her dropped weapon. She's already made her decision, and he's not going to change her mind. The only certainty she has is that Krizalid isn't going to last long. She realizes how hurt he is, and though she long made the choice to leave her friend behind to the machinations of the Cartel, she can't seem to leave him behind to possibly die on the streets of Southtown.
He's just not making this easy.
Tenacious as a pitbull, both criminal enforcers are granted the smallest of reprieves before Whip returns, dour-faced but maintaining her own patient way. She still hasn't abandoned her earlier plan: take out Kane, stop the battle, force Krizalid to answer her questions, though by the telling look on her face, and the way her clothes are ripped and waist bruised from the thrown dryer, she's considering the inclusion of a good right hook. For now, she's content to lurk on the peripherals of their exchange, waiting for Billy's trajectory -- and the moment she's sure she has a clean shot, Voodoo lets fly, as she tries to snag him painfully around the throat and hold him still...
COMBATSYS: Billy blocks Krizalid's Demon Landing.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > /////// ]
Billy 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=------\-------\0 Krizalid
[ ||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
COMBATSYS: Billy counters Strength Shot - Yuuetsu from Whip with Ifrit Crisis.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > /////// ]
Billy 1/---====/=======|=------\-------\0 Krizalid
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 1|------=|=======
"..." Those words echo in Billy's head. 'She better not get in the way.' The thought that he'd dare injure his sister reignites that horrific rage, as he continues to siphon more of his chi into his weapon. "So you don't give a shit what happens to her?" he offers, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. One foot swivels backwards, bracing on the ground as Krizalid rockets towards him. Like the initial assault, he reacts with precision and mastery, reflex guiding him through the infinitely small window. His right forearm catches the bulk of Krizalid, still holding his staff. Sliding a meter back and allowing the kinetic force to diffuse down his legs, heels sinking a good two inches into the unyielding ground. His boots dig further into the furrow, and with a snarl he shoves backwards, sending Krizalid backwards, and out of the picture.
Just long enough. Whip's namesake snaps through the air, but the Syndicate member catches it cleanly
"TOO BAD SHE GOT IN THE WAY, HUH?!"
With a horrific yank, he sends the girl careening towards him. His attention focuses on the approaching Whip. Those eyes, those horrific eyes that show a demon's soul, narrow at her. The moment she had waited for turned out to be a liability. His weapon bursts into flames, and he swings down, /slamming/ it into the former NESTS operative and spiking her into the ground. His booted foot kicks her back somewhat upright, unleashing a brutal onslaught of blows to stagger her backwards. The scorching weapon pummeling her, before he whips it back, summoning a trail of searing segments. And then in a single, titanic overhead blow, drives her into the ground a second time. A pillar of flame erupts up, blowing away more of the destroyed ceiling, as Billy pants in the wake of the whirling smoke and embers that trail around her...
!"
Billy handles himself admirably.
Krizalid's body lands on Kane hard and fast, his claws scrabbling against the brawler to find purchase. Unburdened with the weight of reticles and data now, he relies on instinct, his claws whipping at Billy's guard, trying to find purchase on any point he can. The longer he can pin him down, the longer and better the chance Whip has to dig herself out and get to safety. He doesn't really register what Whip wants, not with something deep inside him never having quite forgotten what happened. It's what /he/ wants.
--At least, right up until he catches a glimpse of Whip's interjection.
He's thrown back from Billy, his weight ultimately thrown off the brawler's guard to send him careening back further into the laundromat, temporarily powerless as he is dazed. Thie forces him to bear witness to the vicious onslaughter Kane lets loose on Whip.
Each blow is like bile burning at the back of Krizalid's throat.
"NO!!!" That's HIS!!
It's something born of the worst of Krizalid--the vicious ills and fears twisting his gut into nothing, as he scrambles to his boots angrily, his eyes dead forward. See. Billy done fucked up now. Throughout this conflict, Krizalid could care less about what happened to Billy's sister. One could even go so far to say that the moment he walked into the laundromat, he'd have preferred to make things simple and not have to do anything to that girl in the name of NESTS' progress. What would be the point? It's easier this way. He's an assassin, cut from the same cloth as Whip, from the same cloth as every child of the cartel. But being willing to and wanting to are two different things.
But when Billy sets loose on Whip, threatening to take away his chance--
The situation changes.
Krizalid is entirely morally capable of tearing Lilly in half.
And loving it.
Unfortunately, she's not within arm's reach right now.
Kane's gonna have to do.
His voice is quiet, no longer an enraged shriek. Intensity draws off of every raw length of his vocal chords. Livid with the bitterness of years of abandonment, the clone makes this crystal for that fuck:
"You're a dead man."
He moves less on skill and more on raw desire now. And a lot of what Krizalid desires.. is Kane's face torn off and tacked to his wall. His leg cracks, his bones twisting unnaturally with every motion, throwing off huge bales of charged force into the air and catching it into a huge whirlwind, ripping through the laundromat ad Krizalid doesn't so much as throw a storm into Billy but ride it into his path, sending a shearing, rippling, crackling force tainted /pure black/ at Billy, the suction from the storm simply intense enough to draw everything into it, leaving the clone skidding inbetween Billy and the battered, bloodied Whip.
There is a light in his eyes..
Voodoo gets snatched cleanly out of the air.
Whip doesn't even have time to spit out a curse.
One instant, her eyes are widening with the instinctive realization of her mistake, and the next Whip simply is dragged into its inevitability. Pulled violently forwards, she is only granted the brief, deadly instant of Billy Kane's eyes before the look in them is eclipsed by the fire that suddenly lights his bo. It hits her straight in the collarbone, the power behind the initial blow jerking her head to one side and throwing her body backward. But Kane isn't ready to see her go yet, kicking her back into the reach of his burning weapon.
It's by a miracle that Whip stays on her feet -- a miracle or years of conditioning as a murderer and a mercenary. Though she can barely think straight, her body acts for itself, trying desperately to remain upright... long enough for Billy to go to town on her. The next few moments are but a blur, an endless series of butchering cleaves and strikes of the staff that beat the blood out of her. It sprays across the cement, as deep gauges are opened and cauterized simultaneously by the fire that burns viciously off the weapon. The last strike is a lucky one, slamming right into her old injury in her abdomen, as bandages flare visibly past her ripped blouse, now heavy and darkening with blood Whip cries out at that in pure, tortured agony.
Then she's shut up, none too cleanly, when the last SLAM of the bo crumples the young woman to the ground, where she's quickly swallowed up and disappeared into a sea of fire. For an instant, she's unable to be seen,
When the fire breathes itself out, Whip sprawls across the ground through the curling smoke, her body no more than a mess of blood and cinder. She's charred in some places. And she looks close to dead in the rest of them. She remains collapsed brokenly across the ground for the longest time, unmoving and oblivious to Krizalid's snarls. To his reprisal.
Consciousness starts to itch at the backs of Whip's eyes. She flutters her eyelids, one hand twitching, her lips opening in time to let go a mouthful of dark blood. Then she's awake. Inhaling a heavy, wet breath, one hand scraping her fingernails against the pavement, she turns her head and looks up, her vision bleary around the edges. It takes her a good moment of empty staring to make sense of the shapes, but she swears she's looking up at Krizalid's turned back. What is he doing here...?
She shifts. It hurts. Now she remembers.
COMBATSYS: Whip takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > ////// ]
Billy 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Krizalid
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 1|------=|=======
COMBATSYS: Billy overcomes Typhon's Rage - Strike from Krizalid with Blazing Cane Thrust.
- Power hit! -
[ \\\\\\\\ < > ////// ]
Billy 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Krizalid
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 1|------=|=======
Once more, the battered and wounded Billy rises up, slowly breathing as he glares towards Krizalid. They are mirrors at the moment. He came into this raging at the prospect of someone he cared about, someone he felt he needed to protect, being threatened. And he was pushed to this as well, feeling that Lilly was endangered. Although he had little sadism in blowing Whip aside, staggering her for at least the short term. When Billy is mad, he fights better. But when Krizalid rages... he becomes lesser. The blow that nearly felled him was raw force, thrown at him, and caught him off guard.
This time, he's ready and willing to capitalize on that investment.
Whirling back as he feels the surge of energy through the other man, he roars his own defiance, and snaps his arm forward. Twisting his weapon, it breaks into three parts and surges out, erupting into fire. The vortex of wind is impacted dead on, and dispersed. Flying in both directions, blowing away the few remaining washing machines still upright. He probably has little choice now. If he moves to evade, Whip will be hit instead.
And Billy, grinning harshly through blood speckled teeth, knows full well. If he wishes to be a martyr also, then he'll use that to finish him.
COMBATSYS: Krizalid fails to reflect Blazing Cane Thrust from Billy with Typhon's Rage - Reflect.
[ \\\\\\\\ < > // ]
Billy 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Krizalid
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 1|------=|=======
COMBATSYS: Krizalid has reached second wind!
[ \\\\\\\\ < > //// ]
Billy 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Krizalid
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 1|------=|=======
He stands in the charred gore of his sister.
His blood burns, something dark and foul rooted deep in his mind that wants Billy's skin flayed off. There was nothing more important to the NESTS third than his subordinates, and there was something a long time ago who could have been called his favorite amongst them all. It seems a little childish, but it was important to people like Billy, people like Krizalid. Even vicious men could have things that were important to them. It was something that most normal people, even the greatest fighters that walk this earth, will never really get.
They can say all these cute things, these schoolkids who fight so handsomely and furiously for their friends and family, about morals, and standing up for the things that are important to you. In the end, these people love everything, cherish everything.
Krizalid's rage goes unquenched, dispersed at the hand of Billy's staff, throwing wind everywhere and stirring debris like feathers on the wind. That cane extends, whipping out towards him, engulfed in fire. He understands the tradeoff as much as Billy does--if he moves, Whip will be impaled on the end of that thing instead.
He doesn't move.
See, that's sort of the trouble with caring about everything. Past a certain point, your love doesn't mean anything. It's pointless. But after awhile, you'll find that it's a different story entirely when you have only one thing you ever really truly wanted.
And that thing walked away from you.
Krizalid whips an arm forward, trying to control the scattered traces of windshear again, not willing to let go of anything he committed today, trying to put it to Billy, trying to knock that fucking smirk off his face with his own staff. His ability was such that he could do it. He had no other alternative. He forces himself to, even though by all rights his battle data would have agreed that he make his exit.
He is unsurprised and frustrated when the flaming staff simply pierces through him like a harpoon.
Blazing force tearing through sensitive electronics, armor, and flesh like cotton, Krizalid's blood sprays out all around him in all directions. rupturing an important part of his anatomy and causing him--perhaps for one--to audibly gasp in pain and go slack. By that time, Billy should know--it's all over. The gambit he took was without a hitch. It paid off. The freak, as Kane so elegantly put it ... is done.
--not so fast.
Krizalid never quite falls over, even though he hemorrhages severely around the trauma from the cane, the searing not quite enough to keep the cane's pure traumatic damage from forcing Krizalid past the point of desanguination. His breath grows light, labored. One claw grips the end of Billy's stick, razored edges drawing long furrows in the lacquer.
But the clone is still in front of Whip.
For--some--reason, he's still standing.
"...you never did like to listen to me, did you."
The creature's voice is wet enough from his own blood to make his dry tone when addressing Whip seem strangely out of place. Even now, he's holding onto Billy's staff, in possibly what is one of the worst positions one could be facing the King of Fighters.
But as long as he has one end of Billy's staff, the King isn't threatening anyone but him. He doesn't need to say anything else to Billy. He'll know enough just from that alone.
"If you're waiting for an answer..." the clone continues, "..there isn't one. Get out of here."
Consciousness finally returns to her in the sound of someone's body getting gouged through -- that sick, wet, sudden squelch of flesh. Fresh blood sprays across her face.
She can hear her own voice. It sounds so alien to her ears. There's nothing trained, nothing austere, and nothing military about the way she cries out, "Kriz--!!"
The defacto assassin moves her twitching fingers against the concrete, curling them tightly into her bloodgreased palms. She pushes up on her arms, moving almost reflexively, mechanically on a protector's first instinct, before her battery of wounds push her back down to the ground. The world spins, and she blacks out briefly. When Whip comes to an instant later, she's coughing blood up onto the cement between her spread hands.
She turns her head up in time to have Krizalid's words find her. Stubborn and willful as Whip has always been, a traitor as she'll always be labelled, she's always been the type to take the time to listen. She does it now, keenly and quietly. It's the moment she takes for her dark eyes to be able to see again, and they set with determination.
"...I've always listened to you, Krizalid," Whip's familiar voice suddenly replies his turned back. Then she grunts noisily, and one moment later she's pushed her battered body back to her feet, taking a step closer to her old friend's shoulder. "I just didn't like to agree."
Voodoo is back in her right hand. Her hand tightens around it when her eyes cut to one side, taking in the frame of Krizalid's back, the mantling of his shoulders, all the way down to where Billy's staff is gored into his body. Her expression locks up. And she promises him, in a strained, quiet whisper, "...I'm not leaving you here."
And Whip just moves. She pushes herself forward, letting the burn of pain feed her until she can feel it no more. She lunges adjacent to the length of the bo straight to its maker, and with one aimed fist straight at his jaw, attempts to deck Billy Kane free of his weapon -- so he can't feed any more of it into Krizalid. A ghost of a smile flickers across the young woman's face, wild and reminiscent of a time when she murdered without pause. "--Still alive, Kane!" she taunts in a snarl. "Try again!!"
If she manages to connect, manages to disengage him for one moment, Whip is without mercy. Voodoo is swung up and around, cracked forward with fierce skill to try to pelt the Syndicate bodyguard with continous strikes, her whip wielded by an unnatural strength -- one that doesn't befit her tiny body. She won't let up, not until she's sure she's put him down on the concrete.
COMBATSYS: Whip successfully hits Billy with Red Whip Genocide.
[ \\\ < > //// ]
Billy 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Krizalid
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
Ah. He has him, finally. In his rage, and the ease at destroying his raw precision and data, Billy almost fell to the ruthless onslaught that had changed the entire dynamic of the fight. But in the end, he is penetrated by his shaft, like all others who bend before him. Yet retaining his hold on it, his initial yank failing to retrieve the weapon, he lets out a growl of almost weary, tired annoyance, beginning to adjust his grip to apply more leverage. But then Whip moves. His eyes widen, shifting towards her, beginning to bring up his free arm. But his limbs feel as if they were injected with lead, and his adrenaline has turned to acid in his veins. She sneaks past, brutally striking him across the face. An almost artistic spatter of blood flies up, gleaming droplets arching to fall back towards the ground.
He lets go of his staff. But as the world rushes with darkness, spectres and demons taunting him in slurred voices, he rears himself back, blazing gaze locked on Whip. Just in time for his body to erupt in bloody lashes, peeling away his shirt, ravaging the flesh beneath. Spasming like a man being shot, he suddenly moves, with an otherworldly speed. The last, dying energy of a man on the brink. In a heartbeat he looms before Whip, twisting around and pivoting sharply, throwing all his force, all his rage, all his fearful love into the thrust of his booted foot, trying to slam it into her stomach.
It's mostly irrelevant. He's not going to be able to take her down with it. Stumbling, he crashes to the ground immediately thereafter, fingers digging into the charred ground as he tries to rise. "Not... gonna let you... hurt her..." he hisses out, blood dribbling in streams. Clinging to consciousness, maybe life, with an irrefutable will that even now refuses to allow that to take place.
COMBATSYS: Billy can no longer fight.
[ \\\\ <
Krizalid 0/-------/----===|
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
COMBATSYS: Billy successfully hits Krizalid with Strong Kick.
[ <
Krizalid 0/-------/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
He has him, but Krizalid has Billy. Locked in that fatal embrace, Krizalid had a little time to breathe. There were few things the NESTS killer really valued--a day or two ago, he really couldn't have imagined anything more important to him than the niche he'd carved himself, his ambitions, his career. He wouldn't even be able to really explain it now..
Call it, 'old time's sake.'
He tells Whip to go, to leave him. It is a mixed request, something told half out of concern for Whip's life, and something half for the belabored assassin's own troubles. The tone of that woman behind him struck a chord with him that he didn't need, didn't want, revealed by the single white fang shown by a raised lip.
"It didn't seem hard before," Krizalid murmurs quietly.
Through the pain that burns white hot in the assassin's body, words come fast and bitter. It's not gonna be that easy for someone like Whip. Krizalid isn't going to make it easy. For her getting in his way like this, for her making him abandon his mission like this. He could have had Billy by himself. Could have taken him before the Brit ever knew what happened. That was his goal.
But she doesn't listen to him.
She lashes out at Billy as viciously as any agent of the Cartel, inflicting wound after wound furiously and with seemingly little remorse, with all of the pride that Krizalid remembered in infancy.
Memories flood past him.
And then Billy goes drunk with protective rage.
The next few moments are simply a blur for the clone. A spat curse, a black streak of motion, the crash of a boot into his midsection, gutting his suit in a rupture of circuitry. He flies back, his heavy body collding with the collapsed rubble of the wall. Something ruptures deep inside.
Foam at one side of his mouth, the assassin's back arches, his strangled shriek as cacophonic as it is desperate. A disgrace.... it was a disgrace... Igniz wouldn't be pleased with his performance. They would draw the logs from his suit, a tangle of silicon ruptured from his midsection now, but still viable. Crackling electricity from his spirit as much as it is from the electronics discharges into the ground beneath him.
"...Damn it..." he mutters..
And then he falls flat.
COMBATSYS: Krizalid takes no action.
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
COMBATSYS: Krizalid can no longer fight.
[ ||||||||||||||| ]
Whip 0|-------|-------
In those tense moments, Whip blinds herself to anything that isn't Billy Kane, needing her full attention homed on him. It doesn't mean she didn't hear Krizalid's cold remark on her promise, but this particular soldier has had years of training to keep the constant guilt she feels off her face. In the wake of her attack, she holds her coiled whip in one hand, the other arm raised in a guard, her young, determinated face set tersely under a layer of bloodspray. She's ready to accept any attack, to hold him off and protect, even though her bare fists are haunted by slight shaking. Her breathing is low and laboured.
She reacts at Kane's first instant of movement. Tensing, narrowing her eyes, she widens her stance long enough to -- look on in sheer shock as Krizalid takes the blow. "NO--" she yells after it, half concerned, half incredulous, following with her widened eyes the violent path her old friend takes off the nearest brick wall. Remaining glued to the spot, absolutely untouched, Whip is motionless until she reacts sharply to the sound of Krizalid's tortured shriek. She startles, looking briefly pained, until her attention is forced away by the peripheral movement of Billy collapsing down to the ground.
Whip nervously reassumes her stance, unsure whether or not to drop her guard, her usual fighter's confidence long shucked away. She watches him in a steely way, her expression only flickering when she picks up on his last oath. "She's /not/ going to get hurt," Whip hurriedly interjects, looking and sounding like she's desperate for him to believe her. Underneath all that blood, she just looks tired. "I promise."
She hears something at her back. Turning her head, Whip pales at the unfamiliar, never-before-seen sight of Krizalid dropping to the ground. Testament to her word, she turns from Kane, but not to race back into the laundromat, not to complete some assassination mission that she had willfully walked away from a long time ago, but to hurriedly fall to a crouch beside Krizalid's body. He can't be-- no.
"Kriz?" she calls, her voice a little too quiet. She reaches for him, then at the last moment pauses, before finally touching his shoulder with nervous care. Whip's face is wearing more guilt than blood. The motion aborts a moment later, as she urgently shoulders out of her coat, bundling the dry, absorptive suede up to press firmly against that wound on his body that's bleeding him out. What the hell is she going to do... "Kriz, talk to me."
One of Billy's hands slams into the ground, a sharp crack that resounds in the destroyed surroundings. His head slowly descends, neck trembling with the effort of staving off this descent, before his forehead thumps on the ground. His body is bowed, arched, one knee raised as his breath rises and falls. All his energy seems to be within his trembling arm, trying vainly to stave off the embrace of gravity and darkness. He manages to peer with his one slit eye towards the girl, sneer revealing blood stained teeth.
"Liar... you are all butchurs... fucking bred to be... Don't give me your bullshit..." He drags himself along the ground, sucking in a breath as he reaches out and grasps his bo staff. A loud rasp is heard as he yanks it to himself, pulling it up to rest against a shoulder, leaning all his weight upon the dusty weapon. "You'll kill anyone... destroy anything... to get what you want. This proves it... this proves it!! Fucking bringing my family into it?!" With an agonized snarl, Billy pulls himself to his feet. His free hand reaching up to grasp the middle of his weapon, then his other, climbing it slowly until he's upright. This show of defiance is rather useless. A single snap of Whip's weapon would send him sprawling again. But hey, can't say he ever gives up!
"Don't imagine for a second you're any less the same," a deadly voice snarls wetly.
If he was unconscious, it was only for a brief moment. Luckily, though he was losing blood rapidly, Billy missed his critical point by centimeters. For the most part he is stirred by the feeling of suede pressing into his gaping injury, staunching bloodflow, but bringing with it a wave of acute startlingly powerful pain. For a moment it seems that unlike Billy he is content to allow himself to be looked over, laying there with limbs limp.
The moment fades.
Roughly slapping Whip's hand away with a vicious gesture, it would seem Krizalid would rather stand on his own--bleed on his own, than be attended to by the people he was trying to protect. The sickbay at home would be enough. He just had to get to his perimeter he created...
He says nothing to Whip, notably.
"You think we don't know what the Syndicate is all about..?"
More important is his slow rise to meet Billy, the same wobble and struggle formed in every tension of his step. Erratic and unpredictable, black and violet energy twists and trails off his limbs. It's all the same. He forces the heat around him to rise, as if through pure force of will.
"You'd just better hope to god Kane I never find your little trollop in a dark alley--" he swears, his tongue bitter with repressed anger.
"You don't want to know what I can do.."
For all those deceptively quiet moments, there's a storm going on in Whip's head. She's not sure what to do with him. Where to take him. Hospitals condemn their types -- she remembers her life before the Ikari. The Ikari, she could take him --
Whip's eyes flicker briefly, and before the question is even asked she already knows her own answer. She can't do that. The Cartel, as much as she hates them, can't be too far away. She can take him back within their perimeter, hope she's not seen, and...
Her eyes sharpen when her hand is slapped away. Tensing, her guard instinctively drawn back up, Whip only stares widely down at Krizalid, the look on her face open and shocked. It's at that moment Billy's voice rouses at her turned back, and the next minute is an effort for her attention to switch back and forth between the two enforcers as they snarl murderous promises at each other. As Krizalid stands, she rises a moment later, stepping back and entirely out of her own element. It doesn't last long.
Billy Kane retrieves his bo. Krizalid is starting to cook. And Whip just snaps.
"STOP it!" she barks suddenly, stepping forward to plant herself willfully between the two, her whip still coiled in one hand and her back facing neither. Holding an arm out at either one, and her body language almost seething with barely repressed threat that will unleash on the first violent move, Whip loses every last inch of her famous patience. "You Syndicate son of a bitch," she snaps first at Billy, her voice thick with an unspoken, personal sort of anger, one that encloses a deep, dogged vengeance for what they did to her. "That family of yours in there is the only reason I'm not ending you right now. So shut up and get her the hell out of here!"
Then her dark eyes find Krizalid. "/I/ know what you can do," she answers him lowly, quietly. Whip barely wants to believe the words she heard off Krizalid's mouth. But she rises to them. "And I won't let you."
"I ain't a saint... but I ain't a monster..." Billy hisses towards Krizalid. He's not mortally wounded. His head is swimming, he's going to fall unconscious, and he aches like a bitch, but he's had worse. A lot worse. Maybe not in terms of the blow the damnable clone managed, but he shouldn't be out of commission that long. He teeters his way closer to the white haired man, scowling with one arm cupping his ribs, hobbling like an old man with a rickey cane. Foot dragging behind, wincing whenever it's forced to kee his weight. "You wanna finish it?! C'mon, you little piece of shit!! I'm not dead yet!" He reaches out his bo staff, trying to jab it at Krizalid around the interposed whip. "Get outta my fucking way!" Assuming he reached, he'd lightly jab Krizalid, probably around the thighal region. But slapping it out of his hand would be laughably easy for the Ikari. "I don't need your charity, you stalking whore!!" he snarls towards Whip, uncaring that he's at her tender mercies. All he wants is one last jab at Krizalid!! Take THAT, and THAT!
Krizalid wavers only briefly, his bleeding lanky form casting a long shadow across the laundromat. He can't move too well in this condition, lurching like the undead as he breaks into a full out deadly advance. Weakened or not, he still has the heat.
"You willing to say that about everybody in your little tea party? -- 'scuse. What's left of your tea party. It's gonna be a riot when that pack of vultures goes into the fire--"
He lifts a claw--coincidentally, the one connected to his good arm, clenching it into a tight fist as his other limb hangs at his side, wet with his own gore. He breathes hard to say it, choking back what feels like bits of his own organs, but his voice is clear, vicious and milked dark by the times.
"You want a fucking demonstration!?"
Perhaps the only thing that stops him is that Whip is physically in his way. A trouble that strikes him as none too convenient. The NESTS third just glowers over the concentrated gall packed into a very diminutive package. It riles him a little more than he's comfortable admitting. "Didn't I tell you to get out?" he snaps.
"Think I'm going to do whatever you want?"
A venomous look is passed, oddly contrary to his earlier sacrifices.
"You're thinking wrong."
Blind men could probably venture to see the fast, deadly place where Whip's mood has gone. Though her own broken patience is spasming up her shoulders, trembling in the long fingers of her hands, and making her eyes tic at the corners, she holds still. She's trying to be the mediator that her duty sometimes wills her to be, and she's hoping to hell that Billy Kane picks up just an inch of her exceeding, generous charitability and retreat back into the laundromat. It's taking everything she's got think of him more than some killer for the Syndicate -- everything she's got to set her own vendetta aside.
Then Billy calls her a /whore./
Whip snaps a sharp glance at the insult, her anger so fierce that her cheeks flush with colour. Without warning, she just storms forward, directing the whip in her hand with a loud crack to try to flick the staff out of Billy's hands. Then she follows it up with a fist right at his face, aiming to either knock him out on the spot or just revoke his 'standing up' privileges for the next twenty-four hours.
"/Asshole,/" Whip seethes back, her fist recoiled like it's not finished, like some dark part of her would like to end him for good on the spot. But she doesn't.
Instead, she's whirling back around, meeting Krizalid's rebuttal with a look that could strip paint off a car. Her eyes narrow. The way he's aggravating her, it almost reminds her of--
Whip's expression flinches, the thought making her lose some of that uncharacteristic rage. "No, I don't think that," she finally replies, and she sounds honest about it too. She looks back down at that wound made from Billy's staff. "Tell me where you've set up base."
Damn. The truth hurts, in this situation. He was still angry, focusing his rage on Krizalid, trying to ignore the little femme hitler in his way. But then... he takes a moment to look at Whip now, truly see her, and his expression slackens. A resigned look, mouthing out 'Oh.' as the fist rockets towards him. He is struck dead on, nose flattening, gout of blood shooting skywards, the darkness he staved off so fiercely flooding over him. Stumbling backwards, pinwheeling his arms a moment, the bo staff clatters to the ground. Then like a marionette with the strings cut, he goes limp to the ground, unconscious and finally quiet. It's been a very bad night for clothing everywhere...
"Mother fucker," Krizalid says over the downed body.
He'd kick it a few times, if he felt even slightly more ornery than he already is, but despite his desire to make his career off Billy's hide, Krizalid seems surprisingly disinterested in taking any piece of what Kane has for himself. This engagement was already ruined, but at least he'll be able to mark down that Billy's out of commission for awhile in his report. He was planning a lot worse for him, but some aggravated wound deep in his chest says that he doesn't have enough left to put Whip under too and make it back.
But that hardly means he needs to cooperate.
"Why don't you ask your new friends about it," the commander grouses, rising to meet that deadly glare of hers with a fierce light. "I'm sure they have an entire file speculating on it."
The difference between that world-weary fire glance of Whip's and Krizalid's own is not describable in terms that anyone would really get yet. The lanky white-haired youth stalks past Whip roughly, as if restless and no longer content to simply sit still and chew fat that long since went rancid. It would take some time to repair his suit's systems--none of his display functions are currently active anymore, the system's displays a ghost town of black panes, leaving only him. Only Krizalid.
"Gonna go back to my agents," he announces briskly. Though proud of his position, his voice hitches as the gaping hole in his midsection breaks open again, with it a new tide of blood weeping around the edges of that wound. He doesn't wovbble, he doesn't shift, only clamping his one good hand over his chest, leaning forward as muscles around the area tighten in a pristine kind of agony. Beyond that alone, he doesn't seem content to let that woman help him. Not now. The heavy clomp of his boots ring out over the pavement as he limps, stepping free of the laundromat.
Their vehicle should only be a little further away at this point.
He breathes harder,
"Why don't you give it up," he suggests, "and go home. Wherever that is for you now."
"I'm not interested in your help..."
Krizalid falls flat, by the burning wreckage of the minivan.
He doesn't move at all.
Whip lets a part of her just sag when Billy goes silent. Though the look on her face never sheds its thick skin of military authority, her shoulders relax, her back arches, and she finally lifts a hand to where the hurt is worst, closing her palm slowly over the fresh blood oozing through the bandages around her abdomen. The agony is sharp enough to make her breath catch, but she's grateful for it; it means she's not in shock. She doesn't have time for her body breaking down on her.
Straightening up, her eyes twitch over at Krizalid when he makes his remark. Whip watches him unsurely, and though her guard isn't up, she's definitely contemplating whether it should be. And she doesn't like that she has to, not after spending so long trusting him indefinitely. He was the person who taught her how to trust. It was something so very few could do in the Cartel. For the most, she's certain he won't hurt her, not after everything he just did... she's just afraid he may decide to continue his mission. And no one is going to die here. Whip's already oathed that.
But even she forgets her own wariness, stolen into silence at his harsh words. She says nothing, does nothing as he moves abruptly past her, the bloodsplattered Ikari making no move to stop him. With his back to her, and his battlesuit offline, Krizalid can't see the way she reaches briefly after him, then lowers her arm back down. Stuck on the spot, she listens as his announces his plans to leave.
He's not interested in her help.
Whip seems to accept that. Without a word more, she quietly gives up, turning shoulder to no doubt disappear--
And then she hears a body hit the pavement.
Startled, Whip looks over her shoulder. Two seconds later, she's at Krizalid's side, a clumsy urgency about the way she tries to shift him over onto his back, hunting through the collar of his wrecked battlesuit to find his pulse.
He's not interested in her help-- "Too bad," Whip replies airily as she pulls out her phone. "You're getting it."
It takes only a couple short calls to Ikari-friendly informants to get a sense of where the Cartel is spot in the city. She promises the pay the last one. And it takes even less time to quickly assess his body for transport, and using the last of her strength that bleeds her stomach wound all the more to pull her old friend into the car she stashed nearby for stakeout. She doesn't have time to do anything more than field aid on his injury. It bleeds through everything she tries to pack down. But Whip isn't the type to give up, even on a dying enemy in the back seat of a darkened car. Even if her hands are shaking.
She drives fast. It's not smart, especially when she hits enemy territory, but she's not really caring. But when her coordinates assure her that she's well within the perimeter, enough that five more minutes is well enough to get her noticed -- even attacked -- she still takes the time to carefully pull him out of the car. And takes the time to just look at his face. And ask it, a little wonderingly, "Does this make us even now?"
Whip's eyes turn aside. "Probably not."
She leaves him there to be found by his people, the only traces of her left in the desperate way she's bandaged him, in the bloodstains on the fabric in the shape of Whip's small hands as they pulled with all her strength to keep him alive.
Log created on 04:01:39 03/08/2009 by Whip, and last modified on 14:01:54 03/28/2009.