Description: Ichiro Oe was just the first. Crimson Viper has other duties as a SIN analyst and intelligencer, as well as freelance battlesuit tester. Hotaru Futaba, another captive, was given the same treatment... but as Viper can see, her symptoms are both similar and different. As a SIN employee, she leaves 'impressed', but with more than a few phone calls to make...
Gedo High. Not exactly the cleanest or most fantastic place in Southtown even before all this started, but surprisingly, the presence of Shadaloo -- or, more specifically, their science research arm S.I.N -- has cleaned it up a bit. You can't put all the expensive equipment outside but the space makes for a good sparring ground. The troops and mercenaries have set up targets for practice; more importantly, it's where the actual fighting members of SIN have their space for sparring and katas.
Crimson Viper -- 'Maya' to her SIN co-workers -- doesn't bother. She keeps herself in good shape; sharp cunning and a cutting-edge battlesuit do the rest. So it's unusual to find the redheaded agent here. She spends most of her time in the field, after all; gathering intelligence is part of her role in the SIN hierarchy, one she's bloody good at. She was engaged in such a practice last night; finding one of Seth's new drug-enhanced toys out and about at Taiyo, Viper put him to the test. Not just to see the results, but in her own little way to figure out what the hell Seth and his goons are even UP to with that stuff.
It was... instructive.
Hotaru Futaba. Viper's boot heels make nice clicking noises as she walks down the hall with one of the SIN researchers, moving toward the courtyard. The discussion is animated and all on the part of the researcher; Maya is silent, doing all the listening. We're not sure about vital signs. They fluctuate. Certainly the responses are different than with Psycho Power variables. Field testing is required.
The words 'field testing' bring a grin to the agent's lips. "Bring her out," is all Viper says before stepping into the courtyard. "After all, I'm supposed to be field testing this thing." A hand comes up, palm inward; the scientist is faced with a close-up view of the silver leads and knuckleguards on her battlesuits' glove.
The labcoat-wearing man hesitates, then runs off to make the arrangements.
Some time passes before the test subject is brought forth. The rattle of chains and a slow, belabored pace are heard well before the double doors leading into the main building swing open. The teenaged girl has been difficult to 'accommodate' during her stay at the facility. Sedative drugs kept her contained while the experimental drug was put to use in trying to manipulate her body's ability to channel chi but once the experiment was underway, there was little to be gained by keeping her in a barely conscious state. She was meant for so much more than uncomfortable naps after all.
The teenage fighter's arms and legs are chained to metal braces that keep her from being able to move her limbs much more beyond a certain constrained ranged of motion - a setup that was devised after she so calmly dislocated the shoulder and snapped the forearm of one attendee who she declared to have been touching her a bit too much as she was cleaned up from her ordeal and confinement.
A uniform deemed appropriate for Shadaloo projects was provided as her own attire was damaged beyond being presentable in her capture. A black unitard and matching black tights and boots has her looking very much like one of the infamous Shadaloo Dolls. But for the blue tie instead of yellow, a black skirt worn at her waist, and lack of their signiture hat, she would easily fit right into Vega's collective, including the distant, near lifeless stare of her azure eyes as she glances around the courtyard. Her first taste of open air in some while now. But if she appreciates the opportunity, it would be hard to find in the way she simply frowns, cold eyes coming to rest on Crimson Viper herself.
She's quiet as the chains are loosed and undone, the braces unstrapped by a man plainly nervous at being that close to the girl. But for all the hostility she might bear him, she says and does nothing, simply remaining put as she's released from the constraints, one at a time. Once freed, she lifts her arms and rubs at her wrists, still staring wordlessly at Crimson Viper. "Is this some kind of game to you?" the girl asks as her two escorts back away. "They say you want to test what I can do." Her expression darkens slightly as her right hand lifts to brush her shoulder length, unrestrained hair back over her shoulder. "Chose carefully your next action if that is to be the case. I won't be holding back." A twitch at the corner of her mouth hints at almost a smirk that bleeds into her words, "And I might not be ready to stop when you are."
That gets a grin from Viper. The entrance, the bravado, the smirk. Memories flash a fin in her eyes; Hotaru's dossier. Shadaloo's intelligence network is damned good. They don't know exactly what it is that made Hotaru Futaba do a sudden and striking personality 180 on public television a year ago or so, but it interests Maya that the few videos she saw in the files... it's not *exactly* the same. This girl's responses are a little more studied, a little less raw. But there is a similarity.
There is something bestial about it, too... the unchaining of the gladiator, perhaps. Already, she can tell that Hotaru has more of her faculties than Ichiro did. The Taiyo lacrosse player was on something approaching auto-pilot; fueled only by the need to destroy. His words weren't exactly a Yagami-style 'GUOH!' but that doesn't mean they made any sense. The blue-eyed girl in front of her, however, presents the potential for something much nastier, something Viper respects: cunning. Cunning and the power to back it up.
This could be fun.
"Confident... I like it," Viper says in a voice smooth as silk. You couldn't crack her glacial sangfroid with a nuclear weapon; the benefit of being a deep cover agent, and Maya is one of the best. A hand comes up and the silver-plated gloves held up with it; the redhead's other hand snaps the wrist cuff tight before the SIN superstar gets into her loose, CQC-style stance. "Let's call this your employment interview. If you really impress me, there might be a bonus in it for you. If you don't, well..."
Here, the grin widens. "Well, let's not dwell on the failure potential, shall we?"
Her body language says she's ready anytime.
COMBATSYS: C.Viper has started a fight here.
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C.Viper 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Hotaru has joined the fight here.
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Hotaru 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 C.Viper
The struggle within looks nothing like the demeanor without. With each breath she fights. She tells herself that she's putting on a persona - making them see what they want. But she knows it's deeper than that. It's too easy. She shouldn't find it so /natural/ to act this way. When she twisted that man's arm to the snapping point and beyond she felt nothing. No apology, no regret. It might have even felt good. Which is why there's nothing to be seen in her eyes even now but ruthless intent. It just feels like the right thing even now.
She finishes rubbing her wrists. Sore, but it will pass. This opportunity to 'stretch' at last is more welcomed than she lets on. She needs to know what she can do if she is to see this through. She needs to know if she has what it takes to destroy them for what they have done. She can't have any hesitation, no regrets if she is to be an angel of retribution. She extends her arms, hands raised, palms facing in, maintaining her light and easy Kenpo stance. "Then let us see," she replies, taking a step forward, and then another. She gains speed, leaning into a sprint.
Her dead sprint shifts from about three yards out as the girl extends her arms to the side and leans forward further as if readying for takeoff. She can feel it coursing through her. Strength that isn't hers. Or, rather... /wasn't/. It's hers now. If their drug fed her more power or merely tapped into potential she's always had she doesn't know. But she has it now and she'll use it to make this woman hurt. "I don't know you." she declares as she kicks off with her rear foot into a forward flip.
Her arc is low but enough to possibly carry her over the woman. Both hands seek a grip on Crimson's neck as she aims to use her own momentum to carry her the rest of the way over then land, yanking the agent by her neck over the smaller statured fighter and slamming her upper back into the ground. "HAA!"
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits C.Viper with Hantentou.
Glancing Blow
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 C.Viper
One red eyebrow goes up. Fast... well, she already knew Hotaru Futaba was fast, but this is something else entirely. With the Oe boy, the drug drew out reserves of visible chi, made him crazy, made it spill out like nuts. But this girl is different. It's controlled, compacted... and Viper notes, remembering basic physics, that when you compress something into a small space, it rather urgently wants to get OUT again. With a vengeance.
This thought is still running through her head as Hotaru's hands hit her shoulders.
However, Maya's not going to let her experimental subject have it quite that easy. She's lifted and headed for the ground, but greater height and weight gives her the vague advantage of leverage. Kicking backwards, Viper's heels point toward the ground and, in twin bursts of white steam, her suit's jet boots engage. The result is effectively Hotaru trying to shove her opponent onto compressed air rather than actual ground, and rather than on her back, Viper lands in an awkward and painful position on one knee. That still stung, but perhaps not quite so nastily as it could have.
When she gets up, the agent continues her cold smile. "About what I expected," Maya says, with a touch of dry sarcasm to her tone. "Nothing exactly *spectacular*, but not a bad offering. Just remember: if you REALLY want to get ahead in this business, you've got to distinguish yourself from the pack."
A hand comes up, and blue electricity crackles along the glove. She can already tell: no need to hold back on this one, not like the lacrosse player.
When she moves, it's almost as if she's gliding across the ground, barely touching it. The jet boots propel her, just enough to turn a single lunge into something that can cover the entire field in one go. The attack is simple enough: one fist, extended Terry Bogard-style, looking to bury itself in Hotaru's stomach, combining impact with a nice tasering effect that's sure to please. "Shoot!"
COMBATSYS: Hotaru blocks C.Viper's Thunder Knuckle.
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Hotaru 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 C.Viper
She's got her right where she wants her. The attack carries enough forward momentum to make correcting for it after the fact a challenge made even worse by the angles in play. What she didn't anticipate - what no one would have seen coming without proper forenknowledge - were the tools the red-head had at her disposal. The sound of steam is only explained when the girl feels the jets of pressure disturbing the air nearby. The intended slam is cushioned and Hotaru releases hold, starting to tense up and re-evaluate her tactics in light of this unexpected discovery.
A tenseness that's only aggrivated by the verbal evaluation. Nothing spectacular? What kind of people is she being compared to? Teeth grit, the girl starting to step forward into a follow up attack without further word. But she discovers quickly that's to be a bad idea as the woman explodes back toward her at a speed far greater than she had anticipated. She doesn't move any further as the girl holds her ground, turning left shoulder into the attack and bracing with her right hand.
The stunning blow hammers into her guard and try as she might, she can't help but be driven back by the force, arms dislodged and flailing as she stumbles back to a stop a yard away. Electricy crackles along her left arm before fading, leaving a numbing sensation in the limb that she'll have to be wary of. "Get ahead?" she asks, the tone at her lips that was foreign to her mind at first begins to feel even more natural. "I'm already worlds ahead of anyone here."
Blue courses down the fighter's right arm as she stands back, letting it build. So little effort, she muses. So easy. It's never been like this before. She just wants to smash something with it - to see that power put to use for what it was made. Takes in her breath then exhales, the azure chi rippling over her arm; blue flames coursing over the surface of the limb. "You don't understand yet..." She twists her right shoulder forward, stepping into the attack that ultimately sends the sapphire blue projectile exploding across the distance toward the woman proper. "...the price you will all pay!"
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits C.Viper with Hakki Shou.
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Hotaru 0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0 C.Viper
She's already cursing herself for overcomitting, even as she sees Hotaru push back from their brief moment of contact. Something about the blue-haired girl's tone, and Viper's own experience with Ichiro... really made her want to go all out, for a moment there. The blue chi sphere comes her way and while her outward face is as disdainfully amused as ever, she's already bracing herself for the hit. There's no point in wasting the suit on this one; if she can evade it on her own merits, fantastic. If not, this is not the end of the world by a long shot. Sadly, she cannot; kicking off the ground, Maya is nevertheless clipped by the Hakki Shou, the burst smacking into her shoulder blade rather than her stomach cleanly. The effect, sadly, is the same; her backward trajectory turns into a fall, which the redhead stops at the last second by snapping a hand onto the ground, landing in a defensive crouch.
Damn! A tyro's error, that much is clear. But the banter is giving her some insight into the drug's effects. She's confident... excessively so. Oe had something to prove, alright, but that was through sheer destruction. This young woman is more about... skill. Retribution. Very interesting indeed.
"Oh? I'm sure the Director will be amused to hear that," the agent says with a smile as she stands, all haughty sangfroid. "I'll make a note in your personnel file." Stepping gingerly to the left, Viper circles Hotaru, not taking her eyes off her, making crosswise steps as her legs move past each other. "But just as a matter of curiosity, what price will we be paying, exactly?"
She lunges. This apparently is Viper's modus operandi: bursts of movement, controlled and tight, no excess, no flashiness. "I'm interested in economic issues, you see," she adds, crossing the distance. It's a quick strike, but particularly nasty-feeling if it lands; her hand is straight, palm-up, as she swings it around at throat height, looking to chop her gloved fist right into the side of Hotaru's neck.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru fails to interrupt Medium Punch from C.Viper with Tanshou Shin.
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Hotaru 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 C.Viper
Drawing her hand back, Hotaru clenches her fingers, snuffing out the risidual energy still flickering there. She stays put as the agent circles, turning in place, hands raised, keeping her perfectly in focus, her mouth shut. Her breaths are controlled but it seems to be a battle, as if she's frustrated but holding her temper back through sheer force of will. The question is asked and Hotaru's expression darkens, "If you had anything to do," she draws back, tightening up her stance, arms drawn in, forward leg bent at the knee, the other leg bent less so as if bracing to push off. "You'll come to understand soon enough!"
Viper moves in fast, swinging her hand into a vicious chop when Hotaru springs back at her with intent to cause her a furious amount of pain. The incoming chop is caught at her neck, however, delivering crushing force made only worse by the girl's forward momentum. It isn't enough to stop her out right even as it crushes her ability to take breath for a fleeting moment. But it's enough to send her forward at the wrong angle to connect with her shoulder as she had intended and she ultimately ends up slipping past her target all together.
The force of impact might best be reflected in the way she coughs as she comes to a stop, choking for breath for seconds before being able to take in air again. Face pale, a bead of perspiration forms at her temple. Her back is to the woman for a fleeting moment before she whirls back around to face her, mouth drawn tight, eyes saying everything she could hope to convey with words. Seething hatred for the agent in front of her, as if she were a personification of the entire home wrecking invasion taking place around her. Her miss bought the woman a brief reprieve - one she doesn't intend to repeat.
The potential ferocity of Hotaru's impending counterstrike is not lost on Viper, as she recoils from the blow. The momentum alone of the abortive strike would have been quite fierce, and the redheaded agent steps back with a new appreciation for what Seth's experiment is doing to the young woman's body.
A hand comes to her hip as she regards Hotaru coolly, letting the young woman get her breath back. "Anything to do with what, young lady?" she asks, sounding a combination of annoyingly sarcastic and genuinely curious. A hand sweeps out and encompasses the Gedo courtyard. "Are you angry about all this? Oh, that's adorable. This is business, sweetness," Viper says with a bemused smirk, tossing her braid behind her a bit. Time to see just how far Miss Futaba can be pushed. "I mean, it's one thing to say you're going to make us pay dearly, but really, wouldn't it have been easier to just be strong enough to stop it from the start?"
She doesn't attack, not just yet. She still wants to see what Hotaru can do, and the goading is just part of it. It's clear that this drug has some sort of emotional as well as physical effect, but Hotaru's is so subtly distinct from Ichiro's... she's not quite sure WHAT is going on yet. So for now, the SIN agent watches carefully.
This is information she's going to... need someday, after all.
COMBATSYS: C.Viper focuses on her next action.
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Hotaru 1/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 C.Viper
She blinks at the first question - it's a slow, mechanical thing, as if deliberately mimicking an old habit rather than unintentional. It takes moments for her to realize she hadn't managed to utter a complete thought before springing her counter attack. The hurt in her throat continues unabated to the point that she brings her left hand up to rest at it briefly. "This?" she asks back, the words almost spat in derision. "This is only the start of it. I speak of my friends and what happened."
Her right hand tightens, the sound of knuckles straining against the pressure visible, perhaps, by the trembling in the muscles of her forearm. "If you were a part of that, then..." Her tone is lost, disappearing into a low, undecipherable growl. "Power doesn't decide what's right!" she exclaims after seconds pass, suddenly bolting forward again, on collision course for the red-head. Her joints ache, she muses mid-step. A side effect of the earlier tasering? A pressure point struck she hadn't caught notice of during the fight? She can't worry about it for now.
When she attacks it is while spinning into a whirlwind kick, aiming to jam the heel of her right foot against the forehead of Viper and use that point as a means to deliver a follow up, vicious attack with her left foot. No plans seem to have been made for flipping away, as if content to simply try and bowl her over in the process. Risky and aggressive, but painful if successful!
COMBATSYS: C.Viper fails to interrupt Medium Kick from Hotaru with Spinning Elbow.
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Hotaru 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\1 C.Viper
Well, the first rule of business is that sometimes risks pay off. In this case both Viper and Hotaru ante up chips, but it's the younger fighter who walks away with the pot, it would seem. The high kick seems primed for a countering strike, an elbow with a spinning leadup that should really drive the point home, as it were. Sadly, it's that second kick that Viper SHOULD have been worrying about, and it's what tags her; with a shout of pain, Hotaru's risky gamble sends her opponent to the ground of the courtyard, getting dirt all over her nice black suit.
It's a moment before the agent stands back up, dusting herself off, not seeming too concerned. That, of course, is a front; that stung considerably, all things considered, but this is an evaluation, not a deathmatch; even if she loses, she wins. It's all about gathering the right data, and incensing her had been the right choice mentally, even if Viper's bruised backside is going to regret it in the morning. She makes a note to check in about Ichiro Oe's personality eval before the drug. There's a theory she's got here, cooking on the burner.
Best to keep the kid talking.
"I see. Yet you're going to dish up some whupass and make it all better, however?" Viper asks, bringing her hand up and putting it under her chin in a slightly mocking gesture of contemplation, as if that were a doctrine worth considering rather than an object of derision. "Let's say you really make me pay, right here and now. You get clapped back in irons and taken off to the tank to sleep it off. I go home, have a nice bath, and something good for dinner. Do you know *why*? Because I'm on the winning side, kid. That's how this functions. But hey, if you want to go on thinking individual strength is the big thing," she says with a shrug, "Be my guest. I enjoy a laugh."
She lands out of the aggressive kick in something that's far from the acrobatic, graceful way she fights typically. Coming down hard, she's forced into a forward tumble, coming to rest in a low crouch a little worse for wear a few yards later. She glances over her shoulder, the incensed edge to her expression having faded none at all. "Not make it better," she replies, her voice calm, almost a poor reflection of the reckless way she's fighting. "Just make it more right. Can't undo the atrocities... can only change the future."
She pushes up to standing, whirling around to face the woman again, hands clenched. She feels her body pulsing with the strength to fight. Speed, striking force, even the ability to draw chi far better than normal. It's enough to make her wonder if it's an illusion. On some level she suspects it might be. Maybe she's just as exhausted and worn down as she should be. Maybe she just can't tell. In the end, though... isn't that the same thing? If she can do more right now than normally possible, then does it matter if she's burning herself out in the process?
"This?" she shakes her head, waving her right hand dismissively to the side. "This is irrelevant. It's just letting me see what I can do." She's confident still. "Useful to you, perhaps... important to me." Her right hand clenches closed as she brings it back in, azure fire coursing over her fists at her sides. "So no. This doesn't matter. Your victories, however..." She draws in her breath.
And then she charges. Twin trails of blue linger in the path her arms trace as she bolts toward Crimson. "Will mean nothing...!" She springs into the air, a spinning whirlwind of physical strikes - each one laced with a furious amount of that azure energy. "...when the people rise against you!" She lands, spinning into a second volley of chi empowered palm and fist strikes, aiming for ribs, arms, the throat, and stomach in a bid to crush the woman to the ground with each hit. Her body is on fire - blue chi coursing over her lithe form as she takes to the air in a forward flip and attempts to bodily crash into the woman to bowl her to the ground once again.
And should she manage, Viper will need to be quick, because she'll give no quarter in her attempt to leap onto her and continue to beat her physically even after her surge of chi has exhausted itself!
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits C.Viper with Sou-shou Tenrenge.
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|=======\====---\1 C.Viper
Oh, dear. She REALLY set the girl off.
Heh heh heh.
She has to make it look good, Viper does, and partly this is easy because Hotaru does tag her with a clean hit. The chi catches her eye, distracts her, but Viper's not going to be taken down quite so easily, in the end. Crackling blue electricity flickers across her hands as the battlesuit's gloves come to life. The initial downward strike is a clean hit, but a sudden burst of counteracceleration keeps Viper from being bowled over. Instead, she remains standing... hurt, and open to Hotaru's followups regardless, but not 100% as defenseless as she would have been had she been knocked down. The follow up strikes send her back step after step; the hits are clean, and end up causing her to give considerable ground... but in the end, the entire affair is a little... blunted.
After a second, the woman's arm comes up, and she shakes out her arm, blue light flickering briefly into space. Certainly, nothing so fancy as the completely over-the-top expression of chi energy Hotaru just displayed. But now Viper's got everything she came for. Whatever that drug is, it takes something in the person and just... amplifies it to the nth degree. Hotaru HATES this woman she sees as a symbol of everything wrong with the world, and everything bad that's been done to her. The evil, terrible minion of S.I.N.
Despite herself, Viper chuckles.
"You talk about 'people' like the public isn't, by and large, mindless mouthbreathers. Oh, big things make them sit up and take notice, but on the average... well. I don't want to bore an idealist with something so silly as 'reality', so let's wrap this up, shall we?"
And then she's diving across the distance, looking to slam her electrically-charged and kinetically-charged battlesuit glove into the ground at Hotaru's feet. If it hits, the young woman is going to find herself in for a world of follow-up hurt, but Hotaru is known to be wily and quick... and the drug is amping her already impressive abilities...
COMBATSYS: C.Viper successfully hits Hotaru with Burst Time.
-+- CALCULATED HIT -+-
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Hotaru 1/-----==/=======|-------\-------\0 C.Viper
The explosion is a combination of electrostatic charge and sheer kinetic force; the blow takes Hotaru skyward, but Viper's not done. Kicking off the ground, she leaps upward in a circular kick, knees bent. A hand touches her heel just before she leaves the ground, and the jets in her boots suddenly change from generating thrust to generating sheer burning flame. The SIN agent's body makes four successive, fiery wheel kicks in a row, each higher than the last, before landing in a crouch.
By the time she finds herself seperated from her prey, Hotaru is gasping for breath. Sweat rolls down from her hairline along her cheeks, eyes wide and unfocused, the girl's expenditures of reckless efforts starting to catch up with her all at once. The curtain drawn back, the illusion, perhaps, lifted. She might not be gifted with unrelenting energy after all but rather the power to fight at full capacity before the real impact kicks in. The black-clad girl pushes back to standing, whirling around to face the crimson haired operative. "They will fight back..." she glowers, managing the words between pained gasps.
And with that, the woman is upon her, her forward momentum bringing horrific force coupled with jarring electrical discharges. The impact, for once, isn't into her body directly but the concrete beneath her feet. Powderzied in an instant, grey, deadened dust goes flying as readily as the featherweight knocked skyward in the midst of it. She falls back down in an uncontrolled plummet, seemingly at a loss to control her descent, as if keeping track of her whereabouts was too low a priority next to struggling to keep herself in check and failing horribly.
The inferno obscurs the girl for several seconds before she finally lands yards away, face down, surrounded by the flickering embers of the lingering flame. She wants to curl up and lie still. She wants to give up. Her body feels on fire and it isn't just from the scorches and burns just inflicted. It runs deeper than that. The teen fighter rolls onto her side, pushing her hands against the concrete. Her uniform is torn and seared, and black scorch marks match all too well with the bruises she's got.
But that look she gives Viper suggests she isn't through with her. That she still has a point to prove; a limit to discover. And maybe a bone or two to break. Thinking clearly she would have tried to decipher the woman's style better and make sense of her techniques. But the weapons, the tricks, the augmented defenses are all lost on her. She barely sees any of it at all, running as she is on pure adrenaline.
"Idealist?" The girl's mouth curls into an expression that does nothing to hide her malevolent intent for the woman. "Oh no..." She tenses, she's building energy again. She's at her limits and her body is collapsing, but she doesn't care. She'll go further even still. "No, no, no..." Her hands clench as she remains crouching against the ground. "That person died a long... long time ago." Her eyes are staring, it's hard to tell if they're even focused. Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth.
"An idealist... wouldn't be interested..." she bolts forward, a literal blur of black, reaching speeds that exceed what she had done even until now. "In turning you to paste!" From that blur erupts another combination of blows much like the sequence before, lacking the chi that augmented her force yet bearing a certain piston-like strength to them beyond the scope of her normal ability. She'll strike quick and repeatedly, swinging wildly but with a touch of skill deeply hidden talent in spite her rapidly deteriorating condition.
And when all is said and done...
COMBATSYS: Hotaru keeps on fighting!
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 C.Viper
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits C.Viper with Ten-ren-ge.
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|=====--\-------\0 C.Viper
Paste, huh. Well that ain't good.
For the second time, Viper wonders if she did in fact push this kid a LITTLE too far, and once the curiously windmilling lead-in of this attack blows past her guard, she KNOWS it was a bad idea. Whatever the hell Seth put in that drug, it's a lot more dangerous than Viper first expected... it's almost as if, sensing the wick burning down, the flame shines all the brighter for it. A disconcerting sort of thing. She's noting Hotaru's vigor despite being hit... well, really freaking hard. But of course, Miss Futaba has her own punishment to dish out in return, too... punishment that Viper's going to be regretting later, oh yes.
But she sees that blood trickle at close range, right before Hotaru's final strike hits.
Battlesuit or no, Maya is actually reasonably light despite her somewhat Amazonian frame; the final blow sends her skidding across the ground, where she rolls and then slides into a crouch, kicking up dust. If she was really determined, she could make this go another round or two, perhaps... but she's seen enough. And, truth be told, she doesn't want to hurt the kid. Or -- her bruises argue convincingly -- take any more hits like that, either.
She has enough strength in her to stand up and look convincingly undefeated. It's an act, but it's a *good* act. If nothing else, Crimson Viper knows how to play even the trained eye like a fiddle. She makes a great show of looking unconcerned, brushing dirt from her black slacks, and waves a hand over in the corner. The people who brought Hotaru in make an appearance, ready to take her back... and armed with enough SIN technology to make it possible, too.
"You're hired," Viper says languidly, as the techs make to put the cuffs back on. "Do me a favor, would you? We've invested a lot of kibble in you, as far as attack dogs go. Try not to muck up the budgets by doing something stupid like getting killed." An inclination of the head is all the 'get her out of here' those techs are going to need, too.
COMBATSYS: C.Viper takes no action.
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|
COMBATSYS: C.Viper can no longer fight.
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|
She slides to a stop having attacked fiercely and without remorse or holding back in the slightest. Were her opponent made of less stern stuff, she might have done her a real injury in the process as well. But as she comes to a stop, she glares over her shoulder, strength waning. Punishment from prior blows starts to catch up but it's more than that. The debt incurred by forcing herself harder than physically possible demands to be paid up in full with interest to boot and right now her accounts have run dry.
She turns. Ragged, gasping for breath, and still seething with enough hatred in her eyes that suggests she might very well try to kill the woman if she got close enough. It would be fair, she tells herself. The first of many to come for what happened. The loss of her friends... their deaths won't be for nothing. The techs start to draw near but Hotaru turns on them next, teeth gritted and bared, like a feral animal cornered. She isn't finished yet. She can still go. She has enough strength in her to break several of their necks even in this condition before she would slow down.
But she's having a harder time seeing. So hard, in fact, that when the small gas-powered hiss of a dart being unleashed reaches her ears she can't even tell who it came from or from what angle. The tranquilizer dart lands in her shoulder but she doesn't seem to notice as she turns toward the assistants and begins to take steps toward them... and summarily falls forward to the ground, unconcious as she lands.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru takes no action.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru can no longer fight.
Aaaaaaaaand Viper'll stay standing right to the point when the team and Hotaru are out of sight; that's when she finally gives in and sinks to the ground, exhausted and far, far too injured to fight further.
That one... she can't let Seth keep her. Oh no... that would be bad. Something's going to have to be done about that.
A slim, grey cell phone is taken from her pocket. Crimson Viper... has some calls to make.
Log created on 22:20:48 04/08/2009 by C.Viper, and last modified on 13:05:20 04/09/2009.