Description: There are many creative ways to get into Taizhou. By land, by sea, by air they come. They sneak, they hike. And then there are two people who, either through bravery or foolishness, try the front door. Guess what? The front door is locked tight and booby-trapped with knives. Lots of knives. A lot of knives. Seriously: KNIVES.
It is said by historians that bread and beer are the first signs of agriculture. Roads, the first sign of civilization. If this is true, then seeing the Yongtaiwen Expressway now would evoke images of all civilization going to hell.
At one time, this expressway was a varitable spaghetti bowl of criss-crossing roads that made Taizhou a heart of traffic, the roads the veins, the cars the bloodcells. Now, however, in an effort to destroy entry and egress to and from the city, the roads have all been destroyed, a massive explosion rendering most of them unusable with huge holes gaping from one side to the other. Jumps that not even a Hollywood director would dare place into his movies, for fear of unbelievability. And if this were not enough, wreckage upon the roads makes them all but impossible to traverse. Cars, or what were once cars and now were slags of burning metal. Tanks from the Chinese military block large portions of the road, some destroyed and some simply abandoned. Here and there, cars and tanks seem to have driven off the roads in an attempt to escape, only to misjudge just how far down it was from their position. And worst of all, the puddles that accumulate under some destroyed vehicles. It's only a hope that all of it is simply leaked gasoline and oil.
The sky is red with the flames that burn in Taizhou. All seems lost.
And yet, there is one road that reaches through. Only one. Route 104, the national highway, leading directly into Taizhou. While cars and chunks of metal still liter this road, the six-lane road has more than enough space for even a large SUV to maneuver, if they're careful. It's slow going, but better than none.
In Shanghai it had been a tourist bus. Easy to get on, and the Huhang Expressway went directly from China's bustling port metropolis right into Hangzhou. From there, another bus to Shaoxing. Easy routes, and the young sage spent most of his time either reading or meditating. Thankfully money still buys a little bit of privilege in cases like this; the trip is a little long, but it's comfortable... and after his run in with Ayame at Longhua Temple, Frei has much to think about.
Then there's the matter of the route south. Heading toward Jiangdong would be bad... the port is certain to be a good jumping-off point for any military who decide they want to get in on the action, and Frei is relying on his former Chinese residency and ability to move through the rural lowlands to stay one step ahead of such things for the time being. Obviously, however, no tourist buses are headed down the Shangsan Expressway at the moment, and a rental car... when the hell would he ever return it? So, he did the only thing he could think of: he hitchhiked. The result was at least a day of riding with college students, thrillseekers, and local farmers. Riding down a Chinese major arterial highway in the back of an aging pickup truck next to a coop full of chickens is an experience that will really test one's ability to maintain your sanity.
Once he got to Gaojian Township, he had to walk.
Twenty miles down the Yongtaiwen Expressway, and it was a bit like walking through Dante's Inferno in one of the upper circles of hell. Some sneaking around police and national military authorities was required up front, but after a while even they didn't dare to go any closer. For miles, and miles, and miles, Frei walked alone with his backpack, stepping around potholes, craters, cars, and the other detritus of a seeming mini-apocalypse. It is -- and was -- enough to turn his stomach at first, but eventually he fell into a rhythm of keeping himself mentally distracted and breathing through his mouth. The entire experience was rather too much like a postapocalyptic only-10-survivors-on-Earth experience. And now?
Now he continues his walk, hopefully drawing close enough.
It was hard getting arrangements made. Call the Ikaris, but sometimes they forget she works for them. Call the other groups - her shadowy bosses in various places. Alma had died, or...something; Vanessa didn't know. It was a troubling thought, worrying. He was a good kid with a good heart. And now this Jinchuu business was starting up again...
Better than sitting out, anyway. Better than wallowing in a bar somewhere. She'd done too much of that; time to get back in the saddle, old girl.
Take the low-visibility routes. Trains. Buses. Once she paid for one of those man-carried carts to carry her through.
Then she rented a car, because Vanessa is a big girl with a big bank account, which doesn't even belong to her. Sometimes having an operational budget is a beautiful thing.
The Yongtaiwen is blocked - blockaded, more like. She'd heard that through an informant in Shanghai. But one road stays open - a path through, littered but still usable. A trap, she thinks - or a challenge. Only one entrance means a chokepoint, even on a six-lane highway.
That doesn't stop her from making her way up the 104 right now, one hand on the door of her rented convertible (BIG bank account), the other guiding the wheel with a steady hand. Her eyes are sharp, looking around over a pair of sunglasses - pretty much waiting to get attacked by RPGs, or mortars, or perhaps some kind of trained karate panda launched by catapult.
Route 104 is no different from the rest of the spaghetti bowl. Arcing above other roads, it's actually nearly a quarter mile off the ground, held up by strong support pillars. Given that it likely sees the most use of all these roads, it's not truly a surprise that it's the only one left standing intact, more or less. Though there are large chunks of the road missing, the road itself is passable, if only just.
Frei moves along the road, heading towards the city. This is something different, as everyone seen on this road within the past few days has been heading /away/ from the city. Somewhere within one of the cars, an electronic eye glitters, tracking the motion from the darkness of the hollowed out metal shell. But nothing else happens.
Vanessa drives along, some small distance back from Frei, the sage able to make marginally better progress despite being on foot due to his increased ability to navigate hazards on the road. But soon enough Vanessa's rented convertible catches the attention of that eye, as well. And that's when things happen, registering the activity on a high enough scale to trigger the ninkous tied to it.
There's a change in the air. It's easy to feel. Chi suddenly /thrums/ in the air, hidden and invisible and yet so clearly felt. Ahead, about a quarter mile ahead, just under the sign above the Taizhou exit (which reads WELCOME TO TAIZHOU in, perhaps alarmingly, Chinese, Japanese and English, though the latter two are spray painted on), a blue wall shimmers into being, flooding the area directly beneath the sign. If the wall proves to be solid, it would mean no means of travel could get past it.
But more happens. Blue lines of energy flow out from that wall, coating the high sound barrier walls on either side of the six-lane road, stretching back the wall Frei and Vanessa came. Until, about half a mile or more back... another wall forms. Briefly.
Then the wall seems to 'split' as though glass breaking. And then those shards of glass begin to churn, turn and tear. Even as Frei and Vanessa watch, the 'wall' of ripping chi glass shards descends upon a ZTZ99 MBT - the main battle tank of the Chinese military. And completely rips it apart as if it were little more than a wet tissue.
Kimon and Ikizukuri-kai have awoken, and trapped all within. A rock, and a sharp place.
COMBATSYS: Kimon has joined the fight here on the left meter side.
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Ikizukuri-kai
COMBATSYS: Ikizukuri-kai has joined the fight here on the left meter side.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/-------|
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|
Whatever went down during the siege of Southtown, it inevitably toughened Frei up some, at least emotionally. He's not so devastated by the destruction around him he can't function, which is about the most that can be said... but that means that the sound of Vanessa's approaching convertible is the perfect sound to pierce through his Zen no-mind style attempt at blocking it all out enough to reach his destination. Squinting in surprise, Frei stops walking and half-turns, cocking an ear. Yep... moving toward, not away. And it's not a tank... those suckers are noisy. Just a car. But whose, and why?
It could be bad news, it could be good; either way, Frei has little choice but to stop and wait for whoever is behind him to catch up. There are sure to be plenty of barriers to entering Taizhou; the idea that some of those responsible for what happened in the city are following him in a car to 'test' him isn't so insane. But as it slowly comes into view, it's pretty clear that a MILF in shades driving a middle age crisis car down a blockaded Chinese highway is not, say, a ninja robot here to test him. Thus, the redhead turns toward the convertible and waves...
...then staggers forward, dropping to one knee and pressing his hand to the ground.
Even someone without a fighter's special senses could have sensed the sudden shift in energy in the area. For someone like Frei, who is particularly attuned, it's a bit like being in a room that's suddenly vacuum-sealed; the force of it hits him in the stomach like a physical blow, dazing him but good. "What the hell...!?" The convertible is forgotten; instead he forces himself back standing to observe what goes on.
The Ikizukuri proceeds to slice a tank like a ginzu infomercial, and Frei pales. He wasn't around for the first Jinchuu; the chi-powered technology of the Suiryuu isn't really in his memory. In a sense, he's both awed and impressed. Whoever did this has a really impressive skill at directing chi energy.
He turns to spy the bright blue field separating him from Taizhou, with one last sidelong glance at the other energy barrier that could quite literally kill him in the blink of an eye. But he's made his choice. His feet shift, and his hand goes to the 'hilt' of the bokken he slips into his back belt loops, backpack shrugged off his shoulders. "Alright..." he murmurs, giving one last look back for the convertible and driver, before turning back to the barrier. "Destroyer it is."
COMBATSYS: Frei has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Frei
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Frei gathers his will.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/-------|====---\-------\0 Frei
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|
Vanessa likes convertibles, they go fast and are red; these are a few of her favorite things. She sees another figure moving a ways ahead - on the high-flying Route 104, there's so little else to see. Frei's outfit may not be especially eye-catching, but it stands out amid a blasted hellscape of gutted cars and open air. And high walls, of course.
Vanessa is not in the high rankers as far as chi sensitivity goes. She's used it, feels it in the air, but it doesn't crush her under waves of spiritual pressure like Frei - she sees him collapse as she covers the last few hundred meters between them. Senses that change, senses a big force gathering. "Found me," she mutters, swinging her hands to action - one hand finds the gear shift, the other swaps to the steering wheel. She swings it around - coming to a shrieking halt near Frei. Get a feeling for the situation, she thinks. One end - barrier field between them and the destination. Chi-based, she assumes, though doesn't Ryouhara do a bunch with weird techno-mysticism? She dimly remembers that from her intel. She tries to remember some of the details, but she can't call it to mind off-hand. Head swings back as she senses more than sees or hears the other wall forming - and even from here she can watch it shred a tank.
"Friendly," she murmurs. A glance over her shades at Frei. "Welp," she murmurs, and leaving the engine on, grabs the edge of the door and vaults out of the car, "no point sitting around!"
She charges in at full speed. The blade fiesta has some time until it gets here, she thinks. And she's not punching something that shredded a tank, /no thank you/. So she does what she does best:
She skates across the distance suddenly, blurring forward, and shouting loudly as she slams her fist forward with all power - try to test how solid that wall actually is.
COMBATSYS: Vanessa has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|====---\-------\0 Frei
COMBATSYS: Kimon blocks Vanessa's Dash Puncher.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|====---\-------\0 Frei
The answers given to Vanessa's test would likely read as: A) Solid B) Very Solid C) Tonka Tuff D) All of the above. The answer Vanessa is given by Kimon?
D) All of the above.
The fist impacts but doesn't seem to do anything to it, it doesn't so much as shimmer. Punching Kimon is akin to a normal human punching a solid concrete wall, at this level. It doesn't seem to do anything in retaliation, though. So there's that.
Meanwhile, however, Ikizukuri is all manner of hungry. Done devouring the Type 99 Chinese tank, it suddenly surges forward, a lot faster than it had been moving previously. Not quite as fast as a car, but more at the pace of a normal human running. It surges towards Frei, and though it doesn't really get quite near him, glass shard chi suddenly lances out, seeking to lacerate Frei like he were a fish in a sushi shop, waiting to be fileted.
COMBATSYS: Frei blocks Ikizukuri-kai's Savage Filet.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|====---\-------\0 Frei
Well. She didn't tell him to get to the chopper, nor that he needed to go with her if he wanted to live. Already, Frei likes this Vanessa person. And of course, he's a professional fighter, so something about the Furious MILFists strikes him as vaguely familiar, but it's not a face he can place. Instead, he just gives her a sort of sheepish look as she evaluates the Ikizukuri's capabilities with calm efficiency and then goes to punch the Kimon right in the proverbial face without hesitation. It's a bit much to take in all at once, leaving poor Frei a little bit... uh, dumbstruck, for the moment.
It doesn't last long. The thing has decided it's going to cut him down, so while Vanessa busies herself testing the defenses, it falls to Frei to find a chink in the *offenses*... but really, the division of labor is already settling to be accidentally well suited to those engaged in it. Frei's sheer offensive power isn't particularly high -- certainly not close to a powerhouse like Vanessa -- but conversely, his *defensive* abilities are top notch. Standing briefly with his back to the boxer, he smiles a little. "Well... allow me to entertain it, then, I suppose."
But it's the Ikizukuri that makes the first move, surging forward, trying to shred Frei with chi shrapnel. Flexing his fingers, the redhead stares down the wall's attempt to cut him, and... reaches out to grab it. Quite literally. His hand flickers with a hazy gold-green glow: dense, concussive earth chi, the perfect thing for this. The shard slams into his grip, and the two forces contest for a moment before finally they ALMOST disspiate; Frei's hand closes, and then he hisses sharply, a trickle of blood oozing out of his closed fist. Looks like it wasn't enough to shut it down entirely after all.
Frowning, he doesn't wait around; kicking off the ground, he dives right AT the shining wall, before suddenly twisting and snapping up the 'hilt' of his wooden sword, drawing it from his belt loops in an upwards-arc'ed drawing slash, the blade coated with an aura of searing flame. "See how you like it!"
Vanessa strikes the wall with GREAT POWER, and then triumphantly declares, "SON OF A BITCH THAT HURT HOLY SHIT" as she bounces back, shaking out her hand, which pretty much lost that little competition. Shaking it vigorously, she mutters, "Right, so that's not gonna be fun," and looks over-shoulder to where Frei is managing to not get shredded like a grape, or perhaps more aptly, a tank.
Knowing intellectually that you can be tougher than a tank is a little different from seeing it; she blinks a little. "Well," she decides, "I'm not messin' with it."
She flexes her fist, trying to think, get a plan together, but Vanessa's never really been much for plans. She finds herself wishing she had time for a drink. Or thirty. "Fuh," she sighs, and rolls her neck. OK. Division of labor. That guy can go get flayed alive. Vanessa...has to figure out how to punch down a wall made of chi. Which just totally ignored her hand. Driving the car into it is an option, but she's not to that point yet. Her boss will be upset if she just goes straight to the voiding of security deposits. But that pretty much means Vanessa's stuck punching it wildly.
Well, OK then! She sets her feet, and finally just yells, "I didn't come this far to get stopped by the special effects budget!!" as if this would actually change anything, and then does something that might do so, to whit, start punching it as hard as she can and as fast as she can, yelling defiantly with every blow!!
COMBATSYS: Kimon blocks Vanessa's Machine Gun Puncher.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|====---\-------\0 Frei
COMBATSYS: Ikizukuri-kai blocks Frei's Unbalancing Draw.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|====---\-------\0 Frei
It's hard to describe how Kimon takes the repeated punching. For one, it doesn't seem to be /damaged/ much. No shimmering, no quivering, nothing. In short it seems to be just as strong as it was, even if Vanessa can be sure she's doing something to it. She can feel, at least, that with each punch, it seems to get less 'hard'. More susceptible to further damage. It's weakening, little by little, with each and every repeated punch. But who's to say it won't recover? Or who's to say it /will/.
As for Ikizukuri-kai, the wall is rather distant from Frei. Which means its lashing out was over a long distance, just barely meant to carve a little furrow here and there into the sage swordsman. It keeps bearing down the man, though, its glass shards ripping into a small bit of car metal just as easy as it sliced through the tank. It keeps coming, and coming, relentless...! That is, until Frei smacks it. Like Vanessa, it doesn't seem to do a lot of damage, and what damage is inflicted seems to /heal/ itself. But the primary thing - is that it slows down, as if the energy to repair the wound needs to be drawn from the energy propelling it forward. It slows to a crawl, but still lashes out, seeking to strike at Frei again with another, paper-thin glass chi blade.
COMBATSYS: Frei dodges Ikizukuri-kai's Savage Filet.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-------|====---\-------\0 Frei
Dust kicks up as Frei lands back on his feat after his rising, fiery slash... his aerial was a backflip in the end, letting him observe the wall carefully on his way down. To his benefit, too; even as he's noticing that the Ikizukuri's bright blue barrier effectively heals itself entirely from the damage he caused, he also notices that it's about to fire a second shot at him. There's no wasting of time; he hops backwards once, then twice, landing in a crouch near Vanessa's position and facing the opposite direction, the glass-like shards of chi pelting the expressway's pavement with *thp! thp! thp!* sounds.
Standing up, Frei looks at the wall he just attacked again, and then over his shoulder at Vanessa's flurry of powerful punches. Okay... so she's hammering that down, slowly but surely. And the other wall is out for blood, but it can be slowed down if you hammer away at it, though that puts you at risk of being... well, fileted, savagely. He blinks a few times, then suddenly slams his fist into the opposite palm.
"Demon's Wall!" he exclaims, way too excited about it. "Final Fantasy 4! God I hated that fight. I really, really did."
There's a beat, and then he finally has the gumption to look at Vanessa, who he expects to find looking at him like he's completely insane. "Sorry. That was dorky. I'm more reliable than my dorkiness suggests, though, trust me. Lemme give you a hand."
The Ikizukuri is going to have to wait for the moment. It can't be killed, but the Kimon can, or so Frei guesses, based on Vanessa's furious assault. Flexing his fingers, he brings his right hand back, and then charges the wall, looking to slam his fist into it palm-down. It's not a physical blow, though; rather, his hand glows with a prismatic swirl of various elemental chi energies. "It's a... pattern. So if I can find the right chink in the proverbial brick..." Maybe he can break it down? Or maybe the Ryouhara's chi technology is beyond even Frei the chi wunderkind...
Vanessa keeps the heat on - just slamming her fists in again and again, viciously putting all her force into it.
And it spits in her face, which is to say, does not measurably react. Vanessa spits at it more literally, snarling, "Come on you bastard, I'VE GOT MORE OF THESE!"
Frei hops back toward her, and she takes a second, glancing back and huffing - actually resting her hand against it to take a couple seconds and recuperate. And then Frei shouts something about final fantasies, and the 34-year-old ex-housewife-turned-vigilante-boxer does in fact look at him as if he'd just started quoting Dianetics. "Uh?" she huffs, and then pushes on anyway: "How's things going back there? I think we can tear this thing down, but the wall cuisinart there doesn't look very friendly."
Frei apparently decides to attack the wall; well, Vanessa's not really inclined to mess with a wall of glass with her bare fists, so she nods at him. "Then I'll help!" she supplies, and hops back, sets her feet - hops back and forth, tries to make sure she's still limber in case the walls /switch places/ or something - and then lunges in with a full-force blow to the thing! "HAH!"
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Kimon with Reiki.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-----==|=====--\-------\0 Frei
COMBATSYS: Kimon blocks Vanessa's Straight Punch.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/----===|=====--\-------\0 Frei
For once, Kimon seems to actually waver. Frei slamming his palm into the chi wall and then 'feeling' it out with the array of elemental energies gets a certain reaction. And that reaction seems to be pain. If a wall made out of pure energy can feel pain, anyway. The point of impact ripples, if not outright weakens, but it definitely did not like that. Vanessa's own assault, furious as it is, is somewhat less effective. Kimon doesn't waver or ripple or even seem to groan in pain, but each punch continually weakens it. It seems to react 'better' to energy attacks, but Vanessa's sheer strength is slowly but surely wearing the wall down in her own way, making it 'thinner', as if tenderizing a side of beef.
Ikizukuri-kai seems less than impressed, however. Unhindered by any attacks, it suddenly surges forward, and seems to have a new trick in mind. Having sliced at Frei enough, it changes targets to the boxer woman hammering Kimon. And this time does something... different. Chi blades extend both from Ikizukuri itself, slicing downwards in huge, sweeping arcs - and then more blades sweep /up/ from below, trying to catch the woman in the crossfire of dicing chi blades. It's still too far away to do damage to both Frei and Vanessa, but it is moving in in a hurry.
COMBATSYS: Vanessa just-defends Ikizukuri-kai's To Ribbons!
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/----===|=====--\-------\0 Frei
He pulls his hand back, feeling the tingle of energies mixing and dissipating against his palm, and the results seem to please Frei for the time being. It's a pleasant enough surprise, but the fact that the wall still seems relatively hale and hearty (for a wall) is sort of unfortunate. He takes a step back to survey the situation, so it's probably for the best that the Ikizukuri decides to go for Vanessa instead. A scholar at the core, Frei is looking at the Kimon like someone presented with a particularly thorny Sudoku box, or something similar. If the glass shard-hurling chi trap had decided to put one in his pretty red-haired head, he'd probably be bleeding out right now.
However, the sound of movement does cause him to turn, just in time to see Vanessa fending off the assualt on her... and the fact that the stupid thing closed the gap in record time without someone paying attention to it makes him blink in surprise. Frowning, he fingers the hilt of his wooden sword, and looks to Vanessa. "It's like... okay, have you ever been to a birthday party? And you have to tap the balloon into the air or it'll burst when it hits the floor? It's like that only the balloon wants to slice your face off." That was not a good explanation, you dipstick. He turns back toward the Kimon for a moment, then back to Vanessa. "Can you buy me a second or two more? I want to test a theory. Then we can switch."
Unfortunately, like a jerk, he then turns back to the wall, hoping that Vanessa will decide to agree to his plan. Taking a deep breath, he balls his hands into fists, pulling his elbows back tai chi-style, and then rams his fist forward in a very simple, straightforward seikenzuki thrusting punch toward the Kimon. Of course, it's also coated in an aura of concussive earthy chi that should spread out from the point of impact like a shockwave. "Haaaaaaaaaaaa...!"
Vanessa frowns, because while she pounds on Kimon to little effect, Frei seems to be making some pretty substantial gains against the thing.
Which means it's probably her turn to beat up the demon wall. Well, it's not like she didn't come expecting to get a little brutalized, she was just hoping to /get there/, first.
After her solid punch does not really much at all, Vanessa steps away a little and hops up to sit on one of the ruined cars, trying to make sure she keeps her pacing steady. There's not really much ability for followthrough against a chi wall; it takes some energy just to stop.
Frei explains. "I'm not a complete idiot," Vanessa mutters back. "You kids, I swear. Yes, we have to blast through the wall before the other one cuts us to ribbons. Pretty simple." In a not very simple kind of way - her eyes track over to the wall just as it OPENS FIRE, and she has to move quick.
One arm snaps up, shoving an incoming chi fragment to the side of her head, and then she detects it hopping up from below - the car she's sitting on is shredded, and she moves on instinct more than anything, though heeding Frei's advice - she glides forward, a little too fast to track, skating across the distance between one wall and the other quickly, staying just ahead of the path of the dicing crossfire - a punching through one chi blade, ducking under another, moving with a smooth, easy grace. And as she gets up next to Ikizukuri-kai, she tries to find a spot that won't shred her fists too fast, and yells, "Can't catch me /that easy!/" with a laugh, and then punches it in the....wall. ...ness.
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Kimon with Fierce Punch.
-* CRITICAL HIT! *-
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0 Frei
COMBATSYS: Ikizukuri-kai blocks Vanessa's Hook Punch.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0 Frei
Frei centers and then slams his fist into the wall. And it /buckles/. The entire thing ripples, wobbles, and seems to actually dent. Which is strange for a wall made of pure energy. But that's what it does, seeming to groan with pain as it's hammered. It even takes a moment or two to recover fully, before looking more or less the same as it did before, if perhaps a bit thinner. But then, as Frei watches, something within it seems to pulse, blue lines flowing through the wall as if processing something. And then... it seems to cycle.
Meanwhile, back at the mobile cuisinart wall, if it seems nonplussed about getting its attack almost contemptuously knocked aside, it doesn't show it. Though maybe it's a -little- annoyed. It bears down on Vanessa as she comes dashing in, too fast for an eye to follow, and then punches it. A ripple flows through Ikizukuri-kai, but like with what Frei experienced, it doesn't seem to really be damaged so much. In fact, any damage inflicted on it begins to be repaired - but at the same time, the energy used to repair it is taken from its speed, the wall of flashing blades slowing down to a crawl. Even so, it still flails out at Vanessa, in an imitation of its attack before, blades slicing in from above and below to catch Vanessa in the cross-fire.
COMBATSYS: Kimon takes no action.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0 Frei
He keeps good cheer despite Vanessa's annoyance, Frei does; after all, it was a silly thing to say, and if he were in her shoes, he'd be a little tense too. Hopefully he can make it up to her once this is all over, though who knows what 'making it up to her' will entail in Taizhou. Instead he focuses on testing his theory, driving his fist forward and wincing at the contact. Still, it worked better than he could have possibly hoped, if the Kimon's reaction is any indicator. The crack in the defenses is a very heartening sign, all things considered, and he nods in satisfaction... even as he shakes his hand out. That thing stung even Vanessa's trained fists; Frei is not quite as given to punching, so imagine how it is for him.
Then he notices the blue lines, and frowns. What does THAT mean?
If anything, it's as good a time as any to perhaps give Vanessa some relief. After all, the whole time he's been at the wall, the Ikizukuri has been ignoring him and focusing on her. Maybe it can only attack one target at a time? Or something of that nature. Backing away from the Kimon a moment, he turns to see the Ikizukuri assaulting her *again*, and doesn't take the time to converse with her; he just runs right past her, hand coming to the hilt of his wooden sword as he runs in a low crouch, shouting back at her. "Give it another whack, I think! I don't know what I did! I'll keep the other one busy for you for a while." Hopping up onto a nearby car, he leaps forward, drawing the wooden blade in one smooth arcing cut, the parabolic path of the strike ringing with a silver-gold sheen of metal chi, slicing through the air with a sound like a struck tuning fork.
COMBATSYS: Ikizukuri-kai successfully hits Vanessa with To Ribbons.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0 Frei
Vanessa's pretty chipper and sly, all things told, but it's hard to keep your spirits high when you're just swapping back and forth between hitting an immobile wall and a /wall of knives/. Still - she's trained to fight chi wizards (well, a chi wizard, named Igniz, who kicks her ass every time...); she's not totally helpless, either.
Vanessa manages to dent the thing, but the action does little but slow it down. Fortunately, slow it down was more-or-less Vanessa's goal; Frie has asserted that punching it will buy them time, and time is what they need. So, that's a plus. Before she can wind up for another volley, it retaliates - blades slicing into her. This time she doesn't do as well; she knocks one of the blades aside - into her shoulder, and the rest catch her from below, knocking her into the air trailing scraps of blood and pants. She hits a car, causing the alarm to whine briefly before dying a final death, and rolls off of it to the ground, emitting a rough, "WHoof!" as the air rushes out of her.
"Switch!" she calls, slamming her fist into the ground and clambering up to her feet. She huffs, hopping up and down between her legs, getting the blood flowing, just as Frei goes sailing past. "OK!" she calls, and dashes over toward it - plants her hand one the roof of a dented-in car and vaults over it, hits the ground, and says, "Hey, sugar," to an inanimate object, before surging forward and swinging a punch with the weight of her surge right into the Kimon field. "Let's play a little more!"
COMBATSYS: Vanessa successfully hits Kimon with Puncher Vision.
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Ikizukuri-kai 0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-======|=====--\-------\0 Frei
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Ikizukuri-kai with Houken.
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Ikizukuri-kai 1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\1 Frei
As the two switch off again, Ikizukuri seems to switch targets without complaint. Frei attracts its attention anyway, slamming into it with an arc of chi - that seems to hurt it pretty damn good, actually. The wall repairs itself, but if an energy wall can seem pissed, it certainly is doing a great impression. A sound like glass shattering happens, and blades form in the air around Frei. Lots of knives. LOTS of knives. And then all at once, unceremoniously, they all fall like a deadly rain against Frei, seeking to impale him, no one knife hurting very much, merely being /all/ of them doing it all at once carrying a death by a thousand paper cuts.
Meanwhile, Vanessa meets Kimon's defense mode's upgrade. A punch is given, and though it does make the wall ripple with the sheer force of the attack, Vanessa can tell immediately: somehow, Kimon got tougher. Not impossible to break, but tougher to hurt. And given that Ikizukuri is closing in, slowly but surely - now past the quarter mile mark by a few hundred feet - it's going to take some effort to bring this thing down before it smashes you in between.
COMBATSYS: Ikizukuri-kai successfully hits Frei with Sharpen the Knives.
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Ikizukuri-kai 1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-======|=======\==-----\1 Frei
There was a plan. A good plan, as far as Frei thought! He doesn't 100% know what the chi matrix is that's making up these two barriers; his way of dealing with chi is much more spiritual and unstructured than the regimented, scientific way the Ryouhara go about doing things. But sometimes a little common sense will do wonders. It's obvious the Ikizukuri has considerable power to slice through anything. So, if Frei could get its attention, he might just be able to weather the storm. Put himself in the path of fire, let the wall pelt him with its particular brand of chi, and if Frei could just *hold on to it* for a little while, keep it from dissipating into nothingness, perhaps he could redirect it into the Kimon and really do some damage?
Yeah, best laid plans of mice and men.
It was an experiment and a total failure. He probably looks like an [eff!]ing lunatic to poor Vanessa, should she turn and see; he just stands there, arms spread, standing in the wall's way. Then the knives appear, and he doesn't move, doesn't guard... he might glow a little, but who can even tell with the Ikizukuri's light show behind him. Then the knives start falling. A lot of them. With nothing to stop them, either; each one slicing painfully through Frei's aura and digging into flesh, carving lines of red and slicing thin but noticeable shears through his shirt. A single lock of his dark red hair is sliced off, in accordance with anime-style convention.
Yet surprisingly, it doesn't really fell him; Frei drops to his knees for a moment, taking deep breaths, but then stands back up, wiping a hand across his mouth. "That all you got?" he taunts... the wall. Good work, Psychological Combatant Frei. "I thought they desperately wanted to keep people out. You just try that again, buddy boy." His hand sweeps up, and a spiralling burst of scarlet fire turns into a vaguely Frei-shaped flame that rushes at the Ikizukuri, shortly before Frei follows up, literally slashing through the flame with a battou draw of his wooden sword.
"How's it going on your end?!" he yells back to Vanessa, not turning around to look. If the news is bad, he'd rather hear it than see it.
Vanessa slams that fist home good and hard, and gets...jack all. She doesn't feel like she broke her fist, this time, but she quickly snaps to, trying to figure out the situation. It toughened up. The blade wall is closing in at a good clip. They're running out of time, and just /not/ making the progress they need to be. Nnng. Ryouhara isn't exactly neighborly, is he? But...
"Set a wall in front of me," Vanessa murmurs, flexing and unflexing her fist, "and I'll break it down. I'm not the type to go down to a thing like this!"
She looks back. Frei gets knived all to hell, and then stands up and laughs it off. "Hah," she laughs. "My kinda guy," she muses, with a tip of her head and a sly grin to the universe. He calls to her from a quarter mile away, and she yells back, face darkening: "It hardened up!" Took a straight punch and wobbled, but...not enough, she thinks, but she's never been very /good/ at thinking in a fight, not really, not the way of some of the craftier fighters. But she's not ignorant, either: "So try this one!!" she yells, turning to address the Kimon. She spins on her heels, lunges right at the barrier - swings a punch down, and another up. The blows themselves barely graze it - but the blows are not the actual attack, as such, not as much as the glimmering arcs of chi that remain in their wake, drifting forward to slam into the wall.
COMBATSYS: Vanessa successfully hits Kimon with Forbidden Eagle.
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Ikizukuri-kai 1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-======|=======\==-----\1 Frei
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Ikizukuri-kai with Kagerou.
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Ikizukuri-kai 1/----===/=======|====---\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-======|=======\===----\1 Frei
Kimon does not care for your determination, apparently. A wall made by the Ryouhara to keep people out of Taizhou. It had just enough energy in it to repel minor threats, like tanks trying to get through from the Chinese military. And, well, you'd seen what it did to the Type 99 tank just as Ikizukuri-kai started up. But now that a true threat has been recognized, reserves have been entered. More energy has been supplied. And worst of all, Kimon stands largely unfazed by the punches Vanessa throws at it, even augmented by chi as they are. It can still be brought down - it isn't /invulnerable/ to damage. But it's going to take serious effort to bring this thing down.
Especially now that Ikizukuri-kai seems to have no intention of stopping for anything.
Before, Frei and Vanessa had been damaging it just enough that its energy reserves needed to be pulled from movement to regeneration. But now, it too was receiving greater amounts of energy. It doesn't heal more, it seems - but it doesn't need to slow down for minor repairs any more, either. Frei's attack damages it visibly, the flames slamming against it just as the wooden sword does. It ripples, but doesn't slow as it keeps moving forward. It rolls over Vanessa's convertible, chewing it to pieces like some kind of lawnmower for metal. And then it lashes back. Blue energy flares up not only against Ikizukuri-kai itself, but along the walls of the sound barriers along the expressway, even over the top of it, where there is only air.
And then there are blades. There are blades from everywhere. They dice, they slice, they might even make julienne fries. Out of Frei and Vanessa both.
COMBATSYS: Frei blocks Ikizukuri-kai's Wide Area Processing.
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Ikizukuri-kai 1/----===/=======|====---\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-======|=======\====---\1 Frei
That's... probably not good.
It's disconcerting for an attack to be successful, and yet for Frei to bounce back onto his feet and see that all it has really done has made it angry. If... that can be said of a giant blue wall. And then the world is FULL OF BLADES. No chances are being taken on this one. Not no way, not no how; Frei doesn't try any fancy chi defenses, he just hunkers down, crosses his arms over his face, and weathers the storm. Thankfully, one's aura is a relatively instinctual thing, cutting down some of the force... perhaps because it's diffused over such a wide area, the end result is less punishing than it could have been.
But it's a harbinger of things to come and it's not a good sign.
Well. Things aren't getting very far the way the pair is going now. Frei had hoped that the wall had shifted a defensive mode, perhaps adapting to his chi assault by weakening its physical defenses. Unfortunately, Vanessa's luck was no better now than before, and time is running short. His plan to use the Ikizukuri against the Kimon itself had failed, too. As a strategist, the chi sage is falling marvelously short of the likes of Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu who did battle on these very lands so many centuries ago.
Of course, when tactics fail, there's always brute force.
Taking a deep breath, Frei shuts his eyes for a moment. Focus. Center. What is done by the sun is undone by the moon. If the barrier is technology, and order, and science, then perhaps the chaotic freedom of nature is the counterbalance. If there really are old gods out there, watching over him, then in the past few months they must have reached some sort of agreement. If Frei's going to take on the burden that he has, then perhaps it's time that he asked of them to answer in kind.
He turns toward the Kimon, walking toward it slowly. A hand comes out, palm up, in front of him, as if about to cup something like rainwater. "O servant of the Jade Emperor," the sage intones, in a resonant if somewhat overdramatic voice. A sphere of pure white light appears in his palm, and he closes his hand around it before pressing that hand palm-down over his breastbone. The white light spills out from beneath his hand, forming a flowing aura of white-gold that swims around his form as he continues to advance. "Gold-horned envoy who dances the clouds and stalks the plains... honor our pact and appear before me!"
The light then takes a form. Those who don't know Chinese mythology might call it a unicorn; a glowing horse of gold-white with a bright gold horn and mane, formed entirely of light, that surrounds Frei like a massive aura. He stands inside it, looking peacefully forward. And he keeps walking. It's... very, very bizarre.
Until he gets close enough.
A hand goes to the hilt of the wooden sword at his back, and his voice -- amplified by chi, drama, or both -- echoes above the whirring din of the barrier trap. "Sacred light, pierce the darkness! Kirin!"
He thrusts his sword forward, parallel to the ground... and the chi-formed kirin surrounding him does the same, looking to effectively gore the Kimon with its shining horn and pierce right through the barrier in one fell swoop.
COMBATSYS: Vanessa blocks Ikizukuri-kai's Wide Area Processing.
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Ikizukuri-kai 1/---====/=======|======-\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0 Frei
Vanessa watches Forbidden Eagle more-or-less just...bounce off. She spits at the wall, snarling out something horrible she learned in Indonesia once, fists balled as she skates back - resting her back against a slaughtered car. Again, takes stock. Blade wall: Speeding up, doesn't plan to stop. Solid wall: Not actually gone yet. Vanessa: Getting annoyed.
She sneers, punches a hole in the car door - and then the car evaporates, behind her, in a sea of blades. Her eyes widen - Vanessa doesn't have the greatest chi senses, but that was pretty much anti-subtle. Blades coming from everywhere; she focuses herself, remembers her breathing, and moves. One fist up, while Vanessa slides to the side; one fist forward shoving against a chi blade, Vanessa sliding back. Narrow evasions, constant misses. She's getting scraped, knicked; her pants are a wreck and the only reason her shirt isn't is that the ESRB says it's not actually allowed to get much more minimal than it already is. She smashes one of the blades with her fist, and punches another apart to stop it from cutting her head in half. Deep breath.
Frei is crying out - invoking...spirits, gods. She's seen mystics before - and she herself uses chi. She can't deny that stuff. But...it was never much for Vanessa's touch. "Jesus," Vanessa growls, and stalks foward in tattered slacks, long legs flashing through the ribbons - and then she surges forward, finally tired of this.
Frei invokes the heavens and the earth and all the glory that has ever been in a man's soul.
Vanessa rears back and shrieks a defiant cry as she slams her fist into the wall.
Waits a beat, sneering.
And then howls an endless "ATATATATATATATATATATATA" as her fists blur faster than a body should be able to, hammering it from every angle and blow. There's no technique or strategy - no fancy chi tricks or careful placement of blows.
It is simply what it is: A cloud of fists.
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Kimon with Shinra Banshou.
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Ikizukuri-kai 1/---====/=======|==-----\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 1/-----==/=======|-------\-------\0 Frei
COMBATSYS: Vanessa successfully hits Kimon with Crazy Puncher.
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Ikizukuri-kai 1/---====/=======|==-----\-------\0 Vanessa
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Kimon 1/--=====/=======|-------\-------\0 Frei
The world is chi blades - but they get pushed aside as the warriors both suddenly focus in on Kimon. Surely they must feel that even though Ikizukuri's attacks haven't been necessarily damaging, it is growing ever, ever closer. And as it moves closer, it becomes more powerful. Larger attacks happen. It's only a matter of time before something huge comes the fighter's way. They have to break through Kimon, at all costs!
Frei and his Kirin impale the wall, and both the attacks from horn and sword -pierce- the wall through onto the other side.
Vanessa slams her fists into the wall repeatedly, and this time there is a great difference to what she feels under her fists. Her first punch, the wall cracks. The second punch, it cracks further. And further, and further, until finally the entire wall simply shatters into many, many pieces, even if those pieces fade to nothing.
But Ikizukuri still comes.
Frei and Vanessa would need to run the wall is down. But even if they do, they can see what the furious attacker wall has in store for them. The walls, the sky, the road, simply turn into blue as massive amounts of chi are poured through them, even Ikizukuri-kai itself becoming solid for a moment, forming a complete box - except the one side in which Kimon is no longer present, directly in front of Vanessa and Frei.
And then blades, nanometer thin, a foot long, erupt. They erupt from everywhere. Side by side, millions of blades forming in any one foot-long line, and there's at least fifty feet from where Kimon was and where Ikizukuri-kai is.
All of them simply lash out, millions upon millions of blades, seeking to slice, dice, chop, cut, flay, skin, /destroy/.
The wall cracks, then shatters, as it must under such assaults. The hazy aura of chi around Frei loses the shape of the mythical Chinese beast, and then disappears altogether, as the sage turns away from the wall, head bowed, slowly sliding the wooden sword he used as a focus into his back belt loops with all the gravitas of a samurai duelist returning blade to sheath. Surprisingly, he intones in a solemn voice,
"Wall, impassable...
Yet even stone yields to time;
A hammer of sand."
Then he looks up and sees what is it in store since the Ikizukuri is still advancing, and he blanches a little bit. He had his cool haiku-saying moment, but there's no cherry blossoms waiting to fall around him. Just blades. A lot of blades. A really, really large amount of blades. "...well alright then," he mutters, taking a step back. "Good to see you're not asoreloserOHMYGODRUN," he tacks on, the last delivered at the speed of panic.
There is no grace to it; Frei's hand nearly touches the ground as he turns in a crouch and then literally takes off sprinting along the Yongtaiwen Expressway toward Taizhou proper, dodging potholes, debris, and cars. He's not moving with gazelle-like grace -- Frei's not massive wrestler-level slow but he's not the speediest of fighters -- but it truly is amazing what a pure, powerful desire not to be sliced into deli meat can do to motivate foot speed in a crisis.
But he's not a total bastard; he hasn't gone far when he hops up on top of a car blocking his way and turns, trying to see if Vanessa is running, because if she isn't he's going to have to go back for her...
Vanessa focuses all her strength and power on bombarding the wall - holding nothing in reserve, she wails on it with all the strength in her powerful arms! And then her fist finally smashes through, piercing that seemingly impenetrable chi barrier with the sheer force of her fists!! And then she hops back, and shakes out her hands, hissing, "Ya-ha-haowweeee that hurt!"
A glance up, at the clear path ahead of them. Vanessa heaves a sigh of relief, expecting, rationally, that this was a test, and having passed the obstacle they will now be...safe...except everything is turning blue like the wall of murder and, oh dear, uhm. Vanessa looks back at her car, and suddenly surges - skates across the distance in the blink of an eye, shadows dancing in her wake, she reaches an arm out and grabs for a duffle bag in the passenger seat, swinging it out--
Nanoseconds before the the car /dissolves/ in a hail of blades, and Vanessa squawks, "YIPE" and has to scate back, and then stops herself - glancing, but the wall of blades is now /everywhere/, she has no time for it, and her vehicle is ruined and if she doesn't move /so will she be/, so she just turns tail and BOOKS IT. One strong, globed hand finds the roof of a car and she vaults over it, crushing it underfist, and she hits the pavement - and she /runs/.
As quite a lot of action has now been compressed into a very, very small amount of time, a certain degree of slow-motion review is probably justified. So, let us consider the past few seconds in NASAvision:
T=00 -- Frei turns and bails, yelling for Vanessa to follow suit.
T+01 -- Vanessa, triumphant but hand-hurty, turns.
T+02 -- Frei scrambles over a massive, uneven pothole.
T+03 -- Vanessa's hand wraps around her duffle.
T+04 -- The Ikizukuri reaches the trunk of the car.
T+05 -- Frei turns around, sees Vanessa, and makes an D: visible on Google Earth.
T+06 -- Vanessa grabs the duffle, vaults the car, and books it.
T+07 -- The Ikizukuri shreds that poor rental, moves forward shortly behind Vanessa, and then fades out of existence.
By the time Vanessa makes it to the car roof that Frei's standing on, he's STILL looking back at where she was with a terrified D: expression on his face. If he keeps it up, it's going to stick that way, which will be really awkward if he ever runs into Tran again, to say the least.
Thankfully after a moment or two he realizes that 1.) all his limbs are attached and 2.) Vanessa's head is not asking to be sewn onto the perfectly-sliced remains of her body. His mouth closes, he takes a deep breath, eyes closed, and then topples backwards, landing on his backside on the roof of what appears to be a full hybrid Prius, or what used to be. Al Gore would be proud.
A test... yeah, well. Or a deathtrap. Ayame warned him, but Frei is still a little dumbfounded by the *scope* of what just happened. While he doesn't think of himself as particularly powerful or skilled compared to his peers, he's well aware that someone without his level of experience -- or Vanessa's -- would not have survived that. In fact, Frei and Vanessa barely survived it as-is.
His eyes open, and he looks up, staring back along the road he came here on, both literally and metaphorically. "That's what we get for trying the front door, huh..." he says, absently, before turning to give Vanessa a sort of tired smile. "Thanks for the help. Uh, sorry about the car."
Vanessa just /runs/. She fights back as she can - smashes an incoming blade apart with her bare hands, skates past them with that high-speed dodging trick she uses to such effect. Her feet work for her - a blade slices up and sheers a button off her top, but she skips around it, swinging around quickly and darting forward. The field is narrowing - weakening. Take stock.
The blades are stopping. She's alive. A huff of breath as she looks around, tries to find Frei in her field of vision - there, on the roof. He's alive, if looking kind of...horrified. Well, so was she. She doesn't so much lean against it as /land/ on it - open palm slapping into it hard enough to dent inward the battered frame, breathing heavily.
"They're /all/ gonna be like that, aren't they?" she grunts, displeased. A glance up, with a sassy little grin. "Well, at least we got through that one. You did pretty good, kid." Frei isn't really /that/ much younger than Vanessa, but anyone who compares a death trap to a Final Fantasy boss is a kid, this is just the reality Vanessa lives in. She swings the duffle bag down onto the roof of the car, unzipping it quickly, taking stock. Shirts. Ties. Pants. A single, spare suit jacket, which when worn with her usual ensemble gives the illusion that she's dressed like a respectable human being. Hair dye, because sometimes she likes to mix it up. An extra large bottle of Jack Daniels. Toothbrush. Underwear. She grabs the zipper and slides it closed again, slowly getting her breath back in her. Right! She shoulders the thing, shaking out her legs, dutifully ignoring the fact that her nice pants are now hanging in ribbons past her knees. "Hell of a doorbell," she agrees, with a little grin. "You're welcome. You were pretty slick back there!" She flashes a thumbs up. "Eh, don't worry about the car," she adds. She pushes off the car, stretching her arms behind her. In her (lack of) shirt, it's a rather brazen thing, and she is pretty much completely aware of that. "I was pretty much assuming I'd have to drive it into something eventually, nyway. Now..."
Huffs a sigh, one hand landing on the strap of her duffle, the other hanging free. "Let's get goin'. I need a drink." She can't start drinking the Jack yet, that's her emergency reserve!
Log created on 22:41:30 04/05/2010 by Frei, and last modified on 01:51:21 04/13/2010.