Description: A web of crystal luminesence, like a spidery crack in the glass of the sky, envelops Taizhou. Upon these roads of light four do battle: pirate princess and doctor-adventurer, fallen hero and a girl with blood-stained hands. While the latter forget their crimes in the thrill of battle, the might of their adversaries will not be so easily denied. Much like that lion. Well-- maybe it was denied, after a fashion. (Winners: Tran and Kanata)
Wing says, "but seriously what's Wang's status"
Wing says, "yeah you heard me log"
Wing says, "I'M TALKING ABOUT WANGS"
Idealism. "Fucking Ryouhara."
Greater purposes. "He's always like this."
She stands among the unique and strange skyways at the edge of an intersection between them all; a rough-hewn platform only as wide as it needs to be, as though the entire thing is designed to just barely hold together.
Dressed smartly and sharply, Kanata Miyata is a woman in her early twenties at the very most. Flowing black hair is carried by the winds, bangs trimmed a straight line at her eyebrows; bright blue eyes not commonly found on people of Japanese descent are closed while her full and glossed lips are angled into a frown.
Wearing a jacket with clean-cut lines that follow the curves of her body, the few buttons left open show hints of a large scar in the form of an X across her left breast; hands are gloved with black leather, wearing a matching black skirt slit at either side to nearly the hip, stockings, and boots that pull up to just under the knee. A long, lightweight black coat is worn over it all, two narrow belts slung around her hips.
The other curious thing at this intersection is the lion.
No joke. A lion.
Laying at the exit of one of those paths, the majestic African animal seems to be fitted with decorative Japanese-style barding and numerous sheaths, carrying two katanas to a side... and what looks like an unbalancingly-heavy sword of ridicilous length with decorative waves and etchings.
Her eyes open, slowly, as her hand dips into her jacket. Withdrawing a pocketwatch on a long silver chain, she clicks it open to intently look at the face, speaking aloud, but only to herself.
"The things I do to uphold my obligations."
For Dr. Richard 'the most dangerous man in Taizhou' Tran, it starts on a rooftop.
FIVE MINUTES AGO
It's surprisingly easy to lose your way amidst the wreckage of the city, to mistake one of the ruined heaps that used to be pristine, shining buildings for another. It doesn't help that some /hoodlums/ have been defacing public property, stealing the street signs for their own no doubt nefarious purposes.
The clear solution: take to the skies! Or as close as a man can get, by way of the rooftops.
Tran briefly wonders, with a long, rectangular pipe slung over his shoulder, why he didn't think of this sooner. Up here, you can basically journey in peace, and if on occasion you need to use your new makeshift walking stick to pole vault, what of it? Sure, the buildings are kind of worn, but most of them are sturdy enough. What's the worst that could happen?
THIRTY SECONDS AGO
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-- wait, what the hell?"
A beat.
...
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
NOW
"I guess that wasn't so bad," muses Dr. Tran, warrior-philosopher, flicking open his buzzing phone and scanning the simple message held within. "/Well/. Why not? Could be..." The doctor glances down, very down, at the ground so far below, then resolutely looks up and begins advancing toward the strange platform at the center of the network. He sounds mildly sick as he finishes his thought. "...fun?"
She cannot see for all the sweat.
Staggering up the sickeningly weaving crystaline path, Wing Xiaoping strains with all her soul to forget how little separates her from the empty sky and, far below, the all too solid ground. Her heart hammers in her little chest as she clutches at her sides, short of breath and ill with unrelenting terror. There's no one to see, so there's no reason to try to hide it. The schoolyard bully turned tournament competitor feels as though she's about to puke, and she's beyond caring if the ghost of Tupac would disapprove.
Yet for all the sheer madness she faces here -- a building collapsing under her very feet -- the thugette continues, half-walking, half-clambering, ascending to the mysterious platform at the top of the leyline, the only solidity that doesn't mean death. For all her limbs shiver and teeth chatter, and for all she would usually loathe herself for that -- and promptly take out that loathing on some innocent bystander, woman of action that she is -- Wing is not paralyzed by her fear. She moves onward, somehow.
And her heart-shaped face, streaked with perspiration, is set with unusual intensity...
**
"...Hey... Travers."
Idly kicking one bare foot up in the air, eyes fixed on the sterile white of their blank room's ceiling, Wing, clad in the simple pale pajamas she stole from the same place as her Sanctum jumpsuit, reclines upon the top bunk, her eyes wide and unblinking. For all she knows, the big lug is already asleep -- not to mention certifiable either way. Wing may lack in self-awareness, but she's no fool: by this point, berserk warrior though she herself is, she trusts Cody like she trusts a trained bear. Her only relief being that when he suddenly attacks her, he probably won't mean anything by it.
Still--
"You ever... killed anybody before?"
She finds herself talking.
"I mean... like we did?"
She'd be surprised at herself, if she had the heart to be surprised.
"Because... I... I never did."
Everything about Wing bespeaks a picture of relaxation. Yet her eyes are eerily vacant as she gazes up: sightless. Her words, she feels, emerge from someone else's lips. So it's not as though--
"What I mean is..."
She's crying out for help, or anything.
"Do you know what you're supposed to feel?"
She swallows, and the sound seems to echo like a gong.
"Because I'm not sure... I do."
**
Determination?
With a cry of exertion, one small hand grasps the edge of the platform.
Courage?
Almost weeping with the physical and emotional effort, Wing hefts herself onto the floating island, gasping upon her knees for several moments, her head lowered, looking as though she might kiss the earth, suspended in space though it is.
There's a hole where her heart should be.
Even if it's only ever been filled with hubris--
Even the terror seems to leak away.
Is this what it means to no longer fear death? Is this a good thing?
Wing wipes the sweat from her brow, and rising upon shaky legs, looks up, pushing away a few stray strands of her tied-back hair, adjusting her black and white jumpsuit -- and sees the lion. Her eyes narrow; her lips part.
"Fuck me."
No-- scratch that. Death is still really scary.
...Maybe she'd survive a jump?
SOME TIME AGO
Cody Travers, roaring wordlessly, charges across the plush carpeted office of one Horace Belger. Miniature crossbow bolts bury themselves in his already-bleeding chest in a diagonal line, but he doesn't falter; he doesn't even slow down.
Still screaming, Cody digs the knife in his hand into the wrist of the elderly man attempting to kill him, the man who kidnapped his girlfriend, the man at the head of the gang of little shits infesting his city. Belger screams in agony, his hand spasming open, the crossbow clattering to the floor.
Cody follows up with a vicious left hook, knocking the elderly Belger off balance, and follows it up with an uppercut. He strikes the bowtie-wearing motherfucker he is faced with in the abdomen so hard that he goes flying backwards into the air and crashes into - and then through - the floor-to-ceiling plate glass window and out into the open air, hundreds of feet above the streets of Metro City.
As Belger's cry of pain and terror fades, as he plummets to a horrible death on the streets below, Cody sags to one knee, his entire body shaking from adrenaline. He is absolutely sure he will never, ever forget this moment.
SOME TIME AGO
Cody stares up at the bottom of Wing's bunk, his hands folded over his chest like he's a corpse. He's trying to concentrate on what she's saying, but it's hard; her voice keeps fading into a sort of awful buzzing, his attention keeps jumping back and forth.
He's so tired... he needs some medicine. And he's forgotten why he's here again, but doesn't want to ask for the third time tonight, out of a mixture of shame and embarassment.
After several long seconds, he finally pieces together what Wing is trying to ask him. He frowns thoughtfully, rolls over onto his side, and says, curtly, "I can't remember."
He is telling the truth.
NOW
Cody hauls himself up a few seconds behind Wing. Unlike the girl, he's not radiating terror and anguish; in fact, he's not radiating much of anything. He is, as is usual nowadays, a lot like a zombie; his movements are sluggish, and if anything, he seems a little disoriented.
But he's not too disoriented not to notice a /FUCKING LION/
"Jesus Christ," Cody murmurs tiredly, his voice a deadpan. "It's a lion. Get in the car."
Unfortunately, there is no car. There is no road wide enough to allow for a car to drive down unless you were a "ten" on the batshit crazy scale, and there is no escape from this situation, this fight. Her head lulls back just slightly as the first arrives, chin lifting in a proud manner as she looks at him. "And you must be Doctor Tran."
She walks with a confidence even on the skyway that is almost unnatural; a smooth and fearless stride not toward the Doctor, toward Cody, or toward Wing. As the other two arrive, she pays them no mind but keeps track of their positions. She walks up to that lion and rests her hand atop the beast's head, stroking it with the familiarity of a lifelong companion.
Then, she reaches for the sword.
No, not that one. The big one.
Plucking it off of the harness and turning around, the edge of the blade drags on what serves as the ground. The skyway literally ripples in the wake of the mercurial substance, carving a temporary scar in the path that flows like the waves etched on the flat of that obnoxiously large sword.
"Daughter of the greatest thief in the world, nheritor to his empire, and both ally and foe... I am Kanata Miyata. Our purpose here is simple."
With an almost careless sweep of her arm, the woman's sword points toward Wing and Cody, ending with an absolutely precise stop that makes the sword seem featherweight in her grasp.
"Fight."
COMBATSYS: Kanata has started a fight here on the right meter side.
> //////////////////////////////]
|-------\-------\0 Kanata
COMBATSYS: Tran has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
> //////////////////////////////]
|-------\-------\0 Kanata
> //////////////////////////////]
|-------\-------\0 Tran
COMBATSYS: Cody has joined the fight here on the left meter side.
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Cody 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Kanata
> //////////////////////////////]
|-------\-------\0 Tran
COMBATSYS: Wing has joined the fight here on the left meter side.
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Cody 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Tran
COMBATSYS: Tran has left the fight here.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Cody 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Kanata
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Wing 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Tran has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Cody 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Kanata
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Wing 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Tran
"Oh, hey." Dr. Tran crests the edge of the platform, striding confidently atop the narrow strands, one in a long line of acts of bravado that are only working because he's convinced himself that he is fooled by them. It's a little circular, but it seems to be working.
Next in line is coping with a flying samurai lion. There's an easy solution for that, at least.
"Hey, you're pretty hot, aren't you? Nice. To meet you, I mean? Hm." The doctor pauses, completely ignoring the presence of the lion as if he doesn't actually even see it, which of course is exactly what's his inner monologue is frantically screaming at him in the hope that it's not really there after all.
"So..." He trails off, looking at the other somewhat bedraggled arrivals. Especially the big one.
"/You/." Tran spits the words out, other concerns put to the wayside. This is the man who has committed unforgiveable crime after crime, leading a desperate life filled with the basest villainy. Of all people, Cody Travers is the one who Dr. Tran cannot forgive.
"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE MY PANTS AGAIN, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Throwing caution to the wind, ignoring the fact that the platform isn't quite so sturdy as he might have hoped, the doctor flings himself forward like a human bullet toward Cody's chest, trying to bear the man down with his own significantly lesser mass, and then /jump on him like an enraged monkey/.
"Yeah," Wing assents, voice shaken, and turns away, toward the car (?).
...Wait.
The Queen of the Streets promptly turns herself around and glowers at the bizarre woman having already occupied the platform. "Hold on a second here," she snarls, seemingly having regained her senses. "How in the /hell/--"
She points at the animal.
"--did you get a lion /up/ here?"
There follows an extended silence.
But Wing's basic logicistical objection falls flat when the piratess unsheathes that monster of a blade, and it occurs to the girl that she could really use another javelin right about now.
"Looks like we're up again, big guy--"
Yet the swordswoman's midget sidekick has already leapt slavering at her teammate. Assuming that at this initial juncture Cody can more than take care of himself, Wing decides to take the initiative herself as well and get a gauge of this new opponent, to make sure she can't sneak up on Cody while he's occupied. Proud as Wing is, she's not prepared to deny that she wants Cody by her side for as long as possible.
Well, okay, she might deny it, but it's the truth.
"Hrraaahh!"
It ain't easy, closing in an on armed opponent, particularly not one so extravagantly armed. But Wing is a little tricksier than her brawling influences -- and current howling head-long charge -- might indicate, and she demonstrates it now, her diminutive frame becoming a blur of afterimages as she streaks toward Kanata. Her whole body alights-- then blurs upward, suddenly, stretching like a funhouse mirror. The moment is brief, and Wing's continued charge may prove more distracting.
But a wiser adversary will note that Wing's once-howling mouth is no longer emitting sound-- and the bloodcurling cry is now coming from above. While Wing's false form, a bubble of chi shaped in her emitted, continues toward Kanata from the front, the /real/ Wing hurtles from above to blast against the swordswoman from above before flipping away-- hopefully, at the very least, avoding that blade in the confusion.
COMBATSYS: Tran successfully hits Cody with Dr. Tran's Summer Splash.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Cody 0/-------/----===|-------\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Tran
Cody doesn't so much as react as Tran rushes him, and when the two collide, Cody goes from 'standing there with his arms hanging limply at his sides' to 'lying on the ground, his body twisted in a horribly impossible fashion' without any interceding frames of animation-- that is to say, periods of being. One instant he's fine, and the next he's on the ground, Tran jumping up and down on him like... well, like an enraged monkey.
Cody just lies there, frowning, for a good four seconds, watching Wing go hurtling towards Kanata from his spot ont he ground... before, finally, he decides he's sick of Tran stepping on his face over and over and over and over and over and--
When things go amiss, and Cody suddenly rolls over and half-rises, swinging his arm violently up towards Tran's chin, the Doctor's first question will probably be:
Where did Cody even /get/ a wrench?
COMBATSYS: Wing successfully hits Kanata with Monkey Mischief.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Tran
"Your compliments honor me, Doctor."
The sword twists to a horizontal angle before Kanata lowers the blade close to the skyway's ground-- but never actually touching. Looking slowly to the side, over her shoulder, she regards the lion with the slightest smile before turning her attention back to Wing.
"A companion goes everywhere, even where they do not belong."
The sword sweeps upward in a defensive posture as Wing closes in on her, the palm of her left hand pressing against the decorated blue-brushed metal as the girl charges. The pose gives her a good position to counter from, should she need it, and-- it turns out that the ploy does seem to pay off.
Turning her gaze upward at the last possible moment, the burst of energy slams into the pirate princess. Her knees buckle and her whole body shifts backwards as she bends forward at the waist, her empty hand gripping her chest with a gasp of air.
Still bent forward, Kanata smiles. "Impressive."
Lunging forward to meet Wing when she lands, Kanata positions herself to swing that massive sword around... moments before her knee thrusts forward into an unsteadying strike, followed by a small hop into the air before her right leg blazes skyward-- then her heel drops, looking to drive Wing squarely into the ground and leave the heel of her boot planted on Wing Xiaoping's head for a moment more.
COMBATSYS: Tran blocks Cody's Light Random Weapon.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Tran
No mystery is to great for Dr. Tran; a man of his stunning intellect can answer questions sometimes /before they have even been asked/. It is but one of his many amazing talents. In this situation, the mystery of the mysterious mystery wrench, it plays out like this in his head.
'Oh, it's a suppository.' MYSTERY SOLVED.
It's gross, but now that Dr. Tran has comprehended the nature of Codygas' attack, it's rendered, if not harmless, then at least within the realm of 'things Dr. Tran can cope with without exploding and dying'. The wrench flies upward, but the doctor catches it; sort of. It certainly impacts his hand, and in turn drives the elbow against the body hard enough to push him away, but at no point does Tran actually get a hold on it.
It's just as well, he'd have to wash his hands and the odds of running water up here seem low at best.
His immediate rage spent, Tran takes the time to turn to Kanata. "Huh." Quick checklist: mature, aura of calm, sexy, in control, has a cat, doesn't immediately try to turn him into paste. Tran's heartbeat quickens.
Taking a step forward toward Cody, raising a leg, Tran attempts little more than a boot to the head, which actually only comes up to about the sternum.
"Is this...love?"
COMBATSYS: Kanata successfully hits Wing with Underneath My Heel.
-* WILD HIT! *-
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Cody 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Tran
Not.
Acceptable.
Wing, utterly expressionless, carefully replays the last five seconds in her memory. First she tried to say 'Of course I'm impressive'. Then she was interrupted with a decisively smug-look-cleansing boot to the face. Then this ridiculous woman landed on her. And now Wing is staring, breathless, up at the sky, except she can only half see because Kanata's /foot/ is on her /face/--
"GrrraaAAAAAAHHHH!" is the Queen's 'Impressive' equivalent.
For all that the crimes Wing has now committed will leave an indelible stain upon her soul, and for all that may well leave Jinchuu, if she leaves it, permanently changed, some things will always stay the same, chief among them being her primary motivators: rage and humiliation. Rolling away from her current predicament, tantalizing as it might be, Wing surges to her feet with a vengeance, snarling like a rabid Pomeranian. "Yooouuuuuu--" Her eyes are still a little crossed from the impact, but it doesn't prevent her from charging again from toward the piratess, who seems to, at least for the moment, have her sword out of the way. "--wiiiiill--"
And then Wing leaps, forehead first, at Kanata's face.
"PAY!!"
Thus does Wing's head seek to have its revenge-- albeit not against her opponent's foot.
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Tran's Strong Kick.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/--=====|=------\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Tran
Cody's buttwrench clatters to the ground as he slowly climbs to his feet. So slowly, in fact, that Tran's kick to the head to the sternum is actually to the head after all, because Cody is still in a kneel when it comes out. The Doctor's foot cracks squarely into his jaw, and Cody...
... once again, doesn't even react, continuing to rise calmly to his feet even with Tran's foot smashed squarely into his face. He lifts the foot with him, and - with it still buried in his face - surges closer to Tran, at least as much as a horrible drug addict zombie can surge.
As he pushes closer to the tiny American! man, Cody swings his right fist up into Tran's abdomen, savagely twisting his arm to the right as he does so, which - according to the basic principles of science - means that a ten-foot tall whirlwind follows in the wake of the blow.
COMBATSYS: Wing successfully hits Kanata with Strong Punch.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Tran
Standing with her heel on Wing's head, her smile is again subtle-- no sarcasm, no obvious arrogance, and no toothy grins that would make her look psychotic. That, and the presence that never seems to sway in the least, even as Wing is back up on her feet.
Pulling her foot back in the commission of the act, Kanata's sword sweeps to the side to prevent hitting herself and, oddly enough, to give Wing the time she needs to get back onto her feet. She's not standing still, though, oh hell no-- she moves. Those blue eyes are locked on Wing, but she continues to lightly step as though she were on the solid ground, barely seeming to pay attention to the fact that four steps in the wrong direction would consign her to oblivion.
The movements don't keep her from feeling Wing's wrath. She expects a lunging punch, kick, or blast of chi, and instead she's granted the unusual trajectory of someone launching themselves forehead-first through the air to land a colossal headbutt that sends the woman's head snapping back as tone legs tense, sliding on the soles of her boots and attempting to control the action across the unsteady surface of the land.
Straightening up, a spot of red heralds the beginnings of what will soon be a welt... yet, Kanata doesn't seem to be upset by this development. There /is/ a bit of amusement, however, as the back of her gloved hand touches cheekbone. "That... hurt," she remarks, the budding seeds of surprise in her tone.
Then, she moves.
She sweeps forward, she twists to the left, swings to the right. Turning to the right, her left hand braces against the spine of the large sword, a surge of sparkling blue water flowing along those waves and crests and intricate etchings on the sword. Sweeping upward in a hooking "uppercut" with the sword, Kanata follows through with a little more oomph, with a bit of a jump, hoping to take Wing off her feet and into the air in the process.
"Higetsugiri!!"
COMBATSYS: Cody successfully hits Tran with Criminal Upper.
-* CRITICAL HIT! *-
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/-======|===----\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0 Tran
Dr. Tran is distracted by the budding flower of romance.
Cody is a big, burly man who punches so hard tornados happen.
The result is not a kind one.
The doctor barely notices that his foot is sort of stuck against Cody's face, having mentally checked out for a moment, wondering if she's really the one, if he's just getting ahead of himself, but oh, it feels so right!
The explosion of fist and tempest also feels right, in a number of ways. It feels like Cody's right hand. It feels like it was right in the jaw. It feels like Dr. Tran's trousers are getting completely shredded.
Landing hard on the crystalline platform (which cracks slightly), Dr. Tran struggles to regain his balance, his equilibrium. Once he realizes that he doesn't so much have one, things go a bit easier and he manages to push himself up to his feet, trying to clear his swimming vision with a shake of his head.
Almost inevitably, the doctor looks down in the process, and is almost overwhelmed. The height...but even moreso, his /pants/. Fist clenching, Tran bows his head as a tsunami of emotion threatens to overtake him.
A tear spatters against the crystal. Dr. Tran is otherwise completely motionless.
COMBATSYS: Tran gains composure.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/-======|===----\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Tran
COMBATSYS: Wing fails to interrupt Higetsugiri from Kanata with Shaolin Worldwide.
- CRAZY Hit! -
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/-======|=====--\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////// ]
Wing 1/-----==/=======|======-\-------\0 Tran
Wing is a storm. A raging storm of unbridled-- rage. She feels as though there has been nothing more satisfying in her life than to plant her forehead directly against Kanata's smirking -- okay, she wasn't actually smirking, really, but allow Wing some artistic liberty -- face. And now she cannot help but allow that storm to continue to build, taking her up into the air, higher, higher--
And then comes the sword.
This is really something she should not have forgotten about.
Wing's heart drops into the pit of her stomach as that sword once again makes its appearance-- and how. Tragically, Wing has already /left/ the ground, having intended to launch into a vicious cartwheel kick, and her improvised effort to, uh, cartwheel around the rising blade, which might have been kind of impressive had it any chance of working, does not turn out for her so well. Needless to say, the rising blade tears into the girl's torso, and as the young Queen is conveniently already in midair, she is hurled up into the sky, screaming all the way, a long line having sheared cleanly through the front of her jumpsuit, since now thanks to Tran we are all in the business of losing our clothes.
She is also bleeding pretty badly.
It's almost, almost a Ring Out. Only a single flailing hand saves Wing from plummeting most likely to her death, her wild spiral through the air sending her just within arm's reach of the platform's edge. Forgetting the agony tearing through her, she grabs hold of that crumbling edge for all she's worth, wailing piteously as her legs dangle into open space.
"TRAVERS!" she cries, trying to get a good grip with her off hand as well. "HELP ME!"
It's one thing to get cleaved open with a giant sword.
But this is just embarrassing.
As Dr. Tran sheds a single tear over his ruined pants, having been flung across the platform, COdy looks on in stony silence. The impact of his fist and Tran's everything is still reverbating up his arm, like he was just high-fived by God, or The Todd, or possibly The Godd. It feels... it feels...
Cody takes a deep breath as the adrenaline of combat floods his system, rousing his mind to something resembling human functionality. "Much better," he sighs with obvious relief, rolling his head and shoulders around to loosen them up. "Now..."
'Now...' is apparently short for 'Now, time to keep this kid from falling to her death.' Cody crosses the platform in a series of long, suddenly not that zombie-like steps, leans down, and grabs Wing by the elbow of the arm she's clinging to the platform with. He doesn't so much help her up as he does lift her and toss her casually to safety, but, well, it's something, right?
"Trade you," he offers the girl calmly, as he tosses her aside... but it's not so much an offer as it is a statement of fact, because immediately he rounds on Kanata and takes a step closer to her. "Hey, sword bitch," he calls out invitingly; he flicks his wrists, and suddenly gleaming switchblades appear in each of his hands, blades flashing out of their hilts. Cody inclines his head respectfully, and then calls,
"I challenge you to a battle of knifes."
And then he whips his left hand forwards, and the knife in it erupts into the air, screaming towards Kanata as little more than a blur of glinting metal.
COMBATSYS: Cody successfully hits Kanata with Knife Throw.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////// ]
Cody 1/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////// ]
Wing 1/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Tran
Unswayed by the attempt at breaking through her attack, Kanata twists a bit in the air before landing on the balls of her feet, knees bending to catch her weight. Her hair flows, coat billows, and the landing is quite graceful. She doesn't chase after Wing or attempt to finish the job. Instead, her sword turns over in her hand and plants into the ethereal skyway, hand wrapped around the handle as she seems content to stand and wait.
"Not too proud to ask for help," Kanata notes aloud, giving Wing a long and appraising stare. "I like that."
Then, Cody arrives and starts throwing knives. She sees it coming a mile away, but... that does nothing for her if she can't judge the timing of the throw. Her hand reaches out as though she fully intends to catch or smack the blade out of the air, but it instead drives into her palm with a wet slap.
"Khh-!!"
Brow knit and actually frowning for the first time in the fight, the pirate princess brings the knife up to her mouth. Biting the handle with her teeth, she pulls her hand free of the weapon before carefully, gingerly holding it in her left hand, closing her fist around the handle, tightly. It presses into her palm. The pain signals her brain to produce endorphins, adrenaline, and other amazing bio-chemicals to help dull the pain temporarily.
Kanata draws in a deep breath, then releases the knife to the skyway. Pulling the sword out of the faux ground, her body sets square to Cody, bringing the sword up across her chest and held with both hands. The edge turns upward, the tip pointed at the fighter and her eyes a bit calmer... but at the same time, colder.
"A gentleman introduces himself before challenging someone to a duel."
COMBATSYS: Kanata gains composure.
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Cody 1/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 1/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Tran
So a teenage girl almost died. So what? Is that any excuse for Cody to run off like that, when Dr. Tran was trying to claim brutal, somewhat ineffectual vengeance? And then, THEN, he goes and throws a knife at the lovely Kanata? Dispicable.
"You...rrrgh! You /trash/!" Dr. Tran's hand starts to spasm, and it's only be an effort of extreme self-control that he manages to reign himself in enough to avoid completely going bugfuck nuts.
"Your mother was a goat!" Tran lunges forward, half-turned away from the one-time hero, fist still shaking with rage. He uncoils like a spring, his entire body twisting and sailing about as he drives it as hard as he can toward Cody's side.
"A SHITTY GOAT WITH NO HOOVES!"
Wing is sent sprawling by Cody's casual heft, but she's just grateful to be alive-- and to have the big guy seemingly back in action. He always does take a little while to warm up. Clutching at the bleeding vertical line upon her torso and trying to come to her senses, a terrible thought suddenly occurs to her.
Is he a robot??
Fortunately for us all, the would-be gangland empress is soon interrupted in her quasi-musings by Katana's appraising comment. It may very well have been made in all sincerity, but Wing, among her many talents, is extremely good at detecting mockery -- so good at detecting mockery that she can detect it even when it is not there. "Are you making fun of me!?" she shouts, her head snapping up to glare at the swordswoman, a flush rising to the girl's cheeks. Damn, that's right, there were other people listening. She forgot, what with the almost getting hacked to pieces and then almost falling to her death. She's losing her touch.
Or her insecurity-unto-paranoia, anyway. But what would Wing be without that?
"I oughtta--" But then Cody throws a knife at the woman, and it occurs to Wing that, you know what, Katana has a ginormous sword, and maybe she should pick on someone a little less terrifying. "I /oughtta/ kick your ass," she amends, still shouting, "but I'll let my /minion/ deal with you! /You/, however--"
And she hurls herself at Tran, arms outstretched, now roaring in fury. "--don't get to fuck with MY MINION!" She may or may not reach Tran before he collides with Cody, but either way she will attempt to collide with Tran in turn, tackling him to the ground and proceeding to punch him in the face over and over again until her arm gets tired or she gets bored or he dies or all of the above.
Got your back, Cody.
COMBATSYS: Cody Toughs Out Tran's Dr. Tran Bites the Bullet!
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Cody 1/------=/=======|======-\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 1/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0 Tran
Cody doesn't even turn his head to look at Tran; he remains staring at Kanata, his eyes gleaming, a grin slowly spreading across his face, as the Doctor rushes him. And then Tran's fist crashes into his side, and there's the pointed snap of one of his ribs cracking, but he doesn't flinch, or blink, or do... anything.
After a few moments, Tran's hand swells up, turns bright red, and begins to throb.
"I ain't no gentleman," Cody informs Kanata curtly, shifting his grip on the knife still in his right hand.
And then Wing tackles Tran off of him, and Cody - who might be a robot - bursts into motion, charging across the platform towards her. There are action lines, and a wordless cry, and the camera angle changes like three times.
It's a whole lot of special effects razzmatazz covering up that Cody's basic plan is still to just stab Kanata in the uterus.
COMBATSYS: Kanata blocks Cody's Tokushu Koudou.
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Cody 1/-----==/=======|=======\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 1/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0 Tran
'Are you making fun of me!?' "No."
She sounds genuine.
All hell breaks loose at once as Tran jumps back into the fray, throwing one more blow at Cody while Wing recovers; attacks fly back and forth, and Kanata is able to fully focus her attention on the knife-wielding man, especially now as he charges in toward her.
Turning the blade in her hands, the edge of the giant sword is used to parry away the knife from what would be a direct stab to the gut. Kanata's precision in this action becomes obvious as the steel blades meet, and the fact that she hasn't taken Cody's hand off at the wrist. The knife does, however, slice across her side in a shallow gash that tears through her layers of clothing.
"Tsk," the thief says, finally seeming to look a little bit irritated. "I loved this coat."
Turning away from Cody in a dramatically broad gesture, Kanata gets just enough room that an arm's length swing of the knife won't reach her. Lowering to one knee, her left hand dives into her coat, withdrawing a long gun: The bastard child of a handgun and a rifle, the barrel is long enough to be ridicilous but short enough that it can fit within her clothes without being seen at casual inspection.
Decorated with a similar motif of waves and flowing water, the gun features a flintlock-style hammer on the left side of the gun, drawn back with her thumb as it aims at Cody. Her finger moves from the protective loop to the trigger.
A swirl of blue chi appears behind her, parallel and in line with her left arm and the barrel of the gun. Flowing through her arm and into the gun itself the moment she pulls the trigger, a the gun bucks just slightly and fires a rather nasty shot of that sparkling blue water chi, compressed into the size and carrying the force of an actual bullet-- aimed right at the ol' solar plexus.
COMBATSYS: Tran fails to interrupt Strong Punch from Wing with Dr. Tran Bites the Bullet EX.
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Cody 1/-----==/=======|=======\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 1/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 Tran
There is an audible snapping noise as Tran's fist slams into Cody's manly rib, as an immoveable object meets a relatively small fist that against all reason was not prepared for what it was punching. The doctor can feel things giving, /internally/, and not in the good way.
But not all of that force rebounds into his hand; Tran's fist actually slips to the side, retaining a great deal of its original momentum, slinging around like a comet toward the incoming Wing. At this point, with his fist basically pulling him around with its own dark momentum, Tran tries to reel it in a little, take control of it.
This is a mistake.
His aching fist goes wide of the in-bound street queen, wooshing right by her head as she tackles him and then sort of beats the crap out of him for a while.
He keeps /trying/ to say something but she just keeps /punching/, god.
This is why Dr. Tran hates schoolgirls. They're so /unreasonable/.
"Aaaaaahh!"
By this point, Wing has forgotten everything: the wound in her chest, the real or imagined embarrassment at the presumably dainty hands of Kanata, last night's rare moment of conversation with Cody -- and the events that inspired it. She has a strategic reason for occupying Tran's attention with as much violence as possible, but her brain has misplaced it. This is not a problem. She is literally sitting on his chest and punching him vigorously in the face.
She does not need a reason.
"AAAAAAAAAAAHH!"
In fact, like an unquenchable dynamo, rather than peter out, sustained fury only brings out yet more fury from the miniature berserker, emerging endlessly from the roiling cauldron of black hate within. She kicks it up a notch: her punches begin to blur and double up on themselves, until she /herself/ begins to double up, flickering versions of herself punching and kicking at the prone Tran until there are about five of her, all doing their utmost to beat the living crap out of him. The images themselves are fairly flimsy-- but the force of their strikes are decidedly not.
And the real Wing remains sitting on top him.
Screaming.
...Loudly.
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Kanata's Princess Sniper.
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Cody 1/----===/=======|=======\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0 Tran
Kanata may step out of range of Cody's knife so she can fire her pistol, but the maneuver is a little bit hampered by the fact that Cody... never stops moving forwards. In fact, when the pirate princess turns her gun on him, it ends up sort of shoved point-blank into his midsection simply by virtue of his inexorable advance.
When she pulls the trigger, the ball of water chi discharges itself point-blank into Cody's stomach... but the only response from him is a delighted cry of, "BINGO!"
And then - not to put too fine a point on it - he punches Kanata in the side of the head.
Hit or miss, somewhere in the back of his mind, Cody makes a note to remember that one. He likes it. It's got a... /ring/ to it.
COMBATSYS: Kanata dodges Cody's Medium Strike.
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Cody 1/----===/=======|=======\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0 Tran
Something about this entire situation seems to scream testaments to Cody's resiliance. The way he shrugged off Doctor Tran's attack moments ago, the way that he seems to take the hit and keep on coming, fully intent on putting a right cross into her temple. The young Japanese woman swoops her right leg forward so that she's standing in more of a squat, twisting herself around to duck underneath Cody's offending arm and stepping around to flank him.
Admittedly, Kanata Miyata enjoys a conversational opponent, someone that she can match wits with as well as blades, but Cody just doesn't seem interested in that sort of thing.
Her skirt shifts as her stance widens; her left leg thrusts forward through the split and plants while the sword in her grasp swings backward. Turning forward, letting that right leg advance, she swings at Cody with a broad and powerful cleave-- with the back side of the blade.
No sense in splitting his belly and making a mess, is there?
Should that first strike hit, Kanata pivots back the other way and draws her arm back in. Rolling her wrist, the thief swings once, twice, and a third time with smooth-yet-heavy strikes meant to cut some rather nasty cuts and gashes across the sullen man's torso!
COMBATSYS: Tran dodges Wing's K.R.E.A.M.
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Cody 1/----===/=======|======-\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0 Tran
"So!" Dr. Tran finally manages to get a word in edgewise, even as Wing intensifies her assault. How can this be? Wasn't she just punching him senseless a moment ago?
The answer lies in two very important facts. FIRST: Dr. Tran's spirit animal is the owl, from which he has learned ancient indian wisdom, such as how to really just /bend the heck/ out of your neck. SECOND: his arms are free.
The afterimages, each raining its own hail of blows, are the easy part. Waving his hands like a swami on a sugar high, Dr. Tran somehow manages to intercept each ethereal fist, guiding it away from him as though they were far more solid than they actually are.
The real punches are a different matter. He just has to move his head really fast for those.
And the entire time he's talking in sharp bursts. "You're saying! Huh! That you claim--hah! Responsibility for! Ngg! His actions!?"
Without waiting for a response, Dr. Tran goes back on the offensive, reaching to catch Wing's tiny fists. To /hold her in place/, so that he can recreate the technique of a great American hero.
His knee swings up to hit the angry little queen of the streets right in the crotch, then push her detestable little girl body off of him in the (presumably) stunned and outraged aftermath.
COMBATSYS: Wing blocks Tran's Light Kick.
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Cody 1/----===/=======|======-\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0 Tran
Oh no. Nuh uh.
"What!?"
Wing stops shrieking for just long enough for Tran, jerking his head about like an epileptic, to get a word in edgewise. She shakes her head violently -- at this point she cannot do anything save violently -- and looks at him, crazy-eyed, as though he is crazy. "What are you talking about!?" Only then do her own words filter back: minion. Right. Responsibility. "Sure, whatev--"
*THUMP*
"--gack!"
The girl who would be Queen is interrupted mid-word as Tran's knee viciously lashes up to slam against her chastity belt. Just kidding, that was her thigh. "Argh!" That hurt, but more importantly, it goes to show that even when you think she's at her limit, Wing can get even more pissed. Her face turns tomato-red.
"THAT'S FUCKED UP!!"
Still sort of, kind of, awkwardly sitting on Tran's chest, she can't exactly reciprocate easily, so she resorts to tearing one of her hands out of his grasp and aiming a stinging backhanded slap right across his cheek.
"PERVERT!"
Because saying so is obligatory.
COMBATSYS: Cody Toughs Out Kanata's Parley of Blades!
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Cody 1/--=====/=======|=======\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0 Tran
In a very precise mood, Cody might be up to verbal jousting on top of his attempts to remove Kanata's ovaries from her belly with a knife... but even then, he probably wouldn't be very good at it. On the bright side, either way, he's very good at getting hit with a sword.
Or... maybe that's not such a good thing.
Kanata's first strike connects solidly, knocking some of the air out of Cody's lungs... but it fails to slow him down. The immediate trio of slashes, however, /does/ slow him down... in fact, they even stop him.
... but although the sword slices neat, even gashes in his shirt, the flesh underneath is totally unmarred, and Cody's only reaction to being struck - other than halting his normally unstoppable advance - is to roll his shoulders, puff out his chest, grin broadly, and exhale through his nose.
And then he's moving forwards again... if in an extremely unorthodox way. Suddenly, from a standstill, Cody snaps his foot upwards at like an eighty God damn degree angle... and the force of the kick is so great that his body abruptly slides forwards across the platform, fast enough to make the fact that his foot is rapidly approaching Kanata's chin an actual concern.
COMBATSYS: Cody successfully hits Kanata with Ruffian Kick.
- Power hit! -
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Cody 1/=======/=======|=======\=------\1 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0 Tran
As she strikes, as each blow connects, Kanata has a feeling that something's wrong-- something just doesn't feel right. Those fears, those worries, are made true after a moment. Cody's somehow managed to shrug off the entirety of the attack, and it causes the pirate to let her lips finally curl back and let out a hard, "Tch."
Cody seems intent on keeping that forward momentum, too. Suddenly he's there, kicking much harder than she had initially planned for. The broad sword turns horizontal and the flat is displayed, arms and legs bolstering to take the blow. Instead, sword crashes into foot, foot pushes sword into an awkward angle, and foot collides with face.
Taken off her feet, her back arches and arms fall to the sides, gliding through the air a short distance and dropping to the ground with a bone-jarring thud.
She breathes. Hard.
The jaw is not meant to be struck like that.
Turning over to her side, Kanata props herself up on one arm, hand lifting up to rub her jawline just so. Shifting further to a crouch, then rising, her foot hooks under the spine of the sword and kicks upward a bit, flinging the weapon up to her waiting hand.
"If only there were more elegance to all that power. I could use a man like you."
Her posture shifts, turning her left shoulder toward Cody as she slings the blade onto her right. Her posture is just so-- just right-- and if she decided to use that pose to her full advantage, Kanata Miyata could probably cleave a man in half.
"Though I do not believe a man like you would be interested in what I do."
COMBATSYS: Kanata focuses on her next action.
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Cody 1/=======/=======|=======\=------\1 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0 Tran
COMBATSYS: Tran dodges Wing's Quick Punch.
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Cody 1/=======/=======|=======\=------\1 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0 Tran
Dr. Tran's lips curl back in a sneer of disgust. He can't help it, really. This prolonged contact, the mere IMPLICATION that he would in any way be attracted to his insane, disgusting teenage girl, makes him want to puke all over everything that has ever existed anywhere. That's just how bad it is.
As it is, the doctor manages to keep it down to a little bit of dry heaving, which thankfully doesn't impede the start of his /daring escape/. The sooner he gets away from Wing, or kills her or whatever as long as she's out of the picture, the better; then he can help take Cody out of commission, though recent events have forced Tran to reconsider his previous stance on the man, violent psychopath though he may yet be.
"You're fucked up, /girl/!" The vehemence in Dr. Tran's voice is thick like day old gravy as he lashes out again, fists held in close like a boxer. A horizontal boxer in a compromising position with a more-crazy-than-usual teenage girl.
"GET OFF OF ME ALREADY!"
COMBATSYS: Tran successfully hits Wing with Dr. Tran's Buttle Punch.
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Cody 1/=======/=======|=======\=------\1 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-----==|=======\-------\1 Tran
No, really, she's completely lost it.
There must come a time in any battle with Wing, it appears, when all nuance vacates the scene, when every rational thought she might, in some alternate reality, have supplied vanishes like the dew. Yet perhaps a part of her launches all too easily into her own berserk rage. Perhaps, knowing she cannot avoid violence so long is here, she hurls herself wholesale into it to forget her crimes -- far beyond the scope of her aesthetic of delinquency -- the indelible bloodstains upon her hands. Perhaps Wing, beyond cleansing, seeks to hide those stains the only way they can be, with yet more blood, as the addict flees the shame of their addiction through yet further indulgence.
"GYAAAAAAHHH!"
Or maybe not.
"I'LL KILL YOU!!"
Well, whatever.
Wing attempts instinctively to headbutt Tran's punch, instead only succeeding in slamming her face against the attack, which is really quite helpful more than anything. She is flung back and off him, rolling head over heels and giving him more than enough time to recover. But as she staggers to her feet, nose bleeding and eyes wild, the pint-sized hellion sends the platform about her atremble -- pretty terrifying, but she seems beyond noticiing -- as she gathers chi into her fist, thrusting that hand out in an outrageous blast of force, channeling it directly into the air about her to send gale-force wind surge toward Tran, gathering up random debris in the process to add to its impact: dust, fragments of platform, scraps of Tran's pants.
"UUUURRAAAAAAHHH!"
Tragically, although the edge of the breeze whips at the lion's mane, it is not caught up in the wind as debris, and not flung at Tran as well.
This time.
In the wake of his attack, Cody drops his foot calmly back to the platform and spends a moment bouncing on the balls of his feet, shifting his weight back and forth from foot to foot as he waits for Kanata to retake her feet, a broad grin still spread across his face. When she does, and starts speaking, he spreads his arms invitingly and declares, "I'm elegant as /shit/, baby, I'm the most elegant motherfucker /up/ here, /YEAH!/"
Cody feels fantastic, and he doesn't even know why. "Cobra /Kai/, bitch! Ha /HA!/ /I'M GONNA LIVE FOREVER!/" God /damn/ does he feel good! He feels like... like... like... "HA /H--"
Cody, in the process of bouncing his weight onto his off-foot, suddenly lists sideways and drops heavily to the ground, sucking in a ragged breath through his nose. His cries of exuberance turn into a wordless groan, and he struggles to haul himself back to his feet, but he can only make it onto all fours, and even then, only barely.
For a few seconds, Cody stays there on all fours, his breath coming faster and faster, his heart poudning in his ears. Suddenly, he lifts one fist and smashes it into the platform beneath him; it cracks, leaving a small crater full of jagged edges that slice his hand open as he pulls it back out of the surface.
As ought to be expected - at least by Tran and Wing, over yonder - the blood that flows from the wounds is not red, but glowing neon green.
With a reverbating, bestial roar, Cody rocks up onto his knees and begins tearing at his already sliced-open shirt, ripping it off of his body like it had insulted his mother. Underneath, his muscles are swollen, pallid, and sweaty, and underneath the skin in a few places his fluorescent blood can be seen flowing through his veins.
It is weird.
COMBATSYS: Cody gains composure.
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Cody 1/-======/=======|=======\=------\1 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\1 Tran
This is what even Kanata Miyata, a woman who has seen some of the strangest stuff in the whole of her young life, would call an "unusual moment." Albeit the fact that the man has proven himself time and again to be unnatural, this where things take the cake-- and become much more clear to her.
Kanata's blue eyes half-lid, and she breaks her stance, standing straighter and taller, a frown turning on her glossed lips. Disapproval is written everywhere on her face, and the so-called princess stoops over to retrieve her long silver gun, twirling it to a reverse grip-- hand on the body of the weapon, index and middle finger along the trigger loop-- and she tucks it inside of the long coat she's wearing, the bulk of the firearm apparently lost amidst the nearly-perfect, clean-cut lines of her wardrobe, the curves of her body.
For the first time, Kanata seems to actually /run/, and put emphasis into it. Her footfalls are swift and light against the skyway, ground that sounds more like running in a shallow inch of water than a solid surface. When it seems she's committed to a running slash...
The sword shifts. Her wrist twists, and the blade is taken in a backhanded grip. Vaulting to a ridicilous height in the air using the weapon and her own strength, Kanata is briefly no more than an indistinct blur of contrasting tones of black; silken garments and waving hair as she drops down from above at high speed.
Her spine bends, her legs shift, and arms extend for balance. Muscles tighten up in a sequence that seems more like symphony, and her right leg sweeps up high... before coming down on Cody-- or specifically, the heel of her boot doing just that. The weight and speed behind the kick is considerable, the sheer force-- like the blonde man's own attack-- enough to drive her even harder. Should that heel drive into his head, her foot will hook forward and simply /keep going/, angles and limb shifting just so at every moment so that her foot remains atop his head.
In the end, it goes from axe kick to a complete stomp to the face, and Kanata Miyata will try to drive Cody's head into the ground with enough force that he may be confused for a human ostrich. At the end of it, she adds one very important note:
"Know your place!"
COMBATSYS: Tran dodges Wing's Dragonforce.
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Cody 1/-======/=======|-------\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/------=|=======\-------\1 Tran
As Cody sort of hulks out at his object of affection, Tran isn't /oblivious/ exactly, but his mind's on other things and he really just can't quite seem to care. Has he even seen this before? He doesn't remember, not that it really matters. Kanata can take care of it~
And besides, this girl is /seriously/ pissing him off. She has the /nerve/ to get angry at him? As though she's not the guilty party here? He doesn't recall exactly what she's guilty of, but by god she's going to pay for it, and her many other crimes against Dr. Tran, and probably also humanity at large. She is villainous to the core, so who knows what other horrible things she's done? Tortured kittens? Stole candy from babies? Liked that one thing that everybody else knows was awful?
Plus, she totally almost wrecked the entire platform and killed them all, even though only one of them is really worth caring about.
"This is unacceptable!" Tran, not a man to stand around and do nothing in the face of adversity (unless he feels like it), leaps into action (somewhat literally) in the face of what is basically another tornado.
Diving to one side to clear the massive gust, Tran comes up to his feet just close enough to the outer edge of the blast to let his coat, still miraculously intact, flutter dramatically against the backdrop of a ruined city. Lightning flashes.
It would be unspeakably cool if Tran were still wearing pants. /Yet another thing she has stolen from him./
"Just die in piece, you tiny harpy!" With a mad rush, Dr. Tran chooses an age-old strategy, sure to bring success at this time: rush directly ahead and punch Wing in the face with absolutely zero finesse or subtlety.
COMBATSYS: Wing blocks Tran's Strong Punch.
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Cody 1/-======/=======|-------\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-----==|=======\=------\1 Tran
Unacceptable?
"Gyaaaahhh!"
You're telling me.
Spittle flies from Wing's lips as she screams in outrage and frustration, only able to watch as Tran evades her furious and desperate assault -- and then strikes a dramatic pose, of all things. His lack of pants may injure the image somewhat, but it does nothing to mitigate Wing's unrelenting fury.
"PUT SOME PANTS ON!"
On the contrary.
The rest of the world could be burning for all the little Queen cares. Though her legs quake beneath her, and her face appears unhealthily flushed, she stubbornly faces the rushing Doctor, fists clenching again. Howling unintelligibly in response to his demands, she lunges forward and, with all the might remaining at her disposal, lashes out with the fiercest punch she can.
Having failed to realize Tran is punching too--
"Argh!"
--she ends up just punching his fist.
Brow knitting, she quietly sucks on her knuckles for several moments, stamping her feet. "Gghh! Nnghh!" For the moment, mind blank, she resorts to glowering at Tran as intensely as possible. Take /that/. Wait-- she has another hand.
"Nnt bfrr youuuu!" she tries to shout from behind her right hand as her left fist rockets out, running with a punch of her own, a left hook aimed, admittedly a little awkwardly, for his temple.
COMBATSYS: Kanata successfully hits Cody with So Far Below Me I'm Looking Up.
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Cody 1/=======/=======|-------\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-----==|=======\=------\1 Tran
Cody is still freaking out on the ground, apparently oblivious to his surroundings, when Kanata's heel cracks into the top of his head, forcing it downwards to crash into - and then through - the floor of the platform beneath him, razor (possibly even lazer) sharp edges slicing his face and neck to ribbons.. Immediately, he attempts to rise, yanking his head up out of the ground...
... but the jagged edges of the crater his head is stuck in catch in his flesh like barbs. A bestial scream of fury and pain is muffled by the fact that Cody's head is buried, and he slams a fist into the platform next to where his head is buried, adding a third crater to the decor.
After a few moments, his rage intensifies enough that he simply rips his head upwards out of the platform, exploding the crader upwards in a spray of shrapnel. Glowing green blood pours out of wounds all over his neck, but he doesn't seem to notice; he just rounds on Kanata and lunges, with a snarl of of rage.
As he lunges, his right hand draws back, and--
Okay, where did he get that length of lead pipe?
This is just getting ridiculous.
COMBATSYS: Cody successfully hits Kanata with Random Weapon.
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Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|==-----\-------\0 Kanata
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Wing 0/-------/-----==|=======\=------\1 Tran
When his face is put through the skyway, Kanata can feel the tension still burning through Glowdy's body; her leg and boot's heel presses down harder-- until it becomes clear he's going to stand up, by God, and he's not going to let some woman he only met today keep him from doing so.
Using Cody's strength and her own athletic prowess, Kanata uses Cody's head as a point to spring off of, shifting her weight forward and bending at the knee. When he rises, she pushes off and flips herself backwards, gripping the handle of her sword and pulling it free from the ground the moment that he flat-out hulks up from the ground and wields a lead pipe.
Twisting slightly, the princess of the seas tries to take a step back and out of the swinging arc, but the blonde man's strength and fury are just too much for her at this point: The pipe slams across her abdomen with a dull *whuff* noise, the Japanese woman's legs lifting off the ground less out of a reactionary hop and more out of the sheer physical strength used in the attack. Though she remains upright, there's a bit of air time before Kanata lands on her feet.
It isn't without reprecussions, though. She bends forward, breathing in jagged gasps and seeking breath that just won't come. In all of his berserker fury, she still remains on her feet-- just with her empty arm wrapped around her stomach, feeling radiating waves of pain that reach as high as inside her chest and as low as her hips.
Curling her gloved fingers in a little tighter, her hand-- that left hand-- that was given a hole in it by one of Cody's knives digs against the injury a little bit, attempting to gate her brain into recognizing only one pain at a time.
Kanata isn't finished, however. Not by a long shot.
Holding the sword in a backhanded grip, she takes a lunging step in. Her posture shifts, her hands grip the sword as she rotates, and the pirate sweeps the blade's edge across the skyway before ripping upward into the air. That brilliant sparkling blue chi flows off the sword in the form of a wave of water, one that travels along the ground on a hard angle and seeks to slam into Cody's legs. If all plans come to pass, it might just take his legs out from underneath him, too!
COMBATSYS: Tran interrupts Strong Punch from Wing with Quick Punch.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|==-----\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\ < > ///////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Tran
She's so...graceful. Amazing. The adversity only makes it all the more impressive. Dr. Tran could watch her all day.
No, not, Wing, /bleuch/, the attractive one with the pet tiger. Wing doesn't get nearly as much kind attention, though she certainly gets a fair measure because she is being kind of a wussy little girl who thinks she can fight a man of Dr. Tran's magnitude with those girly punches.
"No! No, you! God!" The doctor's response, while not the most mature route he could have taken, adequately sums up his feelings as much as words can at this point. Not enough. Injuring her might work, though.
Just as she did moments before, Dr. Tran meets her punch just like she met his, except for once he's both bigger and stronger. He actually gets the better of this exchange, forcing Wing's hand back despite how it actually hurt for a girl punch (did he feel a bit of bone fracture? whatever).
And then, with his hand extended, Tran brings it sweeping across her face. There. That conveys the depths of his hatred for her (but mostly all of her vile kind) perfectly. /Justice is finally served/.
This is even worse than the time Wing got impaled by two javelins.
"Eeeyahh--!"
Okay, maybe it's not quite that bad.
"/God!/"
But it sucks.
Even as she rants, Wing is spun around by the force of Tran's exceedingly manly girl-slap, arms flailing and eyes crossed, half-staggering, her already wobbly knees buckling from the force. Sputtering incoherently, the girl could not manage to articulate her rage, shame, and agony even if she had a mind to, and if she has a mind, it's currently hiding as far from this terrible situation as it possibly can. Woe, woe and misery.
But perhaps it is for the best that need take no more tours of Wing's conscience or consciousness. It is enough to say that there, indeed, lurks within her heart a perverse, grateful satisfaction that she can bury herself in physical pain and exertion, subsume herself utterly in the berserk froth that usually consumes her whether she likes it or not. Given the circumstances-- she likes it.
"Ugghaghh!"
But she doesn't like being slapped.
It's hard to tell whether it's an attack or just a kind of limb spasm, but perhaps there is more than one justice to be served here-- for Wing's foot, even as she careens away, jerks up with violent force, and aims to plant a solid kick directly between the good Doctor's legs.
Is it simply fate?
COMBATSYS: Kanata successfully hits Cody with Run Aground.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\ < > ///////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Tran
Take his legs out from underneath him in-/deed/.
The wave of chi crashes so violently into Cody's legs that - although his posture remains straight-legged and rigid - his entire body turns ninety degrees as his legs swing up into the air behind him and he rotates like a Tetric block before dropping heavily to the surface of the platform.
While still lying facedown, his face dangerously close to a crater full of jagged shards, Cody utters a muffled, bestial growl into the floor. She shot a fireball at him. Waterball, whatever. It's a fireball.
Cody Travers, even in the throes of a drug-fueled rage, hates fireballs.
As Cody rises slowly to his feet again, he pauses briefly on all fours to... plunge his hand into the surface of the platform, the limb punching through the substance that makes it up like it was nothing. With a grunt, he rips his hand back up a moment later... and in his hand is clutched a spiky ball of crystalline-ish... /stuff./
Which Cody proceeds to whip in a vicious sidearm throw at Kanata as he finishes rising back to his feet.
COMBATSYS: Cody successfully hits Kanata with Thrown Object.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > //////// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|====---\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\ < > ///////////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Tran
Moving to the left, swaying to the right, Kanata's sword seems to have done it's job quite admirably-- the chi flowed as it was intended, and Cody Travers was introduced to the ground at a rather painful and direct angle. She had hoped, for a moment, that a direct faceplant would be enough to stun him and maybe cool his head a little bit.
She thought wrong.
He's on his feet and ripping up chunks of the skyway in his hand, the formation of the object irregular and fast. Though she's attempted to remain mobile for most of the encounter, the princess is struck across the right shoulder. Jagged spikes and sky-stuff tear at clothing, at skin and flesh. The pain is visible, and the woman seems to be looking winded for the first time in the length of the battle.
Still, she stays upright.
Both hands on the handle of her sword, Kanata's left leg leads again with a subtle shift of her skirt, her long hair flowing over her shoulders and coat settling through her stance. Moving forward all at once, the rushing motion becomes a hard lunge, ducking herself to her left, Cody's right-- and swinging that sword around with as much force as she can muster.
In a single stroke, Cody is attacked twice. At the speed she swings, at the near-blur of movement that is her body, that single stroke... is actually two parts. At the point where her sword should make contact with his body, her chi flows outward through the blade in a matching, crossing slash.
COMBATSYS: Tran fails to interrupt Light Kick from Wing with Dr. Tran Goes For Broke.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ < > /////// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|====---\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\ < > //////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Tran
Since Wing has degraded to the state of a lowly, raving beast, Dr. Tran doesn't even bother trying to tell her just how awful she really is, even though he is more than qualified to explain it to her in detail. Unfortunately, she also has a beast's low, animal cunning, which leads her to try to do shit like nail him in the jimmies. Well, he knows how to deal with /that/.
Raising one leg for a pre-emptive counterattack, the doctor instead receives an extremely painful boot to the crotch, which he appears not to notice except for the way his entire body just went completely still. Considering his position, that is no easy feat.
"urk." It is a pitiful sound, accompanied by Tran slowly toppling over without moving an inch, as though he were encased in ice.
He just...stays there for a moment, completely rigid and motionless from head to toe, save for his eyes. They appear to be watering. Perhaps a speck of dust got caught in one of them.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the killing blow.
"Huaaaghh!"
Well-- okay-- as soon as she gets up. Oop, she fell over again. Okay, here she comes. Wing, having mentally assured herself the platform is not spinning nearly as quickly as it appears to be, steadies herself upon her palms and staggers up to her feet on legs that somehow appear to yet be functioning, only to find, conveniently, that after she has finished spinning around Tran is lying there waiting for her in what appears to be a catatonic state.
Well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Accept your punishment!" the reigning Queen screams for all to hear as she leaps, with a strength she did not seem to possess, up over her emasculated foe, and with all the power remaining in her tiny little body seeks to drive both feet down mercilessly upon Tran's insignificant skull. And split it open like a melon!
Or, you know, leave some dirty sneaker prints.
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Kanata's Scarlet Flash of Nirvana.
[ \\\\\\\ < > /////// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|====---\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\ < > //////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Tran
Cody doesn't just stand there and let Kanata hit him, oh no. He actually steps into her slice, teeth bared in a snarl; the blade flows smoothly over his flesh, and this time actually draws blood, a thin line of fluorescent green rising out of his skin and beginning to trickle down his pale bare chest. In the same instant, a complementary strike of blue chi crashes into his chest, raising a long, purple bruise out of the flesh.
But Cody never stops. Even as Kanata's blade is digging into his flesh, he's swinging his right arm up into her abdomen with a savage roar, sharply twisting his forearm to the right as his arm slams upwards.
As the limb reaches full extension, a ten foot tall whirlwind suddenly erupts into being around Kanata... but unlike the first one, this one has an odd green tint to it. It's also really, really hot; neon green embers billow out of the tornado in thick sheets, drifting all across the platform housing all four combatants like snow.
/FIRE SNOW./
COMBATSYS: Kanata blocks Cody's Criminal Upper.
[ \\\\\\\ < > //// ]
Cody 1/=======/=======|======-\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\ < > //////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Tran
Fire.
Snow.
Two things that should never be together, like many of the oxymorons that have become so cleverly overused in the last ten to fifteen years. Yet, as soon as he seems intent on powering through her assault does she try to turn the situation to her own favor; the sword's blade cuts through the air and the forming tornado as Kanata lowers her stance and angles the blade out in front of her. The flat is presented to the striking winds, and it weathers the storm fairly well, all things considered.
Then, as soon as the winds clear, she's gone.
Or more precisely, moving forward, hoping to remain below the taller man's notice as she creeps inward with a lunging step ahead and puts herself at a position beneath him that she can fit both hands around the sword's handle. Point-blank, her body rotates, turning away from Cody long enough that the force of her own chi can build, flow across the waves and crests of the sword.
Kanata sweeps the sword up in a hooking uppercut of sorts, with a jump, and hopefully takes Cody off his feet in the process.
Hopeful-- but not naive. He's shrugged off so much from her so far, what more can he possibly show her before even his berserker strength wears out?
Still, she declares one more time:
"Higetsugiri!!"
COMBATSYS: Tran effortlessly dodges Wing's Heavy Kick.
[ \\\\\\\ < > /// ]
Cody 1/=======/=======|======-\-------\0 Kanata
[ \\\ < > //////////// ]
Wing 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 Tran
Even when he's down, Dr. Tran is not neccesarily out. As Wing leaps into the air to attack him, he abruptly regains his ability to be limber with a triumphant cry. Such subterfuge! Such strategy! Playing possum to lure the enemy off-guard! It's brilliant, honest.
Wiggling like a snake to where Wing just came from in what has to be one of the less orthodox evasive maneuvers seen in Taizhou, Dr. Tran also manages to seemingly defy gravity and slide upward into a standing position. He just makes it look so easy.
"Accept this!" The banter, maybe not so much. But as it turns out, a surefire way to keep others from criticizing too harshly is to choke them. Tran starts in on Wing in this fashion, one hand reaching out to do just that, just in case she gets any ideas. She seems like the type.
Just to be sure, though, he also kicks at her stomach afterward, and certainly not to be excessively cruel in any capacity. Nope.
COMBATSYS: Wing endures Tran's 3 2 1...Dr Tran.
[ \\\\\\\ < > /// ]
Cody 1/=======/=======|======-\-------\0 Kanata
[ < > //////////// ]
Wing 1/-------/=======|=======\=====--\1 Tran
Wing stomps furiously upon the-- ground. Then stomps again, and again for good measure, leaving splintered fragments of her all-too-durable foe. Take that, and that, and-- who dares interrupt her!?
"Accept what!?" is what she tries to shout, the utterly dazed kung-fool, bewildered that the voice is coming from the side and not beneath her, where, clearly, she is stomping Tran to little tiny pieces. What she instead says is "Accept wahhghghh--", as Tran grabs her by the throat and begins to choke her mercilessly. Her red face turns blue, unaided by her absolutely unchivalrous foe's timely kick to her midsection. Things look grim for Wing Xiaoping.
Okay, they've looked grim for a little while now.
Yet even as the Queen of the Streets's strength begins to fail utterly, even as her lower body goes limp, her eyes abruptly narrow-- the first warning as her arms blur into action, possibly before Tran can release her. Seeking to pummel him with blazing fists, blurring afterimages seeming almost to join in the assault as she scr-- well, she can't scream-- as she opens her mouth threateningly while punching away with all abandon. She's giving it everything she's got. Out of pure spite, if nothing else.
How can Tran not respect that?
Whatever happens, the Doctor will have to release Wing eventually. And once those feet touch ground--
COMBATSYS: Wing can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\ < > /// ]
Cody 1/=======/=======|======-\-------\0 Kanata
> //////////// ]
|=======\=====--\1 Tran
--she falls over.
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Kanata's Higetsugiri.
[ \\\\ < > /// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|======-\-------\0 Kanata
> //////////// ]
|=======\=====--\1 Tran
Kanata's sword crashes into Cody's midsection so hard the blade actually digs about an inch into his flesh, neon green blood spilling forth to run down the weapon as the two combatants rise into the air. Back in the day, when wars were fought with swords and leeches counted as medicine, this is the type of wound that fucking killed people.
But it doesn't even give Cody pause. As he and Kanata lift upwards, he reaches out to grab the woman's face and yank it sharply downwards, bending her double so he can lift his right foot and plant it in between her shoulderblades. If Cody has his way, when gravity drags the two back down to the surface of the platform, Kanata will be making the trip face-first, with Cody's weight to sandwich her viciously between himself and the ground.
Either way, once he touches down, he grunts from the recoil and takes a sudden step back, looking down at the blood gushing from his abdomen as if he just noticed he'd been cut not one but like eight times. Hand shaking slightly, simply out of sheer adrenaline, Cody reaches up to run his hand through the blood pouring out of his body and then lifts the hand up to his face.
COMBATSYS: Cody has reached second wind!
[ \\\\ < > /// ]
Cody 1/=======/=======|======-\-------\0 Kanata
> //////////// ]
|=======\=====--\1 Tran
Then he bursts out laughing, like some kind of Headless Horseman. The laughter sounds like it's been run through the Devil's own Autotune filter; it warbles and reverbates, thanks to the drugs flowing through his system. Don't ask him how it works, he doesn't know.
All he knows is that he kind of sounds like if T-Pain and the laughing dude from Thriller had a gayby.
COMBATSYS: Cody successfully hits Kanata with Guilty Stamp.
[ \\\\ < > ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\=------\1 Kanata
> //////////// ]
|=======\=====--\1 Tran
A hand reaches out, large and powerful, and then simply wraps around her face. Kanata already knows that something bad is going to happen, reaching her hand out to grab at his wrist and get a grip of it-- but she can't pry herself free. Instead, she's bent forward, a foot put upon her back and then driven all the way into the skyway.
Feels... ironic, almost.
When Kanata comes to a halt, when she hits the ground in perhaps the most undignified way for the first time in this entire fight, the pirating princess lay flat for a few moments more, but then she stands up. There's no flourish or trick to it, but a straight rise to her feet with legs bending and back straightening up despite the cuts and injuries to her arms, her shoulder, her side-- and now, the blood leaking out of the cuts on her face.
Dragging her hand across her mouth, she tries not to let the dizziness show-- she tries to stay focused, especially long enough for her to suddenly strike out with her left hand-- not with an attack so much as a /push/, meant to get her a few seconds more room. She lets out a shrill whistle.
The lion's head cants, then the creature stands and bounds to her side.
Kanata's grip on the large sword tightens-- before she flings it, end over end, into the sky. She turns, moving in one solid motion before drawing all four of those katanas in a single motion-- two blades per hand, held handles together. She charges Cody with those swords, throwing two into the air with a light toss forward and swinging her arms low-- throwing them tips-down into the skyway just behind the blonde. Immediately, she grabs the other two out of the air, driving those into the ground in front of him.
Then, she jumps.
A great wealth of chi surges from beneath Cody's feet, and as Kanata drops down from on high-- it's with the sword in hand. Four pillars of sparkling blue water burst up from below while the strike comes in from on high, and...
... well, hopefully Cody will be blasted into the air by that chi so she can meet him in the middle with that hammering downward blow.
COMBATSYS: Kanata can no longer fight.
[ \\\\ < > //////////// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\=====--\1 Tran
COMBATSYS: Tran blocks Wing's Wing Dynasty.
[ \\\\ < > ////////// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\1 Tran
It's been a while since Dr. Tran has choked anybody this long and hard to such a satisfying conclusion. It's not a /perfect/ choking, exactly, but it still rates pretty high as far as these things go. It's only spoiled by the sudden, final burst of rage from the small girl whose neck he has his hands wrapped around.
And when she starts pummeling him, he /doesn't/ release her, at least not at first. He just sort of hold her there as the power of spite drives her to punch him so many times. He doesn't have to respect that; it's /his/ schtick, by god, and her arms are not as long as his are.
In a tactical move even greater than 'don't get hit', Dr. Tran simply holds a young girl at arm's length to rob her strikes of power until he thinks the fight's gone out of her, and then releases her carelessly onto the glittering platform.
Mindful of the light bruising already forming on his chest despite what amounts to a series of light brushes, Tran wonders with a complete lack of irony how someone so small can punch so hard. Then he has other things to worry about because holy crap Kanata is going nuts on Cody's nuts, and /vice versa/.
Rather than charge into the middle of that, Tran just watches, awestruck, as she does everything she can to put that monster of a man down for the count. Waiting, with bated breath, to see the outcome. He might be able to strike now, while Cody's distracted, it's true.
But Dr. Tran would rather see /her/ triumph, if it's all the same.
COMBATSYS: Tran gains composure.
[ \\\\ < > ///////////// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0 Tran
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Kanata's The Four Emperors.
[ < > ///////////// ]
Cody 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0 Tran
Cody doesn't even try to get out of the way as Kanata plants her swords around him. When she leaps into the air, he tears his eyes away from his own blood to lift his head after her... and then water erupts from the platform beneath him, slamming into him as a solid wave, pushing up on him...
... but he doesn't budge. The water buffets him, but it simply parts around him, consuming him within it. Kanata's largest sword smashes down into the water, parting it like Moses parted the sea, and also your mother, and crashes into--
-- Cody's waiting, open palm. The blade bites deep, but Cody simply snarls and tosses it - and its wielder - across the platform, as if he were handling a ragdoll. His palm may now be little more than green-blood-soaked hamburger, sure, but that little issue is taken care of.
Within the surging water, Cody turns to look out at Tran. His eyes, long since having turned a solid luminescent green, burn within the waves... and then suddenly, he turns and walks out of the water in the other direction, like some sort of merman Sephiroth. Perhaps he's not interested in fighting Tran...?
That theory is proven extremely wrong a moment later, when there's a yowling, leonine roar from the other side of the chi. As it fades, Tran is treated to the sight of Cody beating the shit out of Kanata's lion.
Within moments, he has it subdued enough to erap his hands around one of its hind legs and drag it haltingly towards Tran. Another few moments, and, with a final roar rivaling that of even the lion being manhandled, Cody lunges, swinging the animal up and over his head as he charges Tran.
And then - not to put too fine a point on it - Cody Travers attempts to beat Dr. Richard Tran into unconsciousness with a live lion.
COMBATSYS: Cody has reached third wind!
[ \\\ < > ///////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0 Tran
And he /never stops./
COMBATSYS: Tran effortlessly dodges Cody's Random Weapon!.
[ \\\ < > ///////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0 Tran
Oh hey, Cody really is just basically unstoppable, which is to say he /cannot be stopped/. That looked like a hell of a display by Kanata, but it's clear that she won't be able to manage anything more, not after the varied beatings Cody has delivered unto her. Thankfully, he's also decided to leave for no reason.
Right? Right?
Then suddenly he's rushing at Tran with a lion in his hands, which to some men might be the single most terrifying moment in their entire lives. Dr. Tran, however, stands his ground, a faraway look entering his eyes...
SOME TIME AGO
A huge, almost-naked black man with a giant piercing through his nose advances menacingly through the jungle. In his hands are two lions, tied togther by their tails, whipping about furiously in what are clearly the hands of a master.
"But lions don't even live in the jungle!" cries Dr. Tran in despair, immediately before he's beaten so hard he becomes a shaman.
NOW
Dr. Tran ducks and weaves out of Cody's path as the man swings the lion about like...well, like a madman. It's incredibly dangerous, but the doctor has seen lions /dance/. Figuratively. In comparison, this is just child's play.
Without another word, he leaps above a wild swing (BECAUSE IT'S A LION, GET IT?) and then kicks downward, trying to bear Cody's down to the ground. And then, well...sort of stomp the crap out of him until /something/ gives.
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Tran's Dr. Tran Goes For Broke.
[ < > ///////////// ]
Cody 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Tran
When Tran's leg connects with the rampaging Cody's chest, he lets out a bestial cry of rage and releases the lion's limb; this happens to send it flinging across the platform, to land in a furry heap about twenty feet away.
Cody, meanwhile, does as he always does; rather than drop to the ground, he ignores the fact that Tran just shattered several of his ribs, and reaches up to close his hands around the leg that just crashed into his chest. And then he whirls around and attempts to swing Tran by the leg up and over his head, and then smash him down into the platform.
Should that work, he'll then turn around and repeat the process. And then again, and again, slamming Tran back and forth like he was some sort of Ninja Turtle, or possibly Battletoad.
Like Cody was, that is. Tran isn't a Ninja Turtle, and he certainly isn't a Battletoad. There's just no way.
Either way, whether Tran twists away or gets used as God's drumstick and then eventually tossed away, when his ~*~attack animation~*~ finishes Cody whirls to face Tran again... and then keeps turning, suddenly obviously disoriented. After a moment, he collapses heavily onto one knee... and it's not hard to see why.
He's lost an awful lot of blood, and is losing yet more really, really fast; the ground around him is slick with smears of neon green, and it pours down his chest like a waterfall. His skin, already pale from the effects of... whatever's happening to him, is now practically white as a sheet. Surely, there's no possible way he could keep going...?
COMBATSYS: Cody can no longer fight.
> ///////////// ]
|======-\-------\0 Tran
You win this time, science.
With a loud groan, Cody collapses forwards onto his chest and goes still. Green blood pools around him... but, eventually, the flow of new blood into the puddle becomes red, instead of green.
So that's probably for the best.
COMBATSYS: Tran blocks Cody's Medium Throw.
> /////////// ]
|=======\-------\1 Tran
Stomp, stomp, stomp. Dr. Tran can't help but wonder what's going to give first; Cody, the platform, or his own leg. At this rate, it certainly doesn't /feel/ like it's going to be the former. This is heartily confirmed by an abnormally strong, green-streaked grip closing around his ankle.
"Wha? Hey! Heeeeyagh! Heeeeeyagh!" The doctor's attempts to make Cody /stop doing that/ are continually cut short by the dull of impact of Tran against bizarre sky platform...thing. After the first one, he manages to retain the presence of mind to do his best to keep both it and himself from shattering into billions of tiny pieces.
So what ends up happening is like a bizarre training regimen from the depths of hell. Twisting in midair, but not like a Ninja Turtle at all, Tran manages to come down on his hands like he was doing a pushup. A really hardcore pushup that makes his arms hurt from wrist to shoulder. Which is immediately followed by another one on the other side. And another.
This gets pretty old pretty fast, but thankfully Cody loses interest, and then conciousness.
FINALLY.
It takes a while for Dr. Tran to get to his feet after that final (for real) assault. He certainly has that 'punch-drunk' aura surrounding him, the one that says it's going to be just a moment before his senses are fully with him. He squints across the platform, looking to see where his pirate princess wound up, and calls.
"Hey, uh...Are you..." There's a pause while Tran tries to find the words to express the /depth/ of his emotion. "Uh, alright?"
Maybe next time.
cody just used a fucking lion as a baseball bat
Unfortunately, Kanata's been in no condition to argue against the mistreatment of her companion animal; the young, dark-clad Japanese woman is in a pile on the skyway and dangerously near the edge. Stunned and briefly unconscious from the force of her impact, she's able to push herself up in time-- and only in time-- to see things like her lion on his side and Doctor Tran going the hell for broke.
And finally, finally, that son of a bitch is down.
"Over here, Doctor."
Both Kanata and the lion seem to recover enough to stand up and get their second winds; the majestic creature of the wilds looking more like he wants to go bite and chew the blonde man's throat. Instead, one of Kanata's hands rests on the creature's nose, giving it a stare that seems to convey all of her intent and emotions there.
"That bastard forgot to tell me that there would be Glow-infested scumt. I intend on having words with him regarding it later," she says aloud, only looking at Tran after she's finished speaking. "Doctor. You've done very well."
Quietly, she retrieves her four extra swords, returning them to the lion's harness in a very specific manner; one goes to a certain sheath, the next to another. The fifth-- that one extra large sword-- is set into the half-sheath, half-carrying rig designed to hold it as she grips the collar of her coat and suit jacket, straightening both with a smooth pull of her hands.
Half-beaten to death, she still keeps that confident air.
Kanata's subtle is small as she walks right up to him. "Keep your wits about you, Doctor Tran. If you keep up that tenacity, I may have to offer you a job someday," she says, leaning forward to brush his cheek with a soft kiss. Unless otherwise stopped, the roughed-up daughter of the so-called "pirate king" starts walking toward the path she arrived from, hands tucking into her coat's pockets. The lion rises to stand, looking at Tran once before falling into line no less than four steps behind it's mistress, walking with a bit of discomfort THANKS CODY.
Lightning strikes, and Dr. Tran's heart flutters for entirely unrelated reasons, which honestly doesn't do much for improving his current state of being. Indeed, he seems to be as beyond words as Cody was, for an entirely different reason.
It takes him a while to recover, which he does in stony, completely stoic silence. It's not at all in a love-struck daze, that would be stupid, who would do that. But recover he does; whether or not love can bloom on a battlefield, Dr. Tran has places to go.
With one last sigh, he turns away and hops off the platform onto one of the many lines criss-crossing the sky, moving once more toward his destination, that mysterious factory that seems to be at the heart of everything.
COMBATSYS: Tran has ended the fight here.
Wing, unconscious, drools copiously.
This platform isn't going to, like, fall any time soon, right?
Actually...
How are they supposed to get down, anyway?
SOME TIME LATER
"Heeeeeeeeelp!"
Only a tink speck is visible from the ground, at the conjunction of multiple rays of crystalline light that once, hours ago, led to the roofs of buildings. Buildings now inconveniently collapsed.
"Anyooooooone!?"
The true battle starts now.
Log created on 19:49:43 05/16/2010 by Wing, and last modified on 03:14:56 05/20/2010.