Description: A chance encounter leads to a tense situation! Soma takes Vanessa to the Sanctum Infimary following their volatile encounter with Kain. Fresh from a fatal battle at the Nenzhao Metalworking Building, Juri does the same. And nothing else much happens as they patch themselves up... but Vanessa is doing it topless!
It was a long walk, from the park bench where Vanessa and Soma endured the tender ministrations of Kain Heinlein, back to the Sanctum HQ with its useful infirmary, clean running water, and places to rest. It's not as if the Indian minded it, so much; he's in good enough shape that walking the wounded Vanessa across the city isn't really a challenge. It's just that so much happened this evening compressed into so small a space, it's quite difficult to find a topic of discussion that doesn't devolve into territory you don't really feel like going into without a stiff drink. For example:
"How about that chi-fueled nightmare man? Hits hard, don't he?"
"So, it looks like I've got this chi-hungry dagger that appears to be alive..."
"I hope you brought a lot of extra shirts with you."
And so on.
In an effort not to say any of those really quite stupid things, Soma mostly keeps his mouth shut, and expects that his partner is probably all the happier for it, at the moment. Eventually, they reach the pristine white, Star Trek-looking Sanctum HQ, passing through the double doors that open and close with a pneumatic hiss as the ICPO agent leads Vanessa through and toward what he can now only think of as 'sickbay'. He turns at the sound of the auto-greeting, gritting his teeth, and then walks on, looking at his partner for a moment before turning his head back to where he's walking. "I think I've seen this movie before," he mutters, looking at the decor. "Something to do with Uma Thurman and genetic engineering."
Correction: The smoldering ruin of a park bench in the middle of a chewed-up crater left by Kain Heinlein exploding like some kind of Final Fantasy villain.
Vanessa mostly grunts, because while now more not-on-fire than on-, she is more than a little singed, and also topless save for Soma's jacket, and while this isn't necessarily something she minds, so much, it's something she prefers to have a little more control over. At least they got out of there without Heinlein eating them alive like candy corn.
Vanessa sets down heavily, clutching Soma's jacket closer around her for modesty's sake, and offering a tired, "Hah, I think I remember that one." She looks around, with a low sigh. "....I got some extra shirts in my bag. I'll be fine, you go relax. You did good today."
Everything within this island is a struggle, for everyone and every thing. As the strong struggle toward their own unique and different goals, the weak struggle to survive. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that seeing an injured and weakened woman they would seek not to aid her, but to strip her of their belongings. It should also be no surprise that this woman would defend herself. Perhaps it would have been a surprise, to the homeless and the gangs, that the woman they sought to liberate of her earthly gains is far from vulnerable - and very very lethal.
The twisting maze-like roads are occasionally interrupted by scenes of fresh carnage. Bodies of desperate young men and women lie twisted and broken while their friends attempt, in vain, to resuscitate them. It only took brutally wounding one or two of the animals to get the entire packs to back off, and for this Juri is thankful.
She is also thankful for her natural ability to find her way, no matter how twisted or confusing the trail.
She looks altogether completely different from her normal self. Her distinctive hair 'horns' have fallen and instead her midnight black hair hangs limply over her shoulders and down her back. Her top is ripped and torn, and her loose white pants are almost completely shredded revealing the tight purple leggings she wears underneath. All of her exposed skin is pink and in places blistered from the rigors of fighting atop a metal grating suspended over a pool of molten metal. Shrapnel wounds mark the left side of her body, and as she arrives at Sanctum she leans heavily against its outside wall with a grunt.
A sound not unlike a wounded animal's rises painfully from her throat when she reaches to her side and claws at one of the clearly infected wounds on the side of her stomach. She grips the offending article from within her and with a horrifying scream rips it from her body! Fresh blood and pus oozes from the wound as she holds up the inch long chunk of concrete, dyed red with fresh and dried blood. Her sense of humor is not lost to her, "Wow, pretty. Too bad they didn't pass out souvenir baggies." The concrete chunk is disposed of without ceremony as she makes her way inside.
To one sensitive to psycho power, Juri will be felt before she is seen. Powerful, and dangerously psychotic, Juri makes quite the impression. She is not unstable, however, and for now is rather subdued. Which is a good thing when the sliding door to Sanctum comes alive once more and Juri can be seen stumbling in. Once again Sanctum's automated greeting plays overheard, which brings a wry chuckle from the Taekwondo fighter. But no more than the sight of the other two fighters nearby. Her violet eyes regard them coldly, and she speaks in a menacing purr, "Well... I guess it /was/ too much to hope for to get this place all to myself."
"Did good?" Soma asks, in a tone that borders on 'wry', as he walks across the infirmary to get a first aid kit. Rummaging through a cabinet -- and appearing entirely unapologetic about leaving a trail of things he's NOT looking for spread out haphazardly on the counter -- he eventually produces a box marked 'BURN KIT' and, smiling triumphantly, turns back to set it down on one of the little stands you find in nurse's offices everywhere and open it up. Gauze, ointment, some Bactine... "Looks like even ninja use plain old everyday first aid. Lucky you." The dusky-skinned Interpol agent sighs as he takes out a roll of gauze and the disinfectant spray, handing them to Vanessa, and only now turning to look at her. "Well, we both got out alive, but really, I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have just given him the god damned kn--"
He cuts off in midsentence, for two reasons. One is that, muffled as it is coming from outside, he still hears -- in a muted way -- Juri's howl of pain. The second is that Miss Han, with her untempered and prodigious psychic energy, is a bit like sweeping your submarine radar and finding Atlantis out of nowhere. Soma's head swivels immediately to the door, eyes widening a little, before he seems to process that his partner is going to pick up on this sudden worried vibe and he forces that response down a bit, sifting through the burn kit for additional stuff, since Vanessa might be worst off but Soma didn't escape without a few injuries himself.
"I could have just given it to him and saved you a lot of trouble," he finishes at last, subconsciously reaching behind to finger the stupid emerald dagger, the thing that led him to Taizhou and which has become more harm than good, of late. "I guess... ugh. When I stabbed him with it and tried to pull it out the damn thing was... trying to STAY IN. If anything that tells me it wouldn't have been good for him to have it."
Further comment on that is forestalled, however, by Juri's actual entrance to the room, and this time Soma's not quite able to force down his reaction. His gaze swivels to her slowly, taking in the wounded animal appearance and demeanor. Realizing that she's probably in a bad mood, and getting a very disquieting feeling in his stomach from the crazy mojo woo woo vibes he's getting from her, he instead tries to look entirely nonchalant... but something makes him mutter, for Vanessa's ears only: "...here comes trouble, I think."
Vanessa, however, is about as Psycho-sensitive as an inert lump of clay, so for the moment she begins being busy with Soma: "I guess we're lucky they don't have ninja healing rays or something." Lucky? Kinda lucky? Vanessa could totally go for some ninja not-being-burned-like-a-bad-steak magic right about now. She accepts the disinfectant spray and gauze, shrugging off the coat while Soma looks away. No shame at all; she's naked from the waist up and judging from those burns, probably because her shirt simply /burned away/.
Actually Kain also vaporized the leather suspenders she wears instead of a bra, which probably explains a lot of things about her just...in general.
She mutters a pained, "Yeugh, ow!" as she works. "Y-yeah, you couldn't give him that thing. Even if it wasn't dangerous, that thing's the closest we got to a clue, right now." She blinks, a little, as Soma reacts to something, eyes narrowing. "What, did he follow us...?" she mutters, but no, she picked him up first, didn't she? Hmm. Soma adds some extra detail, though, and though still with eyes narrowed, she nods. "That thing, this whole place...Idunno what we're in to anymore, but we just gotta keep pushing, I guess."
And then Juri storms into the room, and Soma reacts visibly, making his muttering.
"What was your first clue?" she quips in his direction with a little bloody-faced smirk. "Go get me some washcloths or something, sugar." With that offered, Vanessa tips her head at Juri, still nonchalatnly treating her rather nasty burns to her entire upper body. "Yep," she says, toward Juri. "Welcome to the party. Medical kits are in the cupboard. What you in for?" the Boxing Queen gives her a friendly little grin, adding, "Looks like it was a hell of a night."
Watching Soma's reaction to her, as nonchalant as he attempts, Juri's expression is of amusement mixed with physical pain. For someone much less sensitive to psycho energy Juri will appear much less a threat. What with much of her body covered in rather painful looking burns, and the large number of bleeding wounds on the left side of her body. It's surprising the girl is standing at all! Which probably explains why she's currently in the process of slumping against a nearby wall.
Juri takes a moment to look around at the immediate area. It's somewhat obvious that this is the first time she has taken a moment to admire the inner workings of Sanctum. She chuckles to herself coldly, "An entire island going to Hell in a handbasket, and at the center a bastion of civilization. They sure know how to party... mm?" She glances back toward Soma and (the half-naked) Vanessa now. Juri's eyes take a moment to give the woman a once over before a snort rises in her throat, "You sure aren't hiding anything. Might as well smile while you're on candid camera." Because, almost certainly, a place like this is under constant surveillance, "I'm in for the same thing as you pretty much. Getting fixed up, a change of clothes."
Juri's eyes slide over toward Soma and she grins sadistically, "Maybe a bite to eat." Suddenly a loud ~NOMNOMNOM~ can be heard echoing within Soma's head before Juri's eyes turn back to Vanessa, "Anyway, just toss me some pliars and some disinfectant and you two can go about doing whatever it is you were doing. I'm not going to be moving very fast for a while." The reason for this is highly evident. Now sitting on the floor, Juri's hand is tightly gripping the wound on her side which is bleeding rather profusely. It's not enough to kill a fighter like her, but a wound that infected will make moving extremely painful to say the least.
At this point Soma is simply in sensory overload. He's got Juri's appearance, and her voice, and those are unnerving. He's got his cop's instincts telling him that there's something familiar about this face, but he can't put his finger on it... the reason being that S.I.N. is still under Interpol radar, Chun-li excepted, and that while Juri Han may have gone missing, she did so a long time ago when she didn't exactly look like... well, this. Then there's the increasingly stomach-churning feeling caused by his psychic powers resonating with *her* psychic powers, a disquieting sort of affair that she telepathically punctuates and it is this, really, that just pushes him over the edge.
"Cafeteria's that way," the Interpol agent says in a somewhat distant tone, pointing a hand holding a length of gauze in the vague direction of the ninja wet bar or whatever the hell food facility is in this HQ. His expression, facing Juri, says more than actual words: I know that's not what you meant, I know you know I know that's not you meant, and this is my way of telling you that. Amazing thing, expressions... if this were a comic book there'd be a pair of very narrow, page-width panels showing just Juri and Soma's eyes for a brief moment. But soon that moment passes, and Soma finishes wrapping gauze around his own arm, then taping it in place, before throwing whatever he was using back into the white and red burn kit box with rather more force than is required.
Fignertips come up, pinch the bridge of his nose for a moment, and then he looks at Vanessa. "Right. Washcloths." Walking back across to the counter, he rummages through the various items he yanked out of the cupboards before, eventually producing a pair of small white washcloths and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. "Here. Listen, I'll run up and get your bag, maybe... look around a bit," he adds, the pregnant pause suggesting that 'look around' does not mean 'sightsee' in this instance. He turns to glance at Juri for a moment, then back at Vanessa. "I'll just be getting in the way here at this point." He even manages to keep his gaze on her face a good 85-90% of the time. Come on... the man's a law enforcement professional, but he's not made of STONE.
The problem is that he has to walk past Juri to get out of the infirmary, and as luck would have it, he has to walk uncomfortably close to her, too. Wounded or not, it says something that as the ICPO agent passes the Korean assassin, his fingertips brush the holstered handgun at his side, just for a second, and even the brief moment where he has to walk by her seems to take an eternity.
He turns back around once he's walked past her, to look at Vanessa again. She's proven she can take care of herself, but she also just got the stuffing beat out of her by Kain Heinlein... and he's not entirely sure he wants to leave her alone with Juri right this second. "You going to be alright?" he asks of the boxer, tilting his head a little bit.
Vanessa figures Juri is probably a problem...in prime condition. But, beat up like that...no, she might be able to handle some Mad Gear thugs or something. They're about equally trashed, Vanessa figures, and that means equally useless in a serious fight. Actually, Juri looks even worse off than she does...
Albeit, at least Juri has a shirt on. Vanessa laughs at the jab. "I never bought into that thing where a lady's gotta keep secrets," She quips back, easy and wry. "'sides, I'm sure Ryouhara's never seen any before, may as well give our host something worth the trouble I plan on givin' 'im."
Of course, she says that, but she's in the (slow) procss of covering up her seared chest and abdomen with disinfectant and gauze. "Christ that stings," she mutters, wincing. "Been a while since I had to do this to m'self."
She's talking casual, but her eyes are taking in the situation as acutely as she can manage, hands occasionally slowing down in her work so as to free up some neurons for a second. The new girl is pretty much not even attempting to hide being bitch-ass crazy, but she's injured enough they can probably talk and Vanessa won't have to worry too much about Juri shoving a knife in her heart or something. Meanwhile: Soma appears to be dying. Vanessa glances his way, with some (gruff) concern, but grunts as he drops the washcloths and alcohol over next to the other gear. "Yeah," she says with a nod. "Have fun." In this case, 'have fun' probably means something closer to 'don't die.'
"I'll be fine," she says to Soma again, setting her tools aside for a second. She stands, sauntering over to the cabinet and squatting on knees to grab the disinfectants for Juri. Vanessa's in much better shape, of the two, in that Vanessa does not look like she needs urgent surgery. Besides, maybe healing the sick lion will have some dividends down the line?
Ten years ago, Juri Han, the daughter of a prosecuting attorney in the international court famous for several high profile cases against international organized crime rings, disappeared when her family's car exploded while they were leaving a Taekwondo tournament. She was later declared dead. Ten years later, Shadaloo and S.I.N. fields a new agent codenamed 'Spider'. Thus far information on her appearance and activities are sketchy at best. She's only recently been let out of her cage. Describing the fate of Spider's victims needs a few terms
Brutal, Lack of Remorse, Toyed With, Broken In Fifteen Places.
But none of this is known for sure to apply as Soma walks by. Though when he walks by ever-so-close to Juri there is a tenseness in the air that could be very easily cut with a knife. When Soma's hand slides to his handgun, even just to brush it, Juri's voice can be heard whispering, "Careful." Out of the corner of his eye, Soma will be able to see her face. Unnervingly though he'll also be able to see her left eye, now glowing dully. From where Vanessa is sitting she'll only be able to see a slight glow lighting up the corner of the wall near Juri's face. So slight, well, she may not even notice at all.
Once the moment of INCREDIBLE TENSENESS has passed, Juri relaxes once more and the glow fades from her eye. "She's going to be fine. Geeze, are you her boyfriend are something?" She adds the last jab while rolling her eyes and then glancing toward Vanessa again.
Juri can't hide her crazy very well, nor does she ever find much reason to do so. Besides, it's hella fun to see how people react to it. Which is why when Vanessa is busy gathering up the disinfectant and such for her she is all too happy to reply to some of Vanessa's earlier comments, "Well well well. I can see fighting with you would be a /lot/ of fun then." A cold chuckle, "So what's a middle-aged bat like you doing in a Hell in a handbasket like this? Got bored with the office job routine and decided busting heads would be better?" Wow, she's sure short with someone she's trying to get medical aid from, "Or maybe you're in it to see how fast order and structure burns down when a little chaos is added to the mix."
He really, really does not want to be here anymore. In a brief moment where Juri's back is turned, and Vanessa can see him, it's etched pretty clearly on Soma's face. However, the Spider's taunting commentary actually gives him a chance to blow it off in a blithe way; when she asks if he's her boyfriend, the ICPO agent smirks a little bit. "Partner, actually. I don't think I'm qualified to be her boyfriend," he adds, giving Vanessa what appears to be in this instance a genuine rather than forced grin. "Not enough strength training in my regimen." Besides, he adds mostly to himself in his own head, we're partners, even if only temporarily. That's a lot like all the good parts of marriage without the bad ones.
For a moment -- a very stupid moment -- Soma's thoughts stray to, of all people, Jiro. In a burst of amazing coincidence, Soma was responsible for the then-Stray Dog's brief career in Interpol. The two haven't seen each other sense, but for some reason, the black-haired agent feels a sense of nagging curiosity. "Probably nothing," he mutters to himself.
With that, he turns back to the ladies and waves a hand in goodbye. "See you, Red. Play nice with your new friend." And then he's gone, walking into Sanctum HQ proper to 'have a look around,' and to genuinely go and get Vanessa a new shirt out of her bag in their assigned room. But mostly to get away from the oppressive uneasy feeling that's filling the room the longer he's around Juri.
Vanessa's got her head buried in the cabinet, but she laughs, "Ahahah! Boyfriend? Ahhhh no, no, just...workin' together, you know." Partnered by the great signboard in the sky, and isn't /that/ convenient. No way that's a coincidence. Ryouhara probably already knows how big of a problem they're going to make themselves...
Maybe jumping in to the heart of the fire will burn them more than Soma quite realizes. She should point that out.
"I try to keep it interestin'," she adds, to Juri's quip, as she pulls out with a general wound kit, setting it down and sliding it over Juri's way. She gets it within about six inches. Nice throw, apparently. She rises, rolling a shoulder briefly and biting out a growl of pain, then settles for just walking back over to resume treating herself, back to Juri as if the girl weren't /completely bonkers/. "You look like you wouldn't be half bad yourself, if you don't get gangrene from those cuts," she adds.
Juri is revealing quite a bit about herself, really. Vanessa's sharper than she looks. Short-tempered, rude as hell. Lone operative. That chaos crack...gang? No, not with that manner. Gangbanger wouldn't be quite so philosophical about it. R? Shadaloo? NESTS? Probably one of them, anyway...it's hard to narrow it down any further with the info she has. Soma reacted, could sense her easily, but what does that mean...?
"Oh, you know," she says with a laugh. "Thought I'd come vacation on the islands. Housework was never my kinda thing."
Juri isn't what one would call a huge fan of the police. No. Even the ones in the countries that were bought off by S.I.N. and Shadaloo. If anything, that sort made her feel even /more/ disgusted were such a thing even possible. Regardless, with Soma's departure the tenseness in the air, and Juri's body, relaxes somewhat. Though the fact that Soma referred to Vanessa as his partner does little to help her attitude. It doesn't change the fact that when Soma tells Vanessa to 'play nice' with her new friend Juri almost reflexively responds, "Oh... don't worry, we'll play /very/ nice." That menacing purr of hers suggesting the type of 'play' she refers to is either the lewd or violent variety.
Perhaps both?
When Vanessa finally slides the medical kit over, Juri quite deftly uses her left foot to get it into her hand. How so? She deftly works her toes (still painted with badly chipped but purple toenail polish) under the kit then with a quick kick flips it up into the air and catches it with her outstretched hand. All of this without moving the hand or even paying that much attention to it. Oh, she's letting on quite a bit indeed: Of course, she simply doesn't CARE what Vanessa or Soma knows about her.
"Oh, don't worry about me... 'Red', I've survived much worse than this. Much worse." She leans up from the wall carefully and opens the kit. From inside she pulls a set of medical forceps and turns her attention to her side. The bleeding wounds she has have highly visible chunks of bloody concrete still sticking out of them. All that's needed is a bit of finesse, a bit of grit, and the willingness to endure hellish pain as she pulls each chunk from their infected flesh sheathes.
Juri has all of the above in spades.
She grunts loudly in pain, whimpers at times, as she begins her work. Occasionally Vanessa can see bloodied chunks of concrete in a variety of shapes and sizes skitter away as they are disposed of with as much care as Juri wishes to spare. She continues to talk to Vanessa as she operates on herself, "Yeah, right." ... "From the looks of it you two probably have some kind of score to settle with the person holding this game. And that's fine, personally I don't care what happens to him. I'm just here to have a good time." She chuckles dryly as she drops the bloodied forceps to the side. She gives Vanessa a look, the same look someone might expect from a cat after it bloodily devoured a canary. Her voice purrs, "And boy... have I ever had fun."
Given Vanessa apparently doesn't actually care how many people see her half naked, that suggestion of Juri's /might just/ be able to go either way--
Well, that's the illusion Vanessa likes to give off, anyway. Surprising, how much people will say to someone they think is easy.
Vanessa just goes about her work, analyzing silently. Uses legs preferentially and skilfully. Kickfighter. Taekwondo? Capoeira? Kickboxing? ...taekwondo, she decides, giving another thought to Juri's outfit. "Oh, that's good," Vanessa says, not really dropping the companionable air, despite Juri's best attempts to be creepy. Stay on your toes, but stay friendly; don't rise to her challenge because neither of you are in either the condition or the /place/ for a proper scrap. Maybe you can punch her later. She seems like it'd be kinda fun, setting aside the whole 'appears to be completely bonkers' thing. "Sounds like you don't need my help, then. Good, a fighter in a place like this needs to be able to do the basics, don'cha think?"
She lets Juri whimper in peace. Vanessa wouldn't want to be called on it for having to do the same, after all. She mentally triumphs at Juri dismissing the housework thing as so much crap, because pretty much nobody expects Vanessa was a house wife until only a few years ago, even when she says it directly. ...freakin' Igniz. SHe's not ashamed of what she's become, but...she still misses the old life, sometimes.
With most of her chest cleaned up and bandaged, Vanessa takes a cloth to her face, wiping off some of the dust and the blood. "I wouldn't say I've got much of a score," she says, leaning back a little for about one second before deciding that putting weight on her arms hurts more than she cares to endure when options exist - she spins on the bed, instead, turning to watch Juri work. Wow, that looks like it hurt a /lot/. "/I/ just wanna know what the hell is going on. And maybe smash his teeth in. But that'd be, you know." She shrugs, lazily, with a sly grin. "Bonus." Her casual air is matched by Juri's more malign ease, and the purple-dyed redhead hums, tipping an eyebrow and her head in equal measure. "Yeah? You look like it. Have a tough match? Or the looters decide to get feisty on ya?"
Finished with digging the bits of shrapnel that are big enough to be removed by forcep, Juri then turns to disinfecting her wounds. Amusingly enough this is also the part very often that hurts the most. With a cotton ball in one hand, a bottle of bactine in the other, she carefully applies one to the other and sets to work. It's almost as if the bottle was containing liquid FIRE as she applies it to her wounds. Her body jolts and stiffens as she gasps in pain while she works the now bloody ball into each wound as deep as she can without tearing them worse. Every once in a while she'll toss aside one of the bloodied cotton balls to get a fresh one and continue treating her wounds. She isn't much for talking at this point, obviously.
Once she is finished disinfecting, Juri turns herself around so now she is facing the wall. For the first time Vanessa is allowed to quite clearly see Juri's wounds. Large, angry red gashes that are bleeding profusely. Considering the concrete she pulled from herself, and the size of some of those wounds, it's amazing she made it here on her own power after all. Juri's voice chuckles dryly, "Yeah, your friend smells like a cop. Moves like a cop. Looks like a cop. And cops always got some kind of score to settle. But you, not so much maybe... you just smell like you hang out with cops." She shrugs her shoulders and undoes the straps to her top that are still somewhat intact.
A bit more shy, or perhaps a bit less exhibitionist, than Vanessa Juri doesn't take off her top... and doesn't even go this far without facing a wall. Instead by undoing the side straps she is allowed to take a bandage and wrap it around her torso fully - going under the halter top with each pass. "My match wasn't so tough. I was just careless, and then there were the explosives." That explains the shrapnel, "But in the end I came out in one piece. The same can't be said for everyone." As she says this, a cruel smile graces her lips but briefly. Quickly she continues, "Some people outside were stupid enough to think a lone woman, bleeding and beaten up, was easy pickings. I guess they got what was coming to them." Sharp, violet colored eye snap toward Vanessa, "And what about you? Someone set you up for a fun flambe, hmm? And took your shirt to boot?"
Vanessa hums, just watching lazily. She's done, for now; she'll put stuff away later. She's ~resting~, like a good girl, right?
Those wounds, though...she starts leaning herself back on the cot, easing herself into a situation she can watch comfortably from, insofar as such a thing can be /done/ in a ninja hospital. "Do I?" Vanessa snorts. "Better take a shower, then. Cops ain't exactly my favorite, either, but..." Shrug. "He seems like he's got a clue. More than I have, anyway."
Of course, Vanessa is probably 'a cop' by Juri's definition, being an agent of a shadowy, enigmatic and somewhat poorly-explained organization attached to the Ikari Warriors. Kind of. A little. Either way she's pretty unofficially affiliated ever since that night Heidern beat her stupid in a bar in Cambodia.
Vanessa smirks a little while Juri shows some modesty. Ahh, kids are so cute. "Yeah, figured it was something like that. Explosions, huh? Dirty pool." She clicks her tongue. "Sounds like you gave 'em something to cry about." She's not stupid; with the way Juri acts, Vanessa pretty much assumes those people are dead. But with her lackadaisical manner, she just...doesn't actually care to go into the brutal specifics. "Ohhh yeah. Blew up right in my face. Freakin' chi hounds, you know?" She barks a bitter laugh. "And then he vaporized my shirt. /And/ my suspenders, thank you."
"Heh... dirty pool indeed." Nothing is said about WHO set off WHAT explosives WHERE. But no matter.
Juri is almost finished herself now. Once her quick bandaging job is done she bites off the last bit of gauze and secures it in place with some surgical tape. Her wounds are /still/ bleeding, so they quickly make a wonderfuly constellation of bloody red dots on her side. Not that Juri cares. They'll stop bleeding and close soon enough, thanks to the supernatural endurance she has earned. She resecures her top now, and quickly slathers some burn cream over her arms and feet. She shuts the first aid kit and leaves it where it sits, along with the mess she's made. Someone or some robot will be along shortly to clean it up, surely.
Juri quickly and quietly rises to her feet now. It's amazing what a little TLC to your wounds can do for you. Her eyes turn back toward Vanessa and she smiles, "Yeah. I've fought people like that. They're not so bad though, for every strength they have there's also a weakness." Suddenly there is a bright flash of light from Juri's left eye and she disappears!
Well, not quite. From the trail of dust she kicked up from the floor, and the trail of pink energy following her left eye it's highly evident she simply moved with enough speed that it's difficult for the eye to follow. Not that this is any more comforting when you realize she's now within arm (and leg's) reach of you. Another chuckle comes from her lips, "You know... most people might not notice, but you've had this look on your face pretty much this entire time. Like you're thinking. Thinking hard. Maybe you're trying to figure out once and for all how many licks are to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop?" Juri leans down then, her black hair loosely falling from her shoulders, and she'll reach up to carress Vanessa's cheek if she lets her. Regardless, Juri's piercing gaze will follow her coldly. She'll continue, "You're lucky. Were I in a different mood I'd probably see how a boxer like you would hold up against me. I'd also say you're capable enough of focusing chi through your arms to cause a few explosions here and there."
From the viewpoint of Juri's left eye she can see how Vanessa's energy flows through her body. How it's focused to her upper body, and how well developed it is. She also gets hints of ... something, an anomaly in her scanner maybe. It had suffered a fault from overheating earlier after all. "Anyway 'Red', I'm going to see if there's anything worth eating. You will probably want to wait for your friend. That's for the best anyway, I can't stand people dissecting me while I eat." Allowed to do so unmolested, Juri will then simply walk away and toward the Cafeteria.
Vanessa seems content enough to be casual about all this - it's not really thinking, just a casual exchange. But Juri makes no attempt to hide herself as a threat, so Vanessa doesn't take any particularly deep strains to hide analyzing her like one. If she can get to know the girl, that's all well and good, but...Juri doesn't seem like the type of girl Vanessa could make friends with.
Vanessa likes the ones who drink more than they fight, mostly.
"Yeah," Vanessa laughs. "He blew my top off, but he took hits like a--" What exactly someone like Vanessa uses instead of 'girl' in that phrase will not be known today, as Juri suddenly /surges/. Vanessa can track her better than ordinary people - Vanessa can do much the same thing, after all. Built her whole fighting style around it. So instead of being completely horrified by Juri's speed, the Boxer just tenses, visibly, knowing the motion to be an aggressive one. Eyes narrow, strong muscles in her shoulders and arms and belly - visible, even with her now-bandaged chest - tensing tight. Boxer? Oh, no question there. "You think so?" Vanessa murmurs back, some of the play leaving her tone - now she's taunting, almost teasing. Challenging. She tips her head, but doesn't move to stop Juri's odd caress. The first one to blink loses. Vanessa lets Juri do what she wants, because that will show her some things of its own...and Juri being so close is as dangerous for her as it is for Vanessa.
"Maybe later, sugar," Vanessa breathes, without the teasing smirk she'd usually say that with. "Look me up sometime. Maybe then." That chi in her arms...it's Vanessa's only trick, but she's most alarmed by Juri's ability to guess it. /That/ is an enigma, and it earns her an even narrower glare.
But soon Juri is offering a final warning...and turns to go.
Vanessa slowly eases back, fingers laced behind her head to watch Juri go.
"...wasn't hungry anyway," she mutters, finally letting her head hit the cot.
Log created on 14:24:53 05/31/2010 by Juri, and last modified on 00:12:10 06/01/2010.