Description: Ultimately practical, for all their eccentricities, both Vanessa and Soma have gone about their time in Taizhou in a search for the truth, dogged at every step by people out to kill them. The invitation to Sanctum to actually GET the truth is no different, but in the end, their perseverance and bizarrely effective teamwork prove that standing on one's own doesn't mean being alone.
Throughout the events in Taizhou, one structure has seemed forgotten by the chaos that rages in the sky above and through the streets below - The Sanctum. To step into its pristine halls is to leave the world of reality and cross the threshold into science fiction. While buildings have collapsed, energy bridges formed and reformed, and a number of fighters battled to stop the looming catastrophe that threatens every living being within the region, the Sanctum halls have been quiet but for the quiet hiss of hydraulic doors and the steady hum of hidden fans keeping the computers and other automations at regulated temperatures.
On occasion, small parts of the Sanctum were damaged by combat. But every crack, every scratch soon disappeared when no one was looking, attended by unseen hands, such that at this moment the lobby of the impressive structure is as clean as it has always been. Somewhere deep within the structure, a low, rumbling throbbing noise can be heard on occasion, like the distant heartbeat of a creature of titanic dimensions. And perhaps that's what this building has been all along - the heart of an event driven forward by will so powerful to almost turn it into a living, evolving thing.
Again the phone calls have gone out, the messages delivered, instructions given by organizers almost never seen. Like every other time, those contacted are given a place and a time, and of course, though it goes unstated, a choice. The place for Soma and Vanessa is here, the time is now, and of course the choice that lies before them: To even show in the first place.
The stakes of this appearance are undefined in the message, but as there has been at every turn along the way, one can only assume yet another brutal test awaits those who dare.
It was...not a good day. Vanessa and Soma sailed out in search of the keys to successfully saving the world from something Vanessa is provisionally prepared to declare officially Terribads, and got summarily stomped.
It was embarrassing enough that we'll say no more of the matter.
What matters now is this: Vanessa is back at red hair, white shirt, red tie, green slacks. Her black gloves are pulled tight against her skin. She's stone cold sober. She hasn't been to a fight in this state in ages.
"It's a trap," she says to Soma, as the hydraulic doors hiss open before her, broad shoulders long since stretched and ready for war. "We don't lose this one," she adds, glancing back. "...whoever is running this, whatever's going down. If they wanted to kill us they could've done it already. They want us to see something."
She remembers the files they found. The files they read. "Settle for nothing," she murmurs, feet finding the center of the main hall, looking around for whatever's going to leap out at them first, eyes wary and wide, "...but victory. I think I can live with that one."
Probably the worst part was the sharks on the way back. A superpowered Vice, a cranky and souped-up Kain Heinlein, that's all well and good, but having to knock out sharks as you make your way back from Dalu Island having totally failed to find the Failsafe to the Doomsday Device and realizing that, once again, the fate of the world is, with a degree of high probability, in the hands on high schoolers or adrenaline junkies with no concept of morals or restraint... it just ruins your day, is all I'm saying. Teeth marks, not helping.
"Well, yeah," Soma says calmly. Vanessa's absolutely right, of course; in fact, pretty much every fight the pair has had so far has been a trap of some form. The dawning realization of it is pissing him off quite a bit, but as proof of his understanding, he reaches behind him and produces the emerald dagger, twirling it in the air as he walks beside the Dynamite Puncher herself. "Ever since this thing washed up ashore I knew I was walking right into a trap, pretty much. Ryouhara -- or someone similar -- wanted me in Taizhou. Sent me this as proof. I'm sure there's probably something similar behind the scenes that got you here, too."
Replacing the bizarre, crystalline weapon, the ICPO agent looks around Sanctum's lobby. Something seems... different, somehow. It's either detective's instincts or psychic premonition or, possibly, both. But there's a different feeling to the room. As is typical of these situations, however, the Indian disguises his growing sense of unease behind blithe sarcasm. "It's enough to make me want to quit the super-powered crime fighter business. How about you?"
He looks at Vanessa sidelong, with a grin. She's put up with a lot, and she's a hell of a fighter, and actually has a halfway decent personality... in their line of work, that is gold. In spite of his I-work-alone Batman schtick, the Interpol detective finds he rather likes Vanessa. "Let's open up a theme bar on the Vegas strip. We can serve cheap beer and curry to drunk gamblers. Make our table girls dress in saris, wear a fake bindi on their forehead. It'll be fun."
The two newest arrivals to the heart of Taizhou were not the only ones to receive phone calls.
'Why them?'"
There were those behind the scenes all along. Stage crew for the greatest production the world would perhaps ever see. They moved invisibly in the shadows, through secret passages. Stealth was their shield, silence their oath.
'Everything? Even if they ask about-'
After all, in spite appearances, such events don't run themselves. They are always there, seen in your peripheral vision for a moment then gone, having moved on to wherever their work next takes them.
'That is very generous... no one has been given such clearance before.'
Theirs was not to reason why, but neither was she about to simply do and die. 'What about the fragment?'
Ayame clicked the device closed and slid it into a pocket. 'Hmph. Very well.' Almost none knew as much as she. All the secrets, all the reasons, but to volunteer them now? What had these two done? What made them worthy? Well. It was tasked to her to find out.
Another hydraulic hiss and a part of what had seemed a solid wall rotates smoothly on an egg-white circular disc, making it clear that Soma and Vanessa aren't alone here. It's time to pull back the curtain and give them a glimpse at so much more. "Well, well, well," the teen girl states as the turning wall rotates her into view. She claps her black-gloved hands together lazily two times before leaving them clasped in front of her. Long, strawberry-blonde hair rests against her shoulders and drapes down her back. As she takes a step forward, the disc continues to spin, continuing until the wall becomes once again seamless. "You two have suffered quite a lot here. It certainly isn't fair. But it is the way of Jinchuu, it seems."
She is dressed formally - a white, long sleeved, collared shirt, a crimson tie at her neck tucked into a black suit jacket clasped closed with three buttons. At her waist is a black, pleated skirt, her shins in black stockings, her feet clad in leather-soled shoes that cause her footsteps to echo throughout the chamber with each step.
Brown eyes glance over Soma and Vanessa, as if appraising the value of collectable items. "No more secrets. Only truth." She snaps her right hand out, fingers splayed. A surge of viridian chi erupts near the palm of her gloved hand, swirling into a spiral pattern. A flash of metal spins behind the pulse of energy before Ayame grips it tightly. The chi vanishes and left in the girl's closed hand is a shining, six foot long, metal staff. The weapon pulses with a blood-red aura most visible near the ends.
"But every reward has its price." There is a clicking noise heard around the circumference of the room as every door in sight locks tightly. Her eyes settle back on Soma, her mouth curling out of its neutrality into a faint grin of amusement. "I had always planned to help myself to one of your daggers before, Soma Travedi." She exhales softly, as if a bit disappointed, "But it seems I'll have to settle for taking something back that no longer belongs to you."
"You're kidding, right?" Vanessa says, throwing a little sly grin over her shoulder at Soma. "If I open up competition, Bison'll punch my tits off." She rubs a hand against her hip, as if remembering a blow that was most definitely not on her chest. "Again," she mutters.
Soma's been a good companion through all this - a real hellion, she thinks. More by-the-books than Vanessa prefers, but still, the kind of guy she's glad to have at her back. Smart, too. And not half bad to look at, either.
She hums, looking across the open space. "I know what you mean, though," she mutters. "Like you can't trust a single thing, because everything you look at is just someone else's riddle." Even as she says that, she's at ease. Always at ease. It's so, so hard to get her off her center, unless you are affiliated with NESTS, in which case it is /laughably/ easy. Some of that is probably the constant buzz, of course. Always just sober enough that she can feel relaxed, but---
Not today. Today she needs all her focus. They lost the fight for all the marbles. Now it's time for the honorable mentions. But she has a feeling...it might still be worth fighting for. Sanctum - this building, this.../place/, she's going to go ahead and call it, despite the near living presence it seems to exude. What are its mysteries? They broke in once, but...
No. There's more here. She can feel it in her bones.
"Besides," she mutters, suddenly changing topics again, "I mean, no offense, but the whole Indian thing isn't really 'me', you know? I'd go for...idunno, wrestling? Those UFC guys are kinda hot, too..."
And then she doesn't get to be flip anymore: There's that hiss. "They're here," she says, suddenly, all business. No, not them - she. Bogarting Vanessa's style, no less! Though Vanessa only looks that respectable when she's got her jacket on; Vanessa's shirt has no sleeves, for starters, and bares her muscular midriff quite handily, suspenders sliding up from her pants' waist and under her shirt, which by now Soma knows fully well she has rigged into a sports harness she uses in lieu of a bra.
Hey, it works, don't knock it.
More to the point, Vanessa grunts, arms sliding low, across her belly, framing her chest in a way that was intentional once and by now is simply how she crosses her arms. "This place doesn't care much for fairness. Nothin' does," Vanessa replies. "'s no surprise to me."
"...only truth, huh," Vanessa hums, feet sliding out to a combat ready stance, fists unlocking from her elbows and falling down, sliding toward Vanessa's boxing stance. "I could do with some truth," she says, eyes narrow. "Fine. So what, we beat you, and you tell us everything there is to know? I like this deal."
...but the price. Vanessa glances over toward Soma, thoughtfully. She could leave him in the lurch. Everyone must stand on their own, she recalls. Is this a trial, or just an attempt to weaken them by deceit.
Whatever it is, Vanessa follows the rule she's always followed: Hers. "Your call, copper," she says, tipping her head. "You in for all or nothin'?"
COMBATSYS: Ayame has started a fight here as a boss!
AYAME
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Despite himself, he grins at Vanessa's suggestion that neither Vegas nor an Indian theme is a good plan. "You clearly don't know what Bollywood box office takes are like. If that meatheaded money-grubbing doucheboxer actually had even a remote idea, he'd ditch Vegas in a heartbeat and move to Chennai." That much is the truth. So much the better that Bison stays in America -- stupid, decadent America -- where he freakin' belongs, thank you all the same. He seems about to say something else, but just as he opens his mouth, up pops trouble with a capital A.
Turning to look, Soma sort of... slow-mo swivels toward Ayame in a distracted way, a nagging feeling of familiarity in the back of his mind. It's rewarded when he recognizes the staff-wielding former petty thief, who appears to have moved up in the world considerably. She claims two things... that there shall be only truth, and that the reckoning has finally come on his 'gift'. Sarcastic to the last, though, Soma takes that request in stride. "Why, Ayame," he says smoothly, using the only name he can recall ever being applied to her, "are you hitting on me? Because I have to tell you, the whole Robert Palmer, 'Simply Irrestistable' video vibe doesn't work on you." He inclines his head toward Vanessa. "On her, smoking hot. On you, it's like 'Bring your Daughter to Work Day'."
He knew it was coming. Certainly, he couldn't keep the damn dagger forever and frankly, he wouldn't want to. It's more trouble than it's worth. But something about the idea of returning the 'fragment' -- not that he's heard it referred to as such -- to the group, and to Ayame in specific, rankles. "For the record, I knew it wasn't 'rightfully mine'," he says, hand straying back to finger the hilt of the emerald dagger resting in the cross sheaths in the small of his back. "As for taking it..."
He blurs across the distance between himself and the staff wielder, barely visible... a side effect of the dagger itself, maybe? His speed was always quick, but now it seems to be bordering on the superhuman. When he appears again, perceivable, it's near Ayame, looking to drive the hilt of that emerald dagger right into her face in a sort of punching maneuver. "Let's see you try."
COMBATSYS: Soma has joined the fight here.
AYAME
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Soma 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Ayame parries Soma's Weapon Jab!
AYAME
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Shimmering staff in hand, Ayame spins the weapon in her right hand once before tucking it under her right shoulder, glancing down to adjust the black gloves over each hand, making sure they're snug. Looking up, her brown eyes center on Vanessa for a moment as the girl recalls and reviews everything she's read on the bare-fisted boxer's style of fighting. "Good," she replies as red-head declares she isn't surprised that things aren't going to get any LESS unreasonable around here. "Mustn't get complacent after all."
Drawing her staff back out, she twirls it again in one hand, the weapon seemingly light in her grip, the crimson aura blurring with the swift motion, leaving small trails of light near the end of the lengthy weapon. "You can ask me whatever you want," she replies to the bid for clarification. "Though if it's important to you, you may want to get to it before I'm done with you." She sounds confident. "I would be remiss to promise that you'll be in any condition to inquire further when this is finished." She always has.
The spinning staff drives small currents of wind around her - enough to toy with her lengthy hair slightly in the otherwise still room. The familiar voice of Soma causes her to snap her attention to him next, one eyebrow arching slightly as he asks if she's hitting on him before commenting on her attire. The tiniest hint of a twitch betrays whatever irritation he manages to provoke with his remark, but she recovers quickly enough to reply in kind, "I'll just settle for taking you to school." The girl beckons with her left hand. "Step up, and I'll teach you an all new meaning of hot." There's an edge of laughter in her voice. She remembers him well. He's different now though. In spite the trying circumstances he and Vanessa might have found themselves in, he seems a happier man.
Her left leg bends a little at the knee as she settles into what seems to be a very loosely defined fighting stance. He makes his move, boldly darting in first against the girl that seems to be playing both host and participant to this culminating event. "Gladly. Keeps things interesting." Ayame responds. The last time they met they had been cast as fighting peers by the bean counters and number crunchers.
This time it's different. She had unlocked the secrets of the staff; unleashed the seals Seishirou Ryouhara himself had left burried deep within it with only a touch. The power coursing through the weapon resonates with the building itself, the cycling dimming and flaring of that surplus chi seeming to keep time with the steady, distant thump of what can only be described as a heartbeat. The exact connection may not be clear, but the fact that the weapon Ayame grips is channeling power from far more than the skinny girl in formal-wear is easy enough to discern.
Soma moves as a blur, crossing the distance like no normal person should be able to - but when he does, it is into the metal surface of Ayame's staff his hilt collides with a ringing noise. "But!" Her staff is still in her right hand - yet she's blocking his knife with her left. "You have to try and stop me." He would have had to be quick to see the way it seemed Ayame pulled a shorter, two foot staff from the first without diminishing the size of the original in the slightest.
She retaliates, shoving back with her left hand while spinning into her attack. A crushing blow with the smaller staff in her left hand targets Soma's ribs. "Or we won't-" But it's only a distracting blow, an attempt to let her slip in behind him before he can recover. A flick of her wrist and the smaller staff fragment vanishes from sight.
It's the longer, original weapon he needs worry about the most, as the girl callously attempts to pull it up over Soma's head and cinch it in over his throat from behind. If she manages to get him in the choke-hold, she'll lean forward as a surge of searing, firey chi will course through her staff into the Indian, "- have any fun." she whispers.
Vanessa grunts at Ayame’s approval, tipping her eyebrows skyward. "I can relax at the bar later," she laughs. "Maybe call some of the girls, make a week of it."
They may still have some marbles. All the answers. For these two - for Soma, of INTERPOL, and for Vanessa, reporting information to her own shadow masters somewhere in the Ikari mission structure...that might be /better/ than solving the situation itself.
No. Not might. Definitely.
Soma’s sassing her. Vanessa doesn’t know Soma well enough to read him deeper than she can read anyone else; she can’t trust that he’s realized how big a windfall is on offer. Plus, he knows this girl. Vanessa...doesn’t. Does she? She doesn’t think so. If she does, it was some random fight ages ago. She manages a little smirk at the compliment, but that’s about it. And then Soma--
She hums, and grins. Well, that’s /like/ accepting, she thinks, as Soma blurs forward. She watches - just a second, not supporting mostly to see what Soma’s got them into this time. Weapon like that - chi powered. Surprise...uh, none, pretty much, especially not for an officer of Jinchuu. What’s it do? Light, OK. Wind. Vanessa does wind. Don’t rely too much on it, she thinks, who knows what it’ll do if it collides. OK. Sucking power out of the building. Less OK. Way less OK.
Duplication. SUPER less OK.
Vanessa finally sets herself. "Ooookay, then," she mutters, while Ayame and Soma lock each other in combat. "I’m gonna need a drink after this, but first..."
And then she blurs. Hers isn’t augmented - isn’t the power of some weapon, some trick. Hers is raw, unbridled training, allowing her to skate across the distance between her and Ayame in a heartbeat while she lunges her full weight around her body to slam her fist into Ayame’s nose.
"I like fun!" Vanessa chirps, ideally with her fist in Ayame's face. "How about me!?"
COMBATSYS: Vanessa has joined the fight here.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Soma
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Soma with Limited Liability EX.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Soma
Hmm. Not unexpected, but not good.
Soma has time to yank that dagger back, at least; he's not in any way interested in letting Ayame have it, thank you, but there's not a lot of time to do much else. He has maybe a split second to react to the incoming attack from the short staff, and he does start to move a little bit. If he can slip out of the way, fantastic; but he's far too practical for that, so the ICPO agent also takes a deep breath and centers himself, deciding to split that precious second between trying to escape and waiting for the inevitable.
A good thing, too; the short staff slams into his ribs painfully, but preparation means Soma keeps from blacking out. Ayame gets behind him, and the garrote-staff-fire-whatever combination starts up, but at the last second the Indian's hands catch around the staff, keeping it from choking him TOO fully; it's not as good as even guarding against the attack might have been, but anything that keeps the strike from doing too much damage is a godsend at the moment.
Hissing a bit as he slips free of that attack, spinning away and turning to face Ayame, he notices the incoming Vanessa even as he nonchalantly brings a hand up to his neck and rubs it, looking annoyed. "If this is your idea of fun," he says, slightly hoarsely, "this might be why you're still single. Or maybe..." He pauses, smirking a little. "There was the brat on the roller skates, but I don't think she was legal. Of course, you're probably not either..." Whatever it is he's talking about, it's taking place mostly in his own mind, the half-said thoughts probably not making a terrible lot of sense to Ayame and probably not any at all to Vanessa.
Despite the hit he just took, Soma's smile suggests it's funny to him.
He seems torn between wanting to help Vanessa and wanting to get right into the interrogation, but taking a cue from Guantanamo Bay, he decides to do both at once; picking an angle perpendicular to the boxer's advance, he steps to the side and then darts back in at Ayame, holding a 'knife' in his hand... but the weapon isn't real at all, just a black-edged silver light construct, a living form of Psycho Power he seeks to stab right into Ayame's stomach. Thankfully it lacks a physical presence, or that would be... a little gruesome, even for this fight. "So why create a superweapon AND something to stop the superweapon, then hide them both here? It's so... D&D villain-y."
COMBATSYS: Soma successfully hits Ayame with Mithun.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Soma
COMBATSYS: Ayame counters Dash Puncher from Vanessa with The Sunrise Of Broken Dreams.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Soma
Soma slips free perhaps a split second faster than Ayame would have preferred. Of course, she seemed like she would've gladly choked him out given enough time. Naturally, Soma didn't come alone. Good call. The tie-wearing girl whirls around as Soma slips free, sweeping her right hand out, her staff slicing through the air like a scythe of energy only to fail to smack him in the side of the head as she intended. Spinning with the momentum of her strike, the agile fighter comes to a stop, one staff in each hand.
Vanessa's incoming punch is exceptionally timed to catch Ayame from an angle she wasn't looking. But while the OLDER woman didn't grab the girl's focus at first, the staff wielder on a mission reacts in the narrowest of margins all the same. Extending her left hand, the jacket-clad girl spins to the side a second time, vanishing almost entirely from where she had been standing when the punch was thrown. What lingers behind is that staff that was in her left hand, however, left in place as if gripped by an invisible presence.
It is into that weapon Vanessa's knuckles smash before it detonates into a small explosion for her trouble. "Not so ignored now... having fun, are you?" the teenaged menace smirks. "I know I am."
Twirling the original staff idly in her right hand, Ayame paces to the side, walking a circle around Soma, brown eyes studying the young man with a certain predatory look. His words provoke a twitch of her eyebrow, "Are you suggesting..." she mutters before shaking her head. "It's rude to insinuate things about the dead, don't you know?" The extra edge to her voice suggests that perhaps his words annoyed her even more than she choses to let on.
Then she has a psychic blade to deal with. Shifting her staff back to a two-handed grip, she aims to deflect the incoming attack. A step too slow, a muscle twitch misread, or some other cause leaves her failing to knock aside the incoming strike. The 'stab' forces a soft gasp as Ayame loses ground, sliding to a stop a yard backward. Hissing between gritted teeth, she glares back at Soma, temper flaring just a little.
But perhaps she silently counts to ten, or reminds herself of her objective her, or some other thought process occurs in the quiet gears of her mind as she says nothing for a long moment. Shifting back into a defensive posture behind her staff, Ayame nods slowly, "It does, doesn't it. You must realize... a superweapon can be good for a lot more than destroying things..."
Relaxing out of her defensive posture, Ayame begins to pace in a circle again, trying to keep the other two fighters on one side of her in the process. "It's too easy to get fixated on Katsuten rather than looking at the bigger picture." Twirling her weapon once more, a shimmering aura of yellow pulses along the length of it like a pulse of lightning. "When in truth, it is of little importance to /him/. To Jinchuu. This..." Ayame sweeps her hand toward the map on the wall of the Sanctum lobby. "This is all about the trial of the individual."
Rival banter gets weird, Vanessa decides, and then she punches a bomb.
It doesn't go very well, actually, as witnessed when she goes /arcing through the air/, hitting the ground with a hard thump and a harder "AUGH!" She stays down for a few seconds. Ten count. The old boxer trick. Soma's buying her time, so she takes her sweet time getting up, getting reoriented, pushing herself to her feet on eight. "That was...alright," she admits, coughing into her fist and then slipping down into her stance, thinking over question and answer. Fist opens and closes. The comparison is lost on her, but he's right, it's...dumb.
Except Ayame explains it. This is bigger than the fight. It's always been. The word choices, just the way everyone talks about it, this was never...
"That's why you guys were so vocal," Vanessa says, not really asking so much as deducing. "You wanted as many people as you could get here. You wanted this to be a big spectacle." And then she's surging in, sweeping forward toward Ayame across open ground at normal speed, saying, "But why? What kind of 'trial of the individual'? Why go to all this trouble just to...harden people up!?"
She punctuates that final ellipses with a punch to the neck, swinging in sharp from the side.
There's something unnervingly... casual about all this.
"Whatever. If he's dead, I'm King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia," Soma says evenly to Ayame's shocked reaction to his insinuation that she and a certain thought-to-be-dead ninja are doing [redacted] on the sly in between highly manipulative and flashy acts of terrorism-slash-fighting tournaments. Being an empath is so... useful in these situations, the Indian thinks to himself. It also super helps in poker games.
There's not a lot he can do for Vanessa after she picks the wrong box to punch, as it were, but keep talking. Thankfully, as the dagger-fighting police agent circles around his staff-wielding opponent, this is the sort of thing he's good at. Before he ever started this whole supercop punching kicking deal, Soma was an intelligence analyst with two advanced degrees in criminology. Maybe a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, though; he's quite happy to expound on his opinion of Seishirou Ryouhara's psychology all day while Vanessa collects herself. "Oh, communism is just a red herring," he says glibly, though the Clue ref probably flies a mile and a half over the heads of everyone in the room. "I didn't care about the bomb and neither does Seishirou. That's why he set off the last one to get Rugal off his doorstep on the Suiryuu. He had what he wanted, who cares about the boat or the bomb? Once I processed that, this whole deal was a lot cleaner."
Amethyst-colored eyes glance over to Vanessa getting up, and start talking. "Ryouhara's a would-be king. Oh, *he* doesn't know it yet, but he's got all the classic signs. I'm willing to bet Jinchuu -- both of them -- are 'entrance exams' for his peaceable kingdom of the branch."
He, too, uses physical violence as punctuation: a hand shoots out, index and middle fingers extended, looking to exploit his knowledge of anatomy and pressure points to jab a verrrrry sensitive spot indeed on Ayame's side. "Right?"
COMBATSYS: Ayame blocks Vanessa's Hook Punch.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Soma
COMBATSYS: Ayame dodges Soma's Medium Throw.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Soma
Vanessa speaks up and it is to her that Ayame's snaps, brown eyes focusing on the woman as she begins to speak further on the motivations of the event that has brought so many people together from around the world. So much seemingly random suffering, so much loss - even to one of the most costly sacrifices at all. "Is it normal for you to doubt benevolence so strongly? Have people not been rewarded?" the strawberry-blond replies. "Recompense for those who paid the right prices?"
She braces herself, bunkering down behind her staff, planting her feet as Vanessa charges in swinging. This time the woman's knuckles catch the surface of the titanium staff the girl uses for defense, delivering a solid enough impact that the weapon is driven against Ayame's chest, the girl stumbling a little under the power brought to bear by the boxer. "Hmph."
She catches herself, righting her balance, whirling on Soma, looking a touch more irritated with him than she had been when the duo first appeared. "You didn't?" she asks as he states he didn't care about the bomb. "I see..." She grins faintly. Twirling her staff up over her head, she rests it over her shoulders with her left hand, seemingly having let down her guard for a moment.
"He did have a vision for how the world could be... how it should be." she muses softly. "If Katsuten isn't handled, I suppose no one will be left to fill the pages of the saga he would leave behind..." Soma dives forward, driving out his two fingers in a bid to apply pressure to a concentration of nerves, but his hand drills right through the image of Ayame. It flickers.
Then explodes in a rose-colored burst of chi.
Ayame is standing ten feet to the side, staff still resting on her shoulders as she stares at Soma. "Do you think the likes of you two have a place in a world of Seishirou Ryouhara's making?" She laughs lightly, spinning the weapon off her shoulders and dropping back into a ready stance. "No matter. We're not here to satisfy my curiosity, after all. Questions?"
Vanessa swings that punch through, and Ayame - blocks it with her staff, earning her a little glower from Vanessa, the boxer sweeping back and away almost instantly. High mobility - in, out, in, out, keep them guessing, never expecting. It's a punch, it'll always be a punch, but timing, direction, Vanessa's a skilled fighter at keeping people from being totally sure of what the hell she's doing next.
"I stop counting it as benevolence when population-annihilating chi bombs get involved, lady," Vanessa says, tipping her head a little to the side, sharply (crack CRACK goes her neck). "This, all this - you don't put this kind of resources together if you're a /nice guy/. You put this together if you're a whacko who wants to think he's a nice guy."
She takes a breath, setting her feet again for another lunge. "And you didn't answer my question. Is all this to ready the world for something!? Is Ryouhara /expecting/ something, or just making it happen? You talk like it's ideological, but you can't /make/ a change like that by making a couple dozen meatheads run riot through a city!"'
She pushes forward - darting in. Afterimages trail in her wake as she skates inward - god, she's just...ridiculously fast. Stops short, bobbing up and down just in front of Ayame --- one arm streaks down, aiming for the crown of her head!
"This world is already a place where people think beating the piss out of each other is family entertainment!" A trail of golden light follows in the wake, and Vanessa follows up with a vicious uppercut! "How is making them beat /you/ up gonna change shit!?"
A second, burning wave of chi, and Vanessa adds: "HELLION!"
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Soma with The Creation of Twilight.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\1 Soma
Unpleasant.
There's actually no sign of Soma once the chi bomb appears to go off, for a brief moment. It's when he pulls himself out of the wreckage of a bench and potted plant nearby -- looking super pissed, by the way -- and throughly messed up that one understands the irritating level of additional power that Seishirou's little toys have given his chosen. And, it should be noted, not to him. The dagger rattles behind him, as it always has in the presence of Seishirou's little 'tests', like a Geiger counter for chi-powered whackjobs. But all this time he's held it, Soma HAS noticed something. A little faster, a little stronger... and a presence at the edge of his perception that is like seeing something out of the corner of his eye that moves whenever he tries to look at it.
In short, the chi-blind is seeing chi, and has no frame of reference for it. It's *annoying*.
"Listen to what the hell you just said," he says, advancing on Ayame, drawing both hands daggers and holding them blade back, hilt down... the sort of way that ninja, in fact, tend to hold similar blades. "For those who paid the 'right' price? So he's benevolent to people he already likes and to hell with the rest, including innocent people? If that's the world of Seishirou Ryouhara's making then fuck that. He talks about the 'fighting proletariat,' sells all this as ushering in a new glorious era for the common people, but it's still his nutjob ninja oligarchy at the top in charge of the bread lines."
When he attacks, it's in time with Vanessa, approaching from the other side, shouting the whole time. In truth this is probably a bad idea but he's really sort of incensed at this point. "I don't care if your boss is a goddamned maniacal crazy person, but he could at least have the decency to not be a HYPOCRITICAL maniacal crazy person!" There's no question there; if anyone wants to know more they're going to have to rely on Vanessa, seems like. Soma's in his own little world.
His world also includes that emerald green dagger sailing toward Ayame in a blazing arc, surrounded not only in a green chi flame but with the black-edged, crackling silver aura of Soma's Psycho Power as well. He doesn't even care where it hits her, at this point. It's not even personal against Ayame. He just really, really needs to hit something.
COMBATSYS: Ayame dodges Vanessa's Forbidden Eagle.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Soma
COMBATSYS: Ayame blocks Soma's Hikoboshi's Hook.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0 Soma
"Oh," Ayame observes, continuing her own pacing around the room, always trying to fence in the other two, relying on the length advantage her staff gives her - let alone the home court advantage that she's leveraging extensively. "He's most definitely not a nice guy. The world isn't changed by niceties." She shakes her head, eyes closing for a short moment as she takes another calculated step. "Seishirou Ryouhara doesn't see himself as a hero or a force for benevolence... Throughout all known history, it's violence that gets results, wars that reshape the earth, and warriors that lead the charge."
The teen fighter centers her focus on the talented boxing woman next, studying her as she continues to try and profile this new face. "Look around you. Speak to others that were drawn to Taizhou. He isn't preparing for something, he isn't trying to make something happen." A glance to the side toward the large monitor in the wall as it flickers over some of the statistical data that it has displayed from time to time. Names of the 'chosen', camera views of various 'trial' locations, and so forth. "He already made it happen."
Her brow furrows as she looks back toward Vanessa. "Lives have changed. Some have cast off the manacles of their prior, irrelevant existances to become something so much more. Others have made their final mark on this world in sacrifice for another, leaving others to continue on, their lives forever different for the vacuum that has been cut out of their hearts where their friend once was."
Ayame flips locks of her lengthy hair back over her shoulder. "No one will leave Taizhou the same person as they were when they arrived. Unless, of course, they weren't worthy of being here in the first place." Ayame glares back at Vanessa, "Seishirou knew a better way for this world, but liberation can only come by obliterating the stale, mindless ways that have wasted away generations."
Vanessa makes her move and Ayame is pressured, twisting and turning her staff in a bid to try and read the very difficult attack. When the driving smash comes for her head, however, Ayame slams her staff against the ground, springing out of reach, then twisting to the right to avoid the chi infused uppercut. Several backsteps are taken, the girl's expression concealing whether or not she found that to be a close call or not.
It's then that she turns to find Soma pulling himself out of the wreckage of the defeated bench. He's advancing toward her, his stance different now. The way she leans her head to the side slightly and grins back at him suggests that she's pleased with this shift in demeanor. He shouts, but his charge is too closely timed with Vanessa's own attack for Ayame to do anything other than bunker down in response.
Precision tuned reflexes has her bringing her weapon up into the path of the mysterious dagger that brought Soma to this mess in the first place, but the energy it was imbued with is not so easily stopped, crashing past the clash of weapons, splashing against the jacketed girl, provoking a soft hiss as she slips backward out of range of any immediate follow ups, sweeping her staff out in arc in the process in order to force him to slow rather than immediately charge her again.
"Seishirou? I doubt he liked anyone." Ayame grunts dismissively. "And don't confuse fancy toys with the real rewards of sacrifice." she retorts, spinning her staff again, leaving a violet trail in its path. "What I have here I can't take with me when it comes time to leave this place." She stops moving then, her back to the meeting point between two walls, as if having deliberately cornered herself. At least it makes it hard to get behind her as she begins to draw more from the energy her staff so readily channels.
"Seishirou's people have only been running things here because Jinchuu requires its stage crew. He had no plans to run the world," she muses as the energy at her disposal grows in strength. "But enough. Are you two even trying to hit me?" she asks, a teasing edge to her tone of voice.
COMBATSYS: Ayame gathers her will.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0 Soma
her tone of voice.
Ayame swings away, that exchange quick and painful - she's /fast/, too fast, how the hell can Vanessa keep /missing/ her? This is ridiculous! She grits her teeth, figuring on another plan of attack.
"I wouldn't know, 'bout the others," Vanessa says, rolling her neck. "You guys were too busy trying to murder me to give me the chance to talk to anyone." Except Alan, who seemed more deathly afraid than anything else, and Juri, who was..........pretty batshit. But Ayame's talking. Lives have changed. Cast off manacles of irrelevant lives, huh. ...and others have died.
"Yer an idiot," Vanessa explains, helpfully. "Puttin' pretty words on suffering. Sorry, lady." She shakes her head, holding a hand up, sparks of golden light bursting around it. Continue the interrogation. So the whole thing is stupid. But idealistic fools still have power. Ryouhara thought that changing a handful of lives for the worse was worth this kind of suffering. So be it.
"So your only objective was to change a couple lives, huh," she sighs - not even coming a single step closer, whirling forces gathering around her hands... "Well, obviously a couple people were dumb enough to fall for it."
She doesn't charge. "I'm not sayin' I like the way this world is. But there's so much better ways to use that power than this. So why? Why /this/? Nobody with this kind of planning prepares people for a future they're not guiding!"
The burst of light is sudden, immediate - and Vanessa's lip curls up, snapping a loud boxer's snort as she swings her arm back, and grins a big, wide grin, and HURLS a gale of hurricane-force wind downrange at Ayame, shredding tiles and fast enough to plant her ass in the far wall, while Vanessa starts charging across the distance, ready to capitalize if she gets the opening she hopes for.
He doesn't stop; Soma follows through on the slash and spins about to face Ayame, trying to be prepared for anything, literally seething at this point, his breath making hissing noises as it passes in and out of clenched teeth. He doesn't speak, mostly because Vanessa is saying most of the important things for him, and with a clearer head besides, it would appear. What's obvious about this team -- and almost certainly why they were paired together in the first place -- is they're both exceedingly practical individuals. Neither Vanessa nor Soma seem the type to be impressed by high ideals, or a revolutionary creedo, or horror done in the name of the 'greater good.' They are, as practical people, focused on the mundanity of the world where those ideals exist.
'Nobody with this kind of planning prepares people for a future they're not guiding!' The corners of Soma's mouth turn up in a smile at that. He's definitely going to buy her a drink after.
"What's with the disdainful smile?" he asks of Ayame, readying his weapons again. "Feeling superior because you got us mad? Well, good work, you got us mad. If you think that's an accomplishment it's more a statement on how messed up you are than us, believe me." He's watching the staff-wielder's stance carefully, attempting to find an opening, trying to stay analytical despite his growing fury. Everyone makes mistakes sometime, even an ice princess like Ayame. He just needs to be there for it.
"I don't care about the toys. This," he says, "was either a bribe or bait. Bait I took, because... well, why not." He's looking at Ayame as he says this, but out of the corner of his eye -- a movement of his purple-eyed gaze that's visible for a fraction of a second -- he sees Vanessa gearing up for her assault, and tenses. "But if you're so keen on answering questions, riddle me this: why the hell am I here? If Seishirou looks at me with such disdain as you imply, and lord knows I'm part of the entrenched social order he's trying to obliterate, then why bait me here at all? To gloat? Seems..."
He strikes when the hurricane is launched, fingers lashing out again at not just one, but three separate disabling pressure points in quick succession, going for quantity over quality. He doesn't need to make the pain from those strikes do all the work, because the second Soma notices that he's landed a clean shot (if at all), he uses the momentary distraction to bring his knee up in a sort of hopping kick right into the underside of Ayame's chin, finishing his sentence from before: "...uncharacteristic!"
COMBATSYS: Ayame blocks Soma's Armed Combo.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/-------|======-\-------\0 Soma
COMBATSYS: Ayame endures Vanessa's Gaia Gear.
AYAME
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Vanessa 0/-------/-------|======-\-------\0 Soma
For a short bit, both Vanessa and Soma have free reign to speak, as Ayame seems too focused on the energy she's building to offer to much in the way of rebuttles. Being called an idiot doesn't seem to bother her. She just stares back at Vanessa as if she finds the vehemenance curiously interesting. "Nooo..." the strawberry-blond does note at one point, "My objective is not Seishirou's objective. I'm nothing like him." An aura of azure builds at her feet. "And I don't even understand everything about the way he thought. A lot of the events that have transpired since his death have been based on the plans he left behind, but he has not been in control of everything that has happened to you each individually."
She exhales, the aura becoming that of flickering flames, "But I was around him enough to know him better than most. I have also been a part of the plans carried out in his absense. So it's the best you're going to get next to trying to dredge up his ghost at a seance for a nice round of Q and A."
Soma draws her attention, the aura cooling off to a violet swirl. "Ah, the reason for my smile is mine to keep. I'm not here to explain /me/. You two don't have enough strength to last that long." She exhales slightly, sounding a little annoyed at something pertinent the questions being asked. "Why ARE you here?" she asks back, looking at the young man pointedly. "You think Seishirou hated you? Perhaps at one time he did," she muses, "But you must have impressed him somehow. It was his will that everyone worthy be a part of this great event."
She slams the end of her staff against the ground. Though the motion seemed simple enough, the impact sends tiny fisures spiderwebbing out in the stone floor beneath her feet. "Part of changing the world is changing old perceptions; change your enemies to your way of thinking or eliminate them. Unfortunately, I do not know which of those two outcomes he had in mind for you specifically..."
She chose her corner and now it's up to the two of them to take advantage of it. Both of their attacks come screaming in at once. Soma's strikes are fended off for the most part, though it seems Ayame is having a harder time keeping up with him as time continues. Even still, most of them she manages to force aside with her staff, a knee, or occasional elbow. It's Vanessa's attack that strikes with full force, on the other hand, as Ayame knew full well that she couldn't manage the both of them at once this time.
Tiles go flying, a potted plant explodes, and in the split second before the storm crashes into her, Ayame hurls her staff into the swirling chi like a targeted missile. Even with the aura defenses she was pulling from the ambient energy of the structure, she's slammed back hard into the wall behind her, flattened against it hard enough to leave an indentation in its surface before sliding down, landing on her feet, "Oof." she gasps, taking in her breath again.
Of interest, however, are the sections of the staff that were thrown out by the collision of chi. One is imbeded in the ceiling, another in the floor, and the third is sticking out of the now shattered main-monitor of the Sanctum Lobby. One important detail, of course, is the way the three of them form a slanted, triangular plane. With Vanessa at the center. The only warning offered by Ayame come from the insidious grin Ayame offers back at Vanessa as she rights herself.
A split second later, that plane is filled with a shimmering pool of liquid-like, silvery chi, its surface polished enough to form a giant mirror of mercury with the boxing woman right in the middle of it!
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Vanessa with Omnia Vincit Aeternam.
AYAME
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Vanessa 1/---====/=======|======-\-------\0 Soma
Vanessa gets the hit in. She takes a slow, deep breath, from the exerted power. This girl is just...freakin' ridiculous, it's stupid. Vanessa's throwing all she can at her, and it's like she's barely even noticing it. Vanessa tries to wrap her head around the words. "So you're just...following his plan," she mutters. "But...his plan is to just, what, give people a rough time and let them back into the wild!?" Let them see a little suffering, understand a little better just how terrible the world is, and they'll...make it worse. Of course they'll make it worse, why would they even try to make it any better if the only thing they learn from this little charade is that the only thing that matters is /power/!?
But that's the point, isn't it. That /is/ the lesson. Everyone must stand on their own. Walk the trail of fire. Write your own legend. The rules of this insane place. They exist only for one thing...to create a code that will create people with the power necessary to destroy the world as it is.
Vanessa can't get much further than this when Ayame grins at her, and Vanessa sees what's happening about two nanosecond two late. "Wh--FUC--"
The pillar of light and terror bursts through the ceiling and sears Vanessa way to bones and ashes. BAD END
...is what probably ought to happen. Vanessa is not so weak. It clears, and Vanessa slams into the ground, and just...
Stays down, showing only what effort she can to stand.
COMBATSYS: Vanessa gains composure.
AYAME
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Vanessa 1/----===/=======|======-\-------\0 Soma
Impressed him? Ha. If he were speaking aloud, that would almost certainly be the words out of Soma's mouth. Instead his face does the talking, but only briefly, because Ayame seriously, massively puts the screws to Vanessa in a way that actually makes his throat tighten and his fingers start to twitch. What the hell is in these toys he's handing out, of which Soma's 'bait' is likely the least? Sympathy for Vanessa almost makes him want to just hurl the thing out of his hand onto the floor; only the practical knowledge that he's probably going to need the edge it gives.
Instead he backs off, deciding not to fight Ayame at the moment. He'll coordinate with Vanessa once it looks like she's back on her feet, as Ayame's staff-spawned G-Bits didn't finfunnel the poor boxer quite to death, just merely within 10 miles of the border. He does keep talking, though. If nothing else it's getting the red haze out of his eyes and clearing his thinking.
"Right. So the 'shouten muketsu' nonsense... which, I won't even start on how 'limitations are an illusion! be your best self now!' sounds like a Ponzi scheme sales pitch someone gave at the Learning Annex. It's an interesting read, all very high-minded and gung ho. It's the sort of thing that someone who already has power would cook up, philosophically."
His eyes narrow as he stares down Ayame for a moment, genuinely cold and impassive, as if pulling what he's about to say out of the depths of some... great recessed place in his memory. "You know how I spent much of my childhood? Locked in a room, alone, because I couldn't keep the voices out of other people out of my head."
Within, an image: a child Soma, staring out a window, while his wealthy and ultimately foolish parents parade doctors in front of him, trying to figure it out. Their feelings not of concern but annoyance and disappointment at their freak son... feelings that he, with his nascent abilities and total lack of experience-granting control, heard every day, for years.
It should have made him cold. Should have taught him you can only rely on yourself. That it did not might be the difference between himself and the people of Kagero, in the end.
"I worked through it, eventually. Because nobody helped me. I figured it out on my own. I had power, and not having support, not having help, made me powerless. To hell with that. Stand on your own is fine... don't blame others, take responsibility. I'll buy that. But nobody should live alone. We need each other to live, and as much as the systems we have in place -- countries, culture -- that create imperfect things like law are, I grant you, messed up and flawed at times, they make it so we can find a way to live together. If standing on your own is the goal, then I failed big time. Without Red over there, I'd have died before now."
He drops back into a fighting stance, daggers at the ready, having left it without thinking while telling that story. "So here's my last question. What's the final goal of this second Jinchuu? What is it that Seishirou is attempting to achieve? No... honeyed rhetoric, no crazy ninja philosophy. The thing, the material thing, that he wants."
COMBATSYS: Soma focuses on his next action.
AYAME
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Vanessa 1/----===/=======|======-\-------\0 Soma
Ayame pushes off of the wall, wobbly for a bit, but still standing. If not for the aura augmentation she's drawing on from the building by virtue of her resonating staff. Extending her right hand, fingers splayed, Ayame literally pulls all three segments of the staff out of their respective craters back into her grip, the individual pieces re-attaching into a single long staff in mid-air.
Merciless brown eyes glance over Vanessa as the durable boxer continues to move even after the incredible assault she just weathered. She had estimated that the woman would be able to keep fighting after all that, but seeing that her guess turned out to be correct does still surprise the girl slightly. But Vanessa doesn't appear to be any immediate threat, so Ayame's focus shifts to Soma instead.
Her left hand comes up to adjust her frazzled tie, a shrug of her shoulders and she gets her now torn up jacket back into postion. "Hmph." It takes her plenty of time to reclaim her staff and straighten out her clothes, giving Soma the chance to have his say without interruption, though he holds the girl's attention the whole time.
"Ah, so you know about shouten muketsu." she muses, though says nothing more of it, sounding as if she's given the philosophy some thought but is hardly a zealous defender of it. It is the law of the land that she's had to observe for her own sake. Then Soma speks of his childhood and Ayame's eyes narrow, the girl staying quiet longer. "It sounds to me that you understand the law better than many of those gang members that claim to enforce it." She shrugs, looking a little amused.
It's when he asks the directed question, with specific qualifiers added onto his request that Ayame's expression shifts to somber. "Good question." She sounds like she actually means it. "I don't know for sure. He never said, and none of his people know precisely what he would say if he even volunteered it." Her expression is even. It's left to the others to decide if she's bluffing or not, but she seems to even let her guard down enough for Soma to get an intuitive sense that she is in fact doing so.
"But I can look at the evidence in front of me and declare for certain what it isn't." She tightens the grip she has on her staff then relaxes it, "I mean, the big picture idea of it is fairly clear. He has been weaponizing the fighting proleteriat for the revolution he has spoken of often enough. Why, precisely? What would he get out of it...?"
Ayame leans her head one way then the other, as if weighing a number of facts out in her mind. "It can't possibly be material. Whatever Seishirou Ryouhara wanted, he made. He's already made super weapons more than once, which means that could not possibly be his goal here... I mean, in the sum of things, it seems he is losing out with this whole affair. Much of his vast fortune, his technology, his weapons crafting went into Jinchuu. He stood to gain nothing from it fiscally..."
She shakes her head, shrugging, looking almost apologetic even. "I'm sorry. He stockpiled all this stuff and then just threw it to the wind. Even his plans had no say on who would come away with what..." She glances up toward the ceiling for a moment. "From what I remember of him from the times I did talk to him... one thing that seemed to matter to him above all others was that his tribe, the Ryouhara, would be remembered in legend forever." She grins vaguely, her eyes settling back on Soma as she prepares to charge him. "Seems to me he got his wish."
It's with speed that she charges the investigator, spinning into a deceiving swipe with her staff intended to throw off the timing of his defenses. Coming out of the spin, Ayame would slam her left palm forward, producing a burst of rose colored chi in the shape of an expanding barrier field that threatens to crash into Soma with explosive force, leaving Ayame unharmed behind it.
Vanessa is down. Five, she thinks, as her elbows quake. She falls back on her back, staring into the sky. Six. Fuuuuuu---punches the ground, shoves herself up to a sitting position. Seven. Damn, that hurt. As has by now become tradition, her shirt is reduced to barely-decent tatters, her pants ragged and her flesh burned and charred, blackened like a too-cooked steak. Eight. Her arms quiver. She shoves a leg under her. Nine.
Shoves herself upright, slowly, wobblingly, but above the bell, arms out slightly for balance, watching, trying to listen through the ringing in her ears.
Now she tells them the truth. Weaponize the world. That...those words, finally sink in far enough to click. That /is/ the goal. There was never anything else - show people they are strong enough to overcome. Give people a playground to catalyze in. Live or die - become something greater, or die in a ditch.
Write your own legend.
"Ffffff/uck/," Vanessa croaks out, wobbling a little, left and right. "I hate a guy I have to respect." She staggers forward - inch by inch reclaiming ground. One hand reaches down, tugging her gloves back on. "Friggin'...at least...that's better than Igniz." Or is it? Igniz can fool people with pretty words, too. Ayame moves on Soma.
Vanessa lunges forward - darting in that instant. She's so /fast/, even now, even here, too fast to track as she blurs across the range in a blink, charges toward Ayame and tries to just -- /slam/ her fist into the girl's chest just as she's letting off that concussion at Soma, one blow to maneuver her, before Vanessa /unloads/, yelling, "BODY!" as she hammers home with each one, swinging her fists deliberately but quickly to batter Ayame to nothing - and then: "UPPER!" launch her into heaven.
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Soma with Midsummer Fantasy.
AYAME
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Vanessa 1/-----==/=======|=======\=------\1 Soma
"Chaos, maybe?"
That's all he offers before Ayame is upon him, wielding that godsdamnned chi. He doesn't try to evade it, this time; that hasn't really worked out well for him all things considered, but he does set his feet and prepare himself. He can't quite keep the attack from hitting him full force, but he can keep it from knockng him off his feet. The attack washes over him, and the Indian grits his teeth at the pain, which is intense. He can think of all sorts of reasons why they were summoned here, and why Ayame was given her super-powered swizzle stick. The conclusion he comes to is: to make a point. You're expendable puppets. I hope you've enjoyed dancing to our tune.
It's very frustrating.
"I don't know..." Soma says, breathing raggedly as the chi attack on his person dies away, eyes darting to Vanessa. "I think he's... less revolutionary, more Mr. Kurtz or General Zaroff," the Indian observes, throwing out literature references left and right and perhaps proving he's the out of touch bourgeoise intelligentsia that Seishirou wished to depose. "If he's a step above Igniz, it's not a high step. Perhaps the difference is that Ryouhara believed in at least SOMETHING other than just his own vaunted superiority."
He tilts his head at Ayame, though, fixing his gaze on her curiously. "It's funny that you think he's dead, though, or so it sounds. Do you really think that?"
The emerald dagger stays where it is. His other weapon twists out, the elegantly-made but unremarkable silver dagger, and he twirls as if to slice the air around him... air not close enough to Ayame to hit her. Of course, the problem is that the blade suddenly detaches from the hilt and pommel, connected by a length of flexible wire, and the whip-dagger suddenly slices toward her in an unpredictable spinning dance.
COMBATSYS: Soma successfully hits Ayame with Shani.
AYAME
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Vanessa 1/-----==/=======|=======\==-----\1 Soma
COMBATSYS: Ayame blocks Vanessa's Machine Gun Puncher.
AYAME
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Vanessa 1/----===/=======|=======\==-----\1 Soma
"He wouldn't care about your respect," Ayame notes matter-of-factly, pulling her hand back from the explosive chi unleashed in Soma's direction, whirling around into a defensive posture, staff angled in front of her once again. "So don't trouble yourself about it." Her attention snaps back to the young investigator. It doesn't take a psychic to tell he's increasingly frustrated and furious about the entire affair. This time she seems indifferent rather than amused.
"Are you a superstitious man, Mister Travedi?" she replies to his question. "Or have you seen evidence to suggest Seishirou Ryouhara isn't dead?" Vanessa arrives with her remarkable speed in that moment, forcing Ayame on the defense once more. The directed blows are warded with her staff and shoulder, the girl grunting at the effort as if getting increasingly worn down by having to deal with the talented boxer's relentless nature. Still, she manages to keep any of the punches from landing cleanly even if she earns some glancing bruises for her trouble.
It was enough, however, to prevent her from avoiding Soma's attack, difficult to read as it turns out to be. Wires, she chides herself as the blade detatches as part of his swing. She of all people should know better. A lean at the last possible second has the blade dealing a slash to her upper arm, cutting through jacket and shirt sleeve beneath, but not dealing anything too grevious in terms of damage.
Ayame takes a step back, plants one foot on the wall behind her, then, using her staff as a polevault, springs up over the two of them to land on the other side, sliding to a stop a few meters away.
"Because I'm not, and I haven't seen anything to suggest that he's alive. Therefore, I am operating under the assumption that he is in fact deceased until anything at all can offer evidence to the contrary." As she's been speaking, she's been spinning her staff, faster and faster, an orange'ish energy builds, expanding into a sphere-like concentration of energy. Orange forks of lightning crackle out of the sphere, touching the ceiling, walls, and floor, then retracting even larger than they started, as if Ayame is pulling more power from the Sanctum itself.
"Unfortunately for you," she's focusing on Vanessa now. "I need to collect that fancy toy detective-boy here has been toting around. Which means I have business with him that extends beyond our time together. It's time for you to check out. I hope you've enjoyed your stay!"
With her final sentance, Ayame is already in motion, stepping forward and spinning, swinging her staff in the process. The wide sweep sends all of that built up energy exploding out for Vanessa with horrific speed. The chi itself shifts from orange to violet as soon as it leaves the girl's staff and should the bare-knuckle boxer fail to avoid it, she will find its touch to be extremely debilitating to say the least!
Ayame isn't even following it, however, having dismissed Vanessa out of hand with her final remark, brown eyes settling on Soma, a predatory grin crossing her features.
COMBATSYS: Ayame successfully hits Vanessa with Final Sunset.
- Power hit! -
AYAME
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
0|---------------|---------------
[ < > ///////// ]
Vanessa 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\==-----\1 Soma
Vanessa is getting a little annoyed with this business where Ayame is apparently an impenetrable fortress! She wants some meat on her knuckles, not /staff/. She hammers into that guard with all the strength she has, but Ayame just---It's impossible. It's ridiculous. IGNIZ wasn't this fast. (Because he spent a lot of his time just reaching through Vanessa's attacks to punch her in the neck) She does the best she can. She puts everything into it.
Apparently Ayame is just better. And that just pisses her off even more than having to give some halfhearted props to Seishirou. At least she can take some solace in the fact that Sei is /dead/. Probably. Maybe.
Not solace: Being exploded, again. What does this girl even have against her!? Vanessa growls, "I'm not the type to go down lightly!" despite all evidence mounting to the contrary. She throws her arm up - what /else/ can she do?
The blast wave crashes into her, through her, around her. The wall behind her explodes outward, unable to contain the force. It is a truly absurd kind of attack. Vanessa is surely dead - or at least, too tired to stand.
Ayame turns her back, facing Soma.
Ghosts shoot out from the hole in the wall, skating forward, too fast to see, to track, to perceive as more than a fearful glimpse.
From behind Ayame, Soma gets a clear look at Vanessa. The only reason she is still decent is that her pants are on fire.
She points at her eyes. She points at Soma's eyes. She can barely stand.
She rears back one hand - fist clenched tight, whirlwind suddenly bursting into life.
And then she reaches up and knots her fist in Ayame's hair.
"Sit. The Fuck. Still," Vanessa commands, and then punches her in the back of the head hard enough to send her soaring across the field, across the whole room, and right into Soma's field of vision - dukes going up, for a little game of pong.
COMBATSYS: Vanessa can no longer fight.
AYAME
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0|---------------|---------------
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Soma 1/-----==/=======|
Soma's reply, to if he has evidence that Seishirou is still alive?
"Bastards never die."
He's smirking when he says it, but the ICPO detective truly believes that somewhere in Taizhou, in some form or another, Seishirou Ryouhara is here. Maybe he's just an AI now, a subroutine running in the annoyingly pure white, rounded corner sterileness that is Sanctum, the Seitron-9000 out to steal your credit card info and hack your World of Warcraft account. Perhaps a clone. Hell, there's a distant possibility that as a PERSON he's still out there. In fact, in a weird way, Ayame's conviction just cements Soma's case in his own mind.
To fool your enemies, try fooling your friends first.
The silvery blade of his dagger snakes through the air, whipping back into place on the pommel with a *snap!* sound just as Ayame's attack -- and dismissal -- hammer into Vanessa, sending her flying and apparently taking her out of the fight. As far as the thief is concerned, Vanessa's dealt with and only the actually quite injured Soma remains to take care of.
Soma knows her better than that and, in fact, stays stone-faced even as Vanessa careens into a wall. The better he knows someone, the more able he is to read their intentions, feel what's in their heart. He and Vanessa might not be the closest of friends, but he's come to admire the boxer in these past few weeks, and so he thinks he has a good idea of what's coming next.
He wouldn't reveal it on his face to Ayame on pain of death.
"I'll destroy it, first," he says to the staff-wielding fighter with glacial solemnity. "Nobody should have shit like this. It's not right. Only reason I held on to it was because it was leading me where I needed to go. But do you know, it's like these things have... consciousness. Maybe I'm just more able to tell that, but it WANTS me to do things I don't feel like doing. Like try to take on Kain goddamned Heinlein one on one. If I were you, I'd break that staff over your knee and not look back."
At the end of this tirade, Vanessa is just about in place for her retribution, and Soma reads her intent like a book. There is, a fraction of a second before the boxer reaches for Ayame's hair, that he grins a TINY BIT.
He's ready. If Vanessa gets her grip -- if Ayame sails his way -- then he is prepared indeed.
COMBATSYS: Ayame fails to counter Sapta Rishis from Soma with Requiem For Fallen Blossoms and is struck by Meeting Buddha On the Road from Vanessa and Soma.
AYAME
[ ||| ]
0|---------------|-==============
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Soma 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Ayame can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Soma 0/-------/-------|
He doesn't look strong, Soma doesn't. More wiry than beefy. But he is capable, at certain moments, of impressive feats of strength. For example: Ayame goes flying across the field toward him thanks to Vanessa's reprisal, and he -- in a moment of apprently blithe distraction -- snaps out one hand and catches Ayame midflight.
*By the throat*.
There's a brief moment where their faces are inches apart, the violet eyes contrasting sharply to the dark-skinned face in which they are set, looking at Ayame with an expression bordering on cool glee. "Between you and me," he hisses at the staff-wielding girl, "the law and ideals of justice are the only thing that keep people like her and I from doing stuff like this--" and here he squeezes his grip a tiny bit -- "*all the god damned time.*"
An elbow driven into Ayame's stomach, before Soma pivots and effectively chucks her across the room back at Vanessa, saying in a surprisingly singsong-y tone, "Catch."
Vanessa laughs, a barking rasp that barely even leaves her body. She's wasted. She is barely alive, let alone conscious. She is standing purely because of pure, unbridled, untempered /SPITE./ Vanessa is apparently a very, very spiteful woman.
She gets a wicked, wicked grin on her face when Soma proves to be a little bit of an enabler for her more sociopathic urges, and then he launches Ayame back across the field at her, and Vanessa rears back, both fists, gathering what little, little strength she still has - the tiles croak and groan under the unhinged power she dares to call forth, and she thunders, "God, I'm gonna ENJOY THIS!" as Ayame barrels at her, uncontrolled, and Vanessa hauls off, arm swirling with power AGAIN, and sinks an arm into her again, arcing her skyward for Soma to deliver the coup de grace.
Puncher Finish...with the left hand!?
It's the last of her strength, though - she collapses, bleeding, burning and rasping with pain, but satisfied, because, however big a catastrophe this mess was, she got some real answers out of it. And she punched Ayame in the head. Twice.
There is a brief, wonderful moment (well, for Soma and Vanessa anyway) where the staff-wielding Ayame just seems to be floating in midair, thoroughly victimized, and honestly, they should just let her fall and be done with it.
You can probably guess that this is not what happens.
There is again that sound like a zipline, Soma's whip-dagger snaking through the air to wrap around Ayame's leg and, with a deceptively simple tug, direct her momentum into the floor in a rather more immediate way.
"Behold," the ICPO agent says in a dry voice, blade snapping back into place a second time, "teamwork."
"Heh." Ayame replies to Soma's declaration regarding "Guess it's why you can't get rid of me either, hm?" Whether she believes him regarding Seishirou's likely existance it would be impossible to read on her expression just that moment. He talks about breaking the weapon she intends to collect from him and that provokes a frown. "That's exactly why you aren't fit to handle it." As if she needed any more convincing about what should be the fate of that one of a kind dagger.
So focused on the horrific idea of Soma destroying the tiny fragment of Katsuten, she is completely unaware of Vanessa's approach from behind. "Now if you want to be stubborn about this, I'm not out of tricks yet." She smacks her staff against the palm of her other hand, taking a step toward the Indian investigator. Only her foot never quite reaches the floor as her hair is pulled /hard/ from behind. Uh. Oh.
The crushing blow to the back of her head is more than enough to send the featherweight flying. Already mid-air, Ayame is chiding herself for over-confidence, letting that damn woman catch her off guard. That's okay, she tells herself, starting to twist into an attempt at recovering control over her trajectory. All she needs to do is land, then go smack Vanessa around the head a few more times to make sure she stays put, then there's Soma to deal with... so much work to be done, so little time- URK
What she did not calculate was Soma having the timing and strength to catch her by the neck like that. The girl gasps silently upon the painful stop, eyes widened as she stares at Soma face to face. A flicker of fear registers briefly but then he'll see it - right before she makes a motion with her left hand near one of her belts, her expression flipping from afraid to sadistic in an instant.
The crushing elbow strike takes the fight out of the weapons maven, and her left hand relaxes, dropping a small, sharp pointed dagger to the floor beneath her feat. Gritting her teeth, she swings her right arm, attempting to haphazardly clobber Soma with her staff, only to get chucked back at Vanessa before she can connect with the blow.
"Well, crap." she croaks, this time not having the strength to twist herself into a controlled descent. That Vanessa can't continue any longer isn't really much solace to the girl that gets smacked /hard/ in the back of the head, her feet still not even having made contact with the ground since the moment her hair was yanked. This time she loses her staff all together, the weapon clattering off into the rubble created by the incredible attacks launched in the last few rounds, the aura encasing it fading out completely as it rattles to a stop.
Her leg caught by the snapping twist of wire, Ayame is brought crashing down face first into the floor where she lands horribly hard, arms sprawled. She doesn't remember being hit /that/ hard in quite a long time. In fact, right now, she's having a hard time remembering much of anything at all. "Ow." Her mutter is muffled by the floor that she seems to be trying to get a mouthful of. There's a deep breath taken in then a long exhale as Ayame pulls her hands in, palms flat against the floor before slowly pushing herself up.
"All right." She rolls over, sitting herself down, knees together, hands propping her up as she leans back. "No more answers for the two of you." she grumbles, bringing up her arm to wipe across her mouth before spitting to the side.
For a long moment, Soma just stares up at the ceiling, a sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. He's always tread this very careful line between being a servant of the law, and a serious, vigilante desire to just beat the everliving crap out of them and show them what's what. It's proof that in the right situation, Soma would likely have grown up to be a very nasty villain indeed... and while part of him regrets what he just did to Ayame -- giving vent to that desire to simply hurt someone so much they're forced to submit -- he also noticed that, had he not knocked the wind out of her, she'd have stabbed him right then and there.
After a while, he seems to come to a decision.
The first thing he does is walk gingerly across the room to where Vanessa is, doing his best to haul her to her feet and onto his shoulders. Unconscious as she is, it's a challenge, but one he's up to; Ayame beat him almost as badly, but the difference between 'almost' and 'KO' is enough to, hopefully, get her to the infirmary. First, however... one last thing to do.
Slowly, he walks over to where Ayame sits on the ground, presumably de-fanged for the moment. It's tough to do with Vanessa effectively hanging off one side, but he does come to a stop right before the young thief, giving her a sort of distant expression. When he does speak, it's quiet and -- surprisingly -- not quite as harsh as it was before. "You know, had things been a little different, I could have turned into you," he says at least, after a surprisingly long pause.
Reaching behind him, he unhooks the emerald dagger and then hurls it to the ground at Ayame's feet.
"And this is why I didn't. Enjoy your toy... and thanks for the Q&A."
With that, he turns to head to the nearby infirmary, hauling Vanessa after him. As far as he's concerned, they're done here.
Log created on 23:16:26 07/02/2010 by Soma, and last modified on 17:13:51 07/31/2010.