Description: Like, oh my god, it's a ghost of someone Wing definitively killed in action in Taizhou, for real! Maybe the QUEEN OF THE STREETS should step it up and become the EXORCIST OF THE ALLEYS before this runaway spectre decides to terrorize the night by... turning his impending re-death into a show? Ghosts are so weird!!
How long has it been since Taizhou? Long enough! After one last performance in that wretched nightclub and - soon after - some surgery on the leg he landed a bit too hard on getting in there along with the usual rehab, Eagle's gone back to business as usual pretty much everywhere. Living large, playing large, back to that familiar, easily-controlled and scripted element that he so missed. That last attempt to capitalize on Seishirou's infamy - extraordinarily selfish and life-endangering as it was - did not quite go as handily as he might have hoped.
But, the show must go on, as he declared in a rather hammy fashion in a recent press release prior to flying out to Southtown to handle bouncer duties for some club or another. (How many clubs is he employed in as a bouncer, anyway?)
A recent fire is seeing tonight's show off early, leaving a man with nary but a free evening on his hands.
And so, heedless of the threats the streets of Southtown represent at this time of night even with the bright, glitzy lights of re-opened clubs and other perfect wastes of electricity, he tours along down the sidewalk with a sort of confidence that belies his fatigue from jet lag and rumors of some fancy invite or another circulating the rounds. A fancy invite he has yet to see.
A fancy invite he had better damn well get, lest his mood be further shot.
The Queen of the Streets is in a sour mood.
"Pl- Please, don't hurt me! I have a family!"
She squints, scowling, as her current victim squirms against the wall against which she has him pinned. Unable to interpret her expression, the hapless salaryman begins recounting his sins, expecting his life to flash before his eyes. Okay, so he got a little too drunk at the company party. He shouldn't have tried to catcall that high school girl. That was wrong, and he's sorry, really. But, wearing that Sean John hoodie, it seemed more /funny/ than anything, he didn't think she'd get so pissed--
"F- For the last time, I'll give you my money, just--"
--that she'd be so /strong/, or--
"Stop asking me about King of Fighters!"
--that she'd be so eccentric.
"Ugh," Wing finally grunts, releasing her grip on the poor man's throat and turning away, allowing him to scramble and escape out from the alley into which she dragged him a minute ago. "This is getting me nowhere." She doesn't want to admit it, but she's not very good at this whole intelligence-gathering thing. If she doesn't help Aranha find a teammate, he'll be disappointed. And then they might not be able to--
You can do it, Wing! Have confidence!
Shaking her head, half to dissuade her own negative thoughts and half in embarrassment about the motives they reveal, she stuffs her hands into the pockets of her baggy jeans and saunters out of the alley, squinting into the glare of Southtown's bright lights. You'd think, in this case, picking a fight with every random person you came across /would/ get you good information about King of Fighters, and find you viable teammates -- or, you know, eliminate possible rivals. None of that is working out for her.
There's got to be someone.
She narrows her eyes at the approaching figure, framed in light--
"Gggghhhh--!"
How can one describe it? She blanches, first, then begins to shake, her fists clenching and unclenching, her jaw working, her cheek twitching. Fear, then rage at her own fear, then fear again at the memories unearthed. Her legs shaking, and her self-loathing at that, and her instinctive projection of that loathing, and the memory of the loathing that she once felt /toward that man/--
It's a mirage. It has to be.
It's a ghost, a demon, coming for her at last.
"No!!"
Not yet! She's still so young! She has an almost-boyfriend!
She steps forward into Eagle's path, trembling like a madwoman, the petite thugette's eyes wide and mouth slack. "YOU CAN'T BE ALIVE!" she /screams/, drawing stares from the nightlife-perusing passerby.
"I /KILLED/ YOU!"
They really have done good work here since that invasion, Eagle busies himself with that thought to take his mind off of the chain of inconveniences thrown his way so far this evening. Not quite as glitzy and glamorous as the days of Geese Howard, but they're all making due with what they have.
There's the occasional friendly wave for people who call names. He is a celebrity. Even in his foulest mood, out here in public he needs to put on a smile. That's a showman's rule. When you're the show, you're not allowed to be 'off.' He already had his fill of tabloids calling his career over when he went in for surgery.
The cosmos decide that he needs plenty more 'fill,' for whatever this 'fill' may stand for. In this specific instance, this 'fill' is a young lady who has plenty of her own. Plenty of her own that she is now sharing - nay, /giving/ - with the single decisive declaration.
The screaming rings in Eagle's right ear - the one closer to her at the time of where he's looking - before he faces front and center to the tiny Queen of the Streets from a time and place far removed from the glitz and glamour of his usual comforts.
"...Excuse me?" The pause is not rehearsed, the delayed query a consequence of surprise and confusion as it doesn't immediately dawn upon him as to who he is encountering on a mere whim. "I am afraid," come on, think of something for those watching, something clever, "I do not play the part of the victim?"
Maybe he has a future in stand-up comedy, for being someone whose future supposedly ended back in that fateful fight!
"Oh my god."
Wing is still pointing, her eyes wide.
"It /is/ you."
Her voice is shaking.
"You're as big a tool as ever!"
She almost forgot, actually, in the agony of being forced to confront the fact that she took a life, that she slew Eagle and Yuri with the javelins she and Cody had been presented with, that she found this guy to be incredibly irritating. That's right: to the very end, this clown seemed convinced that their battle was a set-up, that it was a staged drama in which he was to participate. Even after Travers, what was it, hit him with a tree? Eagle still seemed to be playing a part.
"Oh my god-- you're-- you're ALIVE!"
The thought that, given the current circumstances, he might actually have been right, does not occur to Wing Xiaoping, and perhaps that is actually for the best.
"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"
She's angry enough at it is.
The little gangstress does not have the power to articulate the frustration, confusion, and humiliation she is experiencing now, let alone her own twisted shame at the relief she feels at his surviving, at one less life she believes herself to have taken. In her narrative, that she got over his death-- well, she'll never pretend to be proud of it, and it's something she genuinely avoids talking about-- is a sign of how hard she is, or has become. She's a badass now. A woman with a dark past lurking deep within her soul, who doesn't need to make a show of herself. Just look into her eyes, and you'll see she's for real.
"AAAAAAH!"
Real crazy.
Problem is, Eagle needs to be dead for this narrative to continue to work. Thus does Wing have no choice but to resolve this dilemma by plunging forward without hesitation or remorse, leaping spectacularly at the flamboyant showman with a series of spiralling kicks, flipping upside-down half-way through and righting herself in the process, aiming to strafe him as she goes with a powerful series of shuddering blows to his head and chest. She's gotten even more agile, it appears.
And no less irrationally violent.
COMBATSYS: Wing has started a fight here.
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Wing 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Eagle has joined the fight here.
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Eagle
COMBATSYS: Eagle dodges Wing's Crane Kickin' It Old Skool.
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Eagle
"Yes, it is me, who else would it--" Eagle smiles along up a fancy response somewhere in-between Wing's wide-eyed pointing and ranting and raving. Why wouldn't anyone be excited to see him?! What with all the garbage tabloids have said about him and his surgery.... quite.
These two vastly different individuals are running on entirely different trains of thought that may well be running in different realities on top of that - though perhaps one of them could afford to have a bit of a memory jog or two. Or three. On their heads.
He blinks once at the threat that he is to be killed. What woman did he scorn this time? Just as Wing goes from zero to psycho in record time, so too does Eagle go from passive to being on stage, expertly leaning away from the spiraling kicks along with a further (completely needless) circular tumble about her follow-up in what is, at its subtle core, more of an attempt to stand underneath a brighter sign so that it is easier for everyone to see the show.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he announces with the quick withdrawal of his two sticks, one pointed at the ground and the other towards an emotionally fragile young girl still coming to grips with the things she has supposedly done.
"Tonight's performance will be provided by yours truly and a lovely volunteer from the audience," trying to play down the angry screaming from irrational upset to nothing but /entertainment/, "so do please give her a heartfelt applause."
COMBATSYS: Eagle takes no action.
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Wing 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Eagle
Wing's eyebrow twitches furiously as the onlookers applaud.
"Y... you..."
'Goodness, dear, who is sponsoring this show?' 'I don't know, my darling, but is that not Eagle, the famous bouncer?' 'Why yes, indeed it is. But who is that little boy?'
"You won't survive this night!" she howls to the moon and neon lights.
Irrationally enraged though she is, Wing is not altogether lacking in cunning. Indeed, while her small mind requires little justification for combat, combat strategy itself is a complicated affair at which she is not altogether unversed. She can tell right away she's facing an able opponent, as he was before, and that without Travers at her side she is at a distinct disadvantage this time. She has no choice but to push him to the limits of his formidable defenses. And, if she remembers correctly...
With a predatory gleam in her eyes, the urbanwear-clad kung-fu queen plunges forward, shifting gracefully through two distinct animal stances before abruptly ducking low and then kicking high, aiming to tag Eagle under the chin with a swift strike before twisting onto the other foot-- and lashing out hard at the leg he injured long ago.
She knows.
She remembers these things.
COMBATSYS: Eagle blocks Wing's Light Kick.
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Wing 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Eagle
His career's continued immortality is assured. His actual life, not so much in comparison. When you are up against someone who honestly and truly wishes to murder you, one sloppy mistake and they will find a way to do just that. That is why in the real world, most threats of this nature are taken seriously.
Showbusiness, not so much. Every business is showbusiness to Eagle, a smirk and a nod with closed eyes as though he has control of the entire pacing of the encounter. From all appearances in these last few moments, it is indeed just this.
The first feint is caught with little effort with just a horizontal bar of an escrima stick. Clean, perfect - but that's not Wing's only shot. He proves a little late in shifting his weight as such he can stick the other one low to stop the other. Wing's fury nearly overpowers this late catch - enough that she succeeds in kicking said block hard enough that it is a fair slap to his recently healed leg.
"Hup!" He grunts, this one a bit of a surprise at what sort of force she's got behind her legs. It's a bit familiar now, where did he meet her? He meets a lot of people in a lot of places.
Rather than delay with the little bit of sting going up the leg, he moves to clutch the offending leg with both sticks, seeking to simply flip her up and back to give him just a touch more breathing space.
That, and he suspects she'll look lovely moving in the air.
COMBATSYS: Eagle successfully hits Wing with Quick Throw.
- Power hit! -
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Wing 0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0 Eagle
Well--
"Gughh!"
In this case, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Perhaps there's a certain magnificence to the way Wing's artful kick is neatly trapped by Eagle's escrima sticks and her momentum redirected into an upward unbalancing fling, the girl hurling head over heels as she loses her footing, nimble body flipping with a certain savagery. Magnificence, at least, on the part of Eagle, though one cannot deny outright a certain abstract aesthetic appeal in the flow of the violence. That being said, it takes a very different sort of mind to see loveliness when Wing lands on her head, the brief crunch of her skull against pavement a singularly unfortunate sound.
"D, dammit..."
The girl who would be queen staggers back to her feet, testifying either to the thickness of her skull or the irrelevance of its contents, and glowers at her adversary, her eyes narrowing. She's pissed as all hell, and that's her greatest strength, always. But she can't be stupid here. Still, what kind of options does she have with...
"Hmph!"
When she attacks again, electing not to give him more room to maneuver despite his current command of the battle, Wing opts for precision over speed, lashing out with fingers extended at the joints at Eagle's shoulders and on the underside of his elbows, testing his defenses as much as she is trying to briefly disable them, before, as soon as she thinks she can, plowing forward with two fierce palm strikes, one to Eagle's abdomen and one to his face. She may make a fusion of the styles, but when street brawling won't suffice--
"Hyaah!"
She's serious about kung-fu.
She tries to ignore the smatterings of applause in the background, instead merely drawing upon how incredibly irritated they make her.
COMBATSYS: Wing successfully hits Eagle with Combo Attack.
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Wing 0/-------/-----==|====---\-------\0 Eagle
The sound of skull against pavement elicits a genuine wince from Eagle, along with the thought dawning that this one might be a touch... too amateur, perhaps. There could have been better covers for this other than 'audience participation.' Little mess-ups like that can stain your career! Why, he remembers this large burly Australian chap having something of that nature according to rumor. What did he go by, again?
He lowers his guard a little as she curses her way up to fighting position again. Well, she didn't snap her neck, that's good. Why does he care so much about the health of someone who is attempting to kill him? It's simple, really, it's just a show. Just to subdue them when dramatically appropriate and...
Oh holy hell she's full of pep, coming in at him with a ferocity and speed that trumps her prior attempts. He is not privileged to know as to when Wing is drawing upon true kung-fu or when she's simply throwing punches blindly - nor can he measure what this increased aggression truly means.
He has other things to worry about when he misreads a cue and raises his left arm too high, giving her clean shots at the joints under his respective elbow and shoulder. He keeps a remarkably stiff lip at the sudden numbness that runs through the respective arm as he leans in its direction.
The palm strike to the chest takes out his air. The one to his face, his balance as he tumbles back. He hopes his cheek isn't bleeding, he is very sure he just bit it - and nothing ruins appearances than blood dribbling down the side of one's mouth. He just got this suit cleaned, after all. Blood is hellish to get out!
"Er-hem!" He clears his throat, shaking out his left arm as feeling rushes back through with a sting, a less arrogant look on his face and one that shows the beginnings of effort before lifting up his right leg to stretch out his arms like a helicopter and...
...spin. It looks goofy enough in execution, but it's the one move people love to show in promotional materials of past, present, and upcoming shows. It does, however, go to show what 'serious' means to these two very different people!
COMBATSYS: Eagle successfully hits Wing with Manchester Black.
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Wing 0/-------/-======|=====--\-------\0 Eagle
Seeking to press her advantage, Wing seizes the initiative.
"HYAAAAhhghrhh--"
Or attempts to. As her crushing palm strikes hammer home, the Queen of the Streets steps in close, her nerves tense and choler high, hardly finished yet. She can sense, however, that he'll lash out with a counter-attack as she closes in, and believes herself to be ready-- until he literally spins himself around with a sticks outstretched. Vaguely baffled, Wing ducks under the first blow before finding herself increasingly irritated. He's clearly making fun of her, and she opens her mouth to give him a piece of her mind. Instead, she gives him a piece of her head, as she raises her body an inch too high.
An inch is all he needs, it seems, to slam one stick powerfully against the side of her head and follow up with a second before the dazed girl mercifully escapes via a stunned collapse, just barely catching her fall on one palm. A blessing in disguise: she cannot hear the appreciation of the well-to-do crowd through the ringing in her head. Gritting her teeth against the pain, shaking off the moment of weakness, Wing attempts to scramble to her feet as quickly as possible.
"H- How did you even get out of that warzone!?" is her strangled battle-cry as she aims to rise by twisting her whole body into an elbow strike to Eagle's midsection. She doesn't want to think about it, but she can't help but ask, more in indignance than genuine curiosity. "How did you survive that battle!?"
How did /she/ survive that battle? She was bleeding all over the place. But Wing has a selective memory, among other convenient flaws. Convenient now is her berserk fury, which may give her the edge she needs to draw back, weave, and then hammer home again where she attempted her elbow strike, a closed fist following in pursuit.
"WE STABBED YOU!"
Her eyes are wild.
"WITH A JAVELIN!" she adds, somewhat desperately.
COMBATSYS: Eagle counters Strong Punch from Wing with EX Canterbury Blue.
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Wing 1/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0 Eagle
"Come again?" Eagle asks, though his tone of voice may be a little too quiet to hear above the cheers of the crowd and Wing's own bloodlust as he comes out of that silly spin that nobody of lesser skill could get away with in a real life or death fight (read: this one).
Fewer could hold a conversational tone up against a quickly incoming elbow strike, raising a leg again and spinning a stick behind him while the other is held horizontal, warding off the initial elbow strike with only a quick need to reassert his grip. Another quick blow in succession would have broken his guard.
The screaming about being stabbed with a javelin is met rather ironically as the closed fist is beaten to the punch with a quick forward thrust roughly around chest level (in comparison to /Eagle/ - Wing, being significantly shorter, would be around head level here), a pause at mention of this fact which should provide Wing more than enough time to recover and, dare one say, remind him further.
"Ah. Yes, well." He clears his throat, as though reluctant to shed much more light on the matter. Who would ever admit to having been in the company of someone like Yuri, to be fair?
What, that's it!?
Wing blinks from her uncomfortable position prone on the street and tries, in the intervening moments in which she is catching her breath and not passing out, to figure out if she heard him correctly. 'Yes, well'? Yes, well, he survived what seemed like a mortal blow!
Oh, no. Oh, /no/.
"Don't tell me..."
Eagle's fellow Taizhou veteran sways to her feet, slumped over, her eyes seeming to gleam with a demonic tint as she leers up at him, limbs eerily relaxed.
"THAT GIRL SURVIVED TOO!?"
Screaming, spittle flying everywhere, the decidedly unladylike fighter plunges relentlessly at Eagle once again, seeming to have not learned her lesson at all. Yet she's slightly more cunning than all that.
"SHE /DESERVED/ TO DIE!"
Surging with the fury of her questionable convictions, Wing's petite body blurs in the midst of her assault, and her form, wreathed now with a halo of golden chi, lunges for her adversary. The only real clues that something is amiss would be the odd blurring of her features -- and the fact that Wing herself, glaring with overwhelming intensity, is kneeling in the background, back where she first lunged.
"AAAAAAHHH!" she howls in frustration, as the chi-based copy of herself, one of the few instances in which she can manage a technique that outwardly expresses the energy that renders her so mighty, aims to fade through a confused opponent's defenses and splash forcefully against his body, erupting into golden effervesence with the impact.
Perhaps /this/ frustration is understandable.
COMBATSYS: Wing successfully hits Eagle with Monkey Mischief.
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Wing 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\0 Eagle
There's a bit of a shrug at that outburst about 'that girl surviving' in his attempt to try and cooly downplay the sheer creep factor that comes with Wing's little glowing eyes.
Truth be told he lost track after his first Taizhou partner went bawling in someone's dressing room. She was not particularly great as a partner, so his interest began and ended right around that point.
Especially when you end up palling around with Dr. Tran, who makes his opinions on everything very clear in accordance to however sober he is. Or is it the inverse? Right now, in spite of the subject matter of Dr. Tran being very important in any other circumstance, he is not especially important in this one.... comparatively speaking, of course.
With that helpful reminder, Eagle takes a few steps back for sake of having the extra time to read Wing's actions as she goes right at him like a scorned Dr. Tran chasing after a hobo taking his favorite inflatable swimming pool.
He doesn't have any time to voice any particular opinion about whether or not someone like that first partner deserved to die because Wing is a beautiful and chaotic yellow light that must be very exciting to watch from the side of the audience, choice of words aside. On Eagle's end, he has to squint - it is positively blinding!
Squinting doesn't make her any clearer to see as it actually manages to make it a ways through him before it properly disperses, the explosive force enough to lift him clean off his feet and against the pavement. A trash can begins to spill.
This trash can is halted with a sudden stick in its direction to get it to stand back up straight as Eagle exhales loudly while working out the blind spots in his vision in his return to a standing position.
"Hm, I don't know about... deserving death, but surely we could have stood to swap our fellows." It's about as much of a compliment as he can give in this situation as he blinks a few times to try and get those spots out. Ugh, if she could turn that down juuuuust a little she'd go places, he thinks as he ponders the next move.
COMBATSYS: Eagle takes no action.
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Wing 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\0 Eagle
Alas, if Wing ever intersected with anything approaching class, she would likely be wiped from existence.
"What does that even mean!?" she sputters, though she could probably figure it out if she actually thought about it, which she won't. "Shut up, toolbag! Toolkit! Inflatable... swimming... tool!" The mysterious presence of Dr. Tran is ubiquitous. It's true, though. Cody Travers was a pretty relentless partner. He and Aranha remain some of the few fighters Wing genuinely respects.
Eagle does not appear to be among that number.
"I'm gonna leave you in a ditch, nancy-boy!"
He should probably take it as a compliment, considering her taste.
"HRRRAAAAHHH!"
Wing's dial only goes in one direction, and that direction is screaming outrage. Though it may be foolish to repeat even a winning strategy, the kung-fu queen attempts to press an advantage against her seemingly unpreturbed adversary -- she literally cannot /comprehend/ why he is just /standing there/ -- by blurring out with fists that once again become imbued with that golden effervesence. This time, however, she offers a more limited, and more precise version of what she attempted before. Glinting shells of her punches project outward from her fists, lancing out beyond her otherwise minimal reach to arc up and possibly around Eagle's guard, bursting upon impact into smoky swirls. She's putting her all into it again, utterly abandoning defense as she cries out in frothing rage, but she nevertheless may be able to attack just out of his range, and furthermore maintains a solid stance as she does so, clearly not eager to overextend herself. She's relentless, but--
"Baaastaaard!"
She's not stupid.
She's not /that/ stupid.
COMBATSYS: Wing successfully hits Eagle with Shadowboxin'.
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Wing 1/-----==/=======|=======\-------\1 Eagle
Eagle." He helpfully reminds as he readies himself for her next volley. No, the volley after the threat to leave him in a ditch. The one after the kiai. But the one before 'bastard.' The volley that involves actual physical harm and not words. Now that this is clarified...
Wing brings on the lights, Eagle squints again even as, this time, it's not so bright as to outright blind him. Crossing his sticks in front of him for reasons that remain obscure whenever he likes to take up off the ground, his idea is to jump the barrage entirely.
He jumps in much too short, the crossed arms hardly enough to protect him from any of that - or the cry of 'bastard!' They splash, explode, and disperse back into nothingness in accordance with their impact. Without his feet on solid ground, he gets pushed back a ways again, bouncing once more on the concrete. This one leaves a small crack.
The audience might be getting a better clue of Wing's actual murderous intent at this point - not to mention how she may yet be taking the pace of the fight back from the fan favorite whose popularity far eclipses his actual amount of exposure and ability.
"Please, now, we could afford to keep this a little classy," it's something short of pleading as he grimaces at his upper back. He landed on that concrete a bit harder than he would have liked. He takes a moment to collect himself for an instant, crossing the sticks in front of him and bowing his head the moment he's up.
A precursor to him suddenly thrusting forward with his right stick hard enough that he leaves sparks coming from his shoes on the concrete. Whether or not Wing is still /there/, he continues with a series of six or so stationary thrusts before finishing it off with one last lunge to see her (or thin air) on their way.
It's force of habit for him to do the whole thing. You don't interrupt such a stylish combination half of the way through, do you?
COMBATSYS: Wing interrupts Oxford Red from Eagle with Protect Ya Neck.
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Wing 0/-------/---====|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Eagle
Sure you do.
So, Wing is frankly hysterical.
"Classy!?" the girl roars in a most unsuitable tone. "I'm fighting a ghost!" She doesn't seem to have made up her mind about whether or not Eagle is, in fact, alive. Or maybe her mind is just casually flickering all over the place. "I... I'm gonna... fucking... EXORCISE you!" she blurts, whole body trembling with desperate fury and, at this point, a fair amount of fatigue. Not that her indiscriminate rage will allow her to slow down.
It might be easier to turn this into entertainment if she made more sense.
"HRRRAAHHHH!"
Oh, yes, and were not trying to kill him.
If some of the audience members were not already becoming mildly unsettled at the disparity in emotion between the two street fighters, they're sure to lose their cool now, for Wing, confronted with Eagle's rapid series of lunging blows, lunges right back at him, with a murderous gleam in her eye. She doesn't cause any sparks to fly, except perhaps from her eyes, but her plunge is no less rapid and determined. First, of course, she must pass beyond the reach of Eagle's weapons, and at first it seems as though she may simply be knocked away as her adversary bears in on her. She only barely weaves around the first thrust in mid-lunge, bracing herself and grunting as the second lands home hard, twisting to partially deflect the third--
And then she's close.
"Eagle!? More like-- more like--"
Too close.
"FUCK YOU!!"
Even as the fourth strike comes in, slamming against her midsection, Wing's fist, two-knuckles extended to carry the full weight of her fury, slams into Eagle's /throat/, the pavement beneath her feet cracking with the outrageous intensity of a blow that could possibly be lethal against a lesser man.
She is promptly sent reeling by from the simultaneous strike, stumbling back onto her knees as she seethes with rage, but the damage, as it were, is done.
He doesn't get the joke. It's kind of hard to get the joke when your windpipe receives the fullest extent of Wing's double deuce of a twin punch. Eagle's head snaps upward, blood flowing freely out of the left side of his mouth in a dramatic (if small) splash. Wing might be reeling. He literally gains some altitude as those mighty fists from a tiny girl make sure he sees stars.
Also, the lowe end of a neon sign that explodes into sparks. Those, for all intents and purposes, count as stars against the nighttime Southtown scenery as they shower the sidewalk before whoever owns the joint powers it off. In the wake of the electrical surges is a whole lot of coughing as an injured, weakened Eagle finds it further and further difficult to put on air of having things in control in this here street fighting sideshow.
"Ladies and," another cough as he shakily rises, his white suit singed in places from the sparks, "gentlemen, my partner." He gestures broadly in a desperate search for applause to keep him going on the outside. On the inside, his eyes squint again with the distance between the two.
It is about time to wrap things up here, is it not? For all the ways he could have met with her again, this... is not the top of the list.
COMBATSYS: Eagle focuses on his next action.
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Wing 0/-------/----===|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Eagle
"P-Partner!?"
Wing half-coughs this out along with a small gout of blood, having sustained some manner of mild internal damage in the process of shouldering through Eagle's rapid series of thrusts. "What, like a fucking life partner?" she snarls, glowering at her adversary with eyes clouded by fatigue and hate. "I'll be your partner when I join you in death, asshole. Which I won't, any time soon. Because you're going to die way before me. Because you're going to die right now! And even then, I'm going to Gangster Paradise, and I won't even see you, so you know what, scratch that, I'll never be your partner, in /anything/!"
Perhaps her dazed, rambling monologue is performance art.
"Sooooo-- ffffffffuck you!"
She's contributing!
"Guuuoooo!"
The girl, despite not having herself been punched in the throat, is pushing herself to the limit, but it's hardly a spectacle, except in the way that a car crash or atrocity is. She's screaming and spitting blood, and it's probably making some of their well-heeled audience more than a little discomfited. Nevertheless, for those with an eye for the raw and untamed beauty of violence, there is something to be appreciated in the savage agility of Wing's sudden leap.
This particular untamed beauty -- more or less -- spirals with her limbs akimbo, at first seeming as though she will simply body slam Eagle into oblivion. Then, all at once, almost at an impossible angle, her foot lashes out, aiming to catch Eagle in the face, and if she connects she will then spin wildly into a series of wide-swinging kicks, as though hoping to take the whole world with her before she falls.
It's an epic clash, and it make just come down to how unexpected that first kick is...
COMBATSYS: Eagle interrupts Shaolin Worldwide from Wing with Union Jack Platinum.
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Wing 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Eagle
Eagle has had to come to learn that... sometimes, just sometimes, it is too much to ask for someone who can just play well with the moment, hard as it is to appear dignified with a frazzled moustache, a partially burnt suit, and blood coming out of the side of your face. How a man like him can attempt to play the remainder of this battle, however long or short, as a mere sideshow spectacle must take am ample amount of denial - or enough grace and charm to pass off the lie as truth.
One or the other.
But even he is aware that this show must come to a close. A close with one last, beautiful combination. A decisive one. One that he is more than assured, by endless practice in scripted performances, of being the great last touch to a bizarre spectacle.
He does not have as much control of this final stretch as he thinks he does - recoiling as Wing strikes him in the face. She doesn't stop. She gets in a good two or three more solid hits before he starts swinging back. At first, he is in a losing battle, trading clashes that see him moving back closer and closer to the crowd.
Until, as is dramatically appropriate, he starts pushing back - getting in cleaner hits to start pushing Wing away as a bruise shines prominently on his forehead. There is a momentary break in character with a grim, aggressive look on his face with a furrowed brow and a sizeable frown. He might have even uttered a four-letter word as he finds himself pushed to the very limit not to just push back - it's to ensure he's managing to hit her before she gets /another/ kick in.
Feeling a bit of assurance once he comes to the tail end of this combination of advancing swings and thrusts, he finishes it off with a single, powerful thrust to push her away... and turns to the crowd, rather arrogantly, with a bow.
"Thank you. Thank you. Have a good evening..." His voice is strained and weak still, from the strike to the throat. But, he is undoubtedly making one fatal mistake when it comes to dealing with the Queen of the Streets.
She can't feel her legs.
"F... fuck..."
Which means she can kick all the harder.
"...y... you..."
Her quiet grunting likely goes unheard from her position collapsed upon the ground, trembling feebly, shuddering with agony and rage. Even the audience seems to ignore her, politely beginning to applaud Eagle's spectacular and well-timed comeback. If anything, his momentary show of sincere effort and near-frustration only drew their attention all the more. A good show, even if a surprisingly brutal one. Perhaps they were going for verisimilitude?
Well, realism is all well and good--
"...nghhhh..."
But Wing has no use for it.
Indeed, the zombie-like manner in which she seems to literally unfold up into a standing position, almost defying gravity with her silent upward sway, is fairly surreal. Eyes vacant and hollow, fueled purely by the rage that roils within the black cauldron of her soul, she shuffles at first at a slow pace, moving with deathly silence toward her accursed foe. A slow murmur begins to spread through the crowd. It may be Eagle's only warning.
"HHRRRAAAAAAH!"
Beyond reason -- and what else is new -- the Queen of the Streets erupts in an unusually vivid sunburst of golden chi, her fury expressed in energy form as a stream of four of five clones emerge like bullets from the smoking gun of the girl's bloody form. Howling in berserk madness, the wild lunging of faux-Wings seek to crash against Eagle in relentless succession, and she turns as she moves, as though aiming an automatic weapon. But the burst is short-lived, even if potent. Shuddering, she sparks once or twice, and a line of blood emerges from her thin lips.
"I'll..." she coughs. "F... fucking..."
COMBATSYS: Wing can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\ <
Eagle 0/-------/---====|
The world will never show.
She slumps to her knees, and collapses noiselessly.
COMBATSYS: Wing successfully hits Eagle with K.R.E.A.M.
[ <
Eagle 1/-------/=======|
There is plenty of bowing to be had on Eagle's end, even as Wing continues to convulse and curse and otherwise be a little nuisance. This is not how he would have preferred things to end... you know, the night's still young and he shouldn't be running around looking like he's been caught inside the engine of Dudley's prized automobile.
The nerve of that girl! Well, women in general tend to be a little something like that, based on his experiences. Impossible to read, impossible to reason with, and more often than not impossible to /work/ with.
"Well then, ladies and gentlemen, I bid you good even-- uh." He turns around when the Queen of the Streets screams, just in time to watch the mob of adoring(?) chi clones of Wing come on up and try and take a piece of him. "Ah! AH!" He twists and turns with every hit, each clone striking like a comical slap to the face in especially exaggerated form before the very last of them sends him off his feet and back towards that trash can he saved from toppling.
This time, it topples and spills its entire putrid contents over him. Now not only is his suit ruined, he can't tolerate the smell atop the pain! He gags and starts to fade out of consciousness as his body simply decides enough is enough, silently cursing that these women just don't know when to simply stay down after unleashing his greatest finishers!
What is it with them and disrespecting the flow of a performance? That is his last, especially petty thought before he passes out.
COMBATSYS: Eagle takes no action.
COMBATSYS: Eagle can no longer fight.
SOME TIME LATER
Wing distastefully removes a banana peel from her hair as she glowers through the darkness at her lone companion, the loud rumbling of machinery all around them.
"I..."
The loud creak of bad suspension pierces her moment of silence.
"I'm not even talking to you."
The garbage truck rolls on through the night.
Log created on 19:39:16 10/16/2010 by Eagle, and last modified on 02:40:57 10/18/2010.