Description: Malin wakes up in a NESTS interrogation chamber. Certain insurance policies are taken - Malin comes away understanding that it's a very bad idea to go against NESTS' wishes. Angel makes a new girlfriend as a result!
First, there was pain. Then, there was darkness.
It's been a long time since Malin has been put down by anyone. She'd been on a pretty long running winning streak for quite some time. She had been riding high on her own abilities, walking the world and seeing the sights after being warned off Southtown. Not because she was scared of Southtown, but because she wanted to see the world.
At least, that's what she told herself.
Then, one wrong move, and she'd been taken apart as though she was a rank amateur. Outnumbered, outmatched, outpowered, outthought, as that freaky teen had put it. She'd done her best to fight, and her best hadn't been even close to good enough. What hurt the most was that she had really given it her all. If she'd been holding back or showing off, then she might be able to live with herself. But she wasn't. She'd fought as hard as she could, and she had barely managed to scratch the two agents sent to stop her.
Just like Malin. Can't even get away from herself when she's unconscious.
'That's not your name'
The girl finds herself standing in darkness, and her hand reflexively reaches for one of her weapons. A knife, a club, her yoyo... but there's nothing there. She comes up empty.
"Shut up, of course it is. Who the hell do you think you are?"
Light flickers, and so many faces surround her, hundreds of young men and women, the vast majority of them are much older than her. Gruffer. More scared and showing more signs of living a hard, unforgiving life than Malin had ever been marked with.
'Lin... did you really think you could run forever? We told you, you don't mess with those guys. You are too small.'
There's an indignant flash, and Malin grits her teeth, raising one fist, "Hey, HEY. I'm not called that any more. I'm MALIN. I've got more tricks up my sleeve than your mom turns in a month, and I'm not going to back down now!"
The faces in the crowd don't look angry, if anything, they look pitying. Some shake their heads, none are looking directly at her.
'No, Lin, you won't...'
'You'll die instead.'
The crowd fades to nothing, so many familiar faces, half-remembered, long-lost. Malin sinks to her knees, alone again. Are those... tears? She's not afraid, is she? They couldn't... they couldn't really want to kill her, they just couldn't, could they?
"Help me."
Twenty feet and a reinforced window away from an unconscious Malin, Angel is laid out on a medical cot, her BAUHAUS shirt from the previous evening rolled up to just beneath her chest. Imposed upon her lean stomach is a pair of long, shallow gashes - they have since dried and scabbed over, but their width and asymmetry have necessitated a medical inspection.
One of NESTS' dozens of medical technicians is supplying that inspection, via a finger prodding at the wounds, via the other hand applying ample amounts of hydrogen peroxide. Angel's taking about as well as could be expected, considering the near-constant hissing she's emitting, the way she's >< close to kicking this poor schmuck in the stomach...
And then the monitors bleep, insistent. Malin's heart rate has started to spike. Theta waves are transitioning to alpha waves, muscle activity has increased threefold. Wordlessly, Angel kicks at the technician tending her, rolls her bloodied shirt down over wounds she's stopped caring about, and leaves the medical cot - her expression is interested, hardly stern.
"Mmph. Finally. Angel has -ideas- for you." She approaches the monitors first, if only to pluck a crowbar from the countertop neart them - the same one Malin had utilized as a weapon just this last night. She passes through the door seperating the observation room from the interrogation chamber (a standard, featureless, white-painted brick room) where Malin currently sits tied in a chair.
Without mention of hellos or his, the NESTS operative places one hand on the younger woman's shoulder, pulls a syringe-gun from *somewhere*, and places it against her neck. It is very cold.
"Good afternoon, neighbor!!!" She's shouting, if in a controlled manner. *K-THSS*, goes the syringe gun. It's certainly not pleasant.
Malin wakes up with a scream.
It isn't a short scream. It is quite a long scream, and she thrashes against the chair she's been tied to. Truth be told, though, Malin is not actually very strong. She's got some incredible talent and skill with weaponry, but raw brute force just isn't her forte.
After she's calmed down, at least a little bit, Malin's eyes focus on the syringe in Angel's hands. Honest, genuine fear marks the girl's face. Perhaps the first true and uncolored emotion to be allowed through the carefully constructed facade she wears in years.
"W-what the hell did you just do?!" She shouts back. Her leg is throbbing with pain, the rest of her, well, still definitely hurt, though it's the leg that took the worst of the beating which convinces her to stop trying to pull herself free.
It's the crowbar which she settles on as the next thing to stare at, though. Death by crowbar. Damn. She'd... at least hoped it would be something quick. No such luck, it seems.
That is a -good question-, Malin. It's so good that it brings Angel a considerable pause; she regards the syringe in her hands, curiously. A moment's thought has her lifting a hand to her head, scratching at it. "...You know, Angel doesn't know. Some kind of sickness? A pair of pants? Jea- genes? Genop-"
Ten feet away, Kicked Medical Tech is mouthing something against the window. He is being emphatic. He's *about* to start playing Charades, but Angel's eyes light up, and she *finally* sets the syringe gun to the side. "OH. Genophage! Foxy said it's an insurance policy, to keep you behaved?? Angel doesn't know. The important thing is, if you goof up, most of the people in charge have buttons they can press that'll activate it and kill you -real- fast."
Angel drags a finger across her neck, tongue sticking out, winking. "*GCCCCCCCCKT*" She moves back to the table she'd set the crowbar on, plucks it from its resting place, and approaches Malin once more, idly slapping the metal against a thigh.
"Sssoooo... this is where we're at. You've pissed off a -lot- of people in NESTS. I think you stole something like 25 frag grenades, 13 land mines, 4 laser tripwires, a WHOLE LOT of satchel charges, 6 rockets, and a rocket launcher?" Angelleans forward, eyes directly before Malin's - she's curious. "This sound about righT?"
A grin. Suddenly, the crowbar in Angel's hand is SLAMMED into the wooden back of Malin's chair, RENT forward to the point that it *splinters* that chair's wood. Two metallic points dig into the young rogue's shoulder.
"It doesn't -really- matter. You owe us, and we own you until you've paid us back. We might even let you go, if you're lucky. You understand?"
Malin grits her teeth. Some sort of disease? Genes? And she'd been beaten by a total idiot who didn't even know what it really was. The list of equipment actually brings a smirk to her lips, even if she's been slapped. "Me? No. You got the wrong person. I'm an upstanding, peaceful member of society. Would never--"
She's cut off when the chair hits the floor, and she grunts. Uncomfortable and in pain. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. "... Look, I don't want to die." She says, quietly. Though she hates herself for doing it. She's terrified at the prospect. Death is the big end of the game. The last throw of the dice. In the life of Malin, it is a dirty word.
"But... I've seen how you people work. You'll kill me when you can't get anything else out of me." A cold sweat beads on the back of her neck, and she turns her face as much as she can, to try and get a better look at the woman. "... This is really uncomfortable, you know. I can't tell you what a terrible mistake you are making if I can't breathe properly."
Angel might not be the brightest of the batch, but this is either an act, or the girl is some sort of savant when it comes to manual dexterity - as soon as she's slammed her crowbar into Malin's chair, Angel's reversing her grip, flipping it in her hand, and bringing the pointy end to bear - painfully - against Malin's throat. If the teen moves incorrectly, she'll have no trouble feeling the sudden moisture against her skin; that crowbar's close enough, sharp enough to draw blood easily.
"You don't wanna die?? Fucking with NESTS is a pretty funny job for somebody who doesn't want to die. Listen." Angel moves closer to Malin - the slightest bit of pressure is exerted upon that crowbar. Breathing might become difficult. Angel's grinning. "You've got two options; you take a chance and do what we want you to, maybe don't die so fast, or I lean forward a little bit more and kill you -now-. End everything, slow as I want to. You think I'm the sort of girl who likes it when her partner finishes fast...?"
Malin feels the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, "Y-you people f-fucked with me, first!" She protests, weakly. But there's no profit in tempting this woman, is there? She's in no position to defend herself. No position to try and squirm out of it. There's only one thing she can really do.
"B-but you win, alright?!" She blurts. Closing her eyes shut tight, her fingers grip the edge of her chair. She even avoids making a sarcastic comment about Angel's love life. It's funny how having something sharp starting to cut into your neck can really change things up. Normally, Malin couldn't resist that kind of opening. But right now, trying to avoid a more arterial opening takes priority.
Angel's grin widens considerably. She pulls back, away from Malin, but definitely makes a point of *hooking* that crowbar into the thief's upended chair - she leans back, utilizing her body weight to pull Malin to a proper, albeit tied, sitting position. "Oh, good - Malin is going to play ball with NESTS. Smartest thing you've said all day, sweetheart."
Angel paces around Malin's seat, to the point that she leaves the thief's range of vision, and exists, for the moment, as a voice. A pair of arms folded over the chair's backrest, against Malin's skull. Breath whistling past her ears. A metal crowbar, sharpened tip pressing into her arm, her armpit.
"Remember," she croons, voice sweet and soft, subtle, teasing. "Anybody in NESTS can kill you in the blink of an eye, no matter -what- shiv, platter, or Slinky you've got in that cute little skirt. Look at any of us wrong, and you're -done-. You won't wake up in a really awfully designed torture room next time." Angel leans in closer, and -jabs- at Malin's elbow. With a brutal *SLASH* she tears that crowbar's tip through the ropes binding her prisoner - Malin will find, after the initial gash, that her clothing and skin are untouched.
"Stand up. If you're wondering what kind of drug is in you, Wikipedia ebola virus sometime. Painful fucking death." Angel is deathly quiet, for at least two minutes -- and then she drops the crowbar, almost distastefully. Everything changes, abruptly - her attitude, her leers, that sadistic grin. She views Malin with an appraising grin.
"Anyway, I'm bored. You want to go to the employee lounge, get some drinks? Bartender owes me anyway, so if you're underage, he won't give a shit."
Malin tries to stay calm. She really does. But it is hard when staring death in the eye. Believe it or not, she's never actually been threatened with death. Well. Not in a situation where it seemed it was actually on the table. Sure, fighting bluster can get a bit dramatic sometimes, but even then, it never felt real. This feels all too real. When the crowbar slashes down, she's almost sure she is going to feel it. But when she doesn't, she stands up, slowly. Testing her weakened knee.
For a few moments, she just returns the look. She's tired. She's beaten. At any moment she could be reduced to a painful and very final, sticky end. But, at least she is alive. At least, for now. She could figure some way out of this. She could find someone who could cure her, get rid of whatever it was they'd stuck in her. So long as she was still breathing, there was still hope. She had to believe that.
A hesitant smile flickers over her features, and she reaches up to rub at her neck, where the crowbar had been prodding at her. "Sure. Lets get a drink." Then, a heartbeat later. "You know, you and that kid were, pretty good. I have no idea how you managed to figure out where I was going to be, but, I have to hand it to you. You had me on the back foot from word one. Ain't nobody kept me reeling like that before, even when they have kicked my ass."
Log created on 18:19:06 10/20/2010 by Angel, and last modified on 02:00:03 10/23/2010.