Description: Karin is on the hunt for Wing Xiaoming, and locates one of Wing's team mates, Varvara. Karin tries to wave a little cash as incentive for Varvara to provide the info, but the thuggish woman has other ideas.
The Le Petit Chien cafe. It's one of the better places in Southtown for a bite to eat, especially in the tougher downtown district. It is almost as though, sometimes, just being here, you can forget about the occasional roving thugs and other lowlives that are just trying to make a living however they can - especially in a post-Geese landscape.
Then you have some folks who just bring the trouble right to the front door anyway, in brazen disregard for witnesses or even those stronger than themselves.
Take Varvara Economou, effectively an immigrant from Cyprus whose only strength at all is that she can hurt people. Something she has been putting to as good use as she can to her selfish ends, which seems to begin and end at... getting food. Lots, and lots, and lots of food.
Just like that, moments before she took an entire tray of food from a very burly-looking server and made off to a nearby alley to devour as much of it as she could before the guy caught up. Well, he did.
Turns out the brawn was just for show on his part, as the thuggish woman uses him as a seat while she devours anything and everything from that tray without the use of proper utensils or really any sort of restraint. If it's a morsel of food, there's only one stop for it - her mouth, and whatever lies beyond said mouth.
It's quite disgusting actually the way some people just act so common. It's starting to look like a trend, according to Karin Kanzuki, that certain people just were thugs. Karin had been trying to track down one Wing Xiaoping, who incurred Karin's wrath the other day after a rather vicious fight in a restaurant, and followed a lead that brought her into the alleyway beside Le Petit Chien cafe.
The school girl glares as she looks upon the sight of Varvara, and hmphs, proceeding to alert the woman to her presence, "It's starting to look like that midget thug's whole King of Fighter's team is just a bunch of commoners... Are you all unable to eat at a decent restaurant without seeming like rowdy hooligans? Ohohohoho!" The red clad school girl gives a condescending laugh as she says, "As it were, I'm looking for the tiny girl. Where is she?"
Varvara is one step below commoner in the big scheme of things - she's by far and wide, a straight-up bottom feeder. Shiden has been uplifting her with compensation for acts of thuggery in hopes she'll clean herself up a little, make herself presentable in King of Fighters. The fact is... when you're not used to having money and have grown used to ways to prevent yourself from losing what money you have, you tend to default to the five fingered discounts where possible.
Or the one balled up fist discount, as the case may be here.
"Shut up," she tells off the cackling young rich girl without looking up at her, "I'm eatin'." She says this as she chews with her mouth open and everything... and aren't you supposed to be using a fork to eat whatever it is she's stuffing in her hungry maw this time? Her clothes are dirty, ragged, and torn in some places. She /smells/. This is someone that a person of Karin's stature has next to no business interacting with.
Karin wouldn't be interacting with Varvara to begin with if she didn't have a gripe against Wing at this point. Karin narrows her eyes and is about to react indignantly when she takes a breath to calm herself down and looks the woman over for a moment to see if there was anything about her that she could exploit, before smirking cruelly and saying, "You know, you don't -have- to live like this."
There's not many good things anyone can say about the muscle-bound hobo lady munching on food that doesn't belong to her in the alley. The larger, formerly stronger-looking server groans in pain, reaching out a hand to Karin as if to ask for help. Varvara swats the back of the hand down as if a light warning. She kind of likes this seat.
When Karin condescendingly addresses her about not having to live like this, she sneers. Rich people, always wearing their pretty little faces that never had to ever be dirtied. Never had to go hungry. It's... a startingly similar pitch to what Shiden told her when she gave her that cellphone, the money, and an invitation to the King of Fighters.
"You wanna hire me to beat someone up, or what?" She cuts to the chase, knowing full well what people of that stripe like to exploit in people like her.
"Oh, no, I don't want you to beat someone up. Besides, I'm not entirely sure you would want to beat up your own team mate." Karin starts, her lips still curled as she reaches up to fiddle with on of her hair antennas. "See, I'm looking for Wing Xiaoping, and since you're her team mate in the upcoming King of Fighters tournament I figured you would know better."
She then clicks her fingers off to the side, and Karin's big butler Ishizaki runs to her side, and hands her what looks like a small brick of money, which clearly could be MUCH thicker. "I'm willing to make it worth your while if you would just point me in the correct direction."
All this money just for pointing her in the right direction, huh. Is Wing afraid of her and trying to hide or something? Wing comes off as the sort that ought to be hanging around these spoiled, arrogant, and overly fortunate girls, not with... people like her, or Naerose, or Shiden.
Make no mistake, those eyes follow that brick of money. Money means a lot - no, it means /everything/. All that money, just to be telling her where to go find that school-age girl who loves to scream at the top of her lungs how she's the princess of the slums or some such complete and utter nonsense.
But that brick could be so much thicker. The way she so casually flings it about, it's vexing. Vexing, and so, so tempting as she rises up from her victim of some minutes ago. Is she going to accept, and allow Karin a shortcut to her goal with the power of her money?
"If yer gonna pay me that much ta say where she is," she starts as she flexes her arms and cracks her knuckles, punching her left into her right palm, "wonder how much I could get if I beat in that pretty face."
...That's the problem with dealing with lowlives, in the end they just have to take what they see by force.
Karin is actually not that surprised that this was the course of action that this thuggish woman decided to take. However, Karin proceeds to roll her eyes and go into an even more condescending act in response, since it was becoming clear that the easy way was just thrown aside.
"Ara ara, and here I was freely offering a nice amount of cash just to get some directions..." Karin says with a roll of her eyes, as she puts her hands on her cheeks in mock terror, "But now I'm being threatened by this thug! What could I possibly do to save myself from getting beaten up? Who could save poor pretty me?" This whole time not once even indicating to her butler to protect her, despite easily being the one with the most muscle out of the three conscious people in this alleyway.
Her mockery finally ceases as she tosses the brick of money to Ishizaki and shifts into her fighting stance. "Don't make me laugh! If you really think you've got what it takes to beat me, then come and get me!"
COMBATSYS: Karin has started a fight here.
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Karin 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Varvara has joined the fight here.
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Karin 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Varvara
Call it stupidity, call it greed - but Varvara is not intimidated by this little girl, despite every reason /to/ be. She doesn't know what the young Kanzaki heir is capable of, despite having every reason to be afraid of every young girl that shows spunk in Southtown. This is /the/ city of fighters for this side of the world, matched only by Metro over in the west.
The sarcasm of Karin's voice is met with narrowing eyes and a wrinkling nose as the butler does not seem to intervene. The way she enters that stance, something that shows comfort and confidence with the prospect of getting into physical combat.
This, without the scars or injuries that shows someone who has spent as much time scrapping for every inch they could take in life, does not give her high hopes of what Karin is capable of. She thinks this will be an easy mugging. The easiest meal ticket ever.
The man on the ground doesn't move, beyond keeping his hands over his head.
"Erroso," Varvara spits out as a mere formality as she suddenly dashes forward atop the cold, garbage-strewn and unfeeling alley ground, drawing back her right fist to plant a simple and to-the-point punch somewhere into Karin's face. Particularly, the nose.
Varvara seems to have this thing about trying to break everyone's noses.
COMBATSYS: Karin endures Varvara's Strong Punch.
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Karin 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Varvara
Karin watches as Varvara approaches, and her lips curl up briefly, as she seems to try to move out of the way, but the woman's fist strikes home! So easy, right? Except Karin is still smirking just slightly, as she had apparently turned her head in order for the punch strike her cheek and not her nose. The rich girl took the hit on purpose.
And now she was right up close to Varvara, in a better position to pivot and thrust her palm towards Varvara's chest, following it up with a second palm thrust to her gut, and them aiming a third palm for the woman's face to smash it in. "Guren Ken - Hou Shou!"
COMBATSYS: Varvara endures Karin's Guren Ken.
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Karin 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Varvara
Both women stand the same height. Varvara has at least thirty pounds of weight on Karin, all of it in sheer muscle. The logistics should state that she's the one able to exude significantly more force between the two.
None can argue, however, who seems to get the better end of the exchange - not just in sheer number of punches, but in force, just how Karin seems to roll with that single punch and comes back threefold. The chest shot pushes Varvara back, scraping her feet against the concrete. She doubles over visibly with a yell of pain with the second. The third, that goes for her face...
She's pretty much had enough, snarling underneath the well-manicured hand with a red outline on her face as she brings her left hand up to Karin's outstretched wrist and tries to squeeze tightly around it so powerfully, so tightly that air rushes out the cracks of her fingers with the telltale signature - if minute - of chi energy manifest as wind, while blood trickles down one nostril.
COMBATSYS: Karin blocks Varvara's Lion Crush.
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Karin 0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0 Varvara
Karin goes wide eyed, as she recognizes the all too familiar sensation of chi being implemented in an attack, and grits her teeth as Varvara tries to crush her wrist with sheer force and chi. However, Karin is much too tenacious to just give in to a mere squeeze of her wrist, as she drops down into a crouch in front of the heftier woman, and forcibly yanks her hand-guard protected hands, and swings her free fist right for Varvara's ankle.
COMBATSYS: Varvara dodges Karin's Strong Punch.
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Karin 0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0 Varvara
The quick release from her wrist grab seems to put her at a positioning advantage, unbalanced as she lifts a leg up. This is prime territory for Karin to take advantage of what could be seen as a rookie mistake in itself, the subtle but real differences in their masteries slowly making themselves apparent - Varvara's brute force versus Karin's impeccable technique. Karin seems to be getting the upper hand.
Lower hand?
"HYEAN!" She yells atop her lungs as she lifts said foot up off the ground - just missing the strike to the ankle - as she tries to thrust both her legs into Karin's crouched form in a dropkick as she risks having to lay prone after the fact just to firmly plant both her feet into Karin.
Unless, of course, Karin shows she has more tricks up her sleeve than that.
COMBATSYS: Karin counters Heavy Kick from Varvara with Yasha Gaeshi.
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Karin 0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0 Varvara
The rich blonde can see the dropkick coming from a mile away, and easily shifts her position just enough to not only avoid the attack entirely, but to use the momentum of the strike against Varvara by catching and casually spinning the woman with a push, to make her crash and burn.
Karin this moment to finally put some distance between herself and Varvara and says, "All I wanted was a little information about one of your team mates, but you couldn't be thankful and just accept my offer? I'll have you know that I'm trained in Kanzuki-ryu Kakutoujutsu." -Kanzuki-. As in the Zaibatsu. "You never stood a chance against in a fight against me, Ohohohohoho!" She finishes with her rich girl's laugh.
"Hyuh!" It's more than just a simple spin - it so happens she's directed into a trash can, which clangs loudly against her body hitting it. Trash spills out everywhere, some of it getting itself on her - perhaps, all too fitting as Karin lays out the facts of the matter. All that money, just to say where someone was - and the fancy name drop. Who doesn't know about Kanzaki?
The thuggish woman scowls as she rubs the back of her head, her neck and upper back sore from the impact of that skillfully redirected dropkick, as if spurred to further action by that arrogant laughter.
"I'll make ya," she scowls, "make ya cough all it up!" Despite... the fact Karin gave her a more than reasonable offer for /Varvara/ to cough something up, but let's face it - if she's willing to give that much for just some simple information, how much does she have on hand?
She wants it /all/.
Spurring herself up to a stand, she steps forward with an advancing low leg sweep with her left into a forward palm with her right, a shout behind every one.
COMBATSYS: Karin counters Combo Attack from Varvara with Guren Ken.
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Karin 0/-------/-======|=======\=------\1 Varvara
Karin narrows her eyes as the barbaric woman sweeps, and easily jumps over the leg, before skillfully guiding the incoming palm out of her path as she pivots and once again slam a palm into Varvara's chest, and follows it up with a second and third strike to the torso.
Karin proceeds to gloat, "You'll be taking nothing if you keep this up. I want to know where Wing Xiaoping is, so give me the information and you won't have to keep humiliating yourself like this. You could do so much more than rob cafeteria's for scraps of food, when I could easily offer you work that could set you up for life."
The diverted palm serves to further put Varvara out of balance in her assault, to what should be the expected result of one so truly strong - someone who is a contender for the title of being the strongest school-age girl, up against a lowly thug.
A lowly thug brought lower with that palm to her chest with a loud exhale of escaping air. The second and third strikes are just extra gratuity, enough to bring Varvara to a low kneel as she brings a hand to her ribcage while blood drips every so often out of the nostril that was bleeding not so long ago.
Karin once again lays it out straight in a position of assured power - keep this up and she goes with nothing. Nothing but further injuries and further strikes to her pride about being so easily overcome by just some /rich girl/, a rich girl who offers things she would love to have - things Shiden has, in some way or another, already poised to give her for her continued service.
"Shut up," she sneers again for... what? The third, fourth time? As she springs up to her feet again with a completely unladylike roar, trying to get one of her hands around Karin's arms as to twist it behind her, force her down into a kneel, and just beat at her back to take all the wind out of her sails - or at least make it harder to laugh, if she can just get a /hold/ of her.
There's plenty of grime and dirt to be seen in Varvara's hands. Even if she didn't have those muscles, it would be inadvisable to let her touch pretty much anyone.
COMBATSYS: Varvara successfully hits Karin with Chimera's End.
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Karin 0/-------/--=====|=======\==-----\1 Varvara
Karin frowns a bit now, legitimately disappointed that this woman simply didn't get it. She's been considerably more charitable than she had any right to be to this woman, but this last refusal makes all of her generosity disappear. Karin had let enough of her guard down that Varvara manages to wrench her arm behind her, causing her to let out a cry of pain as she's forced to the ground, and gets punched in her back repeatedly.
Karin growls through her clenched teeth and proceeds to roll herself out of the wrench and back onto her feet, and tries to use the woman's grip against her by aiming to grab her arm and putting her into and arm bar, and forcibly yank her down into the ground and slam her into the street.
COMBATSYS: Varvara fails to interrupt Yashiro Kuzushi from Karin with Hill of Futility.
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Karin 0/-------/-======|=======\====---\1 Varvara
Pay close attention to what a little bit of leverage can do against the human body, regardless of differences such as size and muscle mass.
Varvara's problem is that she is much, much, much too aggressive in trying to keep a hold on Karin even as she tumbles to a more fortuitous position. She's of the thought that Karin will submit with enough pressure and threat of further harm against her person - she's proven wrong in the most humbling and pained way possible, by being straight-up out-wrestled as Karin works her grip against her with expert skill. Her arm paints twistfully, her bulk working against her flexibility as she cries in surprise, a classic look on her face for Karin's butler to relay to his master when all's said and done - widened eyes and a mouth agape.
Yanked down into the street with enough force that belies Karin's slight build, the pavement cracks underneath them as the air escapes her lungs, a pathetic wheeze or two as she comes ever closer to her ability to continue taking the (in this case, deserved) punishment Karin dishes out as she looks up to the rich martial artist with blurry vision.
Karin hmphs as she stands up once again, and narrows her eyes at the woman, "You truly are disappointing. You're going to need to do much more than that to defeat Karin Kanzuki, and I don't think you've got what it takes. I've been very generous with you so far, and you just spit in my face."
In one of her crueler moments, Karin growls and hauls the woman back to her feet, if only just to drive her knee into the woman's gut twice, and then slam her back down.
COMBATSYS: Karin successfully hits Varvara with Arakuma Inashi.
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Karin 1/-------/=======|=======\=======\1 Varvara
The ugly lady is mostly communicating in labored breaths as she has a hard time trying to take in air, spitting once on the sidewalk ground. When Karin lifts her up, she more or less goes along with the support - with the full intention to break away and gather herself up once more. There's no way a girl like her could take another one like that. It just has to be bravado. She can show her. She can show her what it means to be in a place where money and good fortune doesn't matter--
She'd have to do so after Karin makes her move a lot sooner than she anticipates, kneeing her twice with little to no resistance as she grunts once again, doubled over and easy enough to slam back down into the pavement. There's a small splatter of blood from where her face gets cut open. If that's not something worth gloating over, what is? An injury like that is a clear sign that the fight's over - it needs to stop lest someone really get hurt.
Varvara pulls herself up anyway, even with the cut across her forehead getting blood in one of her eyes. She scowls at Karin's matter-of-fact statements about her generosity (which really can't be denied), how she's spitting in her face (which also can't be denied)... but first, how disappointing she is. As though this were all sick, sick entertainment.
She's had it.
With one wild cry, she gets to her feet with a slight stumble as to better show just /how/ into the concept of hurting this girl she is, maybe above and beyond the thought she could mug even more money off of her. She cocks back an arm as she enters a slight crouch, her arm flexed hard enough for a small run to appear on the sleeve. The other tries to grab a hold of Karin's arm to hold it where it is before she tries to uppercut it into one of Karin's elbows from underneath - an attempt to make it bend the wrong way.
If she gets in that much, that's not the end of it.
COMBATSYS: Varvara successfully hits Karin with Macedonian Folly.
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Karin 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|====---\-------\0 Varvara
That alone would be bad, but she has more in store, moving behind Karin to grasp her around the midsection and suplex her behind her - is that enough? Hardly! She pursues by lifting up and twisting one of Karin's legs about to her satisfaction (or lack thereof on Karin's end), and follows it up to the other arm, leaving exactly one of Karin's limbs untwisted.
"So cough it up!" She scowls through rasped breath, injury and fatigue catching up to her as she lifts one leg and, finally, drives it down onto Karin's head with a stomp so fierce, so powerful that spider cracks would assuredly form at the point of impact.
Karin goes wide eyed as she tries to block the punch, which only breaks past her guard and she lets out a pained scream as her elbow gets punched up, bending it the wrong way so hard it hurts, then getting suplexed before she can respond any further, leaving her a sitting duck for what was next to come, her leg getting badly twisted, and then her other arm. The young heiress doesn't even have a chance to get up with her face is driven into the pavement with the kick to the head, causing the ground to crack.
Surely, this was it for her. The beating was so brutal that there was nothing she could possibly do, as she lays on the ground seemingly lifeless and at Varvara's mercy. At least until Karin stirs, and slowly pushes herself back to her feet, limping as she turns to face the ugly woman with a fire in her eyes as she shifts into her stance, favoring her right leg on the front, as she utters, "If you thought I'd give you anything now, you're a more stupid thug than I thought..." She then dashes fast and gets in close to swing up a high hop-kick to try to send Varvara into the air, and if successful, letting out a yell as she leaps up after the woman, her arms swinging in rapid circles, striking the woman whilst in the air with nine consecutive whirling palm strikes, "KOU'OU KEN!"
COMBATSYS: Varvara interrupts Kanzuki-ryuu Kou'ou Ken from Karin with Strong Throw.
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Karin 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0 Varvara
COMBATSYS: Varvara can no longer fight.
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Karin 0/-------/-======|
That butler over there better look worried about letting this completely uncouth, almost certainly rabid, but undeniably /filthy/ older woman who could very well be poised to seriously injure the only child that can carry on the family legacy. Even as the brutish, unladylike, hell, perhaps even /sub-human/ woman is not the prime state of health just standing there. She's ready to keel over at any moment by the looks of it all, blood staining her vision as she can only manage a hunched-over posture after stomping that girl's head in.
As Karin slips out from under her feet, she stumbles as Karin lays down the cold hard facts - if she even /thinks/ she'd give her anything now, she says...
Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme, is what runs through Varvara's mind, but she is too blinded by pain and blood to the hop kick that sends her up off her feet. It seems decided from there - the butler may be able to breathe easily with the rapid strikes of the Kanzaki-ryuu Kou'ou Ken juggling and pummeling the lowest of the lowlives out there.
It's somewhere around whirling palm number six that Varvara regains, momentarily, her mental faculties in spite of injury and shock, delivering one last flash of her own technique - something that suggests, deep down, she at least has /some/ sort of technical skill backing her up as she gets both arms around Karin's to halt the spin, and fling them the other way to force her into an uncomfortable rapid descent towards that toppled trash can from moments earlier.
She herself does not account for what's immediately behind her - a dumpster - and hits her head against the side of it hard enough to more than make up for the last three whirling palm strikes that never happens, the final blow seeing blood and spit fly out of her mouth as she blacks out on the spot from injury and bloodloss alike.
The guy she beat up earlier is already rushing to his feet to make sure his unlikely savior is all right, at least.
Karin blinks for a moment when her arms are grabbed, and she's swung about in such a manner that she ends up crashing into the earlier trash can, and goes out like a light. Ishizaki the butler immediately runs in and tends to Karin, checking to see if she's alright before hefting her up in his big arms, and carries her back to their limo where he sets her down to be nursed.
After taking Karin to safety, Ishizaki takes a few moments to go back to where Varvara was, and stoops to her to put the money into Varvara's pockets while she's out, with a note attached to it, as the butler says, "Karin-ojou-sama would have given it to you anyway." Before turning and heading back to the Limo, leaving Varvara there with the cash.
COMBATSYS: Karin can no longer fight.
Log created on 20:13:44 01/07/2011 by Karin, and last modified on 01:36:09 01/08/2011.