Description: Heading back from medical school, Vikram looks to blow off some steam and ends up on a date with a woman who is a lot more than she seems!
South Town, Late Evening.
After the sun goes down, many of the less desirable denizens of South Town begin to emerge: Street walkers. Gang members. Thieves. Drug dealers. And now, with the world seemingly on the brink of some unknown disaster, there are individuals here and there wailing on about the end of the world coming. These poor souls are often taken advantage of, especially by B and C. Even rarer are those individuals suddenly consumed by a supernatural blood lust, and trying to kill everyone within arms reach.
It speaks to the resilience of civilization, and of the ability of humanity to deny whatever problems hound it, that things in downtown are not that different. Any incidents and whatever messes they cause are quickly swept away, with only the occasional cordoned off area to disrupt the natural flow. Surprisingly though, none of these areas were created by Juri Han herself. Though a woman that could be called a riot personified, she is actually fairly mentally stable in this world gone mad.
The Korean woman's deminiuitive form is first seen being pushed from a bar by a burly man in an extraordinarily tight black shirt. Tight to show off his muscle defintion, which is beyond impressive. Stumbling backwards before crashing ungracefully on her hindquarters, she sneers up at the large man and the open door behind him. The doorway emitting an extraordinarily loud beat and baffling display of lights that spills out into the alleyway. She sneers, "You know, I typically really like guys like you. But your fucking obsession with rules is pissing me off!" She stands up and dusts herself off, "Like I give a shit about it. If it's a shit drink and I want to throw it at the bartender, that's my business."
The man stands as impassively as a boulder, his frown seemingly carved from rock.
"Fine." She murmurs softly, "But I'm going to leave you something to remember me by."
Juri steps out from the alleyway now. Behind her the large bouncer is slumped against a wall, a wall noticeably cracked and dented inward. Several other people from inside the club are coming out now and checking his vitals, calling 911. Before long there would be flashing lights, and another cordoned off area. For now though there is just Juri walking down the street with her hands folded behind her head. She wears a white midrift halter top with tight low cut bluejeans and a pair of black pumps. Her hair is up in its usual, two-horned style but ... oddly, one eye, her left eye, is covered with an eyepatch. She sighs loudly to herself, "Oh well, I guess I have to find some other way to kill time."
for breaks, for tabs."
A loud sigh followed by the sound of a solid door closing is all that registered in Vikram's mind as he left the clinic where he was studying. If he had to attend another lecture on Pulmonology he would probably scream and tear his own eyesockets out. It was probably a miracle enough that his brain hadn't turned to mush. Well, at least it wasn't like the rotation he had been through on Pathology. He still could remember the amount of time he had spent in the shower trying to scrub off the smell of Formaldehyde. It had resulted in him trying every goddamn remedy for getting off skunk smells. That was a night he had chosen to forget as vehemently as possible.
It had been one hell of a terrible day so far. He wasn't even really interested in anything to do with the lungs as part of his profession, but he had decided to try the rotation at his father's rather vociferous suggestion. What had ensued was probably one of the most exhausting and useless months of his life so far. It was by pure determination that he had not just thrown in the towel already. All he wanted to do was move around and have some fun. It turned out that feeling was the only thing that motivated him after he was done with lecture for the day.
Once the door shut behind him, the young Indian man snapped out of his reverie. It was a relatively odd experience when one realized that one's clothes had already been changed without conscious thought. It was like he was waking up from a bad dream. Shoving aside his mind's sudden wish to spout every kind of cerebral disease that it could think of, he stuck his hands into the pockets of his dark blue slacks which caused his unbuttoned sleeves to wrinkle around the area. It was time to kick back and relax.
Well, however much one could kick back in an area like Southtown.
As he walked down the street, he took a deep breath and finally managed to clear his head. God, he needed a drink. Or maybe some Morphine. He knew it was a sad day when he was actually half-thinking about trying the latter of the two options. Deep emerald eyes finally focused just before he ran directly into a woman who had just come out of an alleyway. He stopped short by pivoting his foot with a subtle shift of balance in surprise. He gave the young woman a charming smile in response with a gently spoken, "Excuse me." With that, he walked past her down the sidewalk.
Wait, didn't he want to have some fun? And he had this golden opportunity in front of him. And judging by the way she was dressed it seemed like she was also looking for a way to relax. Maybe this was perfect.
After having walked past Juri ten feet, Vikram stopped and turned around, taking his hands out of his pockets. "Actually, would you like to go somewhere?" he asked, his charming smile actually increasing to a crooked smile as the right corner of his mouth turned upward. He knew some people preferred pick-up lines, but he had found that in his experience simple was usually the best. "I just got off work and I'd like to blow off some steam. You can choose what we do. My treat?"
It was random, he knew. But hell, it was a random day.
For her part, Juri hardly even noticed the young man before she just walked straight into them. She's not used to having people get in her way after all. As small as she is, as seemingly nonthreatening that would make her people tend to avoid her just the same. She has an air of wrong about her: The kind that people can't describe, but rarely fail to notice. The kind that wolves would go for miles out of their way just to avoid the scent that assails their noses. The very same aura that perhaps almost sent Vikram on his way, without him even noticing it.
'You can choose what we do. My treat?'
Juri slows to a stop, her hands still folded up and behind her head. She lets them drop at a speed slower than gravity would take them, and return to hang loosely at her sides. She turns her head to the right and regards the unknown Indian fellow with her purple-eyed gaze. She appraises him, seeming to almost look through him, and finally her lips tighten into a slight sneer. Did he say something wrong? Or was it something else that upsets her?
Regardless the sneer vanishes soon afterwards and is replaced with a bemused smirk. She speaks in a calm, teasing manner, "Oh? Anything I want to do? Do you really think you could handle it." With a soft laugh she rounds on Vikram, and approaches him at a slow, sensual pace. She murmurs softly, "Not bad. Though really, I don't think you could entertain me for long. No. I'm afraid not."
Sirens break the night suddenly. The sirens of an ambulance, the sirens of police cars. Once again Juri sneers slightly, but it smooths away quickly and she offers a faint shrug of her shoulders. "Well, if not /that/ then perhaps you'd like taking some pretty girl out on the streets to a nice bar for a few drinks, something to eat?" Her eyes narrow slightly, giving a dangerous edge to her expression. Her words come levelly, however, "Assuming you haven't decided that I'm some piece of tail-for-rent looking for a John with a fat wallet."
It might be better to go with Option A, just sayin'.
The entire time Juri was sneering at him with venomous words, Vikram's eyebrows were raised in surprise. Well, /this/ was something he wasn't expecting. Usually when he flirted with a girl it ended with her appraising him to ascertain just how much he was worth, realizing that he was worth far more than most men who would be walking the streets at /any/ time much less the time it was now, and then would proceed to ooze as much sexuality as they could in order to entrap him. It was often so boring that he couldn't stand it. He knew that pretty much anyone who had ever gone to a hospital had heard of the Behl Group. But still, it would be nice to see something different.
When Juri finished her tirade it took everything in Vikram's being not to burst out laughing.
The young man had seen trauma victims, people dying from thirst and malnourishment, and the effects of wars. He had experienced far more than most would consider normal for someone his age. He was not about to balk at a little bit of a bad feeling--especially not when the woman was finally one who didn't give a shit about his status and would face him as another person and not just a good-looking man with money behind him.
His eyebrows lowering down to normal level again, Vikram's charming grin returned. Along with it his demeanor changed to a more sensual one as well as if he was returning the favor he had just received. "Now, who said anything about handling you?" he leaned his face toward her in a close proximity and spoke softly with the sensual lilt of a man who not only knew his way around a woman's body but had been thoroughly trained in how to speak with changing situations. "I was simply asking if you wanted to go somewhere to kill time and have fun. How you determine fun is entirely up to you."
%Leaning back up straight, the aura abruptly disappeared and his voice tone returned to what it had been before if a little more bemused than it had started. "A bar sounds good. Perhaps somewhere away from the sirens?" The smile on his face didn't reveal a thing about whether or not he knew that she had been the cause. He was obviously more than the normal person he appeared to be. Walking past her, he spoke over his shoulder. "Well, let's get going then. Unless you want to pay for your own drinks...?"
Turning his head back to the front, it allowed Vikram to hide his bemused smile from Juri behind him. Oh, this was going to be a splendid night.
At moments like these, Juri is used to quite a few things. Most normal people tend to go 'well fuck this' and move past her as quickly as they can. Figuring that a woman like that is more trouble than she is worth.
And they're right.
She's also used to them seeing her as some sort of cheap slut, an easy lay or even a prostitute that they want to get their leg up and over. Her way of speaking and moving do certainly suggest a bit of a sensual, sexual bent to her personality after all. And the fact that she is dressed in such a provocative way, with a grace that suggests both flexibility and endurance? Surely that's a body built for sex?
Let's just say those people couldn't be more wrong.
What she is not entirely used to though are people getting up in her face, staring her directly in the eye, and speaking in a calm, comfortable manner with a sensual lilt. At first her body tenses and she looks very much like a viper prepared to strike. It is these next few moments that prove Vikram may have missed his calling as a snake charmer, as what he has to say brings her at the verge of attack ... and yet, she doesn't.
When he leans back again she seems to relax from her tensed posture, and she watches with her brow slightly furrowed as he walks around her. Confusion plays over her visible eye. Especially when the sirens are mentioned. If he thought she was involved with them in some way, why would he want to get involved? Or why not turn her in?
Juri can appreciate a man who doesn't have too many hang-ups over silly things like rules after all. And without her second eye, without the Feng Shui Engine, she isn't much in the mood for getting into a fight anyway. It's not as fun to fight without it now. Something she is loathe to admit, and yet undeniably true. Its power is intoxicating, its absence an annoying itch. She is caught up in these thoughts when Vikram is walking away, 'unless you want to pay for your own drinks...?'
With a frown, Juri starts off after the man. "Whatever." She intones, "Besides, I got the feeling I'd have a lot more fun like this rather than going with myself." A shrug of her shoulders, and she laughs coldly, "Who knows, maybe if you're lucky I can show you what kind of fun I was talking about earlier." Should Vikram look her way, he might notice Juri lick her lips sensually. Pale pink tongue trailing over dark purple lipstick.
"So do you have a name?" The woman asks in a sardonic tone that suggests she doesn't really care. Small talk and all that was never her forte. "And what are you doing out at this hour? Usually good little boys are all nice and tucked in by now, lately. What with the whole world going crazy and all that."
Vikram did, in fact, turn his head slightly and was met with Juri's sensual lip-licking. He actually winked at her in response with a humorous, "Maybe, maybe. Just don't go and throw yourself at me. It'll take all the fun out of it." His head turning back to face the front, he began to walk down the street, his pace unconsciously slowing to one to match the Korean girl in a manner that spoke of a man who was used to walking alongside women. It was a few long seconds before he actually responded to Juri's question.
"Vikram," he said simply without providing a last name. It was better to not drop the Behl name here in case it would break whatever spell that had been cast between the reptile and her snake charmer. "And who said I was a good little boy?" He glanced alongside at Juri with a wry smile. "I spent my day with blood up to my elbows. Wasn't really the most fun, honestly. It's a kind of why I need to blow off some steam. Too much concentration build-up."
He let his words hang in the air as they walked down the street. Vikram passed a few restaurants with dirty entryways and even a few dive bars without hesitating in his stride. None of these places were meeting his standards. The young man didn't even ask the twin-tailed woman her name. It was like she was standing next to him, but wasn't really standing next to him at all. Time passed like this for at least a few minutes before Vikram glanced back over at her, his emerald green eyes once again lively. "So, do you have any requests? Or just somewhere you can get drunk? You strike me as a woman who would prefer her drink done well or not at all."
No, he wasn't psychic. Merely extremely perceptive.
tIt was for that reason alone that he had simply walked past the other bars. And with a glance to the right it was apparent that they were standing in front of a simply, heavy oak door. Upon closer inspection it was the door to a bar, but one for people of a slightly higher class. There was significantly less flash in the outward decor than there was from the neon lights and signs of the dive bars. It was a type of place one didn't usually tear up town in, but one for people who preferred to spend more cash in a night than others would spend in a lifetime. Spreading his hands between the simple oak door to the right and the dive bars down the street to the left, he tilted his head and fixed his gaze on Juri as if he was interested in just how she would react. "So, choose. Which would you prefer?"
'Blood up to his elbows' huh? Well, that certainly brought a bit of a sparkle to the Korean woman's eye. It would seem her company for the evening knows how to make a woman like Juri smile. She wonders idly if she could smell the blood when she leaned closer ...
Not that she would, mind. Nevermind the fact that she actually began to lean just a little bit, or that she has to straighten up before Vikram looks her way again. She volunteers her name simply, "Juri." No last name, no that's not necessary. After all, Juri Han has made quite a name for herself on the fighting circuit: A brutal fighter who delights in causing pain in others, often not quitting even when the rules demand it. Sometimes blurring the line between a good fight and a bloodsport. That's what Juri Han is, that's what she does.
What she's doing right now though is walking beside Vikram quietly as they walk down the street. She doesn't have anything more to say at the moment, and instead glances inside of the few restaurants, dive bars, and low class nightclubs that they pass by. Each of them receive a soft sniff from Juri, but little else. When the man accompanying her asks her where she would like to go, she makes an overly elaborate shrugging motion.
"I don't care really. Usually my job keeps me from going out for a drink. Especially since the boss man doesn't like me going out for a good time without permission." The Korean woman, the Shadaloo Spider, snears at this and laughs, "Like I care. He could get rid of me if he wanted to, but he won't. Because between that womanizing pansy, the brick headed idiot, and that overbearing sanctimonious fossil I'm the only one who can actually get things done. And don't even get me started on his favorite 'little girl' that he treats like a princess cuz she's so busy being his lap dog." She breathes out a deep, vexed sigh, "So whatever, just as long as it's a place with good drinks, decent music, and doesn't mind letting me have a good time."
When they stop at a higher class bar, Juri arches an eyebrow. Perhaps he overestimated her tastes. Perhaps. She shrugs her shoulders slightly, "Well, we're already here aren't we?" Impatience colors her voice, "And you're buying so I don't really mind." There is a bit of cruely to her voice, and to her smile, as she moves toward the door. She wonders if he'll be able to get her in, dressed as she is. Places like this tend to be a bit stuck up about apparel.
A low whistle actually comes from Vikram's mouth. "Wow, your boss sounds like a prick," he stated simply. If the young man knew he was talking about the leader of Shadaloo, he might have actually thought twice about his statement. Then he would have said it anyway. "You seem like a nice enough person. And I'm glad you weren't going to say no to this place. I'm in serious need of that drink right about now." Pulmonology vocabulary like Mediastinum and Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome were starting to creep up from the back of his mind where he had shoved them previously. The only thing that would stop them from taking over his brain and throwing a rave with the entirety of the Pathology vocabulary was drowning it out with enough alcohol that it would make all of the words in his mind drunk. Glancing to Juri, he placed one hand on the doorhandle and took her hand in the other with a deep look into her eyes with his and the simple yet complex words of "Trust me."
Once inside, the well-dressed man at the door took one look at their attire and it was obvious that he was going to kick them out before the heavy oak door behind them closed. Between Juri's midriff shirt and jeans and Vikram's untucked collared shirt they were obviously not two people that should be in a bar that was aimed at the upper class. With his hand firmly clasping that of the Korean woman, the medical student reached into his back pocket and showed the doorman a card. Paling visibly, he asked Vikram in a tight voice, "Will you be requiring anything special this evening, Mr. --"
Before he could continue into the rest of his name, the Indian man gave the doorman a small glare with his deep emerald eyes that spoke of untold ferocity. The doorman barely suppressed a sound that could only be expressed as a squeak in response. Waiting a few moment to let it set in that he did not want him to continue further, Vikram eased his glare and spoke with soft, well-chosen words that were reminiscent of the upper class. "I would appreciate a place where the lady and I can be alone. Without being disturbed unless we call to ask for another drink. I believe you can do that?" With a stammered response from the doorman, the two are led through the bar with other well-dressed patrons who can be heard murmuring in quiet voices about the two that were let in with their attire.
Vikram and Juri are led to the back of the bar and up the stairs into what can only be described as a VIP suite complete with couches, a fine walnut table and a one-way window that allows them a view of the entire establishment. There are several decorations and other furnishings on the walls--even a small refrigerator. Once the doorman left, the young man let out a sigh and eased onto the leather couch. "I always hate that." He breathed out for a moment. "Phone on the wall," he gestured to a phone that happened to be mounted next to where Juri was standing. "Hardest drink you can name. Please. And I mean /hard./"
'You seem like a nice enough person.'
The words slide about the surface of her consciousness, hazy and undefined. Like oil trying to sink in water they cannot get in. When they do finally make it through, somehow, and enter the seat of her conscious mind it leaves Juri in a fairly uncommon state: Completely without words. She has never heard that. Never, ever, /EVER/ heard that once in her recent memory. Not since she was dragged screaming and crying from her parent's corpses. Not since her mind and body were wracked by countless tortures that Vega and his scientists scrawled upon notebooks and chalkboards.
She... she doesn't know how to parse this. How to fit it into her paradigm. She does know one thing though:
She doesn't like it.
She grows quiet as she is lead into the bar. When Vikram takes her hand, a short spasm of disgust ripples through her body. And yet, she endures it. It would seem like she has withdrawn completely within herself: Even the fact that the card Vikram has somehow denotes he is a man of importance, a man of privilege, doesn't seem to bring any sort of visible reaction from her.
Juri's eye, her good eye, glances across the faces of those gathered in the room as she walks past them. All of them dressed in their evening best, cradling drinks and chatting about nothing in particular. Watching her being led by the hand by some guy. She doesn't need to know what they're whispering: She can feel it in her head.
Still she waits and is led to the back of the bar and up the stairs. Led into a VIP suite that any other woman, or at least most other women, would be impressed by. The upscale decore and private arrangement would even suit a woman of Juri's tastes, and yet should Vikram look at her face right now he would see nothing but cold disdain.
Once the doorman leaves, and once her hand is released, Juri stands quietly for a moment before releasing a long, halting sigh. She raises the hand and looks at it in front of her good eye, examining it carefully. Then her eye looks toward Vikram, and examines /him/ carefully. "You know what I hate?" She says, the first words she spoke since they walked through the oak door. That hand she has held up in front of her face suddenly clenches tightly as her teeth spread into a rictus snarl. In a blur of movement she suddenly punches the phone in the wall!
The force of the punch is enough to break the phone and bust through the wall behind it! She curls her fingers, gripping the wiring and pulls! She wrenches as much as she can from the wall before the wire snaps.
Phone and wire gripped in her bloodied hand, Juri stalks her way over to where Vikram is sitting. Her eye holds him with a look that could bore through cold iron. Her voice is a malicious purr, threatening a sort of sensual violence the kind that would break the minds of lesser men. "You think you are so clever, don't you?" She smiles a smile with too many teeth, "That you can take a girl to a fancy bar, offer to buy her fancy drinks, throw money in her face and that'll make her open wide for you. The Korean pulls her hand back as if she is about to punch Vikram!
And instead, she just holds out the broken phone and cord in front of his face. She intones dully, "Here. You look like you could use a hard drink."
Strangely enough, Vikram sits through the Korean girl's explosion of sensuality and force. He doesn't even flinch when she strikes the phone on the wall, though whether it's because he was expecting such a thing or he's too tired to care isn't readily apparent. What is, however, is where his eyes focus when Juri approaches him. His emerald pools aren't focused on her face at all. He is focused on one thing in particular.
Her hand.
His eyes are pulled to the blood dripping from her skin onto the wires that make their way steadily down the rubber-coated metal to drip on the hardwood floor. The sound echoes hollowly in the room in the long moments between when Juri finishes talking and when Vikram finally opened his mouth to speak.
When he did it began with a soft voice. "No, Juri, I don't think I'm clever," he said in calm voice, collected despite the tornado-strength force of female power in front of him. His emerald eyes glanced from her hand to her face. "I am." His voice was stronger now than it had been before--a young man who had been bred to power though it was obvious from his demeanor that he hadn't wanted it. It was evident enough by the clothes he chose to wear. "If it's about holding your hand, I'll apologize. But it was the easiest way to get you in here without having to deal with the rest of the crap I would have to deal with here." That she was upset about it was the first thing that came into his mind. He had seen her staring at her hand. It was approximately one and a half seconds longer than most would. "And seriously, what is your obsession with sex or people wanting it from you? Honestly, the more you talk about it, the /less/ I want it from you. Is it so hard to believe I simply just wanted to share a drink? If I'm the kind of man you're describing, then I could pick up a girl /anywhere/ I wanted to. I wouldn't be dealing with a woman who obviously could destroy most men with a single hit who was wanting to get away from where sirens were."
Suddenly, he sat up slightly, raising his right arm to his mouth. With a single motion he gripped his shirtsleeve with his teeth and ripped off a good portion of cloth with a loud tearing sound. Taking the piece of cloth into his hand, Vikram locked eyes with Juri with the strength and ferocity of a Bengal Tiger.
"Now, /give/ /me/ /your/ /hand/," he stated strongly, making sure to emphasize each word. It was a tone that brooked no nonsense. While some might consider it that of a man used to power in his case it was the tone of a physician speaking to an unruly patient. Considering that he already knew Juri could likely tear him apart he was either extremely brave or extremely stupid. Or both.
It's for a simple reason Juri obsesses about these things: People who are nice to her, who act genuinely kind to her, tend to want to do one of two things. Either it's to entrap her, or to get something out of her. And considering she isn't rich, or particularly powerful outside the means of pure physical violence, the number one thing they want out of her is sex.
The fact that Vikram could want anything else simply does not fit her paradigm. And it's that more than anything else which frustrates her, which angers her, which is sending her flipping out into a psychotic fit as she is now. So it should be no surprise that his current response does little else but fan the flames.
There is murder in her eye now. Were Vikram to look up from Juri's bleeding hand and into her face, he might be surprised at just how easy it is to read. She wants to kill him, here and now and without delay. Because he does not fit her view of the world, her view of herself, and his continue existence is nauseating to her. And now he is ... ripping cloth from his shirt sleeve? Despite her prediliction to answer every question with a brute force kick, Juri isn't an idiot. She knows what that length of cloth is for, knows why he wants to see her hands.
What she doesn't understand is why a tear is welling up in her good eye.
There is precious little left to Juri that could be considered good. Unlike Vega she has yet to learn how to peel away that last restraint on her power, and push it away. It is that part of her, that pathetic sniveling child, that produced that tear. And Juri loathes her most of all.
"Go to Hell." She flings the broken remains of the phone against the wall and walks toward the back of the room.
As she walks away from Vikram now, a nebulous cloud of violet colored energy begins to form around her. She focuses all of her pain, all of her rage into it... and luckily she has plenty to spare. Even without the Feng Shui Engine to help regulate its flow she can produce truly frightening amounts of power, enough to blow out a good segment of the wall at least. Which is exactly what she does. With a vertical sweeping kick she unleashes a wave of psycho energy, which collides with the wall and explodes! A wave of dust is produced temporarily obscures Juri.
And when it clears, she is gone. So is a healthy sized segment of wall. 'But Juri' you may say, 'There was a back entrance.' It doesn't matter, Juri was angry and really the best way to deal with those emotions was to let them out. Just be glad it was a wall that got it this time.
This time.
The young Indian man is left coughing on dust from the exploding wall. Well, that was an interesting if slightly unpleasant way to end the day. He was left thinking back on the tear he saw in Juri's eye. Vikram was the kind of person that rarely missed small details like that. It was either part of his genius that had enabled him to learn so many martial arts styles or some inane eccentricity of his. Getting up from where he had been seated on the leather couch, he dusted off his pants. And what was he going to do about his sleeve? If she had at least let him patch up her hand it wouldn't have bled anywhere. That was probably the thing that finally had him irritated. Having left an injury untreated grated on his nerves more than the mangled phone on the floor, the broken wall, or even the dust covering his clothes.
Well, he sure knew how to pick the interesting ones. And Juri was one of those. Somehow, he was warming to her and her seemingly psychotic tendencies. At least he wouldn't be bored.
And being bored was something that worried him far more than anything else.
Gathering the cloth from his sleeve, Vikram left the room and walked out into the hallway. From the alleyway Juri had left from, his voice could be heard.
"Sorry about the wall. I'll pay for that. I'd like to get a few shots of vodka. The phone? Oh, yes. I would have called, but it's off the wall. Oh? Yes, yes, I'll pay for that."
Well, maybe the night wasn't all that bad.
Log created on 21:15:21 07/17/2011 by Vikram, and last modified on 01:48:05 07/18/2011.