Description: K' wants to find out what nefarious plans the Ikari might have for his sister. DO THEY WORK FOR NESTS?!? Someone even crazier wants intel too. VIOLENCE ENSUES.
~~
"Look, K'. My buddy in the Federales says he plays poker with this guy. That their kids go to the same private school. If he thinks we asked for his help because we have a beef..."
"I just want to talk to them."
"You always say that."
"I just want to talk to them."
"/K'/. I'm fucking serious man. Our contacts are how we get at anyone who's really a bastard in the first place. Everything I've got says these guys are vigilantes. Side of angels, man. Are you listening?"
"I just want to talk to them."
"... son of a bitch."
Federal airspace cleared the Ikari's recent excursion to Iraq. It's not an -easy- thing, tracking private paramilitary transit, but the depot on the coast isn't footprintless. Not when one has vast resources (or an extremely resourceful cybernetic superdetective) working in one's favor. The little relay post isn't anything particularly special - an old retreat of war veterans and their proteges as much as anything, good ol' boys. K' fucking /hates/ good ol' boys. Still, he's good to his word. He leaves Maxima out of it, he tries to talk to them. They just /piss him off so much/ when they talk back.
Sometimes, a guy just has to assert himself. In this case that winds up being five men unconscious and in various degrees of 'scorched' sprawled hither and yon around the airstrip's office, now with new doors in its cheapass walls. K' rummages through files. He's already got the coordinates, about fifteen minutes ago, before the last merc went unconscious (again). He already knows where to go, but he hasn't found anything /incriminating/. So he's digging through all the airstrip's (rather mundane) records, journals, and nick-nacks. It's not the font of information SIN might have hoped for when sending Juri to track back the Ikari's resources to the group's current operations.
K' turns over a desk. Pretty much for no reason. "No goddamn way." Something. He mutters a little to himself, and turns away from the scattered office supplies and cracked wood, the most interesting piece in the thing being the 1911 that clatters heavily away from the impact.
The distant sound of rotors announces someone else's arrival at the airfield. Whether someone returning or another unwelcomed guest cannot be ascertained outside of the tower as the pilot keeps it low and is moving fast.
Inside the vehicle Juri listens unconcernedly to the constant stream of radio chatter between the pilots and base, her attention wanders since even she can't seem to quite tune out the noise and rolling motion of the helicopter enough to just snooze through it. It contributes to her boredom and a growing sense of irritation at the pilots.
"Oi, Hurry up and land this thing already, I'm getting ~sick~ of being cooped up back here.'
A helmeted head swivels to glance her way and then helicopter jerks as he really pushes it faster, Hmp! That reaction was almost good enough to bring a smile back to her face as she eagerly peers past both sweating pilots toward the now visible airfield. This was going to be some fun, mercenaries weren't usually complete slobs and it would be a fun chance to do a little hunting.
Feet hitting the tarmac in a spalyed crouch that nearly has her laying on her front and all fours the Sin spider turns her head this way and that looking for playmates, the helicopter above already circling back out and away wary of any surface to air defences. Fully erect and more than a little disappointed Juri herself turns a full circle looking for anything interesting.. a trap? No sudden explosions on onrushes of militia.. nothing? If anything this place already looks a little trashed SOOOO disappointing!~.
"Is there anybody here!? maybe you could use rescuing, no? fair enough then."
If there wasn't going to be any fun to be had she would just grab anything useful that had been left behind going so far as to step on and walk over top of a soldier lying between her and her only objective even if it was only just vaguely interesting. She does stop and toy with the idea of finishing that soldier off to improve her mood, there is so little fun to be had here Seth would pay for yet another boring assignment.
Oh hey, a chopper. That actually lifts K''s spirits, just a bit. Everyone here is no fun anymore, and outside contacts of one kind or another might lead him to the /truth/. The truth is goddamn out there. The white-haired firebrand pauses just long enough to dig a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of the nearest soldier's pockets. He groans a bit. K' doesn't even hear it, he's /staring/ at the pack-sized picture of a fat man in a wheelchair with his legs cut off. There's text he can barely read above it, and he doesn't need to read it to know it's a tobacco warning. ".. Balls." Luckily, his new company is still touching down. Not here to see his moment of doubt and pain. He palms one and shoves the rest into his pocket, sauntering more than walking to the door.
By the time Juri approaches the newly renovated ramshackle building, K' is leaning in the doorframe, eyeing her from behind dark crimson shades. Yes, the place is a little bit wrecked already. One fingerless gloved hand lifts the cigarette to his lips, plops it into his mouth before he half-mumbles, a bit irritably, "Who the fuck are you?" Not what he expected, and not really as positive. What was it that one NESTS shrink said about making lemonade?
Pulping shit sounded like a decent alternative. There's a palpable menace in the air that someone like Juri would be well acquainted for, a flicker of pitch black surging through the Kusanagi Template's aura as his eyes burn crimson, a fire behind them in a seemingly very literal sense, clearly outlined behind the glasses as a line of dark flame sweeps along his finger to the tip, used to light the first, long haul of that murderstick.
As he /eyes/ Juri, all black leather and attitude, still just blocking that doorway.
COMBATSYS: K' has started a fight here.
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K' 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: K' gathers his will.
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K' 0/-------/---====|
COMBATSYS: Juri has joined the fight here.
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K' 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Juri
The connection between the downed merc's she had been toying with the idea of finishing off and the sudden appearance of someone new, looks like someone else had the same idea about this airfield. She didn't much care about why he was in her way, what he wanted or even how powerful he though she was, her mind locked onto one thing based on her initial assessment.
"Well, aren't you just delicious looking."
The Taekwondoa leers as she looks him over, fist on hip and scarcely hiding her interest. Bad boys do have a certain appeal, at least before you get to KNOW them and even the more unappealing ones she had encountered like Bison and Balrog had their charm, if not to her tastes. The small Korean woman deliberately refrains from answering his question, the bravado or indeed gall of the guy fit well with the image.
"Quiet down! You're cute and all and you have me ~all aquiver~ with the attitude."
The smile fades and she shifts her stance, the intensity level she feels between the both has her near salivating and she just wants to skip the dinner conversation and get straight to the main course.
"But there's something about you that pisses me off."
She lifts one foot casually, twirling hard left and sweeps her leg around for the cigarette in his mouth jut then jams that foot forward to stamp out the face behind it.
COMBATSYS: K' blocks Juri's Kick Combo.
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K' 0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0 Juri
One would expect most pretty teenage boys to be all aflutter in response. For a blush to penetrate that smooth tan that might very well come from the solar flare he's apparently infused with. For K' to stutter, to stammer, to perhaps shake a little bit. Uh-uh-whut she's flirting with him?!? ... none of that really happens. He seems to know he's not going to keep his smoke long, the way he's swallowing its contents lickity split. "Riiiiiiiiight." Where the hell did he leave his rape whistle?
The sardonic disbelief comes out in a cloud of acrid smoke, another drag following immediately even as Juri charges in. Something about /him/ that pisses /her/ off? His left arm comes around, braced. There's surprisingly strength in the limb, well beyond what one would expect even of K''s substantial build - the more spiritually attuned would say that K' is infused with energy, strength, raw natural power akin to a wildfire. Elusive, evading outside control, untouchable... yet with an impact nigh impossible to ignore.
K' would say: "Then /burn/." That's how much he appears to care about Juri's preferences, or that she doesn't seem to like him, or that she's an unknown operative of extreme power who wants to do him harm. He spits his lit cigarette at her face, but it may not even make it before his right arm comes around, an almost casual gesture. Lit by a tremendous plume of flame. It's a flashfire, a burst as instant as it is intent, filling the space in front of K', intending to sear Juri... even as his opposite, black motorcycle booted foot reaves upwards and in, driving a brutal axeing heel straight for her jaw, the fire reinvigorated, surging forward with its passing. Molten along the singular stroke, the deep crimson flames surging hungrily for possibly Vega's most rambuctious cohort.
COMBATSYS: K' successfully hits Juri with Second Shell.
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K' 0/-------/-======|===----\-------\0 Juri
The fuck!? Korean woman sails though backwards arc trailing both flame and smoke like the cigarette she had attempted to extinguish. Bouncing heavily on the hot asphalt she rights herself and slips into a crouch on the balls of her feet; staring back as the pretty boy turned pyrokineticist. She can still feel the heat from that blaze and the ache in her ribs from that boot, to top it all off he was just oozing the cool charm, for that alone she could bite his head off and tear the rest to shreds.
After vulgarly spitting on the strip and climbing back to her feet she openly shrugs what were the odds she was going to find a real fight all the way out here? Juri is the epitome of uncool since she just plain doesn't give a damn, but she cares that that hurt her oh so very much.
"Oi cute boy, let's play for real then eh?"
She lifts her knee and assumes a fighting stance the whole time the Feng Shui Engine is running overtime measuring ambient power levels as well as predictive measures based on how much that last shot had damaged its host.
COMBATSYS: Juri focuses on her next action.
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K' 0/-------/-======|===----\-------\0 Juri
"'Play' for 'real'. Make up your mind." K' smirks. Like he suddenly gets the joke. "Or did that little lovetap shake something loose /already/? Something tells me you're not employed for your emotional stability." This seems /really/ entertaining to the Kyoclone origin, for some combination of reasons. "Oh, yes, let's." K' tries to sound positively excited, his pitch and tone climbing, like he's on the schoolyard. Like he's a horrible, mocking, sardonic dickhead on the playground, at least. He'd golf clap, but he can't be fucked.
"Come on then, scrawny bitch, let's see what you can scare up." Cute boy, scrawny bitch. He's just returning the compliments, on a 1:1 scale. The NESTS counselors also told him THAT was polite. 'It's nice to reciprocate, K'.' For his part he just runs at her full bore and drives a fingerless, gloved fist in for the center of her mouth. It's instinct, pure and brutal. He barely seems to think about it, he just /does/ it. With a fluid grace that makes it look effortless... but still throws all his weight behind that careening, leatherclad knuckle sandwich. "Ain't this enough already?!?"
COMBATSYS: Juri interrupts Strong Punch from K' with Senpusha.
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K' 1/----===/=======|====---\-------\0 Juri
Juri is less impressed with this joker by the minute, but that was always the story. The pretty ones rarely had any substance to them and the more he talks the more her interest wanes. Her head bobs a little, reacting to the oncoming fist by cocking her head to the side and that sharply curved and sadistic smile.
"Hah, if that's how you like to play."
She hunkers down and the ground around her feet begin to roils and fill with the gathering Psycho energy; The power gathering is fast and usually beyond her capabilities to generate so much so quickly without augmentative power, The Feng Shui Engines starts to wind up and pour even more strength into her attack . She launches herself backwards in a violent ly spinning pinwheel the visually razor like thread of energy trailing the edges trailing her wind milling feet.
"Ora! Ora! Ora!"
The fists sudden impact against her cheek deforming her smile just a little but those large expressive violet eyes widen excitedly. The inside lining of her cheek beginning to tear and bruise under the weight of the blow the limber woman but she sails away through the air with a gentle twist and twisted spider like landing. She quickly rises and points towards her opponent with an offhanded gesture and mocking laughter.
%f"Take your time, there's no rush to the finish!"
It's about the outcome K' expected. After a fashion. One way or another, there was going to be a glorious trainwreck. The firebrand's fist makes contact - solid contact, even - but Juri is already moving. The flipping wheel of psionic wrath and honed leg stops K''s assault in a rather formidable instant. His glasses go flying from his face, a tear appears, shallow and bloody, along his exposed solid chest, and then the white-haired youth with the dismissive propensity for rudeness is airborne behind his shades. It's almost impossible to track the black-trailing hand that flashes out to snag them, even before he crashes back to the earth in a crouch, knees dragging two solid, lengthy trenches in the lawn bordering the airfield's office building. "So proud. Look at that! Maybe you can turn it around! Maybe it won't be a spectacular scene that takes you back to your painful childhood when you have to report failure!" K' sounds hopeful for Juri! It's almost like he /wants/ to agitate her. He flips again, skyward and into a perfect backflip - not unlike Juri's honed fluidity of movement.
In a flash of black, one abrupt afterimage traced in K''s aura echoes his location mid-ascent as if he were simply translocating from one point to another, the 'another' in this case being well above her. He has no accelerating engine, in fact for the longest time... K' had power /limiting/ technology. So the fire didn't simply consume him, burn him alive. For a minute. However: K' /is/ the advanced weapon. From a vast wellspring of legendary proportions, the Kusanagi bloodline fire erupts through its allegedly flawed conduit, a ripple in the air screaming as the elements are rent in accordance with K''s will, a bolt of roiling, crimson fire bursting forth in an angled, direct path to the ground; and Juri. The impact is akin to an airstrike, napalm liquid in the air as it rolls in all directions, sending flashfires burning outwards in all directions from its impact. -That's- not normal behavior, for chi, either. It's like the fire is fully manifest... completely real. To say nothing of /blistering/.
COMBATSYS: Juri overcomes Air Trigger EX from K' with Fuharenjin.
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K' 1/----===/=======|-------\-------\0 Juri
Juri Han stands alone in the face of of a projectile that's radiating enough heat she can feel its approach while still yards away and spiralling in towards her. The lean Korean woman combs aside one of the bangs of her face unnecessarily, it's a coy reaction that hides the sudden explosion of hatred and bile brought forth by insulting her and her figure, It's unusual for someone to prick her so badly she wants to see them burn so badly without being Vega, but the cute boy picked two very dangerous topics to care;lessly babble about. The then acceleration of the Feng Shui Engine betrays her own rising emotional state with the whine hitting a fevered pitch
"Tch, maybe you were right after all! MAYBE -YOU- SHOULD BURN!"
The burst of psycho power explodes from every pore awhile her attention diverts just a little towards the projectile itself. She throws up a leg to carelessly kick a fraction of the gathered energy towards it and smirks when the sizeable wave of violet wipes away all trace of the concentrated flame with its pure mass; But she's still going.
"HUaaaRGH DIE, DIE , DIE DIE! DIE!!"
The With each blow and twist of her body for another stroke she gathers all that delicious energy and throws it forward, a shotgun like spreading cone of alternating waves of her energy, all pretence of giving a damn about her mission and whatever is contained in that building completely abandoned. But Seth could never hope to give her a directive when she's actually angry like she is now.
COMBATSYS: Juri successfully hits K' with Fuharenjin.
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K' 1/-======/=======|-------\-------\0 Juri
It's almost like he /knows/. Some might say suicidal. They'd be so very, very wrong. The bolt of fire is torn asunder by rending waves of psychic force, burning off in a luminescent shockwave, dissipating outwards in every direction.. except through Juri. It's fairly beautiful, the tendrils of violet and fire incinerating one another, even as the remnants of that surge of force Rush over K'.
His smooth landing is completely botched, thrown instead of to the building's steps, into its wall. There's a shocking impact, as K' goes right /through/ the space beside the door, winding up in an abandoned rec room with a really, really old television set. Playing Brazilian soap operas. It's just not his day. The firebrand sighs deeply, and kicks back to his feet, brushing drywall from his hair and shaking his head abruptly, "Look I know it's painful. The first step is admitting you have a problem."
Like: A murderous psychic operative who wants to kill you. That counts as a problem, K'. Just as soon as he can see only one of her. Straightening his shades, K' drops back out of the makeshift entrance, landing hard on the grass. "Or do we not want to take our time anymore?"
COMBATSYS: K' gains composure.
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K' 1/--=====/=======|-------\-------\0 Juri
Back out on the strip Juri relishes that painfully slow, nay ~agonizing~ moment before the appearance of her opponent. It had almost been a given her would be back for more but there was always that hope in the back of her mind he would try to run and she could hunt him. It's a small disappointment that when he clumps down out of the hole he had so recently created in the building façade but the SIN spider is not where he left her or plainly in sight. Above and behind on the rooftop the heavy thrum and whine of the Feng Shui Engine reengaging is all the warning given before she drops down at the young man. A heel drop by way of greeting for a returning acquaintance.
Juri's eyes are still wild though it had felt rather cathartic to smash away on any opponent, this one would be particularly satisfying. All those frustrations and old demons transferring unhealthily onto the young man with his good looks and big mouth which does not help.
"Welcome back! I was starting to miss you-"
COMBATSYS: K' interrupts Heel Kick from Juri with Crow Bite EX.
*KNOCKED AWAY*
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K' 1/-======/=======|===----\-------\0 Juri
That's his answer, then, isn't it? Juri's just not interested in a little dinner and small talk, a little foreplay. No, for /some/ reason, the other experimental agent's attitudes have entirely changed. K' isn't an idiot - not /really/. When Juri isn't in view, his own instincts are on an extreme edge. She could come from anywhere, at any moment, and she does. He's fully aware of the forceful fury in that vengeful stroke, but K'?
K' is right there in the middle of it anyway. He throws himself into her. Juri doesn't even have time to reach him on the ground. Fire roils off the bioweapon's arms and hands, surges without burning from his very core. It erupts in surging plumes, intense burning twists accompanying the sudden rising haymaker that comes. Again, he's in one place; then the next.
On the ground, back to her. In the air, fist crashing into her midsection, spiralling up like a corkscrew. The kick-crazy killer's potent heel cleaves off K''s cheek, but he's already launching her right back roofward, the flames drawn to her hungrily as the ascending force is transferred.
... and all that heat literally /explodes/, erupting from existence with an angry detonation. "You know what the problem is, right? There's no soul in being some corrupt fucker's lapdog." He's helping!
There is an unintelligible 'guah' from the woman fighter lips at the point the two fighters collide and that swooping downwards momentum is powered right back through and carries her aloft. Her ribs creak to the point she is amazed she can't hear them flex and then crack before even the flame rolling down his arm engulfs her. She kill him. The high flung arc once again, but this time the force great enough so turn the descent into a heavy and distant landing. That body twisting fluidly but still completely out of control she crashes to the ground in an anti-climactic thud and rolls once before coming to a stop. Her hand thrown out to arrest her roll shifts and the elbow raises to press her from the groud,
That had hurt a whole bunch, there's no disguising it how carefully she climbs back to her feet, there are for more aches and pains in her body than she is showing but even what she was showing was more than she'd like. The back of her hand wipes her mouth while Juri sneers
"Theres nobody on this planet worth anything besides Killing or just playing with."
Aassured knowledge there, everyone who could ever have mattered to Juri Han was dead and all that was left was people worth killing and things that were fun.. until they broke. Shadaloo, South Korea, everyone, everywhere. You had never done anything for Juri Han.. so you were expendable! The trail of purple energy lifting away from the bright glowing star of her left eye continues to grow, she pushes the toy to its limits and fills her body with all the power it can muster. It feels ~so good~ that she can't help but chortle creepily. One delicate finger is raised to point out out the figure of K' and then she raises a finger cocking it like a gun as she closes one of her eyes to sight down it.
"Bang!"
The light from her eye becomes a solid bar of colour as Juri goes from still to 6th gear closing the distance between them at inhuman levels of speed the trail between them like an incoming laser beam as she draws back her fist as she takes a leaf from his style of fighting and throws a punch with her own powers rolling down her arm toward his vulnerable torso.
COMBATSYS: K' Toughs Out Juri's Feng Shui Engine!
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K' 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|-------\-------\0 Juri
K' follows Juri back to the ground, not far off, his back to a tall building alongside the runway, where the crew's own aircraft are hangared. He keeps his eyes on Juri, fire burning bright behind his gaze as he draws deeply on his own power, jaw clenching. Do or die time, this one's too deadly to draw anything out. Too deadly to deal with any way but his way. It brings a smirk to the white-haired firebrand's youthful features.
Juri's blink-and-you-missed-it-three-times assault plows into K' with force enough to send dust up on either side, the wind itself parting before Juri's strike as the blow sends K' hurtling. Even centered, preparing himself for it, channeling all his energy and intuition into this moment... it nearly ends him right there. The prime K slams into the hangar's reinforced steel siding. He leaves a K' shaped dent clearly in it. His gloved hand presses behind him, even as he hits. "Look I'm sorry.. your life is worthless... but it.." The other is wide to the other side... his sunglasses were removed, hurled forth midflight. They're halfway back to Juri, already. Those intense, fiery eyes refocus, push all the pain to his own reserves, the conflagration erupting within tangibly - through the dissipating reverberations of that tremendous blow, K' is already reversing the momentum, channeling the raw fury that her attack inspires with resilience the boy bioweapon almost shouldn't possess. "/JUST MAKES YOU A WASTE OF MY TIME/."
It's hard to call the moments when those whipping red shades might impact Juri Han, and the moment when K' appears /right behind them/ in a blur of black energy, whipping all his bodyweight into a flying forearm for her freaking skull, though. They all but happen right together, contained in two quick frames if any camera were watching.
COMBATSYS: Juri dodges K''s Chain Drive+.
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K' 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Juri
COMBATSYS: K' has left the fight here.
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Juri 0/-------/-------|
The Korean Taekwondoka remains fixed in the same posture she had been at the moment her fist had contacted against the young man. The baggy leggings and trailing length of her belt snapping forward with enough force to be pressed across the back of her legs. That's it! He can't have anything left after taking that blow, her optimistic assessment of how much life the young man has left in him proves to be not quite on the money. The computerized analysis downgrades his physical condition to levels where the fight should be about over. But instead the powers emanating from him aren't just measureable... she can feel it building right alongside the reported output levels which have expanded to fill the entire gauge. An overfill error flashes up over the retinal display but that's the least of her concerns at this point.
Juri's eyes narrow at the controlled stop and even more so as K' answers her attack with a verbal onslaught tailored to drive her completely over the edge. Worthless, the continuous barrage of that belief directed at her by the mighty lord Vega for years on end until she either bought into it or completely dismissed it.
"I think you made a mistake."
Her hand and those slim painted fingernails curling around from tightened fist to form a loose grip with which to catch those sunglasses, almost dismissively. Throwing them at her was hardly going to intimidate her any-
That next instant she has to hurl her entire body double, bent forward at the waist and having to strain to keep the twisted grimace from her face. The blow is beyond fast beyond fast, she can feel the passage it's passage as a wave of heat against her scalp and the tousling of her hair, the faint stink of hair being singed. But her face is strangely smooth and her eyes calm but for gritted teeth, that petulant chiding and the very narrow evasion.
"Everything that's fallen out of your mouth is so wrong it's just an unending stream of BULLSHIT."
Poised on one foot she hooks her right leg backwards and upwards up and over her exposed back like a scorpion's stinger and in a real display just how finely tuned and flexible her body really is as a fighting machine.
COMBATSYS: K' breaks through Thrust Kick from Juri with Eins Trigger!
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K' 0/-------/--=====|==-----\-------\0 Juri
Made a mistake. Probably. Hell, there was a time K' was pretty sure he WAS a mistake. Nothing but. No purpose left, an abomination, a tool. Well, he kind of still IS a tool. Even the stoic firebrand has to gape, for an instant, in surprise. Juri evades. She's just gone. /No one/ dodges that. Nobody! It's just not KOSHER, and for a second, K' almost gets very, very pissed off.
Mind, all of this happens in the same split second. A moment hung in time, all but invisible to the nonexistant onlookers. Juri's repositioned, K' is in deep shit.. and the bastard /still/ catches his sunglasses, stooping to snag them lightning quick, centimeters before they hit the ground. It would be slightly awkward if he weren't so damn unnaturally graceful with every chi-fueled movement. In the next instant, he slips them back over his eyes, and K' /sighs/. Dramatically. Shit. "In your world..."
K' observes, even as he comes about, full bore, unhesitating, unflinching in the renewed assault despite /barely/ hanging on. Bloodied, bruised, K' still fights. K' still snarks. "EVERYTHING IS BULLSHIT!!!" The fire? That shit still /burns/. In any other circumstance? The comment would probably be about her impressively limber limbs. Right now? K' just takes that shit on his gashed chest, but it barely makes contact. He's /on fire/. It suffuses him, he draws it up from every pore, uses every drop, every ounce of energy he has is what it takes to stay in this.
What it takes to ERUPT as he leaps clear, there and gone in an instant, kicking forth a wave of wildfire so uncontrolled and fervent one might worry about the jungle beyond the cleared base. Juri Han will have more immediate concerns, however. Half-wheezing, the whitehaired warrior lands somewhat roughly a few feet away, shaded gaze steady on Juri, his eyes burning with Kusanagi fire behind them like two pinpricks. She's good. Too good.
"Man. The world's really /fucked/. Isn't it?" There's no snideness to it. It might be the first words K' has spoken to Juri that really go from person to person. He sighs again. "Look I wasn't subtle, and you haven't won. You come at me again I'll break both of us just to fuck you up, and /I'm/ not afraid of the people who are gonna show up due to this damn mess." The airfield. The KO'ed crew. The trashed records. "You want to do this then let's do this; but at least have the balls to tell me who you work for, I'll burn less of your shit I promise." That very last bit might be a return to the pure bullshit spectrum.
Picking herself up, bit by painful bit Juri is far from in prime condition. Her back and spine is in agony , the spider like webbing on her back that holds her breastplate in place dangle uselessly around her torso like tiny flailing limbs; the plate itself crooked but immodestly covering. The Korean woman takes a step forward with her arms hanging and still shadowed the single bright point of her glowing eye all that's visible of her facial features.
"You have those stray dog eyes I like. But it's a real pity you're still clinging to something, You'd be so ~MUCH~ more interesting otherwise."
No matter who called the shots or had the money; Whose toys she played with. Step by step she advances each one coming faster until she is running right at him, loose locks of her hair stream behind her and her eyes are canted and gently half closed amusement written across her face rather than the wild savagery. She's glad someone else agrees, everything in her world was shit.. the display of her own status was looking eerily similar to that of the young man. Warnings, the persisting overfill error. The blaring red tags keep popping up intermittently and remaining in her field of vision but the kiai of her and patter of her feet on the paved runway is all she can hear, her eyes only for the young man as the Feng Shui Engine splutters trying to defy the warning protocols.
A stream of Violet psycho power knifes up between fighters alone with her high vertical kick, the trailing edge of her foot dragging up the formless and storm like mass, if he was thinking of a moment beyond this battle, beyond the moment then he was already commiting to lose! And he wasn't enjoying it to its fullest!!
COMBATSYS: K' fails to interrupt Fuhajin from Juri with Minutes Spike.
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Juri 0/-------/----===|
COMBATSYS: K' can no longer fight.
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Juri 0/-------/----===|
Right. Weren't they just discussing mistakes that K' makes? Add to the (long) list: Trying to reason with Juri Fucking Han. Clinging to something... it's not something he can argue with. It's not something that makes him weak. He's stronger than shit! He's K-fucking-Dash. He hisses, he hurls himself from his crouching stance, airborne to meet Juri. Fire flickers out behind him, trailing off a glove, but it's his heavy boot and flying knee that seek to lead the collision. Tough as the renegade may be, however? That kick comes in too hard. The psychic power is too intense. It cleaves through K', rips vision from his eyes, sets his ears to a constant, deafening roar of protest. Her foot is barely felt, even as it reverses his momentum.
Even as the firebrand sails clear back the way he came, landing in a skid on the runway, the leather of his jacket squacking tacit and extreme objection to the treatment. K''s back agrees. So do his shoulders. So does most of him, right now. He skids to a gradual stop, somewhat limply. He might have a little protest left in him, but he doesn't use it now. He just sliiiides along the dusty airstrip until he's starring up at wobbly, unfocused sky. So this is how it ends, K'. You piss off some psychotic bitch with daddy issues who's WAY stronger than she looks.
In his head-ringing, eyes useless daze, all that really comes out is a mumbled 'bitch.. issues... than ughh...... '
<Baby Eagle, we're picking up a lot of... interference. Proceed with caution.>
She's striding evenly through the underbrush when the words echo in her ear, prompting a deep outbreath. An alert was raised from the remote airstrip some time ago; and the lack of response from the crew in the intervening half-hour was already clue enough that something major was in progress. The only puzzle - beyond the obvious and rather-related 'who' - is why this particular site would be targeted. Following their very visible involvement in Iraq, the Ikari Warriors have been preparing for the possibility of counter-action, either from China or more likely Shadaloo themselves. Despite the saying, all's not fair in love and war.
Odd circumstances often give rise to the most unexpected and dangerous meetings.
"Roger, command. Proceeding."
She doesn't bother acknowledging the caveat-- Whip didn't need telling that this could be complicated; least of all when she reaches visual range and sights a dissipating spark of searing flame. Her senses go wild. There's something familiar about that, though less so the rushing eruption she hears a couple of moments later. That unstated caution does enter her step even as she quickens it, sticking close to the outlying aircraft, moving with trained stealth around the edge of the hangar. There's fight in progress; that's good.
It's a distraction.
When the leather-clad scion of stolen flame hits the unyielding surface of the strip, so does a resounding bootheel come down, sending an echo off the broad side of the nearby hangar. Stood in the sun is a tall, female figure, clad in light khakis. Arm extended, the burning light of the skies deflects off polished chrome as the interloper makes herself known with the unmistakable form of an IMI Desert Eagle. It's the perfect cover for her own astonishment as she realizes who she's about to shoot - most people don't look far beyond the gun.
Even if Juri's a little more wise, Whip isn't like ordinary folk either. She's taken bigger things in her stride. K' said something about not being afraid? Even if fighters were terrified of guns, of the single bullet capable of piercing skull and brain; of bringing a human life to it's untimely end... he would have no reason to fear the sleek and shining barrel levelled upon him for a fleeting instant before it shifts with a smooth adjustment of the arm to instead paint an invisible target upon the pleasantly pale forehead of Juri Han.
A confident smirk twists Whip's pretty mouth as she speaks to her former target.
"Looks like you're in need of a little help. What, did you forget how to unlock your cellphone again?"
As if to demonstrate her greater technical aptitude, there's a telltale *click* as she releases the safety on her handcannon.
Her foot touches down hastily, balance is a shaky and the adrenaline is running rampant through her system; it's keeping the pains at bay, but not the effects of the various injuries. The retinal display in her left eye glitches and the vertical sync of the image begin to drift upwards and waver akin to an old television set on the verge of failure. That's it though? She wins! The peal of laughter as K' falls is nothing short of pure unadulterated malevolence. There! There! That's what you get!
"Whats that? I didn't hear it over you falling flat on your ASS!"
She stalks forward but finds she has to close her left eye to quell the rising feeling f nausea, Seth would have to content himself with the footage of this new guy in action as the price for whatever repair the prototype engine might need.
"Uahhha, are you dead already? That'd be too bad. I want to play some more."
The glint of light of the desert eagle causes Juri to freeze and turn her head gently towards the source. Her hand raises to cover her left eye while she sullenly stares this new arrival down. Looks like he had some backup after all.
"It's pretty rude interrupting like that! We were just getting to know each other!"
That flirtatious and indignant drawl but Juri has already taken a half step backwards, away from K' as well as the latest arrival. She opens her left eye to focus on the girl, the image being recorded is at it's all time worst, but its enough for a cursory record of the girl. Maybe even part of the unit she was looking for.
"Oi, Are you one of the Ikari."
Juri blithely asks aloud rather than waiting for any kind of investigation, finding the Ikari had been the whole purpose of coming out here, It didn't hurt to ask since they were already becoming aquainted. The helicopter above circles around for the far edge of the airstrip though its altitude is dropping fast, that's the signal for a pickup. The Korean lingers only for an answer, and regret of not being able to play further with the young man. Of everyone there Juri maintains the most indolent of posture and movement, even more so than K' the woman could make slouching look comfortable and natural.
It's kind of surreal. On the one hand there's the bloodied Juri ranting, on the other there's a voice he'd know anywhere. Hell, the safety clicking off is as good as a fingerprint, for that matter, by now. K' hasn't moved much during his opponent's posturing and winposing, and he doesn't move much when Whip plays her card, either. He just kind of lolls his head to the side, spitting out some dust and looking over towards his Ikariward sibling. He coughs, and there's a little bit more dust.
Not really feeling super conversational, somehow, K' takes the moment to recover his bearings, to collect himself. He might need strength on a moment's notice, so he uses none while he doesn't. Just takes it all in, nonetheless. There's a subtle rise and fall of his stomach, shallow and erratic due to the pain, but. K' finds something super, duper funny right now.
Juri's backpedalling is met immediately by a mirroring motion from the Ikari, distance matched with a smooth and easy gait that keeps the weapon's barrel perfectly aligned. It's not just a sign of her willingness to fight if necessary - it serves a very practical purpose, keeping her at the correct range to maintain absolute accuracy, to ensure any unleashed shot drills precisely the spot that Whip intends.
Comments on her lack of manners are reserved until the Korean returns fire.
"Pot, kettle?" Whip quips matter-of-factly, curving a brow before she risks a swift glance toward her downed sibling. His quivering stomach is noted well enough - the soldier girl's mouth pulling to a playfully pouty line as she instantly returns her gaze to Juri Han. "Some things are best kept between friends, and an unconscious little birdie's told me we're anything but that. Sorry." Her nose wrinkles, and then she smiles, "I'm a Libra, though. Apparently that means I have a generous spirit and love a good time! How about you?"
Her pleasantry perhaps goes some way to masking the fact that she's started moving again, this time without Juri's lead, skirting about until she stands only a handful of feet from K'. As the helicopter grows ever nearer, she's bracing for attack from above as well as to the fore; clearly whoever this woman is, she's potent to take down someone on her brother's level. But she's prepared to defend him. There's no sense hiding that much-- and it doesn't take a genius to tell that Juri's flagging, no matter how nonchalantly she acts.
When she has the chance - namely, when Juri's answering her chirpy riposte, Whip quietly asides to the fallen.
"Your girlfriend's very cute. Sort of a loudmouth, though. I'm guessing you're not choosing a ring just yet?"
A twisted smile on an otherwise pretty face , par for the course today. This was not a day or place for answers and keeping quiet or being cryptic was just playing along. As the other woman advances Juri slowly retreats. A gentle meandering step backwards as if she had made the decision to go of her own accord and was in no way threatened and bloodied. Playful if mean spirited smile crossing her face and its tone inflected in speech. The girl would pay for coming between the SIN spider and her meal, that had been a hard won prize and though her only real pleasures are cruel ones her intelligence and drive to survive overrule.
"You're a funny kid, but you have alot to learn about manners. ~We should play together next time. Later!"
Running, Juri pulls herself aboard the black helicopter without a further word and the drone of the engine increases in pitch as the helicopters lifts from the ground, beating the air into submission and taking her off and far away from the airstrip in a smooth climb; The pilot keeping it low and fast following the contour of the landscape. In the rear of the Chopper Juri loses interest in the Cute fires tarter and his friend when they are out of her sight. Her head hangs and eyes drift closed as she once again has to contend with the motion of the helicopters tight turns and now with the Feng Shui Engine acting up. A long suffering sigh as she draws one of her long legs up to rest her lap and flops backwards, head resting on the back of the seat and arms spread wide heedless to the disarray of her clothing and the scandalous disarray of her purple breastplate hanging askew against her breasts. While her head lolls she recalls how irritated that guy had made her, it was always the pretty ones. Desite her mood its only a few minutes into the flight before she is sound asleep, she just needed a good workout. Juri is one of those types that can sleep anywhere.
"We were... just gettin' to know each other." COUGH. Hack. It's not so much that he's still that hoarse, it's that he's still laughing that hard. K' smirks and pushes himself up to a leaning position, ignoring his injuries. "Tell me you didn't just.." Heh.. heh heh.. "show up to pull my ass out of the fire." This is hilarious to K', yes. He barely moves in time to see Juri Han board the chopper, but he waves a gloved hand her way nonetheless. A little twisty back and forth. Polite, really. Which means he's probably mocking her.
A moment later, he's flicking the chopper the bird. "When did she suddenly care about manners? Did she just say 'Laters'?" He's almost right. Give him a break. "Shit, I /really/ hit a nerve with all that crap about her daddy. Isn't it always the way?" He's pretty chill for a guy who just got literally ploughed into the dirt. He digs the crumpled pack of warning-wrapped Brazilian cigarettes from his jacket pocket and dumps out about eight before he finds one that's not broken, popping it into his mouth and lighting it with a lick of fire that rolls outwards to the tip of his thumb, flaring like an autumn sunset.
"Marry her?" He registers it a little late, watching the black chopper dissapear into the sky. "Fuck that, bitch probably cries and claws in the sack." Sure, K', it's crossing the line twice. Especially compounded with the daddy crack; but it's his duty to rattle Whip, even if she is his 'older' little sister. He takes a hit of cheap tobacco and sighs it out, hopping to his feet with a stifled groan, "Looks like I'm not the only people wondering about these Ikari douchebags. You know who the hell that was?"
No, of course they didn't exchange names. It's K'.
A lot of people would probably have all their buttons pushed by Juri. As for Whip...
"That is so rude," she protests with an upward tilt of her chin, watching the chopper take flight as she casually spins the bulky handgun around in her grasp, before flipping it behind her in both hands. Resecuring the safety and holstering it take place seemingly in the same motion - it's been practiced for countless hours, the weapon one with the woman, as they all are. When it's done, she brings her arms back to the fore, flicking out her wrists and massaging gloved palms as she glances at K'. "I have excellent manners."
Wounded pride reigns for perhaps one point six seconds, whereon the former assassin *burps*.
"Hm," she smacks her lips, adding in vague afterthought, "Pardon me."
What? NESTS never trained her not to be an enormous hypocrite. She may be the more ruly of the pair left behind upon the landing strip, but neither of them are precisely saints. She's less easily-amused than he is, at least, merely emitting a grunty snort and shaking her head as she takes a moment to glance over her brother's injuries properly; she's got a good eye, but couldn't take too much time out when the crazy lady was right there - battle-damaged or not, she'd obviously had the capability to hit like a damn wrecking ball.
"You made jokes about her /dad/?" Asks Whip with an incredulous, but long-suffering and mostly-playful eyeroll, glancing very intentionally away as he sparks up and puts cancer-stick to mouth. It's totally her place to judge, but she can scold him about that another time - right now he's being an asshole in an entirely different way, and well... maybe she's just glad to see him. "She had a nice body, though. Shame she couldn't stand up straight enough to show it off properly; a bit of discipline would not go awry there!"
That's about as expert an opinion as it's possible to get. Even if she does belch and snore...
Girl knows a thing or two about discipline.
When K' asks his question, Whip is already walking away, circling around to his back with a wave of her hand to clear the rising cigarette smoke from her face - it's not a prudish gesture, it's something she does completely without thinking or otherwise reacting - and glancing toward the devastation nearby. Burning holes in the wall, unconscious bodies inside, desks overturned and whatever else? Not hard to guess whose handiwork. Distantly she replies, "No idea, and we're not douchebags. Well, only to those that ask for it. I mean, there was that one time in Kazakhstan where I--..." Suddenly she snaps her mouth shut, giving a little 'hmph'.
Quite enough of that. She turns and steps into her brother's vision once more, bending down to meet his eye.
"Why are you /here/ anyway? And I don't believe for one second you just wanted to see me."
"A few." K' confirms, sounding not in the least bit chagrined about the entire affair. "Some assassin bitch with eighteen and a half screws loose out here to drag information out through the tonsils spouting off about how the world is shit and everyone is shit obviously just is conditioned to hell and back and fucking inverted. Useless bitch." It's intentionally harsh, if not entirely serious. Whip would know the difference. He eyes the sky in a full circle around them with a haphazard skuff of his booted foot here, and a kick of the dirt there, while he smokes. "I keep figuring if I try hard enough, I can explode the crazy out. Implant a clue. It's like Inception." It's nothing like Inception. That first part may be entirely serious, however.
"I told you, I was wondering about these Ikari douchebags." The term is uncorrected thus far, he's (probably) not including her though. "I wanted to talk to someone who might know." He's actually talked to a lot of someones, lately. Maxima's getting kind of sick of it. "Plus, if you hadn't noticed, they're setting off fucking nukes and the world's knee deep in even DEEPER shit, and you're tromping around with a bunch of idiot cowboys." Translated from K-Dash: He figured she needed him.
Yes, she knows the difference. The important information is extracted almost unconsciously, dropped into neat little filing cabinets far more shiny and carefully arranged than her out-of-battle demeanour would ever suggest they could be. Dangerous. Employed by somebody MORE dangerous. Volatile. Untrustworthy. Probably no hope of forming any kind of reasonable conversation, least of all finding an ally. So much for 'cute'.
Then he drops a movie reference. She's used to that, too.
"Hmmmmmm," Whip remains peering into K''s eyes as she so intones, with an absolute and unerring solemnity of her own, before reaching forward without any form of physical permission to rap her knuckles on his unstyled ivory mop. It's not hard, but she's hardly being gentle either - he can take it. "Sometimes I wonder if enough explosions will knock something loose in there, too. Careful, bro, someday you might hit 'em too hard and wake up in the real world." There's wishful thinking if ever there was.
As he continues into actual explanations, she straightens up and strokes the hair back from her face, stifling a yawn as she looks out toward the rapidly retreating helicopter. For all their play, Juri's obviously a genuine threat; she'll have to comb the file for her later, pass something along to her comrades. Even if they are 'cowboys' as her darling sibling surmises. That garners another snort.
"Please. You know I'd be /incredible/ with a lasso."
"But," she swiftly changes track, a smile spreading on her lips as she reaches down again, this time to outright ruffle that mussed white hair, "I'm glad you care." That sounds genuine, touched with the warmth she actually feels but never once excepts him to bounce back. Besides, he's hot enough as it is. Her hot brother. Ahem. She's back to business in an instant, clapping gloved hands together, "Right. Better pick yourself up before the cavalry get here and start shooting at you on principle. I'll radio back to base and let them know we've got an extra head staying for dinner, and to make up the best guest bedroom."
Translation: make Private Jenkins relinquish the top bunk currently used to store his supply of hooch.
"I'm sure Castle Douche has room for one more."
She's equally sure K' is going to absolutely love it. What could possibly go wrong?
'Cute' loses several levels when it's mainly concerned with violence. It's sort of a problem K' is familiar with, at this point. As she raps him on the head, he ashes his cig to the side and protests, "Ow, goddamn, watch it." Sure, it might not normally sting so bad, but. He's bleeding there, or very near there! ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE. He doesn't make a move to swat Whip away until she starts toying with his hair, though. "Cowboys, yahoos, douchebags, front for NESTS, whatever." He just kind of puts that out there. Reality indeed.
The renegade paces alongside his sister, and possibly in front of her, moving towards the base perimeter. He doesn't seem concerned about the folks inside, but hey... one never knows. "So far I haven't found shit." He admits. "Figure it's time to take a look at 'em. Grab some free meals. Keep their enemies from killing my stupid sister. Make sure they know how shit is."
What could possibly go wrong?
Log created on 00:02:53 03/12/2012 by K', and last modified on 16:24:16 03/13/2012.