[Delight] There was something about this part of the city at this time of night. When the sun had set solid and sure behind the horizon, when dusk fled and took its dull grays of early evening with it. When the moon, a fattening crescent tonight, rose behind the slate colored clouds that choked the sky. The city lights gleamed off the bellies of the clouds and reflected back down upon the city, giving the illusion of light, changing the natural darks of the clouds to a dull reddish glow instead.
You see, Thursdays were the new Fridays. This was the night to go out and party and drink and revel. People crowded together on sidewalks, and even more tightly once inside past the weak chill of autumn evening, snugging up against one another on the dance floors of whatever bars, clubs, or dusty dingy taverns they could find.
Here in Chinatown, the Dens were making their money, and the street vendors siphoned a prophet as a result. The entire neighborhood was alight with the glow of neon, blues and greens and pinks, bright yellows and oranges and reds to draw tourists in, to declare authenticity, promising the closest thing to a Hong Kong nighttime experience that the average person could hope. In basements and backrooms, illicit and largely illegal pleasures were peddled, and in alleys those that couldn't handle themselves with such stimulation were tossed to sober up or totter home, unstable, from side doors by large men with shaved heads.
In the shadows, though, ticked the things that you should be most worried about.
[Cordelia] To say that Cordelia partied was a bit of an understatement. She was bound and determined to make Wednesday the noew Friday, which made Thursday the new Saturday, which meant it was the day to continue your partying instead of, you know, just getting warmed up.
She'd told her friend that she was going to call it a night though, namely because even though she was bound and determined to party hard and fast, the rest of the world wasn't. And Cordelia had dance classes to teach in the morning. Which she determined she couldn't do while hung over.
Which meant, of course, she wasn't drinking tonight.
So, Cordelia left wherever she was, with the expressed intention of calling a cab and going home. Cordelia holds her ridiculously expensive, not-to-be-named cell phone in one hand and has her ridiculously large, inexpensive blue purse slung over one shoulder. Cordelia takes a few steps away from the door of wherever she had been for the evening, and got on to calling for a ride.
[Linus Ulricson] "I want! A Fucking! Piece! of Duck! You Stupid Chinaman!"
She was screaming at him. Namely because she didn't understand much english except insults and the ignorance of white men. Linus was using both with excessive impressiveness, leaning as far over the butcher counter to yell at the top of his lungs. His fists, wrapped in the same gray gloves without fingers, were set on the edge of the cabinet, while most of the restaurant's patrons were oriental, offended and half out of their chairs on the old woman's side. The only reason they hadn't jumped to was the vicious level of heat coming off of the old woman behind the counter, hand grabbing at a Cleaver bigger than a pig's head.
"Flied Lice?!" Linus is grasping at chopsticks in search of a weapon of his own, eyes on the Cleaver and the Woman inbetween. The restaurant was across the street, convergently enough, from Cordelia's hotspot of choice.
[Delight] Cordelia had been out to party, goodness knows what event she was celebrating. Freedom? Veteren's Day? The fact that her family was an ocean away and she didn't have a proper guardian keeping a proper watch on her? Goodness knows, goodness cares. The fact of the matter was that Cordelia (sober this time around) was dressed in her Thursday finest (which meant it was likely a sparkly short-hemmed dress, or something of the like.
That would make her blend into the crowd were it not for her height, her face, and the thrum of royalty that hummed on her skin and flashed in her motions. An average joe couldn't tell her apart from any other model-esque figures, but those weren't what she had to worry about. It wasn't Harold Hammond in Accounting that she was warned about on a nigh-daily basis.
It was what lurked beyond him as he purchased a Chinese streetwalker's services along the side of a small convenience store.
Back in the slim alleyway, snug between a crumbling and (miraculously) still in business hotel and a closed down banking building, came a sound that stood out from the thump of music within clubs and the call of workers soliciting their goods (food, admittance to dens, sex). A child's screech that dissolved away into a declaration of 'No!' found its way to Cordelia's ear. She was just close enough to hear.
[Cordelia] She'd broken her glasses recently. As such, she was wearing ridiculously expensive contact lenses, which means she's a tall, noble statuesque blonde without ridiculously nerdy glasses to temper her. One of the benefits of short-hemmed sparklie dresses is that you can actually cover a decent amount of ground.
Cordelia turns, catching a somewhat familiar voice talking about how he wants. A fucking. Piece. of duck! It's all information overload. She turns her head, and her attention was elsewhere until she hears a declaration of No. Her attention snaps back to reality.
The benefit of being in a short, short dress is that she can really cover some ground. Doesn't have to worry about getting stuck on anything. She's unhindered.
So, she turns. And she walks. She walks towards a slim alleyway with the kind of purpose that said you need to get out of my way. If there were crowds, she would push through. If there was no one in the way, she didn't have to worry too much. She rounds the corner, and tightens her stomach muscles-
"Hey!"
[Linus Ulricson] Hey!
Linus is half-way through something about 'Chinks and Chongs' when that sound arrests his attention and he pulls back, with chopsticks in hand all threatening and demented. His brow perks beneath a gray skullcap and he might well have bellowed something at the purebred kin dressed for semi-success were it not for the sudden
Thunk!
of that Meat cleaver splitting the plastic siding on the metal cabinet that houses all the meats available for your dining pleasure. He snaps his attention back to the old woman, who only managed to miss his hand by a few inches, due to her diminutive height and the generous size of the Cabinet she was behind when striking. He snarls, something vaguely inhuman only for thought processes to begin to grind in his head.
Purebred fang vs. Angry Chinawoman = I want my Damn fucking Duck already
He continued sneering at the old Woman even as he raised his voice in the shop.
"What The Fuck are You Doing?!" A brief glance told him stories of what she might be contemplating standing infront of a dark alleyway, yelling at the top of her lungs. A few dozen yards between him, her and whatever she was yelling all nobly at, with a drunk crowd and three types of Litany between his best ace in the hole.
Purebred kin + Dark Alley + no shifting + Weak kneed geek = Beatdown in Spades of Epicdom
"FuccccKKKKKKKkkkkI'msocomingbackformyGODdamnduckyoucrazycrackjobgranny!" Like lightning he speaks, confusing the blistered air of chinese standing at tables and from chairs. Enough that's inching toward the door, chopsticks at the ready.
[Delight] Linus is creating a fuss over duck in a restaurant, effectively insulting and pissing off most everyone there, be they working or sitting at a table enjoying their own slice of duck. The old woman that he was harassing, however, had seen to much in this godforsaken city to take abuse laying down, no matter how unnerving the offender was. She screamed right back, and when a young man stood to come to her aid she seized a meat cleaver and brandished it, a clear sign to get the hell out of her store, even if she was too worked up to relay it in English.
Cordelia, along with everyone else on the city block, noticed the ruckus, and stared/squinted to identify the familiar voice. She was pulled aside, though, by the protest of an unidentified child. She turned to investigate, marching proudly toward the alleyway, intent on rescuing some helpless kid from some bad person, maybe by scolding them into their place or whisking the child away from whatever danger they were escaping. Maybe 911 could help in this case? Maybe it wouldn't be something involving monsters and mayhem?
(Doubtful)
She rounded the corner into the alleyway, body tense, with air in her lungs to shout out and scare off the bad shadows, and almost like a scene in a slow motion movie Linus noticed, recognized the thought process and intent, and started to edge back, to make his way to the door, to escape the insulted anger of more or less everyone in the establishment with him and save the Kinfolk from her own idiocy.
Around the corner, Cordelia was met with force before 'Hey!' had fully escaped her lungs. Not violent force, not an attack, but rather a small person that was about as tall as her belly button slamming into her. A young boy, maybe seven years old, dressed in a red T-shirt and blue jeans and covered in dirt and dust, had been running headlong out of the alleyway only to have the giantess of a young woman step into his path. He'd yelp in surprise more than pain and topple backward, hands flying in front of him like he could defend himself with aimless, weak-wristed slaps at nothing.
"Ahhhdon't! Go away!"
[Cordelia] It's like the little boy ran straight into a Barbie doll. He comes up right about to her belly button, and she makes a little squeek. The female crouched down, knees on the ground instead of towering a head above everything else. She looks to the inside of the alley, trying to get a good look at what was going on. Cordelia looked from there to the young boy.
Her stomach growled at her, but it stays quiet and understated. She reaches forward, and offers the little boy the phone.
"What happened? Are you okay? I'm sorry," she apologizes for contributing to knocking the youngster over. She purses her lips, and her attention doesn't really waver. A beat passes, "do you have someone you can call?"
[Linus Ulricson] "What the Fuc- Ow! Hey! Fuck off Lee!"
Linus, for all intensive purposes, starts out a slapfight with one of the young Chinese men in the restaurant, who is a good four inches shorter than the Godi. He scrunches up his face in the process, turning a momentary deaf ear and shoulder to Cordelia in the middle of the restaurant's front door.
"Said Fug off!"
[Delight] The kid that had collided with Cordelia had fallen backward and hit the pavement hard on his rear end, but bounced right back up to his feet as though nothing had happened, arms folded in close to his chest, shivering and staring wild-eyed at the real life Barbie that had crouched down so that she wasn't towering over him, holding out a phone and talking with a heavy accent that spoke of Mediterranean seas and bull fights.
He blinked at her, wiped his nose on his wrist and the side of his hand in the same shameless way that every child seemed capable of, and shook his head.
When he spoke, it was clearly, free of any adorable childhood speech impediment, such as lisping or stuttering. "My uncle... He's fighting with some man. He's supposed to be taking me to a movie! We're missing it." Clearly, he was more upset about the fact that he was missing a movie than he was about his uncle fighting. That, it seemed, was a commonplace thing.
(But then why the shrieking to begin with?)
[Cordelia] She clears her throat, and starts to put her phone away. He has a guardian, right. Barbie nods again. This is common for children, they are largely egocentric. They're more concerned with their immediate needs than the larger picture. But... something seemed odd.
The female looks at him again, and starts to stand up. She eyes the child again, "you sit out here and wait. I'll go check to see if things are okay."
Cordelia eyes the alleyway again. Her stomach turns and something feels wrong about all of this. She wants to help. She wants to do something, but... Cordelia knows that something about this doesn't feel right. All of this doesn't feel right. The blonde adjusts the bag over her shoulder and looks in again.
Tall blonde women have no business running headlong into trouble. This did not seem right.
She stands up anyway.
[Linus Ulricson] Linus is caught up in a headlock, delivering kidney shots to the Chinaman while two of his brothers throw half-assed karate chops and jabs at the Godi's ribcage and back. There isn't much skill involved in the entire thing to really warrant any actual damage being done except for egos lost in the melee but then, those were usually a post-combative issue. Ask anyone, the cheering spectators, cursing participants, even lil' granny in the doorway waving her cleaver around encouragingly?
They're having a ball.
[Delight] Linus was having what any Get of Fenris would call a jolly old time, caught in the restaurant with arms around necks and old ladies waving large cleavers in the air.
Cordelia, on the other hand, was walking face-first into the heart of an alleyway in Chinatown. She advised the boy to stay and wait, and started back into the alleyway where the boy had come running from. The boy, though, like any other seven year old being told what to do by complete strangers, tagged along right at her heels, arms curled into his chest for warmth. Whatever jacket he might have had, it was discarded or lost somewhere, or maybe he simply hadn't worn one at all. Maybe his uncle was a negligent man and really shouldn't be watching his nephew for any period of time, be it thirty minutes or overnight?
It was rough to say, precisely. But what could be sure was that the kid hadn't been lying (by much), because the deeper they got back into the alley, where it met a T-junction with the broader alley that set behind the hotel and boarded up old banking building, the sounds of a scuffle and the 'HaHA!' of fight enthusiasm could be heard.
[Cordelia] There's a fight going on behind her, and she looks back. there are limbs flying and large meat cleavers and the blonde squints before she noticed- yeah. That's... she knows whoever that is. Cordelia starts pulling for names. Lukas or Litmus or- Linus. That was his name. Linus.
She looks again at the alleyway. Cordelia takes a few steps in. One, two... she gets far enough in that she can hear that there is fighting going on over there, behind a hotel and a boarded up old bank. She purses her lips, looking back because she noticed the boy is following her.
"Chiquito, you need to go wait," she insists. The sounds of the scuffle are heard, and Cordelia takes a few steps back. She seems determined to not go much further than she has gone right now. She shoos the boy off to the mouth again.
[Delight] "No."
The boy's word was firm and determined, stubborn and complete with the outward pout of a lower lip. He shook his head, and scraggly brown hair growing out of a bowl cut, streaked with dirt, waved in his face and tickled over his ears. His little nose, freckled (or was that just more dirt?), wrinkled up in stubborn defiance and he planted his feet when she stopped, refusing to shuffle even an inch backwards. "I have to stay with Uncle Jake. Mom said so."
He could be too interested to see what's going on to listen, he might be ignoring her orders because he didn't think they were important. Or he could be a scared kid in a strange part of town that didn't want to be left alone, putting on a brave face so the pretty lady didn't know he was scared.
One way or the other, the sounds of fighting came to a stop up ahead with a low 'whump!' sound, and the boy refused to move.
[Linus Ulricson] "Enough! Enough!"
He's flailing his limbs around spasmodically, fists collecting on shoulders and chests, enough to get some distance between himself and the others. His features are a little red-struck and angered, breathing laboured and clothes ruffled. Grandma is waving her cleaver still and the Chinamen are standing just infront of her, fists up and breathing just as hard.
"I need a minute." And he leans down on his knees, shaking his face until his cheeks flap. It is momentary, a sneer crossing his features briefly before a gloved hand raises and wipes under his nose. The crowd is beginning to bark for more and Linus is sucking in deep lungfuls of breath. He dips a hand inside his jacket, under the shirt, rubbing at his collarbone briefly...
Then, cursing, turns a quick glance over the crowd to see if he can spy Cordelia, who's vanished briefly into the alley. Another quick curse and-
"Hey! Hey Farm Boy! Yeah! Yeah! You fight now huh?! You Fight now?!" To which the response is a snapping finger and a sudden flare of [b]Rage[b], leveling that deadly digit at the sneering oriental.
"I will rip off your lower jaw and piss freely down your throat without a moment's hesitation you Gump-fed dumpling, don't Fuck with me."
And a roar comes up from the crowd, drowning out the noise from across the street.
[Cordelia] "No, chiquito, it's not safe, you need to go wait," she insists to the little boy. He doesn't seem to be moving too much, but that's neither here nor there. She pushes towards the front of the alley, and places a hand on the boy's shoulder to try and usher him out of the alley with her.
Not good, not good, not good, is all she can think. He doesn't seem to be listening to her orders, though, so instead fo she choses to reason with him. Her voice takes on a half-sweet quality, like she's trying to get what she wants. It usualyl works with adults, so why wouldn't it work with kids? "We'll both wait. It will be okay, come on."
Cordelia doesn't have that Motehr Theresa smile, but she is far from plastic. She doesn't seem like the type that's going to come down and give the shirt off her back and do anything someone asks. More Princess Diana than Mother Theresa. (doesn't matter which, they're both dead.) She's trying to put on the face of an authority figure, but it's really hard to be an authority figure when you are, in fact, a Barbie doll. All tall and long-legged and blonde.
[Linus Ulricson] "You Pull hair!"
"Get a haircut you fucking hippy-"
"Fight like girl!"
"Fuck you say?!"
"Grandma cut you Round eye!"
"Racial terms now?!"
"You call me Chink!"
"I called Grandma a Chink! I called you a Gook!"
Things went downhill articulately after that.
[Delight] Cordelia believes firmly that there's something bad in the back of that alleyway, and she doesn't want the boy going back there, even though she's willing to go back there herself, even though he'd come running from that direction in the first place, which says he'd been back there in the first place. She puts a hand on his shoulder and starts to steer him toward the front of the narrow side alley that they'd collided in initially.
Unfortunately, the boy doesn't want to go easy.
"NO!" The word is screeched out, and he jerks his shoulder out from under her hand and yells out: "Uncle Jake!"
It's uncanny, the response to this boy's distress. Maybe 'Uncle Jake' wasn't as bad an uncle as initially mused, because he's stepping around the corner into the side alley before the exclamation from the young boy is finished completely. He's dressed in a pale blue button up shirt, the nice crisp kind intended for nights out and club hopping, along with a pair of dark indigo jeans overtop black boots. He's a heavier set man, not obese, but thick in the way that said he had heavy muscle under a cushioning layer of fat. His hair was short and gingery-red, and grew down from the sideburns into a beard over his weak chin, no doubt to define it better.
"Hey." The word is calm, and his voice is deep like a bass drum. He's taking his hand out of his pocket, like he'd just tucked something away, and letting his hands hang loose and relaxed at his sides. "Pretty thing, you want to let him go?" And then, to the boy, with a slow and treacherous smile. "Patrick, quit throwing a fit, get back over here."
[Cordelia] She puts her hands up immediately, like she just put her hand on the stove and realized oh, yeah, that's hot. Her eyes widen and she blinks once, twice, then looks at the man with the gingery red hair and the slightly fat lip. He looked pretty well built... all things considered. He's a bigger guy, but he probably played football back int he day or something.
Defensive lineman. Big wall with a weak chin, obviously not with a glass jaw because he wasn't bleeding any or he hadn't lost consciousness in the fight.
"He told me you were in a fight, maybe you should go," she tells him, half warns him. Again, it's difficult to be an authority figure when you're tall and thin. She puts her hands on her hips, and her shoulder bag stays exactly where it was. She looks at the uncle again.
"... where's the other guy? Is he okay?"
[Linus] Several fists and bellows later and Linus emerges from the crowd of spectators with a bloody lip and a vaguely swollen eye, snarling and spitting clots of red off to one side while pausing just long enough to throw a one-finger salute up at the China-boys who are producing much of the same in their own language. Of the exchange, Linus seems to have been dealt the worst of it, foregoing fair numbers for a brief spasm of bloodlust that most Fenrir seem to possess. The only difference being Linus' inability to cope or be satisfied with the end results.
His hands and arms are dancing, trying to bestill the adrenaline pumping through his system even as he shoulders and shoves his way through the crowd, who shoulder and shove back with generous laughter. A bumper car ride later and he's outside of the rapidly dispersing crowd, eyes lifting to try and find a priority he has half forgotten.
"Tha' fuck she go?" He turns in place, wobbling slightly in the process before righting himself with a grunt, a snort and a hacking wad of phlegm, blood and spit into the gutters.
(2 Bashing)
[Delight] 'Patrick', once released, actually didn't scamper to his uncle's side. Rather, he shook his shoulders like he was offended to have even been touched at all. If he had a jacket, he probably would've adjusted it, but seeing as that all he had on his back was that plain red T-shirt, he just plucked at the chest of the garment and moved casually, perhaps even grudgingly, toward 'Uncle Jake.'
'Uncle Jake' in turn watched Cordelia with nothing but amusement lighting his eyes. He took his time rolling the sleeves of his pale dress shirt back down, buttoning the cuffs appropriately around his wrists. He glanced sideways to the kid, and when he was near enough and the sleeves were back where they were supposed to be, unrolled from the elbows, the large man reached out and ruffled the hair on the boy's head, then gave a small, harmless shove of the kid's skull to direct him back off to the side. A glance was cut to his knuckles, sporting a small pair of cuts near the center (probably from someone's teeth).
"Oh come on, you don't actually care about a smart-assed stranger nursing his wounds and digesting his booze behind a club." That said, he started to walk toward Cordelia, his gait slow, lazy, and far from threatening. "One question, though, what're you up to out here, huh? Where's your boyfriend?"
[Cordelia] [I'm good at lying, I swear!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 6, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Cordelia] "He's pulling the car around," she says, with a certain degree of commitment. She fails to mention that her actual legitimate boyfriend is... somewhere. Probably the American south, but not here, and certainly not pulling any car around, "he'll be here in a minute."
She's normally a much more socially graceful person, but she's operating in a language that she only mostly understand the rules of. She offers that vaguely disarming smile and takes another step back towards the mouth of the alley instead of the back of it. She looks at Patrick, then back at the man who he had referred to as uncle Jake.
"You didn't answer my question," she says, more stern than she realizes. Cordelia reaches into her purse for her cell phone, riflling around
[Linus] (Perception 3 + Alertness : Where she be?! +1 Diff. for disorientation. -1 for wounds)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Linus] "The fuck are you mad?"
It's a hushed sort of thing as Linus comes and goes like a train-wreck on the sidewalk, or more accurately, like a train-wreck in a roller derby of the drunken. He snarls and snaps his jaws at some passing girls, who fail to shriek as their sober selves might and instead yell and bellow uncouthly, reaching out to shove as well before giggling amongst themselves. Loudly.
It sends Linus to the curb and nearly into traffic, before he stops short with a grunt and the shrieking wail of a passing car's horn. Another one finger salute, followed by a-
"I'll fuck your mother without paying you son of a bitch!"
-and the inevitable turn of his head, snapping, finally in Cordelia's general direction, the tall, lithe young Kin and her blonde ideas serving as a compass point as he attempts to find a gap in the traffic, wiping under his nose and spitting into the gutter again.
[Delight] "Hmm...," is all that Jake has to say to Cordelia warning him about her boyfriend. He lifts his chin, peers out toward the mouth of the alley, and seems to seriously contemplate the addition of a boyfriend. He didn't stop walking toward her, though, his strides were uninterrupted, slow like wading through a swamp while trying not to disturb alligators.
Jake shifted his hands into his pants pockets and hunched his shoulders forward, leaning in toward the girl as he approached, ducking his head down so as he could look up into her face. He had perhaps four inches of height on her, he was a large, solid man, but he didn't have to crouch down, didn't have to take her face and force her chin up in order to get a glimpse into her face. She was, after all, taller than the average man. He was too, so it came out relatively even.
When she glances at him again, he's smiling, but it's a warped, stretched thing. Difficult to describe what's different about it, why it's wrong exactly, but it's chilling and abnormal for certain.
"Best make this quick, then."
[Delight] Patrick [Init +4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6
[Cordelia] [5+d10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Delight] Jake [Init +5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Delight] Order
Jake- 10
Patrick- 10
Cordelia- 7
[Cordelia] [OMGdon'tpanicdon'tpanic
1a: punch this Jake guy
1b: Run like Hell
[Delight] Patrick [Stand by and wait for seconds]
Jake [Smack Cordelia's pretty little head into the wall]
[Dex + Brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Cordelia] (ack! Dodge!)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]
[Delight] Jake [Damage: Str 4 + 1 wall (B)]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Failure at target 6)
[Delight] [Let's try that again right the right number of dice]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Cordelia] [Oww, soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Cordelia] [+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Delight] P[Init + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Delight] J[Init + 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Linus] (7+...)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Delight] Order
Patrick-13
Linus- 12
Cordelia- 7
Jake- 7
[Delight] Jake
Punch Cordelia
R1. Punch Linus
[Cordelia] [actions!
1a: block,
1b: try and get a gun out of her purse]
[Linus] (Reflexive: Resist Pain (1 WP)
Action: Charge!
R1: Body tackle Jake into alleyway)
[Delight] [Patrick
Go Gaseous]
Jake's first order of business was to take Cordelia down. After all, the unconscious put up much less of a fight. So he surged forward and threw his hand out directly toward her face, like he was going to punch her with an open palm. She saw the motion, had just enough time to jerk down and to the side, and while the heel of his palm still clipped off her forehead, she managed to avoid the worst of the damage. Her head bounced off the wall behind, but she wasn't even dazed.
He rolled his shoulders, clenched his fists, and wound up to try again, and the little kid that had been standing by looking impatient flicked his gaze out from the mouth of the alley into the crowd and spotted Linus, the face of the werewolf, the intent and the Rage, and paled.
"Look out!" The warning was quick, squeaky in that prepubescent voice, and immediately the boy started to fade, like he was disappearing, becoming see-through.
[Delight] Jake
[Punch: Dex + Brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Cordelia] [Devoting full action to blocking, ack!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 7)
[Delight] Jake
[Damage: Str 4 + 3 sux + 2 botch penalty(B)]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Cordelia] [ohshitoww]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 5, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Linus] (Body Tackle: Dex 3 + Brawl 1. Diff 6. WP Spent)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Linus] (Damage. Str + 2 sux)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Delight] Jake
[Stay Standing vs Body Tackle: Dex + Athletic]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 8, 8 (Failure at target 9)
[Linus] (Dex 3 + Ath 1. Diff 6)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Delight] Jake
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Delight] Jake
[Punch: Dex + Brawl, +2 diff prone]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 8) [WP]
[Delight] [Damage: Str 4 + 2 suxx(B)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 6, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Linus] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Delight] New Round!
Jake
[Init + 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Cordelia] [stunned!]
[Delight] Patrick
[Init + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Linus] (7 +..)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Delight] Order
Patrick- 13
Linus- 12
Jake- 7
Jake
[Stomach Pump on Linus]
[Linus] (Reflexive: Shift to Glabro, 1 Rage. Draw Spear. 1 Bashing healed)
Action: Downward stab on prone Jake.)
[Delight] Patrick
[Flee!]
So as it turned out, that lie about a boyfriend being on the way was only half of a lie. Linus wasn't her boyfriend, and he wasn't bringing a car around to pick her up, but he sure did show up on time to save her ass. As the Godi was vaulting through the crowd, shoving his way past the people that got in his way and dodging a car bumper on the way over, Jake sunk a meaty fist into Cordelia's stomach. The girl thought, somehow, that she could hit his hand out of the way, but she missed entirely and wound up flinging her body onto the big guy's arm instead. He smirked, his mouth seemed too wide, and turned just in time to see Linus flying at him.
The Godi knocked the linebacker to the ground, and the man responded by throwing a fist up into his shoulder. The damage wasn't great, but the man didn't appear to be shaken in the least. His eyes glinted and, disgustingly, his belly, then chest, began to swell under the straddling legs of the Godi riding his chest.
The red-and-brown cloud that had been the little boy a few seconds ago began to float away, up the building with all the erratic motions of a plastic bag riding a breeze upwards. This one, it seemed, wasn't much of a fighter.
[Linus] (Dex 3 + Melee 2. Diff 6 - 2 for prone. WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 5 at target 4) [WP]
[Linus] (Str 5 + 1 for Spear + 4 for sux)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Delight] Jake
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Cordelia] [5+1d10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6
[Delight] Jake
[Stomach Pump: Dex + Athletics, -1 diff proximity]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Delight] [Linus: Soak 2 Agg]
[Linus] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[Delight] [Rerolling with updated rules: Dex + BRAWL, -1 diff proximity]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Delight] [Linus takes 2 LETHAL, not Agg]
[Delight] Now!
Standing Order
Patrick
Linus
Cordelia
Jake
[Delight] Jake
[Seize Spear
R1. Dependent on if spear is won-- Stab if won, punch if not]
[Linus] (Reflexive: Step out of grabbing range. 9 foot spear length.)
Split action:
1a) Stab with spear.
1b) Stab with spear (WP)
Rage 1 (gained this round): Stab with spear)
[Linus] (Whoops. Consider that after Cordy)
[Cordelia] [-1 WP to ignore wound penalties]
1a: seriously, get the dang gun outta your purse
1b: 3 round burst for Jake. Poooor jake.
[Delight] Patrick
[Fleee, fleeee]
The spear that Linus had pulled out from his very skin was an impressive piece of work indeed. His body morphed into something larger, stronger and far more primal, and with this added muscle he thrust the tip of the spear down toward the fallen Fomor. Jake had to have some thick skin or a whole lot of blessing from the Wyrm, though, because the spear simply glanced off the large man's swelling chest, and as it hopped off to the side Jake lurched upward, belching a voluminous amount of stomach acid (mingled with the pinkish-red of partially digested meat) onto Linus's chest and all down his stomach, scalding through clothing and skin as it sludged downward.
Meanwhile, the vaporous cloud that stank like something dead just dug out of a bog was drifting up over the roof of the three-story building that framed the alley and making its way to freedom.
[Linus] (Dex 3 + Melee 2 - 2 for split. Diff 4 for prone Jake)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 5 (Success x 1 at target 4)
[Linus] (Str 5 + 1 spear Damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Delight] Jake
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Linus] (Split 2: - 3 dice. WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 8 (Success x 2 at target 4) [WP]
[Linus] (Str 5 + 1 Spear + 1 Sux)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Cordelia] [1a: nothin'
1b: dex3+firearms 1+3rb= 7 - 3 = 4, diff 7]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7 (Failure at target 7)
[Delight] Jake
[Changing action to getting up, +1 diff to changing actions, +1 diff wounds]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]
[Linus] (Rage: Stab with spear. Dex 3 + Melee 2)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Linus] (Str 5 + 1 Spear)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Delight] Jake
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Delight] Jake
[Screw this! Crawl away!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]
[Linus] Linus could smell the curdling of his own flesh and clothes, the gray jacket he'd been wearing smouldering under it all, scarf falling away into two sloppy sections that dripped and sizzled on the ground underfoot. Yet even as the sloppish mess burned through to muscle and poured blood down the back of pants and across the alley floor, he marched.
A hand strode out to reach for the hair of the creature, punched through the chest twice, the second having clipped the spinal cord and left him a paralytic mess of coughing blood and burping bile. He left behind a trail of reds, browns and pukish greens as he reached the corner he'd previously walked from.
Just in time for Linus to snag up his hair and drag him back around the way he'd come, leaving Cordelia to listen to the odd hum of the drunken crowd behind her, startled only momentarily by the fading gunshots that had licked the alleywalls and little else. People had hurried on or taken a glance at her and the gun in hand and moved just a little faster.
...And from down the alley, something gurgled. Louder and louder, than strangled and finally hissed to an eventual pause.
...Linus emerged once more, shaking off the remains of his coat and turtleneck, the turtleneck part still snug around his neck, like some cotton collar, wet and sticky around the bottom edge. His eyes are livid and his wounds, sealed shut, leaving a wiry kid on a direct charge in Cordelia's direction hands already flailing.
"What the fuck?"
[Cordelia] [This is where I'm not panicking.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Cordelia] "Stop yelling at me!" she doesn't quite growl, she doesn't quite yell. Cordelia is, however, on the edge of something that is close to panicking. Her hands are shaking, and she's holding onto the gun in her hands like it's a lifeline. Like it's the only thing standing between her and the rest of the world.
She looks at Linus, actually looks at him, and the color drains from her face. Cordelia keeps that death grip on her gun, but she isn't running away screaming just yet. Yet, of course, being the operative word. Cordelia took another step back and just stared at him.
Her heart was pounding out of her chest. She looked like she might just be sick. She looks at him again, shaking her head at whatever had popped into her brain. Whatever was right in front of her. Her stomach hurts, and it's not just because some guy punched her.
[Linus] "Put the gun away now for fuck's sake! Drawin' more attention to us that Chick who beaved the crowd two minutes before you walked up to a Dark Alley all by your fucking lonesome!"
He stops inside the relative darkness of the alleyway, beckoning her forward before some wouldbe hero gets it in his head to step up and play Knight. Because this didn't look like a mugging, no, not at all. Linus half-naked, soaked in his own blood, shivering slightly and glaring hearts with daggers at Cordelia all the while motioning with a hand for her to get. Back. In. The. Alleyway.
[Cordelia] She looks at him, he's beckoning forward. Her movement is decidedly stiff, the gun goes back in her purse, after the bullets come out. Unloading seemed like a completely alien gesture to her. He's glaring daggers and somewhere, in the back of her mind, this isn't registering.
She's back in the alleyway, and some part of her realizes that the sooner she gets somewhere dark, the sooner she can get out of looking at the fact that Linus is a blood-soaked shivery mess.
"I need to clean this up," she sounds smaller than she realizes.
She is keeping about as far away from Linus as she can possibly be. Which is difficult because there's only so much space in the alley
[Linus] "You're not cleaning anything right now. Right now you and I are going far far away from this mess and the dumpster I put the remains in which I will come back and deal with when I am not freezing, naked and pissed off enough to choke a bitch."
It is a hiss sort of sound that emerges, stepping back down the alleyway with an expectant snap of his head. He wanted nothing more than to leave the humans behind to their Friday evening and for no more trouble to befall them just now.
"On the way to wherever you call home, you're going to describe for me the kid that was here. I didn't get a good look at him and after I wash up and you get me some new clothes, I'll go deal with the loose end."
[Cordelia] [WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Cordelia] She clenches her jaw, and digs through her purse for her wallet. Cordelia leaves her purse in the alleyway and takes time to compose herself. Enough that she is there and could fake her way through picking Linus up some clothing. Cordelia heads down the way, and she's not quite taking her time, but...
She is taking enough time that she's pretty certain that either Linus is going to want to stab the ever-loving crap out of her or he's cooled down sufficiently that she doesn't have to worry about losing a limb while doing the trade off. It's starting to get colder, so she picks him up some cargos from somewhere that she doesn't get a second look. They're cheaply made, unlike the tee shirt she picked up. It came in a three pack, and was one of the off shoots of Fruit of the Loom.
She looks at the shop keeper, who eyes her warily. The female smiles like nothing happened; it's taking all she has to lie effectively.
She comes back t the alley, slips in pretty quickly. She tries to be non-chelant about it; she may or may not succeed. Cordelia eyes Linus warily-
"... you're a medium, si?"
- and holding the bag out to him like it's a bomb.
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