twiststheblade (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
twiststheblade) wrote2006-06-10 01:08 am
twiststheblade) wrote2006-06-10 01:08 am
Angels: Act Two
from here
Yokohama.
Japan's biggest port city.
Hub of trade, export, and import.
Modern, classical, new and ancient. If a thing is new 'it was done first in Yokohama'.
It is late by the time the two bikes purr through the suburbs, heading for the heart of the financial district. Late, and the rain has stopped. The surfaces are slick with water, lights reflecting off anything and everything, a shifting kaleidoscope.
The buildings are an odd mix. Darkened office buildings, except for the odd window where a worker is up late into the night. Bars, restaurants, the odd shop, spill light and sound and smell out into the streets.
Eventually, Miho waves an arm, slows, and pulls over to the side of the road. She hops off, braces the bike, and smoothly uses her entire body-weight to lift it onto the stand. She pushes her visor up, and smiles.
"Well, this is it."
There are two buildings that stand out. One is rounded, almost like a tower, stabbing up into the night. Next to it, seperated by only a narrow alleyway, is a mirrored tower-block, curved frontage, glass elevators running up the outside of the building. It has an enourmous lobby, brightly lit, edged by small shops, and a few restaurants.
"That's the one we want," she says, pointing to the rounded building. "And this is the one I thought we could go across from."
She grins.
"Anyone for sushi?"
Yokohama.
Japan's biggest port city.
Hub of trade, export, and import.
Modern, classical, new and ancient. If a thing is new 'it was done first in Yokohama'.
It is late by the time the two bikes purr through the suburbs, heading for the heart of the financial district. Late, and the rain has stopped. The surfaces are slick with water, lights reflecting off anything and everything, a shifting kaleidoscope.
The buildings are an odd mix. Darkened office buildings, except for the odd window where a worker is up late into the night. Bars, restaurants, the odd shop, spill light and sound and smell out into the streets.
Eventually, Miho waves an arm, slows, and pulls over to the side of the road. She hops off, braces the bike, and smoothly uses her entire body-weight to lift it onto the stand. She pushes her visor up, and smiles.
"Well, this is it."
There are two buildings that stand out. One is rounded, almost like a tower, stabbing up into the night. Next to it, seperated by only a narrow alleyway, is a mirrored tower-block, curved frontage, glass elevators running up the outside of the building. It has an enourmous lobby, brightly lit, edged by small shops, and a few restaurants.
"That's the one we want," she says, pointing to the rounded building. "And this is the one I thought we could go across from."
She grins.
"Anyone for sushi?"
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Cursing, Alanna lashes out with a kick and knocks one man into a few others, buying her some extra time. Goldy is in trouble but Miho is on her way back, and all Alanna can do is try to keep the enemy from swarming them. Yelling a harsh word, she protects herself with a shield of violet light and fights on, wishing she wasn't too far away to do the same for the others, wishing it didn't take visual contact. Later, she will remember to be amused at the looks on the henchmen's faces.
Under her breath, she mutters about hating guns.
Then she remembers she has one. Drawing it with her right hand, she does her best to shoot guns out of their hands. She meets with moderate success.
no subject
Halfway across, she stumbles and cries out.
She collapses limply and ends up skidding behind the water cooler she was aiming for, carried there by her last bit of momentum. There she lies for now, not visibly bleeding, but bundled up against the wall, quite motionless. A few rogue bullets puncture the inverted cooler jug, and fountains of water start to spill onto her lifeless form.
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However she manages it - and although later she will be able to give a blow-by-blow description of the fight, even when she was blinded, she will never be able to remember how she got to Goldy - she does eventually make it to Goldy. Pressed up against the wall, barely conscious of the bullets still flying down the corridor, she has eyes for one thing only. And only one thought.
Is she going to be carrying a body or a casualty?
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Alanna yells from further down the corridor, unable to turn around and look. Her heart beats heavily, and for just a moment, she is swamped with regret.
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Then, an eyelid flutters.
And then there's a strangled gasp and a few chest convulsions.
Then, all at once, life returns in dramatic fashion. When they jerk open, Goldy's eyes are ablaze with pain and fury. She's fairly oblivious to anyone in attendance, and to the shots that are still pranging off the walls and floor around her.
"MUTHERFUCK...!" she yells as she struggles to get into a sitting position and yank her T-shirt free of her pants. Once it's free, she reaches under it and quickly pulls out three compressed shells from the rib and stomach area of her Kevlar, which she hurls away angrily.
"Can't. Believe. The fuckers actually hit me!" she wheezes.
She now realizes that there's water still glugging out of the cooler, and onto her.
"CAN'T BELIEVE I'M WET AGAIN!" she screams.
That, apparently, is the final straw. She slaps a new clip into her Beretta, and grabs the Springfield .45 from the small of her back. She looks a bit unhinged, to say the least. Raging might be a better description, if more than her eyes were visible. "Stay the fuck down," she snaps at the little Asian crouching nearby.
And with that she leaves her hiding place and dives sideways across the corridor, both guns blazing as she flies through the air...
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She's irrationally livid with Goldy right now, because she scared her dammit. Miho doesn't like that. People aren't allowed to do that to her.
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"THANKS FOR NOT DYING ON US!"
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"ANYTIME!"
Two empty clips hit the carpet. Two full ones rapidly replace them. She dodges and ducks frenziedly, making herself a hard target as she weaves to and fro. In the heat of battle, these twenty seconds might seem to last a long time. But, really, it was all over when Goldy realized she was soaked again.
Before long, the last man falls at the far end of the corridor. Goldy turns and picks off the remaining three guards tangling with Alanna and Miho. Sure there will be more, and sure they could have handled it, but she's on a roll.
The final shell plonks to the ground, and she slowly comes out of her crouch. Guns smoking languidly, she walks steadily down the hall to join her comrades.
"Everyone okay?" she says with an incredible calmness. It's as if she just shot all the anger out of her system. She looks a little smug, but mostly just happy and almost transcendentally peaceful.
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One of the guards at her feet makes a weak movement, and a with quick kick, barely even bothering to look, she breaks his neck.
Her voice is not shaking. Quite.
"If you ever, ever scare me like that again I swear I will fucking kill you myself."
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"Did you forget that I'm immortal? And wearing body armor?"
Regardless of her excuses, Goldy looks suitably chastized. She pulls up Miho's mask and her own, and presses a kiss to her lips. It's brimming over with apology. Or, at least, it starts out that way.
She pulls back and looks Miho over. The blood on her hand might just as easily belong to someone else. But guilt soon turns to concern when she spies the torn fabric on her upper arm.
"Are you hit?"
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She brushes off any concern about the wound, which whilst it is still bleeding sluggishly is hardly life threatening.
"And of course I fucking forgot! In case you forgot, we don't have immortals in my world. And when someone I love gets shot in front of me I have this strange tendency to lose the capacity for rational thought!"
She might be shouting at this point. Because it's either shout or cry, and anger isn't going to get them killed.
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Goldy just looks at her, emotion welling behind the eye slit in her balaclava. Part of her wants to fall back on mockery, because that is safe. But a larger part of her determines that this is neither the place nor the time.
Miho needs something in return right now. And she gets it. Goldy pulls her mask off properly and leans close to Miho's ear.
"I love you too."
It's barely audible. But it's said. And meant.
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Softly, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted."
Deep breath.
"We can't do this now. Let's get to the vault and get out."
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Leaning against a wall, Alanna kicks at the floor, her chest heaving still.
She makes a face in their general direction.
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She makes a face back at Alanna—albeit a cuter one.
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Then at Alanna.
Then at Goldy again, grins and sidles sideways until she is standing next to Alanna, innocent smile on her face. Goldy echoes her, so there is sidling in stereo, and Alanna is soon flanked by two artless expressions.
Flutters her eyelashes. Steals Alanna's balaclava with one hand, taking off her own with the other.
Then they both lean towards her and ...
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"There!" Goldy says smugly as they both pull back. She's grinning gently, and quite innocently. "Now quit your grousing and let's get these swords."
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"Right. Swords. Don't do that again, or I'll sic the Antichrist on you."
The words would carry a lot more weight if she wasn't grinning.
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"C'mon," lightly, leading the way down the corridor.
"This way."
As they disappear around the corner, Miho can be heard wondering if Adam would be more likely to object that they had kissed her, or that he hadn't been around to appreciate it for himself. . .
(Scene Four)