|
.~{:--------------:}~.
Remy LeBeau is many things. Thief. Spy. Agent provacateur. Rogue, cad, and bounder.
Enemy.
Hard feelings are a byproduct of his line of work. This is why he expends a great deal of effort and resources to make sure he's never spotted or recognized. Nobody's perfect, though. A week or so ago he accepted a contract to destroy a Japanese businessman's records that were kept at his home. He was away, but the situation was complicated by a daughter who was home from college for the holidays. And why wouldn't it be complicated?
But that meant a witness. Someone to tell the tale and a powerful new enemy who was far better connected than Remy could've guessed.
Cut to he and Vesper spilling out of a Creole club. It wasn't Cajun, but that didn't stop him from eating and drinking more than his fill. He's pleasantly tired as he takes his lady's hand and leads her down a dim alley toward a more properly lit street. "See?" he says. "Creole food not so bad. Too many tomatoes, but still tasty. And anything taste good with plenty of cognac to wash it down."
Vesper is many things. Scientist. Expatriate. Foreigner. Pastry-fiend. Dragon snack.
She sticks out among the collection of Louisianians and those naturally drawn to places with dirty jazz and etouffee, the unfamiliar rhythms of the bayou found even in New York. She could be convinced that anything is found in New York. Drink, eat, and be watchful. Not one to drink to inebriation, the warmth in her stomach makes up for a harrowed night full of nightmares keeping her unwelcomely awake. "Many beans," she adds, French native to the tongue. English is easy to forget sometimes. Cognac earns a nod, the buzz dancing in her veins.
Her steps don't sway too much. Mostly they avoid puddles, the danger of being deluged.
There's a scraping sound from somewhere in the shadows. A trained ear could identify it as the heel of a dress shoe scuffing against concrete.
Remy tips his head to the side, but his smile never wavers. He's had piles of food and more than a few drinks tonight, though he carries both like the seasoned veteran he is. He glances over at Vesper and smiles. "You look very beautiful tonight," he whispers, matching her French with his own less elegant drawl. "Beans and all. But you look beautiful every night."
Once he notices Remy's heightened awareness, a slim Japanese man steps into the sparse light. He appears to be unarmed, but he carries himself with the confidence of someone who has an army at his back. "Le Diable Blanc. The white devil," he intones, his flawless English a counterpoint to the couples' French. "You will come with me. Now."
|ROLL| Vesper +rolls 1d20 for: 20
Beautiful when violet smudges under her eyes speak to a sleepless night, and her mouth is bitten hard under the carmine wax of her red lipstick? "Flatterer." Old threat, well-worn, worthy of a cad like him. Vesper pulls her scarf around her, in a nod to the cooler weather. Not freezing; New Yorkers at least have that going for them. "You would say that when my hair is a rat's nest."
Bystanders have the favour of seeing them as they are, the young woman and the rogue, clearly affectionate towards one another even if language is a barreir. For these particular sorts, it might be. They have other advantages, probably reading the spark of shock flowering in her visage and the jittery reaction. After the events in Times Square, she is a cat with fur rubbed backwards. Her arm slides around Remy's, her hand gone rigid in his. Much like the rest of it. Sparse light, no help. Sparse sound? Heat? These are things she's learned to feel for.
To the Japanese, she gives a blank stare. Her perception is kicking through the spectrum, hunting for the most abundant source of energy. She kicks down to infrared first. Bodies give off a lot.
"So you know my name. I have lots. I go nowhere wit' you, me," Remy scoffs. "I'm on a date." He doesn't even seem concerned, as foolish as that might be. More than that, he rolls his eyes and lets out a dramatic sigh in Vesper's direction. "Mimi, you wait one moment. I handle him, then we go back to your place for dessert."
The Japanese man seems immune to threats. In fact, he smiles. He gives a subtle wave, at which a dozen more men slip from connecting alleys, behind dumpsters, and various other hiding spots. They're easy for Vesper to spot in advance and they're a widely varied crew, but they all look dangerous and all but one are heavily armed. "Kill the girl," the man in charge orders. "Make sure he sees it. Then bring him. Alive. Or dead, it really doesn't matter. Just leave his eyes so our employer knows it's him."
The White Devil. Devil in the White City is, alas, a reference lost on Vesper. She knows when to release someone's arm and let them take care of things. No amount of experience on the rough streets of boarding school in Paris stands up to the school of hard knocks, where she so rarely attends life lessons. Let Remy deal with the situation by standing in as the dangerous one. She nods crisply, her hands sliding into the pockets of her coat.
There they are, twelve bodies, to the two more she can see. Stealing infrared doesn't seem so fortunate, but there are other options available. The thousands of kilowatts absorbed the night before still churn around in her veins, never released. Her fingers curl and she takes a breath. "Do not worry about me." Brave statement, really. Her stomach churns and the cold sweat on her nape isn't getting any better. One shot. But nature aids her as she sips down what few lights shed enough radiance to light the way. Open signs, headlights, anything is fair game. A tug, a top off.
Whoever these men are, they've worked together before. They fan out before making a quick and efficient approach. Between them they carry an impressive array of firearms. The only individuals who aren't armed, the Japanese man and a squat, toadlike individual, hang to the back of the crowd. For now.
The metallic snapping sound of Remy's staff extending is loud in the confined space of the alley. He grins fiercely as he produces a trio of playing cards seemingly from nowhere. They take on a purple, otherworldly glow as he charges them. When they're thrown, it's at the heart of the group. The explosion is impressive, but still carefully controlled; it scatters and scorches the mercenaries without actually killing anyone. It's as restrained as he can be, considering the talk of killing Vesper.
"I worry about them," Remy chuckles. "You do fine, chere. We have this mess cleaned up shortly."
The Japanese man was out of range of the explosion; he fades back a bit further. The squat man with his flat face and dead eyes are nowhere to be seen. Then there's a breeze similar to what one feels when a vehicle passes a bit too close at high speeds. Abruptly, the squat man zooms forward and slams into Remy, sending the Cajun sprawling. He's a speedster. A particularly fast one, to boot.
A toadlike individual and that Japanese man don't give very much sense of comfort. They probably intend to be smug bystanders. Manager and patron? Sheer guesswork, especially in the heat of a rapidly declining situation.
Remy producing a pack of cards confuses her more than anything. Vesper misses a beat, her doe-brown eyes blinking. Before she can ask, he's already setting off a detonating charge and she throws up her arm, defense against the hypersaturated magenta flourish. Old habits die hard even if the shine is mostly harmless to the likes of her.
When Mr. Toad vanishes and reappears by knocking Remy over, her anger overtakes the caution and the young woman steps away from the closing ranks. Good for them. She looks solid enough, that's all that counts. No flesh for bullets to intercept, especially not when she exists in hard light and bleak resolve. Choices are limited.
To the naked eye, the brunette is in one spot worrying her lip, staring in horror at the fallen Cajun. The next, armed with a spear of pure light pointed right at Mr. Toad's chest. As fast as a speedster can move, it's yawningly slow compared to a girl made of light. Hope he can stop in time, otherwise the concentrated beams are going to be a terrible, terrible mistake. One she hasn't calculated on.
Remy picks himself up off the ground, clearly favoring one side of his body. The impact he took was a rough one, made rougher by a few yards of scraping along pavement. He avoids putting weight on his left leg, but he still seems more than willing to stick with the fight. Quickly, he snaps off a handful of throwing knives. These aren't charged to explode, but they're sped up using another facet of his abilities. They pierce through shoulders, wrists, and knees, tacking four of the mercenaries to the alley's walls. His staff THWACKs into two more, laying them low as well. The rest are still picking themselves up.
The speedster skids to a halt just short of disaster. He peers at Vesper through narrowed eyes, then makes an attempt to circle around her and attack her from behind. He's used to that working on just about everyone.
Meanwhile, Remy has limped around to put himself between Vesper and the rest of the street level thugs. They're more his proverbial speed, especially since they're still scrambling to regain their weapons and footing.
The speedster doesn't quite get the gig. Vesper barely gets it herself and she travels on paths of scintillating speed. The glittering shaft in her hands is hot, burning with the collective radiance shed by many, many Christmas lights until it goes golden rather than white. When Mr. Toad tries to strike her, she backpedals, stuttering out of his sight and reappearing at a distance. The top frame per second rate in the Sixties wouldn't capture the movement. She moves almost at the speed of light, though she certainly lacks the experience to know what to do other than stay out of the way and spear something that comes too close.
Spear isn't quite the right statement. Having a two inch wide pillar of hard light rammed through one's shoulder really tends to slow things down, especially when light that hot does horrible things to bone and muscle. The other end can penetrate stone with equal contempt. Her eyes are brilliant blue embers, expression hard with concentration. "Non," she hisses, scarcely audible, pouring out the energy from the battery. If he wants to run at her, Mr. Toad can. She doesn't have just one shaft, and incinerating him might be a reflexive accident.
All that's left is cleanup at this point. The heavy artillery that is the speedster has been neutralized by something faster; he'll escape at the earliest opportunity. The Japanese man is already gone, presumably to report the unsuccessful attack to his superiors. That leaves a bare handful of mercenaries who aren't being paid nearly enough to stand up to this dangerous pair. Those still able pick themselves up and flee.
Remy speeds them on their way with a final charged card; the explosion sends bits of pavement out like shrapnel to sting the thugs as they run off. Once the fight is finished, he lets out a heavy breath and props himself up on his staff. The hit he took has left him winded, scraped, and bruised, to say the least. "Ow," he grumbles. He's going to feel that even more when tomorrow morning rolls around. "Sometimes I forget how fast you move, chere. Glad you were here. The rest not so much trouble for me, but the fast one seem like he scared of you."
Escape, bleeding and scalded, with a nasty two inch hole burned through that may fill with scar tissue. Maybe he can find something to pack it. Otherwise Mr. Toad has a new piercing. Vesper discharges the sparks of her spear, using the energy in reserve for another purpose if necessary. This is still beyond her, and courage only goes so far.
Let Remy be the one to clean up after them, because she steps back to the nearest wall and hugs herself, the shaking already coming on. Bad, bad enough to chatter her teeth. Like the greenhorn taking his first shots at someone, she has to get over that hump of life on her own. Her eyes remain open, fixed past the Cajun, as that embrace tightens. "Why would they come out like that?" A question that sounds thin and uncertain, as she is lost in the no-man's-land. No talk of bullets or bottles of bourbon. "N-not scared. Why be scared? We sh-should not stay here. They could come back."