Assassinatrix

@phantomshell: Standard frag grenade?

@phantomshell:

Just like that, then.

She had expected a challenger, and instead had gotten an assassin. There was really no other way to describe the sudden onslaught. She had no idea who the newcomer was, and as soon as this thought registered, it was discarded. It didn't matter. Her training took over, and her mind transitioned from competitive to combat. As seamlessly quick as he was, the knee strike was a common enough opening move, and a swiftly downward-thrust forearm intercepted it. This left her in a poor position to defend from the leg sweep, however, and she rolled as her upper body hit the mat, coming up in a defensive crouch.

Smoke obscured her vision as she came up, and sudden shockwaves of light and sound exploded right in front of her face. She dropped lower, reflexively covering her eyes with one arm, and throwing the other up in a block that was all that saved her from taking the dagger in the eye, and possibly into the brain. A yelp of unfamiliar pain escaped her lips as the exotic metal sunk deeply into her forearm, puncturing her durable flesh like butter.

There was no time to dwell on this development, though. Her free hand shot up, seeking to lock on the wrist of the hand that wielded the dagger. If successful, she would spin and rise, attempting to bring her enhanced strength into play by torquing his arm over her shoulder and giving him the choice of being flipped onto his back at her feet or having his arm painfully dislocated.

@rosso: Glad you liked it. ^_^

She was angry.

It was affecting her form.

She didn't care.

Tonight wasn't about training, it was about venting. Some people let off steam in therapy, or took a long walk, or painted. Noriko hurt people. Granted, she hurt people when she was in a good mood, too, or even when she wasn't feeling anything particularly strongly at all; it was what she did for a living, more or less. She wasn't being paid tonight, though. Again, she didn't care.

Not that form tended to matter when you were basically physically invulnerable. If a blow connected, it might knock her back, throw her off-balance, or if she was fighting someone strong enough, it might actually put her on the mat. It didn't matter. It didn't hurt, and damaged nothing but her pride, which only served to further fuel her anger. She always got up, grinned, and motioned for more.

She lost track of the rounds. It didn't feel like very long, but it was starting to show on her opponent. He was a head taller than her, and considerably broader, but his smirking confidence had faded after she'd weathered everything he'd thrown at her like they were flirtatious whispers. He was slower now, his blows sloppier, easier to block. His chest heaved, and he was coated in sweat. She let him get one last hit in, a wild haymaker that pushed her back against the cage, which she then used to launch herself directly back at him, catching his jaw in a right cross that spun him fully around three times before he dropped facedown on the mat and lay still.

She motioned for a towel, which she then used to wipe the man's sweat off her knuckle before tossing it aside, and turned to the row of waiting fighters who stood, observing in wary silence. "Next!"

Noriko simply sat in her cell, elbows on knees, chin resting on clasped hands, and stared at the far wall. She'd given them nothing, of course. She'd refused to even speak, much less answer questions, carried no ID, and her fingerprints and other identifying features would be found in no law enforcement databases. After several hours of unsuccessful interrogation, the local chief had finally just had her locked up while they waited for someone from...whatever federal department handled these sorts of things to come and get her.

She wasn't worried. She knew her own people would get here first, but she couldn't say she was looking forward to it. These wouldn't be lawyers, or bail bondsmen. They would be her employer's "problem-solvers," and like most of her coworkers, they were a bit on the...twisted side.

She glanced up, as her nose caught a faint smell. Gas. Looks like it was time. Noriko stood, crossed over to the side of her cell that she estimated was closest to an exterior wall, and braced herself.

When the cell exploded, it sent her flying through the wall, and she wound up partially embedded in the wall of the building across the street. After fumbling out none-too-gracefully, she tried to get her bearings as she waited for the ringing in her ears to subside. Where were...ah, there. She stumbled towards the unmarked black van that sat just outside of the blast radius, banged four times on the back door, and then climbed in when it opened. The vehicle sped down the street, and was out of sight just as the stunned occupants of the damaged police station began stumbling out into the street and sirens began blaring.

@hawkshade:

The first thing Noriko's brain registered as her senses realigned was the sound of duct tape. Oh, you've gotta be...

She struggled, flexing and jerking her inhumanly powerful thews against the restraints. One or even a couple of sets of cuffs she'd be able to snap, but the sheer number of them, and the positioning of her immobilized limbs ensured that she couldn't get enough leverage to bring her strength to bear. She glared at Richard, as he went about methodically disassembling what should have been a routine operation. "I don't know who you are, you masked moron, but I will! I'm going to break every bone in your body, toss you into one of these containers, and push it into the harbor!"

She kept up a tirade of increasingly creative threats until well after Richard had disappeared from view.

@hawkshade:

Noriko was a skilled fighter, but her greatest weakness was that, since gaining her powers, she had become overconfident. Convinced that very little could hurt her, she tended to ignore her own defense, trusting in her durability and focusing entirely on attack (and crushing her enemy's confidence and morale; she loved that). It had been her undoing in her fight with Nastya, and she was too arrogant to have let that defeat affect her tactics, much.

She took Richard's kick full-on turning her head just enough so that the force didn't once again knock her prone, while reaching out in an attempt to get a grip on the big man's throat. If she got a grip, she would squeeze, with all her enhanced strength. She wanted to look into his eyes as unconsciousness took him. In fact, she was so focused on this that she barely even noticed his weapon as it connected unerringly with her back.

"Nnnngggaaahhhh!" Her body jerked spasmodically as the Iaculum pumped it full of electricity, her limbs jerking out in random directions as she lost control of them before she collapsed on the ground in a twitching heap.

@hawkshade:

Her increased tissue density gave her incredible durability, but as one of her trainers had once said, physics was still physics. Richard may not have been superhumanly strong, but he did push the limits of unmodified human ability. Combined with his greater weight and the precision with which his blow was thrown, the force of the impact spun her completely around and sent her tumbling across the docks, not stopping for a good dozen feet.

She lay flat on her back for a moment, before sitting up and giving Richard an appreciative look. "Now that," she began, rubbing slightly at her jaw, "was a solid hit. You've been trained, a lot, by someone who really knew what they were doing, haven't you?" She got to her feet, dusting herself off. "But the people who made me the way I am knew what they were doing, too." She spread her arms wide, to her sides. "Go on. Try something else."

@hawkshade:

Noriko had time for one surprised "what the-" before she was overtaken by a coughing fit brought on by the smoke. By the time both the smoke and her hacking cleared, her hapless hirelings were lying in insensate piles around her, and the only other one standing was a mysterious masked figure. She took a moment to size him up as she straightened. She was pretty big; he was notably bigger.

"Surrender? Seriously?" She took a moment to wipe her eyes, which were still slightly irritated by the smoke. Her mood, on the other hand, was already improving considerably. Looked like this assignment might not be as boring as she thought. "You expect me to believe that you're the chivalrous type; wouldn't hit a lady while she's choking on smoke? Or do you want what's about to happen as much as I do?"

With a twisted grin, she smoothly shifted her body, her left leg sliding forward as she lowered her hips. Her eyes shifted to Richard's hips, watching for any telltale hint of movement, and her right had cocked back with a closed fist as her left lifted to shoulder height and beckoned him forward. "This time, let me see what you've got, big guy."

@hawkshade:

"Is the product loaded yet, or do I need to toss another one of you into the harbor?"

At the bark of her voice, three of the slovenly hirelings who had been pausing for a smoke break started and quickly scuttled back to work. Noriko was in a foul mood; she had been for quite some time. Babysitting shipments was probably about one of her least favorite things to do, not least because it offered her few opportunities to take her frustrations out on anyone. That meant she had to take full advantage of the opportunities she did have.

She stepped up to the last of the shipping containers as it was loaded, packed with people plucked from the streets, from shelters, taverns, and even back alleys. In other words, people that nobody would ever miss. They would be locked up in the containers and shipped to one of her employer's facilities. More than a few of them would die en route, but that was on purpose; it would weed out the weakest.

A commotion behind her drew her attention, and she turned to see two of the burly toughs dragging a smallish, disheveled man out from behind a stack of pallets. Ignoring the man's feeble protests, one of the toughs dug through his pockets until he found the man's wallet, which he glanced at before tossing to Noriko. Investigative journalist. Typical.

The man's protests were cut off in a strangled gasp as Noriko stepped up to him and almost casually lifted him by the throat. "Too bad you can't write an article about how dying feels, huh?" she said with a sneer. "Bet that would get you a Pulitzer." With that, she squeezed.

"Toss the body in the last container," she ordered, as the man's twitching body hit the ground. "It's a long trip; someone might get hungry enough."