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 Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 7:57 pm
  Setting:Van expects a quiet night of book-keeping, until it quickly becomes apparent that she's not alone.
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Kurama no Koishi generated a random number between
1 and 3 ...
2!
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Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 7:58 pm
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Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 9:13 pm
It wasn’t too late in the evening yet—the sun had just set an hour ago. This didn’t stop Van from counting down the minutes until she was able to leave for home, though, or in this case, counting down files. It was dull, but necessary work, and the captain’s mood soured with each mission report she stored away in the cabinets. This was the kind of work that should have been assigned to their secretaries. Given the extremely classified nature of the stack of papers she was holding, the generals could only delegate the work to someone who was in on the operations.
The captain was situated rather far from her office, in a safehouse that appeared quite ordinary by day. Guarding the small building wasn’t too much of a priority for the Legion, since there was always someone keeping an eye on the place, even if no one was inside at the moment.
So when Van first started feeling as if someone was watching her, she paid it no mind. It was probably one of her fighters, checking to see why the light was on in the house after hours. “It’s alright, Private Ly, I’ll only be another minute—just return to your post.” She barked the order without turning around, her attention distracted by an assassination op that had been mis-sorted. It wasn’t for another minute that Van realized there had been no response from the woman she thought she was addressing, and it was this that initially tipped her off to the fact that someone else was in the house.
Van shoved the last of the files into an open cabinet, taking her swords in hand. “I’ll give you ten seconds to show yourself,” she ordered into the room, her tone sounding annoyed underneath the threat, “Otherwise, I’m afraid I won’t be so nice when I find you.”
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 9:09 pm
Everything was going according to plan. He sneaked in early to observe the building, watching the patterns in the guards, waiting for a good opening to enter the building unnoticed. There was a small window, and he would have to be quick, to make it inside before the guard returned from a round of patrol the perimeter. If he went too slowly, he would be caught. He waited for nightfall to use the cover of darkness to better conceal him. When the moment came, he launched into action. He had always been strong when it came to speed, and luck was with him as he slipped into the building just in time as the guard returned. But unbeknownst to him, he wasn't the only one inside the building.
Kiran kept an ear out, listening to the guard who paced before the entrance to the building. From that, he assumed he had escaped notice. He crept quietly through the building, which seemed to only have the use of housing files. But that was exactly what he was after. As a fighter, he wasn't privy to any of the details, and all he was told was to recover a certain file from within the safe house. Beyond that, he wasn't allowed to know more, and he suspected reading the desire file would be frowned upon by the Captains and General. As someone that liked to procure secrets, not looking at the file would be a difficult task for him.
When someone spoke, that was his first realization that someone else was within the safe house. But recognizing the voice was what made him freeze. Of course, it would be her, he thought, rubbing tiredly at his forehead. He thought he had masked his presence well - he hadn't even made so much as a sound! - but Van, clearly, had better awareness than the one guarding the building.
He resisted the chuckle bubbling up inside him. He didn't doubt her comment about not being so nice when she found him. Hiding now would be pointless. Van had noticed his presence, and he doubted she would give up if he simply lurked silently in the dark. She would find him. He was most certain of that. Kiran stepped out where she could see him. His arms were raised almost as if in surrender. "Well, at least it's a pleasant night," he said with a light grin.
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Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 1:29 am
Van had only gotten down to six seconds before her eyes caught movement by the doorway. She was hoping, of course, that the Lunarian in question was just a grunt, possibly one of the new fighters who didn’t quite know what he was doing yet. If that had been the case, he would have gotten away with a sharp rebuke, and that would have been the end of that.
Any hopes the captain had of ending the night without event all but vanished, however, when a familiar mop of blue hair came out of the shadows, and Van found herself facing Kiran. Under any other circumstances, she probably would have been happy to see him, but now, past the end of the work day, and in a Legion safehouse no less… he’d forgive her for not returning the cordial greeting, right?
Heaving an impatient sigh, Van’s grip on her swords loosened as she lowered them, though she did not resheath them just yet. “Kiran, you shouldn’t be here,” she said plainly, stating the obvious. Clearly he was here for the valuable data behind her back, and at present she was the only thing standing between him and the files. “Any chance I could ask you to leave quietly?” she asked then, shooting a dubious look at the fighter’s upraised hands. They might be empty now, but his trademark tonfa were still strapped to his waist in plain sight.
She really was hoping that she wouldn’t have to fight anyone tonight—all she wanted to do was finish up her work and go home. If it came to it, she presumed that she would have the advantage in a fight, especially since there were fighters stationed just outside ready to enter and engage at a moment’s notice. Still, their short history of fights had shown that anything could happen.
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 10:25 pm
Kiran would have laughed at her statement, but the situation wasn't all that funny. He thought no one was inside the safe house when he made his plan to sneak in for the secret Legionnaire files. For all his careful spying and waiting, he certainly hadn't planned for Van, of all people, to be in the safe house at that same moment. But he couldn't be too surprised that they would meet again. They had several clashes already on the battlefield, and it was only a matter of time before they met again. It was just unlucky that they met tonight.
"I was thinking the same thing," he responded, his gaze darting toward the swords in Van's hands. She had lowered them, but Kiran knew that didn't mean he could drop his guard. Van could make those blades dance like silver flashes, and if he didn't react quickly enough, those blades could cut deep. "I was pretty sure this place was empty. I don't suppose you could just," he shrugged, "pretend you never saw me?" He grinned what he hoped was a charming smile, but he knew charms wouldn't do him any good in this situation.
He also knew that Van wasn't likely to just turn her back on him and let him go about his business of stealing a file and waltzing out of the safe house with it. He sighed. There was only one way this would end: in a fight. His hands lowered, slowly, not wanting her to just start attacking. "So," he said, placing his hands on his hips. He didn't touch his tonfas. Yet. But his hands were close enough to grab them and have them ready to defend or attack at a moment's notice. "You're a Captain. But they actually make you do something as tedious as filing? Aren't there lower ranked people that can do that for you?" He raised a curious blue eyebrow at her.
He didn't much about the workings of being a Captain. Being a lowly fighter, he wasn't in the know about the business of Captains. But the task of filing never entered his grand illusions of what Captains did. He always thought boring stuff like that was delegated to Lunarians ranked under them.
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Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:28 am
Van’s violet eyes followed his hands as they drifted to his hips, not missing a movement. She’d fought the other Lunarian often enough to know that his fighting style more often than not centered on the tonfas on his waist. Otherwise, she thought his fighting style leaned toward baguazhang, which she could combat well enough with her Shaolin martial arts. It was probably this that made them such classic fighting partners, but so many years after their first violent encounter she was getting tired of the same old, same old whenever they met. It had to be at least half the time, now, that their encounters ended in battle.
“Cheeky, as always,” she sighed, making a show of pointing one of her swords at Kiran even as mild amusement flickered behind her eyes. Otherwise she appeared entirely serious, especially as she continued, “But we both know I can’t do that.”
If this had just been a normal conversation, this would have been where they politely agreed to disagree. Unfortunately, there was more at stake than their separate opinions. Rolling her shoulder almost lazily, the captain aimed for a split second before tossing the black sword forward in a practiced motion. She hadn’t thrown to kill, instead planting the blade tip-down at his feet in hopes of driving him back and out of the room. He’d heeded her first warning, so there wasn’t any reason to be too forceful, unless he resisted further or pissed her off.
Her eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth set into a frown when she heard his next words. It was an innocuous question that she’d normally be pleased to answer, but her patience was short today and it almost sounded like he was insulting her position. “Get out,” she hissed, lunging forward and low to the ground, her empty, clenched fist up threateningly and ready to throw a punch. “These files aren’t for fighters’ eyes.”
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Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 1:50 pm
Kiran grinned and rolled a shoulder in that usual way he had for shrugging. He couldn't help being cheek, even when a battle loomed before him. It was simply his way of being. "I was afraid of that," he said with a sigh of disappointment. His shoulders slumped somewhat, like he was depressed by the fact that she wouldn't let him go about his mission as he planned. He really thought that he had this whole thing planned out perfectly. Wait for the right moment, sneak in, grab the file, and get out without being caught. In his mind, there had been nothing that could go wrong. He had watched the pattern of the guard's movement so that he knew exactly when to sneak in and out.
But he hadn't planned for Van.
Kiran caught the movement of the Captain and jumped back as the sword hit the floor at his feet. His tonfas came out in that same moment, ready for a real attack to come next. It would be the easy choice to simply walk out now and avoid a fight altogether, but he was still within Legion territory. All Van had to do was call for backup, and Kiran would be surrounded by more Legionnaires than he could handle in a fight. A memory flickered in his mind of a time when they met in a Legion gambling house. Before the fight broke out, Van could have called attention to the fact that he was Noble, but she hadn't. Perhaps she wouldn't alert the rest of the Legions if he left.
But he still needed to get that file. Or at the very least try. If he walked away without attempting to get the file, Kiran was fairly certain that the Captains that gave him the mission would be greatly disappointed with him. And he wasn't one to simply give up because he met with a little resistance.
"No can do," he said, moving his tonfas to guard his body against the punch he saw coming. "I don't have read the file. Just get my hands on it."
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:35 am
Kiran wasn’t the only one who was disappointed by the way things had turned out tonight. Was a quiet evening really too much to ask for? As a captain in the present state of war that throttled Lunaria, though, Van supposed that it was. She couldn’t return home without it being the next morning, having to draw blood, or at the very least messing up her hair. Civilians had it much easier that way; life for them was just a bit more peaceful, but that was where Van’s lamentation ended.
There was a reason she was tasked with protecting the Legion, and not any other vain, pretty girl on the street. She was much more gutsy than any of them. Her fist hit the wooden shaft of the Noble’s tonfas before she could reach him, and backtracking, she leaned down to pick up the sword that had been left sticking up from the ground.“Well, that doesn’t mean much if you can’t get past me,” she quipped, not wasting breath or movement as she switched directions again, jumping forward with both blades flashing. “I can’t go easy on you here, even if I wanted to.”
The crossguards of the swords were outward, fortifying her fists. She only intended to knock Kiran out, after all, not maim or kill him, since doing so would mean more cleanup later on and another bruise on their shaky friendship. Still, the twin weapons were sharp, and injuries could easily become mortal wounds if there was a misstep on either of their parts.
Raising a steel-wrapped fist as she approached, she made a two quick jabs at Kiran’s exposed legs—left then right—hoping to take out a knee and knock him to the ground. “You sure you’d rather not leave now and forget about all of this? It would save us both a lot of trouble and you can try again later,” she said then, finding the breath for another taunt. Last chance.
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Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 4:37 pm
Kiran backed up a step after the strong punch connected. Even with his tonfas to protect his arms, he still felt an ache from the power of the punch. Van hadn't diminished in strength even on bit since their last battle. Anyone that saw her pretty face and thought she was a pushover in a fight would be sadly mistaken. "Then I'll just have to find a way past you," Kiran responded. "I'd be disappointed if you went easy on me."
He knew Van was skilled enough and strong enough to bring him down if he wasn't careful. Those blades that she wielded could leave a deep, fatal wound if he let them get too close. But he wouldn't expect her to go easy on him in a fight simply because they shared some kind of friendship outside of battle, though it was a rather rocky one at that. He wouldn't be going easy on her either, though beating her in a fight wasn't his main objective. He needed to find a way around her to get at the file that his Captains desired. But allowing that sole objective to distract him could be costly in a fight if he ended up missing one of her attacks.
The jabs came out him quickly. Kiran used a tonfa, smacking it on the flat side of the blade to knock it aside. Then he brought down the other tonfa as the second jab aimed at his right knee. The tip of the blade nicked his flesh. Blood beaded where the sword cut him, but it wasn't a deep enough wound to bring him down.
"Ah, but if I did that, the information would useless," Kiran pointed out. Information lost its value if obtained after the event. And that file sounded like it contained information of something that would be taking place soon based on the urgency displayed by his Captains. Kiran brought up a leg and kicked outward, hoping to catch Van in the stomach and wind her. If he could simply knock her out, he could easily swipe the information and depart without any more trouble.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 2:54 am
“I know you would,” Van acknowledged rather unhappily, “So I won’t.” She would have sighed if she’d had the time to, to express her displeasure. They’d exchanged similar words before, probably in another fight they’d had—there were many of them, and the captain couldn’t be bothered to remember. It was ridiculous to expect that one of them might concede to the other for the sake of utility or anything else. Usually when the two Lunarians came together to fight, it was with everything they had, though luck and the occasional skill tended to shift the outcome one way or another.
Kiran’s first block hit at an awkward angle to her sword, knocking the weapon out of her hand to land somewhere she couldn’t turn around to see. The hard slap of the tonfa on her knuckles stung sharply as he made to defend against her second attack, but she gritted her teeth and bit down on the yelp of pain—it’d take more than that to phase her. Blood stained her sword, she saw, as she came out of the punch, but her target didn’t seem too worse for wear.
Before she could recover, she found herself flying backwards, the easy target of Kiran’s kick. Pulling her arms to her body to prevent self-injury from falling on the sword in her hand, she forgot to account for the other one on the ground behind her.
The captain got up before she realized she was bleeding, flipping upwards and forward to attempt a two-footed kick square in the fighter’s chest. It wasn’t until after she’d landed awkwardly that dizziness from the sudden blood loss and midair somersault hit her, and gravity took over her state of imbalance. As the woman crashed to the floor, she could hear shouts outside, indistinct, urgent. It was impossible to tell whose voices they were, but she hoped they belonged to her men as her vision faded in and out of focus—she was going to bleed to death otherwise.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 7:48 pm
Kiran didn't have time to take his focus off the fight, not with the speed at which Van could attack. He was no slouch when it came to speed either, but half a delay in reacting would spell disaster. Already, she had earned a strike on him, even if it wasn't a very deep one. But Kiran was aware that at any moment their fight could draw the attention of the guard keeping watch outside.
His kick connected, and Van was thrown backward by the force. He didn't waste time for her to recover, launching toward the files. But Van recovered faster than he expected. He couldn't stop in time to dodge. Her feet hit him squarely in the chest, knocking him to the ground. He gasped after being winded by the attack. His hand released one tonfa and reached up to rub at his sore chest. "Ugh," he groaned painfully. That kick was sure to leave a bruise.
Snatching up his tonfa again, Kiran jumped back to his feet, ready to get back into the fight. He hoped the fight wouldn't be much longer for the kick had left him with a dull ache in his chest that made it hurt to breathe. He wouldn't last long in a prolonged fight. It was then that he realized something was wrong. Van wasn't on her feet. Instead she lay on the ground, blood - too much of it - spilling out from a wound. Against another opponent, Kiran might have taken this opportunity to grab the file and run before he got caught.
"Van!" Kiran shouted in a panic, momentarily forgetting where he was. He fell to his knees beside her. The whole patching up wounds thing had never been a strong point with him, always relying on his sister or healers among the Nobles when it came to serious injuries. Shouts came from outside. His distressed call had alerted the guard, who probably yelled for backup. He didn't have a lot of time to make an escape. Yanking off his vest, Kiran did his best to bandage the wound. He couldn't simply leave Van there to possibly bleed to death. They were still friends, despite how shaky that relationship was.
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