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Jokyoku
Jun 25, 2012 8:26:39 GMT -5
Post by Tokishido Kotetsu on Jun 25, 2012 8:26:39 GMT -5
The relative peace and quiet of the early afternoon was broken by the rumbling thunder of a herd of motorcyclists as they tore up the street in front of the Inn, parked at the curb, and revved their engines over and over. When they silenced them at last, the void of noise was nearly as deafening as the bikes themselves. A moment or two later, the bikers themselves showed. Dressed head to toe in leather, mostly black but with splashes of acid green and white, five men strutted inside, their helmets tucked beneath their arms and sneers on their faces. A few words in a foreign language were exchanged by two of them and the sneers grew as one, seemingly the leader of the bunch, jerked his chin towards the Governor before the group headed across the room to the bar. The bikers arrived at the bar and claimed a large section of it in front of Kai, settling on stools, putting their feet up on adjacent ones, setting their helmets on others. By the time they were done, they'd somehow sprawled over 15 different stools.
Salvador rose slowly from his stool. He kept those bikers in his peripherals. The sneering and the advancing, and the focus of their attention, did not go unnoticed. "Friends of yours?" His hand slipped under his jacket and around to the small of his back. That was his way of asking Fio if he was allowed to kill them. After all, they were being all threatening, and she was the Governor. He didn't want another jail time incident.
Fio ticked a glance or two to the door, and took another long sip of her doctored brew."I don't know them." She smiled pleasantly. Just a group of people coming to the bar.
"Good." That meant that if they got rowdy, Sal could kill them and Fio wouldn't be upset about it. He was still at the bar himself. Instead of sitting back on his stool, however, he leaned sideways into the edge of the bar, elbow on the counter. Removing his hand from underneath his jacket, he had eight inches of steel and four of grip in his grasp, a weapon the Japanese might recognize known as a tanto. He thunked the point down into the bar next to his still untouched mug of coffee, and tipped his head to Fio. "I think it was your move." Unless he had missed one after he took her pawn with his queen.
"Eh, girlie," the leader of the bunch, a particularly nasty piece of work named Ryota, said to Kai, jerking his head at her again. "Get us some beers." His accent was pure Tokyo thug, thick and menacing. At the tanto's appearance, the sneers came back and more fast, machine-gun Japanese followed. Though the words probably weren't clear, their meaning certain was. They were singularly unimpressed by the knife. The bikers made faces, mugged yawns, and rolled their eyes.
Kai looked in a state of panic that froze instantly when she was addressed by the leader of the bikers. "Uh. What kind of beers?" There was a lot of those
"Not the local piss. Sapporo. Asahi."
The quintet of motorcycles parked outisde the Inn got a mild brow raise from David as he headed that way. He'd been helping Riley and Dan pack up some of Dan's belongings in preparation for his stay at Twin Oaks while David and Riley were…out of town. The bikes were sleek and fast-looking. Rice burners rather than the kind that was become increasingly common around Little Tokyo. He walked up the stairs to the front door and tugged it open, stepping inside. There was a brief pause as he took in the scene. The Governor. Sal. Guys who looked a lot like Yaks at the bar. Wonderful. He closed the door quietly behind him and crossed the room towards the bar, not exactly staring at the five men, but certainly keeping them in his line of sight.
"So it was. Knight at F to D2, " was Fio's answer to Sal. Kai looked baffled, not familiar with two of the words the man spoke. Confusion twisted her dainty little face. "Sapporo Asahi?" And she moved to dig around the coolers to see if she could find such a thing.
Ryota shook his head sadly, as if disappointed in Kai's reaction. "No, girlie. Either or. Not both." He leaned forward and tapped his finger on the counter. "Either Sapporo. Or Asahi. Whichever this piss-pot has. So ka?"
There was no actual chess board for his game with the Governor, but they were citing the moves to each other anyway. Sal nodded a couple of times and mentally calculated some more. He was completely unmoved by the lack of impression the presentation of his tanto made. He only put it there for easier access, if it was needed. As he thought on his next move, he said aside, "Kai, you don't have to serve them. You don't work here. They need to learn how to read." Because as he understood it, most of the tenders put up a self serve sign when they ended their shifts. Fio straightened from her lean to go help Kai search the cooler, since she was back there. "Here, sweet. Let me look."
"D6," Sal finally decided.
"Huh? Oh I don't mind." Kai was already back there. She would have done it for anyone who asked. Even if the man was rude. Pulling out a beer she pointed it at Fio then the man. She was pretty sure it was the one that started with an A. This would be set on the bar to be examined before she'd pull any others.
"All right." That to Kai. Sal was just making sure she wasn't jumping to the whiplash of being bullied, is all.
Five sets of eyes like a shark's on the governor as she moved to help the girl. More snide comments and a round of snickers. And then Ryota spotted David coming inside. A jerked up-nod to one of the others, apparently the lieutenant of the bunch. "Wonder if his pet's with him?" The beer the girl had produced was Arkham Ale. It was singularly unacceptable. One of the others, low man on the totem pole looking to impress Ryota, picked up the bottle and dropped it on the floor, where it bounced once and then exploded in a lovely gush of foam and shards of glass. "Gaijin crap. Think you can find water or is that too hard, too?" This comment, when translated into Japanese, was rewarded with sycophantic giggles from the rest of the bikers.
Kai blinked when the bottle was dropped. Great. Now there was a mess. She gave Fio a little apologetic smile. She tried. She frowned at the man. "No need to be rude. Geeze." She huffed, comfortable with the bar between herself and Ryota to say it. She was already in route to get her own water so she'd be nice enough to grab another.
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Jokyoku
Jun 25, 2012 8:29:34 GMT -5
Post by Tokishido Kotetsu on Jun 25, 2012 8:29:34 GMT -5
"There's a trough outside," Sal suggested to the one who was bossing Kai around. Y'know, for horses. There's always water in those.
Fio gave Kai a reassuring, stroke of her hand on the woman's forearm, her fingers cool and dry. It was a silent, 'I have this' as she straightened. "Would you like ice?"
Their English wasn't that great so this word 'trough' just sort of went over their collective heads. "Yeah, I want ice. But I want the girl to do it. Not Ms Fancy Pants Governor."
She beamed and made a show of turning her hips this way and that to properly appreciate her backside. "They are nice pants, aren't they? A3," she added for Sal, almost as an aside. Sal added his own afterthought, "Queen to D4."
Time to take a risk. "Knight to F3." She turned to take five glasses down from the shelf over the bar, lining them up in a row to fill them with ice from the bin. Her pocket buzzed. Fio paused to check the message scrolling across the screen, and clucked her tongue. The last of the ice crunched in the glasses and she bumped the tap on with an elbow, drawing two of the tumblers under the faucet to fill them.
Brows knitting as Sal muttered, "Queen to C5."
More fluid Japanese as Ryota translated as best as he could for the rest. He made it a point to leer lecherously at the Governor's rear view. "What do you think, Hideki-chan? She could fetch $200, $250 a night at the Tombo?"
Hideki, apparently the lieutenant, nodded, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Hai, Ryota-san. Perhaps that. Probably less."
"Oh, please," her laughter at the man's attempt at an insult was derisive. Nice try. She was Fionna Helston. And she filled two more glasses. "Bishop to E3." One more glass filled, and she started setting them out along the bar in front of the men. "You really need to try harder," her voice dripped low with amusement as she gave the one who's suggested her 'price' his glass.
"Queen to A5, check," Sal said.
Tired of being ignored by the one familiar face in the crowd, Ryota said in a loud voice, "Oni no meinu ga kyo doko ka na?" I wonder were his demon bitch is today? More snickers from the others, casting furtive glances towards Fio and David.
Thunk, went another glass as Fio put it down on the bar. And another. "Queen to D2."
"Nn." He tipped his head, an ear on those foreign words, absorbing them while he thought. Decided. "Queen takes queen." He'll make that trade. "Check."
Ryota picked up his water and very deliberately poured it out on the ground in front of Kai. The others, with little sh*t-eating grins and sticking to herd mentality, followed their leader's action, adding their water to the puddle on the floor.
"And my Knight takes your Queen," Fio responded.
Mess all nice and cleaned up, Kai was just about ready to go put everything away but… She stared at the new mess on the ground. Slowly her eyes went up to the man who made the mess. "Why did you do that?"
"It is your place to clean up after men. We are giving your life meaning." This was all said in a very plain tone of voice, as if Kai were a very slow child.
"No. My life's meaning is to heal the pain and suffering of others." She said it just as plainly back. He was the slow in the head as far as she was concerned
Ryota made a little 'aw, ain't it cute?' face at her. "Pain and suffering? You are weakling Buddhist like the kiraina chugokujin and his kunren sa reta neko?" He jerked his chin towards David, calling him a Chinese assh*le and referring to his wife as a trained pet cat.
"Bishop to G4," Sal said with a slow headshake.
Fio trailed the back of her index finger along the back of Sal's hand as she returned to her previous spot along the bar. "Rook to C1." "Knight to A6," he finally murmured. Sal's hand turned over so that Fio's finger could trace the lines of his palm instead. He was thinking. Watching. Waiting for that "kill" command to let him off his leash.
"I'm not a Buddhist, actually," David said in pleasant tone, turning to face the wanna-be leader at last. He was getting more than a little tired of the insults they were flinging at Riley.
Ryota translated Kai's response to his crew and there was a jolly round of laughter at her expense, followed by more fluid Japanese. When David spoke, though, Ryota turned to face him. "Not Buddhist? So maybe you have kogan after all." He slid off the stool, bored by the game and picked up his helmet, tucking it beneath his arm. "Helston-chan," he said deliberately using the form of address one would use when talking to a small child. "Kotetsu-sama sends his regards and asks if you enjoyed your gifts?"
Fio smiled toward Ryota and answered him with her own question. "Ask Kotetsu-sama if it is the custom in his homeland to follow one overture of friendship with five insults?"
"Daddy know you kids are out of the yard? I hear he gets pretty mad when the children go wandering." Yeah, David knew a bunch of low-rank bosuzuko like these guys weren't routinely sent out on this kind of task.
Nervous looks at David's casual comment and Ryota's jaw takes on a petulant set. "What does a Chugokugo or a gaijin baishunpu know of our ways?"
David smiled, the kind of smile that those who knew Riley would recognize. A predator's smile. Living with her for a couple years, he'd picked up a few things. "Hey just looking out for you. Wouldn't want you five to get spankings, would we?" Oh yeah, he had them now. Unauthorized excursions were severely frowned upon by Yak hierarchy.
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Jokyoku
Jun 25, 2012 8:32:45 GMT -5
Post by Tokishido Kotetsu on Jun 25, 2012 8:32:45 GMT -5
One of the low men on the totem pole leaned forward and whispered something in Ryota's ear. The comment earned him a devilish smile and a pat on the back. "You are, how do you say, tattle-tale, hai?"
"Me?" David spread open hands, the very picture of innocence. "I'm just wondering how you'll explain it when you wake up after they come to collect your unconscious bodies."
"You will do this?" Ryota said, taking a step towards David. "You will do this unconscious bodies?" He sneered a sneer to make even Billy Idol jealous.
"Yes," David said musingly. "I think I will." One of those wide-spread hands blurred in a short arc that ended knuckles-first against Ryota's jaw. David pulled the punch at the last second, though, making the strike just a gentle arc, followed by blissful sleep. Breaking necks wasn't his plan. "You shouldn't talk to women like that, really."
Ryota suddenly found himself ass-over-teakettle, falling backwards into Hideki's arms, while the other three burst into action, their hands dipping into their leathers and withdrawing MAC10 machine pistols. Angry, barking Japanese followed as they aimed those guns at David, fingers hovering above the triggers.
A throwing knife slipped out of Sal's sleeve and into his free hand. He was ready to throw it at somebody's head if those triggers got pulled.
"Gentlemen," Fio let her voice rise above the fray. "Think very carefully before you elect to do anything to bring greater dishonor upon your leaders."
David sighed. "Come on, guys. Show some brains for once. Right now, it's his ass for taking you here." He jerked his head towards the limply dangling Ryota. "You might get out alive, if you just walk away now. Or are you going to stand up and tell Kotetsu-san that it was your choice to be here?" It occured to him that if Ryota was the only one who spoke English here that things might get really interesting, really quickly. Then again...some things were pretty universal.
Hideki gently lowered Ryota's prone body to the ground and stared hard at first Fio and then David. Then since David apparently had better mastery of Japanese, he directed his comment towards him. "Kare wa watashitachi no kao o hozon shite okuto yoideshou!" He would want us to save face! Then a pistol was in his hand, too, aimed in the general direction of Sal and Fio.
"Try not to make too much of a mess," Fio murmured to Sal and retracted her hand.
"Oh God yes." Sal looked positively thrilled to have a gun aimed at him! His teeth were not sharp and pointy, but he bared them in this sht-eating grin reserved best for madmen. Fio just unleashed him! He turned and stepped around the stool so that his back was to the bar and he was facing Hideki. His body in the way of any aim on Fio, who was behind the bar, too. What's that they say about bringing a knife to a gunfight? Call Sal crazy. Go ahead.
It took David a moment to puzzle out the gist of Hideki's words; his Japanese was still pretty rudimentary, though he was starting to think that some intensive language lessons from Riley were in order. "Is it honorable to disobey your wakagashira's orders?"
The pistol followed Sal's movements. The other three aimed at David and the weird green glowing thing and the big bull thing with pretty ink. "Kyoki no kuso yaro wa, anata wa watashi ga anata o satsuei shitaidesu ka?!" Are you crazy, you f*cking assh*le, do you want me to shoot you? Hideki barked at Sal before turning glancing quicky at David out of the corner of his eye. The only word he'd caught there was the important one - wakagashira.
There was a glint of something strange in rusty eyes. Sal narrowed them a touch, squinting, and tilted his head just slightly. "I'm sorry. I don't understand yappy dog." Which is what it sounded like to him. "Are you going to shoot me or what, hombre?" All Sal had in hand was a throwing knife, clutched between his fingers. Some strange brown threadlike substance was crawling over the erratic thin black lines that littered his torso, bared under the half-trench like jacket he wore. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on Hideki like a wolf having a staring contest with a dog. "Don't run," he warned the bikers, his voice a rumble like a happy mountain lion. If they ran, he wouldn't be able to resist the urge to chase.
"You will let us take Ryota-san from this place?" Hideki asked of David, though his attention was still wholly on Sal.
"If you hurry, yeah. It's not going to be up to me in another minute, though." Sal was way too eager, and even if the...whatever Sal actually was...wasn't afraid of bullets, there were probably people in the room who were. He shot a very quick look over his shoulder, making sure no one was behind him. Just in case bullets started to fly.
Ryota made a small groaning noise and Hideki's eyes twitched that way for a moment before moving back to the crazy Spanish bastard. The other three guns were starting to wobble. Keeping one's finger hovering over a very sensitive trigger without actually touching it was straining muscles not used to such tension. Bad things could happen if four fully-auto machine pistols went off. Hideki barked orders and a gun found its way into a leather as one of the other three darted forward and hooked his hands beneath Ryota's armpits, hauling him backwards and scuttling towards the doors. Three guns remained. One at David, another at Sal, and the last at Race.
The sound of the door hitting the walls startled the biker with the gun aimed at David and the finger hovering above the trigger made contact. The machine pistol flared to life, a sound like firecrackers at Chinese New Year's filling the room as bullets flew towards David at roughly the speed of sound.
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Jokyoku
Jun 25, 2012 8:34:33 GMT -5
Post by Tokishido Kotetsu on Jun 25, 2012 8:34:33 GMT -5
Rei, who had just entered the Inn, grinned as the sound of gunfire ripped the air, and that glaive was sent spinning towards the one who had fired, almost three feet of bright, death-dealing sun aimed for that Oriental head. "Duck, " he cried out happily.
F*ck. David was ducking long before someone yelled it. Diving, actually. Down and forwards, launching himself at ankle-level towards the idiot who'd fired.
"Fio, down." That was Sal's only command, timed to the bark of gunfire. It wasn't very loud, though. Not a shout so much as a statement. He wasn't going to run the risk of his moving putting her in the line of fire. So he said that before bending his knees and sling-shotting that throwing knife from his fingertips. It wasn't Hideki who fired first. He was aiming for the one who did. Fio dropped to the floor behind the bar, the sound of her name shaking her out of the fixedly strange look she was bearing down on the one with the gun. The scent of blood misted in the air.
A gigantic sword, a throwing knife, and an angry uber-man flying at his ankles served to bring Hiro, the one who had fired first, to the ground, his gun ceasing fire in mid-stream. It probably wasn't a good idea to look at him, however, since half his face has been separated from his head. One of the other two bikers ducked an in-coming stool, thrown by a seven-foot tall woman, dropped his gun, and hightailed it to the door, heedless of Sal's warning not to run. The other, though? Yeah. Full-on stool to the face. The pistol began spitting fire, the aim wild, bullets spraying hither and yon throughout the tap room. Last man standing? Suddenly wasn't. When a seven-foot woman throws a stool at you... He was, however, making weak little whimpering noises and holding his hands to his broken cheekbone, nose, and jaw as he lie on the floor, curled up like a cooked shrimp.
David rolled after striking the dead man's ankles, coming up in a low crouch, liberally sprinkled with blood that didn't belong to him. There wasn't much left to do, apparently. They'd really picked the wrong place to start something.
Sal saw the one bolting, and like a dog to a squirrel he uprooted himself from the floor and lunged. Though, he seemed to have leapt into an invisible curtain and vanished into thin air. Sal wasn't all human. Welcome to Rhy'Din. Call it teleportation if you like, but the next step should bring him out -- like poof without all the smoke -- into a diving tackle, hot on the runner's heels. If his calculations worked out right, there was going to be an awesome collision.
Running Man did a lovely little slide across the taproom's floor...on his face. The pistol was left at the bar and he held up empty hands before him, chattering pleading Japanese at the...whatever the hell Sal was. Something to the tune of "Please don't hurt me! I'm unarmed! I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
Sal was crawling up the dude's back, getting his fingers in his hair. He pushed with the intent of slamming his face into the floor one more time. Just to bloody his nose up some more. Apparently he doesn't listen well to "please." And smoosh! goes the poor dude's nose all over the floor. Blood and snot made such a lovely painting. Sal jerked the guy's head back and leaned in real close, lips to ear, his voice kind of a rumble. "I told you not to run." He hadn't decided whether or not to kill him yet.
The remaining conscious Japanese wanna-be was wriggling like a crab caught in a trap, trying to get enough leverage to get out from underneath the rather malevolent limpet clinging to his back.
The sound of approaching aid vehicles were already singing in the afternoon sunlight. The man on watch outside and the Governor's other security had dozens on the way for those in need of medical assistance. "Querido," she called over the bar toward Salvador. "Do not kill him. I need him to take a message home."
David looked like modern art with blood, but again, it wasn't his. He straightened, now that bullets weren't randomly flying about, and walked over to the Yak who'd been laid low by a well-thrown stool. He was still unconscious. He reached down and gathered a handlful of shirt in one fist, lifting him from the floor. "This one's still alive," he said to whoever was listening. "I think his face is broken, though. Probably needs a doctor."
He wasn't doing anything other than laying on the dude he caught! He was enjoying this squirming very much, too. "Nnn. SÃ, señora." Yes ma'am for Fio. Letting go of the dude's hair, he sat up on his back and jerked his arms around behind him so he could tie them together, with garrote wire, and after rising haul him up to his feet. He was just going to none too gently escort him over to Fio so she could give him the message. "Can I have one of his eyes? He doesn't need them both."
"No," she was quite firm on that point. "But I'll find some other way to make that up to you. Bring him here, please."
The biker might be trussed up like a pig being led to the slaughter, but he was still alive. For the time being, anyway. A sudden realization hit him. She'd send him back to Kotetsu-san, wouldn't she? The begging and pleading began anew. So did the squirming and wriggling.
Sal shoved the guy against the bar and pinned him there, right in Fio's face. Pressed his own body up against his backside to aid the process.
Blood and snot painted the Japanese face and the front of his leathers and he refused to meet Fio's eyes, though the constant begging for his life did not abate. "Please, Missus," he managed, though it sounded more like please bishsus. "Let me go." Ret be bo.
"Do you see that?" Fio asked the man very slowly, in Common, pointing to a small glass orb in the corner of the rafters above the bar.
The biker followed her finger to the orb and nodded, perhaps a little gobbet of something icky landing in a neat splash on the bar's counter. "Hai."
Fio twisted her head around, sliding a hand through the captive Yakuza's hair soothingly, and tilting his head toward the orb so both of their faces were plainly visible. When she spoke, it was to the orb. "I am letting your man go. He may return to you. He may not. But he did not meet his death at our hands, despite the actions of this man and his friends, which brought us to this point. Thank you for your gifts. It is a pity they meant nothing, that you followed them with this." She straightened, her speech done.
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Jokyoku
Jun 25, 2012 8:35:46 GMT -5
Post by Tokishido Kotetsu on Jun 25, 2012 8:35:46 GMT -5
"Let him go, Salvador," she sighed. The biker's eyes grew large as he caught onto the purpose of the orb. More begging. More pleading. Though now it was directed at the orb and no longer at Sal or Fio. There were tears now mixed in with the snot and the blood.
Reluctantly, Sal pushed back off of the man, a pair of scissors sharp enough to cut the garrotte wire, and he unbound him just like that. Though there were probably going to be some scars. That wire was thin and sharp and chafed horribly worse than rope. He pulled the man off the bar by the hair, turned him, and shoved him toward the door. "Run, little rabbit," he rumbled at him.
David looked around the room, unconscious Yak wanna-be dangling casually from one hand, frowning when he saw that a couple of people had caught a bullet or two. It looked like they were being seen to, though. "What should do I with this one?" he asked, directing the question towards Fio. He had his own ideas, of course, but he'd been a cop too long to ignore an official in the room.
"Let his friend take him, if he will," she told David belatedly. "If not, we'll send him home to his employer."
"Kotetsu probably doesn't even know they're here," David added, hearing Fio's speech to the camera. "These guys are just...cannon fodder. No way he'd send them out here. He'll probably have them shot for being here," he offered.
The recently released captive cast a look towards the unconscious man in David's hands. "He stay. I do not care what happen to him." He scuttled off quickly, headed out the doors, leaving the unconscious man in hanging still in David's grasp.
"What do you suggest, then?" she gestured toward the man in David's hands.
"Get someone who speaks Japanese to have a chat with him, find out what he knows," David said, then lifted one corner of his mouth in a little smirk. "
"Then do it. Report back to my office when you have what you can get. Perhaps we could get Race to assist?"
David nodded, fishing in his pocket with his free hand for his cell. It almost seemed like he'd forgotten someone was dangling by their shirt from his hand. He tapped the "1"--Riley was his first speed-dial, of course, and held the phone to his ear. "Hey babe," he said into the phone. "I've got a present for you. Sparkly? Nah...more like...bloody. You just have to come down to the Inn. Yeah, he's alive. It's a Yak. Well. A wanna-be Yak. One of those bosozuko. How'd you like to interrogate him a bit? He doesn't speak English. Sort of. Things got out of hand. A few people got shot. Not fatally, though," he hastened to add. "They're being seen to already. I don't know, exactly. It's for the Governor. She was here for the fight. One of the councilors will be there. " He made his trademarked non-committal noise, then added. "She's still here. Sal, too. Somewhere else, looks like. He'll need healing first, too. An impressively large woman broke his face with a bar stool. Head down here ASAP. We'll go from there. See you shortly. Love you, too." He smiled, despite the bloody clothes and Yak-ragdoll in his hand. "She's on her way," he told Fio. Once Riley arrived, he and Race loaded the unconscious man into Race's car's trunk and headed off to the warehouse district, where Fio would meet them.
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