ArchivedLogs:Exhilaration

Exhilaration
Dramatis Personae Isra, Jax	2015-02-27 "I could go for some coffee." (Fight!. Some violence, cuz, fight.)
Location <NYC> BoM Safehouse - Lower East Side
Tucked away off a little-used side street in the Lower East Side, sandwiched between a youth drop-in center and a taqueria, this narrow three-story townhouse has very little to catch the eye. Boarded-up windows, a door peeling its paint, shabby grubby brickface; from the outside it does not look like much. Inside someone has gone to great lengths to renovate the building into something more habitable. It isn't glamorous but it is comfortable, old furniture dragged in, the place generally swept clean. The first floor holds a large living room, a smaller dining room, a spacious kitchen, a half-bathroom. There are three bedrooms and a full bathroom on the second floor; the attic is just a large empty space crammed full of boxes with a window out to the large flat roof. The basement, much like the attic, consists of a lot of empty space. A bare concrete floor, no windows, occasional poles running up to the ceiling. A tiny half-bathroom down here, too. Not a whole lot else. It's growing late in the night -- which means by now it's hot, down here, the basement full of the smells of sweat and blood, the concrete floor stained, the gathered faces changed many times over as people finish their matches, drift in and out, stagger upstairs to find a couch to /recuperate/ on, limp down the block to Evolve to nurse wounds over hot cocoa or beer, as new people come /in/ fresh and ready for action. At the edge of the room /one/ Joshua is looking a little exhausted, a little haggard after a few hours; it doesn't stop his crooked grin as he murmurs something to Joshua #2. Which one is Mirror only they can say for sure. In the center of the room, Jax is looking bright and downright chipper. Barefoot and bare-chested his tattoos and bird-of-paradise dyed hair make him nevertheless still brightly colourful, as does his Funshine Bear symbol eyepatch and glittery blue and purple makeup, nails painted up to resemble a sunset and the tiny lights in his wristcuffs and collar both faintly glowing. Blue, today. Bounce-bounce-bounce on the balls of his toes; too much energy, maybe, he's practically dancing into the ring. Isra sweeps into the ring in one long, smooth stride. She wears black bike shorts and black sports bra, exposing a great deal of frosty metallic blue skin, blossoming in purplish scuffs and bruises her and there from earlier bouts. Her wings shake out, their membranes dark blue shot through with gold like lapis lazuli. The gold talons tipping their phalanges flex and relax. Her eyes seem not to blink at all, fixed on her opponent with predatory intensity. She inclines her head slightly, long spiraling horns gleaming in the light, and settles her weight low. Her tail weaves rhythmically to and fro. Muscle tighten beneath her skin visibly a fraction of a second before she bursts into motion, powerful digitigrade legs propelling her forward, one arm sweeping out to rake with long, golden claws. For just a moment, a smile flashes across Jax's face, warm and bright. The dip of his head in response to Isra's is almost a bow. His weight settles back, more planted now on both feet. His teeth catch at the side of his lower lip, clicking against the lip ring there as he pulls in a breath. He makes no move to dodge, no duck or sidestep away from Isra's swipe and for an instant it seems like he might just /take/ the full force of Isra's raking blow. Just for an instant. But instead Isra's claws find the warm unyielding surface of a very-faintly-shimmering translucent shield that blossoms into the air between them. Just for an instant, too. When it vanishes, so has Jax, disappearing from view though the soft pad of bare footsteps is circling left. The sudden bright-hot beam of light that sears out towards Isra's forearm comes from the right, though. Neither the shield nor the disappearance of her opponent seems to surprise Isra. Her ears swivel side to side, tracking Jax's movement. She plants her leading foot and pivots left hard--the talons on her toes scraping against the concrete, her tail whipping around fast enough to whistle. Though she cannot move fast enough to avoid the beam, she does jerk her arm out of the away with extreme alacrity. A growl escaping her throat through fangs bared in a savage /grin/ despite the scorch mark on her forearm and the scent of burning flesh. Her left wing snaps out low, slashing toward the footfalls of the unseen photokinetic. There's a stumble-shift of feet -- followed by a thwap-whump, though not down against the concrete but /forward/ against Isra's wing. The hands that Jax uses to catch himself are also searing hot, fingers clamping in against the bones that hit him as he tumble-rolls /over/ the long bone. And then away. After this there's quiet. Relative quiet, lost in the ambient noises of the onlookers. Okay, almost quiet. He has to /breathe/ sometime, a slow breath drawn in a little behind where he rolled to. And another quick-hot arc of light, ripping out to tear low, behind the backs of Isra's legs. Isra snarls at the burning touch, however brief, and the sound does not completely subside when Jax rolls clear. The growl drops to a quiet rumble just at the lower threshold of human hearing. Her ears flick back and forth and she cocks her head slightly to one side, trying to get a better fix on her foe's location through the environmental noise. When she strikes again, her pounce misses him by nearly an arm's length, though it does incidentally cause /his/ attack to miss its mark, though it instead burns a long swath of angry dark skin into her right wing. She spins around tail lashing at her opponent at abound thigh level and followed fast by an only slightly higher kick. Isra's tail whips around Jax's leg; he drops downwards, hissing, as it does, to take a knee. The kick thunks solidly in against another shield -- not warm this time but superheated, there for only a moment before it melts away. His invisibility melts away with it -- when he reappears it's just a hair paler than before, though he /looks/ drastically paler, makeup vanished to leave him looking far more washed-out. One knee braced against the floor, his hand lifts; the flash that accompanies the motion is blinding-bright. Isra draws back from the heated shield as quickly, growling louder only briefly at the searing contact. She angles her next strike from his blind side, uninjured arm swiping at him from outside and below. The opposite wing--tremendously long when so extended--sweeps out low and slashes in from /behind/ him. Involved thus in a double attack, she finds herself in a poor position to shield her eyes from the flash--the other arm and wing, both injured, cannot move fast enough to do so. She twists her head away, eyes squeezing shut in vain, for all that the lids can do against a light so bright. There's another hiss from Jax. The shield that shimmers up this time comes a moment too late; he rocks back, a spattering of blood hitting the floor a half-instant before he does. He rolls aside to get his feet again, twisting to keep Isra as much as possible on his good side again. There's a peppering of small sharp stings as he is moving, tiny lancing needle-thorns of light in a fiery spray up along her side and face while her eyes are squeezed shut. Isra finally does get a wing up to shield her face from the hail of stinging light, though when her eyes open again they blink rapidly and dart side to side, sightless. Her ears flick to track Jax's movement as before, but her attack now comes much sloppier. The uninjured wing jabs out in a descending arc, the heavy thumb-claw at its apex flashing gold in the harsh light. Sloppy or not, the attack is rewarded at its end with a sharp ragged cry from Jax, the claw finding a solid home torn through his shoulder. He hasn't tried very much to move or dodge; just crouched to ground himself, knees planted, hands flat against the ground, solid and bracing. Despite the hoarse cry of pain, despite the thick dark well of blood streaked down over his bright tattoos, his teeth have bared in a grin, broad and kind of feverishly exhilarated. Around him there's a faint dust-mote swirl of glow to the air, glittering-golden, and not a half-second after Isra's claw strikes home a pair of shields have wrapped themselves -- not around Jax but around Isra, slim and not so much protective as encasing the large limbs. Jax's teeth grit, now, lips still peeled back like a smile though his jaw has clenched. Fingers pressed hard to the floor, muscles tense and straining. There's a slim trickle of blood that leaks down from his nose as the binding shields slowly-slowly drag down towards the floor. Isra does not seem, initially, to understand what has happened. Her eyes still fail to track, and only roll wildly in their sockets as she thrashes against the shields that hold her wings fast. Though formidable, her strength can find little leverage against the force-fields, and her struggling succeeds mostly in throwing her /body/ around on its way toward the ground. She snarls and lashes out in Jax's direction one last time with her good arm. Jax still doesn't move. Maybe can't move, face paling and his muscles still tense and braced against the ground. He only twitch-jerks, hissing out a sharp keen of sound through his teeth. His head jerks to one side, a ragged slice laid red and open down his cheek. The shields don't falter, though. When they come to rest pinned out flat on the ground his tension eases, his breathing eases. His hand finally lifts, wiping the now-thicker streak of blood away from his nose. The shields on Isra's wings are growing hotter, small needly fire-pricks lighting up their insides to bore down against the membranes. Jax is shaky as he eases back away from Isra, his bleeding arm now pulled up off the ground though the other still presses to the concrete to support him. Isra gives one last mighty push against the shields, bracing both arms against the ground and pushing. But this, too, fails to overcome the shields and she slips back down, pinned in place by the wings. Her tail whips violently from side to side when shields grow hot, her wings twitch within their narrow confines. The growl dies in her throat leaves only a pained, breathy pant she stretches out a long-fingered hand to tap the floor. Jax heaves out a breath sharp and heavy when Isra taps. The shields vanish, the heat vanishes, all in an instant. His hand comes up to cover his face, shoulders heaving like he might be about to throw up -- but he doesn't. He pulls in a steadier breath, easing up to his feet and extending his -- /un/bleeding arm out to Isra to help stand as well, with a lopsided smile that still has a streak of blood dripped down it. Isra rest her forehead on the cool concrete and lets out a long breath as the shields go down. Her wings pull back in close to her body and then shake back out, one of them bracing against the floor to help prop her up. She grins at Jax and takes his hand--or tries to, missing on the first pass. She squints and tries again, gripping his forearm to lever herself to an awkward kneel. "Well played, my friend." Her wings wobble from side to side for balance as she regains her feet. "Good match." Jax's head dips in acknowledgment, then dips further to wipe blood off his (torn) cheek onto his (torn) shoulder. "Thanks. You too." His eye flicks to the pair-of-Joshuas at the side of the room, then back to Isra. "Evolve after? I could so go for some cocoa." Isra curls the less injured of her wings around Jax's shoulders--very gently. "Most assuredly. I could go for some coffee, myself."