Thursday, November 18, 2004  

Now Playing: Snake Eater - Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater E3 Theme Song

The explosion lit up the night sky, a flaming supernova erupting into the darkness. The north side of the hotel vanished in fireball, consumed by smoke and flames. Screaming people vanished under the sudden torrent of debris and were immediatly buried. Or killed. He didn't care either way.

He observed the ensuing chaos from the safety of the roof across the street. He smiled to himself, pleased. No one could have survived that blast. Whistling merrily, he tossed the detonator aside and turned to leave.

A fist smashed into his jaw. A second landed in his stomache. He doubled over. Caught a glimpse of exceptionally beautiful legs as he went down. Another blow to the head sent him sprawling to the rooftop.

He rolled with the blow, gaining his feet and drawing the combat knife in his boot in the same smooth motion. He sliced the air as he came up. She dodged backwards. He lunged, pressing his attack. Overextended. An elbow to his face broke his nose and turned the world a blinding haze of red and black.

When he was next aware, he was being shoved against the rooftop, his cheek grinding painfully against the concrete. His knife was gone. His arm, wrenched behind his back, strained almost to the breaking point. She stood over him, glaring.

He smiled. "Took you long enough." His breath whistled through the new gap in his teeth.

He had always been fascinated by her eyes: pale blue as a hazy winter sky, capable of such a broad range of emotions. The windows to a soul older than most humans could even contemplate.

Her eyes were hidden now, beneath the old mask she had started to wear again. Her face was completely blank, showing nothing of her emotion. Indeed, even when she spoke, it was in a flat tone that belied what he knew she felt.

He could imagine what her eyes looked like, behind the mask she wore. Cold and frigid, steel-blue, narrowed in fury.

She said, "Why did you blow up that hotel?"

He continued to smile, though his shoulder and face hurt horribly. He shifted slightly, in an attempt to ease the pain in his arm, and she bore down on him harder. He gasped as sparks of pain shot up his arm.

"Who sent you?"

"A good friend of yours," he said. His voice was slurred, mostly because half his face was being jammed into the surface of the roof.

"I have no friends," she said, still in that ice calm voice. "And in a moment, neither will you. Now, who sent you?"

"You know who, Venus."

Super Sailor Venus, or, rather, Sailor V, frowned. "Ellis."

"Right on the first guess."

"Where is she?"

He said nothing, not because he cared about revealing Ellis' location, but because he enjoyed watching Venus' mind work.

Unfortunetly, she wasn't in the mood to play nice.

She hauled him up, holding him easily with one hand despite her much smaller stature, and dragged him over to the edge of the building. With one hand bunched in his shirt, she forced him half over the side, his head and back hanging over the street.

Wind whipped her long blonde hair around her body. Heedless of it, she raised her voice to compete with the wind and the sound of sirens from below. "I'm going to ask you this only once. Where the Hell is Ellis?"

He grinned. "You're the luckiest woman I've ever seen, Aino. Too bad you're friends ain't as lucky."

"Wha-"

He caught her wrist in one hand, shoved against the edge with his other, and kicked out with his feet. Weight shifted, Venus let out a startled yell, and then they were falling, plunging twenty stories to the car-strewn street below.

Somebody on the street noticed. She screamed, shrilly, voice audible even over the roaring wind in his ears.

A flash of gold to his left.

His body jerked to a bone-jarring stop, every bone feeling like it had been simultaneously dislocated. Momentum slammed into the wall of the building. He swung slowly, dazed and in pain.

Venus caught him, halting his spin. She was braced against the wall. A golden chain was wrapped around her left hand, the other end of it stretched out above them. A similar chain had been wrapped around his ankles.

"Two chains at once. That's a new trick, isn't it?" he said, shouting for her benefit.

She regarded him flatly, then glanced down to the street below. Several news vans had arrived. Camera crews were pointing in their direction.

He said, "You should be thanking me, Aino. I've made you a star again. Pretty soon, they're gonna have to cast you in another Sailor V movie." He sneered. "Oh, wait. I forgot. You're supposed to be dead. Oops."

For a moment, the mask fractured, and the look of pure unmitagated fury she gave him was the first true emotion she had shown all night. Then it vanished again, leaving her as unruffled as ice. Coldly, she said, "The Love Me Chain vanishes in five minutes. You better hope they get to you by then." She released her chain, leaped away from the wall, and vanished into the smoky night.

---

Y'know, for once... I don't have a witty remark to say. :)
*goes back to downloading Unreal Tournament 2004 mods*

   [ posted by Kristin @ 6:25 PM ] [ ]