He was everything that he’d been hyped up to be and more. He was innovative. He was ruthless. He was unpredictable. Above all and most grating on Cassidy’s nerves though, was the fact that he truly seemed unkillable. She thought that she’d had him in an insurmountable position, that she’d either blow him to smithereens or force his retreat. She should have known better. Cassidy was no slouch in the intelligence department, she ran Starks Enterprises for heaven’s sake and she had done her research on all those involved in the Money in the Bank match. But there had been an infuriating small amount on the Shinobi. Only tidbits here and there of how he fought with the skill of twenty men with five times his experience studying the arts. And how if he didn’t want to leave survivors, there were none. He had never botched a mission and it was rare if ever that he’d ever lost a fight. Cass had the same track record for success, causing this to be a meeting of the Titans.
He flew backwards through the air as the little Easter egg that had been hidden beneath the floor exploded. From her vantage point on the floor, rolled up against the dresser and switch for the trigger, she remarked upon his graceful movements even at such an inopportune time for him. The words that had left his mouth but a moment before played over and over in her head, a portent of what was coming. This man would bring her as close to death as he could if he wasn’t able to deliver la mort definitive – the final death.
What seemed like spontaneous movements of his, she was coming to realize, were planned two or three steps in advance. He was wily and a bit of a trickster. Add into that his nearly insurmountable skill and Cass didn’t see this going well for her. But there wasn’t any other option than to win…was there? She had never faced a loss before, a draw at the most. But was winning all there was to it? She shook her head, debris sprinkling from her flame red hair as she did so, murmuring the following words to herself underneath her breath. “It’s not just winning, it’s surviving. Only the strong remain.” It was a viewpoint that some found barbaric, but that Cassidy Starks had had drilled into her head from the time she was a child. First in the huge O’Rourke brood, later under the tutelage of Gambler, after that amongst the likes of Warsman, Darkchild and Homicide and finally, in her every day experience. The meek didn’t inherit the Earth; they were killed off in the war between those strong enough to endure. The question here was, was she strong enough? There could be no other answer than yes.
There was a resounding thud as his back hit the wall and she could hear the indentation it left, the cracks in the wall. It had been a pretty large sustainable force and the exhale of breath as it happened meant that at the very least he was winded. Her telekinesis had protected her from the impact, the debris sliding off of it and onto the floor. However, she couldn’t sustain that forever, it sapped her when she needed the energy elsewhere, in order to fight and plan accordingly.
Moving nearly silently, she brought herself up into a crouch, simultaneously grabbing the weapons that lay right by her side; her ever-faithful kukri. Her movements were lithe and fluid, her body moving with the grace of a dancer’s. What had happened to the ornate brass headboard, instead of it blowing into a million smithereens, was it had simply been propelled across the room. She took refuge behind it momentarily, trying to regain her wits and composure. Her body was coiled and she was lying in wait, waiting for the moment he showed definitive signs of either life or death so that she could spring into action like a slithery snake. But it was to no avail, for this man who continued to be one step ahead of her acted before she could manage to do so. The air around her moved, giving away his position in the darkness of the room. There was starlight casting shadows, making things appear as they shouldn’t. Her floor-length curtains swayed in the wind and she used their shadows and movements as a camouflage.
Cass kept to the shadows, until suddenly she didn’t. They both moved at the same time, only he beat her to the punch by a millisecond. Suddenly there were three of them, all acting in tandem. The movements of what appeared to be the two clones were both balletic and fearsome. The three moved in an unparalleled tandem, as if they shared the same mind, knowing each other’s thoughts and plans before they could even think them.
It was a flurry of movement from three different fronts, simultaneous and brutal. An elbow came down with nearly unsurpassed speed and it was aimed straight for the crown of her head. The swooshing sound of the wind around the arm gave it away and she was able to jerk her head out of the way in time. However, the elbow instead landed on the crook between her shoulder and her neck. The result was a nearly paralyzing sting of pain down the entirety of her arm. It was bad enough that the only thing preventing the major arteries of said arm from bleeding out was the telekinetic compress that she had wrapped around it, but now the arm was temporarily paralyzed with that surge of pain, bad enough to momentarily cause her vision to go blank.
A small scream escaped her mouth, her first instance of giving any indication as to how bad off she was. But that was just the beginning of the pain and damage that was about to be doled out. The man that had just come for her with the elbow attack, crouched in a position on the ground. Before Cass could figure out why he had just stopped, leaving him in a seemingly indefensible position, the other two spurred themselves into action. They moved as a cohesive unit and in a tandem that was nearly unparallaeled.
A single form propelled towards her, legs out and driven towards her chest. There she stood, feeling weak and slightly faint. She had thought her reflexes were up to snuff but it appeared at this point that they simply were not. The kick hit its mark, landing smack in the center of her chest. Her breath left her lungs and she felt a cracking noise as something very very bad happened to her collarbone. The same damn arm, every single time. It was almost as if they were hitting her with masterfully planned tactical strikes, trying bit by bit to limit her motion and wear her down. Judging by the fact that the pain shooting through her arm was driving her to the edge of consciousness and the fact that her left arm was now completely useless, Cassidy would have to judge that they were doing a damn good job.
The momentum sent her backwards, her hair flying out around her in a flurry of motion, obscuring her own sight momentarily. By the time that her vision had cleared, it was almost too late to react yet again. A small muffled sound left her mouth as she made contact with a warm body directly behind her. A millisecond later and there was an elbow being jabbed into her spine. As a result, her body bowed forward, yet another moan escaping her mouth as she went down to her knees on the ground. It was one thing another, barely enough time to breathe in between them, every attack dealing some sort of damage.
The stark reality of the situation was starting to hit her, the inevitability that unless she pulled some trick out of the bag, she was going to lose this fight and the cold hard truth that if she wasn’t careful, she was going to come away either dead or permanently damaged. Rising up to her feet, she was met with yet another in this endless stream of assault. She fell straight into the arms of the other two. It was almost as if they were playing hot potato with her and it was a seemingly never-ending cycle of abuse. Another man sailing straight at her through the air…men throwing themselves at her seemed to be a continuing theme of the night, whether they were real or not.
She was able to evade his knees, aiming straight for her already damaged collarbone by literally throwing herself to the ground. Landing on her undamaged arm, she rolled off towards the side and the moment that she managed to regain her feet, he was coming at her once again. A mystical blue orb surrounded his hands, casting a luminescent glow across the room. If there was one thing on her body she’d protect above all other costs, it was her abdomen. She was only about two months pregnant at this point, but lives were lives and nobody was touching her babies. This fight wasn’t a chosen one, it was absolutely necessary, it’s the only way she’d even entered into it.
He feinted right before coming directly at her with it, the other two standing by the wayside. Finally, some action that she could get in on, that she could counter. A duck to the side as he came straight at her was quite possibly what saved her life. The orb didn’t make contact with her abdomen which, from the trajectory of it, was what she assumed to be the initial intended point of impact. It instead made contact with her already damaged arm. The impact of the force sent her flying backwards into the wall, her back slamming against it. She hit mid-point and slid down to the ground. Something very wrong with her.
“Oh…you’re…” A small cough escaped her mouth, her voice dry and raspy, but without that gurgling sound that indicated blood in the esophagus. “You’re very…very…good.” She used that moment to take stock of her surroundings. She was right next to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, the curtains billowing into the room. The unkillable Shinobi stood right where she’d been but a moment before, the other two off to either side. It was time to take stock of weapons and quickly formulate a plan. Her left arm was of no use, but she still had the kukri held within her right hand. The other was under a piece of debris right near the foot of the ninja who had invaded her home. She had her wits and she had her skills, two things that would never leave her.
She exaggerated the amount of pain that she was in a slight bit and let a small keening sound escape her mouth, an animalistic sound of somebody in an immense amount of pain. Reaching across her body, she yanked on the edge of the silk curtain and tugged it down off of its rod. Using momentum and a small amount of centrifugal force, she spun it, creating a rope effect. This was done as quietly and quickly as possible and the second that she was done with that, she surged to her feet. Whipping out with it, using it very much as a bullwhip, she aimed it for the neck of one of the two clones, trying to take him out with the choking force of it as she ran through the room and towards the one that had just sent her flying.
The second that that was done, she aimed her kukri as one would a dagger, straight in between the eyes of the other, a kill shot if it managed to hit because she was working on the basis that if they could hit her, she could hit them back and it would hurt. Until she knew otherwise, that’s how she’d have to approach things. Finally, her emerald green eyes met those of the one who had sent her across the room and then dashed to the edge of his foot; right to her other remaining kukri. She took a sliding dive, feet first, the flank of her thigh hitting the floor first as she slid and grabbed the sharp weapon.
Now off to the side of him by a few feet, she quickly gained her feet. There was an open drawer in a dresser about two feet away and she used her momentum to hop up on that, giving her some air. She was now behind him and facing his back. She went straight for him, her arm outreached with the knife and aimed straight for his spine. She then spun around towards his front, with a quick slice towards his esophagus and the carotid artery. Getting in this close was dangerous and she didn’t plan to spend much time there.
Quick to back away because she knew that if this went strictly hand to hand, she would be in even more over her head than she was now, Cass relied on telekinesis for the next part of her attack. The only thing that gave away the attack was the faint purple light that coated the outer edge. Over the years, the fractured fatale had learned innovative and unpredictable ways to use it. Right this moment, she sent a small mask-shaped one geared for his nostrils and mouth. Once there they’d stay in place, blocking off his air, were they to make their mark.
Two others were aimed straight for his ribs. They were long and thin and were they to hit their mark, they’d hopefully puncture lungs or something as equally damaging. Whether they did or didn’t, she couldn’t force herself to care. For her coup de gras, she brought it back in close, taking a running start straight at him once again, her foot aimed directly at his chest. Her goals was to run up his front, deliver a kick to his face and execute a neat back flip, all while her telekinesis took care of everything else.
Log in to comment