It was a pretty evening. The sun was going down, a few songbirds hardy enough to survive in an inner city park were singing, and the sky struck just the right balance between cloud and clear. Maria Pezzini had never been the sort of girl who spent much time appreciating natural beauty, but with the way things had changed for her it was one of the relatively few joys she had left.
Fucking Hellions. Fucking robot-thing.
On the other hand, if those idiots' perverted 'ritual' hadn't trapped her in this eighteenth-century abomination, she'd be completely dead by now, wouldn't she?
Maria sighed, internally - the only way she could, now, since this 'seelepanzer' thing didn't have speakers any more than it had a face - and concluded that, therapists aside, she really wasn't one of those people who were cut out for looking on the bright side of things.
Fucking Hellions. Fucking robot.
"You can't do this!"
"Watch your mouth, bitch!"
Oh, look, a distraction. Thank you for volunteering, asshat. She fed some more coal into the firebox with a mental command that felt sort of like swallowing, and waited for the boiler's pressure to rise to combat levels with a sense of anticipation that should have had a very nasty grin on her face.
"You think all your money's gonna protect ya? You think it gives you the right to diss us Hellions? That what you think?!"
"Hey, man," a second voice broke in. "Ain't that maybe a little much?"
"You backing out, man? Decided you don't want that Langley bitch so much after all? Besides, you're gettin' seconds here, ain't'cha?"
Those few words - the realization of exactly what these vermin planned, and the name of one of the few friends she'd had who'd seemed genuinely disturbed by her apparent death - were enough to sap any fragment of humor from the situation. Fortunately - both for the woman who'd been caught and the Hellions themselves, given the state of her temper these days - that was when the safety valve tripped and pressurized the rest of her system in a cloud of steam that hissed free from pinhole clearance gaps in foot-long, pencil-thin jets.
One step, two, and then she stepped off the roof.
For the space of one long breath she fell free, then slammed into the pavement with a crash that impressed a pair of hobnailed footprints half an inch deep in the pavement of the alley. The one standing lookout she ignored - for now - in favor of lunging ahead to slam the spiked plate carried across the 'knuckles' of her new arm into the jaw of what she figured to be the asshole who had been doing all the talking, what with his having stuck his hand inside the poor woman's shirt and all.
He had turned to look at the racket and was able to duck out of the way enough to make it a glancing blow rather than a direct one, but that only meant that he went down with a bleeding scrape along the side of his head rather than having his skull crushed between the brick wall and a swinging fist with well over a ton of mass behind it.
The third Hellion, the one who had been holding the woman in place, dropped his captive as his companion crumbled, stunned if not yet unconcious, and pulled out a knife. She almost could have laughed.
Something in her posture must have shown it, because he snarled and lunged, completely unconcerned with the fact that he was attacking what was, for all intents and purposes, an armored war machine more than a head taller than he was. It skittered harmlessly off of the grimy steel that had been intended to turn two-inch grapeshot, and then he was staggering back, clutching at the bleeding nose he'd earned when her backhand knocked him away.
She gave him a shot with the city-issue tazer installed in her right arm, to distract him, then turned back to the leader as he came up off the ground with axe in hand and some caliber of pistol bullet whined futilely off of the plating protecting her back. He was smarter than his friend, if even more disgusting, and swung at one of her joints as her nearer arm came up overhead.
That blow missed, but hers didn't, and hammered him to the ground, completely senseless.
The one she'd shocked was only starting to shake it off when she had turned back to him, and she didn't give him time to finish the process, instead driving a fist into his stomach hard enough to lift his feet completely off the ground. Through luck or natural surefootedness he managed to keep himself upright, but that only set him up more easily for the relatively gentle clout that put his lights completely out.
Her entire frame rang like a bell when the lookout caught her squarely with the sledgehammer he had snatched up, but a sweep of her nearer arm as she spun around to face him knocked it from his hands and snapped one wrist like a tree branch. He screamed, of course, and then cut the sound off as she brought the other arm down to club him unconcious.
"Maybe I was wrong about capes," the woman she'd rescued told her stiffly, trying to shrug her expensive suit coat back into place. "Thank you."
No, she has absolutely no clue that her friend Raye is anything other than a normal schoolgirl. ^_^
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"
Fucking Hellions. Fucking robot-thing.
On the other hand, if those idiots' perverted 'ritual' hadn't trapped her in this eighteenth-century abomination, she'd be completely dead by now, wouldn't she?
Maria sighed, internally - the only way she could, now, since this 'seelepanzer' thing didn't have speakers any more than it had a face - and concluded that, therapists aside, she really wasn't one of those people who were cut out for looking on the bright side of things.
Fucking Hellions. Fucking robot.
"You can't do this!"
"Watch your mouth, bitch!"
Oh, look, a distraction. Thank you for volunteering, asshat. She fed some more coal into the firebox with a mental command that felt sort of like swallowing, and waited for the boiler's pressure to rise to combat levels with a sense of anticipation that should have had a very nasty grin on her face.
"You think all your money's gonna protect ya? You think it gives you the right to diss us Hellions? That what you think?!"
"Hey, man," a second voice broke in. "Ain't that maybe a little much?"
"You backing out, man? Decided you don't want that Langley bitch so much after all? Besides, you're gettin' seconds here, ain't'cha?"
Those few words - the realization of exactly what these vermin planned, and the name of one of the few friends she'd had who'd seemed genuinely disturbed by her apparent death - were enough to sap any fragment of humor from the situation. Fortunately - both for the woman who'd been caught and the Hellions themselves, given the state of her temper these days - that was when the safety valve tripped and pressurized the rest of her system in a cloud of steam that hissed free from pinhole clearance gaps in foot-long, pencil-thin jets.
One step, two, and then she stepped off the roof.
For the space of one long breath she fell free, then slammed into the pavement with a crash that impressed a pair of hobnailed footprints half an inch deep in the pavement of the alley. The one standing lookout she ignored - for now - in favor of lunging ahead to slam the spiked plate carried across the 'knuckles' of her new arm into the jaw of what she figured to be the asshole who had been doing all the talking, what with his having stuck his hand inside the poor woman's shirt and all.
He had turned to look at the racket and was able to duck out of the way enough to make it a glancing blow rather than a direct one, but that only meant that he went down with a bleeding scrape along the side of his head rather than having his skull crushed between the brick wall and a swinging fist with well over a ton of mass behind it.
The third Hellion, the one who had been holding the woman in place, dropped his captive as his companion crumbled, stunned if not yet unconcious, and pulled out a knife. She almost could have laughed.
Something in her posture must have shown it, because he snarled and lunged, completely unconcerned with the fact that he was attacking what was, for all intents and purposes, an armored war machine more than a head taller than he was. It skittered harmlessly off of the grimy steel that had been intended to turn two-inch grapeshot, and then he was staggering back, clutching at the bleeding nose he'd earned when her backhand knocked him away.
She gave him a shot with the city-issue tazer installed in her right arm, to distract him, then turned back to the leader as he came up off the ground with axe in hand and some caliber of pistol bullet whined futilely off of the plating protecting her back. He was smarter than his friend, if even more disgusting, and swung at one of her joints as her nearer arm came up overhead.
That blow missed, but hers didn't, and hammered him to the ground, completely senseless.
The one she'd shocked was only starting to shake it off when she had turned back to him, and she didn't give him time to finish the process, instead driving a fist into his stomach hard enough to lift his feet completely off the ground. Through luck or natural surefootedness he managed to keep himself upright, but that only set him up more easily for the relatively gentle clout that put his lights completely out.
Her entire frame rang like a bell when the lookout caught her squarely with the sledgehammer he had snatched up, but a sweep of her nearer arm as she spun around to face him knocked it from his hands and snapped one wrist like a tree branch. He screamed, of course, and then cut the sound off as she brought the other arm down to club him unconcious.
"Maybe I was wrong about capes," the woman she'd rescued told her stiffly, trying to shrug her expensive suit coat back into place. "Thank you."
No, she has absolutely no clue that her friend Raye is anything other than a normal schoolgirl. ^_^
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"