CoV - Glimmering Shell Pt. 3

Winning Vote: [X] Tiger Among Scorpions

-Start to attack the gangsters taking the pistols away with Alya's own guns.

--Use the chaos of the gangsters firing back to get Alya into a position where Glimmer can only approach from a small number of predictable paths.

---Exploit her unwillingness to hurt Alya in setting up a Typhoon Beneath the Waves attack.

----------------------------------

If you let this standoff go on for much longer, you’ll be left with nothing but an empty room and Glimmer’s pitying expression as they leave. They’d probably cap the fight off with some pithy quote about how ‘I hope you can let your anger go and we can talk this out as friends again’ trollshit before scampering away. You aren’t letting that happen if you have anything to say about it.

You duck out from behind your pillar and eye the closest Powder Scorpion, who’s loading guns off the wall into a crate as fast as he can, nervously glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. He’s pretty clearly just dumb muscle they pulled off the street, none of the salt-worn, sun-baked skin of your actual extended family. You don’t bat an eye as you put a bullet through his skull, sending him careening to the floor. You walk up to his body and shoot him again just to be sure, then take the pistol he had in his hand for your own.

There’s a few more of them to either side of you, and it takes a few more shots - and a few more fallen crew - before they collectively realize they’re being shot at and the informal rule of ‘don’t interfere in fights the bosses have’ falls to the wayside in favor of their own survival. A flurry of poorly-aimed shots sear past you, leaving red aftertrails in your vision as you dash back behind another pillar, glancing around the room as you consider your options.

[Getting into Position, DC 40-10(Confusion): 51, Success]

[Not Getting Shot, DC 50/30/10: 40, Minor Wound]

The guns are being ferried out of a door near the end of the hall, and so you move to block their exit, ducking and dashing erratically as you do in order to present a hard-to-hit target from the hail of red-tinged bullets flying your way. You get to the door and hit the Scorpion thug trying to escape with a flying side kick to the chest, sending him slamming into the wall with a wheeze of breath. The pistol in his hand goes off almost by accident as he impacts into the wall, and you’re forced to throw yourself onto your back to avoid being shot dead in the chest. You’re just a hair too slow, however, and the side of your neck lights up in pain as a chunk gets torn out by the bullet’s passing. You snarl, grit your teeth, and spring back up to your feet, the motion sending a sickening tearing feeling up one side of your head. You dispatch the bastard with another pistol shot and probe at the wound - it feels like you’ve been bitten by a venomous snapping clam, and trying to turn your head to the side quickly proves to be an unwise move, but you’re fine otherwise - Scorpion bullets have a tendency to cauterize most wounds, and you only got scraped.

[Baiting Glimmer: Autosuccess due to tactics and Skilled+ Snark]

“What’s it gonna be, Glimmer,” you shout, keeping your eyes peeled for any hint of the fishy bastard. “Will you come out and face me yourself, or should I just keep killing all your crew until you muster up the roe to do more than run and hide?” You give the corpse at your feet a stomp to the head, crushing its nose and cracking its teeth with a sickening [i]crunch.[/i] “What was this one’s name? You were always so pointed about learning the names of everyone you worked with.” You stomp down again, and again, and again. The corpse’s face is a bloody ruin, the imprint of your boot practically stamped into its soft flesh. “What was their name, Glim?!”

[Ambush Detection, DC 50: 45]

There’s a rustle of cloth and you snap your head upwards just a hair too late. Glimmer crashes into you, having climbed up the support pillars and jumped down, and the two of you roll and tumble in a ball of frantic scrambling and thrashing limbs. You lash out, feel your fist connect with something, grab and pull inward while you thrust your knee up, and Glimmer’s eyes bulge outwards ever so slightly. You bare your teeth in triumph and go to throw another knee, but they slither out of the way and scramble on top of you, pinning you on your side with an arm and a leg held bunched together in a vice-like grip. You struggle and strain, but can hardly even move.

Glimmer’s searing yellow eyes stare into your own, their expression as unreadable as ever. “His name was Korburn,” they say, their voice low and filled with something resembling regret. “He’d always wanted to sail.”

“Fat chance of that now,” you quip, and let out a gurgle as Glimmer shifts more of their weight on top of you, pushing the air out of your lungs. “None of - hgk- nunna you will ever see the waves again once I’m through.”

“Cait.” Glimmer puts their head right next to yours. “What are you so intent on seeing me dead for?”

You can’t turn your head, but you hiss into their face all the same. “You sold me out to save your own slimy skin, gillbreather! That night on the Shaytan, when you let that grey-robed bastard get away because you couldn’t ignore his whining. You fucked up, he got away, and you put the blame on my head!”

[Talking Their Guard Down, DC 50/30: 30, Minor Success]

The stifling squeeze Glimmer’s got you in lets up, just a fraction. “That’s … that isn’t why that happened,” they say, and their voice has a quaver in it that wasn’t there before. “There are things you weren’t told about why we came to Shelldrop, and things I know now that would’ve made me choose differently that night if I’d been aware of them.”

“Then tell me, Glimmer,” you say with placid calmness. “Look me in the face and tell me the reason you stayed silent while I was locked up and left to rot.”

Glimmer’s grip slackens yet more and you shift your body ever so slightly. You face them eye to eye, your foreheads almost touching, and you can feel the fingertips of one hand gently scraping at their belly. Conflict and indecision war in Glimmer’s eyes, and they open their mouth and take a breath in, as if to say something.

[Typhoon Beneath The Waves, DC 70-15: 99]

You unleash the coiled knot of tension in your diaphragm and let it surge out through your arm, fingers pressed together like the point of a dagger. Your hand pierces into Glimmer’s abdominal cavity as easily as reaching into a bucket of water, and the only thing that comes out of your friend’s mouth is a shocked wheeze. You clench your fist, feeling slimy tubes squirm and pop around your fingers, and bare your teeth as Glimmer’s lips gape and gasp in an oddly fish-like fashion. “On second thought, keep it to yourself,” you growl, and smash your forehead into their snout, relishing the feel of cartilage cracking and deforming under the impact. You scramble out of their grip so you’re standing over them and pull as hard as you can. Your hand comes free with a noise of wet suction, taking a tangle of ropy intestine with it. Your arm’s stained a deep purple all the way up to the elbow.

[Coup de grace, DC 60: 54]

You’re not given long to savor this victory - Glimmer may be hurt, but no adherent of Burning Venom Palm shies away from pain. One of their hands reaches up and grabs at the slimy coil of their own entrails linking your hand and yanks, hard. You’re not ready for it, and are pulled off-balance, your head jerking forward. Glimmer’s other hand rockets up towards your face, their webbed fingers suddenly wreathed in a corona of crimson fire. It’s all you can do to intercept their arm, deflect it into your chest instead of your face. As you do that, you’re forced to lean even further off-balance, and Glimmer takes that opportunity by planting a kick directly into your tailbone. You go tumbling forward, and tuck and roll as best you can, springing back up to your feet as you look for your opponent.

You turn to see Glimmer with both hands and feet aflame, pressing one hand to the dripping wound in their side. Their robe smoulders and the wound hisses wetly, but their eyes stay steadily on you. Their expression’s gone blank again, and you can’t make out what they’re thinking, but you see how their weight shifts as they drop into a proper fighting stance. You’ve managed to make them forget their squeamishness for now, it seems.

Good. You’d hate for your catharsis to come from a squirming coward.

Alya Condition: Mild burn on upper chest, glancing gunshot wound to right shoulder. Right hand coated in entrails. Armed with 1 pistol.

Glimmer Condition: Mangled intestines; cauterized. Partially broken nose. Armed. Hands and feet aflame.

Situation Update: Glimmer’s suffered a fair bit of internal damage, and it’s largely thanks to Burning Venom Palm’s conditioning that they’re still upright. You’re not sure what their next moves might be, but it seems unlikely that they’ll exercise the same leniency as before. 4 rounds remain until the pistols are fully packed, assuming the gangsters doing so are left alone. ???-2 rounds until Granny Flowers' arrival.