aubergines | ( #002 ) FAKE MARRIED AU

Wha-- [ He doesn't even get a chance to finish the word before she's yanking him out of the way -- and lucky that she did, since that shot most definitely was meant to go for his heart. Unfortunately for the two of them, Peter isn't the most graceful person -- which means that he loses his balance and topples forward, practically on top of her.

(CONCUSSION PREQUEL? He sure hopes not, in a meta-sense.)

He doesn't have time to check if she's alright, though, because he hears that same high-pitched noise charging up. Rolling off, he brings his blaster to bear on the sniper, and a lance of fire from his gun shoots through the air and strikes the man in the face.

Prick.

Peter gets to his feet quickly and offers a hand to Kasumi. ]

Shit, sorry. You okay?

Yeah, I'm good.

[ Thankfully no concussions between these two (yet). In any case, she takes his hand and pulls herself up, but something's not quite right in this picture. Kasumi has the vaguest sense of being watched and of something--someone--lurking about. And for Kasumi to have that sort of feeling could only mean one thing, really.

Those copycats are around.

Sure enough, when she turns on the ball of her heel and sets off a chain overload with her omni-tool there's a flash that awfully resembles a human being nearby, and the shriek of pain that rings through the hall just about confirms it. Then the sparks are gone and so is the cloaked figure, but Kasumi's eye is quick enough--and she knows this tech like the back of her hand--that when she fires her pistol at a seemingly empty spot a crouching female in a Cerberus suit emerges from tactical cloak. She's got a katana in one hand and what looks like a blaster attachment on the palm of her other hand, but frankly Kasumi doesn't care enough to see what tricks this chick's got up her sleeve, which is why she's promptly deploying her omni-blade and lunging at the Phantom. ]

[ ... Holy shit, Kasumi being a badass is kind of hot as hell??? But now is neither the time nor the place, because he hears the strange sound of humming and warping, and instinct alone saves him from getting a face full of biotic whip.

Peter only just manages to duck when the dragoon swings the lash, aiming for his neck, but the guy seriously doesn't let up. He swings again, going for Peter's legs this time, and Peter's forced to jump back, using his rockets to get himself farther away. He's getting the distinct impression that close quarters combat is exactly what this guy wants, so maybe he should keep his distance. ]

Hope you don't need help over there. [ He manages to call out to Kasumi while simultaneously staying on the move. The guy he's fighting is fast as hell, and apparently he can cover just as much ground as Peter can, judging by his leaps. ]

Nope! Doing pretty great over here! [ she says as she ducks down to dodge a swing of the katana by the phantom. Kasumi might have had an easier time with this if her opponent didn't have some bullshit barrier that prevented her from inflicting any real damage from time to time. But as it is, she's slipping in and out of her tactical cloak rapidly, hoping to be nimble and fast enough to confuse the phantom and gain more of the upper hand.

Sure enough, she sees an opening to slip around behind her opponent as she tries another swing at Kasumi. God, the way she flourishes after every slash is not only totally unnecessary, it's just downright ineffective is the thought that goes through her mind as her omni-blade glows orange and she slips out of stealth, landing a quick, precise strike right down the center of the phantom's back with one arm and firing her pistol twice just to be sure. When the phantom's drops to the floor and to her death, Kasumi turns to find Peter leaping around with a dragoon. ]

Seriously, when did Cerberus get all these specialists? And they definitely stole the invisibility idea from me. There's just no way. [ She's similarly calling out to Peter as she's making her way over to provide backup. ]

[ He's ducking beneath another swing of a charged lash, trying to move farther away from the guy's range -- but the dragoon keeps leaping after him, which is seriously not fair. ]

Yeah, okay. [ He sounds totally impatient. ] God damn those copycats, what a bunch of-- whoa!-- What a bunch of poseurs. Whatever. Can I please get-- Shit! [ Peter launches himself to the side as the dragoon lunges at him, smashing into the ground where Peter was standing only seconds ago. ]

Can I please some help here?!

Coming, dear, just be patient! [ The "dear" is in reference to their fake marriage, of course. She's watching the dragoon's pattern of movement (which is basically "leap after target," so it wasn't that difficult of a pattern, but she's paying close attention to his timing) and, after one more leap, she deploys her decoy. Decoy Kasumi slips right into the dragoon's line of movement as he lands and real Kasumi disappears into her cloak. The sudden appearance of an obstacle throws him off of his momentum enough to buy real Kasumi time to catch up.

While the decoy executes some pretty convincing evasive maneuvers as the dragoon tries to lash out at it, unfortunately the eventual contact his whip makes with the decoy causes it to fizzle out. Fortunately, Kasumi's rigged the decoy to detonate upon destruction, and the modest blast knocks the dragoon back a few feet.

Real Kasumi reappears then, targeting the stumbling fellow for a does of overload and shouting over to Peter: ]

All yours, partner!

[ It's a testament to his faith in Kasumi that he stops dodging the second her decoy shows up (and he knows it's a decoy, because there's no way in hell she'd confront the guy face-to-face, when that's exactly where he'd want her. She's smarter than that.)

So when Kasumi Proper reveals herself and sends the guy stumbling, Peter takes his cue and shoots a blast of electricity followed soon after with a lance of fire from his two guns, then leaps forward, closing the space between them. He drives his boot into the guy's chest as he's still reeling and presses his button for his jets. The force of the rocket sends the guy over the edge of the watchtower, and the momentum makes Peter spin briefly before the rocket dies of its own accord.

He takes a moment to examine their surroundings, catching his breath, before giving her a thumbs up. ]

Thanks for the assist.

[ She gives him a salute in return, managing a small laugh in between deep breaths of her own. ]

Not a problem. [ A beat. ] But seriously, they copied me.

Edited (mistakes are what happen when i tag at 2:42am) 2014-11-16 07:42 (UTC)

[ She can't see it, but Peter's rolling his eyes when she says that. Eventually he walks over and puts a hand on her shoulder. ]

Of course they did, Partner. Of course they did.

[ She looks over the edge of the watchtower. By now the residents are congregating below, some confused and some in a panic, and the guards down below seem similarly disarrayed; Kasumi figures that they must know by now what's going on below, but weren't anticipating a mess above either. ]

Let's keep going. They've really annoyed me now.

[ She starts toward a nearby door, presuming it to be where the rest of these fools were hiding and probably waiting to ambush them. ]

[ He follows along behind her, guns prepped and at the ready, and mutters, ] Hell hath no fury like a master thief scorned.

Damn right.

[ She stops at the door and turns to him, speaking with a quiet voice as she's reloading her pistol with a thermal clip she grabbed off of the sniper on their way over. ]

Should we blow this door down or casually stroll in, guns blazing?

[ He shrugs -- luckily, ammo's not a thing for him. Cooldown times, though, now those are a bitch. ] I vote for casual, but I'll follow your lead.

[ She takes that cue to touch the console on the door. It beeps, but there's a pause before the door actually opens, likely to give those inside fair warning. Kasumi takes that moment, though, to take a step back and aim her pistol right at the door. ]

Let's do this.

[ Peter follows suit, taking his spot beside her.

The doors open, and it seems the Cerberus lackeys have already taken cover (and Peter will always wonder why there are so many waist-high, seemingly pointless walls on this side of the galaxy). Commands are shouted, and Peter takes the opportunity to shoot at the soldier closest to him before ducking down and sliding into cover. ]

Counted six, not including the dude I just took out. How 'bout you?

[ She leaps into cover nearby, taking out another one of the more nondescript lackeys (the poor fools didn't get any special weapons). ]

Same here. This'll be a cake walk.

[ Though by the end of her sentence, she's ducking out of cover and sending an overload through an approaching glowy blue orb--a combat drone?--the presence of which could only mean there was an engineer nearby. Hope he's not setting up a turret because that would just be cheating. ]

[ Peter pokes his head out of cover long enough to take out another grunt near him, then leaps over his wall to take cover behind another, moving closer to the enemy.

As he's moving, though, he sees a soldier set down a familiar looking device and Peter fires a couple of warning shots his way, just long enough to distract the man and send him scuttling back into cover. ]

Engineer. Turret at 12 o'clock.

Damn. I hate those things.

[ Kasumi cloaks while moving in between cover, reappearing as she grabs an unsuspecting goon on the other side of the convenient half-wall. She pulls the poor guy over said wall and lets go as her omni-blade appears and she gets him right in the chest as he falls, the sad noises of gurgling and death audible through his helmet. ~~Bless this handy-dandy new Quick Kill thing.~~

Then she's looking ever so slightly over the edge of her cover at the turret as it completes its self-deployment process. ]

Got any more of those bombs on you, Quill?

[ Peter digs through his pockets -- plasma bola, tripod, was that a piece of gum why do I even have gum, where the fuck is that bomb? -- and pulls out one of Rocket's homemade grenades. ]

Got it! Watch yourself. Fire in the hole--

[ He waits a quick second, then he chucks the bomb at the turret before ducking back into cover. The explosion takes out both the device and the engineer nearby, and sends shrapnel flying in all directions. ]

[ She quickly slips into cover as the blast goes off, taking advantage of the ensuing confusion to cloak. When it's done and over with, it only takes a few seconds before there appears to be a assault rifle (stolen from one of the dead grunts) floating in mid air behind a disoriented centurion. ]

Think fast, buddy!

[ goes the disembodied voice of Kasumi, which doesn't remain disembodied for long after she de-cloaks and fires a burst of bullets into the centurion's back. The body falls to the floor like a rag doll, and Kasumi's right there, looking down over it. ]

Aww, not fast enough.

You're having too much fun. [ It's meant to sound discouraging, but it totally doesn't come off that way.

Peter takes a quick mental tally -- five guys down. Where's the sixth? He peeks out of cover, and when he does, his question's quickly answered when he hears something tink tink tink along the floor in front of him.

Flashbangs.

He doesn't have time to pull back, only has a second to think, Fuck! before the things go off. Pretty soon all he can see is white and there's a ringing in his ears and the only thing he's sure of is that he has one of those half-ways to his back.

Fuck, fuck, fuck-- ]

Fuck! [ Yeah, he's totally saying it aloud, now, because getting disoriented like this in the middle of a firefight is totally bush league. Kasumi is totally not going to be impressed with this screw up. ]

[ Kasumi barely had any time herself between noticing the flashbangs on the ground and ducking behind the nearest cover; her "Flashbang!" meant as a heads-up to Peter, comes too little too late, drowned out by the piercing sound of the detonation. Even with her head tucked low and her eyes closed, the sheer number of the things is enough to disorient her even a little bit.

Peter's yelling is how she snaps out of it, and while it may be true that it's not his most impressive moment, she's scrambling out of her cover all the same to make her way over to him. Apparently, someone's deployed some smoke screens to go with the flashbangs, but she follows the sound of his voice quickly enough to be able to swoop down, her entire body almost touching the ground, and sweep a phantom across the feet with a kick just in time to interrupt the copycat's attempt at attacking Peter. ]

[ By the time his vision's cleared enough to allow him to see blurry, indistinct blobs and the ringing his dissipated to a hum, he sees a flurry of movement and hears the muffled bam of (what he thinks is) a body hitting the floor. He blinks, trying to clear out the white spots in his eyes, and he thinks he recognizes Kasumi's form nearby (because, in his mind, she has a very distinct figure), and on instinct he shoots at the other figure on the ground.

That was a dumb move, though, because now there's more light in his already fucked up vision, and he winces as the electricity dances across the person's body. ]

Really hope that wasn't you just now, Goto. [ He tries his best to keep himself from shouting, given that his hearing is only slightly below fucked; as it is, his voice is just a little louder than normal. ]

[ She sees him trying to aim his blaster and there's a moment when, despite her distinctive figure and all, it isn't entirely clear who he's aiming for-- ]

--Quill!

[ --she says, with a lot of emphasis because holy shit she finds herself pushing off the ground with her arms and having to contort her body oddly to make sure the blast hits the phantom and only the phantom. Thankfully, it works, and Kasumi's just looking at Peter in his post-flashbang state as the phantom's screams die out (the rest of her dies out too, of course.

The look on her face just says, That was way too close for comfort and I appreciate the assist but I could have handled her myself. ]

[ Peter pulls a face behind his mask, even if she can't see it, and even if he can't quite make out her expression, what with the hood obscuring her face and all, and his vision still being at about 60%. Still, he's heard that tone of voice before -- hears it on an almost daily basis from various members of his crew -- and recognizes it for what it is. ]

Thanks, and you're welcome.

[ He shuts his eyes, tipping his head back against the wall with a quiet clink as the metal of his mask meets the surface. Any second now that ringing in his ears will go away. Yep. Any time now. ]

Fuckin' hate flashbangs.

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go to bed 8|

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omfg i never hit post comment

i was beginning to think you forgot about lil' ol' me ;o;

neverrrr. i just forgot how to push buttons ;3;