driftfleet | Blameless Mingle

[But then, that only makes this an even better challenge. Good.]

... Impressive. But it won't be enough.

[Challenge or no, this person clearly isn't to be taken lightly, either. Better to end it quickly. There's only a split second notice as Azula's stance changes before she lashes out with one forearm, lightning arcing out with it.]

[Well, she'd mentioned fire - but lightning he wasn't expecting. It's also not something easily dodged. The lightning takes him straight to the middle and he doesn't even have time to think about it before he's sent flying back. His back collides with the captain's chair and he slumps down there, temporarily immobile.

Electricity might not conduct adamantium, but the rest of the human body does. But it doesn't kill him. His claws begin to grind against the metal ground as he begins to stir again. The lightning may have done some internal damage, but that's slowly beginning to knit itself back together. The burned skin has already returned to its natural pink.]

[That much lightning and still not dead? Azula isn't sure whether to be irritated or impressed. Against her? It's a problem. But with her...]

You know, it would be a shame to lose a man of such strength and bravery to the airlock.

The way I see it, this can play out one of two ways. We can continue this childish display of power from dawn until dusk until one of us is taken out. You're a person of great pride, I can see that. Unfortunately for you, so am I. So the only way that ends is with one or both of us dead.

Alternatively, you ally yourself with me, and we can end this whole fiasco right here.

[Logan was a ball of rage now. He could play calm at times, but there was a point where he couldn't easily turn it off. Just now was bordering on one of those moments. He was soon back on his feet and he was advancing on the girl again. He heard her words, but he simply didn't care. He was not some mook to take orders. After nearly a century of being toyed with by one individual or organization to another, he was beyond falling for some Cloud City Vadering.]

I told ya when yer last chance was, kid. Ya done missed it already.

[There was a distinct problem that many encountered when it came to the Wolverine. It didn't matter how many times he was hit - he always got back up.]

[Azula settles back into her ready stance and tsks.]

That's really too bad. Very well. Don't say I didn't warn you.

[Getting in close would be hard, unless he wanted to walk through flames. He needed momentum and distraction. Fortunately he was not without options. Two of his claws slid back inside his forearm a split second before using the remaining blade to slice clean through the top half of the captain's chair. It would've made for a good shield as he charged her. Instead he hurled it with surprising speed and strength.

And then he charged. His blades glistened from reflected flames, but for how wild and savage his attack might have seemed, there was restraint still behind it. If he could help it, he wasn't going to cut off anything she might miss.]

[It's those claws that are the problem, she thinks. She just has to avoid those-- unless he has any other tricks up his sleeve she doesn't know about. As it is, Logan does indeed have the advantage in close quarters. Letting him get within arm's reach would be a mistake.

Azula dodges to one side, avoiding the chair, then makes a hasty couple of cartwheels backwards-- out of the bridge and into the connecting hallway. It's not anywhere near as graceful as something Ty Lee might have executed, but it serves it's purpose. Flames follow her arcing feet as she goes, and once she's on her feet again after creating some distance, she punches out the biggest fireball she can manage in an otherwise-small corridor.

This ship is going to have some scorch-marks.]

[She's on the move. That's fine - it's easier that way. Now that she's in the corridor, it's entirely his territory to corner her. He moves quicker and more agile than a man of his build would suggest. When the blast of flames comes towards him, he has to twist to flatten his back to the wall. He feels the heat of the flames boil against his skin, but it's all surface damage again. The pain is internalized and used to funnel his anger.

He comes out of the flames with fury in his eyes and quickly closing the space she had earned herself. From the way his fists were swinging, it would look as though he had every intention of cutting right through her. He hadn't decided yet if that's what he would do or not.]

[She fires off another jet of flame from her other fist as Logan closes in. Unfortunately, Logan's claws make his reach longer than Azula is used to, and the second time she tries to dodge them to one side, they come much too close for comfort. The world seems to go in slow motion for a second as the very edges of Logan's claws barely scrape three long scratches across the front of her armor, before she turns and runs further back down the corridor once more. If she can only give him the run around long enough to get down to the cargo hold!

Azula's strategy continues as such for a while-- retreating several metres, stopping just long enough to fire off more streams of flame and draw him in again, then dodging like hell and retreating again. It's not ideal-- but she can't go on the offensive like this until they're out of the hallways. Until then she just needs to bide her time and not slip up. She treats it a bit like the fight against the Avatar and his cronies during the Day of Black Sun-- giving Logan the old run around. She's like a monkey, never staying still for a moment.

Against all odds, she actually seems to be enjoying herself, if the grin on her face is anything to go by.]

[Logan twists to avoid the flames, but more like a dancer in motion than a deliberate attempt to dodge and take shelter. His skin suffers for it, but his momentum doesn't. If she stops to attack him, it's only to her own disadvantage - the flames don't slow him down as nearly as much as they do her. With the shuttle bay not too far away now, Logan takes his chances by leaping into a sudden tackle, arms outstretched and claws providing extra reach. Much as he might enjoy tearing her eyes out, he intends only to tackle her.

All of it is painful as hell, but this was the kind of thing Logan was made for. It might not be accurate to say he was enjoying this, but the man was in his element. He was the apex predator, after all.]

[Well, shit. There isn't enough maneuvering room to dodge a full body tackle, so she falls back on the old standard-- if you can't dodge them, electrocute them into infinity.]

[An electric charge straight to his head isn't ideal. He sees only the flash before everything seems to go black - but though he falters for half a moment, it doesn't stop his momentum. At point blank, it should have fried his brain, but his adamantium skull protects him from that much at least. The rest of him devoid of sense continues to barrel towards her before his legs begin to fail him.]

[Ha! She's triumphant for a split second when Logan seems to slow, but--]

[--Sadly, still underestimates Logan's ability to keep barreling on long after most mortals would have been fried to a crisp. In the seconds she takes to gloat, she fails to move out of the way in time, and goes down. Hard.

It happens so quickly, she doesn't even seem to realise what's going on until it's too late.]

[Logan is a charred and badly burned mess of a human being just then. From the blast of lightning directed into his skull, his entire face is blacked and grotesque such that even his eyes have been burned, even if not entirely away. A man his size might have been heavy enough, but the adamantium skeleton added another fifty kilograms to his weight. All of it landed on her, though he was senseless during it.

She would have precious moments to try and get out from under him. His body was slowly knitting together the internal damage first before it would begin to start repairing that on the surface. But he was alive. His hard and labored breaths were proof of that.]

[All right, now she's mad. Who is this guy, anyway? Is he immortal? Can he be killed? She wastes no time summoning her strength to kick him off as ruthlessly as she can manage, panting heavily after the attempt as she stands. It's not far to the cargo hold now. She turns and makes a bolt for it, not bothering to check if he's following. She can waste time catching her breath after she gets there.]

[She escaped while he was still senseless to the world. By the time he jolts back to reality, she's gone and he's lying on the ground. He's blind when he manages to get back to his feet again, but that's fine. He had lots of ways of getting around without sight. Her scent was easy to follow and he knew enough about the ship to follow. His steps were slow at first, but as his eyes began to form pupils again, the world came back in a hazy blur. He needed to think smarter. As long as he kept running into her fire and her lightning, he wasn't going to get anywhere but constantly charred.

So while she went for the cargo bay, he took a detour through engineering. He might not have known how it all worked, but he knew a power source when he saw one. Much as he might like to simply slam a set of claws and power everything off - he spared the extra few seconds to locate the power switch. The entire ship was powered down, the lights died out, and more importantly - the electronic doors to the shuttle bay were locked. Wolverine was blinded again, but he did his best hunting in the dark.

So he turned back into the corridor and began to follow her trail. This shouldn't take much longer.]

[Honestly, she had expected him to get up quicker than this-- where is he? Surely he hasn't died, and surely he hasn't turn tail and run. She doesn't think she misread his character that badly. So what is taking so long?

That's when the lights go out. Shit.

Azula is a highly skilled fighter-- she's in as much peak condition as a fifteen year old girl can be. But she's still only a regular human. She can't see or smell or sense in the dark. And she's not foolish enough to assume that this is a coincidence, either. No, this is Logan. Another part of his skillset? She doesn't want to wait around long enough to find out. There are lots of things she can do, but fighting in the dark isn't one of them.

She has a fairly good memory, though. Perhaps-- if she can get to the right wall, she can find the door to get out of the ship. Shit. Where was it in relation to her? Closing her eyes and bringing the layout of the room to mind, she thinks she recalls it, and makes a run for that direction.]

[For a man that weighed as much as he did, Logan could be surprisingly light on his feet. He had abandoned his half charred boots to make his foot steps even softer. He quieted his breathing which now came easier when nearly all of his skin tissue had returned to its normal pink. Although he could not see her in the dark, his sharp hearing could pick up her footsteps. She's running. Good.

He starts doing the same. The only sound she'll hear moments before his attack is the sudden scraping of metal as two of his claws come out. The next moment, he goes to grab her and push her into the wall. The next, the two outer claws go for her neck. But without the central claw in use, the two outer clawsare separated enough to go around either side of her throat, give or take some breakage of the skin. All of this unless she managed to slip away before he managed to corner her.]

[First of all: ow. To her credit, Azula doesn't cry out when she hits the wall hard, but even in armour, that's going to leave a mean bruise. Second of all, her head has no armour, and the back of it bangs rather roughly on the wall as she collides with it, leaving her dazed for a precious few seconds.

When her eyes refocus, Logan has her in checkmate-- claws at her neck on either side. It's a nasty scratch, to be sure-- but the ringing in her head hurts more, if she's being honest. But the worst hurt is her pride. She contemplates firing off another burst of flame at his torso, but there's no point. Bitterly, she has to acknowledge that his reflexes are too good-- in the precious seconds it would take her hands to do the necessary movements, Logan could pierce her throat.

The look she gives Logan is filled with pure loathing. But she won't cry or lose her temper here. She's better than that.]

[Logan manages to not look smug. Relieved is more the right word for it. He'd worried that she would use her flames to illuminate her surroundings - but she must have thought she could conceal her position. Smart, really. She had no reason to suspect him to be able to sniff her out or hear her foot steps from halfway across the ship.

But she was pinned. That's what really mattered. Logan might have healed by now, but he looked terrible otherwise. His shirt had been completely burned off and it was only because of ~~comic book rules~~ the environmental suit pants he'd switched into that he wasn't completely naked. His skin was blackened from the charred remains of burned dead skin still clinging to him and he stank of sweat and burned flesh. His hair had grown back in wild giving him a savage look.

Somehow though, he managed to not act completely like an animal. Though his middle claw did emerge just enough out of his hand to prick the center of her throat.]

So, help me out here, kid. Can you think of any reasons I shouldn't just finish you off?

[Despite everything, Azula still manages to reign it in-- the fear, the anger, the adrenaline-- enough to talk back and present a calm face. Girl's got some nerves of steel.

If he's waiting to hear her beg for her life, she thinks, he's going to be waiting a long time.]

Do it. You might as well. I would've done the same. Show your new crewmates what you're really made of.

[Well, he'll certainly give her credit for maintaining her calm. The whole 'do your worst' spiel is pretty dated, though. It takes effort not to roll his eyes.]

Tempting. But I'm gonna do one better. I'm gonna let you live. An' it ain't because I'm all about holdin' hands and bein' all peaceful like. You get this one on account of just being a kid.

[Ha. As she suspected. He can't do it. Well, that's good information to know too. She smirks.]

... Of course. How very noble of you.

[Azula, maybe don't bait the person who has your life in their hands.]

That what you think?

[He keeps her pinned with the two claws around her neck. But the forearm he was pressing against her chest is pulled back. In that hand is only one claw. What he does next isn't out of cruelty or payback. No. It's a precaution.

He drives a single claw into her right shoulder, expertly missing the bone.]

You've got my vote for captain, kid. Only cuz if ya don't get it, you'll just go find some other ship an' pull this shit stunt again. You're going to stay here and if you try this on anyone else again, next time I'll put one of these through your heart.

[And with that, he sheathes all of his claws and releases her.]

Blameless Mingle

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