Her eye twitched. 'Get mad for a reason'? Of course she was. In fact, she was staring right at said reason. Who the fuck did he think he wa-

Well that wasn't what she was expecting.

"Ahahahaha!" Retsu burst out laughing. That answered the question. He was batshit insane. Either that or he had no idea who she was even after hearing her name. "One." She finished while aiming her gun at the back of one of the goons that narrowly managed to duck out of the alley in time. With a click of her tongue she lowered the gun once more.

"Ya know what? Sure. Ah ain't payin' tho." Retsu answered. She was certain there was more to this. Maybe he'd been sent to gather information on her? Perhaps it was ambition driving him, seeking to usurp her position or steal her territory the moment he got the chance. He did seem awfully concerned with convincing her that wasn't the case after all. Who knows, maybe he was even after her weaponry or the connections she managed to establish. 

Twenty questions would be more than enough to find out and once she knew she'd no longer have a use for him.

"Ain't a high bar ta set but still a bold fookin' claim when y'r wearin' a mask." Retsu fired back, sure, the only competitor of his she could think of was a six-headed goose  -which wasn't exactly  looker- that she absolutely hadn't lost to no matter what anyone said, but that didn't mean she'd let his statement slide.

"Well then," Retsu continued while vaguely aiming her pistol in his direction. "Lead the way."

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Tags: CHIRP ♪♪

Beginning her dodge even before the torrent came her way turned out to be the right move for once. Which was definitely a good thing, she'd have looked quite silly banging her elbow onto the concrete mid roll for no reason otherwise. Nonetheless the move caught Retsu off guard. What kind of sane person would focus on someone with a knife over two grenades about to blow their sides off? A grin crept onto her face. Did the hero see her as an even bigger threat than that?

"Ah'm here. She ain't." Retsu shouted in reply with a maniacal cackle. "Oy, watergun! What's y'r partner saying over the radio? What? She ain't answering?"

It was a gamble but Retsu didn't think the hero had the capacity to let up with her null field for even a moment lest she get crushed by several tons of concrete. Nah, her bluff wouldn't be called for a while longer. It'd have to be eno- 

Holy hells what was that thing coming at her?

Rolling along the floor Retsu narrowly managed to scramble away from it, a random grenade unclipped and thrown vaguely in Whytide's direction as she went. For a moment Retsu considered what would have happened had her 'bomb coming her way' instinct honed through much trial, error and hitting objects that rebounded her own grenades been a bit slower or if the hero had used a different method of attack. Then she put the thought aside, no point getting caught up on near-death situations. She'd never get anything done if she did that every time.

"Oy, catch!" Retsu shouted at Rui while lobbing an unprimed grenade towards her in a wide arc. Whether the devil caught it or not was secondary so long as it added another factor for Whytide to deal with.

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Tags: Rui Matsui

Even as she threw the grenade Retsu found herself agreeing with the student. There was absolutely no way they could fight that. Not without some serious artillery and wouldn't you know, she'd forgotten to put her howitzer next to her keys when she left the motel. A classic oversight.

"A warning? Ah fookin' shouted a warning at ya da hells are you on about? Are ya gonna bi-"

She didn't get further into her sentence before the grenade went off right as it made contact with the oversized whale. Had that been all she'd have continued complaining but it was the result that stopped her. Quite literally.



Freja's shot hit it right in the eye, chunks of it and the surrounding flesh splattering across the beach while it reeled back and fell with an ear piercing howl of pain. No, perhaps a sound of pain or even an essence of pain would be a better way to put it. For whatever it was did not seem to be transmitted solely through vibrations in the air but through something far more primal as well.

Sand and water rose and fell in large circles for dozens of meters around the beast like shock waves from a large blast. It hit Retsu as if it were a physical impact, staggering her and leading her to gawk at the being like a child at an aquarium. The shrill sound rung like tinnitus even before it intensified to an ear-rupturing sensation so fierce it seemed as it were consuming all of reality leaving nought but the self and the shriek.

Blood ran from Retsu's eyes and ears. Collapsing to her knees she narrowly managed to stop herself from screaming as well when the most intense burst of pain she'd ever felt ran through her. It was as if every single cell in her body resonated in tandem with what the eldritch abomination felt. No metaphor she knew could possibly describe it. When the feeling receded moments later an uncontrollable shiver ran through her. She felt cold. Oh so cold. Her left eye throbbed beneath its eyepatch as if it were nought but an empty socket. 

Only when she finally managed to regain her senses did she realize there was an almost unnatural silence hanging in the air like an aura of motionlessness. The horde chasing them suffered just the same, twitching and shaking while some even retreated entirely into their shells. A gut feeling told her it wouldn't last long and when she saw the whale-looking horror fall backwards she realized that the moment it hit the water the chase would begin anew.

The urge to fight back had been forgotten entirely, replaced by the primal instinct to flee. Subconsciously holding her duffel bag pressed against her torso she pushed herself up and ran with every ounce of strength she had left. Her face went pale when she had another realization. The whale had been leaping for the beach and her grenade wasn't nearly strong enough to knock something that massive all the way back. No, it was more like someone's head flinching back after a fly hit them in the eye. Retsu's mouth went dry.

That wasn't its tail they saw, it was its neck.

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Tags: Freja Helt

In slow motion a grenade flew through the air, tumbling end over end as it drew closer to its target. Almost as if she were a character in a movie stepping across the tape from frame to frame a woman with long dark hair stepped past it while it hung almost still in the air, bound to the very frames the hero moved through seamlessly. The grenade moved ever slower the closer it got to her and only sped up once more when she was past it. The fragments flung in all directions by its detonation likewise never managed to get close to her. Answering her radio as she took a glance back to double check that all civilians had managed to get clear the figure stopped momentarily.

A sane person would've used the opportunity to get out. Bakiri Retsu was not that person. To flee like a coward would be an affront to everything she'd built up so far and would sink her reputation to the point where achieving more would become very difficult. No, she'd fight. No matter how terrifying the pro hero Null seemed. 

"Stop. Your resistance is futile."

"Eat my futile ya b'tch!"

Another grenade was thrown right at the hero's face, its results no more promising than those of the last. Dashing into an alley Retsu realized her current approach wasn't working. She'd need to fight with her head if she was to win this. A few strips of breaching charge blew a rectangular hole roughly the size of a door in the side of a two-story house.

Without pause she rushed through the moment the opening was made and took the stairs two at a time to reach the next floor. From her duffel bag came several C4s. One she threw onto the ceiling just above the door, another behind a sofa and a third beneath a cabinet. Several more went onto the ceiling, floor and walls as she rushed to get them in place, for already she could feel her actions slowing down as the pro hero reached the stairs as well. Retsu rushed for the window. The same hand that was holding the detonator pried it open, conveniently hiding it behind the window frame when the hero entered the room.

"Yo, if ah jump y'll need to chase a whole lot longer," Retsu said while making sure to make her mouth movements as clear as possible for the first part before wiping blood off the corner of her lips during the second. "So let's negotiate, shall we?"

"Finally. This was getting tiring. What terms do you wish t-"

She didn't get farther before Retsu pressed the detonator and let herself fall backwards out of the window, the explosion clipping her legs and sending her spinning. She'd tried a similar maneuver before, throwing a piece of C4 into a crack in the pavement and waiting until Null was just above it to press the detonator. It didn't do anything, not even the signal being able to get through the spherical slowing field around her. Yet the hero had answered her radio all the same and had no difficulty talking to her whenever she pleased. It all led Retsu to two conclusions. The first being that there was a small area around her that wasn't affected by the slowing lest the hero herself would be unable to move and the second being that she could toggle it and likely did so in small bursts to allow for communication. How else would the sound waves be able to reach her during conversation after all?

So her plan had been simple. Set bait by letting her lipread, get the hero to deactivate her field to hear the rest of her words and then keep her talking to ensure the field stayed down long enough for the signal to get through.

The back of Retsu's head slammed into the wall on her way down causing her to land even less gracefully. Pushing herself up regardlessly she looked up at the sphere of slowed debris with a crooked grin. Retsu was under no illusions it'd stop the stupidly strong hero for long but a little time was all she needed. Sure, she probably couldn't beat Null alone but maybe she didn't have to. If she could get Rui in on a certain plan Null was all but done for. Which reminded her.

"Where'd she go?" Retsu muttered as she pulled out her ENKI phone and used the locator function before taking off in a run -glad the fall didn't break anything essential-, less than half a minute passing before she reached the scene just in time to see Rui get blasted into the wall. Buying time. It seemed that was what her role would come down to once more.

"Oy, catch ya one-eyed freak!" She shouted while pulling two grenades off her harness and throwing them at Whytide, one aimed at either side of the hero while she herself charged in from the front with her knife drawn. Should the hero fire on her she'd throw herself sideways immediately. Retsu deemed it unlikely she'd be the first target given that the other two -even three- were far more volatile but she wouldn't risk being caught unprepared either.

Besides, it was unlikely she'd need to be the one to take the hero down or even delay them for more than a few moments. Mummy had gotten frighteningly fast while she wasn't looking.

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Tags:Rui Matsui 

With a glass of overpriced whiskey in hand Retsu leafed through a pamphlet she'd gotten from one of the bookies. A rarity in this day and age where everyone seemed to be obsessed with having their text on a lit-up screen. The fact that the bookie was very much not one of the official tellers might have something to do with it but Retsu wasn't one to mind the details when they were in her favor. Skimming the list she muttered to herself while she decided what to fill in. Sure, she was mainly here to check out all the fancy tech but that didn't mean she couldn't have some fun along the way.

"Percentage of surviving competitors... Let's say forty. Amount of equipment malfunctions? How fa fook am ah supposed ta know?" She continued muttering while she scribbled down 'seventy three'. "Total lost limbs..."

Retsu paused for a second. She'd lost her right arm twice so far but had the distinct feeling that wasn't exactly the norm, especially amongst those that walked away from a fight alive. With money being involved Retsu figured, in an incredibly rare moment of introspection, that she might as well get a different perspective on this.

"Oy, Ruister! How many limbs 'ave ya lost so far?"

Seeing her already talking to someone Retsu couldn't help but wonder just who she'd roped into a conversation. She snorted. Who knows, maybe it's the owner of the place? The last time something like this happened the little devil had somehow sniffed out the person in charge of the entire club they were in. And speak of the devil, Retsu thought as her gaze was briefly drawn to the man in question. It sure seemed like this was going to be a far more interesting day than she'd imagined.

Whether that was a good thing remained to be seen.

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Tags: Elias  Rui Matsui  Ghouligan  facade Sol

"Haaaaaaaaaaah?!" Retsu replied eloquently. She had no idea what a TOA was but clearly he was calling her territory awful. Sure, she knew it'd been flooded with punks since she wasn't around to put the fear of Bakuretsu into every bug that thought they could come crawling out of the woodwork but that wasn't the point. Whether she agreed or not didn't matter. She had a reputation to uphold and there was no way she could let something like that slide. "Turf ain't good enough fer ya huh, fooker? We'll be 'aving word 'bout that."

She glared at the lenses in his mask, her gaze looking past them as if to stare him not just straight in the eye but all the way into his soul. A bird mask. When she'd returned to mop up the carrion she hadn't expected it to be quite that literal. It was quite the silly and unthreatening design, the woman that hadn't quite managed to beat a goose thought. Not something she'd be caught dead wearing. Clearly, unless he had a particularly good medical plan, he disagreed.

Even so he wasn't the priority. Insults came in levels and actions speak louder than words. The two punks in front of her were disrespecting her far more. Unlike what the audacious man in the back insultingly believed Retsu didn't think she needed any help dealing with two badly armed goons. Not after all the other shit she's dealt with.

"A knoife? Oh ah'm fookin' terrified." Retsu said mockingly while drawing her weapon of choice from its holster at her side. "Dumb fookin' weapon. Then again given that y'r buddy picked fookin' sports equipment ya ain't exactly got a good example do ya. So ya know what, ah'll play nice and give ya a headstart. Ah'm thinking about five..."

She continued while letting out a hum as if deep in thought, her eye briefly looking to the side as she did. Then she looked right at the goon with the knife once more.

"Four..."

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Tags: Bakiri Retsu

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