Nothing more than the necessary gap between building, the access to rear doors and home of dumpsters and garbage bins. A place for trash and refuse to gather, to commiserate together on their misfortunate circumstance. Slime on the walls, graffiti from who knows what hoodlum braving the place in the daylight hours. The smell of trash and urine and things left to rot.
It was dirty, it was dark, it stank just enough to be offensive. So of course his dying here didn't seem like any kind of impossibility to Trip's mind. It was pretty much the sort of place he'd always expected to end up dying. All that remained now was to stumble across the sirshos'im in there somewhere, make a simple, dumb mistake and get his soul snatched out.
He stood there surveying as much of the alleyway as he could from the street, from the sidewalk, just beyond the reach of the place. There with Rachel, who presented much the same measure of dread and concern...
"Are we going to stand around admiring it or go find the PADD?" Rachel said, irritably.
So, okay. Facing death in nasty, dark places. Nothing to it, done it before.
Trip moved in, spear at the ready, eyes sharp. Doing his best to see what lay hidden in every shadow before it could leap out and make him squeal like a girl.
And Rachel moved around him almost gruffly, as if he'd gotten in her way. Which he probably had, stalking carefully right down the middle of the alleyway like that. Putting the most average distance between himself and everything in there, naturally, to give himself time not to squeal like a girl when it jumped out at him.
He did manage to stare at Rachel a bit when she started poking around in the dark and kicking things out of the way, looking for the PADD. As if there weren't monsters hiding in the shadows around here.
She saw the look after a while and she frowned at him.
"You've got the spear." She said, gesturing at him. "Cover me while I look. All I've got is a stupid plasma pistol."
He almost just gave up and stopped being so careful. Rachel wasn't being careful and it sort of made him feel a little stupid and awkward.
But, no, there were monsters in the shadows. He kept one hand forward for balance, the other holding the spear back, ready to thrust. Eyeing everything sharply, intently and all at once. Until Rachel suddenly stopped poking around so noisily and stood there staring down at something she'd uncovered behind that farthest dumpster...
Trip made his way over, keeping an eye out for whatever that was probably intended to distract them from. The thing waiting to jump out at them.
It was Chelsea Sanchez lying there, he saw. Once he came to stand next to Rachel he could see her there, half hidden beneath a hastily scattered layer of trash. Very obviously dumped there and not having fallen on her own.
Both arms mottled black, from the hands to well beyond the wrists. Whatever she'd touched, she must have grabbed on tight with both hands and not let go until there was nothing left of her.
"Well," Rachel said, snorting. "A dead stripper in a dirty alleyway under the light of the moon. I'd like to say that's unusual but I bet it really isn't."
"I'm guessing the PADD's in her pocket." Trip said, grimly.
Rachel was already stooping down to pat around, reaching into Chelsea's front pocket to pull the PADD out. Flipping it upright to show him with a smirk before tossing it disrespectfully to plop right on the dead woman's stomach.
She stood up, looking around curiously.
"I guess our sirshos'im boy is around here somewhere." She said. "Feeling sorry for himself...or, no, probably having fun with his new girlfriend right about now. Bet he can't wait to get home to a nice, damp cloth and a bottle of hand lotion."
Trip winced.
"Jesus, Rachel." He said, frowning.
And Rachel winced as well.
"Let's just find him." She snapped, suddenly.
Trip raised the spear a little, gesturing onward toward the opposite street. A clear 'lead the way then' sort of gesture.
Rachel moved on, still glaring at him a bit, but turning her sudden ire on the street beyond once she reached it, looking for Sammy.
The street wasn't entirely deserted. No one out on the sidewalk in either direction, at least within sight, but there were lights on in windows high above the street here and there, cars parked all the way down on both sides, the rhythmic thumping of music from a bar on a far corner, bright lights of a convenience store directly across from that...
There was no one there, though. No one on the street. And nowhere a confused sirshos'im might have stumbled away to hide and adjust himself to what he'd done, other than the same, twin sister alleyway to the one they stood on the cusp of at the moment, waiting for them on the far side.
Trip and Rachel shared a frown. So, yes, that's probably right where he'd gone and, yes, Trip figured that meant the nasty, depressing death in an dark, smelly alleyway was still on the table.
They made their way across the street, Rachel in the lead with Trip close behind, doing his best to keep the Vulcan spear he carried from being any more loudly obvious than it was.
They reached the entrance to the alleyway.
And found the door to the abandoned building right next door slightly ajar. A quick step over and a moment's examination...maybe it hadn't been forced open anytime recently, but the fact remained that it was accessible now. Stuck, so that it could only be pushed open enough for a grown man to barely squeeze through, but...
"Crap." Trip said, looking down at that.
Rachel shrugged. "There's two of us."
"Rather there still be two of us when we find him." Trip said. "Instead of, let's say, only one."
Rachel smirked.
"Don't be such a wuss. You take the alley, I'll take the scary...what, office building? What is this place?"
"Old laundry." Trip said, waving a hand at the faded sign still hanging by the door.
"They still have those?" Rachel said, curling her lip a bit at the old, broken down building.
Trip stared at her for a moment.
"No." He said, flatly. "That's why it's abandoned..."
"Okay, don't be a smart ass. Go stab a sirshos'im."
"What about you? You don't have an ice spear in your pocket, do you?"
She shrugged, patting at her chest, just beneath her neckline.
"I've got a Vulcan talisman that ought to work." She said, peering through the crack in the door. "I'll just yell if I find him and you come running with the spear."
Trip looked surprised at the talisman claim, to which she smirked yet again.
"You really should have done your research a little better, Trip..." She said.
"Well, okay," He frowned, shrugging broadly. "This thing kinda just got dumped in our laps."
"Why don't you go find the monster before he figures out running away would be the not stupid thing to do, yeah?"
Trip grumbled, turning to head off down the alleyway without further delay. But, all of a sudden...
Baby laughter.
Thump thump-thump...
Trip fumbled and snatched his PADD out quickly, thumbing the button to stop the noise from alerting everything lurking in the dark within a quarter mile to his exact location.
"Trip, what?" He whispered harshly, into the comm.
He straightened up suddenly, alarmed. That got Rachel's attention, so she paused to watch.
"Tali? What...?" Trip said, into the comm. Then his eyes narrowed. "Are you drunk?"
He listened for a short moment, then slumped.
"Well, no...look, this is a bad time...no, a really bad time..."
He straightened up again.
"You're what?" He said, looking suddenly irritated. "Yeah, I know. What the hell, Tali...? No, I said three days...no, that's not that long!"
He listened again, looking over at Rachel now in disbelief.
Then frowned, face going cold.
Dropping the comm from his ear to look at it in his hand for a moment, the sound of someone very upset, and very drunk, squawking mildly into the air.
Then he thumbed the comm, ending the call. And tapped a few more buttons fiercely immediately thereafter, before pocketing it again.
Looking...fairly irritated.
Rachel just stared, arms crossed now, bemused.
"Girlfriend." He said, shortly, seeing the look.
"Yeah, I gathered." She smirked. "So you just hang up on her?"
"Well...she's probably pretty pissed off right now." He said, admitting the obvious. "But I was going to break up with her when I got back anyway, so..."
Rachel chuckled.
"I'm surprised, Trip. I thought you still had the hots for T'Pol."
Trip shrugged, grinning wryly. "Well, hell, who doesn't?"
Rachel rolled her eyes at that, just about to remind him they had a monster to go kill...but he was frowning again, considering something.
"What?" She asked, curious now.
Trip hesitated.
"Look..." He said, uncertainly. "How bad is it that she gets drunk and calls me from some other guy's place to bitch at me about how he didn't have my stamina and passed out on her? And how that's my fault because I left for three days."
Rachel stared.
"I mean," He added. "That's pretty bad, right?"
"Well...I guess it depends on how you look at it." Rachel said.
"I think that's probably pretty bad, though." Trip said, frowning.
"Most people would say so." Rachel said. "Sounds like a fun girl to me."
"Okay." He nodded. "Just...wanted to be sure..."
"So you want to forget about the sirshos'im and talk about your girl troubles some more, Trip?"
He frowned.
"No, let's just do the thing." He grumbled, gesturing vaguely at the alley.
Rachel snorted, turning to duck quickly through the crack of the door and into the darkness beyond.
Leaving Trip feeling...a little stupid and off balance. And, yeah, that was bad. Of course that was bad. He just...didn't care as much as he should. That's what was wrong here...
He should be all kinds of upset. Heartbroken, even. Instead he was irritated that she'd called out of the blue to dump a bunch of crazy on him right now, when he already had all this going on.
That's not how he should be feeling right now, is all.
He was having a pretty weird night all of a damned sudden here.
All the more so when he didn't even get ten meters down the alleyway before he suddenly found T'Pol standing there in the moonlight.
In her underwear. Sky blue, very well fitting, cotton underwear.
In the moonlight. Wearing that.
He stared for a second. Because...well, yeah. He stared for a second.
"I can't possibly be that damned shallow." He said, glaring. "And...obvious."
T'Pol just stared back at him. Eyes a little soft but otherwise not very expressive. Not doing anything in particular but standing there in her underwear in the moonlight.
Trip sighed, tearing enough of his attention away from that sight to be aware of anything that might be sneaking up on him. Considering whether to holler for Rachel and deciding she was probably already too far away to get there quick enough, and how that'd just set Sammy off anyway. He'd either run or fight if he yelled out, either of which would happen before she could do anything about it.
And he had the ice spear, after all.
"Come on out, Sammy." Trip said, loudly. "I know you didn't mean for this to happen, so come on out. Let's talk about this."
T'Pol had an opinion on that, apparently.
"It's not my fault." She said, sadly. "It was an accident."
Trip sighed. "Yeah, that's what I figured, Sammy."
"I'm scared...mom's coming..."
"Then we need to take care of this right now." Trip said, firmly.
T'Pol looked lost and uncertain then, even wringing her hands nervously.
"I don't...I don't know what to do..." She stuttered.
"Sammy," Trip said, carefully. "If you really don't want to live like this, we can help you. Take you somewhere safe until we can figure out what to do..."
Something moved behind him and he spun around, stepping to the side, free arm extended and spear raised for a strong downward thrust...
Pretty quickly and smoothly, in fact. Surprisingly how all the old training had stuck with him, despite having followed up on not a bit of it in the last five years.
T'Pol was standing there.
The other T'Pol. The fully dressed version.
Trip slumped in relief a little, lowering the spear again.
"He's around here somewhere." He said, quietly.
T'Pol wasn't looking at him, though. She was looking at the blue cotton underwear model T'Pol. With one eyebrow very judgmentally raised.
Then she turned that eyebrow on him, obviously displeased.
"Okay, yeah, I know." Trip frowned. "Give me a break."
To the side, just within their peripheral vision, the Vulcan underwear model shimmied and transformed, bringing their attention back to it. Transformed into a young, rather scared and anxious looking Vulcan teenager.
T'Pol considered that, eyes narrowed.
"It is another thoughtform." She decided. "Sammy is still in hiding nearby."
Trip glanced around, while T'Pol kept an eye on that thing.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, frowning back at her. "I probably would have stabbed you just now, if...well, if..."
"If I were not already standing nearby in my underwear." T'Pol said, flatly. "You were taking too long. Where is Rachel?"
"In there." He said, gesturing at the building at hand. "T'Pol...we might be able to help him..."
"You can't help me." Sammy said, sadly.
T'Pol agreed.
"He's right, Trip." She said. "We cannot help him."
That frustrated him instantly.
"We could try." He argued.
"There is only one thing we can do here, Trip." She said, softly.
Trip shook his head, denying that.
"We can at least try." He insisted, before calling out again. "Sammy? We're going to find you eventually. If you come out and let us help you, this doesn't have to end badly..."
"Trip." T'Pol said, frowning.
"Damnit, we have to try, T'Pol!"
The thoughtform off to the side suddenly disappeared.
And Sammy appeared again, stepping out of the shadows further down the alleyway now. Shuffling hesitantly into the moonlight, eyeing T'Pol nervously.
"Sammy..." Trip said.
"She's going to kill me." Sammy said, frightened.
"If that is necessary." T'Pol said, coldly.
"Nobody's killing anybody." Trip insisted, one hand already up between the two to make clear that wasn't going to happen.
"Trip, he is a sirshos'im."
"And maybe he doesn't want to be, T'Pol." Trip argued. "There's got to be something we can do here. We just...need to do a little research, that's all."
T'Pol frowned again, holding out her hand to him.
"Give me the spear, Trip."
"T'Pol..." He warned, ready to argue.
"I am stronger and more skilled in its use." She pointed out. "I will not kill him so long as he is not a threat."
Trip hesitated.
T'Pol turned an intense stare on Sammy, though, hand still held out for the spear.
"But the moment that he is, I will kill him." She said.
Trip hesitated a little more, but...that was the logical thing to do.
He twirled the spear around, handing it over butt-first to T'Pol, who accepted took it gracefully.
And immediately turned to launch it strongly out into the dark, back down the alleyway, out across the street beyond, into the other alleyway.
Where it clanked and bounced noisily around in the dark way, way over there for a short couple of seconds.
Then she turned back to him, face perfectly blank...and promptly disappeared.
Trip stared in shock for only a split second before he whirled around again. Finding Sammy coming for him now, smirking evilly.
So, right. That simple, dumb mistake he was going to make that got his soul snatched out of him. He'd apparently done that.
Trip thought quickly.
Already dropping back, shuffling backward, hands coming up into some kind of fighting stance...
Thinking hard. What do we know about sirshos'im? Strong, durable, fast and hyper-aware. But this was just a dumb Vulcan kid, right? Feeling his oats now that he had a few souls in him. Coming to fight the ridiculous Human who'd dared think he could take him on...
So, okay. He could handle this.
Sammy was in his face all of a sudden though. Because, yeah, super fast sirshos'im can do that.
Right in front of him now, reaching out...
Trip reached out without thinking, stepping back as he did, reaching across to grab and pull that wrist toward him...past him...on beyond him, spinning around Sammy as he stumbled by now. And kept spinning, raising his free elbow up to strike him in the face when he tried to stagger to a stop and turn around again.
Sammy stumbled right on back now, barely keeping his feet. Head thrown back from the blow, looking stunned.
But he was on him again not a split second later, growling now.
Trip went on the offensive, before he could strike. Before he could try his hand at snatching souls up close and personal. He couldn't have done that yet and maybe it wouldn't come naturally to him...
Maybe, just maybe, sirshos'im couldn't even do that.
Sammy was quick, though. Insanely fast. Trip threw wide, strong punches at first, as rapidly as he could, putting Sammy on the defensive. A wide right arcing in, which Sammy slapped away. Another from the left, deflected, another instantly from the right, slapped aside.
So Sammy wasn't prepared for the fierce, strong uppercut Trip brought in, his right arm already raised to block the wide swing he was expecting, and he was already entirely on the defensive. He was quick, but not near that quick.
Trip struck hard, coming in from down low right to the chin, clacking Sammy's teeth together sharply and knocking his head back. Defenses thrown wide open for the forward step and powerful, flat out vicious stomp to the chest.
Amazingly, even startling Trip, Sammy slapped it away out of nowhere. Reacting impossibly fast, swinging down hard, swatting his leg away and stepping right in to punch Trip in the face before he even saw it coming.
He staggered back himself now, off balance, more than a little stunned...
That freakin' kid hit hard. Maybe he had no skill or training whatsoever but he was part Vulcan. And one hundred percent sirshos'im, apparently.
Trip's lip bled, cut against his own teeth, and his vision swam for a moment...plenty long enough for Sammy to dart forward, leaping into the air with a loud growl, coming down wildly with both fists.
He leveled Trip instantly, knocking him crawling to the ground. Sending a hard kick of his own to the torso from the side before Trip even knew where he was or how got there.
Trip went sprawling, up against the wall nearby, stunned again.
And then Sammy had him.
Snarling wickedly down at him, one hand snatched into his shirt to hold him, the other drawn back, as if he intended to strike again. But that hand was wide open, fingers slightly curled, like a claw. Glowing a sick green all of a sudden.
And Trip's chest suddenly began to glow as well, before he could do anything about that.
And it hurt.
It hurt deep. Way down deep inside, where...he was. He could feel...himself...being pulled away, pulled out.
Losing his grip on...everything.
He scrambled there, looking desperately for the instincts that should be there, telling him what to do about this. He couldn't find them at first.
Then he suddenly did. Then some part of him remembered what to do here.
He dug in, digging his awareness in and holding on. Pulling back, resisting. And pushing back at the sick, foreign thing invading him. He slipped a little once, the draw was too powerful, Sammy's grip on him too tight.
But he dug in all the more fiercely, putting everything he had into it. His chest burning with it now...
Then a black shoe appeared out of darkness, lancing out across Sammy's chest, sending him suddenly flying back.
Trip felt his soul snap back into place, and he jerked, crying out from it. Curling up despite himself, holding on tight. Sparing only the barest bit of awareness to look over.
Rachel was there, the spear in her hand, smirking every bit as wickedly as Sammy had only a moment ago. Stalking forward after him, where he scrambled backward on the ground.
Her eyes bright and sadistic, focused on nothing but killing Sammy where he lay, crawling backward away from her...
A quick, subtle flash of green...
And a beam of light shot out, illuminating Rachel where she stood.
"Freeze! Vegas PD! Drop your weapon!"
She paused, glancing up at the police officer suddenly standing there, shining the light in her face, aiming the plasma pistol at her.
And she smirked, moving forward again with no more pause than that.
"Rachel..." Trip groaned. Trying to warn her.
"It's not real, stupid." She snorted.
"Drop your weapon, now!"
Rachel raised the spear high, grinning wickedly again...
"Drop your weapon or I will fire on you!"
...and brought it down, striking Sammy through the gut where he lay, right where the liver would have been if he were Human.
He choked loudly, hands jerking to grasp the spear thrust through him. Through and into the hard concrete beneath him by at least three inches. The police officer and the phantom flashlight suddenly gone, as quickly as they'd appeared.
Rachel laughed quietly, staring Sammy in the eyes as he struggled weakly against the spear.
And he managed one quick gasp before he choked again, coughing it out in a plume of frigid breath. Skin already turning slightly blue-green. His eyes rolling back in his head before the frost began to form on his skin, freezing him solid almost instantly.
Rachel let go of the spear and stepped back. And she kept stepping back while Sammy's frozen body began to crack quietly.
Trip's eyes widened, not quite so badly injured that he didn't remember what was about to happen. He groaned and put everything he had into crawling away.
"Relax." Rachel smirked. "He's only got a half dozen in him. That's nothing."
And she was right. He shattered quietly, with nothing but a mild bluish-purple flash to even suggest anything like the explosively escaping katra Trip had been warned about. A mild, subtle shock wave brushed the air, but that was all.
It was quiet for a moment.
The alleyway suddenly containing nothing but a beaten Trip, a sadistically aroused Rachel and a scattered handful of frozen, rapidly evaporating bits of Sammy. And the spear itself, still stuck there in the middle of it all.
Rachel laughed again suddenly.
"How often do you see a Vulcan freeze to death and shatter to bits, huh?" She said, grinning over at him.
She looked back at the last pieces of Sammy Boggs, already disappearing.
"I think that's kind of ironic, maybe." She said, cocking her head a little and grinning.