"Funny how I find myself in love with you,
If I could buy my reasoning, I'd pay to lose...
One half won't do
I've asked myself, how much do you commit yourself?"
- 'It's my Life', Talk talk
Kabal saw the talking cat was approaching the present scene again and sighed heavily. That cat seemed to be the consistent bearer of bad news, and he just didn't feel like dealing with more trouble right now. He felt along his belt and noted he still had 8 full clips of pulse rifle ammo and 4 for his pistol. He picked his blade back up and placed it back into it's boot sheath, and while still down retrieved the pistol he had earlier dropped. He ejected a round from it to clear any jams he may have caused upon dropping the weapon and looked up, prepared to hear what the little black terror wanted now.....
And noticed almost immediately that he was in a different place. His mask lost all shading in the eyes rapidly, as he was now in a very dark environment. He dropped to a combat crouch and slammed himself against the nearest wall, eyes darting nervously about and pulse rifle twitching like a divining rod in whatever direction he looked. After he made a quick visual sweep of the area and found it to be clean, save for an amazing overabundance of cave spiders. He then slid up from his crouch and began to walk forward, still keeping close to the wall. He paused a moment and took out his Pocket Secretary to maybe see if it could tell him where he was. Sure enough, the "no signal" light was blinking. So he was either too far underground or WAY far away from home. Cursing under his breath, he ventured forward again. After four cautious steps, he felt the crystal beneath his shirt pull almost imperceptibly forward and to the right on it's chain. He paused long enough to pull his shirt open a bit and look down at it. The crystal was keeping up a steady.... glow? It seemed to be emanating inky blackness like it were colored light. Kabal abandoned caution somewhat and quickened his pace, keeping to the right wall and turning that way at any intersection he found. After some time, he stopped.. as he heard more than the echo of his own footfalls now, and the crystal was pulling strongly now. He heard the sound of male voices laughing, and a female voice giving orders in a language he did not know. He picked up his pace to a silent jog.
"Huertar phor lueth kku jalukul, Tlu xunor xuil ol t'yin elgg ilta." commanded the female voice as Kabal happened upon the scene. The people he saw had ridiculously long, pointy ears, black skin, and mostly white hair. There was a pair of females standing 5 feet in front of where Kabal crouched (approaching while taking this all in, slowly) Two males of the same race stood nearby with bloody instruments blunt and sharp, while a third one was in the process of raping another female. Her face had many purple bruises, blood... also purple.. was streaming from her nose. She had many cuts on her naked body, in addition to contused spots hit hard enough to make the flesh split. She appeared younger than the others involved in this... scene.. and she looked pained and terrified, obviously past the point where she would consider death a blessing. Kabal grinned wryly as he momentarily reflected that Death would, indeed, be coming shortly now... just not for her.
Kabal was also somewhat glad that they were all making so much noise, because stealth was never one of his strong points. As he rose up behind the females who seemed to be in charge of this, he prepared to show this group what WAS his strong point. The girl Drow... for even Kabal knew what these were... rolled her eyes over to see him rising up behind the women. She opened her mouth to speak something, but Kabal never did find out what it was to be, because the male raping her smashed his fist into her mouth and screamed, "Zu'tour phor elg'caress!" Kabal shifted the pulse rifle to his back and reached his hands toward the women, then seized them both by the hair. One of them started to react when he smashed their heads together. The woman on Kabal's left started to collapse.. but Kabal did not let her fall. He pulled their heads about two feet apart and then smashed them together. Then repeated. Again. Finally, the skull of the woman on the right cracked open with a hollow wet sound, and he dropped her. The one on the left was dropped by Kabal who then stomped with all his might on her neck.
Kabal lunged forward, intent on pulling the rapist off the girl, but was stopped short by a heavy blow to the head that drove him back a step. The Drow on the left advanced upon Kabal, club held high; the other male was a step behind. The one who was on the girl stopped what he was doing and began to gather himself to join his compatriots. Kabal shook his head clear just short of in time to stop another blow. This one landed upon his shoulder, and he felt a fierce thrill of pain from that arm. He retaliated by kicking the Drow in the knee, knocking him over. The second swung a sword at Kabal, which he barely managed to dodge his throat back from. Kabal raised his leg and drew his knife, unsure how to attack this situation. The third male drew his own blade as the first rose up unsteadily. Outnumbered by opponents whom were apparently VERY fast and rather talented, Kabal felt much frustration. He took three more steps back, trying to decide what now. Then it came to him. He jammed his knife into the wall and continued stepping backwards. The drow continued to approach him, though at a somewhat slower pace... they were unsure what their opponent was about to do. Kabal, however, was not. He shrugged the pulse rifle down into his hands and opened fire.
Male one and two were shot in the torso several times and slumped down, while the third jumped away from the spray fast enough to be untouched. The drow touched ground and hit it running... he ran off into a dark corner... which Kabal watched with interest as blinked his eyes twice rapidly, then three more times slowly. The mask switched to light enhancement. He made motions with his head that indicated he was "searching the area" but kept his eyes directly on the opponent. The Drow male had removed a throwing knife and was walking further away in the shadows... he ran the thin blade along the wall, collecting some of the slime from the walls onto it. Kabal adjusted slightly to keep an eye on the Drow.. and when it reached a reasonably safe distance from the Drow girl.... he brought the rifle up to eye level and fired. The Drow was, indeed, deadly fast, he dodged around the projectile. The grenade, however, exploded upon hitting the wall behind him, knocking him over forwards. As soon as he hit the ground Kabal fired a burst into him.. one bullet of which took the Drow in the neck.
Kabal sighed tiredly... he couldn't keep up all this activity for too much longer. He turned towards the girl and looked at her more closely as he blinked away the light enhancement. Now that she was sitting up she didn't look as young as he first thought. Her breasts were as small as he had initially thought... but so was she. Overall her shape seemed to place her in the early to mid teens. He started to take inventory of her injuries; and saw that the one that was the gravest was probably her... womanhood .. it looked torn and battered and there were had obviously been things other than male Drow members placed in there. She was bleeding at a rate he found somewhat alarming. He approached her to get a closer look at the damage, and made it two steps. The girl cried out in fear and picked up a blade warily. She was watching his pulse rifle. He, too looked at it, and said, "Oh no.... no.. this isn't for you.." She blinked at him. 'Of course, idiot,' he thought, 'she won't speak your language.'
Kabal placed the pulse rifle down slowly and took two steps to the left, moving slowly and trying to indicate that he meant no harm. "He spoke soothingly, "Look, I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm not like.... those sick bastards..." she showed no indication of relaxing, so he continued as he slowly moved forward... keeping his eye on the dagger she had. "I won't hurt you.. I'm here to help you. Hey.." he stopped and looked between her bosoms. She had a crystal that looked almost identical to his. "I'm gonna show you something." He slowly reached under his shirt and pulled his own crystal. It was "blazing" black, and as soon as he took away his hand and let it hang, her crystal reacted as well. It pulsed a deep blue.... then both stopped reacting at all. The girl looked down at her own crystal in confusion. Kabal moved closer, "I just wanna help you... gotta look at those wounds you got there." Her eyes looked back up at him, and he continued, "I just want to help you. You're... heh, you're very pretty, do you know that?" As he said that, he took a rapid step to her, and she screamed out in fear, closed her eyes, and slashed the dagger sloppily at him. He caught it by the handle and removed it from her grip. Her eyes snapped back open and she stared intently at him. Kabal spread his arms outwards in a gesture of... what, he didn't know. He then reversed the dagger and held it out to her, handle first. She looked at him for a few moments, then reached out to snatch it from his grasp as quickly as she could. He did not react at all to that, only kept his arms out. The cave seemed even more silent then before a moment as she looked him over, considering a hundred things at once. Something finally won out, and she lurched forward..... dropping the dagger, and knocking Kabal into a sitting position. There she clung to him, wracking sobs shaking her whole body. Kabal held her for a while, stroking her hair and whispering encouragingly to her. He was also grateful for the chance to rest; and closed his eyes, intending only to rest a few moments...
When Kabal his eyes opened again, the cave was somewhat brighter. The moss on the walls were the source of that, he quickly ascertained. The Drow girl was curled up almost in a ball, head nestled on his chest. He reached out and brushed her forehead with his hand to awaken her. Her eyes snapped open instantly, and then went out of focus a bit. Kabal was confused for a moment, and then cursed himself aloud for falling asleep. He had done nothing to clean and dress her wounds; he was lucky she was still alive at all. Kabal disengaged himself from her grasp and lay her up against the wall. She blinked at him blearily, but did not protest. Kabal searched through the pockets of his jacket until he located a few items that would be of use... penlight, Bactine spray, and canteen of Bacardi 151.
He first went to examine the biggest problem wound... he knelt in front of her and began to examine her vaginal area. The labia were torn and the one labia was actually burned. The bottom of the area was torn beyond, and Kabal wished he had something he could stitch that with. The rest was undamaged. Kabal looked up apologetically at her and then spread the labia. Within, he found that a large gash was running up the right side, fairly deep. He shined the light in and followed deeper, finding that a piece of metal, probably used for the initial cutting was still in there. Probably made the intercourse even more painful for her then it would have been otherwise. That would have to come out. Other than that there was no damage save for friction abrasions. Kabal was no doctor, but he figured she would live provided he could disinfect the wounds. Kabal stood up and offered the flask to the Drow girl. She reached out to take it and unscrewed the cap. She sniffed the contents and the canteen fumbled out of her grasp. Kabal easily plucked it out of the air and handed it to her again. She looked at him, and he made drinking motions. She stared harder, and he said, "Look it tastes like shit but it'll help. You're about to REALLY hurt."
The tone of his voice must have convinced her, because she pinched her nose shut and took two long swallows. Kabal saw her wince, but it looked like she'd keep it down. Satisfied in that, he went searching for his knife. Surely, it was still in the wall where he left it. With a slight rasping sound, he pulled it free of the lodged spot and walked back to the Drow girl. She was coughing a bit and seemed happy to give over the canteen when he extended his hand to it. Then he offered his knife to her. She tilted her head questioningly. Kabal lifted his mask and demonstrated what he wanted her to do by placing the handle in his mouth and biting down on the Duraplast grip. He then offered it to her, and could see the full light of recognition in here eyes. She added two and two together, came up with 4, and realized what Kabal was bracing her for. She clenched it between her teeth and spread her legs open wider for him.
Kabal had to move slowly so as not to damage her insides any worse than they already were, working out the metal... it was barbed, making his job even harder. He could see the Drow girl's legs tensing and hear her breathing coming hard, but she did not scream. He reminded himself to compliment her on that when he found someone who could speak a language they had in common. "Allright..." an image flitted across his mind, "Butterfly.. " he said, "Now this is gonna be the last pull. It'll hurt, and I'm actually gonna drag it along the rest of the wound to reopen it to be disinfected. Please don't hate me, huh?" He looked up to see her sweating and in agony, and to make it clear what he was going to do, he made an exaggerated motion of gearing up for a hard pull. She nodded at him and squeezed her eyes shut. And so Kabal held it at an angle to minimize tissue damage, and yanked it out. He immediately re-applied some pressure and brought the barb down, re-opening the entry wound. Not a lot of blood came out.... Kabal was not sure if that was good or bad. He threw the metal object behind him and proceeded to douse the entire area with Bactine. He also used his fingers to open up any other areas he feared might be deep, and sprayed Bactine into there as well. The Drow girl's head was thrown back and she was letting out a cry of pain that could be heard even through the gagging of the handle.
And then it was over. Kabal pulled himself up to lay next to the Drow girl, and took his knife from her mouth. He looked at the teeth marks she had made in it and was pretty impressed. Duraplast was hard stuff to dent. He sheathed the knife and regarded the girl, who was still breathing quite heavily. She used her own arm to wipe away her tears of pain, and looked at him thankfully. "Hangin in there all right?" he asked. She looked at him blankly. Kabal pointed at his chest and said "Kabal. My name is Kabal." Her expression changed somewhat, and he repeated the process, adding his last name to it. After a few times, she nodded at him. He pointed at her and asked "What is your name?" She seemed to comprehend, but just shook her head. "Great." he said, "I'm stuck in who the hell knows where with a Drow who doesn't speak my language, and is probably mute also. This sucks." Perhaps detecting something in the tone of his voice, she looked at him questioningly. "Butterfly, " he said, "I don't know where we are, or what to do now. But... don't worry about it. I'll think of something."
As he stood up to look around, he immediately ended up wincing and cursing his luck. The soothing thump of his motion detector was now beeping with increasing volume... indicating to him they were no longer alone. Kabal turned towards the cave entrances and saw there were two of them. The lovely sensor device indicated motion in both directions. He sighed the sigh of the damned and picked his pulse rifle back up. "We got company, Butterfly." He spotted the first on the ceiling of the left tunnel... it appeared to be a male Drow with the lower half of a... Drider. that was called a Drider he reminded himself. He easily blasted it away with a hail of bullets and checked his motion detector again. He then stopped to stare at it for a few seconds. The counter detected 200 distinct signals, and the readout informed him there were more that it could not track. Cursing more, and this time not at all under his breath, he stepped back as far as he could and readied himself for combat. He quickly felt detached from the situation
The assorted Drow and Drider came in waves, grouping for attacks and re-grouping after being repelled. Kabal steadily backpedaled, widening his area of attack while minimizing direct exposure to either opening. He fought coldly, searching for targets and opening fire mechanically in small bursts, eliminating one target and moving to the next rapidly. He made a point of going after the spell-casting ones first.. they dressed rather obviously. Kabal began to sweat a bit as he realized his pulse rifle was clicking on empty and had to switch to his pistol. Down to the last clip on that, the fighting seemed to cease. It actually took him a few seconds to come out of "holding off an entire horde single-handed" mode to realize that one of the Drow was speaking to him.
"Ye got some amazing magic there laddie, but eventually it'll run out." a male voice said. "Yeah?" Kabal asked, "What's your point?" He also wanted to punch himself in the head because he had just confirmed to his opponents that he would run out of ammo. The niche they were in was very easily defendable with gunfire given the choke-point angling of the tunnels, but hand to hand would prove a lot harder. "There's hundreds more of us here. We will eventually overcome ye, I assure ye that outsider." Kabal holstered the pistol and began to stretch, dropping into the splits to limber up. "You're welcome to try. I can assure you that it won't be easy." "Aye but it KIN be easy, " the voice said, "All we want is fer ye tae leave these caves. An leave the girl behind." Kabal turned back to the girl, "You got any input on this, Butterfly?" The Drow just stared blankly at him. Kabal turned back and pitched his voice as loud and as deep as her could, projecting his supreme confidence. "You'll not have her! I will die first! Come and get her if you want her!" The girl behind him tilted her head, confused, and looked upon Kabal as if seeing him for the first time.
Feeling the negative Ki of the enemy, Kabal drove his index finger down into the ground screaming "Bakusai Tenketsu!" and the first Drow around the corner took rock shards in the face, one lodging in his left eye and dropping him immediately. A few moments later, a second came, female, bearing twin swords. She swung the one in her left hand at him, which he ducked under. He shifted his weight nimbly and kicked her with all his might to the crotch from his low position. Her pubic bone snapped and she crumpled. Still down, Kabal sweep-kicked the third. At this point, the Drow began coming in greater numbers. He nailed two with twin backhand punches, and forward kicked a third, breaking her sternum. He turned quickly to the left as he felt an attack from that direction. It was a smallish Drow bearing a dagger. Kabal lashed his hand out in a tiger claw strike, raking across the eyes of another as the dagger-bearer swung. Kabal spun after the claw strike, and caught the Drow's dagger with his off hand. The other came across and punched the dagger-wielder's wrist. he caught the knife as it was released, reversed the direction of his spin, and high roundhouse kicked him, causing the skull to become dented and the Drow to drop unconscious. A Drider was closest next, and Kabal screamed "Tenshin Amaguriken, revised! Dagger attack!" His left hand struck with a blur, perforating the Drider with over 20 holes in it's torso. Then he sprang back from the group.
And noticed he had nothing left. The day's activities had been too much for him. Thanks to years of training he could keep going at full momentum till the end... but this was the end. There was no Ki left to draw from, and he was so tired it was everything he could do to continue standing. He glanced back to the girl as the horde approached. "I'm sorry Butterfly... But I don't think we're gonna make it." The girl closed her eyes and did not respond. Kabal turned back to face off the Drow.... who began retreating. They almost literally melted into the shadows in what appeared to be one mass. A glance at his motion detector confirmed this; they were leaving and in a BIG hurry.
Kabal did not question it. He murmured a quick prayer of thanks to Amaterasu, and scooped the Drow girl up over his shoulder. He ran with her until he found an entrance aboveground. He only briefly paused there a moment to catch his breath, then took off again...
As the sun began to send it's first tendrils of light over the land where they had camped, Kabal looked at the girl again, and found he was taking inventory of her features. Her face looked peaceful.. noble.. and dark.. all at the same time. Her form was toned enough, she apparently was a rather active girl. She was still pretty messed up from the beating she had received, but he could imagine she would be quite fetching when that cleared up. She turned away from him in her sleep and her blanket came with her, now exposing her bare legs to him. He looked at them contrasting against the green grass... then looked away. He got up, faced the sun, and began his morning katas.
The Drow girl opened her eyes and watched his movements. After seeing his smooth movements for a few minutes.. almost like a dance... she got up and on a whim began to try to imitate his moves. Kabal felt her Ki the instant she began movements like his. He did not look at here but instead spoke. "This is the basic form of Szechuan Kenpo, which is the basis for the Anything Goes style. It focuses on hand to hand combat and ranged weapons. Later on you can learn to use other weapons as I can.. but that takes time and patience; for now let's start with some punches..."
- 'It's my Life', Talk talk
Kabal saw the talking cat was approaching the present scene again and sighed heavily. That cat seemed to be the consistent bearer of bad news, and he just didn't feel like dealing with more trouble right now. He felt along his belt and noted he still had 8 full clips of pulse rifle ammo and 4 for his pistol. He picked his blade back up and placed it back into it's boot sheath, and while still down retrieved the pistol he had earlier dropped. He ejected a round from it to clear any jams he may have caused upon dropping the weapon and looked up, prepared to hear what the little black terror wanted now.....
And noticed almost immediately that he was in a different place. His mask lost all shading in the eyes rapidly, as he was now in a very dark environment. He dropped to a combat crouch and slammed himself against the nearest wall, eyes darting nervously about and pulse rifle twitching like a divining rod in whatever direction he looked. After he made a quick visual sweep of the area and found it to be clean, save for an amazing overabundance of cave spiders. He then slid up from his crouch and began to walk forward, still keeping close to the wall. He paused a moment and took out his Pocket Secretary to maybe see if it could tell him where he was. Sure enough, the "no signal" light was blinking. So he was either too far underground or WAY far away from home. Cursing under his breath, he ventured forward again. After four cautious steps, he felt the crystal beneath his shirt pull almost imperceptibly forward and to the right on it's chain. He paused long enough to pull his shirt open a bit and look down at it. The crystal was keeping up a steady.... glow? It seemed to be emanating inky blackness like it were colored light. Kabal abandoned caution somewhat and quickened his pace, keeping to the right wall and turning that way at any intersection he found. After some time, he stopped.. as he heard more than the echo of his own footfalls now, and the crystal was pulling strongly now. He heard the sound of male voices laughing, and a female voice giving orders in a language he did not know. He picked up his pace to a silent jog.
"Huertar phor lueth kku jalukul, Tlu xunor xuil ol t'yin elgg ilta." commanded the female voice as Kabal happened upon the scene. The people he saw had ridiculously long, pointy ears, black skin, and mostly white hair. There was a pair of females standing 5 feet in front of where Kabal crouched (approaching while taking this all in, slowly) Two males of the same race stood nearby with bloody instruments blunt and sharp, while a third one was in the process of raping another female. Her face had many purple bruises, blood... also purple.. was streaming from her nose. She had many cuts on her naked body, in addition to contused spots hit hard enough to make the flesh split. She appeared younger than the others involved in this... scene.. and she looked pained and terrified, obviously past the point where she would consider death a blessing. Kabal grinned wryly as he momentarily reflected that Death would, indeed, be coming shortly now... just not for her.
Kabal was also somewhat glad that they were all making so much noise, because stealth was never one of his strong points. As he rose up behind the females who seemed to be in charge of this, he prepared to show this group what WAS his strong point. The girl Drow... for even Kabal knew what these were... rolled her eyes over to see him rising up behind the women. She opened her mouth to speak something, but Kabal never did find out what it was to be, because the male raping her smashed his fist into her mouth and screamed, "Zu'tour phor elg'caress!" Kabal shifted the pulse rifle to his back and reached his hands toward the women, then seized them both by the hair. One of them started to react when he smashed their heads together. The woman on Kabal's left started to collapse.. but Kabal did not let her fall. He pulled their heads about two feet apart and then smashed them together. Then repeated. Again. Finally, the skull of the woman on the right cracked open with a hollow wet sound, and he dropped her. The one on the left was dropped by Kabal who then stomped with all his might on her neck.
Kabal lunged forward, intent on pulling the rapist off the girl, but was stopped short by a heavy blow to the head that drove him back a step. The Drow on the left advanced upon Kabal, club held high; the other male was a step behind. The one who was on the girl stopped what he was doing and began to gather himself to join his compatriots. Kabal shook his head clear just short of in time to stop another blow. This one landed upon his shoulder, and he felt a fierce thrill of pain from that arm. He retaliated by kicking the Drow in the knee, knocking him over. The second swung a sword at Kabal, which he barely managed to dodge his throat back from. Kabal raised his leg and drew his knife, unsure how to attack this situation. The third male drew his own blade as the first rose up unsteadily. Outnumbered by opponents whom were apparently VERY fast and rather talented, Kabal felt much frustration. He took three more steps back, trying to decide what now. Then it came to him. He jammed his knife into the wall and continued stepping backwards. The drow continued to approach him, though at a somewhat slower pace... they were unsure what their opponent was about to do. Kabal, however, was not. He shrugged the pulse rifle down into his hands and opened fire.
Male one and two were shot in the torso several times and slumped down, while the third jumped away from the spray fast enough to be untouched. The drow touched ground and hit it running... he ran off into a dark corner... which Kabal watched with interest as blinked his eyes twice rapidly, then three more times slowly. The mask switched to light enhancement. He made motions with his head that indicated he was "searching the area" but kept his eyes directly on the opponent. The Drow male had removed a throwing knife and was walking further away in the shadows... he ran the thin blade along the wall, collecting some of the slime from the walls onto it. Kabal adjusted slightly to keep an eye on the Drow.. and when it reached a reasonably safe distance from the Drow girl.... he brought the rifle up to eye level and fired. The Drow was, indeed, deadly fast, he dodged around the projectile. The grenade, however, exploded upon hitting the wall behind him, knocking him over forwards. As soon as he hit the ground Kabal fired a burst into him.. one bullet of which took the Drow in the neck.
Kabal sighed tiredly... he couldn't keep up all this activity for too much longer. He turned towards the girl and looked at her more closely as he blinked away the light enhancement. Now that she was sitting up she didn't look as young as he first thought. Her breasts were as small as he had initially thought... but so was she. Overall her shape seemed to place her in the early to mid teens. He started to take inventory of her injuries; and saw that the one that was the gravest was probably her... womanhood .. it looked torn and battered and there were had obviously been things other than male Drow members placed in there. She was bleeding at a rate he found somewhat alarming. He approached her to get a closer look at the damage, and made it two steps. The girl cried out in fear and picked up a blade warily. She was watching his pulse rifle. He, too looked at it, and said, "Oh no.... no.. this isn't for you.." She blinked at him. 'Of course, idiot,' he thought, 'she won't speak your language.'
Kabal placed the pulse rifle down slowly and took two steps to the left, moving slowly and trying to indicate that he meant no harm. "He spoke soothingly, "Look, I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm not like.... those sick bastards..." she showed no indication of relaxing, so he continued as he slowly moved forward... keeping his eye on the dagger she had. "I won't hurt you.. I'm here to help you. Hey.." he stopped and looked between her bosoms. She had a crystal that looked almost identical to his. "I'm gonna show you something." He slowly reached under his shirt and pulled his own crystal. It was "blazing" black, and as soon as he took away his hand and let it hang, her crystal reacted as well. It pulsed a deep blue.... then both stopped reacting at all. The girl looked down at her own crystal in confusion. Kabal moved closer, "I just wanna help you... gotta look at those wounds you got there." Her eyes looked back up at him, and he continued, "I just want to help you. You're... heh, you're very pretty, do you know that?" As he said that, he took a rapid step to her, and she screamed out in fear, closed her eyes, and slashed the dagger sloppily at him. He caught it by the handle and removed it from her grip. Her eyes snapped back open and she stared intently at him. Kabal spread his arms outwards in a gesture of... what, he didn't know. He then reversed the dagger and held it out to her, handle first. She looked at him for a few moments, then reached out to snatch it from his grasp as quickly as she could. He did not react at all to that, only kept his arms out. The cave seemed even more silent then before a moment as she looked him over, considering a hundred things at once. Something finally won out, and she lurched forward..... dropping the dagger, and knocking Kabal into a sitting position. There she clung to him, wracking sobs shaking her whole body. Kabal held her for a while, stroking her hair and whispering encouragingly to her. He was also grateful for the chance to rest; and closed his eyes, intending only to rest a few moments...
When Kabal his eyes opened again, the cave was somewhat brighter. The moss on the walls were the source of that, he quickly ascertained. The Drow girl was curled up almost in a ball, head nestled on his chest. He reached out and brushed her forehead with his hand to awaken her. Her eyes snapped open instantly, and then went out of focus a bit. Kabal was confused for a moment, and then cursed himself aloud for falling asleep. He had done nothing to clean and dress her wounds; he was lucky she was still alive at all. Kabal disengaged himself from her grasp and lay her up against the wall. She blinked at him blearily, but did not protest. Kabal searched through the pockets of his jacket until he located a few items that would be of use... penlight, Bactine spray, and canteen of Bacardi 151.
He first went to examine the biggest problem wound... he knelt in front of her and began to examine her vaginal area. The labia were torn and the one labia was actually burned. The bottom of the area was torn beyond, and Kabal wished he had something he could stitch that with. The rest was undamaged. Kabal looked up apologetically at her and then spread the labia. Within, he found that a large gash was running up the right side, fairly deep. He shined the light in and followed deeper, finding that a piece of metal, probably used for the initial cutting was still in there. Probably made the intercourse even more painful for her then it would have been otherwise. That would have to come out. Other than that there was no damage save for friction abrasions. Kabal was no doctor, but he figured she would live provided he could disinfect the wounds. Kabal stood up and offered the flask to the Drow girl. She reached out to take it and unscrewed the cap. She sniffed the contents and the canteen fumbled out of her grasp. Kabal easily plucked it out of the air and handed it to her again. She looked at him, and he made drinking motions. She stared harder, and he said, "Look it tastes like shit but it'll help. You're about to REALLY hurt."
The tone of his voice must have convinced her, because she pinched her nose shut and took two long swallows. Kabal saw her wince, but it looked like she'd keep it down. Satisfied in that, he went searching for his knife. Surely, it was still in the wall where he left it. With a slight rasping sound, he pulled it free of the lodged spot and walked back to the Drow girl. She was coughing a bit and seemed happy to give over the canteen when he extended his hand to it. Then he offered his knife to her. She tilted her head questioningly. Kabal lifted his mask and demonstrated what he wanted her to do by placing the handle in his mouth and biting down on the Duraplast grip. He then offered it to her, and could see the full light of recognition in here eyes. She added two and two together, came up with 4, and realized what Kabal was bracing her for. She clenched it between her teeth and spread her legs open wider for him.
Kabal had to move slowly so as not to damage her insides any worse than they already were, working out the metal... it was barbed, making his job even harder. He could see the Drow girl's legs tensing and hear her breathing coming hard, but she did not scream. He reminded himself to compliment her on that when he found someone who could speak a language they had in common. "Allright..." an image flitted across his mind, "Butterfly.. " he said, "Now this is gonna be the last pull. It'll hurt, and I'm actually gonna drag it along the rest of the wound to reopen it to be disinfected. Please don't hate me, huh?" He looked up to see her sweating and in agony, and to make it clear what he was going to do, he made an exaggerated motion of gearing up for a hard pull. She nodded at him and squeezed her eyes shut. And so Kabal held it at an angle to minimize tissue damage, and yanked it out. He immediately re-applied some pressure and brought the barb down, re-opening the entry wound. Not a lot of blood came out.... Kabal was not sure if that was good or bad. He threw the metal object behind him and proceeded to douse the entire area with Bactine. He also used his fingers to open up any other areas he feared might be deep, and sprayed Bactine into there as well. The Drow girl's head was thrown back and she was letting out a cry of pain that could be heard even through the gagging of the handle.
And then it was over. Kabal pulled himself up to lay next to the Drow girl, and took his knife from her mouth. He looked at the teeth marks she had made in it and was pretty impressed. Duraplast was hard stuff to dent. He sheathed the knife and regarded the girl, who was still breathing quite heavily. She used her own arm to wipe away her tears of pain, and looked at him thankfully. "Hangin in there all right?" he asked. She looked at him blankly. Kabal pointed at his chest and said "Kabal. My name is Kabal." Her expression changed somewhat, and he repeated the process, adding his last name to it. After a few times, she nodded at him. He pointed at her and asked "What is your name?" She seemed to comprehend, but just shook her head. "Great." he said, "I'm stuck in who the hell knows where with a Drow who doesn't speak my language, and is probably mute also. This sucks." Perhaps detecting something in the tone of his voice, she looked at him questioningly. "Butterfly, " he said, "I don't know where we are, or what to do now. But... don't worry about it. I'll think of something."
As he stood up to look around, he immediately ended up wincing and cursing his luck. The soothing thump of his motion detector was now beeping with increasing volume... indicating to him they were no longer alone. Kabal turned towards the cave entrances and saw there were two of them. The lovely sensor device indicated motion in both directions. He sighed the sigh of the damned and picked his pulse rifle back up. "We got company, Butterfly." He spotted the first on the ceiling of the left tunnel... it appeared to be a male Drow with the lower half of a... Drider. that was called a Drider he reminded himself. He easily blasted it away with a hail of bullets and checked his motion detector again. He then stopped to stare at it for a few seconds. The counter detected 200 distinct signals, and the readout informed him there were more that it could not track. Cursing more, and this time not at all under his breath, he stepped back as far as he could and readied himself for combat. He quickly felt detached from the situation
The assorted Drow and Drider came in waves, grouping for attacks and re-grouping after being repelled. Kabal steadily backpedaled, widening his area of attack while minimizing direct exposure to either opening. He fought coldly, searching for targets and opening fire mechanically in small bursts, eliminating one target and moving to the next rapidly. He made a point of going after the spell-casting ones first.. they dressed rather obviously. Kabal began to sweat a bit as he realized his pulse rifle was clicking on empty and had to switch to his pistol. Down to the last clip on that, the fighting seemed to cease. It actually took him a few seconds to come out of "holding off an entire horde single-handed" mode to realize that one of the Drow was speaking to him.
"Ye got some amazing magic there laddie, but eventually it'll run out." a male voice said. "Yeah?" Kabal asked, "What's your point?" He also wanted to punch himself in the head because he had just confirmed to his opponents that he would run out of ammo. The niche they were in was very easily defendable with gunfire given the choke-point angling of the tunnels, but hand to hand would prove a lot harder. "There's hundreds more of us here. We will eventually overcome ye, I assure ye that outsider." Kabal holstered the pistol and began to stretch, dropping into the splits to limber up. "You're welcome to try. I can assure you that it won't be easy." "Aye but it KIN be easy, " the voice said, "All we want is fer ye tae leave these caves. An leave the girl behind." Kabal turned back to the girl, "You got any input on this, Butterfly?" The Drow just stared blankly at him. Kabal turned back and pitched his voice as loud and as deep as her could, projecting his supreme confidence. "You'll not have her! I will die first! Come and get her if you want her!" The girl behind him tilted her head, confused, and looked upon Kabal as if seeing him for the first time.
Feeling the negative Ki of the enemy, Kabal drove his index finger down into the ground screaming "Bakusai Tenketsu!" and the first Drow around the corner took rock shards in the face, one lodging in his left eye and dropping him immediately. A few moments later, a second came, female, bearing twin swords. She swung the one in her left hand at him, which he ducked under. He shifted his weight nimbly and kicked her with all his might to the crotch from his low position. Her pubic bone snapped and she crumpled. Still down, Kabal sweep-kicked the third. At this point, the Drow began coming in greater numbers. He nailed two with twin backhand punches, and forward kicked a third, breaking her sternum. He turned quickly to the left as he felt an attack from that direction. It was a smallish Drow bearing a dagger. Kabal lashed his hand out in a tiger claw strike, raking across the eyes of another as the dagger-bearer swung. Kabal spun after the claw strike, and caught the Drow's dagger with his off hand. The other came across and punched the dagger-wielder's wrist. he caught the knife as it was released, reversed the direction of his spin, and high roundhouse kicked him, causing the skull to become dented and the Drow to drop unconscious. A Drider was closest next, and Kabal screamed "Tenshin Amaguriken, revised! Dagger attack!" His left hand struck with a blur, perforating the Drider with over 20 holes in it's torso. Then he sprang back from the group.
And noticed he had nothing left. The day's activities had been too much for him. Thanks to years of training he could keep going at full momentum till the end... but this was the end. There was no Ki left to draw from, and he was so tired it was everything he could do to continue standing. He glanced back to the girl as the horde approached. "I'm sorry Butterfly... But I don't think we're gonna make it." The girl closed her eyes and did not respond. Kabal turned back to face off the Drow.... who began retreating. They almost literally melted into the shadows in what appeared to be one mass. A glance at his motion detector confirmed this; they were leaving and in a BIG hurry.
Kabal did not question it. He murmured a quick prayer of thanks to Amaterasu, and scooped the Drow girl up over his shoulder. He ran with her until he found an entrance aboveground. He only briefly paused there a moment to catch his breath, then took off again...
As the sun began to send it's first tendrils of light over the land where they had camped, Kabal looked at the girl again, and found he was taking inventory of her features. Her face looked peaceful.. noble.. and dark.. all at the same time. Her form was toned enough, she apparently was a rather active girl. She was still pretty messed up from the beating she had received, but he could imagine she would be quite fetching when that cleared up. She turned away from him in her sleep and her blanket came with her, now exposing her bare legs to him. He looked at them contrasting against the green grass... then looked away. He got up, faced the sun, and began his morning katas.
The Drow girl opened her eyes and watched his movements. After seeing his smooth movements for a few minutes.. almost like a dance... she got up and on a whim began to try to imitate his moves. Kabal felt her Ki the instant she began movements like his. He did not look at here but instead spoke. "This is the basic form of Szechuan Kenpo, which is the basis for the Anything Goes style. It focuses on hand to hand combat and ranged weapons. Later on you can learn to use other weapons as I can.. but that takes time and patience; for now let's start with some punches..."