Whist vs. Angel

Whist left the infirmary not long after his interaction with Li'ain, and went out to grab a drink before his next round began. He sat at the bar of a small tavern that was nestled on the first floor next to an Irish gift-shop, and poured himself a beer, not really worried about impairing himself with just one drink; he had a high tolerance and honestly even with the haughty comment he had made to Li'ain he had once more started to care less and less about winning any more rounds.

His next opponent was a mystery to him, he hadn't heard much about her besides that she had been among many to suffer against Kyuubi, but that told him very little about her—indeed, she could still very well be inhumanly strong and completely overwhelming; losing to Kyuubi meant nothing. He threw back another gulp of beer, draining half the glass, and then turned to Blink.

"What do you think, boy? What kind of chick do you think this 'Angel' is?" He asked, running a finger along the rim of the cup absently.

Blink whimpered and then huffed a sigh, settling back on his haunches with an apathetic glaze on his eyes. Whist wasn't particularly riled up at the moment, so Blink felt relatively calm about the whole situation, Whist was unlikely to get himself in too deep this round, depending on the opponent, so Blink had little to worry about.

"Eh, maybe she got the name for being merciful or something, could be our lucky day…" Whist mused.

"Don't count on it."

He looked up curiously at the far end of the bar, and noticed for the first time that he was not the only one sitting there. Around the corner of the bar sat a small, fluffy pink creature, her head barely visible above the bar line, drinking a fruit juice and looking at him stonily.

"I'm angel, you're next opponent, you must be Whist." She said, hopping lightly onto the bar and walking down to offer him her hand.

"And you…have got to be joking." Whist said, chuckling.

Angel lowered her hand with a scowl and folded her arms. "No. I'm not. I'll have you know I'm a master of—"

"But you're so cute!" Whist cackled, and Blink wuffed appreciatively, thumping his tail in rhythm to his master's mirth. Angel glared at him as he bit his lip and clenched a fist, trying to contain his amusement.

"I've won just as many rounds as you, you know." She snapped.

"I know, I know, I'm sure you're a very powerful…" He looked up, met her gaze, two beady eyes simmering out from fringe of pink fur, and burst out laughing again.

Angel waited a few more moments, tapping her foot continually faster, in keeping with the volume of Whist's howling, her jaw grew consistently tighter, her temple began to throb, until finally, when it was quite obvious he would not finish anytime soon, she leapt at him with a cry of rage and knocked him off his chair. Blink instantly sprung to his feet and barked angrily, but she had already grabbed Whist's wrist and flipped him around and into the bar. When he opened his eyes, rubbing his throbbing forehead, he was staring down the barrel of a buzzing laser gun.

"You're lucky the match doesn't start for another hour, buddy." She spat. "I'll see you then." With that she lowered the gun and bounded out of the bar, Blink growling at her as she left.

Whist sat up with a moan and rubbed the back of his neck, rolling his shoulders and wincing as he felt what would certainly be a new bruise in very little time. He rubbed Blink's neck as the beast snuggled against him comfortingly, whimpering consolation.

"Well, boy," Whist said with a long exhale. "It seems I'm just not getting off on the right foot with the ladies here." He winced as he touched his busted lip. "We my have a problem."

Blink merely barked and whapped his tail against his master's side until his ears were scratched.

- - -

An hour later Whist stood at the base of the Ferris Wheel, in the same atrium where he had won his first battle, the roller coaster was only a few feet away, the memory of victory helped encourage him a little after the rough defeat the day before. He sipped from a bottle of water as Blink chewed on the last of a steak Whist had nabbed for him. A few people wandered by, some gathered at the perimeter, curious as to how the strange multi-colored man would use the set this time, but there was far fewer spectators than normal. This was one of the last fights of the day, and most of the spectators were exhausted from a day of intense stress and increasingly dangerous situations for them, and they were becoming far less willing to put themselves in the line of possible pain and suffering. The patronage of the mall had decreased massively in general, and truthfully Whist didn't blame them one bit.

At any rate, he had been waiting there for some time but didn't feel the need to search Angel out. He didn't care to try and complicate things by creating a chase or one of those infuriating stealth-mode stand-offs, she could come to him. He may have been taken off guard by her strength when he first met her, but now that he was aware of what her abilities were, he was once more confident that a small furry pink alien could pose little threat. But she also could not, apparently, have the decency to arrive on time.

Whist let out a long groan and shifted his weight. "Ugh, I'm nice enough to offer a clean, easy, face-to-face match and she still has to go and make a big deal about the opening suspense…god, I am so sick of theatrics. Why can't anyone just kick the shit out of each other?" Blink groaned his sympathetic but equally confused response and licked Whist's hand affectionately. "Eh, well, she can wait as long as she wants, I really don't give a damn, let's go for a ride, eh boy?"

He patted Blink's head and then entered one of the carriages, tossing a coin at the 'on' button to start the Ferris wheel after he and his dog were inside. He sat down with huff, and Blink curled up by his feet. As the wheel made its first round Whist leaned against the side, staring out through the bars at the massive picture windows that lined the upper half of the surrounding walls, through which the dark gold and crimson light of the setting sun was streaming, giving the entire almost-abandoned amusement park setting a warm, calming wash. It was almost possible to forget he was in the middle of an increasingly dangerous tournament, and for a moment he let that fantasy engulf him and let himself imagine he had found, for just and brief second, a quiet, private nook that required no distress on his part.

But that fantasy was quite ruined by the base of the Ferris Wheel exploding. Whist instantly pushed the indulgence far out of his mind to replace it with panic as fire and debris flew by his window and he began a creaking plummet towards the ground.

Several stories below, Angel discarded the used detonator and folded her arms with a sigh and roll of her eyes. Whist was a damn fool to have thought that Angel was avoiding him without any reason beyond drawing out the suspense. First he had underestimated her strength, and then her intellect; as much as she hated the way people in this tournament were regarding her, it did have its advantages.

"Oh, Whist…I almost wish it had taken longer to prove you so very wrong." Angel said.

"Don't worry bout that, it generally does take a while to out-smart me."

Angel's eyes bulged as she spun to her left to see Whist sitting on the bench there, his dog resting his muzzle on his knee and panting in satisfaction. Whist had a twisted smirk on his face, and he slowly stood, patting a light dusting of debris off his pants.

Angel clenched her jaw, and prepared to spring. She had been informed about his dog's teleportation powers, but hadn't believed that he could have the split-second timing needed to avoid the unavoidably devastating destruction of the Ferris wheel. She wished she had wired the explosives through the entire wheel, but that would have most likely killed him off. In the end it seemed Whist wasn't the only who's underestimations of his opponent has caused more problems than necessary. This fight was looking to become extremely messy…but she could work with that.

With a shriek she lunged at him, and Whist was so taken aback by the abrupt and entirely rash move that his only reaction was to knock her away and over his shoulder so she hit the ground and slid under the bench Whist had just been sitting on. Whist spun around, ready to trap her in the tight quarters but he and Blink had to almost immediately turn back and sprint for some protection from the volley of bullets that was rattling out from beneath the bench.

They ducked behind a large piece of the collapsed Ferris wheel just as the bullets stopped. Whist waited a moment, and then ventured a peek over the edge of his guard, only to see Angel tossing aside the handgun she had just emptied in order to scoop up a new one out of a potted plant. He swore and ducked down again, narrowly missing having his ear shot off. Angel sprinted up the pile of rubble, springing into the air and bearing down on him with a shrill war cry. With a massive curse, Whist grabbed Blink firmly by the neck and disappeared just before Angel collided with the ground where he had been sitting, bullets flying to all angles.

She cut off the torrent with a scowl, growling softly in frustration. This was getting infuriating already, if he kept pulling this trick she would get seriously angry. There was no way she would let this keep up. She shot off again, calculating her possibilities as she went. One option open to her was of course asking one of her cousins for help, but she had already determined that she would do this on her own. She was here to prove her own strength, and that was far more important than money or favors. But she was by no means limited by that decision. As she reached the base of the roller coaster she dumped the handgun for a plasma gun that was tucked behind one of its support beams. She had planted dozens of high-tech weapons around the amusement-park area, so she had plenty of options hiding around the battleground; it was just a matter of what she wanted to do. First though, she had to get a good idea of the lay of the land with the newly collapsed Ferris wheel and to re-assess where all her weapons were waiting and where Whist could be hiding. She climbed the roller coaster to the top point to get a full view; she didn't imagine Whist would be that hard to find, he wasn't exactly subtle. Sure enough, he wasn't even pretending to be on the defense. Suddenly two metal disks were pelting at her from the peak of the roller coaster just across from her, and she spun to face him instantly.

"You ready to face me for real now, Whist?" She called.

Whist cocked an eyebrow. "This is how I fight for real, my little angel. Now, what else you got? Give it you all, I'm curious about what you can do."

Angel smirked, and then suddenly spun around to the under side of the coaster and grabbed a long weapon which she then aimed through the rails at Whist and fired instantly. The harpoon exploded from the gun shaft—and missed. Whist and Blink were both totally unharmed. But separated. And that was when Angel laughed and shouted smugly;

"Curiosity killed the cat!"

Then she fired three charges, the last two for good measure, and watched closely as they exploded and then simmered down, smoking and hissing so massively for a moment she could not see the results, but when it cleared she was satisfied to see the mangle of melted metal framework and no sign of activity. She slowly sighed out the breath she had been holding, but then it caught, as she looked down and saw Whist perched precariously on the extremely narrow ledge directly below the section Angel had just blasted away.

"Good thing I'm not a cat!" Whist called up to her, and then Blink jumped to him and upon collision they winked out once more.

Angel spent the next moment simply fuming at the unfairness of the situation. That should have been the winning blow, and even with his extremely rash split-second decision to simply drop out of range the chance of him catching that ledge was slim to none. Sometimes she really hated lucky people.

In the moment following she felt the sudden rush of a presence immediately behind her, and she ducked down just in time to miss the violent swing of Whist's heavy gauntlet towards her head. After falling low and losing her grip on her weapons in the jolt of the drop, she shot her legs out behind her, striking him in the shins not hard enough to knock him over but enough to make him stagger and giving her time to scramble down the pipe-work of the roller coaster and lunge for her gun again. Whist was on her heels, and just as she snatched the gun he was bearing down on her, and she had to forego it once more to defend herself.

But she didn't stay on the defense for long. Soon enough she had Whist struggling to hold her off, as she kicked and jabbed sharply around all his defenses. Her agility was far past what Whist could muster up, and he was no stranger to swift, close-quarter movement, but her size and pure programmed instinct gave her that extra edge Whist just didn't have. He was soon reduced to merely keeping his guard up and Angel away from anywhere she could actually do real harm, his only advantage was his much greater range for his limbs, but as it stood he only had the room and time to use that to keep her a distance. Blink was still disoriented from the explosion, and wandered slowly near them, his brain coming back to him, but to any degree where he could really start doing some damage. She was using her height as an advantage to an extent that hardly left any disadvantage to exploit. She kept Whist crouched low, curling in on himself to be able to block her low blows and block any gaps in his guard that would normally be too minute to use, but because of her stature she could have easily abused.

Shit. Whist thought as Angel flipped clean over him, smacking the side of his head with her foot on the way over. I need some distance…but then she'll just use one of those damned guns again…I'm screwed from any distance.

She landed a punch to one of the nerves on his inner thigh as she ducked between his legs, and even in his state of frustration he felt a rush of appreciation of the fact that she had not hit slightly more to the left. Even so, his leg buckled, making him loose his balance, and he had to check himself on the side of a bench, during which Angel slid under his arm and jabbed hard into the cluster of nerves just beside his armpit. With the overwhelming power she had backing the strike Whist felt the entire arm spasm and go numb, the jolt of pain spreading across the whole span of his shoulders and the only thing he could think of doing in the moment while stars were flashing across his eyes was make a mental shout to Blink and then dash away for as much distance as he could get. Blink found him in a second, his mind immediately focused upon his master's distress, and when Whist dropped his good hand to the beast's shoulder they were gone again.

This time Angel felt much less frustration at the fact. She had control of this battle now, and she really doubted he was sharp enough to turn it around; she smiled and clapped her hands, unable to contain the mirth of oncoming victory. She grabbed the plasma gun and a few extra weapons and went out for the hunt.

- - -

Whist and Blink ducked into the store they had reappeared outside off upon blinking a few meters down on of the many side hallways branching off from the Amusement park hub. It was a clothing store, one that was trying laughably hard to be edgy and rebellious, with fishnet and studs dotting every item of clothing and the accessories were almost entirely body jewelry and heavy chains. He and Blink took refuge in the back corner, beside a wall of posters depicting several men, all scowling and heavily decorated, with so much eyeliner they were practically in blackface. Whist had little time to smirk at the ridiculousness of it all, his arm was still tingling and hard to control, and he could feel Blink's weariness—all that teleportation was wearing him down, he had maybe one extremely short-range jump left in him, and then he would be out for a long time.

"If you can give me that, I'll make it count." Whist said, rubbing Blink's scruff firmly. Blink made no noise or movement, but the signal was in Whist's mind loud and clear—Blink was there to give him whatever he needed, one hundred percent, no questions asked.

"What would I do without you?" He said, and then with a deep sigh got back to his feet and started to make a miracle.

- - -

Angel had inspected two of the half-dozen connecting halls with no luck, but she had expected that—Whist was obviously the one with all the luck in this match. But luck was arbitrary and unreliable, he couldn't rely on it forever, and she was patient enough to bide her time until it ran out. As she walked down the third hall, she felt that time had come. Amid a shop that consisted of almost exclusively black and other dark colors a splotch of bright blue, purple and red easily caught her hair as it passed between aisles. It was a small store, nice and cramped, good for her close-range combat and also served to restrict Whist's dodging range. With a grin she fired a fresh plasma blast and cooed in excitement as it melted an entire rack of clothing and garnered a new curse from Whist as he dodged to a fresh hiding spot behind the metal cashier counter. Angel pulled the trigger once more—and moaned and grumbled when the gun emitted the high whining noise that signaled a lack of sufficient energy to continue firing. She was sure she had charged it just that evening…but it didn't matter, she was using it just for the fun of watching things explode, she was here to prove her martial skills not that she could pull a trigger.

She bolted into the shop, giving Whist no time to slip away and leapt to the top of the counter, immediately springing off and on top of Whist, pummeling him and spinning around what defenses he could manage to throw up against the sudden onslaught. He had learned, that was certain, his body was much tighter than before, but she had that infamous experimental strength behind every blow and even when she hit only Whist's forearms and shoulders she came near to cracking bones and planted deep bruises into his muscles. Whist was slowly backing up, but she kept him on a path away from his dog—whom she now saw was lying near the back, completely exhausted. She had Whist just how she wanted him, cornered and all out of luck. He was backing up towards a wall, he had only a few steps until there was nowhere left to go, no distance to fall into to absorb her blows and lighten the impact. She was ready to end it. She fell down low and landed a sharp kick to his ankle, twisting it badly and sending him toppling over towards the wall full of sharp, solid metal accessories. Whist's cry was not nearly as distraught as she would have liked. In fact, it sounded like—a signal. She looked up just as Blink heaved himself forward one last time, bounding the few meters to his master's side as Whist's hands slapped against the wall and then he popped out again. Angel had no time to make and curse the assumption that he had run again before she felt the cold metal chain suddenly wrap around her and jolt her backwards.

She was slammed onto her back and Whist grabbed another chain and twisted it around her and the previous chain, finally fastening them together around a thick pillar with the heaviest padlock she had ever seen. As this happened she rethought the few moment before with a newfound and almost insulting clarity. Blink had been in his position not out of weakness but to carve Angel's path towards the wall of chains, where Whist would then teleport with a chain in hand not in the way Angel would expect to somewhere far from harm, but merely to the opposite side of her—so close she would never have time to make the connection and stop it. She would have kicked herself for being so clumsy had Whist not been wrapping yet another chain around her legs so they, too were immobilized.

"Don't you think that's enough chains already?" She grumbled.

Whist looked up at her incredulously. "Are you kidding me? With how strong you are I'm taking no chances."

He locked that chain and then pulled a new one down, continuing in this vein until Angel was cocooned tightly in a thick casing of metal links so rigidly that she could hardly squirm one paw into any sort of movement. She was aware that they were in a pocket where no video cameras could see them, which even in her predicament made her happier, this way Stitch wouldn't come running to help her, and she could get out of this on her own, and assure him she was all right after the fact. Whist exhaled in a puff, and then sat down with his back to the pillar, looking down at Angel with a small smirk.

"All right, here's how I see it," He said lightly, "right now, I'm exhausted and you're trapped. Where could this possibly go, right?"

"If you're suggesting I surrender you can just keep dreaming. I won't give in to you, these things won't hold me forever and—"

"Oh, I don't expect them to." Whist sighed heavily. "I was hoping you wouldn't be like this but….since you're so stubborn…" He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair, ruffling the short ends absent-mindedly; still distracted by the new haircut. "You're pretty much indestructible right?"

"Ih." She said, scowling sternly.

"Ok, then I've got two options…" Whist heaved himself back up to his feet and walked over to a shelf of assorted decorations, one of which was a large stone skull, which he rested his hand on. "One is to inflict blunt trauma to your skull until you pass out." He tapped a finger on the skull, Angel gulped. "And the other…" He walked away a few paces and tested the fabric of a t-shirt. "Is to smother you into the same result." He turned back to face her fully again, his hands on his hips. "Since it's your suffering I figured I'd play the gentleman and let you pick."

"You wouldn't." She hissed, sticking out her chin. "That's too cruel."

Whist narrowed his eyes. "What makes you think I'm not cruel?"

"That's torture, that's…inhuman."

Whist let a small chuckle escape. "I gave up my humanity a while ago. Listen, to you, this is just another fighting competition. To me, this match proves that I'm right, and she's wrong. And I'm just petty enough to stoop to whatever level I need to in order to get that."

Angel fumbled a new argument, staring into his stony gaze in utter disbelief. After a moment of the staring contest Whist rolled his shoulders and walked back over to the shelf.

"If you have no input, bashing it is…" He hoisted the skull in one hand and started towards her.

She stared him down as he approached slowly, watching his grip on the skull and his pace for any sign of hesitation, but he was steady, determined, and his expression was—if it could be said to be showing any emotion at all—only amused.

"I really think this might be the more painful alternative, but—oh well." Whist said, standing over her. "Maybe next time you'll speak up."

Angel just glared at him, and he held the gaze a moment, his stare impassive and then he raised the skull high in the air, directly and steadily above Angel's revealed and restricted head. And it descended.

"I GIVE!"

He widened the arc at the last minute and the stone skull hit the ground just behind her head, clipping the back of her skull but not compacting with it at full velocity, and she laid quivering at the knowledge that had she not shouted at the last moment he would have really done it. She would have expected that from Kyuubi but not someone like this, a human boy not so different from her ohana back in Hawaii. She looked up at him with wide-eyed horror as her loss was broadcasted over the speaker, somehow known by Death even without the cameras, and he gave her not a single glance more but simply unlocked her chains and left, Blink bounding beside him.

Outside he took a few steps and fell to his knees, and brought his trembling hands up to his face as he laughed shakily in utter relief. Blink sat panting beside him, equally relieved and more quickly calmed afterwards. Whist swallowed his nerve-heaved bile and patted Blink's head heavily.

"That was one of the most intense bluffs I've ever pulled, huh boy?" He murmured, thinking about how close he had come to her skull, one breath away from altering the course on his own. With a shudder he pulled himself back to his feet and smiled at Blink. "Only one more round, boy."

After that the two of them walked off to get back to the infirmary and mend the damage Angel had dealt.

Hey, so I hope I got Angel's personality down well. I knew I didn't give her much character in her fight vs. Kyuubi so I thought this would be a good chance to rectify that. Hope you enjoyed!