we're convenient to a wide variety of establishments

[cross_and_bow]

Ooh, Milliways. It's in her house - inside her house, in the closet where she was about to seek a change of pants - so she can't invite Sherlock along without inviting a vampire into Charlie's house without Charlie's consent. Ah well. She can still go check the Belltower. In she goes!

There's a Whistle. She can't remember this one's name, he's the one whose Bell hasn't been in. "Hey, Whistle," says Juliet.

Comments

[pythbox]

He grins. "Hope so."

[cross_and_bow]

"You got here by dreaming, right? Otherwise I'd be all over going to your world and breaking some shit to help you guys out."

[pythbox]

"Aww, that's nice," he says. "Yeah, I'm dreaming."

[cross_and_bow]

"Pity. Helpfully breaking shit is front and center of my official destined job description."

[pythbox]

Sue laughs. "Nice. What's the job?"

[cross_and_bow]

"I'm the Slayer. It's this fucked-up system where one teenage girl at any given time has super-strength and super-speed and the like and is supposed to use it to fight nasty bitey critters, a surprising fraction of whom find humans tasty."

[pythbox]

"Cool job," says Sue.

[cross_and_bow]

"I'm making it work. Pity it's not voluntary. A lot of my predecessors had a very unpleasant time of it, and none of them has lived past age twenty-six. Which I plan to fix, but I haven't run into a mint yet except Shell Bell, who was all out of big coins at the time and didn't have access to her helper."

[pythbox]

"Want me to come to your world and break some shit?" he offers half-jokingly.

[cross_and_bow]

"You good at breaking shit? I don't have any candidates lined up right now - usually I go to L.A. on weekends and make some demons very unhappy that my boyfriend found out where they live - but if you need a change of pace from being kidnapped and you can handle yourself on my level, we could wander the neighborhood and see if anything tries to eat us."

[pythbox]

"Sounds like fun," he says brightly.

[cross_and_bow]

"Okay, but since you are not a The Slayer, let's go spar in the back a bit, see how you are, I wouldn't wanna explain to your Bell why her Whistle's been folded, spindled, or mutilated and all three are unfortunately likely where I live." Juliet leads him to the backdoor. "Unless you have some form of super-strength," she adds, "you don't need to worry about hurting me. Anything breaks I can nap it off in the Belltower, and you probably can't even bruise me."

[pythbox]

...Sue laughs.

[cross_and_bow]

"What? I know I don't look it, but I'm totally very-gently-possessed by a demon that gives me superpowers, plus Amariah visited once and decked me out with all kinds of witchy blessings."

[pythbox]

"Yeah," he says, "it's not that, it's just you're reminding me of my personal combat instructor."

[cross_and_bow]

"Yeah? How so?"

[pythbox]

"He's a mutant. Heals really fast."

[cross_and_bow]

"Oh. Well, I'm hard to hurt in the first place - not least because I don't plan to just stand here like a punching bag once we get started - and I heal fast, too. I haven't picked up any injuries that weren't gone overnight so far and I tangle with stuff bigger and toothier and more venomous and scalier and whatnot than you all the time."

[pythbox]

Sue grins. "Okay!"

[cross_and_bow]

She finds a nice clear spot in the Milliways backyard, and drops into a ready position. "It won't stick if I wind up hurting you - Shell Bell shot a dreaming alt of yours once, he woke up fine - but I'll pull my punches anyway. Surprise me."

[pythbox]

Laughing, he attacks.

He is pretty damn good. Not superhuman, but nonetheless, pretty damn good.

[cross_and_bow]

She's used to fighting Sherlock. She's kept busy, she's not just standing there swatting away halfhearted punches and laughing, but her autopilot's plenty well equipped for this.

Juliet's style is completely unlike Aegis's. Aegis moves with - well - vicious precision, but there's no extra power behind her strikes. And her comfort with her motion is based on having had her exo from childhood, not from having acquired it as a sudden boost at age seventeen (which Aegis has not yet attained to begin with). Juliet is also fast - maybe faster - and also precise - maybe less so - but everything she does is predicated on the fact that she has overwhelming power to put behind her moves (even though she is in fact being gentle with Sue) and doesn't need to worry as much as an unaltered human about being hurt. Long practice with Sherlock also means she's particularly good at not telegraphing. Sherlock can still usually catch her preparing to act. Sue most likely can't.

[pythbox]

He is definitely going to lose this fight, but that's no reason not to have fun along the way.

And when somebody tells him he doesn't have to hold back, he believes them.

It's actually easier to hit Juliet than it is to hit Aegis. It just doesn't have as much effect.

Which just means he needs to try harder, right?

[cross_and_bow]

"You're scrappy," remarks Juliet, shrugging off a trying-harder hit to the shoulder to get in and knock him off balance.

When he gets his balance back and sneaks in past her guard to get at her face, she gets a bloody nose. It doesn't look like it hurts her that much, but it's a mess. "Ick, hold it," she says, straight-arming him in the chest to put him on the ground in case he takes a moment to process the call to halt. "I thought I was getting used to the smell of blood, but it's in my nose, ick. Let's go in and I can clean up. Nicely done."

[pythbox]

Sue giggles breathlessly.

"That was fun!"