Archnemesis meet-up (privato for the Shade and the Morgan)

Blood was caking Chiara's hands, making them hot, viscous and sticky. She smacked him into the wall and brutally punched him across the face thrice, feeling teeth knock loose -- her knuckles might hurt but she wasn't even close to stopping. Another punch, another groan. Grabbing the neckline of his shirt, she made him drop to the ground and started kicking him in the stomach with her metal-tipped combat boots, harder and harder, watching him spasmodically curl up on the ground, protecting himself with his arms. He started to wheeze; his mouth and cheek were red and gluey, one of his eyes was closed, slowly growing purple colors. A hard kick in the groin made another convulsion ripple across his body. He grew motionless after several more kicks, wheezing painfully through half-closed lips, his arms clenched around his belly. Panting, Chiara drew back and spat at the ground before turning away, her fingerless black gloves soaked with smelly blood.  
She herself had some bruises and a knife wound in her side but all were superficial. Nothing that couldn't heal.
Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket, she walked out of the alley, leaving the guy on the ground behind her. Why she had beaten him up was obvious: he was a member of another turf gang, and he had come on her gang's "territory". She didn't know what he was here for since she had punched him in the mouth the moment she had identified him as an opponent, and truthfully she didn't care. Twas his mistake to come here.
The short redhead turned into another alley, kicking an empty glass bottle out of her way. Wind shuffled trash into a corner, stray dogs rooted through garbage. Music seeped out of a club's backyard, repetitive electro with a watery bass. Chiara adjusted her jacket on her shoulders, pushing the sleeves up to her elbows. With it she had a gray tank top, urban camouflage trousers and a bandanna, her hair swaying over her shoulders in thick red curls. No weapons except two guns and a knife -- not that she needed more anyway. Eyebrows knitted as usual, she took out her headphones and put one into her ear, scrolling through the menu of her iPod to find a good song she felt like listening to right now.

Darren was still relatively new to the ‘small’ town of Happy Harbor but he had quickly come to realize that this place needed a cleanup and fast. There were petty criminals and gangs galore running around and Darren Cross was going to put a stop to it. Not as hobo sixteen year old Darren Cross, although he probably could, but as super hero extraordinaire, the amazing, the fantastic, spectacular Swordsmaster. Who was currently running around the city in his ‘costume’ which was not much more than white and orange colored leather armor complete with a hood that gave off a sort of ‘assassin’ feel. Which complete with a sword capable of cutting through even his durable skin, and two hidden blades in his wrists helped to finish off that feel.

Said running around the city took him to be standing on top of a building looking down into an alley watching as some girl was walking away from a broken, beaten, and bruised body. Now Darren may not have been the smartest man on the planet, far from it in fact, but he was smart enough and had spent enough time on the streets to know that usually that meant something bad had just happened. Something that more than likely involved either cash, some form of grudge, or one of the gangs running around in the city. Watching the girl walk away he grabbed a piece of derby that was conveniently sitting next to him and eyes turning white, the world around him seemingly slowing down, he chucked the piece of rock not at the back of her head but a foot in front of her. Or rather, an inch in front of where her nose was going to be.

With his ability of Hyperkinetics Darren was enabled with perfect aim, and thus used the ability to his amusement, such as making people jump and then ‘appearing’ behind them. Which of course was what he did, the moment the piece of derby left his hand the speedster took off running down the wall. In a matter of moments he was standing behind the girl with a boyish grin on his face that was hidden by his hood. Tapping her on the shoulder before quickly moving so he was once again behind her if she turned to look back at him. If she only turned her head around and then forward he’d be standing in front of her. “So, what was the deal with the guy back there? I mean I didn’t see what happened but jeez that was a bit brutal don’t you think?”

Chiara had just started listening to a piece of rap when a stone suddenly appeared right in front of her nose. She gave a start, then someone tapped her on the shoulder. She looked behind her -- nothing? -- but when she looked back around, a guy in hoodie and leather armor was standing in front of her, his white and golden outfit cast in flickering shadows by a nearby lamppost. Unnatural speed -- another metahuman? Chiara looked him up and down; he was taller than her (there again with her height, pretty much everyone older than fourteen was), seemed rather athletic and had a crooked grin from what she could see under the hood.
All in all, he looked he had just come from an Assassin's Creed cosplay convention.
He didn't seem very smart though -- he had just seen her beat the guy up and left him bloodied and bruised on the pavement. Most people would go out of her way... or was he asking for the same treatment?
Or perhaps he thought he could take her on.
Ohhhh dear, now that was funny. If indeed he wanted a fight, he didn't know what he had coming, speedster or not.

"He got what he deserved," she told him. "And if you don't wanna end up the same, I advise you to take your sorry costumed ass out of my way."

“Got what he deserved? Now I may be new to America but back in Australia nobody deserves to go through what you just did to that guy as for you doing to me the same thing…well you couldn’t touch me even if you tried.” He grinned underneath his hood and moved so he was in a fighting stance, he preferred to fight with his sword but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to fight unarmed and in fact he was pretty sure there weren’t very many people alive who could take him hand to hand or sword to sword or at all for that matter unless they had some super insane power and could obliterate entire planets but that was a story for a different day.

However, he wasn’t truly intending to beat her to a pulp even though he had just seen her do it to someone else. No, that wouldn’t be fun at all, what would of course be fun was knocking her down a few notches. Show her she wasn’t really all that big and bad, so he simply threw his fist forward intending to simply poke her nose, he needed her to strike first. To actually initiate the fight which would then allow him to see her fighting style and to get a feel for how she would do things. That and it was always fun to learn a new fighting style, to be able to incorporate her own movements into his own and use them against her.

((ew sorry bad post))

Alright, he was asking for it.

Her hands still red and sticky with the guy's blood, she took her headphones out and stuffed them into her pocket, then aimed a strong uppercut at his jaw.

OOC: ew short sorry D:

Darren’s eyes flashed white as she shoved her headphones into her pocket. The world around him seemingly slowed down and he watched her body movements, her actions, even her breathing his brain taking it all in and recording every single movement. It was as if he was acting on impulse and instincts. Which in a sense he was, with how finely tuned his motor control was in addition to his adaptive muscle memory and reflexes as soon as his brain registered that she was attempting an upper cut he was already moving in the best possible course of action to dodge it. With a little bit of a Darren twist added in of course.

His feet stepped back and then sideways, allowing him to not only back out of the range of her arm but to step to the side of her body as well. When he was there he threw his arm forward in an attempt to punch her in the side of her ribs. Now as he wasn’t entirely sure if she was just a normal person with anger issues or a meta-human like he himself was he held back on the punch. There was no reason to go full out on her now without even knowing what it was she could do, there was no fun in that. If however she was still standing after the punch connected or was able to move out of the way of the punch he’d be able to then base the actually strength and attention he’d need to give to the rest of this fight. Right now he was simply having fun.

The punch in the side surprised her as much as her failed uppercut. Her hits rarely failed -- in fact, if they failed, it was because she had somehow let them.

The guy had a strong fist and she could feel pain burn across her side, numbing it as she stumbled back. She realized she wouldn't beat this guy with brute force like she usually did, for this one, she had to up her game. Chiara had incredibly fast reflexes, she could be fast enough to dodge bullets -- and if she could dodge bullets, she could dodge this guy's fists.

"Well aren't you a quick fuck," she growled, metal spikes slowly growing from her knuckles. The bite of metal was sharp and cold in her skin but this time she lashed out as fast as she could at him, her arm barely a blur in the growing darkness.

Darren was usually fast, hell he was fast enough to run past the speed of sound but when the girl’s fists started growing metal spikes…well his brain started to take over. Without even moving he simply stood there and watched as the spiked fist came flying out and right into his gut. Sure, it wasn’t enough to pierce through both his armor and his skin but my god did it bruise, and hurt too. Doubling over He groaned and chuckled at the same time. This was going to be fun, no, this was going to be really fun. She had stepped up her game by bringing out a couple of weapons he could do the exact same thing and bring out his own weapon but not the sword that was hanging on his side in its sheath.

Backing up he moved out of her reach and crossed over so that he was now running to her side as he flung his hand forward palm facing up. Shoving the hand forwards he made an attempt as if to shove her with the palm however at the last second his hidden blade shot out, as he was intending to stab the blade into her side before quickly pulling it out. He was trying to slow her down, let her feel a little bit of pain before twirling on his feet to where he was at her back and once more shoving his palm forward but this time he didn’t twitch and send the blade out, no this time he was intending to actually hit her with the palm of his hand and send her stumbling forward. “This is going to be fun.”

OOC :

Not late at all:

BIC: The guy moved in a blur. The next second, she felt a painful stab in her side and then was shoved forward. Chiara managed to keep her footing though and spun around to face him, a hand on her side. It was already growing hot and sticky with blood; she looked at her glistening red finger then glared back up at him. It was the first time in a while that anyone had managed to land a hit like that on her.

"You have no idea how much fun it's gonna get." She pointed at him and her forefinger darkened and bulkied up, morphing into a gun barrel while the fingers of her other hand flattened into five tactical knife blades. Then she jumped up, twisting her body around to give two kicks away while shooting several bullets at his stomach, the pain in her side growing a bit sharper.