• PM To Join • Adrenaline and Other Drugs

[Max]

61 Ashan 718

Strong. It was a feeling Max hadn't truly had all season while she recovered from grievous injuries. She'd held her own when the time came to defend Sephira against the masked rebels, but even then her blatant weaknesses had been exposed. She'd been filled with a rage and blood lust that she'd been unable to sate in her physical condition. All she could do in the mean time was continue to validate citizen dissent against the Elements with retellings of her story, and make deals in the dark with the Red Ravens from Almund. It hadn't been enough. The duration of her recovery had filled her with a persistent sensation of vulnerability that was alien. As each trial slowly passed she'd felt her injuries diminishing, and with that came the crescendo of her hate. With her foot, ribs, and lacerations properly healed, Max could finally cast aside that wretched crutch and cane. There were no more physical limitations left to tie her down.

The Rusalka's mind was fixated on finding a watering hole to settle into. It wouldn't be long before she formulated some sort of plan that would please the Red Ravens, sealing their conditional deal. More rousing words were needed first. She was no talented orator by any means, but at the very least, perhaps she could recruit the most bereaved and spiteful if the situation looked like it needed a more organized effort. At least now she would be unburdened by any walking aid that would make her seem weak to the few that might listen. Maxine was halfway to the Four in Hand when a particularly loud thump caught her attention.

The fuck was that?

Maxine paused mid-step to rear her head toward the source of the sound. Her brow lowered, and with a hand on her sword, and pivoted toward a disheveled little shack tucked back behind one of the larger buildings in the alleyway. After a few trills of silence more muffled noise reached her ears. She eased closer and lifted up on her toes to peer in through the dirt-clouded side window. At first she could spot little but silhouettes within. Then her caramel eyes turned nearly black. Max stormed toward the shack door and slammed her heel beside the door handle with as much force as she could muster. The weather-worn wood groaned and split open with ease. Daylight streamed in around Maxine's dark silhouette, spilling inside to illuminate the blackened, musty space. Once her path was clear, Max thundered across the threshold.

"Hey, assholes," the Rusalka snarled as she approached the first body in the run-down shop turning to spy her. "You're not afraid of a fair fight, are you?" She planted her boot into the thug's chest, sending him careening back into one of his buddies close behind. Another one, a woman with wild hair and pock-marked cheeks, rushed for her. She threw a punched aimed for the side of Maxine's head. The Rusalka slipped it and followed up with a quick jab-cross combination that sent her opponent into a stumble. Max grabbed the woman by the hair while her male constituents staggered to their feet. In a trill she'd slammed the side of her victim's head into the nearby wall before discarding her to the floor.

The feeling of her knuckles crushing into the bones of someone's face felt like the high she'd been missing all along. It filled her with a rush that only Ambrosia could rival, but this ecstasy was far less expensive. For the first time in a while her internalized torment had an outlet to be unleashed even the smallest bit. Maxine turned to the woman whose defense she'd shockingly come to without a second thought. Then she sent the bottom of her boot down upon the grounded thug's face. It was a simple follow through that temporarily blew the light out of her enemy's candle.

"DuCarinos," Maxine greeted the drug dealer with a half-grin spread across her dark expression. "What do you think? Still all bark and no bite?" The time for witty banter was a short window. The other two thugs were back on their feet and neither of them looked to be in a very good mood. Her heart thumped triumphantly in her chest. Her eyes were wild. "Actually, boys, come a little closer. Be our deciding vote."

[Freya DuCarinos]

○ Common ○ Rakahi ○ Pailtic ○ Hussian ○

Someone was following her, or rather, a group that had known about her since she arrived by boat nearly two seasons ago. It wasn’t made obvious at first, but apprehension and paranoia pulled the veil from Freya’s eyes when golden irises spotted a stranger looking too long, too hard in her direction. They turned, peeling off into the back alleys that she frequented nowadays, disappearing before she could really catch a glimpse of their features.

It wasn’t as if she lived the life of a street rat… No, most of her clients liked to meet with her in abandoned streetends like the one she was in currently. The biqaj didn’t like it and, if she was honest with herself, such work made her feel dirtier than the women at the whore house. What better way was there to build one’s reputation than by establishing a rapport with the disreputable people of Scalvoris? She could always form an alliance with that pirate captain whispered about in the taverns by the shore, but that would mean negotiating some kind of deal that would, most likely, end with her being screwed over. Fate enjoyed dishing Freya out bad hand after bad hand. Such thought caused the woman to grimace as the back door opened and a squirrely, thin man came poking out, looking around rather dementedly. Such was the side effects of the drugs he was on, but what was Freya to stop him from buying more?

Holding the pouch out, she lifted it away from his grabby hands when he’d gone to reach for it. Her eyes were hard as she leaned against the frame, “Calvin…” Her voice was firm. “This is your second purchase this week, did you already go through the pouch I gave you earlier?”

“What’s it to you? Just give me the damn drugs..!” His angry voice told, though his body language said otherwise. Retreating into his shack of a house, he muttered something under his breath before producing something hidden away on a shelf. It was the pouch from two trials ago, completely empty. “Yes, I’m out, yes, I’ve been out, yes, I need more!” He threw the bag at her just as a rumble of thunder sounded from the skies above.

Freya’s mood darkened with the collection of clouds that were just about to give way to a downpour of rain and, as quick as lightning, her hand shot out to grasp at the collar of his dirty, stained tunic. “Don’t!—” She hissed, lowering her voice when he squealed, the sudden promise of violence turning him into a trembling mess. “Don’t… You dare treat me like some common rodent out to cater to your needs. I’m not a bitch waiting to please its master.” Throwing him back into the house, Freya watched him fall to the floor with fearful eyes looking up at her, wide and glassy.

“P-Please, I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up. You’ll give me sixty nel for the drugs and fifty for wasting my time with your foulborn antics.” Opening the pouch, she took some of the soaked wood chips out. “And you only get half this time.”

“Sixty nel for half?! That’s outrageous!”

“What’s outrageous is this situation. Now pay up or our business here in through.” Freya waited at the threshold of the door while Calvin thought on the options he had.

“I should have you turned in for this!”

“And risk losing your last supplier of Bribane Chips? Please, we both know that won’t happen.” Reaching for the knob of the door, Freya nodded toward him. “Nevertheless, I wish you the best of luck with finding another.”

“Wait! Wait, stop!” He scrambled up from the floor as Freya paused, opening the door up once more while the man rushed from one corner of the room to the other, collected the nel she requested. Finally, he met her at the door and placed the bag of nel in her outstretched hand before snagging the pouch of Bribane Chips she held for him. “Here’s your sarding gold…”

Freya smiled. “Pleasure doing business with you Calvin.”

He grumbled profanities under his breath, words meant only for his ears as he closed the door on Freya’s retreating form. Thunder rumbled again as the biqaj found herself under the angry clouds now, counting out the gold while she walked down the deserted alleyway. Of course, she kept an eye out along the path, but never did she think to watch for what, or rather who, was lingering in the abandoned buildings surrounding the street. Having just tucked the gold into a leather satchel at her hip, Freya was about to exit onto the main street of the town when firm hands grabbed her shoulders and all but dragged her into a nearby building.

The woman gasped, a scream never coming forth as shock rather than fear ate it alive inside her lungs. Freya quickly tried to assess where she was at and where she was being led to before those same strong arms threw her hard onto the floor of the shack, causing her to tumble to the ground. Fate loved dealing the woman bad hands and apparently, today was another one of those days…

“What the sarding fuck?!” She hissed in Rakahi, jetting up to a kneeling position only to be slapped across the face so hard, it sent her right back to the floor with a grunt. Equilibrium be damned, that slam knocked her silly. Her vision went white for a moment as the room spun, but that didn’t stop her from hearing her attackers chuckle.

“Not so tough, huh?” One female voice rang, accompanied by the boom of thunder. Another figure approached Freya from behind and grabbed at the satchel she carried. When the biqaj tried to hold onto it, she received a swift kick to the face that sent her back down again. Anger unleashed, she flipped her hair out of her face and pointed red eyes at the four who thought they could jump her.

“You’re messing with the wrong person…” Was the threat that spurred outright laughter among the group. Freya’s gaze narrowed, “Give me my fucking bag back.”

One of the men stopped laughing then and stepped forward to kick Freya, an action she avoided by rolling back and jetting up from her position on the floor. She didn’t pause to find out who was next, the woman simply picked a target and started swinging. Retaliation was all Freya could do because, based on the number of bodies, there was no way she could win.

It didn’t take long for her back to find the ground again, only this time, the point of a leather boot repeatedly buried itself into her abdomen. She grunted, face bruised and bloodied as another kick reverberated against her body, knocking the air from her lungs and weakening her further.

“You think you can just come into our territory and take our buyers from us without any consequence?” One of the men barked.

“Fuck off— Umh!” Another kick to the stomach…

“We don’t do competition around here, but after today, we won’t have to worry about that...” Why it hadn’t dawned on Freya to begin with, she didn’t know. But it was suddenly quite clear that this wasn’t just some robbery… they were going to kill her.

A hand twisted itself into her hair as she was dragged up off the floor, only to wince when the sound of wood splintering apart boomed from the entrance of the shack, and a familiar voice called out. "Hey, assholes," the Rusalka snarled. "You're not afraid of a fair fight, are you?"

By the Gods, Freya was being saved by this woman?! Gods be damned, Chrien smited her with lucklessness! Humiliation befell the woman just as the other was making her way into the group, swinging at them as if they were bags of flour, so easily done away with in a few single hits. Freya took their bewilderment as an advantage and twisted in the hold one of the hooligans had on her hair before aiming her fist at his genitals and punching with everything she had. The man fell over soon after, his face red and contorted in pain, but Freya was already moving onto the next target.

Despite her pain, she bent low and kicked her leg up, smacking her boot into the face of the guy who’d kicked her. "What do you think? Still all bark and no bite?" Max teased playfully, which only made a focused Freya even more irritated. Stretching her body, she allowed her reflexes and momentum to glide into her other leg, aiming it to smack into the chest of the same man once her other foot touched the ground. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, rousing her to move despite the pain of a few possibly sprained ribs. “You tell no one of this!” She called over the fight.

“Fuck this!” One of the goons uttered, sprinting for the door while the rest followed, one by one. The woman was the last to leave and, before doing so, she took hold of Freya’s satchel and headed for the door.

“No!” Running after her, the Biqaj was suddenly suddenly thrown into a daze when a rather hard backhand connected with her cheek and she stumbled. Catching herself on the edge of the door, she leaned into it and breathed, tripping out the door just to watch the group run away with spinning, blurred vision.

“Get back here!” She had no more energy to run, to move, to breathe. Freya sank to her knees and pounded her fists against the old wood of the porch. When Max would inquire about her state of being, Freya would hiss out, “It doesn’t matter, they took my drugs..! Those sarding fucks!” The biqaj was infuriated, but that didn’t stop her from grunting as she rose to chase them. “I had a lot of nel in that bag, I can’t let them run off with it.”

[Max]

Just as she’d expected, the drug dealer was no helpless victim. The moment Maxine had distracted the cowardly thugs with violence, her de facto ally set to forcing herself free of her captor’s grasp with a well-aimed strike between his legs. She didn't quit fighting when she was free to dash off like some coward into the shadows either. Rather than displacing the attention of the thugs solely onto the Rusalka, a tactic that would've been all too easy, she stayed. Max turned her head in time to spy one of the woman's well-timed kicks into one of the men's faces. Her brow lifted. DuCarinos apparently had a solid bite of her own.

Max made a move toward one of the men, but instead of facing her head-on, he turned tail and sprinted for the opened door instead. The rest were quick to break into a run at his heels. It was a pity. She could feel the sensation of fresh blood lining her knuckles, and the adrenaline flooding her veins only made her crave further confrontation that much more. The Mixed Race felt the wind rush past her as the last of them made their escape. The woman whose head she'd put through the ringer trailed for good reason. Her steps were more of a hasty stagger. No doubt she was as nearly as concussed as the woman she'd been there to pummel that trial. Max turned her eyes turn to DuCarinos, whose body whipped past her in pursuit of her attackers only to be recoiled by the one woman's backhand. She moved toward the dealer as though prepared to ensure she remained upright. The edge of the door did the job instead. She watched the woman call after the thugs and sink to her knees in a fit. Instinctively Max crouched beside her.

When her gaze searched the woman's features in the daylight, her lip curled. Already could she see the bruises swelling to life upon her bloodied face. She hadn't been quick enough in her intervention to prevent any harm from befalling the dealer. As someone who'd gotten her ass kicked on more occasions than she could count, she didn't have to ask to know it hurt. "Your head alright?" she asked only for the other woman to explode with the real explanation of her fury. The motley crew might've failed in their planned beat-down, but the real prize was the bag they'd snatched. Her head snapped back toward the street.

Shit!

"Okay, okay," the Rusalka rushed out the words as she rose to her feet. "I'll get your fucking bag back." Max shoved herself away from the nearby door frame into a full-on sprint after the fleeing hoodlum. Her arms pumped at her sides. Her boots pounded a rhythm upon the ground, splashing through the small collections of water that littered the street. The prized satchel flailed behind the thief as she desperately tried to escape her pursuer.
"Shit, shit, shit!" One of the men panicked before rounding the nearby corner. Another grabbed a stack of crates piled against the side of the building and hurled them down in their wake, hoping to provide the Rusalka with an obstacle to slow her down. Max's vision was strangely focused on the back of her target. She easily leaped the small collection of scattered crates, and shortly upon landing, she full-on lunged to wrap her arms around the waist of the thief.

"Sarding bitch!" the woman shrieked at the Rusalka as the pair hit the ground. The three men turned with wide eyes. One even dared to hesitate as though he might come back either to help his co-worker or snatch up the satchel for himself. In the end, just like the others, he fled and left the thief like a sacrifice to the wolf. Max slipped up into a top mount with dangerous eyes. Her victim's arms flailed, but they did nothing to keep from what came next. Max wrenched the satchel from the woman's grasp and dropped it beside herself. Her fists came in with a faster frequency than the raindrops that had begun to fall all around them. The first strike she landed felt good. The second one felt even better. She'd lost count after the tenth punch landed, and it was only when she'd realized the woman looked thrice as bad as DuCarinos that she seemed to remember herself.

"Wake up!" Maxine grasped the half unconscious woman by the collar with her bloody hands. The woman's swollen eyes blinked wide, her breath ragged with pain and fear. "The next crew that rolls through looking to touch a hair on her head will find themselves swinging from the highest mast in the harbor. Understand?"
"Yes!" the woman sputtered.
"Good." Max shoved her back down into the puddle, snatching up the satchel as she found her feet. "Tell your friends." She left the thief where she laid in favor of the drug dealer. When she was close enough, Maxine gently tossed the bag toward its rightful owner. The words that should've followed were probably "consider this a formal apology for overreacting and throwing that drink on you at the Four in Hand." Unfortunately, she was never good at sorry, and this was likely the closest the dealer would get to the one both women knew she deserved. Then again, wasn't it always said that actions spoke far louder than words anyways?

"Well you've certainly pissed someone off," Maxine stated the obvious with a raised brow though her eyes remained dark. It wasn't all that long ago she'd found herself in a similar situation. When she was excommunicated from The Kennel in Almund, the Hounds she once worked with had turned their knuckles on her almost nightly. She fought back of course, but like DuCarinos, she'd been too horribly outnumbered for any heart in her fight to make much difference. It wasn't until she brought a friend along one night that the brutes had gotten what had been coming to them. The situation was eerily familiar. Yet, the Rusalka wasn't entirely privy to the details of the altercation before she'd recognized the dealer and busted down the door. "You're lucky they were only beating you."

As much as Max wanted to believe her threat would be taken seriously at face-value, she wasn't sure enough to depart so quickly. Liquor and the next high was calling her name. It wouldn't be long until she'd need to light another joint she'd scored off DuCarinos just last season to keep from slipping into the dangers of sleep. What was she on now? Day two? Day three? She pursed her lips. "Come on," she gestured with a nod toward the main street nearby. "You have any more clients to cater to or are you done? Either way, we'd best clear out of here."