[Nepleslia Prime] One Hell of a Coincidence

Rico expected a fist. He figured that with his superior upper body strength and (hopefully) more combat experience beneath his belt, blocking a simple strike from Suku, a medical assistant, would be an easy feat. He concluded that it would be best to hold his ground and toss her around again. Couple that with the fact that Rico didn't catch Suku's sly retrieval of the liquor bottle, and yes, Rico expected a fist.

Not a bottle. No, that was a surprise. Being so close and unready to perform a good dodge, Rico had precious little time to react. The arc she had swung was wide, and what with the tables, patrons and a groaning mound at his feet, Rico's maneuvering choices were limited, at best. So, Rico did the first thing that came to mind; he threw a punch too.

Rico's fist collided with the bottom of the liquor bottle, causing a large shower of broken glass and biting alcoholic fumes with a resounding crash. When the dust settled, so to speak, Rico pulled his arm back and caught sight of a few shards of the broken glass embedded into his knuckles. The metallic surface hidden beneath a layer of synthetic skin made the blow barely noticeable, but 15 years prior of having these wonderful cybernetics still caused Rico to instinctively shake his hand as though to somehow alleviate the non-existent pain.

When it was over with, Rico felt pretty proud. After all, he just punched a glass bottle, and any red-blooded Nepleslian knew there was always something strangely satisfying about breaking glass. Cracking a cocky smirk, Rico flicked a small stubborn shard of glass out from between his fleshy knucklebone.

"I ain't callin' ya short, babe. I'm callin' ya weak, lonely an' scared. Nothin' like Babs or Vee."

Kokuten illed a pained sound as he tried to rise one more time. This time glass and sedative-spliced liquor showered onto him, the cold liquor causing his lumps to send a searing feeling throughout his head, and small bits of glass causing small bits of pain. The medic curled back down on the floor.
----
Suku was shocked at what had just happened, one second her hand was holding a solid, stiff bottle. Now, it was a split bottleneck that cut into her hands. The pain wasn't too obvious as she seemed to be occupied by Rico's amazing move.

The broken bottleneck slipped out of her hand and twanged on the floor as she marveled at him. She remembered now, like an epiphany, why she had fallen for this man. His style, grace, and manliness enraptured her heart with a sort of small-town girl warmth that she only felt the first time she went with him. Rico Sanroma was full of surprises, and that's what she loved about him.

At least, until he opened his mouth again.

"What? Yo-..." Suku's face began to turn red again. What made her the most angry was that he was right one of his descriptors. Though, she had a little something to say about the other two, in the form of a bloody, open palm flying toward his face.

The slick Nepleslian had to admit to himself that he was starting to enjoy this not-so-peaceful exchange. Suku's pause brought this to his attention; Rico tried to remind himself how and why this fight got started in the first place...but he really couldn't recall. Therein lay the problem; having fun with Suku was the last thing he wanted to do...but having fun was so much fun.

Rico caught on to the beginning of Suku's next attack fairly early. He smiled slyly and he lowered his body again to parry and blow, taking a step back to get more leverage. It was a solid plan...save for the final part. As Rico put his foot down, his shoe slid against the frictionless surface of the flood, made slick with recently-spilled liquor and moist glass bits. Rico grunted lightly as his leg jerked out a small bit and quickly attempted to straighten himself upright once more...of course, he pulled too much weight into the correction and slid in the opposite direction instead, leaning almost directly into Suku's still-coming attack.

The heel of Suku's bloody hand struck Rico on the left cheekbone, propelling him backwards once again right back into the slippery puddle of cheap liquor. The sergeant wobbled backwards and was able to catch onto an empty table to stop an otherwise inevitable fall by slapping the flat of his arm against the tabletop with a loud clatter. By then, he could start to feel the sharp sting where Suku had connected..as well as a warm, wet sensation around the afflicted area. He reached for his cheek, and when he pulled his hand back to reveal spots of red, he wasn't sure which answer would've been better...her blood or his.

...well that's just fuckin' gross.

Rico growled under his breath just moments before propelling himself off of the table and into a leaping tackle, aimed straight for Suku. This time, he made sure to clear that meddlesome puddle.

Suku laughed as Rico fell over when she hit him, almost lightening her mood. However, when the Sergeant stood back up, she was ready. There wasn't anything she could use as easily as the bottle earlier nearby, but she was ready to take this to the floor.
----
Kokuten's eyes clacked three times and then closed shut. The ducts his eyes fired out small lines of liquor that had fallen onto his eyes. He was fully conscious now, and aware of his surroundings. He pushed himself up off the floor and looked around rapidly to see Rico falling on the floor. The next thing to catch his eyes was a rather gleeful Suku. The Medic stood, grunting quietly, glad something else hadn't shoved him back down.

When Rico stood, Kokuten's neon green eyes caught his movements, and his intent. The Medic strode forward, making a light effort not to slip on the liquor spilled on the floor. He made an effort to get between the two of them and put both his arms. He put the arm in Rico's direction in lock if he felt like trying to go through him.

"HOLD IT." He boomed hoarsely, his voice still recovering from his pain. His face was a rather harsh sight, being he had one large red bump on the right of his forehead and several glass cuts on his face, along with a bit of glass in his hair.
----
Suku felt astonished at first when Kokuten stepped in the way of Rico's charge, then she felt angry.

"Kokuten, get the hell out of th-..." Suku started as she began to move him, but he grabbed her hand. With a rotary twist of his cybernetic hand, he locked Suku down with her now twisted wrist, "Ow! O-ah...! Ow ow ow ow!" The nurse made an attempt to move his hand with her free one, but she was not strong enough.

By the time Kokuten had intervened between Rico and Suku and grasped hold of Suku's wrist, Rico was already mid-flight in his leaping tackle. Rico's focus was intense enough not to notice the new obstacle in time, and as such, Rico accidentally collided straight into Kokuten's waist instead of his intended target, Suku.

Kokuten had not really considered that Rico would've gone below his arm, nor was he aware since he was occupied with Suku at the moment. The next thing he knew, however, he was being forced back towards the bar and falling forward on top of Suku, with Rico falling after him. Suku let out a yelp of surprise as the two men collided and fell on top of her and then another, more pained yelp as they began to squish her against the floor of the bar.

Rico took a moment to shake off the sudden crash as he lay atop of the two-person mound on the floor. Most of the bar patrons had caught notice of the fight by now, with roughly half of them outright ignoring it...which wasn't that much of a stretch, since bar fights were almost as common as the bars themselves. The barman behind the counter, however, wasn't all too amused with a few rowdy characters potentially breaking some of his establishments' fine furniture and spooking off customers.

Upon noticing where he was and what had just occurred, Rico perked an eyebrow and gave Kokuten a satirical glance. He didn't speak, but the look alone spoke a full novel's worth of horribly corny jokes about Kokuten odd position sandwiched between a man and a woman.

Kokuten's head rang for a few moments, unable to discern in what direction he was laying, nor what was going on. Actually, he knew he was facing upward, Suku's chest was warming to his back. His mind started clear up, and his eyes felt like the could open with causing neural pain. Even though the slides of the eyes were open, the LEDs which were normally on were off for a second, but then flickered on.

He saw Rico, what was worse was that he was smiling. Kokuten couldn't help grin comically in return. He started chuckling, forgetting who he was on top of for the moment.

"Well well, I didn't know you were so forward with men."
----
Suku was going red and cross-eyed, her breasts were getting smooshed into her under Kokuten's and Rico's weight. She also found herself a little unable to breath very well under the both of them. The only sound she could make was an almost muffled whimper as she wriggled her arms free and tried to slip from under them.

"Pfft, you've got as much chance a' baggin' me as ya got baggin' Dizzy Dinkaid," Rico retorted as he managed his weight backwards enough until he was upright and off of the small pile on the floor. When he was back standing, Rico took the moment of reprieve from the recent scuffle to stroke his hand through his hair and dust off himself off.

Kokuten chuckled, trying to stand up. He seemed to be weighted down by Suku as she seemed to be grasping Kokuten's right shoulder. He figured mostly that she was holding on to him for support. All he could really hear was heavy breathing.

"Hey, you never know she ma-"

Then he heard more metallic sounds. Something that sounded a lot like cybernetic maintenance. In an instant, with this realization, Kokuten knew what was happening. He turned his head to face Suku.

"Wait, Suku! Stop!"

It was too late, his right side got incredibly lighter, causing him to lose balance and almost fall back to the floor. Suku was now holding Kokuten's right cybernetic arm in her hands, wrist in her right hand, and seemed to possess violent intent with it.
----
Her purple eyes seemed more red than it's normal shade as she scowled at Rico.

"Let's see you punch through this, Asshole." she exasperated, her lungs still a little hungry for oxygen. This didn't stop her from rushing Rico and flailing Kokuten's arm at him.

Rico grimaced when he realized that Suku was the last remaining member of the trio still looking for a little blood. He grimaced even harder when he noticed that she was wielding a hefty-looking cybernetic arm, freshly procured from Kokuten while his back was turned. At the moment, the attack was sudden and very unexpected, with Rico being unprepared for such a brazen assault. He took a few steps backwards weaving in and out of her swings while holding his hands up, saying "Whoa whoa whoa WHOA WHOA WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!" with each missed swing. By this point, Rico had taken enough time to get fired up again. He furrowed his brow, took a final step back to fixate his balance and pulled back his fist to give Suku just what she wanted; for Rico to take his shot against her newfound weapon. Rico's punch reared backwards, momentarily reaching its apex...

...at least until Rico put his weight back onto his rear-standing foot. He had backed into that god-damned puddle yet again. Rico gasped in surprise as his backpedaling momentum combined with the slippery surface propelled his feet forward and his upper body behind...and before long, Rico found himself on his back yet again, groaning at the sharp pain on his ass bone.

Suku's assault only wore her out more she kept wildly swinging. A loud exasperated grunt with each swing showed more and more signs of her wearing out. She seemed almost about to give up until Rico had gone a slipped on his ass. At first, Suku seemed a little surprised at what had happened, staying silent.

Then she began to giggle, which snerked into full-blown laughter as she took in what had happened to Rico. She seemed fully occupied with her enjoyment until she stuck out Kokuten's arm to him, the metallic hand on his end.

"Hey, need a hand?" she broke out into another barrel of laughter.

Rico didn't find the circumstances very funny. In fact, Rico was starting to becoming a tiny bit perturbed, which only magnified further as he heard Suku giggle at him and, even worse...

Suku said:

"Hey, need a hand?" she broke out into another barrel of laughter.

Click to expand...

...stealing his jokes. The laughing might have slid by with nothing to show for, but Rico had been plotting to use that exact line in his subconscious after Suku's first swing. This, Rico decided, was crossing the line. As Suku preoccupied herself with fits of laughter, Rico shot out his leg towards hers, hooking his foot behind her ankle and kicking forward in hopes of toppling her over.

"Ha ha h-OUGHA!" was Suku's final words as she slipped backwards as one of her feet left from under her and she quickly fells downwards. Kokuten's severed cyberarm went flying off to another end of the room. Suku's bottom connected flatly too the floor, sending a biting pain up her spine.

----

Tadarius Buushaw Lockem sat idly on the edge of the room attempting to enjoy a glass of beer while he waited for his girlfriend to show up. He was ready to finally ready to reconnect with her after the whole thing at HiGA. When the fight broke out, he just continued to drink his beer, and tried to ignore the people.

That was when a cybernetic arm flew through the air and conked him on the head.

"Alright, that's it I'm-..." Tadarius stood up, feeling something brush against his hand, fall, and then break. He looked around and saw that he had pushed over the beer of a nearby patron. She looked up at him, a scowl on her face.

----

"Alright, that's it, I'm getting tired of your shit." Suku began to stand until she heard another angry woman in the room.

----

"What the hell was that for?!" the female patron yelled at Tadarius, standing up.

"Hey I didn-..." Tadarius tried to explain. She shoved him, where he fell into an ID-SOL. The ID-SOL stood silently, and with a loud grunt threw him in another table where three DIoN marines were sitting, spilling all their beers. They stood and started a rumble with the ID-SOL, and the woman who shoved Tadarius was going after the black Nepleslian by herself. This fighting only started to get more people involved as clothes were stained and more beer spilled.
----

Kokuten only grimaced as his arm got lost into the fray. Why did these things happen to him?

"Oh yeah?" Rico answered Suku as he quickly scuffled back up. His eyes fluttered to the bar behind her and the quickly growing rabble for but a moment before focusing back onto the green-haired medical officer. "Whatcha' gonna do about it, huh? 'cause you've been doin' such a great job so far, yannow sweetheart?" Rico taunted haughtily, raising his arms up into an enormous, aloof shrug as he spoke.

---

Meanwhile, the bartender had reached his limit for the night. One pair of brawlers was already pushing it, but with the advent of the new fight brewing off to the side the owner decided enough was enough. Reaching under the bar with his free hand, the barkeep tapped a small button connected directly to the station's security police. It wouldn't be long until some oh-so-friendly Nepleslian peacekeepers arrived to sort out this little misunderstanding.

Suku scowled at the rising Rico, and began to stand too. The girl's mind was getting frustrated with what all was happening, but Rico's smugness seemed to grind her the most.

"Oh yeah? If you're such big shit... why... er... why..." she began, but then was unable to figure out how to finish it. Suku's expression seemed to drop into a frown.

"Why didn't you just give me a straight answer? Why didn't you give me an answer at all? I couldn't find you after the Offensive." Suku's voice was less-than-forceful, it had lost most of it's bite.

"Huh?" Rico mumbled, perplexed look spreading across his face. He continued to stand defensively, even as more shouting and fisticuffs began breaking out through the rest of the establishment. Rico wasn't sure if it was some ploy to get him off-guard or if, perhaps, she was talking to a guy behind him, or maybe to Kokuten. Or maybe, perhaps she was talking to Rico about something that he clearly had forgotten about. The Nepleslian sergeant, after a short moment of uneasiness, decided to at least warrant her with a more substantial response.

"...whaddya mean? Yeah you couldn' find me after the Offensive, I got reassigned to another ship," He said cautiously. An' probably 'cause I was avoidin' ya, yeah...' Rico wanted to add, but decided to save it.

Suku's face lit up in a deep red color. She was clearly getting riled up again in her anger, but then stopped herself by waving a hand infront of her face.

"You're telling me, you don't even remember? At the Med-bay, you told me you'd talk it out with me. I figured you'd at least stick around give me some kind of closure. Yet, you never tried to find me, so I tried to find you, and it was by chance that I saw you. Then all you did was hand me a bunch of bullshit, and for some reason, I took it. I looked back at what you said afterwards, and I had realized it, but you were gone before I could say a damn thing." Suku grumbled towards the end of it, her eyes were focused on the floor. Then, those purple eyes looked at him again a little steel in the glare they gave him.

"Why the fuck do you keep running away from me? Why can't you act like you've got some balls and tell me the fucking truth." she growled.

Rico, of course, could clearly recall the instances she was talking about. Most notably, he remembered his (apparently unsuccessful) attempts to dissuade Suku from continuing having feelings for him. Normally, Rico would've welcomed such attention from a fine-looking female gladly, with open arms and a canary-eating grin. Suku, however, was a more complicated case in that she was loud, crude, proud, angry and a real looker, all of which Rico under other circumstances would absolutely adore on a case-to-case basis. But, like all of the real keepers in his life, it's not always that great.

Case in point, Suku calling him out on this particular subject in the middle of a rapidly growing bar room brawl. Rico sneered slightly, his own anger growing once again to match hers.

"Pretty obvious, ain't it sugar?" Rico replied. "I want ya to stay away from-"

BANG! A clear crack shattered the din of the scuffle for but a moment, causing quite a few of the patrons to grow silent. Despite what many of them, Rico included, had feared, the sound came not from a concealed weapon held by an agitated brawler. Instead, it had come from the front of the pub. One of the large, dark-tinted glass windows now had a nice hole in the center, roughly the size of a soda can, where the soft white lighting of the station poured through, breaking the nuance of night.

Eyes followed the trajectory of the hole and found one bar patron rubbing a sore spot on his back and holding up a small, cylindrical gray object, nearly the exact same size as the hole in the bar's window. When everyone realized that nobody had been shot and that apparently some jerk-off had thrown a brick or somesuch through the window, the rabble started getting back into the swing of things...and almost as if on que, the small gray object began spraying out a thick blue smog. BANG! BANG! BANG! Three more sharp cracks sounded at as three more holes and three more canisters bounded into the bar room and began unloading more of the noxious blue gas into the area.

Immediately after that, the door to the pub burst open and a handful of large, menacing looking men stormed in. They wielded large black batons crackling with shocking effect as well as black matte grenade launcher-like weapons, no doubt used to shoot the very smoke-spewing canisters that were quickly filling up the pub. They wore thick, black padded suits, clear-visor helmets and hefty-looking riot shields, each embedded with a clearly-defined NPD logo. Theses men and women were the Nepleslian Police Department's quick response team for the station's disputes...and they sure didn't look like they were pulling any punches. Many of the bar patrons started to drop their fighting and try and muscle past the riot-geared police members, while others continued to fight on through the growing blue smog as though nothing was wrong. The NPD didn't appear to be discerning one from the other; they went about dispensing Nepleslian justice in an admirably unbiased fashion, and simply subdued everyone one at a time.

Rico, however, wasn't about to stick around to see if he could talk his way into a peaceful surrender. He shot hurried, frantic glances at Suku, then to Kokuten, and then quickly made his way towards the two of them, coughing a bit from the obnoxious clouds of gas.

"*cough*I dunno 'bout you two, but I'm gettin' outta here," Rico said, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the NPD team as they systematically subdued and bound their way through the room.

"I *cough* think I saw a back exit in the back room when I went to the shitter," Rico said as he pointed towards the door behind Suku and Kokuten. They looked just in time to see the bartender duck behind it, as well as a few others who were lucky enough to be close to the door when the ruckus began. Rico turned back to Suku and Kokuten...but mostly to Suku. "Ya'll can stick 'round if ya want, but I don't think I can stiff the bill for yer jailtime this round, sweetheart."

"Fine, but we're no-" Suku began, but was interrupted as Kokuten passed her walking towards the fray. "Koku, where are you going!? The cops over there!"

Kokuten looked back at her and then to Rico, he was smiling lightly. Though, one could see that there was a bit of bitterness under his lip.

"Don't mind me, I'm just going to pick up my arm, before I go to jail tonight. Maybe distract a few guards while I'm at it, you two have fun now!" He said, his smile getting a little wider, trying to hide his frustration. "Just promise me you'll have this solved by the time we all meet again in a few months or years!" he yelled back to them as he covered his mouth and dove into the fray, catching the attention of some of the officers. One of them tried to restrain him, but he ducked out of the way and out of sight into the gas.

Suku was a tad speechless, but she turned to Rico as she spinned towards the exit.

"Well, let's get the hell out of here!" She yelled to him over the chaos. A female NPD officer seemed coming to their direction until a well-aimed beer bottle flew from the cloud and nailed her on the helmet, shattering all over the place. The officer stumbled, dazed, and looked over to see the source of the toss: Kokuten, now with two arms was standing in clear defiance. A nearby officer began subdue him, but he was putting up a fight. The woman officer that had started after Suku and Rico had gone over to take down Kokuten.