The first Intrinsic perk Kanashima was ever intimately acquainted with had some sort of unorthodox ability to induce electricity based paralysis to varying areas of the human body, possibly other organisms and even inanimate objects by flooding one's internals with their own charge. It was absolutely terrifying to be sat in front of somebody with all of your physical bodily functions rendered useless. That same powerless feeling from ten or so days ago added onto her nightmares, sitting there and having to face whatever the aggressor wanted when action was needed was frightening.
In a similar vein of use cases, Marinetti's Intrinsic was similar to that Nihility groupie. As far as she could tell, it allowed him to command and control tendrils constructed by some sort of metallic substance, bending at any point he wished. So far, it had been used to root her in place, leaving most of her movements intact. Once she made that same threatening gesture with her arm out and open palm, he let the same constructs flare up to life once more, going so far as to coalesce tightly together, wrapping around Kanashima's body in full like a straight jacket and constricting her limbs to her torso. Unaware of the shredded muscles in her left shoulder, it received the same harsh treatment and force applied to keep her right down. Screaming, she attempted to wiggle free, but the rooted cage did not budge.
"Woah, Shima! You used to be so agreeable! Whatever, you're coming with us now. I'm sure our boss would love to hear about this property damage. Be good enough and we won't get the authorities involved! Wouldn't that be just great?"
The black haired member of the duo gritted his teeth as his partner did the speaking. Making his intrinsic more potent and restrictive seemed to require and drain more of his battery charge, or it at least took more concentration out of him. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as the tendrils wrapping around her constricted her body more with a stretching sound, eliciting more grunts of pain. Was this intensity really necessary, it wasn't like she was very physically strong, nor would she be able to break out any time soon. All it was doing was hurting her tender wounds.
"Is this really necessary? It hurts."
"Oh its fuckin necessary alright. I can feel your bitch ass still resisting."
Yikes, these guys must really hate me. Was I really that detestable back then?
Nonetheless, she did not stop pushing back against the confines of the black form fitting enclosure. Her operable arm continued to strain as much as possible, and to her surprise, the coils holding her arm against her chest slackened a little when he came up with a response. It wasn't enough for her to shift her limb's position by more than half a centimeter, but it was a start.
"Could you at least slacken up a little on the right arm? I'm practically anemic."
"Didn't you hear me the first time? Stay in your fucking lane, Shima. I'm warning you."
Just a little bit more. God, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but it needs to be quick.
"Okay, okay. I get it. Taking women by force is… kind of your thing."
Finally looking up from his haircare, dark blue eyes wide as possible, Kory stared at the expressionless visage of Kanashima, then back to his partner and friend. Letting out the most boisterous laugh the crude apartment heard that night, or even in the past four years, he slapped the back of Marinetti. Were her eyes playing tricks on her, or did the palm of his hand emit a few sparks of purple as it connected? What did these iotas of light even mean?
"Holy shit dude, she's fucking cooking you! Maybe you really are cooler than I thought. If you weren't stupid fucking ugly and had even a modicum of fashion sense, we could have gotten coffee sometime."
Wow, that was totally unnecessary, but good going. That definitely was enough.
The other corporate dog's face had a retort ready to fire off in response to both his captive and his coworker, but he and his face lost it with the hand to back contact. Stumbling forward, he lost a few motes of concentration, but that was all it took for the tendrils to look more like a weird fashion show piece on Kanashima rather than restrictive bindings. Feeling the freedom in her right arm, she wasted no time and directed it back at the off kilter man. Despite the fatigue having long since settled into her body from the cloaking technique, her currents were able to spring to life with whatever little amounts of passive charge her batteries got.
Forgoing whatever response he was thinking up for her, he quickly turned to his friend to give a snarky retort. Opening up his mouth for another obscenity-filled string of insults, he leaned toward the fashionista. With nobody paying her any attention, Kanashima allowed all of the violet plasma course through her nervous system and out through her right hand.
Bursting out of the normal confines of its closed circuit, Kanashima opened the gates to her nerve endings, and five small beams of lilac energy coalesced in the center before shooting out directly at the side of the tendril wielder. It was only half of the size she used to blow the double paned window to shards, and a fifth of the size she used against the body no doubt rotting in the abandoned district over. However much or little she filtered from her internal battery seemed to directly affect the size of her energy projectile, but definitely not the speed behind it. She couldn't afford to give up more than what she funneled into this attack, dropping to nothing left in her capacitor did not seem very smart, especially since her cloak automatically shut off before that point too.
Remembering her fatal error from the Nihility encounter, she attempted to aim and guide the bolt into a non lethal impact area. Once more, a faint violet flicker appeared at the hip of the man as he leaned toward his fellow headhunter in arms, ready to admonish him. The collision path changed in a split second, and before Kanashima could realize what happened, the tiny bolt blasted through the air, leaving ripples in the particles, and collided with the bottom right section of his torso. Half of his air instantly left his body, wheezing from his mouth as a hiss of leaking air emitted from the small hole her plasma dart punched through.
His black eyes went wide, screaming in pain where his vocal cords could barely. He fell forward, dropping down to his knees before collapsing into the legs of his coworker. Kory took the time to finish the one last strand of hair the comb was working on before pocketing it once more along with his phone. Taking both of his fallen friend's arms into his own, he tried to help him stand again, propping him up with his body and the counter itself.
"Holy fucking shit, what the hell was that! Shima, you're a fucking electrogen? You fucking asshole, we were friends!"
Puncturing his lung was not her intention, but he was still injured nonetheless, losing concentration on the hold the duo had on her. She was finally able to pop off the countertop, bypassing the collapsed leftovers of the intrinsic ability rooting her to that position. With Marinetti injured and his blue haired partner occupied with his hands full, literally, Kanashima was free to pick up the discarded bladed tool on the ground where the duo wrapped up Kory's foot.
Picking up the blade into her right hand, she brandished it like she had done it with any other knife a grand total of zero times before. The closest she ever got to a knife before now was cutting a piece of food with the side of a cheap recyclable fork, but now she was in the sole possession of a rather ornate thirty centimeter seax knife. Her gaze ran across the blade of the tool, then shifting towards the other uninjured torso. Did she just unintentionally let out a small giggle?
"Holy shit, okay, Shima, whatever you're thinking, don't, okay? I'm sorry, can we just talk about this like adults? There's no reason to get violent anyway, we're on the same side. We can talk about something else, like you're an Electrogen! Ah, can't believe you made it through! Hahaa…"
"We are very much not on the same side."
Flipping the weapon around in her operating hand, she held it up towards the neck of the midnight haired collector, stopping him completely in his verbal tracks. His wide navy blue eyes stared back into her own gunmetal grey in horror, being forced to hold his bleeding out friend whilst being threatened at knife point was absolutely not in the plans for tonight. Usually they were able to play this strong and intimidating duo who always collected, always got the money or a time or another predatory contract. Not once did they ever have somebody stand up to them and actually fight back until now, and they were easily bested. Not just by anyone, but their old friend's baby sister, how embarrassing. Kory was quickly finding out that it ain't no fun when the rabbit got the gun.
"You are going to take him and leave the way you came. You aren't going to mention me or what happened here to anybody about anything or anyone."
"Yup, heard loud and fucking clear! Lips are sealed! Please don't come after me, fucking psycho. How are you and Morgan even related? Christ…"
Over the course of their short exchange, Kanashima got closer and closer to the point where the very tip of the blade drew a tiny droplet of blood off of his neck. Dragging it across the right side to leave a shallow, but still dripping wound, she pulled away at the final moment. Was this really better than killing another person? Yes, both of them will, or have had the opportunity to, be alive after the chance encounter with her unlike that Nihility goon, but they were still leaving with scars, real or otherwise. Did good people threaten others to ensure their own safety? Willing to mortally wound another fellow human just to secure a clean escape from an already bad crime they were caught performing? The cold, lifeless eyes of the member of Nihility appeared once more, making its home in her own mind.
No, good people would never do any of it.
This world was a kill or be killed world, why did she care about any of it? She had long since established that she was nothing like Morgan, she was an awful person who didn't mind breaking a few widely accepted moral laws if that meant her own self interest. The ideal person would have never had to do such things to achieve what they wanted, but humans were far from a perfect species, if they were there wouldn't have been four world wars. There were already plenty of people out there scraping by just like Kanashima, but the world desperately ached for more people like Morgan, who weren't afraid to be kind, to show a little compassion for the stranger next to them just as they would a friend or a family member. No matter what, everyone had somebody important to them in the end.
"What are you waiting for? Leave. And we pretend like we never saw each other tonight."
"Yup, I fucking heard you, Shima! Holy shit, calm the fuck down, will ya?"
Another purple flash under Marinetti's shoes caught the young girl's attention. It was the same light, the same sort of pattern and occurrence as all the other times, but what did it mean? Were they just points of interest, and her mind was highlighting them? There definitely had been way more points of significance, there's no way that was it. Regardless, after every moment, it seemed to have worked out for her just fine. Whatever it may be, she can hopefully figure it out later. Right now all that was on her mind was getting out of this square without being spotted once more. What just occurred in this sub basement level apartment had to have broken several laws, and loitering around like a sitting duck did not sound like an ideal way to get arrested.
Kory dragged his downed friend's body across the glass shards and out the door, leaving a blood trail halfway across the polyester paneling of the floor. Watching until he closed the same metal alloy door behind him, Kanashima turned around to make her own exit the way she came. Nobody saw her enter, and ideally now, it was late enough in the night so nobody will see her leave either. Getting back on top of the countertop, she crouched through the window opening and back into the cool air of the Vanity nighttime.
"Big Sis! Why is your hand dripping blood? Are you injured?"