'Got Beef' Midori vs. Talbot

Midori vs. Talbot

     Midori sat motionless behind a rusted shipping crate. She shook her head and whispered into her sub-dermal vox unit, “You sure we’re after Talbot?” she asked, “He’s never been on our radar before.”
     The rapid click of ancient keys rattled through the connection. Midori knew that Gene was going over his intel one more time. bless him, Midori thought again, he keeps checking
     “Sorry Midi, this is clean, someone wants him brought in.” Gene answered.
     “Are you sure you haven’t been hacked?” she asked quietly. An angry grunt and overly dramatic clearing of the throat was his only reply, “Right then.”
     Midori moved slowly from her hiding place, her suit rendering her nearly invisible in the low light, not that she would need it. Only her outline blurred slightly as she moved, a faint spectral shimmer that limned her outline whenever her position shifted. She could see him up ahead; he was wearing surplus BDU trousers, held up by a tool-laden web-belt, and heavy boots. Midori had only seen him once before, and that was at a distance. From up close, she could truly appreciate his size. His arms were as big around as her thighs, and he held a high caliber pistol in his fingerless gloves with ready ease.
     Suddenly he turned, and looked directly at her. Midori froze in place, hoping that he hadn’t seen her outline. The optical camouflage was good, but not perfect. She held her breath, knowing that if started to fire rounds off of that hand cannon…
     He snapped the weapon up, and Midori only had a split second to leap to safety as his sidearm began to spit rounds in her direction. They were wild shots, only in her general direction. She cursed under her breath as she scrambled for cover.
     He had just flushed her out.
     She dashed behind the large metal shipping crates; she had made a rookie mistake and now he knew she was here. “This is so not going according to plan.” She whined, the loud impact of Talbot’s heavy boots echoed behind her. She activated the kinetic boost augments on her armor and the monofilament circuitry hummed to life with an azure glow.
     Midori sprinted out from behind the shipping container at a full sprint. She could hear Talbot curse as he drew a bead and fired, but she was moving faster than he expected, and the shots sailed wide, micro shrapnel erupted from the steel shipping containers where the rounds struck. Her legs pumped beneath her and she could hear the thundering impact of Talbot’s boots on the corrugated steel deckplates as he gained on her. She grinned at the familiar metallic scrape as Talbot ejected the magazine in his pistol.
     Like a flash, she leapt into the air, her feet alighting gracefully on the steel bulkhead she propelled herself off the wall back toward her pursuer. He skidded to a stop at her sudden turn, slamming a fresh magazine into his pistol, he squeezed off another round. The bullet whizzed by Midori’s cheek. Jest before her foot struck him square in his chest.
     To his credit, and despite Midori’s enhancements, Talbot barely even grunted.
Midori hung suspended, as gravity struggled to catch up with her, before a sudden twist and a shift of her hips brought her right leg around with viper-like quickness and kicked Talbot in the side of the head.
     ”That one he felt” She thought to herself as she dropped lightly to her feet. She brought her leg across in a swift snap-kick, and sent the pistol skittering across the deck, and then leapt forward and drove her fists into his stomach; a blistering trio of strikes that climbed his torso.
     Talbot staggered back, but Midori didn’t think it was because of the pain. Even with her suit enhancements, she wasn’t much stronger that Talbot himself. He planted his feet and squared his shoulders. A heavy right cross drove purposefully toward Midori’s head. She ducked underneath it almost effortlessly and dropped into a low crouch. She kicked her foot out and drove the ball of her foot into Talbot’s jaw as she snapped into a zero-point backflip.
     He regained his senses quickly, too quickly for Midori’s liking, and brought his heavy booted foot up to stomp the life out of her. She quickly sidestepped his attack and tried to kick his leg out from underneath him, ”He would be easier to deal with if I could get him off his feet.” she thought. Despite his size, he was quick and he moved his leg, taking the kick to his thigh instead of his knee. He staggered back, shifting his weight briefly off his injured leg.
     Midori pressed the advantage, and brought her leg around in a vicious roundhouse. Talbot took the kick square in his chest, and his hands clamped down on her ankle like a vice.
     She tried to wrench her foot free, “Uh oh.”

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