ArchivedLogs:And There Was Light

And There Was Light
Ten years ago in a desert far far away...
Dramatis Personae Kay, Briar (as Lee)	2003-07-21 It was the start of a beautiful friendship...
Location Vegas, baby
Say “Las Vegas” and nine out of ten people will imagine an oasis of lights surrounded by desert. They’ll think of fountains full of colored water, the Sphynx, of casino spires reaching for the sky and the jangle of slot machines. Some will imagine long-legged women in feathers and pasties, still others the endless line of buffet possibilities. And then there is real life. The corner stores, the rows of small, tidy houses, the disreputable apartment buildings and seedy motels. This is life on every street away from the strip. Low to the ground, dusty, bereft of verdancy. On the very outskirts of the city, close to where the power stations rise tall and slash steel and wire across the sky, a string of buildings huddle close to the ground. Tin roofs glint under a layer of dust, the windows are dark and occasionally covered with tin foil, the walls covered with crude tags and peeling signs for long-since finished concerts. One, larger than the rest, houses a garage used almost exclusively by the local bike clubs. Next to it is the watering hole, where resident clubs or those passing through can stop to toss back a beer and shoot the shit. The street in front of both is lined in steel. New bikes, old bikes, hogs, baggers, bar hoppers and bark-o-loungers, most come from the Big Five. Some few are custom, and these draw the most attention from the men and women standing around outside with bottles in their hands. The sun is slowly drifting towards the horizons, the shadows growing longer. As it goes in this neck of the woods, it is relatively peaceful. One could even say that the atmosphere is contented. Then the door of the juke joint explodes into splinters as a body comes crashing through it to land in a spray of dirt on the road outside. The Stones’ “Tumbling Dice” drifts out of the newly created portal, faint and unconcerned with the roar that goes up inside. A woman steps through the doorway next, ducking her head slightly. She’s in denim and leather, hair a bright, artificial blonde in the dying sunlight. There’s a toothpick poking out of the corner of her mouth. It wags as she sizes up the fellow who’s been downed, then turns to walk slowly backwards as others pour out onto the street. By their shared colors, they belong to the same club but the men who advance on her are looking anything but brotherly. One’s pulled a knife that falls outside of legal dimensions. Another is unwinding a chain from around his waist. More loom behind these front-runners. She holds her hands up as if in surrender but says nothing, just keeps her head down and watches them closely. There’s more people outside than an initial sweep would get the sense of. This is a grungy land, full of grungy creatures, graffiti and rust and orange-rusting sheet metal break up the shapes of leather jackets, beards, tattoos and sun-battered skin, all uniformly patterned in road dust streaks and unfurling ribbons of cigarette smoke. This gives a sort of quiet scenic audience to the moment unfolding, as though the landscape itself had myriad faces that all turn towards the sound of crunching wood, watching impartially this ritual of violence. A russet beard is stroked, a set of boots shifting to fold ankles in a tense lean towards a wall. An old-lady hopeful shrugs up the straps of her frayed tank-top and pulls in her feet. There’s a few murmurs exchanged, but not all that many; opinions can be reserved for the moment. “Oh oh.” One man, long-legged, long-armed, made of pure sinew and jerkey-tough muscles stands beside a raingutter, a cheshire grin already formed on his face as though the /shape/ had existed there before the man ever came upon it, not necessarily happy, but -- grimly excited? He fetches a hip against the side of the building, arms crossing, “Here we go.” The woman continues her retreat. The men continue to advance. The two in the front are joined by a third, his pool cue still in hand. Behind them is a fourth and it is plain he’s leader of the club. It isn’t just that age has sunk deep lines in his face or the silvery white of his long beard and short-cropped hair. It is the aura around him, his bearing, and the gold stars stitched above the Jolly Roger insignia over his breast. The muscle in front part to let the brains step forward. His eyes, a bitter blue permanently narrowed by years of wind and sun, do not blink as they train on her. For a moment the silence is as oppressive as any high noon showdown. Then he grunts, “Take her out.” They charge as one. Or rather, two of them do. The man with the chain is suddenly rolling on the ground, his chosen weapon seeming to forget its base metal origins and aspiring to become a python--it curls around his body and tightens, making beer-fed flesh and travel-stained clothes bulge out in disturbing fashion. His face goes red, his mouth gapes like a fish. He’s allowed to breathe only when the pool cue is swung at her head, forcing a duck. Her hand touches its wielder in the chest--and he takes flight, as the door-crusher had. The man with the knife might have suffered a similar fate but he’s more cautious. Younger, stronger, and stubbled, he grimly begins to circle his prey. She circles in turn and speaks for the first time. “Don’t do it, Yankee.” He hesitates. Then the man she’d felled first by throwing him through a door reaches out and snags her ankle. The woman tenses, glances down--and then she’s pulled off-balance, landing hard on her side. ‘’Fwoooooom’’. Spearing between Yankee and the pink-haired woman, a ribbon of fire serpent-streaks over the ground in a rush, its tail swelling up in a thick orange plume of FLAMES that whoof out against the cloudless blue sky over their heads. For just a moment, over the sound of crackling, the two can view one another through the oily-bright heat-smears of a blazing wall. It burns thick, hot enough that those standing closest will feel their skin constrict, and then it burns down just as quickly as it formed into a black streak on the asphalt. The sound of sizzling. The crunch of a boot. The heavy smell of /brimstone/ hanging thick in the dry desert air. The long legged man has, at some point, come forward, and now stands at the foot of the black char-streak on the ground, his lank blond hair and the open-fronted black vest rippling in an invisible thermal before gradually hanging still. He lowers his hand and hangs it off the front of his belt, hard-wired grin unchanged. Jerks a chin at the pink-haired woman, with electric amber eyes sweeping her compatriots with a vicious /glee/. “Well?” “Son of a bitch.” It’s hard to say just which of the crowd said that. With a group like this one, people aren’t inclined to panic in a heavy situation but fire appearing out of nowhere is something else. The man who’d tripped Pink Hair actually ends up with flames trickling up the side hem of his jeans--it might have been him, as he rolls and scrambles away. Others are backing up quickly. Some few are standing and staring. An even smaller number hold their ground and are glaring murder at the pair. Because the woman has risen as well and is now standing beside the lanky fellow who’s come to her aid. She flicks a brief glance at him but the only outward sign of recognition that she gives is a smile. And it only barely counts as a smile, twitching at her lips like a facial tic. Hazel eyes soon shift back to the tall man who’d ordered the attack. She squints at him through the smudge of soot and heat that colors the air between them. “I saved your ass, Buck.” Her voice is quiet, gruff. It has the sound of an instrument played only rarely. Buck eyes her for a moment, then sizes up the man beside her. His head tilts and a stream of spit is squeezed between his teeth, landing on the ground. The moisture dries quickly; it’s still desert hot outside and the residual heat hasn’t helped. “You’re a fucking freak, Lee, and so’s your buddy,” Buck growls. “You knew the rules.” Yankee has retreated to his boss’ side with a muttered, “Bitch.” The men thrown by Lee also retreat. They flank their leader, reordering their weapons. None of them look to see if others are moving in to bolster their numbers but it’s clear they don’t intend for this to end here. Expressions are murderous--and aimed as much at Lee’s helper as for her. Lee’s eyes flick back and forth, noting their positions, noting their posture. A muscle tenses in her jaw; grit scuffs beneath her heel as she adjusts her feet. “All right then,” she grunts. That’s all she has to say before raising her hand--and sending Buck arcing backwards through the air. The grizzled old man connects with the window of the juke joint. It shatters, swallowing him in a blizzard of glass-song. The others startle...and then roar, charging towards the pair with weapons raised. “Lee, huh?” the Lanky Dude flashes his teeth - so slightly crooked, slightly stained - in a grin like a savage hot iron, the sun beating down against their squinted eyes, and he claps his left hand against his right shoulder, the right /arm/ swinging like pitcher preparing a fastball. But instead of overhand pitch, it thrusts out from below like a professional bowler tossing for a strike. And what he bowls is a snarling line of /fire/ that races across the ground and up the pant legs of one of the men. “I’m Kay!” And then he’s gone, rushing forward to lock arms with the screaming, flaming man and, throwing his head back to grin serenely up at the brilliant blue sky, he then slams his forehead down HARD into the twisted, grimacing face, and the two go rolling to the ground in a tangle of dirty leather and boots and kicked up roostertails of dirt. Glowing shreds of ash and ember drift through the sweltering desert air like snowflakes in hell, and the fight is on. Such enthusiasm. Lee is less inclined to charge, though she might be tempted to /watch/...except a chain is lashing at her head. She grunts and her hand comes up, the links stopping in midair. Behind her splayed fingers, hazel eyes narrow at the man wielding that weapon. He didn’t learn his lesson the first time. This time the chain rises as a striking snake would, jerking itself from his hand and turning almost as if to regard him. He stops, transfixed and wide-eyed. In that moment, it strikes, lashing out and dealing him a solid blow directly between the eyes. He reels, he falls and he lands in the charred smudge of ground marked by Kay’s earlier display. Then it and Lee turn as one to study Yankee. Without Buck to back him up, he’s wavering from going after Lee and taking on Kay before he beats the tar out of his comrade. But when his ex-friend looks at him, the man freezes and bares his teeth at the woman. “You fucking freak /bitch/, you /killed/ them.” Lee considers this before giving her shoulders a shrug. “Maybe,” is her only answer before the chain goes flying at the man to coil around him. No disabling blow here. Yankee is simply bound and dropped before Lee begins to crunch over to watch Kay do his thing. The heat isn’t a deterrent. Her face glistens with sweat where it isn’t streaked with dust but she folds her arms and stands there, observing. No one else approaches, either to intervene with the mutant pair, or to assist Yankee. In the thrashing tangle of boot heels and squirming elbows and dirty black leather, dirty denim jeans, the long serpentine /length/ of Kay’s wiry lower back, currently inelegantly bared from the knobby trail of mid-spine down to some skewed plumber’s crack, his fox-bark rough voice grates out around an ‘ouf!’ when he’s kneed in the stomach, “Alright, that’s enough.” Both men are grow suddenly still. Straddling the man’s chest, Kay has thrown open his hand, facing it palm down inches above the other guy’s face. Thick shimmery /heat/ ripples around his fingers, the way a barbeque fire might ripple when the flames have burned down to concentrated embers. “Stand down,” Kay pants, each harsh snarl-exhale sending his overgrown hair swinging on his breath. He’s still grinning, now through bloody teeth, but it’s deadly serious. And hard as granite. “You just /stand down/, friend. Yeah? Or I’m gonna turn your face into a grinning charcoal briquette.” The man’s face streams sweat, turning away from the heat as far as it he can, pressing his cheek against the dirt. His face is twisted up, eyes nearly squeezed shut into deep wrinkles, breathing shallow-rapid, “I’m not your friend.” “/Lee/,” Kay tests out the name, eyes still fixed /lividly/ on his opponent’s face. “You done what you needa do here?” “Nah.” The woman so named crouches down, hunkering in gargoyle fashion beside the pair locked together on the ground. Her head tilts, a lock of so-pink hair falling down over her right eye as she studies the still life of grappling men and heat ripples before her. Then she reaches out, reaches /under/ the sizzle of Kay’s arm to flip back the vest of the man with his back against the ground. Grimy fingers pry a smushed pack of Marlboro Reds out of the pocket underneath. Lee taps one out--only slightly bent-- and then leans forward to pinch the filter between her teeth, holding the tip in the range heat pouring up from the oh so threatening hand. A few puffs later, and smoke billows up. Her exhalation is a slow, almost sensuous thing. A /pleasure/, one deep enough to close her eyes as she sinks back on her haunches. When they open again, they flick towards Kay’s face. “Was trying to quit.” But fuck that noise. The woman unfolds, rising to full height and offering her empty hand down for the taking. “Hah.” The heat billows out and dissipates in a final sweltering /roll/, filling up Lee’s hand a split second before Kay’s wiry wrist slaps into it, his long fingers locking around her forearm to allow himself to be hauled up. His eyes rove along the silent faces of the crowd; there are more now, than there used to be, men and women both watching him and Lee with silent black frowns, tense bodies and hands sliding for sheathed weapons at belts, tucked in boots or under the hems of shirts. He probes the inside of his cheek with his tongue and gestures Lee should hand him one of her crumpled cigarettes. And jerks up his chin at one of the nearest standing men in the crowd, an older man and weathered to a hard, leathery finish beneath a massive beard and a blue bandana, “Y’wanna try it? Y’can. But I’ll tell ya.” Assuming he’s handed a cigarette, it will get crammed unceremoniously in the corner of his mouth, meaning he has to speak in a sneer through only one corner - it looks like a dog baring a fang, “I’ll sure make it a bodycount.” Pfoom, he lights the end of his smoke with a brief bloom of fire off his palm. And turns to Lee, “You should come back with me. I’m part of a real /different/ club. And bitch, we could sure a chick like you.” The smoke is /his/. He’s earned it. Lee tucks the rest of the pack into her own breast pocket, an action that leads her to catch sight of the colors so proudly displayed above. While Kay makes his point to the assorted hangers on and rubbernecks, she cups her empty hand over the patch. It pulls away with a loud rip and smacks into her palm for the dropping. She flips it into the dust while casting an impassive look at the men still tumbled on the ground. When her eyes cast over Yankee, the chains /squeeze/. He groans. Lee lifts the cigarette back to her lips for another drag. “Yeah,” she finally says, eyes sliding back to Kay. They tense at the corners, signal of a smile that does not reach her mouth, still clamped as it is around the Marlboro filter. But her hand goes out, after it’s wiped on her ass pocket to clean it off. “Yeah. Lead the way.” It’s a tense departure. At least twenty sets of eyes glare through the dry desert heat, sunlight catching on glints of knives, a gun, a set of brass knuckles clamped in a fist. No one moves from the court of humans, and two mutants make their departure. Kay semi-leads, though in an anarchistic as-you-please meander that invites more than commands. He walks backwards at first, watching their asses and posturing, hands thrown out at his sides like ‘what are you gonna do now, punks?’ Once they’ve made it around the side of a sheet metal-lined building, he ‘Yows!’, and with a punch at the air he full on /vaults/ onto the sleek back of a waiting Harley sporting decals that match the insignia of his kutte - a warped inhuman skeleton with fangs and horny protrusions and a crown of /fire/. Shoving on a pair of sunglasses and cramming them up the bridge of his nose with a middle finger, he offers back a helmet - “You’re gonna love the guys.” The sunglasses make his savage grin look /infinite/. Lee keeps a wary eye aimed at their backs too, though Kay certainly seems like he has it handled. Most of her focus is on smoking that damn cigarette though. Addictions, man. What’re you gonna do? With the bike in sight, she flicks the butt off to the side and performs an arcing half-circle around the machine. That there is a critic’s sizing up and her eventual nod is far more approving than any signal she’s given Kay himself, thus far. Once he’s settled, she swings her leg over behind him and tucks her heels up, thighs clamped to hips and hands out to accept the helmet. Wouldn’t you know it, it fits just right? Once it’s secured, her hands fold over Kay’s bony shoulders to give them a squeeze. “Yeah,” she agrees, as if it weren’t in question. “Let’s ride.” With a throaty purr, the machine is kicked into life. And they ride.