A Rose and a Hard Place (Izzy)

Rose gasped in pain as the fist made contact with her throat, stumbling for a moment and giving Red X the exact time frame they needed to stand up. "Upstart bitch!" She growled, only to be cut off by the electrical surge running through her body she fell backward and felt X's hand clench around her throat. "You need...to pay...more attention." She coined, and a glue grenade exploded onto Red X about 3 inches from their chest, ideally launching them and binding them to the ceiling.

Red X chuckled lightly as Rose called them an upstart bitch, and then, the thief was launched into the ceiling with a...glue grenade? Red X looked down at Rose from the new vantage point in a way that she would just know the thief was smiling. "You've got quite the chip on your shoulder."

Sirens could be heard approaching their section of town. "I actually know who designed that grenade you just used. And you're talking to me about stolen technology? Who gave it to you? Slade?" Red X was fidgeting lightly in the glue, but didn't seem to be able to escape. All they needed was one chance.

"So what are we gonna do now? You gonna turn me over to DOMA? Not a bad play. It's in my own playbook."

Rose stood up and laughed, coughing as she did and holding her throat. "Where my father found these devices are of no importance." She cleared her throat and drew her blades again. "I've learned to make them, and that's all that matters." She stood up leaped up, perching on the staircase banister and locking her hand on X's chin.

"Tell me, could you make this suit again if you tried? I doubt it." She narrowed her eye as she thought. "I could give you to them, but then again they're a joke. A waste of breath too conceited to recognize what's best for them. So how about I take this suit and let you walk away?" She tried to lock a hand over the mask and wrench it free.

Red X laughed right back at Rose. She had answered the question, maybe without even meaning to. The thief would level eyes with her. The fact she knew how to make the grenades was of little consequence. Red X focused, instead, on that she asked if the thief would be able to recreate the suit. "Of course. I keep it in working order, and I've even made upgrades. It's more my suit than it ever was his, now."

She then said that she was going to take the suit, and then let Red X walk away. Red X smiled as she got close enough to grab the mask. And instead of answering her question, suddenly stopped fidgeting in the glue. "You should really pay more attention." The stairway area was littered with a good amount of the few dozen X shurikens that they had thrown earlier. And as Red X spoke, they all detonated near simultaneously around Rose. If successful it should knock her on her ass a few dozen feet away, and Red X would suddenly flicker, appearing higher on the stairs. "This was real fun. But I'm number one around here, kid." And Red X would begin running through the building to make their escape as sirens and red and blue lights parked right outside the front doors. She could hear troops mobilizing. Red X would be jumping out a window and grappling to a rooftop across the street.

Rose blinked as her senses came alive and the beeping began. "Son of a-" The explosions launched Rose up the staircase, crashing into the wall on the second floor with a sickening crack that more than likely came from her spine.

X ran right past her as she cried out in pain and the sirens rang out. As threw themselves out the window and grappled to the next building, they would turn around to see Rose dragging herself onto the building behind them, skidding onto the rooftop by her own grapple, evidently dragging herself along with her upper body and nothing else.

"I'm done with you...when I say I'm done with you." She growled, and once again X would hear the sickening cracking sounds coming from the assassin's back as her spine sewed itself back together. She started to stand up, which really didn't seem reasonably possible, and drew a sword and a firearm, panting and standing across from X in the moonlight.

Red X hadn't been so kind as to stop and look behind them for Rose. Because honestly, they weren't expecting her to be there, and DOMA was right on their tails. But as she spoke, Red X paused, and looked to the woman, seeing her body reshaping itself to heal whatever damage had been done. Red X wasn't able to portray emotion too effectively through the mask, but one might imagine there was an expression of frustration underneath it.

Keeping up with her blade hadn't been a problem thus far. It was that gun that was causing the thief any kind of trouble. They made no movement while it was at her side, but whenever she raised it to aim, Red X would fire a palm laser right for it to blast it out of her hand. "No one controls me." Red X stared her down defiantly, and then send a volley of Xarangs and shuriken her way. That way when she avoided, some would be sure to fly back at her to knock her off course. And then X got moving, because DOMA was in hot pursuit.

Rose wasn't seeming to operate under normal rules and inhibitions anymore. She began to charge at X, raising the gun as she moved. "I thought that too, kid." She watched as X raised their hand. At this point, she knew that was another one of those stupid X gadgets of theirs, and that meant she should move. She lept into the air, spiraling toward her left side and effortlessly vaulting over the blast coming her way. Of course that meant the shuriken were coming at her. And she did nothing to stop it.

Several of them stuck in her torso and shoulders, a few scratched at her face and neck, but she didn't even flinch as she ripped one free from her shoulder, now steadying her gun at Red X and beginning to fire indiscriminantly at her target. She was evidently looking to take them down now.

Red X cursed under the mask as she avoided the laser, not even bothering to dodge the dozens of shuriken they had thrown this time. Red X had no choice but to escalate. She began firing the gun, and Red X would fire more palm lasers at the gun in her hand, firing heat blasts her way as well as they moved into a back handstand off the building to avoid her fire. Once in free fall, they grappled to an adjacent building and went flying right through a window, running as fast as they could. Pretty fast, if Robin had anything to say about it.

As they ran through the corridor, Red X threw some X charges at the ceiling. If they had to continue using their arsenal, their suit's energy was going to be depleted rapidly. This had to be finished soon. When Rose entered the hallway, the charges would detonate, and collapse the hallway in front of them to cut off their chase. That should be enough time for them to make a clean escape. Well...as clean as a dead body, assault and battery, and a few thousand dollars of property damage gets. "She's trying to kill me over something so stupid. Why is life such an asshole?"

Rose continued to give chase, dodging the blasts as best she could, taking one of them to the shoulder simply to make sure she remained armed as she gave chase. Up the building and through the window she came after Red X, continuing to shoot at them. X may have been fast, but Rose was enhanced and with X dodging bullets, that meant she was gaining.

X would have to do something fast, or she would get a hold of them at long last. And then, Rose felt her ears start ringing. She felt her back strike concrete, and she felt rubble start falling on top of her, collapsing and trapping her inside. She screamed in bloodlusted frustration, kicking the giant pieces of stone and trying to free herself. But she knew her target was long gone by now.

She cussed again, much more loudly, and pushed her sword against the underside of one of these stones, using it like a makeshift crowbar. That, along with her enhanced strength, seemed to be enough to force her way to freedom, panting and bloody. She glanced around the building and and gripped her weapons tightly. Tightly enough that her palms began to bleed. She stood up and began limping to the windows, her leg knitting itself back together as best as it could, with how much her healing factor was being taxed in this chase.

She muttered to herself about letting her rage control her again and sheathed her weapons, before snapping her leg back into place, letting her powers take care of the rest. She stared outward and saw the flashing lights in the distance, shaking her head and stepping out the window, walking along the sheer side of the building to the next rooftop to make her escape. "Waste of my fucking Sunday." She muttered quietly, wiping the blood from her mouth as she did.