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[h1][color=aba000]Martin Kirkman[/color] & [b]Cordelia Lynn Holmes[/b][/h1]
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Walking through the twist of alleys towards china town Martin’s ears pricked at the sound of low conversation round the next turn. Looking round the corner he saw two men at a sort of intersection Standing around. Waiting. Probably for some poor drunk bastard to come round the corner. They looked shifty and not in a suspicious way. More like they were jonesing for a fix. Fiends perhaps?

Maybe he’d find out soon, he could hear footsteps coming down the alley. The trap was about to be sprung.  

A Twenty something girl walked into view apparently not noticing or not caring the men moving to bar the way. Another man followed behind. Well, it was decided then. They started talking but Martin didn’t really care what they were saying. He pulled the sleeves and hood of his thermals out and checked his pistol was loaded and the safety on in the holster. 

[b]"Move," Lynn said, coming to a stop. She kept one hand high on the strap of her backpack, letting the other fall to her waist. Her fingers started dancing and curling, ready to roll up into a hard-knuckled fist. She slid one strap off her back, ready to drop it or swing it around if she had to. The two turned and eyed her-then eyed somethig behind her. Lynn's eyes narrowed, a couple years of hard living letting her feel the eyes of the third man in-between her shoulder blades. "Fine. We'll do it this way."[/b]

Walking swiftly Martin  approached the two fucks in front careful not to disturb the assorted crap littering the alley. As he got close the nearest one turned just as Martin stepped in squaring his shoulders and threw a right jab.

[b]Lynn rolled to the side as some stranger-who, hey, if homeboy wanted to kick some ass on Lynn's behalf, she was not about to object-started taking on both of the thugs by himself. She was caught entirely off-guard-long enough for a second, maybe two to pass before the heavy footsteps of the third assailant snapped her back to attention. Lynn spun, half-crouching and dropping her center of gravity even further. The man had put on too much momentum to come to a stop now, but if he had been able to, he might've done so-were that girl's eyes...glowing? And her hair had been blonde not five seconds ago, now it was-[/b]

“Who thefu-GURK” the punk commented as he fell to the ground clutching his throat. The other goon reached for something at his waistband but a kick to the gut doubled him over. The axe kick to the back of the head left him sprawling on the ground bleeding. Turning to the third goon Martin saw he’d already been dealt with. [b]Lynn stood over him, which is something Lynn very rarely gets to do. She knelt down and delivered another rabbit punch to the man's kidneys, the acrid smell of burning fabric rolling off where her knuckles made impact. Lynn patted him down, liberating him of his wallet and switchblade. This process was accompanied by an extremely colorful description of the man's paternity, maternity, and sexual orientation.[/b]

[color=aba000]“Well that’s a pleasant surprise”[/color] Martin said as he kicked the first goon in the head as he started to struggle up.  Kneeling to tie the punks to alley fixtures he continued [color=aba000]“here I was all set to offer you a lift home with advice to keep to the streets, heh.”[/color] Patting the goons down he found a couple pistols and a half decent knife. 

[b]"Lift home? Jesus, Batman, don't they tell you not to pick up shady-looking hitchhikers where you're from?" It was, fun fact, illegal to pick up hitchhikers in California, but this rule had never really applied to Lynn much. She was too young and small and not gaudily dressed enough to be taken for a hooker, and any others who were interested in a quick generally decided otherwise when they had more than a line or two of dialogue with her. Rough around the edges was our Lynn.[/b]

Standing he tuned to look at the girl. She weren’t no sight for sore eyes but doing better than plenty Martin had seen. Seemed younger than he first thought too. Sharp eyes, too thin and scars from hard won victories or at least well earned defeats. Hmmmm. [color=aba000]“The offer of a lift is still open but I think you might be able to help me out. See I’m just back in town after being away for about two decades. I could use some uh, direction. So how about this, you help me out and I’ll get you whatever supplies you need? Within reason.”[/color]

[b]Lynn frowned, standing up as she tucked away her recently-acquired goodies. The man below her groaned and Lynn kicked him in the ribs to shut him up. Generally was a poor idea to stay at the scene of a fight, but Batman was throwing out some real interesting bait. Enough to make Lynn bite. This felt like a set-up-this guy knew how to handle himself, that was for damn sure. And a seeming guardian angel swoops down to save her not twenty-four hours after metas turn the Festival into Verthaven's biggest clusterfuck? Lynn was smart enough to turn down such a deal.

Normally.

Her back throbbed with pain and her stomach had an empty sort of growl to it. As the adrenaline rush petered out, that backpack weighed twice as heavy on her shoulders. Damnit. Damnit. Damnit. I'm going to get taken in by this ISD sting operation fucker, aren't I? "...Yeah...yeah that could, work. I'm good at giving directions." She eyed Martin's piece-well, one of them. He'd taken a couple off the hood rats. Lynn knew how to handle a gun, roughly speaking. "But I just want to be clear-if you try and pull some shit on me, if you're NEST or ISD or the Cross or anything like that, I'm a hell of a lot tougher than these pussies." One of the men on the ground started to moan, as if to say something, and Lynn whipped around, hair and eyes glowing faintly for a moment. "I will fucking end you." She turned back to Martin, calm. "Yeah. I'll..." she paused. This is a stupid idea. This is dumb. This is how you die, Lynn.

But in a way, this consoled her. She figured death was coming at some point. Eh. Might as well go out on a full stomach. "Oh, fine, I'll take a ride from a stranger. Not the dumbest thing I've done this week. Lead the way."[/b]