A sketchy bar, Baltimore, Friday Afternoon

[soniaroadsqueen]

Dante had found them a great bar. Dingy, grimy, and cheap. In what Ringo was pretty sure was one of the worse parts of town. Despite the time of day, they weren't the only one's there. There were also the sorts of people you might expect to be in a sketchy bar on a Friday afternoon.

People who Ringo wasn't even paying attention to. "Is whiskey the best way to do this?" she asked, glancing over at Dante. "That's what you usually have, right?"

She probably shouldn't be getting drinking advice from Dante, but it wasn't like she had anyone else to get it from anymore.

[ooc: Expecting one.]

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[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo set her now-empty glass down very precisely and turned to face Dante, hands planted on her hips.

"Sure, a dent. So what? You think one or two lives is no big deal? You think a week or a month of survival doesn't matter?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"No," Dante said. Didn't even need to think about it.

He picked up the next glass, eyeing it. "Y'know, she almost got into my head with this same bullshit," he said. "About saving people. So when she called about the zombies, I ran over there with Anders. Who's in love with her."

That was probably not relevant, but whatever.

"Figured we could do... something."

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Well, good on you guys, I guess."

She picked up her next glass and eyed it thoughtfully. "What'd you end up doing?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Tried to get her to go back to the island and bring her family," Dante said, shrugging. "Go on a limb, save one or two lives. Maybe four."

The shot went down the hatch. "She promised us she would go," he said, "But then something promised her she could save more people."

He hammered the shot down on the bar. "That's when I knew she was as good as dead, so I went."

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo blinked, trying to process that information.

"You told her you'd get her family out, then left them behind?" Sorry, Dante, Ringo wasn't comprehending things properly at the moment.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante rolled his eyes. "We said we'd wait so she could get her family out," he said, "She was gonna do that, but then Anders healed some kid. That got it back into her head that she could save everyone."

"But hey," he said, poking at a shot on the counter, "Huzzah, do I get an 'I tried' sticker?"

[soniaroadsqueen]

"How about a 'fuck you' sticker?" Ringo shot him a glare, the shot glass in her hand mostly forgotten.

"Remind me not to ask you for help with anything that actually matters."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante rolled his eyes, grabbing his last shot. "I'll probably be dead by then anyway," he said. "Who cares?"

More shots. More shots were good.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Your friends?" She said that as if she didn't think he had any.

Even though she cared.

"And how are you going to end up dead if you're so smart about not doing anything dangerous, anyway?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"'Cause anything dangerous loves doing me," Dante said, waving at the bartender. "My life is a fucking shitpile. Things have been trying to kill me since I was seven."

He shrugged.

"Felt for like five seconds maybe I had something good going for me, but hey, I guess Kathy Li and her bag of bullshit were lying to me about thinking my life was worth saving."

He grabbed the shot as soon as it was offered to him.

"But whatever," he said, flashing Ringo a manic grin. Kathy Li and her bag of bullshit'd have been right about that, anyway, if they'd just been straightforward about it before.

[soniaroadsqueen]

That grin got a scowl in response, and Ringo slammed back the shot she was still holding to buy herself some time to formulate a response.

"Fuck you," she finally said, over-enunciating her words. "You may be an asshole, but that doesn't mean you should just give up and die."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nobody said shit about giving up," Dante said, eyeing her. "I still fight. Doesn't mean I'm stupid about my chances." He shook his head, brushing past Ringo.

"Kathy, though, she could've lived," he said. "She chose not to. So fuck her, seriously."

[soniaroadsqueen]

"She made a choice. Decided that it was worth risking her life to try to save some people. Just because you don't agree with her doesn't mean you get to dismiss her!"

Her senpai was dead, and it hurt. Oh, how it hurt. And the alcohol didn't seem to be helping with the pain. But it was wearing away at Ringo's generally shaky self-control, and no one got to insult Kathy today. Her hand shot out, trying to get a hold on Dante's arm as he walked by.

He didn't get to walk away, not when Ringo still had all this pent-up emotion that his stupid alcohol wasn't helping with.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante'd never made a big show of what he could do around Ringo - made some vague threats, sure, but never showed off. But tonight was a night for firsts, apparently, with his usual devil-may-care cover flapping to the breeze and letting the fucked-up underneath shine.

She didn't get his arm. He moved so fast, even drunk, that it was like he'd never even been there. He twisted and looked at Ringo, though, so at least he wasn't gone yet.

"I can dismiss her all the fuck I want," he snapped. "If she's not dead now, she will be by tomorrow. Fuck her choices."

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo blinked, an automatic expression of surprise even if the actual surprise never really reached her brain. He was fast. Faster than Kathy. Faster than Spitfire, King of the Flame Road. And he wasn't wearing ATs. That should have given her a hint as to how out-classed she was, but only one part of that set of thoughts really penetrated her brain.

He wasn't wearing ATs. And she was. Sure, a casual pair, nothing fancy. Just designed to almost look like platform boots if she moved right in them.

So she surged forward, trying to crowd into Dante's space. Not an attack, but definitely aggressive. "No!" Her voice cracked through the bar, drawing pretty much every sullen eye to her. "She cared about you, and now you just want to throw her away! Fuck you."

[rebelseekspizza]

In open spaces, Kathy had always been faster than him. Up close, though, where it was more reflexes than just general speed, Dante outclassed most people on the island. Maybe almost everybody. He didn't get crowded unless he wanted to be crowded.

He ignored the rest of the bar as he slipped right out of her trajectory, appearing behind her-- and tried to shove her into the wall. Not hard enough to crack it, but definitely hard enough to render her immobile.

[soniaroadsqueen]

She hadn't expected to get into a, well, whatever this was, so Ringo wasn't riding the Thorn Road. So she was fast, and flexible, but not at the top of her game. And the alcohol may not have been doing anything for the anguish that still came over her in waves, it had done a number on her reflexes.

Which meant that she barely had time to spin in place before Dante shoved her backward. Fortunately, Ringo had plenty of practice falling hard, so she her body went limp automatically. She slammed into the wall, but all that practice meant that she didn't even get the breath knocked out of her.

Now she was glaring at Dante, clearly contemplating something pretty ill-advised.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Kathy threw me away," Dante said flatly, closing in on her. "She threw Anders away, after promising the guy a future where he'd be safe. She threw you away, too. And why? Because she wanted to put on a fucking costume and play superhero."

He was watching her movements closely. He'd had to fight drunk too many times to count. "How the fuck are you still defending her fucking bullshit?"

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo went completely still. It wasn't that she thought Dante was right. Kathy hadn't thrown them away.

But she had decided that they weren't as important as saving strangers.

That would have been tough, but Ringo could have dealt with it. But Kathy also hadn't asked for help. Hadn't offered the chance to make that same decision.

She felt like her eyes were burning, locked on Dante's as she took a deep breath. Then another. Each coming faster and faster as she began to hyperventilate. Time to mount the Thorn Road. Once she was there, then she could present Dante with a counter-argument.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante frowned, taking a step back. He didn't realize he'd manifested Rebellion until he heard a loud intake of breath behind him, and the sound of the bartender picking up a phone.

"Ringo..." he said, warning in his voice.

[soniaroadsqueen]

She couldn't hear that warning over the sound of blood pounding in her ears.

And then she was rushing him again. Casual ATs or not, they were still a pair that she'd built, and they meant she could move almost as fast as Dante. Sure, changing directions was trickier for her, sure, but in a straight line that wouldn't matter.

[rebelseekspizza]

They were still in a small bar. There wouldn't be a lot of room for her to pick up speed.

It was still way too close. Dante managed to vault onto the bar a split second before Ringo hit him, yelling out a, "Woah!" as he nearly trampled the barkeeper. He could swear he still felt the brush of Ringo's arm against his.

Fuck the sword. The sword wasn't gonna stop her. He had Ebony and Ivory drawn on her within seconds. "Ringo, stop!"

He wouldn't actually shoot her if it came down to it. But he could blow out one of the chandeliers real easy if he needed to.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Stopping would be smart. She didn't even really want this fight. Sure, Dante had said something to piss her off, but not because he'd been totally wrong. In fact, it had pissed her off because of how close to right it had been.

Which was probably why she still wasn't thinking rationally. Well, that and the shots. Those kind of made it hard to make good decisions.

So she wasn't stopping, merely adjusting her trajectory to follow him up onto the bar, speeding along the wooden surface toward him. Her eyes were locked on Dante, tunnel vision in full effect. She was aware of her surroundings, but only in that she knew what was wear and how she could use it for mobility. No thought given to how the terrain might be used against her.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Get out of here!" Dante snapped at the bartender. And the rest of the bar, really. At least the former got the fucking clue, rushing out of the way and bursting outside through the back door.

Of course, that left Dante no time to do something like shoot Ringo's AirTrek. He was moving again, darting sideways, back over the bar, along the wall and straight past Miss Fucking Nuts over there.

Fine. Plan Chandelier it was. He backed towards the back of the bar real fast.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo was so focused in on Dante that she wasn't really cognizant of the patrons of the bar scrambling out of the way. Mostly because Dante was armed, though the crazy girl skating on the bar probably didn't help.

But not paying attention was pretty dangerous when you were going as fast as Ringo was, and one of the regulars made a huge miscalculation. He must have thought he could dive across to cover faster than Ringo could get down the bar, and he was wrong. She noticed he sprawled halfway across the thing, right in her path, a heartbeat too late.

Her toe clipped his shoulder. It wasn't enough to actually knock her down, but it the instinctive movement she made to recenter her balance threw her off her intended path of movement, and she skipped off a table to one side and then landed on the floor. Since she was pointing the wrong way, she had to spin and slow down, reorienting herself toward Dante again.

At least he was hard to miss.