Shadow Viper Back Story
Another place, another time...
The following scene is shown to us in the vaguely-bleached and scratchy format that is sure to mean a FLASHBACK of some sort:
Another sharp explosion - the air fills up with shards of wood, a storm of needles cutting everything apart, and a wave of heat that washes over her, blowing the flowing tresses of her hair back as she struggles to compensate. Bouncing off the facade of one of the administrative buildings, she lands on one mighty branch of one of the ancient trees of the Ancestor Alley, sliding to a stop as she tries to assess the situation.
Fire and smoke rise up everywhere around her - grotesque flowers bloom, signaling a harvest of destruction. Above the village, the black raptor silhouettes of the helicopters make their sweeps, gatling-gun fire making grand and fiery sweeps over the buildings below.
Another explosion, this one very close by - she can´t help but throwing up her hands and letting out a yelp of confusion as she is showered with dust and debris.
Suddenly, someone lands on the branch beside her. She acts without thinking - a slender knife appearing in her hand as if from empty air as she initiates a quick series of attacks that would slash the vital arteries, weakening her foe and having him bleed out, allowing her time to finish him off or escape -
- but her every slash is blocked by a touch on her forearms, moving her into a lock. It is all that she can do to gasp before she stares at the face in front of her - the one of a middle-aged man of harsh lines, those usually so droopy eyes now narrowed and icily focused.
"S-Sifu!"
"Calm down." His raspy voice cuts through her panic. "We have to move - have to move quickly. Remember your lesson - the Walking Between Raindrops Attitude. And follow us!"
a BRIEF, JAGGED CUT TO where she, along with the white-haired Sifu and several other students or black-garbed adults of the village moves like the wind - a coordinated group flying more than running across tree branches through the small forest that - as a quick but imposing CAMERA SWEEP shows us - separates the village from the mountain lake.
The Sifu turns his head towards her in mid-air: "When it is time, Blossom, I need you to remember something. This is important! You - "
ANOTHER SHARP CUT, like the film is violently yanked apart and spliced together in a second´s time:
An explosion, louder and more fiery than any one we´ve seen this far, throws her like a rag doll; for a moment, everything is white. When we all COME TO, we´re sure that this is another place, though not too far from the moment in the trees: the girl - the "she" of this segment - is splayed against the ragged remains of a house. The lake is near, half-obscured by flames and smoke. She is coughing, and blood covers half of her face - as does her hair, sticking in the stuff. We can not see her left eye. Her right one, the only working one, stares down in disbelief at the sharp piece of wood jutting out from her gut - an exit wound to the vicious stab brought by the force of the explosion.
On the yard before her, the Sifu stands defiant as the dark shapes move closer, his hands ready to initiate his finger-gesture arts.
He coughs. "About time that you showed your faces. Dogs of the Empire. Toys of the City. So-called ´Invisible Hell Killers´!"
"Enough." The tallest one of the approaching shadows step forward - an old man, positively venerable, but with the sleek grace of someone half his age and the cold, calculating gaze of one who has internalized killing in so many forms that the choice of life and death carried almost no meaning. "There will be no posturing. There will be no defiance. This operation has been visualized by the full force of Iron Tower Predictionists. We have studied it from six thousand different angles. The defenses of the Lin Kuei are like an open book to us." He pauses, every-so slightly. "You had lost before you even knew we were here. Accept your destiny and move on in harmony."
The Sifu coughs - or, she realizes, laughs. It is a dry, horrible sound; the mirthless laughter of a man who has lost everything.
Almost everything.
"Accept my destiny, you say? ACCEPT MY DESTINY?!"
Suddenly, his fingers are moving - and, to his credit, the gathered force of assassins seem startled for a moment as improbable energies burst from the very air - the screen is CUT APART in segments as strange, glowing calligraphy paints out a script of power!
"MURDERERS OF THE VILLAGE OF THE STORM! I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!"
- from here, everything happens in quick flashes, like the beatings of a human heart.
- the girl pulling herself loose from her impalement, mouth open in a silent scream
- the ground itself comes alight as lines of burning Chi are painted across the earth, like the brushstrokes of a giant´s pencil -
- the master Assassin´s eyes opening wide
- a CLOSE-Up of the Sifus grin, a horrible rictus showing off his blooded teeth
- and then the surface of the water, seen from below, clear and tranquil before the body of the girl goes through it. As she sinks, she comes closer to the screen. Her hair, long and pink tresses, is washed aside to reveal the gaping wound where her left eye used to be. Blood spreads from the wound in her chest. Air bubbles flow from her mouth. As a bloom of fire washes over the surface above, she loses consciousness.
CUT TO:
Black Crow Brigade Dorms, right now:
- where Shadow Viper starts from her sleep with a scream, clawing herself up through the sheets and up in a sitting position, ragged breaths (and sobs?) wracking her slender body. Her severe, pitch-black page cut is a mess; absent-mindedly, her hand adjusts the eye patch before we can see what is underneath.
"Fu. Fuuuh. Fuck."
