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[right] [b]Interactions:[/b] One Protective Putty Tat[@Fernstone] Gideon's [s]Guys[/s] Guy & DoppelDave[@NoriWasHere]
[code]South Side, The Circle, David Smith’s House [/code][/right][hr]

[color=00fa9a]“Hey, seriously?”[/color] said Paloma as Vin blocked her from entering her house. Under her breath she quietly whined, [color=00fa9a]“Sam, please, they’re hurting me.”[/color]

The Samaritan called her lie as Vin continued to trap Paloma in place. Unable to sneer at the ghost inside of her, she turned to shoot Vin the nasty look instead and got a faceful of tiger armpit. Paloma made a gagging noise as she squirmed uncomfortably between the threshold of the doorway and the weirdly ripped weretiger, her ineffective wrestling stopping as she heard [i]It[/i] roar. Her body stiffened as snow dripped off the roof and snuck down the back of her shoe. She couldn’t see what was going on but the noise painted a visual image almost as bad as the real thing. Paloma’s hand shot out and grabbed hold of Vin’s fur, squeezing tightly as the snapping of bones and the rasp of inhuman laughter echoed from inside the house. 

“Ahhhh the sweet naivety of a newborn. Tell me, apparition, have you experienced the death of a host yet?”

[color=00fa9a]“What?”[/color] said Paloma, blinking in confusion, her breath fogging as the temperature dropped. She felt something strong seize her around the waist and jerk, lifting her up off her feet with a frightful ease as she started to fall. [color=00fa9a]“What!?”[/color]

The anticipated impact wasn’t as painful as she had expected it to be as she was cushioned by the tiger. Paloma let out a tiny, panicked yelp as Vin rolled on top of her and protected her with their body, feeling the cupcake flatten in the box beneath her. She heard something punch loudly through plaster and vinyl, bits of dust and drywall sprinkling on the wooden floor of the entranceway and mixing with flecks of snow that had been tracked in from the outside. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of the twisted spear made of bone and muscle retract back through the hole in the wall, drops of blood from where it had cut across the back of the weretiger staining her sweater. Paloma’s breathing halted, the stammering words about how the tiger didn't have to do that dying in her throat as she felt Vin’s own breath hot on her ears, whispering for her to stay down unless there was an opening to get out. 

It was a smart idea that she just couldn’t follow. Perhaps if she had seen David Smith get consumed by the doppelganger she would’ve happily hightailed it out of there, but she hadn’t. If he was unconscious maybe the Samaritan’s Messiah Complex wouldn’t have picked him up. He could be bleeding out. She could help him still, lock him away with the Bystander Effect for long enough until paramedics had arrived or she could at the very least get a chance to ask a few questions before he passed. She couldn’t just simply ignore this. She felt a painful heat radiate across her forearms as she shifted up to her hands and knees and, against the wise words of the tiger, crawled into the house instead of away. She peaked her head around the corner of the room that Vin had rushed into, hoping to see David Smith still breathing.

Oh what a fucking horrible idea that turned out to be.

This whole Paranormals being real thing was still relatively new to Paloma. A dragon attack she had barely got to witness. A few conversations with an annoyingly smug mage. Some ghosts lingering around the hospital. A handful of passing encounters with people who shrugged off her aura. A brief and toxic romance with a vampire she had mistaken for a hot goth who called her out for being a bloodtease. That week she was haunted by a killer doll before it gave up. Whatever that mold thing was. Etcetera. Most of the encounters were always strange, sometimes dangerous, and often tiresome. However, none of them had been as viscerally disturbing as whatever was going on with the anatomy of this doppelganger, triggering every animalistic instinct in her body to fuck right off as she jumped to feet before flooding her engines with so much adrenaline that she couldn't move.

An involuntary scream erupted from Paloma’s throat as she witnessed the dangling face flap of a middle aged man being sliced nearly clean off by a swipe of the tiger’s claws, the flesh twisting and spinning as it hung on by a thread of sinew like a babytooth that just refused to fall out, the mouth still smiling in her direction. Paloma had not been bluffing when she had warned Gideon’s men earlier: she was an extremely loud screamer. The banshee-like screech snapped the attention of the doppelganger back to its prey, giving Vin what briefly looked like the upperhand as they swiped its legs out from underneath them. However, a choir of snaps erupted through the house like a beatnik applause as the doppelganger's legs contorted and twisted into arms, its body inverting as it rolled through, snatched Vin by the scruff, and launched them over the chair covered in loose ropes and empty clothing. It turned towards Paloma, its chest cavity snapping open as another roar bellowed out and shook the foundation, its left arm splitting and spiraling to form another lance.

“What the hell are you doing, lady!?” 

Paloma felt a hand grab her shoulder and pull her back as Caleb moved in front of her, an ice shield interposed between Paloma and the doppelganger. Her legs buckled as she stumbled and fell back on her rear, looking up in horror as the doppelganger’s spear shattered through the shield and sprayed a streak of hot blood across her face as it pierced through Caleb’s shoulder. Paloma raised a shaking hand, ready to hit Caleb with the Bystander Effect, and froze, arrested by her own desires for self-preservation. The selfishness didn't stop another scream from being ripped from her throat and accompanied by a backtrack of gunfire as Caleb was yanked forward by the spear, the toothy maw of the doppelganger cutting the man’s own howl short as it snapped down on his shoulder and the upper portion of his head, crunching through hard bone before squishing on soft lobe.

Effortlessly, the doppelganger chucked what remained of Caleb’s corpse at Malik and began stalking towards his prey. Paloma began to backpedal on the ground, dragging herself through wet debris, her heart beating in her throat. The twisted spear punched a line in the floor of where she had been as if the doppelganger was playing with its food. She felt her fingers scrape against a wall as she ran out of room. Dead end. Game over. The doppelganger loomed over her, bits of Caleb still hanging from its fangs as it pulled back its spear arm. Paloma instinctively curled up into a ball and threw her hands over her face with a cry, then—

[center]Wham![/center]

[i]Wham![/i][right][b][i]Wham![/i][/b][/right]

The hands dropped from Paloma’s face as she felt the spear breeze past her three times, piercing through the corner behind her. She watched again and again as the arm, directed for her head, twisted and slammed against the wall as it drew near her. The wavering fear in her eyes solidified into hard steel as she wiped her cheek. Hand still trembling, Paloma reached up, grabbed one of the holes, and pulled herself up to her feet. Again and again the doppelganger attacked the wall around Paloma, creating an almost cartoonish outline of her body in the drywall. She gritted her teeth, eyes watering at the stench coming from its maw, and then smiled wickedly, her lips cracking from the cold as the grinned stretched across her face almost ear to ear.

[color=00fa9a]“I think I know what you are,”[/color] said Paloma in a soft, almost melodic whisper, scoffing as another attack missed her by a couple of inches. [color=00fa9a]“You inherit their memories, right?”[/color] She coughed as a bit of drywall got in her mouth as it hit the wall again. [color=00fa9a]“I'll take that as a yes. I just have a few questions for what remains of Mr. Smith. Then I’ll be gone. Poof!”[/color] A larger chunk of plaster fell out of the wall and hit Paloma roughly on the shoulder, almost pulling the inner Southsider out of her as she hissed and grabbed her shoulder, shifting ever so slightly to avoid anything else coming down on her.

[color=00fa9a]“Jesus Christ, are you stupid?"[/color] whispered Paloma with a seething growl, turning her head as another stab splintered the wall next to her. [color=00fa9a]"Give up on it already.”[/color]