"DEEEANNN~!" Wolf called after the man as he slammed the door to his house. There was a short moment where it looked like she might pursue him further; instead she broke into a peal of laughter followed by a snort.
She'd fully intended to fetch the physician herself, but trying to get Dean to do things for her was always entertaining. Harassing the lay about was her second favorite pastime; shooting things that didn't belong in the area was her first.
"Speaking of...," she muttered, as a border alert caught her attention. She blew a sigh as she flipped the view of her cybernetic eye over to the Hunter-Killer drone as it swooped overhead from the rear of the settlement. Being the only conscious member of The Den that could operate the drones was taxing her neural net, and she was going to have a hell of a headache in a few hours. It was better than not having the support at all though.
An object was approaching the settlement at high speed, and though the drone's optics didn't have visual, she had radar lock. Wolf rocked her head back and forth in indecision. The Hunter-Killer climbed to get a better angle, and the targeting pod locked onto the object's thermal signature. She very nearly gave the command to launch a Maverick before the Drone's VI identified the object as "The Tumbler." Wolf exhaled and commanded it to Chase instead, causing the drone to perform a Wingover and follow Alex and the Tumbler.
"Oi... coming in hot?" Wolf clicked over to Aegis' radio channel.
"Gonna check that speed? Start braking, or you're gonna-" It was too late, the Tumbler slammed into the settlement wall causing Wolf to breathe an exasperated sigh before cutting off the channel. The Tumbler was a sturdy vehicle but... it was gonna need a visit to her Frame Straightener after that impact.
"Big man's bringing in a wounded," she chirped over the settlement frequency.
"Nobody's critical at The Den, send the physician to Aegis' guest first, and then shoot me a heads up so I can cover his crossing..."Aegis crashing the tumbler following a monster attack while the "Spooky Nature Siblings" casually vault the settlement wall with a road of brambles while riding stags made out of dark matter and stars?
Just another day in Shieldtown...
[Meanwhile, elsewhere in the settlement]
"What to do, what to do...," Archer muttered, exhaling a plume of smoke from his second cigarette of the day. Dawn was going to give him a talking to for sure. The disturbance at the wall had caught his attention long enough for him to notice the arrival of some principal members of the Black Moon Society in signature fashion.
He held his elbow with one hand while tapping his cheek with his fingers in indecision. It probably wasn't a coincidence that their arrival so quickly followed his own, and it was likely that Yue had made contact with them in some capacity, since he had been following her trail in that direction. On the other hand there was the Amalgam Soul: a gross and deliberate manipulation of forbidden dark arts. Levin would have his head if he just turned a blind eye...
Archer had been following the creature deeper into the settlement before BMS arrived. It was fast, and inquisitive and it hadn't presented itself as a danger... so far. His eyes flicked back and forth as he took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled it from his nose. He turned his eyes back towards the wall.
It would be rude of him to not say 'Hello' after they came all this way... Losing track of the creature now might cause some problems later though.
He flicked a tarot card into his hand after a long moment of thought and etched an improvised spell into the array on the back. [Mark] was an innocuous cantrip that would allow him to track a target that he had touched over long distances. Physical contact was the limiting factor, but by combining it with a 'Null" array that would just hold Mana and not do anything, and a Transference circuit he fashioned himself a little lure that would Mark whatever had the mind to take a bite.
"Now it's just time to do a little fishing..."
[Elsewhere...]
She knew she was dreaming at first.
The fuzz of the world had faded, and the cold grip of oblivion was holding her lungs still.
It hurt, to dream like this.
She remembered how it always felt too real.
But then her mind forgot itself.
The dream was all there was. First was the hole. The pit in the earth. Cavernous and filled with static-hissing-dark-sadness. Cold lavender light poured out from it, but only reached the edges of the pit. A broken city surrounded it.
The sky was visible, for just a moment, as a scream poured forth. The light flashed, and then there was
the body.The skin was… Cold.
Pulling at the bone. Cold.
Cracking the lips and face. Cold.
Sucking air out of the lungs. Cold.
The
body was cold. It stared up, making eye contact. Pupils blown wide, iris pale gray, sclera so blood filled it was black.
Metallic taste on the tongue; like copper being fused to taste buds.
The
body? It was familiar. But the name kept slipping away, like an old memory in disuse. Female. Definitely female.
Was it actually remembered? Or … Maybe from a picture? A long time in the past.Round nose. Almost button-like. Slightly upturned.
Soft face, no harsh lines or angles. Just barely on the cusp of ‘full’.
Cheek bones unassuming.
Ears, unassuming.
Brows raised, like perpetually somewhat surprised.
Full lips. Naturally dark? Painted a light, almost cheerful red. Smile lines in the corners.
But her mouth hung open, now. A perpetual scream.
The skin-tone was sun warmed, tawny brown in the gray light. Alopecia all over, with a dermal spike just under the left eye. Barely an inch high. Black like a porcupine quill-tip.
Full, thick, hair; black. Silver highlights, almost natural.
Is she old? Then. Something… a spider? An insect crawls out from under a thick mane.
Marble white carapace, glossy— Made of stone? Or actual marble?
Eight limbs, pushing on cold skin, claws digging in, as it crawls down… And down.
Settles over
the body’s mouth, like a shield.
No peeking, no talking.The body vanishes, and she becomes aware of herself again. She screams against a howling void, hugs her knees to her chest, wailing. A crimson light, oil-smeared with silvers and grays, hovers just out of reach. It’s cacophonous, but safe. Safety guaranteed. If she… could just… reach it!
It lies too far. The
world shifts, filled abruptly with cackling and cooing. Hysterical static snaps over her eyesight; turns everything muddy and fuzzy and out of focus.
Shifts again.
One clear image, like a snapshot of clarity in a corrupted film of confusion.
Looking into one. Great. Eye. Staring into it, as its’ four pointed star of a pupil
contracts in agonizing slowness.
Time warps, slows and speeds up in equal measure.
A familiar sensation. It drinks her in, absorbs her every detail. A scream begins at her throat, presses down around her like the weight of the tides.
Fire
ROARS to life, crackling around a sky-blue shield. A blade whistles, cuts through a
twisted face.
The eye blinks, taking a thought/eternity to complete.
Abrupt silence. Powdered glass under her feet makes itself known. Lavender-gray light suffuses her. Turns the whole world pale and unsettling. The air does not stir. There is no air! And…
There is no sound.
No Sun.
No Moon.
No fire or strength.
No life.
No death.
No tide.
No stone.
No weight pulling her down.
No shade blinding her sight.
No color. No COLOR.
In the far distance, a scream builds… And builds… And builds and builds and rushes and whorls and slams into her mind. It pierces like a blade through butter, deafens her and blinds her.
Locks her in eternity, frees her from oblivion, loathes that she will not come to it. Follow its source. Find it.
It wails for her.
Cries for no one.It rises in its volume, intensity growing. Rising like a tidal wave, crushing, all encompassing. The sun formed directly before her, seeking to immolate her! Like the wrath of an old forgotten lover, scornful and hating.
It crawls under her skin,
tearing at her,
loathing her! She is hated and she knows it, she screams and it screams and it all twists and coils and hurts and hurts until—!
It shifts again. She watches as a woman’s shape, warped and filled to bursting with ethereal light, twists a sphere of silvery-gold-green-blue-white light. The sphere ripples, warps, and the woman turns to look at her.
Her dream says ‘Mother…?’Her dream wakes up in a bed, cold and vulnerable. Memories dance and fade, and fire coils everywhere. The sun, in a room.
There’s a brief pain, a spider bite in the palm of her hand. She looks down and witnesses a truer fear than she’s felt.
Her mind slips off of it, like trying to associate it to anything if impossible. It shifts on her skin, prickle crawling like spiders and ants and centipedes and bugs and weakness and—
It looks at her. It loves her.Yue woke up.
[1:18am]
Yue bolted upright, clutching at her breast and gasping for air as though she'd been holding her breath for far too long. It was dark. She was drenched in sweat. Her heart pounded, and she couldn't shake the
FEAR. Yue was in her street clothes, in a room that wasn't hers. She looked around frantically, unable to find her things.
Door!
She stumbled towards it, trying the handle and rattling the door loudly though it didn't come free. She turned around, swallowed by her anxiety. She spotted a window and bolted to it, scattering a bunch of small slips of paper that had been loosely adhered to... the wall probably.
The unfamiliar urban crush of lights and structures of a foreign settlement greeted her. What was the last thing she remembered...
falling?!Something shot up over the horizon, like a shooting star that fell upward. Shining, pulsing hypnotic [WHITE]. Yue held her breath against the dread that something might happen, and just as she was beginning to relax, an inhuman mass of color and swirling ink streaked up from the darkness and swallowed the star. For a split second all she could see was the eye with the pupil in the shape of a four pointed star. She couldn't breathe.
Air. She needed air.
Yue scrabbled at the window lamely for a moment, and when it didn't immediately open she grasped the nearest object with her shaking hands. Wood, or maybe bone cracked, as her fingers crushed down. The muscles in her arm coiled, and she sent the night stand and its contents crashing through the glass. She rushed to the edge, leaning out in time to see the night stand swallowed by the darkness below. How high up was she??
She reached up, gaining purchase on the lip of the roof. Yue swung herself up, flipping herself up to the roof... foreign lands in every direction. Buildings made of bone, leather, and steel. Was she still dreaming?? She turned away from where she had seen the star get swallowed, running to the edge of the roof and the building and jumped.
The chill air bit her face as she soared across a gap, and she rolled gracefully as she landed on the be adjacent roof and kept running...
On the floor of her room lay scattered the slips of paper, illuminated by the door opening.
Kasha,
Don't panic, you are with friends.
-TT
Kasha,
This room is safe.
Come downstairs when you wake up.
-TT
Kasha,
This door sticks.
-TT
ThatLostDude
Blaze Gamma