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 Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:38 pm
The hospital cafeteria was expensive. Very expensive, considering the quality.
He frowned at the man behind the register, whose bored and careless face communicated utter disregard for this outrageous cost:taste ratio. Grudgingly, he handed over the money, which the villain took - they traded a moment's glance. Valeriu let him know that this battle was not over.
He collected his trays of food and drink, navigating back towards their impromptu waiting room outside the Carnegie's door. When Seamus occasionally went in for further surgical check-ups, they weren't allowed in the vacated room, and had taken to setting up shop out in the hallway until he returned. It was his honor guard; unofficial shifts taken wordlessly in order to make sure that every visitor's hour was filled.
Today, he had his shift with Quinn.
The slam of the tray upon their small table announced Valeriu's arrival, along with a relentless glare and stiff posture as he resumed his seat across the table, and across from Quinn.
His eye still couldn't blink. He suspected it was paralyzed, and he didn't know what to do about that. All he knew was that his pupil had shrunk to a pinprick, giving him a feral look, and that the constant influx of light (despite being unable to see anything), had given him a monster migraine. Even when wearing this damn eyepatch.
"Enjoy," he bit out, and had made sure to buy nothing but healthy items that would surely horrify Quinn.
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Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:07 pm
Quinn, after a good night's rest, had been fine. He smiled warmly at Vale as he sat down, picking what items off the tray he could pretend weren't healthy. He glanced at the receipt, and grinned even more.
"Wow! Hospital food is expensive," he noted, unneccesarily, "But I guess they need to make money somehow. Maybe it would help to think that the money is going to buying pain meds for Seamus?" He suggested, noting Vale's angry look.
"And stop being so mad at me. I'm sorry your god attacked me and I had to beat him up. How is he doing, by the way? Fixed his melted face yet?" Quinn smirked. Quetzalcoatl hadn't talked to him in the time since their little outing, but he was too happy to care.
"Did I tell you," he leaned over the table, conspiratorily, "That I invented a drink at The Igloo? It's called the Espresso Float. It's ice cream and coffee all rolled into one! Isn't that awesome? My boss says the only way we can get it on the main menu, though, is if enough people buy it on my suggestion. So, bring the mom's club by or something one day and buy them for the whole group. The kids would love them!" They would also love bouncing off the walls afterwards.
He nibbled at a roll they had put on the plate, mixing it with bites of some cheese broccoli so he could focus on cheesy bread as opposed to cheesy broccoli.
"Besides," he said, his mouth full, "Your eye should heal eventually! Have you gone to see an optometrist about that?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:38 am
Mercury stood crouched on a window ledge on the outside of the hospital, checking to see if the window was open. Most of the others had been locked, or the rooms were occupied. Finally he had found one that was open, but it was the type of window the opened with the little crank arm. Leveraging his staff between the frame and the window sill, he pulled, the frame resisting at first, until some part of the mechanism snapped. Released, the window swung wide open, and he was nearly knocked on from his perch. All the remained in the way was a screen, and he was able to use the tip of his staff to cut it open.
Stepping in, he looked around, ignoring the get well soon gifts that filled the room. He needed medicine of some sort, not balloons and magazines. There weren't any big cabinets in the room, but there were some carts next to the bed that had several drawers. Taking the pillow from the bed, he took off the pillow case, and proceeded to pull out the drawers, emptying the contents into the case. He could sort out whatever he got after he left.
He had to stop after a couple drawers, as he succumbed to a coughing fit, hacking coughs loud enough for someone outside to hear.
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:02 am
"Maybe it v'ould help to think that the money is going to buy your crazy pills," he sniped back, scowling unhappily at Quinn's too-happy smile. <******** you, Quinn. You didn't have to beat up anything, especially not v'ith me in the package."He curled on his chair more grumpily. "My god is just fine, anyv'ay. All you did v'as kill one of his mortal vessels. V'hich--" His voice rose, because Quinn's ego was pissing him off.
"V'hich, I might add, v'as nothing more than a giant jaguar. Tezcatlipoca v'as using none of his powers. Your gloating is empty. You cheated. I didn't cheat. I had to kill that jaguar my first night there. V'ith two broken sticks, and no powers! That is something to brag about. But you--" he hissed, and glared crankily.
"Are a cheater, and an idiot, and I hate you. I should have let him throw you into the swamp to get eaten by Calmaxtiloc. I could have been eating cocoa beans instead, but no."
He wrapped his arms around his knees, stonily.
"Coffee is bad for kids. Like hell I'm bringing them. You can go suck it."
Valeriu was in a great mood today. A fantastic mood. A warm, loving, kind mood.
He growled, and fangs were bared in displeasure, glaring narrowly at Quinn with his eyepatch.
"It's paralyzed. There is no cure besides prayer," he spat. "At least none that I can afford."
It was true. A day of rest had seen some improvement, but not much; he could blink, with effort, but his sight in that eye was milky at best, and the eye itself refused to move.
"I hope you're enjoying yourself and your empty victory," he snarled, and faced back forward, and contemplated ripping Quinn's throat out right then and there.
His ears pricked, standing upwards all too fast and whirling to face the hospital door which they guarded. There was someone in there. Someone who, by all rights, should not be in there. The coughing was echoing in his ears, easily heightened, and he bristled warily as he stepped to the door, motioning for Quinn to shut up.
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:11 pm
Quinn shrugged. "I'd call 'turning into a giant jaguar' a power." He shrugged. "And I'm sorry you got shocked. I didn't mean to make a bolt that big. I didn't know I could. You shouldn't have been hurt this badly." He rolled his eyes. "Tell me to suck it again and I'll make the other one match. I'll give you your own personal thunderstorm to follow you around. Oh, wait, you already have one, Mr. Downerpants." He sighed. "Look, maybe Quetz can fix it. I'll ask hi--" He heard a cough, and frowned.
"Seamus wouldn't be coughing, would he?" He asked, quietly. "But why would anyone else be in there? That's his room!" he came up behind Vale, trying to listen, as well. He heard some drawers opening and closing, but that was it.
"And Seamus wouldn't be messing with anything! Let's go in there and see who it is."
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:51 pm
The coughing subsided after a bit. Finding things in the drawer wasn't going to work, he could see. That meant his only other option was to find a doctor and get him to fix his lungs. Placing his goody bag on the bed, he walked over to the door.
Alright, all he needed to do was grab a doctor and drag him into the room. They had that oath that they had to take care of sick people, right? Well he was sick people. And if that didn't work, he could just knock one out and drag him off to downers.
Mercury reached out for the door and started to turn the handle.
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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:16 am
He grit his teeth - oh no, lightning shouldn't have electrocuted him. Quinn, obviously, did not understand the intricacies of voltage, current, and resistance - especially when it came to the human body. Threats didn't help his case either.
After all this was said and done, Valeriu was going to rip out Quinn's eye. Rip it, right out.
I'm sorry, it v'asn't supposed to pop out that easily. I thought people v'ere made of rubber, according to your logic!
He shot a glare that said Quinn should shush. Don't state the obvious, his eye snarled. You're giving the advantage of surprise away.
Dumb, dumb, dumb. Seamus wasn't even in there right now - he was in surgery. And there was only one official entrance.
Blondes, he hissed to himself, reaching out a hand to open the door; but the door knob jiggled, and turned, before he could touch it.
Seizing it, he turned the knob quickly, shoving the door open sharply in an attempt to break the intruder's face.
"V'hat are you doing--" he demanded, and then paused, before his eye narrowed in determination. "You."
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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:11 pm
Quinn placed both hands on Vale's shoulders to give himself some lift to see over Vale into the room. "Who's that?" He furrowed his brow at the teenager in the hospital room.
"He has a tail, too. You guys have some sort of big-cat rivalry going on?" Regardless, Quinn frowned.
"You know, it doesn't really matter. What the hell are you doing in here? This is Seamus's room." He glared at the man, and slipped around Vale to get closer.
"And we were outside the door. So you snuck in! You snuck into a hospital! And you were coughing, all over. What if his wounds get infected, you dumbass?" He crossed his arms.
"You're lucky I don't kill you where you stand." His voice lowered.
"I defeated a god, you know."
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Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:39 am
Just as Mercury was about to open the door, it suddenly swung open. He jumped back to avoid it, and it missed hitting his face, but his hand wasn't so lucky, getting hit by the door with a loud clunk.
Mercury shook his hand a bit, wincing at the pain. It wasn't until Vale started talking that he actually looked up to see who had opened the door. It was a bit of a surprise to see who it was.
"Oh, hey Vale." He said with that same slightly creepy smile. Mercury noticed the eyepatch. "Were you here to see a doctor too? Could you show me where one is?"He gestured behind himself to the turned-out drawers of the cart, the pillowcase, and the various medical items that had fallen on the floor and on the bed. "I was just gonna take care of it myself, but I didn't know that stuff was so complicated."
It seemed to take him a moment to notice Quinn, who looked to be another godling. "Well you don't walk in the front door if you're gonna steal stuff." He said matter-of-factly. "And I'm here because I'm coughing. Am I not supposed to do that in the hospital?
At the threat, he waved his staff a bit in Quinn's direction. "And I killed a Fury when I was a kid. What's your point?"
"Who's the rainbow?" He asked, turning back to Vale.
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Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:27 am
This was a surprise.
A pleasant surprise.
"The rainbow is my friend," he said, quite calmly. He smiled, right back - though it was more of a baring of teeth than anything, as he drew shadows into his hand.
"Unfortunately for you, you are not my friend. In fact," he paused, stepped further into the room, and the angle of his ears and the arc of his tail and the sharp and focused glare in his eye said that Valeriu was checked out and hunting right now. "You are quite the opposite."
Valeriu wasn't fooled by the friendly chatter. Jubs, Mercury, whatever he chose to call himself, was dangerous. Dangerous in ways that Valeriu couldn't let slide, couldn't ignore, couldn't leave alone. His smile matched the faces of men he'd often met these past few months; men who would attack innocents, men who found pain funny, men who would have no trouble taking a little girl like Sydni and leaving her in pieces.
A man who would do anything to win this Game.
"I v'arned you the first time." Another step, and the shadows bristled.
"Here and now, there is no escape for you again."
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Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 4:13 pm
"No, we are not going to show you where a doctor is!" He gave the teenager his best what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about stare. "You just snuck into Seamus's room and coughed all over things, after trying to steal things from his room, apparently! So you're breaking, entering, and stealing, and being a punk." Quinn frowned. "That's not giving me a very good impression."
Quinn looked from Vale, to the teenager, and back to Vale. Vale was readying himself to fight. Quinn brought up his wrist to his neck, and canster changed to his usual form as a small head, resting in the crook of Quinn's neck. It quivered at Vale's tensing of the shadows, like it wanted to join them.
Vale's smile is creepy.
I suggest you ready yourself for a fight, Quinn.
Why?
Because Valeriu is. You'll be sucked in, no doubt.
Quinn began charging his lightning, and small sparks jumped around his body.
"My name's Quinn. And a god is totally tougher than a Fury."
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 12:16 am
This was bad. Both of them were older than him, and had him trapped in a small room. That took his advantage of maneuverability out of the picture. Maybe one of them he'd have a chance against. But two godlings, he didn't have much of a chance. He could try for the window, but the odds were he wouldn't get through the screen before they caught up to him. Oh well. Maybe he could take one down with him.
"Be seeing you soon, Hermes." He thought.
"Justin..."
He gripped his staff in both hands and readied his stance. Ironically using a symbol of medicine, in a hospital, as a weapon.
"I really didn't want to fight right now." He said with a smile. "But I guess if you insist, we can do this." Now that he was in a lighted room, he could see what Vale had been doing the night they met. Looked like he had been right to run; he'd never see that attack in the dark.
Mercury glanced at Quinn, keeping an eye on Vale. "So I guess if I beat you, that means I'm tougher than a god." He started to laugh, but it quickly devolved into coughing. He brought a hand up to cover his mouth, the other one still on the staff. He noticed that he had just coughed up blood onto his hand and the floor. The odds were definitely not in his favor.
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Scroll rolled 1 6-sided dice:
6
Total: 6 (1-6)
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 12:44 am
Valeriu was going to strangle Quinn after this, no doubt about it.
It v'as an overgrown cat you egotistical menace!
"Let's take this outside," Valeriu suggested, quite helpfully - and in the second it took to speak and to finish, a massive black claw was smashing Mercury back, back, back, out the window with a splintering of glass and pane. Valeriu's body soon followed his hand, leaping far more gracefully out of the blown-out panels, following Mercury to the ground below and landing on heels and palms with a heavy thud.
Seamus' room had a nice view of a lovely, tall, brick building and an enclosed alleyway, and Valeriu prowled the entrance, defending it like a looming shadow himself with eyes glowing red in anticipation. Somewhere along the line the eyepatch had fallen to the wayside. He didn't want them to damage that hospital room any further than they had to; it would save a life that would be lost if the room was broken. The hospital needed all the space it could get.
The downside was that it afforded his opponent more area to move; Valeriu, especially, was a brawler, and had trouble with attacking from a distance. But it was a decent trade-off for the safety of the hospital rooms and the blood the boy was coughing up. He could smell it from here - crisp and tantalizing, just as he could hear the rapid thump-thump-thump of a telltale heart.
"I'll try and make this quick," he promised, and lunged once more.
Attack! 6 damage to Nemesis Mercury!
Vale's Health: 25/25
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Kappawolf rolled 1 6-sided dice:
2
Total: 2 (1-6)
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 1:34 pm
Quinn blinked as Vale tossed him out the window, then followed along, scaling down the wall as opposed to jumping out of it, as he had done to sneak into the room a few nights before.
Unfortunately, there was one less brick on the wall than he thought there was, and he slipped off of the wall onto his backside.
By the time he had stood up and was ready to fight, they had already moved even farther away from him.
Eh. Vale's got this right now, anyway.
He walked, calmly, towards the fight.
My turn will come.
Quinn misses! Catboys fight their own battle this round!
Quinn: 25 life
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Justin Bursar rolled 1 6-sided dice:
6
Total: 6 (1-6)
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 3:58 pm
Distracted by the blood, Mercury was caught by surprise as Vale knocked him out the window. He hadn't realized the shadows were that powerful. His staff nearly fell out of his hands, but he managed to hold on tightly. The broken glass sliced though his new shirt and his back, and he cried out.
Hitting the ground, he rolled with the momentum, coming to rest on all fours in a similar position to Vale. Right behind him was the wall of another building. Well, at least they were outside now.
"So will I" He replied. As Vale lunged forward, Mercury ran to the side and past him, spinning around to catch Vale in the back with his staff.
Strike! Mercury damages Vale for 6
Mercury : 14/20 health
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