Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had been two weeks since Penny visited Kam in the hospital.

The sling she was forced to wear had proven to be a serious burden. She couldn't multitask as well. She couldn't hold a cigarette and coffee in one hand and a clipboard in the other, which caused a real strain on her efficiency at work. After ten days, her shoulder seemed to have healed entirely. She called Kam to share the good news, shouting into the phone, "Advanced healing is ******** AMAZING, Kambojojojojo!" To celebrate, Penny decide that the two of them should suit up and go hunting for the asshat Captain who put them in that situation in the first place.

After catching a subway over to Kam's neck of the woods, Penny slipped into an alleyway and popped out as Cimmerian. She had made the mistake of transforming with her cigarettes in her pocket enough times to learn to set the box on the ground first. Otherwise, it would magically disappear to the same place that her clothes ran off too. With the box of cigarettes tucked firmly in her cleavage, Meri popped a lit one in her mouth and leaned up against a brick wall, exhaling fat smoky rings into the air.

It was pretty much her favorite thing to do when she was waiting on someone.

Cimmerian straightened up, flicking ash on to the pavement. "Just call me Princess Tigerlily," she said, putting one hand on her hip. "I'm pretty sure that makes you Peter Pan." When Ghen asked for direction, Meri nodded sharply and tossed her cigarette to the ground, stomping it out with the heel of her boot. She clapped both hands together. "Feeling out the weird blips in my brain is still new to me, but I tried practicing a little yesterday." She adjusted her bow around her middle and began walking off down the street, expecting Gehenna to follow.

It didn't stop her from talking. "If we just walk a circuit around the city and try to focus, we should be able to feel when bad guys are around. Once we do, we'll sniff it out, run all over that area -- and hey, even if we don't find her, we'll find someone we can beat the s**t out of, maybe even get some information out of it too." The street they were on was pretty urban. The park was several blocks away, and the hiss of steam pipes and honk of horns provided the background noise.

The two Pages approached the mouth to the subway. "The city is pretty huge so it might take a -- oh, hey, what's that?" She stopped suddenly, slamming a hand to his chest. Closing her eyes, Cimmerian could feel the tingle of some dark and stormy in her head. "Wait, do you feel it too?" Her eyes slowly opened. It felt far away, distant, like it was under a blanket. Meri stared down at the subway stairs leading down beside them.

Or maybe the Nega was just underground.

"I am a ******** wizard, Petey," she said, clapping Ghen on the shoulder. "I make time." The truth was that Penny had begun cutting her daily kickboxing sessions back to every other day and had begun practicing archery in between. The moment she became a Page, the girl had done everything she could to fit it into her life with as little disruption as possible. So far, barring that unpleasant incident with the spear-wielding Nega, it had gone okay.

Okay just wasn't good enough for her.

Switching back to the task at hand, Cimmerian narrowed her eyes, gazing down to where the stairs led. Her mouth opened to tell Ghen they needed to go down there, but he was already running ahead of her. She took off after him, dodging around a few civilians as they scattered out of the station. One older woman gasped and gripped the hand of an older man tightly. "It's one of them," she stammered, hand shaking. Meri just kept running.

A subway car had just left the station. Meri jogged up to the doors as they closed and slammed a fist against it. "Damnit," she said, kicking the side of it for good measure. "The Nega might've been on that, ********." The only person left on the train platform besides Ghen was a homeless man draped in a blanket. If Meri had been looking closely, she might have noticed that, despite the molding blanket, the feet poking out from under it wore shiny, patent leather boots with gleaming metal spurs.

Even without advanced Page speed, Cimmerian was fast. She had always been physically fit, and it helped give her an edge when it came to beating the fleeing Nega to the other exiting stairwell. She beat the Nega there without a problem, throwing her arms out on either side. Her bow was still around her middle, and if he wanted a fight, Meri was ready to take all her rage out on him.

The lanky boy looked panicked. He threw a punch at Meri, but she dodged it, swirling one leg around to fan kick him in the shoulder. The Nega had a foot of height on her, but he was slow to react. Meri dropped low and swept one leg out, knocking him on to his back.

Standing up, she crossed to deliver a kick, but he grabbed her by the ankle and threw her four feet backwards into the wall of the subway station. Her head met the wall with a crack and spots of color flared in her vision. "********," she said, stumbling forward. The lieutenant was trying to make a break for it so Cimmerian threw herself blindly forward.

Arms wrapped around his neck and legs clamped his torso. The Nega struggled to move, landing a good punch into the side of Meri's head in the process. She remained tenacious, gripping on to him like her life depended on it.

The three of them stayed like that -- a little totem pole on the floor -- for a solid two minutes while the lieutenant struggled to break free. The boy was panting, but whatever weapon he had had been knocked away. Gehenna felt like a stone wall on top of her, and even if Meri wouldn't admit it, she was finding it difficult to breathe. Breath shuddered in and out of her.

The ground began to shake. Another train was approaching. When it came, it shot a gust of filthy air at the trio of powered beings. The first person off was a tall man in an overcoat. He took one look at Ghen on top of Meri and the Nega and began shouting, "Hey, somebody help! This guy is robbing someone!" Five civilians descended on them, tugging at Ghen and Meri.

They weren't quite strong enough to pull them free, but they caused enough of a distraction for the Nega to slip away. Meri gasped for breath, slapping at the hands that attempted to help her. "Ghen, he's getting away!" she shouted, staggering to her feet. Cimmerian planted an elbow in the gut of a man who tried to stop her.

Twirling around the crowd, Meri chased the Nega onto the subway car just as the doors started to close.

Meri watched the lieutenant come to stop, spotting Ghen through the scuffed window. There wasn't much time. The next stop was thirty seconds away, and once those doors opened, this Nega could be out on the street and out of their range in no time. The slant of his shoulders began to turn. Meri gripped each hand on a pole on either side of her and forced her legs up into the air, dropkicking the Nega in the face.

A spurt of blood shot upward. It hit the ceiling at dripped back down. The Nega stumbled backward into the door. He nose was shattered. Meri hit the ground in a kneeling position and then sprang back up. "You picked the wrong Page to tango with, a*****e!" she shouted, juking left when he did and then juking back right. Cimmerian might have been tiny, but she was fast.

The Nega lashed out, punching Meri across the face. She recovered quickly and slammed her hand into his throat, forcing him back against the wall. He drew a knee up into her gut and winded her. Meri stumbled for a moment, but refused to let go of her hold. "TELL ME THE NAME OF THE NEGA CAPTAIN WITH THE SPEAR. THE GIRL. SHORT HAIR. GREEN EYES. TELL ME." She didn't realize she was screaming until the words left her mouth.

The train slowed to a stop and the doors burst open. Civilians ran screaming off of the car, racing up the stairs to call the police. The Nega used the distraction to crack Meri in the jaw with his elbow, breaking free of her and sprinting off of the subway car and out onto the platform.

Her head was spinning, vision blurred and jaw aching. Getting the s**t kicked out of her was not part of Meri's daily regiment, and she wasn't really too happy to add it in. The lieutenant got away from her before Cimmerian could even throw a return blow. She swore loudly, jogging off the subway car after the Nega. Mint eyes blinked to clear themselves. If she was going to catch this a*****e, then she needed to be able to see.

When her eyes finally cleared, Cimmerian saw Gehenna flying across the ground in front of her to slam the Negaverse agent in a full-body tackle. In a fit, she pulled her bow free and launched an arrow at the Nega. It hit the boy in the back of the head and then plopped to the ground beside him, narrowly missing Ghen. In spite of the gory scene, the petite girl came running up. She swung a foot hard into the side of the boy's head and then took a step back, shocked at her own rage.

"PAIN!" he shouted.

Meri snorted. "Yeah, I know it's painful," she said, stomach churning at the sight of blood pooling on the ground.

The lieutenant lifted his head just barely and said, "I said, 'PAINITE!'" A whine rolled out of his chest. "Captain Painite carries a spear. I told you what you wanted to know. Get off me!" Cimmerian had no idea how old the Nega was, but he sounded like a kid.

Mint eyes went to Ghen. She felt conflicted. "Okay, Ghen, let him up," she said. He told her what she needed to know. Meri stuck to her word most days, and this wasn't the one who stabbed her. She was too inexperienced to realize that even a baby rattlesnake held the potential for danger. She hadn't learn to fear Negas in general -- just Painite.

Behind them, the train rumbled out of the station.

Cimmerian wasn't sure what she had been expecting. Her mouth got her into trouble before, but after the blows were switched, everybody got to walk away. The Nega had told them what they wanted to know. So Meri was going to let him go. And why not? They asked him a question. He answered. That was that. If this was Captain Painite herself, then maybe it would be a different result, but Meri simply was not a person filled with hate.

When the Nega turned and struck Gehenna, a snarl ripped across her lips. Meri lunged forward, swinging her bow like a battle axe. It shattered over the Nega's head, and he dropped his yo-yo, staggering backward. The ground began to rattle with the approach of a subway car. The disoriented Nega stepped across the yellow safety line. His heel caught on uneven payment, and he began to fall backward toward the tracks.

"Wait!" Meri shouted. Her muscles tensed and she leaped forward, reaching fingertips out toward the flailing hand of the Nega as he reached out for her. She felt the brush of his fingernail against her hand. The light from the subway car flared in her eyes. Cimmerian was leaning halfway out over the tracks, grasping blindly for the tumbling lieutenant.