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 Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 5:34 pm
-Lucas growled. A genuine monsterous youma growl as the boy stepped forward, his finger extending (threateningly Lucas assumed) to point at the battered and mangled Abeline. Hadn't she been through enough already?
If he'd been on the other side.. then no.. he'd have smashed her until she stopped twitching. But he was on her team now. And the last thing he was about to do now was sit by and watch as some punks smashed up one of his brethern. They might be dead. And she might come back. But what it she didn't? What if she ended up even MORE mangled.
His grip tighted on his weapon jutting it forward warningly, even despite the apparent wiggle in his arm that showed the stress of holding up so much weight with one hand.-
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:54 pm
The appearance of the lung had made the female guardian cat a little nauseated, forcing back a gag, and irritated that it had forced that response in her. She liked to think that she was stone cold to this kind of thing. She was not.
Back to business.
"Well, who the hell is she," said Astraea impatinently. Her attention was wavering back and forth to Lucas and back. "Foramen, keep your eye on the snarling, growly one, take him out if he moves -- oh for Serenity's sake." Her tail was slashing angrily back and forth. "Sue. This is where I teach you the thing that I teach you only once, because you don't want me teaching you and I don't want you teaching me. You have to focus on her, very carefully, think about who she is. You have switch magic -- you need to create a switch."
Switches always -- usually -- mostly -- came in the form of henshin pens. No need to say "it'll be a magical pen." She continued: "Concentrate. Twice in one day, and I don't even get paid."
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 10:32 pm
Marked on "good things": Astraea wasn't confusing his name anymore.
Marked on "bad": Now she was finding new, exciting ways to perplex him.
Sue didn't think that it would help anything if he pointed out to Abeline that, if he had in fact killed her, she wouldn't be here. The temptation was certainly there, though, and strong besides. Was she really getting pissy at him, when she'd been the zombie threatening a group of scared and armed survivors? And if so, did that make her stupid or a sociopath?
She didn't seem like much of a threat now, anyway. Some absurd part of Sue felt sorry for her - another one, more buried than the first, was utterly horrified. Lucas was the only one that gave him reason for caution, made him wish he wasn't empty-handed.
And yet... it was Abeline that kept drawing his attention. Something about her. Something that it felt like he ought to know, if only he were paying the right sort of attention.
Astraea told him to concentrate. Told him to think about her, who she was.
But Sue didn't know Abeline! Frankly, him hitting her with bricks was the most meaningful interaction he could ever recall having with the standoffish dancer. He could try thinking about her, but most of what came up were things along the lines of "oh god I can smell her guts from here," and "dear God above, her handwriting is even worse than mine."
Still. It seemed like there was something more he ought to be thinking of. Just like there was a locked door in his mind, and he just needed to decipher the key. It was like cat-whispering; he just had to learn to listen the right way, and then things would speak to him. Just... had to listen the right way....
There was a word there. Several, actually; but there was one that was ready to slip out. Sue furrowed his brow, unsettled by the bizarre sensation of another voice moving through his mind - but what could he do? Fight?
"... Pro...." The word nearly choked him. No; twisting against it, fighting against his own compulsions, was the wrong way to go. Better to just guide it through, and see what was to come. "Protection. She's Protection, she's... Cancer." Sue didn't even really know what that meant, but....
Concentrate. There was something there, Astraea was right. He just needed to reach into it, somehow.
He had to create a switch. What was a switch? What did he make it out of? Astraea spoke like it should be so obvious. Maybe he just needed to reach a little harder, and the instructions would be there, too. Think about Abeline; think about Protection. A cold certainty flooded through him, like a draft through a cracked door - if he pushed it a little further, he could find it. It was so close. He could almost feel it, like it was real. All he needed to do was wrap his hand around it, draw it out of nothing....
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 11:11 pm
Foramen was happy to be in reserve for this one. He had no idea what Astraea and Sue (Zoo?) were up to, but being in the loop was better than not. Bring the brawn of a group was a decidedly new thing for Kirin, but he resolved to enjoy it while he could. Foramen stood at their backs and looked - well, 'menacing' might be too much to try for, he thought, so he settled for 'malicious and eager to smash some zombies'.
Peering over their shoulders, Foramen tried not to laugh at the message the zombie girl wrote. So his job was to sparkle and the zombie's was to gnash her teeth? Sounded too much like Twilight to him.
He snapped back to attention at Astraea's command, eyeing off the male zombie. Foramen locked eyes with it and grinned, daring it to attack. Foramen wanted to try out his powers, certain there was a way to do it without blacking out at the end.
One eyebrow raised as Sue starting going psychic on them. If the girl was a senshi (of cancer? deadly and disturbing, Kirin kinda liked it) then was Astraea trying to get Sue to create a pen, like Ophelia had done for Foramen?
"The other cat had to barf it up like a furball," Foramen suggested 'helpfully'. And then back to mentally daring the male zombie to attack, before Astraea starting ranting at Foramen to pay attention and be useful and all that other crap.
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 12:06 am
Zombeline looked at the three madmen (and catgirl) in turn. They were staring at her and it was a little freaky. Yes, the zombie was getting worried about people staring at her. She dropped her paper and held her crayon out, stepping in front of Lucas. Because, well, she didn't need Lucas to protect her, when he only had one arm and while she was missing a head... but Abeline wasn't about to let someone else do something that she could do, after all, he'd been silly enough to get his arm bitten on in the first place.
She had the crayon between herself and the deadly threat that they were facing, her destroyed face wasn't giving her all that much depth perception, so she was a little closer to the senshi and the brick-a-cidal maniacs that she would have probably wanted to be.
"Uhhhhhh..."
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 12:46 am
"Thank you, Foramen," said Astraea. "Thank you for that aside. Thank you. That is so helpful. You can't hear it, but a little orchestra is playing a little song of success for your incredible insight. Thank you -- "
Interrupting the stream of sarcasm, something was starting to form inside Sue's hands, which surprised two out of the three -- obviously he wasn't going to have to barf anything up in this instance. Something was starting to glow. This looked bad, and ostensibly would have looked even worse to the Lucas youma, hands and weapon at the ready -- and the energy solidified itself into a henshin pen.
It was the first time that the silver-haired guardian cat had looked even remotely approving.
This didn't last.
"It's not going to work," she said. "She can't even speak. She won't be able to henshin. She's dead. This is not giving us a lot to work with. Let's bury her somewhere to keep her put -- unless you'd like to pull Chronos out your a**."
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:15 am
Abeline's dull eye grew a little wide when the cat-woman suggested burying her.
Aha, she knew that the cat-woman's voice was familiar (only not at all), she was obvious the owner of the cruel voice who had put Abeline and Viridiana in that bizare test and.... well, no, but it seemed about as logical.
One hand strayed to her own jaw and Abeline pushed some loose teeth back in. "Muurhhhggg, um greeh." she waved her crayon around which probably meant "you can try, miss Kitty ears- I'll bite your kneecaps off."
Really, if someone helped realign her jaw, she'd probably be able to speak in a slurred manner, but who hear would know how to do that? Besides, to Abeline it sounded like these guys wanted to either A- kill her and then dig her back up for more zombie fun later or, B- Kill her.... and bury her.
Well at least they had thought about burying her. That was.... nice?
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:58 am
It was-- It had---
HOW. Sue' rational side was unbelieving. In some way, by some means, he'd just... what was the word for this sort of thing? Conjuraging? Materialbobing? It was way flashier than cat-speaking, that was for sure! And now he had this strange object in his hand. Just a little stick, perhaps, but somehow he'd done it. He didn't know what or how or why he could, but dammit, he'd done something, and he had a feeling it was the right thing!
Astraea had a special talent for pride-smashing, however. It's not going to work?
"What! Why the hell not?" Never mind that Astraea had just told him why; oor Sue looked injured to find that his little exercise in conjurbobing had been for nothing. What was he supposed to do now? Tuck the pen in his pocket, save it for a second try later? He couldn't do that, though! There were currents in his mind, insisting: It wasn't his. Because it was hers.
.... The Zombieline's. Great. How the hell could he even give it to her without getting his arm chomped off!
He couldn't get far on these thoughts, however, before there was that name - and it cleared out his head like a broad wave overtaking the shore. It was something... something big, something immeasurable! Without prompting, acting only on impulse (or compulsion, he wasn't sure which), Sue sunk his thoughts into his own mind and reached for it, almost like he had when summoning up the thoughts that brought forth the henshin pen. He had to get it in his hands, had to know--
But it wasn't there. Sue broke free from the mental grapple with a sudden sway and a dizzied look, bringing his hand back up to rub at the star on his forehead.
Where this great thing that was Chronos was unreachable, though, something new was in his mind now. Like a fresh trace on the map, a promise from afar. That same sort of sense he had channeled once to bring them to Abeline, calling him further through the maze of the fallen school.
There were still two zombies - one of whom was somehow more. There was still the pen in his hand to contend with. He had no problem with laying the zombie to the ground like Astraea suggested, except - oh, but gee, that was right, he didn't have a weapon. And from what he could see, neither did Astraea, or that so-called "bodyguard" of a pretty boy. ******** ******** ******** how are you suggesting we go about that?" Sue grumped, watching the zombie pair carefully. "Because I don't know what you've got with you, but I don't feel so great picking a fight with some greenies when I've got nothing but my fists. Unless you've got some nifty way to make some magic hammers, or hell, even better, let's go for a couple shotguns...."
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:22 am
The bright shiny thing that Sue was doing was a justifiable reason to stop watching the zombies, Foramen thought. A ball of energy turned into a henshin pen between Sue's hands. Of course the ******** dead zombie got a clean pen. Foramen got cat spit.
Meanwhile what did this make Sue? If he could make the same thing as the cats, and the cats could take human form, was Sue secretly Suecat? Except Astraea clearly had ears and tail, and Kirin had never seen a trace of any such thing on Sue's person during years (or only months?) of school life.
Such trivial issues were forgotten as talk turned to knocking out the zombies. Foramen perked up and stepped forward. "My turn, then?" he raised a hand, palm facing Abeline. "A little extra damage never hurt a zombie, right?"
The power was thrumming through his veins again, trying to direct itself through him, make itself known. It gave Foramen ideas. Ideas that might result in a broken neck or a little splatter, but as he said, that wouldn't hurt a zombie. Just knock it out for a bit, which was exactly what they wanted.
Still, he waited on Astraea's say-so. Amusing as her sarcastic thanks had been, he didn't need a repeat if she decided she didn't want this potential (dead) senshi so much as scratched.
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 4:51 am
Abeline shifted back a little, intimidated Foramen's show of force, and then, with a grunt she straightened. After all, these guys didn't seem to be evil--- except Sue, commander of the zombie-destroying forces of death, which wasn't so much evil as.... but she was not going to give them a break because of that. After all, she was a zombie and they were just people.... who could be eaten.
She made some more sounds, guttural grunts that translated roughly to "You can try, sparkle-boy." Her and her crayon could take him. Even if she didn't know kung-fu she could take him.
But even so, Abeline knew that this was a fight that she wasn't going to win. She was a mess. A walking mess. But that wouldn't stop her from digging herself a hole. even if it was deeper than she could fill.
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 5:48 am
-He was being ignored for the first point... which was annoying, but not so bad as actually being physically attacked. And then he saw it... The boy was charging his ******** attack!!
And Abeline was pushing ahead of him too. What did she think she could do? Delicate little dancer.
He hadn't ever... seen magic attacks used on real zombies before.. but he imagined it'd ******** them up something serious. Like phoenix down on an 'dead' elemental in Final Fantasy.
He'd made a promise.. and he'd let enough people 'die' already. He wasn't going to let it happen again.
Lucas lunged forward with sheer animalistic (or would that be youmaistic) fury, letting the shovel clatter to the ground as he, half crawled/half flung himself at the legs of the boy. Legs weren't very vital.. but if it could stop him from charging that damn magic attack.. he was sure he could get him to the ground. Rip his face off between his teeth and new fun claws.-
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 6:48 am
At this point Foramen would have been useful had Astraea taught him his attack, though somewhere deep inside him he already knew it. Somewhere Charlie Boyle would have shook his head in depressed sympathy (or just been irritatedly accusatory, it was Charlie) but she hadn't, so he couldn't. Instead she jumped the gun and swung her head towards the charging Lucas and, one finger drawn up to the star on her forehead, directed a sudden beam at him through the v of her fingers.
It knocked him a** over teakettle as he went for Sue's legs, rolling over on the cracked concrete. The beam crackled over his forehead, covering over like a burn scar, knocking him out momentarily. Astraea took her fingers down and waggled them, as though to get rid of latent heat. Lucas lay back, quietly smoking.
"I want him out, not exploded," she said, disgusted. "Come on. Leave him -- he's not a Zodiac. If he's one of mine, I can't read him." If he was a cavalier, Kunzite was welcome to his zombie army. "She can walk behind us so that I don't throw up. Do you know where to go next?" This was directed at Sue.
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 7:23 am
"... WHOA!" Sue was staring at Astraea now - he didn't seem sure that he'd made enough of a fuss over it with the first comment, so he repeated himself with even more shock and awe. "WHOOOOOA."
That? That was ******** cool. That was like... way, way, WAY better than a shotgun. Sue would ******** take Astraea and her forehead laser over a shotgun any ******** day of the week. And he would have told her as much, except he was still rather stuck on the whoa factor.
It didn't even bother him that Lucas had been making a run for him, now. Sure, he'd been a bit wild-eyed at first - having a zombie rush for you when you had nothing but a little bit of plastic in your hand (that didn't even belong to you!) was something of a nightmare for even the most stoic zombie hunters - but damn if the silver-haired girl hadn't put that one down quick!
The boy was considering asking Astraea exactly how she'd managed that pretty little trick - and, in light of all this strangeness that was happening with himself, whether that was something he could do as well - but there was something about the way she snapped around, making calls and asking questions after, that suggested he might be better off if he just shut up and fell in line. Or answered her question, then shut up and fell into line.
"Guess so," Sue reported, his tone unconsciously mimicking a sort of military clip despite the lack of confidence in his words. "Maybe. I've got something, at least...."
Not one of the little ones, either. That big one. That sense that had come on after Astraea had dropped that name - it was the clearest, the strongest in his head. And as long as he was the one that was somehow leading the way, he could pick which way they were heading next, right? And who knew, maybe this was even the best way for them to be going.
Indicating the broad direction that he had in mind, Sue hesitated to glance at Abeline. Would she even be willing to follow them? Was it safe to keep her around? Then again, after seeing what Astraea was capable of, what kind of stupid greenie would it take to even think about trying something?... maybe he shouldn't challenge that. There were some awfully stupid greenies out there.
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:02 pm
Apparently he should have been watching the cat girl...
Before he could notice it enough to attempt to dodge, Lucas was being blasted. Ripped from the ground, he toppled backwards knees over his head as the searing light ripped across his head. Most damage taken as a monster.. it was dull, something you barely noticed. But this.. this burned enough to illicit a scream from the boy as he flopped back against the pavement.
Hair was missing, he could smell the sickening scent of burned flesh, but there wasn't anything particularly he could do about it. Everything went dark as he slipped out of conciousness. Damnit.. even if he respawned.. Abeline would probably be gone by then.-
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 3:37 pm
Never mind the boy who could materialize pretty plastic pens with glowing balls of light techniques- no, that didn't phase Zombeline, nor did the catgirl with freakin' laser beams on her freakin' forehead -- what phased her was the image of Lucas Hendrick's getting knocked on his a**. But Abeline wasn't an angry zombie- okay, she was angry, but she wasn't incapable of thinking around that anger.
She didn't decide to pull out her kilt, declare bravely, that 'today is a good day to die for the Klingon High Command Scotland...' and gurgle out a warcry charging at the confusing, odd people (aside from the vague urge to eat these three, she felt an odd compulsion to see where they wanted to take her...) no, Zombeline knelt next to Hendricks and quietly rolled him over into a neater position. It was a very nurturing caring motion. It seemed to poor Abeline that Hendricks was always getting smacked around by other women. He needed to date her, she'd never smack his handsome, adorable face. At least not with laserbeams. And she was not stroking his poor unconcious chin-- no, if no one saw that, then it didn't happen, okay?!? It was like Hendrick's had been about to try and breakdance his way out of this bizarre situation only the catgirl wasn't so sure about a breakdance competition breaking out. He'd been shot down before his opening move.
"Ohhhh, burrrr gahhh." (Translation: You foolish mortals who can only quake in fear at my wonderous zombie self aren't suggesting that we leave Hendricks, the beached walrus here, are you?) She made a few flailing motions at Hendricks, the catgirl and the glowing ballpoint pen boy and the senshi--- mostly Hendricks. Her lung was slipping out again and Zombeline only caught it out of reflex this time. Duct tape. Abeline turned toward the art-classroom's front, spying some cello-tape on the ground. It was good enough. She quickly secured her bandage and came strolling back to the non-zombies like she wasn't pulling off a long strip of tape and sticking it to her muddy jumper and then proceding too literally cocoon her gaping chest wound. It was a teenager's solution to a zombie problem that didn't involve first-aid.
Even if she had to follow them all around campus, she'd make sure they didn't leave Hendricks here for another zombie to stumble across or worse... for the survivors to maim. After all, her beloved Lucas was probably as undying as her right now and she didn't want him to get worse-looking. And the way the catgirl was talking, was like Sue had a cure or something.... which had something to do with the pen in his hands. Abeline eyed it off suspiciously. If he had a cure for the terminally green, why wasn't he using it already? And why did they need her to talk? And how come there was a wanted criminal in the school? Weren't senshi supposed to be rebels of the law or something? He must have found a way into the campus--- which meant there was a way out. Which meant, she was going to hound their asses until they told her, or cured both her AND Hendricks. And maybe the rest of the students... if there was enough cure-potion.
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