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 Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 8:50 pm
At the new base, they were in what passed for rehab while on the job: one in full blown physical therapy, the other clenching a makeshift stress ball in the form of a wadded heap of unused paper towels. It led to a multitude of half conversations and stiff silences.
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hate me?”
“I overheard some of your conversation with Chel.”
“Don’t want to talk about it.”
She smiled a little. “I’m glad you’re making friends either way. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Go blow the sunshine out your a** somewhere else.”
“Did you know the human body can hold about five gallons of blood?”
“I didn’t. Any reason you—”
“It’s more than you think,” he said with a faraway look.
“It’ so much more. Not the same in an infirmary.
Not the same when you’re the patient.”
“Jack, I . . .” She flexed her fingers gingerly,
but it wasn’t the pain that made her wince. “I get it
if you’ll never forgive me. That’s your grudge to bear. But could you ever just,”
move on,
“not drag other people into it? Leave it between us?”
He didn’t say his usual biting retort
(oh are we talking about this now literally a year later
at your convenience how nice of you your courtesy
is as refreshing as always has it been bothering you
I ******** hope so).
Instead he puffed a small sigh and laid back against the cot,
his bangs all but obscuring his eyes as they plastered to his skin with sweat.
“That’s all it’s ever been.
Not my fault if you have bitches with uppity tempers for friends.”
“…I did once. Did you?”
“Please don’t call them that.”
“Please don’t. Why not?”
He lazily rolled his head towards her, his voice monotone
and lacking any of its usual edge.
“Your girlfriend literally threatened to kill me
and your boyfriend tried choking me to death. Pretty soon I bet
I’ll find a way to piss off all the people in your little social circle
into a bloodhunt.” He tilted his head back up to study the ceiling.
“Sounds exciting.”
(He wondered if Ian was still mad at him.
He’d be so lucky to matter that much.)
She gave him a look that bordered on worried;
he was struck by nostalgia when he glanced at it.
“You need to stop it, Jack. It’s been a year
since you got here and longer than that since we broke up.”
There was a hint of strength there that hadn’t existed before, he noted,
but it was wavering and still forming. “I think it’s time we
started living our own lives: not Jack and Lina,
but Jack Hawthorn and Stormy Ortega.”
She was trying to stand up for herself. Adorable.
“I—I know I made mistakes back in high school but…”
She became more passionate, more open about her irritation
in that ungodly nice fashion, a clumsy cross between polite and honest.
“And it’s not like you…But that was years ago,
and we’re different people now, Jack. You agree, right? It’s pointless
to keep acting like it’s some fresh wound you can’t recover from
when you’ve got a whole new life to make for yourself here.”
“Every day since I found out you’d lied to me.”
He coughed himself into a fit of wry laughter.
“There’s nothing new here. It’s still high school:
it’s still about who’s slept with whom, who’s dating whom,
who has the most power and the highest authority, who has the connections,
who has a future and who doesn’t.
The only difference is that some of us get lucky enough to die
before we have to really worry about it.”
(It contradicted what he had told Chel, to give two shits about your life.
It was the same instinct to be contradictory again, to be as apathetic
as possible now that she was showing concern for him
in hopes that maybe she’d keep going.)
“But that’s not like you. You can live, Jack.”
She was turning the pity eyes on again, so he turned himself away
and tried to slip back under the medicated mist.
It wasn’t working fast enough.
“More importantly, you can live without me.”
“Yeah?”
The bite came back to his words, childish and quick.
“How’d you like it if you thought your little midget’d died
for several years, then found out
he’s not only alive but in love with someone else? Eh?
Or better yet,
he won’t talk to you about it, told all sorts of stories
making you into some stupid bimbo he stuck to ‘cause he was lonely
and you were cute,
and just keeps telling you to move on every time you get two minutes together,
starin’ at you like some ********’ shelter pet lookin’ for a forever home?”
That shut her up pretty quick, thank God.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:25 pm
When Jack was able to read for half an hour without causing himself a migraine, Benson put them back into preparations for the "extermination job" as it was. With Fred dead their team was now only at seven members, but she was confident enough that it was still more than enough to eradicate what lied beneath. With Yao more stoic faced than ever, though, and dragging behind as they walked that early morning, it felt more like they were at six able bodies and nothing more.
Jack touched the pack holding his runic bandages unconsciously, making sure they still existed, and then quickly did the same to the goggles that were pressed tightly enough against his eyes that he couldn't have possibly forgotten about them. He was not keen to get torn open again when the end of the mission was so close. Owain murmured supposedly confident assurances, but his mind was as empty as the desert landscape around them. He just wanted this done and over with, Jesus Christ.
Stormy sent silent prayers out and tugged her hood down lower, her eyes constantly darting around. A set of runic daggers were strapped to one leg, while the runic torch bobbed against the other. Defend, she reminded herself. Support. Don't lose anyone else. But the closer they got, the more her skin began to itch. Defend. Support. Don't lose anyone else. Please don't let there be too many bugs.
The sky was growing brighter, and a variety of possibilities still laid in the day.
lizbot I hope this was an okay post to tug you in at! bombs away mon capitan
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 10:40 pm
A single moth fluttered past Stormy, and on its wings the whispering invitation. Come and see. Ahead was the lair, the outside consisting of one known entrance, two suspected entrances, and countless areas where they were going blind and as hopeful as any hunter could be when assigned the Sahara. Inside there was every chance of a literal hornets' nest and that was being optimistic. Something was happening out in the desert, and where there had been a lull the previous year, things were waking up once again. More missions were being directed there and while the body count had yet to reach the disastrous numbers of 2012, there was general sentiment that the situation was somehow worse. There could be a sort of honesty when it came to death in battle, but what waited in the sands was nothing so simple, nothing so clear cut. The moth fluttered ahead, its wings shot through with veins of grey. medigel Send your hunters together or separately in groups through - known entrance - suspected entrance - surprise teehee
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 11:33 pm
Naturally, things would start off with a bug.
Stormy flinched, and a split second later the rest of the team became alert of its presence. A nervous Nuñez's shotgun was already out and pointed at the moth, but Benson made a motion not to move.
"So much for stealth," V murmured as they watched it fly ahead.
Benson studied the lair for a few moments. "Right then. Given that we've had a longer than projected detour," she directed her gaze at Jack, who squinted back without breaking contact, "I'll refresh your memory with some buzzwords: Lair. Clones. Complete cleansing. Bonus: fire. The main entrance is up ahead, but the place is probably a sprawling maze under there, so we best split up to cover the most ground. You all got your pendants still?"
The other seven nodded or grunted. At this point, the pendants had all but been glued to their skins like the lifelines that they were.
"Right. Yao, McQueen, you're with me at the front door. V, scout one of suspected spots, see where it leads you. Nuñez and Ortega—"
"Miss Alicia, I'd like to go alone," Stormy said suddenly. Realizing how it looked to her new Moon friend, she quickly amended, "The moth, ma'am, it might be something. I'm Mist, I can handle it by myself."
The lead gave her a look, her mouth twisting. "If you think you can handle it. Carla, you're with V—"
"You're kidding, right?" V protested. "She's already half-cocked and shaking. I'd like to get my stuff done without her firing at every other damn shadow."
Nuñez had the grace to look ashamed of herself as Benson growled a sigh. "Hawthorn, follow her—and for God's sake don't ******** around this time. Carla, with us." She paused and glanced at Stormy. "Watch yourself, kid."
Stormy touched two fingers to her temple in salute. "Yes'm!"
They parted at different intervals: a pleased V and a still squinting Jack making their way towards a suspected entrance; an annoyed Benson leading McQueen (grimly determined), Nuñez (anxious and eager to prove herself), and Yao (stoic and silent) towards the known entrance; and one lone Stormy who, after tightening and winding her scarf so it wouldn't fly about, braced herself and sought after the moth.
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 11:36 pm
The group of four approached the lair's doorstep. No one had a chance to make comments about things being too quiet or too empty; fifteen steps in, bodies began to rise from the sand and attack. For a Famine lair, it was almost a relief for something so mundane to jump out at you. There was time enough for a too easy comment, though, right before the floor began to churn and come alive under their feet. --- A mule lies dying in the sand, not far from the area Jack and V were supposed to investigate. Worm like things writhe just below the skin, and as they watch, a richly green vine bursts out of the creature's neck. The mule's cries grow louder and more desperate as the scent of blood and piss and animal fear fill the air. --- The moth travels for quite some distance, leaving the lair behind it. It lands on the shoulder of a thin, wasted figure standing starkly against the horizon.
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:22 am
It wasn't anything unexpected. The front door was always where the fun started, and the two pairs of Eclipse teams were ready to party.
Yao, fueled by the hardened wrath of losing Fred, skewered with extreme prejudice and with little attnetion beyond what was in front of him. Nuñez's nerves didn't impede her accuracy as she shot round after round of cover fire at the clones, carefully avoiding where Benson threw herself into the fray where she was at her most comfortable, all rallying cries and blurred fists. McQueen stayed close, whirling his sickles to stave off attacks where he could.
It was not their first mission working together, but at least half were still hopeful it wouldn't be their last.
---
"Jesus . . ." V covered her mouth and tried to breathe through her mouth, but it did no good; now she was tasting it. "What a mood killer."
Jack grunted and tugged his scarf over the lower half of his face. The smell wasn't so foreign to him anymore, though he wanted to avoid more vomiting incidents while on the job. (Don't think about what happened, just focus on the mission.) "Ever seen something like this before?"
"Maggots in a corpse, sure. The vines are new, though."
They kept a distance of twenty feet from the flailing mule, studying it with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.
"We need to get moving," Jack prompted after a moment, turning to continue towards the supposed entrance. A part of him definitely wanted to investigate, but he was more cautious now thanks to his experience. Maybe on the way out he could check out the grub farm, maybe get a souvenir for this shitty mission.
(Here, Leslie, Chel, I saw these worms and thought of you. Here, Finn, I got you a piece of a** like you've always wanted. Here, Ian, have some piss and piss off.)
"Yeah."
V followed with slow, backwards steps. The cries were getting to her. Grimly, she summoned her crossbow, took aim, and shot an icy bolt at the mule to put it out of its misery.
---
Light footprints in the sand trailed behind her. The further she got from the lair, the more anxious Stormy became. Maybe it was a bad idea to follow it--or a bad idea to do so alone.
< < You wished to prove yourself. Being safe is no longer an option. > >
Evan's gonna kill me. Well, if Gale doesn't first.
< < They do not matter here. > >
Stormy stopped a decent distance from the figure. Her scarred arm twitched at her side just by the hilt of the runic daggers. Breathe.
"Watching the sun rise?" she asked conversationally.
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:49 am
Benson's voice was the first to go missing. Looking around, she was not longer in sight. Yao was the second. The bodies of their attackers began to thin as they dropped like abandoned puppets into the sand. --- The entrance was there, a trick of shadow and rock made it easy to pass over. A hidden switch to allow entry made it still more difficult to find, but the two were capable hunters and not without certain experience. The way down was appropriately narrow and dark until it opened into a number of chambers, lit by the glowing forms of massive insects that paid little mind to the two. There was a room of many dried plants and seeds, and another full of massive cocoons, and one more with two human bodies laid out neatly on tables. They were neatly marked with lines and unknown runes, an esoteric butchers chart mapped across their flesh and, looking in the mouth, under flaps of cut skin, beneath it as well. Another room, and this one was sealed shut. --- The figure turned, it's cloak a a tattered blanket of moths, their wings slowly moving, almost giving her the semblance of breathing. A small group took flight from her shoulder, exposing a section of muscle for a moment before another moth landed and was absorbed into the creature's body, forming a layer of skin. The processes repeated in variation across her form, and sometimes, a glimpse of grey, snaking lines could be seen under the living garment. The horseman stared at Stormy and stated, "You approach me alone."
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 1:51 am
"Alicia!" Nuñez's frantic call was repeated several times between shots that didn't reload fast enough. "Eric! No, no, no—" The rest was cut off as a clone struck at her back.
McQueen sliced it in two. He was no longer a smiling rent-a-Santa but an expressionless, practically serene destroyer. No-one could hear his rapid heart beat or thirsty chatter of his weapon.
"Don't count 'em out yet," he said calmly as the sickles entangled themselves in another clone. "We almost through, darlin', don't stop now."
Nuñez made a strangled noise at the back of her throat as she shoved one of them off her and blasted it point blank until the buckshots of energy sprayed out like over dramatized blood. Some clones were starting to just fall like lifeless puppets, but it didn't make them any less of a target to her. She remembered the rule: double tap.
---
Jack had never known V to be anything less than a chatterbox, so it was a welcome surprise to see that she did keep quiet while on the job. They travelled with minimal conversation, checking their backs and double checking their fronts. It made for slow going, but at least they made it through the entrance in one piece.
If he wasn't so married to his work, he would have considered a transfer. All assortments of objects were open for study here, and Jack's first impulse was to turn into a shoplifter and stuff his pockets with their apparent interests. This was practically Christmas to him, every room an awaiting horror to be happily discovered.
V held her phone out in one hand, the crossbow still in the other, and began rapid-fire picture taking as she soundlessly moved about. "Insect lamps," she muttered. "Now I've seen everything." When she moved to the bodies, her face wrinkled distastefully. "You think they did this while they were still alive?" she whispered as she worked. "That sounds about right. I mean, yours weren't artists, but then again you're already a piece of work, haha..."
Jack made a noncommittal sound. His attention was on the cocoons, one of which he dared to rest his palm against.
"Door's locked," V announced off to the side in a stage whisper. "I'm going to guess you didn't find a skeleton key over there. What are you doing?"
"Checking something," he replied before gently cutting into the cocoon with his weapon. He was reminded of freshman Biology, where he had made it a game of how cleanly and quickly he could empty out his toad of its intestines.
---
"Mmhmm." She watched the moths and became nearly mesmerized by their movements. The amount of danger was what kept her alert. "In my experience, numbers don't always work with you," Stormy replied with a hint of sadness. "Sometimes you just need one."
The more the moths reformed and melted, the more she remembered how the bugs had made a nest in her body down, down below, in another mission, another life almost. It had been pitch black when they infested and befriended her in her pointless journey. Stormy wondered if, had someone been able to get a light down there, they would have seen something similar: bug becoming muscle becoming bug becoming skin becoming alive becoming dead again. Her scalp began to itch at the thought.
"Are you the one making those clones?" she asked.
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 10:15 pm
Soon the bodies littered the floor, sinking slightly down into it with the rest of the room, including the hunters. Their faces had the same general features but they had a half formed nature. The ease in which they were taken down was also not particularly promising. Failures. Definite failures, left here as a mindless trap. They sunk further still. --- The cocoon opened with a wet snap and then reached out to pull Jack in with spindly arms and legs, both human and insectile in appearance. At the center were faces merged together, a multitude of eyes blainking out at him and mouth gaping hungrily. A hand wrapped around his own and began to melt swiftly against his gloves until it slid underneath and against skin to begin the process of merging with him, making him part of its monstrous form. Other limbs lash out wildly, seeking to do the same. --- "Numbers," there was a dry, rasp of a laugh, "are the only advantage The Blood has. It has spilled across the world and there are many many where we are few and ancient and powerful." The creature does not answer her question, instead turning its back to her once more and asking, "But how many are the one? How many lives are worth your own?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 11:25 pm
When McQueen realized they were getting nowhere, he decided enough was enough. He grabbed Nuñez by the shoulder and yanked the little Moon up as hard as he could to stop her from sinking. As she fired off another round and protested being dragged, the chain of his weapon looped around her, the discomfort of someone else touching it barely a blip on the radar.
"Move it!" McQueen barked as he began to try and trudge his way further into the lair, using his end of the sickles to both drag the hunter with him and fend off stragglers.
---
He would swear up and down afterwards that his yelp hadn't been girlish, just cracked under stress.
The very thought of being touched (violated) again repulsed him to his core, and he immediately began to thrash around wildly with his weapon, heedless of anything else. One latched onto his neck, another his cheek, quickly, quickly muting his senses. All he could do was blindly stab at the thing, trying to force holes through its body like the lid of a jar so he could breathe.
V tucked her phone away and was on the scene in seconds, her crossbow at the ready. Jack was moving around too much for her to get a proper aim, however, and she cursed. "Benson told us not to ******** around, remember?" she said, one eye squinted against her weapon. "Hold still."
If he heard her, he wasn't showing it. Sighing, V and her partner pooled their focus together, waiting, waiting—and then an ice arrow flew at the thing in cocoon, nicking Jack's shield in passing.
---
The Blood. She made careful note about the term and pressed her lips together in thought. It was a shame, really: the question it had asked was a fair one (one she often asked herself in fact), and had they not been set on different sides, Stormy wondered if maybe they could have had a pleasant and interesting conversation delving deeper into mysteries of life. Horsemen were a fascinating people, enmity aside.
"I don't know," she answered, taking an experimental step back. (Lies, she did know: absolutely none.) "I've taken one human and countless bugs, but it still feels imbalanced. How many moths are worth yours?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 11:58 pm
A sudden, abrupt yank on his foot nearly toppled McQueen but solid ground was only a step away. A narrow set of stone stairs led down, a wider corridor went on straight ahead. --- The cocoon closes abruptly, all limbs snaking back inside. Jack was left with painful welts everwhere he was touched, but otherwise remained unharmed. --- "Would you like to see?" The cloak began to disperse around them, a swirling eclipse of moths.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 1:07 am
Heavy pants and half-breathed curses were all that was exchanged between them for a few moments. McQueen kept eying Nuñez, half expecting her to dive back into the sand and look for the others, but the woman was rooted to her safe spot with a look of abject horror.
Their leader was gone. Dead or not, this mission was already off to a bad start.
"C'mon, darlin'," McQueen said with a sympathetic firmness. Unwinding the chains around her, he looped a portion around his arm and forced them to continue on, wordlessly taking them down the steps when they reached the fork. Nuñez ghosted behind the much taller man, her shotgun quivering between her hands.
---
He might as well have had the Famine horseman strip him of his skin again. Jack endured V's ill gained affectionate taunts as he checked himself, teeth grit from the pain. His body may have recovered extraordinarily well, but god damn it didn't make the pain or humiliation easier to endure.
"You just can't keep them off you, huh?" V said with a grin, and he wished he had the energy and will power to strike her face with his weapon. "I know you mentioned kinks, but wow—"
"Shut the hell up," he hissed. "Did you find another door or not?"
"Well, I got interrupted by you needing to be saved again. You're also welcome, my not so little kotya."
(That was the part he loathed most about this whole mission, honestly: his own inability to be independent.)
With a growl scraping through his dry throat, Jack circled past the cocoons and began studying the seeds and dry plants, wondering if there was a connection to the clones or the corpses. Harvesting of some sort was clearly evident. Meanwhile, still for all the world just amused with herself, V went back to examine the sealed door.
---
The hair on her arms rose in silent alarm. She could imagine various protests in her head: Gale's concern and fear and disapproval conveyed in one squeeze of her hand, Evan's shouts about keeping her head down and staying with a partner and you promised you would stay safe ringing in her ears. What would Nevada had said? Maybe nothing. Maybe at the end of her life she would have wanted to watch this happen. What about Candace, her old mentor? Maybe she would have been proud, or maybe she would have disapproved with all the rest. Tuck? Tuck was far away and always would be and he didn't deserve any complaints about what she did. Lex? Oh, the hilarity.
In some random collision and mixture of thoughts, she suddenly understood why Bella acted so rashly in New Moon: It felt amazing to defy the worries of people who couldn't stop you, even if it was all in your head. After all, a great man had once said that just because it happened in your head didn't mean it wasn't real.
So while the collective voice inside and her partner and every square inch of her body said get out, Stormy found herself smiling a little as the moths began to unravel from the horseman's cloak. She could handle herself. And if she couldn't, well, it would simply prove what they all knew anyway: she didn't belong here.
"I'm curious," she admitted, a hand resting atop the handle of her runic torch.
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Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 4:03 pm
Down the stairs and through a narrow corridor, they finally found the other two when it opened up into a large chamber. All across the ceiling was a clear sort of membrane that dipped and stretched in places. From what such, Yao stared down at them, face pressed against the thin, slick material, features distorted by it but still recognizable. Benson was too much further. Several others were there, one a Hunter, three more were likely civilians. There was a goat collected above as well. They were all very dead and very well maintained. --- V eventually found a tiny, well-hidden flap at the top of it. It was large enough to fit her hand through, but not much else. --- Nest's body began to unfurl into more and more small wings and bodies, enough to blacken the sky and surround Stormy. But they did not move in to attack. Softer than ever, the creature's voice whispered, "That answer changes as all things should. Right now the answer is six. Six little lives upon my doorstep."
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Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 8:56 pm
Nuñez bit her lip at the sight, growing pale. McQueen surveyed the large chamber grimly but quickly. A storing room? He was reminded of bugs in amber, frozen in time and perfectly preserved until cracked open by scientists in a cold, isolated lab.
"Carla," he said, his voice quiet but snapping her back to reality as easily as if she had been rebuked, "watch the entrances. I'm gettin' them out."
She replied with an unnecessary but meaningful c**k of the gun, and he got to work cutting the membrane open over the hunters first as she stood watch. Maybe it wasn't too late to pretend to be a movie hero.
---
"Ah...vot." She beckoned Jack over and slid her hand into the flap as he grouched his way over, weapon still in hand, a scowl still set in his features from the welts. His coat pockets now had several specimens from the sundry plants and seeds for (hopefully) future inspection.
---
She glanced at the cocoon of moths around them and, in spite of the growing sense of claustrophobia, found the sight beautiful: a whirling and absolute kaleidoscope of night within day. Bugs, bugs, always bugs, but moths? Moths had never been anything but charming, homely cousins of butterflies to her.
Her fingers wound around the runic torch and searched for the switch. (Like moths to the flame.)
Suicide, a voice warned.
Might be dead anyway, she threw back.
That wasn't the deal. Those Not There threatened to crush her with the weight of their ghostly concerns again, but she pushed them back.
"How are you taking care of them?" Stormy asked, unconsciously mimicking the horseman's soft tone. It seemed appropriate, given that they were in their own bubble, separated from all else even for just a moment. "By making them live through copies? Why?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 9:06 pm
Through the sealed door, something began to shift and move. --- Laughter, all around her, "You are small. You do not see the swarm when you focus on the bees. These lives I will end and use, though you I shall spare for now. You know not the worth of your own life, but consider these six the cost." The moths began to thin out from her around her, flying in the direction she'd come from, toward the lair.
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