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 Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2024 9:55 am
”So a slightly juiced up human in a pretty little dress,” Pan muttered to herself, snorting scornfully. “Got it.”
Mentally, she’d already dismissed the knight as worthless except as a form of target practice. People were people, some were smarter or more cunning. It didn’t matter to her. Technically she was still human too.
She was already moving to follow when Rakovanite paused and turned to stare at her. The long seconds of being stared at and then told to go peek in a window or stay where she was rankled. Just because she’d mused about the possibility of an upstairs window didn’t mean she was unwilling nor a coward. Cheeks flushing in anger, she kept her mouth tightly shut. No point in speaking out of turn and winding up as an office throw rug. But she did follow him closely and when he turned, she took the moment and opportunity to slip by him, heading straight for the staircase.
Nose twitching from the layers of dust and cobweb that coated the place, she did her best to stifle a sneeze. As she stood looking up at the closed door, she found herself wondering what on earth was going through the knight’s skull. They were inside. She was up there somewhere and likely had a means of escape. So why not run while they were forced to waste time climbing? It would be so easy to slip out and depower and hide. Just what was the game plan here?
Sighing softly, she set her foot on the bottom step, prepared to climb.
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2024 12:23 pm
He wasn't surprised or annoyed to see the Senshi still behind him, but she looked like she might have felt... something- frustrated? Rakovanite couldn't say why. Maybe the process was just taking too long for her tastes. That would be understandable. It could indeed be tedious dealing with an enemy who wouldn't just accept the fight and get over with it. He wouldn't hold her impatience against her.
She brushed by him, and since Pan was an adult perfectly capable of recognizing risk and making her own choices, Rakovanite did nothing to stop her.
He just kept at her heel as they ascended the stairs. There was probably still some chance that it wasn't only one Knight waiting for them on the upper floor. Maybe she had friends who could conceal themselves. Or a cat who could do it for them. Maybe, maybe, maybe... He'd already told Pan to express caution since they couldn't be sure exactly what they were facing- ever, really; it didn't need repeating. She was smart enough to understand.
All that stood between them and her was a closed door. Pan had taken the lead. If that was her choice, he would support it, only standing ready behind her as that last obstacle was pushed out of the way.
The room beyond was as dark as anywhere else. Musty with stagnant air and layers upon layers of filth that had accumulated over years, probably. Shadowed blobs near the corners of the room might have been old shelving or some type of furniture. It was hard to tell. But it shouldn't have been that hard to pick out the pale colors of a Knight uniform, even through the darkness. He didn't see her anywhere, didn't see anything of significance.
But there was the softest scuffle of noise, a ghost of fabric brushing over wood, and then the louder, resounding pliiink, plink! of something rolling across the floor. A metal can, or a glass-?
With a sharp inhale, Rakovanite snatched for Pan's arm, ripping her backward though the doorway they'd just entered and barely even thinking about where they'd land beyond that. That clinking sound erupted into a roar, sending out a vicious wave of heat that they barely even had an instant to register as Rakovanite jerked them into a teleport that sent both of them sprawling onto the sidewalk cement some two blocks away from the building they'd just been in.
The heat chased them. His ears rung. He could smell it- smoke and gas and burning. Needles prickled at the creases in the fabric of his coat. His face stung, like he'd been too close to a fire that had gotten a lick of him.
But otherwise... otherwise it did not seem like he was grievously wounded. His limbs worked, and they were successfully somewhere else, so that seemed like a good sign. ...Pan had been in front of him. Barely more than a few inches, but Rakovanite had no idea how much a few inches mattered when trying to outrun a bomb. He snapped himself upright, fumbled to find Pan's shoulder and whirled her to face him. "Are you hurt?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2024 8:02 pm
Pan was The stairwell was dark, dusty and more thn a little perplexed. The stairwell was dark, dusty and narrow. Had she been in the knight's place, she would have trapped the stairs to turn them into a kill chute. But these were just... old stairs.
So did that make the knight more or less clever than a General and a corrupt senshi? She couldn't say. She was reasonably sure that the knight was alone, she didn't think cats could selectively tamp down auras. Or could they? She made a mental note to track down a cat sometime and question them.
By the time they'd made it to the door, Pan remained perplexed with the added zing of being at the end of her patience. Shoving open the door, she stalked inside, nerves on edge. More dust and darkness and shadows. She could feel the damn knight but she couldn't figure out where exactly she was hiding. The corrupt turned her head slightly, determined to not be at odds with her General. She'd swallow her pride and ask his advice because she was completely at a loss.
The harder plinking noise that rattled across the floor distracted her. She heard Rakovanite inhale sharply, felt his hand grip her upper arm, yanking her away. That was all she had the time to process before the world around them erupted in heat and fire. Mouth opened to scream as a hot shard sliced across her cheek, Pan wondered if this was how she would die. Sentenced to burn forever and ever...
Only, she found herself enveloped in blackness for a breath before tumbling and rolling across cool cement. The cool night air stung her skin and her cheek felt as if it was burning. Laying where she'd landed, Pan closed her eyes and coughed, wanting to rid her lungs of the reek of gas and smoke. ******** hell. That had been a bomb. The ******** knight had bombed them!
Forcing herself into a sitting position, Pan stared at her singed gloves, the little tatters in her fuku that hadn't been there when they'd gone out to hunt. Her face hurt like hell, but not in a melted flesh kind of way. At least not that she could tell. A quick wipe across her cheek made her want to scream and blood came away.
When the General grabbed her shoulder and turned her, Pan's eyes were wide with shock and blood oozed from a cut across her cheek. Her face was slightly burned, something like a bad sunburn. Mouth working silently as too many thoughts tried to escape all at once, she didn't quite register his question. Then, taking a deep breath, she tried again.
"I think I'm only singed, but my face hurts like hell," she rasped. "If it was melting off, I think it would hurt more, wouldn't it?"
She was already testing her limbs and had concluded that nothing was broken.
"What about you? Are you all right?" the question spilled out before she could stop it. If he'd gotten hurt protecting her, she'd never forgive herself.
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