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Otto stood. Dumbfounded.

"What the ******** was that!?" Did Maebe have any answers? She was joking around again. Did she!? "Her eyes were ********' black!"

He held his head, his mind going through the details of what he'd witnessed. "Are you okay?" He asked Maebe, trying to pry himself away from his own problems.

"Not even close to it." She mumbled. Her shield was hanging on by a thread, and she was in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. There was nothing about this that was okay.

"I told you, Sasha's not in her own body. So this body is probably like, superhuman or something evil or - I don't know. I really don't. The only thing I do know, is-"

She turned her head just enough to look at him, and gave him a regretful smile. "You've got bad taste in women, sweetheart."

Cami was there, and Maebe felt a weight that she hadn't realized she'd been carrying, lift. Suddenly, she could lie there and let somebody else take care of her, for the first time in too long. She knew she couldn't get used to it, but just this once..

"Yeah. We should. And get me a healer, please? And a stiff drink." She wanted to ask for more. So much more.

Oh God it hurt seeing them together. Watching Otto lift Maebe up into his arms like he cared about her made everything inside of Cami feel like she was back in the infirmary after being set aflame to cleanse her of the worms. Certainly she felt like she was on fire, color flushing in and out of her face as her brain and stomach churned opposite each other. Part of her wanted to turn away and huddle beneath a table, hugging her knees to her chest, being utterly pathetic.

The rest of her was a Hunter. One who wasn't going to leave another behind because Otto had happened to pick up the more preferable handful between the two. Pulling off her sodden scarf she nonetheless reached down to tie Sasha's wrists together in front of her, propping the butt of the umbrella's handle against the woman's chest. This way they would both be kept out of the wet and hopefully that would mean she wouldn't wake up any time soon.

Trying to be objective, trying not to get her heart tangled up too far again, she looked to them both. "Where should we be taking her?"

It was with great relief that the infected finally fell, twitching a few times before even that came to a halt as well, becoming nothing more than a sodden mass of rot lying on the drug store floor. With the threat gone, Thomas thought that he might desummon his weapon, and then changed his mind and kept Jaida out instead, a decision that had her humming faint approval in his mind, however disdainful.

Shaking his head to rid it of the build up of water in his head, he was about to turn towards the gathered civilians when something else caught his attention. The light that settled down around him made no visible difference, though in his head, his weapon informed him that his shield had been replenished. Turning towards Horace, he gave the other man a wide grin.

"Ah, thank you! I do hope you did not waste such a gift on me, though, if you yourself are in need." He gave the other man a quick glance over, now that he could without an immediate threat baring down on them.

"And yet somehow you manage to retain such good looks even in these circumstances." He let out a small laugh, before then moving towards the civilians with Horace, a glance going towards Lex as well. "Once we have moved them to the rink, would we be better off to go back to base? It seems that the s**t is really starting to hit the fan, here." And he still had no idea where Chance had gone off too, though he had to hope that he was safe, wherever that was.

At Horace's question, "Bella" began to nod rapidly. "It's Jeanine, actually." She said, quietly, her voice nearly drowned out by the patter of water against the ground. "My name is Jeanine. He..." She glanced at Tommy, "Has been calling me Bella." For some reason, it seemed important to her that she clarify this situation now.

"Thank you..." She uttered then. "Thank you for helping us." She was shivering, Tommy could see, but there was nothing he could really offer to her to keep her warm. His own jacket was sodden through, and the drug stores merchandise was surely in the same condition. The umbrella's, one of which Tommy would certainly grab on the way out, to offer to her.

"Okay, if we are all ready to go, I think we should move out." He smiled, and began to lead the way out of the store and back out into the mall proper.

-----

The trip to the ice rink was, thankfully, fairly uneventful. The announcements were, as usual, quite foreboding, but Tommy tried to keep himself in good spirits anyways. He was not, actually, one hundred percent sure where the ice rink was, but Jeanine kept him on course, and eventually, they arrived, fairly unscathed, to the area that looked like it had been painted with blood.

"Ah, this is....not what I was expecting." He said, quietly as he turned towards Horace and Lex, "This is the safe place we are meant to be?"



HP: 33
Charge: 3/3

Buffs: Mist-rolling AGAIN for buff /sigh
Light weapon (using close range knuckles and not crossbows) double damage against speedy type

She replaced it with another bandage, beaming and admiring his face. And, also, his arms.

She'd closed her eyes just long enough to lose track of who was where, so when the world fell out from under her she jolted, startled by the sudden change. It took her a minute to realize what had happened, and was happening. Otto was carrying her, because she was hurt. It was a nice gesture, but the warm sentiment was cooled by previous actions, and she looked up at him in confusion, mixed with a pang of hurt. She could tell he needed to apologize, because this couldn't have turned out remotely the way he'd thought, so she accepted his apology with an understanding nod.

But that was as far as it went.

"I'm hurt, but I can walk." Her voice cracked with pain. She felt his exact degree of warmth against her body, and the way she molded against it. She could tell how easily it would be to close her eyes, curl up against him, and - and that was why she was slowly uncurling, setting her feet down on the floor and giving him a grateful pat on the back. "Come on. You can make sure I don't get ganked by a zombie on the way there." Because all she needed was one good, final swipe - and she'd be done. Despite how much it hurt to be between Cami and Otto in that moment - (because of how good it felt, how warm and inviting and familiar and God help her -) she needed them there, right on either side of her, to protect her until somebody could slap a band-aid or two across her open wounds.

Cami had Sasha in her arms, and she'd fixed her up to be more of an umbrella holder than an unconscious body. When Cami spoke, Maebe's attention turned to her and to that fact, and she grinned at how it looked.

Take a picture to show Sasha later? Yeah. She took her phone out to snap the shot even as she spoke. "Ice rink. She might be infected, in addition to whatever the hell is wrong with her otherwise." Snap. Picture perfect. "And hopefully somebody over there has some bandages. If not, you guys can just surround me like a barrier for the rest of this mission." She was joking, but oh, how good it sounded.

It was hard to concentrate on anybody around him when his already compromised vision was made further so by the water that began to fall down from above, running in rivulets over his eyelid. On top of that, his body had begun to itch, seeming to spread from a certain red mark on his shoulder....

He chose to ignore it. For now, other than the itch, he felt fine. Normal. There was no reason to worry. With Peyton's guard, he was able to avoid most of the incoming attack from the infected, and leaping in again, he began slashing away at its middle, before punctuating the attack with a spear like thrust.


HP: 54
Damage: 18
Charge: 3/3

Armored HP: 5

Honestly, Hope's interpretation was pretty accurate. Not that Hot Topic really offered stuff QUITE dark enough for him, these days. There was too much color and he was just not that into neons, okay? Okay.

"Byron," he said, offering her a hand clad in fingerless leather gloves, because of course he was. "Not really, like. I never really thought this much about the consssequences of the pending supernatural invasion? And I was kind of hoping vampires would be first."

The words were flippant, but Byron's words came out all wobbly. He scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeves. "Do you think it's safe? At the rink? Like it says on the speaker?"