|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 7:56 pm
It had been rather awkward to introduce Tallulah to her butler and her cousin instead of her parents, but Kaatje had gotten past it through sheer iron force of will. She wanted friends, she wanted normalcy again, so she had to do this. She'd briefly explained this over dinner: My parents are dead, they died in the sleeping sickness, in their will I was legally emancipated so I didn't have to go back to Germany, my cousin moved here so he could get closer to his man-crush. Simple things, simply said, but she couldn't look her sort-of friend in the eye as she twirled linguini around the tines of her fork.
But they'd passed the night without weirdness, free of awkward parental questions and general strangeness. She had thrown herself on her bed after an evening of games and general senshi-related conversations, discussion of the monsters they'd seen and battle-stories shared. So it had been exhausting--laughing that much really wasn't ideal for someone who did it so rarely.
She was barely conscious of rolling out the under-bed, barely conscious of falling into her bed in her black pajamas. But she was definitely awake when she heard something scratching on the door to her walk-in closet, blue eyes snapping open.
"Tallulah... do you hear that?"
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 8:12 pm
It was fun to take a night off; to pack it in early and curl up in flannel pj pants and her big Dartmouth sweatshirt and spend the evening talking about being senshi instead of actually being senshi. It was fun to sarcastically play pretty pretty princess and fight over who got to wear the crown and gorge on popcorn and M&Ms and call for pizza ten minutes before midnight. By the time you fell asleep your stomach hurt and you weren't sure if it was because of what you ate or because you'd laughed so much. It was terribly unladylike but after hearing all of Kaatje's recent history, Tallulah was glad the other girl seemed to be having such a good time.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep when Kaatje shook her awake, but knew it hadn't been long. Tallulah's dark eyes snapped open and she peered owlishly through the dark, straining to find the source of the noise. Where was that scratching coming from?
"Yeah, I hear it," she whispered. "You haven't got a cat, have you? Or a dog?"
She was certain she'd have noticed one by now if there was one to be noticed. House pets were hard to hide from Tallulah Cowden.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 8:42 pm
"No," she whispered, "No pets." Once she'd had a dog, but that had been a long time ago, when she lived in a big house in Westchester. It had died while she was away, visiting her grandparents in Germany. Now she just didn't want pets; too much trouble, not enough reward. "It can't be Andrews or Kres, it's... it's got to be something else. Anyway, I wouldn't keep a pet in my closet." It was definitely the closet; she couldn't imagine it being in the hallway, not with having to go through Kreszant first.
She groped for the henshin pen in her bedside drawer, whispered her transformation phrase and stood there as Super Sailor Gunn. "Okay. I'm gonna open the door... You transform up--be ready to hold it down, okay? I can't attack, I can't--this is inside, and I still can't control it--"
The redhead was inching forward, hand extended towards the doorknob.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 8:57 pm
Tallulah frowned worriedly and crawled out from underneath her sheets. "No pets" wasn't something she liked to hear in broad daylight, and certainly not in the middle of the night with something scratching at the closet door. She crouched on the end of the trundle and quietly whispered her henshin phrase.
One phosphorescent flash later, Sailor Europa was ready to receive whatever was going to come barreling out of the closet. She certainly understood Gunn's reluctance to set her own house on fire, so it looked like they were going to have to do this the old fashioned way - with their fists
As Gunn closed her fingers around the doorknob, Europa crossed her fingers and prayed for a small youma. Preferably without too many teeth. A quiet one would be nice, too - Kaatje's cousin was asleep down the hall.
"It went bump in the night," she said quietly, glancing at the other girl encouragingly. "Ready to go bump back?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 6:52 pm
She smoothed out her skirt to dry the sweat off her hands, then reached out to wrap her hand to rip it open.
Inside the closet was a bestial thing. The best word she could think of to describe it was a dog: a starved dog with teeth too big for its mouth, matted fur, with the rear limbs of a human being. It was salivating what looked like blood, chewing on her favorite pair of rain boots. The scratching noise had been the toes of her boots against the door. Europa got at least one part of her wish. The youma was only the size of a grown man, and not the size of the house.
For a long, dreadful moment, the monster didn't notice either girl. Then Gunn--who could only think oh god why is it so quiet--said "Oh my God". The monster stopped chewing, the rubber boot fell from its jaws, and it whipped its head to look at the two senshi.
Then it leapt at her, and the redheaded girl went flying across the room.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 8:28 pm
Europa recoiled at the sight of the thing and then put all of her energy towards not thinking of it as a dog. And it wasn't, not properly, because it was a Youma and some kind of weird bastardization of all that was good and doglike, but it was close enough to make her hesitate, and in that hesitation it had enough time to bound across the room and pin Gunn to the far wall.
"s**t," exclaimed Europa, and made her way quickly over to them. She didn't want to use a pressure attack, not with it on top of Gunn - she made enemies seem heavier, and there was no telling whether or not it would crush the other scout in the crossfire. Instead, she grabbed the beast by its all-too-human haunches and pulled.
No, it was hard to mistake it for a dog from back here. "Let's avoid putting holes in the wall," she grunted and she tugged and it struggled. Once the redhead was free, Europa clung to the creature's back legs and tried to keep it from moving while it tried to kick her off
"I'm gonna freeze it-" she grunted. "Be ready-"
She sprung back and thrust a hand at the youma, which was quick to try to spring again, and hurriedly cried, "Europa deep ocean pressure!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 3:11 pm
She was struggling to catch her breath, to keep the youma's clawed fingers away from her throat. Without the high collar of her turtleneck and bolero, she felt unsettlingly exposed--the same sort of feeling she got form wearing a low-cut shirt in front of men, actually. That was the same sort of animal emotion that this youma wanted, too, though. It just wanted her life force instead of her body.
Whatever. She kicked up as Europa pulled, collapsed to the ground to rub at her throat; it was going to be bruised as hell tomorrow. But then she had to go attack the monster, and she did; without thinking, she grabbed her box of oil paints by its handle and clubbed the youma square in the back. With an unsettling squish, it yelped and looked up at them with empty, hateful eyes; both of the girls could see it clearly struggling to move under Europa's attack. Apparently crushing its spine had done nothing; its claws were still ripping through the plush carpet on Gunn's floor, which was beginning to creak alarmingly.
"This is not good," she cried over the monster's snarls and growls.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 8:48 pm
"What if your cousin hears?" asked Europa as she jumped out of the way of an ill-aimed kick from the youma. The thought of a civilian walking into this fray had struck her cold. Furthermore - how had a youma gotten into Gunn's closet in the first place? Did they just kind of attract this kind of weirdness?
She picked up an aluminum water bottle and swung it at the creature's head. It made a satisfying crack and seemed to disorient it, but it wasn't anywhere near beaten. Europa took another swing, at which point the bottle dented, and then the youma swatted it out of her hands and pounced on her, pinning her to the carpet.
The youma leaned in close, its glittering fangs mere inches from the girl's face. Europa did her best not to scream as she tried to kick at its underside. "Gunn," she squeaked, wincing away from its foul breath. "Gunn, do something."
The youma's breath was dank, like the inside of a cave. It smelled of raw meat, blood, mold, and something dark and suspicious that might have been depression.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:38 pm
Why was this one so... so resilient? It was really starting to piss Gunn off. "At this point I don't really care," she said, snagging one of the youma's legs and yanking. This aggravated the broken spine, drawing a pained scream from between the youma's teeth--right in Europa's face, which Gunn regretted. She pulled again, digging her heels into the carpet; this time, in time with one of Europa's kicks, she succeeded. The youma went flying into her vanity, shattering the heirloom mirror.
It was too loud to hear if anyone was coming; the monster was... weeping, glass shards protruding from its side. Gunn's room looked pretty much like it had been trashed by an angsty tween, and somewhere in the back of her mind she was flipping out over this. Actually, she already seemed to be flipping out--punching the monster, ignoring the glass shards that were getting stuck in her own skin. Kreszant could not sleep through all of this and Andrews had been sent home and god, she could not be found out as a senshi here!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:44 pm
The monster was off her, and Europa, ears ringing, was back in action. She leapt at the creature and rammed the thick toes of her boots into its side, over and over. It was so pathetic, she almost felt sorry for it, in the way you felt sorry for Grendel in Beowulf, until you remembered that it could rip you limb from limb if it wanted to. Which it did.
If Gunn was beyond caring, then Europa too was beyond caring. Getting found out would suck, but getting eaten by a chimera would suck even more. The beast's howls were growing softer, trailing off into whimpers as it got weaker.
"This good enough for you?" asked Europa, kicking it again. She just wanted this to be over, she didn't like kicking things that sounded so pathetic.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:51 pm
Gunn grabbed hold of her box of oil paints and smashed it on top of the beast's head. The whimpering cut off with the disturbing splatch of heavy box on top of it, leaving just black dust. Now it was quiet, so quiet, and for a moment, Gunn was still, just staring at her room. It had been well and truly ruined.
Then she could hear footsteps outside the door, and her blue eyes went wide, wide, wide--"Go civilian," she whispered, but it sounded so loud, "drop your henshin, do it now," and she was almost crying by the time Kaatje stood in the ruins of the room, bloody hand pressed to her chest. It wasn't hard to tell, if you knew what had just gone down, that she was freaking out over something in the battle. What it could be, though, who knew? The battle had gone pretty well, except for the rather mangled state of her right hand and the blooming bruises at her throat and shoulders.
The doorknob jiggled in place, and then the door opened. "Holy s**t," said Kres, green eyes wide. In his surprise, the German accent was even more noticeable. "What happened in here? Cat, is everything okay?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:57 pm
Gunn didn't have to tell Europa to do it twice - she was Tallulah again in a matter of milliseconds, hair a mess, dark bruises blooming on both shoulders, scrapes on her legs. Between staring at the pitch dark of the closet and the rattling door, it was a relief when Kaatje's cousin burst in and turned on the lights.
Tallulah looked at him, wide eyed, and sputtered for a moment, trying to think of something plausible. Oh, this was no good, nothing was going to come to her, except, maybe, wait- she'd just been reading about it earlier-
"B-ball lightning," she stammered. "It came in through the window, like in a movie, and exploded everywhere."
It could happen. She'd read about it on the internet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 3:03 pm
Kres could tell that this was not exactly what happened. Nothing was burned, nothing even looked vaguely burned. There was blood at the open windowsill, trailed out of the closet. "Are you sure that's what happened," he asked as he crossed the room to Kaatje. Her blood was rather dark, arterial blood dark, and he was kind of worried.
"Whatever," he concluded, suddenly, sharply. "We're going to the hospital. C'mon."
The trio proceeded down the stairs--Kres was half-carrying his cousin, and herding Tallulah with the free arm. It made for an interesting trip home the next morning, for sure.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
