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 Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 6:55 pm
It was a perfect night for a walk: warm, but not hot, with a light wind and a clear, star-filled sky. Even in the city there were a couple of constellations visible, as well as the odd airplane or weather balloon. The first two blocks were bliss. Tara sighed softly, not wanting to disturb the relative quiet; it was never silent in the city, but this was almost as good. She had actually forgotten what it was like to go for a walk late at night, in her pajamas. She had forgotten how much she loved it, forgotten how much she loved a lot of things.
For a moment, she even forgot the other things that liked to walk around after dark. She turned a corner, running her hand along a length of chain link fence. From somewhere nearby came a piercingly screeching sound, like nails on a chalkboard but ten times worse. Tara’s hand clutched the fence. She dropped her box. Slowly, quietly, she bent down to pick it up, trying to free her hand from crisscrossed wires of the fence.
Then she ran. Her battle instincts were gone, but she remembered how to run. She didn’t scream or cry, though she wanted desperately to do both. All she could do was focus on running.
Unfortunately, she was running in the wrong direction.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:49 pm
There was always one sound that put Chaonis' nerves on high alert, and sent him flying toward the promise of battle. A sound that meant there was danger, something the Senshi of that very sphere could always appreciate. He thrived on it, and it pulsed fire through his veins.
A blood curdling scream, straight out of a horror movie.
He heard someone screaming nearby, and hopped from the roof top he was on to the next one. He landed on the roof and was running almost before both feet hit the roof. One fluid motion, graceful now in all his practice, but never losing that rough edge. That wild, careless way he threw himself across the large gaps without a thought or the slightest hesitation.
Looking down, he saw the source of the screaming. A young woman scrambling down the street near a fence. And a youma nearby, except it looked like it was about to cut off her path. Did he know that girl? He didn't take too long to figure it out, leaping down with a yell and landing hard on the youma's back. His buttwings did nothing to soften the fall, but it was probably worse for the youma than him. It was large, though, and surprisingly strong. It threw him off and he crashed to the ground near Tara, shaking his surprise off.
"Oh hey, I know you," he said, far too casually, as he got to his feet.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 9:24 pm
When had she started screaming? Tara's mind had started the instant she heard the noise, but somewhere along the line that hadn't been enough, and her body joined in. She was crying too, trying her best to get away from... well, from whatever it was. She didn't have to see a youma to know a youma. And if she was imagining things and there wasn't anything there, she'd have a nice laugh over it when her heart rate came back to something approaching normal.
She reached the corner, her voice dropping off, her sobs subsiding. A few seconds later, so did the youma. Tara backed up against the fence and hugged her box, too confused and scared to do anything else. She wasn't even sure if this was real, or if she was lost in another nightmare.
Then, a senshi entered the scene from above. The youma flailed, but didn't seem too perturbed. The senshi greeted her. It was almost surreal. Tara pinched herself, to see if she would wake up. She didn't. She looked from the senshi to the youma, then back to the senshi again.
"Hello again," Tara said, and then she screamed again.
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 1:46 pm
Chaonis nearly jumped out of his skin when she started screaming again, leaping at her and clamping his hand over her mouth even as the youma stared them down, making ready to charge at them again.
"Stop that! I'm here to help you! What the hell is wrong with you?!"
He tugged her out of the way and shoved her into a corner, aiming to give her something to hide behind while he focused on the youma. The hulking beast slammed the back of its hand into the side of his head while his attention was drawn, and he was sent flying sideways before he slammed into something and hit the ground hard.
For a moment, it looked like he was unconscious. And, for a moment, he was.
The youma moved toward the fallen senshi, growling as it sniffed him. Chaonis groaned, disoriented, eyes rolling a bit as he looked toward the feet of the youma in front of him. He reached for it as it tried to pick him up off the floor, using its strength against it. It yanked him up, he grabbed its ankle, and for a moment they were a connect wheel. The youma pitched backwards and landed with a thud, and Chaonis fell on top of it, still dazed.
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 2:32 pm
Tara coughed in surprise as the hand came down over her mouth. She wasn't sick- not physically, anyway- but it it made him think twice about gagging her, well, that wouldn't hurt. For a moment she considered biting the hand that saved her, but decided that it probably tasted terrible.Who knew what else he'd been punching? His hands probably tasted like youma dust.
She was mad at him, even before he shoved her aside. It was easier to feel angry at someone else than it was to feel mad at herself, or guilty. As for fear, she'd been living with it for far too long already, and she'd had enough. So it was rage or bust, and both the youma and the senshi got to be on the receiving end of months of bottled-up emotions.
"I didn't ask you to save me!" she shouted back, her voice hoarse from screaming. "If you're saving me that means I need to be saved!"
Having delivered that bit of questionable logic, Tara used a pile of discarded boxes to pull herself to her feet, just in time to see her savior fall. Hard. She winced in sympathy automatically, but didn't move. In her mind, she was still screaming, and her brain hadn't gotten to the bit where she ran away.
Then the youma picked up the senshi, and Tara knew that running wasn't an option, at least not yet. Her life was in danger, but so was his, and he'd saved hers at least twice already. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't at least try to help. Briefly, she wondered how she'd lived with herself up until that point. The moment passed quickly, and Tara grabbed an empty cardboard box from behind her, striking the youma on what she could only assume was an elbow.
"Hey, let him go!" she yelled. For a coward, she seemed to have a hell of a death wish.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 11:37 am
"I hate to break it to you, but you DO need to be saved!" He snapped back in return. She was yelling at him for rescuing her?! He had gotten that a few times from people, but it always just made him want to leave and let them handle it for themselves. If they were so mad about him risking his safety and wasting his time just for them.
It made him angry, just as quickly as she had gotten there.
Of course, none of that had helped him in the fight, as he was now laying on top of the youma and neither seemed to be too aware of what was going on. Chaonis pushed himself up, though, wobbling, and heard her yelling again. If she was yelling at him again, he was going to have to punch her in the face.
But she wasn't. She was helping him.
The youma swung its arm and hit her hard for hitting it with the box, though it hadn't hurt the monster at least. But it had no pity for her, and smacked her as hard as it could, as hard as it would have hit Chaonis.
"Hey!" The Senshi of Danger lunged forward, pulling his fist back. He hadn't been able to figure out his third attack ever since powering up to Eternal. It had bothered him to no end, never knowing the words. Until now. "Warning! Epic Hazards!"
A nearby light exploded, and a dumpster uprighted itself. Everything was shaking dangerously, violently, and Chaonis slammed his fist into the youma's face. It was sent flying and burst into dust before it even hit the ground.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 3:21 pm
She did need to be saved. Didn’t she? Or did she? Tara didn’t even know anymore. In the heat of the moment, all she knew was that she couldn’t walk away from this situation. Not anymore. It was all her fault- his predicament, her own helplessness, everything. That aside, she knew that the youma wasn’t going to let her leave without a fight. She started to turn to get some distance, but her reflexes were dulled, and she couldn’t move fast enough. “I’m so-” she managed to get out, before the youma hit her, and her voice was cut off by a loud crash.
From the moment she decided to fight back, she knew it probably wouldn’t end well, but she wasn’t prepared for this. The youma’s arm caught her across the abdomen as she turned, sending her flying back into the chain link fence. Its claws snagged on her sweatshirt for the briefest of seconds before cutting through the fabric, and grazing what lay beneath. That it was a fence she hit and not something more rigid was a small mercy; as it was, her head snapped back violently from the force of the impact. The small box she had held was ripped from her arms and sent skittering across the pavement, splintered and broken. She would have screamed again, but all of the oxygen had been driven from her lungs, and it was all she could do to keep breathing.
Time seemed to slow down for a moment. Tara fell away from the freshly-made dent in the chain link fence, piling into a heap on the ground. Everything seemed so far away. She was too dazed to see the first use of Eternal Sailor Chaonis’ attack, though she would have appreciated it if she could. Dimly, through her stupor, she heard the senshi yelling something, and the ground started to shake. Or was she shaking, and the ground staying still? Before she could decide, her hearing faded entirely, her vision fading to black. It was another small mercy; unconscious, she couldn’t feel the pain that coursed through her body.
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 12:04 pm
The Eternal Senshi wasn't sure what to do. He couldn't stop the shaking that continued for a few long seconds after he had dusted the youma. He stumbled his way over to Tara, seeing that she was out cold, and quickly curled her against him as he hoisted her up into his arms. He leapt away from the chain link fence, which fell over behind him. Everything he passed, it seemed, something bad happened to.
No wonder it was called Epic Hazards.
The shaking stopped, though, and everything seemed to still. He waited a moment, his breath caught in his chest for a moment as he waited to be sure that the magic had faded. He was left feeling drained, and he looked at her.
"Hey... hey?" He patted her cheek, not sure what to do. A nurse he was not. He didn't have the bedside manner for it. He saw her injury, the cuts on her clothes, and he worried that he had managed to get her killed. It actually scared him,and he didn't like that feeling in the slightest. It made him angry, at first, then nervous. "Wake up!"
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 8:59 pm
Unfortunately for Chaonis, Tara had never been very good at doing as she was told. For several long moments she stayed where she had fallen, not moving, not even breathing noticeably. Then she began to cough, and at least he could be sure that she was still alive. Tara herself was glad for the reminder, or she would have been if coughing didn't make her chest feel like it was about to explode. None of her felt that great, actually, but her entire upper body took first prize for excruciating pain, with the banging in her head earning an honorable mention.
It took several seconds after she had opened her eyes for her to realize that she had opened her eyes. Everything was blurry, but she could make out shapes and colors, at least. As she blinked, they began to solidify into things she could recognize. A fence. A dumpster. That senshi she'd met once before. He'd dusted a youma and she'd given him a bandaid. But that was months ago.
The first attempt at speech was a total failure, resulting in more coughing and more pain. The second was better- her vocal cords were still working, but all she got out was gibberish, as her brain tried to remember how to talk. The third try was the charm, though her voice was weak, her breathing shallow to minimize the pain from that area. "What're you doing here?" Which led to the next obvious questions: "What am I doing here? What happened?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 11:45 am
Chaonis visibly relaxed when she started to cough. He had no idea what he was supposed to do if she had not started up again, as he was not exactly field trained for CPR. Hell, he barely paid enough attention to those kinds of scenes in movies. He was absolutely useless with this stuff.
His forte was the fight. The superheroing. This stuff he left for other people to figure out.
"Hey, hey, be careful," he said, when she started coughing again and being unable to speak. He was still holding on to her, letting her rest against him as she leaned on him. He wasn't sure if it was the right position for her if she was having trouble breathing, but what else was he supposed to do?
Wasn't sure the nurse? Or something like that. She had that bandaid last time. And the M&M's.
"You were attacked by a youma and instead of getting out of the way like a smart person, you acted like a youma attack magnet. You got hit pretty bad. Are you hurt?"
He could see that she was hurt but he was hoping she would tell him it was better than it seemed. So he could hit eject and get out of there. He didn't like this feeling of... worry.
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Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 3:44 pm
Had the roles been reversed, Tara would not have known much more than Chaonis did about what to do. She knew the basics, of course: not to move anyone who might have broken bones, bind any open wounds, that sort of thing. But the simple fact was that the roles were not reversed, nor was it likely that they ever would be. Chaonis was the superhero. And Tara?
She didn't even know what she was anymore, other than bruised and battered.
The senshi was telling her to be careful, but she tried to move anyway, mostly to reassure herself that she could. Her legs moved fairly easily. Her arms hurt when she tried, but didn't offer any resistance. Her head was harder. After lifting it an inch, she decided that was enough and let it rest back against the ground. Except it didn't hit the ground, but the senshi. That was nice. Now that she thought about it, the ground would hurt.
He was talking again, telling her what happened. Tara listened, but it didn't make any sense to her. Why did she keep running into things that wanted her dead? Was she a magnet for Chaos even when she was trying to be normal? "It's my job, or it's supposed to be, except I don't want it to be." It was hard to say how lucid she was, and her eyes kept drifting out of focus whenever she forgot to pay attention to them. "But you can't quit, and they keep coming. Why am I here? Where... what?"
Only parts of what he said actually stuck with her, but she did hear the last question. It made her laugh, which was far from the best medicine; her ribs seared with pain, her back felt like it was burning up. "Ow," she whimpered when the last spasms had died down. It wasn't the way she'd planned to answer, but it was effective.
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 3:50 pm
Chaonis watched her very seriously. He was not very happy about this whole thing. It pushed him far beyond his natural comfort zone of breaking faces and causing trouble. He was made to hurt people.
Or rather, Negaverse agents and youma.
He looked at her when she spoke, confused, not sure what she meant. Her job? The medicine thing? He remembered that, but that wasn't really making sense at the moment. He listened to her, arching his eyebrow at her. Can't quit. They keep coming.
He knew that feeling. Or had rather heard it before. He had a few senshi friends who felt the same way.
"Hey, hey, don't laugh. Don't talk. You should get to the hospital. Should I take you? I mean, you're not making any sense. You're talking crazy. What did you mean, can't quit?"
He looked around, making sure nothing else was coming their way. No more bad. She didn't look like she could handle it.
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:27 pm
Tara was also made to hurt people. She had hurt her family when she'd disappeared for a year, been (correctly) presumed dead, and then fallen into a coma. She had hurt her team by not being there when they needed her, when the others were falling, one by one. Most of all, she had hurt herself. She ran from the truth when before, she had been dedicated to embracing it. And now the hurt had broken free of her mind and wreaked havoc with her body. At least, that was what it felt like to her.
The throbbing in her head dulled, making it easier for her to see and hear. Speech was still difficult, but as long as she took shallow breaths and didn't try to project, it was bearable. After what had happened, Tara desperately needed to talk. It didn't matter if anyone was listening. It would be better, perhaps, if nobody was, but she hadn't realized that yet.
"Don't make me laugh, then," she chided her savior gently. It was a very poor attempt at humor, her way of trying to assure him she wasn't going to die. He looked so worried, and while she appreciated the attention, she was tired of making people worried. She had hurt him, too, just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. "But was it the place, or the time? Or were they both right, and I'm the one that's wrong?"
Of course nothing she said made sense. Tara's logic rarely translated into something comprehensible. "I'm sick of hospitals. Last year I spent more time in the hospital than I did at school." Her supposed solution had worked for a while, but now she was worse off than ever. She paused, trying to remember why she wasn't at home hiding at that very moment. "I just wanted some frosting. Why do they keep coming? How do they know to hurt me, when I'm like this?"
At that point, she remembered she had an audience, and looked up. "How do you keep doing it? I tried, for such a long time, but they kept coming. Still coming. How do they know who I am, when you don't?" She was babbling, but beyond the point of caring. Everything still hurt so much, and for all that she was supposed to be smart, she had no idea why.
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Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:54 pm
Chaonis was pretty sure she had knocked her brain out of her head. He was sore and was likely going to sport some bruises, but he at least seemed coherent.
She wasn't making any sense.
Her words did make him think, though, which was strange and new for him as far as other people might assume. He tried to digest her words critically, his sharp, dark eyes looking her over as if to read her body language as well. Which wasn't helpful, considering her current state, but he did it anyway in an effort to gather more context clues.
"You're a senshi?" he asked quietly, as she had pretty much told him so. It didn't take such detective work to figure it out. He picked her up, carrying her to some place he felt was a little less obvious and safe from prying eyes. Not that there had been anyone around.
"They don't know. They're just attacking you because they attack anything that has a starseed. And as long as you have one, you're going to be targetted. You can't hide or wish them away. You have to fight them. And you have the power to! What is in your goddamn head, running around and getting hurt when you could be helping me do our damn job?" He sounded angry, but for some reason he didn't look it. His expression was stern, but not angry.
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Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 10:30 pm
"No I'm not," Tara said sharply. Too sharply. Her chest seized up for a moment, and she closed her eyes until the wave of pain passed. When she opened her eyes again, she couldn't bring herself to look up. "Not right now. I put that part away, so it couldn't hurt me anymore." Her voice was small, and not because it hurt to speak. He was lecturing her, and she wasn't surprised. She knew what she had been doing was wrong, but had continued doing it for months. And at what cost, beyond her own livelihood? Even she couldn't understand what she had been thinking. How had it come to this?
"It was only supposed to be temporary. A vacation. The first time you- we met- I was still having fun. But they kept coming, even when I wasn't looking for them." If she had been behaving rationally, that might have been her cue to take up her duty again. "They felt like they were everywhere. So I stopped going out, I was careful. But I could still see them." Tara raised an arm and pointed to her head. "No matter what I do, they're always there. If I go anywhere, they come and find me."
In truth, she hadn't had that many youma encounters since she had stopped fighting, but each one had terrified her more than the last. The monsters chasing her mingled with the monsters, and other, worse things, that waited in her dreams. Eventually, she was unable to distinguish between the two. It felt like she was always being watched, and her only choices were to run or to die. Now, part of her could see that the two choices led to the same outcome.
Tara managed to look up, and was surprised that he didn't look nearly as mad as he sounded. If it had been her, she would have been furious that someone was making her own work harder. Or had he had similar thoughts before? She couldn't help but wonder what other senshi did to get themselves through the long days and longer nights. Why hadn't she thought to ask before it got this far? When had she become so self-absorbed that she couldn't see beyond the confines of her own mind?
"It wasn't supposed to end up like this." That much was obvious, but she felt it needed to be said. There was so much she felt needed to be said: explanations, apologies, questions. None of it came out. She was afraid he would hate her, or yell at her, or even drop her. Not that she really believed any senshi would abandon someone they'd gone through the trouble of saving, much less drop them, but being scared was second nature to her now, and she had no idea how to break free of the pattern she had set for herself.
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