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 Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 3:29 pm
Waking up was hell. Rather literally.
Pain was the first sensation to reach into the void and seize her in razor talons of fire. Every nerve ending that existed was screaming, set alight like white-hot wires through her entire body. The sense of having a body, of flesh encasing her soul was next, the weight of herself, and after that, something hard and smooth on one side, pressed down her length.
It was hard to tell if the press was down or up or some strange other direction in space as the whole of it spun in crazy dips and rolls as she floated in it, the faint fear that she would float away entirely if she wasn't careful there and gone as it was eaten by the pain. Fingers twitched in a muscle spasm and nails grated against stone, informing her that she had fingers and nails with which to scrape things. With that came awareness of wrists and arms, shoulders, back, hips, legs... Cinnabar felt herself laying on the floor with her cheek pressed to it, the swell of her chest crushed under her weight.
Why was she laying on the floor on her stomach? Why did everything hurt so much?
The questions came with an easing of the pain, enough that she could start to form thought past it. It continued to fade to a deep ache, starburst flashes still making her twitch every so often as she gathered her senses. With her eyes closed, it was easier to grasp that other sense and the captain felt another power signature beside her. There were youma too... but far away.
I was fighting a youma... There was only the two of them, where had the youma gone? She remembered... getting bit...
Cinnabar stirred for real this time, a rasping groan rolling from her throat as her face scrunched up in a grimace and relaxed again. Red eyes opened with an almost audible rasping sound, so dry she had to blink a few times to work moisture back into them. The world was split in two, half a vertical plane she assumed was the floor, all dark stone pitted and rough as it stretched to the far wall.
Lifting her head felt like such an effort... let alone getting her body into an upright position, and her muscles still burned, trembling with aftereffect of whatever the hell had hit her so hard. An attempt was made to vocalize something, but her voice was too rough to manage it and it sent her into a coughing fit that shook her whole form and set chains to jingling, the captain pressing her forehead to the floor until it had passed.
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Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 4:47 am
Galena had lingered, hovering over the new captain who had been minted in the worst way she could imagine. She had considered leaving, although she wouldn't admit it, but ultimately the compulsion to stay had won out.
She sat on her knees, gnawing on her lower lip and occasionally getting up the nerve to hold her fingers near or just above the new attributes on her body, most notably the scales on her face.
When she started to wake, the younger lieutenant jumped up to her feet and back to put some distance between them, watching with wide eyes as her youmafied friend writhed around and coughed herself back into the land of the living. It took a long moment of silence before she took a cautious step forward, and then very slowly reached over, acting like she was ready to jump back and retreat at any minute.
"C-... Cin?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:25 pm
Another groan slipped free as Cinnabar pressed her face to the floor, her fingers scraping as she dragged them closer to her body.
"Gals?" She mumbled against the stone before she turned her head and blinked a few times, searching for the lieutenant she had dragged along on this crazy trip. God, was she okay? If she'd gotten hurt by that youma or something... But she looked fine, when red eyes finally focused on her. A frown drew a line between Cin's brows, seeing her hovering so anxiously. "What happened? I feel like I got run over by a truck."
Closing her eyes, the captain pulled her knees up, lifting her hips to get them under her before she pressed palms to the floor and pushed up off of it. The world spun and dipped, but she gritted her teeth and let the dizziness pass without moving. This was like the mother of all hang overs... but she was pretty sure she hadn't been drinking. Dark hair slid down over her shoulder and she blinked at it in confusion, the great mass of black unfamiliar after the months of having it cut short. Fingers put to it confirmed it was real and a tug told her it was firmly rooted to her scalp.
How the hell had she gotten hair this long? The hell was going on?
Sitting back on her heels with slow care, Cinnabar began an inventory of herself, startled with each thing she found changed. Her outfit was different, that much she could see from looking down. Fur around her face... a longer coat and chains that rattled as she moved. Pants exchanged for leggings and garters, boots that came up over her knees with more chains... Like someone had taken her old uniform and intensified it, roughing it up for an even more intimidating sort of look.
The oddness that caught her eyes though were some bits of red on her hip and she frowned as she ran a finger over them, sliding a nail under the edge to pry at what seemed to be... a scale? Pulling on it hurt and she hissed, the sound that emerged a far cry from any sound any human naturally made. It shocked her and feeling numb, Cinnabar lifted her hands to her face to feel the familiar contours of it and find the scales that decorated her hairline. More scales were found down the back of her neck, disappearing under the collar of her coat, and it was with dread that she finally ran her hand down her back to find the new appendage that emerged from the base of her spine.
"Galena. What. Happened?" She bit out, her voice thick with dread. She felt numb... horrified... something had gone very, very wrong... and she didn't want to believe the evidence she'd found.
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Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:58 am
"Y-you... I called for help... It started eating you," Galena stammered, and even for being normally composed sounded and looked to be very near tears. "Laurelite answered the call, and there was all of this power, and you fought back and now you're... you're different. I don't know what happened"
Her hand hovered like she wanted to reach out and was debating it, before she finally gave in to her urge to brush her fingers against Cinnabar's cheek.
"I should have called her sooner, I'm so, so sorry, Cin."
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Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2015 8:44 pm
Cinnabar felt her breath come raspy and shallow and fast. Her hands flexed and she stared at them dumbly, watching black claws emerge from the thick tips of her fingers just like any cat's. Panic was making it hard to focus on anything, but she had to master it... had to take control. Panic made her weak, made her vulnerable... and now more than ever, Cinnabar could not be vulnerable. She had done that once. Never again.
"It ate me..." She repeated, trying to focus. She remembered now... the teeth in her side, the General-Queen appearing and shoving her hand into her chest. Deep in the recesses of her mind... something stirred, coming awake to open pale eyes full of hate and hunger, a growl rolling through her thoughts. Baal... still alive, still aware? God above, there was a youma inside of her...
The captain started as Galena touched her, her pupils flashing to cat-like slits as she focused on the other woman with predator intensity. Reaching with too quick motions, she caught the slender hand and gripped it with surprising gentleness.
"No... no, its okay." Cinnabar mumbled, her mind still trying to wrap itself around this new reality. "You did good... if you hadn't called, I would be dead. I owe you big time... you and the General-Queen."
It was better to be alive... wasn't it? But... what did this mean? Just how deeply had the changes gone?
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 2:30 pm
Galena sharply inhaled when she was grabbed, and all at once she seemed to melt into a surrender when she registered how gentle Cinnabar's touch was.
It gave her enough of an invitation to move a smidge closer, and reach over with her free hand to brush Cinnabar's hair back away from red scales, staring with a mix of fear and wonder as she dared to let her fingers brush on the texture. She searched Cin's facial expression for a reaction to gauge whether she was brave enough to keep going.
"It's... You're exerting more power than before. The entire transformation is very..." She trailed off, in search of the appropriate adjective.
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Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 8:43 pm
The gentle touches, the shy move closer... Cinnabar endured it still as stone, only her chest heaving with deep breaths through her nose. Her eyes stared as before with unblinking attention as she struggled ignore the up-swell of emotion in favor of Galena's hesitant exploration. She didn't want this fear, this self doubt... she hated feeling as weak and vulnerable as she felt right now. It was easier to shove it into a box and slam a lid on it than deal with it directly. Easier to deny than accept she might be human under it all... and she wasn't even human any more, was she?
Cinnabar let her push her hair back, suffered the stroke of fingers against her new scales. Her face remained far too alert and wild, but she made no motions.
"I'm a captain now. Its how I held back the youma." She rasped dully. It was not how she had wanted to come into her new rank. It didn't feel real... didn't feel earned. Her lips split finally into a cruel smile and she huffed a laugh.
"Its horrifying." She finished the trailing sentence. "Monstrous. Repulsive... I'm not human any more." The laugh came again, tinged with something a bit unhinged.
"I can't power down." And it was true, she realized in the same breath. Concentration didn't banish the uniform as it once had. She released and... nothing happened.
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Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2015 12:06 am
"Hey," Galena was not usually one for volume in her voice, or firm actions, but she managed to this time as she spoke up and held Cinnabar's face in her hands.
"It's... It's not what we expected, but you're alive, and that's what's important. I'm sorry... I'm sorry this happened, but Cin, you almost died, and I'm so glad you didn't."
She threw her arms around the captain and held on as tightly as she could. "You'll figure it out."
Even if she was different, even if she had merged with the monster, it was still better than losing her entirely. She'd heard of the phenomenon before, apparently other officers somehow functioned in spite of obtaining monstrous features. Cinnabar was still Cinnabar.
"It's not repulsive."
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Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:45 am
The beast inside of her subsided with a grumble of annoyance and Cinnabar's face crumbled into something wholly human, pain written large across her features.
"I've lost everything. Everything I've worked so god damned hard for." She grated, her voice thick with unwanted emotion. The tall woman rocked back as Galena wrapped arms around her and she made a strange sound, her body starting to shake. It was suspiciously close to a sob and she threw her arms around the curvaceous body that now weighed down her lap.
This was rock bottom... She knew the cold, unyeilding feel of it well. Seven years she had struggled to build up what she had, to start over and make a life where she was her own woman... Answerable to no one, strong enough no one could ever hurt her again, and now she'd taken all of that and shoved it down the throat of a youma. There was nothing left... She couldn't live like a human when she looked like this, when her signature shone every moment of the day. She couldn't work her job or lay on the couch in her own apartment. God... The cats probably wouldn't have anything to do with her now. She was going to have to find a way to get them back to the shelter...
As the weight of her loss settled in around her, Cinnabar felt heat behind her eyes and then wetness on her face. For the first time in seven years, save once, she wept. Gritted teeth held back sobs, but the tears wouldn't stop.
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