When Evil Takes Root (15) : Destiny City is always being expanded and renovated, so controlled forest fires and forest demolition are common enough. And yet, the forests seem bigger. Darker. There’s no logical explanation to it, but logic has nothing to do with it if you pay enough attention. Sometimes, the trees seem to move--more than just how the wind manipulates them. Sometimes, a particularly mangled tree with sharp bark and long, clawlike branches will stand out amongst the others. It isn’t always in the same place, and it isn’t always alone. They can look like normal trees–until they don’t. And by the time you notice, you’re too close to stop them. In the blink of an eye, they’re upon you. They don’t quite run as much as they do slither, and their branches are always longer than they appear. Especially when they are slashing at you or trying to squeeze you. Some of the trees have strangely human shapes molded into them, covered in dark bark. Hopefully it’s just your imagination but you really shouldn’t try to find out what happens if one of them manages to catch you. Any area with one of these trees will feel unnaturally heavy, and when they have congregated it feels exhausting, as if they are draining the energy right out of the air–and you. They fear only fire and seem to feel pain; if you hack at their branches or peel their bark, they bleed. If in too much danger, they will flee into the trees. Once you lose sight of them, it’s impossible to find them again–unless they want you to.
Demeter was enjoying herself this summer. As always, she'd been baking up a storm of goodies for pride month—that stuff sold so much faster than she could actually bake it all, but she loved making and decorating all of the different pride flags onto cookies, cakes, cupcakes, anything she could do! It made her extremely, heh, proud, and happy, and so much money got donated to queer charities because of it—she doubted she could ever give up doing such a thing. Of course, she had to be very careful with her parents getting nosy about it, but as long as they kept pretending like they accepted queer people (just as long as they weren't Demeter herself), then they couldn't really fault her for making pretty cupcakes and other pastries. Especially when, yes, she did take a fair cut to cover the cost of production and some for her labor.
She kept her subspace well stocked with several, as well, as she patrolled. Now she was stronger—now she could heal people better than she could before, and she was physically stronger, too. She'd been getting better at the whole fighting people thing, at least without magic getting too involved. She tended to avoid fighting other senshi for this reason.
However... there was an aura.... Shoot. That was definitely a senshi. And a Dark Mirror one. Well... Okay, like, that wasn't too bad, right? Lete was a Dark Mirror Senshi, after all! And she was... hopelessly in love with Lete. Head over heels. So maybe this other one wouldn't be so bad, at least, as long as she was lucky. Lete seemed to like bragging about Demeter, so maybe... word had gotten around the Dark Mirrors that she wasn't supposed to get harassed? Hopefully? Either way, she should probably.... be fine... right?
Before she could even blink as she passed near a tree she didn't quite remember being in that spot in this park just the day before, it grabbed her.
She screamed. "Help!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, struggling against the way the branch wrapped around her, tried to squeeze the life out of her. Why oh why was this crap happening, huh?! Did she LOOK like she was Dorothy, lost in Oz?! HELLO!?
Noir Songbird
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2024 7:31 pm
Asuka knew it was a mistake to go back into the woods.
She and Hela had been down that strange, winding path--the one that had been so creepy she'd wanted to turn and flee for the entire trip, where they'd found so much weird s**t, and it had been--well. Atrocious. And frankly, she felt like she was still recovering from that whole awful experience.
Rarely was she daunted by something spooky or strange or magical or unusual. It was her life. Horror was her niche, strange local folktales her entire YouTube career, and it took a lot to really, genuinely scare her. But that little forest path, seemingly normal as it was, had done it. There was something about it that, she was one hundred percent confident, was evil. Evil in a way beyond Chaos or Order or normal magic.
And yet. Here she was. Back in the ******** woods.
And finding yet more evil there.
The trees were watching her. An insane sentiment, sure, but she was also the one looking directly at some creepy as ******** faces carved into them, and that was just....proof. That this forest was Wrong and Bad and she probably shouldn't be here. Especially not alone.
(Also, she was sort of offended to not be the scariest b***h around. She was the Senshi of Onryo. Grudge noises and all. No way was she going to get outcreeped by some trees. That was totally unfair. Except these were Evil Dead trees, probably. And ohh, Asuka did not like that one little bit.)
There was a scream. Someone yelling for help.
Asuka was not proud of herself for it, but she did pause for a moment to think. To wonder. If she really needed to get involved in...whatever this was.
But she knew she did. So she charged towards the person screaming, and realized--oh. She knew her.
"Demeter!" They'd only met once, briefly, a while ago, but that cute pumpkin look was thoroughly recognizable, and Asuka was extra glad that she'd gotten over her own reluctance and run in to help. "Hold on, I've got you!"
she ran for her friend, grabbing one of the tree's branches and wrenching it, as hard as she could, yanking with all her might. Hopefully, it'd break and they could both make a run for it.
Asuka! Relief flooded Demeter's body, even as she struggled hard against the branch. This here was someone she knew, sort of, someone she could definitely count on to help her and not do something awful like drain her while she was strapped to a tree—by the tree!
Their collective efforts seemed to work—once some bark was ripped away from the branch, the evil tree man thing dropped Demeter and... seemed to run away into the forest, deep and away and Demeter didn't give a flying rat's behind about where it went, as long as she and Asuka ran in the exact opposite direction.
Grabbing Asuka's arm, she shouted, "Run!" A moment later, she was sprinting out of the forest with her friend, ignoring the sharp pains in her ribs from being squeezed.
Noir Songbird
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2024 7:40 pm
Good. What she'd done had worked--she'd managed to get the evil ******** tree to let go of her friend. Asuka didn't waste time crowing over her victory, though--Demeter was right, they needed to run.
"Right with you," she said, as she took off, keeping pace with the other Super Senshi and glad for it. Just because they'd gotten rid of one didn't mean there wouldn't be tohers looking to come after them, and Asuka was absolutely not willing to take that risk.
Once she was fairly certain they were far enough away, though--out of the woods, quite literally--she stopped, taking a moment to catch her breath.
"I ********," she gasped, "hate. This stupid forest." Even that felt like a serious understatement. "You're not hurt, are you? Nothing serious?"
Breathing hurt. She was pretty sure it wasn't meant to hurt as much as it did—she thought herself a fairly active, healthy person, so a dead sprint like that shouldn't be killing her as much as it was.
Coughing and wheezing a bit, she gestured lamely at Asuka and then decided it didn't matter what was seen in such a life or death situation (even if they were far from the evil tree things) and lifted her shirt to look at her ribs—or, well, try to. She needed to rely on someone else here, because looking down made her dizzy, even if her breath was mostly caught by now.
"If it already looks bad," she wheezed, "Should probably go to a doctor..."
Noir Songbird
Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2024 3:03 pm
Asuka winced. Oh, s**t, her poor friend. "Yeah. I'll stick with you until a couple blocks before the hospital, and then I'll dip? So you can power down without worrying about anything."
At least, that seemed fair to her. And she was pretty sure there was a mirror in an alley nearby she could go through once she was sure Demeter was delivered safely.
