savetheearth | No more running.

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No more running.

Who: Vanessa and whoever shows up to save her ass.
What: Vanessa has discovered a creepy fungus patch that spreading spores to mind control animals. Now she's running for her life from its creepy defense mechanism.
Where: Down near the Dead District in the crappy part of time.
When: Late night on the 28th.
Warnings: So one of the things happening here is Vanessa Echoing back Allomancy. This requires her to almost die so there will be some terror, animal attack and violence going on here.

Run!

That was the only thing going through Vanessa's mind, the only thought she was capable of thinking. Behind her, she could still hear the dogs barking and snarling. She didn't know how close they were and she didn't dare look back to find out.

Run!

Panicked, she drove forward, running as fast as she could through the deserted streets and keeping a desperate eye out for... for anybody. Stupid, she knew. Nobody here was going to help her, and anybody she did find was more likely to stand off to the side and see what they could get off her body when the dogs were done with her.

She was tiring. She was quick and that speed had served her well but she was no distance runner, she just didn't have the stride for that, but the dogs were. They were running her down, waiting for her to run out of steam before they pounced and by the way their baying was getting louder they knew the chase was coming to a close.

Oh, God, they were going to rip her to pieces.

She turned sharply down an alleyway, slowing just enough to knock over a trash can to buy herself the instant to reach into the bag at her side and pull out that dagger, along with some of those steel caps Alex had helped her find. Those memories had told her that these things were supposed to give her powers, right? Well, this would be a great fucking time for that to happen. Not really having the time to be careful, she managed to get one into her mouth and forced it down even as she tried to run. Too slow. Before she even got two steps in, she felt a pair of jaws close around her foot and yank her leg out from under her. She barely managed to cry out before the pavement came up and slammed into her, driving the breath from her lungs.

Oh, God, no, please, no, no, no!

The dog that had her foot didn't let go and pain shot up her leg as it shook its head like it was trying to pull the limb off. She barely managed to roll over onto her back and bring the dagger up just as a big infected german shepard came in for the kill. The knife sank deep into its chest and blood sprayed across Vanessa as it collapsed immediately, crushing her under its weight and pinning both her weapon and her arm.

And just like that, the chase was over. The last three dogs bounded up and dove down on her, jaws snapping and it was only the bulk of the carcass on top of her that kept them from ripping her gut open right then. And that protection itself was fleeting. They were attacking it too. Tearing through it to get to her.

She did her best, struggling under the mass of dogs, trying to keep her head down and flailing her free arm around. She still hadn't gotten a breath and her lungs were burning, her vision was tunneling. But slowly the thought sank in that it was over. Even if she fought her way out from under them, they'd be on her before she could even get to her feet.

She was dead. After everything she'd gone through she was going to die here, in this fucking alley, she was going to die a horrible death. Alone and in agony and there wouldn't be enough left of her to recognize even if anybody came to find her.

Jaws clamped down on her swinging arm and yanked it away and to the side. She felt teeth sink into her, felt them tear at her.

I'm going to die.

Vanessa screamed.

Something exploded inside of her, something that felt like a fire burning in her stomach and the dogs were gone. Everything was gone. She found herself floating, hanging in the air.

Huh? She managed to think stupidly before gravity reasserted itself and she met the pavement again, bouncing once and rolling out onto the sidewalk. The dead dog thumped to the ground not far away and she was dimly aware of the rest of the pack getting up, stunned and confused.

You're alive. Get up. Move.

Too slow, she reached out, grabbing onto an old parking meter and drew herself up, and nearly collapsed when she put any weight on her hurt foot. Her bitten arm was shaking and she held it close. What the hell had happened? That strange warmth was still there in her stomach, was that...? No, she couldn't bother with that. This was her chance. She had to get away....

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Much to Isaac's relief, Miria was the one driving. For once, he was the one who's mind drifted as they made their way to where Vanessa was.

He distinctly remembered wanting to try and find a pacifistic approach. He needed to find a way to stop all this alien nonsense without anyone else getting hurt or even killed.

Isaac hated past-Isaac.

Miria's brain was on a rollercoaster of thought and emotion. She'd probably hate past-Miria for trying peaceful too, once this was over. All she could think about now was their new friend's safety. Miria didn't exactly have a lot of friends. Hell, both of the Dians had slowly realized that none of their old college buddies called anymore. The couple didn't really know how to pick up the phone and check up on someone.

And they might lose another friend tonight.

"I think we're here!"

The car turned to spot one of the dogs in the headlights. But where was Vanessa...?

Chris was not the type to read through the entirety of a post before going ahead with whatever it was she wanted to do. Instruction manuals were for losers, as were directions and warnings. This seemed easy enough! No fighting, just a quick extermination job. Though she had brought along the Walther P-38, just in case. She'd yet to actually fire the thing, but now she was starting to understand why those NRA guys were so adamant about their guns. The weight was an addiction, an easing of anxiety, even if she was still pretty sure she'd never have the courage to fire the damn thing.

Her "flamethrower" was from her days at MIT, an incredibly dangerous improvised combination of a metal tube with a jumbo-sized can of hairspray and a lighter at the far end, held together with gaff tape and badly welded strips of metal. It would work well enough for torching fungus, anyway. She had also brought along a canister of pump-action gasoline that could be swapped out with the hairspray, but that stuff was considerably more dangerous. If the pile was big enough though, they'd have to use it.

She paused as she heard dogs barking nearby, her heartbeat quickening, the mechanisms in her arms tensing. Dammit, the guns don't work, don't just pop them out, you need hands, you idiot. She really, REALLY didn't want to encounter more mutant dogs, not like that night. Fuck.

"Uh, Vanessa?" she called out. "I got the flamethrower, though."

Wasn't it a mere minute ago that he was sitting comfortably at home? He'd been browsing the network, calm as could be, and then he just had to see this person get chased by dogs infested with some sort of alien fungi. She might be a total stranger--hell, he didn't even know her name!--but John wasn't about to have her death on his conscious.

...which was why he was driving out to her location in the middle of the night with nothing on him save his keys, his phone, his sunglasses, and a baseball bat he'd dug out of his closet.

Chasing after the taillights that seemed to be heading in the same direction, he could hear the sounds of dogs barking nearby, and John brought the car to a skidding halt behind the other vehicle. Slipping out of the car, he hefted the bat in his hand and slowly edged away from the safety of his vehicle. This... was a really bad idea. Suicidal, even.

So, what were his options here? Inch toward the other car? Head towards the person saying something about a flamethrower? Or... maybe he should just stay where he was before the thing growling a short distance away noticed him.

John opted for the last option for the time being.

Running was not an option at this point, not with her foot in the shape it was in. She had figured that out after a few steps and had pretty much gone to plan B. That burning feeling in her stomach gave her something to focus on besides the pain in her arm and leg, besides the rush of adrenaline and the terror of being chased by these... things. Each time they came close, she focused on that feeling, focused on the weird blue line of light that suddenly appeared in her vision and connected her to it and Pushed.

Just like the memories told her, the heavier objects sent her hurtling away from them. Unfortunately, all she had to work with was theory and her landings sent her sprawling across the ground again and each time, getting back up took more out of her. She hurt everywhere. All she wanted to do was to stop, to lie down and sleep.

Move. You're still alive. Move.

She wasn't going to get through this on her own. That steel was going to run out eventually, even if she managed to outlast it. Her only shot was that somebody had seen the street during that last message and was there now. If not... well, she couldn't worry about that right now.

Finally, she spun around that last corner and her eyes widened at the headlights down the road. She managed to get out a feeble, croaking shout toward them before she felt teeth nip at the back of her leg. So close. Without even thinking about it, she locked on to a lamppost behind her and Pushed with everything she had left in her, launching herself forward again.

She came back down on the hood of Isaac and Miria's car with a heavy thud.

The Dian couple expected many things driving toward their network friend. Danger. Violence. The worst part of their brains feared death awaited Vanessa.

They certainly weren't expecting Vanessa to fly toward them upon arrival. And they definitely didn't expect her to slam into the hood like that. The car screeched to a halt just in time for them to avoid accidentally running down the amazing flying woman.

"Va-Vanessa!"

The couple raced out of the car to her. They began to lift her up, carefully, trying not to strain her.

"Are you alright?!"

"Speak to us!"

Miria glanced toward the dogs and gulped. "We have to get out of here, quickly."

"Primus' scrap!"

She jumps at the sound Vanessa crashing into the car a few feet away.

"Wh-- jesus fuck!"

She doesn't have time to ask if Vanessa is okay, because then the first of the dogs shows up. Her immediate instinct is to run, but--

Something about its head. Something about the fungus is... it's familiar, somehow, and

Run, dammit!

But she's still torn. She takes a few half-hearted skips towards the Dians' car, but...

Who are you? Tch, these are hardly worth your time! You're a weapon, for Primus' sake. You are Starscream. A pack of mangy, mushroom-headed curs can't possibly pose a threat to you!

There's a pulse, and at once all her fear seems to melt. I am Starscream. Whatever that meant, whoever that was, it was somehow terribly empowering.

She drew the Walther, aimed, and fired at the lead dog's head, straight between the eyes.

Edited 2013-07-30 17:39 (UTC)

There was a thud of a body meeting something solid, followed shortly after by a shout and then... a gunshot? His eyes swung over to the baseball bat he was clutching with white-knuckles and then at his car. If he'd been gifted with some sort of superhuman abilities, this would have felt remotely more sane, but seeing as all he had were a pair of creepy looking eyes...

John was grievously under-armed here.

"Fuck!" he shouted before scrambling back into his vehicle and slamming his key home. The car lurched with how hard he slammed his foot into the acceleration, and it jerked back to life, swiveling around the Dian's car and plowing forward into at least one of the animals still running toward them. It was inelegant and going to be leaving a nice in his car, but hey, whatever worked.

His heart pounded in his skull, a different pulse lost amongst the many, and as he threw the car into reverse, John looked for the others around him--the couple, the injured individual, and the person with the gun. Everyone was still safe, right?

Mamoru hadn't planned to go. He didn't like it, but she had it under control, right? She could handle it, he told himself. Other people were coming to help. He didn't need to step in. What good could he even do against a monster like that? Contact fighting against something that ate everything it touched seemed like a colossally bad idea, and he didn't own anything designed to kill.

But then he'd felt the pulse, and the giant fucking sword had appeared, strapped to his back. It had pushed Mamoru off the fence and into acting, leaving his apartment in a rush (he'd figure out how to hide the sword from his roommate later) and taking his bike downtown to the street he'd seen in Vanessa's post.

He arrived only a little late to the party, and skidded the motorbike to a halt a good thirty feet away from the action. He sees Isaac and Maria, and -- a body?

Is that her?

Shit, was he too late?

It was the work of a moment to unbuckle the sword from his chest -- how else was he supposed to draw a blade his own height? -- and threw the scabbard away, off to the side. It didn't matter that he had no fucking clue how to fight with a sword, much less one this size, because it was big and it was sharp and when he brought it down on one of the possessed dogs it cut through flesh and bone.

What the hell was going on?!

Almost immediately, everything seemed to dissolving into chaos. First, a gunshot rang out and the couple turned to see a woman with a terrifying presence. It was almost hard to describe the chill that went up their spine. Suddenly, a loud shout and the other car swerved and ran over one of the dogs. And not soon after, someone raced up and cut through another dog.

Regardless, Vanessa still wasn't moving. Slowly, they carried her toward the car door. Isaac glanced at the other people and made a silent "over here!" gesture. By waving his free arm frantically. He actually almost dropped Vanessa. Still, other than the two bloodthirsty dogs, the possibly dying friend, and the general chaos, things were looking good.

"Jeez..."

Vanessa just... didn't move for a little while after she hit the Dians' car. She'd been chewed on and battered around from her incredibly ungraceful landings. For a few seconds everything kind of... tuned out, turning the world into a comfortable haze where nothing hurt and she wasn't running for her life.

She was vaguely aware of voices yelling at her and being lifted up, a gunshot, a car screeching to a stop but it was all distant. She looked down, blinking when she caught sight of the knife still in her hand, coated with the blood of the dog she'd managed to kill. She'd held onto it somehow with her good hand. She stared at the weapon, focused in on it and the world seemed to clear up and come back into focus with sudden sharpness.

Her arm fucking hurt.

She looked up, recognizing Isaac and Miria and scanned around. Chris, somebody she didn't recognize and... Starbucks Guy? Chopping up dogs with a, frankly, ridiculous sword, where did that even come from? She had known Chris was coming, expected her, but....

All these people had come to help her? They....

"Wait." She managed to rasp out before the Dians could get her into the car, shaking her head. "We're not done. We have to get rid of it."

With Chris shooting one of them dead center in the head, and another cut clean in half by Mamoru's crazy sword it was pretty clear that the dogs were on the losing end of this fight. Still, where other animals might have given up and fled the survivors kept going. The one uninjured dog bounded around John's car and headed straight for Chris, leaping straight at her with its jaws open in a crazed snarl, looking for her throat. Even the one John had hit was still half-dragging itself toward them on broken legs.

The dogs weren't the only trouble still facing everyone though. Back at the fungus patch there was a rustling sound, as all the smaller animals that still had enough of themselves left to do so started pulling themselves free of the fungal material and began to rush out of the alleyway to defend it.

Apparently some of Mamoru's training HAD sunk into Chris' head. That combined with this newfound sense of unsettling calm meant that she simply turned and threw up her forearm in front of her throat. The dog's jaws closed around hard steel, and its teeth broke on the cold metal. The force of its leap almost knocked her to the ground, but she'd braced herself for the impact.

"Stupid meat," she growled. She slammed her other fist into its head, holding it above the ground and eventually pounding its skull into pulp.

The Dian couple nearly dropped Vanessa (again) when she finally spoke up.

"You-You..."

"You're alright!"

Well, alright was a loose term. Alive. That's a better word. Vanessa was alive, and that's what mattered.

Then they processed what she said.

They wanted to protest, say that things were pretty much taken care of and everyone could go home, be safe, and eat ice cream.

But even as the gun lady destroyed one dog, just looking around they could tell this wasn't over.

Shoot.

Well, might as well start up the conversation. Still holding Vanessa, Isaac turned to the other rescuers.

"Does anyone know how to get rid of the creepy, crawly fungus thing?"

"In a somewhat safe-ish manner?"

Edited 2013-08-01 23:56 (UTC)

Oh, shit. So now there were other animals--other partially decomposed, infected by aliens fungi animals--coming their way.

Rolling down the window that was closest to the others (and therefore furthest from the the source of all their problems), John shouted at the others, desperately wishing that he'd caught one of their names by this point.

"Hey! Hey! Didn't someone say something about a flamethrower!?"

It'd been a female voice, right? John shifted his attention between the three options he had; it wasn't the injured person, obviously, and the other lady who was trying to get her into the car didn't seem the type to be randomly carrying flamethrowers around. So... The one with the metal arms then?

"Hey you!" he tried again, honking to try and get her attention.

Okay, sure, he hadn't exactly supported the idea of just burning things earlier on, but that was then--this was now. Collateral damage was something that they could worry about later when alien organisms weren't trying to kill them all.

She was alive?!

Mamoru wasn't sure if he was relieved or even more pissed off. He'd yell at her about it later, probably, once she wasn't bleeding, but for now, the guy in the car was talking about flamethrowers, and hadn't Vanessa said something about that, too?

"Yeah, that's right!" he yelled at John, bringing the stupid goddamn sword down on the last, half-dead dog. He stomped over towards Chris, stepping on the dog's corpse as he went. "Hey! Chris!" He didn't know what kind of fit she was in, but they didn't have time for it. "Snap out of it! You're the one with the flamethrower, right? Quit punching dogs and help us burn the shit out of that thing!"

Edited 2013-08-03 01:38 (UTC)

"I don't take orders from meat!"

Her eyes are bright, bright enough almost to see by, and her voice singing that alien language is about as pleasant as teeth on cracked ice.

But then, after a half a second, she breathes and there's air in her (wet and meat) lungs and it's like there's a switch flipped. Her eyes go dimmer, and for a second she seems unsure of where she is. She looks at her blood-covered hands and steps back from the dog.

That happened. She did that. Jesus.

"Uh, christ," She brings her hand up to rub at her face but then stops, because ew dog brains. "Right! Sorry. Setting shit on fire."

Her hands shake, but she disconnects the hairspray and plugs in the gasoline can.

And then

click

"Ah fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fucking fucksticks on a dead dog's ass the lighter's wet probably from the FUCKING DOG'S BLOOD OH MY GOD," she screeches. Because the lighter ISN'T sparking.

That's still a whole can of gasoline though.

Once the mind rushing terror of the flamethrower lady (Chris, right?) passed, the Dian couple were happy to join her in panic.

"Ohhhhhh boy."

Alright, brain do the thinky thing. Isaac immediately takes a look through the car, searching through the piles of antiques for anything to make a spark.

"If anyone has anything! To make a spark, GET IT!"

Meanwhile, Miria stared in horror as the creatures from the ally came closer and closer. She could see the birds start to pick themselves up and the rodents already making a move. She tried to set down Vanessa with as little strain as possible and reached for any of the antiques that could be used as a weapon. She found a vase and lifted it above her head threateningly.

Vanessa didn't put up much of a fight when Isaac and Miria set her down. Her arm felt like it was on fire, the rest of her just felt cold and it was becoming more tempting to let her mind sink back into that haze where she wasn't in pain or terrified. Oh, God, how badly was she bleeding?

Chris annihilating the dog barely registered to her above it all but she did catch that the flamethrower wasn't working, and that the smaller captured animals were rising up and going on the attack. She didn't have time to sit around and bleed.

"Doesn't anybody have a lighter?" She tried to call out but realized she probably couldn't be heard over the noise. Damnit. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to turn and yank open the door to the Dians' car and get at least halfway inside and reached over to press down the cigarette lighter and immediately yanked open the glove compartment to find anything made of paper. That thing was going to take awhile, but it would have to do unless somebody came up with something better.

And the first of the rodents charged out of the alleyway, the ones that still hadn't been eaten away too much coming the fastest and rushing at the people closest to the fungus mass first. Behind them the more-devoured ones were shambling along like some kind of Redwall zombie apocalypse.

[OOC: Makin' assumptions about other peoples' property all day! If that's not cool, let me know and I'll edit.]

John watched in growing horror when Chris' lighter failed to spark, his jaw growing slack as the realization that their fire plan (if it could be called a plan) was... not working. It was only when he heard the man shouting something about things that sparked that he snapped back to attention.

Fumbling through his glove compartment, John tried to find anything that could provide a spark, but as a variety of papers tumbled onto the floor, it was quickly becoming apparent that he didn't have anything of use on him. Gaze flicking back toward the fungus, he could see the shambling group of animals heading their way. John cursed beneath his breath and looked at the others; there was still no sign that anyone had managed fire of any sort.

"Aww, shit, c'mon. C'mon!" he shouted at no one in particular. With a half-baked idea (and some fear-induced stupidity), John slammed his foot on the acceleration again as he quickly rolled his window back up. Might as well try to crush as many animals as he could, right?

He was going to need a really good car wash after this--if not a new car.

Isaac glances upward to see Vanessa activate the lighter.

"Huh. I didn't know I had that."

He reached over and tried to help find anything that was flammable.

At least, he started to help. But his priorities shifted pretty quickly.

Distracted by John's car, Miria briefly turned away from the alley. She didn't spot the rat making it's way past the vehicle until it bit into her leg.

She dropped the vase and screeched in pain. The vase smashed into bits and pieces, but the rat didn't move.

"Miria!"

Isaac leaped out of the car just as Miria stomped down on the rat. He quickly pulled her inside in case more rodents were lying in wait.

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No more running.

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red = cybertronian language = sounds like an angry modem

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1/2

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derp derp what am post order

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The best part is, his obliviousness WORKS