Save the Earth Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theearth) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
savetheearth2014-05-19 05:49 pm
theearth) wrote in savetheearth2014-05-19 05:49 pm
Entry tags:
- #action,
- +location: las vegas,
- baccano!: claire stanfield,
- dokidoki precure: rikka hishikawa,
- gundam 00: allelujah haptism,
- heartcatch precure: yuri tsukikage,
- jjba: josuke higashikata,
- magic knight rayearth: umi ryuuzaki,
- mermaid melody pichi pichi pitch: caren,
- pandora hearts: xerxes break,
- violinist of hameln: raiel
vermini encounters
Who: Characters picked for encounters with Vermini and anyone accompanying them
What: There are swarms of Vermini in Las Vegas - some have infested and altered animals, and others are simple swarms.
Where: Las Vegas
When: Any time between May 19th and June 4th
[ The Vermini clusters are most commonly spotted near water and large patches of grass, but they have begun spreading out, seemingly on the prowl. As always, non-reincarnates overlook Vermini. These groups of Vermini do not immediately flee when they near a reincarnate, but they are not aggressive until attacked.
As a refresher course: Vermini infested animals appear as real animals with suspiciously humanoid features: birds with teeth, dogs with thumbs, fish with hair, and so on and so forth. If an infested animal is captured, the Vermini will abandon the animal and attempt to flee, turning the animal back to normal. This happens even if the animal has died. Vermini turn into steam when destroyed, and chirp, but do not speak. ]
What: There are swarms of Vermini in Las Vegas - some have infested and altered animals, and others are simple swarms.
Where: Las Vegas
When: Any time between May 19th and June 4th
[ The Vermini clusters are most commonly spotted near water and large patches of grass, but they have begun spreading out, seemingly on the prowl. As always, non-reincarnates overlook Vermini. These groups of Vermini do not immediately flee when they near a reincarnate, but they are not aggressive until attacked.
As a refresher course: Vermini infested animals appear as real animals with suspiciously humanoid features: birds with teeth, dogs with thumbs, fish with hair, and so on and so forth. If an infested animal is captured, the Vermini will abandon the animal and attempt to flee, turning the animal back to normal. This happens even if the animal has died. Vermini turn into steam when destroyed, and chirp, but do not speak. ]
no subject
Then she sees it poke its head out again, and she immediately goes silent. Out of fear, of all things - she'd been too new to be involved the first time, and now she's absolutely unsure how to react. This thing is more clearly not natural than almost anything else they've done - the snake statues, the vermedi, all of those were something more grounded than this. But this thing shouldn't exist. And it scares her to her core. Enough that, even as Raquel turns into her Commune, she can't react. She can't wrap her hand around it and do something. She's frozen.
Frozen is exactly the wrong thing to be right now. Her instincts communicate that clearly, but it's not enough to get her moving, and that's a problem. One that looks inclined to bolt toward her at the slightest provocation-
Her breath hitches. "L-Lily...!" It comes out at a squeak, and the beast's head perks up further, looking right at her. She goes perfectly still, and says nothing more, shivering just a little.
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She keeps her attention divided as evenly as possible between the creature now narrowing its focus upon Winter, and Winter herself. She understands the feeling. She's feeling it right then and there, but... She tries her best to focus. To keep herself steady. Hearing her voice come out like that, seeing her shake... she realizes that if Winter is showing that much fear, she can't afford to.
Once more, Lily's vast practice at hiding her emotions comes to her advantage. In a way she hates it, but she'll damn well use it where she can.
"We're not going to have much of a choice here," Lily murmurs just loud enough for Winter to hear, but she speaks evenly enough. "If that thing wanders off, someone else could get hurt, and if we lose track of it before the police get here, nothing can be done until its too late..."
The infested dog snaps a look to her, briefly, but its focus seems to narrow in on Winter. Assuredly it can smell Lily's fear too, but it can see Winter's. There's enough people around that once it moves this has the chance of becoming very public, even if no one else has caught a glimpse of it yet...
...and then of course, it does move, its longer human-like leg length carrying it quickly in their direction.
"Winter, transform!" Lily shouts, but even she hesitates for a moment. She almost fumbles her device. But with a click and a flash, Cure Moonlight appears in her place - and slides into position in front of Winter, almost instinctively.
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She can't move. She can't react. Even Raquel's voice trying to get her attention doesn't pierce the shock. Lily's voice gets to her, a moment too slowly, and as she tries to bring her hands around to work the transformation device that's screaming in her ear, she knows she's not going to make it. Her legs aren't moving, her lips are too dry to speak the words, her hands are shaking. Nothing is working right, and it's going to cost them. It's going to cost her.
With agonizing slowness - she drops the Loveads, a twitch reaction catching it a few inches later - she slams everything into place, and she stutters her way through her transformation, the light clearing from her eyes as it's already too late, and the thing's right there, and she doesn't even have the time to reach a hand out, let alone to move - or to drag or push Lily aside. Cure Diamond is completely blindsided, and that means Moonlight's on her own. Worse, it means Moonlight's going to have to protect deadweight for a minute or two while Winter gets her act together. Because whatever she thinks she's doing, this is not what she's supposed to be doing.
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Those instincts also tell her to lash out, that she had the power to end this within a second. While true, she doesn't want to kill it. This poor creature is just as innocent as either of them - it's the Vermini inside that's pushing it to do this.
So she doesn't listen to those instincts at all.
This is probably the mistake that costs her.
Because Diamond isn't moving, neither does Moonlight. Her right arm goes up to block, but this is very quickly discovered to also be a mistake. Hot, searing pain suddenly meets her, and she discovers something very important - their transformed states could protect them very, very well from blunt instruments of destruction. Blasts of power, drops from great distances, being knocked through walls, stone snakes.
Something very sharp, like a claw? Can and does tear through the long glove on her right arm. Perhaps it doesn't cut her as deeply as it may have been normally, as there's still some resistance. But it does cut her severely enough that there is very quickly blood trickling down the rest of that purple glove's length, and her arm.
She pulls back a step in the next half second, but... dogs in attack act quick. Quicker than most humans think, and in pushing those instincts away that's all Lily's left with - thinking, and realizing she doesn't have the experience to truly know what to do in the heat of the moment. She's only ever done what she's felt. A flash of remembrance comes to her, Winter telling her not to over think, to just let her emotions go - and a realization that she may have had her power and skill, but she had none of Yuri's true experience...
There's a dozen different ways, she realizes in an instant, that she could have done this differently. Ways she could have dispatched this monster - saved it, too - and protected Winter. However, it's a little too late to realize all of that.
She's already made enough mistakes, which she pays for in the next moment, when the dog monster's fangs suddenly clamp down on her shoulder. Once again there is a limited resistance before the force of the beast's jaws and its teeth tear through her clothing, and then dig into her flesh. Dig in, and not let go.
Even as Moonlight stands there, eyes widened in horror, feeling more pain than she ever had in her entire life... she can't bring herself to scream. Her voice only comes out as an uneven whisper. "W- Winter... get a-away...!"
no subject
Blood. Dripping to the ground, trickling down skin. For half a second, Diamond freezes again. She can't move. Why is there blood there? Did she hit it? Is it dead? Surely it's-
Dripping down Lily's right arm. The young woman takes half a step back, and the beast continues forward. There's a flash of memory, of emptiness, something that isn't hers - overlaying the scene she's watching is something almost exactly the same, the same blue hair in the corner of her eyes, the same bangle on her wrist, a little bit shorter, the enemy's a little bit bigger, and it's Cure Heart being bitten. She hears the voice in her head, in her past, screaming, just as she finally finds her own-
"LILY!" It's at the top of her lungs, shrieking. Birds on a nearby roof fly away, and heads turn that had somehow not noticed the two magical girls on the street. She doesn't have the decorum to remember not to use her name. None of that matters now. She can't think straight. Everything's skipping around. Lily's hurt, badly. The blood's everywhere. If things continue like this, Lily will be gravely wounded. There's a chance she won't survive-
Winter's thoughts shift. That is the one thing that she cannot allow. No force in this world will take her precious people from her while she's watching. Lily will not die in front of her. Not ever, if she has anything to say about it. And she does. That is what this power is for. Protecting the innocent, sure, that's nice on paper. Winter Adamas is someone that exists to keep people safe, starting with the ones closest. And right now, there is someone that needs her protection. Something that needs to be ended. Something that threatened her Lily, and whose continued existence is now forfeit. The blood on the ground is Lily's, but there will be more. She will draw it, and she will make this right-
When she realizes, she's already moved a few feet from where she was standing behind Lily, in what seems like an instant. There's a Loveads in her Commune, her hand is outstretched, and she's gripping the thing's head in her hand. She feels the magic coming to her fingertips, and it's like the temperature has dropped thirty degrees, even as her blood boils. Her other hand is wrapped around Lily to the thing's lower jaw, and with her strength, she's actively ripping it off of Lily, if not completely apart.
Winter's lost control of herself. And she doesn't even care. There are no speeches, no pleas for reason. And there's no remorse, as her eyes blaze with purpose, even as tears stream from them. Her costume seems... dimmer, almost, but she's not really in a state of mind to notice herself; Lily's request goes unheeded.
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The beast meanwhile wrenches back and away from Cure Diamond, snarling the whole way. Its human-like legs do a much better job of leaping away than a dog's might, but... It's sure no magical girl that can leap buildings in a single bound. Either way, Lily's blood drips from its fangs as it now seems to be seeking a method of escape, at least temporarily.
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It's not really a question, and now that she's between Lily and the dog, she can be assured that the only person getting hurt after this is herself... which is an acceptable loss, really. Diamond's off like a rocket, right hand whipping forward in a point, ice jetting out toward her enemy. She thinks she sees it connect, even as the thing almost dodged it entirely at the last minute, and she races in for the kill. She can't see anything but the being she is looking to put down, as revenge for the life oozing onto the sidewalk, and she pushes herself past her physical limits, running faster than she ever has before, even like this. She'll feel it later, if she feels anything at all later through the fact that she'd let Lily be hurt-
That thought is enough to replace the coming dullness with the rage that had driven her thirty seconds ago, and suddenly her limits are nothing. They're not worth acknowledging, because if something got to Lily, her limits would be blown to hell anyway. She sees it trying to duck behind a corner, and a quick wave of her hand creates a six-foot-tall lattice of ice, a less-bright blue than her usual. It probably won't stop the thing, but it'll slow it down, and that's what she needs. She'll catch it, and she'll end it, and she'll go back to Lily, and she'll cry for a few hours, and she'll figure out how to fix her up, and... it'll all be okay. It'll be all right. She'll make sure of it.
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She cries out for Winter, fear, pain, and desperation in her voice.
While the thing tries to escape, Diamond's attacks throw it off balance. The way its body is now there isn't very much balance to it in the first place, but it falls over, trying to scramble away on its front legs and human-like back ones, which is an odd sight to say the least.
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Diamond breaks off pursuit, moving at and beyond her top speed back to Lily, gently turning her face-up to get an idea of what she's looking at. She rapidly regrets the decision; she feels ill almost immediately looking at it. Even though the holes didn't transfer to the clothing Lily's wearing now, the blood is happily drenching everything, and there's a fresh layer on Winter's fingers. She reaches for her girlfriend's hand, but there's more blood there, too, and she squeezes it for a moment before she resolves herself. "Lily... Lily, it's going to be okay... I'm going to get you to the hospital. I'll find you a doctor, and we'll get you fixed up... you'll be all right..." It's almost as much for her as it is for Lily. She needs the focus.
The little first-aid training she has insists that Winter not move her. Winter's instincts say that she must move Lily now, or it will be too late. So she throws triage out the window and skips straight to transport, though she realizes she probably needs to check first. Lily is likely to know better than her if something is too badly damaged to move. "I'm going to... pick you up now. R-ready?"
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"Y-you... saved me," she manages to get out, lips trembling. "Thank... you. I-I'm sorry, didn't... mean to..."
And it's almost all she can get out. She tries to nod to what Diamond tells her, adding unevenly: "Go... go ahead... know you'll... take care of... of me..."
Of course, she'd like to pretend to be strong, tell her to wait - focus on the escaping monster. But she knows better. She knows how much she needs Winter right now. And true to form, she had been told weeks ago all she needed was to call the girl's name. Winter proved to be nothing if not true to her word.
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There's no time for that now. She can't delay any longer. Lily's life is in her hands. And even if there's precious little she can actually do, she's got to do it. For a moment she entertains the idea of fashioning a stretcher from ice, but Lily's wounds would freeze to it, and there's no way for her to move it, so that's out. She recalled there being a clinic close to where they were staying, at least, so that would be a start - she didn't even know if there was a proper hospital, but this would have to do. If she needed to find somewhere else, she'd do it.
"Ssh. It'll be okay. We can talk later." She noticeably doesn't respond to saving anyone - Lily shouldn't have needed to be saved in the first place. "I'll make this right. This might h-hurt a little, so hang on, okay?"
Kneeling, she slides an arm under Lily's neck and shifts it down to her back, carefully avoiding the entire side she doesn't want to touch at all, then with a deep breath, she moves her other down to her friend's legs, and lifts. For Cure Diamond's enhanced strength, this isn't anything to write home about, but even without it, she'd manage. The adrenaline and the panic and the blame are all mixed in her blood, and she has to get Lily somewhere, under her own power. There's no time to waste.
Moving her hand to Lily's upper arm to try and keep everything as steady as she can while running, she takes off, flying down the Strip like a girl on a mission... which she is, of course. Most of the people in the way see someone carrying a bloody young woman and assume the worst, getting out of her way, which is exactly what she was hoping for. A few see blue and purple hair and start asking questions, until they get close enough to see the positively murderous expression on her face where Lily can't see it, and back off. She can't start jumping over buildings while she's holding Lily like this; it'll jostle things too much. But the distance won't be that far.
"It'll be over soon. Hold on just a little longer...!"
She has to believe. She can blame herself all she wants to later. Right now, she has to get Lily somewhere she'll be safe...!
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"S-sorry," she manages out, tears now streaming down her cheeks. Her entire right arm feels like it's on fire, now. "Screwed up... I- I screwed up... I'm- nngh, I'm so sorry... Winter..."
She tries to move her head, and discovers that's as bad ah idea as anything else she's done in the last few moments. So she just clutches the dress tighter, trusting in the other girl. She should be more concerned with her own survival, she knows. She's trying not to think about what this might mean for her, however. She can't, not now. If she did, she subconsciously realizes her mind would go to a very bad place, very fast. However, one more thing slips out of her mouth with that in mind, a sudden urge telling her she needs to say this again while she has the chance.
"I love you... thank you, Winter..."
It's faint and it's all she can do to get it out, but... She wants to right then and there, in case it's the last chance she gets. Because a moment later, the pain takes over and she quiets further outside of pathetic, hurt whimpers, trusting in Diamond to so what has to be done.
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She notices the hand tightening on her dress, and she tries to push herself as fast as she dares while she's carrying her charge. And as Lily seems to come to the same realization Winter's been trying to fight for the last several minutes, she just... shakes her head, and smiles, even as she continues to cry. "I love you, Lily. Please... trust me. You'll be okay. I'll m-make sure of it. I won't let this be the last time!"
The city feels so big, even if she's not even going that far. Every second that passes is one she just doesn't have, and- wait, that's Planet Hollywood, isn't it? She's close... they'll make it. Everything has to be okay...!