savetheearth | Can't run, can't hide - no matter how hard you try.

Entry tags:

Can't run, can't hide - no matter how hard you try.

Who: Natalie Tamura (

starlightheart), OPEN
What: Blackout - Raising Heart Sets Up
Where: Downtown Locke
When: After 9:30PM, June 11th
Warnings: None, yet.

Natalie shouldn't have been out this late in the first place. She knew better, but also figured it couldn't hurt to run down to the store to pick up a few things. Fuyuka had been out for the night for some reason or another that she couldn't quite discern, but didn't want to dwell on. She had some suspicions that it probably pertained to Network business, but...

Mm, no. That wasn't anything she cuold do anything about really, was it?

Thus, how she winds up at a street corner, a grocery bag in hand, as the area around her suddenly becomes engulfed in darkness. Almost immediately, that hollowed out sensation of an echo grabs hold of her. She nearly drops her bag and stumbles in the dark before the fear of being stuck in the middle of the city with no light can hit her.

Mostly because she's struck with another surprise - because the jewel around her neck suddenly begins to glow, and more than that: talk.

"Axel Mode."

A flash of light, and it flies off its chain. It transforms, and grows and without even asking for it suddenly there is a long, pink and gold scepter in her free hand. Too dumbfounded to react as the glow fades, dropping her back into darkness with some strange murmurs from across the street, she just... stands there.

Until it talks again.

"Master?"

She gives a little shriek. "I- I'm sorry?!"

"Are you not my Master?"

Natalie stammers a bit. No actual words, however, are formed.

Just what was going on here...?

[OOC - For whoever might respond, note that there will be an encounter with one of those glowing balls of light. ... Natalie and Raising Heart will both have a reaction to this.]

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As the jewel spoke, a bus topped at the opposite corner of Natalie - the sudden blackout had downed the traffic lights, and the bus wasn't likely to move until they'd cleared.

As the doors opened, however, Natalie could see the first person getting out - one of the only ones, in fact - clearly shaking. While she wasn't precisely overdressed for the evening chill, her woozy shake and move to balance herself against the wall of a shop - closed for the evening, of course - indicated she'd experienced some sort of Echo.

"W... What the..."

Natalie takes a look at Raising Heart in the dim light, then at the girl, back to the device, and then finally to the girl again. She gives a sigh and moves towards her.

"Excuse me, but... are you okay...?"

"I... Er..."

Rita shook her head a bit. Man, Echoes felt weird sometimes.

"Wait. That crystal. It looks... Uh..."

Was she talking about the crystal on the device?

Natalie looks back and forth between the two of them again, and... laughs nervously. What else can she do? This thing looks like a weapon, and yet...

...and yet, what? Was it a weapon?

"I- I don't know where it came from, if you must know..."

She feels an odd chill running up her spine, then. She hadn't been that cold before, and yet... Maybe it's just nervousness. From the darkness. Sure.

"It's a pulse thingy. I... I just had one myself. Weird 'wooshy' feeling and then suddenly you've got something new in your hands or bag, or you remember something from a different you, that sorta thing?"

Britany slowly shifted. "I'm going to guess the blackout's directly related. And, I'm going to guess our other selves were linked."

As she said that, Britany pulled out a collar, clasping it around her neck. Metallic, with a gem in the center, that kind of resembled the one at the center of Natalie's weapon. Sorta.

"Be on your toes. You may need to run away from something, quickly."

Fuyuka had been having quite a night. The meeting had been... interesting. The results had given her a great deal to think about as well. But then the blackouts hit, and she knew she had to rush home. Something... something gave her a bad feeling about this.

"Sir."

Fuyuka's eyes widened, and she slammed down on the brakes of her vehicle. A voice... a voice had spoken from inside the car. It had come... from inside her purse.

Quickly, Fuyuka moved to open it, and found the pendant she'd received when she'd first received echoes. Blinking, she picked it up...

"Intelligent device detected."

Fuyuka had to resist the urge to drop it as it spoke again. She stared at it long and hard, before looking up... and that's when she saw something. Namely, Natalie, standing several feet away, carrying what looked like a staff in her hand.

Needless to say, Fuyuka hurried out of her rental car, clutching Bardiche in her hand. "Natalie...!" she called out.

"S-something like that, yes..."

She sighs and shakes her head, looking around. Or... trying to. It's still very, very dark. She hears mumbling off in the distance, but isn't even sure if there's people nearby to be mumbling. Even engulfed in it, it feels like the darkness wants to tighten around her, and...

She shakes her head and shivers a bit.

"I- I need to get home," she murmurs, and looks back to the girl. "You need to get home, too. It's dangerous out here!"

"I was on my way to my workplace, actually. I sleep there rather than with my foster family - it's just easier on everyone involved."

Britany shook her head a bit, as if she was hearing the odd noises too. Slowly, she reached into her bag...

"... A book? Huh. I'll have to check that out later."

... And then pulled out a whip.

"Best to be ready if something shows up..."

At some point or another, Natalie is by herself again. Literally, legitimately by herself, wandering down along a fence and... wholly lost. She shouldn't be, she knows this town so well, and should be able to find her way in the dark. However? She feels like every corner she turns, something's going to leap out at her. Attack her. She keeps hearing murmuring just out of reach, even as there's no one nearby to cause it.

She's afraid. Paranoid. And she has no idea what to do.

She's so out of it at this point, she scarcely notices Fuyuka's voice as she nears. Its a delayed reaction, and she dimly turns to try and make her out in the darkness.

"Fuyuka, is that-"

No, it's not. The voice cuts through her consciousness much more sharply than even Fuyuka's presence, and Natalie finds herself backing up against the fence, drawing in a sharp breath. Not even thinking about it, she levels Raising Heart in the other woman's direction, pulse beating like a drum in her head.

"Fuyuka, is that you...?!" This time, she sounds much more desperate and at her wit's end.

Fuyuka stops cold. In that moment, much to her shock and surprise, Bardiche shifts in her hands, changing from a pendant into... into a staff much like Nanoha's. But before Fuyuka can properly react to that...

... an echo hits. Fuyuka recoils back as if she were hit by a punch, eyes wide. A memory... herself as a child, fighting... fighting Natalie?! The other girl was unmistakable, even if she was wearing some kind of white coat or dress that Fuyuka didn't recognize.

And what's more, Natalie was defeating her.

Fuyuka grit her teeth, trying to put this unwelcome memory out of her head. "It's me, Natalie!" she called out. "Don't... don't be afraid...!"

And yet, she instinctively ended up holding Bardiche in front of her defensively.

"You do... what?" Somehow, Britany's comment on her family situation almost manages to override the actual situation at hand. Natalie's eyes trail after what she can make out of her, just sort of standing there awkwardly, unsure of what to do.

Then she sees the whip, and the next comment, and blink rapidly.

"E- either way, we need to get somewhere safe! No one needs to be out here looking for something to show up..."

Even if this girl was clearly Numbered as well, and seemed to know far more about what she was doing than Natalie herself.

"... It's a thing for a few Numbered, That's all. Anyways, uh... Do you know how to use that Blastia?"

Rita held the whip loosely in her hand, ready to put it into battle but not yet doing so...

"Blastia?"

The name spills out of Natalie's mouth with absolute unfamiliarity, and she peers up at the red jewel - now much larger, and situated at the top of the staff. It flashes quickly as it responds, which almost makes her drop it. "Unfamiliar terminology, Master."

"M- Master...?"

It's not the first time she's heard Raising Heart utter that phrase, but it's still hard to wrap her head around it. She shakes her head slowly, as she peers back at Britany. As she does this however, that mumbling around her intensifies. It feels like there are people - or things - talking about her, but she can't quite make it out. She still can't discern the location of anyone doing this, either.

Even as the murmuring intensifies, as she slowly becomes able to understand the words and that they're not telling her good things at all, and her paranoia rises, something else cuts through her mind's eye. In an instant, a memory floods into her.

She's lying on the ground. Hurt. There's a girl, a very young girl in red with matching hair and a hammer weapon of some sort, much like Raising Heart. She's coming at her, but is stopped - by someone wielding a weapon much like what Fuyuka's holding. Another young girl with long, golden hair... who otherwise looks unmistakably like the girl Natalie remembers from her childhood.

"F- Fuyuka..." she stammers, wavering in her stance. "I don't know what's going on here, I'm--"

Then, there's something else. A flicker of something approaching them - a sphere of glowing light. Natalie starts to react, but her voice is caught in her throat. She actually stumbles as a second echo strikes her. In the next moment she's nearly tripping over herself trying to find a path away from the glowing ball.

"What- what is that?!"

Her heart races and her grip on Raising Heart tightens. A sudden sound cuts through the night, through the voices in her head. An explosion within the Intelligent Device as it seems to load something from the magazine clip she's just now noticing is there.

"Cartridge Load. Accel Shooter."

A ring of light, a circle filled with pink, glowing arcane symbols sprouts up beneath her feet. More pink light begins to funnel at the ruby red sphere atop the staff she's carrying.

"What... no, wait...!"

Her voice comes out small, and she can feel power building in the Device. Unsure of what else to do, she just points it up as power suddenly erupts from it - and at least a dozen, streaking sphere of light launch into the night's sky.

"... Wait, that's not a Blastia? Mine doesn't talk. I..."

This time around, Rita felt the presence too, her sentence trailing off as she started to look around.

"W-what the heck is..."

"Natalie!"

It's just like in the vision she received; an energy blast being fried from the weapon. It wasn't... it wasn't the same spell, but it was definitely similar. She couldn't do anything else but watch as the beam shot into the air.

For a moment after, a long pause passed between them, with Fuyuka standing there, eyes wide...

... until she overcame the shock, and remembered the light. "Natalie!" she screamed again, running towards her friend. Her intent was to tackle the other woman out of the way, but the distance between them was a bit much...

Still, as Natalie sinks down to her knees, the light... doesn't really do anything except drift in the air. She still looks utterly horrified, hugging Raising Heart as if her life depended on it, but...

The light does nothing to harm her.

"Fuyuka!" she exclaims finally, tears beading in her eyes. "I- please, help me...! I want to leave!"

She could help this if she got up herself, but her legs just don't want to really work right now.

Fuyuka reached Natalie, breathing a sigh of relief. Whatever that was, it was staying put.

"I've got you," she breathed, as she helped her to her feet. "You don't need to worry..."

She looked up at the ball of light, and frowned. Once she was sure Natalie could stand on her feet, she'd take the other woman's hand.

"Natalie. We need to run."

"I- I really don't know what that is, honest!"

She shudders involuntarily. The murmuring becomes stronger in her head, and only her head. It feels like there are people right on top of her...

And who was this girl? Just what was she doing there? With a whip? The irrational paranoia hits her like a freight train and she starts to stumble away.

"R-really, I don't know anything about this!"

Natalie leans against Fuyuka as she's pulled to her feet. Quite heavily, even. Her eyes don't draw away from the orb of light, but she nods absently to her friend's words. It's uncertain at first, but... slowly, her legs start to work again and she begins to move.

Though really, it does occur to her.

If the light meant them any harm, it had more than ample enough time to do something with it.

This didn't go unnoticed, and Fuyuka looked over at Natalie, her expression concerned.

"Natalie?" she said. "What's wrong now...?"

"H-hang on!"

The woman's fear was starting to get to Rita - wasn't the teenager supposed to be the one descending into hysterics?!

"Breathe, focus. I'm on your side. There's something dangerous here, and..."

"That light, it..."

She sighs, and shakes her head. Her hand grips Fuyuka's, tightly. No, she didn't want to focus on this. What this might all be, what receiving this weapon could mean. She just wants... to not think about it, really.

"Let's... let's just go. Please...?"

She's still scared out of her mind. Still shaking. But she feels just a little safer, having someone nearby to draw strength from.

"You don't have to remind me," Fuyuka replied, and she began leading Natalie back to her car. She looked over her shoulder at the ball of light and frowned, wondering what it meant herself.

Once she got them both inside, she wasted no chance in starting it up, and beginning the drive back to the apartment.

For just a moment, Natalie freezes in place. She wants her to stay there? To stay there?! No, no that wouldn't do at all! That intense feeling of fear and distrust swells up in her, and she shakes her head frantically. Then, a voice cuts into her consciousness. She's not sure where it's coming from, and all told it might just be her own mind with these feelings tumbling through her playing tricks on her:

No, she's not.

Her eyes widen fearfully, she grips Raising Heart ever tighter... and then, doesn't even think. She just turns and runs.

"Wait, please, don't-"

And the woman was already running. And was much more fit than Rita. No way she was catching up without magic, and that seemed like a bad way to handle things.

"Damn it, what if... If..."

And then Rita froze. "S-she's right. Got to get away..."

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Can't run, can't hide - no matter how hard you try.

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Time for Britany to be totally wrong!

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