Mary Barnett was gathered around the school with other parents, with it being on lockdown.
She shouted for her daughter, hoping that she would come out of the school, alive.
Her baby girl. Her little 'Von.
She prayed.
She just hoped.
Yvonne saw the man, the ghastly look in his eyes.
She saw red, brimstones and fire.
He was evil.
She dove, then swung, averting her eyes from his.
She believed that she would hit him, and live.
She just hoped.
You press the relevant button as you swing the phone, the boy with the gun starting to move - he is not quick enough.
The wire at the end of the phone, the dinky little antenna-like thing, starts to unfold and split mid-swing - you only barely see this, but the mental image of everything working exactly as expected supplements your senses, a silvery feeling in your brain that you can't help but enjoy. It lengthens greatly, emitting the sound of a working power line as it strains your phone's systems to a limit most engineers today could scarcely imagine, the wire continuing to unfold until it forms ten thousand razor sharp filaments, each ten meters in length, stretched taut by an electromagnetic suggestion even you barely understand, but can readily exploit.
The boy barely impedes the passing of the filaments, and neither does the barricade. The filaments pass through him and all else in front of you in the space of a split second before your phone becomes boiling hot in your hands and your fingers intuitively locate the 'abort' button, detaching the filaments from the controlling impulse and sending them flying into the blinds - these too are shredded as the filaments come to rest at the windows, leaving incredibly long scratches along their surface. Your hand releases the phone as it melts in your hand, and you think you remain unhurt as it slips to the floor, losing its shape from the extreme heat. You face the windows as the ruined blinds fall, illuminating you with a final flash of white that makes you look toward the boy again.
He does not look the same anymore, you notice immediately as every infinitesimal part of him starts to detach from every other, the filaments having crossed every inch of him, crisscrossing the entirety of his flesh and sectioning him, his gun and the ramshackle barricade at the edge of the makeshift fountain into a seemingly infinite number of pieces. You inhale the deep red as he falls into the spilling fountain of blood, any trace of him indistinguishable as he spills all over the floor, clinging to your feet as he and the blood form a thick suspension. You feel uncomfortably warm inside as it all washes past you.
You will live to see the end of the day. The school is filled with the silence of victory.
((oh darn, missed a turn.))
"sure, i can do that." replies steven, quickly pulling a pair of glooves out of his pocket and putting them on before carefully taking the dart from Kim.
"these people with your guest, are they likely to be parahuman themselves?"
Your ready acceptance appears to please Kim, as she smiles at your response.
"Very good question. I don't think her friends will be parahuman. I'm not sure if she'd abide that. I'm not sure
she'll have powers, in fact. But she did get a pretty big windfall the other month, and there have been certain rumors. So better to be on the safe side, yeah?" she explains. "Of course, if they're
all suddenly parahumans, that'll be a pretty hairy situation indeed. I wouldn't think she could afford
one, to be honest, but who knows. That's kind of where you come in," she shrugs. "Better not to plan too far ahead with the likes of her."
She glances at the door. "Anyway, we've got a bit of time, coffee and donuts. And maybe Z will need some extra convincing before he fucks off," she says, shaking her head. "It is pretty integral to the plan that he isn't here, if only for my own peace of mind. So for now let us relax."
As Lacie left the mansion grounds she let out a long deep sigh, she rested against a nearby wall still not entirely believing what had just happened. She stood there for a while, relishing the feeling of just being alive. Eventually though the thief realised she was not safe yet, not until she got back home without being seen would she have survived tonight's ordeals. The metal woman began to move, heading as quickly and as quietly as she could back towards her home.
It takes some time before you're well clear of the Bluffs, and you try to stay as far away from the houses as possible. Of course, to get to your place in the docks, you realize you either need to take a path through the Business District, which is not particularly busy at this hour, but still hosts quite a few people, or take a detour around it that would be incredibly long to make just on foot while one of your legs doesn't exactly bend the way it's supposed to.
The chair dad isn't doing anything. Let's switch them!
The switch is simple to perform, intuitive and well within your grasp after a moment's consideration. You bequeath upon your father a new body - very similar to the previous one in build and dress, perhaps belonging to the father of a very similar Kyle, in fact. And he doesn't even appear all that shocked as you do it. More... relieved, really, the incredible pain and sense of impending death from a moment ago disappearing entirely. His clothes look a bit shabbier, but this, unlike a chunk of missing flesh, he is almost certain to survive.
As the situation in the room settles down, four of the five Churchboys disabled, beaten or stabbed to the point of nonresistance, you loom over your family in your new suit of armor, still bleeding from Stevie's fortuitous hit, though more lightly than you suspect you should be. You wonder what you look like, really - you bet the helmet's pretty scary-looking, actually. Your sister seems to be just about finished beating Crazy Joe into immobility, and your mother and father seem just about equally incredulous at his sudden absence of life-threatening injuries, and the whole room is gripped by a vaguely surreal atmosphere.
You wonder if you should explain yourself, really, or whether just riding this wave of strangeness all the way home would be more preferable.
Maybe bothering them again will get heating installed. Vel thinks as he collapses in bed. Or probably not. As for what is wanted, most people never get what they really want. Only way to get it is to notice when the universe dangles it before you and chase after it without a moment's hesitation. You hesitate? You delay? It's completely gone.
With this in mind, you wait patiently until the universe grants you the opportunity to try and move again. You'd be all over that, really. It takes a while, as you would imagine, but eventually you're back to a semi-ambulatory state, and though it hurts like a bitch, you think you can make it up the stairs out of your room if you really wanted to.
At this point it is about 4 AM, which is hardly the most exciting hour. You don't really feel like sleeping yet, though. A bit early for that.
Rachel grabs the gown and puts it back on. It's not much, but at least it should protect her dignity. That's the theory, anyways. Looking around the room, Rachel finds her eyes consistently drawn to the restraints, and then to the door. Almost without realizing it, she begins muttering out loud to herself. "Preliminary examination of the room suggests that it is not mine. It does, however, bear a surprising resemblance to the testing rooms. The restraints remain a mystery. Were they for my own protection? Or to protect others from me?" As she talks, she paces around the room, one hand held out in front of her as if holding a voice recorder. "What was that liquid, anyways? It certainly wasn't my medicine. Did they try to give me powers as an act of desperation, hoping it would cancel out or at least suppress my illness? So many questions..."
After a few minutes of continued muttering, she turns to to door, a thoughtful expression on her face. Remembering how easy it was to escape the restraints, she approaches the thick steel, placing her hand against the seam and starting to push.
The hospital gown fits you much poorer than you recall, and you occasionally feel like you might slip through the collar if you're not careful. Oddly, wearing it almost makes you feel less comfortable, though you suppose you'll get used to it just like you'll have to get used to walking. And as you glance at your hand while pantomiming a recorded monologue, you can't help but notice that it seems to have no fingernails anymore, along with a distinct lack of any distinguishable joints, looking almost like a cartoon hand, right down to the missing gridlike look of regular human skin, though your fingers do have an odd, pointed look to them now. You pause in examining your hand while monologuing and go to the door, wondering if perhaps there is something more to its altered appearance.
Placing your hand on the steel door's seam, you push, feeling your flesh conform perfectly to the shape of the door. Interestingly, your fingertips start to elongate, and you feel them curl inwards - the index finger is the first to turn fully, pushing into the seam... at which point you note a strange thing - from around your finger you notice a slight amount of smoke rising, intensifying as you try to probe further into the seam, the finger progressing slowly inward. You draw your hand back, and immediately notice that it seems to have burnt a little into the door. Not very deeply, of course, since the door is very much made of steel... but it does make you wonder if you could get through this thing with a little patience.
Arnie gazed at the stuff he had acquired. This stuff might be worth money, and with more money he could buy more beer. He needed the beer. So badly. As he looked over the goods, he caught sight of the bloody corpses lying on the ground.
Blood. Arnie didn't want to look at it. It only brought back bad memories. He couldn't stay here. The room felt so much smaller now. He had to escape. He had to go back to his street. He just wanted to have a drink. He didn't want to think about what he did here. The alcohol would help him forget.
Try to leave this place. Take the serpent canister, weapons, and any other valuables with me.
You collect all the valuables of your would-be captors and open the door to this dank basement, pouring forward into the stairwell that leads up, crashing gently against the door as you flood into the greater space. You open the next door, finding it entirely unlocked, and enter a ground floor room - a kitchen from what you can make out in the dark. You stretch out to explore it, seeking to fill out this room and the adjoining living room, but you find something pulling you back a tad. Looking back, you feel yourself still in the basement, getting drawn back slowly to lower ground. This makes you uneasy, and you try to pull forward - the rest of you starts to obey. You ebb from the basement a little, but note with trepidation that you start to flow back. You pull more strongly, but flow back. You inhale powerfully, your hands grabbing every bit and handle you can find in the kitchen, then pull yourself with all of your might.
This time it works, your body and all of the valuables, each safely cradled in a pair of tightly closed hands, flying out of the basement, the door pulled shut behind it. You flow into the kitchen, enjoying the top of the hill for a moment before slamming the stairwell door shut. Exhaling with relief at last, you move to fill out the kitchen and living room. Pressing against the windows, your eyes tell you that it is dark outside. You don't know where you are, or how you would get to a place you know from here. And as the things you have grabbed stream in an orderly row through the room, reminding you of an airborne serpent unnervingly, you start to ponder if there are not more people out there. They might want your stuff. And be prepared to take it, too, though you think you are more than prepared to defend yourself in turn. After all, if the snake-woman's lackeys could not harm you, what chance do mere ignorant thieves have?
Serra, panting, smashes the rock into the other iron bars, adrenaline coursing through her as she forces her way in, barely fitting through the rusted metal. A small part of her wondered whether she'd had her tetanus shots recently. A larger part was remembering that the boys were due for their own shots in a few weeks. She'd had it on her calendar for a month now. And now...
The girl scrambles towards where she'd thought she'd heard the commotion, tripping over upended tables and strewn furniture, stomach churning at the reek of...something. Or in worry? Of what had happe-what might happen? It wouldn't. It couldn't happen! This was a nightmare, this couldn't be happening - but it was. But she wouldn't let it happen. She couldn't let it happen. It would not happen. All these thoughts racing through her mind as she stumbles through the tiny living room of the place, not Meche's, Meche wouldn't do this, but she had to- had to- what?
There- it was coming from in there. The screaming, the stomping, that's where it must have had to come from, earlier.
What was through the doorway, at the end of the hall?
As you clamber your way into the room and stumble on through the darkened room, you nearly trip over a man - a dead man, you note, his brains painting the wall next to an old TV that someone left on, his body splayed out over a coffee table. The screen casts a ghostly light on him, and his face is a mess of blood and horror. You wouldn't recognize him even if you did know him, which you doubt, and your momentary distraction stops when you hear the shouting continue from deeper inside the house. Your worst fears driving you onward, you stumble on, pushing yourself along the hallway as you break into something resembling a run. Your limbs feel heavy, and your heart is pumping ice into your arteries.
Through the doorway at the end of the hall, where the path of Meche and the man named Paulie leads, were the two of them, as expected... and two of
them. You freeze in your tracks as you are about to race in through the door, where a near-empty room awaits. There's Dominic, tied to a stool, a black bag over his head, dressed just as when you saw him last... and then there's Lucian, right in front of a manic-looking Paulie, a gun pressed to his temple, the man's finger twitching on its trigger, Lucian making incoherent, whimpering sounds of abject fear, Meche looking on with a pleading look on her face. It is a scene that you interrupt, and for a moment, all eyes are on you. Paulie glares at you like a cornered animal, almost as likely to pull the trigger on accident as deliberately, Meche looking utterly crushed as you meet her gaze, and Lucian... you see a glint of misplaced relief in his eye, a spark of hope and recognition. You're here now. You can save him... can't you?
((I don't know if you saw this the first time. Or, well, this is the second time I've posted a character sheet but this is the second iteration of my character...And I expanded it a bit. Oh well.))
I did see it, and it works. I should probably put a waitlist up, actually.
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Topic: Come On Down To Edwardstown: A Worm-Inspired RP (9/9) (Read 17018 times)