"Oh, holy magic? One of my friends uses something like that, actually it's the first kind of Chanteuse magic I ever saw..."
"Look outside, there's a monster!"
Lively emerald eyes gazed upon the commotion down below, darting excitedly from detail to detail before locking back with Marie's own. A pause. A bemused smile flashes across Eva's face.
"What about it?"
"...That doesn't seem weird to you at all?"
"No, should it?"
Oblivious. Utterly oblivious. Marie, wasn't entirely sure what she had expected, but whatever it was, wasn't this.
She was leaning against forward against the balcony's railing and almost dutifully at her side as always was a girl with short golden hair, a disarming smile, and a quite frankly, tiring amount of energy. Evangelion Sandford - friend, confidante, ladykiller; accidental to boot, on all three counts no less. Marie was leaning forwards, trying to explain to her precisely why she should be interested, concerned even, but her mouth wasn't feeling particularly cooperative, yielding only an incredulous sputter followed by a strangled, frustrated sigh.
"Come on now! Don't make a face like that!"
An arm wraps roughly around her shoulder.
"It don't really get it, but I'll watch with you! Do you like this sort of thing? We should get popcorn!"
Marie's scowl twitches, ever so slightly, softening into a slight smile.
"Thanks."
The gunshot was nothing special. It was not the first she had heard, not in her life, not today, not even in the past half hour. And yet, it was the one she noticed. A sharp crack, identical, indistinguishable, to the twelve that came before, and yet more "real". In that moment, the world at last became clear, terrifyingly clear. Someone was firing a gun, wildly so, and one second ago it seemed like the most normal thing in the world.
Down there, out there, out on the streets, cars lay abandoned, occupants fleeing with terror in their eyes, but only terror, for they looked and they saw danger, they saw fear, but not what that danger was, nor what it is that they feared; a sight she would soon grow accustomed to. What Marie saw, what she physically saw, was the same, only that she paid heed to what those down below neglected. Floating in the very epicenter, amidst the rubble and blasted husks of cars, was a creature vibrant with unearthly pascals. Its form was vaguely serpentine, with a bulbous head reminiscent of a rhizophysa's bell and a tightly coiled body with flexible protruding chimes in place for scales. Staring it down, was a girl dressed in black.
Her hair was violet, adorned with a lacy headband. Her dress was elegant in its simplicity, sleeveless, complemented with a pair of perfectly smooth opera gloves and stylish heeled boots. And gripped in her hands was a pistol, a pistol that discharged another four rounds into her foe at close range, violent sprays of vibrant ichor marking their exit wounds.
Her name, though Marie did not know it at the time, was Sumiko Maeda. The pistol in her hands was once a replica, converted to become far more functional than what the manufacturers had intended, a rather common practice in spite of the safeguards, achieved through altering the vents, drilling out the barrel, and acquiring ammunition that will fit, not the simplest affair, but not exceptionally difficult either. And like many other converted replicas, its barrel was devoid of rifling, necessitating the close range sprays on account of the quite atrocious accuracy.
An eerie ringing pierces the cacophony, and where Sumiko was just standing, where she had just tossed her emptied pistol, detonates. It was a cold explosion, a silent explosion, devoid of both light and sound. The area had simply shimmered, and everything within it, became debris. It is soon followed by a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, the gap between the rings shrinking until it was but a continuous, shrill shriek as the shimmers ripped through the air in a wild frenzy, plumes of debris erupting from where they gouge the ground.
Drawing a second pistol, the girl flitted back and forth, weaving and leaping through gaps in the attacks, explosions buffeting her dress, grazing near, shadowing each and every step, yet failing to ever catch her. Her movements were simple and swift, made with graceful efficiency and interspersed with wild bursts of gunfire, that soon stained the area with ichor.
A sharp crack. A smoking crater. Its uncoiled body at the epicenter, wreathed in that deathly shimmer.
Riding the blast wave backwards, Sumiko discarded her pistol, and as she skidded to a halt, a microphone precipitated in her clasped hands as she fell upon her knees, as if in prayer.
"Longing for light, we wait in darkness."
"Longing for truth, we turn to you."
"Make us your own, your holy people,"
"Light for the world to see."
She sung the hymn as if it were an aria, ethereal voice resounding as her now-recovered foe lunged towards her, the air already beginning to shimmer.
"Christ, be our light!"
And the world exploded with light.
And rising from around Sumiko was a grand cross of heavenly radiance, its mere presence was judgments, and its light the wrath of the divine.
And so, the creature was thrown like a rag-doll, cracking the wall and staining it with ichor.
"Shine in our hearts, shine through the darkness."
"Christ, be our light!"
"Shine in your Church, gathered today."
And the cross burned with its verdict, as the creature burned with pale flames.
And she raised the cross as if it weighed naught, and charged at her foe.
"Longing for peace, our world is troubled."
"Longing for hope, many despair."
"Your word alone has power to save us"
"Make us your living voice."
And so they clashed, Sumiko with her cross, the creature with its body.
And as they did, the cross burned brighter and brighter, until its wielder need only gesture to swing it.
And so she began to overwhelm it.
"Christ, be our light!"
"Shine in our hearts, shine through the darkness."
"Christ, be our light!"
And catching it off guard, she brought the cross down upon it, the cross crushing, expanding, detonating.
"Shine in your Church, gathered today."
The cross, a mass of black metal with an almost crystalline sheen, jutted from the ground at a forty-five degree angle, its head jammed into the cracked and blasted asphalt. Sitting with her legs along the arm, and her back resting against the longer segment, Sumiko surveyed the two girls, a saucer and teacup in her hands.
"I suppose I owe you two quite the explanation. Are you okay with discussing about it over dinner at my residence?"
She tapped the cross lightly, and it shattered to naught.
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Topic: Multiverse Bugaboo [IC Thread]: Probably Dead On Arrival (Read 18398 times)