EVENT: MELPOMENE ▒ HOME

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: Corridors in the belly of the Tranquility
WARNINGS: Creepiness, disturbing imagery, violence, etc.
SUMMARY: Characters discover slices of sanctuary deep in the maze.
NOTES: Open to all! Covers Stage Four of the plot & Escape.

You've been running and fighting for what feels like weeks now. Exhausted and desperate, you find another door, stumbling through into— You're home, finally, far away and safe from monsters or spaceships. You're not alone, someone here who's been waiting for you, and they're so happy to see you. Relief overcomes you; you just want to rest, and there's no reason to believe anything here isn't what it seems, is there?

Comments

[pushfall]

[ She can't determine if she's relieved that someone else is here or bothered by the intrusion. Too intent on not relinquishing control after she's been forced through so many people's nightmares and gotten spit out on the other side, only to find herself here, is too much like moving through a carnival of revolving doors and mirrors, and Claire is ready to be done with all of it. Her body feels exhausted, and that's new, and alarming, and it seems to sag more with the weight of this new face, like she might be able to pass the torch off and just sit down for a minute before plunging into the next bad dream.

But she stays upright, keeps her eyes on the man across from her, trying to silently communicate... she doesn't know what. The first step is to step out of the metal dish, and it clangs to the floor sharply, grating hard on Claire's ears and snapping her back into reality - however much reality this might be - in an instant. ]

We're here for Kate. [ She says it with conviction and courage, like the bluster behind her voice might be enough to make this particular illusion dissolve. ] You've gotta let her come with us.

[ Grab her! she wants to shout at the man across the room. Just throw her over your shoulder and haul ass. But he's not looking at her, and she can't just shout that with the sandy-haired girl looking between the two of them. She takes slow steps forward, regardless, like approaching a wild animal. ]

[alsohawkeye]

[ Mitchell has a curtain to contend with, having emerged from what is usually a closet hidden behind a pair of them hung on nails across the wall. The door's opening pushed it aside but it drifts slowly back now to brush against his knees and threaten slapstick tangling.

The blonde girl stands quickly when he appears as well, looking between the pair of them with an increasing agitation that's not at all subtle. She has no poker face, brows furrowing together and lip jutting, suspicious and not at all pleased by their intrusion. When Claire states her purpose and begins to advance, fists clench at her sides and she shifts a half-step forward into a position that would be more overtly threatening if she weren't a coltish and slightly baby-faced sixteenish. ]

She's not going anywhere! Get out of here, both of you! Don't make me hurt you.

[ Behind her, Kate still hasn't moved. On tv, Sgt. Whiskers is in the process of rescuing a baby. ]

[humanistic]

[Us, and we. That sorts out who the blonde girl in the dog dishes is, then--an interloper on this scene, and if he thinks about it, perhaps he can slightly place her face as one he's seen in passing, on some hasty trip out of the jump pods. Or not. (He used to better trust his memory for faces, before Lia. Maybe he's hit some undefined threshold; pass a hundred years and things start looking the same.)

And while the last few rescue missions he was a part of were general successes, that doesn't make Mitchell a hero. He's tried that part on and found that it fits pretty poorly. Self-preservation should turn him around, back out whatever way he came in. This isn't his fight, these aren't his friends--but Jesus, Kate's been nothing but good to him. One good deed won't hurt his standing.

So fine: he steps free of that clinging curtain, easing his way into the scene. On the outskirts, still, circling around--let the blondes face off. If he can get to Kate, maybe there's something that can be done. The threat of this situation seems minimal--never had any trouble dispatching small girls in the past, a bleak thought that might actually prove some use here. If she is the threat. If this whole thing isn't part of some greater mindfuck.

Whatever. He tries to push past all of that, past all thoughts of violence.]

No one's hurting anyone.

[He keeps his tone steady, despite the surge of hunger that jumps up in him--keeps his eyes fixed on Kate, whose eyes are fixed on the television.]

Sit down. We'll be here and gone before you even know it.

[pushfall]

[ Claire does her best to keep up a general air of civility and calmness, having a generally clear - as much as you can, in a place like this - idea of what's happening but still unsure as to how to break it. She half-expects this other girl to change face and turn into a snarling beast, the way some of the other rooms had done. Not necessarily with that particular outline, but enough of them bleed together to create only a general picture that she has no time or patience now to focus on.

Briefly, only somewhat seriously, she considers using the dog dish as a weapon and throwing it across the room, imagining the other girl might disappear in a wisp of smoke. She doesn't go with that tactic, in the end. ]

He's right, just listen to him. We aren't here to hurt anyone, but it's not safe down here. [ That just seems like the right thing to say, whether or not it is. ] We can all walk back out the door and go someplace it is safe.

[ Claire considers introducing herself, though ultimately she doesn't know what good making friends with something that doesn't exist is going to do. ]

[alsohawkeye]

[ The younger (and less technically extant) blonde doesn't transform into a manticore or any other sort of gruesome monster, but neither does she step aside and let them at Kate. ]

No! [ Is her immediate response. Her face flushes in angry, adamant distress. ] She's safe here with me and she's staying with me. You can't take her!

[ As the red spreads across her cheeks her fists clench even tighter and she begins to grow, like someone's grabbed a diagonal and started dragging. It starts slow, almost imperceptible, but then speeds until suddenly she's seven feet tall and still growing. Luckily (for her?) the loft ceilings are much higher than that. ] This is your last chance! Leave her alone!

[humanistic]

Oh, for fuck's sake.

[That's in weary answer to the massive growth spurt that the girl suddenly undergoes--because seriously, what a hassle. Even on the brink of wanting to tear into everyone in the room, Mitchell can still feel inconvenienced. If he's out here to find Josie, and he's taking the time to help Kate, the least this girl can do is not grow seven feet tall and tower over them.]

This isn't Alice in bloody Wonderland, all right. You're going to sit down or you're going to regret it.

[That's not an idle threat. The easy way that he says it might communicate something of that. She'll regret it, whatever she is, but he won't, and a little creep of anticipation goes through him. Finally.

He shakes it off, glances at the other girl, sizing her up--doing his best not to let it be a hungry thing, just a glance to get an idea of what she can do, whoever she is--and hopefully she's the real one in this situation, not some other part of whatever figment this is.

One thing at a time, some calm and bloodthirsty part of him says, one at a time, there will be time for her if she's not--]

Get Kate.

[pushfall]

[ Barely breaking five feet tall, Claire has to crane her neck to follow the way the blonde shoots up, but, like the stranger across the room, she remains unimpressed. It's going to take a lot more than someone growing upwards and upwards of seven feet to strike any kind of real terror into her heart. Briefly, she finds amusement in that sit down comment, but there's little time to laugh or even spare a smile regarding it. She's already moving before she's told to, snatching up the only weapon at her disposal that isn't her body.

The dog dish.

Claire thinks that maybe she can throw it or use it so smash... what, her elbow? if she gets to close. Her main priority is Kate, who she rushes to without stopping to think for anyone. If she has to dodge, she'll dodge, and if she has to fight back, she will, but eventually she will make her way to Kate, and she will get in front of her and grab her shoulders, reaching forward to drag her up. ]

Kate. Come on. We gotta go.

[alsohawkeye]

[ If 7 feet tall isn't convincing them, how about if she shoots up to full-on giant sized, head just about brushing the ceiling, furniture crunching as it's suddenly forced to share space with her limbs and the floorboards creaking ominously. Giant hands and feet clog the space and lash out at them both, swatting at them like bugs, prepared to pick up and toss away anyone she gets in her grasp.

Preventing access to Kate is clearly her first priority, and Claire will find it a battering struggle to make it by. The distraction Mitchell poses will be key in finally allowing a moment in which the normal-sized blonde is able to slip past.

Kate still doesn't react to her proximity or appearance in front of her, but as soon as Claire grabs her shoulders she startles hard, like someone jerking awake from a dream. For a second her eyes are big and unseeing, blinking hard as she's hauled to her feet, not immediately steady on them though up close she appears uninjured. ] What-- Claire? [ Kate swipes a hand over her face and looks around, confusion drawing her brows high again. ] What the hell is goi--? Cassie??

[ She lurches a quick step away from Claire towards the giant girl, and then rocks back, shaking her head. ] Cassie, stop! Don't, she's a-- Wait, Mitchell!? [ Giant Girl shouts in wordless rage and reaches out with surprising speed to try to smash them all into the walls. ]

ok but i AM sorry for being terribly late 8(

[humanistic]

[O... kay.

So Mitchell isn't a fighter, not really. When your back is against the wall, sometimes you have no choice but to fight--and he's done his share of killing and then some, and he's gotten himself into fights just so he has some bare excuse to tear out someone's throat, and half the time he didn't even need an excuse, he did it for the hell of it. But being a vampire doesn't mean he's a good fighter. It means extra strength and speed, agility--the hardiness of immortality and a viciousness that few can compete with--and those things help in a fight, yeah--but against an actual bloody giant?

Yeah, no.

What he's really got to his advantage right now is his lack of fucking patience. And that could quickly turn around on him, become more of a problem than an asset--but as the blonde girl moves, as Kate snaps out of it--as the giant girl roars and moves to smash them--Mitchell moves too, with surprising agility. There's a lamp nearby, he grabs for it as he darts out of the way--rips off the shade and smashes the bulb against the wall, and then stabs it into the giant girl's hand, hard, twisting it in. Under normal strength, the glass might only prick. Under his superior strength, it goes in, blunt lamp and sharp broken bulb and all. A little wound for something so large, but a distraction that buys a second of time, at least.]

omg how dare u!!!!!

[pushfall]

[ Claire is halfway to the knife she's got stashed in her boot when Mitchell takes it upon himself to beat her to it. She has one hand on Kate's shoulder, thinking that constant contact might keep her tethered, that if she lets go for one second, Kate will snap back into that semi-comatose state that she had been in the moment of their arrival. It leaves her body twisting strangely, one foot started toward Mitchell and the other still pointed in Kate's direction. ]

Wait!

[ She says it and she doesn't know why or who she's saying it to. She doesn't even know this person and she's terrified about what might happen to him. The genuine surprise at seeing someone who moments ago had been a relatively normal height grow so high and so large in such a short span of time still has her with her mouth hanging open, and Claire knows that she should jump into the fray. But she doesn't know what stabbing Kate's friend right in front of her is going to do to the other girl, and she's a little worried about the long reach of those gigantic arms.

Maybe her reaction hadn't been totally unwarranted, given the way Cassie throws her arms again, trying to reach them, crash into them with bone breaking intensity. Claire steps in front of Kate, trying to block her, and then shouts at Mitchell: ]

Run! Duck!