| Late Night Visitors; [Closed] | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 18 2014, 07:16 PM (1,110 Views) | |
| The One True Nobody | Mar 10 2014, 07:06 PM Post #51 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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...And of course that sent Etsuko tumbling back, away from the gearshift and into the passenger door with an almighty "Oof!" She grunted, and coughed--despite the healing, she could feel an odd soreness under her arm where the knife-man had cut her side open before--and she pushed herself away from the door, glaring with hate at the woman in black. "Hey, fuck you, lady!" spat Etsuko as soon as she got her balance back. "You bust into my house, try to kill the only family I've had since I was five, and you think I'm gonna just let that go?! I don't care what your damage is--" And this time, this time she went for the steering wheel, jerking it to the right, a quick glance at the mirror confirming that there weren't any parked cars in the immediate vicinity... public transit slave central, these streets, yeesh. "--I'm not letting you get away so y'can come back some other day and hurt her while I ain't lookin'!" |
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| Nonsequitur | Mar 10 2014, 07:38 PM Post #52 |
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Yellow Bubblegum
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Yup, that was about what he figured. He was ready too, he jumped back and moved aside to avoid the flames. This was turning out to be a great night. --- "ETSUKO, GET OUT OF THE VAN, PLEASE!" She dreaded the the thought that yet another 'right-minded' group of people empowered by anonymity thought that taking Etsuko from the so-called 'monster' was in her best interest and kidnapped her. As for the further attacks? Maki had to stay patient. There was little to be accomplished by retaliating then. She simply stood aside. It seemed there were little options other than the obvious. "Exactly what do you hope to accomplish?" There was no harm in asking, was there? |
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| Czernobog | Mar 10 2014, 10:51 PM Post #53 |
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Best Influence.
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The wheel turned, and the woman turned her body to the right, trying to push Etsuko away. It was around this point that the van popped up onto the curb, and a half-heartbeat later that the van ran into a lightpost. This finally put a stop to the van in a rather dramatic fashion. The woman was thrown to her right -- toward the back of the car -- and then bounced off of her seat into the wheel. She drew in a sharp breath and rubbed her hip. And it was at this point that the airbag deployed. She yelped and flailed for a moment, then drew a knife and stabbed at the airbag, causing it to deflate with a pathetic sound. She sat, facing forward, for a moment. The knuckles on her knife hand were white, her bandana had come undone, the hood was down, the bob of her hair was in disarray. She hissed, not looking at Etsuko: "Out." --- The other hoods carried their wounded comrade away. The one who had thrown the last molotov moved at the rear of the group, looking back at them. His eyes were unblinking, and clearly displayed fear. None of those present bothered to respond to Maki's question. Click. "We are safeguarding our homes and our families against inhuman monsters. If you even were human to begin with, then perhaps you can at least understand that." With that, they vanished around a corner, disappearing from sight. Both the van that had carried Etsuko off and the enemy "cavalry" were out of sight, now. |
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| The One True Nobody | Mar 10 2014, 11:22 PM Post #54 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Funnily enough, there was an airbag on the passenger's side, too. It deployed a little faster than the one on the drivers' side--the reason for this malfunction would probably be forever lost to all but the gods. It deployed as Etsuko bounced back against her own seat, and she thus collided with a fully-inflated balloon of air... instead of the balloon colliding with her on the way out at oh, say, about two hundred miles per hour. This was very lucky, but Etsuko of course didn't know enough about airbags to appreciate this at all. She simply pushed the bag aside and glared at the woman in black, gritting her teeth and flexing the fingers of the hand that had grasped the steering wheel--it had been wrenched away during the crash. She flexed her fingers, and clicked her tongue. "Out," Etsuko said flatly. "That's our line, ain't it? Y'all were the ones breaking and--OH, SON OF A BITCH, NOT NOW YOU STUPID B--bug..." From the Black Hood's perspective it sound as if Etsuko simply decided to swear at random. And then there was the sound of a door opening--the passenger side door. Etsuko slipped out, feeling suddenly dazed, and... dazzled. Dazzled by the glittering golden thing that had had fluttered in through the driver's side window, unseen by the Black Hood woman whether she had the potential or not, because her head was down, lucky her. Etsuko caught sight of it immediately, the butterfly, the butterfly she'd been warned about. She was being whisked away to get her powers now, whisked away... stolen away, hypnotized away... ...and then she wasn't quite sure what had happened after that. Apart from her outburst, none of the others would have any indication of what might have happened or where she was going. Only the woman in the black hood had a prayer of seeing where the butterfly took her, because the van's bulk screened Etsuko from view as she wandered off, dazedly-half-jogging away from the van and down a cramped alley between houses. Away, toward the woods, and the ruins. --- Inside the house, Masumi had cringed at the sound of the van hitting the streetlamp. "That's it," she said suddenly, jumping to her feet. "I can't take it anymore. I don't care if they sense me coming, I'm--I'm going out there!" And she stumbled over one of the tatami mats around the table on her way to the door... |
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| Nonsequitur | Mar 11 2014, 12:20 AM Post #55 |
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Yellow Bubblegum
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"Wait. If you're going, I'm going to make sure nothing happens to you." Seiji was done with what he could for Hanako, and turned to get his crossbow. "I'm coming to, then." Hanako got to her feet and had her knife ready. "No, you'll-" "I'll do what, Seiji? Stay alone in a house that they could come back to anytime with no Persona to protect me? Or wait here with you while Masumi runs headlong into danger?" So that settled it, Seiji wasn't going to argue the facts and just went along with her after Masumi. --- Maki paused. It was almost certain these people had already made up their minds and nothing she would say would convince them otherwise. Still it was the only line of direct communication with them they had. Choosing her words carefully while she had this chance was a must. "You seem to speak as though we are not people. I'm afraid you've been poorly informed." What she said would not be taken seriously, likely dismissed as lies or worse. "It's not as though any of us asked for this to happen to us." It didn't matter to Maki, as long as it was talk and not fighting it was largely all the same to her no matter how many times she was labelled a 'monster' --- While the officer talked over the radio, Benkei simply milled back and waited. Over his shoulder, he saw the others coming. What he didn't notice was that Etsuko was nowhere to be found. Though that fact made itself evident soon enough for him to be concerned. With so much to worry about, she slipped off without him noticing it. "…where the fuck is Etsuko?" |
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| Czernobog | Mar 11 2014, 08:31 AM Post #56 |
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Best Influence.
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The woman watched as the adolescent began to swear randomly at nothing at all, furrowing her brow. She turned her head, thinking she had caught a glimmer of something out of the corner of her eye, but it turned out to be nothing. Still, the girl was out, she thought the van might run -- she shifted into drive, and idled forward a meter or so, off the curb -- and then decided that discretion was the better part of valor. She peeled out, heading away from the scene of the abortive home invasion. She was going to get the fuck out of here, and then she was going to get a bath and submit a report. This could have gone much better. |
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| The One True Nobody | Mar 11 2014, 10:38 AM Post #57 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Masumi's analysis power was focused in a wide spread, ignoring everything behind her or to the sides--all she could sense were the Black Hoods and the Persona-users confronting them now. She had neither breath nor sanity to spare to respond to Seiji or Hanako; she simply ran, scrambled out the door, and caught herself on the doorframe on the way out, using it to swing around without breaking stride. And then she was sprinting down the street in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and socks, she was wearing socks too, and it was cold and she could feel the pavement like ice under the socks. She felt a single non-user vanish from her perception at the same time the sound of the van began to fade into the distance, but she had no hope of tracking any of them far at all. She stopped, panting, one hand on her chest, in sight of Benkei and Maki and... and... and she'd left her gun on the kitchen counter. Damn, damn, damn! What was she thinking?! But-- "Etsuko-chan?!" she panted out, looking around frantically for the girl. "Are they all gone?! Where's Etsuko? Where's my Etsuko-chan?!" |
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| Nonsequitur | Mar 11 2014, 07:44 PM Post #58 |
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Yellow Bubblegum
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"Not in the van." Seiji said flatly. That stupid ring was paying for itself several times over and. No. No one was near her, not non-users, not users. Nothing. "In fact? I'd say she's alone right now." Not what Masumi wanted to hear, but that's how it was. He really didn't want to say what he suspected was the cause, however. That would have just been the perfect end to a shitty night. "Well, where is she? Can you tell?" Benkei turned to Seiji, anxious. "I don't know, not near anyone, no users, no non-users wait…" A person? At the very edge of his perception, they came and went quickly. Very quickly. That seemed to Seiji to indicate one thing: "She's moving. I can't tell you what direction but she's definitely going somewhere probably as quickly as her legs would carry her." "Do you suppose to the ruins, perhaps?" Maki was listening, but her attention was focused on the fleeing hoods. She wasn't going to drop her guard until she was sure they were gone. As such? She didn't see when Seiji's response was only to shrug his shoulders. Hanako didn't answer, 'cause she was already on her way back to her car. Even if going in the ruins herself wasn't a choice, she could perhaps get someone there before Etsuko to make sure they find her before a Shadow did. Edited by Nonsequitur, Mar 11 2014, 08:09 PM.
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| The One True Nobody | Mar 11 2014, 08:07 PM Post #59 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Masumi had never hated her Persona's limitations more than now. She looked right, then left, and then ran a few steps in the direction of the ruins, and then stopped, letting her arms drop impotently to her sides. Her heart was still hammering in her chest and she felt her knees shaking under the weight of everything above them. "E-Etsuko-chan... she..." A pause. "If she's by herself out there, she can handle herself. But if she'd going to the ruins, then..." She felt a welling moan building up in her chest, which came out of her mouth as a pitious whine. "I--I can't--" And then her legs gave out underneath her; she felt herself drop onto her her knees, and grunted as she landed in a very sloppy sitting position on the floor. Her eyes were watering and she felt faint. The stress of keeping herself together through all that, the whiplash of being ready to die and then the desperate knowledge that rescue was almost there and then Etsuko running off and now this. "Why did this have to happen...?" she asked the cold night air. Her voice shook on the edge of tears. The ruins. The ruins. She wanted to believe otherwise but somehow in her heart she knew it was the ruins. And next time those beasts came they wouldn't spare Etsuko, if that was the case... Why did it have to be her? Of all the people the butterfly could pick, why did it have to be Etsuko? Why couldn't she just be a normal girl and have a chance at a normal life? |
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| Nonsequitur | Mar 11 2014, 08:22 PM Post #60 |
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Yellow Bubblegum
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"Masumi, it's going to be alright, we'll get her out safe, okay?" He was at her side at once. It was what he'd wanted more than anything, to make sure they were all safe and take her in his arms. He could only have half of that. He embraced her to give her some comfort. To let her know she wasn't alone. But she, no they weren't out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. "Come on, we're going now we'll get her back. Then you're getting all the things you can't bear to part with and…shit, you'll stay with me, at least for tonight. Then? I'll make arrangements with my folks, I'll do something so you'll be safe." "WHAT ARE YOU ALL WAITING FOR?! LET'S GO!" While Hanako was impatient, she wasn't yelling for that. If she was going to be heard though Masumi's house and out past the alley from where her car was? There was no choice "Ito-san has a point, Fujiwara-san? Would you and Ito and Watanabe san go to the main entrance? I'll take Masumi and we will start looking in the nearest entrance." They would cover more ground that way, and be more likely to find her before… Before nothing. They had enough forewarning to make sure Etsuko would not be a mangled body somewhere. They just had to act quickly and decisively "Yeah, sounds fine. On the off-chance she's just lost somewhere in the city." From one potential disaster to another. Seemed his night was all itneresting times. |
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