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birthright_rpg2013-08-18 03:29 pm
wolfs_daughter) wrote in birthright_rpg2013-08-18 03:29 pm
Close Encounters
It turned out that there was a place near The Dive where Echo could find Guinness, a small liquor store about a block from the bar, and the day after she visited the club she made another trip up the highway to see at least part of the city in daylight. She bought two six-packs of twelve-ounce bottles, knowing that would last her for a while because the stuff was so strong, then carried them down the crumbling sidewalk to where she'd parked her van.
She should call her parents in a couple of days, give them a status update. Having gotten her phone installed, she might as well make use of it by sending up a proverbial flare to let them know she was okay. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn't eaten since lunch, and it was nearly seven o clock. Maybe she could find a decent pastrami sandwich somewhere.
She stowed the beer in the back of the van, then locked up the vehicle before starting off in the direction she'd come from. She'd eat dinner, then hit the road again. And check her mailbox when she got home, which she'd been doing obsessively lately. Her ship was about to come in, or at least she hoped it was.
And Las Vegas was much less tacky before the sun went down.
She should call her parents in a couple of days, give them a status update. Having gotten her phone installed, she might as well make use of it by sending up a proverbial flare to let them know she was okay. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn't eaten since lunch, and it was nearly seven o clock. Maybe she could find a decent pastrami sandwich somewhere.
She stowed the beer in the back of the van, then locked up the vehicle before starting off in the direction she'd come from. She'd eat dinner, then hit the road again. And check her mailbox when she got home, which she'd been doing obsessively lately. Her ship was about to come in, or at least she hoped it was.
And Las Vegas was much less tacky before the sun went down.
no subject
Enemy. Predator.
"Don't do that," she said, and her voice sounded thick to her own ears. Shit, not here! "You'll cut yourself or someone else. I think you need a hospital. Did someone do something to you?"
The cashier was trying to fumble the handset on the wall out of the cradle, but he was shaken from the sudden outburst of near-violence and he kept dropping the receiver. Echo wasn't hungry anymore. She should definitely stay out of Las Vegas if this was going to become a habit.
"They're going to call the police on you if you don't calm down."
no subject
Cobra-like.
Another sniff. This time short, sharp. Mind no longer quite so at odds with body.
"Did sssssomething to me..."
The next time Sabra parted mouth, tongue could be seen trailing over each individual tooth. Eyes glancing down, as if trying to visually inspect the action. Then, finishing, snap-shotting gaze back up. Jaw moving from one side to the other. Then back. And again. A muffled snapping sound being heard under the flesh, like someone cracking knuckles the size of vertebrae. Eyes closing as she moaned aloud... Effort. Strain. Lids reopening.
If Echo didn't do something soon...
no subject
It was the cashier, and he'd finally succeeded in dialing the phone, but he ducked out of sight before the...whatever it was could take notice of him. Echo felt the muscles in her back and shoulders tighten and bunch, and please God don't let there be fur sprouting underneath her clothes. If she changed here, she'd be either in police custody or in a rubber room in the psych ward before she could turn around. The Wolf snarled inside her skull.
She grabbed for the rebar, picked it up with her left hand even as the sound of the other brunette's moan reverberated, and she brought it down on the closest thing she could reach, the thing's left foot. It was a blow meant to distract rather than truly injure, and if she applied perhaps more force than she would have on a normal human, who was to say?
"I don't know what you are," she said, and her voice was thicker than ever, as if she had mud in her mouth. Enemy. Enemy. Enemy. The word was like her pulse, and she wanted to take this piece of metal and stab it through the unnatural thing with all of her strength. To see if whatever it was would bleed.
"Leave. Now."
no subject
And, from her inverted new position on the ceiling, hissed her own warning loudly. Entire jaw seeming to unhinge, transmogrifying in some ghastly mockery of flesh and bone, until becoming like an obscene cross between the mouth-parts of arachnid and snake. The miniature fanged 'limbs' unfolding beneath her nose, mantis-like.
There had been a chance she could have been talked out of it, but not after being struck at like that. It reinforced natural instinct. Compounded the issue. Leaving Sabra revealed for something other than human.
At the first sight of pink-haired youth's scrabbling, Sabra's attention whirled, leaping upon and pinning him down. Fingers more like a bird of prey's talons than anything recognisable as a human being. That dreadful open maw threatening to tear into his flesh like a chainsaw. Instead, using him... Scaring him shitless before making us of him as a human javelin, throwing him at Echo.
no subject
Echo had tried to suppress the change, to fight it off the way she did through meditation and relaxation techniques, but the open assault undid her control. There was pain as her bones began to alter their shape under her flesh, and inside her shirt light brown fur began to sprout on her shoulderblades. The skateboarder saw her face change shape, let out a scream of terror that he hadn't been able to release because of the earlier blow to his head, and a puddle of urine joined the mess of booze on the floor.
Half-shifted, Echo let out a strangled barking noise as her human thoughts were screaming "NO NO NO!" at her, and the shop's door opened from the outside as some unsuspecting tourist came wandering in with a camera around her neck and an opened map in her hands. Out, she had to get out. Mama was going to be furious with her.
The door's glass shattered as the hybrid slammed into the newcomer, knocking her down in tangle of arms and legs and terrified changeling. Echo got one pawish hand tangled in the camera's long strap, finally tore loose with a muted howl. She was no warrior, wanted no part of that thing back there.
The van. She had to make it back to the van so she could hide in the back until the Wolf subsided. And the only time she'd visit Vegas after this was in the morning with the sun beating down hard. Weird little town that it was, Searchlight seemed much safer all of a sudden.
no subject
Passers by stopped, querying amongst themselves. An onset of Chinese whispers erupting between them in excited, fearful tones. Not one of them having a clue of what was causing such chaos within.
Outside... The back. Up, up, up... To the roof. Then to another. Another, still.
There would be time for thoughts later. Time, too, to reflect upon the wolfen girl's scent.