private Unlikely Guardians

[Mephala 2,633]

(OoC: Sorry I've been inactive; my Europe trip has been doing much moving about and it can be hard.)

 

@

Silas pinched Morgan's arm lightly and said (rather calmly) in his thick accent, "I don't believe this is a dream, young sir, and as your currency is useless to me back home, I think I'd much rather stay here so we can think of a plan. Though perhaps a plan would be useless in this particular situation, seeing as that...thing appears rather hungry."

 

Internally his mind was racing. If Silas could use one of the others as a sacrifice then he may be able to slip away. He had no qualms with the murder part, he was more worried about not being fast enough to save his own skin.

 

He looked around; there were other survivors surrounding them that he had noticed due to the clingy and irritating kid next to him. One whimpered that they ought to hide and Silas rolled his dark eyes.

 

@

"Unfortunately, considering that it has a nose, I don't think hiding will prove of much use," he pointed out, "unless you'd like to be the designated runner so we can book it while it chases you."

 

He had no patience for fools; this was life or death, and he rather intended to live.

 

"So what shall we do?" he asked, eying the beast with some degree of sick fascination. "I have never seen one of these before..."

Edited July 8, 2013 by PinkieDaShy

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

@@Shanashie,

@,

 

And now Katarzhyna's prefrontal cortex caught up, politely informing the rest of her brain that she and her new friend were almost certainly doomed.  Behind her, the woman said some Latin-sounding imprecation, vaguely familiar.  In fact the creature, alien as it should have been, was also familiar.  She had actually seen it before.  "Garry¹ Potter..." she muttered.  It guarded a trap-door the child-wizards needed to get through.  Except this one, the real one, was more wolf-like, more feral.  Her cerebral cortex set the recollection aside as irrelevant.  With an electric jolt of adrenalin surging through her system and waves of terror crashing against the barricades of discipline, Katarzhyna's brain had far more important things to do--like strategize. 

 

It had three heads, three brains trying to control a single body.  How that could even work at all, Katarzhyna had no clue, but as the one head tried to explore the plane, it was held back by the other two, probably fighting over the corpse and/or wanting to go off looking for more.  That division might not last for long, but while it did, perhaps it could be exploited, somehow.  She was the Rook, castled and trying to protect the King, her wounded companion, facing an overwhelming enemy force  But her opponent's position was unsound, pieces deployed in the wrong places or in each other's way.  For now.

 

"We have to hide," her companion whispered, leaning in close.  Katarzhyna couldn't think of any place they could do so, and the head was stretching toward her.  She would have to attack or retreat.  Katarzhyna's side did have other pieces on the board: the other survivors.  How many, and their condition, she didn't know.  Her mind briefly seized on that hope.  After all, aside from the intellect that was currently scrambling for a winning move and coming up empty, the main reason her ancestors had survived through a world shared with cave bears and saber-toothed cats and wooly mammoths was: each other.  A single human like her was easy meat for anything big with teeth and claws.  But against a whole tribe of hominids, equipped with unique powers like the ability to throw, and to make weapons and fire, even a creature like this might well have to flee.  Except, the other passengers weren't a tribe, and they didn't have flint hand-axes or spears much less the .50 cal. machine-gun this situation actually called for.  Two dire realizations hit her in quick succession:  Do these things hunt in packs?  If we drive this one off, it'll massacre the others!

 

"Go back, catch something on fire, like a coat, and bring it to me.  Or, if you can get past the fire going the other way, do that instead, but don't go outside," Katarzhyna whispered.  She backed up a step, trying to stay out of the head's reach.  Holding the cane in both hands now, she aimed it at an eye, getting ready for a thrust.  But she needed...just a few seconds...for the woman to get away and give her room to maneuver in the wreckage-cluttered environment of the fuselage.  In chess, a saw-toothed structure of mutually-protecting pawns could control space and present a formidable barrier to attack.  Here on the plane, the seats and partially crumpled ceiling and random wreckage would have to do.

 

 

OOC:

 

1. In Russian there is no aspirated "H," so names that start with one are usually transliterated to begin with a "G."  Well, not actually a "G," just the sound of one--I don't have a Cyrillic typeface.

[Starshine 16,333]

 

 

"I...I...I don't know. A b-bomb? Do you think...that wouldn't be possible would it? Not in this day and age..." she shook her head in an attempt to get her thoughts cleared up as she squinted in order to make out the figure properly. "Can...we move? I can't stay here much longer."

 

"I don't know. I'm not an expert, but planes just don't crash into mountains like this." Chandra Santiya coughed twice. At least the rain was washing the smoke away, but now her clothes were sticky all over. She could really use a bath right now. Slowly she walked to the voice and wheezed. "Holy... This would make a damn hell of a story at the family reunion. Anyway, I don't really think we should go too far from the wreckage, just in case the disaster relief helicopter passes us by."

 

Chandra looked up at the sky. The rain was acting quite weird, she could swore that the rain was actually more focused on certain parts of the ruin and not elsewhere. She walked around and stretched her hands outward, the rain seemed to trickle heavier near the still burning parts of the plane. "That's weird." For a moment the rain drove the putrid smoke away, and during that brief window of opportunity Chandra saw something in the sky. Maybe it's the helicopter? She didn't really know how Americans do their disaster relief stuff, but it was better be safe than sorry. She quickly waved her hands in wide arc up and down a few times, trying to attract the flying object's attention. "Hey! Over here! We got survivors in here!" she yelled out to the sky.

[Agent505 661]

(I can tell this is going to suck, so I apologise in advance. I think I have a mild sunstroke from being out all day - we brits aren't built for this heat) 

 

"I don't really remember anything...I was talking to this man...James, I think his name was? Then I was crawling away from the flames. I heard voices and came over here, but there was no one around." She shook her head, placing her hand over her temple as she swayed unsteadily from side to side, coughing slightly at the smoke as it seemed to blow towards her, before breaking apart. 

 

Suddenly when Chandra began jumping and shouting, Myra felt a brief rise in her optimism, and she realised they might actually stand a chance of being rescued. "Oh...wow, either we where out for a while, or that was dispatched fast" she mumbled to herself, but loud enough for Chandra to hear as she began jumping up and down too.

[Miss Light Diamond 2,802]

@,

 

Emily nodded and moved to the back of the plane, a little closer to the fire. She looked around for some way to get passed the roaring flames but it was no use, so she moved onto looking for something to light on fire.
After a moment she managed to pull a seat cushion off one of the seats.

Protecting her face from the heat, she managed to set a corner of the cushion on fire.
Before it spread around the rest of the cushion she did her best to quickly move back over to Katarzhyna, trying her best to ignore the stabbing pains in her legs.
She held the burning cushion at arms length as she stared at the monster in front of them. "Should...do...I...throw it?" She asked, still feeling panicked but trying to keep quiet so the monster didn't hear...even though it already knew they were there.

[Shanashie 39]

@@Agent505, @@Starshine,

 

Despite their enthusiastic waving and calls towards possible rescue, the flashes of colour within the clouds remained mostly oblivious to the excitement below.  Across the crash site their voices rang, drawing the heads of the few survivors on the ground and that of a small smudge of colour within the gathered thunderheads.  For the blink of an eye, there was what could have been a tiny face looking down through the storm.

 

@,@,  

 

At the excited yells from the wreckage, the beast tuned its rightmost head towards the commotion, dropping a chunk of cabin from its jaws and twisting its long tufted ears to pinpoint the source.  Suddenly it growled up at its central brother.  Pupils like the black gates of hell focused as the the pack-leader snapped around, setting its sights on the new prey now visible through the waning smoke.  Snarling the beast twisted its whole body around with unnatural agility and charged...

 

It is worth mentioning that a three headed wolf, terrifying as it may be, is not a democracy.

 

@, @,  

 

From inside the tube like tale section, the snarl was more 'felt' then heard, like standing too close to a base speaker at a night club.  A half second of anger flickered across the canine features as the smell of burning fabric met the wolf’s sensitive nostrils, then another of confusion as the head was forcibly pulled backwards.  Too deep within the twisted framework, the anchored seats latched onto the wolf’s coarse fur and were pulled along with the creature, the entire superstructure lifting several feet off the ground before what had once been the floor finally gave under such punishment.  Debris of all kinds was flung across the crash site, not to mention no small amount of luggage.  But one other thing had also happened in the brief chaos; In its panic, the left head had inhaled.   

 

@All

 

As the gargantuan beast bore down on the scrawny monkey things, the lead head received a rather important message; its nasally gifted brother was on fire.

 

Twenty yards from its prey, the other two heads joined their ablaze sibling’s yowl of pain.  Dust choked the air as the huge beast flailed, violently clawing at its own face in an effort to dislodge the burning cussion.  Finally the offending upholstery was launched into the air by a violent sneeze, landing barely a foot from a survivor*.  

 

With a guttural growl of frustration, the beast rolled back onto its paws and briefly nursed its wounded head, trying to blow the remaining ash from its nostrils.  The central head looked up again towards the survivors as the beast limped a wide arc around them, waiting for the ample moment to charge the herd of strange animals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*(That was lucky, wasn’t it?).

Good inadvertent team work there guys!

Edited July 10, 2013 by Shanashie

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

@,

@@Shanashie,

 

"When I give you the signal," Katarzhyna whispered, raising a hand.  "RUN!  GET TO SAFETY!" she shouted to the others at the top of her lungs.  The tube of fuselage amplified her voice like a megaphone.  Now to try and buy them some time.  She lowered her hand to signal for the throw, gripping her cane two-handed again, lunging for a thrust at its right eye.  Except, her target wasn't there when her arms reached full extension.  Instead, the head was suddenly yanked backwards until it snagged on some of the anchored seats.  To Katarzhyna's horror, the whole piece of fuselage lifted and swung, coming apart under the stresses.

 

"Waaa-aaa-aaaaaaaa!" she cried, flipping end over end as she was flung away, just one more piece of scattering debris.  A glimpse of the ground showed jagged rocks coming at her.  The moment before impact stretched like taffy, as if she was falling through a viscous fluid.  In the last half-second, it seemed almost as if she hovered, before everything returned to normal and she landed painfully on the rocks.  Katarzhyna scrambled to her feet, a few dings and minor cuts poking her with pain...and yet, somewhere in the back of her mind she felt that she'd had a much softer landing than the cold equations of physics entitled her to. 

 

There was no time to fully notice, much less think about such things.  She scrambled to her feet and retrieved the cane, staggering back out onto open ground.  A quick glance around revealed several other survivors, none of them with weapons or defensible positions.  Her inner chess player recognized a hopeless position for what it was, but something deep inside refused to resign.  Terror warred with a kind of manic excitement; the feeling you get when you break the sound barrier for the first time, or pull your aircraft into an Immelmann turn so tight you have to fight unconsciousness as G-forces drain the blood from your brain.  The people who got to fly supersonic jets tended to have certain attributes such as fast reflexes and quick thinking.  A rather exaggerated assessment of one's own skill and efficacy wasn't strictly necessary, but it helped; especially when accompanied by the pure dumb luck it took to get away with it.  So while a part of her brain was sounding the alarm that death was imminent, another part scoffed at the very idea.  Katarzhyna Nikolaeva was too young, too pretty, and just plain not ready to die.

 

"Throw things at it!  Divide its attention!" she shouted to the others.  A creature that apparently had three brains, three sets of eyes and ears, attached to the same body...  If her hunch was right, maybe a pack of humans scattered around the creature, making noise and throwing things, could act like chaff against a targeting radar.  Deny the beast's minds the ability to cohere, scattering its awareness and ability to act.  With luck, it might be a highly unpleasant sensation, and the beast could be motivated to go off in search of corpses or less annoying prey.  "Hey!  Hey!  Hey!" she shouted, running for the nearest sizable piece of wreckage.  "Over here!"  she shouted, then started pounding on the metal with her cane.  *WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM*  Only when the three heads turned on her, did the possibility occur to Katarzhyna that the others might just run and leave her to her fate...

 

OOC:

 

 

 

*(That was lucky, wasn’t it?).

 

I see what you did there.

 

 

I sure hope that's Dashie up in the clouds.  But I'd settle for Fluttershy coming down saying, "D'awwww, poor widdle doggie's just hungry!  Who's a cute puppy?  'Oo is!  'Oo is!" and rubbing its belly until its on its back kicking its back feet in helpless delight.

 

[Starshine 16,333]

 

 

"Oh...wow, either we where out for a while, or that was dispatched fast" she mumbled to herself, but loud enough for Chandra to hear as she began jumping up and down too.

 

Chandra laughed heartily when she heard the woman's reply. "Either way, it's our luck!" She waved for another couple of times before stopping. "Looks like they can't see us yet. We will have to wait until the plane stops smoking so much it seems. Anyway, my name is Chandra Santiya. You can call me simply by Chandra just fine. What's yours?" She had decided that if she had to spend more time in this hell hole, better make some friends while she was at it.

 

A growl, followed with what sounded like gods tearing up the plane ruins itself and flung the pieces all around. Chandra could physically feel the deep, ungodly growl rattling her bones. She dropped to the ground in shock. "Wh-what!?" She quickly scrambled to the meager safety a nearby seat could offer. Anything that can growl like that wasn't a cute little mammal. A yowl of pain, followed by a cacophony of noises. Chandra dared herself to follow the noises, crawling from any cover she could get behind.

 

 

 

"Throw things at it! Divide its attention!" she shouted to the others.

 

A redhead woman was bashing a piece of plane wreckage with a cane, and there was a gigantic wolf-dog thing in front of her. The size alone was already unbelievable enough, but the beast somehow had three heads. Chandra stood agape in silence. Just what kind of hell she and other survivors had crashed themselves into? She gulped and quickly took a burnt bag from a nearby corpse and flung it as hard as she could to the beast's heads. She then followed the woman's lead and started banging things around her with whatever trash she could find. Whatever it is, she just couldn't let the beast had its way. Not even once crossed her mind that the beast might see her as a suitable prey.

[Miss Light Diamond 2,802]

@@Shanashie,

@,

 

 

Emily prepared to throw the burning cushion and waited for Katarzhyna's go ahead. She threw the cushion as hard as she could, but she threw it right as the beast retreated so she fell to the ground so she had no idea if it hit or not...but, listening to the sound of the monster, she guessed it did...but she didn't worry about that, she was too focused on holding on so she didn't tumble around the wreckage.

Emily held on tightly to a nearby seat, keeping her eyes closed...until it stopped, but not before something fell into her lap. She slowly opened an eye to see..."MY VIOLIN." She said, totally forgetting everything else going on as she was filled with joy. She looked up to see the overhead compartment above her hanging open.

She smiled but that quickly faded as she remembered what was happening around her. She quickly jumped up, grabbing the handle of her violin case before running out after Katarzhyna just in time to hear her tell everyone to throw things at the monster.
She quickly put down her violin before picking up a large stick and throwing it at the beast as hard as she could as the three heads turned in Katarzhyna's direction.

Edited July 11, 2013 by ~Fire Sky~

[Agent505 661]

@@Starshine,

 

Chuckling weakly as she slowly lost and gained hope in fluctuations, she managed to reply to Chandra with a smile "My name's Myra, it's...it's nice to meet you, I just wish it could be under better circumstances." She held out her hand for a handshake, but there was a sudden banging and loud growling, and before she realised exactly what was happening - not that she ever would of truly understood what was happening - Chandra disappeared into the noise behind her. "H-hey! Wait up!" Myra called, stumbling, but not quite falling, over a shard of metal as she turned to start running after her. 

 

What came into view was probably the last thing she expected to ever see in her life. "By the gates of Tartarus...Cerberus?" She stammered in a quiet voice, almost disbelieving her own words. She had read books and studied mythology, but she never believed it to be true. Hesitantly and not taking her eyes from the beast that both terrified and fascinated her, she carefully flanked around the side, feeling across the ground for something to pick up and throw. 

 

She was too busy trying to remember what could appease the beast, and too busy trying not to get its attention while at the same time being horrified from its mere presence, that she placed her hand on a red hot piece of metal from the plane.  She couldn't help but let out a scream, jumping at the sudden pain while doubling over and clutching her hand.

 

(Yes, i'm going to be that guy - someone has to be) 

[Standard User 2,127]

"I'll have you know," Morgan huffed as he lobbed another piece of debris at the beast (and missed horribly), "that I am a terrible-- freaking-- shot!" He punctuated each word with a thrown object, all of which soared over the beast's heads or flew wildly off to the sides. 
 

 

"Hey!  Hey!  Hey!" she shouted, running for the nearest sizable piece of wreckage.  "Over here!" she shouted, then started pounding on the metal with her cane.

"Hey, uh, ma'am?" Morgan shouted over the crackle of fire and howls of very-pissed-off canine. "I think you're just making it upset! Maybe we can calm it down, or throw it a ball or something?" At the word 'ball' the leftmost head yowled loudly, slobbering across the place wreckage.

[someone has to have a ball, right? Right?   Anyway, didn't Twilight appease Cerberus with a ball?]

Edited July 13, 2013 by Scoutaloo

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

@@Shanashie,

 

The leftmost head focused on Katarzhyna and started to drag its own protesting body toward her. 

 

 

 

"Hey, uh, ma'am?" Morgan shouted over the crackle of fire and howls of very-pissed-off canine. "I think you're just making it upset! Maybe we can calm it down, or throw it a ball or something?" At the word 'ball' the leftmost head yowled loudly, slobbering across the place wreckage.

 

"You think it is a pet?" she called back, stopping her pounding.  "I saw it eat a corpse before it came for me!  It thinks we are meals, not masters!  If we keep upsetting it, maybe it goes somewhere less upsetting!"  There were probably something on the order of a couple hundred corpses or parts of corpses strewn across the landscape.  Assuming the creature had canid senses, it could probably find plenty of fresh meat once it decided that the live humans were more annoying than they were worth.  Or so she hoped.  "Keep dividing its attention!"  Katarzhyna ducked down behind the wreckage, peeking over its jagged edge. Cane at the ready, she watched for the moment one or both of the other heads started to win the battle for control of the body.

[Shanashie 39]

It was a sound strategy. The beast’s weakness was becoming all too clear as the three heads wrestled to find a suitable target without being encircled itself. Whilst the loud crash of cane on metal kept pulling the attention of the left wolf, the central head tried to keep up with the moving monkeys. All the while rocks and debris bounced from its impenetrable hide, prompting the beast to turn to each of its attackers as the projectiles struck home and adding to its confusion. This was most perplexing to the wolf; food was not supposed to fight back. Most critters foolish enough to enter its territory would be fleeing by this point in terror, indeed it could smell the reek of fear on their very breath. Yet these beings were standing their ground and harassing it as though they had a chance against the apex predator.

 

And then the stalemate was unexpectedly broken. A shriek of pain echoed across the circle of survivors, one now clutching at its smoking hand as the red-hot metal dropped from its grasp. Ears pinned, its nose flaring at the smell of burning flesh and stretch of fear, the beast barrelled through the circle of humans, snarling like a bottled hurricane. Knocking one unlucky survivor into the air, its powerful hind legs braced against bare rock and propelled the beast across the open ground in the blink of an eye.

 

@agent505

 

For Myra, the world was suddenly full of fur and fang. Violently tossed by the impact, she skidded into the fresh wreckage, the air driven from her lungs as a colossal paw swatted down upon her frail form. Pinned beneath the beast, three sets of yellow teeth greeted Myra as the world swam back into focus. The central head drew back, opening its colossal maw and---

 

@Skyfire

 

Blinking, Morgan finds that the world has finally stopped spinning, though he is now upside down.... and in a tree by the feel of things. Pine needles were biting into his back and his shoulders were resting on two convenient but uncomfortable branches. The daemon hound had rushed clean into him, brushing the slight youngster into the air like it was making a graceful field goal. All considered it was a miracle he was still breathing. However, it looked as though the same could not be said for his comrades of misfortune . From his vantage he can still see the scene taking place below (errm, above), perfectly placed to look upon the beast as its maw opened and bit down into its prey.

 

@All

 

‘Amarok’

 

 

Near silent, yet heard by all, the voice seemed to resonate in the very bones of those that bore witness to its majesty. The haze swirled with its power, drawn into thin lines along with the thick smoke and thrown into the sky. Far above the speckles of colour retreated as the storm was brushed aside by an ever expanding ring of open sky.

 

At the commanding word, the beast had halted with its dagger like teeth mere inches from Myra’s face, giving the woman an unpleasant view of its chasmous throat.

 

Exposed beneath breathtaking sunlight, the scene of the accident revealed itself. Flight 201 had clearly been split mid-air, its passenger section and wings falling into a dense forest before rolling to a stop in the bare rock clearing. A path of destruction had been cut into the landscape leading up to the bulk of the cabin, the tail segment resting a hundred yards further up the slope.

 

But it was what lay some way further up the rocky clearing that drew the awe of onlookers. Carved into the side of a rising cliff of quartz speckled granite was a door, ten stories high and made of onyx so dark that it seemed to suck light from its surroundings. Across its surface intricate patterns of serpentine creatures weave in and among one another, each making up the form of another larger serpent. At the heart of this colossal structure was a magnificent raven perched upon a shield like seal.. Or at least there would be, if there hadn't been a gaping hole right across the seal, exposing the rock face beneath and showing the door to be no more than a façade.

 

At the foot of the great doors, crumpled across the onyx steps lay the wreckage of Flight 201’s cockpit. Just in front of this twisted wreckage was a tiny figure, stood stock still and staring at the scene of destruction that lay before them. It was slim, barely visible at this distance.

 

’Heel.’ Once more the voice rattled the teeth of those watching the diminutive figure.

 

Hearing its master’s voice, the daemon wolf pulled swiftly away from its catch and slunk towards the middle of the clearing.

 

A hand, barely more than sinew and bone, lifted to stoke the wolf beneath its chin, the child like spectre having suddenly appeared at its side.

 

A few felt a sickening recognition come to them.

 

Face torn yet clean of blood, one arm shredded to the bone and eyes reflecting the monster’s own, the child stood cradling ‘Amarok’ lead head like a long lost friend. Unlike the other survivors her skin was clean of soot and other than her obvious horrific injuries from which no blood seeped, she showed little sign of trauma. Still clutching the remnants of her stuffed doll, Tiffany surveyed the slowly gathering humans, burning yellow eyes watching with a strange cross between curiosity... and unconditional love.

 

“Guardians.” her disembodied voice spoke, now ever more familiar to those who remembered her in life “Rejoice. You are Chosen.”

 

 

 

 

 

ooc; maybe back later to edit this some. Effects will remain the same, but some of the description is bothering me.

 

Edited July 17, 2013 by Shanashie

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

A scream.

 

To Katarzhyna's horror, the three heads swung to the source in unison, six ears locking on target like radar dishes.  She opened her mouth to shout, but it was already too late.  In an instant, the devil-dog was barreling down on its prey like a locomotive at full speed.  A human shape was bounced into the air as the beast shot past to pounce on a woman.

 

"Amarok."

 

The creature froze in mid-bite.  Katarzhyna's mind struggled to take in, and make sense of, the strange turn of events.  The haze swirling and moving as if following the promptings of a conductor's wand, the massive edifice carved into living rock, the beast's attack halted, on command.

 

"Heel."

 

"It is pet after all..." Katarzhyna muttered in astonishment.  Then she saw its master.  For a brief, insane moment, a swell of giddy joy--the child had survived!--but it was not to last.  The hand petting the beast was a claw of sinew and bone, torn flesh hanging from it in ribbons. 

 

 

 

“Guardians.” her disembodied voice spoke, now ever more familiar to those who remembered her in life “Rejoice. You are Chosen.”

 

Two narratives clashed in Katarzhyna's mind, neither quite able to gain purchase.  The first--Zombie!--failed to make sense of the revenant girl's behavior.  The second, arguably the great fantasy of everyone who dreamed of voyages to the stars, didn't seem to belong in a setting of undead children, mythical beasts, and imposing ancient temples, yet it was the one that ultimately prevailed: First Contact.  There was no framework of comprehension that could incorporate the entity's words about "Guardians" and being "Chosen," so her brain set them aside.

 

Almost like a zombie herself, Katarzhyna came out from behind her feeble barricade of wreckage and drew nearer to the corpse child.  With her hair a wild, ash-sprinkled and partly-singed mess, streaks of soot, blood, and sweat smeared across her face, and clothes torn and rumpled, the would-be astronaut could not have looked less like a square-jawed, steel-thewed Captain of the Space Patrol striding forth to greet the aliens in Humanity's name. 

 

"Uh...hello...we come from Earth...in peace,"  she stammered, immediately regretting her failure to produce properly Historic--or at least Diplomatic--Words for the most momentous occasion in recorded history.

[Agent505 661]

One minute she was thinking about the unbelievability of the situation at hand, the next all she could smell was death. 

She was numb from the chest up, and the saliva dripped from the beasts gnashing claws stunk to high hell. 

Somehow managing to climb into a sitting position, the pain in her hand seemed to have gone. Wether or not it had actually gone, or if it was just a lesser pain in comparison to what she had just been through was anybodies guess. 

 

Failing to notice the fact that she had - quite literally - just peed herself, the only thing Myra could seem to do was cup her face in her hands and begin to cry. 

[Miss Light Diamond 2,802]

Emily picked up another rock and prepared to throw it at the massive dog...but stupidly, she took a step forward, making her gasp as her legs gave out and she fell to the ground...just as she heard a voice.
She rubbed her legs and looked around for the person who had talked...to see a girl...a survivor? She smiled but her smile was instantly replaced with one of horror...that was not a girl anymore...whatever that was...it couldn't have been real.

She whimpered and tried to push herself back up to her feet but failed...so she just sat there, staring at the girl wide eyed as she spoke for the third time.

Emily gulped and shook her head as tears poured down her cheeks. "Its not real...I'll wake up any second." She kept telling herself...she knew it was real of course considering the pain in her legs was as real as it gets. But she made herself believe that this was just an awful nightmare...she'd wake up on the plane any moment...this girl...was not real, she refused to accept that this was real.

Edited July 18, 2013 by ~Fire Sky~

[Starshine 16,333]

Myra screamed out in pain. Before Chandra could fully discern what was happening, the three-headed beast suddenly lunged to the injured woman, knocking over another hapless survivor on its way. Chandra screamed in horror as the central head reared up to feast on Myra's head, "Stop!-"

 

 

 

‘Amarok’

 

The beast suddenly stopped. Chandra looked around for the source of the voice, but her eyes caught a rather unnerving sight. It was a door, or some kind of a slab of terrible dark metal. The door stood at least thirty meters high, covered in intricate patterns of snake-like creatures, forming a much larger serpentine beast. In the middle, there was a gaping hole. Chandra gulped. The creture depicted on the structure had an uncanny resemblance with the naga she often read in the folklore of her home. The notion of such beast actually existing was ridiculous, but even then the presence of the door had made her feeling very uneasy.

 

The beast, or Cerberus had Myra called it, walked away to the clearing. There was a - for a lack of suitable words - walking corpse. Seeing battered corpses was bad enough, now there was one walking and petting the beast. Chandra brushed aside it all and hurried to help Myra. The woman had started crying. "Ssh... Easy now, the monster is gone to it's owner," cooed Chandra, she pulled out a handkerchief and started wiping the grime and saliva off Myra's face.

 

 

 

“Guardians.” her disembodied voice spoke, now ever more familiar to those who remembered her in life “Rejoice. You are Chosen.”

 

Chandra couldn't help but to let out a chuckle. Her plane crashed, then there was a huge man-eating dog, a huge door, a walking corpse, and now this. Everything sounded like it was nothing but a terrible dream, or there was a very potent hallucinogen in the air. "Guardian? Oh gods. Now she asked us to rejoice. Wow," Chandra remarked sarcastically.

[Agent505 661]

@@Starshine,

 

There was no resistance as Myra felt the handkerchief on her face, she moved her hands away slightly - or they slipped down her face, even she was unsure which, but she didn't stop crying.

"I-I n-nearl...i-it w-was going t-to..." she broke up again, starting to cry even more as one of her arms folded across her chest to clutch at her aching ribs.

 

After a moment, she looked over at Chandra who was trying to comfort her, and still crying, she pulled herself over to her, weakly attempting to grab her as she tried to stop herself from panicking so much.

[Shanashie 39]

”Peace?”

Though her pleasant smile of almost motherly concern remained, the dead girl’s voice seemed to take on an edge of sadness.

”No. Guardians chosen in war, not peace. She said plainly, a sorrowful frown overtaking the aberration’s features as she regarded the shaken survivors. “A shame, but necessary. Follow. Time short.”

Turning to regard the shattered doors, Tiffany raised her good arm and reached out, a sense of displacement stealing over the scattered group as her fingers somehow reached the obsidian surface. None had so much as taken a step, yet suddenly they were mere feet from the dark marble steps, still in their relative positions as though the world had bent around them.

Yet here, closest to the ominous structure, serenity seemed to permeate the very air. Around the carved entrance the sunlight seemed warmer, yet kind, tinted by an ever present summer breeze. Rough shrubs that grew from fissures in the mountain side already played host to bird song as the local fauna began to return, apparently unfazed by the destruction wrought so close by. A strange feeling began to seep into the minds of the survivors, different for each, as though some motherly figure were trying to comfort a crying child, but wasn’t sure how.

Aramok, the daemon wolf, stalked up the marble stairway towards the slowly cooling wreckage that besmirched the otherwise empty doorstep. With all three heads working in unison, he shouldered the cockpit’s remains off the edge of the plinth, revealing the red hot stone beneath. Satisfied yet showing no sign of approval, he padded circles for a moment before laying down on the blistering surface, watching the humans with a look of predatory menace.

This close to the gates, the extent of the recent damage was even more obvious. Radiating from the shattered seal high above them, long splintering cracks ran like a spider web across its textured surface. Portions of the delicate carvings looked ready to fall out at any moment, yet held firm as Tiffany ran a pale hand across them. Turning back to the group, the little dead girl took up a seat on the marble steps and forced a calm smile back onto her worried features.

“Betrayal most foul, shattered these gates and many lives. You have our sorrow. Time short, as must the explanation.”

” If every grain of sand were a star, every beach a galaxy, then every world would be a cosmos unto itself. Everywhere else, would be possibility.”

”For every thought and fantasy, for every inspiration and dream, a new cosmos is born from possibility. This is the function of life.”

”To keep balance, avoid collision and devastation between worlds, a fulcrum records existence. That is the function of this plane.”

Tiffany’s smile intensified into a warm grin as her glowing eyes turned back to the wreckage further down the rocky slope.

”The gate stands vigil over the Fulcrum, the will of the first Guardians.  Their spirits reside within, yet not all willingly.  Six have escaped, a seventh betrayed. Many perished, including this vessel. Yet you live. You have been chosen. Find them and return them.”

“Ask your questions. Time short.”

Check PM for individual effects of the gateway. Just shout in OOC if there's anything you'd like me to change here.

 

Edited July 19, 2013 by Shanashie

[Starshine 16,333]

 

 

"I-I n-nearl...i-it w-was going t-to..." she broke up again, starting to cry even more as one of her arms folded across her chest to clutch at her aching ribs.

 

Chandra quickly returned Myra's desperate hug. She had not a single clue on what to do in the event of a broken rib. One thing she could do, was to get Myra to safety. "Uh, can you stand-" The world seemed to momentarily distorted itself around her, nearly knocking her senseless. Chandra looked around frantically. Turned out the dead girl had somehow 'teleported' all the survivors right to the door. "What the bloody ocean...?" Something like this was only supposed to be reserved to fantasy works.

 

A feeling of strangely familiar warmth crept in into the edges of her thoughts. It was as thought an old friend was embracing her, yearning for her presence. Chandra could feel a blush started to rise in her cheeks; she gulped, nervous. She tightened her grip on Myra. This was definitely not something normal at all. Deep in the recess of her mind, she had started to doubt that she was still on earth.

 

Now she was considerably closer to the... door, she could get a closer look at it. Multitude of web-like cracks adorned it's dark surface, as if something terrible had blown its way out from behind it. The dead girl spoke of betrayal, function of life, first guardians, the escapees, and how the survivors were chosen. She couldn't even hope to understand what any of that meant.

 

 

 

“Ask your questions. Time short.”

 

Chandra cleared her throat. "Uh, hey! Your pet there almost hurt my friend here. It even almost ate her alive! If you're the one who's in charge here, can't you put a leash on it?" she seethed. "And... What do you mean we are chosen? You mean these six you are talking about were the one who responsible for this crash?"

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

The 'Guardians' thing again.  The look of matronly compassion on the dead girl's face was almost as out of place as her bloodless wounds.  For the briefest moment, here and there were the same place, and then Katarzhyna found herself standing directly in front of the ruined entrance.  She jolted and spun her head to see the others still with her, apparently in the same relative positions.   Strange sensations of serenity washed over her, followed by...it was like she was suddenly a little girl again, and Great-Aunt Marina was embracing her to her ample bosom, calling her 'Little Princess' and going on and on about what a beautiful, beautiful girl she was.

 

Katarzhyna's mind struggled to perform the cognitive equivalent of pulling out of a tailspin.  Not one thing in this 'reality' made sense, but it also refused to be the least bit vague or dream-like.  The revenant started speaking in cryptic verse that sounded like an awkward translation from some other language.  She gave what might have been a heavily metaphorical explanation of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, followed by a poetic word-salad about "Guardians," a "Fulcrum," and "spirits."  Perhaps this is like Contact?  In Carl Sagan's novel, the aliens spoke to the protagonist through the form of her deceased father, on the premise that it would make her more comfortable than their true form.  Katarzhyna hated that part of the book...  If these aliens were trying to do the same thing, they were missing the mark by a few hundred kilometers. 

 

No.  They do not want us to be comfortable.  The 'feelings of serenity and affection' were being inserted awkwardly over their use of a maimed, dead child as their voice.  The three-headed beast remained close by, the menace of its feral gaze as clear as crystal.  One of the others snapped at the alien in an angry outburst.  Katarzhyna wanted to stay calm, to provide the best representation of humanity she could...but the woman was right.

 

"You attack one of our aircraft.  You kill two or three hundred of our people, and speak to us through the corpse of one of our children.  You do this to capture us so you can use us as Cossacks?  To capture 'spirits' for you?  We are not soldiers," she said coolly.  By the looks of them, the others were civilians, and Katarzhyna doubted they would have an Su-35 handy for her to fly into battle.  "You have your beast kill us if we do not fight for you?  Why do you not have better way to recruit fighters?"  Yes, there were ragtag 'armies' in Africa that sent thugs out to round up children and force them to join their ranks.  But surely a culture capable of traversing the boundaries between universes would not have to resort to such things?  Couldn't they invent drones?  "If your civilization cannot rouse its own citizens to defend it willingly, you have bigger problem than escaped enemy ghosts."

[Shanashie 39]

The dead girl’s eyes turned to look upon Chandra, a kind smile upon her features as though child and adult roles were reversed.

‘Aramok is the first of wolves, an old friend called in an hour of need. In his eyes this mountain is his territory, and you are prey within it, such is the way of wild creatures. He obeys out of respect, not fear or a desire to please a master. Would you enslave a friend for their nature?’

Interrupted by humanity’s herrold before she can continue in earnest, Tiffany’s features fell slack at the damning list of sins Kat laid bare. Never once did they approach anger, but a deep sorrow seemed to sweep everything about her frail body, as though she understood this pain, but could no longer feel it herself. For once, the lips of the child moved of their own volition, though no omnipresent voice followed their whisper.

‘Sorrow. This form, unfortunate, yet necessary. Only vessel close enough willing to embrace us.’ The voice paused again, carefully considering a way to express itself without causing even more harm than it already had.

’The seventh brought your sky-sword, your ‘aircraft’, and drove it at the heart of Tartarus. It sought to sunder the gates and succeeded in wounding us, stripping those who would not return to aid our vigil. We will hold, but crumble soon, unable to protect the fulcrum beyond. There are no others to bare up the sword, Harmony ‘the shield’ reigns in this world. Yet you survived such devastation, and Guardian's are not chosen lightly.  Even we did not believe in the beginning, but we grew in strength and bore the sword where others could not... Yet we are bound here.'

 

Again the pail lips moved, this time framing their words but little else.  Perhaps she was discussing strategy, or maybe forming silent reassurances to herself. Either way, it was several moments before the voice spoke again. 

'We do not demand or enslave. We beg.'

Edited July 20, 2013 by Shanashie

[Miss Light Diamond 2,802]

@@Shanashie,

 

 

Emily suddenly felt...rather warm...it was strange, sudden thoughts of her sister filled her mind but that made her tear up.
Spirits? Guardians? Just those words sounded like she would need to be strong and assertive...which just wasn't Emily.

She shook her head, her lip quivered as a few tears poured down her cheeks...she couldn't do this.

 

 

 

'We do not demand or enslave. We beg.'

 

When those words entered her ears she felt...different about it...they needed her...she couldn't just lay there and cry...but she also couldn't fight.
She gulped and slowly pushed herself up to her feet, leaning against a nearby tree for support, gasping at the pain in her legs. "I...I cant fight...I cant heal...I cant cook. I...I shouldn't be h-here..." She said, looking up at the...well, what was left of the girl. "I mean...look at me, I can barely walk. And...where...is here? We were in Miami...and now we're surrounded by mountains...where are we?" She asked, looking down at her shaking legs and holding back another wave of tears.
She shook her head again a few tears escaping her eyes as she pulled her violet case up to hug it, still thinking of her sister. "I don't want to return spirits. I want to go home."

 

 

((I'm really tired so forgive me if I missed something. TO BED.))

[Agent505 661]

@@Starshine, 

 

While she was still crying, and trying to wipe away tears that she only kept replacing, she felt bizarrely at ease. The images of the creatures maw where still burned into her mind, but at the same time as they horrified her, she felt an even more overwhelming sense of security. It was as if she had known the stranger she was embraced with for her entire life, and feeling her arms around her was comforting - like a mother nursing a child. This only served to make Myra hold tighter to the woman. 

 

Suddenly, her gut wrenched and her mind spun circles around itself, making her feel like she was about to throw up and pass out at the same time, and then just as quickly as the sensations washed over her, they vanished. Looking around, but still keeping herself close to Chandra, she could see that they where at some sort of gateway. Where it had come from or how she had gotten there, she had no idea. Turning the other way, she could see the gargantuan canine sitting where the plane once used to be - directly on top of a searing patch of rock. Overcome with fear, she pulled herself back against Chandra and turned away. "I...I'm s-sorry..." she sobbed, trying to speak through the last of her tears. "I c-can't s-s-stop crying...I thought I w-was g-going to d-die!" 

 

Following her traumatic experience, she hadn't payed any attention to the girl or the gate, it was as if she didn't even realise she existed right now. The only thing she was concerned about was staying out the way of the beast that had almost eaten her.

[Starshine 16,333]

Chandra nearly choked on her own breath when the dead girl spoke of Tartarus, and that the seventh had somehow brought the plane straight from Earth and used it as some sort of a battering ram to break the gate. No, the dead girl couldn't be serious, right? There was no way this Tartarus was the same Tartarus she had read in the Greek mythology, where the titans were imprisoned. She gulped.

 

"I...I'm s-sorry..." she sobbed, trying to speak through the last of her tears. "I c-can't s-s-stop crying...I thought I w-was g-going to d-die!"

 

"Shh... Easy there. This dead girl needs you alive, she wouldn't let the damn dog hurt you anymore," Chandra cooed. At least she hoped so.

 

Chandra turned and spoke to the dead girl. "Uh... Let me get this straight. You, whatever you are, bound here as some kind of a prison warden for these six, and the seventh jinxed our plane to break the gate. They have escaped, and now you are here trying to coax us to capture them for you." She huffed. "You know, you did a terrible job at convincing us that you're the good guy in this whole thing. We are almost dead from the crash, you need us to help you, and you just let your pet dog go and eat the human corpses around here. No, miss, you aren't begging, you're here trying to threaten us to be your servant." Chandra couldn't help but to let out a small laugh, everything seemed so unreal at this point. "Now I'm starting to think that maybe the seventh guy was just trying to free their falsely imprisoned friends. If that's not the case, you better start explaining and keep that dog away."

Edited July 22, 2013 by Starshine