Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Four: City of the Dead)

Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Four: City of the Dead)
RE: Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Four: City of the Dead)
The still-lit flare clattered to the ground and rolled a few inches before it got caught on one of the uniformly-uneven cobblestones that floored the entire alley. Huebert followed it a few moments later, sliding down onto his haunches with his back against the elegant gothic mausoleum behind him (elegant that is until you noticed all the cornices and gargoyles and wrought-iron were cheap plaster and plastic). One massive hand covered his face, and he groaned at no-one and nothing in particular.

"Why is everything we do anymore such a waste?"

There was the little slithering noise he associated with TinTen moving around, but nothing else.

"I mean, it was bad enough that once we finally started to get some kind of organized resistance going, finally started looking like we really had a chance of dealing with the fucking Duchess, this whole... thing happened."

Slow rebreather noises. No more slithering.

"But even here we can't do anything that has any lasting impact! That whole order plant thing got destroyed, that entire battlefield got nuked or whatever because we weren't fast enough, and now I can't even help those people in the last place save their world. I think that's what was happening anyway. I dunno, I guess I just don't like seeing innocent people hurt."

Still no response, but TinTen was pretty reserved at the best of times.

"I guess I never even really thought about why I was bothering, really. It just seemed like I had to. I was there, I had to help. But I couldn't, couldn't help any of them. Just busted stuff up after things got too bad to save. Maybe if I hadn't wasted so much time on things like that, I dunno, we might've had a better chance of actually escaping this thing, or taking out Scofflaw, or something."

The city was as quiet as the grave, but it didn't really occur to Huebert how unfunny that was.

"Am I really supposed to ignore people just so we can save ourselves, though? That feels wrong. But if we keep getting put places where we can't do any good, maybe it's just wasted effort. Heh, not that this one sounded like it was going to need a whole lot of saving. Bunch of zombies or whatever? That's pretty cut and dry, I've gotta figure."

It also didn't occur to him how slowly and quietly the rebreather was puffing.

"Do you think the Fool keeps putting us places he knows we're going to waste time and resources fighting each other and the people in the world so we don't gang up on him? Are we playing right into his hands, or am I giving him too much credit and we're just a bunch of ineffective idiots?"

The general silence didn't break.

"Come on, 'Ten, you've gotta say something at some point. I'm not interrupting any of your mystical musings, am I?"

"Huebert..."

He finally looked up. He shouted and jumped to his feet.

"Oh, fuck me, no, no no no. What the hell happened to you? Dammit, why didn't you say something?"

A shaking tendril gestured to the extensive burn wounds near and around TinTen's mouth and gillflaps.

"Fucking hell!"

Huebert's hands flew across his jumpsuit, patting it down for any medical supplies he might have been carrying, first aid creams, bandages, anything. He'd never had to, though, they'd always had a Hiver for that. A couple of syringes of stimulant and an analgesic were all he found.

TinTen carefully pulled his coat open. "Second... pocket..."

Huebert pounced, trying to delicately remove the contents without moving his friend at all, without touching his seared flesh, without probably crushing his organs with his huge stupid shovelhands. He was rewarded with more than a few winces and a few increasingly-weak jerks and a jar of something green and astringent-smelling.

"What do I do with it?"

Pain and goggles and the struggle to stay focused were all between the man and the Meipi's expression, but it still managed to convey what a ridiculous question that was. He unscrewed it, dipping two fingers into whatever was inside. He could already feel it making his fingertips tingle then go numb. It felt like ice and fire and drugs. Hesitatingly, he applied a dollop to the edges of the burned areas; TinTen moaned gently, but managed to nod a bit.

The work of applying the cream was slow and ginger and nerve-wracking, but it got done with a minimum of fuss and groaning. Every stroke, Huebert was terrified he was going to put a finger through the poor bastard's flesh, or rub it in too hard and peel off a huge section of skin, or just plain watch his friend die in front of him while he couldn't do anything about it because he was too big and too stupid and just a hired gun with immaculate biceps instead of something useful like a medic. Or even one of those fucking biopaths. He'd gladly shill out to a swindling psion right now if one were around that could fix this. But none of that happened. The ointment was applied and TinTen's breathing gradually became more regular and less labored.

Huebert sat back. "So, is this going to cure you, or what?"

"Find... doctor." TinTen's eyes were gradually sliding shut, his limbs going limper than usual.

"No! Dammit, Naamxe, you stay conscious! Don't you fucking dare pass out and leave me to take care of this!"

The squid didn't listen. Huebert reached for him, thought better of it and pulled back, then thought better of thinking better of it. As gently and carefully as he could, hoping against hope he wasn't making things worse, he picked TinTen up and slowly stood up. After several moments of panicked thought, he dropped into a loping dash, moving as quickly as he could without jostling his burden. It might have looked funny if it weren't a matter of life and death.

Not knowing where he was going, not thinking about where he was, all the Fool's descriptions falling out of his mind, he ran out of the alley shouting.

"Help! Someone help! I need a medic!"

---

It could be pretty dull, being a banshee in the City of the Dead.

But then, that was the problem, wasn't it? Everyone seemed to feel like that at some level, especially the ones that hadn't been around when the City had been founded. Like they'd traded part of themselves for security and safety. Lost their identities. Everyone seemed to have a hole in them they couldn't fill because some calling of their very nature had gotten locked away when they'd sealed the gates of the necropolis. Or she assumed that's how everyone felt. She sure did. Sometimes.

But here she was now, ignoring it like she always did (except on the occasional Saturday night she let herself get drunk and moody and go try screaming on rooftops. It just made her feel stupid instead of fulfilled). Tapping out a story she didn't care about and suspected nobody else cared about either about the city council's economic policies and how they were going to affect the price of blood. It was safe, secure, and banal. Just like everything else in her unlife. She'd even gotten into journalism in the first place on the expectation it'd put her on the front lines of whatever exciting things did manage to happen in the city, but there never seemed to actually be any. For a city filled with literal monsters, some of whom craved flesh or souls, it was all so... stable. Barely even any interesting murders.

She sighed and tried to put it out of her mind. Talk about manufactured problems, right? 'oh, my death is so placid and I have enough money to live comfortably, won't something awful happen and sweep me up in it?' She sounded like one of those dumb kids that dream of the living apocalypse, sure they're going to be the one to survive it. She'd just gotten like this since Jessica had dumped her, anyway. All she needed to do was meet another nice banshee, get herself a girlfriend, and quit acting like a baby. It was just so hard to find other banshees in the city and ugh that was just an excuse and she needed to finish this story. Ugh. Uuuugh.

It wasn't until she noticed her editor staring at her, trying to emote confusion despite not having any flesh to do it with, that she realized those annoyed noises had actually started coming out of her mouth instead of staying confined to her whiny internal monologue. And that they kept getting louder and higher and it was really just one long noise and she couldn't stop. She tried to clamp her hands over her mouth but her body wasn't cooperating and she leaned back her head and screamed and screamed and kept screaming until she was out of breath and then it just got louder, fueled by some force stronger than lungs and more spiritual than mere noise. People around her pressed their hands over their ears, the windows were shaking, and her mug suddenly splintered, sending cold coffee rushing across her desk and papers and stopping just shy of her computer.

And then it stopped, but gradually, fading from a shriek to a shout to a shuddering sob. She was filled with so much sadness, grief at a loss she had no concept of. She began to cry in earnest, rather than just let the sob escape her mouth without her consent, and was finally silent. Thank Elesh. She let her head flop down to her desk, coffee immediately soaking into her hair.

Jimmy scuttled over to her desk, clattering the whole way. "What the hell was that all about?"

She didn't answer, too consumed with the sadness that had just decided to show up, and then too confused about where it had come from when it started to fade.

"Well? Look, you can talk about this if you want, but I'm really starting to think I need to send you home, have you see a counsellor or something before you come back."

She pulled herself upright, rubbing cream and tears out of her eyes and looking bizarrely, incongruously excited.

"No, no, don't you get it? I'm a banshee!"

Her editor sighed and laid a bony hand on her shoulder. "Yeah, I know, we all go through this when we're young, but this isn't really an appropriate place to work out your identity issues. Especially so loudly. We've all got jobs to do."

"No, look. I mean, someone's going to die."

He clicked his teeth and tilted his skull. "Well, yes, people die all the time. But an obituary page is a much better way to–"

"No, no, shut up. I mean actually die." At this point, she was stuffing things into her bag and slinging it over her shoulder, a manic gleam in her eyes.

"What, as in–"

"Yes. Die. Like, become dead. After being alive. Alive!"

She grabbed Jimmy by his clavicle and shook him. "Someone in the city is alive, and they're going to die. This is huge! A living person, near enough for me to feel them getting close to the threshold."

Without waiting for a response, she dashed off. "And I'm going to find out why."
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RE: Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Four: City of the Dead) - by SleepingOrange - 01-10-2014, 10:09 PM