WHO: Heather, Alessa/the Flauros demon. WHAT: An unexpected turn of events, but essentially, a rescue. WHEN: Right after this. WHERE: Inside the Flauros. RATING: R. STATUS: Complete. [Log]
One minute, Heather had been standing with Sam, arguing with Dahlia about the Flauros and Alessa’s good side and how they wanted to get her the hell out of there. And then the next, she’d been sucked inside the triangular object herself without even knowing how it had happened. Everything went by too quickly for her to really be able to tell what exactly was going on, but it didn’t seem to matter much once her head slammed against the floor, as if she’d been pushed from behind.
With a throbbing pain moving around in her skull, Heather pushed herself up onto her knees and looked around. She was in a room that looked like it had been painted -- no, stained -- the color of blood, and a part of her wonder if it really had been using the real stuff. There were doorways spanning the perimeter of the room, though of course, none of them would aid an escape. They were barred shut tightly. There were also withering paintings hung around, their subjects barely visible beyond their wear and tear.
That was all interesting enough, but the real attention-grabber was the other two inhabitants of the room. Alessa, and…well. Heather really had no idea what that was.
In one of the cells the good side of Alessa waited. She looked completely stoic, looked as if though she had been traumatized. She had been trapped in this cell without food, water, or sleep for the past two weeks. Any normal person would have broke way before this point, but not her. There might have also been the part that she was a spirit, and spirits didn't need to eat, drink, or sleep. Didn't mean it didn't hurt like hell though. She was beginning to give up hope, but that was before she noticed Heather arriving inside of the thing. Panicked she stood up, and leaned against the bars, her eyes wide opened. "Heather?" she gasped, "Why are you, what's going on?"
From across the room a hideous looking demon moved forward. It was almost humanoid in appearance, but not quite. It's head looked like someone had cracked open a dog's skull, stretched skin over it, added ram horns, and a bird beak. It's body was a mass of muscle covered with red skin, and on that red skin were areas of matted fur. Fur that looked like it had been matted with blood, and other unsanitary fluids. It's rib cage was exposed, his hands contained claws, and sticking out of his back were a pair of skeletal like wings. Perhaps a reminder that he had once been an angel who had now fallen, and his wings made useless. Upon seeing Heather he came within seven feet of her, and let out a hideous ear piercing shriek.
“Getting you out of here,” was Heather’s immediate response.
Of course, Heather had no idea how to get them both out when she wasn’t even sure how she herself had gotten in. And now with a giant monster thrown into the mix, that only made her previous anxiety turn into wrenching panic.
Scrambling to her feet once the monster began moving in her direction, Heather backed away and pulled out her gun. A handgun. That was all she’d brought with her, along with a medium-sized knife. Fan-fucking-tastic. It was a firearm, though, and there really wasn’t any time to sit and cry over her lack of heavy artillery. She fired off three shots and moved away.
Just like old times, really.
Alessa gave her a weak smile, and watched. The demon, hence known as Flauros, staggered back after being shot three times. Incredibly pissed off, he slammed his foot down, leaned back with his arms outstretched, and let out an earth shattering roar. What resulted was a hail of fireballs raining from up above, and aiming to hit the foolish girl, and burn her alive.
The fireballs were new, definitely. Heather hadn’t expected them, even if the sight of the Flauros’ mini-tantrum had foreshadowed some kind of an attack. She just barely managed to dodge the first one, though the side of her arm caught a bit of the heat and backlash as she did. She had to move back against the far wall in order to stay out of the way of the flames, and even then, she could feel the fire licking at her face. It was too close, and if the monster tried that again, she hoped to have a better plan of defense.
More shots were fired off, at least four or five this time, though with the sudden rise in temperature in the room and the ash that floated in the air, it was difficult to see the bullets through.
She kept moving, slowly and deliberately, trying to make her way toward Alessa.
Flauros growled when his attack had failed to kill the stupid girl, but even more of her bullets had managed to penetrate his flesh. He staggered over towards the girl, and when he was in her line of sight he grasped his chest, and slowly tore it open. Anyone could see a bright light inside, and when his chest was fully open a large ray of fire shot forth.
Not liking the sight of that, Heather made sure to prepare for another kind of attack, something similar to the rainstorm of fireballs. Only problem was, she had no idea what to even prepare for. This was a creature she’d only recently familiarized herself with through research, but even those books and articles didn’t say much about his specific attacks.
When the ray of fire burst from the demon’s chest, Heather’s eyes went wide and she made a dive out of the way. Her landing to the floor wasn’t exactly graceful, and it didn’t feel too good when she hit the ground, but it was better than being barbequed.
As she laid on her side, she held her gun out and aimed directly for that glowing light. It had to be a weakness, right? So she fired until she ran out of bullets, rising to her feet again as she switched out her clips.
The light wasn't it's weakness, but then again the creature had other weaknesses. He could feel even more of those bullets penetrating him, and they hurt, no, stung like a bitch, and they annoyed him.
He could feel the areas where the bullets had blown off his flesh. He didn't like it. It reminded Flauros too much of that stupid man Travis. Who had managed to beat Flauros with a gun. He hated that he could be defeated with such weapons. For some odd reason, the demon turned around, and started walking towards the wall. Then he stopped, and simply stood there.
By the time Heather had looked up again, aiming back at the looming creature, she noticed that it was no longer trying to come after her. Instead, she saw that it was going off towards the wall.
She didn’t lower her gun, but she squinted off in an attempt to understand just what the hell was going on.
“That it?” she called to it. “A few bullets and you’re too weak to play anymore?”
The demon quickly turned around, and stepped closer to Heather until it was close enough. It then raised it's right hand, and swung it HARD at Heather's general direction, hoping to smack the girl, and send her flying across the room.
And that? Was exactly what happened. The demon’s hand connected with the side of her head, which sent her into the opposite wall. So as if the slices she received along the side of her face weren’t enough, the velocity at which she slammed into the wall sent shockwaves of pain throughout the rest of her.
With a groan, she pushed herself up and fired blindly at the demon. She wasted her entire second clip, and she didn’t even know where or if she was hitting the thing, but there was too much blood in her eyes now for her to see properly.
He was sort of content when the girl went flying towards the fall, and that he had succeeded in injuring her. Unfortunately she had shot even more bullets at him, and that made the demon even more pissed. He arched his back, and summoned more fire to rain from the sky.
Meanwhile, Alessa had been watching the entire event nervously. She knew that if Heather could defeat the creature then both of them would be freed from this cage, and Alessa could reunite with her other self. Some people might have considered it strange, the good half Alessa wanting to reunite with her other half. But, then again they didn't know that even the malevolent Alessa wasn't THAT evil. She had only become that way, because the device had amplified those malevolent thoughts a hundred fold.
As the fire fell from the sky, Heather pulled herself back against the wall as tightly as possible. Ash and loose flames ended up flicking in her direction, burning her here and there, but she had to ignore it. She was too focused on finding another clip. One that she quickly realized she didn’t have.
Swearing profusely under her breath, she glanced up towards the demon and knew that if she was going to kill it, it had to be with a knife. She could only hope she’d weakened it enough with the bullets she’d already hit it with.
At this point the demon was well on it's way to being very well weakened. He was at the point where he just wanted to say "fuck it!" (figuratively speaking) and just have the damn girl defeat him. What did it matter to him, having two girls inside this cage with him? They were boring, and he couldn't even do anything to the brunette. Annoyed, he stepped closer to Heather.
Heather pulled her knife out and let the gun fall out of her hand with a clatter. It was useless to her now, and while she didn’t want that to be the case, she knew she had no other choice. It had to be the knife. She had to get in there and stab like crazy. And while the demon was shuffling toward her, she made the decision to just go for it.
She pushed up from the floor, forcing her body to work against the aches and pains, and nearly lunged for the thing. She could feel the slippery mess upon it’s skin sticking all over her, but she plugged her senses against it and just went in over and over with the knife. She stabbed and slashed and twisted the blade as hard as she could. She didn’t know what to expect from it, she didn’t know if she would be thrown back or slashed and that would be the end of her. But it was already too late. There wasn’t an inch of free space between herself and the demon. Her eyes were the only part of her that wasn’t focused on the knife plunging in and out of Flauros’ flesh. She was watching for movement, for signs of an attack so she could push away and avoid it.
He had not expected the flurry of those knife attacks, and by the time she was done, the demon staggered back. He was too weak to carry on, too angry to fight anymore, and he fucking hated it. He stopped staggering back, then leaned forward to let out another ear piercing shriek. But at this point Heather would have no reason to attack. At some point during the battle, Heather, Flauros, and Alessa had been transported from the Flauros.
At this point, Heather should have noticed the device floating up in the air, glowing a fiery color, and spinning around in a bizarre pattern that was much like something circling a pyramid.
Heather stepped back when the demon did, panting hard and wiping blood from her face. Her hand still gripped the knife so hard that her knuckles were white, ready to go at it again if she had to. However, by the time she would’ve been ready to do so, she noticed that their surroundings had changed once again. They were no longer stuck inside that device, but rather back on the outside.
“What the…?” She began to reach up to touch the spinning thing, but thought better of it and drew back. “Is that it?” she asked as she looked to Alessa, brow furrowed. “Are you…?”
In a sudden flash, tentacles of barbed wired shot out of the device, and wrapped themselves around the demon. He screamed, shrieked, and roared as he tried to break free. Alas it was of no use. The wires tugged at him, and tore him into thousands of pieces. Then wires and pieces of the demon were sucked back into the Flauros. The device dropped to the ground with a loud thunk.
The Alessa that had been in the Flauros was being consoled by the evil Alessa. It was certainly an ironic site to behold, the Alessa who had been tormenting and killing people, comforting the other Alessa, who was sobbing uncontrollably.
After a minute, the two halves reunited. Alessa received every memory of everything SHE had done, and once more she broke down sobbing. She couldn't help it as she fell to the floor, her body racking itself with sobs, and at one point she started dry heaving. "Why di- how could I have..." it wasn't any use. The girl couldn't even talk.
Heather watched in awe as the barbed wire shot out from the Flauros, wrapping itself around the demon and tightening until blood and flesh and all other kinds of material went flying in every direction. Heather tried to shield her eyes from it, but it wasn’t much use. She was soaked in the end, anyway.
Looking to Alessa, who had now become whole again only in the literal sense of the word, Heather frowned deeply. She knew what must’ve happened. She knew Alessa was receiving every memory of what her other half had been doing, and she couldn’t even imagine what that would be like.
“Come on,” she said gently, wincing as she knelt down beside the other girl. “Come on. Let’s get you back home. Back to…the Hyperion?” She wasn’t sure if that was where Alessa would want to go, but that was where she’d been staying before all this.
Alessa turned around to face the other girl, and through her tears snapped, "After everything I've done?!! I can't go back there Heather! I can't go anywhere, because I'm a monster! A god damn demon!!" The anger that had been in her eyes just a few seconds ago was now replaced by one of fear, and sadness, "Oh god, please...I'm sorry...I just, I don't even know...oh god..."
At this point she had positioned herself into the sitting position, but had wrapped her arms around her knees, and rested her head against her knees as she continued to cry. She felt lost, confused, sick, and most of all betrayed. Her own mother had turned her into a monster, and for what cause? So she could use her daughter as a weapon. It became instantly clear to Alessa that her own mother did NOT love her. To say that it hurt was an understatement. Alessa felt like her heart had been ripped from her chest, and stomped on by her own mother. This pain was much greater than the "vengeance" that had been inflicted upon her earlier that week. This pain was something even greater, and Alessa didn't know what to do. All she could do was whimper out a very weak, "help me, please...help..."
Heather jumped when Alessa lashed out at her. She understood it, of course, but that didn’t mean she’d been prepared for it. She heard the pain in the girl’s voice, saw it in her eyes, but she knew that nothing she could do would help. Words would smooth the rawness, but that guilt had to go away with time, on it’s own. It had been the same when Sam and his alternate self had been switched back. Heather would be there as much as she could, though. She would help however possible.
“No one thinks you’re a monster, Alessa,” she told her softly. “I made sure to let them know what happened, that this wasn’t your fault. They were worried about you, they’ll be glad you’re alright now.”
Alessa looked up at the girl, her eyes still wet with tears. "This isn't like Sam though. This isn't a case of me being switched with an alternate version of myself. That other part of me still exists, and it talks to me all the god damn fucking time. Everything she told you, everything was the truth." The girl was still scared of course.
“But it’s being controlled. And it sure as hell isn’t being amplified by some crazy triangle thing,” she said, motioning off towards the Flauros that was still lying still on the floor. “Now come on. Please. Let me take you back there, get you settled and get you some rest. We can talk all you want afterwards, I promise. Please?”
Alessa looked at the girl, and wondered if that would actually happen. Call it a pang of jealousy, but in her erronous mind set, she believed that Heather would soon after be back with Sam, and Harry. Alessa couldn't believe he was back, and frankly she didn't care. He had made it clear that he was dead set in his opinion of what she was. With a sigh, Alessa muttered, "fine. Just, let me be alone for a minute, please."
Heather could sense something was off when Alessa looked at her like that. Not off as in wrong, but she couldn’t exactly put her finger on it. It just didn’t sit right with her.
All the same, she nodded, still frowning at the same time. “Okay. You just…you let me know when you’re ready.” And with that, she patted a hand against the girl’s shoulder and pushed up to her feet, walking away to leave her to her own thoughts for a bit.
Once Heather had left, Alessa slowly stood up and stood there for at least thirty seconds. Every thought, and every memory of everything she had done was still flowing into her. She didn't know how she could go back to the Hyperion. She had tortured Xander, and one of the Claires. How could anyone ever forgive her for that? She still had that inclination inside of her. It wasn't completely gone, so how could people ever trust her?
With a heavy heart she picked up the Flauros, and placed it in her pocket. She didn't want her mom using it, and she didn't want it falling into the wrong hands. And as far as Alessa was concerned she was the only other person who knew how to use the Flauros, and she could use it for good. She then walked out of the room to rejoin Heather.