InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "your exodus laughing"

Cordelia Chase takes crap from no one. (thisismyofframp) wrote in ridgewayresort,
@ 2010-05-07 18:32:00

Entry tags:

angel, cordelia chase

WHO: Cordelia Chase and OPEN TO ANY/ALL
WHAT: Basically? Killing zombies.
WHEN: Not long after this.
WHERE: Somewhere on the path between the Ice Room and the Main Lodge.
RATING: TBD
STATUS: In Progress

It had been a long time since Cordelia had been this upset. Sure, she'd had a few moments of irritation since arriving. She'd even been angry. But the way she was feeling now, it was more than what she'd felt before. She wasn't just mad. She was pissed off. She was also, if she was being honest, hurt and no small amount of scared.

The anger, of course, was directed both at the manager that had tried to send her back to Heaven as well as Angel for not telling her what the guy had tried to do. She understood, logically, that Angel had his reasons. He was always trying to protect those closest to him, always keeping things bottled up instead of just spitting it out and being done with it. So it wasn't that she didn't feel he didn't trust her, or anything stupid like that. No, she knew he was in his own way trying to keep from upsetting her. But that was a small consolation when she'd had to find out the news he wouldn't tell her from someone else.

He was supposed to be her Champion. What's more than that, he was supposed to be her friend. He had sworn after the whole Darla debacle that he wouldn't keep secrets anymore. He had promised he would tell her things, no matter how bad they were, because the only thing secrets did were cause rifts that couldn't always be prepared. Yet here he was, doing the same damn thing all over again. Only this time it was her life on the line.

Then there was the manager. Although Cordelia doubted she'd ever like the man who had abducted her and so many others, she had started to tolerate him in her own way. She had even come to accept that maybe he wasn't quite Evil Incarnate as she'd first thought him to be. However now that she knew what he had been trying to do - no matter how noble his intentions might seem to be - she was right back to square one. She'd meant what she'd said in her message to him, too. He had no right to screw with her life like this. It was bad enough he'd brought her here. To try and send her back, without even asking her opinion on the matter, and risking everyone else's life at the same time? That wasn't something she could tolerate or even really wrap her mind around.

It also frightened her. Not that he might have that much power. The fact that there were freaking zombies running around told her that he wasn't nearly as powerful as he thought he was. However if he managed to figure out a way, and sent her back, she had no guarantee that she would even go back to Heaven. She'd like to think she would, but honestly there was just no telling. Plus now that she was alive again, she was loathe to leave both her friends from home as well as the ones she'd made here. Death had been the next step in her life, once. Now, it was something she wasn't sure she was ready to face with half the grace she'd had the first time around.

Of course, none of this really mattered. The odds of Angel realizing just how pissed off she was were all but slim to none, and she highly doubted either he or the manager would apologize for their actions. And the longer she waited around, waiting to see if maybe she would be proven wrong, the angrier she became. So she opted to go do something productive.

She had told Angel she would keep people safe. Offer a line of defense. Armed with her crossbow in her hand, a bag of bolts for it slung over her shoulder, and a sword in her other hand, she was ready to do just that. Only, instead of hanging around the cabins and protecting her fellow staff, she opted to head toward the main lodge and check on the guests. They might be sketchy at times, and might drive her up a wall, and she might want to slap half of them and verbally rip the other half apart, but they were still people. They deserved the same amount of protection from the zombies as anyone else did even if they had signed some stupid waiver. After all, this wasn't a matter of legalities. This was a matter of doing what was morally right and, for all of Cordelia's flaws, she had a pretty strong moral stance on things like this.

Making her way quietly down the path, she paused as she came to a crossroad. Her gaze cut around and she felt a slight smile curve her lips upward. To her right led to the Ice House. Straight ahead was the Main Lodge. And coming from the direction of the Velvet Room to her left were some zombies.

"It's about freaking time," she muttered under her breath as she turned and took aim. The first bolt flew from her crossbow and hit one of them square between the eyes. With a smooth, quick reload she took aim at another one, while all the while side-stepping her way down the path and closer to the Main Lodge.

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angelusdomini
2010-05-08 12:40 am UTC (link)

To put it mildly, Angel had screwed up, big time. Again. Possibly bigger than Petersen had where Cordelia was concerned, though he blissfully underappreciated the gravity of his wrongdoing. Even so, he was human enough to know instinctively that he had just dealt great injury to the closest friend he had ever had.

No amount of wardrobe in the world was going to fix this.

At first, he had wanted to blame Sam--but he quickly realised that he had only himself to blame. It had been a good intentioned choice, but his choice and a badly calculated one, as it turns out. To shirk that responsibility and try to delegate it to another would make him no better than Petersen trying to pin it on this mysterious 'employee' of his whose unfortunate end Angel had not bothered to enquire about.

He wanted desperately to make things right between himself and Cordelia. Especially so if Petersen were to succeed in his endeavour, in which case they might not even have much time. With this objective in mind, not even really knowing what he was going to say or do, he hurried over to the cabins, only to be informed that he had just missed her heading for the lodge. All he could think of was Cordy, somewhere out there in the swarm of zombies. He would never forgive himself if the zombies managed what Petersen had failed to do, and not in a good way. Brandishing his bloodied claymore, he hastened out into the battlefield.

The air was thick with decomposing flesh and blood gone way past the expiration date, but he caught scent of her pretty easily. He couldn't see her over the hypnotic sway of rotting bodies in the way, but he could tell that she was near. The only thing in his mind was that he needed to keep her safe, never mind how he was ever going to apologise to her. So he mercilessly carved his way through with broad sweeps of his blade, fuelled by the need to protect her. It was as he chopped one of them down that he took the arrow meant for the undead of non-vampiric variety, struck simultaneously with the long belated realisation that Cordy really wasn't in need of his--or really, anybody's--protection.

'Ow,' he said ruefully, suppressing his surprise at Cordy's bravado and silently being thankful that the projectile hadn't been made of wood.

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thisismyofframp
2010-05-08 03:27 am UTC (link)

Had Angel not appeared in the middle of her shot, she would have hit her mark. However he did show up and, although part of her felt some small satisfaction at hearing his proclamation of pain, the majority of her went completely still at the sight of him. Her eyes scanned over him, making sure the bolt hadn't done too much damage, before she pulled another one from her bag and slid it into the crossbow.

Taking aim directly at him, she arched an eyebrow. Then, a split second before pressed the release, she moved it an inch or two to the right. The bolt flew through the air, soared past his shoulder, and landed in the forehead of a zombie that had been slowly making its way up behind him. As the last still-moving zombie in the vicinity hit the ground, Cordelia lowered her weapon and began moving closer to her Champion. Already she could see more zombies approaching but, given the speed with which they were traveling - akin to that of a drunken snail - she knew they had a bit of time before the next group reached them.

"So," she greeted him in a clipped tone, leaving little room as to how upset she was with him at that moment, "been deliberately keeping personal, life-changing or possibly ending, information from anyone lately?" One eyebrow rose as she paused a foot or so away. She slid the blade of her sword into the ground at her feet, collapsed her crossbow with a practiced ease, and dropped it into the bag slung over her shoulder. Picking up her sword once more, she held it loosely in one hand and moved her free one to her hip.

Of course, even as she glared at him in a rather expectant and clearly irritated manner, there was also a gleam of disappointment in her eyes. As well as some relief at seeing him, in the flesh, and knowing he was unharmed for the time being. What could she say? Clearly, when it came to Angel, she was capable of a whole spectrum of emotions as the same time.

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angelusdomini
2010-05-08 04:42 am UTC (link)

Angel gripped the cold, slender bolt of steel and pulled it out with a single swift tug, wincing as the triangular tip ripped its way back out the point of entry. It was slippery, being smeared with rivulets of blood, which seemed to have the effect more or less of, well, blood for the sharks. They weren't interested in the blood so much as the source of said blood. He tossed the projectile aside, which landed with an inaudible clink before being stampeded by zombie feet, then straightened up in time to catch sight of the crossbow levelled at his head.

He was completely sure that she wouldn't actually shoot him. Okay, ninety-seven percent sure. He did sort of deserve it and in light of the fact that this would not be a fatal shot, he would almost gladly have taken it if it meant that her anger would be carried away with it. Sadly for him, life wasn't that simple. Her finger pressed against the trigger and it whizzed past his ears before being firmly lodged in the face of a zombie with a faint spattering noise.

'I was going to tell you,' his words rushed out in an awkward tumble as she stood expectantly before him. He would have preferred anything over that look of disappointment. 'I just didn't know how you'd react and...I know you're angry and you have every right to be. But maybe what Petersen's trying to do isn't such a bad thing. You were bound for heaven, Cordy.' He barely paused as he lifted the claymore to his side and perfunctorily went through the motion of swinging it into an oncoming group of zombie. 'Not everyone can say that for themselves. When I first found out, I was sad and angry, more than I ever thought I was capable of feeling. But then I realised how selfish that was. I told you I wouldn't stop looking for a way to save you and I meant that. But this is different. If Petersen's offering you a way out, I don't want you keeping yourself back. There are people here who are brave and strong and more than capable of keeping this place safe.'

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thisismyofframp
2010-05-09 06:31 pm UTC (link)

"You don't know what you're talking about, Angel," Cordelia replied sharply and with a disgusted shake of her head. "You're assuming I was bound for Heaven. How do you know, though? I could be heading straight to Hell. Or even somewhere else, someplace entirely different where links to the PTB go when they finally die." Raising her sword, she turned so he was to her side and swung out at a zombie, slicing its head clean off with one strike. She turned and elbowed another one that was getting a bit too close for comfort before spinning on the ball of her foot and swinging her sword downward, through its neck and diagonal across it's torso. As it slid apart with a soft, squishing sound, she glanced back to the vampire fighting beside her.

"This isn't about me staying here to protect these people," she explained. "This isn't even about where I'm bound when my time is finally up." Another swing out with her sword and another head went flying. She ignored the decaying flesh oozing off her blade and stated simply, "This is about you. This is about you deciding when would be the best time to tell me something that I should have known from the start. This is about your issue with being honest, and with this crazy notion you have that I can't handle things." She narrowed her eyes as she looked over at him.

"You promised me there wouldn't be any secrets. If you want to change your mind on that, you need to at the very least clue me in. I've earned that much."

Another zombie stepped over the corpse of the last and Cordelia's eyes flashed with irritation. Yanking out a dagger she'd slid into the side pouch of her bag she turned and slammed it into the creature's chest. "Do you mind?" she snapped. "We're trying to have a conversation here!" Then she yanked the blade free, sidestepped an attempt for the zombie to grab her, and stabbed it in between the eyes.

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angelusdomini
2010-05-11 02:55 am UTC (link)

Oh, here she went again with the excuses to be all noble and heroic. That was his thing, being broody and self-sacrificing. Of course she was bound for heaven. After all she had given, how could she ever doubt it for a second? If they let her wander off to hell or anywhere less than heaven, they would be forced to doubt everything that they had done for the Powers because there would be something very, very wrong with that picture of their most recent employer excluding Petersen.

'I don't,' Angel replied, sloughing an important bodily piece off of another zombie. 'I haven't. Like I said, I would have told you.' He paused before adding a timid 'Eventually.' Anyone who had ever felt zombie hands pawing at your back would attest that it was a deeply unpleasant sensation, as Angel discovered to his great annoyance--so much so that he forewent the sword altogether and went with the good old fist. It was surprisingly easy to punch the head off of a partially decomposed corpse. Of course, vampire strength helped a little. 'I wasn't trying to keep it from you, Cordy,' he said as he skewered the floundering head with his claymore with the zeal of a colonialist sticking his flag pole into the ground before anyone else could claim the land for themselves. 'I wasn't even supposed to know about it. I wish I hadn't. But I knew this is exactly how you'd react.' And that was probably the wrong thing to say, if not the worst possible, but he wasn't especially bright when it came to topics that concerned other people's feelings.

Worst of all was the smell of rotting flesh. Sure, he'd been through worse and sure vampires subsisted off of human blood, but that didn't make it any less unpleasant to cope with. It was like eggs. Tasted good when fresh, but once it went bad...well. A day of zombiefest and it was as though the putrid smell had taken permanent residence at the back of his throat. Plus, he had the whole enhanced senses thing going for him. It was seriously bad enough to stay bad long after the senses had dulled. 'This is everything about you. See, I knew you'd try to talk your way into staying, even when it's against your every interest. There's no excuse for what I did, but I was just trying to do what was right. You think I like the idea of sending you back?'

[ooc: I couldn't recall in which episode the secrets thing was mentioned, so I just winged it!]

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