Baba Yaga (allsystemsgo) wrote in superbabies, @ 2013-06-12 16:38:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | pella castle, yoko oyama |
LOG: renegade & pilot
WHO: Pella Castle and Yoko Oyama
WHEN: A nondescript time in the day
WHAT: Pella and Yoko experience their nightmares about the same time. Pella goes to her neighbor's room after hearing Yoko fire her gun. Despite their nightmares, they decide to make rounds to check on the rest of the apartments.
The thing about Pella and fear was that she preferred not to acknowledge it. She could feel it, but her heart didn’t race. Her breath wasn’t short. The blood ran down her legs and she could smell Steven’s blood, but it didn’t make enough sense. She was trained not to panic even when it did make sense, and she was good enough friends with her fear that she couldn’t react. She couldn’t play the game even with the dead people in her apartment and the sick feeling in her stomach.
Steven would never stay still long enough to let her shoot him, even if she vaguely remembered doing it. On the way to the kitchen, Pella stepped over Owen’s body, and James’, and her sisters were slumped over by the refrigerator.
There was a noise, a plea for help, and Pella found her mother next to the door. Young, the way Pella remembered her, bleeding through the skull on her shirt, and Rachel Cole-Alves reached.
“Help me.”
Pella crouched in front of her, quiet, and reached for the chain around her mother’s neck. Rachel grabbed her wrist and repeated, “Help me. You can still save me.”
Pella shook her head and drew the chain out into the open, smearing blood over the dog tags hanging from it. Sergeant Rachel Cole. Marines. Pella used her free hand to check her own tags, bringing them up to eye level. One tag was hers, the second was her father’s, and the third was still her mother’s.
“Pella, please---”
Dropping her tags, Pella pried Rachel’s hand from her wrist. “Mom, you’re---”
The gunshots from across the hall distracted her. Leaving the bloody apartment, Pella almost immediately discovered the sound coming from Yoko’s apartment; it was too close to be coming from Ivy’s, and no one else on the floor was going to start shooting out of nowhere.
When she found the door locked, she kicked---once, twice, and a third time before the wood gave in and she found Yoko shooting at... nothing. Not a person, thankfully, and Pella let her empty out her gun before approaching her from the side.
Pella reached out, putting her hand on top of the still-warm gun. “Yoko,” she said, gentle despite the slick, uncomfortable feeling of the blood sliding down her legs. “Don’t be afraid.”
The cyborg assassin knew this was a dream; knew she’d killed Yuriko far too thoroughly for this to be real. But the blood running down the walls, coating her hands, flowing from the mangled body of the school’s resident therapist was bright and hot and slick and it evoked a rage in her she hadn’t felt since the moment before she’d ended Deathstrike’s life. Only this time there would be no guilt, no sense of loss accompanied with this execution. The woman before her, coaxing her, promising her a life of lies and more blood, wasn’t real and the bullets did nothing but make Yoko feel better.
Slowly, robotically, she turned her gaze to Pella, who under these conditions wasn’t someone she’d expected to see even though they lived so closely to one another. For as livid as she was at the apparition, her breathing was even and her mind was clear. Pella was real - the weight of her hand pressing Yoko’s gun down wasn’t a dream.
“Whatever happened to the students isn’t a fluke. This is intentional.” Her eyes drifted up and down Pella’s form as though she was somehow supposed to see the other woman’s nightmare. “You too?”
“Yes,” Pella said, matter-of-fact. “The teachers are next, one way or another. They’re the only group left. Put the gun away, Yoko.” Yoko was controlled and trained. She wouldn’t shoot anyone she didn’t mean to, but it was easier to stay calm when you weren’t aiming a firearm.
“What do you see?”
Yoko tucked the gun into her pants, the warm metal already cooling. If most anyone else had found her, she’d probably still be half-caught in the daze of her nightmare, but Pella had a very solid and objective presence about her that cooled the assassin, put her mind to work.
“Her, standing over a body.” She responded with a vagueness that wasn’t really necessary because of course Pella knew. “The claws in my hands were extended and covered in blood. She’s praising me. I think I killed him.” Yoko resisted the temptation to wipe her hands on her clothes, reminding herself it wasn’t real. It clicked that her implant was still powered down. She raised her defenses. “When this passes, I need to call him. This won’t be good.”
“We’ll take care of him.” We. This easily could have been Pella, if it had happened a few years ago, shooting into empty space or trying to revive Steven---or Shay, or Owen. Ian could use an extra, calm mind nearby; Pella was his patient and had some understanding of his powers, at least. “Is she still there?”
The urge to wipe her hand turned into the urge to grab her phone. It took everything she could to stare at the woman she hated so damned much instead of at the body on the floor. It was a figment of imagination, but his cold, vacant eyes chilled an otherwise burning room. It made her sick, made her dizzy.
“Yes. Commanding me not to talk to you. Finish the job. If I were an obedient daughter, you would be next.” Yoko smirks. “She underestimates you, I think.” But already the blood on the walls is wavering. “You?”
Pella was quiet for a moment. As far as she knew, Yoko was staring at Rachel Cole-Alves instead of Ian, and Pella’s mother was still reaching, promising that she would be better if Pella could help her. Instead of admitting it, she replied, “You have to appreciate that your mother has confidence in you. You wouldn’t survive me.” Her mouth twitched; on anyone else, that would have been a smile.
And, in return for Yoko’s honesty: “It hasn’t worn off on me yet.”
Yoko’s eyes softened in their own sort of smile, appreciative of that little moment. Especially when the moment after it was an echo of her mother smiling herself, and as much as she tried to ignore it, Yoko could make out something along the lines of how it’d been her fault that Ian was dead. Something about not being strong enough. The assassin sighed, trying to hide the sting of it.
“It followed you here?” She asked. She wondered if it was like the bloody walls clinging to every room or if it was like Yuriko’s voice bouncing off them. “How long? I don’t think the any of the students were reported at having anything last longer than a few minutes.”
“It follows me everywhere,” Pella said idly. “It’s only been a couple minutes. Four, maybe. I move pretty fast.” The voice was fading away, and Pella wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not. She didn’t have any photographs of her mother, and it had been so long she had started to forget what she looked like. It was twisted to be grateful for this, wasn’t it?
“How long? Have you been able to keep track?”
“No more than two minutes.” Yoko calculated. “I fired my gun only moments after it started.” It sounded rash now, but it made sense at the time. She could see the holes on the wall where they’d passed through Yuriko, clotting with the running blood. It was a lucky coincidence where Yuriko had stood. Any other direction and she’d have been shooting into her neighbor’s apartment.
“It’s only a matter of time before it reaches the others, if it hasn’t already.” She considered, again the urge to call Ian and tell him to at least leave seizing her again, if not only to hear his voice and know he was alive. “Annie has her son. Is it -” she was going to ask if Pella’s nightmare was in some part due to her pregnancy, but she’d learned quickly that people didn’t like opening up at this school, understandably, and not many trusted her otherwise. “Have you contacted Steven?”
“I don’t need to. He’ll be safe.” Pella said it with complete confidence. Chances were that Steven was either dealing with his own thing (and couldn’t contact her until it was over), or he was comforting someone else. She trusted that he would be fine. Maybe it was reckless, or made her look as if she didn’t love him, but Pella was beyond caring about anyone else’s opinion when it came to that.
“We should check on Annie. It might have gotten to Harrison.” At the moment she couldn’t hear if Annie (or Harrison) was screaming, but Yoko was fine now. It wouldn’t hurt to check on Annie before something bad happened.
Having become incredibly fond of the little boy, Yoko’s concern doubled. She took a moment to - well, she wasn’t always good at interacting, but she tried - put a hand on Pella’s shoulder, a way to silently express her thanks. Maybe she would have been bold enough to say as much, too, but the sudden pungent scent of smoke caught her attention. Seconds later, an alarm was blaring.
“That’s Annie.” She said though it was already obvious. “Go on, I’ll be right behind you.”
Yoko pulled out her cell while Yuriko crept closer. The daughter muttered a scathing, but exhausted, “I hate you.” at the nightmare as though it’d been sitting on her tongue for twenty-seven years before pressing the Call button and turning to follow Pella out of her apartment.