Rowan on the Wing (rowanonthwing) wrote in downfallrpg, @ 2010-05-14 11:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2015-09-05, liah, liah and rowan, rowan |
Monster Surge
Who: Rowan and Liah
Where: The mall, then escaping from the mall!
When: Early afternoon
It'd taken a while to get to the mall, what with stopping at every not-ransacked-looking house to see what they could find, and load up the backpacks slung onto the motorcycle with whatever useful shit they could find. They only had one brief scare with a monster en route, lunging out of a house they had been about to enter, but Rowan killed it with a well-placed shot between the eyes. His aim was improving, he thought, or maybe just his eyesight. Did that come with the territory of turning into half a bird? He couldn't even guess, but as long as it helped him get by, he didn't care, either.
The mall finally came in sight, and none too soon. Rowan was getting tired of the piecemeal flights. On their way back, they could just go straight, without bothering to stop anywhere. All the taking off and landing was straining his back-- he was pretty sure he hadn't broken anything open again, but it hurt like hell anyway-- and on the way back he could just glide when possible, and fly straight the rest of the time.
Once Liah could see the mall, too, he swooped down and glided only a few yards over her head, so he could land once she got there, herself.
Liah had been terrified that Rowan had actually had to kill one of those monster things so it wouldn't attack them, but she'd tried really hard not to show it. She was not the type of girl who ran scared at every little thing... or even at a big thing like a monster mutant! At least he had a gun and he could shoot it. There were some people at the hotel who'd be worse than useless on an excursion like this. She didn't want to be one of those, so she'd kept quiet about how scary it was to be on the ground and vulnerable while Ro flew overhead. Fortunately, thus far Verity's cycle had cooperated with her, and her knowledge of how to ride it had returned very quickly.
Finally-- finally-- they were approaching the mall where Verity and several of the others were supposed to have gone. She'd have to admit that she was really worried by this point, because she knew there'd have to be some drastic reason why Ver hadn't returned to Jasper. She took a deep breath and tried to prepare herself for anything as she covered the last bit of distance and waited for Rowan to join her on the ground.
By now, Rowan had learned that running landings were easier, so he was sacrificing grace for lack of pain, and landing before fully stopping, his feet hitting the ground running, so he could slowly let the air out of his wings and not strain his back further. He slowed to a stop next to Liah and the bike, and looked up at the two-story mall. "Well, here we are." It looked bigger than he remembered it. A lot of the windows were broken, too, though the ground surrounding it was... oddly clear and clean. No hordes of dead bodies or trash. Nothing at all, really.
"Here we are," Liah agreed, feeling somewhat better now that he was with her and she could actually talk to him. She cut the bike's engine but still straddled it until she found out how they were going to approach this. She glanced around, her eyes traveling up the structure and then back to Rowan. "So... what do you wanna do?" she asked. She was getting a fairly major case of the creeps, because it was too damned quiet. It seemed to her as if there should be wrecked cars, trash, whatever, because those things were everywhere else they'd been.
"Just kind of do a trek around it... see if we can find any sign of them. Shit they dropped, tiger-guy's motorcycle...." Rowan shrugged, holding his wings half-open behind him and looking around. "I don't wanna go in. I don't know if that's a good idea. But... around." It was definitely eerie that there was nothing around at all. He was kind of wondering if that was some kind of sign. "I can kind of glide overhead and look from there, and you can ride around. Either of us can holler if we see anything." He could get a look at the roof, too, he thought. There might be some kind of clues looking in skylights, or seeing if there was anything up on the roof, that shouldn't be.
"I don't wanna go in, either," Liah told him, glad that he wasn't all gung-ho about storming the mall and trying to find people. It was enclosed in there and probably dark; so many places where anything could hide, could sneak up and take them by surprise. "So, okay." She took a deep breath and fired up the cycle's engine again. "Let's do this thing." Admittedly, it was nice to be away from the hotel, but this was nerve-racking. Wouldn't it be great if Verity and the others just came out with some perfectly valid explanation for why they hadn't returned the night before? And as long as she was dreaming, she'd like a pony.
"See you on the other side," Rowan said, giving her a quick little salute, and he took a running start to get aloft, this time. Again, it was easier on his back muscles and the tears there, even if it looked awkward and required so much more space and time than just jumping. He got wind under his wings, beat them vigorously to get that wind to support him, and then lofted upwards once the breeze filled up the space under his feathers.
And almost immediately he saw trouble. "Liah!" he shouted down. "Incoming!" And he pointed frantically in the direction of a whole pack of monsters, seemingly with no physical connection to each other, coming down a side-street towards them. "Get out of here!"
Liah had barely gotten the bike moving again when Rowan yelled to her to get away, and despite the fact that she couldn't see whatever it was that Ro had seen, she instantly turned the bike around. Her heart was thudding in her chest, and she turned it too sharply; she laid the cycle down. The weight of the heavy backpacks hadn't helped anything, and she swore frantically as she struggled to get out from under the bike and get it upright again. Verity was going to kill her if she damaged it. Well, if whatever Rowan had seen didn't kill her first. She'd scraped one calf pretty good, but she ignored it, refusing to look over her shoulder to see if anything was bearing down on her as she got herself back into the seat and fired it up-- and thank you, Jesus, that it still ran-- again.
There wasn't anything behind her, but there were a couple more coming from another side-street towards her. Rowan spotted them, and shouted something largely unintelligible, and which got cut off as a sudden shadow fell over him from above. The warning turned into a yelp, and he swerved aside, wrenching his back muscles and the bandage, and at least he didn't end up bird food. The stooping feathered monster looked more serpentine than bird, but it definitely had wings, and it definitely had missed him. Thank god. He backwinged, ignoring his burning back, and yanked out his gun to fire at it.
So much for that improved aim. His shot went wild, but at least it gave him a couple seconds to swoop off and away, to maybe get a little head start.
Liah was trying to steer the bike and keep her eye on Rowan all at the same time, and that made for some jerky driving. Her heart was pounding so hard that she felt sick, the wound on her leg stung, and holy shit. She'd just caught sight of some of the horde of monsters that was pursuing them. Why had she thought this was a good idea again? She had no clue right then. If all these things had taken after Verity and the rest of them, was it even possible that they'd made it through? She didn't even want to think about that. Something darted at her, and she shrieked and gunned the engine, feeling fortunate that she wasn't on foot.
The shriek was distracting, and Rowan swerved again, on instinct more than knowledge, looking down to see if Liah was okay. Another bird-monster, this one really more bird-like, took the opportunity to dive at him, too, and he let out an undignified squawk of a curse before darting aside and out of the way, only getting a little glimpse of Liah still on the bike and not in a monster's mouth before he was barreling away again. "Just go home!" he hollared, swooping lower so she could hear him. "Don't worry about me, I'll be behind you!" Even if it took him a little longer, trying to avoid getting skewered or trying to keep the monsters off of Liah....
Dammit! Liah didn't like it, but what other choice did she have? If she got off the bike, her only option would be to phase herself into any solid wall she could find, to hide. No way could she fight those things. She set her jaw and revved the engine even higher, skidding around the nearest corner and leaving the mall behind. She'd worry no matter what Rowan said, but she could only hope he could handle himself as well as he'd done thus far. They'd salvaged a few items to bring back, but other than that, they hadn't accomplished a hell of a lot, she thought, feeling discouraged as she steered the cycle back toward the hotel.