Re: Ridley/Storm/Penelope/Cid/OPEN?
Cid was in the process of taking Penny's hand to direct her in the direction the children were running, with his full intent to keep her between himself and the rest of the zombies behind them; however, the shout of 'no' from Penny, followed by the immediate grab of his arm had him distracted from the thought. He fell out of the way by force, and by the time he turned around Penny had placed herself between him and the zombie, and he almost didn't even register the sword impaling through her. Until she slipped from the blade and he fell with her, "NO!" He replicated her previous shout.
Falling to his own knees, he caught her as she fell, lowering her easily as both hands moved to rest on either side of her face. He could careless about her laughter, he was hardly surprised with the girl he'd come to know so well. Instead he just watched her, that deep hurt soaked into his eyes, listening to her tell him to run, "Never."
He ignored the children now, they mattered absolutely nothing to him at this moment. Which might be selfish, but that was simply fact. He then felt anger rise inside of him and out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a glint of the sword being raised and this eternity suddenly became fast paced once more. He pushed Penny to the side, not having enough time to worry about injuring her further.
"ENOUGH!" He drew himself over Penny as the sword fell, and threw his rod up into the thing's gut and fired off that thunder spell once more. From this close range, it dealt far more strength, and sent it flying backwards. While it fell, though, that sword it had been swinging continued its downward arc, and slashed deep through his shoulder and chest while he attempted to dodge it.
Blood filled in splotches in the parts of his shirt that didn't get torn, and the pain was excruciating. He didn't care though, and when the Zombie fell back he turned to face Penny again, knowing full well she'd protest but also not caring, and he rested his hand on the sword wound, and placed the tip of the rod next to his fingertips that were soaking with her blood, and used up what energy he had left to cast regen on her: the two spells back to back putting a great deal of strain on him, but he really didn't seem to care.