WHO: John Jones, Leeloo WHAT: A Rescue/Meeting WHEN: backdated to reaper attack WHERE: out and about between Lilu's house and Big Mac's orchard WARNINGS: brief mention of violence, suspense
John slammed through a small group of the things, Husks, he had heard them called, and his eyes flashed red as he burned them down. He was tired, and aching, but he couldn’t stop, The world, or at least Vegas and the OC, needed as many defenders as they could get. And so he was out, fighting, and killing bad things, and wishing for more peaceful days again, more boring days, again.
He slammed into one of the larger ones, a Brute, and sent it careening away tumbling into the air, where beam after beam of heat vision took care of it’s shields, and then he was close in with it, hitting it, hard. And when it fell, a few moments later, he took a long breath, then he turned to the family of people who had been being attacked. “If you move down this way and around the corner, the Orchard is a safer place, there’s a doctor there, and it’s defended. You can hole up there until this is over.”
He smiled to them and they scurried off, and he sighed, quickly reaching out to Big Mac to let him know more were coming.
Then he was off again, patrolling, looking for trouble.
Leeloo had closed the salon, and sent her employees and customers home at the first sign of trouble. Now, she was trying to get home herself; weaving her way through traffic and rubble on her scooter, trying to avoid being cornered by those things. On the one hand, it all felt a little surreal--as if she had fallen asleep with the SyFy channel on, and it had seemed into her dreams--but on the other, it was all too real.
John was flying along the avenue when he spotted her and spotted a few Husks coming around a corner, right in her path. With a grin, he rolled over in mid air and fired off two beams of his vision, sending heat and fire into their feet making them stumble and fall away, and then he was there, driving them back and away from her. “Excuse me miss!” He nodded to Leeloo as he punched them... into orbit.
Leeloo skidded to a halt, staring as the flying man dispatched the alien monsters. Perhaps staring was not the smartest thing to do when he’d just bought her a chance to flee, but she couldn’t help it. Somehow, the residents of Orange County still managed to surprise her. “Thank you,” she said, “I don’t suppose you could tell me what the safest route out of here is? From your vantage point?”
He pondered. then he grinned. “That would be me giving you a lift. Do you have someplace safe to be?” He held out a hand to her, warmth in his smile and eyes.
“Well, I was just...” Leeloo reached up to run a hand through her hair, flustered, and forgetting that she had a helmet on. She smacked her hand, and then shook it out. “I was just trying to head home. But I don’t know how safe that’s gonna be, either.”
John nodded. “I know a few safe places. Meaning defended and with numbers, with good people. Would one of those be okay?” He nodded to her. “We could go by your place to get some things, if you want, then go from there.”
“That’s fine.” She glanced down at the scooter. It was replaceable, but it seemed a shame to just abandon it in the street. “What should I do about this? I could take it back to work, and leave it there...”
John reached down and lifted it in one hand and gently took her hand, lifting her in the other. “I’ll bring it along. “ He smiled at her as he slowly rose into the air. “Which way to your place, miss--?”
Oh. Well. That certainly made matters less complicated. “Tchaikovskaya. But everyone calls me Leeloo.” She held onto him instinctively, and gave him her address--pointing in the general direction she had been attempting to travel. “It’s not far.”
“Thank you, Leeloo. Now hold on.” And he rose into the sky, effortlessly, and shot off in that direction, slowly, so she wouldn’t be made too cold, or too wind-blown. “What do you do hereabouts, Miss Tchaikovskaya?”
“I’m a stylist and image consultant,” she said, turning her face toward him so she wouldn’t have to shout above the breeze of their flight. The angle still afforded a glimpse of the panorama. It was breathtaking, but to her surprise, she wasn’t the least bit frightened by flying this way, out in the open. “Hopefully I will still have a salon to go to, when this is all over.”
He curved toward her address and nodded. “Perhaps we will do business at some point. I work at a philanthropic agency, Red Planet International. Image sometimes is important, even to us.” He nodded to her more.
“I hope so too, but perhaps RPI can help, if not.”
“I’m happy to meet with you again, under less dire circumstances,” she said, smiling as they flew. She could still hardly believe it was for real. Perhaps later she would wonder why he’d named his agency after Mars. Right now? She was still trying to wrap her mind around the flight.
He slowed and skimmed toward the address she’d given, and landed gently, then set down her and her scooter. “Here we are.” John glanced around, glad to see no monsters obvious yet. “We should hurry however.”
Leeloo nodded, unlocking her storage unit and pushing the scooter inside, then heading into the house to throw an overnight bag together. She packed light, and slung the backpack over her shoulders as she made her way back to her rescuer. “I’m ready.”
John smiled and held out both hands to her this time. “Then we’ll go up up and away..” And he lifted them both into the sky, smiling as he took them on a slow arch up and over. “How are you doing with all of this?”
“It’s a little bit surreal,” she said, hugging him--again out of instinct. She tried to relax her grip a little, since he obviously knew what he was doing. “But after singing flowers in my salon a few weeks ago, I shouldn’t be surprised that men can fly.”
He gently hugged her back as he carried her. “There are such sights and more, concealed around the corner in this world.” He smiled to her. “Dreams and mirrors, rhymes that keep secrets, and far more.”
He steadily carried them toward the orchard, orienting himself by the tallest tree in the orchard,. a massive transplanted Cherry tree.
“I keep hearing about these Dreams,” she said, watching the scenery go by. She could almost forget that there were monsters in the city behind them. “So far, they haven’t reached me, yet.”
“Good. Maybe you will be spared.” John smiled to her. “But it could be that you will have good dreams.”
“Why me, out of how many hundreds of dreamers?” Leeloo asked, shrugging a shoulder. She supposed it was possible, it just didn’t seem very statistically probable. “I’ll just have to try and be ready for anything.”
“I don’t know. Some might be spared, who do not talk to me.” He sighed. “MIne were terrible at first, but I grew able to deal with them. Now I worry for others.” He had told few people that, save his wife.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said, feeling a pang of empathy that she couldn’t quite explain or express. “I’m made of tougher stuff than I look.”
“I worry about everyone. Hence the flying around thing.” He smiled at her and arced downward toward a large orchard of trees, bordered on each side by houses. “There it is.”
She sighed as they neared the orchard, feeling somewhat safer already. "Thanks again," she said, "I hope next time we meet it is under less dire circumstances."