Ashley Magnus (wemustletgo) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-09-03 01:44:00 |
|
|||
Ashley’s dreams had been hard-hitting one right after the other for the past week and a half, or thereabouts. Her fears and anxiety over it all had come to fruition. Her plan to infiltrate Cabal and take out the weapon before they could set it off and plunge the world into chaos had gone south. So far south that Ashley had ended up captured and interrogated by the head of the Cabal. And subsequently drugged. She hadn’t known what had happened to her there, but eventually she was able to escape, break Henry out, and get back to the Sanctuary.
But then her dream last had confirmed all of her fears. She was no longer herself. She’d been turned into a monster and she was, more or less, mind controlled by the Cabal. But that wasn’t the only change. Her physiology had changed in the dreams. The Cabal had somehow brought out the dormant Abnormal DNA in her and her powers finally were manifested. However, she was under their complete control in the dreams, a weapon to be used for their own goals.
And when she’d woken, Ashley had been extremely unnerved. Her body felt alien to her, and she was in her right mind long enough to shower and get dressed. But then, all at once, it hit. Ashley’s eyes turned red from their normal blue and she suddenly became hard and cold. There was no sense of warmth in her eyes, only what seemed to be a killer instinct. Glancing at her hands, the nails lengthened several inches, turning into what could be lethal weapons when used in a fight. They retracted, and suddenly Ashley was gone.
Well, teleported was more like it. She only moved to a different area of her apartment, but satisfied that her powers were intact, Ashley left her apartment. She headed to a park, intent on finding someone to hurt. Or perhaps to feed on. The latent DNA in her blood had been from the Source Blood that her mother and four others had injected themselves with over a century earlier and been granted abilities from it. The Source Blood had been a pure source of vampire blood. Thus Ashley was, in essence, a vampire now. A vampire with super strong abilities.
Perhaps to her favor, vampires in her dream world were virtually indestructible. Not even sunlight hurt them. Stakes to the heart didn’t work either. About all that could actually kill them was decapitation.
So with her new found predatory instincts, Ashley found herself at a park and she was searching for someone to potentially feed from.
Akane was unaware of what was going on. She knew that Ashley was distracted, worried because of her dreams, but the teen knew that there wasn’t much she could do on that front. How could she? All she could do was try to be there for her friend. At least that was the theory.
Given the time of day, Akane was on her normal morning run. It was something she tried to maintain regardless of the weather, not that she had to worry about weather as much in Orange County as opposed to Tokyo. And it was cooling off from the gross weekend that had been in place. Heat and humidity were familiar but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
Cutting through the park, Akane blinked as she noticed Ashley up ahead. She wasn’t usually out at this time. Okay so that didn’t mean much. Just because she had never seen Ashley in the park when she was running before didn’t mean it was necessarily strange that she would be there today. But what was strange was the way she was holding herself. Slowing, Akane went up to her friend to see if she was okay, especially as she had been stretching more the day before and seemed off.
“Ashley?” It was then she noticed the nails and eyes. Something… something was very wrong and suddenly she was on high alert, body shifting ever so slightly to go into defensive mode if necessary.
Even with the crap going on in her dreams, Ashley herself didn’t even know what was going on in them. At least, not until it was too late. Her dream self had been in the dark about what Cabal really had planned. She knew now what was going on, but she couldn’t do anything about it. Both her mind and body had been usurped from her, following what had happened in her dream the previous night.
Suddenly it made sense why she’d been achey and in some sort of pain the previous day. Clearly her body had been changing from the inside out. No wonder no amount of stretching had helped because it wasn’t just a change in her muscles. Her entire body was different now.
Hearing Akane address her, Ashley turned her red-eyed gaze on her. And well, she seemed like the perfect target at the moment. No one else was really around nor had any of them grabbed her attention. Ashley said nothing in response, instead she lashed out, the lengthened nails lashing out at her friend. But there was no sense of kinship in Ashley’s eyes or body language right now. Her eyes still held human-level intelligence, but they also held a sharp, primal intensity within them.
And if Akane hadn’t felt that something was off before? She certainly could tell now. Ashley’s eyes weren’t her own. And nails didn’t just lengthen like that. Preparing to sidestep, Akane was thrown by the sheer speed that Ashley was suddenly moving and the contact of claws to skin, ripping into her. She’d be feeling that later, right now she was more focused on trying to defend herself.
Orange County might as well be Nerima with the weird things that happened.
Despite the attack, Akane lunged into her own flurry of attacks, trying to land whatever she could, to hopefully just knock Ashley out, and hopefully back to herself. She couldn’t let herself be distracted right now. Whatever was happening, it was going to be a very intense fight and she needed all her focus on it. Injuries would be dealt with later.
The new speed and strength that Ashley had was something she wasn’t yet used to, so there was perhaps a slight clumsiness in her movements, in trying to shift her weight when Akane dodged. Still, her nails had hit a target, so she would take that.
Not that Ashley was actually thinking currently. No, she seemed to be acting more on pure instinct. Perhaps that was partly due to her mind trying to catch up with the shock of the change her body had undergone, and perhaps it was just a side effect of whatever the Cabal had done to her in the dreams.
At any rate, when Akane unleashed her own attack, Ashley’s reflexes were both fast and slow and uncharacteristically clumsy for her. She managed to block some Akane’s attacks, but she also took a couple hits as well. Then, being a bit angered, Ashley grabbed Akane and threw her into a nearby tree using her new strength to help throw her. She then slowly walked towards her, one hand raised as though she were ready to deliver a killing blow. And it was at that point which she revealed her fangs.
Honestly, Akane should probably pay more attention to the attacks that hit given it meant she lost blood, and blood loss slowed her down, as well as made her light headed. But adrenaline was an amazing thing and it kept her going despite the fact she should be taking stock of herself and trying to get away, to tend to her injuries. There wasn’t time for that. So she used the clumsiness to her advantage to land what hits she could, knowing better than to hold back just because Ashley was her friend.
Until she was thrown into a tree. That… that really hurt. Crying out in pain, the teen slumped to the ground initially before pushing herself up, hissing in pain. The movement caused more pain but Akane was refusing to back down, eyes narrowed behind her bangs, blood dripping from the gashes she had already sustained. That was when she saw the fangs. Are you kidding me?! What was it with her getting attacked by vampires?!
Struggling to breathe and not thinking about what she knew on caring for broken ribs (because there was no way between the pain of breathing and the resounding crack that had occurred when she hit the tree had left her without broken ribs), Akane was breathing through short breaths, trying to keep the pain to a minimum. But she was dizzy and seeing white and Akane knew that she wasn’t going to be able to keep fighting at this rate.
“Ashley… please…” She had to believe that her friend was somewhere still inside. Even if she hurt. Even if she needed to stand on guard and do whatever she could. All Akane could do was pray her voice broke through whatever it was that was happening to the blonde.
As Ashley moved closer to Akane, she was ready to deliver a killing blow. At least until hearing what Akane said. And in that moment, Ashley hesitated. But that was all that was needed. She blinked a few times and her eyes returned to their normal blue, her fangs retracted and she looked at Akane, momentarily confused, but then realizing what she’d done. She looked at her raised hand and saw the nails that had Akane’s blood on them and they quickly retracted.
“Oh my god,” she said, taking a couple stumbling steps backwards as she looked at Akane, more than horrified at what she’d obviously done. “Oh god, I’m sorry…” Ashley looked at her hands, and she could now tell that her body felt different. The way she perceived the world was different. She herself was different.
“No...no, this can’t be happening…” Ashley wanted to cry and scream all at once. She didn’t want this, she didn’t want to hurt the people she cared about. “I’m sorry, Akane…” Ashley didn’t know what to do, but she knew she was dangerous. She needed to get away from there.
And without much warning or even really knowing how she did it, Ashley teleported away in a flash of red smoke-like particles. Where she reappeared was anyone’s guess considering she didn’t yet have that under control either.
And just like that, Ashley was back to herself. Sort of. Akane didn’t know but she seemed to realise what she had done and was feeling remorse. Trying to take a step forward, the teen winced in pain.
“Ashley--”
Her voice was strained from the pain in her ribs but just like that, the blonde was gone and all Akane could do was stare at where she had once been before falling to her knees. Okay. Standing wasn’t a thing at the moment. So it was texting Ranma. What the hell had just happened?