Katou (katoustheshit) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-11-20 17:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alice liddell, yue katou |
Who: Katou and Alice
What: Katou attempts to save Alice; none of his pointy things work.
When: Temple of Arms day, September 26th
Where: Outside somewhere
Rating/Warning: Language, but that's probably it.
Katou’d been a little bummed out that he’d moved back too late to fight demons and zombies, but, well, apparently he was making up for it now. Five days of these guys, and Katou was starting to get a little sick of these guys. In the normal course of things, he would probably would have stuck close to Kanan or one of his other friends to protect them from the freaks from Wash’s dream. But he was getting paid by the Agency these days to fight off the threats, which meant that Katou had to actually look out for people he didn’t really give a shit about. But hey, getting paid to fuck some creeps up what was life was all about.
He held Shiranui’s handle, though the sheathed sword was resting lightly against his shoulder. He’d tied his hair back into a low ponytail. Ahead of him, he could see a girl hiding behind a tree, while a pack of the ugly fuckers with the light swords were prowling the street.
“Hey, Blondie,” he called, approaching her without bothering to hide himself from view. “You need help?”
***
Alice was not enjoying this latest bit of OC weirdness at all. Between these soldiers and the buildings that seemed to be affecting everyone, and she was still trying to figure out for herself how to deal with the fact that she’d spent her day off in Anaheim sleeping with guys that she didn’t even know because of that damn Temple. And with Grog. That was a conversation they needed to have but she wasn’t doing anything that was actually important to her until this latest bit of weirdness was past. She wasn’t taking any chances on there being something else that would affect her emotions and make her do something she wouldn’t normally.
She’d hidden behind a thick tree when she saw the soldiers walking down the street, deciding then and there that next time she’d just take the F if her professor refused to accept “crazy guys with weapons prowling the area” as a reason to allow students who lived off campus to makeup a test. It wasn’t worth the risk to her health. Maybe she should have asked that lady who was offering to teach people at her home to sign her up for the lessons too. A part of her wondered if it was too late now to contact her…
She jumped when she heard someone calling to her, panic showing on her face as she looked around before noticing the young man with the ponytail approaching her. “Are you insane? They’re going to notice you! And me!” She hissed at him. She looked back at the road, groaning softly as she realized the soldiers had heard him and were coming their way. She looked back at him. “Is that thing just for show or do you actually know how to use it?”
***
“Am I insane?” Katou echoed, looking a little surprised. “I’m not the one who decided to go hiding behind trees without a weapon when this place is crawling with armoured freaks.” He followed her gaze out into the street, and gave a friendly wave to the mercenaries that were now quickly approaching. He turned his attention back to Alice, unsheathing his sword. The blade shone in the sun, one side sharpened to a deadly edge, the other flat. “This old thing? Naw, I found it on the side of the road and thought it looked cool. So, do you need help or not? I’ve got places to be.”
***
“I’m hiding because I was trying to avoid them! If I had my way in things I’d be safe at home in my bed! Not out here with those…soldiers!” Alice said, gesturing towards the advancing figures. She was panicking a little bit, it was true but she felt she had good reason too. “Yes I need help! I have no way to protect myself and now they know where I was hiding!”
***
He was looking at Alice, but he caught motion from the corner of his eye, and he had Shiranui up in an instance to block the light sword that was swining toward him. “Good think you got yourself a big damn hero, eh?”
And to punctuate his point, he swung his sword to decapitate the man who was wearing some version of Wash’s dream armour. Except, to his horror, his sword bent nearly in two. For a split second, he thought he had broken the sword like he had in his dreams, and his heart nearly stopped. But then it bounced right back into shape, as though it was made of rubber.
“What the fu-” Katou started, but he cut himself off suddenly to block his face from one of those other light swords with his mechanical arm.
***
Alice let out a small scream as she watched his weapon bounce back from bending that way. She didn’t know much about swords but she was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to do that. “Okay...I’m thinking that maybe your sword shouldn’t be doing that Mister Big Hero!” She said, moving behind him when she saw soldiers coming up on the other side of the tree.
***
“Thanks Lady Obvious,” Katou grumbled. He hesitated for less than a second. On one hand, he didn’t like the idea of some stranger handling Shiranui. On the other hand, the thing was apparently useless to him, and he was going to need both his hands for this. “Hold this,” he said, thrusting the sword behind him. It was a good thing he had a built in weapon. He didn’t particularly like using his claw hand for these kind of things - getting the blood out of his finger joints was a pain in the ass, but it sure seemed better than the alternative. Which was probably becoming shishkabob.
He thrust his hand forward, intending for his sharp claws to extend and pierce throw the visor. Instead, his fingertips rammed into the visor, and while the visor cracked a little, there was neither an impaled mercenary nor a set of five claws at the edge of his fingers. “Oh shit,” he muttered, just before getting punched in the face.
***
Under other circumstances Alice might have found his sarcasm kind of funny, or at least admitted that she deserved it a little bit. But this? There was nothing funny about this right now. And he was the one who’d referred to him as a big strong hero only to have his weapon not work the way it should so, in her mind at least, he’d been asking for something to be said about it. She took the sword he shoved back towards her, holding it carefully (almost as if it was afraid it was going to bite her - but then living here anything could be possible) as she forced herself not to drop it and run. Maybe whatever he was planning on doing would work.
Or not. She backed up against the tree further when he got punched, closing her eyes in some childish belief that it would make it so they couldn’t see her. She knew it didn’t work that way but she couldn’t think of anything else to do. Even if she could get a message out to someone on her phone they wouldn’t get here in time to help her and this guy. She forced herself to open her eyes, tightening her grip on the sword he’d handed her. Maybe she could hit this soldier in the face with the handle of it, give herself a chance to run away and get help.
***
This fight was not going the way that Katou had been hoping it would be. It should have been easy to take these creeps out - it had been every other day. But if Katou didn’t have his sword or his claws, it was time to cut his losses and get them both the fuck out of here.
Three large, feathered wings, pure white, sprang from his back, ripping three holes in the back of his shirt. He hadn’t been expecting to need to break them out and hadn’t worn a shirt that would accommodate them, but at this point he didn’t care. He turned his back to the mercenaries, and, without bothering to ask for permission, scooped Alice up bridal style and took to the air.
***
Alice held the sword tighter in her arms when he picked her up, wrapping one arm around him to make her feel more secure as they left the ground, eyes closing tight the higher up they went. “I really really really hate those guys,” she muttered. She was trying to make sure she didn’t drop his weapon as they flew.
***
“You and me both,” Katou muttered a little nasally. His nose hurt dammit. He really did want to kill all of them, but he guessed that this chick being safe was probably more important. Especially since Katou had no idea how he would kill them with no weapons. Punching them to death sounded like way more effort than Katou was willing to exert, even if he could with their weapons.
Once he got enough height that he was sure they were out of immediate danger, he hovered above the mercenaries and stuck his tongue out. “Well, I might as well drop you off at this point. You’d better live close.”
***
Alice debated having him take her to campus but decided to hell with it. If her professor was going to get pissed off about her missing class he could just get pissed off. It took her a minute to get her bearings up in the air as she looked around and then pointed at her house. Well at her mom’s house. “That’s my mom’s place. The one without the pool but the massive back deck.”
***
It only took Katou a moment to find the house that Alice was pointing at. At least it was close. “Alright,” he said, and began to fly toward the house. “You sure seem to be taking this whole ‘flying through the air thing’ good,” he said as a way to fill the silence with something.
***
“I’m pretending I’m on a set and it’s for a scene.” Alice said, trying to keep her breathing normal as they flew. It wasn’t that hard to keep herself calm about the flying thing when she thought of it like that. Imagining that there were people watching to make sure no one actually got hurt.
***
“Well, whatever helps you sleep at night,” Katou said. Seemed weird to him, but then, he’d never been much of an actor. He gently alighted into the backyard that she’d pointed out to him. “And cut,” he said as his feet made contact with the ground.
***
“If it’s not real, it’s not so scary.” Alice said, flushing a little bit. She’d spent most of the past few years on sets, working on one program or another as a guest star. That was one of the tricks she’d learned before dealing with scary stunts: keep reminding herself that it wasn’t real and it wouldn’t be so scary. She slid out of his grip carefully, trying to keep from flashing him as she got her footing back, handing his sword back to him carefully. “Thank you. For getting me out of there.”
***
Katou supposed he could see where she was coming from. Pretending things weren’t real wasn’t a luxury he had - for one, he’d already lost his arm to the dreams - but he guessed he could see how someone might find comfort in something like that. “Yeah, don’t mention it,” he said, folding his wings back up. They were handy for getting out of tight situations, but they were vulnerable and he didn’t like having them out so that just any mercenary with a laser gun could shoot him. “It’s what they pay me for, after all.”
***
Alice couldn’t help watching as his wings retracted, fascination obvious on her face. “Seriously? You get paid to rescue people from the crazy around here? Never a shortage of business,” she said, realizing what she’d said the moment the words were out of her mouth. “Pretend I didn’t say that. It was coming down from the fear talking. I’ll let you get back to rescuing people.”
***
Katou grinned, choosing not to answer Alice’s questions. He didn’t really care too much if people knew he worked for the Agency too much, and the Agency was basically the OCs worst kept secret, but still, an air of mystery was a good thing. “Already forgotten,” he said. “How ‘bout making my life a little easier next time and just not going outside?”
***
Alice flushed a little bit and nodded her head. “Deal. Next time I hear about weirdness going on - I’m staying inside. And away from windows. Just in case.” There was a little bit of embarrassment in her voice as she looked at him but she forced that emotion away as she took a step backwards towards the porch. “Thank you. Again for saving me.” She said, waiting another moment before giving in to the temptation of her mother’s house and running inside, locking the patio door behind her.
***