WHERE The Forest! WHEN Early evening, Sept 11th WHAT An almost-ambush by a creepy fucking monster during the storms. STATUS Complete! WARNINGS Some fighting and swearing.
Evening patrols were always Evie’s favorites. It was cliche, to be sure, but you couldn’t take the night owl assassin trait out of the woman any more you could her accent. Add in Sara to the mixture and on any other night, it would have been a perfect storm of peak romance.
Only now it was just a perfect storm, minus the romance and plus having your socks soaked through. Uncomfortable, cold, and windy enough to cause a shiver down Evie’s spine. It made her all the more determined to stick close to Sara, even if that had been the plan from the start.
“Sharing an office space might be even more of an undertaking than a bed, you know. What if we argue about decor? Or worse, music options.” Planning out in-progressing living arrangements was there to soften the blow of chilled breezes, but only by a little as a particularly icy one blasted across the back of Evie’s neck. “Ugh- one would think it was practically winter in London with this sort of weather. I thought we still had another week of summer left?”
While it was getting difficult to see the details of Evie’s face through the constant onslaught of the cold rain, she could hear her just fine. At the mention of another reason their moving in together could go horribly wrong, Sara’s face cracked into a grin, and continued to grow with every word.
She technically wasn’t on duty today, but the storm was bad, and she would much rather be out here watching Evie’s back than waiting for her to return after she was done patrolling. “I can always turn the office space over to you if that’s an issue.” she countered, “I have the one at the DOA, and the Captain’s lounge on the ship.” Either of those spaces would work for Sara when it came to getting paperwork done. Or the couch in the apartment worked for her too. It had to help that Sara wasn't overly fussy about decor. The space she had inherited from Rip had largely remained the same, with only some additions to the layout that reflected her crew's adventures.
The weather though, she couldn’t argue about that. This sucked. Another biting gust of wind wiped the grin off her face instantly. “I’d blame global warming but Vallo seems to have that kind of thing under control.” Or at least there didn’t seem to be the same kind of issue. “So maybe it’s just reminding us not to get too comfortable.” Like anyone ever needed that reminder.
As the most natural thing in the world, Evie reached over to adjust Sara’s collar, bringing it up a little higher for added wind protection. Not that it would do much now, or while everything was also so wet, but that didn’t stop her.
“I have the office at The Underground, and on the train.” She huffed out a whisper of a laugh and shook her head at the ridiculousness of this. “Do you mean to say we have four office spaces between the two of us?” Of course they did. “Nevermind, I take it back, let’s do something fun with the room. An armory?” They had multiples in that regard too, but more weapons was never a bad thing.
Evie’s thought process cut off, however, as her eagle vision tapped into movement beyond what the naked eye could see in this rain. One hand immediately went to her cane, and the other to Sara’s arm.
If Sara was to ever look back on a younger version of herself, even one from ten years ago, and say that between herself and her girlfriend, they had four offices for working space, her younger self would never believe her.
An armory though, that was an interesting proposal, and one that Sara could get behind. Even if they both already had them, it would be smart to have one available to them in their living quarters. “An armory I could get be-”
Sara immediately cut herself off, falling silent. Even if Evie hadn’t touched Sara’s arm, she could feel the shift in her as she went for her cane. If Evie was reaching for her weapon, there was a reason for it. Sara responded immediately, her stance shifting as she pulled out her bowstaff, snapping it into place.
Her eyes scanned the forest around them, but her eyes weren’t a match for Evie’s vision. It was hard enough to see as it was, but she knew better than to think every shadow or movement was a threat. Most people, and animals, would not be out in this mess. They also wouldn’t make Evie reach for her cane.
Sara remained silent, giving up on catching it herself and turned her questioning gaze to Evie, waiting to find out what she was seeing.
Evie broke away from Sara, now that her girlfriend was aware, and went into a slight crouch. One of the bonuses to the weather was that it worked at their own advantage as well. But if they were going up against something that could seek others out through heat or seismic sensations, it was all for naught.
She followed the movement, the bright red aura dimming as it weaved in and out of the trees, but she couldn’t tell more than that at this point - only that it was hostile.
Hostile could mean a lot in Vallo, and with a little shirk, Evie’s sword popped out of the cane a few inches. “North.” Evie went back to her normal vision in an effort to see what they were actually dealing with - humanoid figure told her next to nothing - and had to squint past the trees and the rain to make out the pale figure in the distance.
It was another few seconds before she exchanged glances with Sara, alarm rising up in her chest. “Do you see that?” They’d encountered this kind of monster before - the tall, pale form stalking them slowly, knowing full well they saw it and clearly not caring.
Sara waited for something that could be a threat from the North, while remaining as still as possible and blinking the storm from her eyes. What slowly came into view was enough to make a chill run down her spine, despite the already present chill from the storm.
They still had no name for some of the monsters that were running around Dark Vallo. At first she thought it was just the rain making it impossible to see the details of whatever was approaching. But once she saw the mouth, she realized the grey was the creature</i>.
Sara nodded at Evie’s question, “Shit,” she muttered, so slow it was barely a whisper. Creepy. Whatever it was, it was creepy. Even here in regular Vallo that did not change. Questions started to swirl in her head. Was this the only one? If this was here, would other creatures from Dark Vallo start to arrive? Was anyone else in the team dealing with something similar?
“Is it just the one?”
Evie nodded in confirmation. One that she could see, anyway - her eagle vision went far but she had no idea if these things were capable of in terms of masking themselves. Her voice was as low as Sara’s, even though they weren’t sure if they were heard anyway. Better safe than sorry. “Beheading. They’ll come back without it.”
Her and Serefin had to take care of a few of them when they’d woken up in Dark Vallo, she was more armored and weaponized here but she was already mourning the spell that he’d used to set her blades on fire. “I’m going to try and go around behind it.”
She crouched further as she disappeared into the underbrush, and knew that the cover and the weather made her nigh invisible to the normal eye. Now there was just the hope this creepy fucker would have a normal eye so she could put herself in a position of coming up behind it as it approached Sara.
Beheading was the only option, Evie was right, which meant Evie had the kill stroke, and Sara was going to occupy the thing until she could get in close enough to do it. As Evie moved out of sight, Sara faced her opponent. She pulled her staff apart, one end in each hand and then moved toward the thing with intent. If there was any doubt in the things mind that it was spotted, that would be gone now. Sara just needed to keep the focus on herself.
Sara was not looking forward to what the appearance of this thing meant once it was dead.
In the same boat as Evie, having no idea if the thing had enhanced eyesight, Sara wasted no time breaking into a run toward the creature, weapons ready. Memories of fighting these things in Dark Vallo came flooding back as her bo-staff collided with the creature, first its head, then its feet, sweeping it off balance. The thing was sturdy. A direct contact blow of Sara’s bo-staff to the head barely phased it, so she was forced to keep the assault constant and as brutal as she could manage until Evie made her appearance.
Evie trusted Sara explicitly, there was still that edge of worry around her that came every time she was teamed up with someone. Jacob, Serefin, any number of her teammates. Sara was more than capable and Evie damn well knew it. Still. She had to stop herself from glancing back to check on Sara as the creepy fucker closed in, a silent reminder that she was more helpful now, invisible, than standing face-to-face.
As the pair engaged, Evie watched Sara’s staff make contact and the fighting began. She waited for an opening, and it came. Sara had done something to stagger it backwards ever so slightly, throwing it’s footing off and back a step.
She lept, the mud beneath her feet squishing to provide a little extra resistance, but it was nothing unusual from London. Evie landed on the back of the creepy fucker, canesword out and making its mark into the monster’s shoulder. It wasn’t the head, but the angle was wrong and she had to give herself a moment to readjust, still latched.
Evie placed a foot on the monster’s shoulder and grinned over it’s wildly thrashing head at Sara. “Fancy meeting you here.” The flirt came right as she pulled the sword out of the shoulderblade and looked for another opening to slice through its neck.
There she was, just in time, descending on the creepy fucker from the rain and the haze almost as if she came from the sky itself. Sara brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes and looked up at Evie with a grin. “I hear it’s the best place to meet Dames with blades. Just my type.”
As much as she enjoyed a good team up and take down with Evie, this wasn’t a fight that could be prolonged. If this thing from Dark Vallo was here, that could have further implications and Sara needed to move onto addressing that potential disaster as quickly as possible.
Evie could handle herself and respond accordingly, so trusting that, Sara aimed to take the creature down off its feet and to the ground for easier access to its neck. Connecting the two batons together to create her staff, she brought one end down in a sweeping arch over the creature's head to collide with its temple, before slamming the same end into its stomach, ensuring it was thoroughly off balance. Sara dropped to the ground in a spinning sweep, taking its legs and knocking it to the ground hard and fast, then rose back to her feet in one motion.
Evie laughed in return, but it was a forced one, with the energy it took to stay upright on the creepy fucker’s back, sword in hand. Excalibur would’ve been handy right about now, if Jacob wasn’t sleeping with the bloody thing, but she’d beheaded these things before with her canesword and she could do it again.
She dug in when Sara swept the legs out from under the monster, letting her feet brace against it’s back as she used the momentum of the fall to help push her sword through it’s neck, letting gravity do half of the work.
It was still messy business, however, and chopping something’s head off was never easy, but the sword did its job with one rough yank in the end, as Evie landed on the ground next to the freshly lopped off head. “Hope I’m still your type covered in monster blood. Ugh. At least the rain will wash this away.” She gently nudged the shoulder with her boot, not flinching when it twitched. “Where did this thing come from, then? Is it the rain and gloom that brought it out from hiding?”
The rain was already washing away as Sara stepped around the decapitated body and toward Evie. “It just adds to your charm.” she teased, reaching up to straighten out her jacket's shoulder just slightly, before turning to look down at their defeated opponent.
“I don’t know. There haven't been any sightings of monsters from Dark Vallo before.” As far as she knew, the snowglobe was still locked up tight. “We’ll have to check the globe, and sweep the forest in case there’s more of them.” The last thing they needed was that demonic mammoth rampaging through the streets of regular Vallo.
But maybe not before this storm was over. “Hopefully no one else has run into the creepy fuckers, or we may have to drag out more team members to start this before the storm is over.” It was day two now, with any luck this wasn’t going to keep going for much longer.
It felt unprofessional to lean in for a kiss right after the heat of battle, so Evie merely straightened her back and made do with a brief touch to Sara’s side. Silently she did a sweep of the surrounding forest with her eagle vision, to confirm there were no more lurking around them.
She tensed with movement, but it lacked the same aura as what they’d already dealt with, and was gone the opposite direction before she could even focus in. A bystander caught out in the rain, perhaps.
“No more here,” She confirmed, after another moment and another sweep, just to be sure. “Do you want to head back to the office and check-in now or do a bit more exploring first to make sure we’ve got everything? This whole thing has me a bit uneasy.”
“Let's do a sweep now. I’ll call it over the comms. We’ll figure out next steps when we head in.” If there was another one of those things around here just out of Evie’s sight and it ended up hurting someone, she couldn’t risk it.
If there was more of the things already found, Sara was reasonably sure she would have heard about it by now. Day to day monsters were one thing, but the creepy fuckers were not common, and there were too many defense team members who were already familiar with them.
“We’re going to have to let everyone know we came across this thing.” Keeping it hidden would not be the best idea, especially if there were more out there. “That’s going to be a fun conversation to have.” Especially with the people who had been stuck in Dark Vallo for a much longer period of time.
Despite hardly being able to see a few feet in front of her, she scanned the forest in the direction the thing had come from, half expecting more of them to come running, even though Evie had given the clear. “After patrol is over I vote for a hot bath and a glass of wine.”
Evie winced ever so slightly, thankful that it was probably hidden by the shit weather. “One of the times I’m glad to not be in charge.” But knowing her girlfriend was didn’t help matters. “However, I’ll be happy to share that hot bath and wine with you, if that helps a little.”
She resheathed her sword after the rain had washed away most of the blood, and looked back off to the forest, smirk twitching on her lips. “Looking to be like this Saturday’s a wash, innit?”