WHO: Harriet Hook, Cheryl Blossom, Toni Topaz and Anthony Tremaine WHAT: A fearsome foursome teaming up to fight bad guys WHEN: backdated to the prison attack and Kai's final stand WHERE: The Prison WARNINGS: Violence, blood, injuries
Harriet felt she had barely caught her breath since the last attack on the prison. They had been lucky, in the end no one had actually died. Which she supposed she was glad about, she didn’t wish any harm on Oliver. And even the little boy king and his followers. As much as Harriet hated the brat, no one deserved to be torn apart by zombies. To die screaming, in that much agony. The pirate wanted him humiliated, brought down to the level of those he looked down on, but death wasn’t what she desired.
But maybe her admittedly conflicted wishes would be ignored today. Once again the prison was filled with chaos and violence. She looked frantically around for Anthony, her heart racing so much that she was sure a couple of the vampires looked her way. Maybe, just maybe, when this was over, if they both survived it, Harriet might have to do the scariest thing yet and examine, urgh, feelings.
In the meantime her knives were drawn and slashing at anything that came near, tearing through the decaying flesh like it was butter. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of red hair and a brief grin appeared on her face. Harriet and Cheryl had ended up fighting side by side during the last attack and worked well together. The brunette made her way over to the other woman, driving a dagger into the brainstem of a zombie about to attack from the rear.
“You know, this would be a really good time for that panther girlfriend of yours to turn up,” she smirked. Being at Cheryl’s side before meant she was one of the few who had seen Toni turn and the savagery of the big cat. Though she did understand if Cheryl wanted her girlfriend far away from this. Just as she felt about Anthony.
“There’s never a bad time for TT to make an appearance,” Cheryl replied, managing to briefly relent to a rushed smile that disappeared almost as quickly as it came as she swung her bow into action, taking aim at a possessed vampire who was trying to eat one of her cohorts here.
Her arrow sailed through the air, striking him squarely in the face, right between the eyes. Because he was a vampire and she had no way of knowing at the moment whether he was one of the “good” ones or not, the Bombshell was careful to avoid his heart, not wanting to kill any vampires unless she had no other choice or knew for sure they were evil anyway. Fangs was a vampire so even if they normally wouldn’t, they got the benefit of the doubt.
Cheryl’s mind had already been on her girlfriend, worrying about Toni even as she helped beat back the hordes of dead and undead alike that would be all too happy to have her too. She was so tired of the danger, and the death, and this constant drama all because some defective witch turned vampire didn’t get his daddy’s approval.
But there was no time to even stop and think for a second, just so that she could make some sort of plan, so there wasn’t any time to check in with her either which left Cheryl feeling hollow and somewhat incomplete without the assurance that Toni would be fine. The panther transformations were definitely a plus in terms of their protection but she couldn’t even think about that right now. All she could bring herself to feel was a desperate hope that she’d have her girlfriend safe and sound and in her sight just as soon as this was all over.
“It almost sounds like you have a little crush on her,” Cheryl joked, grunting as she ducked a vampire only to get pulled backward as a zombie got her long red hair in its clutches.
“I can just admire a badass woman with claws,” Harriet smirked at the joke before her eyes widened a little at seeing Cheryl being yanked like that, her white skin far too close to the gnashing teeth of the zombie grasping her. Her knife twisted in her fingers, ready to throw into its head, when she was interrupted by a roar. Speak of the cat.
Toni was slowly starting to accept that maybe she could handle this being a panther thing. The reassurances from Wesley that she wasn’t evil had gone a long way to calming her down, her fear that she might be a danger to the people she loved being her main focus. But Cheryl still loved her, FP still considered her one of his kids, her family was complete.
Well, for the moment. With this fight appearing, who the hell knew what might happen next? Toni didn’t know where Fangs was, and she prayed that he was safe. For the first time she wanted to force herself to change, to be stronger for this fight. Her wish was granted when she saw some thing dare to touch her girlfriend. She felt the crunching pain of her muscles shifting, bones crunching and reforming. It hurt and made her cry out, and yet she welcomed it. Because once she was casting off the shredded remains of her clothes, she roared in defiance and leapt, covering a pretty large distance in one bound and landing on the zombie holding Cheryl, her paw knocking the creature’s head clean off its shoulders. Amber eyes turned to check over Cheryl, the panther reassuring herself that her mate was safe. Protect, that was the instinct that was going through every cell in her body.
Harriet arched an eyebrow with approval. Yes, she was nervous about a large predator in front of her, but the cat did seem to understand friend from foe. So that was a plus. “Good kitty,” she murmured before she let out a breath. “We’re going to get surrounded soon, we need a decent vantage point.”
“The best kitty,” Cheryl corrected through the approving smile on her face as she reached down, burying the tips of her still long albeit natural nails in the dark fur between Toni’s ears, giving her a good scratch for her lifesaving efforts.
The Bombshell’s head was spinning. She’d almost been a zombie’s Happy Meal, all because she’d become a little too confident in her sheer badassery. If Toni hadn’t been just...right on time, she was pretty sure that Harriet could have still made mincemeat of it with her blades but the slim chance that it might not actually have worked, that she could be one of the infected right now...it sent a strange warm shiver down Cheryl’s spine: an obvious warning.
Be more careful.
“The roof.” Anthony interrupted, barely sparing a glance at the redhead and the jungle cat that Harriet was talking to. It should have stopped him dead in his tracks and if the prison wasn’t currently being flooded with zombies and vampires alike hellbent on death and destruction, it might actually have registered to him that he had come upon what, to most, would be a really weird scene. But, again. Zombies. Vampires. Death. Destruction.
He leaned in, placing a firm, no-nonsense kiss at his pirate’s temple before he grabbed her hand and began leading her towards the door that housed the nearest set of stairs with rooftop access.
Anthony cursed, slamming his hand against the door as if that would magically unlock it.
No, hitting it wouldn’t do that but he realized right then and there that he actually could magically unlock it.
So he did, despite the fact that Harriet wanted him to keep it on the low. He didn’t miss the look she gave him but Anthony simply shrugged, giving her a look as if to say, what? no one’s looking. Because they weren’t.
Well, Red and her pet cat were but he doubted they’d care. Cheryl and Harriet were apparently the best of girlfriends so he assumed he could trust that she wouldn’t tell. And if she did… Anthony really didn’t care if people knew anymore. People traded in nothing if not their powers here and he was all about surviving here.
The door unlocked, Anthony pushed it open, leading the other three in behind him and in a flurry of footsteps pounding up the stairs with no idea awaited them out on the roof.
Toni practically purred, rubbing the side of her face against Cheryl’s leg in response to the feeling of fingers in her fur, even as her senses were primed to be aware of everything around them, any potential threats. Her hackles briefly raised at the arrival of the man, only easing when she saw the way he greeted Cheryl’s friend. So maybe not friend, but probably not foe. Not a threat, not a focus.
Harriet felt a surge of emotion when Anthony appeared, that mix of relief that he was there and clearly alive combined with the fear that he was close to the danger after all. But then again, she doubted there was anywhere that wasn’t dangerous right then, so that was about it. She squeezed her fingers around his when he took her hand, that brief tightening that was about more than accepting his grip but showing how much she wanted to be connected to him. When he used magic to unlock the door, she did give him a look, though in the chaos of the fighting she supposed he was right. No one would notice. And besides, what was the point in having power if hiding it got them killed? Quickly, she gave Cheryl a look, one that showed that this was something to keep quiet, before glancing at the panther. Was Toni even aware of what was happening? Harriet had no idea.
So she went up the stairs, following Anthony, Cheryl just behind her and Toni brushing past them all to bound up in front. The view from the roof was spectacular, if spectacular was another word for terrifying. The zombies were practically climbing up the walls, using the bodies of their comrades to get them up, a mindless swell of rotting corpses. It reminded Harriet, horrifically, of waves crashing against rocks as the tides came in, constantly rising and ready to drown the unwary. She felt nausea building up, the sight and stench making her feel ill.
It was a growl from the panther that drew her attention away from the approaching threat and to the danger already there. A small group of vampires, clearly able to jump highly enough that they didn’t need a wall of zombies to climb, were moving closer with hungry smiles and bloodied teeth. Harriet cursed with the language of a sailor, readying her knives and aiming one at the head of the closest vampire. A metallic blade was not going to be much help against a vampire, and she knew it, even as her dagger sailed through the air and embedded itself in the vampire’s left eye. It did make him stagger back for a moment before he laughed, wrenching the blade free. Toni growled again, which made the vampire pause, clearly not sure how to respond to a giant cat being there, a pair of fanged beings snarling at each other, predators waiting to strike.
“Too slow,” the second vampire, a woman with long black hair, complained before she moved with the speed of the supernatural, at Harriet’s side before the pirate could blink, wrenching her head back and sinking her fangs into Harriet’s throat.
Anthony wasn’t sure what he’d expected but he thought the roof would be safer somehow. He couldn’t have imagined that they would just build a fucking zombie ladder and yet there they were, doing just that.
Their Fearsome Foursome was quickly separated and it reminded him a lot of predatory animals on the aisle who would surround and infiltrate a herd of their prey, causing them to scatter because it was easier to corner and kill them if they were forced apart.
It was in this exchange that Anthony was humbled and quickly learned that his swagger wasn’t exactly warranted when it came to his newfound magical abilities. He had no idea what the Hell he was doing with them, not when there was so much going on that he couldn’t take just like two seconds to let him focus on what he was doing.
“Harriet!” Cheryl’s high-pitched screaming of his girlfriend’s (if they weren’t already ‘on’ again, he was making sure they were after this) name sent a cold shiver down the entire length of his spine and as he made the mistake of turning his head to see what was happening, what he needed to do to get to her, the right side of his field of vision became a blind spot and before he knew it, he was hurtling through the air, thrown by an angry vampire he had futilely tried to stake with a pencil he’d remembered was in his pocket.
Groaning, Anthony tried to pull himself back up but only managed to push his upper body up off the ground, holding it up as he frantically scanned the crowd for Harriet again, seeing a vampire feeding on her.
He reached out with one hand, pressing his palm flat on the ground for leverage before doing the same with the other and using it drag the other half of his injured body forward barely a few inches.
“HARRIET!” Now he was screaming her name but it wasn’t helpless, it was a warning.
The vampire who had been feeding on Harriet was now on fire.
A few foot away stood one determined looking Cheryl Blossom whose facial fury burned almost as brightly as the flames themselves.
The feeling of fangs in her neck hurt, and Harriet both winched and snarled at it, struggling to free herself from the tight grip of the vampire. The fingers holding her seemed to grow stronger, and as more of her blood flowed away, she could feel herself growing lightheaded. In the distance she could hear her name being shouted, first by Cheryl and then Anthony and Harriet wanted to tell them it was fine, stop shouting.
The fangs were abruptly torn away, leaving jagged wounds in her neck, and Harriet felt an intense heat on the side of her face where the vampire had been, her pale skin turning pink from the faint burn. Nothing as bad as the vampire who was now screaming in agony as the flames engulfed its entire body. The vampire was on fire. Okay. And Cheryl staring at the flames with an intensity that made Harriet feel dizzy. Or maybe it was the blood loss.
Either way, it was making all the vampires slowly back off, their expressions ranging from fury to terror as they stared at the charred corpse of their friend and the furious Bombshell who had somehow done it. The panther Toni moved behind her girlfriend, hackles raised and softly growling. Anthony was on the ground, and he seemed hurt, which was really not okay. But any other thoughts faded as Harriet passed out.
Cheryl had no idea how it had happened.
One minute, she was staring down the creepy vampire making a snack of her friend, only wishing that looks could kill, the next, he was on fire.
It was like spontaneous combustion. At first, she was in what felt like a trance and then the next thing she knew, the vampire exploded into flames.
She felt strangely vindicated until she realized that Harriet was now unconscious. It pulled her focus and as she ran toward her friend with tunnel vision, she failed to see that while the vampire was completely engulfed in flames, he could still move.
And move he did, right toward her. The Bombshell felt the heat before the flames even before the vampire’s fiery hands made contact with the front of her body.
One unassumingly strong push and suddenly, she was flying.
No, not flying: falling.
The ground rose up to meet her at a dizzying pace before the sickening sound of her own skull breaking sounded in her ears, and suddenly, everything went black.
There was a roar. A roar and then carnage. The vampires barely had time to react before they were ripped apart by a panther reacting with pure fury. The blood of her enemies was splattered across Toni’s face and her fur slightly singed from burning vampire, but she didn’t care.
Leaving the male to tend to his fainted girlfriend, she leapt from the roof of the prison and onto the ground next to her love, nudging her gently with her feline face to try to get her to move. But even with the animal instincts, Toni knew not to move her too sharply in case of damage. So she settled for circling her, tail flicking from side to side as she yowled for attention and help while defending Cheryl from anything else that might dare to try to harm her.