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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 25, 2008 19:46:58 GMT -8
((I'mma set this scene before the 'Over and Over' thread since it's not finished if it's cool. )) Lily was at a loss for what to do. Xerxes had planned a surprise date for them on Friday... somehow managing to wrangle a date out of her whilst Rui was unconscious. That man was talented, she swore. And he'd told her to dress up... but Lily wasn't the dressing-up type, and she wasn't too apt to show off her assets. Looking around the boutique she was astounded by just how many short dresses there were in the world. She sunk down into a chair by the fitting room, cradling her messenger bag in her lap. This action went unnoticed, so no one had witnessed how overwhelmed she was. She didn't do this girly stuff well. Especially when half of her mind wasn't even in it. She was worried, though Xerxes had told her not to be, that Rui would be just fine, but... She still remembered what he'd looked like after he'd called off his powers and reigned in his fury. The spasms, the pure unadulterated pain, and then finally the unconsciousness that overtook him. It worried her more than she could admit to anyone. And that was the biggest part of why she found it so hard to shop today. The bad feelings. She couldn't break out of it. It made her feel like the earth was shaking all... around... Um... Lily raised her head and looked around with wide eyes as people were running for a safe place. The earth really WAS shaking, if the people screaming 'Earthquake!!' were any indication. And it was a bad one, shaking each clothing rack, sending people to the ground because they couldn't walk amongst the tremors, and then the walls were cracking. A part of her wondered momentarily if her raging emotions had caused this. An old fear chilled her. She didn't want that to happen again... Not again. But after a moment she realized it really wasn't her. She would feel it if it was. This was just nature in it's most destructive state. Frowning as loud crack sounded over her head, she looked up to see the skylight over the food court cracking. Her gaze lowered a little to see a group of huddled children just below it, crying for they'd lost their parents in the chaos. Fear rose again, and it was what drove her to finally stand. The tremors didn't really affect her, and she walked along them as if it weren't shaking at all. She was connected to the earth, so why would it affect her. But those kids... They didn't know what nature could do... Now the trick was to make it there in time, and make it unseen... Yeah, good luck on that one.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 25, 2008 20:10:18 GMT -8
Earthquakes don't generally last for very long and they usually come in two varieties: up-and-down or side-to-side. This earthquake didn't seem able to make up its mind, and it was definitely at least a 6. something on the richter scale -- pushing the very outter edge.
Beatrix was in the shopping mall, all alone, because she needed another top. Almost as evidence, her manner-of-dress was minimal. A skirt that was, technically, a lacy little slip -- pale ivory, silk. And a midnight blue tank top that slipped off both shoulders, over which was another top, knit, netting, a skull printed on it. And of course, ass-kicking boots.
Just before the earth began to move, Beatrix paused. Paused near, but not quite at, the boutique that Lily was sitting, overwhelmed, within. Something was happening. Something was happening in the dark, and she felt as if she should pay attention, but her mind didn't want to focus and then the earth began to quiver, began to buck and began to toss, and Beatrix was flung to the floor, landed on her shoulder, hard.
And it was from the floor that she saw Lily's feet as Lily walked toward the screaming children, from the floor she saw Lily's shadow, stretched...
The earth stilled. For a second. But Lily would know that an aftershock was about to go rippling through Las Vegas. The building wouldn't take it.
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 25, 2008 20:37:00 GMT -8
Lily stopped as the the earth stilled. Just for a moment all was still and the only thing to be heard were the cries of the frightened. But Lily couldn't move, or make a sound. Her head turned stiffly to look around, catching the eyes of a girl about her age on the floor. Some form of recognition caught her, and Lily knew that she somehow realized what was going to happen.
"Aftershock," Lily murmured. She couldn't think what to do. What could she do? The building would fall... they'd be lucky to get out slightly injured. What could she of all...
Well, duh, she was Earth. Panic jolted her into stupidity, but she had only but a few seconds to decide before it hit. She held sway over nature. She hated to use her powers to such an extent, she had no way of knowing if it would all go as planned, but she had to try even if she was afraid. There were children here. But what could she do to stop an aftershock?
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Post by shinigami on Jun 26, 2008 10:02:07 GMT -8
Beatrix had this way of looking at people. Head-to-toe. Toe-to-head. When Lily heard her and turned around, when their eyes met, Beatrix didn't give that look. Instead, her eyebrows rose up; there was a frisson of energy that coiled at the nape of her neck. That Beatrix didn't understand at all for a moment. Maybe two.
Beatrix pushed herself up on the palms of her hand, braced her torso mermaid-like from the ground. Didn't otherwise get up, not yet. What would be the point if she was just going to get knocked down again?
But she looked Lily in the eyes, and after the brunette mouthed aftershock, she said - deliberately - loud-enough-for-the-other-girl-to-hear: "Dance it away, sweetheart. Who do you think it wants as a partner?"
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 26, 2008 11:29:13 GMT -8
Dance it away...
Those words seemed to strike a chord in Lily. They were familiar, the notion prickling at her old self, the past Earth. She knew how to do that. She'd done it before... but to do it again...
Lily took a steadying breath, her eyes fluttering shut. If her eyes had been open, anyone could have seen green bleeding into brown, a sure sign that the Earth of old was resurfacing, taking over to help control the situation.
All this was just a matter of seconds, and as she felt the aftershock rise up and prepare to hit, she moved. Her eyes remained closed, as she swayed just ever-so-slightly against the shock, diverting it away. The ground shook, but she moved as if there was nothing but solid, unmoving ground beneath her feet. Each tremor she hit with her body and magic, feeling each change of moment as if she were the earth itself. The movement was easy, a dance that seemed to come on instinct, but the magic was strained.
It had been a long time since she'd used her power so extensively, and it was taxing, but she kept on moving, nudging and diverting the center of the aftershock towards the desert, away from the shopping center... away from the people. The brunt of the tremors would hit land, but not harm a person, but the building was still shook a bit as she was forced to move it around it's corners the inhabitants within.
It was enough to keep the building from crashing down on their heads. One last shove of magic, a slight spin of the body and the last bit of the aftershock rumbled away. She could feel the earth crack at the force, and a part of her went out in sympathy at the destruction before she finally collapsed on the ground.
She wasn't unconscious, but she was exhausted, shaking like she had her own earthquake stuck inside her. It was how her magic felt at the moment, shaken and torn up, unused to being delivered in such a manner and with such force. Her eyes fluttered open briefly, before closing again, her head hitting the ground with a thud.
Again her eyes opened, and this time they were brown again, back to normal, as she stared up at the skylight over the food court. The children still huddled under a flimsy table, thinking themselves safe there, but she could see the glass about to give way. She tried to get up, move to shoo them out of the court, but her body was sluggish and didn't want to respond. Maybe if she'd actually trained herself more, instead of being afraid, she could have done more without exhaustion... but as it was now, she was not without her limits, and her body was at it's limit, if not her magic.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 26, 2008 11:49:23 GMT -8
Now, Beatrix didn't actually care about the children underneath the flimsy foodcourt table. Beatrix didn't know that the glass was about to shatter. Beatrix didn't know that it would take just the slightest of brushes to send the entire thing down.
But Beatrix was watching Lily, who was well-named in this life, it seemed - because she moved as if she were lily in the wind, as if she were sensuality incarnate, and maybe that was part of why Air fell in love with Earth back in the day, because he'd seen her dance magic...
Then Lily collapsed. Beatrix waited a second before she stood up, brushing herself off, running both hands through her radiant (ah, so! bright) hair, shaking it away from her face. This would be the perfect time for a mysterious disappearance.
Whether or not Lily just lies there, unconscious, or something else happens will be the determining factor.
All through the mall a babble of voices was rising up, like smoke -- racks of clothes were turned over, people were checking to see if one another was okay, there were frantic sounding sobs from a department store where a television had fallen, narrowly missing killing someone. The place was a mess.
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 26, 2008 12:12:37 GMT -8
Lily's head rolled to the side, watching as the girl finally stood up. She really was luminescent, like she drew in all the light around her, but somehow all that light gave off a dark effect. Familiarity rose again, and Lily wondered for a moment if she was another Old Power. She was similiar, uncanny in the way she sucked in the light around her.
But a cracking noise overhead drew her attention away. Just the slightest wind brushed over the skylight, and it was cracking more, preparing to shatter any moment. It would fall in shards, heavy and it would plummet down towards the children below.
She hardly noticed that she was speaking her thoughts aloud. No one was paying attention to the glass or the children. But Lily was, and she was vastly over-protective of life, especially young ones.
And so, even though her body was tired and aching, she forced herself up, using a pillar to lever herself, and then stumbled towards the food court. She wouldn't be stupid enough to think of covering the kids with her body. Glass could go straight through her into them. But what to do? Could she control glass?
"What is glass made of?" she wondered aloud as she went on stumbling, stubborn beyond all logic.
If it was something of earth, maybe she could do something, but she didn't know... She really should have payed attention in science more.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 26, 2008 12:27:52 GMT -8
Beatrix decided not to disappear mysteriously. Beatrix decided to shadow, no pun intended, Lily; and when Lily almost fell, Beatrix's hand was there, at her elbow, courteous as anything, to help her stand.
The teenager said: "Glass is sand and flame. Sea-glass is lightning and sand, but I doubt even here in Vegas the windows are made of sea-glass."
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 26, 2008 12:37:28 GMT -8
Lily's eyebrows rose as an idea struck her. She looked up at the ceiling and said, "Sand, huh?"
The fire part would be a tough thing. She'd somehow have to separate the both of them... And Lily was terrified of fire. Of course, dying by fire had a way of doing that to people.
She had no time to doubt her idea though as the skylight chose in that moment to shatter. The shards of glass were as huge as she had expected them to be, and after a moment of confused silence around her, there were screams as the people finally realized what was about to happen.
For a moment, it seemed like the glass moved in slow motion, for it actually was as she focused her power on it. But people would think it just a trick of the eye in the dangerous situation. A fine layer of sweat rose on Lily's forehead, and she just about dropped to the ground again, but she stubbornly stayed standing, focusing all she could to divide the glass into it's two parts. Sand and Flame.
Dear God, she was scared, but it was all she could think to do. A flash of fire, bright enough that many had to shield their eyes from it, and sand rained down upon them, harmless. Lily stumbled again, grabbing onto the girl beside her to keep from falling. Her eyes squeezed shut and the next thing that hit the ground was the fire. Right in front of her.
She could feel the warmth of it against her skin, and the light it gave of was nearly blinding even with her eyes closed. A shudder ripped through her. She still remembered the pain that fire could cause. And then she hit the ground, scooting away as the fire sprinklers went off in an attempt to put the fire out. But she didn't stop scooting until she was up against a pillar and could go no farther, and even then as she stared transfixed into the flames, all she wanted to was run.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 26, 2008 13:05:39 GMT -8
Beatrix stared as the glass fell and was transfigured. But she divided her attention between things: Lily and the glass. First, sand; then, flame. Her scrunched her eyes closed at the blinding flash and when Lily stumbled again, grabbing at Beatrix, the luminous girl looped her arm supportively around Lily's shoulders. The gesture was gentle, even; almost tender. What it wasn't was strong, so when fire dropped like liquid, hissed and burned and spit and arched its back like a cat, right in front of Lily and Beatrix, she didn't -- maybe wasn't able -- to catch Lily when fear and panic made her fall.
Beatrix thought the whole thing was beautiful, actually, and she smiled at the fire. Laughed, when the sprinklers came on, held her hands out and looked up at the ceiling. Her silk-and-lace slip was ruined, not to mention basically transparent at this point, but hey: at least she was wearing a pair of pretty panties.
"Hey," she said, turning around. People were going to start talking pretty soon, because glass didn't usually break into sand and fire. Beatrix, deliberate, walked the five steps to the pillar that Lily was shaking against. Beatrix crouched, grabbed the other girl's chin and forced her to look her in the eye. "Look at me. We've got to get out of here. That? was pretty lacking in subtlety."
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Post by lily tomlinson on Jun 26, 2008 13:15:05 GMT -8
Lily nodded, even though she was still shaking like a leaf. No pun intended there. She kept her eyes averted from the fire, relishing the cool water that sprinkled down from the ceiling, knowing that it was water that would put fire out. Fire couldn't touch water without harm to itself.
She supposed she should have been smarter and kept exposure to minimum, but that was a part of who she was. Her protective nature overrode her logic. She didn't care what happened so long as she was able to protect. But the girl had a point. Best to get out of sight before anyone realized it had been her.
So she stood, still using the pillar for support and keeping away from the diminishing fire. And then with a mumbled apology, she stumbled towards the exit. She was still stubborn, trying to make it on her own, as if to prove to herself that though she was exhausted, she wasn't weak. She practically fell against the exit door, her body weight causing it to swing open and she stumbled out the door and looked around.
She doubted the buses were running after such an earthquake, and she didn't drive, so walking was her best option. Well, that would be hilarious. A girl who looked like she'd just been drowned, pale from exhaustion, stumbling and falling down the streets of Vegas. The corners of her lips quirked upward in amusement at the image. Now that would be funny.
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Post by shinigami on Jun 26, 2008 13:38:04 GMT -8
Beatrix rested her elbow on her knee and had her thumb beneath her chin, her forefinger curled around her mouth. It was a thoughtful pose, and her eyebrows quirked as Lily pulled herself aright, again, reaching back against the pillar.
The truth was there was something almost amused about the cant of Beatrix's eyebrows, something tender, but still, amused.
"De nada," she said, in response to the mumbled apology, and then she didn't follow. Not yet. Not this time. When Lily fell through the front doors, to the place she'd been in: "Seeya."
And what happened to Beatrix next? We'll leave the next events in the dark. Lily didn't see the girl again, though, and vice versa. Not for some time...
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