Post by Forsaken on Nov 20, 2010 18:59:27 GMT -5
The night ached with cold and silence. This city felt dead in it's later hours. Even the snow looked gray and listless, too brittle to even allow for lasting paw prints. Instead, as the great russet wolf walked along yet another weather worn street, the relentless wind picked up the trailing drifts of snow and sent them swirling through the air, looking for all the world like ghostly figures composed of powdered glass.
Zaq coughs, his throat feeling abraded by the gritty airborne snow. He'd forgotten how miserable this place really was. However, since the miserable state of Manticore had not been on his mind so much as it's citizens he acknowledges that a mere observation would fade in time. It had been three years since he was here last, and he had used every day to his best advantage. He was determined to change a few things here, and without the Ghost of Manticore he may very well be the one with power enough to see his will through. He had no knowledge of any other citizen in residence here who was more powerful as he. Only J could compete, he thought, and they were together in this.
He turns a corner, and is surprised to see a heavy twenty foot chain-link fence crossing the middle of the street. He stops, staring at it with consternation. When he had left Manticore, he had memorized every turn and dead end in this area. Unless he was extremely disoriented, this fence was new. A sense of foreboding tingles through his skin, causing his hair to stand on edge as the chill ripples through before falling flat again. This fence...it was bisecting a continuous street. Not only that, but it was held up by large triangular struts as opposed to being set in the ground, making it temporary. Mobile.
All of this registers in a second or two, and he turns sharply. Only to find the trap has already snapped closed around him as a thin, silver-haired Forsaken turns the corner. She freezes, her wide cat's eyes widening further.
Zaq's building snarl falters. He thinks that is a strange reaction for a progressed Forsaken to have when coming in contact with something it has been programmed to destroy. Then he recognizes her, and in that moment everything surrounding him seems to dim. He feels like his heart is failing as it begins to beat irregularly in response to his shock. He can see only her. As seconds and then minutes pass he is no longer aware of the instinctual urge to flee that had assaulted him as he turned. Both of them are frozen where they stand, and nothing else matters beyond this revelation.
Her eyes ignite with a strange blue glow that is entirely unnatural to them. Her body twists strangely, as though fighting itself, and she sinks to her knees. An alien shriek of pain and anger filters through bared teeth, and he knows she is trying to fight the Guardian who is controlling her.
He knows he should not linger. She will only suffer more if he stays. So he bounds forward, sprinting past the girl he could not protect and around the corner. But there is no shot at escape here, either. A strangely armored Forsaken stands in the center of the narrow road. Scorpion-based, he realizes. And most likely venomous. He steps forward. His body is strong. If he darts past, he would be well away from here before the poison sets in, if the scorpion Forsaken manages to poison him at all.
Before he can run, he hears a wavering step behind him, a shuffle in the snow. He chances a quick glance backward. Asila, her eyes solid pits of steady blue light and her face blank of expression. She's lost control, and the body she possesses was capable of sprinting fast enough to catch him, should he run. And if he were poisoned...he could not fight. Still, his odds worsen even more, for he can here another Forsaken somewhere nearby.
There's nothing for it, then. He has been ambushed. He'll need the help of a fellow Sentinel to help him if he is to escape this before the odds get any steeper. He begins to growl, the sound reverberating within his chest and down through his legs, into the ground beneath them where it would resonate for a mile-wide radius around him. J would know what his signal meant. All Sentinels did. Now, he just had to stay alive until she got here.
((I'm taking liberties with how werewolves communicate, because I never decided precisely how I would arrange that. Since Sentinels can hardly howl when they need help, or else alert every lurking being in hearing distance, this seemed like a good and decently plausible solution. I think werewolves would be able to sense the vibration through the ground and the direction it came from since they are more in touch with the planet than other beings.))
Zaq coughs, his throat feeling abraded by the gritty airborne snow. He'd forgotten how miserable this place really was. However, since the miserable state of Manticore had not been on his mind so much as it's citizens he acknowledges that a mere observation would fade in time. It had been three years since he was here last, and he had used every day to his best advantage. He was determined to change a few things here, and without the Ghost of Manticore he may very well be the one with power enough to see his will through. He had no knowledge of any other citizen in residence here who was more powerful as he. Only J could compete, he thought, and they were together in this.
He turns a corner, and is surprised to see a heavy twenty foot chain-link fence crossing the middle of the street. He stops, staring at it with consternation. When he had left Manticore, he had memorized every turn and dead end in this area. Unless he was extremely disoriented, this fence was new. A sense of foreboding tingles through his skin, causing his hair to stand on edge as the chill ripples through before falling flat again. This fence...it was bisecting a continuous street. Not only that, but it was held up by large triangular struts as opposed to being set in the ground, making it temporary. Mobile.
All of this registers in a second or two, and he turns sharply. Only to find the trap has already snapped closed around him as a thin, silver-haired Forsaken turns the corner. She freezes, her wide cat's eyes widening further.
Zaq's building snarl falters. He thinks that is a strange reaction for a progressed Forsaken to have when coming in contact with something it has been programmed to destroy. Then he recognizes her, and in that moment everything surrounding him seems to dim. He feels like his heart is failing as it begins to beat irregularly in response to his shock. He can see only her. As seconds and then minutes pass he is no longer aware of the instinctual urge to flee that had assaulted him as he turned. Both of them are frozen where they stand, and nothing else matters beyond this revelation.
Her eyes ignite with a strange blue glow that is entirely unnatural to them. Her body twists strangely, as though fighting itself, and she sinks to her knees. An alien shriek of pain and anger filters through bared teeth, and he knows she is trying to fight the Guardian who is controlling her.
He knows he should not linger. She will only suffer more if he stays. So he bounds forward, sprinting past the girl he could not protect and around the corner. But there is no shot at escape here, either. A strangely armored Forsaken stands in the center of the narrow road. Scorpion-based, he realizes. And most likely venomous. He steps forward. His body is strong. If he darts past, he would be well away from here before the poison sets in, if the scorpion Forsaken manages to poison him at all.
Before he can run, he hears a wavering step behind him, a shuffle in the snow. He chances a quick glance backward. Asila, her eyes solid pits of steady blue light and her face blank of expression. She's lost control, and the body she possesses was capable of sprinting fast enough to catch him, should he run. And if he were poisoned...he could not fight. Still, his odds worsen even more, for he can here another Forsaken somewhere nearby.
There's nothing for it, then. He has been ambushed. He'll need the help of a fellow Sentinel to help him if he is to escape this before the odds get any steeper. He begins to growl, the sound reverberating within his chest and down through his legs, into the ground beneath them where it would resonate for a mile-wide radius around him. J would know what his signal meant. All Sentinels did. Now, he just had to stay alive until she got here.
((I'm taking liberties with how werewolves communicate, because I never decided precisely how I would arrange that. Since Sentinels can hardly howl when they need help, or else alert every lurking being in hearing distance, this seemed like a good and decently plausible solution. I think werewolves would be able to sense the vibration through the ground and the direction it came from since they are more in touch with the planet than other beings.))
