03-31-2018, 12:12 AM
Well, that was a bust.
Belle adjusted the weight slung over her shoulder, two fingers slipped through the loop of a cord that connected to a draw-string bag that bumped against her shoulder blade as she walked.
She had intended to get away from everything, enjoy a small vacation at Sabaody Archipelago, when the Dark Data 'incident' occurred. From there she had fled, barely managing to escape the island with her life. She, along with other refugees, had been temporarily transported to the Tangled Green for examinations and treatment, and Belle had enjoyed a brief friendship with a girl she had met there before that girl had, it seemed, grown bored, and left her company unannounced.
Now it was time, she supposed, to head home.
Home. Belle grimaced. Home, an apartment with just enough room to not be qualified as a closet, where the bed was placed as far away from the front door as possible, yet the foot was still three strides from it. Where cigara burns and stains of what she hoped wasn't blood turned the 'carpet' into something that resembled a child's fingerpainting canvas. Where the glow of the Midnight Rose's neon sign glared like a baleful beacon through the slats, and Tier Four's mechanical groaning occasionally drowned out the sounds of passing sirens. At least she hadn't had to deal with Primes down there.
Yet.
The white abyss stretched before her. Tangled Green gate at her back, Belle consulted the crudely drawn 'map' in her free hand. A passing traveler had offered it up as compensation for her assistance in scaring away a few overeager predators.
Speaking of kids, what kind of drawing is this, anyway? Belle thought, squinting at the blobs and uneven writing. She turned left, then right, looking from the paper to the nearly featureless void in front of her.
Black dots in the distance, just on the horizon... Those were the other gates. Counting them out, she determined that the third gate on her right was the way back to Coruscant.
Folding the paper back along the creases, she slipped it into her bag, readjusted it once more, then started to walk. With there being scarce little else in the way, she chose the direct path, cutting across the Nexus' blank disc, rather than following the edge. Ten minutes after leaving, she paused, checking over her shoulder, and looking about the Nexus' interior, checking to see if the coast was clear.
If she used some of her power now, she could probably get away with it. All she had to do was make sure to cut back before anyone at the Coruscant gate had the chance to notice her.
Taking a deep breath, Belle closed her eyes. Reaching inside of herself with her mind's grasp, she sought the welling heat that was at the core of her being. She fumbled for a moment, seeking in the dark, before she felt the flame, pulled towards it like an eager moth. She touched it, felt the flow, the heat feeling like it was spreading through every vein in her body as she became aware of it, inch by inch.
Skin tingling, she crouched, took another breath, and launched herself forward. Exhileration flooded her, air whipping against her face. She squinted, her eyes starting to water almost immediately. How fast was she going? It was hard to tell, especially here. Fifty, maybe sixty miles an hour? She tore across the distance; all the while her mind focused, fixated on the image of her running body.
She had to stop several times to recover. Although her muscles weren't actually contracting with the motions, she nevertheless had to keep them tensed to support her body weight. Her legs ached from the repeated impacts, and she felt the tightness that warned of an impending cramp.
Halfway home, she made another halt. Bent over, breathing hard, perspiration on her brow, she frowned. Come to think of it, in her training sessions with Yuki, it had always been brief bursts of motion, never an endurance test. Being discrete would have been difficult, after all, if someone saw her running down the Coruscant streets at speeds fast enough to star in a low-budget television adaptation of the Flash.
She made a mental note: convince the old woman to get a treadmill.
BANG.
Belle started upright, hands half raising. The sound reverberated through the air. A gunshot? Something close, at least. Definitely not a firework; when you lived on Tier Four, you tended to learn the difference pretty quickly.
BANG.
She looked to her left. Small figures silhouetted against the white canvas of the Nexus were moving back and forth, far enough away that, if she were to hold up a finger at arm's length, they'd resemble a small ant.
The mental image of the map popped into her head. If she was about halfway to Coruscant, cutting across the Nexus, that meant that, whoever they were, they were close to the Fountain.
And that meant a Prime.
Despite her experience, Belle swallowed and took a half step back. Sure, Heidi, Mickey, and Blues had been alright people, but the majority of Primes were reported to be practically psychopaths. No matter what flowery language they tried to use, there seemed to be at least one media report a month about a Prime going on a rampage and causing mass chaos and Secondary casualties.
As a Secondary herself, Belle preferred to not be included in those reports.
But then again, if she really felt that way, why did she even bother getting stronger in the first place?
Swallowing again, Belle took another breath, steadied herself, and lowered her stance.
~+~+~+~
One of the darkly-dressed men raised a long, curved blade over his head. After watching several of his friends get savaged by the blonde's firearm gauntlets, he was unable to stave off the feeling of simmering fear twisting in his gut. Drowning it in a cascade of defiance, letting out a yell from the depths of his belly, he started to charge.
Then stopped. A firm grip had tightened around his raised wrist. "Let me go!" he barked, trying to pull free. The hand refused to obey. "Didn't you hear me?! Let me at the bitch!"
Furious that his moment of bravado had been quashed, he whipped his head around to spit venom at whoever was responsible, only to find an unfamiliar pair of blue eyes staring at him, framed by blood-red hair.
"The fuck-" he started to say, then stopped, his words ending in a strangled yelp as the hand holding his wrist twisted ever so slightly. His fingers loosened, relaxing his muscles and trying desperately to ease the pressure. What the Hell was going on?! Did they make a mistake? There wasn't supposed to be anyone else here! "Oi, Bruno, do something!" he yelled out, calling to his closest comrade. "Waste this freak!
"...Bruno?!"
"If Bruno's the guy with the bald head that's wider than he is tall, he's taking a nap," the red-headed girl explained. She was breathing heavily, there were cuts on her cheek and arm, but her grip held fast. Behind her, the man spied the half dozen collapsed forms of his compatriots.
"Wh... who the Hell are you?" he demanded as another BANG shook the air. About twenty meters away, the Golden Terror was busy launching people into the air. "The Hell do you think you're doing?!"
"That's my line. Thirty on one?" The blue eyes narrowed. "Even if she is a Prime, that's pretty low. What, did she pull you into this place when she was brought over? I guess I'd be pissed, too."
Another tightening of the grip. He felt his bones creak. The Hell is this bitch going on about?! Whatever. Whatever, whatever! We'll just handle this one, too! His free hand flicked, the weight in his suit's sleeve transferring from its concealed holster to his palm. His fingers closed around the handle, and with a snap of spring-loaded action, the blade within locked into place. With another yell, he drove the gleaming steel towards his captor's belly.
He found only air. The pressure on his wrist was gone. And so was the girl. He stared at the space where she had been standing, blinking a few times, his sunglasses askew, his switchblade's outstretched edge trembling. What had just happened?
Even as he tried to collect himself, the voice came again, this time behind him. "Still," it said, almost in his ear. "It isn't right."
As he turned, he caught a brief flash of movement, a blur of red, before something small and hard smashed into his chin. Lights popped before his eyes, darkness swimming at the edges of his vision as he lost balance. He wasn't aware of falling - just that something wide and hard had slapped against his back. His eyes closed, and he joined Bruno in an extended nap.
Belle adjusted the weight slung over her shoulder, two fingers slipped through the loop of a cord that connected to a draw-string bag that bumped against her shoulder blade as she walked.
She had intended to get away from everything, enjoy a small vacation at Sabaody Archipelago, when the Dark Data 'incident' occurred. From there she had fled, barely managing to escape the island with her life. She, along with other refugees, had been temporarily transported to the Tangled Green for examinations and treatment, and Belle had enjoyed a brief friendship with a girl she had met there before that girl had, it seemed, grown bored, and left her company unannounced.
Now it was time, she supposed, to head home.
Home. Belle grimaced. Home, an apartment with just enough room to not be qualified as a closet, where the bed was placed as far away from the front door as possible, yet the foot was still three strides from it. Where cigara burns and stains of what she hoped wasn't blood turned the 'carpet' into something that resembled a child's fingerpainting canvas. Where the glow of the Midnight Rose's neon sign glared like a baleful beacon through the slats, and Tier Four's mechanical groaning occasionally drowned out the sounds of passing sirens. At least she hadn't had to deal with Primes down there.
Yet.
The white abyss stretched before her. Tangled Green gate at her back, Belle consulted the crudely drawn 'map' in her free hand. A passing traveler had offered it up as compensation for her assistance in scaring away a few overeager predators.
Speaking of kids, what kind of drawing is this, anyway? Belle thought, squinting at the blobs and uneven writing. She turned left, then right, looking from the paper to the nearly featureless void in front of her.
Black dots in the distance, just on the horizon... Those were the other gates. Counting them out, she determined that the third gate on her right was the way back to Coruscant.
Folding the paper back along the creases, she slipped it into her bag, readjusted it once more, then started to walk. With there being scarce little else in the way, she chose the direct path, cutting across the Nexus' blank disc, rather than following the edge. Ten minutes after leaving, she paused, checking over her shoulder, and looking about the Nexus' interior, checking to see if the coast was clear.
If she used some of her power now, she could probably get away with it. All she had to do was make sure to cut back before anyone at the Coruscant gate had the chance to notice her.
Taking a deep breath, Belle closed her eyes. Reaching inside of herself with her mind's grasp, she sought the welling heat that was at the core of her being. She fumbled for a moment, seeking in the dark, before she felt the flame, pulled towards it like an eager moth. She touched it, felt the flow, the heat feeling like it was spreading through every vein in her body as she became aware of it, inch by inch.
Skin tingling, she crouched, took another breath, and launched herself forward. Exhileration flooded her, air whipping against her face. She squinted, her eyes starting to water almost immediately. How fast was she going? It was hard to tell, especially here. Fifty, maybe sixty miles an hour? She tore across the distance; all the while her mind focused, fixated on the image of her running body.
She had to stop several times to recover. Although her muscles weren't actually contracting with the motions, she nevertheless had to keep them tensed to support her body weight. Her legs ached from the repeated impacts, and she felt the tightness that warned of an impending cramp.
Halfway home, she made another halt. Bent over, breathing hard, perspiration on her brow, she frowned. Come to think of it, in her training sessions with Yuki, it had always been brief bursts of motion, never an endurance test. Being discrete would have been difficult, after all, if someone saw her running down the Coruscant streets at speeds fast enough to star in a low-budget television adaptation of the Flash.
She made a mental note: convince the old woman to get a treadmill.
BANG.
Belle started upright, hands half raising. The sound reverberated through the air. A gunshot? Something close, at least. Definitely not a firework; when you lived on Tier Four, you tended to learn the difference pretty quickly.
BANG.
She looked to her left. Small figures silhouetted against the white canvas of the Nexus were moving back and forth, far enough away that, if she were to hold up a finger at arm's length, they'd resemble a small ant.
The mental image of the map popped into her head. If she was about halfway to Coruscant, cutting across the Nexus, that meant that, whoever they were, they were close to the Fountain.
And that meant a Prime.
Despite her experience, Belle swallowed and took a half step back. Sure, Heidi, Mickey, and Blues had been alright people, but the majority of Primes were reported to be practically psychopaths. No matter what flowery language they tried to use, there seemed to be at least one media report a month about a Prime going on a rampage and causing mass chaos and Secondary casualties.
As a Secondary herself, Belle preferred to not be included in those reports.
But then again, if she really felt that way, why did she even bother getting stronger in the first place?
Swallowing again, Belle took another breath, steadied herself, and lowered her stance.
~+~+~+~
One of the darkly-dressed men raised a long, curved blade over his head. After watching several of his friends get savaged by the blonde's firearm gauntlets, he was unable to stave off the feeling of simmering fear twisting in his gut. Drowning it in a cascade of defiance, letting out a yell from the depths of his belly, he started to charge.
Then stopped. A firm grip had tightened around his raised wrist. "Let me go!" he barked, trying to pull free. The hand refused to obey. "Didn't you hear me?! Let me at the bitch!"
Furious that his moment of bravado had been quashed, he whipped his head around to spit venom at whoever was responsible, only to find an unfamiliar pair of blue eyes staring at him, framed by blood-red hair.
"The fuck-" he started to say, then stopped, his words ending in a strangled yelp as the hand holding his wrist twisted ever so slightly. His fingers loosened, relaxing his muscles and trying desperately to ease the pressure. What the Hell was going on?! Did they make a mistake? There wasn't supposed to be anyone else here! "Oi, Bruno, do something!" he yelled out, calling to his closest comrade. "Waste this freak!
"...Bruno?!"
"If Bruno's the guy with the bald head that's wider than he is tall, he's taking a nap," the red-headed girl explained. She was breathing heavily, there were cuts on her cheek and arm, but her grip held fast. Behind her, the man spied the half dozen collapsed forms of his compatriots.
"Wh... who the Hell are you?" he demanded as another BANG shook the air. About twenty meters away, the Golden Terror was busy launching people into the air. "The Hell do you think you're doing?!"
"That's my line. Thirty on one?" The blue eyes narrowed. "Even if she is a Prime, that's pretty low. What, did she pull you into this place when she was brought over? I guess I'd be pissed, too."
Another tightening of the grip. He felt his bones creak. The Hell is this bitch going on about?! Whatever. Whatever, whatever! We'll just handle this one, too! His free hand flicked, the weight in his suit's sleeve transferring from its concealed holster to his palm. His fingers closed around the handle, and with a snap of spring-loaded action, the blade within locked into place. With another yell, he drove the gleaming steel towards his captor's belly.
He found only air. The pressure on his wrist was gone. And so was the girl. He stared at the space where she had been standing, blinking a few times, his sunglasses askew, his switchblade's outstretched edge trembling. What had just happened?
Even as he tried to collect himself, the voice came again, this time behind him. "Still," it said, almost in his ear. "It isn't right."
As he turned, he caught a brief flash of movement, a blur of red, before something small and hard smashed into his chin. Lights popped before his eyes, darkness swimming at the edges of his vision as he lost balance. He wasn't aware of falling - just that something wide and hard had slapped against his back. His eyes closed, and he joined Bruno in an extended nap.
Uh oh. Those boys got me all tingly...
![[Image: ezgif-1-a370e630e1.gif]](https://s7.postimg.cc/elmiaogd7/ezgif-1-a370e630e1.gif)
I must calm it.
I must calm it.