interstellar5555 | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: System Crash and mallgoers
What: ~~A ridiculous publicity stunt~~ A concert.
Where: South Vista Mall
When: Saturday evening
Warnings: Dumb eighties music? None really.

[It's a busy Saturday evening at the South Vista mall. Besides what appears to be some kind of minor construction project on one of the mezzanines, it's like any other day.

Or it is until all the lights go out. Then, an array of colored lights flare up, accompanied by a voice.]

Heeelllloooo South Vista mall~! We are....

[Then more colored lights, now focused on that construction project. Except, now it's a stage. Band, instruments, and all. People are starting to gather around curiously.]

SYSTEM CRASH!!

[They start playing. Not just one song, but an entire set. Mostly happy or playful songs like What's Goin' On or The Neverending Story. Run with us is pretty popular with the crowd and they close out with The Last Unicorn. The entire time, Trucy is putting the full weight of her two levels of music power into the performance, trying to influence the audience to feel excitement and fun. They are enjoying this, they want to see more. She's asked the rest of the band to try to push those feelings too. She doesn't know how many of them can do this, but it's worth trying.

When it's over, Trucy addresses the audience one last time.]

If you thought that was good, wait'll you see what we have planned for you next.

[And with a wink, she bows. And a flash of multicolored pyrotechnics obscures the stage. When it fades, the band is gone.]

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As he expected, her pleads immediately send a jolt of panic though the child. Leave? No - he can't! Asking him to come with her feel on par with the threat of torture and death. He's trapped here, even if she can't see the chains, even if they aren't real-

He tries to pull away from her, the whine of his voice hurting and afraid. He just starts shaking his head and huddling down, try to hide himself. Please don't let them see this happening - please -

"I can't - please, don't - I can't...I can't..."

He finds himself caught in a cycle of terror, the cracklines thickening across his shoulders.

"Please don't make me..."

What can she do? What should she do? He's so afraid, it hurts; she feels it pulse in her chest, twisting and pressing. He's broken, he's breaking, if he shatters . . .

What happens to a half-human, half-Gem who shatters?

"Please" The word yanks out of her. "Steven . . ."

You saved me. If you'll let me . . . -- even if you don't -- I'll give that back to you.

She promised. She can't ignore it.

He looks around, eyes wild with anxiety, searching for the body guards he knows must be looming nearby. If they see her doing this, she's going to get in trouble. They'll both be in trouble. He can't stand it.

"Please, they'll hurt you too." He feels like he should be crying, but the disconnect between feeling and function is still there. His sorrow can't manifest as anything but an oppressive fog. "Please, I'm sorry..."

She's afraid of hurt. Afraid of pain. Memories are so vivid, they sometimes almost steal her breath. Sometimes she's afraid that she'll fragment, shatter under the weight of them.

But they're still not comparable to the weight of this boy in this moment, small and fractured.

"I can't--" It's a whisper, and it hurts in her chest like the very words bite into her insides. "I can't . . . leave you. Do you understand? I can't. I'm sorry."

Compared to most Gems, she isn't physically strong -- but still strong enough going against a human child. Her hand seizes his, hauls him forward.

She has no plans, only desperation. She has to get out.

She might have succeeded, to whatever end, because there's not change that Steven is strong enough in this state to fight her. Maybe she could have even fought off the Pride Records guards that begin to take notice at the sound of Steven's startled cry. What turns everything in chaos completely, though, is the arrival of a posse of imposing looking figures - lackies that look much like the ones from Pride, with slight differences.

They rush out of the van in Lapis and Steven's direction, grabbing for each of their shoulders and trying to wrench them away from each other. Steven's fear is inarticulate - he has absolutely not idea what is going on.

"Hey!" a bodyguard from Pride shouts, raising their gun. They hesitate on the shot, though - there's to good of a risk of hitting Steven in the fray.

She'd had only an instant to change back to herself -- a foresight, anticipating being met by guards. She's been at Pride long enough to anticipate them. She can't worry about Steven's reaction; she only holds on as hard as she can, aiming to keep moving even as her coloring reverts.

But while the Pride bodyguards were expected, the van is not.

The Virgo group squeals to a halt and swarms so quickly that it's almost inhuman. Suddenly she finds them both surrounded, reaching, grabbing . . .

No.

She won't be captured. Won't be touched. Won't let them steal what she's taken. Her mouth tightens as she tugs Steven close, yanking outward with her power with full force.

More than ever, she misses her wings.

Water responds. From coolers meant to hold drinks, from water fountains near the mall doors, from the very sewers . . . water explodes outward, streams combining to ram into the Virgo force at full power with the effect of a battering ram.

Hopefully it's enough to blast them back. She feels the limits of her abilities like a ragged edge -- what should have been there torn away. She won't be able to rely on brute force alone; she'll only be able to use so much at a time.

Steven has no idea what's happening. The colours of the girl before him have changed, and as unseen assailants try to tear him away from her, he feels himself be pulled close as a mist of water pools around them. Suddenly, water is pulling towards them, and then firing through the thugs crabbing at their shoulders. Steven screams.

Someone - whether Virgo or Pride - takes a couple shots at Lapis with their stun gun. Attackers that have been swept to the floor with such great force get up again at alarming speed, and move to strike at Lapis with a strength presently far greater than her own.

Thankfully the stun guns don't get off a good shot; Lapis is moving, ducking among parked cars, making a more challenging target of herself.

But the Virgo attackers are already getting up. Fast -- too fast! they dart her way. She evades one strike; it snaps off a rearview mirror. Two -- a window shatters. But the third will hit Steven, and without thinking, she twists in the way. She yelps as the blow hits hard, knocks her knees out from under her, and she's down and rolling, Steven still clasped in her arms.

The water recollects, re-surges; it seizes the current attackers each in their own head bubbles, the bubbles yanking backward on their necks. At the very least, the bubbles will cut off their air, but the movement . . . the movement could likely snap a neck, if it doesn't already slam them into the nearby vehicles.

Edited 2016-02-27 22:20 (UTC)

The bubbles don't break necks this time, though - in fact, as opposed to the bone crushing effect they could have on a regular person, they mostly just seems to surprise and inconvenience the men that they attack. He dent the cars they hit, but they still thrash - grasping at the hoods of the cars to pull themselves free.

Steven screams as they hit the ground, still struggling slightly but ultimately too terrified to take any coherent action. He isn't scared of her, but he's scared of what she's doing - and the consequences it will hold for both of them.

There aren't enough bubbles to cover every attacker, though. A gunshot fires - from who it isn't clear - and a couple of the assailants can be seen fighting Pride security. As Lapis rolls, she's stopped by one of the van attacked making a grab for Steven while her water is busy elsewhere.

Steven yelps as he's jerked back painfully, the attacker's grip tight on her arm. From behind Lapis, another one comes in with a stun gun again.

There's too many. Way too many. They're brutally fast, brutally strong, and Steven is afraid, struggling against her; she has to go, has to get out, has to get him away, but they're everywhere, anticipating, closing in . . .

There's pressure in her chest, like the air being pressed out -- like sinking into the very depths of the ocean and watching the bubbles trail above in her wake. For a bare moment she is numb; she can feel nothing at all but the weight of the boy in her arms.

Then, suddenly his hand is jerked from hers.

His yelp resounds in her ears.

No.

The water surges again, viciously fast, smashing the captive guards against the parked cars with enough force to potentially slam them through doors and windows and hoods. It takes only an instant; it's racing back towards Lapis herself, bashing into the guard with the gun at full force, driving into the one trying to hold her on its path.

No!

She snatches for the lost fingers, the stretching arm. "Steven!"

The guards shatter the windshields of the cars, a metallic crack and screech accenting their fall. Something like this should really have killed any normal person. Even with whatever enhanced stamina these guards seem to possess, however, the strike is enough to put them down, at least for now. The three of them lay on the hoods of the cars with their legs twitching, occasionally trying to right themselves with shuttering, uncertain movements.

The guard wrestling with her is knocked down, trying to keep hold of her with a clamp-like grip even as it happens. Steven is being pulled away - unable to fight like she is, and his own body functioning as a shield against her wild blasts of water.

"Lapis!" he yells, not knowing why. The guard has wrapped their arm around his neck, pinning the child's body to his chest as they begin to retreat. Steven is held prone, his eyes shut in terror and confusion. Whatever this creature is, it could easily snap his neck.

Her name. He's said her name.

All the water gathers again -- all the sewage, the ice water, into one writhing mass. For a single instant it gathers, hovers . . . then dives into the inhuman thing holding her, ramming through its mouth, through its teeth, down its throat, in its nostrils, into its ears at full force.

She wrests against its grasp, shrugs and yanks as its grasp loosens, stumbles after the boy who knows her name, yanking the water in a small explosion out of her former captor's head. Her eyes are wild, not fully present.

She has one goal only.

Edited 2016-03-14 01:26 (UTC)

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