Just Like Clockwork: Scene VIII - Caelan, Erin, Ilkin, Rakesh, Rose

Rakesh's Stamina+Athletics


“I said I'm working on it!” Seventeen yelled, backpedaling furiously. It was at this point that he made a mistake. He half turned, glancing back at where you were, to make sure that everyone else was, in fact, getting away from the flames. When he turned back, the fox-woman was already there.

She stood close to him, very close, looking like nothing more than some demure beauty, were it not for the utter lunacy in her eyes. She raked her talons across his chest, five parallel gashes opening up. It was not, by any standards, an elegant or particularly successful attack. But that tiny, beautiful fox-woman had enough strength in her one hand to send Seventeen reeling, spinning him to the side and forcing him down.

Seventeen gazed back up at the angel in the foxfur coat. He drew from a pocket a golden coin on a chain and spun it for a moment. Then the world exploded in light.

It was as bright as the noonday sun, a sudden absence of heat and flames replaced by eye-searing light. Seventeen was an Obrimos, an adept of energy in all its form, and so he had changed one form of energy (fire) into another (light). And as there had been a great deal of fire, now there was a very great deal of light.

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You were strung out along the parking lot, between Schafer's rapidly disintegrating demense-ramp and the van which Erin had... somehow... procured, when the world was suddenly bathed with light. It was like a stadium searchlight being directed at you, and you were not even at the epicenter of the sudden glare.

Looking back, blinking away the retinal after-images, you saw Seventeen burst out the open window, half-running, half-skidding down the ramp towards you. He was, shirtless, Erin having previously swiped his shirt in order to use it to bandage Cuchulainn, but now he was also bloody, a set of five crimson stripes running along his chest.

A moment passed, and a second figure staggered to the window. Even now, even knowing her unwholesome nature, she was beautiful. She moved with grace and elegance in all ways, a fox in her russet coat. Her eyes were blank, unseeing, but she maneuvered more by touch and smell than by sigh, reaching the fallen form of Isengrim. The larger changeling was beginning to stir, propping himself up on one elbow, glaring blearily out across the parking lot.

An unfathomable expression flashed across his face, even as the fox crouched by him. She reached down to lick the back of his neck, very gently. Isengrim moved a hand, and the window of the Museum shimmered and twisted, revealing an altogether interior than had been there before, something dark green and uncertain in the distance. With a last look back at you, the two privateers disappeared into the Hedge.

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Seventeen arrived at the van a few moments later, half collapsing against the doors to the back. Rakesh was already dragging the unresisting Wormwood into the back of the van, though with the werewolf in his dire wolf form it would be a tight fit. Hammond was busily strapping Cuchulainn's medical table in.

“Well. That was exciting.” Seventeen said, taking a few halting breaths. He hadn't stopped to turn around yet. “Are they gone?”

“They are.” Rakesh confirmed, his body flowing from the form of a pony-sized wolf into that of a skeptical looking British Indian man. “Now what?”

"Found it!" Erin called out, crawling out from underneath a car. She held up the rusty metal wand triumphantly. "Look Mis- er, sorry- look, I found it," she said to Rose, bashfully stopping herself from being formal. She padded over to hand the wand over, to go with the clockwork brain.

"That was amazing, Mr. Seventeen," the little changeling gushed, helping Hammond with the operating table. "It we call the Fire Department quickly we might save the Museum. We might even still have jobs after this!" She grinned with unabashed and slightly unrealistic optimism.

"Can the Guardians contain a demon, Mr. Seventeen?" Erin asked, with a sideways glance at Wormwood. "If not, we'll have to take him to Westminster Abbey."

"Mr. Cuchulainn needs immediate medical help. So do you, Mr. Seventeen," Erin noted, standing on her toes to try and examine the Guardian's eyes.

Cae had no time to respond to Rose and was fast behind Ilkin. She nearly ran into him, being that his magic was quicker than her preternatural speed could manage. She stopped, though, and leaned against the side of the van.

"Yes, call the Fire department...please. And is there a way we can get to a hospital?" She glanced at her watch. "Sometimes those places help, you know."

Once recovered, Cae shifted to the open doors at the back of the van and exchanged a wary glanced with Rakesh--was it really safe to keep Wormwood here, even for a short time? Couldn't he just reach his tentacles out and stab them? (This was a very real fear for Cae). She watched the hooded man--thing.

"What was all that about, Mr. Chernenko? You're some...demon wanted by a faerie?" If 'The Prince with Sun-Flecked Eyes' counted as faerie, or whatever. It was hard to keep the bitterness out of her tone. "Is it because you like clockwork zombies?"

Persuasion+Presence

"We'll get them to the hospital," Ilkin said, "But here, hold still. I have something that can help."

The Mage waved his hands across Cu Chulainn and then Seventeen and uttered the Atlantean phrases. His rote took effect and assaulted the bacteria and infectious materials in their systems. Cu could've healed them both up to perfect health but the fellow was unfortunately out cold. Fortunately, Ilkin knew enough about Life to be a master of disinfectant.

"Here," Ilkin tossed his phone to Erin, "Call the fire department. Seventeen, do you have any way of contacting Whim? You ought to let her know what's going on. Let's get to the hospital. Who's driving?"

Dice Roll: 5d10s8e
d10 Results: 4, 3, 2, 4, 6 (Total Successes = 0)

Purify Bodies

Dice Roll: 5d10s8e
d10 Results: 6, 10, 6, 9, 1, 6 (Total Successes = 2)

Purify Bodies

Dice Roll: 5d10s8e
d10 Results: 6, 10, 8, 6, 6, 3 (Total Successes = 2)

Purify Bodies

“Me? I am just a mortal man. With friends, perhaps, but just a mortal man.” Chernenko said with a faux-innocent look upon his face. “But I once stole an apple from the Prince and he very much wants it back. He must be growing desperate, as Isengrim and Reynard do not come cheap, even for one of the Gentry.”

“It was a Hesperidean Apple, though, so one can understand his desperation.” Wormwood grinned, leaning back against the wall of the van, his handcuffed arms held crossed before him. “I did not get this immunity by accident, you know.”

“No, no hospital.” Seventeen said, wincing as Ilkin purified his bloodstream of whatever possible toxins the fox-woman's claws might have held. “I realize that it's a very Libertine thing to ignore, but hospitals do notice when stunningly handsome men arrive with chests clawed to ribbons. And even if that might be explained with a blush, I have no idea of how to explain Cu's wounds without some Rube Goldbergian device.”

“If he's joking, he'll live.” Rakesh said. The werewolf worked a kink out of his neck. “Where then, if not to a hospital.”

“To the Citadel Building.” Seventeen said, after a moment's hesitation. “Marduk, you've been there, you know where it is. We'll have medical treatment there. Strange as it seems, having nearly-dead Guardians stagger in is not an unusual turn of events. We can also contain Wormwood there.”

“So much troubles over me.” Chernenko murmurred. “I'm flattered.”

“Whim... is probably arrested by now, to be honest.” Seventeen said, casting a nervous look at Wormwood. He drew a cellphone from his pocket however. “She was going to keep the police off us. Still, I'll try and call her once we get moving.”

Rose was the slowest to catch up to everyone, she blamed the fact that she had the most stylish shoes and was holding a goober filled brain. "You found-? OH!" The anchors glow was noticeable instantly and the stripper snatched it slightly rudely from Erins grasp.

"Your just a little ball of weird and destruction!" Tucking the hammocked brain between her knees Rose leaned over and, with out realizing why, grabbing both sides of Erins face and showed her thanks the only way a stripper knows how without removing clothing! It wasn't a romantic kiss, or even a good kiss, but none the less it was a kiss. The poor aching stripper realized immediately, a jolt of electrified happy vibes shooting through her, that she had just been played. Apparently GeGe hadn't been satisfied with just one smooth for the night. She placed the wand with the brain in the makeshift basket in the borrowed sweater adjusting herself and decided somewhere in the back of her mind that at the very least, that she had gotten rid of the dog cooties and passed them on to this girl.

"Your such a slut." she mumbled to GeGe, though it looked slightly off since she stared at Erin while saying it.

Rose had no idea what she was going to do with all the anchors yet but the important thing was she had all three. She could send an email or text some of her fellow ''Random Ass Dead' forum Krew members when they got away from this place and she had a moment.

"Oh sweetie." Rose looked to Cae and then Wormwood "If this whole night has been about you having some kinky sexual fetish that has to do with clocks and zombies were going to need to get you some serious therapy."

Everyone was filing in to the van and Rose clutched the anchors to her. "I wont be much help to you back there and I don't trust mister tentacles not to keep his wiggling members to himself so Ill take shotgun." This statement had nothing to do with the fact that she had been shot by a shotgun earlier.

"You, my dear math equation waiting to happen, need to have more imagination. There are many horrible kinky things in this world and I'm pretty sure if I talked to my co-workers I could find one that involves having things shoved through you. But Cu would have to be gay for that excuse to work..." she pondered as she went to the passengers side "and it would have had to have been one hell of a penis to make that hole..." she tisked and tisked to herself unable to loose the happy feelings she was having even though a man was half way dieing in the back of the van.

Sometimes having a geist filled with joyful feelings oozing out of it to infect your own personality could make a you seem like such a cold hearted bitch!

Erin: x=
Rose: o3o
Kiss: o3o X=

"The Citadel Building it is, then," Ilkin said cheerfully and set the van going. "Erin, if you could, call the fire department. We shall be to our destination shortly!"

"So you keep prisons in your Guardian Fortress?" he continued blithely, heedless of Wormwood's taunts, "It would be a nice field trip sometime."

I have no idea what to add right now but my head is claustrophobic right now.

"Kallisti," Erin replied softly. The Hesperidean apples were not traditionally the apple of Discord, but this one had certainly caused enough of it. "You shouldn't leave him alone, sir," she said to Rakesh.

She squirmed when Rose grabbed her, but wasn't able to prevent herself from being smooched. She wiggled free and skittered away, warring between childish dislike and utter confusion, especially after the stripper - ostensibly - called her a slut immediately afterwards. A giant frown appeared on her face, and she wiped off her lips with her sleeve, looking like someone who'd been caught and kissed by their detested aunt who wore too much lipstick.

"He wouldn't really..." Erin started to correct, but stopped when Rose started to get into graphic x-rated descriptions of the logistics. The giant frown reappeared on her face as she stared at the other woman, then shifted her eyes around as if expecting someone to jump out of nowhere and get them all in trouble for vulgar language. Erin walked away from the van and its chatter and dialed 112 on Ilkin's cellphone.

"Ex-excuse me?" she said when she got to the operator. "But I was looking out my window and there's smoke coming out of a building nearby. Can I have the Fire Department?" She paused for a while while she listened to the other line. "It's the Museum, ummm, that Industrial Revolution Museum. I'm on the street now, it smells like something's burning... I don't know when it started, I just saw it now. Please come quickly..."

Address given, Erin hung up the phone and returned, handing the cell over to Ilkin. Then she hopped into the back of the van, checking on Cu before sitting down next to Wormwood. She folded her hands atop her knees as she stared at him, looking at the man with intent regard and an unfathomable expression.

"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Seventeen said, a little bit more seriously than that tired chestnut of a response deserved. Then again, it was singularly unlikely that Seventeen would be required to kill Ilkin in the event of some grievous breach of secrecy. The Guardians had other people for that.

"You need not worry. You caught me, yes?" Chernenko said, raising his handcuffed hands for a moment and making the chain go clink-clink. "Though usually incantations and pentagrams are more traditional. But you caught me, and so, you may do with me what you like."

"Charming." Rakesh said, pausing as the van got started, and then transforming once more into a whole lot of wolf. It was lucky that Erin had acquired a very large van, as between the table and the wolf, most of the rest of you were pressed up against the walls. "Since we caught you, you get to offer us some Faustian bargain?"

"If I offered, would you take it?" Wormwood said with a profoundly disinterested shrug.

And that marks the end of this scene. We now proceed to the Citadel Building, and the Epilogue!