[hider=Notes] R31GN and God co-wrote this post since their characters were going to have so much back-and-forth interaction for this little scene. It’s split into sections, authorship (almost always) denoted. [/hider] [center]-≡╫≡- R31GN:[/center] Ramsay breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the van and saw that it was still there, just about as intact as it had been when he had left it. He grunted as he lowered himself down to a knee, gently resting Jackie’s body down on the concrete, head propped against the chipped white paint job of the van, red-brown stains of rust splattering the side. He carelessly flung open the back doors of the van, just to check that it was indeed still filled with fuel. He smiled on seeing the stacks of red gas canisters still in place. Ramsay took in a deep whiff, the heavy scent of gas calming his nerves. He slammed the doors shut again, a satisfying clap of metal slamming against metal accompanying the gesture. He moved around to the front of the van, opening the passenger door and tossing in his MAC-10 onto the seat carelessly. It dropped heavily from the battered leather seat onto the cluttered floor of the van, resting among varied nuts, bolts, and tools that lay scattered across the stained metal. Ramsay swept a newspaper off of the seat hurriedly, and picked the gun up once again, this time more carefully depositing the weapon in the cupholder of the vehicle. The interior of the van looked like a strange mix of ‘abandoned for years in a scrap heap’ and ‘has a questionable number of homeless guys living in it’ -an aesthetic that Ramsay was quite used to at this point in his life. [color=lightseagreen]”You know how to use this thing, kiddo? I’m gonna need you to cover me when we roll this in there.”[/color] Ramsay said as he gestured to Lana, holding the door open. His voice had a strangely grim and serious tone to it, something that surprised even him. When Lana scrambled in, slamming the door after her hurriedly, Ramsay opened his mouth as if to say something -he quickly thought better of it, and walked around to the driver side of the van, flinging the door open a bit harder than he wanted to. As he moved to slide into the driver’s seat, he couldn’t fight a slight tingling in the back of his mind -the feeling one might get if they leave the sink running perhaps. He was certain that there was something important he was forgetting, but what could it be? Ramsay looked from side to side, eyes dully scanning around as if hoping to find the answer before they came to rest on Jackie, still leaning against the van. [color=lightseagreen]”Shit. Shit. Shiiiiiit.”[/color] Ramsay muttered as the realization hit him. He looked around rather frantically, hoping that there would be another H10 member nearby to watch over Jackie while he dropped a flaming bag of shit on the Breakers doorstep, but the area was ghost-town empty. He wouldn’t have been surprised if a tumbleweed floated across the cracked pavement of the parking lot. He cocked his head to the side, grunting in frustration. He leaned down and picked up Jackie, straining to keep her still as he moved her. He peeked into the back, trying to find somewhere to lie her down, but was unable to find enough empty space to safely put an unconscious body. [color=lightseagreen]”Okay, this is fine. This is okay.”[/color] Ramsay said, his voice betraying the opposite. A stroke of genius, a solution to all of his problems, a straight miracle of human ingenuity. All words that one would never use to describe the plan that jumped to Ramsay’s mind in that moment. But goddamn if that was going to stop him. Shaking in the driver's seat of the van, Ramsay carefully took one of the slick silvery pills from around his neck, tossing it down his throat quickly. Almost instantly this time, Ramsay felt hands spring out from him, brushing against every surface within his powers radius. White knuckled grip around Jackie, Ramsay gripped his surroundings even more tightly through the Neon. As if carried by an invisible Michael J. Fox, a set of keys floated shakily to the ignition, clattering through the air. Shifting his attention, Ramsay looked to his gun lying dormant in the cupholder. Snapping to attention with frightening speed, the MAC-10 moved from the cupholder to the window -smashing through the glass as the barrel moved from side to side excitedly like a dog sticking it’s head out of the window. At the same time, Ramsay’s cracked phone floated in front of his face, dim white glow blazing like a spotlight in his eyes. An aux cord reaching with serpentine curves up through the empty space found it’s way to the headphone port of the phone with a light click. The van sprung to life under his power, engine revving while the lights blinked on and off. The roaring of the engine was accompanied by music blaring through the speakers. “Shake it off, I shake it off-” [color=lightseagreen]”Nope!”[/color] Ramsay shouted, quickly switching the track. Color rose to his cheeks as he telekinetically fumbled with the phone to find a more appropriate song. “The bass and the tweeters-” [color=lightseagreen]”Not quite…”[/color] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raTqf-R5rYE] “Falling towards the sky...”[/url] [hider=Music] [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raTqf-R5rYE[/youtube] Falling Towards The Sky by Jeff Williams, Feat. Lamar Hall and Casey Lee Williams [/hider] [color=lightseagreen]”There we go.”[/color] Ramsay said with an ever increasingly confident tone in his voice. He glanced down to Jackie, still held tight in his arms, before looking over to Lana. He gave her a reassuring nod, before snapping the gear shift into drive. [center]-≡╫≡- God:[/center] This van had been a lifeboat. An ironic feeling for Lana to have, really, considering that it was loaded with fuel and was meant to deliver the final deathblow to the Breakers. But that future wasn’t what bothered her. No, it was when shit started telekinetically soaring about that Lana’s unease increased and she started to re-think her choice to go with Trigger. She did not know how to use ‘this thing’ (the MAC-10) but hadn’t said so, because she wanted in that van, dammit. It became quickly clear that he didn’t need her, though. He could use it without his hands. Ramsay was being watched with wide dark eyes and an open mouth. Okay, so a machine gun that looked as if it was being operated by a ghost was covering them. The three of them were crammed into the front of a blaringly-loud van, and Lana was starting to come so undone that her sense of panic detached from her. No, it didn’t detach, it [i]manifested[/i]. She didn’t notice it at first, with all the rest of the chaos flying around. Half-huddled against the door behind her, one arm raised to curve above her head, she might as well have been watching Trigger from underneath a rock. What she thought was her heartbeat - or the havoc the bass wreaked on it - was slamming behind her seat. The spastic electronica thumped like a physical thing. Wait, no, it was a physical thing. Claws scraped over Lana’s wrist and she felt the rasp of feathers against her cheek. Lana screamed and flinched the other way, this time closer to the driver. What looked like a large ball of gray feathers was fluttering against the passenger side window and windshield. While it beat its wings, it stirred Lana’s dark hair and added to the impression that a small circus might be residing in the cab. The bird’s claws rasped against the dashboard, finally managing to catch on the soft plastic at the base of the windshield. It was nothing but a small cockatiel. Long tail feathers, washed in dull yellow. Sunshine-bright crest, raised like an eyebrow. Fireball explosions on each cheek, dove-gray feathers and wings edged in white, held slightly away from its anxiety-slimmed body. The heart in its breast was pounding, the whole creature shuddering with each rapid breath. Lana could feel her thoughts scatter, the overwhelming sense of too much hyper-awareness of...everything. The only answer was to get out of this van and fly as far and as high as she could to get a better vantage point on the situation. But no, that was the bird. Just as Lana was starting to get a grip on that, it began flapping around again. She huddled down, fingers laced behind her head. The bird swung a loop around the van - shat on Trigger - and somehow managed to avoid escaping out the smashed window with the machine gun bobbing in it. It landed on the head of Lana’s unused seat belt buckle, wings splayed to either side, helping to hold it there. The bird let out an eeping squawk. [center]-≡╫≡- R31GN:[/center] The cacophony of feathers and wailing went largely unnoticed by Ramsay, who was having a hard enough time keeping track of his gun, phone, the van, and Jackie. His concentration was interrupted -to say the least- by the sudden bid shit all over his flannel. He looked down at the green and white mess running down from his shoulder, eyes wide. When he saw the cockatiel resting on his dashboard, Ramsay lashed out with his power reflexively. An invisible fist smashed through the front windshield, spraying glass out from the front of the vehicle where the bird was. The bird was lucky that Ramsay couldn’t affect organics with his power, else it might look like a breaker after Alex was finished with him. At the same time, he slammed down on the brakes, his telekinetic power almost reflexively grabbing the seatbelts on all of the seats and forcefully clicking them shut. Taking heavy breaths, eyebrows raised high as if they were trying to become at one with his hairline, Ramsay looked back and forth between the bird, Lana, and the shattered windshield of the van. [color=lightseagreen]”Why the fuck is there a bird in my van.”[/color] Ramsay said, trying very hard to remain calm. Though the phrasing was that of a question, his tone of voice sounded far more like a statement as he looked to Lana, eyes still wide due to shock. And drugs, but mostly shock. [center]-≡╫≡- God:[/center] When Trigger hit the brakes, Lana’s little body went flying. Huddled down as it was, she hit her head and right shoulder against the dashboard, popping the glove box open. Even as this happened, the seatbelt snaked down across her newly aching shoulder. At the touch (which she thought was the bird) she sat straight upright, spine against the seat. It was not more reassuring to see the seatbelt reaching diagonally across her torso and locking her in. Lana made a sound, not a word: “Ah...h…” (Nor was it a laugh.) Ramsay’s serious voice pulled her eyes around to him. “Uhm,” she squeaked, vocal chords feeling strangled. “I think that’s my fault.” She turned her head to look at the bird beside her face, silky wing on her cheek. She looked into its dilated pupil. The irises of its eyes were so dull and dark a blue as to appear black at anything but so close a distance, but she could see its slate-gray distinction contracting and expanding. Its hooked bill was slightly parted. It had a grayish pink tongue that reminded Lana of a pencil’s eraser. She could hear the breath hissing out of it. [center]-≡╫≡- R31GN:[/center] Ramsay’s face softened when Lana spoke up, ‘taking responsibility’, so-to-speak, for the bird. He took a deep breath, before letting out a hearty chuckle that brought back once again the stinging pain in his ribs that cut off his merriment almost immediately. [color=lightseagreen]”Hell, as long as it doesn’t shit on me again, why not.”[/color] He said in a mock-stern tone of voice, before letting out another wheezing laugh. The objects around the van once again snapped to attention, all moving into their previous positions. The vehicle sprung to life once more, driving in a wide loop around the AutoMach where the firefight was dying down. Ramsay wove between those of the H-10 slowly trickling out from the fight. A stray bullet or two ripped through the air after them, but many of the Breakers were retreating themselves as their Neon ran down and their glow faded. Between the roaring engine, blaring music through the speakers, a din of screeching from Lana’s bird, and Ramsay himself shouting for blood, it was hard to not notice the van’s entrance into the AutoMach through an unfortunately open garage-style door. The vehicle stampeded through the building, glancing off of the side of an old jalopy of a Crown Victoria in it’s reckless abandon. When the van came skidding to a halt towards the center of the automach, a pair of Breakers came up to contest the new entrance -guns blazing as they walked. As the Breakers approached, their progress was quickly halted by a hail of bullets from the seemingly alive MAC-10. The smoking barrel stayed trained on the two thugs long after they died, and long after the magazine of the gun was empty -largely because Ramsay was putting his focus elsewhere. Though he hadn’t popped the pill too long ago, the mass amount of multitasking Ramsay was attempting taxed his Neon reserve heavily, and he could feel his grasp over his surroundings weakening. Angrily, he clenched even tighter with his power at the surroundings, maintaining as much control as he could while walking around to the back of the van. While the immediate threat was gone, there were plenty of reasons to get gone ASAP. [center]-≡╫≡- God:[/center] Lana was white-knuckling the unwanted seatbelt with both hands. A bird flying around their heads was the least of their worries. In fact she hoped it might catch a stray bullet and save their asses. It had no such heroic swandive. Instead, it merely faded out at a moment unnoticed amidst the dangerous mayhem. Lana re-absorbed the panic, which unfortunately lived to be a totally useless hindrance another day. The bird didn’t go away because Lana was calming down. Far from it. The Neon was just phasing out and weakening in her system, adrenaline burning through it like a match. Despite having seen everything, with her own eyes, Lana could not quite believe it. Most of all, more than all the unbelievable things she had seen today, she could not quite believe that she was still alive. Literally, she could not have told you for sure whether she was or was not. But it looked like most of them were going to make it out of this thing alright. Revenge: exacted, losses: mitigated. [center]-≡╫≡- R31GN:[/center] As Ramsay slid out of the driver’s seat, clutching Jackie tightly, he saw her eyes flutter. Almost as soon as he hit the floor, Jackie began struggling against his hold. Surprised, Ramsay leaned down and let Jackie’s feet swing to the floor, still holding tight to her arm for support. [color=lightseagreen]”Woah, Jackie, you okay? Can you walk?”[/color] Ramsay said with a voice dripping in concern. [color=hotpink]“Yeah, I think I’m okay, thanks Trig. That bitch with the blue light just knocked me out is all. Don’t give me that look, [i]I’m[/i] allowed to say bitch. Men aren’t. --Hey, I saw the kid...Svetlana? You get her out, alright? You gotta get everybody out.”[/color] [b][i]BANG[/i][/b] The gunshot cracked the white noise that filled the AutoMach, leaving a ringing silence in it’s wake. As Jackie fell limp, Ramsay’s vision blurred, eyes suddenly wet. He looked down, kneeling down to ease her descent. Past a maze of vehicles he could see the Breaker that shot her, already walking away without a second thought. Blood tore from the bullet wound in her neck, spilling across Ramsay’s shirt as he tightly clutched to her body. Even as he pressed a hand tight against the wound, he felt her breath growing more shallow and her heartbeat slowing -there was nothing he could do. [hider=Music] [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8KQmps-Sog[/youtube] Uprising by Muse [/hider] His eyes raised from the floor, narrowed with a new determination. Though he could feel his grip on the Neon weakening, he still had enough left in him. Fire burned in his eyes as he stood, Jackie’s body held tight against his blood soaked chest. As he walked by, the back door of the van flung itself open, and a canister of gas came floating out. Under a fist of telekinetic influence, the canister was crushed, sending a spray of gasoline out in a long line from the back of the van, painting a dark line of the liquid that pointed to the exit hole smashed by Dante. Ramsay followed the line of gasoline, a sobbing, hyperventilating Lana close behind him as they went towards the exit. Rather luckily, they met little resistance on their way to the exit. H-10 and Breakers alike had seen enough bloodshed for the day, it seemed, and people were far more occupied with getting the hell out of there rather than killing off anyone else. When the grim trio reached the end of the trail, a lighter shakily made its way out of Ramsay’s pocket with the last of his power -his glow was running on fumes at this point. It flicked on, hovering just above the darkened pool of fuel for just a second before Ramsay was truly out of power and it fell to the floor. Light flared up, following the trail back to the van before punctuating the exit of the last of the H-10 crew. [center][h3][b][i][color=red]B[/color] [color=orangered]O[/color] [color=orange]O[/color] [color=yellow]M[/color][/i][/b][/h3][/center]