From Tampa to Miami.
“Isla, put me right in front of that dickhead. Just make sure you’re behind me when you do,” commanded Penny.
"Sis," Madison said, not having a single fuckin' clue what this crazy broad was even planning. She saw everything that Penny did in Farmer Hill and figured that she had some idea, but teleporting in front of a gun-toting dickhead was a quite honestly
retarded idea. Honestly, despite Madison being thrust into this whole magic thing she was still uncomfortable with a lot of stuff. Like leaping into action like she's a damn superhero, maybe that was that white-girl shit but Madison was
never going to be comfortable with it. "Just what-"
“Huh- Shit! On it!”
... and of
course, tweedle-dum goes along with it without a second thought and disappeared in the
blink of an eye in front of the cowboy. Madison's heart started racing when she looked inside and heard the
enormous boom of the magnum that he had. She just
knew that Penny or Isla would get shot - as much as she found the latter annoying and weird, Madison didn't think that she deserved to
die. Thankfully, she was distracted from the possible death of Penny and/or Isla by...
... Mariah getting the shit kicked out of her by a horse.
Poor Mariah.
It seems that nut never had the best luck ever since she joined the Coven, but shit happens in the Coven, unfortunately. Like getting the fire kicked out of you by a horse. Well, it looked like they had the situation in the gas station handled... well, as far as she could stretch the definition of "handled". Madison shook her head as she muttered to herself, "... The Jaws." The Jaws manifested in his barrier form around Madison and suddenly the horse started freaking out.
Madison didn't know why, nor did she care as she quickly moved over to Mariah and grabbed her by the scuff of her shirt... looking at the disgusting gas station pickle in abstract horror as she pulled her away. Mariah was
not bringing that thing on board. She was tanking a few hits from the horse rather effortlessly, but with everyone running around screaming not a soul would notice. However, the Jaw's manifested a single snake-like neck and floated over to the tether that was holding the horse to the bollard and chomped down on it. Snapping it in half in a single bite... and then spoke,
"... Flee."
The horse took off running, getting the hell away from the Jaws as fast as he (from the horse penis) could. Madison looked down at the pickle as she looked at the Jaws.
"Jaws, I know I ask a lot from you..." Madison started, "... but please get rid of that god damn pickle."
"Gladly," The Jaws said before he lunged at the disgusting gas station pickle with open jaws (
geddit?) ready to send that thing to the other fucking side.
"Thank you for your fine donation, madam," The Cowboy said, "Place that on the floor, I'll handle-" Suddenly two madams appeared right in front of him and his eyes shot open as he pulled the trigger, shouting,
"... What in tarnation?!"
The bullet was repulsed away from Penny and Isla and went... right past Emily's head. Like it missed it by about a foot, but a near miss is still a near miss. Emily stopped in her tracks as the bullet absolutely
wrecked the refrigerator and put a gigantic hole in it. Emily paused in her tracks as she had lifted the hem of her shirt... to load with as much candy as it could hold. She screamed as she jolted and dropped a large sum of the candy.
The Florida Man dropped his revolvers almost immediately after firing the colossal round. He dropped to his knees soon after and grabbed his wrist as he screamed, "God damn it! My God damn wrists! Oh heavens me!"
Claudette had fallen over and by the time the first round had been fired, she feared the worst. That one of the sisters had been hit, but she got up and looked around. Fortunately, no one was blasted in half by a comically oversized pistol... that thing looked like it could kill an elephant. Claudette had to think fast and be a leader! She saw Grace and immediately ran over to her and grabbed her wrist... and adrenaline and fear were preventing her from thinking straight and noticing that Grace's hand was covered in lighting.
Claudette violently convulsed as she grit her teeth and her eyes went up into her head as her poofy afro... got even poofier. When she released her grip, Claudette fell backward unconscious.
When the decision had been made to exclude Vashti from the trip to Miami she had been too self-absorbed to even notice. Logically, it made perfect sense, but as the Coven packed up and shipped off she couldn’t help but feel like they were abandoning her. The quiet of the near-empty beach house should’ve provided her with some much-needed peace where she could’ve meditated on the fact that she had been nothing more than a little shit since Kayla had recruited her back at the Dairy Queen.
Instead, the opposite was happening.
Her discontent only grew as Vashti sat curled up on the couch and stared listlessly at the television as a documentary proving the Earth was hollow played, the bottle of wine she’d discovered left behind by Madison’s raid cradled between her legs. She’d hoped to find some comfort in her private pity party, but it was being crushed by the deep, vibrato growls of her lizard brain. The Leviathan prodded her, egging her on to wild out and thrash the beach house. Break the television, smash the mirrors, fuck up Madison’s bedroom, and wait triumphantly for their return. Turn their little sanctuary into a breeding ground of chaos and let the destruction unfurl. Teach them a lesson, only it was the kind of lesson that had no meaning beyond spite, like assigning a class extra homework on a three-day weekend.
Vashti clicked the volume of the TV up to the max to try and drown out the Leviathan, except the Leviathan wasn’t whispering to her anyway. The ideas were coming from her brain, not the pea-sized brain of a primordial alligator of mass destruction. Well, her brain, plus alcohol. Vashti looked down at the bottle, then up at the TV, and then back to the bottle. The two of them should meet. Vashti paused. Was proving Madison right about the whole scared Bambi who wanted nothing more than attention truly be the best course of action?
Yup!
Madison had asked for Vashti to be real, so Madison would be to blame for when things got real. Hah! She could use logic to be an asshole, too. Vashti hefted the half-full wine bottle and cocked it back, ready to go full-on ham in the Coven’s shared space like a burnout rockstar in the luxury suite of a Marriott Hotel.
More or less being a babysitter was not how Kimberly thought she would be spending the day.
She sighed, as she was hunched over the bed mindlessly pressing away at her laptop. If she wasn't used to the pounding of keyboard keys this sound would have long become obnoxious. Kim was hoping that this wasn't someone's bed that she was planting her ass on, but the Coven wasn't very clear about which rooms were vacant. In her head, she was desperately trying to justify her decision not to tell the Coven about the true nature of the Dollhouse.
It was for the greater good!Kimberly told herself, but she couldn't help but feel like it would be on her if the Dollhouse abscised one of them. Or their reactions to the fact that she
worked with a bunch of human traffickers. She planned to just... tell them she didn't know, but ignorance is hardly an excuse, and as dumb as they were, she doubted they'd buy into a supernatural expert like
her not knowing about them. Kimberly pushed her glasses up her nose. Even if one of them got abscised, maybe it'd be worth it if they came back with the cure?
Holy fuck, what am I becoming?!?Kimberly shook her head as she hated even thinking about it... though, her thinking was being drowned out by the TV is turned up to the max by Vashti... and it
had to be Vashti since Rowan was out at the pool. Some heroes they were. At first, Kimberly was going to
ignore the TV, but it was honestly getting obnoxious.
Getting up, Kimberly didn't even bother to lock her laptop because she was just going into the other room - Nobody could
possibly get into the room that fast. She quickly moved into the big room with the TV, about to
kindly request that Vashti turns it down. However, she saw Vashti, with a wine bottle in her hand, arm cocked back. Kimberly didn't know what it was, but she got the feeling that Vashti wanted to throw it at the TV screen.
"Vashti, nooooooooo!" Kimberly shouted, almost like she was dealing with a fucking child or a dog that about to piss on the carpet.
Because it
really started to feel like it.
Vashti craned her neck back and gave Kimberly a withering stare as if she was being the obnoxious one for shouting. When she had first seen Kimberly again alongside the others, Vashti felt the same kind of fear from the Leviathan that she felt when she was around Lyss. However, now that the two of them were alone that fear was now gone, replaced by a surge of anger fueled by the half-empty bottle of wine. Kimberly was to blame for all of this. This pathetic fucking shaved primate was the reason for every humiliation Vashti had suffered at the hands of the Coven. Everything, everything, everything was Kim's fault. Thus, in turn, this goddamn asshole was the reason why the Leviathan wasn't ruling the Coven as she should be.
Vashti didn't throw the bottle at the TV screen, because Vashti was gone. The wine bottle exploded into a shower of glass as it popped in the Leviathan's hands. Undeniably, the couch would be ruined by a horrible wine stain, just like the rest of the living room would be ruined by a horrible red Kimberly-supplied bloodstain if the Leviathan had her way. With a guttural screech, the Leviathan flipped around on the couch and lunged over it, claws jutting out at Kimberly's face.
... and the Leviathan disappeared with the merest flick of her finger.
Kimberly had pulled out her camera and immediately sealed the mighty Leviathan inside of yet another photograph. It wouldn't take, as Kimberly realized that the way Vashti's curse works...maybe she creates a new Levithan each time she transforms? She didn't know. Kimberly just sighed.
Just a fancy babysitter.
The gut-wrenching warcry shifted into a startled shout as Vashti tripped over the top of the sofa. Unable to catch her balance, she instead caught the floor with her face. Splayed out at Kimberly's feet, dazed both by the flash of the camera and the betrayal of gravity, she let out a low groan. Slowly, she pulled herself up to her knees and looked at her red hand. Thankfully, it was only wine; the glass had managed not to cut her. She felt equal parts embarrassed and relieved for transforming. Vashti raised her head and met Kimberly's eyes.
"Um, I saw another bottle by the front door. Do you want some wine?" asked Vashti tentatively.
Kimberly crossed her arms and looked at Vashti. She picked up on how Vashti felt, but that didn't exactly explain or justify why she was about to ruin a great TV.
"... Vashti, what is the problem?" Kimberly asked, before remembering that she said that she wasn't their therapist... and then she was taking the role of a therapist. A shitty one. "You've been acting... like what the fuck happened?"
"What happened?" asked Vashti, steadying herself against the couch as she climbed to her feet. The Coven happened. She chuckled, shook her head, and trudged over to Madison's second abandoned bottle of wine.
"Oh my god, it's like you don't know them at all.""Oh my god!" she shouted from the other room. Vashti tore back into the living room, almost skidding across the floor to a stop against the back of the sofa, her hand fiddling with the cork on the new bottle. Her voice was heavy with accusation as the revelation hit her in full force.
"You don't know them at all!?" "I don't," Kimberly flatly answered as she seemed unphased by the theatrics. Maybe she didn't do the right thing there, but she did it in good faith at the very least. From what she saw from Agatha and the other chick, they seemed nice and level-headed. Good people even. Especially since she heard that Madison was among them. Kimberly sighed.
"... But, you
need to calm down and answer my question." Kimberly felt like there was a lot that Vashti didn't tell her either. Of course, there were two sides to every coin and while Kimberly was
not taking sides here, she was naturally a bit more inclined to side with Madison on this matter. Only out of guilt.
"Calm down? Because of these girls, I nearly had my heart ripped out," barked Vashti with a slight slur, tugging down her collar to show her scar from the Outsider. She continued by pointing with the wine bottle to her injured right arm in the sling,
"Because your friend Madison sicced her dinosaur on me I nearly lost my arm. And all of this only happened because you sent me here. Fine, fine. I'm calm. I'm cool."To show how calm and cool she was, Vashti continued to fight her losing battle against the wine cork. She shoved the bottle at Kimberly in frustration.
"Wait, what was the question?"Once again, Vashti was giving the
smallest amount of information possible while of course trying to maximize blame. She couldn't help but roll her eyes when Vashti asked her what happened. That didn't seem like Madison to just... attack Vashti like that. However, if she had to be honest, she didn't know Madison that well. Plus, if it was how it seemed, then it was Kimberly's fault.
"Explain to me - slowly - what happened. Why did Madison attack you?
What prompted this?"
"Okay," said Vashti.
"Claudette thought it would be a good idea for us to all practice our abilities by playing a game of capture the flag. I was going to sit out, but Madison made me play by mocking me. When I got the flag, she used the Jaws to tackle me and it made the Leviathan come out. There was a fight, but Lyss was able to drive it away. Even though I was me again, I still felt like they were trying to kill me so I was...on the ground panicking.Vashti frowned. Why'd she felt like she was talking to her mom? More importantly, why hadn't Kimberly helped her with the wine bottle yet?
"I saw Madison walk over to me, she pretended to offer her hand to help me up, and then she summoned the Jaws and it attacked me while I was defenseless," said Vashti, trying her best to stay calm as she spoke.
"She put me in the fucking hospital, dude."A thousand different justifications, excuses, and ways to dance around the problem went through Kimberly's head. Did Madison
really attack Vashti like this? Or more likely, did Kimberly's shitty, stupid, and ill-advised actions lead to this conclusion? She didn't want to admit that, not just yet.
"... I didn't know she would do
this," Kimberly looked off to the side before her gaze landed on Vashti again. "... Either way, you
don't have to act like this."
She just flatly answered. Vashti grimaced but kept silent.
"They're going to get your cure, then you can leave and pretend none of this ever happened. It's over."
"Oh, yeah, totally, I can just go back to a normal life," snipped Vashti, rolling her eyes.
"If you knew there was a place I could've gotten cured, why didn't you just send me there?""...
By yourself?" There was a very good reason why Kimberly wouldn't send Vashti to meet a shady Black Market organization. Even if they
didn't steal people's bodies. Vashti was probably not the most popular with the Coven (because she wasn't). "If I sent you into the black market by yourself, who
knows what would have happened."
"The Dollhouse is dangerous ?" asked Vashti, her eyes narrowed with skepticism.
"... They
are Black Market." Kimberly flatly replied.
"Do you ever consider your actions?" hissed Vashti, an ironic statement coming from her.
"The Coven can't go get ice cream without starting shit, and you sent them to go see a bunch of mobsters?"Vashti's holier than thou attitude was
really starting to get on Kimberly's nerves. However, she was still willing to justify her actions - regardless of how shady they sound. "They have people like Lyss and Penny watching out for them," Kimberly answered. "All they have to do is
go there, get the cure, and then come back. That's it." Kimberly leaned up against the wall and then crossed her arms.
"It wasn't like I
didn't tell them they weren't a black market organization. Like I
lied to them about something," Kimberly stated, "They knew what they were getting into. No ambiguity about it."
"But you don't know the Coven like I do! It's not gonna be as easy as you say it will. Chaos and destruction follow them wherever they go," snapped Vashti, no longer able to maintain a cool head. She began to imagine the worst-case scenario where the Coven got in a fight with the Dollhouse. They could handle themselves well, but could they come away from something like that unscathed? She didn't know the answer, and that was terrifying.
"What if somebody gets hurt, or worse? Don't you care?" Vashti thought of Herik and Emily. Even if they didn't (justifiably) like her anymore because of her own damned selfishness, she still cared about them.
"A cure that might not even work isn't worth that!"It wasn't long before Kimberly reached her breaking point. Maybe Vashti wasn't wrong about what she was saying, but Vashti was starting to get under her skin. Especially since all Kimberly did was
try to help her. Try to do the right thing, and Vashti's acting like she was the only holy soul here!
"... But, you don't know the situation like I do!" Kimberly spat back as she stood up. "It
will work! I've been going to them for months, no problem! Do you think that I worked with those bastards because I had another better option?! Like I got some hard-on for sick fucks?!"
Kimberly was shouting and realized that she was being as emotional as Vashti. Vashti was surprised by Kimberly's outburst and took a step back, bumping into the back of the sofa. With nowhere to go, she could only stare in shock as someone she had once regarded as a personal hero unloaded on her.
"Annabelle Heart is
killing people by the boatload. I don't know how many people are dead...
I don't know how many people she's even killed. I don't know how many people she
will kill, but we gotta stop her because who
knows what the ceiling for her power is!"
Tears almost ran down her eyes as she wiped them away. "I'm sorry to say it, but I've been crossed the threshold where
anything's an option! We have to try because there aren't any other options. It's the easiest job! If they hurt because they did something stupid..."
Kimberly sighed as she calmed herself down.
"... Then that's on them. I'm sorry."
"No, don't be," said Vashti, the fight gone from her voice as she lowered her eyes. Madison's accusations from earlier still rung in her ears. They felt more truthful than ever.
"I should be apologizing. If I didn't freak out during the game then they wouldn't have even called you here. Shit, it's just that ever since I joined the Coven I've been nothing but a burden and...and that sucks to admit."
"I'm sorry. I'm such an asshole," said Vashti. She wiped her eyes. She wasn't just an asshole; she was a useless asshole.
"I'm just so frustrated that I took it out on you." And now she was making things about herself again. Vashti sighed.
"I should clean this mess up. Uh, but if you need anything just let me know, okay?"Kimberly sighed. Did Vashti finally come around and realize that
maybe the world didn't revolve around her? Maybe. Maybe not. Kimberly wasn't breaking her neck to find out. Also, she realized maybe she was being a bit harsh on her. "Look, Vashti, it's... okay," Kimberly answered. "Just... I'm going to go back into my room and... just please keep it down. I'm going to hope I can find an alternative to the Dollhouse."
She softly said as she moved back into her room and back into her safe space.
"Keep it down. Okay, sure," said Vashti.
She looked around at the living room. The Leviathan had only been there for a second, but the couch was ruined. On top of the wine stain and the flecks of glass everywhere, there were also shredded bits of fabric from its claws. Meanwhile, its tail had managed to knock over an expensive-looking vase, which shouldn't matter because it wasn't there's except for now there was dirt, flowers, and shards of ceramic all over the floor. At least the television was spared. Sighing, Vashti picked up the remote and clicked it off. She couldn't let herself be distracted from cleaning up the mess she made.
Only she had no idea where to even start.
"Okay, time to be useful I guess."
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