___________________________________....... |  Soup Kitchen · Later Afternoon · In collaboration with [&.Exit] & [&.Abstract Proxy]Soup Kitchen · Later Afternoon · In collaboration with @Exit & @Abstract Proxy _
“Vasra…” Sonam began quietly, a look of fear passing over her face as her mind finally caught up with everything that had just happened. “I think… Did you know you’re a…” As if unconsciously afraid to put that thought into the world for fear it would somehow be more true than it already was, she refused to finish the sentence. However, her own body wouldn’t allow her a chance to think as when she’d finally brought her hands down, she’d inadvertently summoned a gust of air. Dust, debris and water was gently pushed away from her.
“What the fuck…” She said, her voice shaking.
“Is that what that was? I suspect you might be right,” Vasra said, her voice measured, her bearing collected, and her expression distinctly clinical.
She paused, casting a thoughtful gaze over the returned stranger. When she spoke, Vasra spoke carefully, and it was clear that she was conscious of the amount of uncertain witnesses, “I have worked with a number of interesting substances in my medical career, but I cannot say that I have ever noticed a personal capacity for bending in the past.”
Her eyes shifted to the still struggling young man. Vasra frowned, her face contorting into an unfamiliar shape, full of anger, as she stumbled towards her medical bag. Retrieving a metal syringe, she fit a needle, and drew up a pale liquid from a glass bottle.
Approaching the mindlessly failing youth, she coolly jabbed him with the syringe, pressing once the syringe was buried deep in his shoulder, “Enough, this ends now. Rest, be at peace, you have no reason to keep fighting.”
As the youth faded into heavy sleep from the sedative, Vasra turned towards Sonam, “None of this is normal. Something happened. Something is happening. The explosion.. This poor boy. Bending. Something is wrong. Very wrong…”
As Weiyuan stepped into the soup kitchen, he was immediately struck by a feeling of deja vu. It was a sensation he’d gotten used to. His other self had almost certainly been here very recently. Then again, it was shaping up to be a strange day, so it was hard to say anything was truly certain.
He didn’t get much farther than that moment of deja vu, however, as a second later someone was blasted into the wall by a torrent of water. There was something uncomfortably familiar about the person on the wall, but he couldn’t place it. Maybe it was just the glazed over eyes that they shared with the rabid person he’d planted into the street outside.
”What the…” The little girl had her hands in her hair now as she looked from her pinned brother to the collapsed area of the soup kitchen where the temporary medical wing had been set up. Her eyes were red and her breathing uneven as she tried to cope with what was happening around her. The flames at the other end of the room had spread, eating up almost a third of what remained of the dining hall and water had risen to about an inch.
”This is the Republic Security Force.” Came a more mechanical voice from outside. It was loud and echoed as if from a speaker, heralding another arrival. ”Please remain calm.”
”Shit.” Sonam carefully maneuvered closer to the door and spied an RSF vehicle drifting down from the sky. Blue and red lights illuminated burning streets, panicked faces and the eerie pink glow that had blanketed the entire block. As it approached the ground, a bay under the chassis opened up and something humanoid was dropped some fifty feet to the street below. It landed hard and without assistance, breaking up the asphalt upon impact and paying little attention to the force applied to its metal frame as it shouldered a rifle and began scanning the immediate area. It was slightly bulky and bipedal, with angular and blocky limbs, body and ‘face’. Dressed as if military and carrying on itself a number of easily visible crowd control devices. Although the padded armor marked it as an RSF officer, the thing was clearly not human.
From the center of the metal frame that was its head, a thin, nearly translucent beam was emitted like a cone. It swept horizontally, drawing a red line across every surface and every person within its line of sight. It stopped on a woman who had stumbled into the open road and she froze, but as she tried to remain still, the ground beneath her began to tremble.
The AI officer played a pleasant, two tone melody, not unlike one played for children, and shot the woman in the face.
”Benders. Please give up peacefully. I will not harm you.” It said flatly, continuing to scan. It turned toward the kitchen just as the RSF vehicle touched down not far from the robot.
”S-SHIT!” Sonam pressed against the wall. ”Get away from the door!” She yelled at Weiyuan, waving an arm at him. A violent torrent of wind was thrown in his direction, kicking up more water and debris, much to Sonam’s surprise.
The beam immediately fixated on the open doorway.
Weiyuan stumbled back, arms thrown over his eyes against the dust and debris thrown at him. It turned out to be overall fortuitous, as it left him clear of the AI’s scanner. He quickly pressed himself against the doorway, just barely out of sight.
This was bad. He couldn’t move unless it looked away. Somehow he had to make it look away. He shot a look at the other people nearby. There was the doctor who was a total unknown, and the wind-bender who had pushed him clear… but had also been the one to draw attention their way in the first place, so she didn’t seem terribly reliable.
He squared his body as best he could while staying flat to the wall. He just needed a single pebble and maybe he could get a bit of breathing room. He could feel what he needed on the opposite side of the wall, out on the street. Dozens of pebbles, rocks, and old chunks of asphalt that had been shoved to the side of the street over the years.
He knew what he needed to do, but could he do it? He needed to be precise, and right now precise was hard. He had power, but it wasn’t stable.
OK, so then he just wouldn’t bother with precision at all. He swung his left hand, the one farthest from the door out, and he could feel all the little rocks and pebbles outside try to follow it. He then swung it much harder, back toward the wall, pushing them all away again, sending them scattering across the street to clatter against the wall of the building opposite the soup kitchen.
Hopefully the thing outside would find that commotion more interesting than what had just happened inside.
The sound of rock hitting metal and the whining of overworking gears could be heard through the door as pebbles, stones and an entire slab of concrete were lifted and thrown at the AI. A wall of dirt cascaded over its frame like a wave and buried it in loose earth, ripping the thin red line tracing the kitchen away and opening up a window of opportunity for those inside to move. But just as one obstacle was removed, another was revealed.
”I… I can’t move…” Came the panicked whisper of the girl. She stood frozen in the center of a small cluster of suspended water droplets, her arms out and her body leaned forward as if she had been in the middle of moving out of the way of the door frame. Only, she hadn’t been allowed to. ”I…. can’t…. bre….”
Sonam’s eyes widened in fear. ”B-...backdoor… Backdoor! RUN! RUN NOW!” She screamed, pushing off the wall and bolting. Ignoring the girl or any measure of cover from whatever was tracking them, she vaulted over a small wall of fire and landed, or crashed, near a door just as shots from outside rang out. Bullets pierced the wall near Vasra and whizzed past Sonam’s head, burying themselves in the same door as she tore it open. ”GET IN!”
Weiyuan’s jaw dropped slightly. He… hadn’t meant to do that. Well it was fine. Now he just had to find Chae-Won and… what the hell was going on? Adding on to a long list of unfortunate and distracting events, the little girl suddenly found herself in the grasp of… something. Weiyuan shook his head. Problems for later! Chase-Won now!
Then the shooting started.
He dove to the floor, arms over his head and curling up. He cracked one eye opening, just trying to figure out where Chae-Won was. He’d crawl if he had to.
Meanwhile, it seemed gunfire was what would finally shock Chae-Won back to her senses. She rapidly blinked her open, suddenly wide-awake, though completely disorientated. Everything hurt, her ears were ringing, and she was struggling to remember where she was.
Then her eyes fell upon the kid, curled up nearby, trying to avoid being shot. Something in her immediately just snapped. It was clearly past time to be cautious.
She threw an arm out, intending to raise as much of a wall as she could to shield her while she got the kid and got out. A moment later, and a massive wall of earth burst up, tearing through the floor and battering aside tables. It careened forth, plowing through the outer wall at an angle and tearing it apart, leaving the massive, jutting slab of earth in its place.
Traditional gunfire wouldn’t be piercing that anytime soon.
“GAH! FUCK!” Chae-Won recoiled in horror at her own actions. She hadn’t meant to do that! “SHIT!” However, in her surprise, her startled motions caused two more slabs of earth to burst through the floor at odd angles, further adding to the earthen barricade. “Wh-wh-wh-”
She scrambled back, pushing herself to a sitting position before staring down at her trembling hands. What the absolute fuck was going on?! And then a pair of hands grabbed hers, holding them steady.
“K-kid? Wh-what the hell-” However, Weiyuan just shook his head. Clearly, this wasn’t the time for explanations, and, while she’d just given them ample cover, she’d also made ample commotion. “Right. Run first, talk later. Got it.”
It was a strange, strange day when she wasn’t the one in control, but for the moment, Weiyuan had had a few more minutes to make sense of things than she had. So far no sense had truly been made of it all, but… it was what it was.
The two got back to their feet and looked around. The room was on fire and falling apart at the seams, but it was mostly empty. It was them, the girl frozen in place, the doctor, and one guy nailed to the wall. At the back, they could see where Sonam had thrown the door open for them to escape through.
“GIrl, come on, what are-” Chae-Won tried to get the girl to run with them, but she just wasn’t budging. “What the f-... Screw it, they’re gonna surround the building if we don’t hurry! Everyone out!”
Chae-Won hurried ahead, waving for Wieyuan and the doctor to follow her… but Weiyuan hesitated. Could he really just leave someone behind without even trying to help?
He knew he was barely even a real person. He only existed to handle problems for his other self. It wasn’t his job to protect anyone else.
But… he would’ve tried too.
He shook her gently, then tugged on her, but nothing. He had no idea what was wrong, but… his only guess was that, maybe, if he could move her from that spot it might break the grip of whatever had a hold of her. It wasn’t like there was anything else he could try.
He took a few steps back and then, like back in the street, threw himself at her full force trying to just tackle her free of the spot. However, unlike outside, he wasn’t trying to spear the girl to the ground. If he got her to move, he’d try to roll and cushion the fall for her.
With any luck he’d be pulling her out of the room with the rest of them.
Weiyuan collided with the girl with enough force to move her, freeing her from the mysterious hold and pushing her to safety. But as she fell away and Weiyuan attempted to grab and roll with her to cushion her fall, his body suddenly froze, suspended in the air, exactly where the girl had been standing before. She hit the ground and began scrambling away, but Weiyuan remained where he was.
Oh no. He’d messed up. He couldn’t move. He could barely breathe. Now what was he going to-!?
PLASH!
He hit the floor, landing in a puddle of water. He momentarily wondered what had just happened, but with another cry of urgency from Sonam, he decided that, indeed, these were all questions for later. He pushed himself to his feet, attempting to haul the girl to her feet when he reached her, but between adrenaline shakes and his now wet shoes, he struggled. He wasn’t strong enough to lift an entire other person on a good day. If they weren’t in such a rush, maybe, but as it was…
He could have tried to use his bending, but after last time he was, quite frankly, afraid to even try. However, a pair of hands dragged him and the girl along a moment later.
“Next time you want to play hero, warn me!” Chae-Won shouted, shoving the two toward safety. She’d already peeled back a section of floor to create a gap in the fire, because at this point, what was a little more indiscriminate property damage?
Once they made it past Sonam, they took a second to breathe.
“OK, listen kid. Err, sorry, not you. Little girl. Once we’re clear of this, you get the hell away from us, got it? You don’t wanna be anywhere near us right now. Unless you wanna get shot for associating with benders.” Chae-Won told her while panting. Everything still hurt, her head was throbbing, she was pretty sure she had wood and glass splinters, and she still had no idea what the fuck was going on. She then looked to the others, “Assuming I don’t black out again… I think I can get us out of here…”
Her whole job was to know the streets, after all. |
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