Rabidporcupine

Rᴏsᴇꜰᴇʟʟ - A Cᴏᴍɪɴɢ Oꜰ Aɢᴇ Sᴛᴏʀʏ

@Dirty Pretty Lies
Alright, I've got a couple more pictures in.

SOL CITY - Modern Slice of Life - Chapter 2 - Completed & archived. 2/2

@PrinceAlexus
I'll probably edit it in just a bit.

Among the Ashes

"Jeez sis, languge…" Al said, a smug grin on his face. This was quickly followed by Giovanni, sitting against the door with droopy, uninterested eyes.

"Yeah sis, language." He said, a tired tone to his voice. "You can't be saying rude words live 'butts' when there are children present…"

"Hey, don't call me a damn kid!" Alistair snapped back, glaring at Joe. "I'm already twelve years old, ya dumb lump of superfluous fleshy waste!"

"Wait, seriously?" Joe asked. "I thought you were at least a teenager…"

"Oh, you son of a b-"

"ANYWAY…" Joe loudly interrupted the boy. "I always liked dogs. I'd never own one of the little monsters, but when someone else is doing all the work, they're alright."

He paused while the girl, who's name was apparently Na of all things, explained that, through some crazy leap of logic, he was the one in the wrong. Not that he didn't already know that they were probably the original owners, but damn it, it had looked uninhabited at the time, and it was such a nice house! How could he have passed it up?

He almost began to say something in response, but then she asked him why he didn't take Nino to a hospital, his mind suddenly went blank.

"A hospital." He said dumbly, staring at her in an 'are-you-serious' kind of way. "With everything that's going on, you still think I'd even consider going to a hospital? Any hospital that isn't filled with plague victims, not to mention most of 'em that are, are goddamn hellholes now. I said before, didn't I? Society is collapsing, and it's started with all the places that kept it up to begin with! Hospitals, gone. Police stations, gone. Fire stations, gone. All the fancy restaurants, shopping centres, airports, docks, and train stations, all gone."

"What?" Al asked, his eyes slowly widening. "What did you just say?"

"Yeah, weird right? No idea why people'd go for the fire stations… I mean, I get police stations, because how are you gonna spread anarchy with the police in the way, but fire stations just seem kind of like overk-"

"Oh my god, you're a fucking idiot." Alistair said, sighing into his hand. "The airport. The fucking AIRPORT! You said something happened at the airport!"

They were still there.

Mum and dad were still there.

They said they'd wait there until they could figure out which flight would be best to take, which places might be safest to travel to, and then come and get them as soon as they came to a decision.

After a moment, Giovanni's eyes widened too. He knew that look. He'd seen those eyes quite a bit over the first two weeks back in italy.

"Um, yeah…" He said slowly, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "Nino and I walked past an airport yesterday. It… It was bad…"

He looked as if he was planning to say more, but eventually just looked at the pair, the expression on his face saying more than words ever could.

"I'm sorry." He said finally.

Among the Ashes

"Yeah, I'm sure it's quite the struggle." Giovanni grunted, as dragged the houses dining table up to the door. "Helping someone who can walk and listen to you up the stairs. It must be so much harder than dragging all these heavy inanimate objects around. You're welcome, by the way."

"Oh my god, do you ever shut up?" Al asked, exasperation in his voice as he followed his sister up the stairs.

"I don't know, do you ever do something?!" Joe shot back. "Wait, don't answer that, just shut up."

"Oh, that's i-" Al began, before he too finally heard the dogs barking. His eyes widened, as he realised just how close the barking was, and he considered just how this might all go down. Surely, dogs wouldn't be feral yet, right? Things had only collapsed in the area recently! Dogs wouldn't be hungry enough to turn on people yet!

Still, he gripped the javelin tight enough for his knuckles to turn white, frozen in place as he stared at the door.

"Maybe you weren't listening brat." Joe said, standing by the door with a terrified smile on his face. "Get. Up. Stairs."

And then he had to slam his hand over his mouth to stifle another high pitched scream, as he heard the sound of light scratching at the door, followed by the sounds of a dog whining. However, it looked like the tables were able to hold, and he slowly backed away. After doing his best to act stealthy, he made it to the stairs and crawled up them. The fact that he was humming some stupid, unrecognisable tune in a shaky voice as he crept around probably didn't help for that, but damn it, it helped him feel less afraid! Finally, he reached the top of the stairs, at which point he entered a full on dash until he reached the room the others were in, Al included.

Once he entered, he quickly shut the door, before slumping against it and letting out all of his pent up fear in a single, massive groan, sliding down to the floor.

"Haaaah… Why'd it have to be dogs that became so mean?" He sighed, before looking up to Nino and the others with tired eyes. "Hey strangers, hows it going up here? How's Nino going?"

Rᴏsᴇꜰᴇʟʟ - A Cᴏᴍɪɴɢ Oꜰ Aɢᴇ Sᴛᴏʀʏ

@Dirty Pretty Lies
Ok, I'll fix that soon.

SOL CITY - Modern Slice of Life - Chapter 2 - Completed & archived. 2/2

@Pilatus
Oh… Oh balls.

Rebirth: At World's End

I'm still eager.

Among the Ashes

Oh, also, I'll mention now that my plan is to, around the start at least, make Giovanni look completely and utterly unimpressive, so he can have a cool big reveal when he actually does need to fight. Only Nino will know that he's actually even remotely capable, while Na and Alistair will just see him as kind of a useless, annoying lump. Maybe I'll let him cook once or twice so they don't just abandon him, but until the fight, he's unnecessary meat.

Among the Ashes

"Wow, how rude." Giovanni said. "You think I'd leave my adorable little brother in the hands of people who just tried to murder me? You'r-"

However, before he could continue, he heard a sound which caused him to go pale once more, and ran to the door.

Barking.

He could hear the sound of barking.

It wasn't just the one dog, either. From the sounds of it, there were at least five, and it sounded like they weren't too far off, either.

"Hey hey hey, seriously?" He asked, nervousness entering his voice, before he ran to the javelin and pulled it out of the wall, chucking it to the girl. "Alright, you wanna help us out and live in our house? Help Nino upstairs. I'll try and get the door back in place, but you guys have to get off the ground floor now. Also, keep away from the windows, and try not to make too much noise. Also, I'm calling dibs on the room with the double bed, so keep out of it. A house like this one is sure to have had a brat or two living in it at some point, so use theirs."

He began to run over to the doorway, before turning around again.

"And for your other question, he hasn't got the plague. Most other things, but not that. And if anything bad happens to him, you're out of here, got it?"

And then he continued to the door. Thankfully, he hadn't accidentally knocked it off it's hinges, so it wouldn't require too much in the way of nails or anything. However, it was broken enough for him to know it wouldn't stay closed if he just tried to do it the normal way. Looking around for a moment, he saw a pretty large coffee table/counter… thing… and pulled it in front of the door. That would keep it closed for now, but he'd probably want to put something bigger and heavier in front of it later on.

Meanwhile, Alistair ran into the room his sister and the sleepy italian were in, his arms wrapped around the medical kit his parents always insisted on carrying around.

"Hey sis, whaddaya need?" He asked. "I've got all kinds of stu-…"

And then he noticed that, rather than being in the same room as them like he'd seemingly intended to be, the other italian, the stupid one, was pushing furniture in front of the door, a panicky expression on his face.

"Sis, whats that idiot doing?" He asked bluntly, staring at Giovanni with a look that landed somewhere between bored and utter disdain. "Does he really think something like that will stop someone busting in? And even if it did, wouldn't they just come in through the windows?"

"Hey! I get that you brats might be more interested in gossiping, but maybe you should try doing that upstairs!" Giovanni shouted to them, not actually hearing Al's words, but hearing the sound of him talking. Come on! Chop chop!"

In response, Al simply continued to stare for a few more moments, before turning to his sister again.

"Hey Na, pass me the javelin. I don't think I'll miss this time."