Description: Watch IN AWE as nobody gets killed on the ship! There isn't even a fight! WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?!
The situation was likely simple for some, a little more difficult for others, three very different people going to one common location for perhaps three different reasons. The docks have an appropriate enough atmosphere, a thick fog about the area with signs off approaching rain on a cool, very early morning.
Only one freightliner is of particular importance here, 'Long Live The Queen', making an extremely brief stop to load up four crates of cargo and three passengers to board.
Yurika Kirishima is one of those passengers, the woman clad in a black dress and white opera gloves, pretty much looking like some sort of catholic school-teacher, dragging a small dark-green stroller along with her. She isn't entirely unaware of the situation she's stepping into, but considering what few options she had to get to where she wanted to go, she was forced to go along with things, as discreetly as possible for obvious reasons. That is, hidden from the students of Seijyun whom are under the idea that she's on a short vacation. Hopefully the place won't go under without her.
At last the ramp is set up for the passengers, of course by a suspicious looking individual but you know what? Whatever.
With little more than an exasperated huff, the musician makes her way up to the main deck.
One of the /other/ passengers is, to all appearances, a teenaged punk.
This is because Nahid is a teenaged punk.
She has not bothered to hide this at all. She is dressed in her usual array of jeans, shirt, leather jacket and a collar for good measure, plus a wallet chain. Apparently she didn't have any problem getting herself on the ship, either. Hmm.
NESTS may have been involved.
Right now she is actually sitting on the railing near the ramp, which is annoying the hell out of the suspicious-looking individual, but what is he going to do about it? Her feet swing once in a while as she watches them load cargo and, once in a blue moon, a person on board.
Nope, she thinks. Never seen that old lady in my life. Yurika's disguise is better than expected.
Cody Travers, like Towelie, has got no idea what's going on.
Clad in a pair of torn-up jeans, a white short-sleeved t-shirt, and an orange prison jacket, the man shuffles up the ramp a few steps behind Yurika, looking dazed and confused. He knew what he was doing when he got to the docks, but he's since forgotten, and it shows; at the bottom of the loading ramp, he had a brief argument with one of the ship's crew.
It was an extremely one-sided argument, because after the crewmember shoved the disoriented American trying to get on his boat, Cody headbutted him so hard he flew into the ocean.
The rest of the crew decided it would be best to just let him on, after that, while they busied themselves fishing their unconscious crewman out of the sea.
As Cody dismounts the ramp and steps onto the deck of the ship, he sweeps his eyes across the other people aboard; his gaze lingers briefly on Nahid, but unnervingly, it doesn't look like he really... /sees/ her when he looks at her.
When's the last time I had any medicine?, he wonders. He can't remember... and suddenly, this question seems very, very important. So important he stops right where he is, in front of the ramp, totally blocking the two men carrying a crate up it after him. "Hey, cominks on, man," urges one of deckhands carrying the crate. "You ares to beinks movink."
Cody is not, in fact, movink.
Oh.. Just her luck, a delinquent. Yurika gives a gaze right back to Nahid, then a somewhat subtle shake of her head- In most circumstances she'd probably waste her time telling the other that sitting on railing is unsafe but honestly? Honestly she just didn't care; and she'd grown in more (less?) apathetic listening to the psychopath having an argument with the shipcrew. Oh, what she would give for a nice, high class pavillion with a warm cup of tea and a nice romance novel. WHAT SHE WOULD GIVE.
As luck would have it, or unluck in this case, Yurika is eventually forced to aknowledge Cody, pausing once at the top of the deck, and then hand raised to her forehead as if feeling a headache coming on. She's seen first-hand that these poor sods are rather outmatched, "... Honestly.. Americans.."
It'd probably take the entire ships crew to deal with Cody; and honestly, Yurika doesn't have the time, nor the patience for it. And so, staring down upon the gruff-looking prisoner, she withdraws a folding fan from her pocket and whips it toward Cody's head; and whether it connects or not, she shouts demandingly, "Get it togeather, you lowlife! Up, or down!"
There will be no romance novels here if Nahid has anything to say about it. No tea, no pavillions - all of that stuff is for losers.
Nahid slides herself off the railing because she wants to see what is very clearly going to be comedy in the near future. And that assumes they even get him aboard. She's heard there's bad weather ahead and she'd rather not be sailing straight into it.
"Yeah, get on board! We gotta go sit in the - " Nahid realizes she is getting a look so dirty it probably qualifies as filthy from one of the crewmembers, and before she can blurt out exactly what's on the ship, she corrects herself to "Junk."
That's part of a boat, right? She's sure the junk is the part of a boat. It's probably next to the poop deck.
Cody's fine with romance novels, himself.
Assuming that by 'romance novels', you mean 'pornographic magazines.'
It takes Cody a moment to react to being smacked in the head by Yurika. His initial response is just sort of an uncertain, startled jump, but it's almost a full second before he turns to look at Yurika... and it's very clearly a failure to react, not simply part of some attempt to intimidate the girl.
Perhaps surprisingly, the blonde does not instantly headbutt Yurika into space for daring to strike him. He squints at her for several seconds, and then grunts wordlessly and advances deeper into the ship, away from where he's blocking the ramp. Somewhere in the realm of his drug-fried brain, there's still a rule - even if it's more of a guideline, now - that says 'don't hit girls.'
And drug-fried is, indeed, what it is; if either of the teenage girls aboard the ship are somehow familiar with really, /really/ long-term drug addicts, the guys so fried they can barely even function as human beings anymore, Cody's behavior will be extremely familiar to them. Judging from the looks he's getting from the crew, some of them are /definitely/ familiar with the behavior.
A few seconds after he's cleared the way, Cody turns back to Yurika, Nahid, and, indeed, the boat at large, and asks, "Where are we going?" He sounds confused, but not concerned, and it isn't clear whether he means where he, personally, is supposed to go, or where the boat is going as a whole.
Possibly both.
Contrary to her actions, Yurika wasn't honestly looking for trouble, but rather speaking in a language she was certain Cody could understand. Her expression is neutral as Cody stares back at her, and then slips into a somewhat patient smile once he finally complies and allows the men to finish their loading.
Thank goodness, the last thing Yurika needed is some crazy shootout and/or barroom brawl.
He manages to leave the musician's radar for a moment- She won't pretend to be an expert on drug-addiction behavior, granted it does have -some- similarities to mind control from what she could tell.
There's also a little amusement that comes from the sudden shift in nouns from the voice of Nahid- It'd seem this other girl may have a better idea of the ship's deal than herself. Nahid doesn't appear to be directly involved herself, though.
And then Cody returns, with a rather alarming question. Then again, should Yurika really be surprised? Like, really? She simply stares at the blonde in return, then slowly raises an eyebrow.
Nahid did get on through NESTS. Which is a criminal cartel. If they got her on this ship, they know what it has on it.
Nahid stares at Cody for a few seconds longer, as if he's crazy. Maybe he is. She's seen druggies before, but she rarely /talks/ to them when they get this bad. "Nutbar," she says, bluntly. "Get your ass downstairs, they wanna push off and I think they were waiting on you two."
They must've been, otherwise they would've gone as soon as Nahid was on. She's the important one, right? /Right/?
Of course she is.
Dimly, Cody pieces together that he should have a witty comeback to being called a nutbar; something like, 'I'm not a nutbar, /you're/ a nutbar' or 'fuck you, skank.' But by the time he's even worked out that he should, it's already been like three seconds, and even he can recognize that the moment is past.
So he just mutters, darkly, "Thanks." And then he turns and walks away, down the deck of the ship, apparently completely sure of where he's going.
He comes back about ten seconds later, and slows to a halt in front of Nahid again. "How do I get downstairs?" he asks. It's not really a demand; it's more like he's just too blasted to figure it out by himself. Or maybe he's just used to taking directions.
Vice and Mature always just told him what to do; he never had to think about it. It's made working for "R" a lot more tolerable. If Cody were smarter, he might equate it to a microcosm of how domesticated animals, even across entire species over thousands of years, lose the ability to survive in the wild.
Cody isn't smarter.
Nahid isn't smarter, either - but she is pushy enough to tell people what to do. Even if he does think she's some kind of skank. It isn't even like she stole one of Angel's outfits or something, where do people /get/ that impression?
"That way," she says, pointing - before deigning to unlean on whatever she had been leaning on and practically push him the proper way. She only narrowly avoids touching him, in fact. "Get down there, go to sleep or something, eesh. Maybe you'll be less stoned out of your mind when we actually get in."
She's not counting on it.
"Thanks," Cody mutters again, stumbling along as Nahid ushers him in the proper direction; once he's got a little guidance, he's actually not /totally/ worthless at finding his own way. He's at least capable of recognizing 'down' when he finds a stairwell, and advances obediently into the lower decks of the ship.
Once he's downstairs, he finds somewhere to sit down, and then... does exactly that; he sits, staring at the wall, as if waiting for more instructions, or for something to happen.
He /must/ be stoned out of his mind.
Yurika watches the two converse, more or less not being much help herself. Though she can't say that the meeting is completely useless to her, in fact she feels a touch of inspiration: scenes like this always, in some way, have a touch of romance in it and she can see the story on her mind right now. Long story short, what she has in mind isn't safe for work, and it especially isn't legal in the United States so lets just keep it at that and not question why she has a small smile on her features as she follows along.
And upon reaching the area, the rules are simple: "Don't move. Don't ask question. Don't look around. Just sit back and enjoy ride, courtesy of Uncle Boris."
Whomever -that- is. Probably the captain, Yurika assumed. Frowning at the lack of proper seating, she chooses to stand instead, leaning up against the cold metal walls and stares out at.. Pretty much nothing.
Time passes.
How much time, exactly, isn't really clear, but it drives Yurika to raise a hand to her mouth as she yawns- Which is shortly interrupted by a string of swear words emenating from the front cabins, along with some apologetic-sounding radio chatter: "-tsunami activity~~advise abandoning ship~~what good it does--" "BUT YOU TOLD US THESE ROUTES WOULD BE SAFE!" "~~even Ryouhara~~anticipate this~~sorry--" "I'll meet your mother in Hell, Wakamoto, and I will bring a large knife."
After that, things get very busy, very fast. Orders are shouted back and forth in Russian and people start getting things like life preservers, and smoking last cigaretes. The air is alive with forgeign profanity.
Nahid, for her part, spent the time pretending to be asleep while sitting in a corner. She is not worried, apparently, about getting her butt dirty. (She is slightly more worried Cody will come over and puke on her.)
Nahid opens one eye when she starts to hear yelling loud enough that she doesn't feel right ignoring it; swearing in a language she doesn't speak, being completely non-fluent in every EAstern European language in existence.
She opens a second eye when someone yells something about safety and orders start going out. She doesn't understand them, either. She doesn't have to.
Eventually, Nahid stands up. She spends a moment to brush off her pants, the chain she has across one hip jingling. "Okay," she says, in loud English, "who the hell broke everything?"
Cody, sadly, does not go over and puke on Nahid.
In fact, he doesn't do much of anything; he stays right where he is the entire trip, although he does at least doze off a few times. He isn't dozing when the the panic begins... but that doesn't mean he actually /does/ anything.
It takes him several seconds to even realize something is going on, and when he does, he just sort of turns to look in the direction with the most noise. He doesn't seem scared, or even concerned, by the theoretical prospect of being lost at sea forever. Maybe he's just too thick to realize it's a danger?
SOME TIME AGO
Cody Travers spends, like, a year anbd a half lost at sea, all but a few hours of it in a coma.
NOW
Or maybe not.
Yurika, being more sensitive to sound than most, tilts her head slightly as she listens to this and that. THough even hearing the transmission doesn't make all of the words exactly clear to her, but the ones she does is important enough. The young woman kneels at her strollerbag, opens it up and starts taking out a few knick-nacks stored in smaller bags-
Nahid's yells go unanswered- At least nothing in common, the foreigners run at practically top speed in various directions; that is all the directions that will lead the group up rather than further down.
"If I had to take a guess, I'd say it was him," Yurika replies in a bit of dry humor, her head tilting toward the very out-of-it looking Cody. "From what I've heard there's a large wave approaching."
This is when the sounds of twisting metal follows, which seems to catch even Yurika off-guard, causing her already pale features to lighten a little more, ".... Or rather, already here. We're on our own, I'm afraid.."
Lights flicker, the large and small crates start to slide from the opposite end of the room toward our heroes, sliding becoming tumbling as the freight tilts toward the side. Yurika abandons her stroller, and walks backward along with the tilting, occassionally hopping- It'd seem her sense of balance isn't to be underestimated. However she understands this is only a short-term solution, things are going to get worse, fast.
"Bull, he just sat in a corner like a retard," Nahid says, which is kind of funny given she spent it half-asleep in a corner. Oh well. Consistency has never been her strong point. Neither has avoiding hypocrasy.
Nahid walks easily across the shifting floor, keeping her balance apparently effortlessly. It's a fighter thing. Yurika doesn't seem to be doing much worse... though when it starts to tip really badly, Nahid's legs are at an uncomfortable-looking angle.
She glances back at Cody, consideringly. Leave him? Nah. He's probably useful. "Hey you, big guy," she says, trying to get his attention. "Come with me, huh? C'mon, don't just sit there like a lump."
Nahid is having images of sitting in a lifeboat and making Cody do the rowing. Or possibly using him /as/ a lifeboat. She's not picky.
Cody may, indeed, basically be a space retard, but at least it means he doesn't panic... and when his seat starts sliding around, he carefully tenses his legs and simply locks it in place, alternating the way he's braced with every rock. Sliding around is annoying, and he doesn't want to do it; it's as simple as that.
When Nahid addresses him, he turns to look at her, and when she urges him to come with her, he rises calmly to his feet. Immediately, his seat begins sliding with the angle of the deck; he, himself, seems perfectly fine.
"Are we there?" he asks. The fact that he's currently standing on like a sixty degree incline that changes directions every few seconds does not seem to suggest to him that no, he is probably not 'there.'
And, he thinks with a frown, he still doesn't know where 'there' is.
The angle grows worse, of course, in just moments the ship will go from sideways to upside-down completely, and Yurika has her brows furrowed in thought. Well, as far as she was concerned, Nahid and Cody were on their own, but she couldn't help but, during the tense moments, smirk at the 'delinquents' continuing to aid Cody who very clearly couldn't even help himself. At least that's how it looked to her.
She yelps as a crate comes from seemingly nowhere and impacts the wall, the crate bursting open and 'stuffed rabbits' go flying in every which direction. Sideways and tilting upward, the doorway becomes a more difficult obstacle to reach (of course not -terribly- so considering the company), and the black-clad musician is rushing along past both of her would-be companions, "Good luck to you- We're only one floor below so it shouldn't be difficult to get out- But we'll be hitting the water soon enough." and with that she flips up and through the doorway, making a beeline toward a smaller cabinspace rather than heading straight to the stairwell to keep her balance without the worry of cargo trying to crush her. Finally, she takes in a deep breath. The water's going to be flooding in soon enough.
"We're /somewhere/, all right." Nahid is finding it easiest to walk with one foot on the ground and the other pressed against a wall; it bends her knee awkwardly but it's nothing she can't handle.
She isn't even sure why she's bothering to keep Cody from getting his ass drowned, aside from the fact that she really does not want to row herself to shore in a hurricane or a typhoon or whatever the hell is going on out there. He'd better make himself useful, that's all she can say.
Think. Whatever.
Nahid continues her awkward walking as Yurika rockets past her, relatively speaking. "Oh, screw this. Hey, Big Guy, I hope you can climb, we are getting /out/ of here."
Nahid tenses her entire body and springs despite the awkward angle, practically rocketing through a door and into a stairwell, unlike Yurika. Also unlike Yurika, she manages to slam bodily into a crewmember, judging by the loud yell in Russian followed by extensive cursing from Nahid in English and broken Spanish.
Getting out of here. That's simple enough.
Cody follows Nahid, albeit with much less... jumping; he just clambers along the incline until he hits the wall near the door Nahid leapt through, and braces himself briefly to prepare to swing through it. Before he can, a huge wooden crate comes free and slams into him, pinning him briefly to the wall.
The blonde glances briefly down at the crate, which must weigh at least a thousand pounds, like it was a mere annoyance... because it is. He twists slightly, and then simply kicks the crate off of him, with such force that it rockets back along the floor, slams into a wall, and explodes into shards and drug-filled Tickle Me Elmo.
Cody nods, and then turns and finally swings through the door after Nahid. He pauses, briefly, to stare at the girl and the crewmember she's managed to tackle... and then shrugs and begins picking his way along the stairwell towards the surface. She said out, so he'll go out. It's as simple as that.
Yurika seems to be opting for the more difficult way out it'd seem as she stands her ground rather than go bursting out on deck- Though she does have to wince to the sound of body hitting body and only one of them sounding like they're in obvious pain. Standing her ground, that is her brilliant strategy.
And it'd appear of the three Cody is the first to get a good look at the situation; the ship is high; not like -airplane- high, but the boat is almost comically riding the building-size wave and is about to be lobbed lazily forward toward it's destiny of capsizing goodness. Bodies, weapons fly every which way, though all eventually are going to go downard. Some in floaty-vests, others attempting to use rafts but really.. That's kind of impossible considering the strange angle people are in.
Nahid is extricating herself from where that silly waist-chain of her got her stuck - on the railing, after bouncing off the crewman and knocking him half-over. She will never learn about that thing.
Nahid makes it up to the deck almost thirty seconds after Cody does. There is plenty of time for him to stand around like a stander, or do... whatever he does. Nahid is a little vague on what drug he's on, but it has made her resolve to not do any aside from the much more acceptable alcohol. She does like her beer.
"Holy shit," Nahid yells, over the storm. "We are surfing the HELL out of this wave!" She is pretty glad she didn't pack heavy... because she didn't bring any of it up, so at least this way she's not going to lose all her stuff that's still at home.
She balances, carefully, across the slippery and very wet deck. She appears to be going for the very back.
By the time Nahid makes it up onto the deck, a strange thing has happened. Cody no longer seems like quite the zombie; in fact, he seems positively energetic, shifting his weight eagerly from foot to foot despite the difficulty of even just balancing on the deck.
"We sure as shit are!" the blonde agrees with Nahid's, almost gleefully. When she starts picking her way across the deck, he follows, still overflowing with energy.
This is because, even as blasted as he was, Cody was able to recognize their situation - once he got outside - as both dangerous /and/ thrilling. This led directly to his body beginning to produce adrenaline, to prime him for any potential risk to life or limb.
It's done quite an excellent job, judging by how quickly he's gone from mindless retard to... well, dude who drank too many energy drinks. In fact, he seems to be getting more energetic with every second that passes...
Yurika, if she were present, would be facepalming the hell out of her face. And quite possibly scolding the pair for the language as well, but it's really all a moot point. She's out of sight and likely out of mind. And apparently not coming out until there's a landing of some sort or another.
Where there isn't the sound of roaring water, is the yells of the crew, those whom have still managed not to go flying off the boat, are grasping desperatly to the rail edge; weaker rails planting along the sides of the inner deck break off and take some poor sods with them. The wave curls in deeper still and is finally making it's decent which means that the ship itself is finally turning upside down and dropping like a rock toward the water- It's grande finale time, folks. there are some rubber rafts that managed to get caught/stuck between rails, and some watervest-clad -crewman- whom have gotten themselve wedged between rails or have managed to accidentally hang themselves with lifesavers and dangle from the rails- Like some sort of sick christmas ornament.
"Holy shit," Nahid repeats, but /this/ time she is doing it while squinting at Cody. "You /do/ talk. And in entire sentences! I was kind of wondering about that, if you were just repeating stuff or ... what."
Her staring lasts about ten seconds before the ship veeeery sloooowly starts to tip. Nahid is waiting for a very specific time to jump, but she sees the wisdom in filching a rubber raft to do it with; while she is fairly certain she will float, it's always best to be sure. She holds it overhead like some kind of demented surfboard.
Which turns out to be, a few moments later, exactly what she uses it as; she makes a running start and leaps off the ship at the currently-highest point, whipping the rubber raft around until she is more or less above it. "WOOOO," she yells, before it spins her around and she looks /back/ at the ship a moment later.
Huh. Guys stuck in the railing. She feels bad, for a few moments. Maybe they should've gone super-surfing, too.
In response to Nahid's words, Cody just shoots the girl a look, as if to say 'Are you on crack, or possibly DOUBLE CRACK?' He doesn't get an answer, and so settles for mimicking her when she filches a rubber raft, lifting it above his head; when Nahid starts the run up to her jump, he follows only a few steps behind her, preparing to leap off the capsizing ship.
The problem is that he doesn't make it.
A heartbeat after Nahid leaps, Cody suddenly loses it; he takes a few staggering steps and then collapses to the deck, the rubber raft tumbling out of his hands. The blonde props himself up on all fours, taking deep, ragged breaths with rapidly increasing frequency as he begins to slowly slide back down the tilting deck.
By the time the ship begins to tip over entirely, Cody has accelerated into - and well past - hyperventilating, and has begun slamming his fist against the metal and tearing at his shirt. The entire ordeal with the tsunami is extremely... exciting.
For Cody Travers, 'exciting' plus 'medication' equals 'bad.'
As Cody finally simply falls off the deck and plummets towards the water below, the legendary 'camera' is treated to a nice, close-up, slow motion shot of a sick green glow spreading outwards from his heart, through his veins, visible even beneath his skin.
An instant before he hits the water, he lets loose a blood-curtling, bestial roar that echoes for miles, even over the crashing of the waves.
.. Wowzers.
Well while everyone else is going out hardcore-style, that does leave our elegant musician doesn't it? Well she pretty much just keeps still, and is suddenly jarring within her space as the ship crashes into the water, and moments after that, it's calm- Or at least it -feels- like it; and none of the lights survived the rattling.
This is perfectly fine for Yurika, however, drawing up her dress, she reveals a beltstrap and pouch on her thigh and within it an underwater flashlight; It makes her escape a little less complex, and she even has her choice of poor sods whom didn't quite make it with the same luck.
In the end she ends up making it to the surface, with a raft of her own, but unfortunatly, not with much idea of which direction she's headed- it's too foggy to see constellations right now, not that she'd know which way was the -right- way anyway, ".. Oh. Wonderful." she mumbles to herself, her once giant curled hairdo now a mess plastered all over her body. When she finds Kurenai, she certainly is going to kill her.
If Nahid is on anything, it is /sheer insanity/. She is, after all, pretty crazy.
Nahid hits the water with a colossal splash as her attempt at using a rubber raft more or less succeeds. For now. It is almost out of control; she whirls around several times from the sheer impact and momentum, catching vague sights of Cody until she, grudgingly, /eventually/, stops spinning.
"Fuck," she says, to thin air. "Now who the hell am I going to get to paddle this thing?"
Log created on 20:15:48 04/07/2010 by Nahid, and last modified on 01:51:36 04/13/2010.