Description: Continuing his collection of negative emotion-sapping trinkets, Vega returns to the twisted little girl that he thought was so amusing the first time around. Though she makes a valiant effort to escape, there are some monsters that you just can't hide from.
Alone. No, not quite alone just left to her own devices. Eiserne's cell is large in contrast the girls size though the guards who take turns watching over her stand well back from the bars. Tucked up in the corner with arms laying across her knees and face turned down the insane little minx rarely moves. Officers who have made the mistake of coming too close or underestimating her speed and reach do so no longer. Once-bitten and twice shy, literally.
In the beginning she had tried refusing food tried leveraging her appearance against how much people 'wanted to help' her. It was only partially successful the people who wanted to help weren't the ones with the powers to do so, even the Big Guy that came down sometimes and simply smoked a cigar, maybe waiting for her to eventually speak but returned to the world above and outside her cell with nothing.
Eisernes world is coming apart at the seams like her mind. The obnoxiously loud voice is largely silenced by the other voice in her head, they fight and contest, which gives her terrible headaches; bad moods, violent and vengeful thoughts; But they are hers and hers alone, and that is what tortures her most of all. The lack of company.
Ah, but one of Eiserne's best qualities is indeed that she's never truly -alone-, is she? Two voices are far more entertaining than just one, after all...and tonight, a familiar third voice chimes into her thoughts.
"Ah, so this is where you've been..."
The man's voice is slow and rich, the sort spoken by a man seated in a gilded, plush throne as he talks down to lesser beings. It's been a while since she's heard from that false personality! The one that started this mess, in fact. Oh, not the whole crazy thing, indeed; the girl seemed rather "off" beforehand. But without Vega's influence to push her along, perhaps she'd have been the merely harmless type.
"This is as far as your desires can take you? Tsk." The sound of a tongue clicking puts a point on the insult. As before, there's no one around, speaking to her. Had Vega not shown himself, this could be even more fun. But now, he has a task, so he shouldn't indulge himself for too long...
Eiserne claps her hands to either side of her head covering her ears and screwing her eyes shut. no, No, No, NO! NO!! That voice again and all it implied. Danger, suspicion and anger flood her body since it's the same one that started her down this path, back into the cage!
She has to escape and run away, her small hands slam into the barred wall with a force that shakes and them and rattles the neighbouring cells. Both guards draw batons and step away putting even more distance between them, no radio call but clearly apprehensive at the prospect of her suddenly becoming this agitated
'You have to let me go!"
Desperation and terror evident as she pleads, she has to escape. Run as far as it takes, she's in danger.. she might die! Don't they understand? Maybe they want her to die!
There's no time for the guards to even react before Eiserne decides they are against her a well, she has nothing against them.. but they are an obstacle in her way. Her shoulder hits the bars heavily and concrete falls away like so much plaster dust, metal gives way but its still enough the girl falls back to the floor. The next hit shifts the bars just as far, her terror is contagious and reaching the guards now. They try placating gestures even while already beginning to back away, its horrifying to watch as such a small girl tears out of a jail cell with brute force and little concern for her own helth as the bruising and faint red glisten to the bars she stuck evidenced.
"LET. ME. GO"
He found her. He was diappointed now, when she had amused him he had nearly destroyed her. She doesn't even know how close.. how much time.. have to run for all she was worth.
Ah, it's wonderful. Truly wonderful. Even from where Vega himself is, he can sense the fringe of her fear, her desperation. That of the guards is inconsequential; they truly have no idea what danger they're in. But Eiserne? Oh, she knows firsthand. But at the same time, didn't she have fun? What's a little game of chicken on the freeway compared to a joyride in the mayor's Hummer?
"Calm DOWN." The voice is stern, sudden, and LOUD. What's more, the bracelet upon her wrist begins to hum with some sort of mental feetback. The little conduit, that tiny piece of Vega, is by now engorged with the wonders of madness and malevolence. Until now, it's been rather benign, just feeding ideas and coaxing desires. But now? It's as if it had awakened. However she fights, the vile man's presence is there. And there she is, trapped with him, with a predator that she can't see. Vega's presence creeps up her arm like an ice-cold hand, feeling for all the world like the man is right behind her, laying a hand upon the shoulder that she's not currently smashing into the prison bars.
"Though, maybe hunting the little rabbit down would make for an amusing distraction..." The words are followed by a horrible, deep chuckle; a terrible sound that promises a fate no better than the mangled prey she's been likened to.
Her shoulder hurts, that sticky and warm red blood on the bars and the burning and throbbinf don't quite connect in her head, over and over again she keeps repeating 'have to get away, have to run' over and over as she picks herself up for another charge into the bars which are now coming free of the wall and peeling away its remaining supports, hanging in place. She can't stop the tears welling in her eyes, nose starting to drip and the gasp of her breath.
%'Calm DOWN'
The spoken command, freezes her in place, she doesn't move though that jolt of additional fear paralyzes her, it sounded so close.. she can feel the hair on the back of her neck standing up and the overwhelming desire to look back over her shoulder.. he was right there! Right behind her! Is she too scared to run!? He could reach out and touch-
She 'feels' the touch, and with a shriek that could be considered a scream she plows into the wall and takes it right to the floor where she lies atop it coughing and dazed. Have to get away, hands and knees she is crawling before her head even clears, each movement seems sluggish and deliberate but she will get away, she has always gotten away!
Running for her life certain that enemies are right on top of her and her life is at stake, it is her element the bracelet on her wrist is still buzzing like the voices in her head. The other self conpletely overwhelmed with trying to shield her from its influence. She doesn't dwell on that it wouldn't be the first time she had left someone behind when it came down to surviving.
What a terribly night for those two guards, isn't it? It's bad enough that they've had to be in the same building as someone as bat-shit insane as Eiserne. It's even worse when they get a whole WALL of iron bars falling on them! It's a wonder that one isn't knocked out cold and can actually radio for help. One of them may be dead, as there's a terrible laceration on his temple! But ah, who cares? All that matters is that the girl gets her way, fleeing through the precinct in her frenzied attempts to escape.
The jail gives way to the tiled floors of the police station itself. Corridors and doors abound. "Not there," comes the voice again, just as she's about to turn down one path. "Try again." comes at another. She can either listen to him or ignore him, but it's hard to shake the feeling of being herded, of being trapped! All the while, that bracelet hums, its touch so icy that it very well feels like it's burning the flesh it touches. The psychic energy pouring out of the trinket are a terrible thing to endure, dark and twisted and NEVER shutting up about how FUN it would be to ransack the station, to steal a badge, to go for a ride with a police cruiser!
She isn't thinking for herself so much as running on instinct and adrenaline, she flattens people who get in her way and in a couple of cases has gone over, under or through office furniture and cubicle dividers. The interior of this station is chaos with people yelling and nobody quite certain of which floor she is on until she makes yet another burst through a busy office and floor.
Her injured arm and shoulder hangs at her side when not and use, its not broken but it IS agony. She slips into an office smearing a thin streak of blood on the door and with her back pressed to the wall she listens to the officers run past.
"Hghk."
The grunt escapes her when her hanging arm brushes against her leg and the bracelet burns hot even against the flesh of her leg. The shoulder provides a nice distraction from that other pain, but her thoughts start to turn murky and unfocused if she lets herself try and put the pain aside. No, focus on that. Keep herself sharp and angry.
The voice is helpful, its instruction have been largely helpful and paths she herself would have chosen. The fact its turning out as such has her lips twisted into a dark scowl and worriedly chewing on her cheek and tongue as she makes quick desperate decisions.
The door to the stairwell was heavier than most and the noise was sure to draw attention, down? Eiserne climbs the stairs two at a time, headed up. Instinct, she is at home at heights where others are terrified. The roof of the police station is sudden and anticlimactic.. no wires or other close rooftops, no window washing scaffold or ropes.. is this.
"That's as far as you go, give up now."
The helicopter crests the rise and the sudden activation of the light forces her to raise an arm and shield her eyes. It hides the sudden blossoming smile, the insane relief.
"What is she? PULL-UP! Pull it up"
Eiserne sudden dash and leap like something out of a filmed action sequence she pendulously swings from one of the landing skids her head swinging and looking below.
"TAKE it down! Christ she's gonna get herself killed!"
Rooftops still far below Eiserne eyeballs it, any further and she might just wind up trapped again.. she lets go and plummets towards the rooftop of a neighbouring and much smaller building, she lands heavy but is up and moving again quickly. Have to get away.
Someone had better be getting this on film! Straight out of an action movie if nothing else, the whole situation is just...surreal. This sort of thing never REALLY happens, and yet, Eiserne is literally living the life of an action hero, busting out of confinement and riding a chopper (if briefly) to continue her path on the lam. It's honestly enough to give Vega, in the back of his wide black Benz, pause. HIM, of all people! It's like he hadn't seen that level of crazy in...well, in a damned long time.
Now that she's out in the open, relatively, the ringing from the bracelet subsides. Oh, the resonance is still there; after all, Vega himself is nearby and the bit of him inside that thing yearns to return to him. What feeds this new imagery into the monitor set in the back of the seat before the Shadaloo master, however, is a single man--cyborg, in fact, standing on one of the nearby rooftops. Darkly-dressed, silent, and still save for the quiet whir of a telescoping lens in its eye, the observation-oriented -thing- keeps Eiserne in its sight. When it appears that she will be running out of range, it follows...
And from that point on, it is NOT quiet. The scrape of boots against pebbled tar, the creak of a fier escape as it leaps and vaults and parkours its way across the rooftops. It doesn't take long to catch up with the girl, running across buildings on the other side of the street from her. The glint of its camera-goggles can sometimes be made out under the heavy hoodie it's wearing.
'Show it, teach it who's boss!' The dark voice creeps at her thoughts, enticing her to try and lose her new tagalong.
Eiserne is slowed, whatever injuries she has can wait. She can lick her wounds when she is safe and hidden. Stopping his her hand pressed to the face of a wall she tests her footing, legs are wobbly but nothing is outright broken if not now competing with her shoulder with a pain that eats away at her conscious thinking. She wants to cry and be comforted, to hide under a blanket and have all the monsters overlook her, but real life doesn't work like that. She starts moving with a run, the sooner she can get lost in the maze of buildings the sooner the helicopter will lose her trail and the rooftops will become a way to travel safely again.
Eiserne is running once again, slowly if a concession to her body but also like a machine born and bred to escape to survive against relentless odds. She skips over rooftops with efficiency and drops to hang over the side of a wall while the airborne spotter streaks past without finding. But there is someone else following her and it moves faster still if not quite as good at hiding. Eiserne switches tactics tighter corners, weaving inbetween rooftop fixtures and avoiding line of sight with the monitor cyborg But also slackening off her speed just enough that it can catch glimpses of her, always around the next corner, just one more ahead Movement and sound.
Until she disappears.
The cyborg halts, surveying the area and looking for the target so suddenly gone. It steps closer, it's enough as Eiserne lunges up to reach for that baggy black hoodie and with one good swift yank she pulls the body forwards over the edge of the building. No finesse, no honour or wish for combat, not even a desire to kill. Gravity gets rid of her problem, dead or hurt there is no way it can follow her after falling to the floor of the alley below, which Eiserne watches to ensure he was down and out. An unusual looking guy, but this country was full of unusual looking people.
That's certainly a problem.
One moment, Vega is watching Eiserne bound across rooftops, darting behind cover. The next? All he can see is windows and such flying past. It takes but a second for him to realize what's happened; the rush of static across his monitor only confirms it. A low grunt rumbles in his throat, a minor sound of irritation. Does she even have any idea how much one of those surveillance bots COSTS? It's really such a waste. Regardless, monitoring stations are already going off nearby, setting alarms for someone to come reclaim the smashed-head mess.
Once again, it seems that he's going to have to handle things personally.
As soon as Vega's form dissipates into a violet flicker, the car itself shifts with the release of weight. An instant later, he reappears on the rooftops, directly across the street from Eiserne. Only now does the full gravity of his presence manifest; the air is immediately thick and oppressive. What's worse is that damned bracelet won't shut UP. With its counterpart being so close by, the soul fragment trapped within rings and resonates intensely. The bracelet itself vibrates upon her wrist, the whorl of psycho power yearning for release.
"Hand it over." The demand is curt, simple. It's the sort of tone used when there isn't room for negotiation. Judging by the scowl on the great Chin's face, he seems a bit pissed about her having damaged his goods.
Bloodied and weary Eiserne in a moment of relief allows herself to rest. It's not long but her muscles demand that much of a concession on her [art. Up until now the bracelet had just been a minor but growing pain, nothing compared to her other injuries and considering her situation it was pretty low priority. But the pain and the resonance suddenly spikes at the moment when she might finally feel relief and a chance to lose her pursuers. That loud voice comes back stronger than ever, whatever defence her other self could manage was as nothing now, the voice was back without that reassuring insulation.
'I have already crushed half of what you are you under my heel!'
That statement cuts deeply into her fragile psyche, the other self was the one that protected them, that was the one other thing she could trust in and depend on her fate always the same as the other they shared a body and a mind. If it were gone, she was truly alone. Eiserne snarls in response, a low guttural growl rather than human speech.
'Now be a good girl and return the bracelet.' Across the rooftop form her Vegas appearance coincides with the increase in activity form the bracelet, its malice and confidence brimming because of proximity to the Shadaloo Lord.
'Hand it over.'
Eisernce would smash her own hand to be able to get the bracelet, such as an animal might gnaw off a limb to escape the trap. But there is no time for even something so desperate, she is desperate and poised to flee. If she stays offers the bracelet she may be killed or the mere act of taking it.. he might hurt her even more. Instinct tells her to flee and she does that rather than deeply consider the alternatives. She'll run!
And off she goes! To him, Eiserne seems every bit the frightened little rabbit, hopping away with the desperate hope that it will accomplish anything. His arms lift and fold across his chest as she takes off away from him, despite the pain in her body and the "temporary personality" screaming at her to go back. The bracelet longs to be in Vega's possession, a fact that it makes abundandly clear. It batters the desire against her willpower over and over again, ramming against the fear that causes her to run away.
Again, it's not as though this outcome can't be a LITTLE bit fun...
He watches her run. When she's out of sight, the man shimmers and warps again, this time standing on a smokestack before her. Let her clamber, let her scramble, whatever it takes to change direction and escape him! No matter where she goes, he's RIGHT THERE. The feeling of being herded returns as the Psycho Master's constant appearances attempt to lead her away from civilized, densely-populated areas and back toward the more run-down, poverty-stricken rooftops.
At one point, he floats casually down to the roof from his perch as she goes dashing off, but this time, he doesn't follow. Not yet. With an enormous, malevolent grin on his face, the kind that exposes his toothy smile with all of the brilliance of a crescent moon, he draws a hand off to his side. Its fingers are curled, its palm facing upward. Within the cage of digits, a spark of bright purple flashes--a spark that gives life to a roiling ball of bubbling power. His arm draws back, and with a swift sling, he fires a bolt of pure anguish toward the girl. Its touch is that of Death's hand itself, a spear to the poor girl's very psyche...so long as it connects.
COMBATSYS: Vega has started a fight here.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Vega 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Eiserne has joined the fight here.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Eiserne 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Vega
COMBATSYS: Eiserne wears a silver bracelet on her wrist.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Eiserne [E] 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Vega
COMBATSYS: Eiserne blocks Vega's Psycho Shot.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Eiserne [E] 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Vega
She is starting to build a lead against that man in red, she can feel the distance between them beginning to grow as well as the consternation of the voice in her head. Shutup 'Give up' shutup '-can't get away' shutup 'submit' SHUTup 'kill you' SHUTUP. Both arms pump as she runs though the injured shoulder is much weaker and the fresh warmth on her shoulder and back notes that the wounds have yet to close with all this strenuous activity.
But she has to run, she's built to run, hide and survive where bigger and braver people die.
The purple shot of energy collides with her running form and is enough to stagger her back and to a complete halt, the arm thrown up to ward off the blow gleams with the sparkly of light off the bracelet they are contesting over. It is agony! Somehow it attacks her mind as well as her body; Fears compound but pain simply drives her on even faster. Can't be stopped.
Keep running and survive to see tomorrow. The imposing figure of Vega stands in her way, but Eiserne simply changes direction the moment her body and mind can relalign and process this new information. Way is blocked? Go another way! She is already fleeing before the last of the energy from the impacting shot of purple energy has fully dispersed into the air.
COMBATSYS: Eiserne takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Eiserne [E] 0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0 Vega
The dreadful expression of delight on Vega's face intensifies. The fear is thick in her mind, he can feel it. He can TASTE it. The dread that he inspires is a delicacy like none other...so he savors it. After launching his attack, he sits, he waits, and he watches. After all, she can't run far...
While the master sits and indulges himself, the trinket upon her wrist continues to hum and nag. It's a wonder that she hadn't broken her hand yet to take the thing off, but the girl has obviously proven herself irrational. Ah, how much the Master wants to take it back already, to crack the thing open and absorb all of those delightfully negative emotions that she'd been feeding it. It's nearly enough to make a man salivate with anticipation! But no, not yet. The fear, the desperation, that bracelet soaks all of it up like a hungry sponge. It's ravenous, never sated, never full...and its presence grows constantly, ever trying to force aside her thoughts in favor of its own.
It's in the midst of a particularly forceful fit of the bracelet's desires that Vega comes into view again. He doesn't teleport in as before; he comes screaming in from on high, like a jet fighter going down...only this fighter drops feet-first, his arms folded as he threatens to simply smash the poor girl through the very rooftops that she's running on!
COMBATSYS: Vega successfully hits Eiserne with Head Press.
- Power hit! -
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////////// ]
Eiserne [E] 1/-----==/=======|==-----\-------\0 Vega
Fingers crooks and feebly draw her arms back towards her, the heavy rain of plaster and brick gently dusting down upon her even though she is somewhat covered where she lies. The third floor, five stories from the rooftop level which was where the last discordant images of what she remembers terminated. She had been running, the way seemed clear and then there was a nothingness and gap between that time and place and this. Eiserne drags her body upright using the back of a nearby couch, there is no room in her head for anything except the pain and confusion; but that feeds the fear.
She can't run? Did the roof give way? She can feel every floor her small frame had been punched through without the realisation of what had occurred. Eiserne is desperate now that her condition is so bad she cannot hope to run much further and as she totters towards the and pushes it open with the heel of her palm. The locked door designed to into the apartment grates open as both door and frame swing out into the hall, but it is eiserne who instead closes her hand around a door close by and opens it gently and quietly before slipping inside.
A small bathroom. Tiled; empty and dark. The door closes behind her with a click and she tries to control her breathing and her fear, no sounds. The smear of her blood on the door handle just a little out of place and the voice contained within the bracelet mocking her. She is so tired now, Adrenaline and terror fueling a body that should be refusing to go any further and a instinct to survive honed by years but against men turned monsters, not /real/ monsters.
And there, in that dingy, tiled fortress, Eiserne may finally find respite. The man that smashed her through stories of hard floors is nowhere to be seen. Ah, but he can be /felt/. His presence is everywhere, constantly blanketing the poor girl with the knowledge that she may be just an arm's reach away from death. Seconds pass, then minutes, and the man has not yet shown himself. But where is he? He MUST be close. He has to be! None either but he can make the air chilled just by being near, no one else can make one's fear so palpable that normal men would literally choke upon it.
Perhaps after she calms down, Eiserne may realize that the source of the dread stems almost entirely from her own wrist! It should be so obvious now, now that the trinket has grown fat to the point that it just...it FEELS like her pursuer. It tickles at the back of a sane mind, that niggling comparison.
And then, before her very eyes, Vega's face appears in the mirror across from her. If she looks back, there's no one behind her, the door still securely closed. And yet, THERE HE IS, grinning at her from that awful, reflective surface, a king in that reversed world. A hand lifts and he reaches out--reaches THROUGH the silver-backed glass, his arm covered with the glisten of liquid-like glass as he makes a grab for the poor girl's head. The fear has well and truly blossomed now, and it's the right of the world's most powerful psion to go about breaking her poor psyche as he sees fit.
COMBATSYS: Eiserne Toughs Out Vega's Psycho Wave!
~ Cruel hit! ~
[ \\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Eiserne [E] 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0 Vega
In the darkness, her eyes must be playing tricks on her. He breathing is slowed, with the passage of time and rest even the wounds that she has have begun to knit and the blood stopped flowing. Instead of succumbing to tiredness however Eiserne is balanced on the razors edge tense as a bowstring with senses heightened as she listens for footsteps or any sign of danger. If only she had help, or someone to distract this monster from her so she might slip away.
The voice in her head just laughs at her, her every though for a way out. Her fears and her confusion. The childish wish for someone to help her. Nobody helps. People all wanted something.
Eisere does raises her wrist infornt of her eyes, for the first time studying the bracelet, a thing she had wanted and found pretty, but the other self had been afraid and sickened by it.
'Hand it over'
he had said, tis thing? That would be a funny joke. Her eyes stray to the mirror and she freezes, a deer in headlights as a face looks back at her. No, that was not humanly possible, she knows this. The glass was solid and so she doesn't flinch away despite the urge to. What she was seeing was impossible, it wasn't there and with a broken mind like hers being able to tell the difference was important. This wasn't real. He wasn't there. Not real. Not real.
The hand closes around her head, her doe like eyes flicker back and forth but she still doesn't flinch or run. Her mind is crushed under a maelstrom of negative emotions, most she could not even identify. Out of nowhere arms close around and shield her, that little corner of her mind where she is forced back into, both of her coming together and holding firm because there is nowhere left to go. Clawing as the door handle behind her Eiserne manages to turn it enough to open the door and falls away from this horrifying apparition.
COMBATSYS: Eiserne takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Eiserne [E] 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0 Vega
And that's all it takes. A little willpower, a bit of reality injected into the terrible, mind-bending visions that Vega bestows upon the girl. Even as she finds herself cornered, both physically and mentally, the outstretched arm returns from whence it came. The glass returns to a simple, flat surface, and there's no sight of the man that was just grinning at her from within. Indeed, it would appear as though nothing even happened at all! However, the damage is done, just as real as a physical blow would have been. What is the pain of a cut and bruised shoulder to the fingers mucking about in her mind, warping reality into an even more horrifying mockery of itself?
There's only one problem that she'll find in escaping the cozy confines of the bathroom: Vega himself.
He stands in the doorway, blocking her egress with his sheer bulk. He towers over her, all features obscured--shadowed, even, from the dim light behind him. Two pools of pale violet can scarcely be seen where his eyes are, tiny flames licking at the air around him. And then his smile! A man's teeth should not shine like that in the darkness, looking like an otherworldly beast waiting to spring from the darkness...
As though to dispel any doubts about how real he is, he reaches out for her hand. A firm grip is all he needs, to hold the hand that bears his bracelet beneath it. If he can catch this little rabbit, then it's finally time to finish the hunt. Crushing the bones beneath his grasp, cracking joints, he'll try to mangle the poor girl's hand into a terrible mass, breaking whatever he can in order to slip that trinket off of her little wrist.
COMBATSYS: Eiserne fails to counter Aggressive Strike from Vega with Highball.
[ \\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Eiserne [E] 1/=======/=======|====---\-------\0 Vega
COMBATSYS: Eiserne has reached second wind!
[ \\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Eiserne [E] 1/=======/=======|====---\-------\0 Vega
Throwing her hand up to try and catch the incoming blow Eiserne instead feels the horrible crunch as the blow follows though and he grabs her hand rather than the other way around, bones give way her hands and his quickly becoming slick with her own blood. The small girl yelps, her voice is strangled and breathy like it might be trying to reach ranges unheard by human ears but she instead jerks her own hand back and free and stumbles back further into the bathroom.
Petals of red scatter across the tiled floor, from shoulder to wrist and now hand it's like one of her arms is entirely ruined. But it's those disbelieving eyes. The man in red did the impossible, he was where he should not be, she could not outrun, could not hide. So, maybe this was what it was like for the people who died. It wasn't that were weak, just that the enemy was way too strong. She should give up and lie down, but somehow she didn't think playing dead would work here. She should fall, anyone would fall theres no reason to keep going other than the fright and the adrenaline. Instead, Eiserne raises her fists, one bloodied and the other shaking with the effort. No matter the odds there was always a chance she could slip away if he made a mistake, she moves backwards further away from him with every heartbeat. Cowering back to try and draw him in and further from the door.
In an instant, the dastardly man's attention shifts, as well as his demeanor. Gone is the look of joy he had, the amusement that came with chasing Eiserne down. Now that he has her hand--or what's left of it--in his grasp, he's only after one thing: that bracelet. He'd spent enough time "playing", as it were, and it's finally time to get on with things. Bending the broken hand once again, he slips that infernal bracelet from her wrist with the other. The thing is tiny in his grasp, and once he has it, he throws away the limb he'd been gripping. Paying absolutely no heed to her retreat, the man lifts the bracelet, eyeing its scarcely-twinkling surface.
And then he grins.
Even contained as it is, he can feel the power within. There's the promise of might to be bestowed upon him, and the little bit of his soul that's housed in the thing is simply ecstatic at being in its owner's grasp again. Holding it firm in his grasp, his attention returns to the girl once again. Now that he has what he wants, there's really little need to stick around. "You didn't even cry out when I broke your hand." Not for lack of wanting to, surely. "I may have further use for you later after all." Why throw out such an /interesting/ little toy, after all? This time, he's the one that retreats, and in the most peculiar way! Without taking a single step, he simply floats backwards, and then UPWARD, right out through the holes in the ceiling from whence he came...
..And as he goes, that awful, oppressive air leaves with him. For the first time since he'd placed that bracelet upon her wrist, there's just silence. At least, externally. No longer is there a voice drowning out any of the others, no longer is there the constant external push to do terrible things. Some may actually find such peace jarring. But really, who's to say how the insane mind reacts?
COMBATSYS: Vega takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////////// ]
Eiserne [E] 1/=======/=======|====---\-------\0 Vega
Eiserne eyes the bracelet like and Vegas fascination with detachment. All she is concerned with is the doorway behind him and escape. Have to run, run or die. As the man in red begins to slide back away without even taking even a step relief blossoms within her. Careful, Cautious- Eiserne follows, peeking around the doorframe and watching the figure rise up through the ruined ceiling. If he's going up! She's going down! Eiserne limps out into the hall, back into the empty hallway and watching the doorway behind her, her arm red and back with fresh and dried blood she looks a real mess. But she can't see him anymore and it's as good a time as any to run far /far/ away.
Perhaps somehow her prayers for salvation had been answered but for whatever reason she had escaped and now it was up to her to run as far as her fett would carry her, and then find a way to go even further. Forethought and planning, hope and worry fill an empty cavern of her mind where there should be another voice chiming in or taking over.
"Don't you dare start crying, just get us out of here."
The voice was weak and small small inside her head but it was there. She was battered and broken, but all the pieces were still there! Tears flood her eyes while she half falls down stairs towards the next level down. What didn't kill her would make her stronger and next time she saw that monster, she would make sure he never saw her! All of this, all these injuries and pain and suffering and the girl is smiling the whole painful way, relief she isn't alone and that she is ALIVE.
COMBATSYS: Vega has left the fight here.
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Eiserne [E] 1/=======/=======|
Log created on 20:37:14 01/30/2012 by Vega, and last modified on 00:03:01 02/02/2012.