[Jon] Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!sophiedbSeptember 2 2006, 17:27:56 UTC
Ducking under the branch as May sprang down, Jon cursed the fact that she hadn't even broken a sweat. That's what it looked like anyway, considering the fact that she could still jump tall buildings small branches in a single bound, while he was beginning to get yellow spots in front of his eyes.
Jon glanced back over his shoulder, praying that his ears were lying and the monster wasn't gaining on them. No such luck: its strange creakiness was definitely getting closer and smoke had never looked so menacing. At least it hadn't turned around to head for the bunker - though solid walls did sound good right now. Unless this thing could smoke its way through them, in which case.. not so good. Was it guarding a specific patch, or just out for food? Whatever the hell something like that ate; wood, charcoal, oil?
He turned back to the path and concentrated on following May, unable to shake the feeling that she was holding back on his account. That was really galling, but if either of them was going to get munched he rather it wasn't her. At least he'd actually had a decent breakfast this morning, though Weetbix might have been a better choice in retrospect.
Suddenly Jon's vision arched downwards, slamming into the forest floor while pain radiated from his knees outwards. Oh yeah, this is familiar.. and such good fucking timing too! He scrambled to pick himself up but couldn't hide from the fact that his legs - though bound to recover - weren't going to be in any shape to run for several minutes.
"Shit, shit, shit," he muttered, registering May's voice as she came back to help him. "No time! Just keep going! Hey!"
"Sure, just give me second," she replied, hefting him up and over her shoulder despite his protests. Was that a faked groan, too?
Either way they were moving again and Jon was getting a prime view of.. ok, watching someone's six wasn't half as much fun from this angle. The smokey mass of tree-destroying Meccano wasn't a particularly nice view either though, was it? It wasn't catching up quite so quickly any more though. Wow. He'd much rather be running, but couldn't deny the fact that he'd be toast by now if May hadn't come to his rescue.
Jon grimaced, then swallowed his pride as best he could. "Nice one, kid. You're, uh, winning."
[Kenzaki] What? Where? Who?estiroseSeptember 3 2006, 14:05:48 UTC
ENTER KENZAKI
Kenzaki had been foraging (old habits die hard) and generally keeping watch when the ground began to rumble. Frowning, he looked up to see Mai-san, who had Jon-kun over her shoulder. She looked over at him. "Raan!" he understood her to say, and after a second of remembering that that meant "run", he took off, hoping he didn't drop his basket.
[Mayday] The Obligatory Chase Scene part 1weirdwebSeptember 3 2006, 21:29:06 UTC
May was relieved when Kenzaki took off running - he didn't speak English, but the ground shaking and the situation probably made the reaction obvious. He took off towards the west, out of the smoke monster's path, and May continued north, rather than lead the thing towards somebody else. She couldn't carry two people and get away as effectively.
She practically rocketed from branch to branch, occasionally helped along by a webline when the trees thinned out, but only occasionally. The adrenaline and euphoria at being able to web-swing for the first time in three days helped her along, and it seemed that the rumbling sounded farther away. She didn't dare look back, but just kept going north, hoping they wouldn't run out of trees before they lost the thing.
"Nice one, kid," Jon grunted, "You're, uh, winning."
"I sure as hell hope so!" May gasped. The trees thinned out into a clearing up ahead. She didn't hesitate, shooting out a webline and swinging them across the clearing, back into the trees. The adrenaline was fading and she was starting to tire; the smoke monster or whatever it was was really fast.
But the crashing was getting fainter, and after about five more minutes, it was quiet again. "Is it gone?" May asked, pausing in a tree branch, not ready to go down just yet.
"Yeah. Can you put me down now?" Jon asked.
(Oh, yeah.) Reality reasserted herself, and May was uncomfortably aware that she had Jon slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. (How am I going to explain this one?) "Sorry. Hang on a sec."
She dropped down to the forest floor and half put down, half helped Jon down so he would wind up on his feet without too much embarrassment.
((OOC: To be continued. Need to run. Food pick-up.))
[Mayday] The Obligatory Chase Scene part 2weirdwebSeptember 4 2006, 02:07:19 UTC
((OOC: Must stop saying "I'll be right back." If you want Ken to loop around and catch up to them, estirose, go ahead. They'll probably be heading back south anyway.))
Now she'd broken a sweat. Once Jon was back on his feet and they listened for several seconds without hearing anything more than bird calls and the wind in the trees, May leaned over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. It hadn't been long - the chase had lasted maybe ten minutes, tops - but she could barely remember the last time she'd had to pour it on like that without even pausing for breath.
"You all right?" Jon asked.
She nodded. "Yeah, just give me a sec. Got my workout for the day, that's for sure. So how much of that bacon did you eat this morning, anyway?"
"Hey, you cooked it, I just ate it," Jon snapped.
May straightened, grinning. "I'm kidding." She looked around. "Darn it. I hope it didn't go after Kenzaki."
Jon shook his head. "It'd have to double back a ways first."
"I hope so," May said, unconvinced. She suddenly noticed that Jon was looking at her oddly. She cast around desperately for a distraction, then found one as she spotted a glint of metal to the south, near the clearing they'd passed over. "Hey, what's that?"
[Kenzaki] ExerciseestiroseSeptember 4 2006, 02:55:09 UTC
Kenzaki had looped in the direction Jon-kun and Mei-san had gone once the earthquake had stopped trailing him. He just hoped that they hadn't gotten its attention.
After about fifteen or so minutes, he found them. He didn't know if it was a lucky break, or something had happened between him and Mei-san when he'd assumed Scarab Undead's form the night before, but he was grateful.
"Are you all right?" he asked, and added "Yuu okaii?" as an afterthought.
Mei-san looked relieved for the distraction. She answered his words, indicating she and Jon-kun were okay. Then she tried pronouncing "All right" in his language.
"Daijobu," he said, correcting her pronounciation correctly. "Okaii. Aa raitu."
Jon-kun said something he didn't understand to Mei-san, and Kenzaki saw that he was pointing at the glint of metal in the distance.
[Jon] What have we here?sophiedbSeptember 4 2006, 14:00:39 UTC
Well, wasn't May happy to find something else to look at, Jon thought dryly, waving as Kensaki joined them. He flexed his legs gingerly, glad when they responded with the usual teen flexibility. He really didn't want to go back to ACL-land already; being carried was bad enough. And how come he got to be a clone when everyone else seemed to be super-strong, super-speedy or otherwise comic-like?
Satisfied that everyone was in full working order (it was almost a relief not to hear the word "fine," because that was always a sign of doom), he nudged May and pointed towards the unidentified metal object.
"Everyone caught their breath? Let's go take a look. Carefully."
They spread out and moved closer, Jon drawing his gun but keeping it low, impressed by how quietly the other two could move. It looked like another bunker, but one that had been abandoned judging by the way the door was wedged open by thick lianas. Decorative camouflage this was not - that plantlife was likely to hinder access, not hide it - and when they crept inside that assessment was confirmed by the state of the place, although the light from Jon's small maglite wasn't enough to see much other than the main room and four small cells. Flicking the light switches didn't do much good either. He handed the flashlight to May.
"I'll just check in with Daniel, then we should head back, ok? They need to know that creature's on the loose too," Jon commented, activating the radio as soon as he got back to the front door. "Hey Daniel, y'there? This is Jon, over."
"Daniel here. Please tell me you haven't found anything. Over."
"What? And break tradition? Besides, you should be thanking us. May, actually. We found the local jail, almost as dank and dingy as our scientific friends deserve." He could think of plenty worse, but this'd do for now. "The color scheme's a nice combination of damp rust and algal green."
"Would it be too much to ask for you to be serious?"
"Daniel, you wound me. Kenzaki's here too, by the way. He drew off that smoking dinosaur thing when it found us."
"What?!"
Jon winced at Daniel's exclamation, scrubbing his now aching ear. "Like I said, you can't fight tradition. Look, we're probably a mile or two from your position after all the, uh, running.. so we'll head back, but are going to take it easy in case that thing's still out there."
"What aren't you telling me, Jon?"
"Nothing. Scout's honor."
"You weren't a scout."
Damn. The man was right. "So?"
"Jon."
"Daniel?"
Jon grinned, almost hearing the huff on the other end of the line.
"The three of you just get back here in one piece, ok?"
"Affirmative. Jon out."
He turned back to find May and Kenzaki, blinking when he saw May's wry expression only a few feet away.
"Is baiting Daniel tradition, too?"
The smirk was inevitable, whether or not the pair had the power to blackmail. "Oh yeah."
[Mayday] What have we here?weirdwebSeptember 4 2006, 16:08:41 UTC
May couldn't help but grin. Poor Daniel. But it was fun to watch. She could just see the look on his face. Fortunately, it didn't sound like he was going to be telling anybody the details of what had just happened. Oh, he had entirely different reasons for that - she had the feeling that if it hadn't been a life-or-death situation, he'd have gotten even crankier - but she was grateful anyway. "Geez, you're worse than DD," she commented, shaking her head. "Didn't think it was possible."
Jon raised an eyebrow. "DD?"
She knelt down beside the consoles, grateful to be looking elsewhere and for convenient acronyms. "Guy I know - goes by his initials. Never misses a chance to push his uncle's buttons, whether or not it's appropriate."
May shone the flashlight over the console banks, computer cases and wiring, hoping to find maybe a manufacturer name, serial number, maybe an indicator of how long it had been since this place had been operational. It would be nice to have something to show for the mad dash.
There seemed to be some writing on one of the computer cases. She reached out and very gently peeled away the cobwebs obscuring the markings, trying not to hit any hidden switches. But she must have struck something, because the disc tray behind the cobwebs popped out at her touch. "What the?"
"What'd you do?" Jon said immediately. May snorted in spite of herself.
She pulled her hand back, but nothing happened. After a moment, May pulled the tray out all the way, surprised to see a CD sitting in the tray. Careful to only touch the edges, she lifted it out, inspecting both sides. No scratches. No dust. "I think I found something." She looked back at the other two, holding the disc up to the light. "Seems really coincidental to find this here and now, though, doesn't it?"
[Jon] No kiddingsophiedbSeptember 5 2006, 16:26:05 UTC
"You've got that right," Jon muttered suspiciously. "But I wish people wouldn't just go around touch-"
He stopped mid-sentence, pushing his way closer to the computer that May had been investigating. The writing was unhappily familiar. Why am I not surprised?
"Found something interesting?"
"Unfortunately. And just as annoyingly coincidental. Why would they leave this stuff lying around?"
"Not gibberish then."
Jon shook his head, now rifling through desk drawers in search of paper and pen. "To us, yes. To Daniel, no. It's the same language as on that pillar. Aha! Hey Ken, you wanna shine that light over here? Yeah, right here."
He copied the Ancient characters down quickly, ignoring the itch to half-translate them in the back of his mind. There wasn't enough time for that, not when they didn't know how far from base they really were.
Too late.
"Observation rooms? Not holding cells?"
"I thought you said that was gibberish.."
Crap, musta said that out loud.
"Yeah, well I'm rusty. It's not like they teach this in high school." ..because downloading it into your brain is easier. "C'mon, let's get back. It's time for lunch and I heard they found pie."
OOC: All EXITING.. unless more ebilness is planned on the way 'home'?
Nah, no ebilness. May will spend the time teasing Jon, making commentary about the availability of pie, and trying to at least learn a few more phrases and how to pronounce them from Kenzaki. (She'll figure it out later, I think I'm going to string her along so that when she DOES figure it out, she'll slap herself for being so dense.)
aliencrabcakes and I were speculating that Dean probably might have gotten the fireman's carry treatment from Mayday when they first met, so if he finds out about it he's got no reason to make fun. (Although his reaction to that would have probably been a little different.) :)
Jon glanced back over his shoulder, praying that his ears were lying and the monster wasn't gaining on them. No such luck: its strange creakiness was definitely getting closer and smoke had never looked so menacing. At least it hadn't turned around to head for the bunker - though solid walls did sound good right now. Unless this thing could smoke its way through them, in which case.. not so good. Was it guarding a specific patch, or just out for food? Whatever the hell something like that ate; wood, charcoal, oil?
He turned back to the path and concentrated on following May, unable to shake the feeling that she was holding back on his account. That was really galling, but if either of them was going to get munched he rather it wasn't her. At least he'd actually had a decent breakfast this morning, though Weetbix might have been a better choice in retrospect.
Suddenly Jon's vision arched downwards, slamming into the forest floor while pain radiated from his knees outwards. Oh yeah, this is familiar.. and such good fucking timing too! He scrambled to pick himself up but couldn't hide from the fact that his legs - though bound to recover - weren't going to be in any shape to run for several minutes.
"Shit, shit, shit," he muttered, registering May's voice as she came back to help him. "No time! Just keep going! Hey!"
"Sure, just give me second," she replied, hefting him up and over her shoulder despite his protests. Was that a faked groan, too?
Either way they were moving again and Jon was getting a prime view of.. ok, watching someone's six wasn't half as much fun from this angle. The smokey mass of tree-destroying Meccano wasn't a particularly nice view either though, was it? It wasn't catching up quite so quickly any more though. Wow. He'd much rather be running, but couldn't deny the fact that he'd be toast by now if May hadn't come to his rescue.
Jon grimaced, then swallowed his pride as best he could. "Nice one, kid. You're, uh, winning."
I am never going to live this down.
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Better not EVER let Dean hear about this!
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Kenzaki had been foraging (old habits die hard) and generally keeping watch when the ground began to rumble. Frowning, he looked up to see Mai-san, who had Jon-kun over her shoulder. She looked over at him. "Raan!" he understood her to say, and after a second of remembering that that meant "run", he took off, hoping he didn't drop his basket.
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She practically rocketed from branch to branch, occasionally helped along by a webline when the trees thinned out, but only occasionally. The adrenaline and euphoria at being able to web-swing for the first time in three days helped her along, and it seemed that the rumbling sounded farther away. She didn't dare look back, but just kept going north, hoping they wouldn't run out of trees before they lost the thing.
"Nice one, kid," Jon grunted, "You're, uh, winning."
"I sure as hell hope so!" May gasped. The trees thinned out into a clearing up ahead. She didn't hesitate, shooting out a webline and swinging them across the clearing, back into the trees. The adrenaline was fading and she was starting to tire; the smoke monster or whatever it was was really fast.
But the crashing was getting fainter, and after about five more minutes, it was quiet again. "Is it gone?" May asked, pausing in a tree branch, not ready to go down just yet.
"Yeah. Can you put me down now?" Jon asked.
(Oh, yeah.) Reality reasserted herself, and May was uncomfortably aware that she had Jon slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. (How am I going to explain this one?) "Sorry. Hang on a sec."
She dropped down to the forest floor and half put down, half helped Jon down so he would wind up on his feet without too much embarrassment.
((OOC: To be continued. Need to run. Food pick-up.))
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Now she'd broken a sweat. Once Jon was back on his feet and they listened for several seconds without hearing anything more than bird calls and the wind in the trees, May leaned over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. It hadn't been long - the chase had lasted maybe ten minutes, tops - but she could barely remember the last time she'd had to pour it on like that without even pausing for breath.
"You all right?" Jon asked.
She nodded. "Yeah, just give me a sec. Got my workout for the day, that's for sure. So how much of that bacon did you eat this morning, anyway?"
"Hey, you cooked it, I just ate it," Jon snapped.
May straightened, grinning. "I'm kidding." She looked around. "Darn it. I hope it didn't go after Kenzaki."
Jon shook his head. "It'd have to double back a ways first."
"I hope so," May said, unconvinced. She suddenly noticed that Jon was looking at her oddly. She cast around desperately for a distraction, then found one as she spotted a glint of metal to the south, near the clearing they'd passed over. "Hey, what's that?"
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After about fifteen or so minutes, he found them. He didn't know if it was a lucky break, or something had happened between him and Mei-san when he'd assumed Scarab Undead's form the night before, but he was grateful.
"Are you all right?" he asked, and added "Yuu okaii?" as an afterthought.
Mei-san looked relieved for the distraction. She answered his words, indicating she and Jon-kun were okay. Then she tried pronouncing "All right" in his language.
"Daijobu," he said, correcting her pronounciation correctly. "Okaii. Aa raitu."
Jon-kun said something he didn't understand to Mei-san, and Kenzaki saw that he was pointing at the glint of metal in the distance.
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Satisfied that everyone was in full working order (it was almost a relief not to hear the word "fine," because that was always a sign of doom), he nudged May and pointed towards the unidentified metal object.
"Everyone caught their breath? Let's go take a look. Carefully."
They spread out and moved closer, Jon drawing his gun but keeping it low, impressed by how quietly the other two could move. It looked like another bunker, but one that had been abandoned judging by the way the door was wedged open by thick lianas. Decorative camouflage this was not - that plantlife was likely to hinder access, not hide it - and when they crept inside that assessment was confirmed by the state of the place, although the light from Jon's small maglite wasn't enough to see much other than the main room and four small cells. Flicking the light switches didn't do much good either. He handed the flashlight to May.
"I'll just check in with Daniel, then we should head back, ok? They need to know that creature's on the loose too," Jon commented, activating the radio as soon as he got back to the front door. "Hey Daniel, y'there? This is Jon, over."
"Daniel here. Please tell me you haven't found anything. Over."
"What? And break tradition? Besides, you should be thanking us. May, actually. We found the local jail, almost as dank and dingy as our scientific friends deserve." He could think of plenty worse, but this'd do for now. "The color scheme's a nice combination of damp rust and algal green."
"Would it be too much to ask for you to be serious?"
"Daniel, you wound me. Kenzaki's here too, by the way. He drew off that smoking dinosaur thing when it found us."
"What?!"
Jon winced at Daniel's exclamation, scrubbing his now aching ear. "Like I said, you can't fight tradition. Look, we're probably a mile or two from your position after all the, uh, running.. so we'll head back, but are going to take it easy in case that thing's still out there."
"What aren't you telling me, Jon?"
"Nothing. Scout's honor."
"You weren't a scout."
Damn. The man was right. "So?"
"Jon."
"Daniel?"
Jon grinned, almost hearing the huff on the other end of the line.
"The three of you just get back here in one piece, ok?"
"Affirmative. Jon out."
He turned back to find May and Kenzaki, blinking when he saw May's wry expression only a few feet away.
"Is baiting Daniel tradition, too?"
The smirk was inevitable, whether or not the pair had the power to blackmail. "Oh yeah."
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Jon raised an eyebrow. "DD?"
She knelt down beside the consoles, grateful to be looking elsewhere and for convenient acronyms. "Guy I know - goes by his initials. Never misses a chance to push his uncle's buttons, whether or not it's appropriate."
May shone the flashlight over the console banks, computer cases and wiring, hoping to find maybe a manufacturer name, serial number, maybe an indicator of how long it had been since this place had been operational. It would be nice to have something to show for the mad dash.
There seemed to be some writing on one of the computer cases. She reached out and very gently peeled away the cobwebs obscuring the markings, trying not to hit any hidden switches. But she must have struck something, because the disc tray behind the cobwebs popped out at her touch. "What the?"
"What'd you do?" Jon said immediately. May snorted in spite of herself.
She pulled her hand back, but nothing happened. After a moment, May pulled the tray out all the way, surprised to see a CD sitting in the tray. Careful to only touch the edges, she lifted it out, inspecting both sides. No scratches. No dust. "I think I found something." She looked back at the other two, holding the disc up to the light. "Seems really coincidental to find this here and now, though, doesn't it?"
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He stopped mid-sentence, pushing his way closer to the computer that May had been investigating. The writing was unhappily familiar. Why am I not surprised?
"Found something interesting?"
"Unfortunately. And just as annoyingly coincidental. Why would they leave this stuff lying around?"
"Not gibberish then."
Jon shook his head, now rifling through desk drawers in search of paper and pen. "To us, yes. To Daniel, no. It's the same language as on that pillar. Aha! Hey Ken, you wanna shine that light over here? Yeah, right here."
He copied the Ancient characters down quickly, ignoring the itch to half-translate them in the back of his mind. There wasn't enough time for that, not when they didn't know how far from base they really were.
Too late.
"Observation rooms? Not holding cells?"
"I thought you said that was gibberish.."
Crap, musta said that out loud.
"Yeah, well I'm rusty. It's not like they teach this in high school." ..because downloading it into your brain is easier. "C'mon, let's get back. It's time for lunch and I heard they found pie."
OOC: All EXITING.. unless more ebilness is planned on the way 'home'?
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Jon's in denial.
LOL!
Nice one, sophiedb!
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aliencrabcakes and I were speculating that Dean probably might have gotten the fireman's carry treatment from Mayday when they first met, so if he finds out about it he's got no reason to make fun. (Although his reaction to that would have probably been a little different.) :)
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