[Thread] 72 hours and counting

[darkrangerqueen]

Characters: Sylvanas Windrunner (OU), Leon Kennedy (OU)
Where: The empty lot -- Interestingly, the place where those two went down during the flashback attack.
When: As the wall crumbles.
Summary: The team look out into the wastes.
Warnings: None.

Comments

[yersmalltime]

Leon was stone-faced against the wasteland before them. But inside, the pit of his stomach had hollowed out in response to the emptiness. He remembered his suggestion a year ago, to somehow take a scouting party beyond the Obex and search for other settlements. For any survivors who might still be out there, hiding from the Entropi and waiting to be saved.

In retrospect, he was glad that hadn't pushed through. How their hopes would have been dashed at knowing they were truly all this Earth had left.

As easily as if he could read her thoughts without voicing them, Leon followed Sylvanas to the gap in the Obex. He squinted a little, peered past the bony shoulders of their skeletal band. Then his eyes followed hers to the sky above, to where the Keepers had stared down at them for the longest time. They'd been gone awhile now. This major change in the city's status had not brought them back.

Leon kicked a rock through the exit, and onto the ground outside littered with dead leaves. Nothing happened.

The ex-cop braced himself. Then before the once-elf could stop him, he raised a foot and took one long step into the outside world. A seemingly reckless gambit; his charge had expendable minions after all. But the thought on his mind was that if anything untoward were to happen, he wanted it to happen to him first while. That way, Sylv would still have soldiers to throw at the enemy.

A minute passed. And when Leon was finally sure there was no threat to his charge, he glanced at her over his shoulder and gave her a reassuring nod.

[darkrangerqueen]

Idiot. The whole reason she directed a handful of minions ahead of them was to prevent him from going first: Leon was worth more than all these mindless puppets. Still, Sylvanas waited for his signal; she used the time to survey the horizon. At his nod she leaped neatly over the remains of the Obex and landed in a crouch beside him, one hand touching the earth.

On this side, wind wandered over the barren plain and rattled the branches of the dead trees. She inhaled, and scented...dust. Little else. The leaves disintegrated under her fingers. Fear found her then, as she comprehended the extent of the desolation. Even though her spiritual connection to the living world had been severed years ago, the land's thin cries still reached her through all her mundane senses.

"This place..." the undead elf began, but could not find the words to finish her thought.

(OOC: Whenever Leon utters the words from his recent post, Sylvanas will respond to them.)

[yersmalltime]

OOC: That'll be towards the end of this, I expect. ^_^ And you should've had Sylv mutter whatever Thalassian or Gutterspeak are for 'idiot'; got a funny idea I'll be PMing you about. XD

Right then, another gust of wind enveloped the kneeling duo. Leon blinked against the dust motes caught in his eyes, lifted a hand to wipe them off. When he lowered it, he found gray and black ashes resting in his gloved palm. They could have been the remains of anything. Blades of grass. Twigs and tree branches. Cement from a project in some faraway village.

...humans.

In his mind's eye, he relived the Entropi invading the doomed city behind them. And that was when he knew the fear gripping Sylvanas. Not that he noticed it; she hid her unease well. But so did he. Charge and bodyguard knew deep down that they needed to be strong for each other. And that neither wanted to be the first to make the other doubt.

"...is what happens if the Entropi reach our worlds.", the ex-cop finished, blue eyes on the naked branches around them. He was stating the obvious but he was also driving the realization home. And that 'if' was the keyword. "Think we'll find anything out there?"

[darkrangerqueen]

"No. Not nearby." The ranger's red eyes burned in their sockets. "We must focus on our own survival." She too remembered how the Keepers had chosen to make their case, by forcing the residents of Econtra into a shared vision of their enemies' destruction. A second death, a nightmare death. Standing, Sylvanas whispered a phrase in a voice thin and hollow as the wind. "Shindu fallah na...They are closing in," she translated absently.

The next moment the communicator was in her hand and raised to her lips. Sylvanas began to rapidly issue her commands. When she realized the device wasn't working, she cursed sharply and darted back inside the compound. There, she started over. Pacing to and fro, restless, feral, calculating, she once again radiated the aura of the passionate general Leon so believed in. And Econtra had finally allowed her to play that role, now, so close to a real battle.

[yersmalltime]

The leader within Sylvanas had been stymied and hampered for too long. And it stoked the fires in Leon's soul to see it now, raw and unbridled, emboldening him anew. It also reminded him just why he'd chosen to stay by her side all this time.

He waited till her last command had been sent before speaking. "Kane, Rorschach, and I swept each building here over the last three days. With a little help from your Repair team, we think they'll hold up against environmental disasters." Like those from the Entropi attack on the old compound, though he knew that she knew this already. "Each building is well-ventilated, and previous precautions mean there are enough supplies to last for days. Safest place to be though is still underground. For those not fighting at least."

The ex-cop crossed his arms, touched the Dark Ranger's eyes with his own. They softened for a moment, and she'd see something pass those blue orbs. Some... feeling that went a little more than that of mere loyalty. "As your bodyguard, I'd rather keep you out of harm's way. But you're also our general, and you need to be at the center of things more than anyone else."

He nodded past her shoulder, towards the Office building towering over them some distance away. "And I think that will do for a command post."

[darkrangerqueen]

She glanced at the building. When attacks could come from any direction, one building was about the same as another. Yet the office's central location and long windows offered a slim advantage. "For now." The winds of her mood had not shifted away from the sight beyond the walls. Fixing her unblinking gaze on his anew, she continued, low and cold, "I will not be shut away while others fight." Leon had to understand that. No matter how much he placed her worth above his, when the battle began -- however it began -- Sylvanas Windrunner would be on the ground with the rest of the fighters, not just nearby.