(Untitled)

[hatesafrica]

Characters: hatesafrica and ornithophobia
Where: Some street in the city.
Rating: Probably PG-13.
Time: August 2nd.
Description: Rachel goes to get herself more acquainted with the town and all the stores, and has an unexpected meeting along the way.

Comments

[ornithophobia]

After only the one outing the night before it might have been too soon to say that Crane was hitting his stride, but he was certainly far more enthusiastic about the whole matter. Even after his "meeting" with Sephiroth, which should have given him no small amount of gratification, it had felt like nothing but work: a necessary step in a logical series of actions. No, it had taken the second one -- Rhode -- and those exquisite screams of hers for him to remember that he could enjoy his work too.

So the third day, he didn't even wait for nightfall; it couldn't have been far past twilight when the Scarecrow ventured out looking for someone, anyone. Any urgent issues he'd already sorted out with his first two subjects. Now he just needed to get as much of his toxin distributed as widely as possible.

He wondered, coming across the first person he saw, how long it'd take for these thick people to realise that walking the lesser-populated streets alone was going to be a bad idea from now on. Ah well, no use looking a gift horse in

[hatesafrica]

Rachel had been leaning against the wall for a few minutes, thinking about her situation and musing about whether her sisters were alright or not, along with her mother, when she first heard the voice. At first, it merely shocked her; then she looked over and saw the man, and most importantly, the bag over his face. Her eyes opened wide; this really couldn't be happening, could it? Not to her. All she had been doing was looking around the place, and it was still fairly light out! The man had to be crazy -- no, that was a given, wasn't it? She grabbed a bag and put it in front of her, as if it would do anything to stop him from coming

[ornithophobia]

Oh, this was just too easy -- he didn't even have to do anything to frighten this one, did he?

He held his hands out, palms outwards to show the girl how empty and weapon-free they were (for the time being.) Obviously she was on the verge of flight, and although he doubted that he could do anything to significantly placate her, perhaps the gesture would buy him more time to enjoy this.

"You're right, I'd be crazy to try anything now," Scarecrow said, not deigning to mention that the screams were more or less what he was planning on getting. "Luckily for you, I'm a very reasonable person despite what you may have heard. I don't intend to hurt you." Which is sort of true. He hazarded a few steps forward, as if around a cornered animal. At least he could be sure this one wouldn't bolt very far.

[hatesafrica]

She looked at his hands, readying herself in case they should produce a weapon very soon, which she was expecting - but really, she couldn't get very far running in high heels, or running barefoot. Not to mention the bags... No, don't think about the bags, she told herself. There were more important things to take care of here, like... Oh, her life, for one. She didn't know anything about this man, other than what Jaime had said, and all he really told her was to stay away. So she was assuming the worst here, and backing away slowly. She figured if she ran, he'd catch up to her easily

your keyword, I loled

[ornithophobia]

"Mm, this? Necessity, actually. It's all rather, ah, technical so..." In other words, not something Scarecrow was going to explain. She'd figure it out soon enough, anyway. Forward motion stopped as the girl retreated. For a moment there, he'd nearly considered lunging forward -- probably with a melodramatic "BOO" -- just to see her jump, but Crane quashed the thought. Uncharacteristic whimsy aside, he had no desire to make this more difficult than it had to be, and giving chase would certainly be... Well, inconvenient, if not difficult. She could only have been eight feet away at the very most.

"Actually, it may just be simpler to show you what I use it for," he offered. "But first, a quick dose of medicine--"

And without further warning, in one practised motion he took one large step forward and brought his arm up, outstretched, a white dust-like cloud of poison dispersing from the sleeve.

and I at yours

[hatesafrica]

The 'quick dose of medicine' and his step set her off, and she was moving backwards as the cloud moved out of his sleeve; however, she was a few seconds too late. In the short time it took for the gas to reach her system, she thought about a few things; if it was poison, if she was going to die, and during the last few split seconds, why it wasn't hurting.

She coughed, in the meantime, and waved her hand in front of her face to get the gas away. As her hand moved by her eyes, she saw the first one; an ant, crawling over her finger. She grimaced, flicking it away with another finger. It managed to stay on, though; then she noticed more, over her hands and arms. She started brushing them off, rubbing her arms with her hands. When this didn't do anything, she held her face in her hands, trying to stop from panicking. They're only bugs, she told herself; they can't do any permanent damage.

That was when she felt them crawling over her legs, her feet, her waist, her everywhere. She felt them over her face, even in her mouth. She spat

[ornithophobia]

Now we're talking. Crane had observed enough reactions from enough subjects to deduce what the girl was seeing. Vermin, or insects, no doubt. Simple fears, from what looked like a simple-minded teenager, but fears no less valid than any other. There was something very endearing about such a straightforward aversion -- someone afraid of insects wouldn't typically deny or try to fight such a visceral emotion... They'd simply react to it much as this girl was doing now.

"Aha, you weren't exaggerating. You really can scream." It wasn't too late yet and he knew he'd have even less time than he had with Rhode the evening before -- a setback that was a lot more irritating now that he had to confront it -- but the girl was a stranger and so he had little interest in spending too much effort picking apart her mind. "Let me guess-- spiders? Snakes? Rats

[hatesafrica]

By the time he had asked the question, Rachel was too far gone to properly respond to it. Instead, she was shaking, trying not to be sick, and swatting the creatures with her hands. Not that it was doing any good. Somewhere in this process, she had taken a step back and miscalculated, falling to the ground. She gasped as she hit the ground, before her screaming continued; they were all over the ground, too, over everything, with no end to the pests in sight. She scooted away from her spot, but there was nowhere she could go to avoid them at this time. She started rubbing them away harder, before she started scraping them away with her nails. Her clothes started ripping, and she backed up against the wall, panting; that's when she saw him coming towards her. She stands up, shakily, and takes a few steps back before toppling to the ground again

[ornithophobia]

"I suppose it doesn't matter." Either way, the girl was going to scratch herself half to death at this rate. He paused in his approach long enough to kneel down and pick up something she dropped -- her purse, and more importantly, the communicator that was in it. He was on a bit of a schedule here and doubtless the girl wouldn't have the presence of mind to do this herself. It would be the only right thing to do, giving her a hand like this.

After a little rummaging, he found something that was probably the communicator, except it was more like half a compact mirror and half a cell phone. He lies low for two days, and suddenly everyone's outfitted with new "technology," huh? Talk about timing. Letting the purse fall to the ground, Scarecrow walked briskly over to where the girl was kneeling on the ground. Ignoring her attempts to crawl away through whatever delusions she was experiencing, he seized her wrist.

"For your sake, I hope very much that this will get through to you. Now, you'll need this--" he explained, forcing

[hatesafrica]

She pulled away as he grabbed her wrist, wincing and looking away from him, praying he would let go. Instead, she felt something shoved into her hand. She looked at it, uncomprehending; why would he willingly give it to her? Did he want her to turn it off or break it so she couldn't reach anyone? She tried to force herself to listen to his words, but the ants - they'd crawled in her ears, she couldn't hear anything.

Just thinking about it made her start to panic again, and she took deep breaths to try and calm herself. She could hear small snippets of what he was saying. He... wanted her to call? Well, she sure wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste, and she searched for the red button they had talked about. She could barely see it, under the ants. When she felt the man's hand leave her wrist, she backed up frantically, searching for the button. She shook the device, trying to get some of the insects off, and finally saw the button. She pushed her thumb down on it hurriedly. Whether or not it could hear her, she began to

[ornithophobia]

"Compliant, very good. You probably don't understand how much you've helped me out this evening." And her alert had helped, although he hadn't quite expected the girl to seize her opportunity so soon. That was essentially the end of their time, lest unwanted company show up before he had a chance to leave; unfortunately, the attention he wanted on the network could also work against him if he wasn't careful...

He rose and gave the girl some space -- no, no sign of knives from this one yet, but better safe than sorry -- and shrugged at her display. "But you're not going to get them off you that way. If you're holding out hope that help will arrive before they consume you whole... I wouldn't count on it."

...Whatever "they" were. It'd be interesting to see if this one would be the first to go truly mad, but he'd have to check up on the effects later -- time to abscond before help did arrive. With that, Scarecrow left the girl to her own devices.