scribble_puppet | Central Silent Hill/Alchemilla Hospital (Foggy World)

There was a ripple as Rachel's feet touched ground. A small shockwave that made the ears pop and the mist swirl in agitation. What she held within her soul, the Phoenix, was strange and alien in this dark, vague world. She looked down at the ground thoughtfully, letting her awareness sink into the ground and rise into the air, testing the limits of this little world.

It felt like Silent Hill was sideways and down from the reality Amber should have lived in. That was...odd. She hadn't encountered anything quite like it. "Yeah, part of it." she agreed quietly.

She was here in many capacities; bodyguard, army, friend, whatever Amber needed to get out instead of just visiting a kinder reality. Not a single one of her 'roles' told her what to do now though. "What do you want me to do?" she asked simply.

"Iunno..." she mumbles, "I guess... just... like havin' someone else here..."

The place feels empty. Or rather, it feels full, but not of people, or things. Though here and there are scattered pinpoints of mental activity; mostly faint bits like distant stars only seen through a telescope, but two much nearer, much brighter.

One flares like a sparkler, waves of burning colour. The other is a cold stone, arrowhead-sharp and focused. Both are to the northeast, a short walk away.

She nodded and leaned over just enough to bump her shoulder into Amber's. A comfort gesture that would still leave them free to fight if it came to that. "This feels nasty, and heavy." Amber was a very strong person not to be insane by now.

Rachel lifted an arm to point, unerring to the distance "There's two minds that way. Want to talk to them or is it better to stay alone?" she wasn't going to pry into the alien minds to see who, or what, they were. Not yet. There wasn't any need.

Having someone else around is so good.

Even if it's just to establish that she's not crazy. That the place is just as horrible as she thinks.

"I dunno... last guy I talked to was... fucked up. In the head." But then...

"Might be that preacher man."

Shit.

What if they're together?

"Yeah, let's go."

It soon becomes obvious that they would've had to go that way, anyhow- the streets leading away all drop into abysses that may or may not have bottoms, herding the girls to a brick wall surrounding a large, old building. Iron gates hang open in front. An ambulance sits empty in the courtyard inside.

"Alchemilla Hospital," Amber reads from the sign above the gate.

"I might be able to fix a little bit of the damage, mentally, if it's the crazy person." Rachel noted, tilting her head to the side to think about it. "But it feels like this place is designed to break people apart, so it might not work." The damage could be too extensive, like with Hounds that lost it under the programming...

...

...

"I don't like doctors." she found it important to mention as she looked up at the grim building. "Maybe we should get the minds to come out?"

"Pretty sure there's no doctors here. Whole place is fuckin' abandoned. Be kickass except for all the monsters 'n' shit."

She moves to the entrance, pushing one of the double doors open. The lobby (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v480/furikku/SilentMilliways/entry.jpg) is marble floors, benches, magazines... and not a soul in sight.

"All clear."

There's mental movement deeper within- sudden excitement and agitation.

Rachel stalked past Amber, and the door, sliding into the lobby so she'd be the first hit if there was anything strange waiting for them. "No..." she hissed quietly as she narrowed her eyes. Her whole body was rigid, for all the world like a hound that had caught the scent of something. "Someone knows we're here. They got excited when we stepped in."

"Shit. Really?" How do they know?!

She readies the gun and moves to the wall.

There's a tug at the mindscape, and things shift. Everything looks the same, but... something's changed.

Amber doesn't seem to notice; she looks to Rachel, jerking her head toward the hallway.

"There are a lot of ways to sense people. You burn, Amber, you're bright in a misty world. Something can probably see that." She tried to explain as she sidled toward the wall as well. She didn't think a wall was going to help, but she wanted to stay close to her friend.

"No. Something changed." she was wasn't sure what, but she was betting more maneuverability was a good thing. Things could get ugly very quickly in as small a space as this. "We should back out."

She is not going to argue with Rachel.

Except that the door is locked. And refuses to respond to pushing or kicking.

"What the fuck?!"

Another twist.

And then her cell phone crackles quietly.

"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck." She turns, gun up, staring around. "That means there's a thing."

Rachel briefly considering blowing out the door and a good chunk of the wall it was in. But...they were just starting, and there was no need to advertise too much strength right away. Not yet.

She stepped out ahead of Amber a little, careful not to block the girl's shot, and waited. In cases like this, with less room, her old fighting style was probably best. That meant teke claws and inviting the ruthless, Hound mindset back into her forebrain.

It wasn't pleasant. She'd be shaking the Hound attributes for months after this. "Then let it come."

She would get a rude surprise if she tried to blow this place up!

tk tk tk tk- sharp metal on stone tile.

A squat form in the foggy hallway.

Amber is already shooting as the thing (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v480/furikku/SilentMilliways/mompuppet.jpg) approaches.

Eh, blow up, tear apart reality in a ten mile radius around their shielded bubble, same thing. She could get a little intense when she felt the need to escape.

Well. That was new.

Kind of like nightmares when viewed in the mentalscape.

She grinned and superheated Amber's bullets as they streaked past her. Nothing like incendiary rounds?

No, nothing like them. Especially not here, where the thing's bandages catch fire, and charred lines scribe themselves across its skin as it falls. And the fire spreads.

And then Amber is on the ground, clutching at her abdomen and hissing through her teeth.

And then

she falls through

without moving from where she is

and she's gone

And the world is still.

As quick as Rachel could be, as quick as thought, it wasn't fast enough here. Her flames instinctively reached out and gouged the floor where Amber had been, just that terrible heartbeat behind her.

Now?

Now she was angry.

She could feel the place poking and prying along the edges of her mind, laughing at her failure, but for now she ignored it. She threw up walls of flame around herself and ignored everything in favor of staring hard at that floor. It wasn't a hound that noted the stretched and abused edges of reality, nor was it entirely Rachel...but whatever it was, it wasn't happy. ::I SEE YOU::

Not Amber, she couldn't see her friend though she was mentally feeling through the wake, no, she could see another layer. Another being. Something almost opposite of what she was.

There are three layers of response.

The deepest has a feeling of vast emotion, chaotic, unformed, only swirling into shapes when molded by things on This Side. It washes around the echo of Amber and the monster they just destroyed, clinging to the etherial form they give it, frames for a skin that can't support itself.

It's power, but unguided.

The next is similarly chaotic, but much, much smaller- still powerful, but condensed and with some control.

And then, the last, weak, but hard, and approaching.

An older woman appears from the hallway, regarding her impassively.

She dismissed the response of power; it was already teetering. Unstructured and useless without something to drive it. She flicked a negligent, almost lazy, flicker of flame at it to form a bubble. A shield to cut it off from any who would influence it.

The second she noted, and she'd keep a mental watch on it to see how it behaved.

The third earned a a slight bit of real attention. The woman in the flames shifted just enough to glance at older woman, bright emerald sparks in the heart of the Phoenix for her eyes. ::Speak:: She would allow that much as she started peeling up the layers beneath her feet and burning them to ash.

"You're interfering in God's Will," she informs her flatly. "The Mother has been called. God's will be done."

Now wasn't that entertaining? Give up her friend in the face of...God? ::No:: she said simply, dismissing the woman.

The human aspects of herself were a little worried at the mention of 'Mother'. Rachel didn't believe Amber wanted to be one, in any concept of the word. That meant she had to hurry. The flames around her grew even hotter, flaring and spreading as if she was flexing her wings. A great talon lifted and then plunged deep into that weakness in reality...

...and no, she didn't care what damage she was doing to the hospital in the upper reality.

There is terror and pain. Some of it is from the powers. Much of it just is, leaking out around Rachel and flowing through the fog.

There's a scream. Not from anyone, not audible, but felt.

There's Amber. Pain, confusion, panic. And the connection between her and this reality is shredding beneath Rachel's onslaught.

"Johnny," the woman snaps.

The second mind focuses, and things twist again, knitting the fabric of things together hurriedly.

"Do you intend to lose her forever? I will not let the Mother be taken from us again."

Emotion itself was delicious. Fear, pain, terror, these had all been weapons in her arsenal when she more-and-less than what she was now. Most of her revels in the destruction, in the agony. She could make it beautiful, create a far better reality after removing this one...

...Amber...

...it would be a glowing, growing place no longer bound by mist and ash. A place that didn't invite this rogue power in the cracks and crevasses. She knew exactly how to weave it...

...AMBER!.

She paused, letting that awareness echo through her mind. A closer look at the reality layers revealed the threads tearing asunder under her onslaught. Was she truly willing to lose the one she'd come to protect? To Protect?!

No.

Slowly, carefully, she withdrew her power from the lower realm, leaving only enough, a trickle, to stabilize and warm the edges around her friend. It wasn't the full restructuring the Phoenix craved, but it was an infusion of bright, clean Life around Amber. It would have to do for now.

Back in the upper reality, all but a single, flickering feather of Rachel's form had withdrawn from the earth at her feet. She turned entirely to face the woman now since she had nothing else to focus on ::And what am I going to do with you...two?:: she mused, the mental voice like the hiss of flame along wet wood.

"What do you think you can do to someone with God's blessing? Even if I am rent to pieces, She will return, and will remember our faith. Paradise will be opened again."

She turns back, no longer interested in Rachel.

"The Mother shall be returned soon. You have disrupted her trial. But... I expect your interference has more than made up for it, in its own way. God will find a way, after all."

No, she simply wasn't satisfied with that. Rachel needed to know what was intended for her friend. She needed to know what this woman, and her companion, did. ::You wouldn't understand paradise, even if you could reach it.:: she remarked, almost conversationally as she reached out to freeze the woman's muscles in teke.

::Let's take a look at what you believe in shall we?::

For the first time in the entire conversation, the woman's face shows emotion- shock, as she can no longer move.

Her mind is rock and steel, a thick shell around secret thoughts. It grows harder as Rachel first enters, defiant and unmoved.

You mock the form of God herself, but I will not bow to you!

::I have been a God, as you understand it:: she laughed, a warm, almost gentle sound through the softer sections of the mind. The Shi'ar had worshiped her for time out of mind. She had never asked that they bow though.

The wonderful thing about rock and steel was that they melted. They seemed so solid, so unbreakable, that everyone forgot that the solidity was a transient state. Her touch on those inner walls was sun's heart hot, burning fingers to play through the steel and rock like a child with paints.

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