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

"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.

WALLS

BRICK STONE BARS

WATER

FIRE

FIRE

fire over bars

smoke (purification holiness a message to Her)

screams (the martyr's suffering will make Her stronger)

PARADISE

she wasn't strong enough
she wasn't chosen
God will come
God will come
God will come

Rachel viewed the pieces of the splintered mind curiously. Was this what the world was meant to do? To weaken and spread through metal cracks until there was less mind and more insanity? It wasn't acceptable. No, this wasn't allowed to happen to Amber.

She reached out, carefully, gently, finding every last shattered piece of personality the woman had once held. Those mind fragments buried under fanaticism. Rachel needed to know if she could repair the damage this reality did, and the woman was a perfect subject.

Idly, as an after thought, she reached along the power link to male and froze him as well.

As she reaches deeper, it becomes clear that the insanity is not of this world, but of one very like the one she's from.

A strange group

A church to a burning goddess

Faith enforced by imprisonment and punishment

Beneath it all, a terrified, grieving desparation

Paradise

an end to suffering

As she touches the other mind, there's a fierce resistance- stronger, possibly, than she might normally expect.

MAMA! What did you do to her?! LET HER GO!

The projection that forms is large and powerful, veiled in a red hood, carrying a long, bloody spear.

That was...sick. She'd wanted the insanity to have been a product of the place, not a part of the person prior. She truly and deeply disliked such twisted people. She'd seen far too many of them in her life.

::Shhhh:: she sent gently along the link, as she would to any child. She needed to think. Through the haze of rage and the strange pulls of this reality, she needed to think.

The woman was dangerous. She wasn't sure that killing her in a place like this was the best option though. The place felt like it fed on death. It was the Phoenix part of her soul, still engaged in stabilizing and gentling the reality around Amber, that suggested an answer. To take away the ability to do harm.

To burn out those pieces of the woman that could recognize and manipulate the wild energies being tapped, shut the woman off from 'God'. Beyond that they would see what else the woman needed to lose.

As for the son...they'd see.

LET HER GO!

The deepest force stirs, through the distant son. It is a tiny conduit, but so it the end of a firehose.

Red wings of fluttering silk

A coccoon

Her phoenix fire burns it, but layers wrap and wrap and wrap around the woman's mind, and draw it back, away from her.

Go away, demon! Be gone! God will protect us from the forces of darkness!

::She will not let my friend be:: was the calm, thunderous reply.

That wild power, for right now, was an issue. She held the woman's body, so she could trace the mind when she chose...but first, that power. She drew the old woman's body back, gently through the walls of flame to keep it safe, then settled for finding the boundaries of the reality.

When she found them, for this upper reality was so very small, she was going to seal out every power but her own, unless that outside powers only intent was returning Amber.

The world is twisting again.

Amber needs to do this! he replies passionately. She's gotta be purified!

::No, she doesn't::

This time she paused to fully observe the twisting. Ah, a pull, a pinch, a force of will...it was like stilling the ocean. Simple, really, once the outside forces were handled. After all, how could the world twist if there was nothing to grasp and pull through?

As for those outside forces, there were the boundaries, great edges in reality. Silent hill really was just a little dark soap bubble. The size had to be frustrating to the inhabitants at times. Now the fun part of cutting off that outside layer from the inner layers!

::Keep your sickness among yourselves::

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