revivalproject | Nowhere to run from all of this havoc

Entry tags:

Nowhere to run from all of this havoc

WHO: Kaz (who will eventually be an avatar of The Eye) and various people
WHERE: Temba
WHAT: October event
WHEN: 10/16 - End of October
WARNINGS: Probably this entire log will be riddled with CW but specific threads will have specific warnings so read at your own risk

For Tony
Between the giant eye floating above the entire city then a voice and something both speaking and a truly bizarre feeling which rocked through Kaz at the same time, and it was no surprise that Kaz lost consciousness. When he next woke it was to the sound of gunfire. Kaz knew that sound, though, and knew that he needed to find cover quickly. He recognized the sound of gunfire but it was coming from several sides. This wasn't one or two people firing. This was a warzone.

The sound of gunfire and deeper explosions that Kaz knew were mortars was barely muffled when Kaz found a way inside. The building he was in was barely more than the skeleton of a building and the roof had caved in on one side so that the floating eye was still visible beyond it's edge.

For Kyle
It felt like Kaz must be a mile underground by now. The way before him was getting narrower as he walked but the way back was either blocked off after a few steps or had become too narrow to walk through inexplicably. Just the tunnels themselves gave Kaz an unnerving feeling of being buried alive.

Now he came to what appeared to be some sort of chamber. It wasn't much of one and the walls weren't stone. They were the same as the things as the tunnels, just raw earth. If anything the chamber reinforced that feeling of being buried alive worse than the tunnels did.

For Kavinsky
The fire had come on slowly with blackening walls and smoldering plaster. But whatever had caused the ignition, Kaz watched as parts of the building he was in burned. It was smoke at first. Smoke that made Kaz's eyes water and his throat hurt from coughing. He wasn't able to find a window to get air so he was forced to lean against a wall and be lost in a coughing fit. But the wall was becoming hot to the touch so he had to blunder away blindly.

When he did find a window, the heat from the fire had broken out the glass, so Kaz gasped at the air it was letting in. It was still hot though, so it felt like trying to breathe in the hotter air from a furnace.

For Felwinter
It would have been a forest at night had their been folage on the trees, any sound beyond Kaz's footsteps or things like a moon or stars. Kaz couldn't use his cane on the soft forest floor so his limp was much more obvious as he tried to pick his way forward, being careful where he placed his feet.

Then something, maybe a sound or maybe a twig snapping that Kaz's feet didn't snap, made him pause midstep. Now the feeling the sound elicited made him look behind him. He wasn't sure what caused that feeling but he knew with absolute certainty that something was stalking him. The gloved hand around his cane tightened and Kaz was now being less cautious about where he put his feet as he picked up his pace. Soon he went from a slow walk to jogging, fast jogging and finally outright running. When he started running his limp was very obvious and now slowing him down considerably.

Open
Kaz could not see three feet in front of him for how thick the fog was. The ground was firm enough he could at least use his cane here but everything had the echoing open quality of being outside. Others might have the urge to raise their voice, but Kaz kept his voices volume as though he were talking to someone nearby. After all, he reasoned, being loud wouldn't do anything about how thick this fog was.

"Hello? Is there someone out there?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That should have been a straightforward question, but something kept nagging at Tony, making his focus dart, trying catch what felt like it was tugging at him, and he only managed to mutter, "Uh...," before he had to swallow thickly with an audible click in his throat. Squeezing his eyes shut, he swept his free hand through his hair to tug at the short strands at the nape of his neck harshly enough to ground him.

Why did it matter? Maybe it would tell them something about why this was happening, and get them out of here. Eyes still shut to knit together a thorough memory, Tony reported, "I was in the shop. The armor's almost done, just have to keep changing the wiring in the helmet, and I can't afford to trash it, so it's a process, you know--" That part wasn't sounding important. "Then it got dark, and there was a--noise--..." he offered, the hand at his neck twitching to try to demonstrate the static that sparked through the network, "and this voice. I don't know where it was coming from, it was everywhere, and when I went outside there was that thing, that big eye, like when--" He opened his eyes then, first to look out at that awesome presence, then to slide cautiously toward Kaz. "That eye was there before, but I was at the forge, not this place." Tony finally let his hand drop from his neck, not looking confident that he had provided any helpful clues, and looked to Kaz with hopeful inquisition.

That explanation wasn't much of an explanation at all. Kaz looked up at the roof of the building as though he could see that giant floating eye through it when Tony's non-explanation turned toward that.

"This isn't the first time I've seen it, either."

The first time he had, it was holding back the reality that was made by Billy's magic. It sounded like Tony's memory of that was addled about that, though.

"I don't remember being anywhere in particular, certainly not on a battlefield."

Kaz looked back up at the roof again.

"There is some correlation between where we are and that thing up there."

Of course it wasn't the first time, it couldn't have been that easy. Tony was already looking guarded, and he frowned then in warning, not interested in hearing about where Kaz had seen the eye before just yet. They had other options to explore, surely. Kaz not being 'anywhere in particular' did not help that exploration at all, though, and Tony wasn't going to let him bring their focus back onto the eye. Abruptly, he demanded, "Let's ask somebody." It was so simple, that should have been their first instinct, shouldn't it?

Tony pressed against the wall to try to see through that crack again, searching the street for anyone else. It was a wide avenue, with a battered and burned treeline bisecting it, and far across it another row of shell-shocked buildings. Tony stared, sure he saw a flicker of a shadow, some kind of movement across the haze, his shoulders jumping in a startle as a fresh hail of bullets echoed through the hollow towers.

Kaz reflexively ducked down a little as more gunfire sounded, which was probably a pointless reflex since the wall between him and the street wasn't bulletproof.

"If you are going to break cover to ask someone out there where we are, you'll be riddled with bullets before you make it three steps out of the door. I doubt asking someone else for directions back to Temba is worth it."

"We can't exactly stay here," Tony growled back, less irritated by this suggestion than he was the reminder that the rest of Temba was out there somewhere, and they couldn't be the only ones who suddenly found themselves in the middle of this battle. They might have even been the lucky ones. With his hands still pressed to the wall, not yet giving up on the street outside, Tony turned over his shoulder to consider the room they were in more closely now that he was fully awake and the nightmare was proving insistently real. There were doors leading off toward the back, and on the opposite side of the caved in roof. There was a staircase, or what was left of one, clinging valiantly to the wall leading up. With a sniff, Tony peered back out at the street, and how the buildings were arranged across from them--a tight row, like townhouses, pressed up against each other.

"Come on," he encouraged, pushing away from the wall to approach the battered stairs and stand where the foot of them should have been, hands on his hips and looking up to where the first step actually began overhead. "I'll give you a boost."

Kaz gave the partial staircase a dubious look, but Tony was right; they couldn't stay here. Kaz let out a sigh of resignation and moved to stand next to where Tony already was.

"If this thing collapses under our combined weight, I'm blaming you for originally having this idea."

'A boost' meant cupped hands on Tony's knee. Kaz didn't think that would mean coming into contact with melted candle wax flesh?

"Try not to be so heavy," Tony suggested in return, already dutifully crouching to offer a foothold to Kaz. The stairs were, honestly, only part of the dubious equation--if they held up, there was a good chance the pair would still fall through the floor above if they weren't watching their step. Ideally, that worked in their favour, and they would find easy exits to the neighbouring buildings to pick their way out of this desolate city.

Kaz backed up a bit, then tucked his cane under one arm and took two running steps before using the boost Tony made to half-jump. His arm made it up enough to grab onto the end of the staircase. Then he jammed his cane between two of the stair rails slats and used both hands and the impromptu handle his cane was supplying to pull himself the rest of the way up.
After he was up he laid flat on the remains of the staircase with one boot shoved between the banister slats to anchor him, and he held one end of his cane with the other being lowered for Tony to grab onto.

"Grab onto it, it's a lot sturdier than you'd think. I'll swing you as close to the broken banister as I can. You should be able to use that to climb the rest of the way up."

That looked to Tony like he was more likely to pull Kaz back down, swinging back a few steps to watch Kaz's ascent and shake out his arms, and frowning dubiously at this offer. There was at least one benefit, though; "You let go," Tony commanded, with one determined finger pointed and holding Kaz's gaze to make sure he understood the unspoken half. Tony's fall would be much shorter than Kaz's.

The end of the cane was easy enough to reach, and Tony gave it a final, readying test of Kaz's strength with a tug before lifting himself off of the ground in a quick hand over hand, trying not to kick too much and make Kaz's job any harder. In his rush to relieve Kaz, he grabbed blindly for the banister and released the cane the moment he thought he had a grip, the momentum making the whole staircase groan and crack ominously.

Kaz was surprisingly strong (though maybe it wasn't a surprise?) and resisted Tony's weight as he swung the cane toward the banister. The groan of the remains of staircase under their combined weight made Kaz shake his head. Once Tony got a better hold on the banister, Kaz reached out one hand to grab the banister slats, and when he had a good grip on it let go the anchor of his foot and let gravity straighten him out. From there he tucked his cane back under his arm and pulled himself up until he was standing at the end of the demolished steps.

"Well. Now we're up here. What do you plan to do next, Stark?"

Tony swung up easily after him, but the groaning stairs were not going to wait patiently for Tony to find his footing and sent him tripping quickly up onto the landing next to Kaz as they have a final, deep crack and crashed off of the wall. Hands out to steady himself and caution Kaz back from the break, Tony waited and listened, staring first at the debris settling below, then the far wall where he had looked out at the moving shadows across the street, trying to determine if anyone could have heard that over the sound of the battle. They probably shouldn't stick around to find out.

"Out, go," he prompted, flicking a hand toward the caved in roof, hoping there was enough of it left to climb out and across to their neighbour.

Well, there went the stairs, and the clatter was enough to wake the dead. Kaz also doubted it wouldn't attract attention but he still felt a wave of apprehension at the thought of going outside where that giant eyeball was. The spate of gunfire ripping up the floor they had just been on made the decision for him and Kaz used his cane to break open the skeletal roof slats where the roof itself had caved in. Knocking enough wood aside, Kaz took a step out onto the ruined roof.

And there it was. The Eye. Kaz felt that disquiet bloom into real anxiety and for the moment he could just stare up at it.

The roof might have attracted less attention than the street level, but they couldn't stay out here long, either. Tony went quickly after Kaz, hand out cautiously to hover by his back to grab if either the kid or the roof lost stability, and forgotten as he too looked up to the eye with a slow exhale of awe. From this vantage point, though, something else caught Tony's attention; a familiar blinking, a steady pulse that stood out over the erratic crack and rumble of ordinance. Like a radio tower.

"Do you see that?" he hissed, squinting to try to see better through the fog of war.

For a long moment, Kaz said nothing, apparently transfixed by The Eye. Eventually what Tony had said trickled in and Kaz looked away. He was about to answer in the negative when just at the corner of his eye, he saw the same blinking light that Cayde had made a post about all those months ago.

"...if you mean the blinking light, then I can see it."

"This is just another one of their games," Tony declared, certain that the tower had to mean something after the spiders, and the one sitting outside of Temba had powered down. He was just as sure that his messing with that tower had triggered that mess, though, so he muttered, "Someone must have figured out how to reach that new light..." before continuing decisively, "We have to get over there, try to shut it down." Which was about when the time they bought by crossing the roof instead of the street ran out. A bullet struck the tile by Tony's hand, shattering it into shards and making him jerk back, causing the next shot to narrowly miss as well. "Go, window!" he barked, hoping Kaz also saw the flimsy boarding across the opening of the neighbouring building.

Kaz saw it, but the half-collapsed roof let out a long, ponderous groan. And while Kaz had ducked out of the immediate fire behind a brick chimney, he felt more than heard that groan. The roof was about to cave in out from under them. Having picked up his cane to duck behind the chimney already, he kept it pressed to his chest as he made his limping way to the edge of the roof and jumped onto the next. As he did the partly caved-in roof collapsed taking a lot of the building with it.

The next roof had a steeper pitch than he realized and he only managed to get one hand on the window's sill. He was at least trying to get enough traction with his feet to push enough for an ungainly flop inside it.

They absolutely did not have time to do this gracelessly, and the collapsing roof had Tony throwing himself bodily across the gap far sooner than he was prepared as he hesitated to watch Kaz and make sure he made the escape inside without any new holes. The new angle bested Tony as well, sending him slipping down and clear off the edge of the roof with a yelp, in a hail of dislodged shingles and a new crack of a shot striking where he had just slipped from. The roof trim he hung from groaned, and there was definitely another shot being lined up, either on him or on the kid, so Tony kicked quickly against the brick to vault himself back up and go charging up the roof where he had just knocked footholds through in his fall, bent over on his hands so it was his shoulder that he shoved up against Kaz's back to push them both through the window and send them tumbling into the darkened room.

The dust was still cascading down after them, and Tony hadn't placed all of his limbs yet when he heard a distinct click of a cocked gun from the shadows.

The sudden shove in the back managed to turn an ungainly flop into an ungainly tumble of limb but they were both inside at least.

click

The sound of a gun being cocked made Kaz freeze midmotion so that he was on his hands and knees. His black hair was partly obscuring his face from above and Kaz used this to glance around for more than one pair of boots. He didn't see more so it was just the one. Whether or not he had a gun aimed at him or if it was aimed at Tony instead, Kaz acted. Fast as a striking snake he used his hold on the bar of his cane to use the crow's head handle like a hook and yanked the one wearing that single set of boots off of their feet. There was a spate of gunfire but the gun was pointed harmlessly at the ceiling. Without stopping in between, as soon as that person's body hit the floor, Kaz was sitting on his chest with his knees pinning the arms beneath them. There was no audible ratchet sound but between one instant and the next, there was suddenly a knife in his hand. Before anything could be said, Kaz used his knife to slit the soldier's throat.

The blood from the wound was forceful at first and spattered the front of Kaz's jacket and shirt but Kaz stayed where he was until the soldier was definitely dead. Then Kaz wiped his blade clean on the soldier, put the butt end of the hilt against his wrist, now there was an audible ratchet sound as the catch engaged, and the knife vanished up his sleeve. Once he was off the soldier, Kaz finished getting to his feet with the assistance of his cane.

"How do you plan to make it out of here and to the blinking light, then?"

There was no denying that the kid could protect himself. It happened so fast that Tony was still on his knees where he had fallen, both hands up like he might stop the action in the room and slowly lowering them, staring past Kaz to the dead man on the floor, eyes wide and shocked. He had barely said, "Don't--!," and only after he had recognize the sharp jerk of Kaz's elbow, and as he stared he wasn't sure if the command had even been altruistic. There was something that felt so bright and warm, a smooth drink soothing Tony's dry throat as Kaz knocked the man down, that had filled the room and then was gone just as quickly, slowly leaking out as the blood bubbled at the man's throat and he went still. It was dark.

Instead of answering, Tony gathered himself enough to slouch back on his heels then finally look up at Kaz again to demand, "Why did you do that? You had him under control."

Kaz just looked at Tony like he'd grown a second head.

"You're kidding, right? Someone had a loaded and cocked gun aimed at you, made absolutely no demands, or said anything at all, and because I made use of the element of surprise you call that 'had him under control'?"

Kaz just shook his head in part wonder and part disgust.

"You can speak for yourself, but I didn't want to get shot."

Kaz used his cane so he didn't have to limp to the door then looked out of it.

"The stairs are intact in this place. You coming?"

They were clearly speaking incompatible languages because Tony stared back, just as baffled and horrified, and none of Kaz's justification lessened the divide. No, he wasn't kidding, Kaz had just killed a man he had already disarmed, and he was already turning away and unperturbed as Tony started to gesture toward the body, mouth open but finding he didn't have the words prepared to explain to someone why murder was bad. He hadn't considered this would be a problem.

"Hold on," he hissed, finally snapping out of his disgust and crawling toward the dead man. They had clearly interrupted his work, a long-barrelled rifle still set to point out over the street, watching those darkened buildings where Tony had seen the shadows move. Tony moved like he might only take the scope from it, then hesitated as he looked to the discarded handgun, clearly not the last one they were going to encounter, and took the whole rifle from its mount. "We're not killing anyone else," he warned even as he did, one finger raised to stop Kaz from thinking this was going to be a pattern.

If Tony was going to have this much of a reaction to killing someone, then he had no business sticking with Kaz. Because Kaz had no conscience to feel guilty about as it stands. He was infamous for accepting any job regardless of danger or the ferocity of violence called for. Kaz himself would say he only has two rules: no kids and no slaving. Anything else up to and including murder was fair game. But Kaz would also admit he had no intention of killing anyone else, but he said nothing to Tony's declaration because Kaz also had no intention of using less than deadly force if it was self-defense. For the moment he was letting Tony and the rifle go first down the stairs.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nowhere to run from all of this havoc

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject