→ 004 | action | OTA

[cactusy]

WHO: Sameen Shaw and OPEN
WHERE: Around Temba
WHAT: Fite fite fite
WHEN: Throughout the zombie event
WARNINGS: Zombies/zombie-killing, violence, mild gore

For the umpteenth time since arriving here, Shaw really, really, really wishes she had her gun. Not just a gun, her gun. The tech-heavy energy-based doodads that the Agrii provide are pretty cool, but more as a novelty than anything else, and they're unreliable as hell when the energy storms hit. When she needs a weapon, she wants old-school dependability and familiarity. Which is why she's currently running around the city, fighting off zombies with a metal pipe.

The same people seem to crop up for her, over and over again: a tall brunette woman, a guy in a suit, another guy in a suit. A man in military tactical gear. A man with the same U.S.M.C. tattoo on his forearm that she has on her own. A Middle Eastern woman who shares her facial features. One after the other, she dispatches them all, knocking them down and bashing their heads in always without hesitation, and always with the same stony look on her face. Totally normal behavior! She's fine.

As she works her way through the city, she'll be on the lookout for anyone who might need help: particularly if they're young, scared, or come off as a non-combatant, but also if they're fellow fighters who look like they could use an extra hand. And if anyone seems to be hesitating to kill zombie versions of their own loved ones... welp. For better or for worse, she'll dive right in and do it herself. It needs to be done, as far as she's concerned - regardless of whether the reaction is relief and gratitude, or horror and anger.

[OOC: I'm down for pretty much anything here: co-fighting, getting cornered/overrun, rescuing/being rescued, the works! When it comes to bites, she'll be incorrectly assuming that these zombies are likely to follow traditional zombie rules, so she'll advocate heavily for restraint/isolation/observation for anyone who's bitten, including herself.]

Comments

[cactusy]

"Wasn't planning on asking you to."

As cool as the bottle rockets are, this girl doesn't strike her as a fighter - at least, not in a soldier-y way. Makeshift occasionally-forced-into-it-due-to-harrowing-circumstances at best. A zombie Root comes lurching towards them, her loose hair swinging in the breeze and her normally-vibrant eyes glassy and lifeless. Shaw grits her teeth, tightens her grip on her pole, and heads for her. Killing it should feel wrong, after how long she'd held out during the simulations, but it doesn't. It feels... not satisfying, not quite, but definitely right.

[work_wife]

Hey, Robin's been through a lot. Even if she isn't a soldier. She's brave too! That's got to count for something.

"One of yours?" Robin asks as she shifts her bag of molotov cocktails. It's something she could take out for Shaw if she needs. In the future that is.

[cactusy]

"No."

Technically yes, but she refuses to claim her; refuses to link this shitty facsimile to the real Root in any way. It's not even a copy that's based on the genuine article, like the simulations and the Machine's rendition had been. It's just a stolen face, and she doesn't hesitate to knock to to the ground and drive her pole through its skull. Only then does she clarify.

"No, the real one was cooler," she says, still looking at the dead thing on the ground. "More annoying, though. About the same amount of bad timing."

[work_wife]

"So no here means yes, she's totally a zombie of someone you know."

Come on, Shaw, don't cross the wires like that. Robin won't get it.

"Should we get moving? So you don't have to keep looking at it?"

[cactusy]

"Someone I knew once," Shaw says - turning to head in the direction of the bar, nodding for Robin to come along. "She's dead now. The real her, I mean."

[work_wife]

Yeah, that's not fucked up. Fuck this whole thing.

"Sorry."

Seeing dead people here was better when it was, you know, people who were somehow alive. Not like this. Never like this.

[cactusy]

"You know," she admits, "I never knew what you're supposed to say in response to that. Thanks?"

[work_wife]

"Honestly, neither do I," Robin admits. "Let's just get moving so we don't have to think about it?"

[cactusy]

"Sure, until the next zombie doppelganger of my girlfriend or my mom or my first grade teacher shows up," Shaw mutters under her breath, but she does quicken her pace - enough that she's moving at a good clip, but not so much that she looks like she's trying to leave Robin behind. "I really wish I had a real gun."

[work_wife]

Girlfriend? Robin blushes a bit just to think about it. She's not alone here. Again. Who would have thought it?

Robin does her best to follow for now, though, making sure her lighter is available in her off hand.

"Never were my thing, but a friend of mine sure was ready for that sort of thing."

[cactusy]

"The energy guns are fun, don't get me wrong, but that's all they are."

She does catch the blush, though, and - misinterpreting it as discomfort - adds, "Sorry. Forgot you were from the eighties."

[work_wife]

Fun and definitely not useful in a storm.

"Hey, eighties doesn't guarantee small minds, promise. It's just... I never met anyone like me until I got here. Strange that it's happened twice."

One might even give her two nickles.

[cactusy]

Like her. Oh. Still walking, Shaw gives her a quick glance over her shoulder.

"Not so strange. You get older, you'll meet even more people who're like you. I thought it was just me until I was in high school, pretty much."

[work_wife]

"Same," Robin sighs. "And only learned about the people I did when we got here. Not easy growing up in small town Indiana when I am. It's not something someone could say, you know?"

Because it could go poorly. Even for the daughter of hippies.

[cactusy]

"Yup," Shaw says, popping the p. "Do your parents know?"

[work_wife]

No. Oh god no.

"If they disowned me... I'd have nowhere to go."

[cactusy]

Shaw goes quiet again, eyes forward as she slogs ahead through the ruined city. Being bi in the eighties and nineties hadn't always been a cakewalk for her, but even before she'd come out to her own mom, she'd never had any doubt that she'd still be loved.

"That sucks," she says, finally - knowing that it's an ineffectual response, but genuinely unsure of what else to go with.

[work_wife]

"They think I'm dating my best friend," Robin says with a sigh. Which is ridiculous, given Steve's known to be dating with a lot of girls. It makes him seem horrible.

It didn't matter how many times she said they were just friends.

[cactusy]

"Does... he know?" she wonders, raising an eyebrow.

[work_wife]

"Yes. Trust me, he very much knows. He teases me for my taste in girls," Robin admits with a laugh. "Steve's good like that."

[cactusy]

"Hold onto him," Shaw says, hoisting her bloody pole up onto her shoulder to save her arm from having to do all the work. "Good friends like that aren't easy to find."

She knows that more than most.

"She, uh-- she wasn't actually my girlfriend. Not officially. But calling her that would've made her happy, and I wish I'd had more chances to make her happy."

[work_wife]

"We've saved each others' lives, so yeah, pretty sure we're not going to be separated easily," Robins says with a shrug.

They've been through hell together. Twice. That's a lifelong bond.

"We're two halfs of one soul. And... I'm sorry. That you didn't get a chance to say yes."

[cactusy]

"That's life," she says, tiredly. "Sometimes holding on doesn't end up working out, no matter how hard you try."

[work_wife]

That's a sad point. And Robin hates it.

"You make life sound doomed."

[cactusy]

Shaw pauses, looking back at Robin in mild surprise. She's far from a sunny optimist, true - but at the same time, she hadn't meant to sound all-out pessimistic.

"I don't know," she says. "I guess... I see it more like a reminder to enjoy what you have when you have it."