Demon Bear: Healing Paws
May. 11th, 2018 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsRahne ends up missing but Maya, Stephen, and Xavin end up finding Miles. There is no sign of the bear.
"Rahne's missing." Maya's statement was almost toneless, the sort of thing one might hear as they commented on the weather. Water was wet, fire was pretty and Rahne was now missing. She wasn't sure how much more of this, whatever this was, before she snapped and let's be entirely honest, she hadn't been all that stable to begin with. "I frelling hate this place."
She didn't normally quote from Science Fiction properties but swearing made her feel better and there wasn't a lot of Klingon swear words that really fit the situation, so the Farscape word for 'Fuck' it was. Strangely, she felt better the moment the word was out of her mouth, like the release of a supremely geeky moment was all she'd needed to feel normal again.
Stephen blinked, turned to stare at Maya in surprise, "Ok, can we just note that that was maybe the last thing I was expecting. Where'd you learn to swear like that?" Even as he'd been speaking Stephen's eyes danced away from his friends, staring on consternation up and down the hallway. "She was just behind us, where could she...I really hate this place."
"She's gone." Xavin spoke flatly. Their form had shifted to become larger, more muscular over the last few minutes, fear lending control to such a subtle shift. "Can you hear that?" It was faint, footsteps on linoleum and behind that, the sound of a knife scraping against a plate. Probably not actually a knife. Xavin reached out, one hand gripping the top of Stephen's arm and the other Maya's hand. "People vanish when we can't see them and we're not good at staying together. So..."
"Gracias a Dios!" an invisible voice huffed happily. A few feet in front of the trio, the air shimmered and Miles materialized seemingly out of nowhere. "Thought I was on my own again."
It had been awhile since Maya’s powers had reared their head outside of her control, but if anything was going to do it, it would be someone appearing out of thin air. She lunged forward in one smooth movement to grab Miles before flinging herself backwards into a roll as her feet pushed out to move him over her head and toward one of the very solid walls.
Most anyone else would have crashed to the floor, bruised, bleeding, and maybe concussed, given the force with which Maya had thrown Miles. Only genetically modified agility let him twist in the air so when he could roll when he fell, landing on all fours, barely worse for the wear. "If this is another trick, then I'm going to pre-emptively kill all bears when I get out of here . . ."
Xavin's arms stretched, spanning the distance between Maya and Miles, ready to hold them apart if necessary. "Oh my god, Maya, I know this whole place is completely cooked but could you be any more of a dick? And Miles, like, are you stupid, sneaking up on us right now? How freaking dumb are both of you?" Their voice rose until they were shouting. In the silence after they stopped, there was the sound of something scraping on the floor again.
Maya had been about to respond but the sound had given her pause, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end as she glimpsed the form of something that had only been the whisper of a shadow before.
The creature was large, and looked ancient in the way few natural creatures did. She couldn’t have said how, but the air of menace leeching off it into the air around it was the stuff of nightmares. She glared at Xavin, and pushed their hand away silently as she stepped back. If someone was going to startle the huge bear now slowly walking the hall downwind from them, it wasn’t going to be her.
"Quiet quiet quiet!" Stephen barely dared to let his voice climb above a whisper, the faintest brush of sound that drifted around the room as she did his best imitation of a statue. Maybe if they were very luck, if they didn't attract any attention they could get away without any issues.
Miles froze in place, too, even though all his instinct told him simultaneously to both fight and flee. At this rate, he wondered if he would burn out his spider-sense from overload.
Maya's own breathing sounded loud in her ears as she watch the bear snuffle at the ground, it's ears tracking slightly as if searching for nearby interesting sounds. She didn't dare move, not even to get out of the uncomfortable crouch that throwing Miles had landed her in. She looked at Xavin and signed 'What do we do?', hoping he'd at least learnt some sign in the time he'd been around her. She wasn't expecting miracles but for the most part her friends had tried to at least learn basic sign and she'd been happy to correct their grammar and let them practice with her.
At least Maya was asking rather than just going off like a... like a... Xavin pulled their attention back to the giant goddamn bear, even though panic made them want to focus on anything. Everything. They clenched their hands, shifting and becoming larger, more solid, thick, heavily ridged skin like armor covering their body. "Go left. Make a line. Miles, you're behind us." They couldn't fight a bear. They couldn't fight a bear. This was insane. Xavin walked forward, arms flexing, growing even bigger.
"Go away! Go away!" They screamed at the bear, like maybe that would do something.
The bear licked one of it's bloody paws and looked over to seeing something that was large. It made a gruff sound as it backed up, making blood footprints in it's wake. It made a grunt again before turning tail and speedily walking the hall towards another corner.
Stephen let out a sigh he didn't know he'd been holding, sagging down to the floor with a sigh of relief as he gave a weak smile, offering Xavin a thumbs up. "That was...well that was pretty amazing actually, you rock." The teen closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he struggled up, "I thought we were done fore...so what now?"
"Nica and Clea disappeared, we gotta find them," Miles suggested, poking his head around the corner to see if he could spot the bear. It was long gone.
Maya was still in shock after what had seemed to her the most egregious act of attempted suicide she’d ever seen in her life. Who just yelled at giant bears? Giant demon bears even, who could tear them all into little pieces as soon as look at them.
“Can we…” Maya sighed and scrubbed the palms of her hands to remove the nervous sweat that had beaded there while they faced the bear. “Can we just get out of here? Maybe we can look for them while we move. It’s a school, how far can they get?”
Xavin stared at her blankly. "It's a copy of our school in another dimension where things aren't right. It's not just a school." The undercurrent of 'you absolute idiot' was unsaid. "I mean, yeah, we can look for them but maybe we should try to get home and come back with the X-Men. Miles says the bear is gone. Let's go before it comes back!"
Maya bit back her immediate response, which was to tear Xavin into little pieces verbally and instead focused on the important part, about getting away and finding the X-men.
“Good idea. How about we do that.”
"Rahne's missing." Maya's statement was almost toneless, the sort of thing one might hear as they commented on the weather. Water was wet, fire was pretty and Rahne was now missing. She wasn't sure how much more of this, whatever this was, before she snapped and let's be entirely honest, she hadn't been all that stable to begin with. "I frelling hate this place."
She didn't normally quote from Science Fiction properties but swearing made her feel better and there wasn't a lot of Klingon swear words that really fit the situation, so the Farscape word for 'Fuck' it was. Strangely, she felt better the moment the word was out of her mouth, like the release of a supremely geeky moment was all she'd needed to feel normal again.
Stephen blinked, turned to stare at Maya in surprise, "Ok, can we just note that that was maybe the last thing I was expecting. Where'd you learn to swear like that?" Even as he'd been speaking Stephen's eyes danced away from his friends, staring on consternation up and down the hallway. "She was just behind us, where could she...I really hate this place."
"She's gone." Xavin spoke flatly. Their form had shifted to become larger, more muscular over the last few minutes, fear lending control to such a subtle shift. "Can you hear that?" It was faint, footsteps on linoleum and behind that, the sound of a knife scraping against a plate. Probably not actually a knife. Xavin reached out, one hand gripping the top of Stephen's arm and the other Maya's hand. "People vanish when we can't see them and we're not good at staying together. So..."
"Gracias a Dios!" an invisible voice huffed happily. A few feet in front of the trio, the air shimmered and Miles materialized seemingly out of nowhere. "Thought I was on my own again."
It had been awhile since Maya’s powers had reared their head outside of her control, but if anything was going to do it, it would be someone appearing out of thin air. She lunged forward in one smooth movement to grab Miles before flinging herself backwards into a roll as her feet pushed out to move him over her head and toward one of the very solid walls.
Most anyone else would have crashed to the floor, bruised, bleeding, and maybe concussed, given the force with which Maya had thrown Miles. Only genetically modified agility let him twist in the air so when he could roll when he fell, landing on all fours, barely worse for the wear. "If this is another trick, then I'm going to pre-emptively kill all bears when I get out of here . . ."
Xavin's arms stretched, spanning the distance between Maya and Miles, ready to hold them apart if necessary. "Oh my god, Maya, I know this whole place is completely cooked but could you be any more of a dick? And Miles, like, are you stupid, sneaking up on us right now? How freaking dumb are both of you?" Their voice rose until they were shouting. In the silence after they stopped, there was the sound of something scraping on the floor again.
Maya had been about to respond but the sound had given her pause, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end as she glimpsed the form of something that had only been the whisper of a shadow before.
The creature was large, and looked ancient in the way few natural creatures did. She couldn’t have said how, but the air of menace leeching off it into the air around it was the stuff of nightmares. She glared at Xavin, and pushed their hand away silently as she stepped back. If someone was going to startle the huge bear now slowly walking the hall downwind from them, it wasn’t going to be her.
"Quiet quiet quiet!" Stephen barely dared to let his voice climb above a whisper, the faintest brush of sound that drifted around the room as she did his best imitation of a statue. Maybe if they were very luck, if they didn't attract any attention they could get away without any issues.
Miles froze in place, too, even though all his instinct told him simultaneously to both fight and flee. At this rate, he wondered if he would burn out his spider-sense from overload.
Maya's own breathing sounded loud in her ears as she watch the bear snuffle at the ground, it's ears tracking slightly as if searching for nearby interesting sounds. She didn't dare move, not even to get out of the uncomfortable crouch that throwing Miles had landed her in. She looked at Xavin and signed 'What do we do?', hoping he'd at least learnt some sign in the time he'd been around her. She wasn't expecting miracles but for the most part her friends had tried to at least learn basic sign and she'd been happy to correct their grammar and let them practice with her.
At least Maya was asking rather than just going off like a... like a... Xavin pulled their attention back to the giant goddamn bear, even though panic made them want to focus on anything. Everything. They clenched their hands, shifting and becoming larger, more solid, thick, heavily ridged skin like armor covering their body. "Go left. Make a line. Miles, you're behind us." They couldn't fight a bear. They couldn't fight a bear. This was insane. Xavin walked forward, arms flexing, growing even bigger.
"Go away! Go away!" They screamed at the bear, like maybe that would do something.
The bear licked one of it's bloody paws and looked over to seeing something that was large. It made a gruff sound as it backed up, making blood footprints in it's wake. It made a grunt again before turning tail and speedily walking the hall towards another corner.
Stephen let out a sigh he didn't know he'd been holding, sagging down to the floor with a sigh of relief as he gave a weak smile, offering Xavin a thumbs up. "That was...well that was pretty amazing actually, you rock." The teen closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he struggled up, "I thought we were done fore...so what now?"
"Nica and Clea disappeared, we gotta find them," Miles suggested, poking his head around the corner to see if he could spot the bear. It was long gone.
Maya was still in shock after what had seemed to her the most egregious act of attempted suicide she’d ever seen in her life. Who just yelled at giant bears? Giant demon bears even, who could tear them all into little pieces as soon as look at them.
“Can we…” Maya sighed and scrubbed the palms of her hands to remove the nervous sweat that had beaded there while they faced the bear. “Can we just get out of here? Maybe we can look for them while we move. It’s a school, how far can they get?”
Xavin stared at her blankly. "It's a copy of our school in another dimension where things aren't right. It's not just a school." The undercurrent of 'you absolute idiot' was unsaid. "I mean, yeah, we can look for them but maybe we should try to get home and come back with the X-Men. Miles says the bear is gone. Let's go before it comes back!"
Maya bit back her immediate response, which was to tear Xavin into little pieces verbally and instead focused on the important part, about getting away and finding the X-men.
“Good idea. How about we do that.”
