crossmyheartandhope (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
crossmyheartandhope) wrote2020-01-10 08:57 pm
crossmyheartandhope) wrote2020-01-10 08:57 pm
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Memory 16: Jolt
The park is tiny below them, formed in a perfect oval.
Hurricane can make out a castle in elegant miniature, and the Mark Twain Riverboat, dead in the water. The hedges aren’t trimmed into fancy shapes anymore, but he thinks he sees one that used to be Mickey’s face.
It would be a great view, any other time.
It’s a great view now, but Hurricane has other things to worry about.
Worry one: the sonic boom splitting through the air, signifying the arrival of a metric ton more eldritch horrors. There were plenty already – black and sinuous and crawling with eyes and teeth – but all at once, the number’s just about doubled.
Worry two: the things haven’t found the shielding equipment yet, but they sure are looking. They took out the university hospital, now a smoking ruin in the distance, and the nearest train station’s a blackened crater.
Iyawa’s been having them steer the battle back to neutral ground, out toward the sea and away from potential targets, but Christ, there are a lot of them.
Hurricane twists and dodges, and he tells himself not to think. It isn’t hard; exhaustion is a constant, sluggish pull at the back of his mind, a low-level hum of white noise. It’s easy to let go of everything and just let his body move – slice, slice, thrust, and then he swoops down and comes up again, twice as fast, sending his blades spinning in a wide arc.
For once, the sky isn’t blood red and thick with clouds; for once, the rift that brought the creatures through to this side’s far enough away that they haven’t stained everything with their colors. Dawn’s seeping into the world, slow and steady in the east; the sky’s fading to butter yellow and mellow orange.
Hurricane glances to his left, expecting Nemesis to be right next to him – spots Nemesis maybe a hundred feet away, instead, locked in a grapple with a thing that looks like a snake grew a thousand grasping hands beneath its skin.
The rest of his team are dotted out in a line, even further away, an arc of colored specks across the sky. It’s hard to stay together when the enemy just won’t stop coming, pushing and pushing, leaving no option but retreat.
If he didn’t know better, he’d almost think it was intentional – tactics, for once, instead of the sheer numbers they usually pile on in an attempt to overwhelm. It makes him uneasy. It makes him acutely aware that they’re separated from each other, less a cohesive unit and more single islands of resistance in a sea of monsters.
There’s only a few left on him, now; if he finishes them off, he can catch up to Nemesis.
Hurricane turns, meaning to make good on the plan, but he never gets the chance.
One moment he’s withdrawing his blade from the chest of a wriggling abomination; the next, a sudden impact connects with his back and sends him lurching forward.
The sonic boom comes after, a rush of sound so deep it seems to shake his bones, and all at once his radar’s showing twenty harbingers in the airspace around him where before there were only three. He falters and starts to turn – catches a glimpse of the lettering flashing across his HUD: shielding breached.
Hurricane twists sideways on instinct, away from whatever did the damage to his back – but as he turns, he feels something catch on the metal and claw into his skin, there between the shoulder blades.
Something jerks him downward, and he yelps, lashing out with his blades. The whole sky seems to jolt sickeningly around him, then teeter toward the ground below.
Suddenly, there’s pressure, sharp and intense. Suddenly, the ground is rushing nearer, a lot faster than he wants it to be.
Hurricane gets his hands out to either side for balance – tries to course correct and blast up and away, but whatever’s on him is heavy, and it’s fast. Those grasping claws take a better hold, burrowing into skin and metal both, and the pain tastes sharp in his mouth, like metal.
Proximity warning, his HUD warns him, in flashing red letters. Pull up.
Hurricane tucks in and braces for impact – gets his arms up to cover his head.
He hits the ground with a crunch, and he can feel it when the metal gives in the forearm of his suit. The pain’s blinding, momentarily – so strong he feels like he’s going to puke.
But if he doesn’t get up – if he doesn’t get back on his feet like five seconds ago – it’s going to be a whole lot worse.
He staggers upright, shaky, to take in the scene.
He’s covered in black ichor, the remnants of the creature that slammed him into the ground. It’s dead now from the impact, dozens of wings beating haphazardly against the air in its death spasms. Above him, the sky’s thick with harbingers, blotting out the mild dawn light. The air is full of glistening black bodies that twist and squirm and swoop down nearer; three land on the pavement beside him, all slavering jaws and liquid black eyes.
Behind them, incongruously innocent, stands the facade of It's a Small World, with its dainty boats and brilliant multicolored patterns and the clock above it all, like a child's dream come to life.
Once upon a time, in what feels like another lifetime, Hurricane rode in one of those boats halfway around the world.
Once upon a time, he sat between his mother and his sister, because they were sure he’d lean out too far and fall in the water.
He wonders, briefly, if he’s mother’s in the hangar, watching the progress of this fight as blips on a monitor. He wonders briefly how disappointed she’s going to be that he trashed the shielding.
He doesn’t have time for more than that – doesn’t have time for anything but bringing his blade around to try and fight back the harbingers swooping in to swarm him. They come in a wave, one after the next, and Hurricane rises to meet them, taking two quick steps and launching back into the air.
The right arm of the suit isn’t responding; every time he tries to move it, pain shoots across his nerves, hot and intense. The metal is crumpled from the force of the impact, and he’s pretty sure the space that’s left inside isn’t enough space for a human arm.
He keeps going anyway – twists, and slashes, and gets maybe twenty feet of clearance off the ground before they start trying to force him down again.
It feels like a nightmare; it looks like a nightmare, something full of glistening black skin and wide staring eyes and hundreds and hundreds of grasping claws.
He slides a flash grenade from the compartment near his midsection – detonates it and sends it flying. The creatures hiss and rear back, and he takes the opportunity to finally clear the ground, getting airborne to wipe out a swath of them while they scrabble at nothing, temporarily blinded.
It helps, for all of three minutes. It helps until more flood in to take their place, and he gets knocked backward, so hard he doesn’t have time to course correct. He hits the ground face up – feels his back drag along concrete, where the suit’s been scraped away.
He screams – bounces – comes down hard a second time and sees stars.
“Hurricane?” Iyawa’s voice says. “Status?”
Nemesis shouts right over her. “Stay down,” she says. “Incoming!”
Overhead, explosions burst like summer fireworks; the harbingers burst into pieces, raining acidic blood that patters to the earth all around him. To his left, the clock at the top of It’s a Small World begins to toll the hour. The dolls exit their little doors, and they do their little dance.
Hurricane’s head is throbbing. The world is moving in slow circles, like he’s on a boat.
When he looks up again, Nemesis is towering above him, red and black and larger than life. The suit’s a wreck – chipped and battered – but it reaches out a hand toward him.
Hurricane takes it, and he pulls himself up.
“Thanks, dude,” he says into the comms, slow and a little unsteady. “Add it to my IOU, kay?”
“Pretty sure this just makes us even,” says Nemesis.
“Heads up,” says Iyawa, over the comms. “You two have incoming. Try and hold ground, okay? We’ll come to you. Think it’s about time to regroup.”
“Yeah,” says Nemesis, at the same time Hurricane says, “You got it.”
They lift off into the air, and there in the pre-dawn light, a wave of harbingers swoops in to meet them.
Hurricane can make out a castle in elegant miniature, and the Mark Twain Riverboat, dead in the water. The hedges aren’t trimmed into fancy shapes anymore, but he thinks he sees one that used to be Mickey’s face.
It would be a great view, any other time.
It’s a great view now, but Hurricane has other things to worry about.
Worry one: the sonic boom splitting through the air, signifying the arrival of a metric ton more eldritch horrors. There were plenty already – black and sinuous and crawling with eyes and teeth – but all at once, the number’s just about doubled.
Worry two: the things haven’t found the shielding equipment yet, but they sure are looking. They took out the university hospital, now a smoking ruin in the distance, and the nearest train station’s a blackened crater.
Iyawa’s been having them steer the battle back to neutral ground, out toward the sea and away from potential targets, but Christ, there are a lot of them.
Hurricane twists and dodges, and he tells himself not to think. It isn’t hard; exhaustion is a constant, sluggish pull at the back of his mind, a low-level hum of white noise. It’s easy to let go of everything and just let his body move – slice, slice, thrust, and then he swoops down and comes up again, twice as fast, sending his blades spinning in a wide arc.
For once, the sky isn’t blood red and thick with clouds; for once, the rift that brought the creatures through to this side’s far enough away that they haven’t stained everything with their colors. Dawn’s seeping into the world, slow and steady in the east; the sky’s fading to butter yellow and mellow orange.
Hurricane glances to his left, expecting Nemesis to be right next to him – spots Nemesis maybe a hundred feet away, instead, locked in a grapple with a thing that looks like a snake grew a thousand grasping hands beneath its skin.
The rest of his team are dotted out in a line, even further away, an arc of colored specks across the sky. It’s hard to stay together when the enemy just won’t stop coming, pushing and pushing, leaving no option but retreat.
If he didn’t know better, he’d almost think it was intentional – tactics, for once, instead of the sheer numbers they usually pile on in an attempt to overwhelm. It makes him uneasy. It makes him acutely aware that they’re separated from each other, less a cohesive unit and more single islands of resistance in a sea of monsters.
There’s only a few left on him, now; if he finishes them off, he can catch up to Nemesis.
Hurricane turns, meaning to make good on the plan, but he never gets the chance.
One moment he’s withdrawing his blade from the chest of a wriggling abomination; the next, a sudden impact connects with his back and sends him lurching forward.
The sonic boom comes after, a rush of sound so deep it seems to shake his bones, and all at once his radar’s showing twenty harbingers in the airspace around him where before there were only three. He falters and starts to turn – catches a glimpse of the lettering flashing across his HUD: shielding breached.
Hurricane twists sideways on instinct, away from whatever did the damage to his back – but as he turns, he feels something catch on the metal and claw into his skin, there between the shoulder blades.
Something jerks him downward, and he yelps, lashing out with his blades. The whole sky seems to jolt sickeningly around him, then teeter toward the ground below.
Suddenly, there’s pressure, sharp and intense. Suddenly, the ground is rushing nearer, a lot faster than he wants it to be.
Hurricane gets his hands out to either side for balance – tries to course correct and blast up and away, but whatever’s on him is heavy, and it’s fast. Those grasping claws take a better hold, burrowing into skin and metal both, and the pain tastes sharp in his mouth, like metal.
Proximity warning, his HUD warns him, in flashing red letters. Pull up.
Hurricane tucks in and braces for impact – gets his arms up to cover his head.
He hits the ground with a crunch, and he can feel it when the metal gives in the forearm of his suit. The pain’s blinding, momentarily – so strong he feels like he’s going to puke.
But if he doesn’t get up – if he doesn’t get back on his feet like five seconds ago – it’s going to be a whole lot worse.
He staggers upright, shaky, to take in the scene.
He’s covered in black ichor, the remnants of the creature that slammed him into the ground. It’s dead now from the impact, dozens of wings beating haphazardly against the air in its death spasms. Above him, the sky’s thick with harbingers, blotting out the mild dawn light. The air is full of glistening black bodies that twist and squirm and swoop down nearer; three land on the pavement beside him, all slavering jaws and liquid black eyes.
Behind them, incongruously innocent, stands the facade of It's a Small World, with its dainty boats and brilliant multicolored patterns and the clock above it all, like a child's dream come to life.
Once upon a time, in what feels like another lifetime, Hurricane rode in one of those boats halfway around the world.
Once upon a time, he sat between his mother and his sister, because they were sure he’d lean out too far and fall in the water.
He wonders, briefly, if he’s mother’s in the hangar, watching the progress of this fight as blips on a monitor. He wonders briefly how disappointed she’s going to be that he trashed the shielding.
He doesn’t have time for more than that – doesn’t have time for anything but bringing his blade around to try and fight back the harbingers swooping in to swarm him. They come in a wave, one after the next, and Hurricane rises to meet them, taking two quick steps and launching back into the air.
The right arm of the suit isn’t responding; every time he tries to move it, pain shoots across his nerves, hot and intense. The metal is crumpled from the force of the impact, and he’s pretty sure the space that’s left inside isn’t enough space for a human arm.
He keeps going anyway – twists, and slashes, and gets maybe twenty feet of clearance off the ground before they start trying to force him down again.
It feels like a nightmare; it looks like a nightmare, something full of glistening black skin and wide staring eyes and hundreds and hundreds of grasping claws.
He slides a flash grenade from the compartment near his midsection – detonates it and sends it flying. The creatures hiss and rear back, and he takes the opportunity to finally clear the ground, getting airborne to wipe out a swath of them while they scrabble at nothing, temporarily blinded.
It helps, for all of three minutes. It helps until more flood in to take their place, and he gets knocked backward, so hard he doesn’t have time to course correct. He hits the ground face up – feels his back drag along concrete, where the suit’s been scraped away.
He screams – bounces – comes down hard a second time and sees stars.
“Hurricane?” Iyawa’s voice says. “Status?”
Nemesis shouts right over her. “Stay down,” she says. “Incoming!”
Overhead, explosions burst like summer fireworks; the harbingers burst into pieces, raining acidic blood that patters to the earth all around him. To his left, the clock at the top of It’s a Small World begins to toll the hour. The dolls exit their little doors, and they do their little dance.
Hurricane’s head is throbbing. The world is moving in slow circles, like he’s on a boat.
When he looks up again, Nemesis is towering above him, red and black and larger than life. The suit’s a wreck – chipped and battered – but it reaches out a hand toward him.
Hurricane takes it, and he pulls himself up.
“Thanks, dude,” he says into the comms, slow and a little unsteady. “Add it to my IOU, kay?”
“Pretty sure this just makes us even,” says Nemesis.
“Heads up,” says Iyawa, over the comms. “You two have incoming. Try and hold ground, okay? We’ll come to you. Think it’s about time to regroup.”
“Yeah,” says Nemesis, at the same time Hurricane says, “You got it.”
They lift off into the air, and there in the pre-dawn light, a wave of harbingers swoops in to meet them.