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Post by Stage on Aug 25, 2019 23:36:01 GMT
Thump!
Malicious dropped from her perch and onto a desk, scattering the ragged, soggy remains of some paperwork with her lashing tail. Her broad, dark wings spread, eagerly soaking up the heat being pumped into the room.
The sound of her body striking the surface had been disturbingly soft, and, now that she was in the light, Saipa could see she was not only malnourished, but covered in pale scars.
"You," the girl hissed, her voice cold even as her body warmed up and Saipa began to pity her. "How do you know this place?"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 26, 2019 4:19:16 GMT
"I had friends who were brought in here." Saipa said, as she turned back to face Malicious. "Non-humans dragged in and tortured by guards, beaten and abused by the dictator who ruled this city, and suffered under her talons. A few survived to tell me what happened, but most didn't."
She took a deep breath, feeling better as the air warmed around her, though she still felt cold inside. "This was a city built in a tropical region, frequented by storms and freak weather. As such, backup energy generators designed to last decades were implemented in key areas... among them being this prison, in case the worst happened."
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Post by Stage on Aug 27, 2019 4:54:52 GMT
"Tropical?" Malicious hissed, rustling her leathery wings. She glared accusingly at Saipa. "This is not tropical. Why are you lying?"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 27, 2019 5:06:22 GMT
"I said WAS tropical. I wouldn't have been anywhere near this city if it wasn't a hot location." Saipa quickly explained. "How... this happened, I'm not too sure. The city was under attack and... there was an explosion and... next thing I know, I'm dethawing from being a popsickle."
She raised the tip of her tail to her chin as if to hold it up. "Marlore, and the world it's in, was a place where people, creatures, even locations from other worlds converged together thanks to temporal and spatial anomalies. Perhaps Marlore itself fell victim in the blast, and either a severely drastic climate shift occurred and turned Marlore from a tropical city into a frozen hellhole, or this entire city, and everyone here living or dead... are no longer where they once were."
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Post by Stage on Aug 27, 2019 5:56:29 GMT
"Then where are the tropics?" the girl asked sharply. She had dropped onto all fours like an animal, hunched low on the desk like a winged panther. "This cold... it is bad, for both of us... isn't it?"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 27, 2019 22:51:05 GMT
"That's what I need to find out... where exactly we and this city are, and how to get somewhere safer and warmer than here."
She looked more closely at the computer terminals. All of them were frozen over but a few, and those were pitch black. Yet, if the auxillary power and the AI attached to the prison were still active...
She slithered over to the nearest black screened computer and pressed the power button. To her surprise, the screen immediately flickered on, to a spreadsheet in a language she couldn't decipher. The words were ornate and curved on themselves, yet they also seemed... familiar somehow. Like she had seen this type of writing before... but where?
She minused out of the spreadsheet, and was greeted with something she was familiar with: Spanish and English. There were several options to choose from the home page, which was an image of several iguanas and monitor lizards with wings glued onto their backs, but her eyes spotted two of particular interest: Power Grid and Global Surveilance. She clicked on the latter...
And was greeted with an error message. The satellite used to observe the rest of the world was out of range and couldn't connect. Camera feeds were also blacked out, but a few were working... yet all she saw was a frozen wasteland as far as the eye could see everywhere spreading from Marlore.
Disheartened, she tried the former option. While the prison was on its own power grid from the rest of the city, it was still possible to see what was working, and what wasn't. To Saipa's nonsurprise, all of the underground generators that powered the outside two circles of the city were dead. no power, no electricity, a dead existence. Yet, one of them inside was working...
She leaned in closer to examine. It was working, but only toward two particular facets: The underground train system, and the labs beneath the Command Center.
"Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is, I have no idea where here right now is. it's frozen for miles in each direction. The good news is, it seems we might not be alone here. Seems someone was just here, and might still be tinkering around in the labs beneath the Command Center, that big ruined tower a couple hundred meters away..." She told Malicious. "and we may find some food and shelter there as well."
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Post by Stage on Aug 27, 2019 23:31:28 GMT
The girl's thin frame perked at the mention of food. Folding her wings against her back and lifting up her tail, Malicious began striding across the room, hopping from desk to desk.
Clack, clack, clack, clack... clack! Clack, clack, clack... clack!
Her long, claw-like nails clicked loudly against the desks as she moved, and her sweeping tail occasionally knocked something to the ground. Once she reached a window, her near black eyes stared out, flicking from place to place.
"Where?" she hissed. "Many towers are ruined. The tallest one?"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 28, 2019 3:00:00 GMT
Saipa nodded. "That's the one. That used to be where the dictator that ruled this city held all her power... but now it's a nest for a different monster altogether."
She slid over to the same window, and her eyes were fixed on the strange abomination that was curled around the top of what remained of the tower. Yet, she eyes shifted back down to the ground floor, toward the entrance. "We shouldn't be noticed by it if we hurry there."
Yet, deep in the back of her mind, something was gnawing away at her. Was whoever was in the labs friendly, or someone potentially dangerous? Given the fact they had known how to turn on the power and apparently knew the passwords and logins for these computers, either it was Kyra and her friends, which she severely hoped it was... or someone she dreaded confronting...
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Post by Stage on Aug 28, 2019 3:25:28 GMT
Malicious glared at the tower beast with her steely eyes. Her short, thin fingers twitched, as if she were imagining their clawed tips raking across something.
"The one that chased you," she rasped softly. "I died easily. To its own weight. That one would surely not survive a fall."
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 28, 2019 4:17:17 GMT
Saipa nodded. "Perhaps... What are you suggesting? We find a way to knock it off if we cannot sneak past it?"
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Post by Stage on Aug 29, 2019 20:53:23 GMT
Malicious curled her thin, colorless lips. "I am suggesting we do not sneak. We kill it. I have wings. I doubt it has reason to look up. If it is eyeless and in pain, it will surely lose its grip."
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Post by Executus Gira on Sept 9, 2019 1:47:57 GMT
"That... that's risky, and though I don't know you very well, I'd rather not place you in harm's way." Saipa said. Perhaps there was another way, a safer way...
Yet, her mind went back to the eel like monster from before. Despite it being so massive to where it had no reason to go after her, it still did, and whatever was on the tower was similar enough to where that was a distinct possibility. What if it was simply laying in wait for unsuspecting prey to come beneath? What tricks did it have up its sleeve she had no clue about? There were simply too many unknowns for her to be comfortable with.
Yet, what she did know was that its companion had been hyper aggressive, and felled with its own momentum. "Alright. We'll try that. Just... be careful, okay?"
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Post by Stage on Sept 9, 2019 22:03:17 GMT
The gaunt girl turned her back to Saipa and scanned the cityscape. "I can't fly long," she explained breathily. "I'll need to launch from someplace almost as high nearby."
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Post by Executus Gira on Sept 18, 2019 1:21:06 GMT
The half dragon's eyes moved away from the slumbering abomination wrapped around the tower, and went wide. She hadn't noticed it before, because she had been so focused on the creature on the tower, but somehow, it had escaped her notice.
It was the body of a dragon, a great two headed beast with feathery wings and three tails. Its wings were spread out in full, and its necks raised high in a frozen screech of defiance, against whatever had happened to cause it to be frozen. And it was massive, taller than where the creature was wrapped up around the tower. And it was the only thing close enough and tall enough to work.
"I think I found your launching platform..." Saipa said. "If it doesn't unthaw on you."
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Post by Stage on Sept 19, 2019 17:43:54 GMT
Wordlessly, and without even a nod, the girl took action. With a flap of her broad, leathery wings, she sprung to the decaying ceiling and grasped one of its exposed beams. With strength that defied her size, she contorted her shoulders and ripped it loose. As she landed silently, it crashed to the ground, one of its jagged, pointed ends nearly putting a hole in the ground. Entwining the beam, now a makeshift spear, securely with her prehensile tail, the girl clak-clak-claked towards the gaping hole in the tower's side. Her unfurled wings rustled mutely as they began to fill with an updraft that formed against the building.
"Follow," the imperfect chimera commanded hoarsely.
Then she plunged into open air, her wings easily carrying her scant weight on the wind. Her flight was a bit wobbly, the ceiling beam twisting unhelpfully behind her, and she seemed resistant to flapping, as if each clap of thick, venous skin was a task equal to heaving up her own mass, but it was clear she would make it to the next buildings, then the one after that, all the way until she had reached the tower.
And the frozen beast she would launch her attack from.
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Post by Executus Gira on Sept 20, 2019 2:59:24 GMT
Saipa did her best to follow Malicious, but unlike the smaller scant fiend, the half dragon had no real way to fly after her. She slithered instead down to the lower floor, and trailed Malicious from the ground. Were her wings and the muscles to control them larger and more powerful, perhaps she could keep pace with the smaller girl more easily, but still, if Malicious wanted her to follow, she would do just that.
The monster around the tower lay still, the only movements coming from it were the slight expansions of its body as it breathed in and out. A purple veinous tongue flickered out and lashed back in, as if tasting the air.
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Post by Stage on Sept 20, 2019 3:13:05 GMT
Without bothering to cast her large, dark eyes down to check if Saipa was managing to keep up, the twisted girl continued her hopping flight toward the great, frozen beast. Though the distance was not small, flight was far faster than having to scuttle over every piece of rubble and debris, to leap over every crater and pothole, so she was there before long. Within a few minutes, the thin, crooked, yellow-nailed feet of the girl found frozen flesh.
It was not easy to find a grip on the lifeless creature. Its body was slick with ice. Malicious had to hunch low and concentrated her weight in order not to slide off.
The beast was chilling to the tough, but her body temperature was already frightfully low, so she hardly faltered as she began to creep up its back, approaching the head: her launching platform.
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Post by Executus Gira on Sept 20, 2019 3:29:45 GMT
Though her platform was frozen solid, as Malicious scaled the giant's husk, she might have noticed one of the eyes of the frozen dragon track her through the thick ice that covered it.
It didn't take her long to reach the top of the twin headed dragon's body. Only a hundred or so meters from where she was, the head of the sleeping abomination lay handing from its tower perch. Saliva dripped from its slightly agape maw and splattered on the ground below, releasing clouds of steam and smoke as it burned through the already deep holes in the ice. The wind bit at Malicious's skin at this height.
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Post by Stage on Sept 20, 2019 3:38:07 GMT
Setting her gaunt jaw, Malicious dug her toenails into the frozen snout of one of the dragon's head. Her thin legs tensed, and her whippy tail passed the jagged ceiling beam up to waiting hands.
With a breathy grunt, the strange girl sprung into the sky!
Pumping her wings frantically, the chimaera soared up in a strange, lopsided spiral, as if she could not quite control how she rose.
It was a different story when she began to plunge though.
Gripping the ceiling beam with both hands and feet, Malicious put all of her scant weight behind it, driving it down, down, down towards the sleeping worm. Her wings, only so very slightly unfurled, and her tail steered the stabbing plummet, keeping both girl and beam centered on the left eye of the beast like a missile...!
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Post by Executus Gira on Sept 20, 2019 3:45:43 GMT
Saipa watched from ground level as the beam was driven through the eye of the creature like a spear. The abomination's head snapped in that moment, and its grip on the tower lessened. It had been caught completely by surprise, and the mortal blow send rivers of black blood cascading to the ground below. It howled and thrashed, a higher pitched scream than the eel like monster had made before, but it could not dislodge the weapon. The spear like legs and arms failed it, and the creature screamed as it plummeted over a hundred meters to the floor below.
The impact could be felt for miles, and plumes of ice and debris shot up in all directions...
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