idolpro | Shrike's Heart (#3)

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!heart games

Shrike's Heart (#3)

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

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[ to nem, ] Tell me about it.

As far as what's going on around here I don't have a clue.

[ looks to kohime. ] I'm not pretending to be anything. I was leaving that commanding officer thing to you.

Yeah, gotta say you pull it off surprisingly convincing, who'd've thunk.

Anyways, you guys wanna try sneaking into this house? Maybe Shrike'll be less guilt city if her soul doesn't torch a house of innocent women and children.

[Giving Nem a flat look. ]

I was a Force Captain and second in command to Lord Hordak.

And we already saved the stupid house.

But that’s assuming that dick [ jerks a thumb in the direction crow left. ] doesn’t come back the moment we leave to do just that; torch it. He seemed like he was reeeeally looking forward to that.

Besides, I kind of want to knife this guy for taking in extra people to use specifically for fucken meatshields.

[Shrugs at Kohime; why would she do anything but give her a hard time, who does she think she is? Otherwise, starts walking around the yard]

If Crow's one of the "good guys," I dunno that I trust their read on this prefect guy, neither, since they obviously're allergic to taking prisoners. But yeah, pretty sure the other dude's gonna torch the place once we turn our backs...maybe before then. That's what I'd do if I was him.

[Shrugs again]

Anyways, I bet we could climb in an upstairs window or down the chimney or something. Or there's a door over there, it might connect to the main house.

[Rolls her eyes. Wow, they already saved these losers, maybe they should do something for themselves???

Then just marches up to the door and kicks it with a foot.]

Hey. Open up.

I don't trust Crow as far as I can throw him. We talked to the soldier back in the field and- [ and people say she has no tact. ] Koko! [ she's going to rush after her and try to yank her away from the door. ]

We could have at least tried to sneak in. [ looks over her shoulder at nem. ] Though maybe we can give you an opening if they think it's just the two of us. You need a sword? [ she's got plenty. ]

[well, it's one way to see what the guys inside'l do]

Nah, I'm good.

[Raises a pair of bladed tonfa, since this room included a free weapon already]

I thought sneaking in would've been fun... Guess that's too boring for the Honorable Force Captain over here...

[Keeping back a bit and keeping an eye on the perimeter, since nothing about them jawing in front of this place for the past 20 minutes makes her think the people inside aren't 100 percent aware of the three of them]

You're the ones that want to mess around here! We already saved them, if they can't figure out they should maybe leave the dead end trap before some creep who wouldn't shut up about burning it down comes back and burns it down, they're too stupid to live anyway.

[ hey! all of them could be holed up in a cellar and not peering out the window to watch a bunch of people milling around out on the lawn. like, we could have moltov cocktails or something! ]

Because we shouldn't leave those people in that with that lunatic or... the other lunatic. Ugh, this place is full of crazies! [ these poor people are probably screwed either way, sadly. ]

How's this-- We look around, if there's an upstairs window to sneak in, we do. If not...these guys probably died in real life anyways, so no great loss. Sound like a plan?

[ there are some vague sounds of confused people whispering on the other side of the door, some arguing, and then, a woman's voice, sharply: ]

Who's there?

The people who just saved you from burning to death. You're welcome.

[ there's some more sounds of whispered conversation, and then some sharp words exchanged somewhere a bit back (did someone just say "fuck that!" in there...?), and there's a bit of movement visible behind the window curtains. a girl's face peeks out from behind a curtain, and then disappears.

and then there's the grating sound of the doors being unbarred from the inside, and they both slam open with a bang.

people pour out—civilian parents with children, the elderly being helped along by younger adults, a few sick or injured being carried. some of them immediately make down the street, toward some other shelter or exit? who knows? leaving just one richly-dressed man behind, leaning against the doorframe and calling after the others.

and then he looks at all of you, a little nervously. ]

You—you got rid of him? I... I, suppose, I should thank you...

[ you may proceed to bully this npc, or proceed onwards. ]

Edited 2020-02-26 02:16 (UTC)

[ she stands at attention alongside kohime in the off chance that one of these people tries something stupid, though... she kind of doubt that's going to happen, since it's a house full of civs and just a single giant prick. ]

[ what she doesn't expect is for all of them to just kind of... open the door and pour out to... thank them. what. she's so confused. she just stares at the people, mostly the dude, and then looks in the direction crow went. ]

...yeah, but you might want to, like, run or something, because I'm sure he'll be back. He was really dead set on burning this place to the ground, so if you stick around, then you're likely to get caught in his, ah, ..."fun". Anyway, uhm, you're welcome.

[ well, they should probably go... although she does want to poke her head inside the house to see if there's anything worth taking along. ]

[ if you poke your head briefly inside the house, or try and squint at it, it's all dark inside since they haven't been keeping lights on, but it seems full of opulence that isn't present in the rest of this city. a lot of expensive, but otherwise frivolous objects. ]

[ she'll just leave it and look to kohime and nemesis, because it's probably time to move along, as one does after preventing a psycho from setting a house of innocents on fire. ]

What?

[Don't look at her, she wanted to leave like 20 minutes ago.]

[Starts for the exit, then hesitates, turning back to the fancy man]

Hey, Prefect... This--

[and here she waves a hand to indicate the entire situation]

--pretty usual? With the whole 'take no prisoners, burn civvies alive" attitude?

N-no! Or, you'd have to tell me. When he came to me the first time, I didn't think they were intending to... intending for all of this, or that Ryuken had accepted the aid of the Walker in Darkness. Otherwise I'd have been far away from here, promotions be damned!

[ he watches all of you, uneasily. ]

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Shrike's Heart (#3)

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