Collateral Damage

[Isaia Manlius]

Trust the rest of his siblings to leave the menial task of grocery shopping, of all things, to him – when he had his final year to prepare for, and, well, frankly, better things to do. And topping it all off, Amato had flatly refused to join him when he had asked if his younger sibling would liked to have joined him, since it was he who did the cooking more often than not. Gritting his teeth, he let his frustration out on the gas-pedal, the engine rumbling ever louder in response as he zipped through the streets of Lucca going at probably twice the speed limit.

“Whelp, he’s just going to have to deal with my choice of ingredients,” Isaia muttered darkly, jerking the steering wheel with such ferocity that it threatened to detach itself from the rest of that car, “didn’t even leave me a shopping list or anything.”

The thought occurred to him that the streets were remarkably cluttered on the opposite side of the road, but he dismissed it – it was none of his business so long as it was smooth going on his end.

Another turn - the wheels screeched, the car teetered briefly on its side – almost at risk of flipping over entirely – before settling itself heavily on all four wheels again and rumbling off into the distance, leaving a confused mess of dazed traffic in his wake. Isaia, blissfully unaware of the chaos he was creating, nor how dangerously close he was skirting death, was more focused on what he should get for dinner.

Amato would probably have not appreciated take-away, or fast food, or microwaved meals. And Isaia could understand that sentiment – for one, you never knew what went into those things, and two, it had been brought to his attention some years ago that those things were not good for cholesterol – nor were they easy on the calories.

And, well, he was watching his weight.

Still carving a trail of burning rubber on the streets of Lucca, Isaia drew up an impromptu shopping list in his head – tomatoes, probably – everybody loved tomatoes, maybe some pasta – did they still have any more tomato paste? – red wine, most likely – he couldn’t rely on Ilaria or Ilario for that – assorted herbs, garlic? And not to mention some more sugar, since Amato had mentioned it to him earlie-

Krr-kt-kt-kiiiii

Why was there a dead-thing on his windscreen.

No. Really.

Why was there a dead thing on his-

…

OH GOD DEAD THING ON WINDSCREEN GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF HOLY CRAP WHY WAS IT STILL MOVING OH GOD ZOMBIES ZOMBIES ZOMBIES

Fighting back blind panic, Isaia conjured up all his collective knowledge of zombie apocalypse movies and – TENTACLE ENTERING WINDOW TENTACLE ENTERING AAAAGH – without thinking, he brings the vehicle around viciously in an effort to shake it off, not quite seeing where he was going since HUGE GAPING MAW WITH VEMON-SALIVA DRIPPING ALL OVER HIS WINDSCREEN AND he doubled checked.

Venom-saliva.

Windscreen.

Oh. That was why the glass seemed to be sort of caving in… on… itself…

…

That… can’t be good.

Nope. It most definitely was not good.

…

Screaming like a little girl, Isaia put all his weight on the gas-pedal, not caring if he rammed into something, single-minded in his primal intent to THROW THE POISONOUS DIRTY UGLY THING OFF BEFORE IT EATS HIS FACE and too overtaken by rising panic to think anything through logically anymore and oh shitshitshitshitshit

The good news was that the sudden burst of speed had thrown the monster that had latched onto his windscreen off and over the roof of his car. The bad news, was, well… trust his luck to dive straight into a whole swarm of those monsters. Though at the very least, driving at over a hundred miles an hour meant that he was turning more of those things into roadkill than turning himself into zombie-monster-drool-chow.

Still, he was losing speed fast, and he wasn’t too keen to find out what would happen if he let those things catch up to him – those monsters that defied every known law of biology.

“Come. Oooon!”

He forces his foot down on the gas pedal in an effort to achieve one last burst of speed and to get the hell out of there, but all it seemed to achieve was dig himself deeper into the mess he was already in.

The words ‘gas-leak’ sprang unbidden to his mind, as well as his name on the list of casualties.

[Percival Heath]

"Wait, why do you want to go to the store? We just went there yest-" A fine question. A worthy question indeed. A question that Percy had asked five times over the past half hour.

A question that, of course, had gone ignored six times.

How polite of you, Miss Jane. Truly, the paragon of common courtesy and virtue.

Such complaints went unvoiced, of course. And Percy once again found himself being pushed into the Jeep against his will.

Honestly. I'm sure that there's laws against this sort of thing. But Percy, not having access to a handy copy of Italian Laws, esoteric or otherwise, wasn't really one to say. He made a mental note to stop by the library at some point. That was a PROBLEM. And it would have to be REMEDIED.

BUT FIRST. A trip to the store. While he was at it, Percy might as well take a bowie knife to his pockets, right? He might as well sign up for fifty international credit cards, rent one of those low-flying throwbacks to one of the Great Wars, and fly around Lucca, hurling said cards to the skies for everyone to use, right?

...Good thing that Percy had at least 'misplaced' his credit card on the nightstand earlier. He'd of course, at checkout, make a big old fuss about missing his card, nor having cash, having to go h-

Oh. That. Percy unconsciously patted down his pocket. Certainly, his credit card wasn't in it, neither was his wad of euros...

Nor his wallet. The wallet that had his driver's license. The driver license that everybody had to have on them at ALL TIMES. "Fssss-sshh," Percy hissed, the sound whistling out from his lips. Well, he'd just have to make a turn here, then another...

Percy changed gears a bit too forcefully, hooking a right, tires squealing-

Straight into a bouncing, gibbering horde of... gibbering things.

"Whaagh!" First instinct? BRAKES. SPIN WHEEL ELSEWHERE. The jeep squealed to a sudden and sharp halt, spinning on the spot.

Second instinct? Reverse, drive aw-

...Wait, what was this girl doing? Why was she grabbing his wrist, preventing him from shifting gears? Why was she demanding that he keep going forward, into the horde of facehuggers? Just- why-

Oh, of course. Right. Because her name was Calamity. HARBINGER OF DISASTER. That should have told Percy everything he needed, and then some.

"B-but we don't even have anyth-"

In answer, Calamity drew a gun from under the passenger seat- his gun. How did she even...

"Where did you..."

"I'm Calamity." That was her only answer. And, somehow, it worked. "Oh, you also forgot your wallet." She hooked a worn, brown leather wallet out of her pocket, tossing it into his lap. "You're welcome~"

"I-" Okay, he couldn't win. He... just couldn't. "Fine. FinefineFINE," Percy groused, pumping the stick, changing gears.

The jeep roared, growling like a bear roused from sleep, and then shot forward, plowing straight into the horde, pulping the things beneath two and then some tons of steel and rubber - crashing straight into another car.

Who left this thing here?

[Calamity Jane]

Her feet were crossed, resting on the dash, as Percival drove down the street to the store, to pick up some things she had been unable to get earlier. A new, wide brimmed hat covered her face, as it was tilted down almost at the exact same angle her reclined seat was.

And she was trying to rest. Even closing her eyes, and not looking around. Sure, she didn’t actually need sleep, but there was no way Percy knew that. Yet he kept asking her questions! Well… mostly the same one over and over again. Or just the same one over and over again. Why was it so hard for him to understand?

“Wait, why do you want to go to the store? We just went there yesterday.”

She was so tired of it, she just decided to sleep. Well play that she was sleeping. If he kept asking, she would probably eventually throw in some snores or something. Not that she snored, and if he told her that, she would probably refresh his memory with the butt of her pistol again. If anyone told her that, they would suffer such a fate.

…

…

…

Pretending to sleep was getting boring already. There were no bumps in the road, no character to it like the old stagecoaches had. Just smooth, boring, uninterrupted wheels rolling. Well… maybe she could look around a bit. It wasn’t like he could see her eyes, let alone if they were open, or even open under that hat.

…

Wow it was even more boring, if that was possible, with her eyes-

Waaaaait. Wait wait wait. There was something-

A car slammed into a drooling beast at high speeds, crushed one under its frame. A beast she had never seen before in her life. It looked… horrific. Composed of green, rotting flesh, and protruding bones…

But what was the worst was the young man trapped in the middle of it, the lone car amongst a horde of ravening creatures. This one, this one she could save. For another with his soul ripped out, used to fuel her existence, perhaps she could protect one.

That wasn’t to say she wouldn’t have done it, but the thought of him just seemed to bring back the memory she was trying to push into the back of her head. It wasn’t something to forget, but neither was it a thing to dwell on.

Well… they were en route to the monsters, and the boy seemed to be able to handle himself for that long, so…

The truck screeched to a sudden halt, jerking her forward into the locked seatbelt Percy had forced her to wear, and sent her hat flying into the windshield. Really? Is he that afraid of a little beast?

She tore the seatbelt off, not even bothering to unbuckle it, and shoved Percy’s hand back into the position he had it when he was going forward. It wasn’t hard to understand how he controlled it, but it seemed to carry an annoying complexity. The hand thing was important though!

“B-but we don’t even have anyth-“

Oh come on!

She reached down underneath her seat, and pulled out one of Percy’s hidden guns, a pistol, with a rather ingenious reloading mechanism that she had been studying at the start of the drive.

“Where did you…”

“I’m Calamity~”

Yeah, she knew it wasn’t even an answer, but really what if she had said she had seen it through the seat? He wouldn’t even believe here. It was just a better answer for him in general.

He finally slammed it back into gear, and she kicked the door beside her open, well directly off was a form of open and stood on the edge of one-

She found herself soaring through the air after a rather horrific metal screech. Looking back she saw that Percy had rather… well she wasn’t going to insult her Master too much in one day, but the move wasn’t the height of intellect, she found that he had rammed into the other car, which sent her somersaulting from her precarious position on the car. Somersaulting through the air, holding a pistol with only nine shots.

Well, at least I’m wearing slacks today

The gun rotated once, and her finger found its way to the trigger.

Ninety-three targets in the immediate vicinity. Dangerous targets currently amount to eighteen, to both Master and the messy haired kid. Nine total bullets. Assuming creatures are magical, likely to only kill fifteen with shots. Information blurred through her mind in an instant, and her finger squeezed the trigger for the first time.

Through the exposed spine, into the brain. Bullet contains enough force to penetrate once. Downtone it to avoid causing impact with the normal.

The chamber exploded, and the copper jacket flew into the air, she already knew its destination, so there was no need to continue observing. The first one menacing the boy would die.

Second and third. Percival. Rear left. Two close together. Paralyze both in a single shot. The hammer struck the back of the bullet, igniting the powder contained in the shell. Another spent casing flew out past her face. Fourth. Boy. Sneaking through destroyed rear. Again the sound of the gunshot echoed down the street, quickly accompanied by another six shots, before she even hit the ground. Fifteen creatures fell, useless, almost in unison.

And she landed on another one of the beasts, landing on its side, and…

Misstepped? Lost her balance? Tripped? There wasn’t really a good word for landing on a slippery drooling acidic beast, and getting no purchase out of its decomposing flesh, but no matter the word for it, she managed to land on her back. Flat on the ground. With hungry beasts everywhere.

“Ow… pride… severely damaged.” She had just been about to finish a routine that would have made her Wild West show proud, and she just had to flub the landing. That would be all people would remember, you know?

Ah well, maybe she would brush it off, all as part of the act? Yeah, that sounded good. Definitely better than the hungry things all around her. Especially the one leaning over her at the moment.

“You!” she shouted at the clearly unimpressed monster-thing. “This is clearly your fault!” She rolled away from its snapping jaw, and pushed herself backwards onto her hands, and then flipped to her feet. “Accept the punishment for interfering with my routine!”

It was still unimpressed. Unimpressed when she pulled her foot back, unimpressed when it swung towards the creature like lightning. Probably impressed as it soared through the air, and out of sight.

“Yeah! And don’t come back, yah hear?”

What had she been doing? Oh right! The saving-her-Master-and-the-crazy-kid-thing!

Click.

Riiiiiiight, out of bullets. Well… she threw it, with all her force, towards the melee. Not at a beast, but at Percival.

Sadly, it missed, and just ended up in the passenger seat beside him.

“Next time, get one with a bigger magazine!”

She couldn’t really manifest her old ones out of nowhere in front of them, unless…

Reaching into her pockets, she pulled out both her guns, and pulled the triggers.

Click. Click.

Two blank hammers thrums in unison.

They shortly followed the other gun towards Percival.

“And that’s why we were going shopping!”

[Isaia Manlius]

BANG.

“Oh. Bloody #)(*$)!*$#%)*)@$@$() #$)(@)$(@)$#% #%grmlblmrphdsfAAAAAAAH.”

How. How. How in all the nine circles of hell. Did he get tailgated. While smack-bang in the middle of what must have been a swarm of face-melting car-wrecking acid-spewing zombie-monsters. HOW!?

[/i]

This was a new car!

He and Amato had just finished paying it off!

But now, thanks to the combined efforts of a horde of Lovecraftian monsters and an idiot driver the car was destroyed. And Isaia was pretty sure that insurance didn’t cover the former if Amato had even remembered to apply for it. And, now that he thinks about it, he was very sure that he had not yet taken out any on his life. Which probably would’ve been a nice thing to have when you were in great risk of being devoured alive.

Blind terror had given in to a sort of dry resignation – though a kind of terrified sort of resignation. There was no way he was going to get out of the cluster of limb-rending bone-crushing visages that hovered just outside of his car, and closing in fast (though he still had half a mind to believe that this was all some sort of elaborate CG’d prank by some rich-kid who had too much time and money on their hands). It wasn’t like he was Rambo or anything, and the most likely weapon in his vincinity was a particularly unforgiving roadmap of Italy, and, by extension, Lucca – something which he suspected even MacGyver would have trouble utilizing.

So now would be about the right time for the army to roll in all guns-blazing.

What came next happened almost too fast for Isaia to react. A splatter of green blood exploded from a creature menacing him on his windshield, and he hears the splat of blood hitting glass and the gunshot in unison. He recoils out of instinct, and crinkles his lip at a bit of jaw that seemed to explode especially… vividly. Before he can even twist his head to identify who had shot it, three – or four? Five? more bang’s rocked the area, and one by one, the creatures fell.

One, he realized with a sudden burst of panic, right behind him.

And then, he grasps with a good deal more clarity that green liquid was seeping through his windscreen and… onto… his… lap.

AAAAAGH.

OUTOUTOUTOUTOUT
GROSSGROSSGROSSGROSSGROSS

(It was a very controlled panic.)

Groping for any weapon – his hand invariably closes around the spine of that five-hundred-something page volume of ITALIAN ROADS as he burst out of the car, almost smashing his shin against the door in his haste to escape the green goop except it had already gotten on his pants and his pants had been brownandhehadnothingonhandtocleanitanditwasgoingtostainandDEADMONSTERBLOODandajksksjsjgsdfg

Lashing out in blind panic, he manages to catch one prospecting beast right in between the eyes – a lucky fluke – and brain another one with the heavy volume in his hands. Except now there was green goop on his book and on his hands. He stared at it blankly for half a second.

And then Isaia hurled it with Herculean strength he didn’t know he had possessed far, far away from him.

It would bury itself in the face of another flesh-eater – one that keeled over right on top of another of its kind.

Isaia was too busy finding a place to wipe his hands to marvel at his sudden string of good luck.

What he finds instead, however, is his rescuer, currently occupying herself with the fine sport of zombie-punting (that last one seemed to have gone quite far). He is, for a moment, beside himself with gratitude before some small remnant the rational bit of his brain had the bright idea that she was really really strong. Like casually-kick-zombies-five-hundred-feet-into-the-air strong.

Isaia clamped his mouth shut when he realized he was gaping, only then remembering the moron who had tailgating him and then…

He looked at the sedan that had fused itself to the back of his vehicle. And then back at the crazy-strong woman. And then at the lack of a side-door. And then into the sky. And then back at the crazy-strong woman.

It took him a while for it to click in his mind, at which point he blurted out what must’ve been the one of worst possible things to say.

“You tailgated me!?”
[/justify]

[Percival Heath]

Percy's first reaction was to shift the pickup into reverse. With a loud, crinkling sound, his car extricated itself from the sedan, taking with it a sizable portion of the other car's bumper in the process. The chrome bumper fell off the Ford's fender in the process, creating a hollow, clanging noise that all but went unnoticed amidst the screeches and howls and gibbering hisses.

The... yes, the zombie horde that he had driven himself straight into. Before Percy could extricate himself from his seatbelt, his passenger was already on the move, having already torn the belt off, jumping into the fray, guns a-firing, each and every shot meeting their mark. In a calmer time, if Percy were even so inclined, he might have counted it off. And he might have noticed that, for nine shots, fifteen of them fell.

But he wasn't. Percy was too preoccupied with the dangerous yet necessary task of fighting for his life. Starting with the thing scrabbling at his door, trying to force its way in. He slammed the door open, dislodging the one creature, inviting many more to come at him. Panickedly, Percy reached for the nearest weapon, a yellow and red wheel lock, lashing out, poking it into the nearest zombie-thing's nose. Greenish blood spurted out, spattering itself across his shirt. Without missing a beat, Percy retracted the wheel lock, instinctively stepping on the gas again-

BANG.

-And rammed the smaller car again. Entirely by accident. When did he shift it back into first gear...? No, seriously. When? Percy broke off of his short-lived ruminations in the presence of another roar, reflexively lancing his impromptu weapon outside, smacking the short pole into another zombie-thinger's chest.

It fell back. Another strike got it in the eye, downing it permanently, though Percy scarcely had the chance to celebrate.

Because he got spattered with another round of the alien... blood... gunk thing. In the face. Sputtering and spitting, Percy reached out, slamming his door shut, stupid idea, stupid-

It was then that he noticed the grotesque head lying in his lap, jaws distended in a permanent snarl. It had attempted to lunge through the closing gap, only for the door to have slammed down on it, severing head from body, before it could do anything. Percy blinked.

And then, with a mighty yell and very manly-and-not-at-all-like-a-13-year-old roar, he hurled the head out the passenger window. Then he flinched as Calamity, from somewhere that he could not quiiiite see, hurled his own gun back at him, followed by two others, two antiques, all three of them bouncing off of the seat. Either her aim with thrown objects were much worse than her aim with her gun, or she had meant to do that.

The way things were looking, Percy was leaning towards the former. The girl said something, but was drowned out by the other guy (Oh right, there was another guy. Namely, the guy driving the car that he had rammed) got to it first, screaming, “You tailgated me!?”

Percy shouted back the first thing that came to mind in these kind of situations.

"Don't worry! I'm INSURED!"

[Calamity Jane]

…

God damn it, she didn’t manage to hit Percy a single time with the three guns. She was sure one of the three would hit him, but no. That was just not in the cards, apparently. While idly regretting it, she snapped the spine of a beast with an axe kick that left her completely off balance. It was a lot harder to deal with this situation without guns, but still really not that amazingly difficult. These things weren’t all that tough, after all~

Still angry about missing Percival with those guns though.

Ugh… her boot was covered in blood. Green, likely to stain blood. That was annoying. Everything just seemed to be going poorly for her, it was like these things just wouldn’t die with some semblance of dignity, instead they had to make her kill them.

But… what were they? Oh, she knew what they were physically, and could even see their dark core pulse within, their grey skin coloured with tainted green of their blood and bones. She could see what passed for organs inside them, their skin, the dead eyes that were useless, only connected by muscles and no nerves.

What they were behind the physical was confusing. Familiars maybe? But there were far too many for that… then again she didn’t know that much about magi. Just that it seemed like far too many, and there was something about these that didn’t seem to connect to anything other than the world around them…

Caster!? Her eyes scanned the area, searching for a presence, while she gingerly kicked into the side of a beast, collapsing the majority of its internal pieces, while not completely burying her now incredibly disgusting boot in its green guts. There was no Caster that she could find, just mostly running people, screaming. Yet all the creatures she could see were centered on them, centered on her. Appendages, sensory organs of some kind, constantly flicked towards her, almost like a snake’s tongue.

More importantly though, her boot was covered in gunk. Again she attempted to shake her foot off, like she imagined a knight had flicked blood off his sword, but it really didn’t work. She had to resort to sort of scraping it on the ground, which sort of damaged the day or so old boots. Not like she would wear them again after this, anyways. Percy could purchase her a new pair~

“You tailgated me!?” The boy she had saved shout at Percy, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there were creatures well… everywhere. How can he be so ungrateful? They had saved him, well she had saved him, Percival in the meantime was fencing with a rubber covered metal stick.

He really should have brought more guns. Or maybe one of those explosive launchers she had seen on the television in that gun store. But no, carrying those around was breaking the law, or too obvious, or whatever different excuse he threw at her this time. Maybe the boy carried something?

A cursory glance at his car proved that thought wrong. It was like no one in this town walked around the streets with firearms. Had times really changed that much in a century? Or maybe it was just Europe. Italy. Place. Whatever.

“Don’t worry! I’m insured!” Her master shouted back, while in the middle of hitting a thing with his two pronged stick.

Oh yes. Thrilling battlefield conversation. Even thinking that sounded dry to her as the two of them seemed more interested in their slight bump into each other than, you know, her. Who had been catapulted from Percy’s vehicle, who had saved their lives and, most importantly, looked amazing while doing that. And she didn’t even get a single thanks, or marvelous stare.

Nope, apparently hunks of metal were more important than her show. You could see those things every day on the street, but her shots were unique!

Another creature was punted, she wasn’t going to get her hands dirty with these things. Still… quite a lot left. Sixty-nine targets remaining. Seven now in dangerous proximity, rest closing. Conflict between them, gouges on occasional creature, comparative wounds similar to the dental arcade of nearby creatures. Wounds decay at a rapid rate. Likely some form of poison.

And she had no bullets. No guns at the moment either. They were both sort of required for each other, like lovers almost. That seemed fairly romantic, for something that burned out in an instant, and shattered on target.

…

Nah it was a faulty comparison. She was just getting tired of this.

”Hey, hey guys! We are in the middle of dying here, save the talk about hunks of metal after we save our skins first, ok!?” She shouted at the pair as she hit another beast with her foot, barely paying attention.

She had to be a little cautious though, it was broad daylight, and there were people nearby, normal people and not magi. Also the boy was normal too, a little obviously, but Percy could deal with that one easily. Just wipe his mind, or whatever it was that magi did to keep their secret. She wasn’t quite sure.

… Hmm, she seemed to be forgetting something… oh right!

“Besides, I’ll just have you buy a new one after the fight!” Sheesh, these things never gave up. As a gaping maw filled with crooked long teeth lanced towards her, she spun, and slammed her foot down on one of the sensory appendages, which caused the beast to howl out in pain, a rather deep and throaty cry, before she brought her foot down on its neck with bone breaking speed. “Maybe one of those red ones with the open top!” That creature had been so rude, interrupting her in the middle of talking, but she finally managed to get those words out. She could totally see herself riding in one of those vehicles, with Percival escorting her, doing the incredibly confusing looking driving while she sat with her feet up, shooting these monsters… yeah that would be the life. She could have done it from the jeep, but that would definitely have been more stylish. Then again… Percival had crashed the jeep. A better chauffeur then, probably hired by Percival. But who would trust his hiring standards… hmmm, definitely a dilemma.

[Isaia Manlius]

It. Was. A. New. Car.
Had. Been. A. New. Car.
A single tear worked its way down his face.

“So. Am. I!” he snapped, jaw working furiously.

Insured? Really? How much did insurance get you for acid-spitting zombies and gun-toting crazy-women? That train of thought didn’t get too far before he had to duck away from a monster-shaped projectile sailing towards his head.

It missed his head.
It landed on his car. And then another. He heard the suspension creaking, a sound like nails on a chalkboard save ten times as painful. Did insurance insure against that? He didn’t want to follow that train of thought further. It seemed counter-productive. Then again, staring slack-jawed at what used to be a perfectly fine ride probably wasn’t getting him too many places either, but he was doing it anyway.

But that thin tendril of smoke coupled with the acrid stench of burning something-or-other together with a rather ominous sssssssss wasn’t very promising. Actually, quite the opposite. He had no idea what it could’ve meant, but there was no doubt in his mind that whatever it was, it was nothing good.

He was to be proven right mere moments later, though not before he got hit in the face by an unidentified body part (probably an eyeball or a tongue that exploded on-impact), ran around like a headless chicken screaming at the top of his lungs, then choked and coughed on the smoke.

…Smoke?

Uh.

He looked back at his car. The engine had burst into flames.

Oh.
Or, rather, oh. Shit.

No sooner had those two words formed in his mind and he had dived for cover – any cover - did the car bonnet rocket off, whacking some eldritch beast in the head, taking that head away with it, knock over a street sign (something-something street), keep going, then bury itself in some coffee shop a few hundred meters away.

But that was the boring bit.

The interesting bit is as follows.

Now you see a car! Boom! Now you don’t! When the smoke cleared, there were little itsy bits of car-parts buried in bits of everything, from zombie-monsters to clothing mannequins to other cars. Some had been sent up straight into the air, their journey, now earthbound, finding its destination in gutters, on the streets, Isaia’s head.

Ow.

He found himself ducked behind the car that rear-ended him, and, against all odds, with all limbs intact, lifey-functions a-okay. Except for, well, his car.

His car.

His car.

his mind screeched to a halt.

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[Calamity Jane]

Propulsion fluid leaking, acidic secretions and some amalgamation of bone and flint-material claws likely caused the initial rapid oxidation. Underneath the ungrateful boy’s car there was a small trail of fire, slowly snaking its way to the dripping gas tank. Small explosion imminent, boy is already safe behind-!

[/i] Her eyes drifted to the front seat of the car Percival!

He was standing there, in close proximity to the explosion, still in the seat she had left him in (However unexpectedly the leaving was.)

Her boot hit the ground with a pulse as she felt all her muscles tense and fire. Even looking away she knew the flame was grasping its way up the dripping gas tank. She knew the ratio of fumes to air to gasoline was perfect, a situation unlikely but accelerated by the apparently flammable acidic ooze that leaked from each beasts’ every move. She knew that the entire front end of the vehicle was going to explode, spraying fragments of metal directly through the windshield of Percival’s open top jeep. And she knew, without her intervention, that he would at the very least take injury.

It was at that point she gave up on concealing her nature from those who may have stuck around to watch. Her body accelerated past human limits, but still low for a Servant, that much she knew, and, in the smallest part of a second before the ignition of the main chamber of the vehicle and the moment she was one step from running directly into Percy’s jeep, she propelled herself off the ground, shoulder forward to smash through the surprisingly intact windshield. She felt the glass shatter at the same time her eyes reacted to the ignition that would start the explosion.

…It was, for lack of a better word, blinding. It was difficult to blind a woman who could see every direction, and around and into every crevice of an object, but that was the best word she could use to describe an explosion.

In her life she had seen dynamite go off, the pure white light that matched the glare of the sun in the single instant that the mix of flame and explosive material mixed. This was like it, and it distorted a section of her vision as glass rained at her and Percy. It was like a white flare in her vision, she could see nothing within, she only relied on knowing what was there. Heat, expanding air, burning shrapnel, ashes of any material which could not resist the power of the explosions were all that resided in that small blind spot in her open world of vision.

She blinked at the startling light as she always did. And it was over. The explosion had passed over her, she had felt the wave of heat, and the sting of burning metal as she forced her body to take the strike to protect her Master. Still felt heat, as numerous pieces of shrapnel flamed against her bare back, having easily sliced through her clothes in a number of spot, but not drawing any blood. She was made of sterner stuff than that.

In that blink she had managed to tackle Percy down, hoping the dash would protect his lower half while her smaller form hugged close to him to save his vitals from being torn apart.

Her eyes opened, fluttering once as a piece of glass that fell from her now incredibly dirty hair made her blink again on reflex. Good, he had closed his eyes too. She pushed herself up to her feet, quickly checking Percival for injuries at the same time, standing on the partially-on fire seat cushion… with one leg. The other was on Percival’s own as she quickly looked at the boy to make sure he had survived the explosion hiding behind the jeep.

Yep. He had. She let out a breathe, not have even realized she had been holding it in, and then backflipped off the seat and onto the ground outside the ruins of Percival’s jeep. The smoldering ruins of the boy’s car covered the ground, and she almost misstepped as she landed on part of the bumper. Thankfully she had landed on worse before, and this time it looked well done. Even if both her clothes and hair were a wreck, she hoped they only added to the performance she was sure no one watched.

That was the moment she realized one of her boots was on fire. After a frantic moment ripping through the laces, she hurled the flaming thing down the streets. Apparently the creature’s blood that stained it was highly flammable. Who knew?

Finally she brought her eyes back to Percival and sighed. She really shouldn’t had to have done that, her hair shouldn’t be covered in various material and now soaked with grime and… whatever else it was. Probably some pieces of metal as well.

Looking him straight in the eyes, she pointed with an arm barely covered with a tattered sleeve at the burning wreckage of the boys vehicle and phrased her opinion with simple words that he could hopefully understand, since he seemed to ignore all danger presented to him by his own eyes.

”Fire. Bad.”
[/justify]