The Killing Grounds (Peregrine x PavellumPendulum)

"I'm okay," Ray replied automatically, even if it might not be true. It was a habitual response on her part; when it came to taking care of her brothers she always had to be okay, even if she wasn't. The other girl had long since roused the same protective instinct within her. "The metal you spat out saved my life, saved both our fucking lives. Thank you."

Of course, now that they weren't at risk of being murdered by giant centipedes, there was a whole different problem facing them. Notably, surviving out in this untamed wilderness without aid. The girl's quiet murmur about food hadn't escaped Lareina's attention. Unfortunately, she knew less than nothing about scavenging in the wilderness. Her family might not have had much money, but they'd always had enough to put something on the table, even if it was just white rice and beans. And, even if she'd picked up something from random conversations, Ray grew up in the desert. None of the things she'd known or seen would be any good here.

"Names Lareina, but you can call me Ray," she began, sticking out her hand. "What's your... oh, shitfuck, your hands! You said you were okay." Lareina forced her unnaturally heavy body to move, reaching out to gently take one of the girl's hands and give it a closer look.
 
She didn't look okay. But Shiori wouldn't fight it, there was no point in arguing. The relative calm of the forest was something they couldn't take for granted for now, not with those centipede-things being somewhere off in the distance. Even if she couldn't see them now, it didn't mean that her body didn't ache at the thought of them appearing once more, out of nowhere. They wouldn't survive another altercation in their current states. "Mm. No problem. You did most of the work carrying me anyway." she replied, shrugging, going quiet when the other woman introduced herself.

Lareina. What a pretty name. She gave a nickname directly after though, so she assumed it was her preferred way to be addressed. She opened her mouth to reply, only to blink in surprise when Ray scrambled to look at her hands, staring down at the shards of glass disapprovingly.

"Oh, aha. Well, I'm as ok as I can be with glass in my hands. It hurts like a bitch but it's not the worst thing that's ever happened to me..." she laughed, though it was clearly just to stop the other from panicking, "I was hoping I could cough up some tweezers to try and get most of it out, but I don't really have it in me. I'll live though."

She paused, smiling reassuringly, "I'm Shiori, by the way. It's nice to finally get your name, Ray."
 
  • Sympathy & Compassion
Reactions: Peregrine
"Ah, shit, nice to meet you too, Shiori," Ray replied offhandedly, most of her attention clearly still focused on the other girl's hands. Lareina had hurt herself on more than one occasion, and sometimes pretty badly, too. She'd dropped an engine on her foot at one point, and had given herself more scrapes and bruises on various car parts than she could count. The backs of her hands where littered with the small, thin scars to prove it. However, she'd always been able to treat the injuries as soon as she'd gotten home. Out here in the woods, there was no telling how long it would take for them to get infected. And if that happened, it'd make an already difficult situation that much harder for them.

"Umm, tweezers, yeah? I think I can..." Ray focused on her hands, and the dark metal began to congeal on the surface of her hands once more. It quickly collected together into something that resembled tweezers. She squeezed them experimentally. They didn't have the same spring that she'd associate with normal tweezers, far more like pressing two pieces of metal together, but it was surely better than trying to pick the glass out by hand.

It was only when she was about to offer it to Shiori that Lareina realized they were still... attached to her. And, while absorbing metal was so easy it was like breathing, un-absorbing it was nowhere near as intuitive. The first time she tried to detach them, the metal liquefied instantly, flowing back into her skin as she automatically reabsorbed the little tool. The second time went little better.

"Motherfucker, Lareina, come on," Ray muttered to herself. Shiori was fucking injured, and she couldn't detach herself from a little piece of metal.

When she finally got it right, it felt like peeling off an old scab. Uncomfortable, but somehow satisfying when she finally succeeded. Lareina let out a gasp that was as much sigh when the tweezers finally fell to the ground. "You... think you can pick them up? I'm not sure I should touch them again." She was afraid she'd automatically reabsorb them if she did.
 
Shiori wasn't very used to getting hurt. Being someone who spent their days writing university papers and the like, it wasn't as if there were many injuries she was exposed to, aside from minor cramps. She'd broken bones when she was younger and the scars from her transition remained, but she was quite certain she'd never had so much glass in her skin. One would hope so, anyway. Getting the shards out was the first problem; the second would be cleaning and bandaging the wound. Without any proper medical supplies, that would be a pain in the ass that she would unfortunately need to deal with, seeing as an infection would most definitely not help in this situation.

The girl watched curiously when the other stared at her own hands, pushing together metal in the form of tweezers. Of course, they were not very well put together, nor did they seem to function exactly the same, but it was better than nothing. "Hey, nice! We can recycle my metal between us, haha." she spoke quietly, not wanting to interrupt Ray's concentration too much.

The tweezers seemed to be begging to be melded back into her skin, stubbornly remaining attached to her. Shiori supposed it made sense, seeing as any metal seemed to be instantly pulled into her. Controlling what she absorbed and what she didn't seemed to be the next step. Shiori nodded when the tweezers finally hit the ground, picking them up. They were heavier than she expected, but they worked. She got to work, silently pulling out shards, chewing on her lower lip. She left the pieces on the ground near a tree, though far enough from them to ensure that they didn't step in the pile while leaving.

"Thanks for this." she said, still picking at the glass, "We make a good team."
 
Lareina watched Shiori pull the glass out of her hands with worry filling her eyes. Every scrap of her big sister instincts was urging her to help, as the process looked both painful and uncomfortable for the other girl. However, aside from the fact that Ray was afraid she'd end up messing up the tweezers if she took them from the other, there was also the fact that Ray was fully aware she'd been intending to kill Shiori not all that long ago. Sure, they might be safe now, and Ray might have carried her away to safety like a giant, metal knight, but that didn't change what Ray fully knew she'd been intending to do. She certainly couldn't pretend otherwise. It made her feel vaguely nauseous, as though the pain in her head and lack of food in her stomach wasn't already enough of a burden.

"N-no problem," Ray stuttered back in response to Shiori's words, the other girl's voice jolting out of her dark, looping thoughts. "We did make a pretty good team."

She paused, the guilt once again making her wonder if she was going to vomit. If she'd moved a bit slower in the arena, tried to find a way out of the situation before she'd danced to the tune of those monstrous bugs, maybe Shiori wouldn't be hurt right now. Or maybe they'd both be fucking dead.

"What do you think you're going to do now?"
 
She... was staring at her with a pretty intense look, huh? Shiori tried not to be put off by how the other's eyes seemed to be glued to her, but it was pretty hard to ignore, considering that the woman was right in her peripherals. She'd wave it off as worry or a lack of anything else to look at, since there was no point in antagonizing her. She'd saved her life, after all. Ray could stare all she wanted. With the tiny pile of glass shards growing larger, the seconds ticked by. Though it did hurt her eyes to stare so hard at her skin, and the act of closing one of her glass-embedded hands to remove glass from the other certainly wasn't pleasant, it was nice to get some progress. It was a relief to see her hands clear of it, even if they were dripping with bits of blood and brandishing broken skin.

The question the other posed did make her pause, looking up in thought. What did she want to do? Probably search for some type of sustenance... Clean water would be a concern as well. Shiori turned her gaze to the other woman, shrugging. "Get the basics. Food and water, somewhere to sleep. I don't know what else would be a priority at this point." she replied, getting back to removing shards, "What do you think we should do? After I get all this outta my hands, of course."

Even if Ray was convinced that Shiori would not be interested in staying with her, it was obvious that Shiori had already assumed that they'd work together.
 
We... The word floored Lareina, almost to the point that she missed the rest of Shiori's words. The implication was so blindingly obvious that Ray would have to be a complete fool to miss it. Shiori was expecting they would stay together.

Ray felt her chest tighten, and wondered for an instant if she was going to cry. She hadn't cried since her second younger brother had been accepted to UCLA with a full scholarship. Yet, perhaps due to everything she'd gone through today, this simple kindness from Shiori was almost enough to break her.

"You want to stick with me?" Ray asked, but didn't really give Shiori a chance to answer. Instead, she pressed right on to the question that was really bothering her. "But how can you trust me? I tried to kill you earlier, just to save my own skin. How can you trust that I won't do it again?"
 
Ray looked shocked. You would've thought that she'd been trying to catch a fly with her mouth, but that expression on her face read not only surprise, but guilt. Shiori laughed awkwardly, unsure of what she'd said that had messed the conversation up so bad, but Ray was kind enough to fill her in with her next words. And then, Shiori actually laughed. It started as a tired chuckle, but somehow, escalated into an actual laugh as she clutched the tweezers in one hand, only stopping a few moments later to look at the other woman with a gentle smile.

"I'm only kinda sorry for laughing, but I'm just... Shocked that you're shocked." she tried to clear it up, obviously amused, "Listen. I'm an astrophysics major who sees the gym maybe once every other week. And I'm not exactly in any condition to fight anyone. Best chances of survival are obviously, sticking with you, whether you tried to kill me or not. Plus, you saved my life anyway. You made up for it with that alone."

She shook her head, still smiling, turning back to her hand to keep on removing glass from it, "You be the muscle, I'll provide you with metal. Being useful is good enough to have you keep me around, yeah?" she mused, before pausing and grinning at her, "Even so, if you do ever decide to kill me, I maaaaybe wouldn't mind having you be the last thing I see. You're real pretty."

Okay, that one she couldn't help. "... I'm kidding. Please don't kill me. Just trying to make this all less... Difficult to deal with, ha."
 
  • Sweet
Reactions: Peregrine
Shiori's laughter undoubtedly took Ray by surprise, causing the young woman to almost flinch backwards. All the same, her laugh was comforting, even more so than Ray's own bout of laughter a short while had been. In this dangerous, tired new reality Ray had found herself in, being able to watch someone truly and honestly laugh felt like a sweet treat.

So she listened to Shiori's words attentively, trying to let them soothe over the panic and guilt that had filled her since they'd made their successful escape from the monsters. Shiori didn't blame her, didn't think she was the kind of person who would betray her at the first opportunity to save her own skin. It was a relief, because Ray didn't want to believe she was that kind of person. Then again, up until an hour ago, she never would have guessed she'd attack first before asking questions in the kind of life and death situation they'd been in before.

Shiori paused, and Ray opened her mouth, intending to offer some mixture of gratitude and assurance to the other girl that she didn't have to worry about being 'useful', when her final sentence brought Lareina's entire train of thought screeching to a halt. A blush of embarrassment almost immediately covered her face. If she was still working at the mechanic's shop, such teasing would normally have bounced right off her. However, something about Shiori's sincere expression, combined with the memory of when Ray had carried her away to safety, made the words punch much deeper than they normally ever would have.

"That's very... uhhh... practical of you," Lareina mumbled, trying and failing to use the words to cover up the embarrassment that had spread across her face. " 'M not gonna kill you."

Still suffering from the embarrassment, Ray abruptly dropped her face into her palms, scrubbing across her skin as though the gesture would somehow constrict the blood vessels dying her cheeks pink. Either way, it served to help her stabilize her thoughts. When she looked up, she offered Shiori her best attempt at a broad smile. "Yeah. Don't worry. I'll take care of you."
 
  • Love
Reactions: PavellumPendulum
Man, she would never forgot how satisfying it was to watch girls get flustered around her. Of course, it was nice to make guys blush too, but something about the intense redness and obvious surprise it always elicited got her every time. It was adorable and boy, did Shiori deserve to see something cute after all that mess. She was a flirt by nature, even when she wasn't really pursuing someone. It was all in good fun, despite it causing some complications from time to time, but er... That wasn't something she planned on thinking about in that moment. Her and Ray needed to have a normal conversation, even if it were just for a moment.

The mumbling was the icing on the already delicious cake.

Shiori grinned, satisfaction clear in her mischievous expression. "We'll take care of each other. I'll try to be less of a damsel in distress next time, ha." She raised her hands now, showing off her now glass-less palms. "All better! But I should probably wrap them up, since I've got a bunch of open wounds, huh...?"

She placed the tweezers on the ground near Ray, gesturing to her. "You can take those back, by the way."
 
Lareina nodded, sighing almost in spite of herself. Yes, if they were going to survive in this strange new situation where giant, acid-spitting insects were their foes, they were both going to have to do everything they could to survive. Hopefully this unexpected compatibility in their abilities would give them the edge they needed to survive.

"Ah, thanks," Ray replied, glancing over at the tweezers. She reached out a hand, and the metal in front of her easily liquefied, flowing into her skin like cold air. It pooled for a second, before flowing in with the rest of the metal that ran through her body. As soon as she'd finished with the tweezers, her eyes turned towards Shiori's hands. The wounds still looked incredibly raw and bloody, making Ray wince inside. What were they going to do if the cuts got infected?

"Do you have anything to wrap them with?" Lareina asked, somehow doubting the other girl just happened to carry bandages with her. "We could probably rip off my sleeves and use that, if you don't."
 
With the tweezers gone and the glass now dealt with, Shiori felt a surge of relief. Though she was tired, hungry and in vague amounts of pain, she was certainly in better shape than she'd been earlier. Wherever they were, they'd have to figure out how to survive and hopefully... How to get home. There was no logical explanation for their sudden appearances here, but Shiori wasn't the type that was satisfied with questions left unanswered. Survival came first with questions in tow.

She shook her head when Ray asked if she had anything to wrap her hands with. "Not really. Just bobby pins and a pen. Though I guess I could use the bobby pins to fasten some cloth together for myself." she stated with a shrug. Her mouth curved into an 'o' at the other offering up her sleeves as bandages. "Er, I could just use a bit off of my dress." The girl replied, pointing at the cloth trim at the bottom of her knee length dress, "Not like I care about modesty right now, ha."
 
"That, um, work too," Lareina replied, a trace of a blush crossing her face. Somehow, almost unconsciously, she'd ended up treating Shiori like one of her little brothers. Someone she had to protect, someone whose problems she had to give her everything to help fix. The fact that it hadn't even occurred to her that the other girl had clothing she could use as well was what really embarrassed Ray.

For the second time in as many minutes, Lareina swallowed her embarrassment, somewhat frustrated with herself. What had happened to the woman who could give as good of a ribbing as she got from the men in the mechanic's shop? What would they say if they saw her like this, blushing like a little schoolgirl?

It didn't take them long to bandage up Shiori's hands, especially not since Lareina had metal to help them cut the fabric, and was fairly familiar with patching up the cuts and scrapes she and her brothers often came home with during their childhood. Shortly after, the two agreed they should get moving. They still needed to find food and water if they could, and some sort of shelter as a minimum.

After running so far from the centipede's compound, Ray had thought it would be easy for them to make some good progress before nightfall. At the very least, they should be able to find some water in this forest. However, as she was walking, Ray quickly found herself facing a new problem. The metal inside her body was weighing her down. At first it wasn't that big of a deal, but it quickly began to take its toll. Every step Ray took sunk her a good inch into the detritus that littered the forest floor. Lifting her feet felt like she was lifting several pairs of boots, and her spine was starting to ache from the extra weight on her shoulders. Before even an hour had passed, Lareina found herself slowing from a good walk to a slow crawl, breath huffing in and out of her lungs.

When she'd been carrying Shiori she'd used the metal to strengthen and reinforce herself, running it through her like the cables of a car. But the vague memory of the splitting headache that had driven her to unconsciousness kept Ray from wanting to try and replicate that feat. Lareina abruptly came to a halt.

"Hold up," she said to Shiori, around the heavy breaths that filled her mouth. "I don't know how much further I'm going to be able to go carrying around all this extra fucking metal."
 
It felt odd, for sure, that she felt so at ease with someone who'd just attempted to kill her in the same day, but she supposed that considering the situation, Lareina would be the closest thing she had to comfort here. The girl had good intentions regardless, thus there was no point in being fearful of her: they both had other things to worry about that were far more pressing. With her hands bandaged up and her dress slightly torn, they were off, in search of the bare necessities. Sure, they'd escaped death by centipede, but if they didn't at least find water and sustenance, they'd die soon enough anyway.

The forest was dense. The trees huddled up together, springing roots upon roots into the ground, making the terrain bumpy and difficult to navigate. Though the air was fresh, it escaped her anyway. Shiori had never been in fantastic physical condition, having been a frail child. She wasn't as sickly now, being an adult, but that definitely didn't mean she was in any shape to be traversing this type of terrain, in a dress no less.

But for Ray, it was worse.

The walk had started out decently for her. Her confidence in her ability to find something obviously seemed to fuel her... But as the minutes ticked by, she slowed. Her breathing grew heavier. Her shoulders drooped and her body seemed to have her trudging, before she stopped.

Shiori stopped promptly, watching her carefully, eyes worried. "Do you need to rest?" Ray's next words about how the metal was affecting her answered her questions about her ailment. It did make sense that absorbing that many pounds into her would affect her, Shiori just... Hadn't thought of it, seeing as having these powers didn't seem logical in the first place.

"... Can you remove some of it? Like the tweezers?"
 
Lareina's breathing was already starting to recover. She wasn't super athletic, but she was strong, and was used to working long hours at a hard job. If she didn't have some measure of physical fitness, she wouldn't have been able to keep up with her work.

"I could, but…" the objection came to her lips even before she quite knew what she was objecting to. Despite the irrationality of it, the idea of leaving the metal behind seemed as abhorrent as the idea of leaving her arm behind. By the same logic, she'd be lighter if she left her arm behind. What's more, she could just make a new arm out of the metal, while she couldn't make more metal out of her arm. So maybe she even preferred leaving her arm behind instead.

Realizing the pure madness of that split second thought, Lareina gulped. But she still couldn't quite overcome the instinct to not separate herself from the pieces of steel that flowed within her body.

"…But you can't make any more right now, can you? And what if we find something dangerous? Those centipede things can't be the only monsters out here. If I leave enough behind that it's comfortable to walk, I don't know how effectively I'll be able to protect you... both of us."
 
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Her fears made sense, obviously. Carrying all that metal with her did her no good... Until they had to fight once more. Shiori had regained some of her strength, but her ability to spit materials from the other pulled from the nutrients she had, and... Well, she could tell she didn't have much more to spare. "Er... Not much. I could probably get a pipe out if I really tried, but... I have a feeling I'd pass out again." she admitted, feeling quite useless. Her powers meant nothing if she had nothing to convert. She found herself lamenting the fact that she'd vomited out all that glass: she could've used that for later.

Shiori was silent for a moment, before looking back to the other. "... Why don't you make me a sword?" she suggested, before smiling awkwardly, knowing it was an odd plan, "I know a bit of sword fighting. This way I can hold some metal for you while we walk, and your load is lightened. I can give it back to you if we need to during a fight, and maybe if we find ourselves fighting something less gigantic, I could actually do some damage rather than standing behind you."
 
Lareina nodded at Shiori's confession, not surprised by the result. When she'd first realized she had powers, it had seemed like pure magic. Now, she was starting to realize that every power's restrictions were as costly as its strengths were beneficial. Lareina had to carry her metal with her, even if it was hidden from sight, and Shiori couldn't truly make something from nothing, no matter how much it had seemed like that to Ray during their fight.

Maybe, when Lareina had time to truly rest for a while, and her exhausted mind could produce more than static, she'd be able to start thinking around those restrictions, getting creative with what both of their powers were capable of. For now, though, Ray was too tired to even think about the box, let alone try and think outside it.

"I… don't know much about swords," Lareina replied hesitantly. "I can try and make one, but I don't know if it would be a good sword. Most of the stuff so far, I've been imitating from cars. And tools I used. But I can goddamn try."

Gradually, metal began to gather around her hand, before it began to take shape into a very traditional western sword. The blade was a couple inches wide, straight, and sharp on both sides with a pointed tip. However, despite its appearance, the blade was as inflexible as a kitchen knife, viciously sharp.
 
Shiori shrugged, watching the hesitation cross through the other's face. "Better than nothing. Any weight I can ease is an improvement from making you carry all of it yourself. And even if the sword isn't really... Functional, I might as well do my part in carrying it." She watched as Ray willed the metal into shape, using her arm as the canvas, focusing it over her skin. She could only imagine how it felt to have it slide through her skin, how it felt to absorb it then pull it back out... Shiori's mind always went blank when she spat out material. She'd be focusing, hard, on what she wanted to make, then her thoughts would disappear, as if they materialized and came right out through her mouth.

Thankfully, it didn't hurt too much, aside from making her throat a tad sore.

The sword was wide, and looked about right. Perhaps it wasn't the prettiest thing Shiori had ever laid her eyes upon, but it most definitely made her smile. She held her hands out to accept it from Lareina, mouth curved into a petite 'o'. "... This is fucking awesome." she murmured quietly, feeling the heft of the metal in her hands, gripping the pommel when it was handed over.
 
Separating from the metal was easier this time than it had been with the tweezers, despite the amount of metal being larger. Maybe the tweezers had been enough practice, or maybe her reabsorbing the tweezers had somehow "reassured" her magic that the metal it lost wouldn't be gone for good. Whether that or something else was the cause, Ray was able to release her grip from the sword without automatically reabsorbing it, passing it off to Shiori.

Hearing Shiori's praise, Ray couldn't help the small smile that spread over her face. "I'm glad you like it," she replied. She'd done her best on the sword, trying to put as much thought and care into it as she would any of her car projects. She'd out gentle ribbing on the handle for instance, hoping that would make it easier for Shiori to hold without some sort of leather or cloth wrapping.

Of course, the thing was solid metal, and weighed a good six pounds. Inside, Lareina couldn't help but worry how many times Shiori's thin arms would be able to swing it. However, it was a good chunk of weight off her back, although under half of what she'd been carrying, it would still make a difference.

"Hold a sec," Ray suddenly said, thinking of something. The image of the flexible, braided metal hoses often used to make particularly durable cables in cars came into her mind, and it began to appear from her hand. It looped around, before connecting to a wider version of the same tubing. A few seconds later, a makeshift metal sheath was hanging from Lareina's hands.

"It might not be the most convenient to use if we suddenly come under attack, but... it'll definitely be easier to carry with this."
 
She'd fought with real swords before, but only briefly, in a very controlled environment. Her training had been under the watchful eye of her parents and instructors, before she'd transitioned, but after she'd distanced herself from her family, she hadn't had to attend any more lessons. Perhaps she regretted that now, seeing how that skill would perhaps mean the difference between life and death here, in this odd world, but... She'd try not to think too hard about it now. There was no point in thinking of all the ways she could die. She'd have to focus on what was happening now: Ray was handing her a sheath.

"Oh!" Shiori exclaimed adoringly, as she was the type to praise others whenever something was done for her, "Now I have a set. Thanks." And with that, the sword disappeared into her sheath. Hopefully this would ease the weight enough so Ray would be able to walk properly. She had a feeling that they'd be doing a lot of that.

"Let's keep looking for food and or water then? Not like we have anything better to do." The woman gestured in the direction they'd been walking prior, hoping they'd come across something to eat so she'd at least be able to make use of her powers.
 
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