Collab between Four and Fox
"No! Don't hurt them!"
I'm not trying to hurt them, I'm trying to stop them from hurting you!
Though, she didn't speak those words, at least not out loud. She could explain later. Deriving a coherent articulation would have taken up too much of the reaction time she needed to -
whack.
Leila's next lunge went without resistance into empty waters. Only with her recovering from the lack of balance did she understand how the emotionless evaded the assault - or, rather, how it was struck first by something else. A broom.
"I'm alright" was most of Leila's cluster of sentences uttered as Madeline and Philip assessed the damage after the threat was driven away; although that was in stark contrast with Toby nearby, with several cuts left on his skin, and the water near him imbued with the very faint but no less upsetting scent of blood. In the background were his mutterings, growing clearer and more saturated with anger with each iteration:
"...We have to kill it. We have to kill it, Leila. We have to..."
Leila looked upwards. The waters seemed to have become blurrier - perhaps filled with the clouds of dust that were kicked up before the last ones could have settled. The single dot of yellow seemed smudges out in the dust - but it was there, the fish. And it was moving around violently.
"...would you like to help me gouge out the fish's eyes?"
wh - ?
Leila snapped out of her gaze to look at Toby's face. But instead of picking up the traces of emotion written in his expressions, she noticed something else. The water in front of her seemed to glow a little. Very faintly, but light of its own - not that she emitted and reflected off little particles. Parts of the water itself was very dimly glowing, thing fluorescent blue, in find threads slowly flowing - much like the blood the seeped from Toby's wounds.
Her sights traced back to her own arm, where a previously unnoticed cut had likely been open for a while.
Leila then looked downwards, at her lower body, which was now not recognizable from what she was too used to - legs and feet. The effect of a potion that allowed them to be underwater for this long. How did the potion work? If she damaged anything under this state, when - if - she gets to turn back, it would translate back to...what?
She considered the best and worst possibilities, then looked at Madeline, then at Toby. Then she made a decision.
"Madeline?" she said,
"May I ask you to help me with something?"
"Gary," C could only watch as their friend unleashed hell on the monstrous fish that had swallowed Sacha whole, for a few moments, it looked like the pink-haired hobbit had it all under control, but then the fish slammed her against a wall and there was blood. C had a brief moment of clarity and she thought about Leonard and how she didn't want Gary to end up like him. "Gary. Luke, help Gary."
C didn't have to say it twice, Luke shot towards the angler fish and Gary with determination in his eyes, his usual smile, gone. They'd already lost everyone, everyone they had ever cared about. One by one their friends disappeared and then there was loneliness, until they met Gary and Sacha. Friends. Happiness. Now they could lose it all. Again. They had done this all before, but he wouldn't let it happen a second time. He wouldn't.
He barreled right into the already disoriented angler's side and sent it crashing into one of the many walls. Luke sliced his shoulder on one of the angler's many scales, but he felt numb. Gary and Sacha. Family. The goal was to keep them safe. "You can't just fight it alone!" He screamed as the angler shook off the pain and righted itself. "You can't just fight it alone!" Luke repeated as confusion and pain flashed across his face. "You have us!" Luke threw out his hands in exasperation before he went for the angler's light stalk and pulled.
The fish let out a monstrous cry before it rammed into Gary and sent both hooded figures and itself crashing into the corals.
The angler fish let out a bloodcurdling roar as it snapped its jaws weakly and righted itself. It's entire body was covered in scratches and it's glowy light flickered weakly. It swayed from side to side, knocking over sharp corals in a fit of rage and injuring itself more in the process. It focused its one good eye at Luke and Gary, hissed angrily and then barreled towards them at a speed Luke didn't think it was capable of possessing.
"Gary! Gary!" The boy hooked his arms beneath his friend's own and they tumbled out of the fish's path just in the nick of time. Luke hit his side against one of the many corals and doubled over coughing. There was a sickening crunch followed by the weak snapping of jaws and what sounded like whimpers. If they hadn't moved out of the way, they would have been crushed.
The angler cried out as it pulled itself away from the pointy rocks that had pierced its side. Blood seeped out of the creature's wounds, coating the water around them a light pink. The light on it's head flickered off for a moment before it readied itself for another charge.
Luke and Gary scrambled out the way before another crunch echoed throughout the seafloor.
She liked Leila's plans. She really, really did. I mean, it wasn't the most well thought out thing ever, but they could improvise. Yeah, sure, they could do that. "Kid, that might actually work." Madeline grinned broadly then motioned for Toby to follow quick. "Help me drag Jelly girl over to the fish, tigershark, this plan of hers could actually work." She was spitting out orders again, the fear and doubt, gone. "Phillip, help long nose and keep those zombies away."
There was another crash followed by the angler's high-pitched wails.
"PINKETTE! HOODIE BOY!"
Luke snapped cocked his head to the side only to have the angler's tail slap him into the sand.
"Swim up!" Madeline cupped both hands around her mouth. "Swim up!"
Blacks and blues swum across Luke's vision but the adrenaline rush helped him pull through and soon he was swimming up, (and dragging Gary because she was seething and he didn't want her to get herself killed) the angler snapping its jaws weakly behind him.
"Don't do anything stupid," she whispered to Leila and Toby before they finally set operation last ditch effort into motion.
"Don't do anything stupid" was a rather amusing notion when the sequence of arranged actions just set into motion could be by definition the most stupid thing she ever attempted.
But there wasn't much time, nor the need to argue about what was stupid and what was not under these circumstances.
"okay." was her response, moments before she signalled the swimming Madeline to let go.
Sailing through the surrounding water. She would slow down, but not too much yet by the time she was in front of the angler fish, by the time she would've been noticeable through the thick layer of dust that still clogged the scene. Still too fast for the fish to get a good aim on where to snap its teeth.
And….now.
Brakes.
Holding her breath, she grasped with all the force she could usher the free end of the bundle of tentacles dangling on the other side of the fish's closing jaws. She immediately realized that the subconscious action of holding her breath was much unnecessary because she let out her cries anyway as she felt the threads tighten under the fish's upper jaws and several of them snap under the tension, the severed ends of what was still connected signalling a screaming pain.
Startled, the angler fish twisted its head in the same direction as her weight pulled, and the eventual closing of its jaws carried much less force. Pulling at the loop that had formed around the tip of the fish's snout and secured by its long, interlocking teeth, Leila struggled to get herself a firmer hold on its head - the concave shell of the jellyfish dress engulfing the front of the fish's face, the entire mass of the tentacles pressing against it's surface. On the scales perhaps not much damage could go through, but she was counting on the tips that scraped the corners of both of its eyes, and the threads that ran through the gaps in its large teeth and pressed against the interior of its mouth.
It was hard to do with all the thrashing motions, and not the most pleasant scene to imagine either, but it just might be effective. She drew some bundles of the jellyfish arms into the fish's nostrils, scraping them against the soft inner surface as much as possible.
She could feel the stingers firing, triggered by contact. It was a very unfamiliar sensation - a mix of tinglings at the tip of the fingers and sore aching in the muscles. but something clearly felt: countless microscopic harpoons sinking themselves into whatever surface in proximity, and the toxins flowing through the little tips of needles. It smelled like lemonade and corroded metal. And, moments after, of burnt flesh and fresh blood.
Just a few more moments, she thought as she tried her best to hang onto the wildly and unpredictably moving snout of the monstrous fish. It should be under enough distress to have too little sense left of direction to ram her into anything, and they were high enough above the ocean floor, but…
- Oh no.
She felt the motions suddenly change direction one last time, then stop for one moment. It didn't take her long to realize what that meant, but she was not fast enough to get out of it.
The loop she formed around the jaw was first tightened, then torn clean off as the fish focused its force into one sudden twist of its neck. Her hands were forced to loosen too, for the edge of the scales she held onto threatened to tear into fingertips. The angler fish broke free, taking a bundle of the thin stinging threads with it and a few more fragments sticking to its skin - their light fading as the sand laced waters behind it stirred up in small clouds of glowing blue.
Leila finally released it. However, the fish was too busy thrashing and snapping at its jaws to right itself or home in on another target. It was blind now and both its face and body stung from wave after wave of the hooman's abuse.
"Leila..." Luke stared on in horror as the water around them glowed a soft pastel blue. The fish spun around to face him and Gary, its one eye stabbed beyond recognition and the other burned beyond repair. The fish charged towards them but swerved and barrelled into one of the broken down buildings. Rubble and glass and wood came crashing onto the dazed angler and it trashed and writhed, snapping blindly with its jaws and lashing out with its battered tail.
Leila had created an opening, and now it was time to strike.
"Go get 'em, Tigershark!" Madeline gave Toby a reassuring yet hasty smack on the shoulder before she shot towards the floating Jellyfish and took the weakened girl in her arms. Phillip was yelling somewhere, and whatever long nose and the rest were doing, the emotionless were mostly out of sight and crowded near the school. "You did it," Madeline whispered reassuringly as she pulled Leila close. "That blasted plan worked and you did good, kid, you did really good." Madeline looked on worriedly, but the wounds weren't too bad and for once and for all, they could finally put an end to all this madness and save everyone. "Someone," Madeline called out as she swam Leila away to safety. "Help Toby!"
They were winning, they just had to keep the emotionless away from the others for a bit longer! Harper slammed a piece of plywood into several dumpsters before he swam up and caught up with Inadi. "They're winning." It was the only comforting thing he managed to come up with, but he hoped Inadi understood what he meant. Soon, Riley, Jasper and everyone would get their souls back and it'd be over. "We just need to keep them busy for a bit longer." Harper took a hard left and led a few of the zombies away from his friend, if they could break the emotionless up into smaller groups, it'd be easier to keep them under control and away from everyone and the dying angler fish.