riverviewlogs | [Closed; see note] Trigger Scent Hunting

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[Closed; see note] Trigger Scent Hunting

who: Laura Howlett and You
what: Laura has been afflicted with the Trigger Scent - and is ready to kill.
when: Thursday, Early Friday morning, after this unsettling post.
where: All across Riverview.
warnings: Violence/blood, potential death (mainly NPC).
Note: If you would like to be involved, I may be able to squeeze you in; just hit me up at

simpledog! I have a plurk here regarding this plot.

Laura isn't herself.

She doesn't really feel anything — see anything, think anything. It's more just an all-encompassing need to kill, some sort of mentally paralyzing fog where all she can think is that she needs to track and hunt. If you'd asked her, before the trigger scent was used, what this strange liquid was? She wouldn't be able to tell you. It's new information, something the scarce files Gabriela stole away didn't cover.

Too late now.

She prowls through the city, her steps fast and her nose sniffing at the cooling air. She smells her targets. Some are stronger than others, closer by. Some are moving. Some are stationary. Whatever the case, she stops firstly by a local liquor store where a man is stumbling out with a beer in hand. She doesn't know him, and she won't remember that he's her first victim. Poor guy just got doused with the wrong thing, wrong time, wrong place. With him easily neutralized, she moves on to the next scent—

Likely one of you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

*Lola was going to enjoy the last fleeting idea of summer, yes it was gone. But, that didn't mean she couldn't wear big sunglasses and drink rainbow colored cold fruity concoctions for a little while longer. While showing off her arms, wearing shorts, and just kinda enjoying how cute she looks.*

Hmm... maybe I can get my helmet and jump myself someplace good for a selfie.

*She was wearing her jumping boots, like she did sometimes. Just to be super used to wearing them in case something happened.*

*It wasn't cause she was still terrified cultists might kidnap her again and she's a bit paranoid. Not that. Nothing like that!*

[It's Friday, early morning, do you know where your rabid mutants are?

Laura herself has had a very eventful morning — and Lola is next on the list, though Laura has no clue who she is in this state; she doesn't recognize anyone or anything, nothing except the familiar odor that clings to an unaware Lola. Those kids, throwing around water balloons, splashing cups on people, they're rude, aren't they? Now the dry chemical is dragging Laura out of the woodwork.

She starts toward her, shoving a man so hard he nearly crumples unconscious against a nearby wall, and her blood-red eyes are glued on Lola. She doesn't seem too eager to do this subtly; the trigger scent makes her maddened, eager to finish the work.

Look out, Lola. The claws're out.]

*Fortunately, Lola's really good at recognizing body language, expressions... empathy. It's a life saver. She couldn't really describe any of it, but she can tell what she's looking at. And when she spots Laura- the claws aren't even the first problem. It was a tickle on the back of her neck, a skin crawly feeling.*

*Trying to get a sense of what's wrong is when she sees the claws. And, well, there are a lot of reasons Laura might be doing things against her better nature. But for the moment Lola's not going to care. That's a later problem, now is a 'find help and get out of here' problem.*

Everybody run right now!

*She's small but man her voice carries, she's definitely drawing attention. She then takes two steps and jumps. A burst of white light out of her stylish but slightly impractical boots, launching her up so she can land on a second floor balcony to a restaurant. Which causes a lot more chaos, and more attention as she runs across several tables and starts looking for her next jump point. While looking back to see where Laura has gotten to in all the- chaos.*

[Lola's probably relieved to see Laura isn't aiming for any one person in the crowds in particular; one man does try to grab for her, maybe trying to play hero — she slams her knee into his head hard enough to knock him unconscious — but her targets don't appear to be anyone in the throngs of people. No, she's racing toward the building Lola is currently hopping on. And she vanishes, though Lola can probably hear the distinct sound of Laura scaling the side of the restaurant with her claws.

Coming up for her, it sounds like. Wanting to get a chunk out of her. Everyone nearby scrambles as she leaps up over the railing, looking for her target, teeth bared and claws at the ready.]

*Relieved isn't the word. She's glad other people aren't in danger, but she's in danger and she would not be nearly as cute with scars so that's totally not allowed. There's nowhere to go that's higher here, there's no really good footholds up on the third or fourth floor. And the angle's all wrong for the next building over.*

*Thus Lola's cursing, in Spanish, under her breath.*

*Still, she has a plan, it's just kinda bad and not really safe, but she knows she can't beat a twelve year old in a knife fight. She takes one of the tables and tips it onto its side, food and plates smashing to the ground. She jumps, kicks off of it, and launches herself to the opposite side of the street. Basically if she can keep moving she should outpace Laura just because of how her boots work if anything else. Provided the few seconds it takes to pick herself up off the street when she lands don't break anything.*

[Laura's wild, with little sense of control — the trigger scent is by no means perfect, and her eagerness to chase the scent without letting it get away leaves little room for her to be casual about her chase. When Lola leaps from the building, Laura's just behind her, missing her mark by a short distance—

And when she leaps back down to the street below, Laura slams her claws into the brick exterior of the building and glides down, leaving very long wounds on the structure from top to bottom. Her ankle snaps on the impact down anyway, but she shakes her leg to the side and lets it heal back with a few second's time.

She doesn't really feel. Anything.

Her target is Lola, and that's all she needs. She races her way with a feral scream.]

[Even in another world, Jintetsu seems to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's about a block away when the commotion strikes, and stops midstep to assess what's up. It doesn't escape Haganemaru's notice, either.]

The hell's going on over there? A fight?

[He's right, it turns out, except the fight has already moved on from "over there" to "heads up." He's barely got a bead on the high-jumping girl before he has to dodge out of her way. It looks like a painful landing. Why -

Oh. There's what she was running from.

For a split second, Jintetsu's shocked by just how small the pursuer is. It's a kid. Armed - some kind of claw weapon, at a glance. Even through his mask, he can smell the blood on them. All at once he's certain - they've killed someone, very recently, and they're not done yet.

(Murder doesn't have an age requirement. He knows that better than anyone.)

And High Jump isn't getting up fast enough.

Reflex kicks in, and Jintetsu moves to intercept, discarding his hat in a motion almost too quick to follow. His cloak he throws onto the frenzied child - it might not stop them, but even half a second more to interpose himself could mean life and death.

(Let's be real, he's not getting it back in one piece.)]

*She really liked it here but people trying to kill her, kidnap her, or trap her in bubbles with kissing as the way out has got to stop! Fortunately someone is stepping in between her and Laura. And they looked sorta cool so maybe they won't die instantly.*

Right, so, something is really wrong with her and if you get between her and me she'll probably kill you. Not that I'm not grateful but...

*Lola gets to her feet, runs a few steps toward the nearest cross-street and jumps, long and low, to try to put as much distance as she can in from Laura.*

Maybe if she can't find me she'll stop!

*As good a plan as any!*

[Oh yeah, that cloak is definitely destroyed. Claws glide up and down and soon pieces of fabric are fluttering to the cement underfoot. The blood-red eyes move from Jintetsu over to Lola as if hypnotized by her very existence; the samurai is hardly even considered in whatever's going on in her head.

Instead she pivots as soon as Lola leaps, ready to chase after her.

The sound she makes isn't very typical of a child, but then — neither are claws.]

[Goodbye, faithful cloak. Yeah, wow, not only did it not slow her down, she shredded it. (This is the first red flag.) More urgently, she's so fixated on her prey that she can't even see him, as said prey confirms. But why-?

No, later. He's got an opening.]

Then get going!

[The instant Laura's back is turned, Jintetsu lunges, his sword in hand but still sheathed. He's going for a full tackle, trying to get her pinned to the ground as quickly as possible. Not a move he normally attempts, but - he can't just cut down a little girl, even like this.]

[The tackle sort of works. For a second. She falls backward, maybe a little too easily. Which may work in his favor, if he realizes there was something obscenely simple about the way she didn't evade the move.

He probably doesn't expect, in his maneuver, that a claw would spring out of the top of Laura's boot — it's not employed very often, especially since she's never one to aim and kill in her normal state, but here it is in all of its sharp glory. She kicks upward, aiming to cut him wherever may be closest to her person.

Preferably, she's interested in disemboweling him.

... Let's not let her do that.]

[She seems to fall almost before he hits her, using his own momentum against him. It's a move right out of his own playbook. What's not is the glint of metal he spots in his periphery - coming from her foot. Jintetsu pivots hard to the side, but she's fast, and the blade slashes across his thigh as he rolls away off her, spattering blood onto the pavement.

He gets his feet quickly, though a little awkwardly thanks to the wound.]

Hidden blade, huh? That's a dirty trick. [- that he wishes he'd thought up himself.]

[Strangely, as the long claw sinks back into her foot, she doesn't launch to kill him right now.

No, she launches in the direction Lola went, as if completely overpowered by the need to end the girl. It's like Jintetsu is a roadblock that, if not in her immediate way, holds little interest; the overpowering trigger scent leaves little in her mind other than that foggy need to kill.

Can't let her escape. Can't let her get to far.

She has to kill her.]

*Lola'd been putting a good bit of distance, and not causing a lot of disturbance in her wake. She could go pretty far but she'd eventually run out of juice. Still, Lola let her hair turn from blue to black, and as she ran past a street vendor she stole a big brown men's shirt to hide herself in. Her hope was she'd put enough distance that Laura can't find her.*

*And Laura's still heading this way... Great.*

It's almost like she's...

*Lola had seen Laura react to scents before, maybe she was like a bloodhound? That's a thing? This is the Quarantine, anything is a thing. Lola needs a- she needs a fountain, or a hotel, maybe a kitchen? She'll just continue jumping down the streets looking for anywhere she can, well, clean off. She'd settle for just getting rid of her clothes if she wasn't worried that'd leave her naked and chased by a murdergirl. Which is way worse than this nightmare is.*

[Talk about single-minded...! He can't seem to keep her attention unless he's directly in her way. All right, then - if that's what it takes, that's where he'll be.

The kid's fast, so he books it to try and cut her off before she gets too far, adrenaline dulling the pain from his leg. Laura doesn't seem the least bit thrown off the scent, but he doesn't see a head of blue hair anymore, so Lola must have either jumped out of sight or found someplace to hide, he assumes. If he can hold the kid off for ten, twenty seconds, that could be enough of a head start.

As he darts into Laura's path, he holds Haganemaru defensively, but still hasn't drawn the blade. This may prove to be a mistake.]

Hey! What the hell's your problem with her?

[Laura's problem with her is that she's not dead.

Which is nothing against Lola, oh no; she doesn't remember Lola, nothing, not any of the kindnesses she offered her. She rushes toward Jintestu like someone who was ready to burst through metal doors to freedom, both hands pulled back and blood-red eyes wild as she prepares to try and spear through him.

She looks right through him, it seems. Like she doesn't hear a word he says.

Like she's in a trance.]

[Jintetsu stands his ground until the last second. His plan is to use the same tactic against her that she did against him - wait for her to get close, then take her down.

But a few things go wrong.

Just as he goes to make his move, his injured leg picks the worst possible time to spasm, throwing off his balance. He still manages to duck away from one claw, but the other is coming straight for his head, and he tries to deflect it with his metal arm.

It works... sort of. In that she doesn't manage to kill him. Instead of glancing off like he expects, though, the claws slash through the steel plate like hot knives through butter.

It doesn't hurt, exactly - he's got limited feeling in that arm to begin with - but it doesn't feel good. Like a blow to that elbow nerve, only he feels it all the way up his shoulder into his neck. Jintetsu recoils, and that motion's probably all that prevents Laura from taking his hand clean off. As it is, she only got about halfway through. "Only."

Alarmed, Haganemaru blurts - ] Jintetsu, your arm! [ - but Jintetsu barely hears him. He's noticed some important details, belatedly. The claws aren't weapons she's holding - they're protruding from her hands. And her eyes...

She's completely wild. There's nothing in there he can speak to or reason with. She won't stop - maybe can't. And he can't withstand another attack like that. If he doesn't end this now, she'll tear him apart. He'll die for nothing, and who knows how many more will die after him.

He has no choice. He unsheathes Haganemaru.

When Laura passes him again, he strikes, and lands a solid hit across her side. On an ordinary person, it'd be fatal.

It's the only way.]

[The slash goes right through her as he evades, and she stumbles forward before swiveling around to face him again. Blood pumps out for a moment with reckless abandon as the wound saturates her shirt, surely spelling a demise in the making. But it only seems to stagger her for a moment.

Then, rather alarmingly, the wide cut pulls back together, like someone pulling the zipper on a jacket. It mends and leaves a wide tear in her shirt and jacket. She doesn't even look at it, just looks at him with those same feral eyes.

Well.

Shit.]

Edited (repetition thy name is ashlee) 2018-10-03 16:46 (UTC)

*Lola can see the fighting going on behind her, but she's also keeping track of her surrounding, looking for a way out, a place to wash off whatever Laura had on her.*

*Instead she found a guy with a vending cart and a collection of rare herbs, spices, and a few dried meats from all corners of the universes. This might seem like a weird place to stop, she's being chased by a murderkid after all. But Lola's bad at science, you can't get her to explain why something works, but things in the kitchen, she just knows what they do.*

*And she recognizes the alien symbols on a container with a bright blue, nearly luminescent, powder. She opens the thing and takes a sniff. That cleared her sinuses right up, a pinch of this she'd be crying for a few hours from the heat of it. It's some sort of alien chile powder. The point is, you don't let it touch your skin.*

*You don't use more than a little bit of it.*

*And you don't get it near your eyes.*

Hi sorry I need to run and take this please get away that kid is trying to kill me. Thank you!

*Lola's already sprinting back toward the fight as she speeds the words out as quick as she can, unscrewing the top of the container. Careful not to get any of it on her. (She's used it to cook once, with gloves.) She jumps straight toward Laura, and she really hopes this is only exceedingly painful and won't like, kill her. But she's mostly sure that won't happen.*

Hi, really sorry! I'll make it up to you with ice cream when you stop trying to kill me.

*Laura can just enjoy how incredibly hot alien pepper powder to the face feels for a while. Lola glances at her knight in... damaged metal arm and blood covered clothing?*

We should run now.

[How pleasant. Lola, are you sure you're not secretly an interrogator in a prior life? Laura manages to claw Jintetsu, but it's rudely interrupted by the sudden rush of some foreign powder to her face. She leaps backward from the two, scratching at her face, sniffing violently in an attempt to re-direct her senses back to Lola's scent. She can distantly catch it still, but the focus is too hard. She hisses and spits and makes sounds of displeasure and pain as her face reddens.

Her frantic fingers leave cuts that heal near-instantly.

It's not the prettiest sight, but Lola is right; run now, because you've only got minutes to spare before she adjusts and adapts to this intrusion.]

[No. That's impossible.

He killed her. His shirt's covered in her blood. He's taken down grown men with less force than that. But instead the wound instantly closes, as if it was never there. A sudden chill strikes him, his one eye wide as he realizes -

- this was never a fight he could win.

But hey, he finally got her attention.

The shock slows his reflexes, and Laura's claws slash hot across his side. He doesn't feel it at first. But a second later there's the wetness of fresh blood, and he sees it's his, and then it hits him all at once, sending him staggering. It'd be the perfect moment for a coup de grace.

Fortunately, it's just then that Lola reappears, practically out of nowhere. With black hair and a different shirt, he almost didn't recognize her. The blue powder hits its mark with surprising accuracy, and while Laura's busy hissing grotesquely and tearing at her own skin, that's their opening. "We should run now." Don't have to tell him twice.

His head spins as he follows Lola, oblivious to the trail of blood drops he's leaving behind. He's limping now, clutching Haganemaru awkwardly with his false hand and the side wound with his real one, so Lola can easily run faster than him at this point. He doesn't know this part of town, anyway, so wherever she's headed, so is he.

And while he's focused on running, Haganemaru can demand some answers on both their behalf. His voice doesn't sound pained, but anxious.]

What kind of monster is that kid?!

*Lola's freaked out enough that it takes her a little longer to focus, but not so freaked out she's unable to focus. Jintetsu should notice a feeling, not a thought, just this sense he's not alone. And whatever he's dealing with he has help. Oh also the smaller wounds are closing up and everything hurts a little less.*

*Completely unrelated the tips of Lola's hair have gone white.*

She's not a monster! I mean, usually, I have no idea what's happened now. She heals, like, instantly, but that's usually wounds I've never seen her on fire or burned with chemicals so I have no idea how long she'll be held up by what I did.

*Lola's still jumping, but they're shallower jumps, a few feet, enough to offset how bad she is running in heels. Enough to stay pretty even with Jintentsu and not get too far ahead.*

I just know we need to run and find a swimming pool, or a fountain. Maybe break a water main... something that can get whatever she's tracking off of me.

[The sudden feeling of... support, for lack of a better word, is a bit incongruous to the rest of what's going through Jintetsu's head. It's unexpected enough that he actually has to stop being mad at himself for a second to process it. Something positive? That can't be right. The blood loss must be worse than he thought. (It's not, and in fact he's got something of a second wind - but he'll figure that out later.)

The idea to lose their pursuer in the water is a good one, in theory - but Lola's talking like it'll throw her off for good. It sounds like she may have tangled with this kid before, so she'd know better than they would, but Haganemaru wants to be damned sure.]

You're sure it's something on you? Not something you did to piss her off?

I give her free food and speak fluent Spanish, Laura loves me.

That isn't her, not... no, it isn't her in there.

*Sure, Laura was weird, she's been through a lot. And, you know, claws. And fighting. She's got a lot going on, but she's been nothing but good to Lola. Because Lola's super sweet and utterly harmless. Lola's also pretty low on people she can call, for starters they'd never get here fast enough. Plus, calling Keith would just put the Lions in danger, and Keith does not need new scars.*

Are you healed enough we can start running, I have to stay close or your wounds will kill you or something.

*You're what Lola has and she needs you not to die.*

[Closed; see note] Trigger Scent Hunting

Lola and Jintetsu

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