damned_institute | Nightshift 49: Lake- Surrounding Area

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Nightshift 49: Lake- Surrounding Area

[From here, with much AUGH]

Of all the things Recluse was expecting when he walked through the door, immediately falling into a lake was not one of them. He began to sink immediately from the weight of his weapons, swimming back up to the surface, spitting out a mouthful of water that he'd nearly swallowed in surprise.

Hopefully, Agatha knew how to swim. Recluse wasn't quite sure he was in the mood by this point to do something so charitable as save her if she couldn't.

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It wasn't hard to see the kick coming, and the mermaid released Agatha's ankle just in time to avoid it. Water was her element after all, and she could move with near-effortless ease within it. There was only so much of it between them and the shore, though, and she wasn't terribly interested in letting hostile humans wander free to terrorize the beasts who lived there.

She flipped over deftly, moving to wrap her tail around both of the woman's legs at once. The man hadn't offered any overt threat, so she ignored him for the moment, focusing only on Agatha.

If the mermaid wanted humans not to be hostile, it was going about this the wrong way. Even before Agatha had learned to fight properly, she'd never been much of one for backing down in the face of an assailant. She fought back with whatever she had- ideally, a labful of devices, but just as determinedly with a wrench or a coffeepot. Or, in this case, with the boxcutter in her free hand.

And she didn't need to see to find it now, not with it wrapped around her, she could just bring down the little blade right there.

Recluse struggled to keep his head above water as Agatha was grabbed by the mermaid, the extra weight he was trying to drag making swimming difficult. He was tiring, but he was not going to act like an idiot and fight the damned thing in its natural environment, no matter how much he'd love to kill the thing and taste its blood in the water.

The boxcutter hardly seemed to make any impact on the tough scales on the mermaid's tail, and in fact, the attack only made the mermaid pull all the harder. The shore was getting closer and the water more shallow, and she was determined not to let her captive reach it.

It was difficult to say in the driving rain, but it appeared that several more of the mermaid's companions were surfacing farther out in the water, watching the proceedings with some interest.

Agatha wasn't exactly used to working on things she couldn't see, but she did know how to visualize them, making plans in the absence of all the parts, or sometimes any at all. Her knuckles scraped across the scales after the blade glanced off, making it obvious why that first blow had failed. The hand that had touched her first hadn't been scaled. There was somewhere on this thing that she could hurt, and even a shallow cut might make it back off.

Her eyes had been closed for a while now, since she was getting dunked with each of Recluse's downstrokes and this lakewater stung the eyes. If the tail was wrapped around her, it wasn't being used to swim. The arms were. That end of the body had some bare skin. So, said her logic, in what sounded a little like Zeetha's voice, strike further in the direction of the tug, as far as your arm will reach.

Recluse grabbed onto Agatha's other arm as he started to feel the harder tug, face locked into a furious snarl with the effort of trying to keep moving forward, having to just concentrate on each breath, each stroke. Something Agatha had done had set the thing off, not him. If he had, they'd still be out in deeper water, getting drowned by this thing.

There was indeed somewhere that could be hurt, but it certainly didn't make the mermaid back off. The box cutter's blade again glanced across tough scales before catching in softer flesh, but as soon as it did the tail's grip squeezed tighter, bruisingly tight. And now made even more angry, the mermaid snapped a hand up to grab the wrist of the hand that held the blade.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Okay, now it was hard to move anything. At least her face seemed to be spending a little more time above the surface than below; maybe her attacker was running low on limbs with which to grip and swim at the same time?

The shore was close, and that mermaid was only being a hinderence. He turned his head with his next stroke to see it, lashing out with a foot. The water would weaken the blow, but whenever he hit, he hit hard. If he could just get the thing off, then they could get to the shore.

The mermaid's fingers dug into Agatha's wrist, seeking to force the woman to let go of the blade she held. In the midst of her efforts, though, she noticed the man attempting to join in the struggle; she quickly twisted about, yanking on the woman's arm to pull it in front of her. Hopefully the man could then kick his companion and accomplish what the mermaid wanted.

Fine control, however, would prove to be difficult for the mermaid; after months as Zeetha's Zumil, Agatha was stronger than she looked and well aware that an enemy trying to move bits of you around was never a good thing for you.

Her knife hand was really starting to hurt, almost as much from her desperate deathgrip as from the mermaid's efforts- fortunately the blade didn't offer that much in the way of water resistance, or she might have lost it as she pulled with as much force as she could muster away from where this being wanted her to go.

"Let go, you blasted fish!" she sputtered; a little water splashed into her mouth, but nothing like as much as before, and certainly not enough to make her feel she was drowning.

Recluse lashed out again with a foot, still swimming. If the water could just get shallow enough for him to stand, then he could drag Agatha and the mermaid to a place where he could simply gut the thing with a knife. And oh, how he wanted to by now. Nothing caused him this much trouble and got away unscathed.

Time and distance were both running out, and the mermaid's efforts were becoming even more frantic than before. She could have dragged the woman off to drown, or attacked the man with him, but instead she remained fixated on that weapon. The woman simply couldn't be allowed to keep it.

Her tail finally slid free of Agatha's legs as the mermaid made one last effort, lunging forward with mouth wide to try to sink her teeth into the woman's arm.

The sudden release filled Agatha with elation, but it would have been better if it had been complete. She'd still have worried, of course, with the fish-thing still out there who knew where, but with the freedom of movement she'd certainly be more able to deal with it or, better yet, help get to shore. Having to cling to Recluse's outfit just to not drown was kind of embarrassing.

She still couldn't see, but something in the movement of the water hinted- the way the movement of the air hints that something is looming over you- that something rather bigger than a hand was coming at that arm. Her instinct was to try to withdraw... so she didn't, but lashed out in its direction instead, turning her hand with as much range of motion as her assailant's grip allowed and hoping desperately to stick something that would make it let go.

It was finally shallow enough for him to stand, setting his feet down on the bottom and dragging Agatha further, enough so that his upper torso was finally out of the water, the weight of his weapons helping him keep his feet planted securely.

He turned just in time to see the mermaid withdraw to strike and reacted solely on instinct, throwing a crushingly strong right hook to the thing's jaw. He only didn't have a knife in his hand by virtue of having no time to take it from his belt. Still, this was often how he preferred a fight. No weapons beyond whatever his body had given him.

The mermaid still refused to release Agatha's wrist, even if the woman's hasty movement jolted her enough that her teeth closed on empty water. She shifted her hold, scrabbling at the boxcutter Agatha was holding, trying to pull it out of her hand, and was so focused on it that she just barely noticed the incoming attack in time to turn away. The man's blow was still sufficient to force the creature to let go completely, however, and send her back through the water with a silent cry.

But all around them the shallow water flashed with silver tails, as all the mermaids who had up until been simply watching surrounded the pair. One by one they surfaced, eyes fixed on the invaders with distinctly unfriendly expressions, and a few of them bared sharp teeth in an angry hiss.

Agatha still held on like grim death, determined not to lose the closest thing to a real weapon she had, until she was finally released. Finally. She could have sobbed with relief as they came to rest, except that she knew she still couldn't afford to stop. She could let go of her guide's clothing and find that her feet reached the bottom, and that sense of control was amazing.

But, though she dimly perceived the shoreline, it was still out of reach, with those menacing figures splashing around between it and them. She raised the knife one more time.

"I don't want to hurt you-" she gasped, "-but we are leaving. You don't-- want to make trouble for us."

[All actions related to Agatha pre-approved by the mun!]

Recluse didn't need to turn to know that the blasted things were surrounding them, he could hear them well enough. This could still be more dangerous than they could afford, and slow them down far more than he could allow. Either they would have to make a push through the things, or...

Wait. The thing had only attacked Agatha, and only after a certain point. He hadn't seen what had caused the change in behavior, but it specifically had gone after her weapon arm... "Agatha. Drop the knife," he said urgently, trying to be careful with his wording in case these things actually understood what was being said. "It's what set off the first one. If it doesn't work, then I have something you can use on my belt. I can compensate you later."

For a moment, he was wondering whether he'd just have to knock the thing out of her hand, but she complied, grumbling as she did so. He held his own empty hands out to show that he was currently unarmed. "Will you let us pass now?" If not, he was still ready to move, and move quickly.

The tension in the surrounding mermaids vanished almost immediately once the knife dropped beneath the surface of the water, and the display of open hands seemed to be enough to mollify them. One by one they began to disappear beneath the surface of the rainswept lake, leaving the path to the shore completely clear.

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Nightshift 49: Lake- Surrounding Area

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