Stralia - An evening with Weather
#5 of Stralia
_ Stralia - An evening with Weather. ~~SnowDragon
I present to you chapter five of the Stralia series after the weekend break, continuing to follow the story of a falcongirl with an unusual, powerful ability trying to live her life as normally as one can after a Collision of two worlds. Today's chapter focuses on an engineering standpoint, trying to cull my comma usage and some other things while still providing entertainment. I didn't even have music playing for the last five hours of writing, I didn't even know that was possible. I hope you enjoy it as always, and don't be afraid to leave comments! I will always reply!
Without further ado, I present Stralia - An evening with Weather. As always, Enjoy!
Writing Time: (Started: 11am 19/08/13. Finished: 11:11pm 19/08/13) Length: Digital Copy Only; 6.4 A4 Pages Soundtrack: Sniper Elite V2 Main menu theme.
Those with minds quick to anger, learn Fire. Those who are calm, collected, learn Earth. ~Basic Magic, 19th Edition, Lious Vanstone. ----_
It was much later that night when, while looking out of the corner of her window every now and again, pausing from the book that contained so much knowledge, that she actually spotted her friend. To the girl's credit, she had informed her parents not to lay on the horn. No, that would have made the creature who was her own mother, cursed with hypersensitive hearing, infuriated beyond words. No, it was up to her in order to make sure the arrangements put in place by the feathered girl were acted upon properly, not anyone else's. So, she took upon the act of a paranoid soul, peeking out the window every few moments to ensure that Sarah and the vehicle had not yet arrived. With the rain still pelting down outside, lightning arcing through the sky and thunder booming in the air. She'd still probably get soaked on the way to the transport when it arrived, but still less wet than if they walked there like they had orignally planned. It should have fallen on Qui to make the new arrangements rather than she, but the lizard was... not the best thinker when it came to that sort of thing. No, without her, the event would have been washed out as soon as it started to rain, moved to another date and then prompty forgotten about by all parties involved, least of all her. Taking a quick look at her things, the books were out at once, which left her normal things, basically her knife and nothing else aside from the currency holder she would this time require. So, slipping the tan shaded rig once again over her shoulders, snaking the blade back into it's sheath safely out of the eyes of all bar her own, the coat going over the top of it to provide some shielding from the rain to her clothes underneath.
Switching off the lights she headed for the door, pausing only to retrieve shoes and take a long look at the water pouring in down from the sky, cringing for how heavy the storm was, perhaps just questioning why she was about to venture out into it. Opening the door, and taking a breath, she counted to three and then pushed out into the weather and making a straight hard dash to the car, the door being pushed open from within, something she took full advantage of by more or less diving within the cover of it's protective roof, sitting up quickly to prevent the capelike coat she wore from getting any more soaked at the ankles than it already was. Sitting up, those yellow eyes, so sharp and so clear lay upon Qui, in the back and Sarah in the front, with an adult human she had never seen before in her life. Even though normal life, one laid eyes upon many a person even if one never even said a word or shared a look with them but in this case, none of the features matched up with any face she had seen, leaving this person completely unidentifyable, well, at least perhaps without prior knowledge. Sarah had noted during arrangements that her parents would make the trip by vehicle, and this had to be one of them, and this was only confirmed when that soul behind the wheel finally spoke up as the vehicle accelerated away from the edge of the road. "Well, at least the weather means I can meet Senia. Silver lining and all." A female voice, vehicles were always dark though the reason why had never been explained, probably because no one had ever asked, not even herself. It was such a little thing to notice, the differences between light and dark but of recent the feathered creature had been taking a deep interest in a lot of small things that weren't really relevant to the days as they passed.
"Honour to meet you, mother of Sarah," she started, with the traditional greeting and using the moment's pause of the woman being taken aback by the phrase to continue, "Thank you for the transport, it is an ugly night tonight."
The driver stammered, her voice dropping into the all too familar 'uh' before she collected enough of her thoughts to speak up and continue on as she had started. "Yeah, sure, not a problem. I'd have just moved it to another night, but that doesn't work so well for your little group, does it?" Senia's head shook, enough of an answer for the driver as the vehicle came to a slow halt in traffic. Looking out the window at the heavy rain, across into the other lane she could see a large armoured vehicle, but instead of the Civil Pacification Unit's colours she saw the yellow ribbon logo of the Alpha Dynamics Organisation on the white hull. Eight wheeled and mounted with a huge turret on top with an even longer barrel for a firearm attached to the front, parked at the red light just like everyone else. While they had to obey the traffic laws, it always seemed just a little bit silly to see something that towered over everything else around it obeying a law that was little more than a shade of colour. Craning her neck just that little bit more she saw another one exactly like it, same turret on the roof and same weapon barrel, hovering over the back deck of the first vehicle. Now, that was unusual, a pair of those things driving down the road together? The falcon thought for a moment before she made the decision to point it out.
"Have a look, two AlpDynOrg armour vehicles next to us, one after the other. Strange, no?" Heads turned and swiveled as traffic got back underway as the lights above the road changed from red to green and vehicles all around drove off, including these two wheeled fortresses. This car, and those two massive vehicles were the first in the line, aside from the other lane headed in this direction, the wipers barely doing enough to allow the driver of their transport to see by. But, there was another set of lights blooming into existance next to them, the dull roar of the two mercenary armoured vehicles grew to a thunderous vibration, solid red lights erupting all over them, top front, top back, on the turret, on the sides, everywhere as both accelerated past them in the sedan, and tore around the corner at an increasing pace, and with the rain pelting down around them, a sea of white mist pouring into the air behind their path, those powerful red strobe lights going off in pattern as they disappeared.
"As it turns out," Sarah started, shaking her head and hair in some form of disrespect, though how far it went Senia had no idea, "They aren't actually above the law anymore than we are. The lights are just to scare people into getting out of the way."
Qui was quick to fire, as always. At least he could be relied on to steal the words right out the falcon's beak. "As if you need to scare anyone more than you already are in those things!"
Holding a steady, legal speed, the vehicle rounded the corner, only for the brakes to be employed almost at once, vehicles on all sides slowly to a rapid halt when it became quite clear quite quickly that those armoured vehicles had not gone far, but rather had come to a halt sideways, both vehicles blocking the road ahead, soldiers with their faces covered scrambling from the rear hatches as the red lights flashed in long and short patterns. One man had a bright blue baton, and was using it to divert traffic the other way, back the way they had came, men running sandbags this way and that across the road as they stood in the rain, soaked through and through. What on earth could they be doing? Those were mercenaries, not government forces, someone was paying them to stand there and block off the road and their access to the theatre for their nightly event. Further down the road, her razor sharp eyes could see two more just like this one, blocking off the other end of the main dual laned road, locking down a street some four blocks long, including their cinema. As Sarah's mother brought the vehicle to a stop at the sandbag wall, some cars behind them had already begun to turn around, looking for other ways around. It seemed like the driver was about to as well, before she ended that train of thought, knowing that woman couldn't see as well as she. "Mother of Sarah, do not bother. This entire street is blocked, I can see them down there, there is no way through." She looked to have replied in the flashing reddness, but a soldier started running over, a firearm so long he needed both hands just to control it properly and as he arrived, he more or less bashed his fist upon the window three times before the woman finally managed to find the button to wind it down with that electronic whirr. He spoke almost at once, a glinting solver pin on his neck she couldn't quite make out in all the water. It looked like two silver bars right next to each other, but what on earth could that represent?
"Ma'am, you need to turn your vehicle around and return to your home,"
She was quick to respond with an aggrevaited question, as if she were easily annoyed by things out of her control. "Why on earth are you blocking the road? Who the hell would pay you to block a main road!" Water pounded down on the windowsil, but that didn't seem to phase her, must have been waterproofed, like her torch, but her eyes were fixed upon the road beyond the roadblock and the scurrying men carrying guns and equipment. There was... it was just the darkness around her, it made her uneasy, made her afraid, but she centred on the fact that the crash was just that, a crash. The darkness was probably her blinking or something. But why the thoughts of the crash had picked this moment to arise now, at this time, was disturbing in it's own way. She wanted to switch forms and destroy the threat, but the threat was nowhere, but even in her dreams that scaled waterbreathing form was helpless against the attack. There was a thick blast of horn, something that made the soldier of fortune turn around and take a look as a truck, a large trailered truck had spotted the roadblock far too late and tried to turn around, only to end up entrapping himself against a building and the box trailer he towed. Six vehicles, and all the people within were now trapped by it between the armoured personnel carriers and the rig behind them, the man in body armour and camouflage swearing under his breath. Sarah's mother took the moment to press her advantage. "And how do you expect me to turn around, eh?"
Swearing a few times under his breath, the soldier lifted a hand to his radiopiece, hanging from his left shoulder. "Listen ma'am, wait here and I'll... I'll call for some transport to take you to your hom-" He was interrupted by a call from the radio he was about to speak through himself, a burst of heavy sound, thumping and banging, and something else the ears of the falcon couldn't identify, but even within the vehicle and the heavy rain it made her wings twitch in discomfort.
"Contact Positive! Down on your knees lady! Do it, now!" A pause, the colour draining from his face as his head turned, just like Senia's did, only much less of a movement, to the Palace Theatre just down the road within the armoured blockade. Turrets turned with a long, loud whine, those turrets fixing the barrels to the cinema itself. "Alright, drop her!" Thick, loud bangs echoed all around, the long rattling sound she remembered all too well as automatic gunfire bursting into existance and echoing for miles around, flashes of yellowhot light burning into existance on the street. The man with the silver bars got on his radio, turning around, having long since forgotten about those trapped in the cars between barricade and truck, shouting into his shoulderpiece. Senia moved for the door, no longer caring about the weight of the rain, lifting the handlebar and pushing it out with her body weight, ending up soaked through the bone in mere moments.
"Civil Actual, Alpha-Delta-Oscar Team Ten, Positive contact! We need heavy support down here right now-" Time waited for no man, least of all those in charge as there was an explosion that ripped through the air, the single heavy beat of it travelled up and down the street, shattering windows in all directions, those of the car not withstanding, the front windscreen spider webbing all over, while the rest exploded into fragments, shocked screams leaping from all around. Thick black smoke poured from the theatre, rolling from the windows and doors most likely. Something was in the smoke, her keen eyes could see that much, but beyond that... "Weapons free, weapons free!" Quick as the soldier had said it, two vehicles closest to her, in that smooth solid white paint rocked backwards on their tires, puffs of smoke as big as the car she had been riding in bursting from their slotted muzzles like dragons breathing fire, a solid thump rocking the skies, those vehicles firing their huge cannons at the target she couldn't see anymore. Shocked with her beak half open, she reached for the other door closest to her and pulled it open with a solid thud. Now, now was the time when fear was a good thing, for her friends seemed to be stilled with shock. A feathered hand wrapped around the woman's shoulder and pulled upon her flesh.
"Forget the vehicle! Time to run, now!" she barked, perhaps unlike her, but fear was driving her form, but not fear for the explosions and gunfire, but rather for what she couldn't see, the darkness down the road. With the woman stepping out of the car and running, throwing the occasional look back as she rounded the trailer boxing them in. Rushing over to the otherside, making sure Sarah was out first, knowing and seeing that Qui was one step ahead of their other friend and already moving from the vehicle, gripping the human around the shoulders and leading her away. Stepping around the door that the orange lizard had forced open, the falcon turned her back to run and was struck by a shockwave which sent the soaked girl sprawling across the ground like the creature had just been right hooked across the beak. A split second later the explosion that had caused it made her hearing ring and ring, deafening her, head turning to see a huge plume of fire where the left AlpDynOrg had been parked. Only half the vehicle was left now, and personnel from all around it where trying to get to their feet. Powerful chops of the air were heard overhead as more of that rattling metalic gunfire ripped across the soaked air, frantic screams of one... maybe two people. Her eyes flicked skywards to meet what looked like a helicopter with red and green flashing strobe lights on each corner? Was she seeing that right, why were they so many? The human within, for it surely had to be a human ended up showing her first hand just why the humans had been so devastating with their techonology, rippling of a set of unguided rocket propelled explosives down the street. Deafened, she could hear nothing but merely see as pieces of debris were picked up and thrown around like so much litter. Staying down had been a choice that likely saved her life, but waiting until her hearing returned was not. Once she could hear the helicopter past the ringing and the dinging of metal bouncing off cars, she was engulfed in a thick cloud of smoke, raining pounding down over her, the smoke hazing her vision making her blink furiously, eyes tearing.
In the dark of the night made so much worse by the smoke glazed with fireglow, coughing on the smoke the creature panicked. Footsteps were closing, not the heavy boots of the soldiers but something else, something else in the dark, something like her dreams. Clenching feathered hands into fists she cracked the wellspring of power and forced the ability she possessed into existance, the falcongirl growing rapidly in the solid flash of light until the leviathan that replaced her was lifting herself to her feet, tail lashing menacingly, her inner eyelid dropping closed, distorting the edges of her vision but clearing the smoky haze from her view and allowing her to see, in good time as well for the moment she had, a creature rushed at her followed by another, long dark robes screaming out in some incoherent language. Those emerald orbs spotted the bloodied axe in hand and struck out of instinct she wasn't aware of with that bladed tail, slashing him from shoulder to hip, tearing cloth and flesh and smearing the pristine scale in blood, targetting the other one with a sweep of the left forepaw, the brutul contact shattering ribs with her newfound strength. A long, powerful hiss leaked into the air, as the smoke started to fade, and logical thought took over from reaction to fear as the helicopter, busy making another pass grew closer. If they spotted her, it would be over for her as quickly as it had been for those mercenaries and with that thought firmly in the front of her mind, she forced herself back to the weaker, feathered falcon form, blurring the line between existance of two forms just that little bit more, flopping to the ground in exhaustion she wasn't aware she had picked up, scrabbling to her feet and running as hard as she could in the rain, running until the sounds of battle were little more than background noise, running until she left the thoughts behind, the fears, the worries, just running until her feet could carry her no longer.
Without even realising it she had crashed into the lake in her forest, soaked clothes forgotten as she slipped beneath the water and dived, dived deep under what power her feathered form could grant her. Diving until those lungs within her chest burned for air before letting the power ease across her form anew like it had done so many times before in this lake, clearing the burning desire and need for air with a deep gulp of water through those neck gills and letting momentum carry her scaled form right to the bottom of the lake, settling down upon it like one might do to a bench, watching, for the first time since she had found this spot and her power, that she could occasionally see the surface of the trees as the lightning struck somewhere or someone out of sight. Here, on her back at the bottom of so much water, only now at this time did she realise how hard she was breathing, and how hard she had blocked everything out. The shouting, the weapons fire, the sounds, the run... how she'd even gotten to the bottom of her lake, for it had to be her lake she had returned to, the stoney debris still litter the bottom of it. Even down here, in the darkness, she felt safer she realised, here away from everywhere else and everyone else, in this form that her breathing was finally beginning to stabilise. As the blood from her kills seeped away from her tailblade and claws, those emerald orbs fell upon the weapons that had done the deed. Was she protecting her friends or...
Had she become a creature that killed out of instinct?