destinystrings | Do not follow where Fear leads

Entry tags:

Do not follow where Fear leads

Who: Meetra Surik and OPEN
Where: Between Sagittarius and Pisces Wards
Summary: The Exile does her best to fight despite her fear. Good thing she has an OP weapon.
Warnings: Lightsaber combat vs. SCORPIONS. Also freaking out.

"There is no emotion, there is peace."

Someone holding a glowing blue sword appears in the evening walking back to the Pisces apartments to defend them. Ultimately, her nature refused to succumb entirely to fear, even if she could have kept to the rooftops to return to the safety of her apartments. She needed to help these people.

"There is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

Of course, under the effects of supernatural fear, she's not terribly efficient at killing the scorpions, fighting far too defensively, but the blade cleaves through one or more of the bugs easily, cleanly with every swing.

"There is no passion, there is serenity."

Meetra wasn't normally one for rote mantras, but repeating the simple Jedi Code over and over gave her something to focus on and let her connections to the Force guide her, rather than the personal fear that was always threatening to overtake her mind. It still didn't prevent the nearest scorpion from lodging its stinger into her arm, earning a yell of pain. Was she poisoned? She hoped not. She wasn't sure she could remove it with her mind in this state.

"There is...no chaos, there is harmony! Vima, come forth."

The visual echo of the older Jedi appeared in a swirl of robes, and healed the damage of the sting, leaving Meetra to only worry about the potential of venom. Even if the Persona of her couldn't heal her fully, Vima Sunrider was an inspiration. The instructor of Battle Mastery, the woman who could turn any tides...that woman's memory was part of her, and that gave Meetra strength too, even if her 'Patra' spell did not.

"There is no death," she said, a little too loudly, before picking up a scorpion with her mind and hurling it at crushing speed into the side of a dumpster. "There is only the Force!"

And then she began again. "There is no emotion...!"

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There's a man here, at the ground floor. His knees are shaking, his face is pale, and yet somehow he and his Persona are attempting to distract the creatures and assailants while herding innocents in the building.

Come on, Nick. You've felt worse fear before. You felt it every time you got even close to someone demonic back home. You can deal with this, right?

Honestly, he's not sure. It doesn't help he hears voices in his head, whispering, screaming. But then, he's "heard voices" for years. The dead are crying for help for their living loved ones. He has to do what he can.

Even if, uh, it's not really a lot. He can't focus very well, so the best he can do is buff up other folks' defenses with Anubis, hustling in and out of the building. He's not so lucky on one run, though, and one of the scorpions manages to pierce just enough.

He reels, feeling ill immediately. Shit...

Meetra saw a man stumble out of a building, getting hit by a scorpion, and she immediately recognizes one thing. The one thing she actually was afraid of, back during her...experience in Ludo Kressh's tomb.

The thought that her decisions, or indecisions, might continue destroying people as they had before.

She cut off her chanting of the mantra and forced her mind into focus, connecting instinctively to the person in front of her. His mind was as shocked and fearful and reeling away from the Force as hers was, and there wasn't anything she could do about it. She could, however, feel the poison in his blood. Such a small amount could be removed easily with the Force, a simple trick...and it was. Meetra held out her hand and focused, using the Force to negate the scorpion's sting, venom and all.

Of course, all that internal monologue and action was over in a few seconds, then Meetra rushed up to meet the staggering man and make sure he didn't fall. "Are you alright?" she asked, still on the lookout for encroaching bugs.

He blinks. The panic and fear is still there, but the poison isn't. He looks over at her. "I... y-yeah, I'm okay for now. Did you...?" He blinks, then shakes his head. "Wait, I can't stay here thinking about this, I've gotta...!"

He stands forth, watching for any more innocents. But he looks even more unsteady on his feet, if that's possible, and his Persona looks similarly anemic. And yet, there he is.

Meetra sighs and concentrates, letting Vima do the work of healing both herself and the man of their wounds.

"She tells me she can remove normal fear, but it won't work on what's going on right now," Meetra says, having tried that several times before now. Instead, she reaches out and takes the man's arm reassuringly with her left hand.

"We both want to help, but you need to get back under cover, alright?" she says with the conviction of a trained soldier speaking to a civilian in terms they'd hopefully accept.

He grips his chest a bit, half expecting the familiar burn. The feel of her hand helps a bit, at least. "But I... I can't just sit back and do nothing! I... I can use Personas too! I've gotta..." His eyes are wide and wild; the internal battle going on in his head must be pretty fierce.

"You're not armed, and Personas can act at a distance. You can't help anyone if you're dead," she explained bluntly. "Get somewhere safe, and you can back me up, alright?"

Back up. Support. Support. Ah. Yes. Right.

"I think I get the picture." He starts casting something. Meetra will suddenly feel a lot more durable. Marakukaja, eh?

He nods to himself. "Right." He looks to the Persona. "Okay, thanks. I think we should try her out for a while, okay?"

The Persona nods for a moment, and disappears as Nick summons something else. Something much more... you THINK it's an Angel, anyway...

"Yeah, uh, don't mind her dress sense. She's still helpful."

Meetra shrugged. She'd never known a silly outfit to prevent someone from fighting.

"Alright, but let me go up front. I have a lightsaber," she said, gesturing with the unignited hilt. "And if I freeze up, just run. I'll follow."

"Roger." He swallows, and steels himself as best he can. If she can work through the fear, then gosh, so can he. Fear's nothing new, right?

Even overwhelming, head-swimming fear.

He follows after her, prepared whenever to cast the light healing spell his Persona possesses.

Someone follows her, after his own crisis of faith. His intones a Litany in a booming, stentorian voice as he fires his bolter repeatedly, exploding scorpions and sending their chitinous splinters flying every which way.

"What is your life?
My honour is my life."

He grabs a grenade, bowling it towards another cluster of the scorpions, macerating them with shrapnel.

"What is your fate?
My duty is my fate."

He launches into them, stomping and smashing with his fists, his entire body like a massive industrial piston hammer as it crushes the foe into ichor.
" What is your fear?
My fear is to fail."

As Meetra is poisoned, and pauses to remove the stinger, he throws his combat blade, bisecting another one which crept on her to sting her, never ceasing his devotions.
" What is your reward?
My salvation is my reward. "

By this point, he is back to back with her, retrieving the huge battle knife and firing a flurry of deadly mass-reactives into another cluster of scorpions.

" What is your craft?
My craft is death. "

He knows. He remembers. Her own selfless act has inspired him to face his fear, and crush it.

" What is your pledge?
My pledge is eternal service!"

He will protect them all, somehow, even while his own body is on fire with terror.

If there was one thing that Meetra could count on to distract her from her fear, it was the vision of Cerberus pounding his way through the insect hordes, doing as she was only much...larger. She attempted to stick as close by him as was safe, which pretty much meant 'behind him'.

She was okay with this, both herself and Vima cutting down any scorpions that tried to sneak up on the huge man.

Loken is twinned for a moment, the green-armored being showing up again and firing his bolter in concert. Two bolter shots slam into a scorpion, turning it into stinking poisonous mist from the sheer destructive force of the concerted attack.

The overkill was also reassuring, although it did mean she occasionally had to Force-shove anyone who looked like a civilian out of the street before he had a chance to spot them. It worked well on most people, even the crazies with scorpion tails...

...although when she tried it on one of those with an unfamiliar masked figure hovering around him, the enemy Persona resisted the Mind effect quite easily.

"Cerberus! Enemy Persona-user! Hit him with your fists!" she yelled, hoping he was in automatic order-acceptance mode while he was freaking out. For her part, she kept her lightsaber up since the crazed scorpion-tailed man was taking aim with a handgun.

Loken does him him with his fists. Both of them. It is only mildly less deadly than hitting him with a combat blade, and he ends up shattering the Persona-user's ribcage without even trying. That's the sheer measure of the juggernaught that Meetra is directing at the moment. A god-slayer in his warplate.

Well...that was better than instant death. Meetra swallowed her fear just long enough to include the hapless madman in Vima's next casting of Media. Hopefully it would be enough to keep him alive while the pain kept him on the ground and he could be taken into custody later.

Not drawing the marine's attention to this, she moved forward to cut down more scorpions menacing a cluster of civilians.

Loken draws his bolter, blasting another group of the scorpions into fragments, sending venom hissing over his armor, scarring it.

Shura is at the door of Pisces' apartment building, still defending it, now in worse shape than ever. Poison has taken a good hold of her and all she can do now is use Pixie to recover energy as the poison inexorably drains her of it. Her Vishnu has Prayer but her is now out of magic energy and with the scorpions being even more relentless than during the day, she has no time to remedy this without being swarmed.

She can only hope for help, any help, at this point.

Eventually, a blade of light carves its way to Hitoshura, a terrified Jedi running on automatic responses coming behind it. She ends up behind Shura for a few seconds of catching her breath and refocusing before moving to the demon-girl's side, lightsaber ready again.

"I guess asking if you're alright is stupid," she said, panting. The words tumble out with none of her usual consideration or attempts at cleverness, rushing out ahead of the fear that her noisy self-assurance barely contained. "If you can cover me, I might be able to heal you..."

"Consider yourself covered, then!" Shura answered in a tired, rumbling voice from fighting, shouting, and being sick all day. She moved half in front of Meetra to shield her with her body.

"COME!"

A giant Kodama appeared in a shower of blue lights and cast Marakukaja on both women to cut the damage they could be taking.

Meetra was too exhausted and worried to wonder whether that giant Kodama should count as cute or terrifying. Instead, she put her lightsaber back on her belt, trusting Shura and that magic to protect her while she reaches out with the Force.

She left the turmoil of reading the mind of another species for another day and tried to focus on Shura's body, quickly deciding it had enough poison in it to kill most species of her approximate size several times over. This was going to be more difficult than neutralizing the poison of a fresh wound like she usually, did, so she kneeled down and started concentrating, blocking out everything except the person in need in front of her. She was vaguely aware of things moving to her sides, but she was getting too exhausted to even be afraid now.

"Give me ten seconds," she said, visualizing the venom and what she'd already sensed about it from fighting the scorpions. This would be simple, there was just...a lot of it.

"No problem!" With that said, Shura summoned her demon strength once more, ignoring the burn of the poison, and cast a Gaea Rage all around her; the ground cracked around her and Meetra, then opened to swallow all the scorpions in a five meters radius before the ground was restored as if nothing had happened. This should give Meetra time to heal her. Quickly, hopefully, as she could feel the world growing dark at the edges of her vision as she looked for something in her pockets.

Shura's natural healing processes were impressive, and meddling with them to cure the poison with what people colloquially called Force Heal wasn't terribly difficult. She "watched" the poison dissipate out of Shura's system at an accelerating rate, even as she physically noticed the ground reassembling itself.

"Glad you're on my side," she said, exhaling as the healing process finished and left Shura's blood and metabolism in much better shape.

"Yeah," she exhaled before pulling a bead out of her pockets and swallowing it quickly. Chances are that Meetra can feel her returning to full energy. "On the other hand, this is why I need powerful friends in case I go off the deep end." Maybe not the best thing to tell Meetra right now, but given the scorpions are starting to come back, this time followed by a civilian, she has little time to worry about it. "Shit, another one!"

"Nice to hear someone who's prepared for that...," she said, nervousness creeping into her normal snark thanks to the fear effect. In all honesty, though, she had friends in the past who really could have used a violent sanity check.

She almost felt like asking to borrow one of those...whatever Shura just popped into her mouth, but there are more pressing concerns. She strapped her lightsaber back to its place on her belt and drew her blaster, a rather ugly Mandalorian-built collection of sharp black angles. She tried not to look at it too hard for fear of flashbacks.

"You focus on the ones near the civilian and I'll shoot the ones on the outside," she said, clicking the safety switch over to 'kill'. "I don't trust my hands not to shake right now..."

"All right," Shura answered with an assured voice. "I'll try to knock out the guy carefully after the scorpions."

She began right away by switching Persona, summoning Matador this time to kick some scorpion ass with a Magaru. It hit the civilian as well, but not enough to knock him unconscious.

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Do not follow where Fear leads

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