Repel wore off! A wild Catch-All appeared!

[belligerentwarrior]

WHO: Freya and various others
WHERE: Also varies
WHEN: Late July and onward
WHAT: Vaaaries
WARNINGS: Violence in one thread when dragons get involved

A catch-all for several threads to keep the comm uncluttered. If you want to contact me for any reason, PM this journal or PP me at gsdragono

Comments

Penelope, Lucy, Minako; July 22nd, afternoon

[belligerentwarrior]

Freya wasn't sure where it came from, but it certainly wasn't there before; she would've noticed something that eyecatching. A little glass-like clink alerts her to its presence on the kitchen counter as she's passing by.

"...Where the hell did this come from?"

Brow furrowing, she sets down the pair of cups she's holding and picks up the strange, L-shaped crystal. It was roughly cut, like it was chipped off of something larger. Freya'd never seen anything like it, that had that soft transition from purple to pink. "This one of your—" She waves a hand idly, recalling the word. "—Auracites, Pen?"

[mincingminuet]

Pen had just been over, hanging out, relaxing with Freya when all this goes down. She hops up from her seat when she hears her name and the mention of the little crystals. Peering at it, she raises an eyebrow.

"Not quite. Auracite is green, with a red center. At least, the ones I have are."

Lesser auracite was that way, anyway, and she'll hold up the two on her neck just to show Freya. One for the Alraune, one for Tonberry.

"Maybe that's a piece we haven't seen though. Where'd it come from?"

[belligerentwarrior]

"Not a damn clue. It wasn't here a minute ago."

Freya turns it over in here hands as she speaks. The crystal had a strange warmth to it. She taps it experimentally, like she's seen Pen do with her crystals.

Nothing. Freya shrugs, turning to hand it to Pen--then that old, hardly functional grandfather rings loudly, out of the blue. It startles Freya enough that she drops it.

The crystal tumbles... And shatters on the floor.

[mincingminuet]

Pen watches quietly, peering at the crystal and shaking her head in mild surprise when nothing happens. It looks similar at least, but maybe Freya's not really the summoner?

She considers reaching for it, when...

-bong-

She jumps herself, because that was loud. Then...crack?

"Well...that doesn't seem like auracite. It wouldn't break like that."

[belligerentwarrior]

She peers down at the shards, her eyes narrowing. A tingling chill races up the back of her neck, but Freya couldn't say why.

Bong. And the clock was still ringing. It's always behaved oddly, so Freya pays more mind to the shattered fragments.

"Look. They're disappearing." Just like that, into thin air, like it could evaporate."

Bong. A third time.

[mincingminuet]

Pen ignores the clock, getting to her feet and looking down at the mess of shattered crystal.

"How is it...?"

She's suddenly getting a very bad feeling about this, because this isn't natural, or normal.

[belligerentwarrior]

Bong.

That made two of them. She's witnessed her share of weird crap in the last several months, but usually when she does, it's after someone else had figured it out and declared it benign. After those strange shapes flitting in the ocean? Freya's been feeling a lot more wary. She steps over to the umbrella rack by the door, pulling out one of Lucy's many baseball bats, just in case.

Bong.

"Beats me. You know more about this kind of cryptic shit than I do." Then, there's a faint sound outside, something like shattering glass; it's followed by a whistling sort of whoosh, one apparently strong enough to rattle the windows.

Bong.

Then there's the roar.

[complementing]

"Guys? What's going on out there?"

Minako and Koromaru emerge from her room, the girl with her headphones around her neck and the dog with his hackles raised, a growl in his throat. The roar has her freezing in place, but it's the next bong of the clock that has her hand reaching to the spot on her hip where her Evoker would usually be resting in its tiny purse. Right now, there's nothing there but the fabric of her shorts.

She suddenly feels extremely exposed, the back of her hair standing on end.

"...let me go get my spear."

[mincingminuet]

The chime is unsettling, but the roar has Penelope's eyes widening. She stands straight up, looking from Freya to Mina to the dog, and immediately goes for her bag. The foot long cylinder of odd metal she pulls out, the Zodiac Spear, helps a little, but not enough. Almost by reflex both Tonberry and the Alraune pop into being, settling around her feet.

Wordlessly she moves closer to Freya, her eyes fixed on the window rather than the tall woman. She didn't have a magic spear, or monsters, just...her.

"Yeah. I've got a real bad feeling about this."

Penelope; July 22nd, evening

[belligerentwarrior]

That had been an adventure. Albeit, "adventure" was generous, considering the stress (there was no way they were getting their security deposit back now) and scares (the freshly-healed lines across her chest still ached) involved. After making sure everyone was okay and... dislodging the severed roof of her car from the wall, Freya slipped into an unbloodied shirt and let Pen drag her off by the hand towards something that would ease either minds, however temporarily.

It wasn't an ideal picnic. Take-out from a sandwich shop in a distressingly grey park didn't set a high bar, but she doubted either of them was willing to muster forth the effort to make something after their first meeting with Bahamut, and, well... they couldn't do much about the "grey" part. Still, they had the vivid colors of sunset, painting over the grey sky with hues of gold, orange, and pink. Retrospec didn't take that from them. Yet.

Freya leans back on her elbows after finishing her sandwich (chicken and roasted red pepper), sighing at the sky. She gently bumps her foot against Pen's. "Thanks. I needed this."

[mincingminuet]

An adventure indeed. Penelope was not exactly the most adventurous person in the world, when put beside Freya, but she was learning. That or her other self was beginning to bleed over more and more, and while that was a freaky thought she wasn't going to let it put a damper on the mood. The bruises she had incurred made it hurt to laugh a little but she could still do something to bring out Freya's smile. That was what she was good at, making people smile.

The Hungry Hoagies wasn't bad, a decent and filling bit of food, and when she finished and dusted the last few crumbs of her turkey vinaigrette sub from her shirt, she bumped shoulders with her partner. Tapping her foot back and mirroring her partner's posture, she stared up at the rich tapestry of early sunset.

"Me too. Thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest, but...we made it. And with less casualties than I expected."

[belligerentwarrior]

At 'casualties,' Freya's hand drifts over to loosely twine with her partner's, within easy reach thanks to Pen's mirrored pose.

"Yeah, I hear that." There'd been too much going on—between the chaos and the pain—to express it, but after the metal beast had struck her with his claws, Freya had been utterly terrified. She'd challenged Bahamut while still high on her phantom counterpart's desperate anger, but in that moment, she was just a young woman, a few years older than a kid, who knew she was way in over her head.

She gives a wry little chuckle. "So much for bein' free of Retrospec's bullshit gifts. Guess it all caught up with me at once."

[mincingminuet]

"Yeah. One squashed tomato, dunno what he thought was going to happen but he seems...fine now?"

She squeezes the fingers gripping hers a little bit, eyes drawn down to the little chunks of Auracite that she'd had resting in her lap. She knew, rationally, what they were for. They were fighters, both of them, but something about seeing the Alraune squashed had hurt. Tonberry though? Had seemed stronger for it.

"And yeah I guess you're right. That weird crystal thing must've been like mine. Only...brittle?"

[belligerentwarrior]

Freya slowly shook her head, not quite in a bewildered fashion. "What, like some kinda one-use crystal?" She sighs, quietly. "I wish. I haven't seen that rock again, but he said something about obeying, and that "he'll return.""

Well, she thought Bahamut had said that. No one else heard it, though, but Freya just knew, somehow.

He also could've killed her, if he'd been so inclined. An inch higher or deeper from that claw rake would've been the end of her.

Freya shoves it out of her mind, glancing at Pen with a small smile. "Enough of that, yeah? The big guy isn't a great date topic."

[mincingminuet]

Good thing he hadn't. Or he'd have an enemy for life. And Penelope Raban didn't play.

Nodding to herself, she pushed aside the same grim thoughts, and rolled a little closer.

"It isn't. No. But hey, actually how's your bingo card going?"

[belligerentwarrior]

Freya shrugged the best she could with how she was laying. "Not all that great. Haven't been putting much effort into it. Just taking opportunities as they come up, you know?"

She tilted her head a little in curiosity. "You?"

[mincingminuet]

"I've been lucky. Chances kept falling into my lap, so I have one left. One we can knock out tonight," she laughed.

"Some of them were just excuses to play pranks on people. I got your cop back for you, you know."

Lucy; 20th, Dayish?

[belligerentwarrior]

Freya stared.

She honesty thought it was just stick and string and... paper or cloth or something. That was it. That was how she had known kites for her entire life.

How could there be so bloody many of the damnable things?

"$200 for a damned kite," Freya muttered. That sure as hell wasn't what they were getting, but... look at it. "91 inch wingspan. People take these things that seriously?"

[long_live_the_queen]

Lucy was also staring.

"Does it have a fucking motor, too?" Or a small aircraft license?

The teenager wasn't exactly the most familiar with kites; they were one of the many things she knew abstractly or saw distantly but never had a reason to do anything with.

The kites next to it were still unreasonably priced, but came in different colors. How nice. The more sensible ones were folded up in plastic wrapping in bins underneath the display.

[belligerentwarrior]

She hummed a half-hearted negative. "It does come with a DVD." Still not worth it. Never worth it. (Freya would admit she liked the design, though.) The taller woman plucks a cheap (blue) kite out of the bin, tucking it on her arm.

"There are just some things this world doesn't need. Speakin' of, we still gotta pick out something from that registry."

[long_live_the_queen]

"In case you didn't know how to fly one, or something," Lucy grumbled. How hard could running with a piece of string be?

The change of topic made Lucy frown more as she turned away from the overpriced bits of fabric.

"I'm not buying anything nice for him."

[belligerentwarrior]

"Fair." Freya turned, rounding a corner toward the registers, and stopped abruptly.

After a pause, "That's not nice."

...Rubber duck was technically on the list.

[long_live_the_queen]

Lucy did not startle away even though she almost bumped into her roommate's back, and blinked around her arm to see what she was looking at.

Holy shit.

"I think it suits him."

Maybe...fancy clothes? Fancy clothes were on there. Or decorations for the house, to frighten small children and normal people.

"He needs something to wear at the ceremony," she said, dry as paper.

[belligerentwarrior]

"Why not?" Freya had been looking to spend $10 or less, but this was satisfying to warrant going a little more. "It is a rubber duck. In a way."

She couldn't peel her eyes off of the damnable thing. It really was awful.

[long_live_the_queen]

This time, Lucy does an odd thing.

She starts to laugh, though it was short-lived and closer to a cackle.

"You're serious?"

The teenager didn't wait for an answer; she lifted one down off the shelf without hesitation. Sure, the one in her hands looked less impressive all deflated and wrapped in plastic, but. It was still a duck face.