Witchy Science Experiment

October 04, 2018:

Caitlin Fairchild meets Alyndra while doing research on the demonic incursion into New York.

New York

A cross-street in Manhattan

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

The streets of Manhattan are largely deserted. Very few people have elected to remain in the city, with the possibility of a demonic outbreak happening with no warning. Fires, both literal and infernal, give the city a sullen demeanour, and the stench of brimstone just adds another unique stench to the smell that is New York.

So it's a little weird that there's a woman standing in the middle of the street. She's doing Something with a set of what look like signal repeaters on tall poles, all aiming at an empty point about twenty yards away. She's wearing a matte grey bodysuit with odd bits of salvaged armor and metal attached to it, and seems to be having a conversation with herself that's prompting a lot of 'hmm's and frowns.

She's so focused on her task at hand that she doesn't spot a lean, clawed demon silently stalking down the side of a building and preparing to leap at her exposed back.

*

With the streets being deserted, this place just has a different feel about it, and if it were not for the demon invasion, one would think it a peaceful time, but that is not now. Indeed, the threat is out there and one needs to be as careful as they can, but it'd seem Caitlin is a bit… careless, right now. She's not alone in being careless, or at least seemingly so, as a lone figure wanders down the street…

This person is much shorter than Caitlin, and nowhere nearly as well built. Frail might come to mind when one peers at this woman. Long, soft limbs, a white dress and top, simple sandals, this girl just seems out of place. Her long, black hair gently flows in the breeze that carries the smell of brimstone, but she does not care. If she did, she would be back at her place, building it up from the ground, safe from this invasion. But, no, this is her new home, she needs to do something to help. Keen, Cyan eyes scan the area as she walks, very little escapes her view, from the woman in the middle of the street to the demon clawing down the side of the building. It does not take a great mind to figure out what is going on here. With a lift of her right hand, a marking on her palm glows softly for a split second, pointed at the demon, and that's all it takes for the clouds above to gather together in a swirling mass, calling down a bolt of lightning down onto the creepy crawly in a thundering clap that echoes out through the empty streets…

*

Caitlin screeches in shock, though mercifully the noise is lost in the aftermath of the booming explosion. Reflexively, she launches herself sideways with remarkable agility. Her leap carries her easily twenty linear feet from her standstill, and she slaps the ground mid-roll to come up in a crouch. She doesn't have any visible weapons— but she does grab a manhole cover with as much effort as someone would expend to pick up a frisbee.

A half second before hurling it at the strange girl, Caitlin's brain catches up with her reflexes and she processes what just happened. Big static discharge, weirdly normal girl, and the smoking corpse of a demon sort of spells it out for her fairly quickly.

She rises from her half crouch, lowering the improvised weapon and holding her other hand up in a universal sign of 'peace'. "Uh… hi. Thanks," she says, cautiously. She nods at demon. "For that, I mean. I mean, that /was/ you, right?"

*

Alyn watches as the charred corpse falls from the building, and crumbles as it makes hard contact with the ground. A huff, demons must be made of pretty dry stuff for this to happen… The thought quickly passes as she hears a voice addressing her from twenty feet away. Her eyes move up from the body, head turn to look at the curious woman wielding a sewage cover as a weapon. Strange choice. She flexes her right hand, gripping it into a fist. A light glows softly, a pale blue from the ring on her middle finger. "Hello." She says, her voice is light, soft, nice on the ears. She has a light french accent.

Stepping away from the sidewalk, she makes her way over to the tall poles with the stuff on them. "Yes, that was me. It was going to leap at you, from the looks of things. From the state of things, one can not afford to be caught off guard, not in the slightest. If they get closer, Caitlin would without a doubt notice that her Cyan eyes, they glow softly in the slightest darkness, and… her ears, they are long and pointed, akin to an elf. One can be forgiven for not seeing them at first. After all, how many people look at ears?

*

Caitlin carefully puts the manhole cover back in place, with a habitual sort of tidiness, and brushes her hands on a patch of the grey bodysuit. "Well, gosh. I owe you some cookies, or something," Caitlin tells the other woman gratefully. "I got… well, I got a little wrapped up in this." She gestures vaguely at the work site— then blanches.

"Oh, nononno! No! Doggone it!" she cries, picking up one of the antennas. She pulls a small cord from inside her wrist sleeve and plugs it into the device. "Gahh… bricked," she moans. She hustles to a little table nearby that has a mobile computer and more equipment on it, all of which looks like it was assembled very piecemeal.

She turns to Alyndra, but realizing she's making a distressed face, visibly tries to calm down. "It's— I think the lightning fried the electronics," Caitlin says. "It's okay! It's not your fault, I'd rather have a broken sensor than a broken neck."

*

The strange woman just… watches as Caitlin tests her gear to see if everything is working properly, "Ah, I'm sorry for the damaged I caused, but I am happy to have helped in some way as well." She can't help but offer a big smile, bright and happy! She takes a beat, and says "Cookies? Those sound great right now. All the shops around here are closed due to all these… whatever they are." She gentures around, pointing at some of the critters that came to investigate the sounds of explosions and the lightning strike. They know it was not normal, and here they are to find out what exactly was going on.

"Well, it looks like they got some friends coming to see what was going on." At that, she hums softly, her smile not yet gone. She… does not seem worried, not in the slightest, as if she is just as relaxed as one can be, in spite of the growing threat. "Is there anything we can do to fix your stuff?" She chimes, looking over to Caitlin, ignoring all the demons on the rooftops and in the alleyways, eyes glaring at them with the malice of an ancient hatred.

*

Caitlin glances sidelong at Alyndra, trying not to get caught staring. "So, uh, you're an Elf, right? Like from Alfheim?" she inquires. "I'm guessing you've got some magic powers." She frets her lip apologetically. "I'm testing a few theories. I'm trying to catch a sense of the energy signatures that precede these portals." She glances up at the demons crawling towards them and shivers nervously.

"But I need to get better readings and measurements. If I can keep them off my equipment during a rupture event, I'll have a *huge* amount of new data. But I can't fight them and manage the equipment at the same time," she explains, gesturing vaguely. "I was gonna get the best shot I could and beat feet the second things got hairy. With you here…" she trails off.

"Wouldja mind watching my back?"

*

"An Elf?" Alyn says as she takes some steps away, putting some space between her and the equipment, as to no damage anything more with what she is about to do. "Alfheim? I have no idea what you're talking about. People keep calling me that. My name is Alyndra, of the Mitharu." At that, she turns to face the growing horde just outside of the streets. She frowns at this, her cool being lost.

"You do your measurements, I will keep us safe for as long as I can." At this, she places her right hand over her heart and starts to mumble some stuff in a language completely alien, the voice is quiet, and she looks up at all the twisted beings watching them, their snarls growing louder by the moment as they grow bolder, it's only a matter of time before they start their attack. Now is a poor time to waste by waiting around. Her right hand glows bright as the mark pulses with power yet again, Caitlin can see that clearly if she happens to be looking at the not-an-elf. The air around Caitlin starts to shimmer softly as a barrier is erected around her, giving her enough space to move around and work. Inside of it, the stuff springs to life, the damage undone by the lightning strike from before. The air grows clean inside of the barrier, scrubbed of the brimstone and toxins that poisoned the air.

*

"Sorry, it's the ears," Caitlin apologizes. "I'm sorry— I really didn't mean to be rude," she says, sincerity in her voice.

She blinks in surprise as the air clears and her equipment starts to repair itself. "Gosh, that's handy," she says. Caitlin inhales a few deep breaths just for the sake of enjoying the air, and gets to work recalibrating the sensors and other equipment.

"I'm gonna need you to drop the barrier when I say so," Caitlin warns Alyndra. "I don't know if you can control your … aura? Presence?" she hazards. "But the less ambient magical energy, the better."

The first demons approach Alyndra, a pair of what look like chitin-covered panthers. They don't have any visible eyes, but their oversized muzzles point directly at Alyndra as they stalk closer, trying to get a blind angle on the spellcaster.

*

IF Caitlin wants less ambient magical energy, she is going to have a tough time with that, the readings are going to be off the CHARTS with the amount of power this young woman is putting out, or drawing from. If the sensors can detect the source, they might just find a vast, endless wealth of power growing from within the woman. But, she hears the request, and relents the welling power, letting it vanish into nothing. Instead, in her right hand, a long silver sword forms from nothing, giving her some means of offence. "I did not find it rude, you people have your cultural references and I understand that." At that, she rushes forward into the panthers, he movement fast and precise, the spellsword burns into the panthers with no issue, sundering flesh and bone from them.

With them dispatched, she steps back, not wanting to give the demons a chance to surround her at all. "Just tell me when to drop it."

*

Caitlin works swiftly, but not hastily. She glances over just once when she hears that sword go snicker-snack, and turns her attention entirely back to the task at hand. Alyndra clearly can handle herself.

She blinks at the readout. "Holy smokes, something redlined the K-band," she remarks. "I mean, /wow/. Was that -you-?!" she inquires of Alyndra. Shaking her head in disbelief, Caitlin makes some adjustments to the machinery. "Okay, I think I can account for your mystical mass, so to speak."

Nearby, the prickling sense of impending danger thickens even as the air turns sour. Ambient air pressure starts to increase and there's a sense of sourceless heat.

And then a rift opens, spilling what look like deranged howler monkeys crossed with a flying lizard. They're fairly small, but threatening in numbers.

"Okay, drop the shield!" Caitlin shouts.

*

"Hmm? K-band?" Alyndra would chime back before the air gets more sour than before. Caitlin can't smell it, or breathe it, but Alyndra lets out some coughs and pats her chest, looking over in the direction of the opening rift. Great, these are just… delightful. Alyndra points her sword up at them, saying "We got some things I can't whack with my weapon!" But, her voice is drowned out by the demented howlers, but she does hear Caitlin calling out. The shield goes down, and Alyndra moves to stand close to her so that she may strike at anything that gets close.

*

"The K-band is what I call th—" Caitlin breaks off her explanation, waving her hand. "Y'know what? Not important right now," she remarks. "But it's working! I'm getting readings!" she exclaims, excitement in her voice. "Oh, wow, this is great. This is great!"

She looks up just as the howlers screech towards them.

"Oh no!"

Caitlin grabs a nearby parking meter and with a twist of her wrist, rips it and a cubic foot of concrete out of the sidewalk. She brings it around in a wide arc and splats one of the demons right into the asphalt. "How long do you think we can hold out?" she mutters at Alyndra, eying the bigger demons starting to make a more aggressive approach. "I can get us both clear pretty quickly, if need be. Hope you're not afraid of heights though."

*

"I can get us out of here, too, if you would rather us get out of here safly." Alyndra states, stabbing into one of the flying creatures, and flinging the body at one other critter trying to fly at them, taking that thing out too. "You are terribly strong! What is your name, miss? I never caught it." She asks, steping on some really small demons trying to bite at her ankles. The woes of wearing sandals. She lifts an arm to shield herself as a panther leaps at her, it bites her flesh, but the demon can't bite INTO her, the teeth clank against her skin as fruitless as can be. The sword finds its way into the chest cavity of the demon, and quickly sends it flying with a fling. "Do you have your readings? Do I need to keep holding back?" She calls out to Caitlin, in hopes that she can do what she can fully do. "What even happened to this place?! I leave to make a home, and this town goes to the dumps." Stabby stab, her blade is getting slick with black blood.

*

"Caitlin! My name's Caitlin!" the tall ginger says. She grabs a demon out of the air and throttles it with her bare hand, crushing it until it *cracks* and goes limp.

"Gah, icky demons," she mumbles. She glances at her readouts. "SIRIN, pull down all the data we've got so far," she tells the air. "Link into the observation unit and give me maximum telemetric recordings until we're out of range."

She kicks a demon off a heavy military-style storage crate and pulls a remote drone out of it. It's up and running in a few seconds, and she tosses it at the rift."

"Okay, that's it!" Caitlin tells Alyndra. "That's the last of the data I'm gonna get for now. Can you get me a block or two down the road?" She kicks a howler across the street like it's a soccer ball. "The longer I've got line of sight, the better."

*

Now that right there is impressive, throttling a demon with your own bare hands. Alyndra is busy cutting up more things, they are starting to swarm the area, this is just getting worse by the moment. "Blocks away ain't gonna be safe, Caitlin! There are too many of them, they will follow us." Stab, stab, stab, three more down, five more fill each ones place. That's when it's heard, a terrible roar, from the rift the drone went into. Alyn glances up to it, and her eyes go wide at seeing a single large eye peering into the world. "Nope, Caitlin, we are getting out of here." She runs up to her, grasping an arm. "Hang onto me, and for the love of all that's holy, do not try to fall out of the stream." At that, a smoky mass appears in front of them, a swirling mass of clouds lit up with pale blue and white light. She drags Caitlin through, and the last thing they see is just a massive amount of demons coming out, ready to chase them down, but the hole closes up right after they slide past it. The mass of fluffy clouds gives way to a new sight.

The two of them are huddled together, sliding through… somewhere. All around, it looks like the black of space, but it feels… warm, welcoming, the feeling of belonging. They are in a tube of sorts, moving along ad a breakneck pace to god knows where she is sending them. "Hang on! We need to go faster!" At that, the G-Forces felt from the sheer amount of speed gets harder and harder the faster they go, the clear tube allows them to see a widing path ahead, with more than one way to branch off.

*

"Oh, *double* nope," Caitlin agrees. She wraps a loose hand around Alyndra's wrist, though her fingers flex firmly enough to ensure her hand won't slip from her grasp. Trying to get Caitlin to move at all is a challenge; she weighs substantially more than she looks. But she gets her feet moving the second she reads Alyndra's intention, and dives into the misty clouds.

"Whaaat… where are we?" she inquires, marvelling. "Where are you /taking/ us?" She wraps her arm around Alyndra's waist and grits her teeth, trying to fight off the feeling of acceleration draining the blood from her skull.

*

"I am not entirely SURE where we are, but it's avast, and empty, and not apart of that mess." Alyndra shakenly says as they travel through the stream. "I just had to make a new way for me to travel, Drake said that my old portal gave away too much information! So…" She is about to go on, when there is something ahead of them, a white light. "Oh! We're here! "She chimes, and smiles. "Brace yourself!" At that, the feeling of sudden deceleration would flip anyones stomach if they were going as fast as they were. The two of them are dumped from the place into a white room. Alyndra just flops down onto the ground, not so gracefully. Groaning, Alyn says "Landing is the number one issue with that, it always spews the user several feet off the ground. It's… painful." She sighs, and looks around. "Well, we made it here safely, at least." At that, she would push herself up and over to a wall. Pressing some buttons on a pad, the smooth walls would show some lines, and finally, windows to show finally show where exactly they are. A vast, empty, wasteland with a dark sky… Wait, no, that is not just any darkness! That's space! The pale blue marble in the sky… Is that earth? "Welcome to my home! Or, the start of it, anyway. Took a lot of work get this small room set up, along with the spells needed to make air." It's… very empty.

*

WHAM! Caitlin hits the ground hard, sprawling onto her butt with a clatter of metal on metal. "I guess I can't complain," she says, rubbing a knee she'd banged. "Beats being eaten by demons."

She looks around. "Huh. Not a whole lot going on," she admits. "Very, uh… minimalist aesthetic." She watches with interest as Alyndra opens a window, and then her jaw hits the floor when she realizes it's Earth. "I… woah! Are we on the /moon/?" she gapes. She bounces on her toes, experimentally. "This is crazy! You built a magical moon base?"

*

"Yep! Got my own little place where I won't endanger anyone besides myself when I…" She trails off, leaving that in the air. "…When I try to reconnect." She states, pressing more buttons on the panal on the wall. Spots of the floor open, and stuff comes out! Over against the wall, a long rectangle opens and a sofa rises up from under the ground, and the floor closes under it. It's big, and fluffy, and great for flopping onto! In the center of the room, a circle hole opens showing a staircase down deeper. "If you go down, the first door you see leads to a washroom if you want to get cleaned up. That was a messy bit of trouble. If not, I could open a new Rift for you so you could go back home or… where ever you want. It should be safe for you now that you traveled it once." She nods at this, moving over to the sofa and sitting on it. She presses some buttons on the arm, and in the air, a screen appears, a holographic display that acts like a TV, connected to earth. "Oh, and if your feeling a bit peckish…" She presses a second button, and a small fridge comes out of the ground on the other side of the room. "Packed with goodies I gather. You guys got so many good things to eat down there." Inside is just, indeed, packed with stuff to eat and drink, from beer to a simple ham and cheese sandwich, and everything inbetween, she might be able to find it in here.

*

Caitlin just takes it all in. "Golly," she says, finally. "That is seriously cool." Her eyes light up at the offer of food, and her hunger overcomes her uncertainty. She reaches inside and picks up a thickly layered sandwich, eyes it, then takes a few big bites. "'s good," she mumbles. In four bites, it's gone.

"Listen," she says, after swallowing and covering her mounth politely. "I can't stay. I've gotta get back to Earth and start pulling down whatever remote data I can. It might be the key to slowing the invasion, or even stopping it. Can you give me a lift back? I can't exactly Uber home," she says, with a quick smile.

*

"It's all fresh, kept in a sort of… stasis, when not out in the open." She comments when Caitlin goes fishing for a good bite to eat. When she finishes eating and asks the question, she nods! "Yeah, sure! Where do you want to go? I can send you anywhere! I could even send you a couple blocks away from where you were, if you still wanted to go there." She goes into one of the pouches on her waist, and brings out a small bit of paper, and writes on it, handing it to Caitlin. "If you ever need someone to watch your back in New York again, let me know! It was a lot of fun, to be honest!"

*

Caitlin laughs, accepting the paper and glancing at it. "If you can put me back down a block or two away, that'd be swell," Caitlin requests. "Then I can try to get whatever data my drone delivered, if there's anything to recover. Don't know if it worked, but…" she shrugs. "It might be the first reconnaissance anyone's done of wherever these demons are coming from. But I've gotta get that raw data crunched and assimilated, or else it was a lot of work for nothing."

*

Alyn nods, and with a wave of her hand, a simple portal opens up, a few blocks away from the fight they just had. They could still hear, in the distance, howling and fighting as they fight among each other. "Oh, still sounds like they are having a rough time. Well, good luck, and you know how to reach me if you need any help! For now, I will be here, working on things…" She says, still lazing about on the sofa.

*

Caitlin smiles, nods gratefully, and disappears into the portal with a *waaaugh!* of excitement that can be heard until the passage seals itself behind her.

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