A/N: ow. Typing hurts. Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out;
school, love life, school, school and then a freak boating accident plus
school have kinda made me unable to write. Oh I know what to write... I
just have no way to get it down without time or pain. So.... long time.
Lol. Anyways, I wrote three other fics for you guys to whet your teeth on,
and it helped improve my writing style as well, so hopefully this chapter
will be better. Eh, I hope you guys think this chapter is worth it. I think
it is... but now I'm gonna go take a nap and hope my ribs stop hurting and
my hands stop shaking.
The song inspiring this chapter is No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age. Okay, so I won't lie. It wasn't so much the reallllly cool song as the music video that made me think of this chappie... go check it out if you haven't seen it yet ^_^
I love you Vee! You do a great beta, and I absolutely love brainstorming with ya twin :)
Oh... sorry for the really long author's notes. I just feel like you guys might actually want to know all of this and I like listening to myself anyways. So Firefly of Blue, who is one of my best friends ever, actually drew fanart for this fic. It's beautiful! *starry eyes* but we can't find a way to get it online *cries*. So if we ever do, be rest assured that I would give you the link.
p.s. I promised Sue I would get this next chapter out after writing the first chapter of Flying Black and so here I am... writing like crazy. And I was so tempted to turn that list into the song from the beginning of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but that would have just been stupid. On another note, fresh air does *wonders* for nausea. Especially wind or a fan. Trust me. Lol, I like this chapter a lot. Course, a few of you might kill me... but that's okay ^_^
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"Hello. You have reached the apartment of Ami Mizuno, who is currently unable to answer the phone. So please leave a message after the tone and I'll try to call you back later." The tone beeped and Rei began to talk desperately into the mike. Her stomachaches had been getting worse and worse and she didn't think she could last much longer without trying to do something.
"Ami? Please, I know you're there. Please, pick up. I know we haven't talked in a while but I really need to talk to you now. Ami, pick up. Come on Ami find the phone I need to."
"Rei?" Ami's breathy voice interrupted Rei's rambling. "Are you okay? You really don't sound good. Have you been sleeping at all?" Ami chided Rei; believing that Rei had merely neglected to watch after herself as she had so many times over the past years. She remembered quite a few nights in their last year of high school in which even Usagi had pulled all- nighters... though they hadn't done much for her. Now that they had gone their separate ways (college, jobs, loves, whatever) Rei might still have that habit for all Ami knew.
Rei grimaced. That wasn't the reaction that she was looking for. "I couldn't sleep last night but I should be okay. But Ami." and she trailed off, not quite sure how to broach the subject of needing help after not talking for so long. It would sound like she didn't miss Ami at all and only took advantage of her... something that was always to be avoided when dealing with Ami.
Ami's voice grew even more worried. It was not like Rei to act this way. Normally she was forward and aggressive and didn't hesitate to spit something out. "Rei its okay you didn't call before. I have had time to call but I didn't bother either. Tell me what's bothering you before we both get frustrated."
"Nothings bothering me." The defensiveness was very clear in her voice.
Sighing in exasperation, for Rei was always unwilling to admit any weaknesses of hers, Ami prodded with her words. "You were pleading with my answering machine. That doesn't give the impression that you have everything under control. Now what's wrong?"
Rei suppressed the slight smile that had appeared with Ami's own stubbornness. "I had a vision." She stated simply.
Ami's voice immediately changed from that of worried friend to worried 'soldier'. "Is there a new enemy? What did you see?"
Rei wasn't so sure she liked her problems being immediately looked over like that, but all her visions before had mostly dealt with new enemies so... "I'm not quite sure. It was always moving and I just got a sense of urgency towards finding... something. But it left me with this horrible feeling of nausea deep in the pit of my stomach that only goes away when I turn a certain way. I... I think it's trying to drive me somewhere. And I didn't want to follow it unless I had someone to back me up. Ami... would you do that for me?"
"You want me to take you to some random place that you think the pain in your stomach is leading you to because of the first vision you've had in a while." There was silence on both ends. "I'll be right over." Ami sighed openly and then cut off Rei's gasp of relief with another sentence. "We're going in blind with no backup?"
"Actually I was hoping you would be my backup."
Ami snorted, but Rei could hear the agreement in her voice when she spoke. "Some backup. Still, it's better to not scare everyone else yet. I mean, we don't even know what we'll find wherever this place is." Rei made one of those sounds that is halfway between a grunt and a word and is usually interpreted as yea. "So when do you want me to come over?"
"Now."
"I'll be over as soon as I get dressed and grab a quick breakfast."
"Oh don't talk about breakfast...makes me sick."
Ami grinned. "Bye Rei. Don't die until I get there."
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The crawling sensation all over his body brought his mind slowly out of a comfortable hole and into what he presumed to be the real world. Groaning slightly, for with the real world had come a throbbing pain, he tried to force his sleep-glued eyes open. Not much luck there; he must have been out a while. Nose twitching since a crawling spot had migrated there; he finally managed to open one eye. Looming on top of his nose was something with pincers. "Holy crap!" Sitting up, he took to brushing frantically at his own face, to get the thing off. Almost immediately upon moving, the crawling sensations all over turned into sharp stinging pains. A single bite would not have been horrible, but so many overrode even the throbbing sensation in his head.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..." the litany ran on and on as he brushed frantically at his body through the robes, trying to get the damn things off. But the stupid things wouldn't come off of their own accord and even when hit repeatedly it took some force to make them come off. Thus his search for some sort of relief began. The stumbling walk could be easily compared to a hop, and it would have been comical if the guy hadn't been in such pain. Eventually he tripped over a root and fell face-first into a deep pond.
The sluggishly cool water drowned the ant-like things and soothed his bites, and he floated peacefully in it for a moment, delighting in the feeling of being free of gravity. Until his robe dragged him down to the bottom and he got covered in squishy silt. Struggling out of the heavy muddy robe took a long time. Clothing, especially loose clothing, is almost impossible to maneuver when wet because it becomes so heavy. It took forever... yet he didn't have to breathe. It'd been several minutes, and he hadn't needed to breathe at all! That wasn't natural. He should need to breathe. Just as that thought ran its course through his brain an overwhelming urge to inhale surfaced and was just barely fought down as he swam frantically for the surface, leaving the robe at the bottom of the pond. Breaking the surface gasping, and swallowing a little water despite his best efforts, he swam to the shore and flopped down on the edge regardless of the dirt; half in and half out of the water.
Brown and black closed in on his vision, obscuring everything else as something exploded inside...
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Ami's first view of Rei was watching her stumble down the stairs weakly just as she was parking. "Oh shit!" Ami breathed softly as she hopped out of her Jeep to run and help Rei up. It had looked like a particularly nasty fall, and Rei definitely didn't look well enough to just bounce right back. "Oh God Rei, you look horrible!"
"Well, thank you for stating the obvious." Rei groaned slightly but pushed herself up and collapsed in the Jeep. She grinned at Ami then, seeming to suddenly be a whole lot better; the weakness was still present, but the sickness that made her stumble seemed to be gone. "Get in. Drive. Sooner all this weakness goes away the better."
Ami stared at Rei disbelievingly for a few seconds, then climbed back into the driver's seat. "So how am I supposed to know which way to go?"
Rei pointed to the little black spot in the corner of Ami's rearview mirror that displayed temperature and direction. "You just keep driving the way we're facing right now. I feel much better than I have all day right now, so we must be at least facing the right way." Skeptical looks from Ami aside, Rei knew that she was a good friend, and would do what Rei asked of her... especially if that was the only way to prove that there was nothing at their destination.
"How far away do you think it, wherever 'it' is, could be?" Ami started the engine and took off slowly down the street.
"We'll just have to wait and see won't we?" Rei laughed weakly and settled in for a long somewhat enjoyable ride. The constant breeze from the open canopy kept the nausea from ever regaining its complete hold over her, so the ride was okay. Except when Ami had to loop around in order to go the right way again. That experience was horrifying. If they turned too far off course, the sudden nausea made her gag. Thankfully, no food ever came up with it.
Eventually they wound up on a deserted stretch of highway winding its way through lonely forests. "Are we going the right way?"
Rei nodded. "Just keep driving."
"Okay..."
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A beautiful morning out in the middle of nowhere was what he woke up to. Stretching and cracking his back to work out kinks developed while sleeping against a tree, he glanced over at his companion who was lying in a pool of soft yellow sunlight. The eyes were unmoving and unblinking as they stared in the direction of the feet of the first guy. "Come on, let's get going again." He grunted while manhandling him into a standing position, mostly just to have some sort of conversation rather than to reassure the comatose guy.
Stumbling around through the woods for a few hours would take a lot out of anyone, and having to carry a guy as well didn't help. So he stopped frequently to rest or even just to admire a particularly nice plant. His robe helped keep mosquitoes away and kept him from getting scratched up by random branches, so he didn't complain as the heat generated by walking was trapped next to his skin. Shuffling to a stop for what seemed like the fifth time in the past hour; he laid the other guy down and crouched in the middle of the clearing.
His dulled mind took a while to process the surroundings. His own somewhat ragged breathing was the only noise audible in the forest at all. It creeped him out, the silence, so he glanced at his surroundings paranoid, looking for anything to explain the abnormality.
Two thunderous cracks reached his ears almost simultaneously as pain instantly exploded all down his right side. Clutching at the spot instinctively, he distantly noted blood already pooling and soaking into the ground. A crashing noise sounded from behind. "Oh shit!" he heard a deep voice curse in a horrified tone behind him.
"I don't think we just bagged deer James." A strong pair of arms caught him as he fell backwards, breathing almost inaudibly.
"Fuck!! Call 911!"
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Rei's head swiveled to her left and fixated on a point somewhere behind Ami's vision. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what? How can you hear anything over the wind?"
"I thought I heard a gunshot."
Ami gave Rei a sideways glance. "Well it is hunting season." Her hands tightened slightly on the wheel. They had been driving for about two hours with no sign of stopping, and she was getting annoyed. Maybe this whole thing was a wild goose chase. Enemies hadn't appeared for at least two years now, and Ami actually had things she needed to do. But Rei had asked for her help, and Ami wasn't about to ruin a friendship over something that required her to check it out anyways. Just because there were no enemies did not mean her duty to her princess was completed.
Rei's sullen silence slowly interrupted her thoughts. "Rei? Crap!!!" Rei suddenly started twitching in her chair, obviously having fallen unconscious a while ago. Ami pulled over in a hurry to try to restrain her from injuring herself against the door or choking herself in the seatbelt. She lowered the seat into a reclining position and tried to help Rei stay still. But Rei didn't need her help. Almost as soon as Ami reclined her chair Rei's convulsions ceased, leaving a sweat-drenched and very pale Rei breathing heavily in her seat. Ami scrambled with her seatbelt in order to get a better look at Rei. "Shh, you're okay now, don't try and move Rei I just want to check your pulse."
Rei mumbled something about needing to go off the road, but Ami made her lie there quietly while she checked her pulse. "Okay, it's a little slow. I think you lost blood flow for a bit there and had a particularly bad fainting spell which triggered a minor seizure." Rei started protesting and her mouth hung open weakly in shock. "No, no you're okay now Rei. Nothing to worry about, you're just fine; you just got a little too pained and it had a bad effect. But your color is returning a little slow." Ami dug around in her backseat and opened a bottle of water and grabbed a bag of goldfish she kept for a snack. She offered them to Rei, who had managed to sit up. "Those ought to help a little." Of course, everything was not perfectly fine, but when is it ever? Ami was seriously freaked out. Her friend had just had what seemed like a minor neurally mediated syncopetic seizure in the seat next to her. Sure, they just meant that the blood flow had gotten strained and cut off, but seeing her friend twitch out of control like that was scary even for an experienced med student.
"We passed it." Rei gasped out.
"What?"
"We passed where I'm supposed to go. The pain was triple what it was before. I think that's what made me faint." Ami nodded. It seemed like an explanation. Of course, another one was that Rei was just sick and she was dreaming this up to not make herself seem so pathetic. "Can you take me back around? Slow this time."
Ami just grinned ruefully and first checked Rei's pulse again and her color. She still looked a little pale, but she wasn't shaking anymore and her pulse was normal. "Sure." Ami started the engine and quickly did a u- turn.
"Stop! Stop here!" Ami pulled over onto the side of the road and stopped the Jeep again.
"There's just woods here." Ami put her keys in her pocket and jumped out to help Rei out. Rei tried to shrug off her arm, but ended up steadying herself on Ami anyways.
"Its in there..." And Rei took off through the woods beating her own trail before Ami could catch her. Ami rolled her eyes and ran to catch up, knowing that she couldn't just let Rei take off onto her 'quest' alone in the woods.
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"Ami!!!" Rei's voice drifted back from pretty far ahead in the woods.
"Where ARE you?!" Ami yelled back, looking in the direction she thought the shout had come from.
"Over here!" The yell came from her left, and Ami took off at a run, trying not to stumble and hurt something in the process. She burst into a secluded clearing, ready to launch into a tirade aimed at Rei for just taking off like that, but was brought up short by the scene before her. Rei was kneeling over a robed figure crumpled on the luscious grass. "What the........"
The song inspiring this chapter is No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age. Okay, so I won't lie. It wasn't so much the reallllly cool song as the music video that made me think of this chappie... go check it out if you haven't seen it yet ^_^
I love you Vee! You do a great beta, and I absolutely love brainstorming with ya twin :)
Oh... sorry for the really long author's notes. I just feel like you guys might actually want to know all of this and I like listening to myself anyways. So Firefly of Blue, who is one of my best friends ever, actually drew fanart for this fic. It's beautiful! *starry eyes* but we can't find a way to get it online *cries*. So if we ever do, be rest assured that I would give you the link.
p.s. I promised Sue I would get this next chapter out after writing the first chapter of Flying Black and so here I am... writing like crazy. And I was so tempted to turn that list into the song from the beginning of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but that would have just been stupid. On another note, fresh air does *wonders* for nausea. Especially wind or a fan. Trust me. Lol, I like this chapter a lot. Course, a few of you might kill me... but that's okay ^_^
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"Hello. You have reached the apartment of Ami Mizuno, who is currently unable to answer the phone. So please leave a message after the tone and I'll try to call you back later." The tone beeped and Rei began to talk desperately into the mike. Her stomachaches had been getting worse and worse and she didn't think she could last much longer without trying to do something.
"Ami? Please, I know you're there. Please, pick up. I know we haven't talked in a while but I really need to talk to you now. Ami, pick up. Come on Ami find the phone I need to."
"Rei?" Ami's breathy voice interrupted Rei's rambling. "Are you okay? You really don't sound good. Have you been sleeping at all?" Ami chided Rei; believing that Rei had merely neglected to watch after herself as she had so many times over the past years. She remembered quite a few nights in their last year of high school in which even Usagi had pulled all- nighters... though they hadn't done much for her. Now that they had gone their separate ways (college, jobs, loves, whatever) Rei might still have that habit for all Ami knew.
Rei grimaced. That wasn't the reaction that she was looking for. "I couldn't sleep last night but I should be okay. But Ami." and she trailed off, not quite sure how to broach the subject of needing help after not talking for so long. It would sound like she didn't miss Ami at all and only took advantage of her... something that was always to be avoided when dealing with Ami.
Ami's voice grew even more worried. It was not like Rei to act this way. Normally she was forward and aggressive and didn't hesitate to spit something out. "Rei its okay you didn't call before. I have had time to call but I didn't bother either. Tell me what's bothering you before we both get frustrated."
"Nothings bothering me." The defensiveness was very clear in her voice.
Sighing in exasperation, for Rei was always unwilling to admit any weaknesses of hers, Ami prodded with her words. "You were pleading with my answering machine. That doesn't give the impression that you have everything under control. Now what's wrong?"
Rei suppressed the slight smile that had appeared with Ami's own stubbornness. "I had a vision." She stated simply.
Ami's voice immediately changed from that of worried friend to worried 'soldier'. "Is there a new enemy? What did you see?"
Rei wasn't so sure she liked her problems being immediately looked over like that, but all her visions before had mostly dealt with new enemies so... "I'm not quite sure. It was always moving and I just got a sense of urgency towards finding... something. But it left me with this horrible feeling of nausea deep in the pit of my stomach that only goes away when I turn a certain way. I... I think it's trying to drive me somewhere. And I didn't want to follow it unless I had someone to back me up. Ami... would you do that for me?"
"You want me to take you to some random place that you think the pain in your stomach is leading you to because of the first vision you've had in a while." There was silence on both ends. "I'll be right over." Ami sighed openly and then cut off Rei's gasp of relief with another sentence. "We're going in blind with no backup?"
"Actually I was hoping you would be my backup."
Ami snorted, but Rei could hear the agreement in her voice when she spoke. "Some backup. Still, it's better to not scare everyone else yet. I mean, we don't even know what we'll find wherever this place is." Rei made one of those sounds that is halfway between a grunt and a word and is usually interpreted as yea. "So when do you want me to come over?"
"Now."
"I'll be over as soon as I get dressed and grab a quick breakfast."
"Oh don't talk about breakfast...makes me sick."
Ami grinned. "Bye Rei. Don't die until I get there."
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The crawling sensation all over his body brought his mind slowly out of a comfortable hole and into what he presumed to be the real world. Groaning slightly, for with the real world had come a throbbing pain, he tried to force his sleep-glued eyes open. Not much luck there; he must have been out a while. Nose twitching since a crawling spot had migrated there; he finally managed to open one eye. Looming on top of his nose was something with pincers. "Holy crap!" Sitting up, he took to brushing frantically at his own face, to get the thing off. Almost immediately upon moving, the crawling sensations all over turned into sharp stinging pains. A single bite would not have been horrible, but so many overrode even the throbbing sensation in his head.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..." the litany ran on and on as he brushed frantically at his body through the robes, trying to get the damn things off. But the stupid things wouldn't come off of their own accord and even when hit repeatedly it took some force to make them come off. Thus his search for some sort of relief began. The stumbling walk could be easily compared to a hop, and it would have been comical if the guy hadn't been in such pain. Eventually he tripped over a root and fell face-first into a deep pond.
The sluggishly cool water drowned the ant-like things and soothed his bites, and he floated peacefully in it for a moment, delighting in the feeling of being free of gravity. Until his robe dragged him down to the bottom and he got covered in squishy silt. Struggling out of the heavy muddy robe took a long time. Clothing, especially loose clothing, is almost impossible to maneuver when wet because it becomes so heavy. It took forever... yet he didn't have to breathe. It'd been several minutes, and he hadn't needed to breathe at all! That wasn't natural. He should need to breathe. Just as that thought ran its course through his brain an overwhelming urge to inhale surfaced and was just barely fought down as he swam frantically for the surface, leaving the robe at the bottom of the pond. Breaking the surface gasping, and swallowing a little water despite his best efforts, he swam to the shore and flopped down on the edge regardless of the dirt; half in and half out of the water.
Brown and black closed in on his vision, obscuring everything else as something exploded inside...
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Ami's first view of Rei was watching her stumble down the stairs weakly just as she was parking. "Oh shit!" Ami breathed softly as she hopped out of her Jeep to run and help Rei up. It had looked like a particularly nasty fall, and Rei definitely didn't look well enough to just bounce right back. "Oh God Rei, you look horrible!"
"Well, thank you for stating the obvious." Rei groaned slightly but pushed herself up and collapsed in the Jeep. She grinned at Ami then, seeming to suddenly be a whole lot better; the weakness was still present, but the sickness that made her stumble seemed to be gone. "Get in. Drive. Sooner all this weakness goes away the better."
Ami stared at Rei disbelievingly for a few seconds, then climbed back into the driver's seat. "So how am I supposed to know which way to go?"
Rei pointed to the little black spot in the corner of Ami's rearview mirror that displayed temperature and direction. "You just keep driving the way we're facing right now. I feel much better than I have all day right now, so we must be at least facing the right way." Skeptical looks from Ami aside, Rei knew that she was a good friend, and would do what Rei asked of her... especially if that was the only way to prove that there was nothing at their destination.
"How far away do you think it, wherever 'it' is, could be?" Ami started the engine and took off slowly down the street.
"We'll just have to wait and see won't we?" Rei laughed weakly and settled in for a long somewhat enjoyable ride. The constant breeze from the open canopy kept the nausea from ever regaining its complete hold over her, so the ride was okay. Except when Ami had to loop around in order to go the right way again. That experience was horrifying. If they turned too far off course, the sudden nausea made her gag. Thankfully, no food ever came up with it.
Eventually they wound up on a deserted stretch of highway winding its way through lonely forests. "Are we going the right way?"
Rei nodded. "Just keep driving."
"Okay..."
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A beautiful morning out in the middle of nowhere was what he woke up to. Stretching and cracking his back to work out kinks developed while sleeping against a tree, he glanced over at his companion who was lying in a pool of soft yellow sunlight. The eyes were unmoving and unblinking as they stared in the direction of the feet of the first guy. "Come on, let's get going again." He grunted while manhandling him into a standing position, mostly just to have some sort of conversation rather than to reassure the comatose guy.
Stumbling around through the woods for a few hours would take a lot out of anyone, and having to carry a guy as well didn't help. So he stopped frequently to rest or even just to admire a particularly nice plant. His robe helped keep mosquitoes away and kept him from getting scratched up by random branches, so he didn't complain as the heat generated by walking was trapped next to his skin. Shuffling to a stop for what seemed like the fifth time in the past hour; he laid the other guy down and crouched in the middle of the clearing.
His dulled mind took a while to process the surroundings. His own somewhat ragged breathing was the only noise audible in the forest at all. It creeped him out, the silence, so he glanced at his surroundings paranoid, looking for anything to explain the abnormality.
Two thunderous cracks reached his ears almost simultaneously as pain instantly exploded all down his right side. Clutching at the spot instinctively, he distantly noted blood already pooling and soaking into the ground. A crashing noise sounded from behind. "Oh shit!" he heard a deep voice curse in a horrified tone behind him.
"I don't think we just bagged deer James." A strong pair of arms caught him as he fell backwards, breathing almost inaudibly.
"Fuck!! Call 911!"
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Rei's head swiveled to her left and fixated on a point somewhere behind Ami's vision. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what? How can you hear anything over the wind?"
"I thought I heard a gunshot."
Ami gave Rei a sideways glance. "Well it is hunting season." Her hands tightened slightly on the wheel. They had been driving for about two hours with no sign of stopping, and she was getting annoyed. Maybe this whole thing was a wild goose chase. Enemies hadn't appeared for at least two years now, and Ami actually had things she needed to do. But Rei had asked for her help, and Ami wasn't about to ruin a friendship over something that required her to check it out anyways. Just because there were no enemies did not mean her duty to her princess was completed.
Rei's sullen silence slowly interrupted her thoughts. "Rei? Crap!!!" Rei suddenly started twitching in her chair, obviously having fallen unconscious a while ago. Ami pulled over in a hurry to try to restrain her from injuring herself against the door or choking herself in the seatbelt. She lowered the seat into a reclining position and tried to help Rei stay still. But Rei didn't need her help. Almost as soon as Ami reclined her chair Rei's convulsions ceased, leaving a sweat-drenched and very pale Rei breathing heavily in her seat. Ami scrambled with her seatbelt in order to get a better look at Rei. "Shh, you're okay now, don't try and move Rei I just want to check your pulse."
Rei mumbled something about needing to go off the road, but Ami made her lie there quietly while she checked her pulse. "Okay, it's a little slow. I think you lost blood flow for a bit there and had a particularly bad fainting spell which triggered a minor seizure." Rei started protesting and her mouth hung open weakly in shock. "No, no you're okay now Rei. Nothing to worry about, you're just fine; you just got a little too pained and it had a bad effect. But your color is returning a little slow." Ami dug around in her backseat and opened a bottle of water and grabbed a bag of goldfish she kept for a snack. She offered them to Rei, who had managed to sit up. "Those ought to help a little." Of course, everything was not perfectly fine, but when is it ever? Ami was seriously freaked out. Her friend had just had what seemed like a minor neurally mediated syncopetic seizure in the seat next to her. Sure, they just meant that the blood flow had gotten strained and cut off, but seeing her friend twitch out of control like that was scary even for an experienced med student.
"We passed it." Rei gasped out.
"What?"
"We passed where I'm supposed to go. The pain was triple what it was before. I think that's what made me faint." Ami nodded. It seemed like an explanation. Of course, another one was that Rei was just sick and she was dreaming this up to not make herself seem so pathetic. "Can you take me back around? Slow this time."
Ami just grinned ruefully and first checked Rei's pulse again and her color. She still looked a little pale, but she wasn't shaking anymore and her pulse was normal. "Sure." Ami started the engine and quickly did a u- turn.
"Stop! Stop here!" Ami pulled over onto the side of the road and stopped the Jeep again.
"There's just woods here." Ami put her keys in her pocket and jumped out to help Rei out. Rei tried to shrug off her arm, but ended up steadying herself on Ami anyways.
"Its in there..." And Rei took off through the woods beating her own trail before Ami could catch her. Ami rolled her eyes and ran to catch up, knowing that she couldn't just let Rei take off onto her 'quest' alone in the woods.
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"Ami!!!" Rei's voice drifted back from pretty far ahead in the woods.
"Where ARE you?!" Ami yelled back, looking in the direction she thought the shout had come from.
"Over here!" The yell came from her left, and Ami took off at a run, trying not to stumble and hurt something in the process. She burst into a secluded clearing, ready to launch into a tirade aimed at Rei for just taking off like that, but was brought up short by the scene before her. Rei was kneeling over a robed figure crumpled on the luscious grass. "What the........"