Current Energy: 10
Current Training: None
Friday, February 4th, 2011
Uptown, Brockton Bay
"Master?" You ask carefully, as Fleur fully emerges from the cloud of dust surrounding her.
"I'm fine." She returns to you through gritted teeth. You'd like to believe her, you really do. The problem is - you're pretty sure she's lying. Being obstinate, as it were. As much as your Master is standing on her own two feet now, she clearly isn't at her best. She looks like a stiff breeze could push her over. And while, under normal circumstances, your Master could handle even the strongest human while weakened, you aren't quite sure against your current opponent.
"I won't..." said opponent mumbles at you as she draws closer, her black loose fitting outfit and dishevelled blonde hair making her look so much like Victoria in the mornings that you almost don't notice it when she draws the sword hanging out her waist, pointing it at your Master.
"Listen, I know you're confused right now but we just want to help!" You say quickly to her, stepping to the left so that you are between your Master and the enemy, an action that actively causes Taylor to grimace in annoyance behind you. You ignore the displeasure wafting off of her. If she didn't want to be unable to fight, she shouldn't have drained all her power into a hostile ghost.
For a second - just a single second - the woman facing you looks like she might actually be considering what you just said. Might. In reality, once that second passes, her expression becomes taught with a mixture of fear and anger, the likes of which you aren't sure human faces are intended to express. Not fully anyway.
That's why you aren't as surprised as you wish you were, when a fluorescent green aura begins to emanate from her - and you suddenly find yourself driven to the ground by a great pressure.
'Master!' You screech mentally, when you realize you can't move.
'I- I got it. Just-' Taylor responds, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes just long enough for whisps of her own Spiritual Power to wafter off of her, reducing the Pressure you are experiencing to something approaching manageable just in time for you to roll over and mule kick Fleur mid air as she leaps furiously towards your struggling Master with her sword extended in a clumsy thrust that showcases her absolute lack of any kind of training with the thing. Your kick catches her in the sternum, but doesn't knock her back nearly as far as you might prefer, merely pushing her a few meters to the left, and leaving your Taylor roughly between the two of you.
Not bothering to think about anything else, you rush upward, leaping at Fleur with Long Memory and making several rapid fire thrusts at her throat and face in an attempt to push her backward. Despite your superior skill, you find yourself unable to land a solid hit on the ghostly woman, her superior speed and strength allowing her to overcome her lack of technique with sheer physical prowess. It becomes all you can manage to keep her from advancing, a far cry from the push you were hoping for.
'Duck!' Your Master warns you quickly. You immediately drop to a knee, feeling Taylors hand on your back as she vaults over you with a thrust of her own that Fleur haphazardly deflects before growling at her like she might be the source of all the worlds evils.
"I won't let you take them! My family!" Fleur howls back in a way that sounds damaging to her throat if nothing else.
"Lady, I'm trying to help!" Taylor shouts back in annoyance, barely deflecting a counter-attack and pivoting on one heel just in time for you to step past her and take the brunt of the irate ghosts counter attack.
"I don't think she's listening!" You blurt out, still unable to manage a counterattack against your stronger, faster opponent.
"Well we can't just kill her." Your Master counters. What goes unsaid is the fact that you don't appear to be capable of winning this fight in the first place. At best, you are managing a stalemate - one that will quickly turn in the enemies favour the longer the battle lasts, since your Master is the only thing stopping you from being crushed under Fleur's spiritual pressure.
[May I?] Ozma offers. You've gotten more accustomed to ceding control to the old man since you first began Emulating Oscar, but you'll never like it. Still, this seems like the time for it.
The second you switch, Ozma takes over the furious battle of deflections and counterstrikes you are engaged in, and despite the fact that he is no faster nor stronger than you were, overcomes the stalemate in a matter of moments, eventually juking to the side of one of Fleur's haphazard sword strikes and thrust Long Memory into her chest with enough force to crack bones, launching her solidly away from your and your Master and into another building.
"My apologies for this." He says in his usual bored monotone, before reaching out to grab Taylor by the back of her collar, and depositing her on the ground at your feet, handily stopping her from following up on his attack.
"Wha-" She blurts out in annoyance, only to be silenced when Ozma waves a hand at her, causing a thick green dome of energy to appear around her. She punches weakly at it for a second, but ultimately fails to break through it in her weakened state.
Energy: -1
'What the hell Emmy?' She asks you plaintively.
'It's not me! It's the other guy!' You explain quickly, not wanting to be blamed for this later.
'We didn't need him! We had this!' She complains irately.
'No, we don't! You can barely stand! Why are you even fighting!?' You counter immediately.
'Because who else is going to!? Your current guy isn't exactly Legend, Emmy!' Taylor she shoots back. It occurs to you that this might be the first time you've ever actually argued with your Master about something. Past emulations might have cajoled her slightly, or been somewhat pushy, but ultimately, if your Master wanted to do something - you've always facilitated it. Your sense of right and wrong is almost entirely Taylor-centric in most situations, so you've never really cared what your Master wanted to do so much as the fact that she wanted to do it.
'I can't die! You can!' You counter, feeling a sickening sensation in your gut at the words.
'I don't want you to die though!' She counters, renewing her efforts to get through the barrier Ozma has placed her under.
"Excuse me, but might I ask you to call the authorities? There's a... what's the term... Brute Stranger?" Ozma calls out, either not noticing or choosing to ignore your conversation in favour of turning towards the handful of bystanders watching you fight against what must - to them - appear to be nothing at all. The majority of them are well out of the way, having been staying away from your Master before this all started, but some have slowly inched closer with their cellphones out as they watched, recording the entire fight with nary a care for personal safety.
"I'd also suggest running." Ozma adds, lifting Long Memory into a fencers stance, just in time for Fleur to rocket towards him.
Much as you might expect from the ghosts strange fixation with your Master, she uses the recoil of Ozma's immediate counter attack to bounce away from him, landing feet first on the Barrier your Master is under and lifting her sword upward, blade facing the ground in an attempt to pierce through it.
"None of that now. Miss Fleur, I believe it was?" Ozma asks casually, lifting Long Memory and pointing it toward her, causing a large green hand to extend from its tip to grab the wayward ghost in its grip.
Energy: -1
"I understand that you appear to be suffering from some degree of distress. Returning from the dead is never pleasant. Rest assured-" He begins but is cut off when Fleur wiggles an arm free and begins to hack at the spectral hand holding her in place, quickly shattering the construct.
"-Rest assured, that when your temporary bout of mania passes, we shall not hold it against you." Ozma continues, stepping forward and jabbing the woman in the throat hard enough to break the windpipe of a normal person, but not having any more immediate effect on the undead woman than causing her to cough and reach for her throat defensively.
"I assume there is an ultimate goal here." Ozma asks you pointedly as he continues to beat Fleur about the head, disarming her attempts to counter attack and harshly returning his own blows with a casual sort of disdain that you find somewhat chilling.
'Ideally, if we could get her to calm down...' You say hopefully.
"Kick the shit out of her until she complies!" Taylor yells angrily from beneath the Barrier she is still trying to weakly get out of. Ozma raises an eyebrow in her direction but doesn't contest her request.
"I can only be in control for so long. I suppose this will have to be quick." He muses, before launching into a blinding series of blows that unerring land on Fleur's skull. Regardless of what the desperate ghost tries, no matter how fast she moves, she seems unable to truly stop Ozma, who slips around her defences as though they aren't present.
Basically, he beats her about the head until she falls unconscious.
Then immediately relinquishes control of your body back to you, allowing the Barrier your Master is under to dissipate.
"Okay what the hell was that?" Taylor grumbles at you as she stands and stumbles over to you. You quickly get a shoulder under one of her arms in order to hold her up, squeezing her in a tight hug about the waist as you do so.
"Ozma is a much better fight than me. Unfortunately." You answer, slightly dejected.
[You will grow with time Os- Emmy.] Ozma consoles you, which is actually somehow more annoying than if he hadn't said anything at all.
"Not that! I told you already, I hate it when you act like you're expendable!" Your Master hisses at you, lifting a hand to painfully pinch your cheek.
"But I am!" You complain.
"Not to me." She answers resolutely. Then sighs.
"Let's go look at Fleur." She commands, getting you to help her hobble over to the downed woman. To your surprise, you find her eyes open, staring at the sky in a dejected sort of misery, as if having accepted her fate.
"I just... I just knew that after me it would be my family. I'm so sorry Carol, Sarah." She cries weakly.
"Your sisters are fine," Taylor says bluntly, nudging the woman in the side.
"What- but the Empire-" She blurts out, sitting up, her face covered in bruises.
"I beat the crap out of half of them and the other half ran away or died," Taylor responds again, still incredibly bluntly. She's clearly not pleased with this turn of events, and is taking her mild annoyance out on the poor woman before you. Not that it looks like she's taking offence to it. In fact...
"Thank you..." She mumbles, closing her eyes and waiting.
"...So can we go now or what?" Taylor says, nudging her again with a foot.
"...You... aren't going to finish me off?" She asks opening one eye hesitantly.
"No. Your niece asked me to resurrect you actually. She's a friend of mine." Taylor answers, her tone lightening at the mention of Vicky.
"Is that... possible?" Fleur asks hesitantly, sitting up and actually examining you and your Master for a second. It's strange, you wouldn't have described her as beautiful while she was screaming and trying to murder you, but once the rage and grief had left her expression, she took on a sort of demure beauty. Like a less boisterous Vicky perhaps. You can definitely see the family resemblance at least.
"Yeah, that's me. I've got all the powers." Your Master says sarcastically, rolling her eyes.
"...Oh." Fleur says quietly.
You probably would have spent the next several minutes in completely awkward silence, except for the sudden arrival of Vicky, who rockets out of the sky to land next to you with a perfect three-point landing that slightly craters the concrete nearby.
"Came as soon as I heard, where's the fire?" She says quickly, scanning the area for signs of anything wrong.
"It's... look I just want to go to sleep. Can I explain tomorrow?" Your Master sighs out, slouching against you.
"Uh?" Vicky answers dubiously, obviously not clear on what exactly is going on.
"Oh! Here!" You say, pulling the talisman your Master stuck to you off and slapping it on Vicky's... shoulder. Because you choose life.
Two things happen at that moment. One, you stop being able to see Fleur. And two, Vicky spins to where you assume Fleur is still sitting, and begins to yell incoherently.
You aren't sure why you expected this to go any other way.