User blog:Redknight910/WWYD SpyCrab Dullahan

Trying to keep a level head I look to Jessica. She's our go to when it comes to keeping ourselves alive. She's looking out the window for a few more seconds, before sighing.

"Alright, let's get packed up. We need to be out of here before the troopers show up." We all start grabbing out packs and throwing whatever supplies we have into them. After a few minutes of frantic packing we're prepped and ready to move. We duck out the back door, into an alley away from the fighting. It's growing, before too long the whole town will be embroiled in the storm.

We grab some extra supplies from a few broken into shops on the way out, hiding from soldiers and rioters alike. We're almost out of town when we get spotted by some soldiers.

"Halt!" They shout, raising their weapons. We all stop and get on our knees.

"We just want to get out of here before we're killed." Josh cries, the soldiers approach us and, after checking for any weapons, let us stand up.

"Papers." One of them orders, and we all hand over our identification. They spend several minutes checking each one, before nodding. "You four may go. The dullahan stays here."

"What?!" Jessica shouts, getting a rifle shoved in her face.

"You're ID has been linked to several anarchist events, and we suspected you of starting this riot." Ted carefully steps forward.

"She was with us when the riot started." He said, and I knew the response they'd give to that. Within seconds we're all on our backs, hands bound, harmony gets muzzled and has her tail tied up, and they put jessica's head in a bag. We're then marched through town towards a set of gallows.

We'd been running from disaster to disaster for so long I was almost getting comfortable with our lifestyle. But now it's over. I give everyone a look, trying to keep a strong face for them, since Jess' is currently thrown over one of the soldier's shoulders. As we enter the square with the gallows, a petrol bomb lands on them, engulfing the steel decks in fire. The soldiers raise their weapons and start looking for the offender.

That's when I spot them. I wasn't sure at first, since I just caught the faintest blur of motion, but then I saw it again, in a window. The soldiers never stood a chance. Her speed was unlike anything I'd ever seen, and the soldiers barely had time to react before she was upon us.

In moments the soldiers were laying at around us, a feminine figure standing amidst us covered in cloaking armour, with two blades extending from her forearms. I felt my hands being released, and when I looked around there was no one.

Then another figure stepped out of a house, ushering us in. When we got inside, the figure took off a robe, revealing the face of a dullahan. Jess' eyes go wide as she recognises the join around the woman's neck.

"Well, this is kind of awkward. You must be Jessica Abrams?" The woman asks, reaching out a hand. Jess looks at the hand, processing things.

"You... you're the one behind this?" The woman nods, sighing.

"Yeah. I'm the one in charge of this shit show." Jess lunges at the woman. She's on the floor before any of us can react.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Thought you might be upset." She says matter-of-factly, "So, who wants to go somewhere safe?"

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Fuck you!" Jess screams, trying to get out from under the woman. "We were fine until you took my name! We could've already been somewhere safe without you!" The woman sighs again and lets Jess up. She doesn't try to attack again, instead going for the door.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Where are you going?" The woman asks.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Next town over. We'd be halfway there by now if it weren't for you."

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Jess..." Ted mutters, "if she can help us..."

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Help?!" She turns and shouts. "This bitch took my name, almost got us all killed, and started another riot! How can she possibly help anyone?!" Jess can't see the effect she's having on the woman, but me and Mel can. Her face's gone from cheery to sad, to downright tragic at this point.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Jess." I try to slip a warning tone into the word, but either she doesn't hear it, or doesn't care.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Not you too. Come on. We've surived well enough this long, right? If it weren't for her things'd still be fine." That's all she can take. The woman collapses into a pile of tears.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Oh, gods. I know, I know!" She wails "I'm useless. I was sent here to get people out and just made them angry at everything. I just... I'm a screwup!" She keeps crying, and we're all giving Jess a hard look. She's surprised herself at the reaction, and takes a few long breaths to level herself out.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"H-hey. Look, I'm sorry, I... I just got a bit out of control." She goes to put a hand on her shoulder when a shimmering form comes in through the window.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Lin." She says tersely, getting the dullahan to calm herself down.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Right. Right, sorry, Cal." She stands up, grabbing her cloak off of the ground.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Alright, look. Here's the deal. Since I've screwed things up for you guys so much, I want to get you to a safe place, where people and monsters can be on equal levels. If you can trust me to do that, then please, come with us." The other woman takes her helmet off, revealing the distinctive head of a mantis.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"I'll keep you safe, and she'll lead you there." With that she put her helmet back on and lept out the window again. Lin checked her watch.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Shit, we need to go, now." She burst out the door and fled into the streets, the five of us following behind her. Ted slipped at one point, and Mel caught him with her tail, throwing him onto her back. Every group of soldiers we found were either unconscious, or very rarely dead. We didn't encounter any rioters, though the fighting was still going off loud and clear.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">We were just outside the last of the buildings when we saw them. Jets. They flew over the town, dropping troopers in full combat gear from their cargo bays.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Shit, MOVE!" Lin shouted, herding us into the snowy forestry nearby. We eventually arrived at a packed up camp, they were jsut finishing packing equipment into a running miner when they spotted us.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Cal's on board, your the last here. Get on." The man at the door ushered us into the vehicle, and before long we were travelling underground.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Thanks, David." Lin whispered, embracing the man.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"It's alright. What happened? Did your cover get blown?" Jess' face twitched at the mention of the woman's cover.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Actually, that's kind of complicated..." she turned back to us, gesturing, "David, this is my cover. I thought you said the ID was taken from the morgue?" David looked at Jess with wide eyes.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"It was..." he muttered, rifling through some materials, "she also wasn't a mamono. Where the hell did that picture go...aha!" He pulled an image from a pile of several and showed it to us. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was Jess, clear as day, except she had half a dozen bullet holes in her chest. Jess was the most stunned of all of us. She held a hand to her chest, just staring at the picture.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Wait, so... you died?" Ted asks, looking at Jess closely.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Well, as an undead-class mamono, it's more than possible you were resurrected by an influx of mamono energy. I just can't think of where it would have come from...." The two spend some time thinking while we jsut watch Jess. She's still spellbound by the image of her. Eventually she whispers

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"I thought it was a nightmare...." She looks between us, then tries to put on a smile. "Well, I guess we know why I'm so good at keeping calm, huh?" It's not hard to tell she's not taking the news well. Mel rushes in to give her a choking hug.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"You don't need to be so calm now, you're allowed to cry or scream or whater you want to do right now." She sobs, and Jess just returns the embrace, smiling at the poor lamia.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"It's cool, Mel. We're fine, right? We're all here, all alive..." there's a familiar slip when she says the word, "and we're on our way to a better life, right Mrs. Lin?" The dullahan looks up from a table of notes.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Just Lin, please. And yeah, where we're going's so much nicer than the hole you guys must've been in. Might seem a bit sterile at first, but it'll grow on you." She smiles, before going back to the notes.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">An hour later and we're all cozied up in a compartment with a dozen other refugees. We should be at the underground facility soon. I've been keeping an eye on Jess, and she's just laying there, staring at nothing.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"You alright?" I whisper, getting her attention.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Oh, yeah, I'm fine." I keep staring at her for a few seconds before she sighs.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Alright, I'm not fine." She takes a deep breath before continuing. "I knew I got turned into a monster a few weeks before I found you guys, but I thought I just passed out and woke up in the snow one day. You have no idea how strange it feels to realise that a recurring nightmare of being shot, sometimes after watching all of you get shot first, is actually a memory. I don't know if it makes it more or less scary." She rolls over and curls up. I shift slightly so I can rest a hand on her shoulder.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Well, I'm glad you came back like this. If it wasn't for you, we'd all probably be out there, frozen somewhere in the middle of nowhere. You saved us more than once, you know. We all owe you." I heard a murmured agreement from both Ted and Melody. I looked over at Josh, and he was definitely asleep.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Thanks guys." She's about to say more when the whole compartment shakes. Everyone wakes up, and more than a few are worried, when a voice comes over the speaker.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"It's okay, folks. We're just passing into the loading bay. If everyone could gather their things and calmly get off the vehicle, we'd be happy to show you around your new home." Everyone started moving, including us, grabbing their sleeping gear and whatever they'd carried on board.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">We stepped out into a well lit chamber full of dirt and mining vessels. We were ushered into a large set of blast doors, which closed behind us. What waited on the other side was incredible.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">A massive room of white steel, with elevators, pillars and multi-storied gardens sat before us. As we took in the scenery a group of harpies flew down to land in front of us.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Hello everyone!" A blonde girl with grey feathers chirped. "Welcome to Vevaros Station, home to a population of three hundred humans and mamono, and growing day by day with people like you." She folded one wing beneath her in a bow.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"I am Clair, and these are my sisters, Amelia and Dala. We'll be escorting you to your homes. Could any groups of three or more, please come with me?" She flutters off towards one of the elevators, sitting atop it. We look between each other and follow her. There are two other groups, one a family of four and another a young couple with an infant. We all step into the elevator before it starts moving.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Now, some of you have probably heard that mamono are untrustworthy, scheming, and violent if not watched properly. I can assure you that is only true in some circumstances. Here everyone is on their best behaviour, and we hope to live in peace with everyone here. If any problems do occur, however, feel free to report it to any of the wardens." The harpy smiles at us, gesturing to herself. "We're here to keep you all safe and happy. If you're more comfortable with a human, there will always be both a human and mamono warden on duty in any given sector." The elevator made that classic 'ding' noise before the doors opened. The harpy stepped out and took us through a number of rooms, saying that if we liked it we were free to claim it.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">We ended up with a smaller place, consisting of a lounge and kitchen, two bathrooms and a single bedroom. She gave us directions of where we could get more beds for it. Shortly after people came by with food and blankets that were a bit more colourful than what was in the room. We were also given work assignments to begin at the end of the week, after we'd settled in.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Our life was a lot nicer in our new home. We even learned that Josh and Melody were good cooks. Jess kept digging around for more information on how she'd gotten shot, and eventually found out that she'd been at the front of a riot. We spent the next week comforting her. After all was said and done, we were still happy, still together, and had a happy community to live with.