deercountry | who's seen jezebel?

Midoriya's Danger Sense will continue to oscillate faster and faster as he approaches the source of the noise, followed by Paul more or less pinned to Kaworu's side as they trail after him. Paul pulls against the shortness of Kaworu's strides without meaning too, so wrapped up in his mission he barely feels the nails in his arm or glances at Kaworu in time to catch his question.

They're someone I was trying to save, Paul signs, after a sticking hesitation, A Beast.

It's more complicated than that. The unintended signs nearly shout it as Paul averts his eyes back to scanning the forest ahead, guilt setting his jaw in a tight, tensed line.

They don't have to go far before the sounds of the Bugge's procession may be heard. Paul feels its passing in the vibrations of the earth, lifting the fine hairs at the nape of his neck as he cranes for a sign of the pale-furred, many armed Epsilon, their face covered by a folded pair of hands that sprout from its side, but of course, Midoriya, in the vanguard, will see them first - a barely more than man-sized Beast huddling under the lip of an overhang, their bright hide giving them away through trailing moss.

The Bugge's hulking form is visible over the very tops of the trees, its great, snorting breaths taking on a snuffling, searching tone as it works its way closer to all four of them.

Midoriya's guess is that Paul somehow found a way to communicate meaningfully with someone he knew who turned into a Beast. It must be frustrating, he thinks without saying it aloud. He knows the feeling.

After gesturing for a regroup, he summons a medium blast of Smokescreen. With it hiding them from the Bugge for now, he takes aim at a distant tree with an extended arm and flicks his fingers. The wrist parts on his gauntlet snap forward and concentrate the air blast, leaving the surrounding foliage alone. Air Force is hard to track, but the crack of the distant tree is unmistakable.

The Bugge's head snaps toward the sound, and it tromps over there to investigate, flattening undergrowth in its wake. That's the diversion taken care of... Midoriya hesitates. He makes no move towards Epsilon, who seems to be thinking about hurting them (Danger Sense still flickering strangely in pinpricks) or running away (silver-haired body jerking and shaking fearfully) in turns.

When Paul spots the shivering Epsilon, he stills, submitting to Kaworu's restraint at last. He has none of the tools he would use to lure them, and no safe way to use them if he did, with the Bugge so close. But if they can capture Epsilon quickly, and then make their escape...Paul can concern himself with the legends of the Bugge later.

Can you bubble them? He signs to Kaworu, eyes still on the Beast. Does he see black streaks of Beastblood on them, or only muck and shadow? Pick them up, and bring them with us?

Epsilon stops shivering under the overhang. Their teeth rasp, almost too quietly to be heard, as they sink down on their splayed wrists of their too many arms. The weight of probability swings towards harm, directed especially at the boy discussing their rescue with short, jerky movements of his hands.

Kaworu isn't listening. His eyes ignore the flourish of signs in front of him and instead focus on the distance on the trembling form. Then the beast... no, the being stills and stares at Paul. Then Kaworu's eyes met theirs.

Blood red irises meet. It's like looking into the mirror. Kaworu sees the confusion, the anger... all the pain. The vestige of someone who has been held against their will and everything they are stripped to nothing and rebuilt by someone else.

Suddenly, Paul doesn't matter. Kaworu loosens his grip and then... lets the other boy go. Paul isn't the one who needs protecting.

Using his Dark Blood has always been easy for him. A step forward and reality bends to his will effortlessly. He pulls himself through time and space like wading in a shallow pool. He steps onto the shore in front of Epsilon.

The beast reacts as a beast does, no line between anger and terror. It reaches great hands forward grabs at Kaworu's shoulders and forearms, nails puncturing his soft pale flesh. He makes a pained noise but reaches forward a small, pale hand to offer connection.

I understand. I understand and it's okay.

A single swipe from a tiger's paw can kill a human. Epsilon is larger than that and endowed with many times the limbs. Kaworu is less than a twig, a slim papery-white thing reaching out a hand. He's hurt--

KAWORU-KUN!! Midoriya just barely prevents himself from crying out and giving away their position to the Bugge.

He has two hands. One clutches Paul around his waist, and the other reaches out as he jumps forward to Kaworu, who inexplicably isn't using his A.T. Field. Midoriya wants to sweep them away from here as if he can protect them from all the terrible things in this world.

Kaworu slips away from Paul like mist. He takes his breath with him, his lungs, the marrow in his bones, as the angel steps through space and time to alight in front of a Beast that has no cause to face him with anything but malice. He does not cry out not out of sense, but because he could not heave a sound past the clot in his throat if he tried.

He leans into Midoriya's latching arm with well-trained reflex, fixed to the horrible scene ahead of them, the one bound to blossom into more blood and pain and sorrow. The one he caused with his idiotic insistence on coming out here to save a creature that hates him for good reason, and hates Kaworu for none at all.

Epsilon's claws slip from the holes in Kaworu's flesh as the angel's slim hand comes to rest on their fur. They are softer than they look, the softness of an ill, fragile thing, and they are warmer than a human being. The pendulum swings away from harm.

With a weak, quavering chirrup, Epsilon pushes into Kaworu's palm, the hands covering their face twitching, uncurling. They tug Kaworu closer, needy, uncertain.

And the Bugge turns in the woods on its terrible, towering limbs, snorting at the air, before it roars in a wall of stomach curdling fury and begins to crash through the trees to meet them. Epsilon shrieks, their hands tightening on Kaworu once again as they attempt to drag the angel closer to them, to bundle him up in a crushing embrace of far too many arms.

The holes on Kaworu's arm begin to heal almost as soon as the claws are removed. There's no scars. No reasons to be sorry. No reason to regret.

When tugged, the angel steps forward, allowing many hands to pull him in and use him to find steadiness. He understands, implicitly though not expressly, this needy uncertainty. The need of someone who has been denied safety and who knows the world is cruel but cannot relinquish the hope that they may find something different, somewhere, in something, in someone. He can't stop looking at Epsilon's eyes where his own form his reflected.

When the Bugge roars and Epsilon shrieks, Kaworu starts and then cries out in surprise and pain when all of the arms suddenly constrict instead of embrace. He reaches out with his own hand and manages to wrap his fingers around one of Epsilson's fingers to hold him steady. With his AT Field, the Bugge can reach them but it cannot touch them.

Too many people to protect and not enough hands. He can't count on Epsilon, tangled with Kaworu, to lend him one of many. Paul has been in and out of prescience. Kaworu has his A.T. Field, but he and Epsilon are sitting ducks. Midoriya’s last resort, punching the Bugge like taking out the giant robot in his entrance exam, could leave him incapacitated should even that not be enough. He knows better than to fight like he did over a year ago.

Midoriya does has enough hands, and then some. Blackwhip shoots out behind the shelter of the A.T. Field and wraps around the bundle of limbs that is Kaworu and Epsilon. He soars with Float up, up, into the air tugging them on short, controlled, and slightly elastic tendrils and clutching Paul to him. He pitches at a steep angle away from the Bugge, always arcing up.

Epsilon roars a multitoned protest. The Beast was not made for the sky, nor heights, nor being lifted away with super strength and a slap of cold air. The tilt of the horizon is upsetting, and surely the one in green is a sky predator that nests in cold unforgiving cliffs.

Midoriya doesn't want to be airborne for too long. Height means sky Pthumerians catching sight of them. They're meaner and more territorial. He finishes their escape by arcing down far away, not too fast, almost near the main road that leads to the farms outside the city.

He slows their descent, landing very gently on the ground and releasing Blackwhip. Immediately Epsilon scrambles to get away from the awful grabby black energy.

Injured or not, the Beast is swift when they put their mind to it, and as soon as they reach a few body length's distance into the woods Paul knows he'll lose their trail again. They scrabble in the loam, possessed by more stark mad panic than fury, and Paul should do something to prevent it.

He darts to Kaworu instead, nearly as stricken as Epsilon. The entire arcing journey had been spent staring at Kaworu entangled with the terrified, thrashing Beast, a lapse in situational awareness he'll reproach himself for later.

"Kaworu!" Paul is on him at once, touching his arms and his shoulders in a flurry of slight exploratory contact, even though he knows the wounds will already be closing over, knitting before his eyes. He doesn't need to check if Midoriya will join him. He is half-afraid to look at him at all, after the disaster he just triggered, and for nothing.

"It's okay."

Kaworu reaches towards Epsilon, like one would reach towards a deer or some prey animal, ignoring Paul's approach behind. He doesn't know this creature but he feels drawn to it and so drawn to say the words that he never got to hear.

"We're not going to hurt you."

He says it outloud and then, as an afterthought, signs it again.

He darts to Kaworu but keeps his eyes on Epsilon, who flinches at the hand moving towards them, though they are several lengths away. They can bolt, but would that encourage a chase? Epsilon hesitates, seemingly caught in this quagmire, the best resemblance to a thinking being they can muster.

(Humans are not to be trusted; eyes forward-facing like predators, feet made for stalking prey at long distances, dishonesty, suspicion, and secret machinations in their every look. Only the small pale one doesn't move quite like the others, though he communicates in unintelligible languages with his mouth and hands like them.)

Midoriya's body is half-crouched and taut, his face shining with perspiration. The shift from person trying to survive and protect is a subtle one. His back loosens, and he rises slightly. He remembers a little girl in an alley.

"Do you want to come with us?" Midoriya calls in a soft voice, tentatively opening his gloved hand.

Epsilon chitters frantically, their teeth rasping back and forth across each other like coarse grit sandpaper. There is the one inhuman biped, delicate and distinct, its blood smeared on Epsilon's talons but its body healed clean - there are the two predator-Beasts, the old one and the one of many hands. In the woods, away from them, the single hunter.

They are not sane. They have not been sane for longer than there have been some of these trees. But in a flickering instant of future-permutation, in the haze of their blood-madness, they determine their odds.

With a moanful groan, Epsilon crouches, whirls on their hands, and gallops into the woods.

Paul locks his arms around Kaworu's waist from behind, a gentler restraint than Epsilon's was. He knows he won't be able to hold him, if the angel wants to follow, but he thinks he'll let Epsilon go as Paul lets them go.

"You tried," he says, unable to hear it himself, the words soft and carefully formed.

The old enemy-master isn't using that terrible Voice. This is their chance to escape, and they do, moving faster than an ungainly number of limbs would suggest. Midoriya's eyes are locked on the place where they disappeared, but he can't pursue victory or rescue now. He needs to get Paul and Kaworu out of here.

To Midoriya, Paul sounds as if he will blow away with the wind like dead leaves.

"That was a kind thing you tried to do, Kaworu-kun," he says quietly. He places a gloved hand on his shoulder and signs his words with his free hand. "I have to scold you for being reckless, but... giving help unasked for is part of what makes a hero."

His heart swells with that knowledge, and it makes his voice full despite still feeling unsettled. He throws Paul a quick questioning look that promises he will ask him about this whole thing, then returns his eyes to Kaworu.

"Don't worry. This isn't over, but we need to leave. It isn't safe here for long."

He wants to come back, go after the Bugge, and see if he can prevent it from terrorizing the woods. With how some Beasts keep coming back, the best way to stop a monster is to save it.

who's seen jezebel? | september catch-all

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interlude to set up Kaworuvention

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