ArchivedLogs:Murderbees

Murderbees
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Peter, Rasa, Thomas
In Absentia	2013-11-05 Zombie Vs BEES (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <XS> School Grounds
Xavier's School is situated on grounds as luxurious as the mansion itself. The tree-lined drive brings you up to the lush green sweep of front lawn and the wide front porch with its bench swing, often frequented by students studying in pleasant weather. The large oak tree in the front yard is home to a tire swing, installed long ago beneath the sturdy old treehouse. The lawn rolls out all the way down to the thin rocky pier at the edge of the glittering lake. The water stretches huge and wide off into the distance, the boathouse a small blip at its shore. Along its bank, forest stretches dense and shady to one side; to the other cliffs start to rise, high and rocky, providing trails for hiking or climbing, for the adventurous. A visit to the medlab, unexplained and disruptive of an ongoing conversation, has left Ivan exiting the school building itself and wandering onto the porch. Where... he doesn't seem to be quite sure what to do with himself. Might have something to do with the fact that he's /still/ both covered and followed by a plethora of creepy crawlies. All of them moving skittishly across his skin, despite his expression giving away very little about his actual thought process. He does, hoewever, turn slowly to look behind him a few seconds after he comes to a stop. Maybe, just maybe, he's expecting a follower. Rasa folows at length, having paused to collect a blanket to wear around hir body to stay warm. This also has the added benefit of covering up the darkening blood stain on hir collar. Hir movements are still slow, despite hir professed better state, but ze does catch up eventually. Hir head tilts to head to one side as Ivan comes to a stop. "You came down to the med lab. Are you okay? Do you need to leave your friends out here and go back downstairs for a check up?" Only now does Ivan look Rasa over properly, eyes picking over hir form, before eventually coming to rest on hir face. He shakes his head, slowly first, then again but a little quicker. Some of the bugs on his person appear to move steadily downward, leaving the larget part of his head and torso insect and arachnid-free when he takes an uncertain step toward hir. "/I/ am okay." The emphasis is no accident, and his shoulders drawing slightly forward is more likely a sign of worry than anything else, even if he fails to add anything after this statement. "Oh, that is good to know," Rasa breathes a sigh of relief, hir attention focused briefly on the insect and arachnid migration. Ze steps forward and rests a hand on his chest lightly. "I am glad. I wouldn't want you to get sick, too." Ze swallows, lips smacking at a dry mouth. "Things have been so we...weird lately. Couldn't imagine such things happening to you." Absentminded as he's been lately, Ivan's mind appears to clear at least partially upon listening. Perhaps because as the tiny creatures are sent downward along his legs, they seem to lose interest in obeying orders, scurrying off into cracks on the porch or for darkness elsewhere. Until even the flying critters have been dispatched, and there are only, perhaps, a handful of jittery jumping spiders left on his shirt. Ivan blinks, a few times, pressing his eyes shut as if in response to something unheard - or perhaps something that had gone unheard for a while, until now. When they open again, he ends up just /staring/ at Rasa's face. Before reaching for hir forehead, very slowly, as if to feel hir temperature. "Things are always weird." Somewhere off around the side of the school there is a tinkling of glass. Crackcrackshatter. The patter of glass shards falling to the ground. There's a steady thrum of repetition in hir mind, that of how weird things are lately and how weird it was to be attacked when hir hope that Daiki was okay was rising, but ze pushes it down and closes hir eyes, pressing hir head against his temperature taking skin. Ze is perhaps still warm, but not horribly so, and hir flesh is a teensy bit clammy to the touch. Ze jumps a bit at the sound of broken glass, but it's too far away to trigger a fast response. Instead, ze just leans against Ivan, hir fingers moving up to gently touch at his neck. "It's weird inside the school again. Sometimes the weird is just... outside and inside is good and safe." Ivan does not jump at the noise so much as turn to stare in its direction, eyebrows knitting with frustration and concern. Not all for /it/, perhaps, but mostly for Rasa. His mind is not as busy as it has been of late, still flooded occasionally with waves of information from countless tiny sources nearby, but worry overtakes it all too easily. Not only that, but it fuels something else. Wanting to make things OK again, even if they might not be. A hug might not fix that, but ze's getting one anyway, now that ze's so close, both of Ivan's arms wrapping around hir as he presses his face to the side of hir head. "I am sorry, Rashka. That- I forgot things." Then, after barely a heartbeat's worth of pause, "I do not want us to be here." It takes a moment before a person comes in sight. Kendre, a tall twelfth-grade girl in lit class with Ivan and tutoring with Rasa, her dark jeans a little torn along one leg and there is dirt staining their knees. Her face looks very pale in contrast to her rich auburn hair, currently messy with a few leaves stuck into it. Her hands hang loosely at her sides, her gait somewhat unsteady. The earth shifts underfoot, faintly uneasily as she approaches, briefly shifting into looser churning mud and then settling back into relative stability. Rasa is quite pleased with this hug, entwining hirself around his torso tightly, clinging to him for a moment, relishing his attention on hir. And then he speaks and hir arms loosen a bit, but don't let go. "I don't know, Vanya. It might too late for that. I'm already sick, and if this sick does that to us, then.... I don't want you to have to take care of that. I don't want to make you mourn me dead and then deal with me biting. I don't want you to have..." There's sharp sorrow in hir thoughts, replaying the brief hope that hir friend was recovering, that he wasn't dead, then the emptiness and pain as he bit down on hir, and the way it must have hurt Shane just to watch. And then there are apologies. "Sorry, sorry. sorry." << Sorry. It is too late for me. If there is a cure here, it is bad to leave. I think you should go, but I I want you to stay. I'm sorry. >>  Rasa's arms reflexively loosen at the sight of the older girl, hir mind registering a question if Ivan wishes not to be too demonstrative in front of others. Hir eyes narrow on the other girl's appearance and a frown pulls at hir lips, hir skin turning gray and thick. "It is not too late until-" Ivan starts through gritted teeth, his mind searching past endings to Russian sayings which start similarly, but coming up with nothing that works. "If they have a cure, why are you not better? Maybe they have a cure another place. We need to /look/." His voice takes on an uncharacteristic sort of urgency. The appearance of Kendre is almost missed at first, until Rasa's grip around him loosens. He looks at hir first, refusing to let go just yet, then follows hir gaze toward the other student and just... stares. The spiders still left on his shirt gather higher up instantly, perching atop his shoulders as though to find a good spot to look in the same direction. Similarly, however, there's a rush of other noises that joins the fray-- the insects and arachnids that were released earlier all start moving again, at once, out of their hiding places and back toward Ivan. The earth starts shifting again, a restless uneasy rumble that makes the porch creak underfoot. There's a rolling /wave/ of earth that precedes Kendre, washing out in front of her in a soft deluge that buries the floorboards under a few solid inches of dirt, mucky-soft where it washes up around shoes. She, at least, moves easily in the shifting dirt, not seeming to pay a whole lot of attention to the conversation but stepping up onto the porch in front of the others. "Um. Kendre. I... look, things have been weird lately, so if you don't mind, could you say something? I am not really wanting to be bitten again." Rasa turns away from Ivan only so ze can keep an eye on Kendre, hir body tense and pressed up back against Ivan. "You probably had something weird happen to you, so maybe we can talk it out." "/Everything/ is weird." Ivan echoes a similar statement from earlier, only just loud enough for Rasa to catch. The closer his small army of tiny creatures gets (more than were on him previously, possibly - the upside of being outside), the looser his grip on hir becomes as his muscles relax, and eyes start to lose focus. Showing no sign of surprise or grief as a wave of dirt ends up spreading over a yet growing number of crawling insects and arachnids, too slow to have made it further. Though it is distracted-sounding, when he does speak up he does so loud and clear - and it's almost more warning than name. "... Kendre." Kendre hesitates, dirt creeping up higher -- around everyone's feet now in a thick sucking grip, though it doesn't seem to bother /her/. Her mouth opens at the request to say something. What she says is a raspy creaking noise, immediately before she /lunges/ towards Ivan at the sound of her name, hands reaching to grab at him and yank him closer, teeth chomping down at -- whatever she can reach. Rasa growls low at the sound Kendre makes, hir eyes yellowing and narrowing. Ze reaches upward and levies the weight of hir arm downward on the arm that arm that grabs Ivan, hir other elbow drives into Kendre's midsection, trying to shove hir away. Hir head ducks to avoid getting chomped on. "STOP IT!" ze shouts as ze shoves, digging hir feet in to push her away further, that elbowing arm rising to hir chest and shoulders to try and topple her off balance. "HELP!" ze cries out a little desperately. "Someone find a teacher! Med staff! HELP!" Ivan's reflexes fail him, this being a possible result of there now... being buzzing in the background, faint and distant, steadily growing louder. But it means that he's pulled so easily forward by an arm, legs twisting awkwardly to allow for his body to fall between Rasa and Kendre, with a strangled noise in pain, while his feet are still gripped by the dirt. But at least someone /else/ acts quicker, preventing teeth from making contact with his skin just yet-- though something else does; whatever multi-legged things are still on the ground now steadily make their way over both the dirt and Ivan himself, as he grabs in a swipe for one of Kendre's legs and the crawling mass starts transferring to her, while yet more harmless flying insects start emerging from wherever they've taken to hide-- dull-coloured moths in particular gather around not only Kendre but all of three of them, aiming to land on any face they can find. Likely not enough to obscube anyone's vision, but they can try. Kendre's rasping noise continues with the thump to her midsection; her grip clamps tight on Ivan's arm as she stumbles backwards in an ungainly near-fall. And then just lunges forward again, the dirt still climbing up higher, shifting and reshifting as Kendre moves. The influx of moths doesn't seem to faze her -- she doesn't even seem to notice that she suddenly can't see, just chomping down, still. Probably on a moth or two. Shoving inexorably forward with a second hand flailing out for Rasa and her teeth gnashing in ceaseless chomp-chomp-chomp as she topples herself forward, too. Onto Ivan. Champing teeth towards his face as the dirt stops moving. Rasa is unfortunately weak from a week of being sick and laid up, not eating so well and not really having energy to expel, but when Ivan is in danger, ze is more that willing to try that much harder. When Kendre falls atop of Ivan, dragging Rasa down too, ze lands partially on top of the pile, yelping out mid call for help. Ze struggles to get out from underneath and twist the arm that holds hir behind Kendre's back until it lets go. Then ze does hir best to pull at her head, wanting to keep those chomping jaws away from Ivan's face. "I SAID, STOP IT!" Thomas is taking a break from the lab to let his brain cool down in the cool November air. His labcoat lays open, and beneath it is a buttoned up grey shirt and a pair of black slacks, though his breath puffs in clouds around him, the cool air providing plenty of temperature differential to make him seem like a chimney. At the scream however, he takes off at the pace of a footballer, glad he had kept up the practice all those years in Uni. "Oh bloody hell, whats going on now?" Dress shoes are not meant for sprinting on grass though, and he skids abit as he comes to a halt with the swarm of insects and students trying to figure out what is going on. With ants and spiders and gnats and moths and mosquitos and every bug under the sun still attempting to make its way over to Kendre but appearing to do very little indeed, it might seem strange that Ivan's attempts to defend himself seem sparse at best. A weak shove here, a duck away of his face there-- even when, between Rasa's pushes, Kendre's teeth manage to catch on his ear first, taking a chunk with her, then tear into his cheek, he hardly even protests. The reason for this becomes, perhaps, clearer when the first of many new tiny, angry flying things come zooming past Thomas. A mere few seconds later and a veritable SWARM of bees, a swarm with numbers far exceeding the norm, comes flooding in from the gardens. The swarm breaks up and weaves past whatever and whoever might be in their way, only to rejoin the murdercloud just shy of fifty thousand furious stinger-carrying insects at the next possible chance, on their journey to get to the students on the porch. Their combined buzzing is almost deafening up close, and their intent seems clear -- to cover Kendre, head to toe, and to //sting//. Kendre doesn't seem any more mollified by her success in biting. She chomps down the chunk of ear and turns her attentions to champing at the hand Rasa wrestles her with. It's only when the sheer force of all those bees descend that she even seems fazed -- though not pained. Only distracted, turning her efforts to biting at the bees swarming over her. She rolls off of Ivan, just a shifting mass of bees at which her teeth are slowly, steadily working. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Kendre's teeth graze Rasa's arm as ze pulls it away, the pressure of the other student's jaw causing the teeth to scrape hard at the flesh as it escapes her. Once free and seeing that Ivan is similarly removed, ze turns hir attention toward him, trying to drag him away while the bees keep Kendre busy. "She's gone crazy. She's trying to bite us. I don't know what to do. Hitting her didn't hurt! And she was using her powers. Help, Professor Winthrop. What do we do?" "Children, best to get away from the... student with undetermined medical condition," Thomas calls over the ruckus, though he does slip on a pair of rubber gloves from his labcoat as he calls out. With Kendre distracted, he makes his way in to offer a hand to Ivan and Rasa to pull them away in the brief reprieve. "We'll get you to Doctor McCoy. I'm afraid I'm ill equipped to handle something that no longer needs to breathe personally. But Logan or Scott ought to be able to handle the situation." He glances over at the bee swarm, and looks over the two. "Can you both walk?" Ivan does not move, even when he is dragged physically away while blood trickles from both the chunk missing from his ear and from his cheek. Correction: he does not move save for what it takes to turn his head so he can keep looking toward Kendre, his chest rising and falling with breaths that are probably too steady, all things considered. Eyes focused, now. Whether he can walk goes unanswered. Whether he /wants/ to is a different matter. The bees do not seem awfully fussed by being chomped. In fact, once they've covered Kendre entirely, the ones that can't get past their stinging (and biting!) kin crawl and fly instead higher -- toward her face. Toward and into that mouth, past the chewing, into nostrils and to attempt an exploration of the inside of the attacker's ears. Kendre is -- still pretty distracted. Slowly thrashing on the ground beneath her carpet of bees, ignoring the ones crawling in her nose and ears to just steadily crunch through the ones at her mouth. Though the crunching sound is largely drowned out by the droning buzz. Screams for help rang out over the front of the school a few minutes prior, but given the nature of 'things' around Xavier's campus, only one person came to help. He came, he saw, he went for more help. Why? There are currently some number of bees crawling all over and attempting to kill one student named Kendre, who is lying in a pile of dirt on the front porch. Strangely enough, the student is utterly unfazed by the number insects trying to sting her and crawl into her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. In fact, she is chomping upon them and ignoring pretty much everything else. This is extremely helpful for Rasa, who is busily trying to drag Ivan's body away from the bee mess. Ze is dressed in red flannel pajamas with little presents all over them. There's a blood stain on the collar of hir shirt, but that blood is old and dried. There's a corresponding bandage on hir face from the day before. A fresh wound dribbles a little bit of blood across hir arms, which are busily still trying to tug at Ivan's body, but he is heavier than hir weakened state seems to be able to carry. Hir attention is locked on the bee covered form, much like Ivan's are, waiting in terror for it to get up. Though there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with Ivan, beyond a chunk of one of his ears freshly gone missing and blood tricking down a bite on his cheek, he doesn't seem overly willing to get /away/ from the bees. In fact, he drags one of his palms downward to try and stay right where he is, however weakly, far too calmly considering what's happening in front of him. The bees do not let up, even despite Kendre's lack of struggling, continuing to relentlessly sting and bite and BUZZ. THWP THWP THWP THWP. The webshots come from somewhere overhead; they're like a series of rapid-fire airsoft pellets -- striking Kendre in the legs, arm, and face. Some of the bees are promptly splatted beneath the webbing, apparently left wriggling -- or crushed -- beneath the canopy. A moment later, and -- a man in black? No -- a /boy/ in black -- is descending from above, clad in a charcoal hoodie, black sweatpants, black gloves, black socks -- and a ridiculous black luchador mask complete with big, buggy white eyes. On the front is what appears to be some sort of /respirator/. Peter lands directly behind Rasa -- there's a brief hesitation, before he reaches out to touch hir shoulder. "Don't move," he warns hir, right before -- Ssssssst! Zhe's getting coccooned in a web, unless zhe otherwise resists -- so as to make hir easier to pluck up under one arm. Peter's hand extends to do the same to Ivan -- unless he resists! -- sssssst! Arms pinned down, as Peter crouches, reaching to pluck them /both/ up in his arms -- and bound up toward the rooftop like a spider with its prey. Rasa pauses when ze sees web shots take out Kendre with a little more permanence than the bee onslaught. Hir eyes widen and hir jaw drops a bit, just staring. Ze jumps a little when Peter touches hir shoulder and ze is just about to turn around and say something to him when ze is cocooned! There's a yelp of surprise and a minor struggle, but then ze is lifted up and away with Ivan. "So help me, Peter, if you decide to eat us, I'm going to fucking haunt you with ever last bit of telepathic energy I have left." Ivan, in the meantime, appears for /just/ a second to grit his teeth in an actual, genuine look of pure, unadulterated hatred when his bees are set upon. Crushed! By the enemy! ... Until Peter's voice sounds, and his expression slips oh so easily back to blank before, within seconds, his eyes roll upward and he just, simply, passes the hell out. The bees that did not find their demise below start to scatter instantly, released from most of their mutant-induced fury. "--ghosts aren't real," Peter murmurs, his voice barely audible against Rasa's cheek as he carries them both toward the rooftop -- jump after jump, landing on tiles and springing like some sort of mad grasshopper. He soon adds, however, with just a hint of strain: "Apparently zombies are, though." "Don't let Shane catch you saying the z word." Rasa replies, hir posture relaxing a little when there's more conversation from Peter. Peter deposits Rasa and (an unconscious) Ivan on the rooftop shortly after escaping the chaos below; the young boy is currently clad in a black hoodie -- black sweatpants -- black socks, black gloves -- and a ridiculous black luchador mask with built-in respirator and big, pale buggy lenses that obscure his eyes. He looks... well, incredibly absurd. He's also currently crouched over Rasa, firing the webshooter's vinegar cartridge at hir bindings -- sheering through the fabric that's bound hir arms in a matter of moments. "Where's Shane?" Peter asks, his voice still carrying that deep, potent edge of tension. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I haven't seen much of him since yesterday because I've been stuck in the med lab most of the day." Once free, Rasa curls forward in a ball, reaching out to brush hir fingers against Ivan's cheek. "He's not taking what happened to Daiki well. I'm not taking it well. I don't... can't imagine how he's feeling." Hir eyes slide half closed and ze reaches back to pull hir arms out of their sleeves one at a time, returning them, but pulling an undershirt off from under the heavier top around hir torso. Ze lifts the fabric over hir head and folds it up in one hand, pressing it to Ivan's wounds. "Everything's gone weird, Peter. Wrong and weird. And it's just getting worse." "I've got to find him." This, it seems, is the only thing that matters to Peter at the moment; there's an obliviousness to everything -- even Ivan's wounds -- that shows through in his posture. Up until the point that Rasa starts /addressing/ them, though -- then, suddenly, Peter's stepping forward, moving to use his webshooter on the spray-setting -- to try and patch the worst of the bite marks. "--yeah I know. I -- we have to get as many people safe as we can, okay? That's the first thing we've got to do. After that..." Peter's words trail off. "I've got to find Shane. Can you -- will you be safe up here? I've got my phone. Call me if -- something happens. I'll come right back. I promise." "I don't think ... Yes. I think we'll be safe. I don't know if anyone else can get up here right now." Rasa moves back when Peter applies webbing to Ivan's head, hir lips pulling back in a little bit of a frown. Hir jaw sets and ze inhales deeply and swallows hard. "I'll be okay. Maybe... bring back water? Food? Kind of hungry." "Yes. I can do that. Supplies," Peter says, nodding his head rapidly. "I'll -- bring them back soon. And we'll figure out what's -- going on." And then, suddenly, Peter /leaps/ off the roof -- and with a THWP, catches hold of a tree, swinging from rooftop to tree branch -- before leaping again, landing on the wall of the building -- scurrying away.