ArchivedLogs:In Which There Is Fire And Hitting And Nobody Is Happy

In Which There Is Fire And Hitting And Nobody Is Happy
Dramatis Personae K.C., Kyinha, Taylor
In Absentia	2015-11-10 "Don't -- light students -- on --aaa." (Part of Flu Season TP.)
Location <XS> Lake
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. There's a crunch of footsteps along the grey beach. Grey skies, grey pebbles, grey water lapping at the shore. Taylor doesn't add much color to this scene, black skin and black sneakers, black jeans, black sweatshirt over a -- SURPRISE! maroon! tee, reading Sunnydale High School. He's got a cellphone in one hand, in the middle of an IM conversation; one of his limbs holds an enormous half-eaten chorizo burrito that he is ravenously devouring. Not by the lake but /in/ it, Kyinha is just...sitting in the shallows, not caring that the water is cold or that his clothes are getting wet. He's wearing a button-down shirt covered with a colorful, dizzying tesselation with triangles, and khaki shorts. A bright green messenger bag lies behind him on drier ground, along with a pair of sandals.. His jet black skin gleams where water clings to it, but otherwise just swallows the meager gray light that falls upon it. His fiery yellow eyes stare out into the water blankly, but mind is on a long, sprawling trip into evolutionary game theory. The particulars are rather arcane, but it seems to involve zombies. He snaps to when Taylor approaches, maybe hearing the boy or maybe seeing him in his peripheral vision. Lifting one arm, he offers his student a lazy, drippy wave. "{They don't seem particularly evolutionarily sound,}" Taylor offers in a lazily SoCal-chicanx Spanish as he draws nearer. "{No survival instincts at all, they eat their only means of reproduction, they're like the ultimate evolutionary dead end.}" Another hungry bite of burrito. CHOMP. "{Many pathogens kill; so long as their hosts live long enough to infect others, it doesn't really matter.}" Kyinha's Spanish come easily enough, but sounds rather odd to most North Americans with its Portugese and (less readily identifiable for most people) Nheengatu influences. "{But you are right, this illness doesn't just kill its hosts, it leaves them--}" << US. >> "{--as a threat to other hosts or potenital hosts. Evolution is an intricate, brute-force game that produces many counterintuitive, neutral, or downright maladaptive traits, though. It's not the force of optimization that that many think it is.}" He stands up, wringing out the corners of his shirt. "{And yet, the plague is getting on pretty well, all things considered.}" K.C. is also pretty drab, plain grey sweatshirt, plain khakis, as she trudges down the beach. One hand holding a long dowel, her other in front of her, fingers fluttering at the air. Her mind is definitely /busy/, but -- to Taylor's senses probably difficult to easily make sense of, a screechingly loud jumble of static and noise, varying dissonant pitches of jangling-jarring tones scraping and scratching and whining up against each other. She stops nearby the others, head tipping to look at the air in front of her, then at the ground. Then at the air again. Muttering something low and quiet to herself, too much under her breath to really be discerned. Her dowel scratches in the sand, though: 'Games where?' "{/Pretty/ maladaptive. I mean their biggest food source is also --}" But Taylor breaks off here, sharply. He doubles over with a /hiss/, a clap of hands against his ears, phone still held in one hand. His mouth opens, then snaps back closed; much of the remaining innards of his burrito spill out across the sand with the sudden clench of his arm around his burrito. His eyes snap to K.C., words grated through clenched teeth: "Shut /up/!" Kyinha's shorts have, hardly more than a minute out of the water, already started drying visibly, and his shirt is also shedding its damp fast. He offers K.C. a wave as well, at her approach, and watches her...dowsing? With interest. He wrinkles his brows at the question she writes. << What games? Oh! Maybe she is looking for one of the new extracurricular activities... >> He starts casting around for a stick to write with, then remembers there's pen and paper in his bag, but Taylor's outburst draws his attention. He closes most of the distance to the boy before he even speaks. "{Easy! She didn't say anything.}" << Maybe thinking too loud? >> His eyes flick to K.C. "{Do you speak Spanish? I can't keep track who does anymore.}" "Shut up shut up," K.C. isn't echoing this with Taylor's anger, just a small furrow of brow as her head shakes. She sketches a circle on the ground. Two eyes, a nose, an X for a mouth. See? Wasn't talking. Her stick taps at the smiley-face insistently, her other hand still fidgeting restlessly in midair. The screeching in her head is not abating. Kyinha's words just get a blank look, a shake of her head. "Tsssss." Taylor's hand presses, still, to his head. Two of the larger of his tentacles both lash outward, thudding with a hard slam towards K.C. and Kyinha's midsections. Thankfully it's their un-barbed sides -- but the limbs are still /quite/ strong in and of themselves, whipping out sharp and hard as Taylor's teeth clench, shoulders tighten, posture doubling over. << Shut /UP/. >> Kyinha was about to reach for his bag to commence with Facilitating Communication and Mediating Conflict when Taylor's tentacles lash out. He's /not/ adequately prepared for either the speed or strength of the strike. He first takes a broad swiveling step back, which would have easily put him outside of a punch or kick. Then, when it's apparent he won't be able to dodge it that way, he braces: again, not enough. The blow throws him off-balance, but instead of falling he hurls himself into a backflip and kicks out at Taylor's tentacle. Kicks out with /fire/, to his mental shock and confusion. But when he lands in a crouch, ankle-deep in the lake, his eyes flare brighter and the water around his feet starts roiling as if ready to boil. K.C. yelps, breath whooshing out of her as Taylor's arm connects with her stomach. She hasn't made any attempt to dodge, just skid-flying backwards in a shower of sand and rocks, thudding down onto the beach several feet away with a loud snapping noise and a small shocked cry of pain. "Not nice. Not safe. -- Oh. English. Also not safe -- mnnh." She picks up the broken halves of her dowel, slooowly pushing herself up into a sitting position and struggling to catch her breath. "Ah-h-h." Taylor's tentacle jerks back; there's a faint smell of singing meat in the air, a patch of skin on his limb burned where Kyinha's foot connected solidly. His head is still just shaking, shaking, shaking; the rest of his burrito drops, forgotten, to the ground. His arm whips back around after that kick, an angry snarl accompanying the motion. Slicing down towards Kyinha as if to coil around him -- this time hook-side-/in/. Kyinha snarls right back, the sound trailing off into a weird crackling as a fiery halo surrounds his entire body. His thoughts are muddled with aggression, not quite resolving into words. A gout of flame billow out of this aura, more or less in the direction of Taylor's tentacle, though not very /neatly/. His shirt catches on fire in the process, which seems to bother him not at all. "Ah-h-h," K.C. is echoing this uncertainly, now holding half of the broken dowel in each hand. One half is pointing to Kyinha, the other to Taylor. Then she switches. Point. Point, point, point. "Ahhh..." Her head shakes, and shakes, and shakes, sooort of mimicking Taylor's though her eyes are rather wide. "Fire -- fire. Fire. Don't -- light students -- on --aaa. Detention --" Her head is still shaking as her eyes dart from student to teacher to student. Taylor's limb slams down hard, heedless of the flame that billows around Kyinha. The smell of burning meat only grows in the air. The heavy sharp hooks that line his tentacle grip sharp and strong as his arm clenches in tightly, seizing the older man and yanking him up out of the water. The yowl that he lets out is equal parts pain and fury. His arm whips back outward, roughly flinging the burning man like a (flaming) ragdoll -- out and away from him over the lake. Then dropping to land in the water with a whimper. "-- Shut /up/," again, half-turning to narrow eyes on K.C. The impact of the tentacle tears a wordless yelp from Kyinha. And also tears several ragged wounds across his upper arms, back, and chest. The tatters of the flaming shirt fall away as Taylor lifts him bodily and flings him several meters away to plow ungracefully into the water. His mind dissolves briefly into a riot of pain, but it quiets the moment he is submerged. He disappears beneath the surface only briefly, and the churning of the water from his impact never /wholly/ ceases. In fact, it grows more intense, and starts /boiling/ around him as he stands up. Steam rises off of him in steady, urgent billows. The gashes across his body flare brightly as if lit from within, making the (not small quantity of) blood that pours from them look strangely garish. "{Enough!}" he cries--in Nheengatu, though his intent is firm and his meaning clear in his mind. Flashes of fury and pain lance through his thoughs, but the haze of violence has mostly faded, and his focus is now on the safety of the students--looking over both of them for injuries. "{We are going to the infirmary now,} this is in Spanish, but makes his way over to K.C. and points back at the school. We're going that way. K.C. has clapped a hand to her mouth and nose, stifling another cry as Taylor's arm sizzles and burns. She drops both halves of her stick on the ground, holding her other hand defensively across her bruised midsection as though this will protect her if Taylor decides to attack again. When Kyinha points she doesn't need to be told twice, scrambling (albeit stiffly) up the beach and back towards the mansion. Taylor is still whimpering, quiet. His skin is crackled and charred underneath the water where he's dropped it to soothe the burning, and he stumbles back, starting to lift two more limbs when Kyinha nears. The teacher's cry has him slowly lowering them, though. "-- Oh. Oh, god." There's a tiny edge of moan in his voice. His head hangs, and he slowly drags his arm up out of the water, slightly trembling as he holds it up off the ground. His breathing is slightly ragged as he nods his acquiescence, turning to follow more slowly after K.C. off towards the school. Kyinha's expression is hard to read under the best of circumstance, and the fierce glow behind his gritted teeth makes him look angrier than he is. There /is/ anger in there, and fear, but mostly pain and worry. He claps a hand over the worst of his injuries to staunch the bleeding, then picks up his bag and follows after the students at a ponderous walk.