ghost_holder | Three hits on the 6 is the number that you dial

Entry tags:

purge plot

Three hits on the 6 is the number that you dial

Is it opportunistic to do this? Maybe. Probably. She hadn't actually expected Olive and Eduardo to take her seriously when she'd offered to house sit for them. She also hadn't expected them to be willing to pay as much as they've promised her either. Given the atmosphere of the Purge, the opportunistic whispers, she supposes they might see it as an investment. Even with her powers acting up, she knows she can put on a hell of a scare.

It's strange though that while many of her friends have been feeling their powers dim, Aggie's have never felt stronger. This isn't necessarily a good thing. Every time Aggie startles, lights dim and then surge back on; electrical devices go on the fritz; things break. Her own physical body always feels too small for her these days. It's not like a growth spurt in her bones and muscles but in her soul and there's no growing to accommodate that.

She's not in danger of being unable to defend the Saverin house. If anything, the greater danger is in being unable to limit how much damage she does to a person if they try anything stupid.

For the first hour though, most of the activity seems to concentrate in the city and Aggie just sits on the Saverins' porch eating some of their leftovers (they'd said she could). For a minute, the zombie makeup seems to feel like overkill until she hears something rustle at the end of the driveway. Then she's on her feet, eyes glowing fiercely.

"This isn't the place you want to try," she warns.

[[Be a friend or a burglar. Aggie will deal with them accordingly.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She probably shouldn't be out. Yona has, in fact, been told this multiple times by multiple people, but she doesn't particularly care. Right now, there are several substances flowing through her veins, everything is pleasant and hazy and light, just with a backdrop of the sound of chaos, and she trusts her own instincts, anyway. If anything were going to happen to her, she'd be able to see it coming. Maybe that's why, as she passes by the houses lining the park, she pauses near the one with the girl in the zombie makeup, her eyes glowing in a way that definitively isn't makeup, the subject of her ire darting off before she can do anything else.

"Nice trick," Yona says, light and friendly, leaning against the fence. "Is it working? Making people leave?"

The would-be burglar dashes off but another voice catches her attention and Aggie turns, still sparking.

"Don't know yet," Aggie admits. Her voice wavers and crackles with energy, still ready, just in case. The girl seems hazy and curious rather than malicious but who even knows in this city anymore? At least sitting here also keeps her away from the mayhem so she doesn't have to go to school knowing what terrible things her classmates have done.

"Do I need to scare you away?"

"No," Yona says simply, shaking her head. She doesn't add that she isn't easily scared off, more likely to be fascinated when other people might scream and run, remembering how she'd sat and shared a dessert with Frank on New Year's while everyone else bolted for the exists. Right now, it seems beside the point. There are people who are out tonight intent on doing bad things, and she isn't one of them. She just enjoys chaos. "I'm not here for anything."

"Want some dinosaur nuggets then?" Aggie asks, holding up her plate. It's possibly a little bit of an abuse of their generosity to have heated up the entire remaining bag but if all goes well, their freezer will be the only thing pillaged.

"It sounds pretty bad out there."

"Sure," Yona says, smiling brightly as she moves in closer so she can take a nugget from the plate. In her time in Darrow, she's tried all sorts of food that she'd never so much as heard of before this place, but there's something simple and delightful about chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs. She's never been one to pass up food, anyway.

"It's... not great. How are things here?"

Aggie waves a hand and waits until she hears the front door lock before sitting on the porch floor and inviting the other girl to do the same. Even though they're strangers, there's something about her that feels right, as if they're cut from the same cloth. She's not giving her a free pass but she thinks they can break bread (nuggets) for a moment.

"Quiet, for now, but that's starting to change. There are lots of very nice houses here and only one of them has me."

Yona doesn't need to question the tacit invitation, nor does she see any reason to turn it down. There's food, and the girl guarding the house, whatever she might be capable of, seems friendly enough. She's not really one to think twice about anything like that, anyway, aside from having never seen it before. There's plenty that fits that description here, and no reason to make too much of it now.

"Lots of trouble," she says, taking a seat and reaching for one of the dinosaur nuggets, then promptly biting its head off. "I bet a lot of people will come out this way."

And that, it seems, is that. As long as the other girl has trouble, Aggie has no problem sharing her bounty. In solidarity, she bites the wing of a pterodactyl. "I'm Agatha, by the way." Up close, something about the other girl makes the hair on the back of Aggie's neck stand up. Not unpleasant but definitely significant.

"It's a rich area and haves and have nots are definitely clashing tonight."

"I'm Yona," she replies, offering Aggie a warm, friendly smile. "It's nice to meet you." In spite of the somewhat dire circumstances, she means it, too; she always does, is always happy to meet someone new. After spending an entire lifetime around the same few people, day in and day out, there's something refreshing about the sheer number of strangers in Darrow.

She grows a little more thoughtful quickly, though, humming absently in understanding. "I know a little what that's like," she says. "I saw it back home."

Of course, then, she'd been firmly on the side of the have nots. Now, she thinks people shouldn't have to have their property at risk because of some strange, unsettling event.

The funny thing is, Aggie believes that. Something about Yona doesn't quite strike her as guileless but the fact that she's straightforward in her oddness is oddly comforting.

"Where did you come from?" she asks. "If you want to talk about it."

Taking another nugget, Aggie peers out into the street, quiet as she listens. Is it just her imagination or is the noise getting louder, the violence coming closer?

"The place I came from didn't have money, not really. They just believed in getting rid of evil. Whatever they thought that meant."

"I lived on a train," Yona says, as easily as if she were naming a country or a state or a city block. She's nearly always gotten the same response when she's told people here about it, that they think it's unfathomable, but to her, it was simply life, the only one she ever knew. When she thinks about it, that still, to her, seems more normal than anything in Darrow was, maybe because no one ever really told her what life was like on Earth before it froze.

"We didn't have money, either. Just the front sectioners and the tail sectioners. And some people in the middle."

Halfway towards bringing another dinosaur nugget to her mouth, she goes still, her eyes widening for a moment. "There are people coming here."

"A train? Like a stopped one?" She frowns because the way Yona talks about it makes that seem far from the case and she follows it up with a quiet, "Wow."

Yona stops and Aggie stops, casting her power subtly out. Or as subtly as she can these days. Unsteady volts of power travel outward from her, dancing along circular paths around the house. It's not as tidily as she likes to do things but so much has been happening, so many strange flickers in power, that she's just pleased hers seem to be functioning.

"Back yard," she says, standing carefully up.

"A moving one," Yona answers as she gets to her feet in turn, the same wary expression on her face all the while. There's something surprisingly nice about saying something like that to a person she hardly knows and not being questioned. The people she spends a lot of time with have, she thinks, long since gotten used to it, but that doesn't mean she hasn't met her fair share of skepticism. "It never stopped. The train."

Glancing around, she adds, "Come on. Through the house?"

"You stay here," Aggie says, picking up a baseball bat that she's hidden by the door. "I can go through." Truthfully, she has doubts about how organized any of these people can be, given how much emphasis has been put on the anarchy of the experience but she also knows better than to be stupid.

"I'll be right back."

"Okay," Yona says, an agreement that comes easily. It's clear enough that Aggie knows how to handle herself, and she's done her part, given a warning when she's seen something coming. With everything going on tonight, it seems like the least she can do. "I'll be right here."

She leans over to grab another dinosaur nugget and bite into it, for good measure.

Aggie nods and closes her eyes for a second, letting her power roll through her and unlocking all of the floodgates she's been desperately keeping in place. Its effect is immediate, surrounding Aggie with ghostly energies that crackle and fizz and make her more than any human cage can hold. Its just on the edge of too much and Aggie walks through the door. Doesn't open it. Just walks through the wood and lets her power flicker in the windows.

A minute later, there's a shout of pure, pants-wetting terror and a minute after that, Agatha steps through the front door, opening and closing it this time. She's not quite back to normal and lightning flickers through the veins beneath her skin and behind her eyes. It's an eerie version of the girl.

"He's gone."

Eerie or not, it's with fascination more than anything else that Yona looks at Aggie when she comes back, and a little bit of awe. Whatever she can do, this is something else entirely, and she almost wishes she could make herself look like that, with light under her skin and in her eyes. She can see how it could be frightening — why it might run someone off — but it's beautiful, too, in a way. At least, she thinks so.

"Good," she says, smiling. "You must have really scared him off."

Aggie's gotten used to reading people's expressions when she uses her power and the absence of fear in Yona's expression makes Aggie's heart squeeze a little. It's a strange, pleasant feeling, even as she slowly takes some yoga breaths and lets the power settle.

"I'm not usually this...much," she admits.

"...Agatha? Crowley, what's happened to your face?" I ask, brows furrowed. I don't need a light to see in the dark, but from where I'm standing there are unnatural shadows on her cheeks, her lips are nearly blue and her pallor is pale and gray. She almost looks like me on a very bad day.

She doesn't smell unusual, and she appears to be eating casserole from a tupperware container.

"What are you doing out here?"

Aggie jumps when Baz practically dissolves out of the shadows and then she laughs, realizing that she's let nerves get the better of her. As dangerous as Baz is, as dangerous as she is, they aren't dangerous to one another. "It's just makeup," she promises. "I asked my friend to make me look extra scary."

"Sorry for startling you," I say with an apologetic smile.

"You could have just come to the Gardens, you know," I add kindly. "We have a lot of magickal protections set up. Lately, Simon's magic has been...intense." Even more than usual, which is saying something, and quite unlike my own failing spells. It's made it a risk coming out here, but even without my magic I'm still a vampire.

She grins at that, not dismissing him, but gently reminding Baz that she's no slouch in that department either. "I'm pretty sure I count as one all on my own," she says. "At least, that's what the Saverins were counting on when they paid me to house sit."

Oddly playful despite (or because) of the danger, she offers Baz the casserole, which she's been eating right out of the dish with a fork.

I give her a flat look. I know how powerful she is, but none of us are invincible. I don't want to have to remind her of KIRIN to make my point, but I'm also not sure I'm comfortable leaving her alone out here by herself.

"No thank you," I tell her, not wanting to eat in front of Agatha even if she knows what I am. "It isn't safe out here for any of us, but I thought I'd come look around to make sure no one's gotten stranded and needs help. Has it been calm around here so far?"

"So far, but it's...a nice neighborhood," Aggie says, gesturing at all the other nice houses around Eduardo and Olive's. Out here, she's less concerned with groups like KIRIN and more about human burglars, which she's more than fit to deal with. "And people are bastards." She tilts her head at him, almost daring him to call her out on language.

I sit down on the front stoop next to Agatha, letting out a soft huff. I should get back to the Gardens, but I'll stay a little while first, just in case. Plus it'll be good to give my leg some rest, it's starting to get numb. I stomp it a few times to try and get the circulation going or stop whatever the hell makes it do this.

"They are," I agree, not even noticing she swore. It's not something that bothers me with kids. (And Agatha isn't exactly a kid, anyway.) "Every seven years, was it? Or six? I wonder if anyone who isn't native to Darrow has even been here long enough to have experienced it the first time."

"Seven. I've been here almost five," Aggie says. "So the last Purge shouldn't have been that distant, but I don't remember anyone ever talking about it." As far as she's concerned, it doesn't add up, but since when has Darrow actually played by any rules? If she were more prone to believing such theories, she'd be tempted to suggest that it's an anti-"immigrant" conspiracy.

I nod absently, wondering about the validity of it as an on-going thing as well. Especially when I've heard people had come to the city and it was empty. But that could have been simply another trick, this place changes too much to tell.

"Of course it happened while the magic's been screwy," I sigh. "I guess if I make it another seven years I'll just have to hope that isn't part of it again, and that we'll be better prepared to do something to stop it. If the law can't be changed, at least those of us who know magic can get together and try to preserve more areas, protect more people."

I tap my wand impatiently against my thigh. "If I'm still here."

"Of course," Aggie agrees. She sighs out and lets a little power fizzle through her skin, little trails of light that illuminate her veins and then disappear. It nearly itches and Aggie feels, again, too small for herself, like she might just burst outward. Not apart, but out. "Mine's...I'm not losing control but..."

Maybe it's a growth spurt. God, she hopes it might make her a little taller.

"If I'm still here in seven years, you'd better be," she says.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Three hits on the 6 is the number that you dial

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject