Diamond Bright

"So do I," Jack said, doggedly matching her steps as he surveyed their path for the creatures. He had no idea what they were, but he didn't like
them the least little bit. "They're where my handgun is."

Emma was going nowhere on her own. She'd best accept that.

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There was a disgruntled grumble. Nope, not accepting that, thank you.

"I hate this island sometimes," she muttered instead, picking up the pace slightly and rubbing at her arm where she'd been bitten. They just had to get to the salle and gun range, and everything would be fine. "Why couldn't we have gotten the jello dragons? I heard once there were jello dragons."

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"I'd take the bloody vegetables again," Jack grumbled, and shot a dark look at a big-eared shadow up ahead. Either it was a leaf and not a gremlin at all, or his look alone scared it off.

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"Careful. If the clock strikes, your face might freeze like that," Emma snarked quietly. Still, she moved just slightly closer to him, in case it hadn't been so much scared-off as going for reinforcements. "How much ammunition do you have for that handgun of yours?"

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"A box or so," Jack told her, equally quiet. "Should I borrow an extra box? I doubt anyone would grudge me it."

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"Or two or three boxes." Something was moving in the underbrush behind them, and they were almost to the doors. "We can leave an IOU if you like, but I'd rather you didn't run out at a bad time."

If he was allowed to fuss at her, she got to fuss right back. It was a Rule.

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Jack nodded in agreement. "I need precise shots, not sheer volume," he pointed out, and froze in his path.

He did not like the way the underbush was crackling.

Edited Date: 2010-01-23 07:23 pm (UTC)

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He might like it even less when it stopped rusting ominously.

Because a moment later, a gremlin was going to explode out of the foliage at them, intent on doing some serious damage.

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Emma froze for only an instant before grabbing his wrist to haul him along. "Run!"

They were only twenty feet from the entrance to the salle and range; fleeing was the better option than trying to take the freakish gremlin on bare-handed.

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Jack let himself be hauled, heart thudding as he dove for the building. He was rather desperately grateful Emma was wearing shoes she could run in. There was some part of him that was spoiling for the fight, but a larger part cried out to defend Emma, whether she needed it or not.

He thought, They come first -- and now he had Rose's voice in his head.

He groped for the door handle and yanked it open.

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Emma dashed toward safety, not stopping to look back. If she looked to see how close it was, she'd probably panic, and they couldn't afford the delay.

She darted through the doorway once Jack got it open, immediately moving to the side to get behind the door so they could shove it shut quickly and lock their tormentor outside.

...with all the other students. Which Emma didn't really care about at the moment, save in an abstract manner. Most of her friends could take care of themselves.

"Get in here, Jack!"

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The gremlins were very happy as they got in there, even if the one outside was being rudely shut out of the feast.

Very, very happy.

The ones hidden under counters and behind furnishings in the building were hungry, and leapt toward the pair as the door slammed shut.

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One attached itself to Jack's trouser leg. He flailed and kicked hard, smashing it into a table leg in some bizarre parody of a dance.

"Weapons, Emma."

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"Thank you, Jack," she snapped, trying to stomp on the head of another one. Thank goodness she'd worn trainers and jeans today; nothing she wasn't willing to burn later. "I'd completely forgotten why we'd gone for a walk today."

She grabbed a few pairs of ear-protection from where they were hanging on the wall and started chucking them at the creatures as she tried to get to where her sword was kept. Without degenerating into hysterics as another one tried to bite through her pants. "Where is your gun?"

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Well, blondie was just going to have to deal with them dodging the thrown headsets. The gremlins hissed at them, laughing maliciously at the stupid humans that walked right into their den. Another one tried to drop on the girl's head as two more rushed at the boy.

They wanted to greet their guests properly, for being so nice as to bring delivery for dinner.

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Jack would have snapped out the weapon's precise placement if a gremlin hadn't been trying to feast on Emma's brains.

... or whatever gremlins do. He didn't know. He grabbed a practice foil and slashed at the gremlins in a scattershot manner, trying to scare them away more than anything else. One was sinking its claws into his legs, but he'd worry about that when they were safe again.

Edited Date: 2010-01-23 09:47 pm (UTC)

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Which might have been well and good, if the gremlin attached to Jack's pants didn't have severe issues dating back to childhood about being ignored. It hissed and sank every pointed thing it had more deeply into Jack's muscles, just as one of its brethren bit at Jack's boot.

The dual attack, when combined with the fact Jack was already off-balance hacking at things, made Jack's feet tangle in each other. He went down to the ground, hitting his head on that table along the way.

And then he was very still.

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Emma shrieked and reached up to fling the one hanging off her neck to the floor, stomping on it's ribs for good measure. She'd just reached the locker with her sword when she heard the crash, and spun around to see a scarily-motionless figure on the floor. "JACK!"

The room was suddenly bathed in a bright surge as her powers reacted, and when the initial light cleared, Emma had her hand around the grip of her sword, eyes completely white and haloed in a faint pink haze.

Her blade flashed up to skewer one through an eye. "Get the fuck away from him. Now."

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The gremlin screamed in pain and grasped at the blade, while its nestmates quietly left the room. They could find easier prey elsewhere.

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Meanwhile, Jack slowly opened his eyes, pain still slamming through his body.

"Zkurvysyn."

It would be a while before he was sat up, and quite possibly longer before he was back to English, but the meaining was more or less clear from his tone.

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Emma was already shaking as she pulled the sword free and stumbled towards Jack, her skull pounding; part power-overload, part bleed-through from Jack's pain.

"Hey," she sad, kneeling beside him. "Are you okay?"

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Jack opened his eyes and looked at her. "Love," he breathed -- well, he found his English.

For all of one word.

"No sé donde estoy. Soy mareado." And then back to Czech for //What happened?//

Edited Date: 2010-01-24 01:15 am (UTC)

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She had absolutely no idea what he was saying, but Emma knew it wasn't good.

"No, Jack, I need you to focus, please?" she urged, brushing her fingers over his head gently to see if he was bleeding. "Ah, ingles, sí?"

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A large span of skin on Jack's temple was already going green-purple and swollen with a bruise, and a think trickle of blood came from a scrape at the center where he'd made impact with the table.

"Ingles?" he repeated sleepily. "No habla ... oh. English."

He pushed himself to a sitting position, gasping at the effort of it. "I'm hurt." He sounded utterly confused at this fact.

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