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+---- Thread: cut our teeth and make our bones right here (/showthread.php?tid=7764)
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-09-2022
Grunting his reply because he has neither the strength nor the blood to formulate a real response, Ronin winces as they hit the ground, his head lolling back to see the spotlight swinging far above them. Hissing out a curse, he'd laugh at the idea of Remi standing around with his pants around his ankles, but y'know, really not the time, sorry.
[say]"No,"[/say] he grumbles at the idea of being taken to the hospital. [say]"You gotta deal with that."[/say] Because if he's going to be in hospital, it won't do much good if the whole of Undertown is compromised. [say]"Just scare 'em back up."[/say] Hopefully the sight of a monster in the sewers will be enough to spook them away for long enough that the Undertown puppeteers can sort it.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-09-2022
Remi doesn't argue, though he does clench his teeth together as he considered. [say]"Pick your poison then. Either you leave me chained and on the off chance one of those assholes manages to grab the other end, you're all fucked, or you release me and hope your blood clots quickly enough that I don't kill you when I come back."[/say] If I come back, goes without saying.
As gently as he can, because though he's a monster he's not a complete asshole, he tries to settle Ronin against the wall. Reaching down he tugs at his pants, finally doing them up, before making quick work of his shoelaces while Ronin decides which chamber to use in this game of russian roulette.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-09-2022
[say]"Love those options,"[/say] Ronin mumbles, though he's already reaching up with numb fingers to release the wendigo from his chains. [say]"You came back once,"[/say] he reasons, though some dark part of him really does hope that Remi fucks off for good. Ronin can sleep for eternity and the science wing of the complex will never find anything like the wendigo again. Win win? Maybe.
Either way, he leaves Remi to do what Remi apparently does best, and he'll find, at the top of the tunnel, a group of dock guards and a couple of dogs trying to decide whether to wait for backup or to go ahead and send someone down to investigate. The manhole is wide enough for an explorer and his gear, but they're debating tossing a camera down first.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-09-2022
Though he can't quite say why, Remi is disappointed by Ronin's choice. Both options are shit of course, though the hunter's lackadaisical attitude has the wendigo rattled. Raking his fingers through his hair with increasing speed, Remi huffs out a breath and begins to ascend the ladder before anything else might be said.
Rising swiftly and silently now that he's not ferrying Ronin around like a mother gorilla, Remi only begins to shift once he judges he can be seen in the flashlight beam from above. His antlers press out against the shaft's cement walls, grinding and snarling before the wendigo bursts topside once again.
Down below the hunter is likely too far away and too deaf to hear the strangled screams, the patter of gunfire, and the cut-off cries for backup. He's certainly too far away to hear the whimpers of the dogs and the sound of a flaregun, and the wounded bellow of the wendigo as fire snarls out across his chest. No, down below Ronin will likely only hear the varying shades of silence, going from the quiet, to still, then to silent.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-09-2022
Remi is 100% correct. Ronin hears little to none of what goes on topside, because no sooner has the wendigo scuttled back up the ladder towards the surface, the Hunter passes the fuck out. It's only brief before adrenaline rears its ugly head and shakes him back to consciousness, but gods, he's so cold, and everything hurts, and he swears that was a bit of gunfire from up above.
[say]"Remi?"[/say] he slurs, unable to sit up properly let alone get to his feet, his fingers fumbling at the chain he still holds in his hands. Maybe the wendigo really has disappeared forever. If that's the case, at least Ronin isn't cold any more, so he won't be feeling too uncomfortable when he dies. He's actually kind of warm, now.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-09-2022
In what we might charitably call a controlled fall, Remi indeed comes back. With claws on his hands and feet scraping against the wall, the wendigo's bulk is enough such that he isn't able to just drop through the shaft so long as his limbs press outwards. Ronin might be treated to the smell of burning flesh and bone and hair before he hears anything, but if he looks, he'll see the wendigo falling out of the tunnel in a heap.
Shifting if only out of exhaustion and pain, Remi's torso is covered in bright and deep burns. The flare gun melted the remaining scraps of his clothing against his body, rendering the impact point a mess of leather fused against flesh and bone.
[say]'..fuck..'[/say] Is all he can manage for a moment as he rolls over into the fetal position and pants weakly against the cement.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-09-2022
Love a bit of Pain Olympics, is what Ronin would snark if he were in either the state nor the mood for it, but as it stands he can only really flick his eyes up to see Remi collapse in a burnt, melty sort of heap on the ground some distance away. [say]"Not sure... I can carry you..."[/say] he pants, his hand dancing up toward the walkie talkie that's still configured - and wouldn't luck be on their side, because it's waterproof.
Ronin doesn't explain in words so much as in a sort of code - it's a lot of numbers and colours without any explanation paired with them. But when he slurs an over, there's already a crackling response asking for coordinates, which Ronin confirms. [say]"He's unchained,"[/say] he has time to add, before his hand slips away from the walkie again and he lolls back against the wall.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-10-2022
It's very convenient how quickly Remi is able to heal, or at the very least, how easy it is for his wendigo-brain to compartmentalize pain. After just a moment or two of curling in on himself, Remi suddenly relaxes and blinks himself back into focus...just in time to hear Ronin calling for backup. Pressing the tip of his tongue along his bottom lip and huffing a strangely disappointed sound, the wendigo heaves himself into a sitting position and tilts his head back and forth a few times until it cracks.
[say]"Is that your way of calling me fat?"[/say] He jests, though there isn't much humour in it. Once more mostly naked (listen, he had really tried to return with clothes this time), he nods toward the chain Ronin is still holding on to as he stands. [say]"They are going to come in guns blazing now."[/say] He murmurs; it isn't fear in his strangely pale eyes, but something like a pre-memory of the pain and humiliation to come.
[say]"Before they do, though.."[/say] Reaching into part of his jacket that clung from one arm, Remi holds out the siren's vocal chords. Whether Ronin wanted it as proof of the siren's death or for his weird side project, the wendigo doesn't know. But Ronin had asked for it, so here it was.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-10-2022
[say]"More my way of calling myself fucked,"[/say] Ronin mumbles. He doesn't have the strength for even a whisper of a smile, but it's very humourous if Remi listens close. Like really, really close. Unable to keep his eyes open any longer (gods, they suddenly feel so heavy), the Hunter snorts at the wendigo's remark, and his good shoulder rises and falls a fraction. [say]"You're the one who said you might not be in control,"[/say] he points out.
Before they do, though, forces him to peel his eyes back open, and it's very blearily that he manages to focus on the siren's vocal cords. [say]"Thanks,"[/say] he mutters. His fingers twitch a bit before he manages to lift his arm, and he just about catches hold of the prize before it falls again.
It's a few painful minutes before there's any sign of movement whatsoever, by which time Ronin has faded into some weird half-consciousness where he feels too hot but at least nothing hurts any more. And then there are torches and crackling walkie talkies, a stretcher and medics and sedation and he can't even see Remi any more.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-10-2022
[say]"You could just...put it on."[/say] Remi points out, still annoyingly unaware of just how badly Ronin had been injured. From the outside he looked terrible, yes, but it was the man's internal injuries from the electricity that were liking doing him in.
The last remaining bit of the siren falls to the ground and already Remi can hear the other hunters approaching. It's a blur of movement and voices, and whether or not Ronin will end up finding the vocal cords where Remi has tucked them into the front of his pants is anyone's guess. The wendigo just thinks that's the only place no one will bother searching the hunter.
They come with torches and tasers, swinging silver chains like some yahoo wanna cowboys. One catches Remi on the wrist as another tethers him by his neck and a third kicks out his feet. It's unnecessary and yet entirely unexpected. As a knee is placed on his back, shoving his neck into an awkward angle on the ground, all Remi can see are Ronin's parted lips and a wisp of blue before he's unceremoniously injected with something (adrenaline, probably) and carried off.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Isla - 12-10-2022
And that's how Remi ends up back in her care, truthfully; chained multiple times, manhandled and injected with fuck knows what, but that's all but par for the course when it comes to the Hunters and their inherent need to panic. When she eventually gets hold of him from those who wrestled him back into the complex, there's a lot of rumours swirling around - that he's the one who had hurt the Taliesin Hunter, that he'd bitten chunks out of the man, that he'd broken his chains and had been trying to escape up through the tunnels.
Quite frankly, Isla thinks it's all bullshit (until proven otherwise), because based on the state of said Hunter as they carted him off into critical care, he was in no state to tell his story. Someone else might be able to, though.
Knocking on the door to Remi's room, despite the fact that she's going to enter regardless of what he says, and also he's restrained in his bed with his lovely, fetching muzzle on, Isla sidles in. [say]"Sorry I couldn't see you earlier,"[/say] she says softly. [say]"I had to go and check in on Ronin at the hospital."[/say]
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-10-2022
Today there is no smile on Remi's lips as Isla enters, there's only a restrained eagerness to say or do something. Given the muzzle and chains, whatever it is that has his arms twitching and toes curling will have to wait.
[say]"And? How is he?"[/say] The wendigo asks with enough intentional carelessness to suggest that he actually does care a good deal. He doesn't have to wonder about the rumours circulating about him; he was present to hear the origins of most of them. How Ronin had fought Remi off with his bottled lightning (hence the wendigo's burns). How the silver in Ronin's hands was the only thing that kept Remi from killing him, and how the hunter had managed to keep the monster restrained until help had valiantly arrived.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Isla - 12-10-2022
[say]"Unconscious,"[/say] Isla murmurs, clicking the door shut behind her and moving to adjust the lights in the room so they're a little less harsh and oppressive. Drawing up a chair next to Remi's bed, she frowns at the marks on his arms that suggest he's been injected or hooked up to a drip or whatever else. [say]"They had to sedate him - it wouldn't have been fair to keep him awake at this point."[/say]
Letting out a long sigh, she glances over Remi and seems disappointed but unsurprised that no one has bothered to attend to his burns yet. [say]"He was hypothermic when he was brought in. Severe blood loss, arrhythmia, burns, a shattered collarbone, and that's not even taking the missing... bits of him."[/say] Inhaling just as slowly, she searches the wendigo's face. [say]"Can you tell me what happened up there? I can't ask him for obvious reasons."[/say]
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-10-2022
As Isla approaches, Remi watches her at first with an intense and predatory disdain, not unlike a captive tiger watching his food being hefted into its pen. Eventually, he turns his stare towards the ceiling, letting his golden-green gaze fixate on the tiles. [say]"Yeah, it was cold up there."[/say] Remi agrees in a toneless voice, not bothering to breathe or keep his blinking at a human pace.
[say]'I fucked up, is what happened up there.'[/say] He replies, adding a humourless smirk. I should have fucking run off when I had the fucking chance, he thinks, but doesn't say.
[say]"So am I scheduled to be put down, or what?"[/say] Remi wonders, letting his head loll as far to the side as it can to appraise Isla with a rather monstrously blank look.