"I'll show mother for trying to replace me with that stupid girl!" A shout could be heard through one of the castle's windows as Cassandra was going about her day
A black haired girl was using the mold and turning it into pointed spikes striking animals...."imperfect.... I'm your actual daughter?!" A goats head came flying and hit the window....
@mold-girl
Throws Evie into the snow...))
@mold-girl
Winters were dreadfully boring for somebody like Cassandra, who would practically live outside if the cold weather didn't have such adverse effects on her. She was thinking about finding some poor maid to torment when the shouts first reached her ears.
What on earth is that girl on about...?
Cassandra looked out the window just in time to see the severed goat head coming toward it. Her instinct was to break apart into her swarm, but roughly one second after it passed through the glass and where her humanoid body would've been, she was forced to reform as the bitter cold hit her. "Agh–! Damn!"
Her body felt solid in a way she was not used to and did not like. She leaned out the window, mood soured further and stiffness setting in already, as she shouted angrily, "Watch where you're aiming! What the hell are you even doing out there?!"
"I'm afraid you're not the first to tell me such a thing during my travels. Yet, here I am, breathing. Walking," Katarin drawled. Although her words were dimissive, her guard was still up and her sharp eyes were scrutinizing.
This place, it felt like home... not in a good way, however.
The woman towering over Katarin had an aura about her that she was far from unfamiliar with.
"I have business here. Until it is finished, I will not be leaving."
It took Claire a moment to parse what Inéz was saying to her, but her eyes lit up at the sight of her. Reading lips was an acquired skill, and Claire still needed to work on her ASL. Her brows furrowed for a moment, but she got the gist of what her friend had said. A simple introduction could bring a smile to her face just like that, and she wanted to embrace her.
“Inéz, hey! It’s great to see you again. I wanted to talk to you because… because I’m thinking about retirement.”
Inéz had quietly started trying to learn ASL. The last thing she wanted was to make talking with her friend a pain in the ass for her, but Inéz had yet to grasp anything well enough to try whipping it out, so she was sticking to what she heard about making lip reading earlier for the time being.
She always considered herself to be tough, but she could admit that if she had to deal with as much as Claire had already, she wasn't certain she wouldn't buckle.
"I... I kinda get it, you know? TerraSave helped me during the worst day of my life... My dad would be dead if it wasn't for these people. I probably would be too. Now I'm here because I don't want anybody else to go through what my family did, but..." Inéz huffed out a humorless laugh, "this isn't the type of work people can do for their whole lives." She absently rubbed the large scars on her arm, which also encroached onto her chest. All courtesy of the Hunter that nearly gutted her.
They affected the way she moved. They hurt. They itched. They gave her problems. Lots. She was grateful to be breathing at all, but damn.
"I used to want to teach mixed martial arts," she shared. "Not so sure if I could really handle that now, though... See, you'd be a damn good reporter. And you'd still be helping people." She pushed her hand through her short hair. "Man, would it kill you to stop being admirable for two seconds?"
As much as Cassandra loved the sound of people screaming in terror, she could also appreciate when someone seemed far braver than she thought they should have been. She enjoyed a good challenge. A tough nut to crack.
It was also nice to not try and hold a conversation with someone who seemed as though they might wet themselves. They hardly ever gave genuine replies, if any at all.
"Yes. Manthing. That's what you are," Cassandra stated simply, resting her chin on her interlaced fingers before raising her eyebrows slightly "RPG...? As in... the weapon?" She was fairly certain Lord Heisenberg had mentioned that word during one of his arguments with her mother, but she knew little about what it was. Aside from the fact that it could "blow enough holes into the castle to finally drive 'em all out".
"You'll learn to be frightened soon enough." The flies freely buzzing around her began to move faster. More excitedly. This was going to be a challenge indeed. "Everyone does in time." There was a hint of something equal parts prideful and cocky there.
"Oh, but I'm afraid one can't simply pass through here. If you've come without an invitation, then you are trespassing, and trespassers such as yourself are strung up, drained of their blood, and placed outside as our scarecrows... But if I'm so inclined," and she often was, "I might indulge in a bit of torture first."
"These hunting grounds belong to House Dimitrescu. I'll let you claim no prey from us."
Cassandra's eyebrows rose a fraction at the name, at his clear irritation, but she continued to find it amusing more than anything and the obnoxious grin did not yet leave her bloodstained face. What was it about outsiders in particular that made them prone to having all this attitude, she wondered.
Her form continued to loose solidity as more and more of her flies buzzed around, all up in the manthing's business purely in an effort to be annoying.
"Ooh, that sounds like it could be fun," Cassandra remarked with intrigue, unphased by his apparent inhuman status. It was nothing new for the village, really. "Are you telling me I could free your head from your shoulders right now, and you would return to run your mouth further? Does your body heal from whatever I could possibly do to it," she grinned harder simply thinking about all the horrific acts of violence she could partake in, "or do you get a new one? If it heals, would you regrow any souvenirs I might take? If you get a new one, do you leave the old one behind? I'm certain my mother and sisters would enjoy you as a main dish... If you're already dead, does your blood taste stale?"
"Of course there are more." The bloodshed within Castle Dimitrescu was more or less an open secret. "Plenty more, always entering, never leaving."
The last thing Steve remembered when on the Antarctic base, was her. Claire Redfield. He remembered he had said he loved her. Then, nothing. He was certain he had died. He remembered the year at that time was 1998, now he had no idea what year it was. All he remembered, were the experiments.
The experiments had given him super-human abilities, such as strength, but the guards in the facility had always made sure he was under control. The men who worked for a man named Wesker. That was who he saw when he first woke up in that place. The blonde man in sunglasses. He had always been plotting an escape though. Wesker tried to make him believe that there was no escape. Just as he was in thought, the scientists came in, the ones who experimented on him. This was his moment. Just as one of the scientists was about to inject him with the sedative they always gave him. He jumped up, grabbing the syringe and jamming it into his neck.
The other scientists tried to call the guards. But were all killed by Steve with his bare hands, he then did the same with any guard who got in his way to freedom. Grabbing one of the guard's sub-machine guns and fighting his way through them. Until he got to the exit. He hadn't seen Wesker on his way out though. It didn't matter to him though, all that mattered was that he needed to get free, he tossed the empty machine gun aside and ran for the exit, using his super-human speed to do so.
He ran for who knows how long, until he got out on to a city street, he saw people, thankfully, ordinary people. Giving him strange looks, which may have been justified, as he remembered that all he had on during his escape was only dressed in boxer shorts and probably covered in blood, now that he thought of it, his arm was starting to hurt. Probably injured by gunfire during the escape. He ran some more until he was clear of people, stopping into an alleyway. He tried to rest there but he was cold. So sleep came hard, but eventually he did manage to fall asleep. He could only hope those people wouldn't find him again.
@steveburnsideblr
When things were calm enough, Inéz Diaco would get up at the asscrack of dawn. The habit developed when she was a teenager.
At first, it was born out of fear. She'd woken up at fourteen to find the world on fire. The undead had filled the streets, the shops, and the homes as if they were always a part of them—in a way, she supposed they were.
She watched helplessly as her sister was torn apart.
She desperately tried to keep her dad from bleeding out on the street right outside their house, pushed to her absolute limit by the time helicopters began showing up. They belonged to TerraSave.
She's been working for them for a little over a year now.
When Inéz got up these days, after she was satisfied with her assement of her surroundings, once she knew things were okay, she went to train and make certain she was capable of keeping them that way.
Halfway through the trek to her usual gym, Inéz just barely caught sight of the pale, bloody figure lying on the ground. Her feet began carrying her forward before her brain had even caught up. "Hey," she called firmly, brows drawn together in concern. "Are you alright?"
Was this guy even alive? Or did some sick bastard dump a body here?
"You look like you need to get to a hospital..." She stopped short of reaching out, fighting the impulse. This is bad. Bloody, gnashing teeth and cloudy, lifeless eyes flashed through her mind. "Can you hear me?"
Sometimes I feel like this has been my whole life. Running. Killing. Alice J. Abernathy of Resident Evil. Independent, canon divergent, semi-selective, & OC friendly. Written by J.R.
"Too long for my liking." Cassandra would not be willingly telling her sister that she was worried about her, but it was apparent enough from the sharpness of her tone, as well as the way she insistently pulled the blankets back over Bela. "Stay put, will you?"
When she heard the blistering winter winds surging into kitchen, the loud pops of the stupid manthing's gun, and her eldest sister's struggle from nearby, she moved faster than ever before—until the outside air hit her, that is. Despite not being exposed to the cold for nearly as long as Bela, Cassandra still had yet to fully shake off the chill and the stiffness. "He's dead. Split from groin to chin."
Admittedly, the experience had rattled her. She could not recall the last time she'd felt such a way. To find somebody as strong as Bela being injured by that Winters, whatever he was, for Cassandra to feel desperation when she was swinging...?
Ugh! It's over. Everything is fine now. She picked up a glass filled with blood and brought it to Bela with a shaky hand. "Here. You should drink."
After yet another long late shift, the last thing Salgado needed when stepping into her crappy apartment was to feel a presence. Not the kind she was used to following her, either. She shuddered violently, got one look at the red eyes staring at her from the darkness, and began trying to fumble her way back out the door. "Shit, I can't be dealing with this again... Stay away from me."
– Salgado for Aurelien @crashandswirl
@crashandswirl
It was a horridly windy night. The sort of night where Aurelien was forced to expend an unacceptable amount of energy on maintaining his wispy form instead of on traveling, exploring, or anything else of a far more intellectual nature. Annoyed and exasperated, he drifted into a nearby apartment building for some relief. The decor... left something to be desired, but at least he was out of the wind. Condensing his shadowstuffs a bit so as to make himself smaller yet more opaquely dark, the glow of his ruby red eyes swirled slowly as he took in his surroundings.
Drifting from apartment to apartment to sate his curiosity via the shadowy corners of walls and dark underbellies of furniture pieces, Aurelien eventually found himself in one with a feel all its own. It was different from any other in the building. It had a sort of... mood to it. As if someone had left the door to a spiritual portal open as casually as one might a kitchen cupboard. Whoever lived here, had connections to the spiritual realm, whether they were aware of that or not.
He lingered long in that apartment, rather liking the energy in it. It felt cozy, in a chaotic sense. Until the wind died down, Aurelien had a mind to linger here and just... relax. That is, until a young woman returned to it and noticed him hovering in a far corner. While her reaction was nothing so extreme as torturing him with an ear-piercing scream or slicing temporary holes through his shadowstuffs with whatever objects she might have chosen to hurl in his direction, she still had not reacted positively at all. Immediately he attempted some damage control.
"There is no need for hysterics, madam. I mean you no harm, I assure you," Aurelien said, having been in this situation more times over the centuries than he could count. "I simply sought refuge from the rather blustery weather out of doors. It was wreaking absolute havoc on my shadowstuffs. You need not flee your own abode on my account. I am simply lounging for a time... inasmuch as one who floats in air can accomplish that. I shan't be a bother to you. My name is Aurelien, my good woman. And who might you be? We may as well become properly acquainted."
Salgado was a bit surprised to receive an apology, regardless of how right she thought she was or the manners Aurelien was showing her, but she supposed maybe that was a sign that he maybe wouldn't turn on her. Most things she'd spoken to would never. Regardless, she brushed it off. "Psh... wish I could go wherever I pleased without worrying or thinking twice about it."
Salgado only nodded in response to his friendly enthusiasm. She almost asked if being old as hell was why he talked so weird, but for once had the foresight to realize that was rude and opted not to. "...The shadow realm, huh? If I turn on a light, is that gonna kill you or something, or am I just supposed to fumble around in the dark?" She started reaching for the little thrift store lamp beside the door.
When Aurelien said her apartment was more interesting than anybody else's, she could only look around in confusion. She had practically zero decorations and everything she cared about was shoved in her dresser, but then her mentioned her connection. "Great. I thought my bad energy was attached to me. I didn't realize I could leave it in places, too." She sighed, then pushed her hands through her hair. "Yeah... Yeah, I'm aware. I see stuff I shouldn't. I feel stuff... I have since I was little. And usually, the stuff I draw toward me is pretty nasty."