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Arthur feels pure fury in his chest, boiling over into his hands, even with how everything spins like he was put into a particle collider and spun around until his brain turned to mush. The woman was talking, talking about hurting Amir and trying to see how much force his legs could withstand for daring to try and flee when the first gas bombs were thrown through the window. They didn't even know her! She wasn't Scaldra, yet this random third party caught them and managed to drag them to this temporary place to chain them up and let their leader dialogue at them like some cartoon villain.
Quincy looked a few seconds away from vomiting on the floor but still looked at her with hatred beyond the humiliating muzzle they were forced to wear. Aoi was almost entirely unconscious, head lolling to the side, chest sometimes rising quickly with shallow breathing before those turned back into deep breaths. Eleanor kept gasping from behind her muzzle, face scrunched up as she kept throwing her head back and forth like something was burrowing into her skull. Lettie was instead doing her best to perform breathing exercises, the human skin on her legs distinctly flaring up with inflammation where it met her carapace.
Amir wasn't doing well, eyes trying to focus only to fail, electricity having stopped sparking over him. Slumped forward, mind awake but struggling as the body worked off the poison faster than the other Hex, slugging through whatever they had given. When they had been ambushed, the other Hex had watched as the soldiers approached Amir's struggling body and grabbed his head like some animal so they could stick the nuzzle into his nose and force it into his lungs, the action far worse than the bombs, the first inaccurate dose only turned more catastrophic. When Amir's eyes rolled in their sockets, Arthur thought it was over for a moment, like the last noise they would hear would be a soft breath before their teammate never stood up again. Then he jolted like someone let off a bomb right next to his head. Arthur noticed it from the edge of his vision, twin flashes of mint-like blazing eyes drawing the attention of everyone. The woman might have been able to turn around to see it herself if only Amir hadn't snapped the restraints into pieces and lunged at her like a feral beast with a harrowing cry and the snap of electricity.
A terrible cracking sound echoed, like ripping flesh and crunching bone, waking up even Aoi, who blinked feverishly. Eleanor gasped for air like something stood on her chest, quick but forcibly deep breaths as if she was fighting against something crushing her ribs. Arthur, Quincy, and Lettie struggled to put the numbers together, with blurry vision and the faint beat of their heart leaving them to struggle to put thoughts in a string. Arthur quickly wished he hadn't, dread slowly crawling up as his eyes flickered back and forth. Quincy and Lettie were leaning away, Quincy looking even more like he was going to vomit.
Amir was frothing with mint mist, electricity seeming almost guided now compared to his usually wild halo, even as he looked kin to feral animals. He was also crouched over the woman's dead body, her head torn open down the middle like ripe fruit, her chest ripped open as the chunks of her ribs laid by her spread-out arms. He was hunched over for a few more seconds, deep, wet growls coming from him like he was gurgling something. When he raised his head, Arthur made a noise behind his muzzle as the hairs on his nape stood up, his hand flaring with the attempt to summon the comfort of his blade.
Blood was thickly smeared over Amir's lips, a string of ripped-out flesh still attached to a vertebrae stuck between his teeth before his tongue fished it out, and he spat out the chunk, a mixture of blood and saliva trickling down and staining his chest as he panted like a wild animal. Even through the filter of orange lenses, mint shone brightly in his eyes like it crawled into all of their heads. Then they saw the light split as if caught in a prism, and the illusion fell, a flowing specter placing fingers over Amir's eyes, running a phantom hand through wild, black hair. They could still see Amir's wide eyes through the ghostly apparition before the specter hooked a finger under his chin and straightened his head, guiding attention to the nearby machines and buttons.
Still restrained, they could only watch as Amir hesitated at the command before following the mystery guidance, a distinctly inhuman noise slipping from his bloodied maw. He stumbled as if the twitching of phantom limbs guided each step, a presence in foreign skin. When Amir went slower, looking at the corpse of the woman he had torn to pieces, the ghost softly turned the growing attention away with a swipe of their hand, a light press of a palm against a spine. They stumbled to the console, Amir staring at it in animal incomprehension, fingers twitching in irritated confusion with electricity stretched between the tips. He should have recognized the basics of what he was looking at, having climbed into the mall walls to fuss with the wires just a day prior, hopping on Aoi's shoulders like a goblin before their single brain cell worked to remember Aoi could use her powers instead. If someone can dig into the wall like a rat to fix the lights, then they should be able to recognize a simple console.
The ghost reached out from behind, placing fingers on the surface, the small display flickering with colors as Amir cringed and whined as if it was hurting. Then the restraints suddenly popped, and Lettie, who had been struggling to slip out, nearly fell face-first. Quincy only had a slightly easier time, hands flying up to try and rip away the muzzle as he stumbled out of the chair and away from Amir. Aoi remained seated, gazing into nothingness as she drifted off slowly despite the mess, blinking at nothing before going limp. Eleanor held herself slightly better, physically and mentally worn regardless. Arthur was the only one who stumbled towards Amir, watching the phantom guide him to lie down on the floor slowly, running a hand through fluffy black hair and whispering like they were singing a lullaby.
Quincy was yelling through the muzzle on his face, trying to rip it off with weak limbs. Arthur ignored it, caught between checking in on the others and the now drooling in sleep form of Amir taking a last-second decision to care for the closer ones. With unsteady limbs, he checked on Aoi and Eleanor first, getting a nod from his sister just before he looked to Lettie as she furiously scratched herself to get rid of the itch the gas left behind. Then stumbled over to Amir when everyone seemed alright. He was small and covered in blood but looking almost hilariously relaxed, like a tiny kitten curled up.
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Eleanor takes a deep breath, pushing away the images of what this beast had done to the guards outside the place where they had been dragged to, and confronts it. She knows the rest of the Hex are all outside, holding whatever weapon they could get their hands on, but the person sleeping on the couch shouldn't be a threat to them. She prays she is right.
It wore Amir's body, an aggressive mint tint to his eyes like paint leaked into them. It also had a Tamagotchi, seemingly focused intensely on whatever it was doing, like a boiling mass of fire and smoke over Amir's shoulder as it looked through his eyes. "Hello...?" From how it had stalked the halls and looked over their shoulders instead of doing what she knew it could, it did not seem hostile. The comfort it expressed towards Amir to soothe him to sleep was a big reason she trusted herself to walk out of this with her mind intact. She would walk steadily regardless.
You always handle things so full of teeth carefully.
It looked over, then smiled, obviously not knowing how to pull Amir's face yet. Uncanny valley, but she would endure a bit of discomfort. She needed to make sure Amir would be okay, and she couldn't look past the things fat fucking ass, so asking it would have to do. It was as large as a dump truck and hit her brain with a bundle of colors that she doubted was written down anywhere besides in a crackhead's den if she touched it. It righted Amir, putting the Tamagotchi down, crossing their arms but generally looking happy. "Greetings, Eleanor, I was waiting for you." It sounded so much like him but warped and slightly metallic, perhaps like speaking through a tube? She pulled herself together, talking firmly, trying to set boundaries as the first action. "Amir is not hurt?" the question seemed to confuse it before it nodded, gently cupping Amir's face with his hands, seemingly lacking actual hands to do that, so improvising with what it had. "No, he was just scared, like you." the stranger's halo around Amir had turned frothy, like sea foam, with less smoke and fire.
Then it laid back down suddenly, curling up a bit, seeming sleepy. "Amir is just tired. Give him some time, and if you need me, you should learn to scream louder." Eleanor could smell the color in her eyes and the nerves of her teeth, her mind scrambling to say something before it was gone. "Goodbye, Mara Lohk." Eleanor did not know its name, so she reached for the first thing that came to mind, her words rewarded with a quirk of Amir's lips before the mint was gone.
By fucking SOL- why was she the most qualified to deal with the eldritch abomination wearing their teammate's skin?