2013.04.08 - Nature's Revenge

Ordinarily, you wouldn't find a person like Emira in the Suicide Slums... She was far too sweet, and innocent, to be found among those people in the slums who were down on their luck. And then there was the fact that she was both pretty, especially compared to the types generally found in the area, and blind... which was just asking for trouble... But nevertheless, Emira was here, crouched down next to a couple of kids, one of which had scraped himself up pretty good, falling from the second floor window of one of the buildings nearby. He was fine now, thanks to Emira, but both of the kids had been pretty shaken up by the almost tragic event.
"There~ You should be all better now..." Emira smiled brightly, then stood back to her feet, clutching her white cane in both hands. "You go ahead and get back home before you get hurt again... I wont be here all the time to help you."
The older of the two kids nodded and took the hand of the younger, bringing him back inside, leaving Emira more or less alone on the street again where she heaved a short sigh and began to move forward again, further into the slums, going about her daily rounds, and playing doctor for the less fortunate people in the area.
For at least one of the city's newer inhabitants, having a bad day doesn't just start with having a little insomnia, or having a clump of hair out of place, or missing the usual subway route. It can start with anything, from being looked at the wrong way by the wrong person to having a lack of appreciation for sunlight.
Briskly walking along the side of the road is another foreigner, Zoya having only recently arrived to this country. Her adjustment has been somewhat rough.
As the woman starts to cross the street an impatient driver quickly steps on the brakes, the car skidding to a halt in the mist-slicked streets. He hits the horn once, twice. Then the woman stops and looks at the driver, nothing more than a thin layer of lamenated safety glass separating the two as they glare at each other.
The man rolls down his window so he can be heard, though the volume of his shouts can be heard by an even greater audience than the one individual the harsh language is directed toward.
Zoya's bad day is about to get a little better. The driver, his day is about to get a whole lot worse. As though she has all the time in the world she rests all of her fingertips upon the hood of the man's car, his face practically turning red at the act of defiance.
Then the front of his car is completely flattened, mashed into the ground with such force that the pavement cracks and the back end of the coupe leaps off of the street, almost gracefully floating in the air before crashing back down. Automotive parts go flying all over the place, setting off the alarms on parked cars as far out as half a block away.
Emira gives a little squeak at the sudden sound of metal being... squished, followed by the cacophony of car alarms all around. She staggers a little from the slight shock in the ground, but manages to maintain her balance with the help of her cane, and saves herself from crashing to the ground. "What in the world...?" She wears a slightly concerned face as she looks around... as far as she could tell, nobody had died in whatever just happened. All the life signs were reading more or less normally in her limited vision, but that didn't mean nobody was HURT. It sounded like some sort of accident had happened!
A few feet away from Zoya, a tree creaks, one of it's branches extending a couple inches, and then settling again, falling silent all of a sudden... It was the sort of thing that would have gone unnoticed by most people, especially with the loud car alarms going off all over the place.
Emira took a few steps, then called out, "Is... everyone alright?" It was a silly question, but hopefully, anyone who HAD been hurt would be willing to say so... or if they couldn't someone nearby would.
Everyone but one man is alright, though that's always subject to change around Zoya. The driver's quite rattled but still largely in one piece, which can't be said for his Lexus.
"What..did you -do to my car- you freak!"
Maybe he could have walked away from this. Cars can be replaced. His insurance may not have covered it, but worse things could happen. But, he just has to keep -pushing,- verbally prodding a woman that does not wish to be prodded.
That voiced question, 'is everyone alright,' gets answered by the -Crack!- of a single pistol shot. The cracked windshield offers no resistance, a jagged hole appearing through the splintered material then ending the life beyond.
The neighborhood erupts into chaos. People start screaming and running for cover. Cars quickly accelerate out of the area, causing more trouble for everyone else. Not for Zoya, though. She stands before the ruined hood like a Safari hunter standing over her elephant, the pistol spinning about upon her finger like the whole thing had been nothing more than a game shared between the two, with one obvious winner.
The pistol shot was heard... and Emira saw the green haze of a life suddenly wink out ahead, and then suddenly felt VERY ill. She leaned on her cane, gagging and squeezing her eyes shut, doing little to hide the fleeing green blurs, or the distinct LACK of a blur a couple dozen feet ahead of her.
She dodged just past one of the people running away before they bowled her over, and staggered forward, fighting to keep her lunch right where it was supposed to be. That should have been it for Zoya no doubt. She had eliminated the annoying driver, and had mostly cleared the streets of everyone save for a single blind woman... Except that the gunshot had done more than just caused people to run away. Apparently, it had been enough to trigger a slightly larger problem than an irate driver.
The tree that had begun to grow earlier... started growing again, although this time it didn't appear to be interested in stopping after a couple of inches. Instead the branches continued extending, branching out further, and curving in an organic way that shouldn't have been possible for a tree. Several plants that had been little more than sprouts in the ground were suddenly spilling out of the dirt and pushing violently through cracks in the street and sidewalk, each of them flinging themselves at the woman with the gun, while Emira, not knowing anything about the sudden plant growth, tried to get to the body of the man with the bullet in him.
Dead is dead. There is no coming back from that (or at least there shouldn't be.) Zoya's annoyance of the hour is taken care of, never to bother her again. Why is it, then, that the very flora around her seems to want a piece of her? She did the world a favor, the guy was irritating and bad for one's stress levels! He didn't have a chance of stopping her, what chance would a tree have?
The pistol spins about on her finger in the same motion that brings it out toward the tree, the fire selector bumped up two notches. In a flash there's a deafening roar from the bulky weapon as it chews through every last round remaining inside of it within seconds, the amplified sound not unlike tearing canvas echoing throughout the city streets. Against a person, or a vehicle, or many other mutants, it would have been purely devastating.
Against a tree? Not..quite as effective, really. In a coincidential twist it's she who is issuing a blatant warning toward something else and being every bit as ignored as the driver had been by her. There's karma for you. At least Zo has the sense to start backing away upon making this discovery.
Splinters flew from the tree... and then the holes created by the bullets filled in with more wood, and new branches grew in place of the holes. The pavement of the sidewalk issued a loud, CRACK as it broke beneath a sudden surge of insects that began to pour from beneath it... beetles and ants mostly, with a few small spiders mixed into the swarm, none of which seemed to be as interested in the other bugs as they were in Zoya right now.
More cracks came from the pavement as tree roots began to push their way from the dirt beneath and shoved their way through the streets, causing the asphault to buckle above them and make room. Branches began to grow into the buildings, shattering windows and illiciting more startled screams from within the apartments as the buildings themselves began to rumble while the ground beneath them started to warp and twist and massive vines launched from the ground to wrap around the buildings.
Finally, one of the tree roots swung at Zoya, aiming for her head, moving impressively fast for a tree, but the branch couldn't have been moving more than five miles an hour... it was just too big, and it had the added resistance of the cars along the side of the street, most of which had been converted into convertibles thanks to the swinging root.
Emira had finally made it to the car, feeling around for the dead man, still heedless of the plants except for the sounds of tearing metal, screaming, and breaking glass... but goodness knew that there were all sorts of things in this city that could do that. She was a little afraid that one of those things might be attacking, and she was in the middle of it... but she had to try and save the driver... it wasn't a matter of being a hero, it was a matter of it being the right thing to do... the whole reason she was IN this part of the city was to heal!
The revenge of the trees is weird enough. Something's causing it to gain momentum, and quickly. More chaos! She could really start to appreciate all of this if it didn't seem to be centered -around her.-
The branch that's flying toward Zoya's head, that one's actually quite easy for her to handle. She notices it just in time to bring one of her arms up as though doing something as trivial as parrying someone as they try to punch her. The arm connects with the branch to the tune of splintering wood, the tree's kinetic energy reversed and used against it with a bit extra thrown in for good measure. Sharp chunks of wood go flying as the branch gets severed in half, leaving half of it to drop to the road with another loud report. "Ty shutish', da?" //You're kidding, right?//
Then there's the swarm of bugs. Completely unexpected, completely unplanned for. If she had the time to bleed out some of the wrecked car's fuel and set it ablaze she would have just for her own peace of mind, but there's a freaking -swarm of bugs- heading toward her. Bugs aren't exactly animals in the traditional sense, but... They're -bugs.- Aside from mosquitos, which exist solely to annoy the living crap out of every other living creature on the planet, they're not part of this event. So why are they now coming after her in droves?
"Dis is not happenink."
With swift, well-practiced motions she reloads and holsters her one pistol, once more moving at a brisk pace as she does so. Bugs are bad. Bugs she does not want.
The tree doesn't seem to notice the sudden LACK of a branch as it continues it's motion, allowing the wood to grow over and begin the growth of a brand new branch, while another slow moving branch starts lowering itself in Zoya's general direction... The street continues rumbling as more tree branches crash through, one spearing a bright red sports car and lifting it through the air as if it were nothing, before apparently attempting to bring he car crashing down on top of the foreign woman like a giant natural sledgehammer.
The bugs don't stop coming. The swarm expands, the ants growing larger, some of them taking FLIGHT and chasing after the woman with the gun, seeking to bite into any exposed skin they could find, ignoring the fact that they were just as likely to be crushed as the girl if they landed on her before she was hit by the car.
Another branch stretched out toward Zoya, but stopped just shy of attempting to swat at her a second time... coming just close enough for a couple dozen, apparently rabid squirrels to leap from the branch and toward her, followed by a flock of pigeons and a sudden surge of rats from a couple nearby alleys, their eyes gleaming angrily as they crawled over and under cars to get to the woman, their little needle-like teeth bared.
From down the street, another cacophony could be heard... dogs... lots of them, barking, snarling, and howling as they approached from what was probably several blocks away.
Only a couple blocks down the street people were quickly rushing out of one of their buildings, the leaves of a plant growing throuth the windows, scattering the ground with glass as a gargantuan flurry of thorny rose-bush vines started to fly out and grip the brick, their thorns growing large enough to dig huge gashes into the brick... just before a pine tree with a trunk as big around as a redwood broke through the top... The whole building began to crumble beneath the plants, while a trio of cats came from inside, hissing angrily as they leapt from the building and across the quickly expanding rose bush branches, on their way toward Zoya.
Emira finally had her hand on the corpse, and she concentrated, the bullet pushing free from the corpse after a few short moments and falling to the floor of the car as she started to concentrate on the healing of the wound, and the restarting of all the body's essential functions... She was bringing the man back from the dead...
There's something downright ..beautiful about all of this. Zoya's not usually one to back away from a challenge, and the -destruction- is just intoxicating! She actually stops retreating as the branches continue to tear apart this part of the city, standing loose and rolling her shoulders as she watches, and waits. Nature wants to play, does she? This Ruskie's game.
When the sports car comes flying her way she leaps off to the side, rolling through the air as the car slams down to the pavement right where she had been standing. Now she's standing a few feet away from it, as though she had been there this entire time. "That is miss."
Insects..screw 'em, she's got too much to worry about without them. As they start to bite she retaliates by splattering the offending creatures beneath her palms. Somewhat effective, but it gets old fast.
Then nature strikes back in an unusual way. Squirrels. Pigeons. Rats. -Dogs.- CATS! They're--no. No, this isn't right. Bring on the overgrown weeds, but not the animals..!
The birds are going to be a problem. The rest she can get away from, assuming she can move quicker than the trees. Zoya sets off in a dead sprint across the street, leaping over branches and debris until she can springboard off the roof of a car, catch a nearby lightpost, then dive toward the rainpipe bolted to the side of an old brick building. Momentum is kept as she climbs hand over hand, her boots simply running up the rough texture of the brick and mortar as she gains altitude. Quickly.
Find a window. Get indoors. Away from the animals, away from the birds and bugs. Push speed. Speed is something which she's good at.
Zoya moves fast... and as soon as she's inside, and the window is shut... the ground stops shaking. The sounds of animals slowly die down and then vanish altogether... the plants stop moving just as soon as the crumbling building collapses into a pile of rubble. The entire street is overgrown with plants, making the area for five blocks look like the ruins of an ancient civilization that had been overgrown and retaken by nature CENTURIES ago... But all of the plants had stopped moving, their growth had slowed, and Emira was left alone with the man, amidst a field of green and brown, with flowering plants of red, yellow, and white all around her.
It doesn't take much longer, and the man gasps back to life, breathing heavily as his lungs suddenly work again... and then Emira stands, smiling somewhat weakly with lingering nausea, "There you go... You should go home and rest." She says simply, "It's dangerous around here." And then she turns and starts to go, stepping along the grassy path that seems to grow in front of her, leading her out of the urban forest, while the man she had revived tries to figure out just what was going on.
Category:Log