pspspspsps / roadhouse vs hellkats, day 2

Fire in the night, the man-kings come. Always come like fire in the night. The hellcats don’t know this first-hand but it is a memory programmed into their cerebellum. The core of them remembers this and that is enough.

The man-kings bring their fire and they ruin everything.

Dee and Foe’s metal claws sink into the children’s shallow exoskeleton’s but Willem misses his. It moves too quickly, out of reach, then fire blasts from it like a stain in the night sky running high over their heads.

Willem takes the hit in his arm but it is Dee that cries out. Like all things, the pain is shared across the three of them because then it is easier to bear, easier to understand.

Like most wishes made on shooting stars, the outcome is disappointing. Foe throws their head back and lets out a long cry that sounds akin to the moon setting at night.

Willem licks his wounds but Dee is angry now, all twisting metal and scratching sounds as she grinds up onto her hind legs in an effort to match the height of the children in their metal suits. Her jaw opens wide, too wide and it’s then that the next shot comes whistling into her side.

It connects and Willem screams with her even as Foe barrels into her to move her out of the way. Angry, pained yowling fills up the hollow space of their battle ground until there is no other sound left before it cuts off abruptly in unison.

The pain won’t be forgotten. Oil slips into the sand from Willem and Dee’s wounds, slow at first but then they start to gush. Foe licks at the torn metal that has become them, an instinct from a different life.

A dream now.

Foe is the strongest now, once the runt, now the hero, they prowl around the children, drawing shade from the junk wall around them like a dark cowl. Too focused on the man-king that shot Dee, they don’t see the fist coming for them until it’s too late.

The third one mashes Foe into the sand and it’s Willem and Dee who scream first this time. Their call doesn’t sound like poetry anymore, just grinding, halting cacophony that ends in a mournful yowl.

Dee noses Foe until they pull themselves to their feet again, foot holding on by mere cables, the metal joints destroyed.

The man-kings and their fire and their death.

It never ends.

willem attacks rafael
FTKUWebKKzsword
Shallow Cut on Left Forearm -- 3.5 damage

dee attacks nowles
sword
Shallow Cut on Right Hip -- 3.5 damage

foe attacks fatima
sword
Shallow Cut on Chest -- 4.0 damage

The sky is falling again. The world comes apart at the seams, hands run a stitch ripper through the fabric of time and Willem is falling to his knees. The world comes with him, pieces of it at least, collapse at his feet and land on his shoulders, overburdening him until he can bear it no more.

Dark for a moment, dark and silent but then the rubble surrounding him shifts and there is Foe, clearing a path for him back into the light.

Dee is busy, focused on the man-kings. She clings to the hull of the red ship, long metal claws dug neat into the hall. Two more digs and she might reach the pit of the fruit, the child inside and tear her limb from limb.

For the hunt, the hunt demands it. The man-kings with their fire, the cats with the endlessness, the void where their heart should be. There is only wire and echos and computer chips and longing.

No beating heart.

Willem watches Dee work and then looks back up to the child on the wall, the teetering bus between them and he wonders where its fear lives. In the chest or in its throat? Sharp claws click against the junk wall floor as it leaps off of it to follow the child up the wall.

Perhaps he will aim for both.

Foe disengages their pain receptors as it rounds off on the last of the three man-kings, tail swishing back and forth menacingly behind them. The mutt has been created for a single purpose and while fulfillment could mean its death, there is no fear attached to that concept.

Foe’s most treasured core memory is of sleeping in the sun cast through a single pane of glass, body stretched limp across a carpet.

Heart beating, warm, paws stretched out, claws extended, then a hand ran absentminded down their back.

The cat died long ago, the machinery grinds to accommodate but cannot keep up. Oil spills from many wounds. The last end approaches.

Freedom, awarded by the man-kings.

The cats line themselves up against the three tributes.

And lunge.

willem attacks rafael
IZvy5SYHO8sword
Shallow Cut on Back of Head -- 4.5 damage

dee attacks nowles
sword
Deep Gash on Cheek -- 8.5 damage

foe attacks fatima
sword
Deep Gash on Right Bicep -- 8.0 damage