Abandoned Subway Tunnels, Los Angeles, Saturday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

"Stealth said that this place is a kind of refuge for homeless people who didn't want to shelter up on the surface," Banzai said, leading the way through the subway tunnels. "They're really good at policing their own; making it safe for women and families to stay down here. No drugs, no violence, that kind of thing. Isn't perfect, but pretty damn good for people with nothing. But nobody's heard anything from anyone down here in awhile and she wants someone to check in with them. There was no indication that they've had contact with anyone infected, but the silence is weird. She's hoping they're just hunkered down and waiting for this to blow over."

Flickering lights overhead didn't do much to dispel the gloom, illuminating only the area around them and leaving the rest shrouded in darkness. There were sections where the lights were out entirely and that meant that they would have to travel for several yards in true darkness, at least until they reached the next, intact light. "We should be coming up on sentries soon. They might have weapons, so please let's try being nice first?"

[For those guys with her! And NFB]

Comments

[not_every_mage]

Anders nodded along. "I just don't like tight spaces," he said, by way of explanation. "But you're right. There are worse things in the world than tunnels."

He peered into the gloom himself, hoping someone had left a torch or some fuel of any description somewhere to make this easier. He saw nothing. "Not exactly, but how's this?"

He twisted his fingers in the air, drawing forth a wisp of veilfire that floated a few feet above their heads. It was dim and blue, but it made things slightly less gloomy for the moment.

[spin_kick_snap]

"It's fine," Banzai replied. "Thanks."

Normally after that kind of admission, she would have offered Anders her hand, at least for a few minutes. Just long enough for a quick squeeze, a silent I'm here, you're not alone. Today, she shoved her hands into her pockets and turned back to view their surroundings in the additional light. "Stealth gave me a passcode to use when we meet up with their sentries. Something to let them know we're friendlies, not officials and not looking to make any trouble. We should be just about at the edge of their range, so expect to be met by someone at any minute."

[not_every_mage]

Anders noticed the official chill in her tone and wasn't sure if she was still angry with him, or if it was just that this was serious business. He nodded and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"And what happens then?" he asked. "Will they ask me anything?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Doubtful," Kathy said. "Nothing official, anyway. We're just checking in on them because no one's heard from them in a few days. Stealth wants us to warn them about zombies, even if we don't use the actual word--" people had a tendency to not take them seriously after the z-word was trotted out, go figure "--so they might have questions about what to be on the lookout for, but otherwise it should just be a quick trip in and out. A diplomacy mission, far from any danger."

Did that sound bitter? Oops, that might have sounded bitter.

[not_every_mage]

Ah. So she was angry. Good to know. Anders kicked a pebble and let it skitter off into the dark.

"Then I'll just hang back," he said. "Be a living torch. Jump in if you need help, not that I'm saying you will, since obviously you can take care of yourself and all."

Bitterness was catching.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Where was that belief in me yesterday?" Banzai asked. "Or is your confidence in me in inverse proportion to your concern that I want to bang Nick?"

Really? Now? You were going to wrangle about this now? C'mon, kids.

[not_every_mage]

"At least get it right," Anders sniped. "I think he wants to bang you, not the other way around. And I don't want to talk about that arsehole, anyhow."

He wasn't going to wrangle! Much!

"And are you really saying that if I don't instantly support whatever ridiculous thing you want to do, I don't believe in you? It's not all or nothing, Kathy."

[spin_kick_snap]

"What the hell do you care if he wants to sleep with me if you know that I'm not interested back?" she hissed, because clearly, this was the best place and time for this conversation. Yesterday's engulfing hurt had been pushed aside in favor of anger and simmering resentment. "And wanting to save my city isn't ridiculous! Neither is wanting to protect my family! And, sorry, did you or did you not say I could take care of myself. Oh right--you were being sarcastic!"

He thought she was as useless as Dante did. That hurt.

[not_every_mage]

Anders listened with hurt eyes.

"I can't talk to you," he said, because he was painfully tired of fighting with Kathy. "You're seeing everything I do in the worst possible way, and I don't feel like it. If you ever want to talk to me and not to whoever you're talking to right now, let me know."

[spin_kick_snap]

"If I ever feel like I know you, or you know me, maybe I will," she said. "Because whoever you became when you came to fetch me isn't the guy that I--" She shut her mouth and shook her head. "Forget it."

And then she was stalking forward to catch up with Dante. Her feelings for him, at least, were far less complicated. She was just furious at him.

Of course, because nothing ever could go smoothly, the sentries turned out to be zombies, filling the tunnel with the sounds of teeth chattering. Dante took the three of them out with ease, but Banzai was determined to continue forward, kneeling down to pick the lock that would let them in.

[not_every_mage]

Anders hung back until it was clear, staff at the ready, before catching up with Kathy at the lock.

"Sorry I'm not living up to the Anders in your head," he said caustically, tossing his hair over his shoulder. "What would he say about your complete determination to throw your life away? I'm sure it's incredibly moving."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh, nothing much," Banzai said as she fiddled with the pins inside the tumbler. "Mostly because he doesn't think I'm going to throw my life away. He has this weird belief in me--I think they call it trust?"

She went quiet for a moment, focusing on the lock. And when she spoke again, her voice was very, very quiet.

"And even if he doesn't trust me to know what I'm doing, he knows the best way to help doesn't involve tearing me to shreds."

He didn't sound like her father when she spoke to her.

[not_every_mage]

"I do trust you," Anders said, just as softly. If Kathy was talking to him like she didn't loathe everything about him, he'd do the same for her.

"I don't know, maybe I'm being stupid. It just seems to me like there's a big difference between a few thugs in Baltimore and whatever we have on the island, and an army of zombies. You're acting like it's all the same, and it isn't, and that scares me. And when I get scared, I get sarcastic. But that doesn't mean I suddenly hate you or think everything you're saying is silly or -- whatever you're hearing."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, instead you just let Dante gut me and used that to bend me over a barrel and demand I kidnap my family instead," Banzai reminded. "You'll have to explain to me how that's better. I ran off in tears and what did you do besides increase my minibar tab?"

She wanted to hear that he'd bitched at Dante for being so cruel. She would have paid good money to hear that he'd done anything of the sort. But from the way they'd acted, she was pretty sure all he'd done was agree.

It would be a long time until the phrase Saturday morning cartoon did anything but burn.

The lock clicked as the last pin got pushed. Banzai rose, and tried to open the door. It started to move, then got caught on something. "Did they build a barricade?" she asked. "Maybe that's why we can't hear anything." She stepped aside next to Anders, figuring that Dante was the best chance to shoulder the door open. "We're coming in!" she called. "We're here to help!"

[not_every_mage]

If Kathy would just stop moving, Anders would have had plenty to say to that. Like how it stung to have an olive branch slapped out of your hand like that. Like how he didn't know what a minibar was, and how when Dante was the only person standing by him in this entire universe that outweighed whatever nasty thing he had said using a cultural reference Anders barely understood. Or how he'd only mentioned kidnapping her family because she'd gone into a poor-me rant about them first. Or how they'd both gotten to this point because no matter what they said, she wasn't listening -- it was like they were talking to a brick wall. (Honestly, Anders was almost sure he'd known brick walls who were capable of more reflection and honest assessment of danger.) Or how if he was acting strangely, it was only because she was, too, and it was hard to be steady on shaky ground.

He was starting to think that as much as he was falling for Kathy, the Banzai Los Angeles knew was as much of a shithead as any other hero at the diner. Maybe she put a different personality on with the code name.

But she wouldn't stand still, so he couldn't say anything of the kind. Instead, he sighed expressively and moved the witchlight to illuminate the crack in the door. "Can you see anything?"

His tone had gone business-like. Banzai was a temporary ally, nothing more. Maybe when they got home he'd be able to talk to Kathy again.

[spin_kick_snap]

Banzai couldn't stand still; not for something like this. They had all of forever to talk about what was happening between them--or, at least, all of an entire bus ride over to Koreatown. Whatever portion of it wasn't devoted to trying to figure out how to convince her parents she wasn't crazy and this was a thing that was happening. But the people down here--they'd been trapped behind this door for days. How was she supposed to stand still when there were people who might need help?

"I can't see anything," she said, trying to peer into the crack. "Just shadows, I think. I can't even tell if they're moving or the light is."

She pulled Anders out of the way to let Dante shoulder his way through, heart sinking as he called back that there was a hall filled with zombies. For a moment, just a moment, the expression on her face was as hurt and vulnerable as any she'd worn the day before. She'd been hoping to save people, dammit. "There were a hundred people here, easy," she whispered. "There were children..."

[not_every_mage]

It wasn't that Anders didn't want to help the people. He liked helping people! It was just easier for him to do it when he wasn't in the middle of a serious argument with his ... whatever Kathy was.

Not that it mattered. The news of zombies had driven those thoughts form his mind, anyhow.

"Blessed Andraste," Anders swore, peering over Kathy's head to see for himself. "Is there any way anyone is alive in there?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't know," she said, struggling to pull her composure back together. She reached out and squeezed his hand before she had any idea what she was doing. "I hope so."

And then she was cursing in multiple languages, taking refuge from fear in anger. She'd nearly finished when she saw what the door had gotten stuck on; a mostly-eaten body that had likely been trying to get the door open to flee. That wound her back up again, adding about another thirty seconds to her diatribe and a whole other language to the mix.

"If there are any survivors in hiding, stay there!" she called out. "We're here to help! We'll be securing the area and then we'll let you know if it's safe to come out!"

Odds were looking grim there was anyone left alive in that place to hear her. But on the off-chance there was, she was going to give them some hope, dammit. If there weren't, however, she'd just gotten every zombie's attention for nothing. Oops.

Whatever, she was blitzing inside at full-speed, already tracing out a trajectory in her own head. "Kindly don't shoot me!" she yelled. "Or hit me with magic!"

[not_every_mage]

"I'll work left to right, you work right to left," Anders hollered back. "And don't jump in front of my staff."

It wasn't a great battle tactic, but it was what he could come up with on the fly. The speed Kathy moved with made things trickier; she could be in his way before he knew it.

He decided to stick to using ice, since there was less chance he'd accidentally murder Kathy that way, and began freezing --

don'tthinkaboutthemaspeopledon'thinkaboutthemaspeopleDON'TTHINKABOUTTHEMASPEOPLE

...oh maker that was a little girl, skin green with rot, all vacant eyes and bloody gashes under her cartoon t-shirt. Anders froze her and was grateful the sheer number of enemies made it hard to feel anything at all.

[spin_kick_snap]

And this was why Banzai had gone to the trouble of catching them first. Because she couldn't not think of them as people without confirmation that they were truly dead and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

She didn't seem to be suffering from that issue any longer.

Whatever other discord was between them didn't get in the way of them fighting together. Banzai did as he'd said, staying to the left as much as possible. She practically danced on the air and where she touched down, zombies fell like rain.

Vault. Back thrust kick. Roll. Kick. Flip. Split kick. Snap-snap. Crouch. Sweep. Leap. Spin kick. Snap.

Ice and bones crunched under her hands, feet, and assorted weapons. She mowed through the zombies and they couldn't even touch her, grasping at the air that she'd occupied only seconds before. This was her element.

[not_every_mage]

Anders found a strange kind of beauty in her deadly ballet, in the precision of her muscles and the height of her leaps. And then he wondered if he was sick to find it beautiful.

He didn't fight as elegantly as she did, but he kept casting spells, and the few zombies who slipped past Kathy unfrozen got hit hard with the end of his staff until they stopped moving. There was a strange kind of thrill to watching lumbering bodies turn to ice at a flick of his wrist.

Eventually he saw no more motion in the hall, and let his staff fall to his side. He looked down and saw he was covered with gobbets of bloody flesh, and wondered how he'd ever feel clean.

"Banzai?" he called. "Are there more?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't--" Banzai began, then quieted when she heard a noise. A noise that wasn't the constant chattering of teeth that had threatened to drive her mad.

A noise that was human.

"Did you hear that?" she asked, whirling around. "I heard something--someone! There's someone still alive in here!

[not_every_mage]

"I heard it," Anders nodded. "Hard to believe, but maybe someone hid."

Or maybe someone was crying out as they slowly died. Hard to tell. He crept closer to the wall, head tilted as he tried to track the source of the noise.

[spin_kick_snap]

It was a little girl. Banzai found her, wedged deep in what had probably been a maintenance shaft before it had been turned into a community. It had taken a bit of maneuvering to ease the little girl out, which was probably why she'd managed to survive. Hard to say how long she'd been hiding there; she was hungry, dehydrated...and infected.

"Oh," Banzai said, voice catching as she saw the bites on the little girl's legs. "Oh no." She was feverish and pale, except for two spots of bright color in her cheeks. Her skin was waxy with fever blisters around her mouth. Even without the bites spelling her death, she'd die without medical intervention soon. "Anders!" Banzai cried, holding the little girl out to him. "Please! You have to be able to do something!"

What good was magic healing if they couldn't save this little girl?

[not_every_mage]

"Let me see," Anders said, moving as fast as he ever did as he went to kneel by the girl. He shifted to ease her head onto his lap -- it seemed wrong for her to be on the filthy floor.

He murmured to himself as he checked the girl over. He didn't know if he could heal a zombie bite -- healers couldn't do anything about the blight -- but she was still breathing, and where there was life, there was hope. At the least he could try. (And if it didn't work, maybe Kathy would finally acknowledge this was futile.)

"We're trying to help you," he told the girl, not sure whether she could even hear him. "You'll be fine."

And then he gave the healing all he had. His eyes closed and his skin went pale as the girl's fever blisters shrunk and her bite marks faded to scratches. It didn't entirely feel like a normal healing: Whatever had caused this, it was fighting back against him and hard.