Limbo City, Friday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

Today's therapy appointment had spent awhile talking about Kathy's anxiety triggers (shocking no one, she had A Lot) and had left her wound up. So wound up, in fact, that rather than throwing herself into the first taxi she could find and riding white-knuckled to the guys' place, she'd actually braved both the cold and her fears of Limbo City to walk home. Not to explore or to try to get more comfortable, but just to try to work some of that extra jittering energy off.

Which of course meant that she was so far in her head that she didn't realize that she'd taken a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood until it was far too late. All the signs were there; she should have recognized them immediately from her time as Banzai - though with the addition of a lot more deep gouges in the buildings and concrete.

It was the sound of trash cans falling over as she passed an alleyway that got her head out of the clouds, and the almost-feline howl had her anxiety taking a backseat to the adrenaline getting dumped in her blood. She reached behind her to her backpack of weaponry she carried with her whenever she visited Limbo City, keeping her eyes locked dim confines of the alley. Maybe it was just a harmless old alleycat?

A pair of lambent eyes opened in the darkness, easily at height with her chest and each one roughly the size of her fist. Okay, not an alleycat then. One of those animalistic demons Dante called Rages. She was pretty sure that he classified them further, but the taxonomy didn't immediately come to her.

The Rage did, dashing out between the buildings at a speed that she'd have to sprint to match.

A snap of her wrist and her telescoping baton extended. The Rage pounced at her and she pivoted to the side, away from those grasping claws and slammed the baton upwards with full force. Something in its face cracked and the thing yowled in pain and fury. The baton wasn't going to kill the creature, but Kathy was loathe to take out her gun and shoot it; this was the middle of the city and a stray bullet could hit someone. Her Thundaga materia was still attached to her bokken, which was tucked away in her bag and all of her knives required her to get a lot closer than she really wanted to get.

Fuck, of all the times to miss Banzai's rope darts. Maybe she'd have to get a new set - a real set, not made from repurposed gymnastics equipment.

The fight was ugly and brutal, with Kathy basically bludgeoning the Rage with her metal baton, aiming for thinner bones and joints to try to take it down even if she couldn't take it out - or at least convince it that there was better prey elsewhere until she could get a minute to call Dante and have him deal with it. A lucky strike had the tip of her baton smashing into the Rage's eye and it howled; a noise loud and shrill enough to make Kathy's ears ring.

And, right before the heavy weight hit her back and knocked her to the ground, that was when she remembered that Rages usually belonged to a mated pair and where one was, another would surely follow.

The pavement shredded her jeans and the palms of her hands and her head bounced off a rock hard enough that stars burst behind her eyes. The Rage of top of her was even bigger than its mate; she could feel the heavy weight of it on her back, the claws pricking through her jacket and into her skin, smell the rancid tang of old meat on its breath. Her hand inched towards her shoulder, all concerns about shooting gone for the moment now that survival was on the line, and she swore she heard malice in the low growl the demon loosed in her ear.

And then the weight was gone, shouldered off of her by a blur of gray and brown and white. Snaps and snarls added to the yowling cacophony; dazed, it took Kathy a minute to make sense of what she was seeing. A large dog, filthy and matted with ribs showing, had flung itself into the Rage and had managed to wrap its powerful jaws around the demon's throat. The Rage was hissing and clawing at the dog, but there must have been terrier in the mix somewhere, because the mutt refused to budge, shaking the Rage like a rat to try to snap its neck. Ignoring her own wounds, Kathy pulled herself back up to her feet and dashed over to help. She didn't trust her aim enough to not hit the dog, so she went for a knife.

Together, they finished the second Rage off, the first one fleeing back into the depths of the alley. Kathy had no intentions of following and, from the looks of it, neither did the dog. She turned to it, noting he still had a tattered collar on, though he looked like it'd been on its own for awhile. "You okay, boy?" she asked, cautiously holding her hand out for it to sniff. The dog whined and limped forward, its back paw drawn up and a bloody hole in the skin, but still licked her hand.

That was good enough for Kathy. "C'mon, boy," she said, and scooped him up in her arms. He was heavy and almost as big as she was, and he stank, like trash and dirt and blood, but he'd come to her rescue. She wasn't going to leave him behind. "Let's get you home."

[Mostly establishy, but open for phone calls and/or the guys whose house is about to get a surprise guest!]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

Home was a house in the center of town, where one white haired 19-year-old was rifling desperately through a few cabinets.

"Meow!"

"I'm working on it, I'm working on it," Dante growled. "Fuck, where'd we leave your food--?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Home was a place of safety with soap and running water and antiseptic and bandages for both canine and human - hopefully, anyway. Possibly not, considering the residents. That was a bridge Kathy would cross when she came to it, which would be after she was able to put down about a hundred and fifty pounds of dog which, by the way, ow her arms were sore.

She got to the front door and realized that getting out her key would mean putting down the dog. And putting down the dog probably meant not picking him back up because, again, ow.

So she was just going to...kick the door a little. And lean on the the doorbell. And hope one of the guys answered it before she fell over into a filthy, bloody heap.

Ding dong

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante blinked. "Who'd be ringing the doorbell? We're not in business yet," he told Blondie. She meowed at him again, and with a sigh, he dropped a chunk of lunchmeat on the floor before he stomped over to the door.

It swung open. "Hey, if you're looking for a toil-- Kathy!"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy half-tumbled inside, the dog's mass nearly overcoming her balance. "I'm okay," she said, carrying the dog into the living room and looking for a place to set it down. Okay, not on the couch. The ghost of her mother would rise of up and throw a tantrum the likes of which the afterlife had never seen. "Where should I bring him? Kitchen?"

Sorry, Dante; the hyper-clarity of the fight had turned into a foggy mess of exhaustion somewhere around five blocks from here.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Let me get a blanket, take him to the bathroom," Dante said, pointing in that direction as he dashed across the living room to find... blanket, blanket, blanket-- there, a big fuzzy blanket tucked away in a closet.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy staggered towards the bathroom, about three inches from the end of her rope, but clinging determinedly to those three inches, dammit. "We're gonna get you cleaned up and checked out," she murmured to the dog again, the same litany she'd been telling him the whole trek back. "You're gonna be okay and then we're gonna see about getting you back to your people. I bet they're worried about a good dog like you. I would be. Nobody wants to lose a hero dog."

The dog's fluffy tail tick-tocked, batting her in the face, which didn't make the journey to the bathroom much easier. "S'a good boy."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante showed up in the bathroom moments later, tossing the blanket out onto the floor, making sure there was plenty of space. "C'mon, you can put him down now..."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I can?" Kathy asked, blinking at him. And then she shook her head, which did really unpleasant things for that headache she'd been nursing since her skull hit the ground. "Oh. Yeah. I can."

She was pretty sure trying to set the dog down would just result in her dropping him, so she knelt on the edge of the blanket and placed him on it. He whined as she let go and Kathy had to fight the urge to pick him back up.

"Sorry, pupper," she said. "I've got noodle arms." They protested being raised up to pet him, but she was willing to make sacrifices and under the dirt, his ears were silky smooth.

Hi, Dante. Your girlfriend and her new friend were a pair of bloody, filthy messes. Kathy looked like she was going to tip over at any minute and the dog smelled like, well, filthy dog, and they both looked like they'd tangled with a whirlwind made of claws.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Okay, you need to go find Anders," Dante said quietly, looking up at her. "I think he hasn't left for the clinic yet? But I'm not sure."

[spin_kick_snap]

Dante, why were you making her go on another impossible journey? Hadn't she just finished one?

"For the puppy?" she asked, not bothering to move. Moving was a thing other people did. "I don't know if he uses his powers on dogs. Even ones that saved me." She wrapped her arms around the dog's neck, wrinkling her nose at the smell. "He's a hero dog. Better hero than anyone in LA. Even me."

...Getting a little off-track there, baby girl.

[rebelseekspizza]

"For both of you," Dante said, squatting down next to the dog. "It's that or call a vet, and I trust Anders more."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Me too," Kathy said, nodding. "I trust Anders more than anybody in the whole world except for you. And Raven. And Dad. Eliot-Dad, not Dad-Dad. In Dad I trust." She looked back down at the dog. "'In Dog I trust' works too because 'dog' is an anagram of 'god'. I trust this dog. He's a good dog."

The fluffy tail tick-tocked again.

"See? He agrees." Beat. "This isn't me being dog-sexist, again. He's definitely a he."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I can tell," Dante said wryly. He got up to snag a washcloth off the sink, soaking it under the tap. "You wanna take a deep breath, Kat?"

[not_every_mage]

Upstairs the shower turned off, and a blonde 20-year-old with wet hair peered down the stairs, frowning at a new sound.

"Is that a dog I hear?" he asked.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy looked up at him, arms indeed full of dog, both of them bloody, disheveled, and filthy. "He's not a dog, he's a hero," she informed him. "And also a dog. A hero dog. He saved me." She was trudging up the stairs, because Dante had told her to bring him to the bathroom and following orders was about her speed at the moment.

[not_every_mage]

Anders obediently moved out of the way so she could get into the bathroom, wrapping his robe more tightly around his waist.

"What happened?" he asked, looking her over. "Maker, that looks like it hurts."

[spin_kick_snap]

"There was a pair of the scary cat-porcupine-demon things on my walk home," Kathy said, giving him a grateful look as she lugged the dog home. "The ones Dante call Rages? They sorta ganged up on me here until this fella evened things out."

Sorta. That was the positive view of it, anyway. But Kathy wasn't quite ready to admit to having been knocked prone with a Rage on top of her yet.

[not_every_mage]

"So this dog is a hero," Anders said, looking moderately impressed as he crouched to scratch him under the chin. "We should at least get him cleaned up as a thank you. Are you going to be all right?"

His stomach was twisting despite the relative calm of his words. Kathy was skittish enough about LC, and for good reasons; being attacked by demons could only make it worse.

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's what I've been saying!" Kathy said happily. "He's a hero dog." She beamed at Anders, pleased he saw it her way, right down to the need to get this guy cleaned up as a thank you. "Would you, umm, ever consider using your powers on a dog?" she asked. "He's got a nasty hole in his rear leg from a talon and it's making him walk funny. Dante bandaged it, but you're better."

Kathy had bounced her head off a rock and the nasty headache - and lack of brain-to-mouth filter - suggested a concussion, but she figured she'd rather get the dog fixed up first. After all, he was the hero.

[not_every_mage]

"I have absolutely no idea whether it would work," Anders admitted, tilting his head to get a better look at the leg. "I don't see why it wouldn't, but I've never seen a mage work on an animal."

He glanced up at Kathy. "You're sure you don't want me to take care of you first, anyhow?

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head, winced, and brought her hand up to rub the side of her head. "Nothing an aspirin and some bandaids can't fix if you tire yourself out on him," she assured him. "But he's been living on the street, so who knows what other things he might be dealing with besides the obvious? You take care of him and then if you're still good to go, take care of me, too?"

[not_every_mage]

"We might need to take him to a vet," Anders mused. "I can deal with a lot, but fleas aren't on the list."

He ran his hands along the dog's flanks, feeling the jut of its ribs but few obvious problems until he got to the wound. The dog whimpered a bit but calmed quickly at the touch. "Stay still," he said, and tentatively tried to heal the gash the demons had left on the dog.

The healing ... didn't feel different, anyhow?

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm disappointed elfroot isn't also a flea cureall," Kathy told him, letting herself sink to the floor with a small groan. Her whole body hurt - muscle soreness, not actual injury. "But he's got one of those flea collars on him, see? It's beat up like his other collar and I think maybe it's too tight for him, cause all the fur's been rubbed away there. So hopefully he doesn't have many blood-sucking passengers on him if any."

And they had flea and tick shampoos and pills with their pet stuff that Kathy had every intention of borrowing to use on the hero dog while he stayed with them.

"Oooh, look, I think he's doing better now. He's putting more weight on his back leg."

[not_every_mage]

"Ghoul's Beard is, but I've never figured out how to grow that here," Anders told her, and let his eyes flutter open as he felt the last surge of healing energy flow into the dog. "I think -- "

Whatever he thought, it was being interrupted by solid thump from the hero-dog's tail, and a series of joyful yips.

"I think it worked!" Anders said, over the din.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy leaned over and wrapped her arms around him. Reaching was painful, but he was worth it. "You're a hero, too," she told him, before offering a kiss.