Summary:A rather upset Darkstar is hiding out in Mutant Town when the Hunter follows her, the women talk and Hunter reveals her newly acquired hybrid form as an effective distraction, but also proof of a point she made. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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In the wake of her recent freakishness, Laynia has taken some time off at work. At least SHIELD offers paid time off along with other very fine benefits, right? MUCH better than the KGB which mainly had a high caliber retirement option, and nothing else to speak of.
For the first time since her powers manifested at age eleven, Laynia is actually somewhat nervous about the Darkforce, and her counterpart there.
Regardless, having time off she's been rather systematically seeing what is going with her powers, and making some headway, but unsure of what is wrong. At the moment she's found a high perch in Mutant Town after a fairly frustrating time spent seeking what has changed and not getting anywhere. Seated in the shell of a shattered water tower on the roof of an abandoned apartment building, she is just sort of staring out at the evening sky, back to the wooden wall of the old tower, knees drawn up to her chest and arms about her knees.
There's really no warning. Laynia is sky-watching distractedly, trying to process whatever is going on behind those eyelids within that somewhat tortured mind. And then in the next second something big comes sailing up over the edge of the shattered water tower and falls right down into the bottom of the tower with a SPLASH! just a couple of feet away! Having landed in a puddle of reservoir likely gathered from recent rains and not yet evaporated, the figure's booted feet seem not to care at all. Amber-backed green eyes turn and peer at the blonde woman.
"Pollution." Hunter comments, waving her hand upwards toward the sky. "Pointless." Does she means there is no point to staring at the sky from here? Or that the starts do not resolve to points of light, here? No way to guess, frankly, as the threadbare veteran comes tromping over beside the other Russian.
Laynia's response to the sudden appearance, she *squeaks* in surprise, yup…actual squeakage right here, and then her form shivers as her costume appears and her hands are enveloped in darkforce. On her feet in a moment, she is prepared for battle and then—realizes who just scared the every living crap out of her. Also, she is dripping, having been splashed.
Once she realizes who is there, she just stares a few moments, and then starts laughing softly, helpless to do otherwise as she settles back down against her section of the wall.
"Da, but pollution also gives us spectacular sunsets?" No, she's pretty sure that does not make up for it.
"Light pollution." Diya reaffirms, watching the other woman carefully after that reaction. Come into Hunter's territory and hide out on the highest points in the city? Expect to get a visit. Surely her arrival could not have been that shocking? OK, maybe so; Hunter does tend to be a stealthy one when she wishes to be.
"Why?" the homeless wonder asks, as she stalks over and sits down beside the SHIELD agent on sabbatical.
"Da, tovarisch." Laynia says, and then spends a few moment wringing out her clothes and recollecting her cool. A moment to smile over to her friend as she sits, and then Laynia takes out a hip flask, and sips some fairly strong smelling Vodka, offering the flask after her sip. "Worried." She admits softly, not that Diya couldn't smell that on the Darkstar, her /mask/ is nearly perfect, but the scent, yeah, getting that to lie would be a neat trick indeed!
"About?" Diya asks after a bit. She feels a tiny bit bad for splashing Laynia; that had not been intentional. Still, they're seated now, relaxed and the other's heartbeat is slowing down. The scent of that worry is not abating, though.
"My powers." Answers Laynia.
She ponders a moment, seeking the right words. "You were afflicted with yours, it was not something you'd known, very stressful. This much I know. My powers, they have been a part of me since before puberty." Laynia has resumed the knees to chest arms about knees position again, and looks to the Hunter, cheek resting on her knees. "To have them perhaps become unreliable…is very…" Horrifying, frightening, torturous. "…difficult for me."
Hunter naturally seems to mimic that same pose and posture, watching the other Russian blonde. She nods to each point, seemingly understanding. She does not question. This makes sense to her. She gestures with a hand towards the breadth of this area of the city. "Mutant born." She gets it. She was not born with her powers. But she listens. A lot. And listening that much here in this place as given her a wisdom some lack the experience to gain themselves. "Second Awakening." she pronounces. Oddly, she does not seem upset by this. It is a matter of fact and reality to her.
"My powers, my other self - she saved me when I was shot." Fingers shift to just over her heart where that awful scar is. "Now…something has happened, she…she might not be well, and /I/ am possibly not well, da? She is part of me much as your other shape is part of you, your Tigress." She doesn't know about the hybrid form yet, that will be interesting hoo-boy.
She sighs then, a shrug. "I am…afraid." Which is a hard /hard/ admission for the woman. She's ex-KGB, a super-soldier, a mutant heroine with decades of field experience, and a spy. Fear leads to mistakes, mistakes lead to people dying; she's not sure what she can do.
One thing the Hunter does incredibly well is observe without interrupting. She listens. She does not speak. She doesn't even move. She may not even blink the whole time Laynia is trying to get through all of that. This is what a sniper does; her moment, her opening is arriving, and she must not spook or miss it.
Finally, Laynia admits what is going on, what she is feeling, what it is doing to her. And Diya lets that pass … before reaching out one hand and laying one finger on the other woman's knee. Then she holds up that same hand, two fingers splayed out, the rest in a fist. Two things. She waits. Got it? Two things coming.
Then one finger is raised. And Hunter offers only one word. "Weather." It probably seems about half-obvious, really; if one wants wisdom about mutant issues, see the oldest damned mutant in Mutant Town. If Weather does not know for himself, he likely knows who will.
Hunter waits until she is sure Laynia has gotten her point. Then she closes the hand to a fist, then raises both fingers again. 'Two', then, second thing. She holds up both hands, far apart. "Darkself." she offers, waving a fist. "Warmself" she murmurs, waggling an open hand. Then she brings them together, wrapping the open hand of 'warmself' around 'darkself'. A finger raised, tapping her ear. Listen. Then taps her temple repeatedly. Think. THen taps at her chest, on the left side of the mid-point. Heart. Feel.
Then Diya closes both hands, and holds them at her side. She goes almost silent, sitting there, eyes half-lidded, but there is a subsonic rumble in the air. It starts out very soft. But slowly, as minutes drag by, it grows louder. And things start to change. There are signs of ripples in Hunter's skin, like black stripes flowing like waves. Pulses in flesh, as muscles bulge. Pops and crunches as bones elongate, twist, realign, re-socket, tendons pop and tear and regrow. The face begins to almost melt and ripple, as jaw elongates, head grows in size incredibly, teeth protrude, muzzle builds and pushes outwards. It takes almost ten minutes, and when it is done Diya's boots are shredded junk, her pants are in tatters, only her jacket is big enough to - barely - accomodate this form.
This form of a ginormous humanoid tigress. "Mir." Russian for peace. "Yedinstvo." Russian for unity. That incredibly powerful, deep rumbling inhuman voice offers.
Diya has definitely got Laynia's attention. "Of course, Weather." She murmurs. It is funny, for all she often thinks to protect the people here, for all the supply runs, and the work she does in the shelters and kitchens, she forgets - indeed, is probably conditioned not to, that she can ask for help in turn. She's *part* of the Pride, not just a defender.
That's a strange feeling, and a good one.
Her brow furrows as she parses the pantomime with word accents, and nods slowly. It is when the woman starts changing, growing, morphing into that huge hybrid feline form that she murmurs. "Bozhe moi." She sits up straight at that arms still about her knees, watching with rapt attention until the massive new form appears. "Magnificent." She breathes in honest admiration. Rising, she approaches and gently touches her friend's new form, and then ponders the words.
"You think I should try to unify the two me's?"
The gigantic head - not nearly so big as Amur Khatun's, but still huge by comparison - nods once, firmly. And she does not flinch away at the touch. Hunter surely would have, or tensed up terribly. The touch against newly-changed nerves is not as pleasant as it might be otherwise, but she took things slowly enough that she is not primed to react with rage; just discomfort, and she accepts that. Feline ears swivel towards words. Magnificent is a nice word. Very nice word, almost like a pet in the shape of mouth sounds. Amur Khatun appreciates that.
The touch is actually quite gentle, Laynia has a vague inkling how keen Diya's senses are, she is pretty sure that morphing was painful, however she just can't grasp the sheer sensitivity of the woman's supersenses. How could she? Still, the feel of the fur and the strength of the body under it is remarkable. Looking up at the gigantic woman-tigrer hybrid, she shakes her head, obviously very impressed. "Is this a new thing?" She asks, her own worries forgotten in the wonder of seeing Diya's new shape.
The woman-tiger hybrid nods her massive head. Very recent. A bit over a month ago, she first transformed like this. But after that, she made it a point to try to understand it. There were some rather heated arguments with Lexi about it, and it has not been easy to master. Indeed, Diya was not sure she could do this here, unmoving. But she decided to try. And it worked. "Very." she murmurs in that basso rumble of a voice.
Wanting to get a closer look, and dwarfed by the immense twelve foot tall Tiger-Woman, Laynia floats up into the air a bit, a slow circle around mega-Diya, marveling at what she's seeing. "You are beautiful, tovarisch. Absolutely stunning." Afraid? Nope, not even a little — because she IS friends with this woman, whatever shape she wears. She trusts her and that is nothing trivial considering her life and training. Floating upwards with darkling energies and chill surrounding her, she pauses face to face, hers about three feet from Diya's. "Have you a different name in this shape? Okhotnik, Amur Khatun, and…?"
The Hunter-tiger-woman just shrugs those massive shoulders. "Nelzvestnyy." she replies. Unknown. Her tiger never had a name, until the 'blue one' (Beast) named her, and she accepted. So too, now, this self has no other name until one is given that she likes. For now, Okhotnik is good enough. She lifts her huge amber-backed green eyes to look at the floating darkforce wielder, and blows warm moist air over the other woman, smelling of the mighty musk of her fur.
Amused by the huge shoulders, Laynia floats over to one, and if permitted, settles on it a moment, legs curled to the side and a hand applied to scritching — if permitted, behind one ear. "I can only think of one name that fits - Krasota." Beauty. She crinkles up her nose in a smile as she exhaled on, she's not bothered, but it is a bit unusual. Such a unique blend of cat and woman. She /does/ seem a lot more confident than the human form Diya, and can speak, unlike Amur Khatun, though in all her forms the woman manages to communicate with some measure of efficiency.
The massive tiger-woman lets out a soft churring rumble, ear flicking a bit at the scritching and the shiver of pleasure from it. This is all pretty new to Diya's conscious mind. But she will not deny she likes it, to some extent. She's not usually one for touching - at all - but enough of Amur Khatun - her tiger - is loose in her skull right now that does not hide from it, push it away, or overreact. 'Krasota.' She considers this. Beauty? Really? This massive beast? She shrugs a bit, again. "Kak khotite." she murmurs. 'As you wish.' Apparently she is going to accept this. No one else will believe it, but so be it.