”I’ll be right there alongside you, Captain, but I’ve started remembering things… I think I have questions for some folks back home.”
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Castor and Pollux shriek like possessed crow-eating mongoose as she digs them into the side of the passing car, shredding car and clown alike.
Castra charges the clowns, hoping to disperse as many as she can before they attack again.
Feeling the foes whittle at her very life force, Castra tries to redouble her efforts.
She spins between the two balloon men, lashing out with the swords to disconnect them from the source of their air.
Castra takes a readied stance and her blades flash out again and again at the diving birds.
Castra, having convinced herself that her sisters just are unconscious, hurries after the fairy. As she does, she concentrates on the blades and feels the satisfying thrum of energy as they quicken her steps.
Castra, feeling the difference of the disappearing dampening field, throws herself into a backflip from the top of the truck, arcing over the spray of bullets from the guard that is still firing at her. Should have stayed on the ground instead of climbing up on the step for a better angle... Landing lightly behind him as he is still firing is weapon straight up in the air in a futile attempt to catch up with the elusive swordswoman, the swords flash out in a scissor motion across the major arteries of both legs...
Castor and Pollux jump into Castra's hands as she runs between the arcs of bullets, leaps onto the hood of the truck, then its roof, where she drives both blades into the device.
Likewise, the transformed Cassi slips up into the back of the personnel carrier, looking for the dampener. "Hello, ladies. Let's kick some butt and be on our way, shall we? Where's the antimagic coming from?"
"A distraction to stop them all on the bridge while the others sneak in from the sides, possibly?"
Cassi asks, in her disturbingly-calm demeanor, "What's the play, Captain?" What happened to the nervous young lady that would morph into the sword-sister before?
Cassi slides to the back door nearest Jackie. ”Jackie, would you like to come with us?”
Cassi is doing her best to look meek and unassuming despite her new memories and resulting confidence. Her eyes roam the farm, the road before and behind, and the area, looking for anything useful or interesting to their continues progress home.
In her mundane form, Cassi starts to look over the captain's shoulder, realizes a snake is eyeing her, and thinks better of it. "Not the prison sounds good. Not too interested in going to a town in a turf war or where they might gun for us to prove they deserve the throne. The Village doesn't sound exciting - might be perfect."
Castra sheathes both swords smoothly, then crouches down to sit on her heels, catching her breath. At the captain's curse, she looks up and sees their winged companion disappearing toward the mechanical sound in the distance. "Maybe she will find us a ride out of here, Captain. And not more trouble."
“You will not see me dance. I am no man’s puppet.”
Castra easily withstands the dying breath of Kurtis and attacks the forming motorcycle.
Having caused the crash, Castra is prepared for the aftermath and dodges the falling chunks of giant. She spins and twirls toward Dimpled Chad leg and hews with Castor and Pollux.
Castra, behind the behemoth Birthday Boy, times her attack, running up the giant’s calf as he steps into his pixie-clobbering strike and scythes into his hamstrings.
Castra stumbles on the debris as she attempts to maneuver and doesn't even pretend to threaten the giant. Sorry, Zindarel, hold on just a few seconds more... Zeus' throne, but that was amazing, girl, maybe I'll just watch!
Castra stands and pulls Castor from the sheath on her right hip and Pollux from the left. She whispers, "Come, boys, the time for fun and games is over. And when we get out of this, you're going to have to tell me all of the things I've forgotten..."
Castra was still working to flatter and cajole the murderers, hoping to get them at each other's throats, and was taken completely by surprise by the table flip.
"Well, look at that! Blue! Absolutely lovely - whose idea was that? Mr. Blow, was that you?"
Castra nods her appreciation of Kurtis Blow’s consideration and gives him a little smile.
"Oh, this is very fancy. Mr. Blow - may I call you Kurtis? You know how to make a girl feel special. It only lacks one thing - a door at the end of the carpet, like a Hollywood premiere. And is it Mr. Chad? Or Chad? You are quite the gentleman! Where did you get such fine manners?" She is just trying to play the lady and maybe get them a bit jealous of each other from the attention she gives each.
"Hey, I haven't been to a birthday party in ages. May we join you?" She looks around, "My, that's a big cake. Did one of you make it or can you order one from the commissary?"
“Do we have to kill everyone in the prison to get out? Zin! Hey, flygirl! Snap out of it!”
Castra starts to dart to her right, but the swords’ enhancement allows her to completely change direction and have time to get out of the way.
With her foot, Castra shoves the screaming juggler, flailing around blindly, hard enough to miss the elevator as he plummeted down the shaft. Hopping down from the beam, she follows her friends toward the clowns, casually applying her blade to the crawling Maypole Dancer as she passes. “Since college, huh? I hope they are waiting to torment you when you reach Hades’ domain.”
While the kill was easy enough, she failed to allow for the fool’s death throes. An involuntary kick completely sweeps her feet out from under her and she fails to catch the others.
The juggler shoves at Castra, but she withstands his off-balance attempt. Smiling, she balances walking backward and flings balloons, starting with one at the juggler and another at the human shuriken swooping toward the pixie.
She does her best Gatling-gun impression, spraying balloons at attacking prisoners until the balloons are all gone. And she smiles at the juggler as she draws her swords once more...
As soon as the tension starts to increase, Cassi shimmers and Castra steps forward, but too late to save the leader. Cassi's crimson headband becomes a crimson domino mask hiding the swordswoman's face. She considers the sargeant's guns, but decides the inmates are close enough - or will be - that she can use her preferred weapons. With a blade in each hand, she feels a rush and everything around her seems to slow down...
Crouching down so her butt is nearly on the floor of the elevator, she leaps straight upward (attempting to use the speed boost from the swords to effectively flight straight up) and lands lightly on the steel beam behind the juggler.
Cassi adjusts her new crimson headband and raises an eyebrow at the turn of events. She looks much more confident than she did before the voyage began.
As Cassi is reaching for the strip of fabric in her box, she is a bit taken aback when Zindarel's disappears. She cautiously reaches to pick hers up... and nothing happens. Nothing visible. But she looks at it for a long moment before she uses it to hold her hair back. It crosses her forehead, back past her ears, and disappears under her hair where she's tied a knot in it. She looks over at the captain and says, "I remember. I remember so many things that I had forgotten." The voice is not that of sweet little Cassi. It's the voice of Castra - and you realize that for as you've known her, there's been uncertainty and doubt when she spoke when she wasn't wielding her blades. You realize it because that uncertainty and doubt is gone as if it had never been. The eyes looking out of Cassi's face are those of a warrior.
Cassi steps up onto the red carpet catwalk and poses demurely before skipping towards the camera and launching into a spin that displays the voluminous skirt of the dress to full effect.
With combat temporarily stopped and less adrenaline flowing, Castra suddenly looks very tired. She sits cross-legged by the wall, swords across her thighs, knowing her friends will warn her of any threats. Closing her eyes, she takes deep meditative breaths and suddenly, tiny Cassi is sitting there instead. Opening her eyes after a few minutes, the diminutive woman looks much refreshed and stands in a single smooth motion. She dips her hand in the water, letting her fingers play in the ripples, before stripping down to step in and bathe. Since the gore was splattered on her other form, she doesn’t need the same level of cleaning, so she makes quick work of the task before wrapping herself in a luxurious white terrycloth robe that surprisingly fits her small frame well. Standing before the racks of clothes, Cassi is a little lost in all the choices. As the captain makes her selection, the smaller woman considers the ones she puts back. After the captain has settled on a lovely gown, Cassi searches for a shorter version of one of the set-aside styles (the one on the right) to fit her smaller frame. The one she finds is a deep velvety red and has a deceptively full skirt that flares out widely when she spins. Which she does repeatedly before the mirror once she has settled on it.
BOOM! All maxed!
With a shout of "This way!", Castra leads her friends toward the slowly opening south wall and dives underneath, sliding through the debris and rolling out of the way to allow the others to come through behind her.
“Come on, you fire-breathing beauty, we have more fun ahead!”
Cassi slips in some of the gore and comes up against a spinning blade, but it’s the side, not the business-dealing edge, and barely registers the rub burn it gives her. She shoves her swords through two of the blades, pinning them to the wall as their motors scream, and slips past, pulling her weapons free when she is clear.
Taking a note from the pixie’s skill at avoiding danger, Cassie lightly steps among the dripping lava and gnashing teeth. Seeing the space she’s in rapidly growing smaller, she draws the second sword and goes ginsu on the creature as she cuts her way out.
Already facing the center head-hole, Castra shoves her sword into the eye of the now-accompanying head.
“It’s not done. We need to cauterize the wounds so they don’t grow back like a hydra.”
Castra watches the captain and the pixie open with shrapnel attacks, but she has nothing of the sort. She charges through the smoke of the explosion, taking her right-hand sword in two hands and makes a leaping stab to drive it through the eye of the hooded head.
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