Post by ParamountKeymaster on Jan 11, 2019 13:29:41 GMT -5
"Kelsey...?"
In the dimly-lit hallway, illuminated by a backup generator with power to spare for the halls, locks and nothing else, Paul stood in front of the hotel room door, giving it another weak knock and meekly murmuring its resident's name for a third time. Like every prior attempt, he received no response, leaving him to stand there and stare distraughtly at the closed door. His gaze slowly trailed down to the phone in his hand, the lock screen displaying no new messages. Then he looked back up at the door with a heavy sigh.
So much about his present situation worried him. He was already on edge ever since he woke up to find that Kenny had disappeared again, and that feeling never truly abated even as everything else piled on top of it. He was trying not to dwell on whatever had William and Ranuen's attention at the museum; Paul trusted them to handle it and relay whatever they had learned, but he was still nervous for their sake. What concerned him above all else was his inability to contact Kelsey, especially after yesterday's conversation, and he had next to no way of knowing if her phone was dead or if she was even in her room at all. Now this business with Percy had left him borderline paranoid, wondering where both he and Kelsey were and how much they knew about what seemed to be going on.
Scott leaned against the wall with his arms folded and a flat stare trained on his brother. "Are you gonna keep staring or do you wanna bust the door down?"
Paul let out another deep breath. "I think it's safe to say she's not in there. Somehow I doubt she's that heavy a sleeper."
"Didn't even bother telling you if she was going anywhere?"
"No..."
The air escaped Scott's lungs in a huff as he started trudging down the hall. "I'm telling ya, Paul, this girlfriend of yours seems shady as hell. Between her violent intentions, irritability, reticence, and staggering overabundance of power, I think you should get out now while you still can. She has trouble written all over her."
Paul scowled at his brother's back as he stomped after him. "Okay, first of all, for the hundredth time, she is NOT my girlfriend! Second, she's in a stressful situation. We all are, sure, but she feels both responsible and obligated to do something about it. It's not like she's picking a fight with these angels purely for the sake of wanton destruction."
"Okay, sure, I can see the benefits of having that kind of power to back us up against an army," Scott grunted with a shrug, opening the door to the stairway. "But if she's going to be keeping secrets from her own allies, I wouldn't be too keen to trust her, especially considering how dangerous she seems to be."
"She's scared, Scott. It's not like she wants to go to war. She just knows she'll have to be a little ruthless in order to protect us and get herself through it. But she's scared of the danger she's gotten herself into. She's scared of hurting us in the process."
"Can't say I blame her..."
"I promised I would protect her, and by God, I'm gonna," Paul sternly continued as they stepped out into the first-floor hallway. "I... I care about her. I don't want her to suffer through this alone. Moreover, we need her. Let's be real here: Do you honestly think we stand a chance against an army of angels without the fighting force Kelsey provides? Even with Percy's n-"
BOOM
The brothers went rigid. The floor shook beneath their feet. Down the hall, emanating from the lobby, they heard a high-pitched din; Paul much more easily identified it as a cacophony of screams.
Scott remained tense as he let out an aggravated sigh. "What now?"
Then he took off running, followed closely by Paul. They stopped at the lobby entrance, remaining ducked behind the corner and peeking around the bend. Of the few people gathered in the main hall, a third of them stood stiff with panic, a third of them hid behind counters or retreated deeper into the building, and the last, brave third moved closer to the windows to view the cause of the commotion.
Just outside the window, a tremendous dark shape rose from the ground and into the sky like a malignant black tree.
"Ulharryrth..."
A mighty voice shook the hotel from the outside in, the deep, resonating bass rattling the foundations and the very atmosphere like a thunderclap.
Paul felt a deep, disturbing tension in his chest, as if hundreds of steel cables were pulling his heart in every direction. His eyes went wide. His tail went stiff. His breath caught in his throat.
"Are you in there, Ulharryrth?" the booming voice asked in a snide, taunting tone. A malicious tease under the guise of asking a friend to come out to play. The "tree" lifted itself off the ground. The earth shuddered every couple of seconds. "Come on out now. Don't be shy."
"What in the a**...?" Scott mumbled before continuing onward to investigate. Rather than step inside the lobby, he lightly padded down the adjacent hallway, making his way towards the first window he could find. Paul was frozen where he stood for a moment, claws digging into the wall, his body tense as if the heart-stopping voice had petrified him. Eventually he managed to shake himself out of his stupor and silently dash after his brother.
Scott ducked beneath the window. Paul came to a halt a few doors down and pressed himself against a wall, trying his best to stay low. As the black shape moved passed them on the other side of the glass pane, Scott cautiously raised his head to look outside.
His stern, serious expression briefly turned to one of wide-eyed, slack-jawed shock and awe.
Paul felt everything inside him clench up. Somehow, purely instinctively, he knew what was going on. Even still, he felt inclined to ask in a hoarse whisper, "What?"
Sure enough, Scott lowered himself below the window again, turned to his brother, and shot him a hard frown and a knowing nod. "Dragon."
Outside, with a slow gait and a toothy grin, Vutezoth circled the hotel building. His great, skull-like head bobbed and weaved as his rancid yellow eyes peered inside every window. The horrified reactions of the residents who looked out their windows to see an enormous black wyrm staring at them offered him only fleeting moments of amusement. His eyes were peeled only for the blue dragon man he sought.
"Oh, come now..." he crooned in a low, giddy hiss. "It's so unlike you to cower away from a challenge, Ulharryrth. Or... I believe you go by a different name now. Paul, is it?"
Vutezoth briefly interrupted his search to turn away from the building and shake his head with a flat groan and a roll of his eyes. That name... it sounded ridiculous trying to use it in an intimidating manner. He got over himself relatively quickly, resuming his search and his taunts. "If you are in there, Paul, please do us both the favor of showing yourself. I have no qualms felling this monolith to get to you."
As the dragon circled around again, the Sellers sat there stiff and mortified. Their wide-eyed stares were locked on each other as the deep, reverberant voice called out the younger sibling's name. Scott questioningly pointed to his brother, then to the window. In response, Paul shrugged and shook his head, his face full of alarm.
Although, if he was being fair, even if he consciously didn't know who this dragon was or why he knew Paul, something about him seemed familiar...
"!!!" Just barely suppressing a startled squeak, Paul scrambled across the floor and ducked beneath the window alongside Scott just as the black dragon came into view again. The shadow passed them by, the stomps circling around to the back.
Once they had a bit of distance between them and the beast, Scott sharply whispered, "We need to evacuate this hotel."
"How??" Paul whispered back. "He's gonna notice if every tenant starts pouring outta here, and I kinda stick out in a crowd anyway."
"Well, you heard him! He'll level this entire building if we don't do something!"
Paul sunk with dread, struggling to calm his breath, claws anxiously scraping at the carpet. As much as he agreed with Scott, in his panicked state of mind, he couldn't think of a feasible way to get everyone in the hotel to safety with this enormous beast looming over them. At least not without giving him what he wanted, and Paul wasn't too keen on that prospect. But... what else could they do?
A storm of emotions welled up inside Paul. Fear for his brother. Fear for the people caught in the middle. Fear for his own life. Confusion, horror, apprehension, dread, guilt, fight or flight... and strangely, somewhere deep down beneath these feelings... a white hot anger for this intruding dragon. More than that, a deep-seated hatred for the black beast. A crackling rage that dared to ask the question... how dare he show his face here? How dare he threaten innocent people in a quarrel they had no part in? How dare he challenge Paul on his own turf?
He could feel the sparks dancing along his tongue.
In the dimly-lit hallway, illuminated by a backup generator with power to spare for the halls, locks and nothing else, Paul stood in front of the hotel room door, giving it another weak knock and meekly murmuring its resident's name for a third time. Like every prior attempt, he received no response, leaving him to stand there and stare distraughtly at the closed door. His gaze slowly trailed down to the phone in his hand, the lock screen displaying no new messages. Then he looked back up at the door with a heavy sigh.
So much about his present situation worried him. He was already on edge ever since he woke up to find that Kenny had disappeared again, and that feeling never truly abated even as everything else piled on top of it. He was trying not to dwell on whatever had William and Ranuen's attention at the museum; Paul trusted them to handle it and relay whatever they had learned, but he was still nervous for their sake. What concerned him above all else was his inability to contact Kelsey, especially after yesterday's conversation, and he had next to no way of knowing if her phone was dead or if she was even in her room at all. Now this business with Percy had left him borderline paranoid, wondering where both he and Kelsey were and how much they knew about what seemed to be going on.
Scott leaned against the wall with his arms folded and a flat stare trained on his brother. "Are you gonna keep staring or do you wanna bust the door down?"
Paul let out another deep breath. "I think it's safe to say she's not in there. Somehow I doubt she's that heavy a sleeper."
"Didn't even bother telling you if she was going anywhere?"
"No..."
The air escaped Scott's lungs in a huff as he started trudging down the hall. "I'm telling ya, Paul, this girlfriend of yours seems shady as hell. Between her violent intentions, irritability, reticence, and staggering overabundance of power, I think you should get out now while you still can. She has trouble written all over her."
Paul scowled at his brother's back as he stomped after him. "Okay, first of all, for the hundredth time, she is NOT my girlfriend! Second, she's in a stressful situation. We all are, sure, but she feels both responsible and obligated to do something about it. It's not like she's picking a fight with these angels purely for the sake of wanton destruction."
"Okay, sure, I can see the benefits of having that kind of power to back us up against an army," Scott grunted with a shrug, opening the door to the stairway. "But if she's going to be keeping secrets from her own allies, I wouldn't be too keen to trust her, especially considering how dangerous she seems to be."
"She's scared, Scott. It's not like she wants to go to war. She just knows she'll have to be a little ruthless in order to protect us and get herself through it. But she's scared of the danger she's gotten herself into. She's scared of hurting us in the process."
"Can't say I blame her..."
"I promised I would protect her, and by God, I'm gonna," Paul sternly continued as they stepped out into the first-floor hallway. "I... I care about her. I don't want her to suffer through this alone. Moreover, we need her. Let's be real here: Do you honestly think we stand a chance against an army of angels without the fighting force Kelsey provides? Even with Percy's n-"
BOOM
The brothers went rigid. The floor shook beneath their feet. Down the hall, emanating from the lobby, they heard a high-pitched din; Paul much more easily identified it as a cacophony of screams.
Scott remained tense as he let out an aggravated sigh. "What now?"
Then he took off running, followed closely by Paul. They stopped at the lobby entrance, remaining ducked behind the corner and peeking around the bend. Of the few people gathered in the main hall, a third of them stood stiff with panic, a third of them hid behind counters or retreated deeper into the building, and the last, brave third moved closer to the windows to view the cause of the commotion.
Just outside the window, a tremendous dark shape rose from the ground and into the sky like a malignant black tree.
"Ulharryrth..."
A mighty voice shook the hotel from the outside in, the deep, resonating bass rattling the foundations and the very atmosphere like a thunderclap.
Paul felt a deep, disturbing tension in his chest, as if hundreds of steel cables were pulling his heart in every direction. His eyes went wide. His tail went stiff. His breath caught in his throat.
"Are you in there, Ulharryrth?" the booming voice asked in a snide, taunting tone. A malicious tease under the guise of asking a friend to come out to play. The "tree" lifted itself off the ground. The earth shuddered every couple of seconds. "Come on out now. Don't be shy."
"What in the a**...?" Scott mumbled before continuing onward to investigate. Rather than step inside the lobby, he lightly padded down the adjacent hallway, making his way towards the first window he could find. Paul was frozen where he stood for a moment, claws digging into the wall, his body tense as if the heart-stopping voice had petrified him. Eventually he managed to shake himself out of his stupor and silently dash after his brother.
Scott ducked beneath the window. Paul came to a halt a few doors down and pressed himself against a wall, trying his best to stay low. As the black shape moved passed them on the other side of the glass pane, Scott cautiously raised his head to look outside.
His stern, serious expression briefly turned to one of wide-eyed, slack-jawed shock and awe.
Paul felt everything inside him clench up. Somehow, purely instinctively, he knew what was going on. Even still, he felt inclined to ask in a hoarse whisper, "What?"
Sure enough, Scott lowered himself below the window again, turned to his brother, and shot him a hard frown and a knowing nod. "Dragon."
Outside, with a slow gait and a toothy grin, Vutezoth circled the hotel building. His great, skull-like head bobbed and weaved as his rancid yellow eyes peered inside every window. The horrified reactions of the residents who looked out their windows to see an enormous black wyrm staring at them offered him only fleeting moments of amusement. His eyes were peeled only for the blue dragon man he sought.
"Oh, come now..." he crooned in a low, giddy hiss. "It's so unlike you to cower away from a challenge, Ulharryrth. Or... I believe you go by a different name now. Paul, is it?"
Vutezoth briefly interrupted his search to turn away from the building and shake his head with a flat groan and a roll of his eyes. That name... it sounded ridiculous trying to use it in an intimidating manner. He got over himself relatively quickly, resuming his search and his taunts. "If you are in there, Paul, please do us both the favor of showing yourself. I have no qualms felling this monolith to get to you."
As the dragon circled around again, the Sellers sat there stiff and mortified. Their wide-eyed stares were locked on each other as the deep, reverberant voice called out the younger sibling's name. Scott questioningly pointed to his brother, then to the window. In response, Paul shrugged and shook his head, his face full of alarm.
Although, if he was being fair, even if he consciously didn't know who this dragon was or why he knew Paul, something about him seemed familiar...
"!!!" Just barely suppressing a startled squeak, Paul scrambled across the floor and ducked beneath the window alongside Scott just as the black dragon came into view again. The shadow passed them by, the stomps circling around to the back.
Once they had a bit of distance between them and the beast, Scott sharply whispered, "We need to evacuate this hotel."
"How??" Paul whispered back. "He's gonna notice if every tenant starts pouring outta here, and I kinda stick out in a crowd anyway."
"Well, you heard him! He'll level this entire building if we don't do something!"
Paul sunk with dread, struggling to calm his breath, claws anxiously scraping at the carpet. As much as he agreed with Scott, in his panicked state of mind, he couldn't think of a feasible way to get everyone in the hotel to safety with this enormous beast looming over them. At least not without giving him what he wanted, and Paul wasn't too keen on that prospect. But... what else could they do?
A storm of emotions welled up inside Paul. Fear for his brother. Fear for the people caught in the middle. Fear for his own life. Confusion, horror, apprehension, dread, guilt, fight or flight... and strangely, somewhere deep down beneath these feelings... a white hot anger for this intruding dragon. More than that, a deep-seated hatred for the black beast. A crackling rage that dared to ask the question... how dare he show his face here? How dare he threaten innocent people in a quarrel they had no part in? How dare he challenge Paul on his own turf?
He could feel the sparks dancing along his tongue.
