Resident Festival (6)

--- Maya ---

“Alright, that was Tommy.” Vi told them, as she once more hung up her phone. “It took them a while, but they managed to talk one of the cops into picking us up, now that everything is calming down.”

(About time…) Her inner child groaned, having reappeared about fifteen minutes into their waiting.

(We’re the ones being rescued; we don’t have the right to complain about delayed aid.) Her inner reason chided. (Especially since they were likely protecting the rest of our family.)

“Any idea how long it’ll be?” Izzy asked, having calmed down a fair bit now that two of her siblings were with her.

(We could’ve protected them just as easily if we’d gone out and fought those things ourselves.) Her inner passion argued impatiently.

“Probably another ten, fifteen minutes if we’re lucky.”

(Perhaps but we would’ve been endangering our sisters in exchange.) Her inner logic pointed out with some distaste.

“Can you please be quiet!” She hissed at the voices in her head, as their fighting gave her entire skull a dull throbbing pain.

Her sisters turned their attention to her. “What was that?”

“Sorry.” She grimaced. “I’ve just got a migraine… all tension and everything, you know?”

Vi nodded in understanding. “Yeah, I know. This all sort of ruined the day, huh?”

“Little bit.” She agreed, before letting her head fallback against the wall. “At the very least it’s almost over.”

“Maybe, but they usually set up a quarantine this kind of thing happens.” Vi reminded her.

“Um, how’s that work?” She couldn’t help but ask, seeing as she’d never been caught in an incursion event before.

“It’s not too bad, but they usually keep everyone at a single location for a few hours while they investigate everything. There’re a few reasons for it, like making sure they’ve dealt with all of the invaders or investigating if someone caused this mess on purpose. Stuff like that.” Vi explained.

“Someone could’ve done this on purpose?” Izzy asked, in a mix of confusion and anger at the idea.

Vi rubbed the back of her neck before sighing. “You’ve got to admit, an event this big in a town not known for it is kind of weird.”

“Yeah…” She grimaced in agreement, before remembering something. “Wait, doesn’t the Gamer’s Guild cause monsters like this all the time?”

“Um, yes?” Vi answered, though she didn’t sound all too sure about it. “But from the few videos I’ve seen online, most of those disappear with them, and they usually have this whole cyber-pixel aesthetic. You know?”

She thought about it, comparing the pixel storms of Decker’s wolves, to the bloody tears of those monsters outside. “Yeah, I think I do…”

“Still, there’s not really a point in us trying to figure that stuff out, given where we are at the moment.” Vi pointed out with a wry chuckle, that forced Maya to wince.

(Right, they aren’t masks, and I’m barely street level, while this mess is what a city-wide deal?) She thought to herself bitterly.

“Hey, there anybody here?” A woman’s voice called out, snapping her out of her thoughts and drawing her attention towards the door back to the ball pit and playset.

The three sisters looked between each other, before Vi stepped between her sisters and the corridor, motioning for Maya and Izzy to stay back as she called out a tense. “Hello?”

After a moment a brown-haired woman in a military jacket walked down the corridor, before looking the three of them over. “There you are. You three the Williams girls?”

“I, yes.” Vi admitted, not budging from her spot as she gave the woman a cautious look. “Who are you?”

“Detective Whitaker.” The woman nodded back. “Your family asked me to come and get you now that everything is starting to settle outside.”

“Right, right.” Vi nodded with a sigh of relief. “My brother said you were on the way, but I figured you’d take longer to get here.”

“Most of the Husks have been dealt with, so it wasn’t too much trouble making my way here, from the staging area.” The detective explained calmly. “That said, there are still a few Creeps wandering around. So, we should probably start making our way back, before anything happens.”

“Right. So, uh, are we going back the way we came, or just finishing out the house?” Vi asked, as Maya and Izzy made their way over.

“It’s the same distance either way given how they usually build this thing.” Whitaker informed them. “So, let’s just go the rest of the way through.”

“Right, I think they used most of the second floor for this upside-down house thing, so there shouldn’t be too much more to it.” Vi told the officer, trying to be helpful as she led the way forward.

(This whole thing probably has her stressed out…) She thought with a bit of worry.

(And you’re not?) Her inner reason asked pointedly. (This is a stressful situation.)

She didn’t want to admit to that, especially given how with her hand cannons she was a lot more confident about this situation than Vi was.

(It’s nothing to be ashamed of.)

She shook her head, as they had to crouch into a long tunnel that led into a smaller room with a slide.

“What was the point of that?” Izzy asked, as they climbed out of the tunnel. “A crouched walk, isn’t all that interesting.”

“There are small wheels and motors connected to the tunnel, if the power wasn’t out it’d probably be spinning, giving an effect like you were switching back to normal.” The detective explained, motioning to a set of boxes on the wall around the tunnel. “The odd climb up to the second floor was meant to do something similar.”

Izzy blinked, thinking about it. “Huh…”

“Either way, this tunnel should lead out to the exit hall, where another officer should be waiting in case anything happens.” The detective told them. “You three slide down, and I’ll follow you out.”

“Okay, um,” Vi looked between Maya and Izzy, before turning back to the detective. “In that case I’ll go first, and shout should there be anything wrong down there.”

“We cleared the area before I came in here, so there shouldn’t be anything in the way of trouble down there.” Detective Whitaker assured them. “Still, it’d probably be safer if you wait inside the exit hall until all of us are down there.”

“Right, of course.” Vi nodded, before climbing into the slide and making her way down.

After a moment, Vi’s voice called ‘I’m out.’ from the bottom of the tunnel.

“Okay, so uh, you next or me?” She asked Izzy, not wanting to leave her younger sister alone after all of the trouble of going to find her.

“I’ll go.” Izzy told her climbing into the slide.

“Right, just… just let me know when you get to the bottom!” She called as her sister slid away.

“Don’t worry, you three ‘ll be fine from here on out.” Whitaker assured her during the ensuing silence.

“What?”

“It’s been a bad day, and everyone’s stressed.” The detective explained. “With the way you’re holding yourself, you can see your nerves are starting to get to you.”

“I…” She started, before stopping with a sigh. “Yeah, it’s been a bad day.”

“I’m through!” Izzy’s voice yelled up the slide.

“Like I said, you three ‘ll be fine from here on out. I’ll make sure you get back to your family.” The detective promised her.

“Right, yeah…” She nodded once, not sure why, but feeling just a touch better as she got into the slide and made her way down to her sisters.

“You okay?” Vi asked with a bit of concern as she stumbled out of the slide.

“Yeah, just haven’t been on one of those in a while.” She admitted, once she had her feet under her.

“Alright, you girls okay?” A strangely familiar female voice asked, drawing their attention to a tanned officer who unlike the detective was actually wearing a police uniform. “I’m officer Garcia, I’m with Detective Whitaker. She sent you three out, right?”

Before any of them could answer, said detective made her way out of the slide, not even needing a moment to reorient herself as she took notice of the other officer. “Is something wrong, Garcia?”

The other officer shook her head. “No, just heard their shouting, and figured I should look into it given the… eerie quiet of everything else.”

Having her attention drawn back to that as the two officers led them out of the funhouse, forced her to acknowledge that, (Yeah, somehow that was less noticeable in the empty building…) with a grimace.

Whitaker nodded, seemingly unbothered by the silence as she stoically glanced around the area. “Well, in that case we should get moving before things quit being quiet.”

“Right.” Officer Garcia agreed, before turning back to the sisters. “Alright girls, you three stay close to us, and we’ll have you back with your family soon enough, okay?”

“Y-yeah.” Vi nodded back, her nerves clearly flaring now that they were back in the unnerving atmosphere of the empty fair grounds. Something that was mirrored as Izzy latched onto her arm. “Um, you said the monsters have already been dealt with, right?”

“For the most part.” Detective Whitaker admitted, beginning to move and forcing them to follow or be left behind. “There still might be one or two stragglers out here, but it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

“A-and you’re sure the two of you can handle these, these things?” Vi pressed.

(This mess is hitting her a lot worse than I thought…) Maya couldn’t help but notice as Vi began to walk just a bit closer to her and Izzy.

Whitaker’s eyes seemed to drift between Vi, Maya, and Izzy before she let out an amused huff as she continued forward. “We’re more than enough.”

(Well, someone’s confident.) Her inner passion noted.

(Let’s hope it’s well deserved.) Her inner reason agreed.

They continued on in silence for a fair while, the too quiet of the empty festival wearing at the nerves of all three of the sisters, even as Maya noted the distinct lack of monsters wandering between the various stands. Or at least the lack of living monsters, as one downed in their path testified.

(Something’s different about this one.) Her inner logic pointed out thoughtfully.

And as Maya gave it a second look she found she couldn’t disagree with the voice’s comment, as unlike the numerous zombie like creatures she’d had to sneak around over the course of the day. Largely because the one before them had much more meat to its bones, seeming closer to a muscular man than a skin and bones corpse.

Though what really drew her attention to this particular monster wasn’t it’s musculature, but rather the way that it seemed to have bits of barbed wire wrapped around it, piercing and digging into its flesh at various points around its body.

“That can’t be natural.” She found herself saying.

“You’re not wrong.” Garcia agreed, eyeing the same creature. “Though from the pictures I’ve seen it’s definitely from the same place as those other creatures.”

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Oh, uh,” Officer Garcia’s face scrunched up a bit in thought. “According to reports, sometimes if you kill a bunch of Malice Creeps too fast it’ll just draw out a stronger one from the same place.”

Detective Whitaker started walking towards the downed creature as she moved to investigate it. “You girls mind taking a few steps back for a moment.”

“Uh, sure…” The female officer nodded, stepping in front of the girls. “But, uh, what’s wrong Min? Aren’t we supposed to let Sanctuary handle clean-up?”

“We are, but this won’t take more than a moment.” Detective Whitaker assured her, drawing a knife from a sheathe at her hip.

“W-why does she need that?” Vi asked, putting a protective arm in front of Maya and Izzy.

“Uh, I-”

Whatever Garcia was going to say was cut off, as the downed monster leapt off the ground, lunging for officer Whitaker with its claws bared and a feral howl tearing through the air.

In a maneuver Maya couldn’t follow the Detective grabbed the monster and stepped out of its way, before slamming it into the ground face first as she stabbed her knife through the back of its skull.

“See not even a moment.” Whitaker nodded as she pulled her knife out of the monster.

(Okay, maybe the confidence was earned…) Her inner madness admitted, as the monster began to (burn away(?)) into cinder and ash.

“Uh, Minerva, what the hell was that?” Garcia asked with no small amount of confusion.

“What?” Detective Whitaker blinked, before following Garcia’s gaze to the dissolving remains of the dead creep. “Oh, Creeps dissolve when you kill them, it’s got something to do with the way Bleeds work compared to Rifts. Mm, something about how Malice disperses when exposed to open air? Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t notice it happening to all of the Husks up to now.”

“That’s…” Garcia seemed to grimace, before shaking her head and mumbling something about, ‘where John gets it from…’

Whitaker gave the officer a curious look before shrugging. “Then if that’s all we should get moving again.”

“I… yeah…” Garcia nodded back with a sigh.

As the group continued forward, Vi apparently found she couldn’t quite keep quiet about what just happened. “Um, I’m not the only one who found that odd right?”

“Um, a little bit.” She admitted nervously, “Though you’re supposed to kill sleeping zombies before they get up in most horror games, so I guess that applies here?”

“My, that’s not…” Vi began before visibly grimacing as she realized she couldn’t actually argue that point.

And while her elder sister found the exchange disturbing, they found their little sister to be of an opposite mind.

“That was so cool!” Izzy whispered with awe. “The way she just flipped it and killed it before it even knew what was happening, I mean come on!”

(Yeah, that was kind of cool.) Her inner child agreed.

“Alright, the staging area should just be around this bend.” Garcia called back to them as they took a turn and found a line of about a dozen police officers holding a makeshift line between the stage area and the rest of the fairgrounds.

As they got closer to the line, Maya began to hear a distant siren growing closer. “What’s that?”

“Great, these idiots.” She heard Detective Whitaker growl, as a number of military looking vehicles began to drive up to the police line, before a number of soldiers in black and white uniforms unloaded out of the back of them.

It took her but a moment to recognize the familiar crest of a sword surrounded by angel wings on the side of one of the vehicles, and on the armor of all of the soldiers.

(Sanctuary…)

“Just ignore them for now.” Detective Whitaker told them with a shake of her head as she motioned the sisters past the police line. “Let’s just get you three back to your family before anything else happens.”

As they stepped into the area around the stages, they found a number of anxious people gathered in little pockets, as they worried about everything going on. Barely audible murmurs heard here and there, as the incoming Sanctuary vehicles drew the attention of the people closer to the police line.

Pushing past these people, Detective Whitaker glanced around the area looking for something in particular, before making a gesture towards the side of the main stage. “Alright, from the looks of it your family is over that-a-way.”

Maya followed the older woman’s gaze and saw Tommy, Seamus, and her parents gathered in a worried circle.

“Mamá!” Izzy shouted taking off in a sprint.

“Thank you for your help.” Vi nodded to the detective.

“It’s no problem.” Whitaker assured her. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to go deal with…” The detective visibly swallowed whatever she was going to actually say and finished with, “Sanctuary.”

(Well, someone’s unhappy with someone else.) Her inner logic piped up carefully.

“Right and thanks again!” Vi called as the detective made their way to where a number of police officers and Sanctuary soldiers were gathering.

She was about to say something herself, when a pair of arms wrapped around her and started squeezing for all that they were worth. “Oh, mija, I was so worried about you two!”

“We were worried about you too.” She told her mamá as she shifted around to try and return the hug, noticing out of the corner of her eye as her dad had Vi in a bear hug of his own.