![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Under peaceful conditions, the warlike attack themselves
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,865
Characters/Pairings: Rachel/Quinn, Santana/Brittany
Previous: Part 3
Summary: Invite Angela Lansbury to a party, there'll be a murder. Invite Quinn Fabray to a party, there'll be a supervillain attack.
For the big night, Quinn put on her fancy gown. She wanted to look nice for once, really impress Rachel. Then she stopped at a picture she'd taken of Finn. She sat down with it, curled around its place in her lap like she was holding a baby, and when Kurt appeared in the glass's reflection, it almost wasn't a surprise.
"Ooh, nice shot. I think you caught his good side, he looks almost thoughtful."
Quinn closed her eyes. Kurt's voice just circled around her.
"Can we be honest, Quinnie? He was never what you wanted. Why do you think I tried to take him away from you? No, you wanted to be liked, loved, respected, feared…"
Quinn opened her eyes. There he was. Kurt Hummel. The Prom Queen. His impish face set above a femininely tailored suit, eyes sparkling with malevolence. She rose up from her chair with an uppercut, but it passed through his head like he was air.
He was air, nothingness, her imagination. Kurt Hummel was locked up.
"You found a way to project yourself," Quinn said. "Or you've made yourself intangible or I’m going… how’d you do it?"
Kurt marched through her apartment and all she could do was follow him with his eyes. "I didn’t do anything. You’re doing this to yourself, hon."
"I’m not!" Quinn replied. "I'm not crazy, I'm just… I just need…"
"Quinn."
Finn's voice. It'd been so long since she'd heard his voice. He ran up to her and grabbed her arm (it'd been so long since she'd felt his touch) but his fingers passed through ("Just when I was having fun…" Kurt said) and Quinn reached for him but her hands passed through.
"Quinn, listen to me…" Finn said, his voice so firm and confident. She wanted him to tell her what to do. She wanted him to tell her anything.
His mouth kept moving, but all that came out as a dull whine. Like a bad TV signal.
Kurt could speak. He did. "This double standard of yours is very belittling, Quinn Fabray. How can you be so happy to see him, but all you give me is the back of your hair?"
"You were never gone." Quinn turned her back on both of them. "You're not dead! You're not a ghost!"
"That's funny, because I certainly feel dead. You left me feeling that way."
"I didn't kill you," Quinn insisted.
Kurt didn't circle back into her vision, but she could hear his voice in both ears, a whisper. "It's what you wanted, Fabray."
"I want a lot of things."
When Kurt spoke next, he was flopped down on the couch. "Like Rachel?" he asked, sprawled out.
Quinn spun around to face him, but he was gone.
Before she left, she changed into her casual business suit, the one she'd last worn at her high school graduation. It still fit, mercifully. She put on jewelry, took it off, settled for a nice bracelet and simple stud earrings.
***
Santana stopped brushing her teeth. Something about her reflection was different. Too much make-up, too little… She pressed a finger against her cheek. Harder. The skin sunk in for a brief moment before cracking like desert ground. She jerked away, slipped, caught herself on the towel rack.
The sudden motion left something rattling in her pocket. First things first. She grabbed a Band-Aid from the medicine cabinet and covered up the crack on her cheek (underneath, something green). Only then did she fumble in her pocket, pull out a bloody dog's collar. The tags had been jingling together.
Her trip to the basement and back was halting. She had to maintain control with each step. When she pulled two bags of ice from the freezer, it was a little better. She could make her way back up the stairs without cramping. But when she saw herself in the bathroom mirror, the cracks had progressed outside the bandage, like a chisel had been taking to her. Underneath flaps of hanging flesh was glossy green skin.
She poured the ice into the bathtub and borrowed into it, turning on the cold water tap before she disappeared completely.
***
Sam got home dreading a talk with Santana. She'd been different lately. Off. The sex was great, but he'd gotten used to their relationship coming to an end. He'd been Vagoogling some nice ladies at the office and now she was clinging to him, resuscitating their relationship. Now it was like Frankenstein's monster. Just… staggering around.
Still, the sex was great.
Her car was in the driveway, but she didn't greet him when he came in through the door. Good; she'd been a little suffocating for the last few days. Then he walked through the house and didn't find her. No dinner in the oven, nothing. He went upstairs and only then did he notice the water dribbling down the steps. Bathroom. He went there and had to force the door open. The tub was overflowing, one pale hand hanging over the edge.
"Santana!" He grabbed onto it and pulled, his only thought to get Santana out.
The skin came off like a glove, strings of pus and blood coming off with it, a nauseating sound of ripping before the disembodied skin dropped to the floor.
"Jesus," Sam said as he looked into the bath. The water was tinged red… all the water was tinted, bloody, covering the floor and running out into the hall. Something that could only be skin floated on the surface. Underneath, Santana. Something like Santana.
Her eyes opened. Yellow, slit-pupiled. A crocodile's. Irrationally, he pulled the shower curtain closed. Through it, he saw the silhouette of Santana as she rose, thinner, crueler, like a blade. Her movements were too stilted to be human.
Sam reached for the curtain again. Santana moved in a flash, smashing open the ventilation window above the tub, crawling through the impossibly narrow opening with a sickening sound of bones contorting.
All Sam could think to do was turn the faucet off.
***
The observatory took up most of the Worth Building's roof, architecturally squaring the circle. There were a few meters' worth of clearance between the dome and the roof's parapets. The base of the observatory was a ring of glass windows with rolled-up shutters. If Quinn had looked at them, she could've seen her reflection, her silhouette reduced to just another figure among the buildings of the skyline.
She'd had a fine time. Met Rachel, drove her a ways, ate at the buffet, listened to the band. But it was so much more comfortable being alone. Just for a few minutes, looking out at the city, down at the rivers of light that made up the streets. It reminded her of when she'd first become a superhero; the joy of ascending the city and looking down at something no one else could see.
She leaned back, hands on the guardrail, letting herself just hang before pulling herself back.
"So is this a private pity party or can anyone come?" Rachel. Of course. She hadn't been an arm's length from Quinn through the whole party.
Quinn looked back at her. She actually looked great, a turquoise evening gown floating down to her knees and assuring anyone with eyes that she didn't need to lose a pound. It made Quinn feel a little shabby in her Hillary Clinton ensemble.
"Private," Quinn answered. "Or are you not familiar with the concept?"
Rachel's hands rocketed to her hips. "Miss Fabray, this is a party. Let's dance. Find you someone to dance with. Whatever."
"I hate dancing."
Rachel grabbed her hand and pulled, not really physically, more of an insinuation. "I'll have enough fun for both of us, come on."
When Quinn didn't budge, Rachel let her hand go. Then she leaned on the railing beside Quinn. Quinn scoffed, thinking they must look like honeymooners on a cruise ship.
Rachel looked out at the city, taking it in a way Quinn couldn't imagine doing. "It all looks so peaceful from up here, doesn’t it?"
"Yeah. It’s an amazing illusion."
"So I Googled you the other night," Rachel started again.
"You could at least buy me dinner first."
"You're more of a columnist than an investigative reporter. So what are you doing here? You should be writing this at home. Unless you just want to get outside, which is good…"
Quinn stopped leaning against the railing. Turned. "Do you know what my column was about?"
"Superheroes. Yeah, I liked it. What I could read of it, I mean, you have to be a member of the Daily Corner website to read them all…"
"I can't write that stuff anymore." Quinn crossed her arms, white-knuckling her hands on her shoulders. "The nobility of the superhero, the righteousness of the average citizen rising up against evil. It's bullshit. You think they make a difference?"
"Yes, I do. A superhero saved my life once." Rachel smiled dully, like it wasn't a painful memory.
Quinn wouldn't ask. She wouldn't. So she just took off her blazer and put it around Rachel.
"Just because your agent thinks you have a layer of protective blubber doesn't mean you won't freeze to death this high up," she said, cinching the jacket snugly around Rachel.
When Rachel wouldn't respond, Quinn decided to walk away before she could. She'd get her jacket back later.
Shit, there would have to be a later, wouldn't there?
Quinn mentally damned it to hell. Rachel could keep the jacket. It looked great on her anyway.
Inside, the good doctor Corbeau was still lecturing on his podium. The observatory was large, sparse, still waiting to be gummed up by the detritus of day-to-day work. The platform in the center seated the telescope and dominated the room, a staircase leading up to it.
"Now," Corbeau was saying, "the Conway Observatory has the honor of hosting the first telescope devoted to the study of cosmic radiation. With this new refractor..." He gestured to a crystalline device straddling the main telescope like an engine in the next Fast & Furious movie. It had lowered out of the telescope at his words. "We can finally filter through all of the electromagnetic spectrum."
Quinn raised her hand and barely waited for him to call on her before asking "Doctor, if your machine can distinguish between cosmic radiation, wouldn’t it be able to replicate it as well?" Her high school science courses hadn't been in vein.
"Yes, precisely. However, that’s largely a vestigial function. I don’t foresee any need to generate radiation…"
A scream from outside. Rachel! Quinn pivoted to see her with her hands up to her mouth in classic Hitchcock mode. More important was the thing that had just mounted the guard rail. Skin rough and jagged like a crocodile's. Flattened face with yellow eyes. A long, sinuous tail that twitched like a snake. A woman, by the tattered clothes.
"It's a… Reptile!" Rachel cried.
In a second, everyone was screaming, although not with the AMC poise of Rachel. In the running and confusion, no one noticed Quinn dashing out a backdoor and rolling over the guardrail.
She fell for half-a-second as she stripped down to her Cheerio uniform, then flung a ribbon up to catch the rooftop. It bungee'd her back up, over the telescope, and she landed on the other side of the roof to see the Reptile stalking toward Rachel as she screamed and screamed. It figured she wouldn't be much for survival instincts.
"Hey!" Quinn shouted, touching down, and the Reptile obligingly craned its head to her. "The Black Lagoon called. They want to know if you can make the high school reunion."
The Reptile roared… of course… and Quinn leapt at it to deliver a dropkick like an ICBM. She bounced right off, landing in the midst of the panicking crowd. She got kicked by more than a few dress shoes before vaulting back up. The Reptile chortled, exhaling condensed vapor from the slits of its nose like a mad bull.
Rachel screamed again.
"You wanna run?" Quinn yelled at her, just as the Reptile lunged and tackled her to the ground. They tumbled across the floor, plowing up more of the crowd as the Reptile tried to scratch her and she barely held it at bay. When they came to a rest, she thought she was overpowering it. Then it slithered out and around her grip, putting her in a chokehold. The next thing Quinn knew, a forked tongue was sniffing at her ear.
"Afraid…" it said, its voice an overbearingly sibilant rasp.
"You should be, suitcase!" Quinn retorted, whipping her head back to headbutt Reptile. It let go and she whirled around to deliver a roundhouse kick that sent the thing into a bank of computers. They exploded into sparks. Maybe the observatory wouldn't be opening just yet.
Quick-drawing her ribbons, Quinn cracked both, tying the Reptile's hands and feet in two pretty little bows. The Reptile just wrapped its tail around the ribbons and pulled, drawing Quinn in for a tail-whipping that sent her flying back into a trio of compressed hydrogen canisters. When her vision cleared, the legend 'Caution - Contents Under Pressure' filled her eyes.
As the Reptile charged, she knocked the bottom of a canister toward it and snapped off the cap. It went flying, bowling over the Reptile before continuing on to explode against the telescope. Quinn winced. So much for stargazing.
She picked up another one, but the Reptile leapt at her and she had to use it as a shield. Claws shredded the metal, sending streams of vapor pouring out. The thing was strong. Impossibly strong. It pushed the canister down against her throat, sending her to the ground and now choking her, the canister like a garrote.
Quinn flung her ribbons up, catching the telescope and pulling it off-course to cast its shadow on them. She tried to pull it down on top of the Reptile, but there was no air in her lungs. The Reptile was so strong and she was so weak and would it really be so bad, going to sleep like Finn had…
A piffling noise from a spray-can cut across her line of thought. Quinn opened her eyes to see Rachel holding pepper spray, dousing the Reptile's face with it, to no effect. At least she'd stopped screaming.
The Reptile smashed her with the canister, sending her flying. And so suddenly it was inexplicably, Quinn had pulled the telescope down and rolled out from under the Reptile as it was crushed. She ran toward Rachel at jet speed, lunged, caught her in mid-air and wrapped herself around the unconscious girl to protect her as they crashed through the window. They separated as they went over the edge, plummeted. It took Quinn a moment to get her bearings. The better part of her consciousness was still being strangled by the Reptile.
Then she saw Rachel, falling next to her.
It couldn't happen again. She wouldn't let it. Not to Rachel.
The ground was coming up fast, the air rushing by chilling Quinn to the bone. She threw out a ribbon to snag Rachel even as she threw out another to hit a flagpole on the side of the building. She pulled Rachel to her and let the second ribbon go taut. They arced, just missing the ground, Quinn contorting her body so they slid right between two dump trucks, then continued up until Quinn let go and they landed on another rooftop, where she set Rachel gently down.
"Don't, don't, don't, don't," Quinn chanted mindlessly, checking Rachel's vitals. Her heart was beating, her lungs were pumping, why weren't her eyes open? Was she like Finn? She couldn't be. God wouldn't do that to her twice.
Panicking beyond thought, Quinn pulled Rachel to her chest and started to sing. "As I went down in the river to pray, studying about that good ol' way, and who shall wear the starry crown? Good Lord, show me the way." The old lyrics spilled out hesitantly, softly, but as she realized what she was doing, she sang with a calm, confident fire. "O sisters, let's go down. Let's go down, come on down. O sisters, let's go down, down in the river to pray…"
Rachel stirred, groaned. Quinn's first thought was that it had worked. Then she thought of what she was doing, clinging to Rachel like a stuffed doll, especially when some beast was on the loose. It could've gotten away while she was coddling someone. Disgusted with herself, she hurriedly ascended back up to the observatory.
As she'd expected, the Reptile was gone. Quinn cursed herself as she looked around for clues; she wouldn't have much time before the cops arrived.
It looked as if Dr. Corbeau's vaunted refractor was gone, torn free of its moorings. And where the telescope had pinned the Reptile down there were still a few shreds of clothing. Quinn morosely looked through them. They were bloody and grimy, but had definitely once been a woman's blouse. And then her hand closed on something leather. Quinn held it up. A wallet.
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,865
Characters/Pairings: Rachel/Quinn, Santana/Brittany
Previous: Part 3
Summary: Invite Angela Lansbury to a party, there'll be a murder. Invite Quinn Fabray to a party, there'll be a supervillain attack.
For the big night, Quinn put on her fancy gown. She wanted to look nice for once, really impress Rachel. Then she stopped at a picture she'd taken of Finn. She sat down with it, curled around its place in her lap like she was holding a baby, and when Kurt appeared in the glass's reflection, it almost wasn't a surprise.
"Ooh, nice shot. I think you caught his good side, he looks almost thoughtful."
Quinn closed her eyes. Kurt's voice just circled around her.
"Can we be honest, Quinnie? He was never what you wanted. Why do you think I tried to take him away from you? No, you wanted to be liked, loved, respected, feared…"
Quinn opened her eyes. There he was. Kurt Hummel. The Prom Queen. His impish face set above a femininely tailored suit, eyes sparkling with malevolence. She rose up from her chair with an uppercut, but it passed through his head like he was air.
He was air, nothingness, her imagination. Kurt Hummel was locked up.
"You found a way to project yourself," Quinn said. "Or you've made yourself intangible or I’m going… how’d you do it?"
Kurt marched through her apartment and all she could do was follow him with his eyes. "I didn’t do anything. You’re doing this to yourself, hon."
"I’m not!" Quinn replied. "I'm not crazy, I'm just… I just need…"
"Quinn."
Finn's voice. It'd been so long since she'd heard his voice. He ran up to her and grabbed her arm (it'd been so long since she'd felt his touch) but his fingers passed through ("Just when I was having fun…" Kurt said) and Quinn reached for him but her hands passed through.
"Quinn, listen to me…" Finn said, his voice so firm and confident. She wanted him to tell her what to do. She wanted him to tell her anything.
His mouth kept moving, but all that came out as a dull whine. Like a bad TV signal.
Kurt could speak. He did. "This double standard of yours is very belittling, Quinn Fabray. How can you be so happy to see him, but all you give me is the back of your hair?"
"You were never gone." Quinn turned her back on both of them. "You're not dead! You're not a ghost!"
"That's funny, because I certainly feel dead. You left me feeling that way."
"I didn't kill you," Quinn insisted.
Kurt didn't circle back into her vision, but she could hear his voice in both ears, a whisper. "It's what you wanted, Fabray."
"I want a lot of things."
When Kurt spoke next, he was flopped down on the couch. "Like Rachel?" he asked, sprawled out.
Quinn spun around to face him, but he was gone.
Before she left, she changed into her casual business suit, the one she'd last worn at her high school graduation. It still fit, mercifully. She put on jewelry, took it off, settled for a nice bracelet and simple stud earrings.
***
Santana stopped brushing her teeth. Something about her reflection was different. Too much make-up, too little… She pressed a finger against her cheek. Harder. The skin sunk in for a brief moment before cracking like desert ground. She jerked away, slipped, caught herself on the towel rack.
The sudden motion left something rattling in her pocket. First things first. She grabbed a Band-Aid from the medicine cabinet and covered up the crack on her cheek (underneath, something green). Only then did she fumble in her pocket, pull out a bloody dog's collar. The tags had been jingling together.
Her trip to the basement and back was halting. She had to maintain control with each step. When she pulled two bags of ice from the freezer, it was a little better. She could make her way back up the stairs without cramping. But when she saw herself in the bathroom mirror, the cracks had progressed outside the bandage, like a chisel had been taking to her. Underneath flaps of hanging flesh was glossy green skin.
She poured the ice into the bathtub and borrowed into it, turning on the cold water tap before she disappeared completely.
***
Sam got home dreading a talk with Santana. She'd been different lately. Off. The sex was great, but he'd gotten used to their relationship coming to an end. He'd been Vagoogling some nice ladies at the office and now she was clinging to him, resuscitating their relationship. Now it was like Frankenstein's monster. Just… staggering around.
Still, the sex was great.
Her car was in the driveway, but she didn't greet him when he came in through the door. Good; she'd been a little suffocating for the last few days. Then he walked through the house and didn't find her. No dinner in the oven, nothing. He went upstairs and only then did he notice the water dribbling down the steps. Bathroom. He went there and had to force the door open. The tub was overflowing, one pale hand hanging over the edge.
"Santana!" He grabbed onto it and pulled, his only thought to get Santana out.
The skin came off like a glove, strings of pus and blood coming off with it, a nauseating sound of ripping before the disembodied skin dropped to the floor.
"Jesus," Sam said as he looked into the bath. The water was tinged red… all the water was tinted, bloody, covering the floor and running out into the hall. Something that could only be skin floated on the surface. Underneath, Santana. Something like Santana.
Her eyes opened. Yellow, slit-pupiled. A crocodile's. Irrationally, he pulled the shower curtain closed. Through it, he saw the silhouette of Santana as she rose, thinner, crueler, like a blade. Her movements were too stilted to be human.
Sam reached for the curtain again. Santana moved in a flash, smashing open the ventilation window above the tub, crawling through the impossibly narrow opening with a sickening sound of bones contorting.
All Sam could think to do was turn the faucet off.
***
The observatory took up most of the Worth Building's roof, architecturally squaring the circle. There were a few meters' worth of clearance between the dome and the roof's parapets. The base of the observatory was a ring of glass windows with rolled-up shutters. If Quinn had looked at them, she could've seen her reflection, her silhouette reduced to just another figure among the buildings of the skyline.
She'd had a fine time. Met Rachel, drove her a ways, ate at the buffet, listened to the band. But it was so much more comfortable being alone. Just for a few minutes, looking out at the city, down at the rivers of light that made up the streets. It reminded her of when she'd first become a superhero; the joy of ascending the city and looking down at something no one else could see.
She leaned back, hands on the guardrail, letting herself just hang before pulling herself back.
"So is this a private pity party or can anyone come?" Rachel. Of course. She hadn't been an arm's length from Quinn through the whole party.
Quinn looked back at her. She actually looked great, a turquoise evening gown floating down to her knees and assuring anyone with eyes that she didn't need to lose a pound. It made Quinn feel a little shabby in her Hillary Clinton ensemble.
"Private," Quinn answered. "Or are you not familiar with the concept?"
Rachel's hands rocketed to her hips. "Miss Fabray, this is a party. Let's dance. Find you someone to dance with. Whatever."
"I hate dancing."
Rachel grabbed her hand and pulled, not really physically, more of an insinuation. "I'll have enough fun for both of us, come on."
When Quinn didn't budge, Rachel let her hand go. Then she leaned on the railing beside Quinn. Quinn scoffed, thinking they must look like honeymooners on a cruise ship.
Rachel looked out at the city, taking it in a way Quinn couldn't imagine doing. "It all looks so peaceful from up here, doesn’t it?"
"Yeah. It’s an amazing illusion."
"So I Googled you the other night," Rachel started again.
"You could at least buy me dinner first."
"You're more of a columnist than an investigative reporter. So what are you doing here? You should be writing this at home. Unless you just want to get outside, which is good…"
Quinn stopped leaning against the railing. Turned. "Do you know what my column was about?"
"Superheroes. Yeah, I liked it. What I could read of it, I mean, you have to be a member of the Daily Corner website to read them all…"
"I can't write that stuff anymore." Quinn crossed her arms, white-knuckling her hands on her shoulders. "The nobility of the superhero, the righteousness of the average citizen rising up against evil. It's bullshit. You think they make a difference?"
"Yes, I do. A superhero saved my life once." Rachel smiled dully, like it wasn't a painful memory.
Quinn wouldn't ask. She wouldn't. So she just took off her blazer and put it around Rachel.
"Just because your agent thinks you have a layer of protective blubber doesn't mean you won't freeze to death this high up," she said, cinching the jacket snugly around Rachel.
When Rachel wouldn't respond, Quinn decided to walk away before she could. She'd get her jacket back later.
Shit, there would have to be a later, wouldn't there?
Quinn mentally damned it to hell. Rachel could keep the jacket. It looked great on her anyway.
Inside, the good doctor Corbeau was still lecturing on his podium. The observatory was large, sparse, still waiting to be gummed up by the detritus of day-to-day work. The platform in the center seated the telescope and dominated the room, a staircase leading up to it.
"Now," Corbeau was saying, "the Conway Observatory has the honor of hosting the first telescope devoted to the study of cosmic radiation. With this new refractor..." He gestured to a crystalline device straddling the main telescope like an engine in the next Fast & Furious movie. It had lowered out of the telescope at his words. "We can finally filter through all of the electromagnetic spectrum."
Quinn raised her hand and barely waited for him to call on her before asking "Doctor, if your machine can distinguish between cosmic radiation, wouldn’t it be able to replicate it as well?" Her high school science courses hadn't been in vein.
"Yes, precisely. However, that’s largely a vestigial function. I don’t foresee any need to generate radiation…"
A scream from outside. Rachel! Quinn pivoted to see her with her hands up to her mouth in classic Hitchcock mode. More important was the thing that had just mounted the guard rail. Skin rough and jagged like a crocodile's. Flattened face with yellow eyes. A long, sinuous tail that twitched like a snake. A woman, by the tattered clothes.
"It's a… Reptile!" Rachel cried.
In a second, everyone was screaming, although not with the AMC poise of Rachel. In the running and confusion, no one noticed Quinn dashing out a backdoor and rolling over the guardrail.
She fell for half-a-second as she stripped down to her Cheerio uniform, then flung a ribbon up to catch the rooftop. It bungee'd her back up, over the telescope, and she landed on the other side of the roof to see the Reptile stalking toward Rachel as she screamed and screamed. It figured she wouldn't be much for survival instincts.
"Hey!" Quinn shouted, touching down, and the Reptile obligingly craned its head to her. "The Black Lagoon called. They want to know if you can make the high school reunion."
The Reptile roared… of course… and Quinn leapt at it to deliver a dropkick like an ICBM. She bounced right off, landing in the midst of the panicking crowd. She got kicked by more than a few dress shoes before vaulting back up. The Reptile chortled, exhaling condensed vapor from the slits of its nose like a mad bull.
Rachel screamed again.
"You wanna run?" Quinn yelled at her, just as the Reptile lunged and tackled her to the ground. They tumbled across the floor, plowing up more of the crowd as the Reptile tried to scratch her and she barely held it at bay. When they came to a rest, she thought she was overpowering it. Then it slithered out and around her grip, putting her in a chokehold. The next thing Quinn knew, a forked tongue was sniffing at her ear.
"Afraid…" it said, its voice an overbearingly sibilant rasp.
"You should be, suitcase!" Quinn retorted, whipping her head back to headbutt Reptile. It let go and she whirled around to deliver a roundhouse kick that sent the thing into a bank of computers. They exploded into sparks. Maybe the observatory wouldn't be opening just yet.
Quick-drawing her ribbons, Quinn cracked both, tying the Reptile's hands and feet in two pretty little bows. The Reptile just wrapped its tail around the ribbons and pulled, drawing Quinn in for a tail-whipping that sent her flying back into a trio of compressed hydrogen canisters. When her vision cleared, the legend 'Caution - Contents Under Pressure' filled her eyes.
As the Reptile charged, she knocked the bottom of a canister toward it and snapped off the cap. It went flying, bowling over the Reptile before continuing on to explode against the telescope. Quinn winced. So much for stargazing.
She picked up another one, but the Reptile leapt at her and she had to use it as a shield. Claws shredded the metal, sending streams of vapor pouring out. The thing was strong. Impossibly strong. It pushed the canister down against her throat, sending her to the ground and now choking her, the canister like a garrote.
Quinn flung her ribbons up, catching the telescope and pulling it off-course to cast its shadow on them. She tried to pull it down on top of the Reptile, but there was no air in her lungs. The Reptile was so strong and she was so weak and would it really be so bad, going to sleep like Finn had…
A piffling noise from a spray-can cut across her line of thought. Quinn opened her eyes to see Rachel holding pepper spray, dousing the Reptile's face with it, to no effect. At least she'd stopped screaming.
The Reptile smashed her with the canister, sending her flying. And so suddenly it was inexplicably, Quinn had pulled the telescope down and rolled out from under the Reptile as it was crushed. She ran toward Rachel at jet speed, lunged, caught her in mid-air and wrapped herself around the unconscious girl to protect her as they crashed through the window. They separated as they went over the edge, plummeted. It took Quinn a moment to get her bearings. The better part of her consciousness was still being strangled by the Reptile.
Then she saw Rachel, falling next to her.
It couldn't happen again. She wouldn't let it. Not to Rachel.
The ground was coming up fast, the air rushing by chilling Quinn to the bone. She threw out a ribbon to snag Rachel even as she threw out another to hit a flagpole on the side of the building. She pulled Rachel to her and let the second ribbon go taut. They arced, just missing the ground, Quinn contorting her body so they slid right between two dump trucks, then continued up until Quinn let go and they landed on another rooftop, where she set Rachel gently down.
"Don't, don't, don't, don't," Quinn chanted mindlessly, checking Rachel's vitals. Her heart was beating, her lungs were pumping, why weren't her eyes open? Was she like Finn? She couldn't be. God wouldn't do that to her twice.
Panicking beyond thought, Quinn pulled Rachel to her chest and started to sing. "As I went down in the river to pray, studying about that good ol' way, and who shall wear the starry crown? Good Lord, show me the way." The old lyrics spilled out hesitantly, softly, but as she realized what she was doing, she sang with a calm, confident fire. "O sisters, let's go down. Let's go down, come on down. O sisters, let's go down, down in the river to pray…"
Rachel stirred, groaned. Quinn's first thought was that it had worked. Then she thought of what she was doing, clinging to Rachel like a stuffed doll, especially when some beast was on the loose. It could've gotten away while she was coddling someone. Disgusted with herself, she hurriedly ascended back up to the observatory.
As she'd expected, the Reptile was gone. Quinn cursed herself as she looked around for clues; she wouldn't have much time before the cops arrived.
It looked as if Dr. Corbeau's vaunted refractor was gone, torn free of its moorings. And where the telescope had pinned the Reptile down there were still a few shreds of clothing. Quinn morosely looked through them. They were bloody and grimy, but had definitely once been a woman's blouse. And then her hand closed on something leather. Quinn held it up. A wallet.
