paixaorpg | Attempting to find a place for the night [Complete]

Character(s): Raiden
Content; In which Raiden decides to take Sora up on his offer and see if he can crash at Cid's. Cause, y'know, a guy's gotta sleep.
Setting; J7, stumbling his way to the front of Cid's shop
Time; Sunday - late night
Warnings: None

His feet hurt. In fact, they were killing him with all this goddamn walking and Raiden's already sore temper had soured considerably since his encounter with Rayne. The fact the nanomachine-induced headache decided to come in full force didn't help matters and he trudged on by sheer force of will alone. Thankfully he hadn't gotten to the whining stage yet, but he was getting there. When you spent almost two days straight walking around and the only company was a bunch of lunatics (over half of which seemed to be women), it tended to wear on the old nerves.

The FOXHOUND operative wasn't quite sure what to make of this Sora guy, but he had a good feeling about him (weirdly enough), despite his previous interactions with the other non-locals. Call it a positive gut feeling. Despite the fact they'd only communicated briefly through these PDAs, Raiden felt for some reason that Sora was someone to be trusted.

That said, he could probably trust Sora on that offer of a place to crash for the night, although he wasn't entirely sure about this "Cid" character.

To be truthful, Raiden was reasonably - and rightfully so! - apprehensive about meeting new people at this point. So far every person he'd met had some measure of Crazy about them, to varying degrees, and half of them seemed to like fighting with each other or trying to pick fights with him. He would just like to get through one day here without getting tackled, insulted or having something insanely stupid shoved into his face.

All three preferably, but even one would work.

Just one hour of actual normality. That's all he asked for. It couldn't be that hard, could it?

"Guess this is it," Raiden muttered, consulting the PDA. He eyed the shop dubiously. It didn't look like much, but he couldn't complain if it was a place to stay.

Whatever happened, he was going to crash somewhere; at this point, even the ground was looking mighty inviting right about now.

With that in mind, Raiden pushed open the door to Cid's shop...

"Hello?" he ventured cautiously, hand hovering over his M9. You couldn't be too careful these days.

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From behind Raiden came a strange noise; it was almost like someone was pressing their tongue to the roof of their mouth and blowing-- a mock-purr sort of noise that first crescendoed, and then descrescendoed. The noise repeated several times over...

Right beside the building there was a white, glowing being. It seemed to be some sort of fox, but it was obvious the thing was no ordinary animal; it posessed several whip-like tails and whispy strands of fur all around its neck, almost like a mane. Although it wasn't the largest creature-- about the same as a medium-sized dog-- it was definately majestic. Its fur was pristine white and eminated a soft blue glow in the night, while its muzzle, eyes, paws, and tails shone yellow.

Slowly, it turned its head in the direction of the man who slipped into the shop, and rose to all fours, slowly striding, cautiously, after him.

Raiden was about to venture further into the store (it seemed empty so far), when he had a strange feeling that he was being followed, as if something invisible was pricking at his neck. It had been like that for the past couple of minutes, but whatever it was, it felt closer. Not taking any chances, the young FOXHOUND operative whirled around, his M9 out, the tranq gun's safety released for good measure. He backed up so he was against the wall, watching the door.

Footsteps outside and the door was pushed inward.

Raiden cocked the M9, started to go through the typical "hold up" sequence and stopped, his gun lowering for a second in surprise as the intruder entered. It...looked like some kind of fox, but not like any he had ever seen before, real or extinct depictions. It seemed to be atually glowing and looked more like a living, moving crystal statue than a real animal. That thought brought the M9 back up.

"Freeze!" he barked. No knowing if it could understand him, although in this place, it just might.

The strange noise was emitted again and the creature slowly ventured forward, apparently heedless of the gun in the man's hands; perhaps it did not fear being shot, or it simply didn't understand what it was. It was difficult to tell with animals; their faces were so void--- this one's, especially.

It stepped toward him and then sat quietly before him, tilting its head up and staring curiously. One ear flicked. How cute was that?

Raiden lowered the M9 again, frowning thoughtfully at this bizarre creature. It didn't seem the least bit afraid of him, staring up at him curiously with its head cocked, an ear flicking lazily. Still keeping his distance, Raiden sized the animal up. It didn't look very big, so it probably couldn't hurt him too much if he got attacked. He had to wonder if it had rabies.

Hopefully not. By 2009, rabies was pretty much just a fairytale in the United States, but here, anything could go.

You're wearing a Skull Suit, Raiden reminded himself. Chances are if it bites, it won't be able to puncture it. You'll be fine.

Warily, he holstered the M9, staring down at the little beast. It reminded him almost of that puppy Rose kept bugging him to buy her. Well, except for the fact it was actually glowing - that was more than a little freaky, but compared to the other weirdos he'd run into so far, this was bordering on the normalish side. Hoping this wasn't going to be a stupid move, Raiden got to his knees, moving slowly so he wouldn't spook the dog/fox/glowing thing and provoke it into attacking him.

Raiden stretched out one gloved hand slowly, holding it out in order to let the creature sniff at it.

The creature tensed up a moment but then relaxed. Its glowing eyes blinked curiously at the outstretched hand... and then its tiny paws took it closer, enough to indeed sniff it a few times.

Its jaws parted slowly, revealing tiny little jagged teeth. But rather than using its maw against him, it slowly flexed out its tongue--creepily, a long and snaky, forked-appendage that glowed as well-- and licked his hand a few times.

It was warm. Very warm.

Despite the glove separating them, Raiden was surprised to find he could feel the warmth of the creature's tongue through it. He managed to keep his hand out rather than drawing it back, still startled at the forked tongue - no mammal should have anything like that. At least it wasn't attacking him, so that was a point there. It seemed to be remarkably tame, as if it was comfortable around humans or hadn't been around them at all. Puzzling over this, Raiden kept his eyes on the thing.

"Don't suppose you can tell me just what the hell you are," he said out-loud, feeling a little foolish for talking to an animal. Somehow it felt like the right thing to do. There was definitely an intelligent look in the creature's eyes.

The thing froze for a moment at the sound of his voice and looked up at him. It's eyes seemed to, somehow, begin to gently pulsate the light that they gave off. It bowed its head slightly but kept its blank gaze focused distinctly on the man-- and then suddenly, without warning, its jaws parted and it attempted to abruptly BITE the hand that it had previously allowed to pet at it.

The lumen didn't know it's tiny teeth probably couldn't penetrate the strange clothing that the man wore, but regardless it tried to shake its head almost violently, apparently quite set on digging its fangs into his skin.

The second he saw the animal start lunging at hm, Raiden tried to pull his hand out of reach - he managed to get his fingers away but now the glowing creature was currently trying to worry his wrist, the small teeth trying and failing to puncture his Skull Suit, although that didn't seem to deter it from damn well trying.

Making a big note to himself not to touch the glowing wild animals, Raiden tried to figure out how to get this thing detached. He couldn't exactly go around with it hanging off his wrist and he didn't really trust sleeping in the same building with it inside.

The thing continued to shake its head violently, keeping its deathgrip on Raiden for quite a while before suddenly-- apparently, it had some sort of epiphany. It released him, gave a predatory snarl, and then darted off out of the door, and apparently out of sight-- emitting some strange, high pitched noise of displeasure.

If Raiden looked at his hand, he'd find that on the spot that he had been almost bitten, there might have been the slight indent of teeth marks-- but for sure, it was covered in a strange fluorescent blue goo.

DEFINATELY don't touch the wildlife.

Holding his bitten wrist, Raiden got to his feet and closed the shop door hurriedly. He was lucky - it didn't look like the animal had punctured his Skull Suit, but he'd definitely have bruises. Upon closer examination, he noticed that where the thing's mouth had been there seemed to be a luminous blue slime.

Ugh, so maybe he had been right and this was this version's thing of rabies. Admittedly he knew jack and shit about rabies, but animals leaving glowing ooze behind probably was never a good sign. Raiden tried wiping it off with his other hand, but it seemed to want to stick, smearing around reluctantly. He'd probably need to get water - that or take off the Skull Suit entirely and get it sanitized.

This just heading to his headache, Raiden approached the counter. He couldn't see anyone inside, but there did look to be a door leading to other rooms beyond the front.

"Hello?" he ventured.

It didn't look like anyone was here at the moment. Deciding to just go with the flow (for once), Raiden found the stairs and trudged up to the second floor. His head still buzzed with that headache and he was extremely annoyed to find that blue slime from the animal bite on his arm had solidified in the space of only a few minutes - it resisted any attempts to even so much as scrap it off.

Deciding to give up for now, Raiden flopped down on the unoccupied bed in the small room. He was asleep within seconds.

Attempting to find a place for the night [Complete]

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