She felt her brown hair grow in length. Her bones shift under her pale skin that started to heat up. Glowing, amber irises scanned the idyllic shopping district as the sun set on this small, New England town. And somewhere out there, a fly woman is buzzing about, ready to kill them for real this time.
Calypso had many things rattle within her head. The idea of letting this pass, this brewing and primal anger that’s fueling her partial transformation that was beginning to stop… She still has to come to grips with it. Let alone make her final choice.
Though, she couldn’t help to grin, flashing her now-sharpened teeth. At least this proved to be an excellent excuse, should the worst come to pass.
“Thankfully, this ‘Vein’ of yours is simply a straight line,” Calypso looked to Gale. She jumped in her skin, sighing afterward once her bearings were gathered. The transformation happening way too quickly for her, maybe? “But unfortunately, it’s a straight line—"
“Meaning that she’s gonna rain down those bug-pellets down at us...?” Gale asked, gaining the courage she needed at this moment.
“Precisely. But we’ve been through this—got through this. Sure she’s not holding back now, but in a short amount of time, let’s prove that we have learned something for once. Shall we…?”
Gale exhaled, putting her hands together and closing her eyes. There was a lull, a pregnant pause that followed, which confused… And admittedly worried Calypso.
“Just…” Gale began, before regaining the strength to finish the sentence. “Keep what we talked about in mind. No sudden head-eating this time, okay…?”
“…We’ll get there when we get there,” Calypso responded.
Yet again, potent and crushing silence followed after. Calypso was going to add something—say some addendum to appease her new friend, until she saw the girl suddenly had her hands clutch each other tightly.
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And as she shook, her black hair gained in length—her frame shifting slightly into a more feral build, and the smallest brambles and vines appearing out of her skin… Taking a deep breath after the changes finalized, opening her dark eyes had moats of violet shining from them.
“Not gonna do much per usual, but I can dream, can’t I~?” Gale flashed a half-hearted smile at her partner.
Calypso smiled back, her pitiful way to reassure her. “I faintly remember the place, so I take the lead… She’s going to keep aiming for me because of Melissa ‘hampering’ us and the fear I put into her. Do what you can, but this is a partnership. Okay?”
With a determined nod from Gale, the girls faced forward. Using their transformed, and now stronger legs—they darted like bullets. Waving out of the back of the clothing store, and right onto the sidewalk of the street.
The buzzing beginning to flood their now sensitive ears.
Before she knew it, Calypso turned her head towards a ground-shattering noise, and was nailed with debris for her trouble.
Rather than freak out, she moved herself and by proxy Melissa away from the crumbling blast zone. Now with a ruined, bleeding eye for her troubles, as she was forced to close it as black ichor covered her cheek.
“CAL--!” Gale screamed, for her friend.
“Fine—” Calypso managed to get out at first. “I—I’m fine, just cover me as we go, at least until my eye’s heal—”
The droning of fast-approaching insect wings cut Calypso’s thought in half.
Turning her head, relying on the sole eye, she was already too late to gauge what had happened.
A hard slam, yelping, the buzz of the enemy’s wings suddenly stopping before shuddering away. And moving away just as quickly.
Calypso’s eye settled on Gale, who was panting. Her vine-covered claws drenched in black blood, as they twitched in pain. Immediately clutching them with her other set, looking back at Calypso with a pained expression on her face.
“Man… Sad that the first time that I’ve ever hit a fly was her...”
There was no sense in dwelling on the subject, the duo resumed running down the sidewalk. And as Calypso’s eye quickly reconstituted itself, but still needed a bit more time, there was no way for her to check out what exactly happened and what exactly got ruined.
At least, Calypso thought, at least Gale getting a good hit on the enemy slowed her down. Just enough, to rush in and delay whatever shot she had lined up on them all the while. She felt her damaged eye become whole again, opening it and then blinking the blood “out” of it, now completely alert again.
Just in time for her to see a glint of something sickly yellow, which hung from the wall of a shop they only just ran past…
A cocoon by any other name--and it was on the verge of bursting.
“GALE!”