Kendra tried to steady her breathing, as she slowly roamed around the Nox living room, her tight black dress squeezing her form to the point of near suffocation. She could see Savage merely two feet away, chatting it up with some doctor from the Asylum. He almost looked like a normal man in this setting. Smiling. Laughing. Joking. It wasn't surprising that all these people could be fooled so easily.
But Kendra wasn't fooled. She knew better. He was a monster that could easily kill her without breaking a sweat. He'd done it enough times, anyway.
Being in the same room as him made her itchy, as if her skin was trying to peal away. Inside her stomach there was a knot the size of a golf ball slamming against her abdomen like a rabid animal.
Carter had slipped out of the room a few minutes ago to check out a mysterious door in the back of the house. Kendra was walking around the party, making sure Savage didn't notice that Carter was snooping through the psycho's things.
She couldn't help but to feel over exposed, her chest completely bare in the little death trap this time line called a dress. Normally she wouldn't complain. Low cut dresses made her feel sexy, but this time was different. She didn't feel nice here, because she wasn't. Here she was some sort of object, a toy, as was suggested by the many perverted eyes that wondered over her body. If they didn't see her as a thing, they saw her as some sort of criminal or servant. (Which she discovered when that ignorant blonde woman tried asking her to fill her glass of campaign.)
"Your husband must be a fool to leave a woman such as yourself alone."
Pins and needles prickled at her under her skin at the sound of his voice. It figured, the only one who thought she looked genuinely decent was the man who wanted to kill her. Vaguely, she thought the dress was beginning to cut off her circulation. Or maybe it was his voice that caused the prickling. Either way she made a mental note to have Mick burn the dress when she got back to the Waverider.
She turned to face him nonetheless, smiling even though the pins and needles made her whole body numb. "I'm tougher than I look," she told him, hoping her voice wasn't shaking too badly. "I can take care of myself."
Savage nodded slowly, moving closer to her. She took a, hopefully, nonchalant step back, rounding the snack table so that it stood between them. Kendra grabbed a strawberry from the fruit bowl, stuffing it in her mouth as though that had been her intentions all along. When Savage smiled, the rabid animal in her gut went crazy, slamming against her abdomen in a lame attempt of escape; she started scratching at her wrist, feeling as though there might've been bugs crawling on her.
He stepped around the table, only stopping when the two were inches apart. The animal snapped, desperately trying to break free of its prison cell; the itchy bugs crawled much more intensely across her skin, and the dress made her lungs collapse into her rib cage. His gaze made her feel exposed, naked, vulnerable.
"Do you believe in past lives?" he asked suddenly, his eyes briefly flicking over her bare chest. It was a small movement, but even that somehow made her feel sick. Wrong. Dirty. "Fate?"
Kendra folded her arms, like they could somehow shield her from him. Except she knew they wouldn't. They never did. "Fate is a prison," she somehow managed through the tightness in her throat. "When free will is gone, what's left?"
"Destiny." Savage smirked, and the pins and needles scattered throughout her arms, growing so intense she was forced to drop them again for fear of losing circulation. The animal in her gut had stopped trying to escape, choosing to coil up instead, twisting around her body, suffocating her right along with her dress. Kendra was frozen in her place, her bones chilling right to the core at the sound of his voice. She'd seen that look before. It was the same look he always had, right before he killed her and murdered Carter.
Kendra opened her mouth, trying to form any sort of argument, but the words caught in her throat. Fortunately, the phone rang a second later, forcing Savage to step away briefly. She breathed out slowly, when he answered the phone, relieved to have him away from her.
"Uh, guys?" Sara's voice rang in Kendra's ear, and she jumped. She had forgotten about the coms. "We have a problem. The monsters got out. They're taking over the asylum." Grunts could be heard as she spoke, indicating she was in the midst of a battle.
"Actually, make that two problems," Ray chimed in. He sounded as though he were out of breath, like he was running from something.
"Three," Jax spoke up. His voice was nearly drowned out from all the back ground noise on his end; Kendra wasn't sure what he was doing. "I just got jumped by some crazy cop. I think he wants to turn me into one of those things, so it's a safe bet he's working for Savage."
"Yikes," Ray muttered. It sounded like he had stopped running, but he was still slightly out of breath. "I was just gonna say that Chronos is on the beach. Oh, and Dez is shot."
"I love how that's an after thought," Deserey complained. Kendra heard her grimace in pain. Vaguely, Kendra wondered if she was running while she was hurt. Though it was probably more likely that Ray was carrying her. He just seemed gentlemanly that way.
"What? No, it's not. Besides, Gideon can probably fix you," Ray protested.
"Whatever," Deserey said, and Kendra could tell she was rolling her eyes at the optimistic man. She almost smiled at the thought.
"Looks like you were right to worry," came Rip's exasperated sigh. (Which sounded like a puff of air through the coms.)
"Yeah," Leonard drawled out. "Sucks being right all the time."
Savage hung up the phone, returning to Kendra, the pins and needles arriving shortly after. "There's an emergency at the asylum," he told her. "We will have to continue this discussion later, my sweet Chay-Ara."
Kendra's eyes widened, stiffening. She was too stunned to try to stop him from reaching out and touching her face. (Not that she could have stopped him anyway.) The touch was rough, like sand paper. Wherever his fingers went, the pins and needles followed, intensifying to the point where they were no longer pins and needles but knives as well. Just like the knives he used to kill her. Scraping against her skin, pealing away her life force. Just like that night when he...
Savage removed his hand from her face, exciting the house with that vile smirk of his. Kendra frowned. There was a memory she couldn't quite reach. Something there that she couldn't obtain. Something, somehow, worse than murder. Something her mind was keeping hidden from her. Something she probably didn't want to remember...
Shaking her head, Kendra forced herself to focus. She pressed her hand to her ear, as Carter came into the room again. "Fourth problem," she said. "Savage is on his way to the asylum, and he knows who we are."
"...Bullocks," Rip muttered.
"The beach is closer to the house," Carter reasoned. "We'll help take care of Chronos."
"Guess that means we're going to the asylum," Leonard said.
"And Jefferson?" Martin asked worriedly.
"I'm fine, Gray. Actually, I stole a cop car. I can head over to the beach too and get Dez back to the ship," Jax told him.
"You stole a cop car?" Martin said, disapprovement in his voice.
"Relax. I'll give it back when we're done with it," Jax promised.
"Lame," Mick grumbled.
Everyone ignored the arsonist. There was no time to worry about what someone like him thought was cool and what he thought wasn't. "When you've gotten rid of Chronos, meet us at the Asylum," Rip said. "We'll need the whole team to teal with Savage's little Frankensteins."
"Frankenstein was the scientist," Mick corrected.
"Actually --" Martin started, before stopping himself and changing his sentence all together. "Oh wait. He's right..."
"No one cares!" Deserey hissed. "I'm kind of bleeding out here so if you don't mind..."
"We're on our way," Kendra promised. She didn't miss the worried glances Carter was shooting her; he had obviously noticed how shaken her small chat with Savage had gotten her. But she ignored him, opting to hurriedly leave the Nox house and take to the sky, her wings sprouting from her back as she went.
{~}
When Chronos attacked, Ray grabbed Deserey and made a run for it. It would take the bounty hunter a while to free himself from that pile of sand Dez had put him under, so Ray figured they could get at least a few feet away in the mean time.
Ray sat her down, after their talking with the team. Jax and the hawks would arrive soon. They'd be fine. Deserey winced, as he placed her under the tree. She'd lost a lot of blood. (Ray's sprinting across the beach probably didn't help much either.) Her face was pale, as she clutched on to the wound; she gritted her teeth. Though, for the most part she didn't seem like getting shot was that much of a bother for her. Just pissed.
"Just stay calm," Ray told her, crouching next to her. "Jax and the hawks will be here soon."
"I know," Deserey grunted. "I was on the coms too, dumby."
"Oh yeah," Ray said awkwardly. He'd been in such a rush to assure her everything would be okay that he'd nearly forgotten about that. "Well, we should probably get something to wrap that up." He nodded at her wound.
She winced, sitting up, her face contorting awkwardly. Blood seeped from the wound, spilling onto the ground and dying the sand red. Ray shifted, nervous that she'd wind up hurting herself even more. "Yeah," she managed. "No shit, Sherlock." Deserey groaned with every movement, Ray flinching at the noise. He looked around for something he could use to patch up the wound, but he couldn't see anything. Panic settled in, and he froze up. He couldn't have someone else die on him. He couldn't screw up again.
Deserey ripped her pants leg off, tying the fabric around her waist. It was almost like she'd done it before, which Ray found weird because she'd said that she hadn't done any hero work or anything before. Therefore, she wouldn't have been in a position where she'd have gotten shot before. Ray shrugged the thought away, deciding not to worry about it right then. She laid her head back, leaning on her elbows, closing her eyes and cringing in pain.
Ray opened his mouth to say something comforting, but before anything could come out, a red laser slammed into a tree behind him. He jumped to his feet, turning to face Chronos. The bounty hunter marched towards the two slowly, menacingly.
"You have your suit right?" Deserey breathed out, clutching on to her side.
"Uh..." Ray said. "Well..."
Dez sighed. "You have got to be kidding me..."
"I didn't think Rip would appreciate it if I lost any part or it again," Ray said sheepishly. "Besides, I wasn't really expecting to get attacked by Chronos!"
Chronos was a mere two feet away now, his gun aimed directly at Ray's chest. Deserey struggled to stand, wincing as blood seeped through her make shift bandage. Ray frowned as she stumbled, and he grabbed her shoulders to steady her. "Well, any bright ideas, brain boy?" she wheezed. The blood loss was starting to get to her...
Ray glanced at the temporal bounty hunter, mind racing. It wouldn't take much for him to kill the both of them. All he really had to do was pull the trigger. (Duh.) Ray could tell he was on the verge of doing so too, but something was stopping him. Maybe, he thought, just maybe he could figure out what it was. He glanced at Chronos's gun, before looking back at where his face would be under the helmet. "You don't really wanna kill us, do you?"
Deserey snorted, leaning against Ray weakly. "That's your brilliant plan? Talk him out of it?"
Ray shrugged. "Worth a shot..."
Deserey laughed lightly. "I'm too tired to argue with you, brain boy..." She closed her eyes, and Ray started to panic. He shook her lightly, but she wouldn't open her eyes again. "Dez! Dez!"
Ray took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Jax and the hawks would get there soon. She'd be fine. She'd be fine... He just had to keep Chronos distracted. Turning back to the bounty hunter, Ray noticed he was still standing in front of him, stalk still. He couldn't see his face from under the helmet, but something about his stance made Ray think he was frowning, like he was actually considering his words. His gun lowered an inch or two. Not much, but it was enough that the scientist had noticed it. Somehow Ray had reached him...
"I'm right, aren't I?" Ray said. "You really don't want to kill us."
Chronos didn't say anything in response, but from the way his head tilted to the side, Ray could tell he was hearing him. He felt a small spark of excitement ignite within him. "You don't have to kill us," Ray told the hunter. "I don't know if the Time Masters are threatening you or whatever, but the Waverider is near by. You can come with us. We can --"
Chronos interrupted him with a snort. "You don't even know who you're talking to. And you think you can help me?"
Ray shifted Dez in his arms, frowning worriedly at her, before facing Chronos again. "Yeah," he said, somehow sounding more certain about it than he felt.
"You can't help me," Chronos hissed. The voice modulator in his helmet mangled his voice as he spoke, and Ray realized that he hadn't yet heard what the man's real voice sounded like. (Because that was all he was under that armor. A man.)
"Just because I don't know your real name doesn't mean I can't help you," Ray said. "Although, that would probably help a little..."
"No," Chronos said. "You can't help me, because I'm already --" He cut himself off, abruptly ending his sentence. Ray frowned.
"What?" he asked. "You're already what?"
But Chronos stayed silent. Whatever he was about to say hung in the air, leaving Ray more confused than ever. He wanted to push the subject more, but before he could ask any more about it Dez went limp in his arms, making him stumble slightly. "Look, we can at least try to do something for you, right? There has to be something we can do. But if you don't let me leave, she's going to die. So, let's go to the Waverider and let Gideon --"
Chronos scoffed, his voice sounding even more hostile than before. He raised his gun again. "You don't really want to help me," he growled. "You just want to save her."
"No!" Ray insisted. "Well, yeah. But I also --"
"You can't save her," Chronos said. "Or me. You never could."
Ray frowned, looking at the bounty hunter even more confused than before. "What do you mean?" The more they talked the more confused Ray became. He didn't understand anything the other man was saying. It didn't make any sense.
"Forget it," Chronos scoffed, and Ray got the feeling he was rolling his eyes under that helmet of his. "It doesn't matter now, does it?"
Ray stared at him, feeling as though he was missing something big. Something obvious. He frowned again, trying to put the pieces together, but it seemed as if the puzzle was impossible to solve. Nothing fit together the way they were suppose to. "Who are you?"
Chronos ignored him, curling his finger around the trigger. He was seconds away from pulling it. Ray was running out of time. He shifted Dez again, staring directly at the bounty hunter. "Come on. You just said it doesn't matter," he reasoned. "And if you're going to kill me anyway..."
"...Stop trying to stall," Chronos snapped.
Ray grinned sheepishly, giving him a one armed shrug. Chronos didn't look very amused. Ray still couldn't see his face, but he got the feeling he was getting pretty annoyed. Which could either be very bad or very good. Depending. He wasn't sure what kind of villain Chronos was. (Was he even a villain? Just because he was aiming a gun at him and shot Deserey? Okay, maybe that was pretty villain like...)
Chronos was about to pull the trigger, Ray was sure, but before he could, Kendra and Carter slammed into him, sending him flying across the beach again. In the same instance, Jax pulled up in his stolen police car. The younger man pushed the back door open from the driver's seat. "Get in!" he yelled at Ray.
Ray didn't hesitate. Carefully, he placed Dez in the back seat, before climbing into the vehicle himself and closing the door. Jax immediately sped forward, the hawks taking the the sky once more, flying above them. Ray glanced behind them once, looking for Chronos, but he couldn't find him. He felt a sinking feeling in his chest. "Sorry," he muttered, even though he knew there was no way the bounty hunter couldn't hear him at this point.
{~}
Betty was a pretty blonde girl dressed in a typical fifties flowery skirt and dress shirt. She had smooth, pale skin and gorgeous blue eyes. Her hair was pinned back modestly, and she wore nice, shiny shoes. The girl had been with Jax, when he had been attacked, and he had not yet had a chance to drop her off somewhere safe. As a result, she had ended up on the Waverider with the five Legends.
Currently, she was standing in the center of the medical wing, marveling at all the future technology as Ray set Deserey down in the nearest chair, wrapping the cuff around her wrist so that Gideon could heal her. (Thankfully, the AI said she was still breathing and could easily be saved.)
"This is amazing," Betty muttered, smiling softly, as she gazed around.
Jax nodded slowly, watching her apprehensively, as Dez's wounds slowly began to heal themselves. "Yeah," he said, "but we're kind of not suppose to mess with the time line so, uh..."
Betty jerked her head upward in understanding, holding her hands up. "Your secret is safe with me."
Kendra, who had been standing stiffly in the doorway, shifted so that her hands were on her hips. She wore a blank expression on her face, like someone who lacked feelings. Jax wasn't sure what it was all about, but he decided not to ask. "We should go after Savage soon," she said. "Gideon, is Dez going to be okay?"
"She will be fine, Miss Saunders," Gideon announced, her voice ringing throughout the room. Betty laughed lightly, astonished by the talking computer. But she quickly grew serious again, realizing there was something more dire going on.
She looked at Jax, as he and the others were exciting the room. "You'll bring Tommy back won't you?" she asked. Tommy was her boyfriend. He was one of the missing teens Savage had experimented on. Jax nodded curtly at her, as the others headed for the cargo bay.
"We'll do our best," he promised. Then, he followed the others out of the time ship.
I was gonna keep going, but it's been like - what? - four weeks? Much too long of a wait. I am so sorry. I just kind of...struggled with this...It took me forever to figure out how I wanted this thing to go, and then classes started up again so I had to attend those. College classes are super exhausting too, you know? So, that took up even more time...And I'm just so frustrated at myself for not getting this up sooner...But better late than never right?
Next chapter we will finally get out of the 50s. (I know I said that would be this chapter, but I just didn't feel like putting that fight scene in here. So...meh.) And we'll learn some things about Kendra that will make Savage seem even more deranged. So, that will be fun, I hope...
Also, sorry if the thing with Ray and Chronos was disappointing... I really tried. I was gonna do something else, where there were like two Chronoses and some timey wimey stuff...But I figured that was too confusing, so I changed my mind. And that sort of made me feel...meh, because I had to figure some stuff out but...I think it's easier this way. So, hopefully the scene you got was fulfilling enough for y'all.
Anyway...