sigelphoenix

Title: Long-Distance Communication
Characters: Sae and Gunnar
Warmakers Adventure: 14
Word Count: ~1,200
Summary: The Guardians are chased out of Tokyo by devils. Gunnar and Sae have a chance to talk. Both things are pretty scary.
Notes: Much of this fic was co-written in an email RP with ratzeo, Gunnar's player, and involves a minor retcon of what happened during the adventure.

Sanctuary was too much to hope for, it seems. The Shibuya Catholic Church may have offered the Guardians shelter, and world leaders may have exhorted humanity to aid the Guardians in their quest. But all their human aid could not stop the devil invasion that tore into Tokyo and tracked them down to the church.

Their best offer of protection comes from Father Jiro, who stands to face the pit fiend invading the church, while the Guardians escape with the police escort prepared to take them to Narita Airport.

Running away into the darkness, Sae thinks bitterly. She hates running; she wants to do something against the devils attacking them. Instead, they're leaving an old priest to face their enemy, trading his life for theirs.

Once the Guardians emerge from the church's back exit, they see a line of SUVs ready to transport them - along with a line of devils ready to thwart their escape.

Hamatulas, Sae realizes with a shudder. Still, they're something tangible to fight, and she doesn't hesitate to move forward and defend the cars while her teammates pile into the cars.

Once the others are in, Sae rises out of her defensive crouch and sprints toward the nearest one, sheathing her scimitars as she goes. Gunnar is only a few meters ahead of her - once he's in, everyone will be relatively safe inside. Now, just to make sure she outruns the hamatulas - she can probably make a jump and cover the rest of the distance -

But then Gunnar's arm whips back and reaches for her, and even though he barely turns his head back to look he grabs her wrist easily - like the hamatula grabbed me, is her first thought, and then, but safe.

Gunnar gives her arm a yank, and Sae, propelled by both her own speed and Gunnar's prodigious strength, goes barrelling forward. For a second her feet leave the ground, and Gunnar's do too, as they pitch through the open doorway. They end up in a pile on the backseat, not quite upright, and also not quite inside, before the SUV surges forward, as Kyoko wastes no time in getting them moving.

Sae clutches for balance, one hand on a car seat and one on Gunnar's arm. And thinks, this guy is built like a bear, and then, I think his knee bruised my ribs, and then realizes she's on top of him, and thinks, stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking.

She pushes herself off of Gunnar as quickly as possible, attempting to find her scimitars and her balance at the same time. Her gaze flicks over to his face, and he looks unperturbed, just slightly concerned - the same concern she saw when he glanced back at her on their way to the car. No embarassment, no ... well. Just concern.

Dumbly, she thinks, At least he pulled me in after himself, instead of insisting I get in first.

"Task at hand," she mutters to herself, and looks around the car to see about taking up a defensive position. The devils chasing them have started up a nasty tactic of teleporting onto the roof of a car and driving it off the road - it looks like their getaway won’t be smooth.

Gunnar hoists himself out of the sunroof and onto the car itself, making a harness for himself by sacrificing a seatbelt. Fortunately for Sae, this leaves the sunroof open for her to get a look outside. It also means that she and Gunnar don't have to sit together inside the car.

As the police transport rushes the Guardians away from the devil-infested church and toward the Narita Airport, it seems all the kids have a similar thought: screw the rules, we're contacting our parents. Sae can see her teammates in the car below busily dialing their cellphones, and Reika in the car in front of her own, doing the same.

The text message alert plays on her own phone, and Sae temporarily sheathes one of her scimitars in order to read the message. It's from Reika: "Calling Mom & Dad," it says. She nods to herself, puts away the phone, and reassumes her guard position in the open sunroof.

Through the rear windshield of the car ahead, Sae watches Reika as she dials again, this time to call their parents. It will be the first time the Yanagisawas have heard directly from their daughters in months.

What must they think of us? she wonders. Surely they wouldn't have believed the lies of UNARMED's propaganda machine. But what do they think of the truth? Do they believe that their children are superpowered dragon-fighters? Have they heard the recent news, about Team Alpha being heroes?

I wonder ... I wonder if okaasan is impressed that I'm a Guardian.

"Aren't you going to call? Your parents."

It takes Sae a moment to place the question as coming from Gunnar. He looms above her, crouched on the roof of the car. She stares at him in surprised silence, as if he has suddenly lost the ability to speak Japanese. He looks at her inquisitively.

Ichiro has cast some sort of spell on him that makes Gunnar almost twice his normal size, but that's not what Sae finds odd. Gunnar rarely says anything that isn't about either battle tactics or safety concerns. Why is he asking? Sae wonders. Does he actually care if I call my parents?

"Why do you care?" she says.

Then stops. Hears the words that came from her mouth.

"Uh," she says.

This time she stares at Gunnar in paralyzed silence, while she tries to get her brain to actually form words that aren't stupid or rude. Any chance a hamatula could teleport onto our car right about now?

"I mean ... she's ... Reika's calling ... um."

How about now?

"Do you have ... are you going to call anyone?"

"Can't call. If one of the hamatulas teleports onto the other car, I have to shadow leap over before it can blow a tire."

Being ten feet tall does not make Gunnar less imposing.

"Right, yes, hamatulas." Devil killing, that's an easier topic. Gunnar is focused on that, and at least that is what is making him curt, rather than him being offended or hurt by what she said. "And you can call them once we're safe in the airport."

"Maybe. But I can watch both cars now while you call. Since you can't watch both cars, you may as well take advantage of it while you can."

He keeps crouched over the roof of the car, staring ahead at the vehicle Rex is driving.

Sae scowls. They're both facing forward, so Gunnar can't see her face. She drops her left scimitar and draws her pistol, readying it against any devils that might approach outside of her reach - hers, though not Gunnar's. "Or we could both just do our jobs," she says, putting a little emphasis on the our.

She sighs to herself. Why do they always end up like this? She shoots a devil looming in the darkness to relieve some tension. "Thank you for the offer," she adds, careful to keep her annoyance out of her voice.

Gunnar doesn't reply, and Sae is glad that she is supposed to be facing forward, watching for devils - so that she doesn't need to look back and see his face, see what he is thinking of her.