Rocks Fall Everyone... (Closed to Quill, Peter, and Alec)

[st_hotflashes]

Liz was, again, dressed in the leather outfit that Quill had 'designed' in order for her to look and feel more like a superhero. Today was a training day and so she was following Quill out into the wilderness for whatever task he had planned for her. After what happened in Europe, Liz really wanted to be sure she could hold her own. She wanted to be Peter's equal, not a hindrance.

Comments

[st_arlord]

"Alright," Quill said as he neared the entrance of a cave. "I thought we'd do some target practice."

God knows she needs it

"Plus the more familiar you are with these sort of weapons, the more bad-ass you'll look." He continued. "And who doesn't want to look bad-ass?"

Quill led them into the mouth of the cave.

"There are some bats in here." He explained. "They're small so they'll be good targets."

[st_hotflashes]

Her eyes widened and looked a little panicked as she brought her hands up, shaking her head. "I don't want to hurt anything that's alive... If, um, I mean, if that's okay..." She lowrred her hands and felt sheepish, but just didn't feel comfortable using live animals as targets.

[st_arlord]

Oh

"Uh, yeah, sure." He said "that's fine. Totally fine. Don't worry. We can figure something else out. Don't worry."

Quill smiled. He gestured to the cave and started to enter. He thought about plan B.

"Alright, how about this," he started. "I'll give you my stun gun and you try to hit me."

[st_hotflashes]

She tried not to look any more surprised, but probably failed. "Are you sure? Won't you get hurt?"

[st_arlord]

"I'll be fine. First you have to hit me," he said, then paused. "And when you do - because you'll get that good - the worst that will happen is I'll fall down and writhe around a bit. No big deal, I promise."

[st_hotflashes]

"Um... Yeah. Okay, sure." She offered a smile even though she wasn't sure she was confident at all. Could she really shoot at Quill, even if he wasn't going to get hurt?

[st_x5_494]

Alec pushed through the door of the hotel room with new shampoo from the lobby - he had run out. He glanced at Peter.

"Any reason why your girlfriend is dressed up in leathers with another guy? Something I should know about your kinks?"

He headed for the bathroom to deposit the shampoo.

[st_arkintern]

Alec's words don't spur jealousy in Peter -- just curiosity. He follows Alec to the bathroom. He thinks he knows who it is if she's wearing leather, but he wants the confirmation.

"Who's she with?"

[st_x5_494]

"The one Thor calls a Moron. I like Thor, by the way." The Moron thing had helped immensely.

"What are they doing anyways?" He deposited said shampoo and threw out the bag. "She looked ridiculous." To be fair, Alec thought Peter looked ridiculous in his costume too.

[st_arkintern]

"Thor calls Mr. Star-Lord a moron?"

Peter's not exactly sure how to process this news.

"I don't know, training probably," he says. "She's trying to learn how to defend herself." Peter can get behind that. "The outfit's her costume."

[st_x5_494]

"Her costume? To do what? Go fight crime at the Inn?" He rolled his eyes, but in the most politest way possible.

"He better know what he's doing." Which Alec doubted. "They were headed into bear territory. Or bear-like, anyways. I saw something there on my run this morning. Like a bear, but had feathers and a beak." Alec had stopped questioning things like that at the inn now.

[st_arkintern]

"We do go to Other Worlds sometimes," Peter points out. "And they're not always safe." Even when they're supposed to be like, Europe.

Still, he feels a tinge of worry when Alec mentions they're out in bear territory. "Where's that?" he asks.

It wouldn't hurt to check up on them.

[st_x5_494]

"And she's going to what? Science them to death?" Alec knew she could have a backbone from the scolding on the roof, but that wasn't exactly going to save the world.

"North West. Near the mountain meets the forest." He paused. He wondered if the idiot even knew anything about Earth wildlife. He'd been away for a long time, right?

[st_arkintern]

Peter shoots Alec a look. "I'm going to go check it out," he says. He's sure Mr. Star-Lord can handle anything, but if they don't know about the bear-creatures, it was probably a good idea to warn them.

Peter leaves the room and heads out to that spot where mountain meets forest.

[st_hotflashes]

Liz was trying - she really was - but there was also a part of her that was holding back. Shooting at a rock was one thing. Shooting at a moving rock was another. But shooting at a person felt... wrong. So even though Quill was already hard to hit, anytime she got remotely close to hitting him, she'd pull to the side a little. Liz was pretty sure Quill was getting frustrated with her.

"I'm sorry." She frowned. Another one missed him by a long shot.

[st_arlord]

"Don't be sorry, you almost hit me that time." Quill said. She hasn't even come close to hitting me.... "And you took out that small stalagmite over there. That was impressive. And some of the stalactites got hit too."

Quill wished Gamora was around to hear he knew the difference between the two. He always felt proud of that.

"You're thinking too much." He said as he landed on the ground. "You're worrying about nothing. Like I said a billion times before, you can't hurt me."

He was pretty far away from Liz, further into the cave than she was. He heard the strange growling noise from behind Liz before he saw it.

A big bird? No.. bear? bird...bear?... this is not good.

"Uh, Liz..." He whispered with his hands coming up. "Now might be a good time to maybe use that gun."

[st_hotflashes]

She was always being told she was thinking too much. Was she? Shooting someone still just felt wrong. But she didn't exactly have a lot of time to think about it now as she heard the growl too and tensed.

Her grip on the gun tightened. Did she have to? Could she? Liz realized she was holding her breath and she forced herself to breathe and slowly - ever so slowly - did she turn around. The Owl Bear, though Liz had no idea that was what it was, did not look happy. It made another sound at her and it wasn't a nice sound. When Liz took a step back, the owl bear took a step forward.

[st_arlord]

"Liz. Liz," Quill said sternly, but tried to remain calm. "Pull. The. Trigger."

He was worried moving over to her would prompt an attack from the animal thing.

[st_hotflashes]

She was having trouble breathing for another moment until she, again, forced herself to focus. With Quill's words, Liz lifted up the gun. It was at that moment that the owl bear screeched and made another swift movement towards her. She panicked and took a step back as her finger slipped on the trigger. Her arms came back and the shot flew up and into one of the pillars in the cave, causing a currently unseen crack in its structure.

Liz fell on her bum, hard, and realized as there was an aggressive move made, the creature didn't actually attack yet. It screeched at her again. It sounded... not angry, but something else. The gun itself had flown from her hands and skidded away into the cave somewhere.

[st_arlord]

Quill had to duck. It figured the closest Liz would get to shooting him was when she was trying to shoot something else.

He did not pick up on anything as subtle as Liz was picking up. Quill saw Liz fall. He heard the screech. Quill went into superhero mode.

He pulled out his more lethal gun and fired a warning shot. It hit somewhere close to where Liz's stray shot had hit. The bear-thing didn't run away, but it did move its attention to Quill.

"Yeah!" He shouted. "How about picking on someone your own size?"

The owl bear did not move closer to Quill. Quill moved to the side. He would circle around and pick up Liz. When he moved to the left, the owl bear moved to the right. It screeched again and Quill pointed the gun at it.

"Ah, ah, ah," He scolded it. "How about you don't move any closer to her and you don't die?"

[st_hotflashes]

Liz slowly climbed to her feet while keeping her eyes on the owwl bear, much like when she had the encounter with the wolves. Unlike the wolves, though, this animal didn't seem to want to eat her. At least, she didn't think so.

She took a few tentative steps backwards and then tried one step in the same direction back as the animal was moving - only then did she see its eyes briefly move to hers. Liz paused. Something about the back of the cave...

Then she heard a louder and high-pitched screech in the back of the cave, somewhere near the side of Quill, and it hit her like a bus.

"Wait!" She turned her head quickly to look in Quill's direction, hoping he wouldn't shoot at he new sound.

[st_arlord]

The second higher screeching was too close for Quill's liking. He turned and fired, but pull his aim at the last minute when he heard Liz shouting. The two shots of energy went wide and into another stone pillar. It severed it in half.

Why am I suddenly listening to a teenage girl right now?!

Quill did not have time to dwell on the answer as the big owl bear that had started this whole fiasco did not react well to shots fired. It let out a cry and charged at Quill. He hadn't expected something so big to be so fast and they impacted. Quill was tossed to one side of the cave, landing near the stun gun on the ground.

[st_hotflashes]

Liz had seen the smaller, but equally as loud animal and realized, belatedly, it was probably a baby. This was probably a mother worried about her child thing and she and Quill were seen as threats. So when Quill's shot went wide, Liz was relieved. She was only relieved for a moment, though, as the cave near the baby owl bear was starting to collapse. They had, apparently, hit too many pillars and the structural damage was too much.

She could have ran out of the cave. She could have run over to Quill and helped him up. Liz ran forward instead. She ran to where the baby animal was screeching. She waved her arms and shouted at it to try and scare it away and she got close enough to push it out toward the exit. It finally seemed to take the cue from her and ran out toward the mouth of the cave. Only Liz wasn't fast enough and the rocks in the ceiling were coming down around her now. She looked up in time to be hit over the head and she fell on her back, unconscious.

[st_arkintern]

Peter hadn't expected there to be anything wrong.

He trusted Quill to be able to take care of Liz. He didn't have any reason to believe that Quill wouldn't.

But when he arrives, Liz isn't anywhere to be found. The only thing that sends his eyes towards the sound of the creature as it left the cave. It's only when his eyes hit the cave's mouth that he's able to make Liz out -- and in that moment, the cave begins to crumble audibly.

"Liz!"

He's already reacting when Liz is hit in the head, but he's not fast enough to stop it. All he can manage is to throw himself over her, just in time for the rest of the cave to crumble on top of him...

[st_hotflashes]

There's a trickle of blood streaming down her face - evidence of the hit from the rock. Liz's breathing was shallow, but she was unresponsive. At least for a moment.