The Terrible Turnip
Log Date 8/2/2009
Emitter: Zeroman
Participants: Dusk, Flora, Spectrum
Summary: A giant plant erupts from the ground and two teen heroes try to deal with it. Plant-heroine Flora shows up and the injured vegetable returns whence it came, perhaps to re-appear.
Market Row is the main shopping area for San Angeles with a dizzying array of shops from groceries to department stores, to the largest mall in the world 'The Quake'. There are a great many parks in Market Row and the San Angeles Zoo as well.
There are very few structures higher than a double handful of stories tall, the area designed to be more 'eye level' and to keep folks focused on the business at hand, namely spending their hard earned cash! Movie Theatres, Bowling Alleys, Water Parks and lots of restaurants can be found here, both fast food and family style restaurants abound and there's quite a few Bar & Grills to be found as well.
What better way is there to spend a bright summer day than at a water park? At least when you're fifteen. Timo is just coming out of a park and heading up the street towards a neaby comic shop, wearing a t-shirt and swim trunks, and is still damp.
Derek isn't damp — he's soaking wet. He's wearing a hooded sweatshirt and knee-length swimtrunks, which cling to him because he didn't think to grab a towel before leaving home. His hair is tied back for a change, and he almost looks cheerful. "Hope there's a new Batman this week," he says to Timo.
From behind Timo there is the deep bass *crunk* *crack* of pavement and concrete snapping like graham crackers, then the SSSHHHH of spraying water. A bloom of high-pressure water shoots into the air as a water main snaps, then suddenly six deep purple tentacles erupt from the main - each about fifty feet long. They flail around, seeking; they're covered in thorns and smaller tendrils, wet and dirty. One wraps around a nearby sign and herks it free from the storefront with a creak of rending metal. Apparently that's not what it wants, as it tosses the sign into the flow of traffic, instantly jamming the northbound lane and causing a multiple chain-reaction fenderbender. Another tentacle, seeking, drops to street level and slithers along the sidewalk, prompting shrieks from various patrons. It's chaos now!
A newscrew trapped in the accident acts quickly, and second later grainy images of the flailing limbs are plastered over the TV on "ACTION NEWS NOW!!"
It's shortly after that that Flora teleports into the area! Stepping out of a nearby tree, the verdant-haired heroine keeps her distance as she tries to get a better look at the monster…
Timo grins and says, "Hoping for the newest Blackest Night. Can't remember when the next issue's supposed to come…" Then he spins around at the sounds, eyes wide as he looks up at the tentacles. He then turns and dives for the nearest ally. An instant after he's out of view of everybody on the street, Spectrum appears on top of a nearby building, taking a quick moment as well to figure out what's going on.
"Oh yeah!" says Derek enthusiastically. "Can't wait to see what—" Then he too is spinning toward the commotion, jaw dropping open. "Never puppies or kittens," he mutters, turning to flee into the alley after Timo. Moments later, Dusk appears, not atop the building with Spectrum, but on the far side of the street, materializing (metaphorically, as he's in shadow-form) from the shadow beneath a parked car.
The thing heaves underneath the ground, and a bulbous body half-way appears aboveground, deep purple and studded with knobs and bumps in lighter purple and yellow. The tentacles whip around, and one grabs a person off the sidewalk, hoisting him high into the air. "AggghhhH!" he yells, clinging to the thing holding him. Another tentacle hesitates, then strikes deep into a storefront, shattering the glass and tossing out shelves of goods as it roots around.
Flora runs forward towards the monster plant. "Put that person down - Gently!" And, surprisingly enough, the monster does just that. It does not stop on its trashing of the storefront however. Flora says softly to the bystander, "Circle slowly around behind me… then when I'm between you and the monster - Run. Got it?" For once Flora is glad that she has sap in her veins instead of blood.
Spectrum teleports down to the street. He's acting fast, not really thinking but just going with it. "Hey, purple thing, leave those people alone!" He raises his palm towards the closest tentacle and a very bright blast of light flashes across the street, tearing a chunk out of the tentacle and very obviously getting its' attention.
Dusk isn't one for a lot of talking. Instead, he flies straight at the plant-creature, fists-first. Though he looks utterly insubstantial (and more than a little scrawny), he strikes with surprising force. SPLAT! The monster seems quite hurt now, two of its tentacles flailing and spasming about randomly.
The plant creature quivers from the strikes from the two youths, leaking a gooey purple liquid and two of the huge roots almost limp from the last strike; the other two immediatly orient on the brightest thing around them, Spectrum. One whishes past the boy, the other clips him grazingly as it flails through the air. The ground rumbles as the main body of the thing tries to burrow back into the earth, puffs of dirt and stone fountaining around it as it quivers.
Flora grinds her teeth, "Damn it! I had control of it for a moment… I don't know if I can again now that it's in pain." As the plant monster starts to burrow down, she moves closer, trying to follow. "It's in pain… it just wants to get away… bury itself again."
The woman before you stands about five foot nine with a lean, athletic build. She has shoulder length green hair that falls in natural waves. Indeed, the color itself seems to be natural, and is just a few shades lighter than the eyes that look out from behind a green half-mask that is sculptured and textured to suggest foliage. She is wearing a green jumpsuit that covers her from neck, to wrist, to, most likely, ankle. Her feet are covered with knee-high green leather boots decorated with fringe at the top. A matching pair of leather gloves cover her hands, and a leather belt beaded with a vine-work pattern is around her waist. The belt supports various small containers and pouches.
Spectrum stumbles as he's clipped by the tentacle, when it hits him even through his force field. "Ow…" He blinks then and hesitates on reacting as he hears Flora's words, looking to her and back to the thing. "Do we let it go?"
Dusk isn't about to let a destructive monster slink away to some dark corner of the sewers, where it can rest and recover, only to resurface somewhere else and cause more destructive destruction. Gathering shadows around his fists again, he slams them down hard on the plant-thing's pulpy center again, though this time, it's not quite as hard a strike.
The creature heaves it's bulbous body again, staining the surrounding area with deep purple juices, and burrows deeper and quicker, eager to sink back into the healing earth. The remaining two roots strike again at Spectrum, but flail uselessly at the boy as now the plant begins to sink down and burrow back down it's original trail which though collapsed is still softer than the surrounding material.
Flora says, "An unknown plant species, possibly the only one of it's kind. Yes, I'm going to say let it go, but I'm part plant myself, I admit I'm biased." She starts gathering up the pieces the boys have knocked off. "And do you know that most plants can be reproduced by cuttings?" She holds up a piece of the plant the boys knocked off. "You cut off a piece, and put it in soil… and the two of you have been scattering pieces left and right, and it's turned over the soil in the area… I'm going to have to search the area carefully."
Spectrum dodges the swinging tentacles this time, then looks back up to Flora. He bites his lip as he looks at the piece knocked off and nods, turning back again. He calls, "Dusk! Let it go. We might end up making more of these things!" He looks back to Flora and says, "I thought plants didn't feel pain? It sure seemed hurt when we hit it."
"So we're just letting it go?" Dusk rasps, hovering over the crater as the plant escapes. "It's just gonna come back again, and what if there's no one around to deal with it? We can clean up the scattered bits after it's…uh, uprooted or whatever."
With no more attacks coming it's way, the volkswagon-sized creature burrows away quickly, the earth settling behind it as it slips into the soil. People tenatively watch, the news crew gets it all on film, and car alarms are still sounding from the minor accidents. A smattering of applause is heard from the watching citizenry, but it's scattered, just like the patrons of the shops.
Flora says, "You can go after it if you want. I can't stop you… but I'm not going to help you kill it. I had control over it long enough to make it let go of that man. I might have been able to stop it completely if you hadn't attacked." She looks over at Spectrum, "Trust me, plants feel pain. They send out chemicals to warn other plants in the areas."
