Thursday, October 22, 2009

The Trials of Friendships

"I could have saved her.. but I did nothing." -Raina on her on guilt over Darkress

As she ran, commotion inside the apartment building she had landed on attracted her attention. Raina investigated and was shocked to find Darkress being attacked by Matthew Starkweather, John's nephew. However, the werecat knew that she could not help Darkress without hurting Matthew and likely being hauled in herself for helping a traitor. As she watched Matthew beat up Darkress, Valos found her on the ledge and started to shout when he saw Darkress but Raina silenced him.

He demanded to know why they were doing nothing, but Raina stated that there was nothing they could do when Darkress had been declared a traitor. The warring feelings between aiding her friend and sacrificing everything else kept Raina from remembering that Valos had also been declared a traitor and was currently being hunted. Matthew ended up snapping Darkress's neck and leaving. Guilt-striken, Raina did not realize that Melody had also arrived on the scene. Melody announced herself and quickly attacked Valos who was equally as quick to defend himself. Watching the fight for a few minutes, Raina shouted for Melody to stop, that she was wrong about Valos. Melody refused and, unwilling to watch another friend die while doing nothing, Raina lunged in and attacked Melody, trying to subdue her.

The fight was even until Melody managed to wound Raina. Valos offered to surrender to prevent Raina from being hurt further, but only if Raina was absolved of being involved. Melody refused, stating that Raina had attacked her, thus she would be arrested for aiding a 'known' villain. Valos continued to maintain his own innocence and threw a smoke bomb and escaped. Raina, however, was too injured to follow him as was taken into custody and thrown into the brig to await her trial. Several of her friends came to visit her and here her side of the story of what had happened. Believing her to be innocent, they worked to keep her spirits up and make her comfortable in the confines of the cell (another thing her cat was not going to tolerate long).

The next day, however, she woke up to Rusty bringing down the dampeners around the cell. Questioning him, she found out that he and Grimaulkin had become convinced that she was never going to get a fair trial and that they had joined Valos. They also told her that Valos was currently in the base and that they were going to break her out. Distraught that they were ruining their lives for her, something she had never intended or wanted, Raina felt she had no choice but to go with them. The four made their way out of the base but were confronted by Mindstryker, who had been assigned to guard Raina.

Having become friends with Mindstryker and fully against betraying him, Raina tried to reason with the ex-PPD cop. She explained that Melody was slipping down the path of paranoia and insanity and would eventually have them all locked up for made up crimes. Mindstryker started to believe her when Valos escalated the situation by firing warning shots. Despite attempts to defuse the situation, Mindstryker eventually psychic blasted Valos and was in turn shot by the base turrets that had been reprogrammed by Valos. Out of time to escape, Raina ordered Rusty to take Valos somewhere safe and picked up Mindstryker herself, not wanting him to die of the sustained wounds. They dropped him off at the hospital in Atlas and Raina stayed nearby to make sure he was all right while Rusty and Grim took Valos to the Rikti War Zone, a place where he wouldn't be looked for.

Mindstryker, reasonably furious at this turn of events, discharged himself from the hospital and quickly started hunting down Raina. She stayed nearby, allowing her inner-cat to shield her mind and make her appear to be no more than a housecat to psychic scans. Using a telepathic path that he had used to talk to her before, Raina apologized for what had happened but insisted that it was for the best. The two talked for sometime, but Mindstryker was too angry to think logically and Raina was forced to flee when he finally spotted her.

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