han_solo | (no subject)

She might not be a hunter, but Rachel's hand is up and knocking Dean's aside before his fingers reach her shoulder. It's an automatic gesture, not even thought about, and she's smirking, hardly in a bad mood.

She's smirking more when she notices the tentacles.

"Let's do it."

There's a tiny flicker of approval -- it's possible he was testing -- but not even enough to notice.

"Sweet. What're you gonna be this time ... squirrel? Frog?"

The car is already slowing to a stop; he needs to get into the trunk for this.

Rachel thinks about it for a moment. The bear had the power but not the size, the elephant had the size but not the power. A hammerhead shark would be eaten before it could get a good bite in.

There is one morph she has that could do it, though. So long as she doesn't think too much about the last time she morphed it.

Rachel keeps her smirk and looks over at Dean, sidelong. "I'll need to get to the water before they see me."

"More flying," Dean grumbles, pulling over. "Yeah, all right. Lemme guess. Goldfish."

More smirking. "Don't attack me," she orders, waiting until the car's landed to push open the door. "One set of tentacles is going to be mine."

And with that, she beams cheerfully and hops out of the car to disappear into the trees.

Dean blinks at her, looking up from digging the biggest gun he's got out of the trunk.

"You what?"

But she's gone.

And he has bigger things to worry about.

More precisely, things three stories high with eight tentacles each.

CRASH!

One of which that just broke through the trees in an attempt to grab and nom on him.

Oh hell no. Not his car.

Dean drops, crouches, and fires.

BLAM.

The thing didn't need that tentacle, did it?

Better not have, because it doesn't have it any more.

And then Dean's hurling himself into the car and tearing it up off the road and into the air, putting some space between them before he turns around to aim again.

The monster screeches in pain, a sound that practically rattles the Impala right out of the sky, and three more tentacles fly through the air, aiming for the car - and, more specifically, it's passenger.

The water behind it continues to churn and froth, probably with more of its brothers waiting.

"Hell, no," Dean growls.

He may not like flying, but boy can drive.

In between the tentacles, zooming straight at the centre -- he's not going to call it a face -- and then pulling a quick mid-air u-turn and snapping off two quick blasts out the side window as he does.

Another scream, sharp and pained, more water churning. Four tentacles lie dead and twitching around the kraken, only four more left.

...which may just be four too many for Dean, since all of them are heading straight for the car in four different directions.

Well, all three of them.

Two.

But that leaves two more that he doesn't have time to shoot.

Shit--

The next time the kraken screams, there's something close to joy in it, tentacles flying straight for him, close enough to count the suckers through the windshield.

...but it's next scream, as it jerks back sharply, remaining tentacles dropping to the water, is confused.

And then, with another jerk backward, annoyed.

And with another, pained.

A much smaller set of tentacles is working on the body of the kraken, sharp beak digging into the soft, vulnerable flesh of its head. It isn't a kraken but it doesn't look entirely from earth, either. Or at least, not a part of the earth commonly seen.

"... she's a giant fucking squid."

Dean's face meets Dean's palm. Only for a second, because then he's reloading and shooting again, laughing in bemusement.

"Weirdest fucking girl I ever met."

The kraken is screaming - the squid keeps biting into it until it stops.

There's laughter in his head, faint but triumphant, even as water begins to churn again, further out to sea.

[Yeah, bring it!]

"Definitely insane."

Dean hits the stereo on and waits for Metallica to start pumping out the speakers. If they've got to fight kraken while she's being a squid, they might as well have decent musical accompaniment.

Oh.

That is... awesome.

They're going to have a soundtrack.

Rachel laughs again and sinks a little further back in the squid's mind, only appearing again to prompt certain instincts, to encourage this movement or that one, using human intelligence with animal power.

Kill. Eat.

Headbang after the victory.

Headbanging and shooting things at the same time?

Dean's really, really quite happy with that situation.

So's Rachel. And it's easy to stay happy, once the pod starts racing toward them. The squid looks like a friend, she's mostly ignored, the majority of kraken go straight for Dean.

Always appreciate a good disguise.

The last one in the group that zips past her, Rachel grabs with her own tentacles, uses its momentum to pull herself forward and wrap those long 'arms' around its head to secure herself, while her beak digs through its head again.

It's not exactly battling Yeerks, but these things destroyed somebody's home, somebody's city, even if it wasn't hers.

It's pretty damn impressive, anyway, judging by the whoop from the flying car. Which is still flying, Dean zipping between lashing tentacles and looping darting beaks, and shooting out the windows when he can -- although he's really more of a distraction than anything else.

"Wooo, good SQUIDDY!"

It's still helpful to have tentacles dropping off into the water with great crashes, meaning she doesn't have to worry about anymore. Another great thing appears to be that kraken, like giant squid can be canibals.

Just opening the skull enough to let blood flow seems to be enough to get another kraken to finish the job on the injured one.

She zooms through the water, one after the other, vaguely listening to Metallica through ears not built to register car stereos, attacking swiftly, moving on fast.

There's plenty left for Dean to shoot, even while they set on each other.

And there's plenty of shooting that gets done, too.

Eventually, though, he's just hovering, out over the water at a safe distance, watching them eat each other.

... gross.

Super gross.

Rachel waits until one of them has eaten the rest.

Then she goes after it, too.

Not too much later, a very bedraggled blonde in black lycra is wading out of the surf, squeezing water out of her hair as she makes tracks in the sand.

Edited 2008-08-17 05:12 (UTC)

The car is waiting for her on the highway; Dean's hosing it down.

Ew, kraken slime.

"That," he informs her as she approaches, without looking around, "was seriously gross. And kinda fun."

"Mostly gross," Rachel replies, pulling seaweed and slime out of her hair with a grimace, shaking her hands free of water. But she still gives him a smirk as she comes up beside him at the car.

"Nice soundtrack."

Dean grins. It's possibly the first time he's been honestly amused or pleased by anything she's said.

"I thought so, yeah. You get bit?"

She nods, focusing her smile on the car, watching it get hosed off. "What, by fighting a pod of kraken up close? Oh, of course not, we just tickled each other."

Dean turns to eye her suspiciously.

"You're not bleeding."

He can kinda tell, in that outfit.

There's a lot to tell in that outfit. At least his eyeing is just suspicious.

"I'm not a squid anymore either," she points out, giving him a short glance before looking at the car again. "That's not how it works. Do you have a towel?"

He reaches into the back of the car, rummages for a moment, and passes her one. It's relatively clean.

"So how does it work? You shapeshift, it heals you?"

Relatively clean will do. She wants to be dry, not spotless.

"You're not thinking about it right." It isn't a rebuke, just calmly factual while she rubs her hair with the towel. "This isn't something I was born with, it isn't what I am. It's just something I've got, it's a weapon." Rachel thinks about this for a moment and shrugs, puts her attention back on the towel. "If someone breaks your knife, it breaks the knife - it doesn't break you. That's a pretty crappy metaphor, but it's basically it."

Dean wrinkles his nose, ditching the hose and rubbing down the front windscreen.

"I still don't like it." Not that he expects her to care.

She snorts.

"I don't remember asking if you did, and I don't remember you complaining when I was saving your dumb butt."

And his car, of course.

"If you don't want me riding with you then say so, but I'm not going to listen to you whine just because you think I'm some kind of... demon or spirit or whatever."

Boo, Dean. But yay, dry hair!

"Are you gonna get in, or stand there bitching all day?" is Dean's answer to that. He flicks the hose at her, and is smirking as he slides into the car.

Rachel throws her hair back, wrinkles her nose at the flicked hose - and frowns at him.

Stupid boys, bein' all confusin'.

"Seriously," she says, slipping into the car with the towel wrapped around her so she doesn't get the upholstery wet, "is the whining going to be regular?"

"Hey, who's whining? You're the one who's all 'oh, you don't understand me, you're so annoying' all the time."

"'Ew, that's so gross, I'm completely disgusted by that incredibly useful thing you're able to do, I'm going to get all quietly mopey with Pearl Jam now.'"

"'Quietly mopey?'" Dean repeats, and snorts.

"Sure, princess."

Rachel's eyeroll is so great, it ends with her slumped in her seat with a sigh.

~~They better find Jo real damn soon.~~