Logan isn't exactly the type of customer Macy's usually goes for. But, then, he wasn't there for himself, just keeping Jean company. It took long enough to cajole her to let Xavier spend a bit of all that dough of his to buy her some clothes - he had an account at Macy's they could use to charge it on. Jean was trying some stuff on now and Logan was trying not to look too out of place in the lady's department. At least he could smoke.
But then his nostrils flare and he whips his head to the side. Somebody in the place doesn't smell human. Not that Logan's one to judge - except this one also smells like blood and anger and pain. Somebody's gonna get hurt and soon. "Darlin', might wanna put a rush on it, I think things're about to pick up."
*
Jean was being daring. Daring enough to try on various different colors than she ever would have dreamed. High necks, high heels. Something more attuned to her age instead of the frozen girl who was 15 years old who never grew up. At least.. that's the age of her emotional maturity. Once she was permanently admitted to the asylum, everything emotional just stopped and became stunted and.. well..
She could probably feel it before Logan makes it known. But she was trying her best to ignore it, her hands shaking as her fingers tug along the stocking, her bare foot remaining pressed hard against the chair to keep herself sturdy, her red hair dangling to tickle along a bare thigh which causes her to tense all the more. Her eyes.. they almost seemed dull, not drunk with madness but damn close.
"I'm not dressed.." She murmurs quietly. Surely she wasn't, she wore nothing but a slip and the other necessaries to keep her covered. "Give me a second. Please." She was trying to compose herself, and it was hard.
*
Logan looks over at the dressing room door, part of him wanting to drag her out and get her out of there. But he already knows it's too late - whatever's going on, he can't turn a blind eye to it, much as he might want. He can't pretend to be just another innocent bystander anymore.
A series of screams echo from another part of the store and Logan swears under his breath, moving to break into a slow run, "Stay back until I figure out what we're dealin' with," he calls, heading towards the escalator just in time to see a massive, leathery tail slipping out of sight down the device. What the hell?
*
The screams were heard, soon other screams join in the fray, people dropping their things and running away from the sound to get to safety. Some, the brave few, ran towards the sound, only to turn stark white and run themselves. It was mayhem.. and Jean felt it. Not as strongly as before thanks to the blocks that were put in, but it was enough to drive her to a near mad.
"Okay.." Jean weakly cried out, her features paling, her body slowly sinking to the ground as she quickly pulls a red dress over her form. Only to hide.
She felt really silly, gathering the clothes to bunch up against, to hide underneath in a pile as she tries to keep her composure.
*
The creature at the bottom of the escalator used to be a man. Maybe still was, underneath it all. But, at the moment, he was more beast, covered head to toe in scales, his head transformed into something resembling a dinosaur, mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. A dragon or a man or a -
"Mandragon!" a security guard yells, fruitlessly opening fire with his revolver. The bullets hit the creature but only seem to startle it as it shakes off the lasting remnants of the human clothes it had been wearing - a trenchcoat, a fedora, trousers barely preserving its modesty as it leaps.
And as Logan swears under his breath and jumps the railing from the second floor and careens down towards it to try and tackle it before it eats that dumbass with the tin badge.
*
This was stupid. This was stupid.
Jean was practically beating herself up in the closet, her hands smacking against her face and head hard, repeatedly, the blows sting so much that her eyes begin to water, turning a faint hint of red as she pushes the clothes off of her. One stocking remains upon her leg but it was torn off, the clothes kicked to the side as the tosses the garment upon the floor. And she was -out-.
She pushed past the milling few who tried to run away at the last minute, falling upon the ground, one arm up and shielding herself from kicks that may come her way as she uses a bit of force to push past those few who lingered. "LOGAN!" She cries out, finally pulling herself to her feet, breaking out into a run. "Logan wait!"
*
Mandragon's mind is muddled, a terrified being underneath a lizard brain that doesn't understand much but heat, fear, aggression and hunger. It's responding to the assault against it with natural violence, leaping forward only to feel a sudden severe pain as its head is snapped back and it's thrown on its side.
Logan landed hard, throwing a hard punch right across the jaw of the thing and sending it sprawling. He lands on his shoulder, enough to dislocate it a bit, the muscles screaming from the bruising impact as he rolls and tries to get to his feet. "Whatcha waitin' fer, bub? Run for yer flamin' life," he snarls at the guard. "As fer you, scales, stay down if yer smart. Don't make me gut ya right here."
*
The guard wasn't stupid. He tried to be a hero but it didn't work. With a scramble he gets up and runs, leaving his pistol behind, all of Macy's soon vacated but the Mandragon, Jean, and Logan. Maybe another person or two to watch the show go on with abject terror.. or fear.. which ever. Jean couldn't tell.
But she was quickly climbing down the stairs, watching the scene unfold, the mandragon falling upon it's side causes her to jerk back with a hint of pain, her empathy and TK working in tandem to land a soft little blow against her cheek to leave a mark that was red.
"LOGAN.." Jean cries out, clearing the last of the stairs, quickly avoiding Logan's pace to stand in front of the man once thing, both of her arms outstretched to block both of the men/thing from hitting each other or making everything worse.
"Shhh.. just.. shhh…" She tries to say to Logan, she couldn't even form the words.. perhaps that was all that was needed, right?
*
Logan's tensed, his body bunched and ready to leap. When Jean intervenes, he decides not to pop his claws, in case she ended up somehow caught up in the tussle, "Jeannie, be careful!" he cries.
The creature, dazed and unsure, sees those upraised arms and inhales deeply. When he exhales, a powerful plume of fire erupts, dragonbreath that would consume Jean.
That is, if Logan didn't grab her, pulling her behind him and taking the flames against his back, crying out as she can hear the fat sizzle and the skin burning off of him.
*
"Just.. wait!" Jean shouts back, her hands still outward, trying to hold Logan back from at least attacking the beast before she could get to it. And then she feels it, the wild confusion and abandon, the heat that sears her arm which sets her to screaming loud as she was shielded. She could hear it. The sizzling sound of his flesh, smell it. Even the burnt hair. And this was all her fault.
He wouldn't have been hurt if she were weak, he wouldn't have been hurt if she stayed in the closet and ignored everything. He wouldn't have been hurt.. he was still being hurt. She wanted to shield and prot—…
*THWOOM*
Perhaps it was instinct, but a small little shield formed along Logan's back, the rush of clothes and shoes lifted into the air, then slams hard into the mandragon as clothes and shoes were able. Which wasn't much, if at all.
*
Logan feels the pain of the burn before Jean pushes the flames away. His skin has burned away, revealing the scalded meat of him for a moment before it starts to seal up. He doesn't stop shielding her, though, even as her power moves to protect him, gritting his teeth in a snarl.
"Thanks, darlin'," he mutters and then turns rapidly, moving in the wake of that shockwave as Mandragon is hurled back, tumbling up and over the side of the escalator, his tail thrashing as Logan pounces atop him, "Stay down, dino boy!" he howls, raising a hand above his head and popping his claws with a trademark *SNIKT* on the one hand, holding it over his head in threat.
*
"Logan.." She tries to stammer out, but as he turns she catches sight of the flesh that was beginning to heal, her head feeling as if a thousand pounds laid upon it. It wasn't something that she wanted to see, ever in her life. Her eyes nearly crossing as she falls to the ground, her hand lifting to clamp upon her mouth as she takes a few heaves of .. what was left of the air that was fresh around her.
The all too familiar sound of the claws retracting from his skin has her hand reaching out, her vision nearly fading, her mind reaching out with one.. last ditch effort.
"Stop…" She was practically begging it, begging so much that her nose began to bleed.
*
Logan is about to drive his blades into the thrashing man-beast when he hears Jean's plea. Normally, he'd be seeing hard red right now, nothing but death enough to satisfy. He'd be strewing this monster's guts all over the salesfloor, puddled deep enough to splash.
But Jean gets through to him and he takes a deep, shuddering breath as he sheathes his claws and just punches, his adamantium weighted fist jacking the dragon's jaw and concussing its head against the steps, dazing it, "I ain't sure punchin's gonna be enough t'keep 'im down fer long, darlin', so you better try some o' yer mojo or I ain't gonna have much choice to get nasty, ya hear?"
*
Jean was trying, her hands soon pressing against her head as she finds the one thing within the beast that makes it human. And she focuses.. pulling upon it.. feeling it out, imagining herself drawing the man that was buried deep. She could see images of him lifting his small hands to his mother.. leaning into a pretty girl for a kiss. All of those soothing points.. she tries to focus on it, making it larger than life.. at least more than it should be.
Jean's eyes begin to roll into the back of her head as she sinks into the man and monster, drawing on all of its pain, it's anger, it's fear and confusion, drinking it up and down as if it was a cup that was never ending. Or trying.. at least..
*
Logan doesn't like making Jean dig into this thing's head - if he had his way, he'd put the fucker down, say sorry for it, kiss the cross and bury him. But she's gotta save folk, seems like it's in her guts and there's nothing he can do for it. She'll learn, in time, that not everyone can be saved. Even them what deserve it.
He keeps his fist hammering, though, occasionally scrambling his lizard brains a bit anytime he tries to get up, but he can feel those big hind legs pinning against his belly and starting to sink in claws to throw him…
*
*POP*
She finally did it. She breached his mind.. or more or less, breached her own and brought him into hers. The place was stark white, she didn't have the imagination just yet to build a world of her own within her mind but she was there. Healthy. Whole. And so was the man, who wasn't that bad to look at.
"Hey.. hey.. it's alright." Jean manages to say, taking those few steps to draw closer to the man, her hand reaching out to grasp his own as she begins to walk with him in the white void. He doesn't speak, he just smiles, Jean keeping up that casual stroll as she leans in to bump against his shoulder. Her laugh, it almost sounded like music. "Its okay. Just go to.."
It was looking precarious for Jean. Her skin was paling considerably, the whites of her eyes nearly cracking to a bloodshot tone, her chin covering with blood due to the trail forming from her nose and upon her lips. "…Sleeeeeeeeeeeep.." She manages to put out, then finally collapses with a hard flop onto the row of clothes that.. oddly enough, seem like lovely clouds drifting in the sky.
*
When the Mandragon passes out, falling asleep at her command, he transforms, becoming no longer the monstrous creature he was and, instead, reverting to a middle-aged nebbish, a thin and scrawny fellow with a bald head and a sunken chest. He breathes in burbling wheezes.
Logan almost feels bad for the damage he did. Sucker's gonna have bruises for a while. And he realizes that the cops will probably be coming and coming for all of them. Too many questions. He runs over to Jean and lifts her up, hefting her onto his shoulder and starting to leave…and then hesittating.
"God fucking dammit," he mutters, walking back a bit and grabbing the other mutant by the ankle, starting to drag him behind, "Good thing I brought the flamin' car…"
*