1963-11-07 - Bakery Blast
Summary: These pastries might be a little over-cooked…
Related: None
Theme Song: None
mildred domino akihiro rogue marie-ange moe 


One might think that the city would be in a bit more chaos after the discovery of an alien just yesterday… Even with how quickly news travels New York is a big place full of a lot of people, many of whom just want to get on with their normal routines. The news of current events is always present, lingering in the backs of so many minds. Many of these people simply try to forget. Sweep the matter under the mental rug. The situation might be a whole lot worse if people didn't try to forget.

Until the moment of a full-on extraterrestrial invasion..life goes on. Greenwich is still Greenwich. This tiny bakery is still a tiny bakery.

Domino still wants a damn pastry.

Blending in is out of the question so she doesn't bother trying to hide the bleached nature of her skin or the painfully obvious black mark adorning the side of her face. She just steps right on in, makes a beeline for the counter, and orders "Coffee and Danish."

*

Mildred tiredly blinks up at the visitor. "Huh..? Oh, yes, sorry dear. Just a moment." She scurries off to get the requested items, embarrassed about napping while at work.

*

One thing at a time. Akihiro will worry about aliens when he's finished his personal crusade. But for now he's taking a break, leaning against the front of a small bakery, cigarette hanging between his lips. "Wonder what it'll be today." he says tiredly to himself, reaching up to rub at his eyes.

*

The joy of being small and (almost) unnoticable! Perhaps over the past week Mildred has noticed a dwindling of pastry items from the shelves, and the culprit has yet to be found? In a recess in the back, a little red imp is chewing on a cookie in one hand, a powdered donut in the other and a cup of hot chocolate held in his little prehensile tail. Yellow eyes peer out groggily from the dark.

*blink*

*blink*

*

Who does not ignore the alien threat? The one the alien fell through, caught on how many cameras and video tapes? At least the round sunhat gives some measure of anonymity, and having Johnny Storm lap up all the media attention for now does the rest. "I want two dozen doughnuts. Perhaps the whole tray," murmurs Scarlett in French to a fellow redhead. One collects what she can, in a time of alien invasions.

What alien is going to want a soulless ginger when they can have the President of the United States? Nonetheless, the excitement and the frantic tensions plying the street beg for an outlet, a spark for the powder keg. Greenwich being Greenwich, the protesters and folk singers are putting pen to paper in full force while their older generational progenitors are penning angry letters to the editor. It so happens that a little tuxedo cat goes tearing through an open door to the bakery as yet another person enters, racing in front of Akihiro. Behind it, one very ticked off man who stinks of cannabis shouting, "Stop that alien! He's going to eat us all!"

Whether this is intended to be funny or not, it does lead to Scarlett helpfully stepping into his path to allow the frisky feline an escape route. Powdered sugar and cats, a match made in comedy heaven?

*

Marie's a follower in about every sense of the word, and these days she can often be found following Scarlett around at one place or another, until the cards tell her otherwise. Today? That particular path is going to lead her into a bakery, the shorter redhead trailing along a couple steps behind the taller one.

"…and I thought I was the one who's supposed to have the big appetite." teases Marie in return, also speaking French. ..then there's the cat. The cat that her attention's drawn to from the shouting man and by the escape path leading by the pair. The seer doesn't speak — other than a soft gasp of surprise — but instead watches the scene unfold with a measure of curiousity in her eyes.

…anything to distract her from the /real/ alien threat in the air is a good thing.

*

Life goes on… The riots have yet to cease. Tension had already been close to a breaking point in the city, and not all have taken to the news well. People get scared, angry, resentful..emotionally unstable. It's a bad combination from any angle.

"C'mon, I saw it go over this way."

"Dude..the -bakery?- No way, my -mother- used to go there all the time! If they're serving that freak in there…"

"Not for long. Let's help 'em clean up the place."

One of the four gives Akihiro a harsh stare as they step inside, maybe a silent threat or perhaps trying to see through a potential disguise to see if the Japanese kid really is human, or something -else.-

The small bakery becomes a lot more cramped as four more people step in, three men and a lady. Their expressions are a mixture of emotions, none of them particularly good ones. As soon as one of them spots Domino at the counter he mutters "There" and subtly motions onward with an uptick of his head.

Then they start moving closer, spreading out to block the albino in.

And then there's the wildcard…

-The cat.-

The old guy yelling out "Stop that alien!" causes the lady of the four to startle, turning to look in his direction.

One of the thugs draws a .38 revolver from inside of his jacket, starting to level it at the back of the albino's head.

A tuxedo cat runs past and slips on the floor, bumping into Domino's leg. Startled, she bends down.

The .38 is fired, narrowly missing both the white lady and Mildred.

The bullet punches through the wall and embeds itself fractions of an inch from where Moe is hiding.

The lady thug is caught off guard (when did Matt get a GUN?!) and screams!

A nearby customer jumps so violently at the shot that hot coffee gets sprayed onto another male thug, hitting him in the eyes.

The coffee-blinded thug howls out and twists violently to the side, sent on a collision course with Rogue and Marie-Ange.

The last of the thugs is just starting to draw a knife.

One of the faster-acting customers by the door is out of his seat so quickly that it falls to the ground, rushing for the main entrance. He may or may not collide with Akihiro on his way out.

*

Mildred returns with the coffee and Danish, and is surprised to see three more visitors. She thinks she recognises that cat, and she's definitely seen that taller redhead a couple of days ago, but the other's new. She greets them all with a friendly smile just the same and, after handing Domino her requested items, says, "Welcome, dears - what would you… eek!" The sudden invasion by thugs has managed to shake even her usual friendly demeanor.

*

Akihiro lets the customer run out, stepping in behind the group. There's a familiar sound, the SNIKT of metal sliding against metal, and then two of the less blinded thugs get hard metal between their ribs. I guess staring down a Howlett isn't a great idea.

*

The bullet that comes towards Moe and his little hidey-hole isn't noticed until plaster flies from the spot. A hiss sounds from the location, and in a heartbeat, there's a *bamf*, the sound of air coming to rush to fill in a void from the 'brimstone dimension' and a secondary one, heralding the imp's arrival. He's seated right on top of the gun, the thing that disrupted his breakfast! The little red spade-tipped tail whips around, spraying hot chocolate onto the shooter (good, idea, so why not repeat it?!) followed by the shoving of the cookie AND the donut into the offending perp's face before he teleports away, perching on the ceiling. "Bamf.. bamfbamfbamf.." Nothing like a good telling off after the fact!

*

Mildred has seen a lot of things in her life, but Moe's a new one. Oh, and people seem to be trying to kill each other, which is rather outside of her comfort zone. She responds by ducking down behind the counter and hoping that these people'll sort out their differences quickly, though she does nervously ask them not to fight. She's still going to take orders while down there, however.

*

For reasons all her own, Scarlett reaches out to pull Marie behind her, moments after the high fellow yelling that a cat isn't an alien bounces off the line of her back. His collision does not move her once she plants her feet lightly enough, and the vibrant mandarin orange sunhat with its bold white brim tilts down to bar her face from easy recognition. Where in the world is Scarlett Sandiego? Leaving a French girl two steps behind her, especially as the violence imparted on that particular bakery reaches her ears.

"Akihiro!" The face is familiar, even if the sounds of metal passing skin aren't. Her lilting voice is low. "The owner is an older woman, very kind. Help her if you can?" All this is said as she intercepts the thug blinded by coffee moves to flee. Clearly that advantage to her is overwhelming, but she is almost gentle in taking his collar and gripping his bicep, stepping up to rotate and use his momentum against him. A rather classic aikido throw deflects the fellow outside, or possibly in Akihiro and Marie's way. She is nothing if not non-aggressive, the blessing of the damn Dalai Lama still on her.

*

When Scarlett pulls Marie behind herself, Marie goes willingly; she's not the type to argue about these sorts of things, especially when she's not sure what exactly is going on. There's a soft yelp from the French girl, and she instinctively goes to her pouch to draw a card. The Ten of Swords. …not the best of omens, but it's a card she holds onto, in case she needs to do something /else/ with it.

Everything's happening so quickly around her that she's… basically stunned at the moment. Trying to catch up mentally and unable to tell the players without a program at this point.

*

Gun Thug doesn't have a chance to blurt out in surprise as a tiny red critter appears -right on top of his gun.- Now he's also blinded, howling, disoriented, and ..impaled. His anger leaps into full-on panic mode. The remaining five rounds in his .38 are all rapidly fired, completely at random. Because he hurts and can't see!

One of the shots strikes something important, though the soft *hiss* of escaping gas is easy to miss amidst the mayhem.

Knife Thug's taking one for the team, too. Suddenly there's a knifetip poking out of his chest. It's such a confusing sight that he actually turns to look at the knife in his hand, making sure that it's still there and didn't somehow just get a life of its own. Adrenalin was already running high in these people. Since he can no longer turn to face his attacker he simply drives his blade point-first behind him, looking to stab -something!-

As it turns out, Knife Thug was someone important to Lady Thug. "DERRICK!" She's got a knife as well! Now she's using it to try and slash at the -other- freak (that'd be Aki.)

Coffee-Blinded Thug gets a one way ticket outside, which is all nice and gentle from Rogue. It doesn't change the fact that he's now -incredibly- pissed off and still has friends inside. The skirmish isn't complete without one more gun in the hands of a punk, he's brought along Dad's .45 service pistol. Even from outside the sound of it firing is impressively loud, the large bullet punching through the front window and striking what it was aimed at.

That'd be Rogue. The bullet merely skips right off of her and zips upward, taking out a light fixture which now begins to spark…

Aki is someone Domino actually recognizes. Unfortunately for him, she knows what the guy can do and she's kinda ticked off right now! Lady Thug gets a .380 for her trouble when Dom shoots her right through Akihiro, because this trick worked -so- well the last time she tried it.

Impaled Gun Thug also takes a bullet through the bottom of his jaw while bleeding out around Aki's claw, because Dom's got two guns. Nyah!

Marie-Ange is, fortunately, not being considered a target. She looks normal, she's not engaging in the fight, and she's got herself some really good cover!

There IS still a gas leak, though. And there ARE sparks being flung into the air. The only thing that could make this worse is if Moe starts throwing bags of flour around the place.

*

"Can d-" Akihiro starts to reply to rogue, but then he catches a knife to the gut. "Alri-" his words are cut short again as a bullet tears through him. What comes out of his mouth next aren't words, but a frustrated scream of rage. He rips his claws from the impaled thugs and turns, leaping headfirst out the window. His claws retract, but that isn't good news for the asshole outside.

He slams his fist into the kid's midsection, then his face, and then he's on top of him. The fists keep falling, everything going on in the bakery forgotten.

*

The rounds of the pistol… is that what that thing is? It goes off, but Moe is happily on the ceiling, hanging upside down by his feet. The *hiss* of gas is heard, and the little imp doesn't give it too much thought. Instead, what he does give more thought is the fact that he's lost a donut and a cookie and his hot chocolate. All completely unacceptable.

*bamf*

*bamf*

Moe is gone off the ceiling and into one of the display shelves where he's spearing donuts with his tail and grabbing holiday looking cookies, complete with chocolate.

*bamf*

*bamf*

The little teleporter is gone from the shelf and back onto the counter where he looks up, yellow eyes widening. "Baaaaaamf" is whispered.

*

The bullet sings through the air, hits Scarlett's dress, and leaves a tear. She stares down at the cut through diaphanous material, displaying a reckless amount of skin, which is to say roughly no more than a narrow crescent about as wide as a pencil point. Unforgiveable to attack a bohemian's minidress. She advances on the fellow with absolutely all the calm of a Buddhist monk walking through a war zone, her hands pressed together. She gives no sense of violence even when descending upon the Coffee Thug.

He can fire as many times as he likes. She claps her hands around the barrel of the gun, and almost effortlessly sweeps her arms in unison to the left over her hip, throwing the weapon effectively behind her unless he can demonstrate herculean strength to hold onto it. She might just end up throwing him back out the door towards Marie with the gun, but the desire is hardly there. Dad probably no longer has a .45 but a crumpled, malformed bit of metal that will never fire straight because a girl who looks like a yoga master — and rightfully is — just put most of her strength into bending it accidentally.

"Bamf? Ozzy!"

Yes. She's calling to Moe. "You are free! Out, this isn't a safe place for you. Outside, go!" Bamf?

*

There's gunshots going off all over the place, and Marie can't help but find herself a little more frightened than she was in her last fight — maybe it's the mundane elements that make it so terrifying? Either way, it's about the time that she finally decides to act that the action beats her to the punch— more specifically, with the shooter that Scarlett ends up hurling out the door effectively clobbering the seer, sending her right out the door with ease and down to the concrete sidewalk found outside the bakery. She's going to have some scratches from the fall, but with Marie looking very much like an innocent bystander… she's not much of a target right now, so the man who was thrown into her is working on getting back up to focus attention back on the girl who threw him. The girl who's immune to bullets.

That's about the time when Marie /also/ acts. The Ten is held tight against her chest as she starts backpedalling on the ground, and ten swords are spawned into life surrounding Scarlett, hilts pointed up and blades tilted away from her — a protective shield that's meant to discourage any foes from getting close, it would seem!

*

The thug outside..is having a very bad day. His father's service pistol is a ruined hunk of metal..not that he'll be able to tell the old man because some -other- old man's son is currently beating the crap out of him out there in the street. Now he's all defenseless, too! Poor Outdoor Thug. He's about to transcend and become at one with the Earth, himself. Don't mind the thrashing and screaming, that's just the growing pains of leaving his worldly possessions behind.

Inside there's a most peculiar scent now in the air… Not gas. -Sulfur.- Domino has caught that scent just once before, one night back in Hell's Kitchen. Just follow the sounds, and—

Pale blue eyes stare up at the ceiling, right about in time for a stray cookie to slap down onto her forehead. There's a little red gremlin with one hell of a sweet tooth lurking up there! The cookie is flicked aside but it played its part as a reality check, she really -is- seeing that little red gremlin. Everyone else seems to have made it outside already, except for her and a tiny demon (and a forgotten Mildred.)

..And something else.

The hissing of gas, the sparking of crossed wires, and the last thought to leap through the albino's head before she leaps out the front door is said to Moe:

"-Grab That Cat.-"

The thugs are all down, permanently.

Matt won't be making it to football practice anymore, and the rest of his college scholarship will go unclaimed.

Derrick will never have the chance to ask his sweetheart, Lisa, to marry him.

Lisa, the Lady Thug. Daddy's little girl. She won't be coming home tonight. Her father, recently divorced, may never recover.

Frankie..well. No one really liked Frankie. He won't be tripping up any more of the track team. His borderline alcoholic mother will probably just keep doing what it is she's been doing every day of the week.

Then there's the bakery, a homely little place which locals and visitors alike have appreciated since 1919. This morning it has served its last customers, dying out with a brief flash of light and a thunderous, ground-jarring *WHUMP!* as the gas inside ignites and fractures the structure. The counter inside was nice and solid, it might survive, though this doesn't stop it from becoming buried in rubble as the ceiling falls in upon the forlorn business.

Their pastries shall be missed.

*

Akihiro is actually tossed into a nearby car, glass and rubble piercing his flesh. "Fuck," he hisses, dusting himself off. It takes him a second to notice anything is /really/ wrong, this has all gotten pretty regular for him. "Fuck," he repeats, searching available faces, "fuck."

He breaks into a brisk jog, that being all that's available until the glass in his legs works it's way out, straight back into the bakery. "Fuck." it takes a moment for him to find the exact spot, but he jumps onto trying to find that nice old lady. Or at least what's left of her.

*

Their pastries will be avenged.

The impervious state of her flesh does not extend to her clothes. Nor is Scarlett wholly immune to flames, though her skin doesn't char the way it should in a gas explosion at nearly point blank range. The whirlwind of swords fencing her in provide a little more cover, but she goes flying backwards along with a sheen of broken glass, vaporised building materials, and charred, ruined doughnuts and cookies. Somewhere, a chunk of doughnut bounces off the ground ahead of a cat launched out to freedom, if not bamfed out of being.

Aflame, and aloft, this is far too much like being Johnny Storm with none of the swagger or safe touching distance. She goes tumbling back violently in a marigold halo of fire and her scarlet hair mercifully saved by that ridiculously lovely sun hat. Efforts to stay incognito also prevent hack job blowtorch hair cuts.

Unfortunately that means when she plunges into Marie, it's at high speed. It means she barely has time to get her arms around the woman as they go hurtling over the ground, doing rather horrid things to a pretty complexion presumably. By the time the rotation ends, Marie is left on the balcony of a nearby building and the bohemian has to go rob a clothesline. Or rise, a saffron blossom in tatters and smoke.

*

What? Ozzy?

Moe bares sharp, pointed teeth in Rogue's direction at the name, but the directions are more than understood. "Bamf!"

Dropping from his place on the ceiling, he teleports in the middle of the fall and lands right next to the cat in question. He grins, and flicks his forked tongue out at the cat before he grabs it with his chubby two-fingered hands and *bamf*, in the blink of an eye, he's gone again and out of the shop.

*bamf*

As Domino is rolling out, the little red imp is aiming, and with the teleport, he lands on the albino and drops the cat on her before he's gone again, whatever he's able to carry still hanging on his tail.

*

The rubble shifts slightly, then the bakery's counter - badly damaged, but still mostly intact - emerges and rises slowly into the air… lifted somehow by Mildred, who is now floating herself. She gradually drifts upward, looking utterly perplexed, before slowing to a stop three feet above the ruins. She's barely touching the counter yet it remains attached to her fingertips, even as she brings it down in front of her to stare at in wonder, before carefully lowering it - and herself - to the ground, where she mutely stares at the ruins of the bakery where she's worked for decades. When she eventually finds her voice, all she can manage is a dazed "Well… that's a thing."

*

ROLL: Domino +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 80

Last out the door, last to kiss the ground, Domino gets flung out across the street with a flailing of limbs until another parked car can cushion her fall. It takes a moment to peel herself out of the albino-shaped dent in the hood and glass, rolling out across the top of the slightly battered sky blue Chevy to stare up at the pretty morning sky.

Then a charred piece of pastry bounces off of her forehead.

-Then- there's a flash of dark-hued smoke, and a very startled cat dropping right onto her stomach. "OOF!"

The tuxedo cat, complete with -very- poofed-out fur and tail, jumps a bit in turn before parking on Dom's sternum and pivoting around to stare at that evil creature (Moe? The store? The levitating store -owner?-) with its rump almost right in the albino's face. "Gah—down, boy!"

Debris is still falling down. The police, heck, they're never too far away in this city. Amazingly though, the only four deaths today are the four thugs who wanted to do some killing of their own. Karmic justice, or a show of excessive force? That's for someone else to decide (and they'll take upwards of fourteen months to get around to it, no doubt.)

Slowly..tenderly..Dom pulls herself upright with a cat in her arm that's every bit as monochromatic as she is. She looks at the ruined bakery then down at the cat, the latter starting to look more content now that it isn't alone. "I never got my damn coffee," she grumbles to the feline.

Then a cheese danish falls out of nowhere, landing on the hood of the car. Right beside Domino. Right-side up. The cat looks down at it then looks back to Domino, nose to nose as if saying 'stop whining and have breakfast.'

*

"Fuck." Akihiro repeats once more, this time clearly in relief. "Everyone alright?" he calls back to everyone else, pushing up to his feet and tugging a jagged bit of glass from his face. "We know what happened?" His gaze moves back to Mildred, and he pulls out his wallet. "Sorry about all this," he offers several large bills, "I'm not gonna stick around for the cops, but I'll help you rebuild."

*

The cat wants the danish. Accept that karmic rebalancing involves redheads and cats. Petite fangs sink into flaky pastry, and in a blur, the black and white bastard tears off with its purloined pastry.

Never bid on Lady Luck. She is a fickle mistress.

Scarlett has her choice of options here, but she peers over the wreckage in the street. "I would be grateful for someone's coat, please." That might be about the most she can offer, staring at the scrapes and cuts. "Oh, poor Mrs…" Her voice echoes in a sooty sigh, the building and the owner floating amidst it all met with a frown. "I am sorry. I am so sorry."

*

And Moe never did get a chance to actually drink his hot chocolate. Or actually eat any of his ill-gotten gains. But now, perching outside on a fireplug, red on red, and he's pulling off the donut from his tail. Featureless glowing yellow eyes narrow at the falling pastries, and he seconds Domino's lament regarding a beverage with a sympathetic nod and a 'bamf'. He'll have to steal something somewhere else.

*

Mildred looks at Akihiro, then at the bills, then back to Akihiro. She doesn't seem to understand what's going on, and seems to be having trouble even keeping her feet on the ground.

*

"OW! What—HEY! Goddammit come back here you furry bitch!" Domino yelps out as the cat -launches- out of her arm and takes off with her rightfully offered prize. She even goes so far as to draw one of her guns and get a bead on the fleeing feline before she relents with a weary sigh. "Ungrateful coward!"

To be fair that cat -did- save her life before.

A ghostly white forehead slowly falls against one polished and blued pistol, just..taking a moment to recollect herself. It's that softly spoken 'bamf' from the side which pulls her attention back over to reality. There sits Moe. With more than one donut.

The pistol is tucked back away as she steps closer, a bit stiff in motion. "Hey. Pass one of those my way and coffee's on me," she offers, taking a shot in the dark with the fuzzy demon. He seems harmless enough.

"We should get out of here, this place is about to be swarming with pork rollers."

*

Moe cants his head in Domino's direction, and one eye widens a little more than the other in a 'cock-eyed' expression. Pointed ears slide back a little and should one anthropomorphize his expression, he's actually giving it consideration. With a brief flick of his tail, he gathers up one of the donuts, in the next breath, wings it at her. "Bamf bamfbamf." Doesn't sound like coffee is the request. Still, he's gone from his fireplug in a whispered *bamf* and reappears on Domino's shoulder, the tail, still with another donut, moves to wrap around the back of her neck. "Bamfbamf."

*

"You know what, let's go." Akihiro grabs ahold of Mildred's foot, leading the floating woman out to the street. "Oh, sure." He shrugs out of his old leather jacket, offering it over to Scarlett. "Though next time you go off on adventures with teleporting professors, take me with you. Be nice to not have to kill anything."

*

"Thank you," says Scarlett, slipping into the jacket and trying her damnedest not to inadvertently steal a touch on Akihiro anywhere. There lies a deadly risk on that. She wraps the garment around herself, uncaring of any blood, ash, or anything that isn't an extradimensional tentacle trying to grope another of the Howlett family's erstwhile allies.

"I think today is an excellent day to stay home. Just a thought." On the plus side, Scarlett is looking edgy and bohemian?

*

Mildred doesn't resist Akihiro's dragging, currently of a mind to let other people make the decisions. As Akihiro discovers, pulling someone who's weightless yet still has mass feels weird. After a moment, she searches her pockets and pulls out a piece of hard candy to give her rescuer for being such a nice boy. Oh, and one for the friend he gave his jacket to. If in doubt, fall back on old instincts.

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