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It's after dark in the frosty city. For people who haven't been there in awhile, especially people who might have their own methods of ignoring the chill, it might be as good a time as any to get to know the place.
For a lot of people though it's a discouragement to being out, which means less people might notice it when a muffled scream sounds from a side street.
*
Amanda has wrapped herself up tightly a fur-lined winter coat. Something she picked up before they left Europe. Hands jammed into her pockets, she's not really headed anywhere. It's something of an aimless wandering, as she has decided she needs to become familiar with this new city. Knowing her way around could be useful, after all.
*
It's the first time since retreating to the residence of one Charles Xavier that Ororo is back in the city. She's properly bundled against the weather and has spent the majority of her time just walking about, mostly because the one place she stopped at to get something to eat promptly turned her away. She's… not going to tell the professor about it. He'd likely be displeased.
The muffled scream gets her attention, and ingrained habits take over. She rushes straight toward the side street, heedless of the potential danger to herself.
*
In the alley it doesn't take long to see what caused the scream; there's a man in a suit pinned against a wooden wall with something curved and glinting through one hand. A rather striking figure is hissing questions about the whereabouts of someone called 'Walker', cowled in a blindingly bright cloak, though the face and figure under it is armored in jet black.
Looks like it's one of those nights.
*
It's the scream that rips Amanda from her reverie and thoughts. She frowns; unusual sound, really. At least for her. Deciding she has to try to help somehow - she immediately jogs to the direction she judges the scram to have come from. First good thing to come from knowing the city better: she can teleport around instead of relying on her ability to run. Not that she's out of shape but… teleporting is so much faster. The angle at which she's coming from puts her directly opposite Ororo, and for a moment Amanda's face is easy to read: someone else heard the scream, oh thank goodness.
As she turns to see exactly what the situation is, she frowns again. Is this common to this city? She's heard so, but figured it would be an exaggeration. "…what's going on here?" she calls, allowing a Romany accent to touch her English.
*
Ororo doesn't hesitate. Her eyes turn solid white and she raises one gloved hand to send a small but powerful mini-twister at the cloaked man. She's hoping to disorient and push the attacker away from man he's got pinned against the wall, and hopefully she won't injure the man being attacked. She's not used to doing this around brick-walled buildings.
*
The twister does successfully push back the cloaked man, though it doesn't quite pick him up. As it is, it's shoving him right towards Amanda, and it looks as if he has another of those curved blades in one hand, and a strange silvery baton in the other!
Despite the sudden appearance of the two women and the accompanying twister, he doesn't seem to miss a beat, only snarling, "He is past the point of protecting!" whatever that means.
Yes, apparently this sort of thing really does just happen in this city.
*
Tornado? Amanda grins a bit to herself, mistaking the origin as a spell on Ororo's part; the change in her eyes helps, because Amanda has seen a similar thing when her mother cast her own spells. Her hands then come out of the jacket despite the cold, ring finger of her left hand down, ring finger and pinky finger of the right hand down. She gestures quickly, tracing a circle in front of herself, then crossing hands in opposite directions, 'through' the circle. As she does so, green light flares around her hands for a moment, and an equal glow comes from the wall of the building to the side of the approaching man. Brick almost seems to 'erupt', as though liquid, from the building and quickly curls itself around the hand holding the knife, before solidifying once more.
Amanda quickly steps back, just in case, because despite the spell being simple enough to cast, she really has no idea where in the man's path she'll be caught, and she has no desire to be smacked by a baton right now. "I suggest you calm down," she says quickly, really trying to sound convincing. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"
*
Ororo maintains the little twister, making it just a little bit stronger so the attacker doesn't have the opportunity to try and get away from it. While doing so, she calls to the man in the suit, "Run. Now." She doesn't understand why the cloaked man would snarl those words, but she is not going to spend too much time thinking about it. It's been ingrained in her to protect others, so that's what she's doing.
*
The suited victim is swearing under his breath, trying to figure out how to dislodge the blade pinned through his hand; getting a grip seems to be a bit of a trick as the blade apparently is one solid crescent of metal. If one looked closely though, there were grooves and flattened edges to make the exposed end easier to grip, though it's still a tough task for the trapped man without good leverage and protective gloves.
Such as the costumed man is wearing.
The costumed man who was already starting to aim the blade in his hand calmly towards his target, though how he expected it to fly true through the twister shoving him along one alley wall is hard to say. Amanda's spell catches his wrist in moulded brick, and he finally turns his attention fully on something other than his target.
His eyes glow like white slits as he stares at her. "Your magic can do no more than delay the inoxerable march of justice." he says in another baffling pearl of eloquence.
*
Okay, so that was one detail Ororo originally missed — that the man is pinned to the wall by a blade. She can't split her concentration enough to help him, though. Maybe the brick-manipulating woman can. She just looks up toward the sky and then the alleyway is the epicenter of a very intense deluge of freezing rain. Sorry, Amanda, she can't make the rainstorm any smaller. If it's any consolation, Ororo's not safe from the rain herself.
*
"I've been told I am very good at delaying others," Amanda replies. Of course that accusation was leveled at her in jest, but still. "Justice is not slaughter in the streets."
Which is something that has been ground into her head since she was younger, in happier familial times. She's not particularly willing to get so close to that knife, happy to just see that it's a knife. That's goo enough until she can get it out of the man's hand. However, when the man deeper in the alley makes no effort to run, she can just see the glint of why: another knife. Her hands move again, ring fingers on either hand curled inwards and she moves them to trace out a triangle. The effect - assuming the knife can be manipulate, of course - is that the blade narrows, and lengthens - backwards, so as not to pin the man any longer. After a few seconds it'll simply topple to the ground.
There is actually something that resists Amanda's manipulation… she can see a sigil glowing in the knife as it resists, catching the moonlight. With effort though, the spell still takes enough to loosen the knife in the wall, the man finally able to yank it free and run bleeding and soaked into the street without so much as a thank you or a backwards glance.
*
The cloaked man watches, impassive and taut even in the face of the deluge. "Justice can come at any time or place." he retorts to Amanda, since she's speaking to him on his own terms.
"And Khonshu's fist will deliver it."
With those words he glances up at the clear cold sky, and the moon hanging there. Considering the crescent motif in his weapons and armor, perhaps he's half addressing it— whatever the case the brickwork starts to crack, and barring any extra magical strength the man snaps the protrusion clear off the wall, freeing himself, though the alley is quickly becoming coated with ice and the exertion causes him to slip a little.
*
Ororo notices the look up at the sky. She can do something about that as well, and the cloud cover that's causing the rain starts to spread to block out the view of the moon. For her own part, though, Storm just looks like she's standing there as wet as a drowned rat staring down the alley at the really annoyingly persistent man.
*
Well, that she wasn't expecting. Enchanted knife? Who would've thought. "Murder is not justice," she insists firmly. "It just makes you another monster." She too, is starting to get a little more soaked than she'd like. The coat was designed for cold and snow, not freezing rain. Amanda bites her lower lip in thought before she tosses another glance Ororo-wards, frowning. "Do we call the authorities? I don't like the look of that knife."
*
The cloaked man snarls as the moonlight is blocked off, something almost alive in the light hitting his cloak going dull and drab. "I am not the one who passes judgment, only the one who metes it out."
The brickwork is cracked enough though by the time the cloud cover spreads that he manages to tear it loose and get his arm free though the footing is now treacherous at best. He starts to lurch towards Amanda but jerks to a stop, just freezing for a moment in the now dim alley. His head snaps from Amanda to Ororo and then looks down at himself as if surprised at what he finds there.
"Oh, shit.." he mutters in a much less lofty tone than the one he'd been using.
The delay doesn't last long; he quickly levels the truncheon like some hefty silver wand, aiming it at the street behind Amanda. A grapple rope fires out, aimed to impact the building beyond the alley mouth. He uses it to tow himself quickly off the icy patch, where he can properly employ the better part of valor.
*
When the strange cloaked man makes his escape, Ororo lets the weather return to normal, the freezing rain tapering away like someone shutting off a faucet, the twister dropping out as well, and the clouds overhead starting to break up and drift away on the normal nighttime breeze. It takes a moment, but her eyes return to normal and she calls across to Amanda, "I am sorry about the rain." She doesn't try to cross the ice, though. She's a tropical bird, ice is foreign to her.
*
Amanda watches the man make his escape, her expression somewhere between surprise and disbelief. Once he's out of sight, she shakes her head at Ororo. "I'll survive," she assures, forcing a smile onto her face. The danger is over. She is, however, used to ice, and carefully makes her way to Ororo, offering a hand. "Amanda," she says. "Thank you for helping."
*
Ororo shakes Amanda's hand and offers a small, polite bow of her head at the same time. "Well met, Amanda. I am Ororo. Thank you as well." Her eyes stray briefly after where the strange cloaked man disappeared. "Very strange. But perhaps some hot tea or soup to stave off the chill?"
*
"If you don't mind something a little unusual," Amanda says, "I can offer both." In fact, she's thinking soup would be an excellent idea. She glances around the area they're in, trying not to let her eyes be drawn in the direction Moon Knight has escaped. "I've only been in this city a few days, so I don't think I could pick out a place to go here."
*
"I do not mind unusual. The last place I entered refused to serve me." She sounds honestly affronted by it, and her accent likely only emphasizes her words. "I am new to this city as well and the … mannerisms are taking time to learn."
*
Offering her hand a second time, Amanda says, "Hold on. It won't take long." She doesn't really explain /what/ it is that won't take so long, but Ororo experiences it soon enough. With one simple gesture from her other hand, Amanda teleports.. and takes Ororo with her. One instanct, they're both on that side street, drenched and cold, and in the next, they're standing within Amanda's vardo - her home large horse-drawn home she uses as a member of the circus. Well out of date of course, but people still expect fortunetellers to operate from one, for whatever reason.
"You can put your coat on the hook there to let it dry. I'll make sure the stove has more wood…" Nope, she just not going to explain that teleporting. It's all perfectly normal!
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