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Shadows lie over the shuddering side street in Port Royal, a pirate haunt perched on the hard slopes of a tropical island where they meet the azure sea. Colourful awnings conceal the businesses plying relatively legal trade, the plank and cobbled road weaving along the slope. Disturbances are plentiful enough that ambling buccaneers or residents in their frockcoats wear swords, naked or not. Several responded to Tommy blitzing out from a popular watering hole, dragging a slightly older version of himself and a busty harlot. The two lie in an amorous embrace midroad, nothing new. Shattered glass as a female privateer leapt through a window, equally not as worrisome, nor the brewing fire in a cellar fed by fifteen kegs of rum. A brigade of unhappy pirates chasing a British naval officer and an escaped Spaniard captive equally warrant a standard day.
Tommy's disappearance at speed marked a concerned look, though. The return of Don Tome, Portuguese missionary, marked the descent of an aerial horror seizing his heavy frock in ephemeral claws, while storm clouds and thunder roil in a proud eye, feathers fletched in cumulus fronds. And that guardian is good enough to get buccaneers going for cover. Particularly when the second arrows down from the heavens nearly invisible, and snatches up the romantic couple. Pietro and harlot screech in varied tones, one low and groggy, the other high and offended. But rules are rules as the elemental shoots up.
*
One moment he was running through the street to punt a whore off of his Uncle.
The next? He was still running. Just not going where his feet were trying to take him, and making far more /upward/ mobility than forward. That definitely wasn't part of the plan and legs keep kicking for a couple moments before he realizes what's been going on.
"Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Tommy yelps in surprise as he realizes what's going on, looking down first. Then up. What /is/ that? It's flying. It's grabbing him. He can't see just how big those things are from down below but he /does/ know that this isn't the side of the gryphon that he wants to be on. Because the king of bad ideas has another winner.
So while his shoulders may be grabbed (or, more accurately, the shoulders of the robes!) he's swinging forwards and backwards to try and gain momentum in order to try and wrap his legs up around the creature carrying him. Kinda like the reverse of a bull-rider's pose — but Tommy's strength is largely in his legs, so that's a very good place to start from for him.
*
Chaos and none of it having a single lick of scarlet hue to it.
Strange finds himself emerging from beneath the awnings of the patio and into sunlight farther brighter than the dim interior of the tavern. He can see the glow of a building fire from within and grimaces even as he retreats farther into the street. Billy's departure is noted by his absence and where is Wanda?! Gunshots ring out and the white of his eyes show as he tries to spot her in the growing crowds of passerby drawn by idle curiosity.
The shift on the locals' part from eyeing his white undercoat with the intent to turn it red to eyeing the skies above comes seconds before the whumft of heavy wings and he too ducks instinctively, still shining with streamers of his Mystical Art around him.
"Gods below," the Sorcerer breathes, recognizing them as some sort of elemental entity very much kin to a certain large and icy denizen who stared him down not some weeks before. From flailing Tommy to the spreading crowd of cautiously-irate pirates his gaze zips and he centers himself again with mudras at the ready. The streamers of colored eldritch power create a lowly-audible humming sound with the speed; flashes of his person can be seen through their passing.
Billy holds his own and the chance to save his brother, the gods only know where Pietro is now (he didn't see the stoop that snagged both vampire and vamp'd alike), and the good Doctor gestures up the molten surujin between his palms with every unspoken threat to use it on any threaten sort who takes one more step.
«Beloved», where are you?!
*
Okay, so its a little hard to make ground chicken when Tommy's trying to ride the chicken, so Billy is not able to be quite as lethal against the bird as he rather wants to. In fact, he's more of a distraction, which after a moment Billy decides might just be bad strategy. After all, the more he distracts the bird the more it trashes the more likely then not it is for Tommy to fall on his head. That's bad. Tommy's head isn't quite screwed on right already, getting him dropped on the head would be bad.
So, he tries another tactic. Instead of focusing the bands of force, he spreads them out, to try to put a ceiling over the bird. "Tommy! If you can get off I can catch you! Or… good luck with that mounting the chicken thing you're trying!" He's completely distracted with trying to think of a way to save Tommy, which might not be the best thing in the world for him.
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 83
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 54
*
Broken glass sparkles upon the sun-bleached boards to mark the exit point taken by the privateer in the black coat. She hits the ground and rolls, cutlasses bedamned. Coming up in a crouch, Wanda scrambles away from the tavern suffering a serious blaze at cellar level. Only an abundance of hat pins keeps her jaunty leather tricorn in place, and her gaze follows everyone else's up. Blurry distortions taking on fantastical shapes matter much less than her platinum-haired twin and his unexpected purchase snatched up, carried at speed to the higher reaches of a brilliant blue, cloud-swept sky. Teeth grit and she utters an infuriated growl, no doubt wishing for a good pair of pistols. Not like they can hit the broadside of a barn at twenty feet, though. She dashes across the street for a better view and scrambles to a pole supporting the colourful awning. "No fireworks! They see through you!" From there, her choice is simple. She climbs.
Those clustered figures in twos and threes harbour their suspicions and doubts, and they linger out of sight from the gryphon guardians. Dark eyes swivel towards the flaming streamers of indigo and crimson, and guttural murmurs turn audibly ugly. But these denizens aren't lifting a finger to save Tommy, neither do they seem to harbour immediate threat towards him either. No, they channel their general irritation in Strange and Billy's direction because the rogue Spaniard represents THE ENEMY in a predominantly Anglo-Dutch privateer haven, and a British officer is abetting the enemy's escape. Rattling swords are plucked free, pointed, composition of another brawl about to happen. Or more properly, a melee.
Remember those pirates in the tavern? They're also spilling out behind the men. Encircled on the ground are two, one carried off, and Tommy fighting to mount an invisible woman. And the actual woman is, of course, looking down on it all.
*
ROLL: Tommy +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 96
*
Meanwhile, the airborne elemental is forced to swerve and spin through its intended course while its partner flies off over the city or rainforest. Flicks of clouds saturate the air where one of Billy's knives pierces its body, insubstantial vortices kicked up. Watching the wild rotation of the creature as it strives to break away into a clear path away from them, and the burning tavern, might be truly exciting if the gryphon were easier to see and not trying to turn the priest into a canapé. A crackling ozone scent fills the air and one collision causes it to stream backwards in defiance of any sort of organic behaviour, and it's then a lightning bolt forks through the air to hit an offending palm tree. Billy's efforts do have an effect as he tries to net the thing in and keep it from getting too high from the ground.
*
For that it's worth, Tommy's attention is focused like a laser — it doesn't happen often, but usually does when he's trying to be awesome. Gathering up a good bit of momentum, he swings his legs forward one more time and…
…feels his legs go /through/ what he thought for sure should be the creature's stomach. It's almost like diving backwards into a blob of Jell-O. If said Jell-O were made of literal wind. This leaves Tommy upside-down dangling or a few moments.
"Oh, COME ON!" whines the remaining speedster, before he's in motion again. If he can drive through it one way… there's another swinging of his body, this time the upper half, which is done at speed to drive the rest of him into the beast properly.
Once that's done? Those watching from below might see him waving arms around frantically — trying to essentially swim through the creature to reorient himself into an upright position. Essentially sticking out of the creature, which provides an incredibly weird feeling when being ridden. One small problem? Being semi-corporeal as it is… /controlling/ the thing is a lot more difficult than he'd anticipated.
"Billy, BILLY!" he calls down, "Whoosh me a saddle!" …he's not sure /if/ Billy can do this, but if he can make Doritos… clearly, he can do anything.
*
"Fireworks…?"
Underneath the general madness of one offspring attempting to control a flying jelly blob-air-bird-elemental-critter and the other attempting mad TK skills, he catches Wanda's response and the flash of claret coat disappearing overtop the edge of the roof. At least she's safe there. The air-elemental seems too concerned with the pale-haired speedster half-lodged inside it to attack her.
"You can't be serious…" His muttering is lost to the low buzz of muttering from the crowd around them. Isn't Billy noticing this?! And his sabre is still lodged in the bowels of that grog stash, likely all filled with smoke and debris now. Still — the incandescent swirls of Mystical might die around him as abruptly as they flared up and leave him with hands gloved faintly in that molten glow. Maybe it's no longer about sheer power anymore. Maybe it's about diplomacy.
The latent hum of his suppressed powers is below the audible threshold of hearing, subsonic and still mild enough in intensity to not make anyone's teeth crawl from their skull. It's ready to flare up at a moment's need.
"Good people of Port Royal, I ask you. What can be done to convince you to disperse? If it is within my power, I shall grant it." He stands tall, eyes still glittering with the metallic hues they possess, even in his salt-stained uniform with its one rust-splotched and torn pant-leg.
*
ROLL: Strange +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 4
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 8
*
Strange's voice at least gets three or four of the crowd to listen, albeit they don't seem to be the ringleaders in the finest, shiniest coats coming out of the tavern or the fellow with a particularly noteworthy blade capped in a sapphire sheen. But four is better than none, so those buccaneers and privateers allowing their blades to waver engage. One with a curling black beard and a Dutch accent hisses, "What d'ye think yer doing out here? Them lubbers ha' broken the law, they's t' face the price o' it." Laws in Port Royal? Who knew?
Another squints. "Seventy guilders. Or reales. I take either."
His companion stares back at him, and makes a dark face. "What, you'd just drop money fo' some namby-pamby sot running out of a watering hole?"
"He said anything."
*
"I don't know how to woosh a saddle!" declares Billy, but he concentrates, "Tommy needs a saddle! Tommy needs a SADDLE!" But, whatever it is that causes his stuff to work, just doesn't seem to be working right now. Instead, splitting his concentration he tries to keep the chicken penned in, while manifesting a smaller barrier under the bird— under Tommy— to maybe let him leverage it up. But that's hard. Doing one thing is not hard, doing two, two unusual, weird things? All kindsa more complicated. And Billy is, indeed, not really seeing the crowd. He's focused! It takes concentration to make these things work. He bites his lower lip, focus!
*
The bird is not a bird so much as a bird-shaped squall, a living current of air bumping up hard against the barrier that Billy uses to contain the gryphon. It shrieks again in a raptor's high, sibilant cry that echoes down the alleyways and along the slope hacked into the heart of the city. Wooden and stone buildings ring with the unearthly sound. More shrieks, distant and nearer, answer back. Another thunderous rumble cuts the intense heat of a tropical Caribbean day. Tommy's vehicle bucks and dives, storms and swirls to find a different way to get free of Billy. As a living thing, it surges and constantly pushes for another outlet, rotating and twisting so rapidly even a speedster's stomach might be doing sickly flip-flops on the most exciting and horrible rollercoaster ride ever. Because elemental birds don't care about up.
*
The pirates at Billy's back prod him lightly with the tips of swords and a few vulgar curses in the patois that needs no translation to be warned. Someone snarls at him in Spanish, cursing his name and his filthy nation, a bunch of savages with no honour with far more four letter words involved. Rattling threats race around to the tune of, 'What the hell are you doing out of the brig?' and 'Chain him up on the cay!' among the more helpful suggestions.
With the gryphon thoroughly unable to go where it intended, a few of the goggle-eyed buccaneers are starting to turn their attention to both Strange and Billy, closing in, leering somewhat. They aren't quite willing to be the first ones to bite, but plenty ready to take advantage while they can. It all hinges on a moment of waiting, the uneasy moments before the sky opens up or the crowd becomes a mob. Possibilities abound. More stand downslope than up, but it still makes for a harrowing run if someone tries to bolt.
Climbing up a rickety pole to an awning does earn interest from two of the pirates, but Wanda's head start before they tear their gazes away gives her at least a little time to climb up. Someone swats at her and she scrambles to get to the rickety frame, hauling herself higher. With no sign of Pietro and Tommy making his best impression of a Blue Angel, she's fueled more by black anger than fear. A swipe at her boot with a cutlass misses, and she flops onto her stomach over the edge on the rooftop. Rule of thumb from Pietro: get the hell out of dodge however one can. Only once up there can she cause some mayhem, and that would apparently be to fling a rope. Or several ropes. All the ropes. Ropes, ropes, ropes: they come alive from that side of the street, wiggling their way towards Strange and Billy and everyone in between.
*
Oh, there was no doubt about it; this was one of the craziest rides that the younger speedster has had the opportunity to have. At the same time? He wouldn't have it any other way. Things that seem to be bad ideas on the surface can often be the most worthwhile.
O course, with trouble starting to gather down below… it's time to see if he can do this one better. Body tensing and pushing as best he can in order to try and direct the gryphon's path — trying to bring it down for a swoop past the gathering crowd. Whether or not it's going to work? He's not sure. But it seems like it'll be worth trying.
*
Wait a second, that pirate didn't just imply…? Nah, he couldn't have. Strange eyes the man in question before glancing over to Billy and his teeth flash.
"Billy, please!" He's not sure how else to communicate to the young man to stop manipulating reality and realize that there are swords near to cutting him!!! Not without giving away the awareness. "Never fear, he's within my custody! I'll see him to the brig myself!" This is announced to the general crowd around them even as he sees the movements of the ropes begin to speed towards them. What on…earth is she up to?! "Anyone who interferes is obstructing justice." Another good glower at the ones who slandered the supposed-Spaniard's name.
Maybe he can stall long enough for Wanda's plan to come to total effect!
*
Oh yes that pirate did. Totally did. Some things never, never change.
*
Okay, like, swords poking him, that gets his attention, and poor Tommy is left without any telekinetic support. Good luck, brother! He's backing away from the swords, blinking as he takes in the surroundings, "Hey, what the what is going on!" he exclaims, pushing a hand out without even planning to and *smashing* the full force of his telekinesis out against the sword people who suddenly find themselves appearing out of absolutely nowhere poking at him. Immediately he's backing towards Strange, "What's this plan? Are these PEOPLE? Is it bad to kill them?" This is muttered to Strange, "Or are these like magical constructs or something that we can unleash hell on earth on and its like morally okay? They did not cover pirates in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class back at Hogwarts."
*
Ropes slide across the ground, or hang invitingly from palm trees or the lean-tos. Hemp bindings wiggle around the buccaneers and coil, swaying in motion as they creep along. Come to me! They slither over boots and aim unerringly for Strange and Billy. Heck, if one of them leaves their arm out or their hand open too long, a rope practically coils itself around the inviting limb. A waist? Wanda can do waists. No snake charmer plays a tune, though the witch lying on her stomach uncomfortably atop the shabby building twists her fingers to control the momentum of the ropework.
Her mantra is repeated over and over, softly tendered, but the force melting through each of them obeys her stated whimsy rather than any definable spells. As soon as she has a good grip, she waits no further, seizing the whole spaghetti mass and hauling them back as fast and hard as she can. What stays down must go up. If they are caught, they come flying back towards her rooftop. If they aren't, she's just thrown a whole lot of spaghetti noodles into the air. Mamma mia!
*
"Aye, he's to the brig!" Famous last words.
Pirates denied their swords by a telekinetic purge go airborne among the ropes. Smoke filters out from the tavern as the fire suppressing efforts get messy. Men shout and clutch whatever they can as they're knocked down like bowling pins, scattered far and wide along with not a few loose boards nailed to the sandy ground.
"OI! The Spaniard's got a devil in 'im! Get him!"
"For the Spire!"
"Boys of the Thresher, to me!"
"For England and me whores!"
The Spaniard is still a Spaniard, and his hoodoo is enough to break what tenuous peace Strange brokered for all of fifteen seconds, one for each keg. Those not broken like ragdolls start lashing out and the milieu begins in earnest as trepidation becomes fear or rage, and it doesn't make any difference as long as their stabs reach purchase. Even if that purchase is a psychotic length of hemp or a coconut knocked free of the palm trees swaying like mad.
No longer is the gryphon constrained. No longer does it bash its tender airy head on the inner lid of a pot. Instead it launches itself up as fast as its wings will flap with Tommy rolling around in its belly. Throwing himself around — or jumping and running and speeding like a madman — in deranged patterns seems to cause it to spin around and flap in mad irritation, causing, of all things? A whirlwind.
*
With the magical ones — and a proper way down — currently not available, and the attempt to actually /steer/ the gryphon not nearly as effective as he'd hoped it, Tommy does the best thing that that he can… Tommy keeps up exactly what he's been doing. Except, this time he turns on the speed and does it times ten. If a little movement caused a whirlwind…
…well, it's time to see exactly what a /lot/ of movement will do. Giant hurricane that sweeps the streets clear of the bad guys? Annoyed elemental giving up and setting him down ever-so-carefully (yeah, right!)? At times like these, there's not much else one can do than the only thing one can.
Well. Other than staying perfectly still, of course. With Tommy involved, that definitely wasn't gonna happen.
*
Giant hurricane that flattens a coastal city? A huge storm that blows everything they were looking for through the rainforest? A storm surge that wipes away his brother and leaves his uncle stranded who knows where in the belly of the beast?
The elemental gryphon rages and swirls through a darkening sky, and the amount of wind alone makes it hard to see, but it at least seems to want to go up. It has its business. Unless Tommy works at getting out, that path of malevolent destruction is probably headed for the big pointy spire he can see over the wash of roofs, spires, and trees. Chapel of the Winds, anyone?
*
Let it be said that he did not expect the ropes to be for himself and Billy. There was the surge of delight that echoed in the dark twinkle of his eyes when he saw the lengths continue to weave through the legs of the myriad pirates and port-people alike. The vision was of dozens of threatening types all clotheslined at once to fall to their various sides, backs, and posteriors and then a snag at Billy followed by a dash lickity-split down the nearest alleyway.
That visualization is dashed to ruins on the heels of the sudden airborne sword-wielding menfolk — Strange glances over his shoulder to see their landings some dozen feet back and gapes before uttering some choice curse word — and the bedlam begins anew.
Leaning back from an errant sword swipe, he's quick to raise mudras gloved in golden light and about to spit out a very select Word indeed when the remaining ropes not severed strike. Warring emotions — he never considered rescue might come hand-in-hand with being bound, worst nightmare for a Sorcerer — cause his blood to rush cold while his skin flickers heated with goosebumps and then…swoosh!!! The Witch's beckoning cannot be denied.
With lengths wrapped about wrists, ribs, waist, and knees alike, he's deftly lifted up into the air despite the sudden turbulence of the elemental tearing itself to shreds over the intruder in its stomach, though the currents don't enable it to be a smooth passage. By the time he is set as gently as possible on the rooftop given the circumstances, his hair is wind-blown all to hell, mussed beyond saving but for a thorough combing, and his uniform sits akimbo on his stumbling form. Even as he spins on the spot, surrounded by rooftops and the gales of the unhappy elemental, he's looking to see if Billy was also pulled up and away from the fray.
"«Beloved!» The boys!" He gasps out, scrambling over to her.
If not, sorry, Wanda, all that effort for naught — back into the fray he goes. It might take shimmying down a coconut tree or bouncing clumsily from a nearby awning, but he won't let the young man stand alone.
*
Grabbed! Billy freaks out a little bit as the rope wraps around him and yanks him up into the sky— he has no idea really this is Wanda, but his powers of observation have not been quite up to their impressive level today. But soon enough he is calmed because he's whooshing into the air and is deposited up where Wanda is, but the expression quickly turns to the out of control storm that starts racing off with his brother. He reaches out with his mind and he breathes, "Tommy is here." The force of his will acting on reality is far more intense then usual, almost like a curve in space-time around a star: Billy just looks like he's deeper and deeper and deeper. "Tommyishere!" It's like reality becomes a little frayed, because Billy is pulling it apart and stitching it back together the way he wants it to be. And of note he wants it to be this way: "TOMMYISHERE" There's a softening in the moment, as if the universe breathed a sigh of relief, as everything flattens out again and… Tommy is here? Strange: Is mad?
*
Tommy's flying out of the sky at a rooftop, while a gryphon no longer has the worst case of speedster reflex ever. Billy does seem to find what he's looking for… though that cloud of flickering black things popping up from about a mile off looks a tad ominous, since it starts flapping his way. Lots of little dots become slightly bigger dots, indicating quite the impressive collection of flying, discrete, individual things.
*